Unofficial Literary Challenge #30: Redux, Reuse, Re-Gift?

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• aten66 Member Posts: 654 Arc User

  December 2016 edited December 2016

  A Dish Best Served...
  
  Hazari Tis Singh and Hazel Mir Kaur are both enjoying sipping their hot chocolates, while wearing their fluffy black and brown respective coats. While it was far from 'cold' to a person in Q's Winter Wonderland, the physical aspect of hot breath giving off steam and the fact that snow logically had to be kept at a low temperature to prevent melting, showed it was cold despite ambient temperatures. It also meant it wasn't hard to enjoy a cup of warm cocoa and it never lasted long enough to become a popsicle, which was also beneficial. They had gathered at the edges of the Ice Lake at the center of the Wonderland, watching as people and other Captains fought giant, licorice sea-worms after catching (or almost being devoured by) red gummy fish.
  
  But that only happened so often, and when it wasn't going on, there was quite another spectacular event going on. Though they were few, Ice Skaters flew around the Ice like ducks to water, ignoring the offering bowl by gliding around the monstrosity and continuing their pirouettes and twist and twirls in timely fashion. Hazel and Hazari had been enjoying the show occasionally having to put it on hold when the Klingon Fishing Master made his move, but enjoying the day all the more when peace was restored to the lake and the offering bowl was left empty.
  
  Just now the skaters were able to return to the frozen lake again, as the lake quickly smoothed out as it refroze due to Q's Winter Wonderland's own 'unique' properties. The same properties that allowed the 'Snorg' to exist, and led to the creation of a giant 'Snowconian', now utilized to create giant, red, gummy worms-snake-things that had to be fought back for mere trinkets. Oh well, at least the Ice skaters were still able to find the fun around he area, though that was debatable as it was more than likely they were programmed denizens native to this place, made to enjoy the chaos interwoven into this Wonderland. Not that Hazel or Hazari minded, as long as the Gingerbread men topped off their hot chocolates and brought the required amounts of snickerdoodles and marshmallows to go with their drinks.
  
  After getting a pair of chairs, and making sure they were well out of the Kos'karii range of Fire, the two put on a pair of snow goggles to prevent themselves from going snow blind, and sit back to enjoy their drinks. At that point they barely get down an ounce of their delicious and quickly cooling drinks, when a kerfuffle is heard coming from the lake. Hazel, decidedly the least self centered of the two twin Augments, looks up to see a strangely dressed man skating circles around the normally dressed skating denizens. "What now?" Hazari asks, as Hazel shakes her up from her comfortable position pointing toward the lake, "What, some idiot finally get eaten by one of those 'legendary' monstrous fish?" Looking over, Hazari also curiously takes in the sight of the strangely dressed man.
  
  "Is he wearing a TIC uniform?" Hazel asks her twin, "Because that blue monstrosity looks positively abhorrent." Hazari nods, and chuckles a bit as the man does a flip in the air, twisting around and landing gracefully. "It's like he tried to make it winter themed and the tailor replicated the clothes in a shade three times darker," Hazel chuckles, "It's definitely different though, and it seems to be great skate wear!" Hazari laughs at that too, then reaches for another cookie, dunking it in the cocoa. Suddenly the skater stops, pausing for a moment on the far side of the frozen lake.
  
  "What is he doing?" Hazari asks, waiting as the man seems to be stretching, "He seems like he is positioning himself to land in the snow embankment in the middle of the lake... he can't be doing what I think he is doing!" Suddenly both girls are hushed, as the man makes a mad dash forward, sprinting faster and more controlled than earlier. With a hush going over the other skaters, the man skates faster towards the offering bowl, almost slams into, before taking a flying leap over the bowl and tumbling three times in the air, landing gracefully for a moment, only to continue the roll forward, ending up splayed on the small, snowy island. "Ah, he almost made it a with a ten," Hazari says, "But I'd give him an eight for the effort!"
  
  "Aye," Hazel agrees, grabbing another cookie from the dwindling pile in between their two chairs, "He would have stuck the landing, but he probably miscalculated when to jump with the giant bowl came close to giving him a nasty bruise." Hazari sagely nods, as she grabs another sip of her drink. Suddenly both girls are amazed as the man rights himself, and goes over to his starting position again. Then the man starts again, going fast and almost hitting the bowl and flipping over, before jumping again, this time holding his legs to the right, and landing perfectly. Skating right back around, the man keeps up his pace, and goes to jump yet again.
  
  "No Way!" Hazari states, "He can't be serious, he just aced his second jump, how is it he wants to already do another one?" Before she was even finished, the man had jumped again, this time jumping over the bowl holding his legs to the left. Suddenly decreasing his speed by going in an S motion, the man stands behind the snowy embankment, facing where Hazel and Hazari sit. Suddenly the man shoots off like a rocket and jumps over the bowl again, now repeating his triple flip and landing perfectly. He doesn't stop though, as he rockets forward towards the two women, before decelerating his speed and causing a flurry of fresh powder to soak the two in snow.
  
  "Sorry," the masked man states, voice distorted by the mask, "But I couldn't help but notice you enjoyed my show, unlike the other skaters." The two nod, while brushing the snow off of them. "I hope you don't mind, but it's always nice to enjoy a hot cup of cocoa, could I grab a cup off of you?" He asks innocently, the two girls just imagining the puppy dog eyes he was giving them. The two girls look to each other and giggle, before grabbing one of the more empty thermoses tops, and pouring the skater a bit of the drink. "Oh, thank you," he says, before his eyes land on a different prize, "Ooh snickerdoodle, it's no gingerbread, but it's a nice substitute for hen we can't get the real thing!" Grabbing he cookie form the plate, Hazari and Hazel are about to protest, but then the man starts to balance e cookie over his cup in one hand, while taking off his helmet with the other.
  
  "Thanks girls," Gregs states, "Gotta jet before the Kos'karii gets called!" Gregs quickly speeds away with his helmet under his arm, enjoying the last of the cookies with his nice cup of hot chocolate.
  
  "Wait, you took the last cookie?" Hazari calls out, "Get back here and split that with me, or at least get one of those gingerbread men to send out another baker's dozen!" Her tirade went unnoticed as Gregs fled the scene, causing both Augments to pout as they downed the last crumbs of their cookies and drank the last drops of their cocoa. Gregs truly sucked for not following the etiquette of 'what to do when you ate the last cookie', and suddenly Hazari had an idea. "Hey, everyone is supposed to be here right?" She asks Hazel, who nods in response, "How about we get them all together for a little...fun?" Suddenly she picks up a snowball from a nearby pile, cackling evilly as she tosses it in the air and catches it.
  
  "No wonder your the evil one," Hazel says in awe, "You have such deliciously wicked revenge schemes." Hazel chuckles and gets her communicator out to call the other Captains in their circle. "Everyone, Gregs didn't pay it forward," she announces when everyone besides Gregs is on board, "I declare the beginning of the sixth annual Q's Winter Wonderland Snowball Soirée, this years theme: Revenge is a dish best served cold."

  Post edited by aten66 on December 2016

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• hawku001x Member Posts: 10,758 Arc User

  December 2016 edited December 2016

  The I.K.S. Masamune sat out in deep space, trading disruptor fire with a Kurak-class battlecruiser called the Sevak which belonged to the Children of Kahn: a headstrong group of Augment renegades, fighting to assert their lives in a universe against their very nature.
  
  An enemy photon torpedo impact blew several consoles on the Bridge of the Klingon Defense Force vessel, taking out Captain Deloss, a Gorn, in a fiery blaze of glory! A realm of white space followed and Deloss found himself alone with an omnipotent being.
  
  "Where am I? Are you a Q?" Deloss said, turning to the other man.
  
  Scoffing, he replied, "The name's Qu! It sounds the same, but it's spelled differently. I'm from the Continuum, but since I don't have my full lens flare yet, my designation is QS2, as in: Q Second Class."
  
  "That acronym doesn't even add up? And let me guess, you brought me here because you think the afterlife is run by you? Well, I'm sorry to break the news that the universe is not so badly designed!"
  
  Qu crossed his arms. "Blasphemy! You're lucky I don't cast you out or smite you or something. Also, you just met me, so thanks for jumping to conclusions about my character."
  
  "Either way, I have no regrets about my life as a Gorn and officer in a Klingon society, despite it being filled with prejudice and social difficulty that I can't even comment on without being called a 'social justice warrior'. I don't even believe it would've been better if I had never been born at all."
  
  The other man looked on in genuine concern. "Ohhh, you mustn't say things like that. Regrets are what give people layers and reasons for alternate universes! Why do you think every mortal is met with a Q in a white space at the time of their death? And I mean everyone. It's canon."
  
  "Alternate reality? Surely you must realize that any alteration of the timeline would have a profound impact on our future?"
  
  Qu materialized a floating chess board and then struck all its pieces away. "Please, spare me your egotistical musings of your Prime Timeline. It's been unrecognizably prequeled, continuity-error time traveled and money-grabbing diverged into a fan-service title'd Kelvin Timeline ten times over by now. Nothing we do anymore will have any purpose toward a larger interconnecting realm of interest!"
  
  ---
  
  Suddenly, Deloss woke up in his bed aboard the Masamune. He put on his uniform and left his quarters, noticing that only half the warriors he passed acknowledged him this time.
  
  "Curse that man named Qu! He deliberately did this so he could get his full lens flare with his precious Continuum. In addition, his actions are an obvious attempt at provoking frantic, hysterical distraught which I lack destine-for since my life, previous, was perfect."
  
  As the old Gorn entered the Tubrolift, he was joined with the tactical officer and Klingon, Lieutenant Commander Ronin. "Speaking to yourself? That is not permitted to someone of your rank; Lieutenant, Junior Grade, assistant astrophysics officer."
  
  "This is not the future I remember, but, if I am correct, it will entail of running tests, making analyses and carrying reports to my superiors. As an honorable man, I will make the best of it."
  
  Ronin was taken aback. "Really? I would kill myself immediately. Nothing like that sounds fun or exciting at all? If I were to measure your performance, I would say you were steady, reliable, punctual, but you lack taking chances, standing out, or getting noticed."
  
  "Although I have thrown-up in my mouth a little, just now, I understand that men like me are an important cog to the whole. Also, I would rather be who I am now than to grovel or admit defeat, or be found crying on some Bridge about my previous existence."
  
  ---
  
  As soon as the two reached the Bridge, Deloss found that the man who was at the Captain's position of the Masamune was Qu himself. The omnipotent, Human-looking imposter wore a Klingon Defense Force uniform and turned, from a discussion with Grough, a Gorn and the helmsmen, to take notice of Deloss.
  
  "Ah, more inferior officers," Captain Qu said. "Well, come on in! The more, the merrier. My ego holds no bounds! It's a trait unique to just me."
  
  Deloss dropped his Gorn jaw in utter shock. "You piece of guramba?? You just switched my life out so you could be in command on your own! Get off my Bridge!"
  
  "Or what? You'll kill me, just like you killed Ensign Lynch? And you admit your life before this was not enough and that you could've done better??"
  
  The Gorn snarled his gape. "I will never validate the shifting of your maddening scheme for your own personal interests! If I do have one regret, it's that it is me coming here and not being wrong about you! Oh, and you couldn't teach taste to a Melvaran mud flea."
  
  "Wow. You know, you think your day is just hunky-dory, and then someone comes along and says something so incredibly hurtful, like, out of nowhere," Qu replied while clutching his chest. "Well, if you're going to be like this, then I don't want to be in command of your rancid reptilian environment. No longer will I Gorn where no man has Gorn before!"
  
  As he flashed away in a dimmed, half-flash, Deloss took the center of the Bridge. "Of course he had to resort to specist passive-aggressiveness and their resulting puns. Now, as for the situation at hand, you will all do as I say."
  
  "Wait. What? But you're just a Lieutenant?" Grough said.
  
  Deloss then slammed his fist on a nearby console. "Then we will identify my quantum signature, use a subspace differential pulse to open a quantum fissure and send me back to my quantum reality! AND WE WILL DO IT NOW!"
  
  "Yes, sir," Grough replied out of fear as he and the entire crew immediately got to work.
  
  The Gorn Klingon Defense Force Officer then took a seat at the Captain's chair, finally able to breathe. Even though he was forced into an unexpected, horrible life by the Q being, he would not let that change who he was.
  
  "And, someone get me a glazed targ! It's the food I was thinking about just before I was attacked by those Augments whom I now relate to for some reason. Oh! And, a minty raktajino with a touch of chech'tluth."
  
  The Masamune then turned in space and jumped to warp.

  Post edited by hawku001x on December 2016

  

  USS Phoenix-X Literary Index | Comics | Most recent story: "The Opposite of That"

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• aten66 Member Posts: 654 Arc User

  December 2016

  I Lost Track of Time
  
  
  Quarra, the Delta Quadrant,
  
  Alternate 2410
  
  Two Quarren Doctors stood over their newest arrival for treatment of Dysphoria Syndrome. "First Amal Kotay misses his injection, now we have a new shipment of Workers to process for Dysphoria Syndrome, can this workload get any harder?" Doctor Ravoc says to his senior, Kadan, "Six cases of the same medical problem in the same district, and it seems like were always under whelmed in the medical field; we need to face the facts Kadan, this disease may be becoming an environmental epidemic." The elder Quarren laughs a bit at this, but gets to work grabbing a few vials and a sterile syringe.
  
  "The day Dysphoria Syndrome becomes an epidemic, is the day it becomes incurable," he replies, "Now, this man is a level six psionic, so extra sedation is needed for a full cleansing, we still don't know how psionics respond to the syndrome or the aftereffects of the cure, since every case is different that we've come across." Kadan readies a vial of noxious green liquid in a hypospray, then hands it to Ravoc. "What's got you thinking this is a new problem?" Kadan asks his former assistant, "Is it the imaginary threat of the Hierarchy, or the tall tales that the Borg are encroaching on our space?" Kadan laughs at his own suggestions, as he plugs the new worker into the memory altering device. Ravoc then injects the hypospray into the patient, while Kadan begins the process to alter memories.
  
  "The Hierarchy have made pacts with Quarra before, and they will likely continue making the pact as long as we help them increase their profit," Kadan says, wiping the workers personality away, as he begins to create a new persona, "And in return they help recruit workforce for our labor shortages, all in all a win-win for everyone." Suddenly Kadan drops a recorder from his hand, clutching his chest as it comes back sticky with blood.
  
  "Yes, well I'd love to continue this conversation Kadan," Ravoc says, wiping the knife with a clean cloth, "This conversation has definitely turned out... different than last time for sure, but I was naive then; besides they said my traveling back would change some things." Sinking down to the floor, choking up blood, Kadan can only stare up at his former protégé. "Now, thanks to your help, my new benefactor has the tool he needs," Ravoc says, "And I'm not the one dying this time, so it's a win-win for me!" Kadan breathes his last, as a new person joins Ravoc with a smile on his face. "Now, envoy, your blank slate is ready," Ravoc states, "The basic structure is already laid, his name was chosen to be Niaconis, he was to obey his master's commands and orders, and he is loyal to the cause to a fault."
  
  "Perfect," the newcomer says, "And to think, if he had never stolen my technology in the future I may have never discovered his true potential as an assassin, and you would have been dead Ravoc." Ravoc bows a bit as the Krenim man walks up to the computer, to finish inputting his desired personality and traits. "Now, let's see how much chaos we can sow together," Noye says cackling, "And I'll use your power to erase the one man who stopped you last time... yourself."
  
  U.S.S. Titanite, Near Orbit of 20 Draconis
  
  
  
  Gregs sighed as he finished dressing in his sleepwear, leaving the pressures of the day for tomorrow, and joining his wife in their bed. The Trill woman shifts a little at the added weight, but then resumes her soft snoring, as if she hadn't even been disturbed. The day had been long and filled with paperwork and transfers, as crewmen and supplies had been delivered to and from K-13. Gregs was just happy to return to his bed and sleep the rest of the night away after all of the recent activity dealing with this station, Klingon and Federation officers alike.
  
  Who knew putting a functioning bar in the establishment would lead to heightened conflict- oh, wait. Gregs had a nice bruise between his fifth and sixth rib on the left due to a brawl between a Hirogen officer and a Klingon during off hours, and the faint but bitter taste of metal on his tongue even now. He was just happy to get some rest after this eventful day, allowing his restless mind to wander and him to dream peacefully.
  
  Elsewhen
  
  A young kid of five or six was running through the fields of grains, towards a towering tree. The sky had been turning a fiery pink with the setting of the suns, but this fact mattered little as the three moons would no doubt offset the loss of light enough to let him return home. For now the child was staring at the massive tree in awe, its flavorful bark sweetly scented on the breeze, among the other, younger spice trees. This tree had been in his family for generations, always used to the full and kept well watered as the spices turned from spicy to sweet with age, marked year by year to show its history. This time though, the boy would leave his own mark on the tree, his initials.
  
  As he grabs for the hidden knife in the fold of his outer coat, he begins to hum happily as he tries to scratch his name in the writing of his ancestors. Satisfied with his work, the child leaves behind the complex symbols as he hears his parents calling his name. Casting aside the knife, forgetting it, the small blade is buried at its hilt in the mud, and the boy leaves the tree and his carving behind him. If he had stayed, perhaps he would noticed the sweet scent dull, or have seen the knife lift on its own and trace the words written in the carving, as it miraculously erased the words, as shavings floated, reconnecting as if they hadn't even been carved from the spice wood.
  
  U.S.S. Oregon, Near Orbit of 20 Draconis
  
  The Next Morning
  
  When Gregs awoke the next morning, he rolled over in his bed, and feeling the cold spot to his left, knew his wife had gotten up to start her daily routine as he hears teh echoing of an active sonic shower. Sighing blissfully at the warmth of the bed, Gregs reluctantly gets up to start his own routine, when he notices he had awoken in a room far different than his own joint Captain's Quarters. In fact, if he had to hazard a guess, this looked like Zinuzee's quarters on the Tactical Odyssey he had lost to the Iconians in their opening attack, the Oregon. "Huh," Gregs says out loud, "I forgot how cramped these crew quarters were, almost makes me think I was beginning to get a bit spoiled by the creature comforts of the 31st century..." A sudden scream pierces his ears from the direction of the bathroom, as a blond-brown Trill women is shocked frozen at his appearance in her bed.
  
  "Ah, uh- I know how this looks," Gregs says to the woman, who had enough decency to have worn a robe after leaving the shower, "But I- wait Zinuzee?" The Trill woman had her hand behind her, and was cautiously watching Gregs for any sudden movements, bu ther face showed confusion at the same time. Slowly he moved his hands from under the covers, and sees her visibly relax a bit as he removes himself from the bed. She backs away as he moves out of the bed, she was now closer to the door and a communications panel, which made this situation even more confusing.
  
  "Who are you and how did you get in my room?" she ask cautiously, "My door was locked from the inside last night, and you don't look like the chief of security or Captain Qat'Anmek." This time it was Gregs' turn to be confused, as he was quite sure he had been captain when he had gone to sleep.
  
  "My name is Gregs Sharvan Son'aire, I am- I was- this is going to sound strange, but I am the Captain of the U.S.S. Titanite," Gregs replies calmly, "As of eight hours ago, I was asleep in my bed with y-with my wife, and I woke up here, in o-your bed, I swear on the Prophets of Bajor." Suddenly the Zinuzee look-a-like pulls a phaser and fires on Gregs.
  
  "Lexis Zidire to security, I've got an intruder in my quarters," she says, as Gregs fights the pain of the stun attack, "He must be some kind of temporal anomaly, we must have snagged his spatial strand when we hit the Badlands last month, it just took him this long to show up." Gregs grunts, and the women looks down from the communications panel at the sound. "Don't worry I don't think he's a threat, but if they sent him here, he may be another unwitting pawn," she states, raising her weapon, "Besides, I have to finish getting ready for my date with the Romulan attaché; I'll leave the outer door unlocked for you to come take him away" Hitting him again with the phaser, Gregs succumbs to the pain, as the bedroom doors close and lock.
  
  Cell Block A
  
  Waking to a headache and numb fingers, Gregs slaps himself to wake up his nerves. Sitting up now, he notices he isn't alone, as a man stands just outside the door looking in. "Awake now, are we?" the Denobulan says, "I came down here to see the face of the man that was found half naked in First Officer's quarters, and it seems you're quite an anomaly." Gregs stands and walks toward the man in awe, as he remembers seeing this man before, his face almost the same as well as the ranking, but the name vastly different than the man who had given him a shakedown cruise all those years ago, a man he knew to be dead for a year by now.
  
  "Masc Taggart... Captain?" Gregs says in astonishment, "But, you're- you can't be-" The man quirks his brow at that, but smirks in disbelief.
  
  "I'm afraid you're quite off on the name there, son, but I am Captain of this ship," the Denobulan says in return, "My name is Qat'Anmek, Qat'Anmek Gabriel, and this is my ship, the-"
  
  "The Oregon, no doubt, if this isn't the Titanite," Gregs replies, "It's the last ship I had before switching to the Titanite, at least the last ship I had flown." Gregs sighs and tries to rub the forming migraine away, as he tries to figure out what is going on.
  
  "This ship is the Oregon, stranger, but I've had this ship ever since the Borg attacked the new Romulan delegate on Rator III," Qat'Anmek responds, "And you, stranger, have never been Captain of this ship." He moves away from the forcefield, and taps his combadge. "Qat'Anmek to Sickbay, please send one of the nurses down to Cell Block A, we're going to need a genetic sample from our intruder," he says, "I want a full genetic analysis of this man and whomever he works for, we need to make sure he isn't a Klingon spy that's been altered." After affirmation from the Doctor, the Denobulan returns his attention to Gregs. "I'll have a nurse down here in ten minutes," Qat'Anmek says with a smirk, "Don't go anywhere."
  
  Gregs sits down, trying to comprehend and piece together what memories he could. Zinuzee- no, Lexis Zidire; it was like she had never been joined with the Zinuzee symbiont and separated in that freak 'wonderland anomaly'. Obviously Masc Taggart was never born in this world, or at least something happened to one of his parents or ancestors enough to cause a ripple effect that changed his name. Something must have happened to the Romulan's as well, since Rator III wasn't New Romulus in this timeline.
  
  Suddenly the doors to the Brig open, and a young female medical officer comes in muttering under her breath. "Of course the Doctor is too busy to send a real nurse, of course I was the closest one with medical training under my belt," she mutters as she approaches his cell, "It's also apparent I'm the only one who can properly utilize the correct dosage of anesthizine gas, so that I can get them under without them becoming catatonic..." She rounds another cell, looking to a metal tray and medical tricorder, before looking up at her next victim. Dropping the tray with a metal clank, scattering the various medical tools on it and the PADD, she looks at Gregs with her mouth open.
  
  "No, no, no, no, no, you can't be here!" This new woman stutters out, fear quickly replaced by anger, "No, no everything is wrong!" Gregs is about to speak, but the woman is muttering to herself.
  
  The woman clutches a shaking hand to her chest, as if trying to still her racing heart. "You're gone, Drake, Hazari, and Ohir never had a reason to come here, Ace isn't himself, Berg never existed the same way you shouldn't, Nali never returned and Tekhav has long been dead," she states to herself, like it was some kind of mantra, "You can't even be here, you were erased, he made sure you could never complete the cycle!"
  
  "Cycle, what cycle?" Gregs asks from behind the forcefield, "I'm real, I'm flesh and blood like you, my name is Gregs Sharvan Son'aire, Captain of the U.S.S. Titanite NX-101772-A, and I'm no ghost, but I am lost, and I think you can help me figure out why!"
  
  The woman calms down for a moment, then looks around before silently collecting up the scattered things and balancing the tray once more. Once everything was in hand she opened the forcefield and stepped inside, before sitting down next to Gregs on his cot, and removing a syringe from the tray and using it to take a blood sample. "My name is Mary Ambrose S-Smith, and I'm a nurse here on the Oregon, at least this version," she says, "But I see you, and I remember something, almost like another life... like I was more than just plain Mary Smith the half-Iotian." She turns to Gregs and looks him in the eyes.
  
  "But then I see you, and my life seems to blur before my eyes, everything I have done seems so lackluster and two-dimensional in comparison to the me I see in my minds eye," Mary continues, "I see a Mary Amethyst Sue who lost her life and gained a second chance, and then when my life blurs with hers until I only see static, it's like her life was put on hold, like this world has put her on pause; it makes me question my reality, makes my existence feel so indeterminate, like a wax figure pretending to be the real thing." Suddenly Mary clutches her head as she begins to cry out.
  
  "What happened Mary?" he asks concerned, trying to calm her as she seems to mellow out "Who or what, managed to erase me and all my friends and family out of history?" Mary looks at him with sad eyes, and regret laces her voice as she speaks.
  
  "Gregs- Gregs, you did this, you left yourself open to this kind of attack when you prevented your death at Ohir's hands," she says somberly, "Had it only been once it would have gone unnoticed, but when Ohir replaced Niaconis in the second timeline, someone took note."
  
  "Second timeline?" Gregs asks, "What second timeline?" Mary shifts her eyes away and out of the cell block.
  
  "There are things I can't say Gregs, things that don't even make sense to me; I just remember things differently, like a cargo transport following three different routes," she replies, "I remember events where someone named Niaconis tried to do something to remove you, but then he disappeared and someone named Ohir was in his place, like a third party interfered..."
  
  "The Sphere Builders, perhaps?" Gregs ponders, "I know their temporal dealings are... ambiguous, and they aren't exactly above removing whole civilizations to further their goal of returning to our space... but the precession seems something more akin to one of Noye's ploys..." Gregs looks to the far side of the cell and puts his hand on a wall, trying to compose his thoughts. "Noye, it wouldn't be beyond belief that he had others set in place to carry out his plans," he says, "That man nearly succeeded once, I'd only wonder what damage he could do if he was never caught." He turns back to Mary and looks at her thoughtfully. "Tell me, did the 2800 return through the Bajoran Wormhole?" Gregs asks, as Mary affirms this, "I'm assuming since the Klingons and Federation aren't on the friendliest of terms, that the Borg Conference of 2409 didn't pan out the way they thought it would?"
  
  "DS9 is still under occupied control, the Cardassians and Romulans chose to ignore our pleas for now, while the Federation and Klingon attempts of taking back the station, led to massive losses on both sides," Mary replies, "Since then, whatever fraying trust had been built between the two forces, was cut completely when Captains Shon and Koren came at each others throats." Gregs seems puzzled by this, wondering what was so different between these universes, when a small detail niggles at the back of his head.
  
  "What about the True Way?" Gregs asks, "The Cardassians no doubt would have had problems with the Dominion returning, if they weren't taken apart in this reality, why would they just stand by as the Dominion fleet returned?" Mary shrugged her shoulders.
  
  "No one knows, everyone thought the militant voices of the True Way would have allied themselves with our goals, create a temporary cease fire at the very least, but they did something unexpected," she says, "Everyone knew they had allies in the New Link of course, but everyone thought it was just rogue Jem'Hadar, but when they allied themselves with the new 2800 that came through the fleet, freely going to and from DS9 while it was occupied..." Mary looks down and sighs.
  
  "Things aren't going good right now, the New Link was only bolstered by the returning Dominion fleet, and after a raid on Facility 4028, only strengthened more by a senior Changeling," she continues, "While the Female Changeling held there had been a bolster to the New Link, the head of the organization was revealed to be Laas, when the Female changeling was... well, imprisoned by her own kind." Gregs was shocked by this, but he remembers the resigned and disappointed attitude the Female Changeling had when last she was brought to face the returning 2800.
  
  "This is getting more complex than I first thought," Gregs says, "The 2800 event should have been dealt with, everything is different in this timeline... has there been an increase in New Link activity around the Badlands at all?" Mary pauses and scrunches her face up.
  
  "I mean, not so much the New Link as a whole, but more like its True Way forces," Mary says, "Actually, we've been sent to rendezvous with a Romulan ship headed to peace talks on DS9, to drop off the diplomatic attaché we have onboard, but the crew has been speculating that that is the secondary objective, and that we're secretly on a suicidal scouting mission." Mary finishes up her work, and cleans up her thing. "I'm sorry Gregs, I can't help you anymore," she says, "If I stay to chat any longer, I'm sure the Doctor will have my head, and the Captain may just demote me if he thinks I'm your 'contact', and I really don't need that right now."
  
  Gregs nods in return, as the woman leaves the cell, securing it on her way out. Thinking on this will help him, as somehow he has to trick Qat'Anmek into confirming even the littlest bit of this story to confirm his suspicions. Ignoring the growing headache in his mind, Gregs tries to meditate in his cell, unaware of what lay ahead of him.
  
  \\\
  
  The Badlands
  
  "Projections return a thirty eight percent chance of the Oregon actually making it into the Badlands anomaly at half hull rate, and a two percent chance of them making it unscathed," an officer states form alien controls to their commanding officer, "With the largest outcome of sixty percent chance as total annihilation of the invading ship." From the shadows a bearded figure strokes his chin and smiles at the chances.
  
  "Let them through with minimal damage, when they arrive," the man says, "My goals are not yet complete, and there is still a variable or two on that ship that I must.... reacquaint myself with, before I rip the hope from before their eyes and cement our hold on this reality we've managed to subvert." The man removes his singularly gloved hand from his magnificently trimmed beard, and looks into the amber stone at the center of the weapon. "Yes, rip the hope out form before their eyes," he mutters to himself, before turning to his first officer, "Zin, I request that you make them have a reason to visit us; release that little worm of ours as bait, so he can wriggle that ship right onto our hook."

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• aten66 Member Posts: 654 Arc User

  December 2016

  The Oregon's Brig
  
  "Now, 'Gregs', tell me again what you remember of the past twenty four hours?" he asks, "For some reason you believe that you were Captain of the Oregon..." Gregs tries to compose himself, as the Captain had caught him deep into meditation.
  
  "The Titanite, was not this ship, it was... well, I don't think you have the clearance for me to say," Gregs says, as Qat'Anmek smiles a bit, "But enough of that, I'm assuming that you're having problems with the Delphic Region still, and no doubt the Sphere Builders are attacking your reality through a new proxy?" Qat'Anmek stops smiling, and looks him straight in the eye.
  
  "How did you know?" Qat'Anmek asks, "The Sphere Builders alliance with the New Link is classified and on a need to know basis, only with level 9 clearance or higher."
  
  "The Sphere Builders are opportunists, and with Laas leading the New Link, no doubt with the Changeling Kardek still leader of the True Way, the Badlands have no doubt become the most adept place they could hide in safety while working for the Sphere Builders," Gregs says, "Temporal anomalies aren't exactly common in the Badlands, normally, and I'd hazard a guess the Link's distrust of solids doesn't really stretch to non-corporals like the Builders."
  
  "The True Way is ran by Kar'ukan now, but you've got most of the other details correct," Qat'Anmek replies, "Laas has made an arrangement with the Builders, they give him weapons to destroy the Federation with, and the Builders get to resume their experiments in the Delphic Expanse once the New Link has subjugated the Alpha and Beta Quadrant." Qat'Anmek looks grimly at the man before him. "So far they've managed to use the Badlands as a staging ground indeterminate, allowing weapons and ship upgrades to be supplied to the New Link," the Captain of the Oregon continues, "So far they seem to have gone quite, and after rendezvousing with the Romulan peace delegate, our ship was to head into the Badlands to survey the current situation."
  
  "Do you expect to make it out of there alive?" Gregs asks in concern, "The Dominion, I've fought them back before, and if Kar'ukan is leading the True Way, they've become just as deadly as any Jem'Hadar fighter would be." Gregs stands and looks at Qat'Anmek, towering just a little over the man at his full height. "We need some kind of edge, a clue as to what they are planning in the Badlands, or else we may be walking blind into a situation much like the Xindi Superweapon crisis," Gregs states urgently, "If we had any intel you're holding back, a defector, a captured spy, we need to know or else you may be walking into a blind canyon where we get ambushed by Jem'Hadar!"
  
  "We? We! There is no We!" he shouts back, "SO far, you're some crazy sonuva*&%^, that just appeared on my ship, claiming to be its Captain!" The Denobulan shouts and inflates his cheek pouches, looking a bit more intimidating, if not a little comical. "My people have been dying in a yearlong war, these people are desperate for it to end, while the Dominion machine is cranking out an endless supply of warriors and ships at an alarming rate," Qat'Anmek says, deflating, "We may be the only chance our people have at getting an upper hand, enough so that we might even push the Klingons and the Federation together enough, enough sway we even get the hard separatist Romulan's to join in this New Dominion War!" Gregs takes a step back at the outburst, but defiantly keeps his mouth shut, not wanting to burn his last bridge.
  
  "I understand, but this, this isn't the way this world should be working, should even be going," Gregs responds with a cooler head, "In my timeline, where I am a Captain, the New Link was fought back and isolated, DS9 was spared, and the Klingon's, Federation, and even the Romulan's had formed an alliance and discovered age lost miracles; sure it came at its own price, but it was better than this timeline for sure."
  
  Suddenly Qat'Anmek's badge chirps, signaling a waiting communication. "Qat'Anmek here, what is the situation?" he asks. The voice of Lexis Zidire comes on over the channel.
  
  "Captain, it appears a New Link ship has broken off of the rest of the fleet, and is currently flying dangerously close to the area we are supposed to meet the Romulan delegation," she states, "Even more worrying sir, is that they are transmitting Federation security codes matching a set of DS9 emergency codes belonging to the only living survivor of the first invasion." Qat'Anmek's eyes widen, as he realizes who she is talking about. "Patch me in to their communication channel, audio only," he states, "This is Qat'Anmek of the U.S.S. Oregon, break off your route and prepare to be forwarded a new location to meet up at, please respond!" Static is heard for a few moments, until a voice breaks through the silence.
  
  "Kurland here!" the lost commander of the station says, "I'm happy to hear a friendly voice out here, as Eraun 7 risked a lot to play his hand and get us all out of here!" Qat'Anmek pauses and looks confused before replying.
  
  "Say again Kurland?" he replies, "Who else is with you?" Static breaks through, before Kurland's clear voice rings out.
  
  "Me, Eraun, a group of loyalists to the Founders of the Great Link, and the missing crew of the U.S.S. Rapier," Kurland replies jovially, "We'll meet up with you shortly, Kurland out!"

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• aten66 Member Posts: 654 Arc User

  December 2016

  Onboard the newly acclaimed U.S.S. Rapier
  
  "I still think this is a bad idea," Gregs voices his concerns to the others, while silently watching the Federation crew working with the Jem'Hadar so... calmly. It was as if they hadn't been prisoners for a year, but then again this universe was differnt, and from what Eraun Six had told him, the Vorta himself, along with some of the Elder Jem'Hadar onboard, had been worried by Laas' recent actions, until he imprisoned them all when the Female Founder tried to stop his crazy alliance with the Builders. Laas numbers had surged with the fleet of 2800, and work on breeding more Jem'Hadar had increased to the point where even those loyal to the Great Link were outnumbered by those loyal to the younger, more radical, New Link.
  
  Eraun had done his best to sway those he could into rebelling, allowing them to escape with the captive crew of the Rapier, whose former ship had been stuck in the wormhole just before the resurgence of the 2800, and unfortunately exited back to a Dominion controlled station. Now they had all escaped, and after a rendezvous with the Oregon, a crazy, nearly suicidal plan had been concocted that everyone but Gregs could agree on. Maybe it was just the fact that this was also, did he mention, crazy and suicidal? Yes? Ok then. Gregs was surprised that Qat'Anmek was so ready to go along with the plan, but then again he trusted Kurland's judgment and approval of the plan.
  
  "The Oregon will detach their Aquarius-craft, Portland with the civilians and join us in our impromptu siege," Kurland states among the assembled group of an Elder Jem'Hadar named Kam'na, Eraun, Gregs and the Oregon's First Officer Lexis Zidire, "Eraun thinks he can convince Loriss to look the other way for a few minutes, at least long enough for the Rapier to slip in among the distraction provided by Captain Qat'Anmek."
  
  Gregs merely slips away and walks toward the bow of the ship, sighing as he leans across a space where he couldn't be in the way. Lexis soon follows him with neutral expression on her face, but body language suggesting that she did not fully trust him yet. It was funny, really, that this version of his former wife looked so much like her, even her mannerisms being identical, yet she had obviously had no time for fun or close friends in her life, something he knew his own version of her had to balance out her seriousness. Then again, when he first met her she had a passive-aggressive MPD due to an incomplete and nearly unwilling joining. "What?" he finally asks her as she stares him over, his clothes now matching the uniform he wore back home.
  
  She looks up at his eyes, and he swears he sees the faintest of blushes on her cheeks, before she bites out a response. "I'm, I'm sorry I phasered you," she apologizes, her face becoming an embarrassed look, "I thought you were lying- I never even saw you when I got out of bed that morning- I just..." Gregs understood, it was unsettling seeing a possibility you once had wondered in your life, show up without a shirt in your bed.
  
  "At least was wearing pants," Gregs chuckles, "Man, now that would have been mortifying-" With a blush on both their cheeks, Lexis punches him in the shoulder playfully, causing Gregs to rub his arm. "Thank you, for believing in me now," Gregs says, "I know you still don't trust me fully, but if we stop them here, there's a good chance everything will revert and this will all just be a bad dream." Lexis looks down at her feet, and sadly looks back into Gregs eyes.
  
  "Do you think you'll be able to undo this damage, or at least return to your home?" she asks, "I mean, for all we know we just blow up the sphere and everything remains the same, life goes on, and you're stuck here..." Gregs looks down for a moment, making a fist with his hand, having realized that possibility was quietly on the table too. "I- I want you to know," Lexis starts, before the alarms sound and people scatter around them for their stations, "-I want you to know I was glad to know I had another choice." She leans against him with a peck to the lips before departing for her own station. Putting a hand to his lips, Gregs feels the burning spark on the edges of his mouth, blushing as he watches the situation unfold before him, electing to travel towards the transporter at the stern.
  
  "Oregon has begun its run," Lexis states, "The Portland will be arriving shortly to back it up, but for now it seems to be drawing attention to itself." Gregs watches as the tactical view shows ships approaching the Odyssey-Class from the Badlands Sphere.
  
  "Loriss has cleared us for our infiltration," Eraun states from the ships main station, "Moving in to dock with the Sphere." The ship lurches, as stray fire form the distraction hits their hull, in order to make their performance seem real. After a few moments, the ship makes it past the picket line, and smoothly docks with the Sphere. Eraun gathers his forces and some bombs from the armory, while the Federation crew rallies with Lexis and Gregs. "We'll plant the bombs in the spots you've told us," Eraun states, "We'll need back up though, the Jem'Hadar will no doubt be alerted by our accessing restricted areas; my own presence will confuse them for only so long though, as my replacement no doubt has already been activated.
  
  Kurland nods and moves to talk. "Team A will go with Eraun and provide back up, Team B will follow me and draw attention away form Eraun's forces," Kurland states, "We will cause as much damage to critical systems along the way, hopefully buying Eraun enough time to blow the sphere and everyone in it; it will hopefully cripple the New Link's alliance with the Builders, and allow us a fighting chance for our future." At this point Kam'na steps forward and addresses the Jem'Hadar soldiers.
  
  "I am First Kam'na, and I am dead," he states, "As of this moment, we are all dead; We go into battle to reclaim our lives." The Jem' Hadar looks around to everyone, Dominion and Federation alike. "This, we do gladly, for we are Jem'Hadar," he states proudly, "Remember – victory is life."
  
  "Victory is life!" the Jem'Hadar respond in turn. At this the crews depart, until only Lexis and Gregs are left on the bridge. Both turn to each other and smile, before something tugs at Gregs mind, and he feels a screaming in his mind and ringing in his ears, until he registers the horrid sound of his own voice, joined by Lexis' own cries.
  
  \
  
  Waking to the slap of hand on tender flesh, Gregs head lulls forward before his eyes open and adjust to the light and the pain. He feels the warm body of Lexis by his side, through the pounding of his head, and tries to look up at his attacker. Seeing his attempt at motion, a slim and dainty hand grabs his chin and lifts up his head, where he stares into familiar gray eyes. If the face wasn't so inhumane, the cascade of waist length hair in a silver ponytail wouldn't have surprised him, except for the fact this was the second double of his crewmen he had met in two days. The familiar face of Lexis Zidire, or at least who he knew as Lexis Zidire, stared at him with a cruel and merciless face, marred by the Vorta's ears and lack of spots. This cruel mockery of one of his friends was more than Gregs could handle, instead causing him to break out laughing at the pitiful position he found himself in with Times great joke at his expense.
  
  "Oh dear, it seems he's broke already," the cheerful, yet sultry voice seems to croon pitifully, "My, my, just looking at me must have caused this poor soul to loose his mind at the sheer beauty my master has bestowed upon me." She moves over to Lexis and lifts up her head as well, and Gregs hears her spit in the woman's face. Cleaning off her face, with a look of contempt at Lexis, before sneering at both captive officers. "It's a good thing that I, the ever loyal Zin, was ordered to bring you in alive to my master," she says, "Otherwise you would pay for that little Trill." At that she motions to the two Jem'Hadar guards at their sides, who pick both of them up and begin to direct them towards a door. Walking through it, Gregs is in awe at the massive size and sprawl of walkways in what is obviously a ships bridge, and it is obvious they were no longer on the Sphere.
  
  "Quite astute, Gregory," a new voice says from a hidden chair at the center of the many walkways, "You've managed to rally supporters in less than a day, create a little distraction, that quite honestly I did not predict, and not only infiltrate my masters work, but motivate former POW and get them to sacrifice their lives in a kamikaze attack that mimics the same events that have plagued my masters for so long..." At that the figure stands from his chair, clapping slowly as he does so, turning to Gregs as new screens flicker onto the main monitor from some unseen projector, showing different views of the Sphere form many vantage points.
  
  "There was just, one unseen variable you hadn't foresaw," the bearded man says, as he pulls out a switch and opens it to show a red button, "I managed to pull the wool over your eyes!" Among the various screens, it shows both Eraun and Kurland's groups fighting valiantly, fighting off Jem'Hadar from all sides. With a push of the button, it seemed all Federation officers seized, hated, and convulsed to the floor. "Did you really think that I would have let prisoners live to see the Sphere, that Laas would allow it?" the shadowy figure says, "But I do have you to thank, for helping me weed out the pesky Jem'Hadar still loyal to my Master's enemy, Eraun always was a coward and turncoat at heart."
  
  Gregs stood stock still, watching Eraun be run over and captured one by one, until only Eraun is left standing, confused and afraid at his fate, until another Eraun appears on screen, leveling a weapon at the duplicate. Gregs winces as his last hope is killed, and he hates the echoing laugh in his ears, one so familiar and sickening to him right now. "Oh Gregs, you should have seen your face," the villainous figure says to him, "I've been relishing the chance to see it on your face for so long; it's not everyday I get to see it on my own face, I'm glad it isn't my own." Niaconis stands decked out in all black garb of the Sphere Builders, a shadow of a man, with pale skin and poisonous, purple eyes of hate staring into Gregs very self.
  
  Suddenly a new voice is heard, as shouting erupts form behind Gregs, as new voices join in the fight, causing the Jem'Hadar to fall to the ground as shots ring out in the enclosed space. Suddenly a mop of blond hair is by his side, breaking the chains of Lexis and himself, and handing him a phaser in turn. "Sorry we're late," Mary states, "We had a bit of trouble at first, but we managed to find you and transport onboard, Qat'Anmek and the others are carrying out the rest of the plan." Suddenly a blue beam lashes out and strikes the cheery woman in the side, burning a gaping hole in the uniform. She collapses in his arms, as he looks to Niaconis in pure terror, the man smiling from ear to ear.
  
  "I don't see how that will help my little Mari," Niaconis says, "The Sphere Builders have ended one of the many dwindling thorns in their sides, the last hope for planting those bombs went up in smoke when Eraun died mere moments ago, killed by the Jem'Hadar." Now stroking his beard, he smiles wickedly at Gregs. "You've lost, for real this time Gregs, and all I had to do was loosen some of the strings to the patchwork you call a personal timeline," he states, "You don't get to turn me good this time, either, I'm just happy with being who I am."
  
  "Why?" Gregs asks, feeling the cooling body of the Lieutenant in his hands, "How could you be happy just causing all this damage, all this destruction?" Niaconis looks thoughtful, hair falling into his face as they gleam in the dim light.
  
  "I was weak, Gregs, I had a chance to become strong once, by killing and stealing the power I deserved, ending the mockery of duplicates across the multiverse, until only I existed to control the Dream," Niaconis says, "The Dream you so inconveniently entered with the help of that meddlesome Q, and ended with but a thought, and a false dream of hope." Gregs is confused, not understanding the stress he put on this 'Dream', of his.
  
  "What Dream, what hope?" Gregs asks, tears starting to form around his eyes, as the man stares down Lexis with the weapon on his palm, "Stop killing people, and just tell me what you mean!" At that Niaconis laughs heartily, and turns away from Gregs and Lexis.
  
  "You truly aren't him, are you?" Niaconis states, "They said everything would be different, they said the memories would come back to me, at the expense of not getting the satisfaction of the facing the man who kept me from attaining godhood." He turns back and faces Gregs, letting his weapon fall from his hand to the floor of the ship. "The Dream, you should have attained the base level of attunement already, with exposure to Species 8472 at the very least; your very presence here alone means you've somehow learned to Slip," Niaconis states, "First is aggression, snappiness and heightened awareness of emotions, then denial of power, suppression and need to control every little thing, then comes acceptance, the ability to enter the Dream and see the strings of fate that bind all life and things across the Dream."
  
  Gregs remembers the feelings he is describing, but he had dismissed the notion as his power increasing with exposure to the Undine. Kes had undergone a radical change in biology, certainly, but with his half-blood, recessive genetic nature, Gregs had just assumed his Vulcan mental training in his abject youth had merely been enough to halt and even prevent such an event from happening to him.
  
  "No, you were wrong Gregs, it wasn't any training you had undergone, it may have helped lessen the symptoms of the process, but you can never willingly halt it," Niaconis states, "I would have achieved this already if Species 8472 were active in this timeline, unfortunately their domain is rather impossible to enter due to lack of understanding of the nature of their reality in this universe, both from Borg and Iconian standpoints." Gregs looks to Niaconis, and realizes while he was nowhere near the level of psionics he boasted he had once possessed, it appeared he was actively reading his and no doubt Lexis' mind. "Correct again, Gregory," Niaconis states, "It's been a long time, but with you here, no doubt with the right persuasion, I could get you to help me attain my rightful place in the Dream; escaping the deadly fate my masters have for this universe under their very noses by Slipping through reality." Gregs looks up and feels the air buzz, as the man clicks a button on the console. "Rise my little Marionette," Niaconis states ominously, "Give Gregs the push he needs to set everything right."
  
  Suddenly opening her eyes and gasping for breath, Mary awakes with a wet gasp, and stands from Gregs lap, stumbling a few steps, before turning and looking at Gregs and Lexis with blank eyes. "Did you think you were the only thing I planned ahead for, Gregory, that you were the first or last to try and stop me?" Niaconis boasts, "I always had a back up plan, and Mary Amythest Smith was quite the work to clone; I had to make her believe she was half-Iotian just so she wouldn't question her strange habit of picking up quirks and daydreaming other lives she never led." Suddenly Lexis was held by the throat, and Gregs had moments to act before he feared the worst.
  
  In moments Mary was gone, vaporized by three shots of the forgotten phaser in his hand, but he had been too late. Lexis had been hit by the blast as well, and she lay bleeding out on the ships deck from an errant shot. Emotions raging, blinding him to what he was doing, Gregs barely felt anything, until he saw the movement on the viewscreen behind Niaconis' laughing form. Eraun had been staying in the same spot as the other Eraun, until Qat'Anmek and other Starfleet officers had arrived, though none of them seemed to have been fighting the other, instead they seemed to be... Gregs smiled, as he stands and begins shuffling towards Niaconis.
  
  "You were right, I did need the right motivation, the push to keep on living, and I know just what it will be," Gregs says, looking at the man and pointing behind him as he approaches his doppelgänger, "It seems my Eraun wasn't the one who died, you should keep better track." At that he rushes his double and grabs hold of him, just before the charges blow the sphere, leaving an all consuming white behind.

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• aten66 Member Posts: 654 Arc User

  December 2016

  Within The Dream
  
  Gregs wakens to a white void and the colored bubbles around his head, feeling like he was both floating and falling through thick syrup. He moves his hand to feel his face, and focuses to see strands of color just beyond the edge of his vision. He feels the colors more than anything, and attempts to name the emotions that they each seem to represent, but he feels the brightest and darkest ones pulling at his heart and mind. He sees the color of the rainbow at the edges of his vision, but as he focuses on his heart, two colors shine brighter than even the rainbow, one golden shining light, and one the darkest black of the deepest sea, emanating outwards from his heart, and tethering somewhere else.
  
  Following the strands of light, floating upwards to follow where they lead, Gregs sees another body drifting among spheres of colored light, though it has a repulsive aura surrounding it. As Gregs approaches the floating being, he sees Niaconis' eyes closed, unknown if he merely is unconscious, or is faking it. Where Gregs could focus on his own body and see various strands of light in the hue of rainbows, the sickly aura was made of thousands, if not millions of strands of the same pitch black as the one connecting him and Niaconis. At that revelation, Gregs sees the golden thread also lies within Niaconis' heart, where the twin black thread ends as well.
  
  Niaconis seems to flutter and open his eyes, seeing Gregs above him. "What did you do?" Niaconis asks, as he struggles to move, seemingly paralyzed by an invisible weight, "Why can't I move?" Gregs watches impassively, as Niaconis struggles to move, a thin white thread seeming to snake its way out and upward. Looking up, Gregs sees a gray sphere of light above him, where the new thread connects and anchors itself to wherever it lay.
  
  "I don't know," Gregs says truthfully, "You and I, we're nowhere and everywhere." He moves his hand to the string, and snips it, breaking the delicate connection between Niaconis and the sphere of light. "Subspace, such a delicate abstract when you move between physical and more energetic forms, that is why we have these bodies, these avatars to anchor us," Gregs says casually, "I can't remember why I know this, but these are the thoughts and feelings, the connections we have to all life we have ever encountered; the brighter the string, the stronger the connection, the stronger the being you contacted." Gregs looks on in wonder at the various swirl of colors around him, concentrating at the various wisps and strands.
  
  "Q are the purest white imaginable, Iconians are a brilliant rainbow of colors, always shifting but entwined with white in some way, while Traveller's are Grey with the outline of the rainbow, while every other normal being is defined by their major emotion in contact with you," Gregs states plainly, "Love is a vibrant pink, chartreuse is fear, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera... and black, the weight of all the souls you've killed, the guilt you live with every day." Gregs then handles the strand of gold connecting Niaconis and himself and sighs, feeling the warmth in his hands. "You're lucky that you have this golden thread, though, Niaconis, because it means your the luckiest *#$%@*# to ever live," Gregs states, clutching the golden thread tightly, "It means every choice, every bit of guilt you live with can be undone, becasue your personal timeline, your life, is in flux and undecided, perhaps that's the risk when dealing with the Builders, after all, the chance you could be removed with a snap of a finger."
  
  With that Gregs strums the golden thread, and it vibrates until it seems to radiate light. At the refraction of the light, the black threads seem to glow with the radiant light, dissipating like ash blown in the wind, until it seems to reach Niaconis' feet, and they too seem to disappear. "Be free," Gregs states, "Let go of your hatred and anger, and become the man you always were meant to be."
  
  "I'm so close, so close..." the swirling mass of smoking, black remains says, as more of the body is turned to dust as the golden light seems to shine outward and consume the shadows, "I won't be stopped now, not ever; I will sacrifice whatever I need- I will burn worlds if I have too, but you will not win this day, Gregs!" The shadow of a man turns and seeming floats away from the burning light, crumbling away as he searches for a way out. Finding what he was looking for, Niaconis goes for it, as his body crumbles away, leaving only the outstretched hand and the fading remnant of a neck, as Niaconis' guilt and regret is consumed by the light of compassion and forgiveness. The head is turned to dust as well, leaving the last vestiges of a poisonous purple eye, and the fleeting fingertips of the outstretched left hand, until even they were blown away like dust on the wind.
  
  The trail of golden ash seems to float around the Dream, as Gregs sighs, glad that the pain and suffering was over for the evil remnant of a man, both caused by and dished out to, Niaconis. Suddenly the golden motes seem to sparkle in an unseen light, as filaments are formed and ribbons coalesce into spheres, which in turn are connect by the strips of light. By the time the golden remnant forms into a solid figure, Gregs can already see the phantom's features become more defined. Gone was the dark and colorless, drag and plain suit, replaced with a fine silver garb overlain with the brightest, most golden Damask pattern Gregs had ever seen. A shaggy beard seems to form, not as kept as the old one, but nonetheless distinct, while dark and dreaded purple, shifts to a lighter, friendlier, lilac hue.
  
  If Gregs didn't know any better, he would have said he was looking at a twenty-year old version of himself, but it couldn't possibly be... At that point the lilac eyes met Gregs own, and he smiles. "Gregs!" This new version says with excitement, "I'm back; you brought me back!" Standing up this younger version of Niaconis approaches Gregs, floating over and standing to the side, as the empty space is replaced by the four walls of a Federation crewman's quarters. "Thanks for cleansing me of that indecision I carried with me, I feel like a new me, like The years melted away!" Niaconis(?) states, before breaking out in a laugh, to Gregs confusion, "Don't worry I know you probably don't remember me because everything got altered, but the Continuum let me keep a fragmented recollection of the original event."
  
  "I don't understand, who are you?" Gregs ask this young duplicate, "You're, what, another version of Niaconis?" He nods in response, and suddenly his clothes morph to something reminiscent of the Terran Empire clothing of the 23rd century.
  
  "The old you, the one from my timeline, he saved me, risked his life and powers to strip me of my programming, like you did," Niaconis states, "I was given power to break the bonds of space and time and undermine realities where the Iconians were unable to utilize time travel; in effect I was the wandering mercenary sent out to kill the enemies of my former masters, before they became a problem." He pulls out a herald staff from a gateway, before breaking it in two and dissipating the gateway and destroying the weapon. "Now that I'm free again, I can undo the damage your disappearance caused to this timeline, and make sure you have a shot at life again," he says, "If it wasn't for the fact you were already in tune with the Dream, I wouldn't have been able to protect you from my alter ego's changes to your timeline."
  
  "Thanks for that, I guess," Gregs replies, "What did he do that changed reality so badly, anyways?" Niaconis tilts his head back and lets out a laugh.
  
  "Didn't you figure it out yet, Gregs?" Niaconis replies, "Well, lets just say Tasha Yar never made it where she need to, and Sela never really became a problem here, to the honest detriment of this timeline, as you no doubt saw." Suddenly the world shifts again and the Starfleet walls are changed to the bland walls of an old model of cargo transport vessels. "Well, it looks like my stop is here," Niaconis states, "You know Gregs, I think I should change my name, too much bad blood hanging off of 'Niaconis'; don't you think?" Gregs smiles as he feels the familiar pull of reality tug behind his brain.
  
  "What are you thinking of?" Gregs asks, "You could always go back to using our real name, after all. I think you've earned it back after this." He chuckles in return to Gregs comment and nods.
  
  "Your right of course, and I think I know how it won't be so confusing," he responds, "I've always been partial to our middle name!" With a cheery wave, the walls of this place seem to fade, taking with them Sharvan. "Maybe we will meet again someday, Gregs," he says, "Maybe I've already been steadfast by your side, but know this, you will see me again!" Gregs is left in the void, this time white space replaces color and substance.
  
  Sighing, wondering how to return now that the pull of the Dream was guiding him, he instead blinks and finds a golden Sphere with a equally colored string connecting him to it. Interested, Gregs approaches to view its contents, the sphere replaying whatever memory contained within. Chuckling as he sees Sharvan's fate, Gregs finally feels the pull of reality, of his own reality, and ventures the long path home. The neon pink light glows like a star in the distance, and he feels the welcoming glow of his restored wife pull him in. When he awoke, perhaps this all would just be a bad dream.
  
  
  Epilogue
  
  Titanite, in Orbit of Daystrom Institute
  
  He wakes from his dreams, sweating, as he feels the cool, recycled air chill his forming goosebumps. Taking a deep breath, he clears his thoughts of the shadowy monster that haunted his most recent nightmare, and moves to wash his face.
  
  
  
  Weak and pathetic
  
  
  
  He pauses and stares out his window, after swearing he heard the voice from his nightmare speak.
  
  
  
  Impetuous fool, give in
  
  
  
  Sighing, rubbing away his delirium, he makes a beeline for his bathroom, feigning ignorance to the growing chill in the air.
  
  
  
  Answer me
  
  
  
  He looks up and into the Mirror, blinking away the water from his eyes. Grasping his chest at the poisonous purple eyes staring back into his.
  
  
  
  You need me, weakling, the echoing voice seems to speak, She will never respect you, but I see your potential, if you just accept the truth, that I- no, We can be stronger together!
  
  
  
  He stares at the shadow for a moment longer, before reaching out his hand to steady himself on the mirror.
  
  /
  
  Transporting onto the station was the easy part, he had enough knowledge and clearance to get to the lab doors he currently stood poised to enter. Walking in like he owned the place, Gregs Sharvan Son'aire, smiled as he sees the tired and tireless working for the betterment of all, and approaches the head scientist. The elder Andorian seems to curl his antennae at ten alien's approach, but his face does not betray the neutral mask he wears. "What can I do for you, Mr. Son'aire?" He asks neutrally, tone matching his expression, "The Titanite was scheduled to leave at 0750, was it not?" Sharvan smiles and nods, before taking a PADD and shoving into the scientist's hands.
  
  "Correct, sir," he says clipped tone showing impatience, "And if you help me retrieve Specimen DAX3-650-SDFA, I believe both the remainder of our nights will go well." The Andorian scans the data regarding this particular subset of numbering, before he moves to question the man, only to be silenced by the move of a hand. "I believe Command would rather not let my ship wait for me alone," Sharvan says, "My Captain has both been authorized to and has approved, my overseeing this transition personally, and I do not doubt why he needs this specific, albeit deadly specimen, nor is it a matter of concern to you what happens to it; Do I make myself clear?" The underlying threat is taken into cons duration, and the Andorian goes to fetch the specimen.
  
  Returning with it shortly afterward, he seals the delicate container into a biohazard container, then hands the sealed package to Gregs. "Now, understand the delicate nature of this specimen; this was the hardest one to acquire for our facility, and we would rather like to keep it alive," the Andorian says, "Its quite hard to acquire anymore, when the sources for new material are all dead." Nodding, Gregs pulls his weapon on the Andorian, vaporizing him on the spot.
  
  "The Terran Empire thanks you for your service, but it is no longer necessary," Gregs states, before turning to the unfortunate researcher that happened to watch the scene unfold, "Well, what are you waiting for, there's been an unfortunate accident, a dangerous specimen got lose and the Head Researcher was KIA; we need someone to clean up his mess and mark that the specimen was killed as well, if you, ya' know..." The researcher shifts his eyes to the gun, then back to Gregs, before making a few adjustments on the screen before him, and calling in a clean up team. Returning satisfied that he had what he want, Gregs beams to the I.S.S. Titanite
  
  /
  
  Returning to his new Quarters, he closes and locks the doors. "Engage sound buffering, internal only, Son'aire-kappa-six, and lock down internal communications below emergency level seven," Gregs says as he sets the heavy container onto the table in front of his guest. Sharvan quickly goes and checks that the first seal is cracked, and lets the stale air of the sealed container breath. "Glad you could join me today Lexis," Gregs says, smiling at his compatriot, before moving over to check the knots, "Very shortly. I think you and I will come eye to eye; not only will we look back and laugh at this day, you'll thank me for the effort I went through to get this little party together!" Securing the loosened bindings on her left foot, and checking the knots that bound her hands to chairs armrests, the fuming Trill could barely scream curses from behind the gag in her mouth, and she had switched to some pretty nasty Tellarite words.
  
  The former Captain of the ship had been woken rudely in the middle of the night, bound to her chair and left alone while her captor had disappeared, returning with a mysterious package from the station they now orbited. Lexis panned through all the various medical advances and horrors created and unleashed by Daystrom, and all she hopped was that it wasn't anything related to the Borg, or anything slow to kill her. She had wiped his mind more than once, all to keep the power he had as Captain for herself, the least he could do would have been to end it fast, but it seemed the Terran Trill was out of luck. Removing a secondary container from the first, Lexis could only look on in abject horror as the instrument of her greatest torturer was revealed, and she shivered at the thought of what it could do to her.
  
  "I would hazard to second guess whatever you imagine this thing will do to you, it's probably a third of the pain of whatever you are imagining," Gregs says nonchalantly, as he opens the container and grabs the squirming creature in his grasp, "No, more likely it's what this parasite will do to your psyche that you should be worried about, after all it's not everyday we get to see the long term effects this little thing and it's cousins had on Trills en mass, at least, not before we killed them all off centuries ago." Suddenly the thing goes limp in Gregs' hands, as he weakly channels a psionic signal to calm down.
  
  "It's quite fortunate that they managed to retrieve this one, and keep it alive for so long, but then again, the nest was well hidden away on some barren dust ball in the Delta Quadrant," Gregs says as he then grows silent, bringing the squiggly thing into the full light of the room, "Quite masterful engineers, those Solanae, made things to last." The still form of the young Bluegill parasite disgusted Lexis, but she could only watch as the Gregs calmly released his grip on the creature, and watched as it slightly vibrated in his hands, before jumping onto the immobile Trill host. "You should be quite honored, after all didn't your culture revere these monsters cousins?" Gregs says mockingly, "After all the pain you caused overwriting my mind, neutering my potential, I thought, why not cause you the same pain?"
  
  Terror was in Lexis' eyes, as the creature begin the slow crawl up her nightshirt, legs skittering up impossibly sheer material, before the carapace touches warm flesh, resisting the urge to just burrow into the skin. Going for the mouth, Lexis must have blacked out for a moment, as she already feels the creature wriggling about inside her, until it reaches the long thought to be becoming vestige portion of her body where it began settling in comfortably. Suddenly a rush of thought and emotion overwhelms Lexis' senses, and she feels darkness call her. Sighing, Gregs wipes a bit of blood away from her nose, and eagerly awaits for the results of his efforts, to see if his changes took hold in the primitive mind of the parasite.
  
  Suddenly the Trills eyes open wide and fully dilate, as her body is wracked with coughing spasms, and Gregs fears the suspended sleep had damaged the parasite, causing it to become a danger to the host. After a few seconds it stopped as soon as it started, and with a groan the Trill woman opens her eyes and stares at Gregs in confusion. "Zin, is that you?" He asks gingerly, "Blink twice for yes, or scream abuses at me in abject terror, if that's a no...". With a light and raspy chuckle, the Joined Trill laughs harshly, before Gregs retrieves a glass of water. "I'm glad to see my efforts were not in vain, after all we have a lot of work to do now!" Gregs says gleefully, cutting his beloved loose, "Niaconis is dead, and Sharvan is no more, but Gregory, he has a lot of planning to do, and as much training as healing ahead of us." Gregory merely smiles and brushes back his faint bride's hair, picking her up and depositing her on the bed.
  
  "I got you back despite the odds, I survived despite my life being stolen from me, trapped in this worthless and weak body, psionically neutered and unable to reach the Dream, and I am so very, very angry right now," Gregory says sweetly to his now unconscious Commander, "I have to make Gregs and his friends pay for all the suffering he has caused us, but to do that, I think I'll have to have a little recruitment drive of my own..." The stars streak by in their own path, as Gregory watched over his sleeping bride to be, calming him somewhat. Deciding to lay back in his chair after the exhausting past few hours, Gregory dreams of revenge and the faint silver hair of his restored beloved, blissfully enjoying the happiness this gave him.

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• aten66 Member Posts: 654 Arc User

  December 2016 edited December 2016

  Family History
  
  /2390/ Former Romulan Space, Annexed by the Federation
  
  The wide-eyed, seven year old boy, blinked from the bright light shining in his eyes. "This one appears to have the tolerance of a Vulcan," the Saurian doctor states, "The inner eyelid seems to have not developed fully yet, or at the very least, his body seems to have adapted to the need of it being constantly active." A human doctors sighs from her own table, looking at the estimated to be five years of age child in front of him.
  
  "Same with this one, though the child seems to not be as susceptible to light," the woman says, "I'd almost say it was like they came from two different planets under the same sun, besides the fact they seem to have a recently common ancestor, their genetics are very different." The Saurian nods, getting up from his seat after finishing the measurements he needed, and placating the child before being able to move to the replicator and retrieving a device after a minute of replication. Grabbing two adhesive devices, he places them each on the seven years olds temples and then places the device on the mag-locks, securing it in place.
  
  The child looks in wonder for a moment, before happily garbling away in a strange mix of ancient High-Vulcan, and something similar to a heavily butchered Ocampan, that the translators were still having troubles deciphering the different form and accent created by the mixed language. The human just laughed at the Visor device on the child's head, it looked comically disproportionate to the smallish head. "Amazing we found their shuttle craft intact, though it was a shame about that female Reman," the doctor says, "That nasty little ion-storm would have killed them in their cryogenic-pods too, if we hadn't towed them out of it." The Saurian nods, as he was busy attempting to keep the little alien from removing the strange device, choosing at that time to power the device on to its functioning mode.
  
  "There, little one, your eyes should be able to adjust better to our lighting," he says, "Your inner eyelid should recede on its own, and you'll be able to remove it once that happens, we'll check on your progress in a few days." The child babbles on, and the Saurian merely chuckles. "Well Captain, it appears our guests seem to be placated for now, shall I take them on a tour of the holodeck until the translation matrix deciphers their 'accent'?" The Saurain nurse asks, "Perhaps from playing around I can get them to tell us what their planets do and don't look like, or even get a sense of where they are from." The red headed human smiles at the curious children, before nodding in response.
  
  "Agreed, Fehrrus, but I want them set up in their temporary crew quarters by 1800 hours so they can settle in," Beverly Crusher states, "The Pasteur has enough to deal with right now, with the heated debates that the Gorn seem to be taking with the Klingons, and in-between trying to help the Romulan colony ships that just seem to keep moving from planet to planet, it's a wonder we don't deplete our medical supplies every few weeks." She ruffles, softly, the black haired youngling she was working on, who smiles and giggles in return. "The last thing we need is security being called on for two little ragamuffins waking us all up because they don't like their quarters!" She smiles as the younger child grabs for her hand, putting her hand on his head, likely wanting to have his hair tasseled again, "But they're just too cute to be mad at..."
  
  "C-cute?" The older, blonde haired boy repeats, struggling to form the words on his lips, "What is cute?" Beverly stares curiously at the accented reply from the child, and had she have to hazard a guess, it almost seemed to be in broken English.
  
  "I thought the translation matrix was having logic problems when compiling a translation?" Beverly asks her nurse. The Saurian shrugged and gave an equally confused look.
  
  "I swore they were still having the same problems," the Saurian replies, "Maybe Teddy fixed the problem?" Beverley seemed to think it was odd timing, but she also wondered if the child had picked up on their conversation. Moving to grab a scan, she took a full one of the entire neural network and compared it to a scan from an hour ago.
  
  "Well, how strange," was her response, as her Saurian officer looks over the readings, "How strange indeed."
  
  /2396/ Vulcan, Ruins of Gol
  
  Gr'Gol Shivir of the Wind, now commonly called Gregs Sharvan Son'aire, looked to the red sky of Vulcan and exhaled, enjoying the sights around him. The young teenager felt at home on the desert planet, perhaps not as much as Berr Griva, or 'Berg' as he was known, had found the planet home, but enough to have it be tolerable. It was times like these he took the initiative to visit these ruins, learn their history and the like, while his adoptive 'Mother' was off who knows where, her Husband always busy in talks with the High Council. While they had not adopted him or his cousin, that honor went to T'Mella the most patient and caring Vulcan he had ever met, their adoptive 'Other-Mother' liked to keep tabs on them occasionally checking on their progress. Just the other day she had sent him a congratulations on initiating his first meld, a beginning of the tests on his mental prowess, he expected.
  
  Strangely enough Gregs physiology was more Vulcanoid then he would admit, though his newly forming brow was beginning to attract the unwanted kinds of attention. T'Mella was undaunted by this challenge though, wanting to let Gregs come to term with what it could mean with his heritage, and he was grateful for her unswerving support. While he had been almost an infant in knowledge when he arrived on Vulcan six years ago, he had already begun to adapt to their knowledge and ways by the end of his third month, and now was just barely behind other children his age, though he made up for it in his creative thinking and down to earth view of the world. Gregs remembered he had come from a simple farmers family, though he had always remembered that half of his family was considered royal, he had no clue often as to why his father chose the simple life, married off to a farmers daughter in exchange for the love he could give her and the resulting lack of riches.
  
  Perhaps that was why he fondly remembered his father's lessons about handling people the most, the more kindness you gave them to work with, the more friendlier you were, the more likely they were to reciprocate, or at least leave with a positive view of you in mind. That was why he was now visiting Gol, attempting to release his frustration and anger off physically, while exploring the ancient ruin. Here on Vulcan all were equals, all were Federation born and raised, and Vulcan prided itself on being the best at arts, maths, and most importantly sciences and fields found only to have come about or be formed by a member of the Vulcan species. They didn't look down on others, per say, though there were a growing number of those who believed in the mantra of a 'pure Vulcan', though it was nothing radical or objectifiable, they seemed to oppose the growing trend of reunificationists with the death of Spock still so fresh in everyone's minds.
  
  That was a man who Gregs would have loved to one day meet, a man who gave up everything to bring a violent people on the brink of collapse a ray of hope. While not totally successful, the entire eradication of their people was avoided by his sacrifice, leaving a broken people with the chance of rebuilding, and some aiming for the goal of reunification, lives changed and eyes opened by the loss of a great man whose goal was to expose the truth and end the lies. Gregs wished he could be like him, an officer of Starfleet in his youth, and perhaps if his studies went well, he too could join Starfleet and become as wise as Spock.
  
  /2399/ Vulcan, Former Home of T'Mella
  
  On the saddest day of his life, Gregs not only lost his mother, but his last living blood relative, if not in body, in spirit. Just yesterday Berg had stormed out, officially recognized as a legal adult through emancipation, and hopped on the nearest freighter bound for Qo'noS. The decision was odd, for sure, but Berg had always been free spirited, perhaps he had figured the KDF could allow him to become the scientist he knew he was, not expected to be, where it seemed like everything was acceptable at face value, and until proven wrong he would now be a member of the Klingon Empire.
  
  Perhaps it was the increase of bigotry against the Tal Shiar, and Romulan stigma's in general in recent years from students, or perhaps the pressure of what he would do with his life, become nameless cog under the Vulcan Ministry of Science, or something else entirely. Maybe it was the fact that he was bullied by certain members of his class for his 'Romulan' features, even though both of us knew it was an unfortunate genetic trait inherited from our distant ancestor, whose blood still strongly flowed in both our separate families veins despite being thousands of lifetimes removed.
  
  T'Mella, on the other hand, had quite a tragic death, having been mauled to death while helping a lost child hide in a cave from a flash sandstorm. If only the cave had been unoccupied, then she would have been home, making the cakes he liked so much out of the rare and imported nectar found on far out Romulan colonies. Gregs could no longer stand living on this world, not after getting his heart ripped to pieces twice, but he knew he could never truly leave it behind. Perhaps it was time to join Starfleet, after all, he had nothing but time ahead of him, and who knew if he might not make Captain one day?
  
  [I/2399/ En Route to Qo'noS[/I]
  
  On the saddest day of Berg's life, he had not only lost his mother, but his last living blood relative, if not in body, in spirit. Just yesterday he had stormed out, seeking the fiery forges of Klingon culture, wanting to make a name for himself outside of Vulcan. Their ways were not restrictive, sure, but the fiery passion in his heart could not be forged by Vulcan's flames, so perhaps the heat and dust of battle would mend his broken soul into a warriors spirit. He needed purpose, he needed action, he needed to be allowed to expand. He could not do this on Vulcan, but perhaps on Qo'noS, he could finally grow. What choices made, had ever led them down this forking path?
  
  /2164/ El-Aurian Colony Ship
  
  The lone Vulcan woman stood in the cargo bay, wiping condensation off from the outside of the containers. Gr'Gol and Berr had so much to live for, and the loss of their planets, their home system at the destruction of such a monstrous machine, was too much For them to comprehend. T'Aminu had done what she thought was best, wiping almost all of the specifics away, but leaving the knowledge, an attempt to detach them from the pain, leaving them just enough to learn from it when they were the right age. She sighed, knowing it would be quite some time before she ever made it home to Misharna, and she would be glad to show the beauty of the planet to these two descendants of hers, only six generations removed, though the genetic drift caused by their Ocampa DNA probably made it look like thousands, with the short lifespans and genetic disposition of the normal Ocampa people beginning to change the physiology on the outside, and had it been given time, no doubt internally as well.
  
  One day she hoped to join them in their ignorant bliss, their dreamless sleep. But today was not that day, and she still had to work off the debts she owed these people for their kindness, no matter how long it took.
  
  /2257/ Somewhere in Romulan Space
  
  They had crossed the threshold of unknown space, where a newer species had begun making claims of that space, and for once T'Aminu was happy for her unique features. The Romulans, as they called themselves, had both smoothed and large-browed humanoids in their service, which allowed her to blend in when needed. She had since parted ways with the galactic wanderers, instead bravely forging her own path into Romulan controlled space, confident she could lie her way to Misharna if necessary.
  
  She had been ill prepared when her cargo was confiscated and ship seized on the basis of her being a 'Vulcan Spy', whatever that meant. They had thought her altered physically due to the lightly protruded brow she wore, a defect that had slowly grown over time, and when they had taken her blood and tested it, they knew I was not one of them; it had seemed this remnant of her people had genetically branched away from the main Misharnan people, and claimed to be genetically superior.
  
  Now she and her last hopes for freedom had been imprisoned by these 'Tal Shiar', scientists who would rather lock her up and experiment on her, than let her ever see another sunrise of Mishara again. They had spirited her even farther away from home, dangerously close to the unknown space she had crossed to get even a taste of home. She had failed Mestrel, her future descendent from either Berr or Gr'Gol, and now she would be imprisoned in a cage forever.
  
  /2379/ Undisclosed Locality, Former Tal Shiar Medical Facility
  
  "But you can help us," the Romulan said pleadingly, "Romulus is choking out the Reunificationists work, but my work is not done; do not mistake the pain it took me to track you down for desperation, but look at it for the love I have for my wife, for my former assistant." The Lady of Faces, as she was known to this man, merely looks dispassionately at the sniveling man at her feet.
  
  "You force me from my home with the threat of a disruptor, and expect me to help you?" She replies, cross with the man and his false threats, "Had you asked I merely would have refused, but had you explained yourself to me, perhaps I might have changed my mind." She turns away from the man, and bats away the young Romulan's gun that had been aimed at her, as he moves to threaten her. "Had you not threatened my city, my home with destruction, I would have done such a thing, but threatening innocents while your society crumbles," she trails off, "You disgust me little worm, and for that I refuse ten fold to participate in your private, little war."
  
  "Did you know her name is Rhea, and that she is not only just my assistant and wife, but a full blooded daughter of Remus?" He says meekly, "Do not let my child die, when it hasn't even had the chance to be born." She stirs at this, but tries to feign ignorance, leaving the Romulan to play his last card. "If you help me do the necessary genetic modification to the child, help us bridge the gap between our physiology, so that my child may yet have a viable future and," he states, "I will work with you to retrieve the children you have been so desperately looking for, even help you get them out of the Star Empire, return you all to Vulcan, if you so desire." At that Nali, the former Lady of Faces, turns with a smile on her face to the man.
  
  /2390/ Former Romulan Space, Shuttlecraft Raal
  
  "Hadron, let Sal'vin know I'll be a little late tonight for dinner," the Rhea states over subspace channels, "I've detected quite a nasty Ion Storm in the vicinity, I've made plans to reroute the shuttle around it, but I may have to break off for a while if the Tal Shiar patrol I've detected comes close by." She sighs and looks wistfully into the recording device. "If I need to, there is an asteroid field, hopefully with enough coverage to protect my shuttle from frying, but that will only be a last resort," she states regretfully, then looks wistfully into the camera, "If only we could see our Lady's face, when we return with her precious cargo in tact and still asleep." She chuckles, then hangs up, flying onwards towards the growing storm.
  
  /2398/ Virinat Colony, The Day They Met
  
  The first and last time Gregs ever visited Virinat, was the month the mysterious woman showed up at his Mother's house on Vulcan, and whisked him away on a two week journey to an armpit of a world full of giant insects and farmers. To a Vulcan, or any other sane being, it would have been misery, to Gregs it was almost a reminder of home. And it did not ended with its own surprises, when he met his half-brother Sal'vin, and gave him the nickname 'Ace', starting the lifetime connection they would have, even effecting Ace's choice of siding with Starfleet in 2409 while simultaneously a member and officer of the newly recognized Romulan Republic.
  
  /2409/ Virinat Colony, The Burning Night
  
  The invasion had been swift, cold, and ruthless, and Nali could stand it no longer. She watched Ace fly away from afar, and as she did so, she knew what she had to do, as people around her screamed. The war was just beginning, and the first few volleys had been cast; her elder self had been right, her decade long neutrality was needed to be cast aside for now. She had a path to chose and she needed to make the choice now. At the feet of another old warbird, Nali shot down what she would learn would be an Elachi drone in time, her die was cast and an old soul was sparked anew.

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• aten66 Member Posts: 654 Arc User

  December 2016

  A Little Piece of History
  
  
  / Berg /
  
  "To my desert blossom amongst a raging sandstorm, a force for hope..."
  
  Berg looks at the delicately written card in his hand, then to the IDIC statue, "Quote by T'Mella of Vulcan, scouring history and helping others until 2399; I figured this would best go to you, as the legal issues surrounding her estate have been resolved regarding your, 'citizenship status'." Holding the handmade statue in his hand, he could feel the years of memories hanging heavily upon it. She had tried to teach him using this very statue as a reminder, that with infinite diversity in the universe, there were more infinite combinations, endless possibilities ahead of him. She had quoted that passage from the words of an unknown author years ago, found in an unearthed ruin somewhere in the Forge she had helped to uncover, shortly before her death. It was touching, he would have to find the complete passage sometime.
  
  
  / Nali /
  
  "...born of the violent, burning flames, yet still alive..."
  
  Nali removes the protective gel pad covering the fragile contents held within the trans-aluminum casing, and closes the door to get a clear view of the ancient mask, "I figured you may want this as a memorial piece; it seemed it belonged to your mentor, TPriah..." Nali hadn't even realized she was crying, staring into this mask was like finding a lost piece of herself, making her a little bit more whole.
  
  / Tekhav /
  
  "... I alone waited your coming..."
  
  Tekhav removes the engraved cornerstone from the big crate, the heavy stone barely fazing his surprise, as he handles with care the rock baring two lost souls, two different people lost to time, "Delon and T'Preth, Let their love last longer than this rock." How they had snuck onto the hostile planet, underneath the remnant of the Tal Shiar and the Star Navy, and managed to find this special stone, he would never know how to repay them for this gift.
  
  / Sarus /
  
  "Child of Misharna, you were to inherit our legacy..."
  
  Sarus looks at the complete genetic list, of his father's side, of his father's father, and even going beyond into the genetic history of his three times over Forefather, Tekhav. There was even an extensive list regarding the major branches of Nali's history, even including her other genetic descendent's, like Gregs, Berg, Ace and himself. Alongside them, there was even a more recent descendent of Tekhav's family line through one of his sisters, a woman who had died within the last decade, but who had essentially been his only other blood relative on his Father's side. This was a gift he had never thought he could get in his lifetime, with the extensive research that must have been put out to make this.
  
  
  / Gregs /
  
  "...let my memories be not forgotten."
  
  Looking to the small Katric ark in his hands, Gregs feels the vestige emotions placed within them. It was by no means a true Katra, sure, but the memories and emotions of T'Mella, they were something he could still glean off of this beautiful piece of art. Whoever had found this last treasure of hers... had... been...
  
  T'Mella?
  
  
  / T'Mella, 2399 /
  

  To my desert blossom amongst a raging sandstorm, a force for hope/born of the violent, burning flames, yet still alive/I alone waited your coming/Child of Misharna, you were to inherit our legacy/let my memories be not forgotten.
  
  Excerpt from the Tomb of Kanda J'iak,
  Estimated Year 356 C.E, Y. 56 Great Awakening
  T'Mella, Daughter of T'Mon, of Raal

  
  She lay in the sand, trying to grit her teeth and ignore the pain. The Sehlat had been young, but it was wild and had obviously merely been trying to scare her off. Sadly the only chance of escape from the sandstorm had been this lone cave, where she had had to drag the errant child who had foolishly stumbled across her in her own travels. He must have had to have been a rebellious child of the new generation, he had gone on and on about preserving the old ways of the Vulcan masters. T'Mella could see he was a bright young man, though she had seen less zealotry in the eyes of much wiser Vulcan's, the way he spoke of tradition.
  
  Her abdomen was aching anew, as pain shot through where the cub had narrowly avoided nicking her heart in its attack. The child had nearly panicked at the sight of blood, but had followed her instructions and steeled himself to help her stop the would as best they could, at least until the sandstorm passed and allowed them to use emergency medical transporters to get her better treatment. She quickly took stock of the various baubles and items she had in her pack, preserved artifacts that she hoped would help Vulcan culture and understanding about the Goddess T'Preth. She had even found an empty Katric ark among the belongings of the cave ruins, likely meant to have been used by whatever Priest or Priestess to store or pass on either their own, or even perhaps the Goddesses own, katra.
  
  If only she was a telepath, she could have used the teaching to preserve her own knowledge. Suddenly she hears a shout from the child, as he attempts to stop a shadowy figure from approaching her... When he leaned down and she felt warm fingers brush her temple, she could already feel the transfer happening. But she felt the pull, the invisible tug of the empty vessel, draw her away from the obscured mind of the telepath, just as her body gave its last breath, and T'Mella was safe...
  
  
  / Mestral, 2832 /
  
  Sipping his tea, the Vulcan smiles. It had taken him some time to track down everything, even harder to get the boy to deliver it all at the proper time for him, but it was worth it. The boy had watched T'Mella breath her last, just after he had transferred her essence to the Katric Ark. with a little bit of discretion, and a tad bit of influence, he had gotten the child to become who he was always meant to be: A Legal representative whose speciality was dealing with long forgotten cold cases and the proper restoration of property to next of kin- blood or otherwise. Eventually the man would have solved thirty four murders in his time, and reunite the possessions of thirteen victims with overlooked families, including a few of his own ancestors. In fact, he held the last surviving piece, passed down with a note from Sten, a Vulcan Lyre he played and preserved every other day. It wasn't often you held a little piece of lost history like this in your hands.

  0
• starswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User

  December 2016 edited January 2017

  We Can Hope

  All the streets are filled with laughter and light
  And the music of the season
  And the merchants’ windows are all bright
  With the faces of the children
  And the families hurrying to their homes
  As the sky darkens and freezes
  Will be gathering around their hearths and tables
  Giving thanks for God's graces
  And the birth of the rebel Jesus
  
  They call him by the “Prince Of Peace”
  And they call him by “The Saviour”
  And they pray to him upon the sea
  And in every bold endeavour
  And they fill his churches with their pride and gold
  As their faith in him increases
  But they’ve turned the nature that I worship in
  From a temple to a robber’s den
  In the words of the rebel Jesus
  
  We guard our world with locks and guns
  And we guard our fine possessions
  And once a year when Christmas comes
  We give to our relations
  And perhaps we give a little to the poor
  If the generosity should seize us
  But if anyone of us should interfere
  In the business of why there are poor
  They get the same as the rebel Jesus
  
  But pardon me if I have seemed
  To take the tone of judgement
  For I’ve no wish to come between
  This day and your enjoyment
  In a life of hardship and of earthly toil
  There’s a need for anything that frees us
  So I bid you pleasure and I bid you cheer
  From a heathen and a pagan
  On the side of the rebel Jesus
  — “The Rebel Jesus” by Jackson Browne

  
  Cargo Bay 1, USS Bajor, docked at Dyson Joint Command. 5 January 2411 Earth Standard.
  
  The main cargo hold was a madhouse: probably half the crew had turned out for the first mail call in three weeks. The Terran winter holidays had mostly come and gone already, but between the postwar relief efforts and the ongoing Borg incursion into the Federal Republic of Benthos the ship had always been one step ahead of the Transport Guild.
  
  That was the real problem with the Borg: they were really inconsiderate when it came to people’s schedules.
  
  But the ships had finally managed to cross paths, and now the goldshirts were busy unpacking the crates of long-delayed gifts. Lieutenant Alicia Westlake Gantumur accepted the package from her parents in Tongwynlais, and read the notation jachny krismit be khoshy bet from her mother with a smile.
  
  “What did they send you, sir?” Lieutenant McMillan asked, hefting a package of her own.
  
  “Well, I asked for a Halefoglu shirt and—Oh my God, how did they—”
  
  “What is that, a soccer ball?”
  
  Aly couldn’t help laughing. “Signed by the entire Cardiff City Football Club, and me tad got me a Halefoglu shirt!”
  
  “Sorry, who’s that?”
  
  Aly shook out the black and gold jersey and held it up to herself for size, grinning giddily. “Rodney Halefoglu, team captain, plays as the keeper. He is so hot...” McMillan gave her a funny look. “Hm?”
  
  “Well, no disrespect, sir, but somehow I didn’t figure you as the type to crush on soccer players,” the redhead explained, still raising an eyebrow as Aly pulled the shirt on over her uniform jacket.
  
  “Says the girl dating a Klingon,” Aly pointed out, nodding at the black and brown bulk of the assault unit sniper, Lieutenant K’lak, still standing in line. McMillan looked away for a minute, looking tense. “What’s occurring?” Then, when no response was forthcoming, “Leftenant, you’re on me squad. If there’s something going on between you and your boyfriend—”
  
  “It’s, it’s not us, sir. K’lak’s grandpa is sick, he’s worried about him.”
  
  “Ah. Bad?”
  
  “He hasn’t said, but I think so. And his father died in the war, system militia when the Empire made a grab for Ajilon—”
  
  “So he’s heir to the family then?” McMillan nodded. “Didn’t think he was a traditionalist.”
  
  “I don’t know, most of the Ajilonians follow their feudal system whether they’re Klingon, human, or both—he’s got three sets of mixed cousins that I know of. Hey, Chief,” she greeted a Bajoran CPO in tactical red.
  
  “Sir.”
  
  “Oh, uh, I don’t think you’ve met the assault team head, Lieutenant Gantumur. Sir, this is Chief Gunner’s Mate Culyn Sulum from Ordnance.”
  
  “Neis cwrdd â chi,” Aly greeted him.
  
  “Also the best cook on the ship. Captain swears by his jumja sticks, and his chili? Delicious.”
  
  “Sir, that was a traditional verdanis and tava bean stew, not a chili.”
  
  McMillan shrugged. “If you say so, Chief; ground meat, brown beans and spices equals ‘chili’ to me. Did you get those, uh, utensils you wanted?”
  
  He gestured at a sigil drawn on the package, some kind of fox-like animal encircled by old-style Bajoran hieroglyphs. “The package has my wife’s uncle’s tribal crest on it; I’m assuming so.”
  
  “Tribal?” McMillan queried interestedly.
  
  “I’m Paqu, sir, from the Glyrhond Plateau. Did I not mention that at potluck night?”
  
  “Eh, maybe you did and I didn’t hear. Paqu, huh? My father’s part-Mohawk. You know, I thought the Captain said you didn’t have any winter holidays.”
  
  “The Captain’s part of the Bajora church, which doesn’t, but many of my people still follow the ancient Kenidu ways, despite Ashalla’s best efforts to stamp it out.”
  
  Aly noticed the chief’s voice was tinged with anger at the last. “Something I should know about?”
  
  “Not really important these days, but I’m sure your homeworld has a history of people using religion as, how shall I put this, an excuse to oppress?”
  
  “That’s an understatement,” McMillan muttered.
  
  “Well, let’s say we’re no different and leave it at that, sir. The Federation guarantees freedom of belief, that’s good enough for me.”
  
  “Fair enough. Oh, by the way, have either of you seen Gisela Hohenzollern this morning? I was supposed to meet her at the shooting range later.”
  
  “Over there,” Aly answered, flicking a thumb at the short-haired blonde E-2, who was talking to an Andorian medtech. McMillan nodded and jogged over.
  
  Chief Culyn suddenly snapped to attention and barked, “Captain on deck!” Aly whirled and came to attention.
  
  “Carry on,” Captain Kanril said as she walked up to the two of them. “Chief, Lieutenant.”
  
  “Ma’am.”
  
  Kanril cocked her head and nodded at McMillan and Hohenzollern. “I noticed in the chatter on that last mission you had some trouble with her. Anything I need to worry about?”
  
  “No, ma’am, nothing too serious. She’s a good shot but she needs to work on her situational awareness some. I’m wondering if we should reroute her to sniper school instead of assault, pair her with a spotter, but meantime I asked Korekh to loan me McMillan for a couple shifts a week, give her some extra training.”
  
  The Bajoran nodded. “Well, the little princess had the guts to start at the bottom instead of going straight to the Academy, that’s something.”
  
  Alicia cracked a grin at that: she and the captain had both come up from the ranks. Of course, going straight to the Academy probably meant Hohenzollern would be dead now… She suppressed a shudder and changed the subject. “By the way, ma’am, what happened with that new girl on Connor’s unit? One mission, then the two of you have a row in sickbay over something and she’s reassigned?”
  
  “That’s classified, Lieutenant,” the captain answered matter-of-factly. A neutral expression was fixed on her face, but Aly could’ve sworn she caught sight of a twinkle in her eye for just a moment. “Anything else?”
  
  “Just my standing invitation to sit in on the hand-to-hand combat lessons, ma’am. The new crew are coming along, but I really think they could learn a lot from you.”
  
  “Maybe next week. This week, I want at least a couple days of shore leave while they’re repairing that number two shield projector.”
  
  Aly chuckled. “I hear that, ma’am.”
  
  “Here’s your packages, ma’am,” a Bajoran goldshirt interrupted, approaching the captain.
  
  “Thanks.” She glanced at the label on what looked like a case of springwine. “I love you, too, sis,” she commented as she turned to leave. “Nice shirt, by the way, Lieutenant.”
  
  “Thank you, ma’am!” Aly said, perking up.
  
  McMillan came up behind the lieutenant as Kanril headed back out. “What did the Captain want?”
  
  “Her and Commander Reshek’s mail.”
  
  “Anything fun?”
  
  “She didn’t say.”
  
  “Oh, hey, K’lak!” She broke away from them and ran up to the big Klingon, who was carrying a long, narrow parcel. She stood up on tiptoes to give him a kiss, but he didn’t respond. “What is it?”
  
  K’lak looked down and tore the top off the parcel; a gilt-inlaid sword-hilt was inside. “My grandfather’s yan. He had it sent two weeks ago. Mother contacted me this morning; he’s dead.”
  
  “Prophets, I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”
  
  “I appreciate it, Chief.”
  
  “This past year hasn’t been much good for any of us,” Alicia said. “The Iconian War, the bombings—”
  
  “We’ve all lost people,” McMillan agreed, downcast. “My aunt and uncle were vacationing in New Mexico when the Iconians hit Earth Spacedock.”
  
  “Damn,” was all Aly could say.
  
  “All we can do is keep the faith,” Chief Culyn said, pulling an ornate silver medallion out of his shirt. “The Prophets have a plan, even if we can’t see it.
  
  “I’m not religious but I know what you mean,” K’lak agreed.
  
  McMillan nodded and wrapped her arms around the big Klingon, barely coming up to his shoulders. “Well, here’s something we can do to improve things. q’laq, roQar puqloD, HISaw!”
  
  K’lak jerked in surprise, the still-wrapped sword clanging against the ground. “What?”
  
  “Well, you’re the head of your House now, which I think means you need a mate and heirs.”
  
  “Qovpatlh, I don’t care about that! Is it what you want?”
  
  McMillan slugged him on the jaw and Alicia stifled a burst of laughter at his expression. Then the redhead pulled him in for a kiss. “You big lug, you think I’d be asking if I didn’t want it?”
  
  K’lak’s mouth twisted, then he roared and picked her up into his arms. “SoH wISuqDI’ Saw jIH!”
  
  Alicia started clapping. “You got a live one there, K’lak, don’t lose her!” she yelled as the rest of the room joined in.

  Post edited by starswordc on January 2017

  "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
  — Sabaton, "Great War"
  

  

  
  Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/

  0
• takeshi6 Member Posts: 752 Arc User

  January 2017 edited January 2017

  Dreaming of Your Face
  
  By Takeshi Yamato, with StarSword-C and Worffan101

  
  

  Voice 1: I couldn’t take it, couldn’t stand another minute;
  Couldn’t bear another day without you in it.
  All of the joy that I had known for all my life
  Was stripped away from me the minute that you died.
  
  To have you in my life was all I ever wanted,
  But now without you I’m a soul forever haunted.
  Can’t help but feel that I had taken you for granted;
  No way in Hell that I can ever comprehend this!
  
  I wasn’t dreaming when they told me you were gone,
  I was wide awake and feeling that they had to be wrong.
  How could you leave me when you swore that you would stay?
  Now I’m trapped inside a nightmare every single effing day!
  
  It’s like a movie, but there's not a happy ending;
  Every scene fades black, and there's no pretending.
  This little fairy tale doesn’t seem to end well,
  There’s no knight in shining armor who will wake me from the spell!
  
  I know you didn’t plan this;
  You tried to do what's right.
  But in the middle of this madness,
  I'm the one you left to win this fight!
  
  Red like roses
  Fills my head with dreams and finds me
  Always closer
  To the emptiness and sadness
  That has come to take the place of you!
  
  Voice 2: I know you're broken down by anger and by sadness;
  You feel I left you in a world that's full of madness.
  Wish I could talk to you, if only for a minute;
  Make you understand the reasons why I did it.
  
  I wanna tell you that you’re all that ever mattered;
  Want you to know that, for eternity, I'm shattered.
  I tried so hard just to protect you, but I failed to,
  And in a prison of abandonment I’ve jailed you.
  
  I never planned that I would leave you there alone,
  I was sure that I would see you when I made it back home.
  And all the times I swore that it would be okay;
  Now I’m nothing but a liar, and you’re thrown into the fray.
  
  This bedtime story ends with misery ever after,
  The pages are torn, and there’s no final chapter.
  I didn't have a choice, I did what I had to do;
  I made a sacrifice, but forced a bigger sacrifice on you.
  
  I know you’ve lived a nightmare;
  I caused you so much pain.
  But, baby, please don’t do what I did;
  I don't want you to waste your life in vain!
  
  Voice 1: Red like roses
  Fills my head with dreams and finds me
  Always closer
  To the emptiness and sadness
  That has come to take the place of you!
  
  Voice 2: You’re not the only one who needed me; I thought you understood!
  Voice 1: You were the one I needed, and you left me as I always feared you would!
  Voice 2: Would I change it if I could?
  Both Voices: It doesn’t matter how,
  The petals scatter now.
  Every nightmare just discloses
  It’s your blood that’s red like roses,
  Voice 1: And no matter what I do,
  Nothing ever takes the place of you!
  
  Red like roses.
  Fills my head with dreams and finds me.
  Always closer,
  To the emptiness and sadness,
  That has come to take the place of you!
  — “Red Like Roses - Part II” by Jeff Williams feat. Casey Lee Williams and Sandy Casey, from RWBY Volume 1

  
  USS Artemisia, Phantom-Class Covert Strike Ship, Nimbus System
  
  Captain’s Log, Stardate 88506.3.
  
  It’s been a couple months since Operation Mockingbird, and we haven’t seen any sign of Iconian activity since.
  
  Part of me wants to believe the war is over. But we can’t let our guards down.
  
  However, that’s not up to me to worry about. Right now, all of Spec Ops Section 6 has been tasked with hunting down Melani D’ian and capturing her to stand trial at the Seldonis II Tribunal—and that includes my ship.
  
  The Artemisia is currently patrolling the Nimbus System, given that Hassan the Formerly Undying had set up shop here until he was killed two years ago, and there’s always a chance that he had some bolt-holes set up in case Melani needed a fallback position. The odds are low, I admit, but if she does show up here, we’ll be ready.
  
  I almost wish Sobaru were here to see this… but she gave her life so that we could make it this far.
  
  At least she left a legacy behind, even if I had to leave little Aya behind with Sobaru’s family. Black ops is no place to raise a child.
  
  But she will grow up in a peaceful galaxy, though. I swear it.
  
  
  The blunt-nosed strike ship was in an unpowered orbit, powered down to minimize any possible leakage through the cloak, floating amidst the slowly deorbiting debris of an Orion carrier caught in a Republic ambush several days earlier.
  
  As Commander Tiana Lanstar stared into space, a shape silhouetted against the drab planet caught her eye. She zoomed in and immediately wished she hadn’t: a green body with the telltales of extended vacuum exposure filled the viewscreen, a body too undamaged to have been blown out through a hull breach.
  
  “Clearly the reports of the Romulans spacing slavers weren’t exaggerated, sir,” her first officer Commander Maxwell said behind her, voice carefully neutral.
  
  Tiana scowled but didn’t reply, reverting the main viewscreen to the original panorama. Her Starfleet training was at war with memories of her brother, killed by Orion pirates nine years earlier.
  
  “Sir, I don’t see much point in sticking around here much longer,” Maxwell told her. “Republic Military Intelligence have had Nimbus under surveillance since Hassan was killed, that’s how the Fleet set up the ambush. There’s safer boltholes further towards the Rim: Erewhon, New Sydney, Turkana IV—”
  
  “Captain!” the Saurian Science Officer announced, getting her attention. “I’m getting something odd here.”
  
  “Talk to me,” Tiana replied, striding back to her Captain’s Chair.
  
  “It’s some kind of spacetime anomaly,” the Saurian replied. “I’m having trouble typing it, though - I can’t get clear readings for some reason.”
  
  “Location?” Tiana asked.
  
  “On the far side of the planet,” came the reply.
  
  Tiana pondered it for a moment, before she nodded. “Let’s check it out, just to be safe,” she announced. “All systems online. Helm, set a course and engage at full impulse.”
  
  “Yes, Ma’am,” came the replies, as the Artemisia powered up and began moving to investigate the anomaly.
  

  * * *

  
  The anomaly was revealed to be some kind of rift. As the Artemisia approached under cloak, a small shuttle emerged from the rift, which proceeded to close up behind it.
  
  “Report,” Tiana ordered.
  
  “The shuttle appears to be Cardassian in origin,” her Science Officer reported. “Though it seems to be equipped with specialized equipment you normally don’t find on a ship that size, particularly a Cardassian one.” she then turned to Tiana. “I’m also reading one lifesign aboard… it’s Bajoran.”
  
  Tiana pondered that a moment. The situation was getting stranger and stranger. “Drop the cloak,” she said after a moment. “And open a channel.”
  
  As the Artemisia rippled into view in front of the shuttle, the comm officer nodded to Tiana. “Unknown shuttle, this is Commander Tiana Lanstar of the USS Artemisia,” she announced. “Identify yourself.”
  
  The viewscreen changed to show the shuttle’s cockpit - clearly Cardassian in manufacture. It was the figure within that caused Tiana’s eyes to widen in shock.
  
  Female. Bajoran, as the scans had indicated. But that blue hair, those eyes, the shape of her face… It can’t be… Tiana thought to herself.
  
  “This is Kojami Sobaru, agent of the Obsidian Order,” the woman replied, with a voice Tiana thought she’d never hear again, but in a no-nonsense tone she had never heard from that voice before. “I require the Federation’s assistance in a matter of grave importance to both our universes, Commander. I request permission to come aboard.”
  

  * * *

  
  The shuttle was squared away in the Artemisia’s shuttlebay, and Tiana had brought Agent Kojami into the ship’s briefing room under guard, and proceeded to contact Admiral Yagami, as well - given her permission would be needed for any kind of strike mission.
  
  Agent Kojami, apparently, didn’t have that restriction: with a classification level of ‘Omega Black’ she could act on her own initiative. For a police state like Mirror Cardassia, and especially for their secret police the Obsidian Order, that degree of autonomy was obviously a sign of just how damn good she was at her job.
  
  “Around three months ago,” Agent Kojami was saying, “I intercepted a Terran Imperial Comm transmission, between one of the Imperials’ top military commanders, one Admiral Dearche K. Claudia, and someone who was simply called the Cardinal.”
  
  A pair of files appeared on the screen, one without a picture, the other of a woman with white hair. The woman seemed somewhat familiar to Tiana, but she couldn’t place it.
  
  “We don’t know much at all about the Cardinal, except that he seems to be the Terrans’ answer to Director Lang,” Agent Kojami briefed. Tia mentally filled that in as Natima Lang, head of the Obsidian Order. “Reportedly the head of Erinyes, a rumored super-black agency under the throne’s direct authority. We know a bit more about Admiral Claudia, though: ruthless, sadistic, and fanatically loyal to the Imperial cause. After Emperor James O’Brien was killed during the recent Vaadwaur War, Admiral Claudia was one of the first to swear her fealty to the new Empress Hitomi Maxwell.”
  
  “Vaadwaur War?” Tia queried.
  
  “Has it not happened on your side?”
  
  “Probably not in the same way,” Commander Maxwell hesitantly said.
  
  Tia caught Hayate’s eye and she nodded. “They’re a hair away from extinction over here,” she explained.
  
  “Hm. Well, after the… incident in Cardassian space with your USS Bajor back in Kilen”—Tia mentally translated that to the month of February—“we were on the verge of all-out war with the Terrans, but then this reptomammal species comes out of the Core and forces the entire quadrant to join forces to bring them down. Even the Breen and the Romulan Star Republic got involved, and that never happens. Anyway, the Vaads raided Earth and glassed the capital in Johannesburg, and good riddance to James II,” she added grimly. “Then the Eighth Fleet’s Admiral Maxwell drove them off and ‘asked’ the surviving members of Parliament to kindly name her empress so there wouldn’t be any ‘accidents’, and came up with a way to destroy the underspace corridors they were using to invade. We’ve since defeated the Supremacy’s remaining ships in detail.”
  
  “I see. So, back to the matter at hand, you said you intercepted a transmission between two of the highest-ranking individuals in the Terran Empire,” Hayate remarked. “What were they discussing?”
  
  “A plan to prepare the galaxy for Imperial conquest,” Agent Kojami replied. “Not just our galaxy, but yours, as well. And with some digging, I was able to determine how they plan to do it.”
  
  The two personnel files disappeared, to be replaced by a schematic. It looked like a zoomed in view of a microscopic organism, with a DNA strand nearby.
  
  “One of our agents, Gilora Rejal, managed to decode this file for me several days ago,” Agent Kojami continued. “It was encrypted with top-level command codes, but we got lucky—some idiot forgot that a one-time key is one time, period. This is a bacterial pathogen developed by the Terran Empire as a doomsday weapon. The base genome is a gram-positive staphylococcus, but they crossbred it with anthrax, added eight different toxins, and somehow got it to jump species. This bacterium targets all possible infection vectors—inhalation, ingestion, bloodstream, this thing will destroy anything it touches. It multiplies incredibly quickly, can encyst itself like anthrax, survives bleach, chlorine, heat and cold, and is resistant or immune to all known antibiotics. It can melt your flesh out from under your skin in a matter of days, destroy your lungs in less than a week, or eat your intestinal lining in about the same time. The worst part is, it affects every known vaguely humanoid species but Humans—we don’t know how they got it that specific, they must’ve gotten lucky several times in a row. Our biologists say that the chances of getting even the specificity of the species jumping is one in several thousand million.
  
  “Now, the positive side. This weapon represents a substantial amount of investment, time, and sheer luck for the Terran Empire. By which I mean, they keep all research notes on-site and would take decades to even get close to what they have here if they lost the site. If we can get in there on a stealth ship, we can destroy the facility and every last bit of the weapon, then hopefully escape intact. I need an independently-developed cloak because the Terrans can sniff ours—we stole it from them. Any questions?”
  
  “I do, Agent Kojami,” Hayate said, as her image, which had occupied only a corner of the screen before, now filled it. She then turned to look right at Tiana. “First, how soon can you be underway, Commander?”
  
  Tiana looked startled. “Me?” she asked.
  
  “Spec Ops Section 6 is much too scattered because of the hunt for Melani D’ian,” Hayate informed. “It’d take too long to assemble a fleet, or even assign another ship to go instead.” She sighed. “As much as I wish I could send someone with more experience dealing with that universe, you’re the one on site, the only one available, and most importantly, the Phantom-class is perfect for a raid like this. So, again, how soon can you get underway?”
  
  Tiana continued to look startled for a few moments, before her expression became determined. “I can leave anytime, Ma’am,” she said.
  
  “Very good,” Hayate replied. She turned to Agent Kojami. “Agent Kojami, do you have a reliable means of crossing dimensions?”
  
  “…In a way,” Agent Kojami said after a moment. “It’s a device commonly used by the Terran Empire, which we’ve managed to reverse engineer—it’s a dimensional rift generator, but it only works in areas where the boundaries are already weakened. I was lucky enough to find a temporary weakness here at Nimbus, but it was hard enough to open that I don’t want to risk taking a full ship through here.”
  
  “I see,” Hayate replied. “Do you know of any alternative locations?”
  
  “The Badlands,” Agent Kojami said without hesitation. “The fabric of spacetime is rather weak there for some reason, and I’ve learned that the Terran Empire has a base on their side, and they’re trying to establish a beachhead on this side, too.”
  
  Hayate frowned at this information. “Didn’t they learn their lesson the first time?” she grumbled. “I’ll pass the word to Starfleet Command; a quick strike by the fleets at DS9 and Trill should put a pin in it. In the meantime, the Badlands seem our best bet. Do your best, the both of you.”
  
  “Yes, Ma’am!” Tiana replied.
  
  Agent Kojami simply nodded.

  

  0
• takeshi6 Member Posts: 752 Arc User

  January 2017 edited January 2017

  Dreaming of Your Face, Part 1.5

  
  
  “OK, I think I have something,” the Science Officer informed as she worked at a console in the science lab. Being a small combat escort, Artemisia’s facilities were limited; Lieutenant Bimal had had to rope in an Academy classmate working at Starfleet Medical for some of the analysis.
  
  Agent Kojami looked over from another console. “Yeah, that looks like it would work,” she remarked. “Rather ingenious, too - who would have thought that this thing’s protein coat could be disrupted by simple hydrogen peroxide?”
  
  “Yeah,” Bimal agreed. “Seriously, they spend so much time and money on this, and it can be defeated by one of the oldest antiseptics in the toolkit.”
  
  “Probably too simple for them to think of,” Agent Kojami said as she turned back to her console.
  
  
  “Anyway, at least we have a way to disinfect contaminated surfaces. Still, easiest way to deal with this thing looks to be excessive heat, meaning blowing the facility will pretty much vaporize it.”
  
  Kojami raised an eyebrow. “The file says it’s heat-resistant.”
  
  “Natural planetary heat, sure,” Bimal agreed; “in cyst form it’ll withstand up to about 338 Kelvins. Heat from a detonating fusion bottle or weapons fire, though? Not so much.”
  
  “That’s fair enough. Nice to know that we have a backup, though.”
  
  Agent Kojami looked up again as the door to the lab opened, and the Commander walked in. “Commander Lanstar,” she greeted.
  
  “Agent Kojami,” Tiana replied with a brief nod, before turning to the science officer. “Please tell me we have some kind of counter agent for a worst-case scenario.”
  
  As the Saurian woman began to explain what the two had figured out and discovered, Agent Kojami returned to her work, only to feel someone’s gaze on her. Turning in the direction of the gaze, she saw Commander Lanstar quickly turning her attention back to the Science Officer, blushing slightly.
  
  What was that about? Agent Kojami thought. She didn’t get much chance to find out, as Commander Lanstar ducked out a short time later, saying she had something to check up on.
  
  Agent Kojami only barely caught the final glimpse Commander Lanstar sent her way before leaving, and her eyes narrowed.
  

  ***

  
  USS Artemisia, Captain’s Quarters, 2100 hours
  
  Tiana sat in her quarters, thinking about the mission. Her assault teams and a MACO unit they’d borrowed from a passing ship were drilling in the ship’s only holodeck, the cloak was holding, and it seemed they had some decent countermeasures to stop this bioweapon.
  
  With a sigh, she let her thoughts drift away from the mission, which seemed to be going well, and drifted to the woman she just couldn’t avoid.
  
  Agent Kojami Sobaru.
  
  She knew Kojami was different from her Sobaru - that was almost blatantly obvious. Sobaru was devoutly religious, a Bajoran Reformist - hell, she’d helped convert Tia herself to the Bajoran faith - while Agent Kojami had yet to even mention the Prophets. Sobaru was energetic, finding joy in the simple things of life, while Agent Kojami seemed a hardcore cynic.
  
  And yet, they ate the same way. Their eyes held a similar vibrance. Their voices sounded the same. And they reacted the same way to so many ordinary circumstances. It… it was almost enough to convince her that Kojami was just Sobaru having come back to her, and her feelings just…
  
  She shook her head. She couldn’t just go starting a relationship because the woman was a doppelgänger of her wife. She had to talk to her, see what Kojami thought about this, and preferably before they reached the facility and Tiana’s emotional turmoil affected the actual assault.
  
  She was pulled out of her thoughts when the door chime went off. “Come in,” she called out, wondering who would be wanting to see her at this time of night.
  
  She was answered when the door opened, and, speak of the devil, Agent Kojami stepped in. “Commander Lanstar,” she greeted.
  
  “Agent Kojami,” Tiana replied, forcing down the feelings that arose from seeing Agent Kojami’s face. “How can I help you?”
  
  “Do you have some kind of issue with me?” Agent Kojami asked bluntly.
  
  This took Tiana aback. “Huh?” she asked. “Why would you think that?”
  
  “Every time we’re in a room together, you avert your eyes, conversation is… difficult to coax out of you, and you make an excuse to leave the room in short order,” Agent Kojami explained. “I have tried to work past it, but for this operation to succeed, we need to trust each other… and I am not sure you trust me.”
  
  Tiana took a few moments to ponder this, and then sighed. “No… it’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said, walking over to her desk. “It’s… it’s myself I don’t trust… or rather, my reactions around you.”
  
  Agent Kojami blinked. “Come again?” she asked.
  
  “You see… I… I knew the you that was native to this universe,” she said, picking up a picture from the desk. “I… knew her quite well, in fact.”
  
  Walking back to Agent Kojami, she showed her the picture - it was of Tiana and Sobaru, taken the day of their wedding.
  
  Agent Kojami’s eyes widened. “I… see…” she said.
  
  “Sobaru… she… she was the first person to ever truly break through a shell I’d built around myself after the death of my older brother,” Tiana said. “She… she helped me to move on… to use a term from your people on this side, she… she held the missing half of my pagh. I loved her greatly…”
  
  “What… what happened to her?” Agent Kojami asked. At Tiana’s downcast look, though, she knew. “I, I’m sor—”
  
  “Don’t be,” Tiana replied. “She… she died protecting the ideals of the Federation, and she left a legacy behind, one that I carried for several months.”
  
  Agent Kojami’s eyes widened again. “I… I see…” she said.
  
  “I… I thought I’d gotten over her death,” Tiana said. “Thinking about it didn’t hurt anymore, I was making a galaxy for our daughter to grow up in peace… I was even considering moving on, and beginning to date again.” She looked at Agent Kojami, and for the first time, she made eye contact with the Bajoran agent, letting her see the various emotions roiling under the surface. “Then I see you with her face… hear her voice from your mouth… all my feelings just come back in a rush… even though I know you’re not her… and…!”
  
  At that point, Tiana felt a hand lightly grip her chin as Agent Kojami leaned in, an uncertain smile on her face, before their lips met…
  

  ***

  
  The Terran facility at Kapteyn’s Star was one of the Empire’s most carefully-kept state secrets. Unlike the military high command of the Terran Empire, who preferred massed fleets with superior numbers, Imperial state security preferred to defend their sites with extreme secrecy and small guard patrols. In the infinite void of space, and especially here in the particular emptiness of the galactic halo, it had a peculiar efficiency under normal circumstances. The picket at the base consisted of a single Defiant-class destroyer and a Rome-class battleship, both currently in open space near the base with their shields down. Three straight years of no Alliance attacks, safely within Imperial space—the commanders of these vessels thought themselves invincible, and the base’s commander was too distracted by the virus project to reprimand them.
  
  It would have been unfortunate for the careers of both men, had they not died in the first volley, to have to report this failure to High Command. A black-hulled Federation Phantom-class stealth destroyer tore out of warp and cloak simultaneously less than five hundred kilometers off, knife-fight distance, launching high-yield bio-molecular torpedoes into the Terran vessels as its main cannons raked them with spreads of phaser fire. The ISS Ivan Krasnov rolled in space, hull shedding debris, and then its warp core ignited and the ship disappeared in an eye-searing flash. The battleship’s shields sparked to life as the officer of the watch scrambled to respond, cutting off the phasers of the sleek warship as they snapped over the hull.
  
  The Artemisia swooped by like a hunting falcon, maneuvering thrusters firing like sparks of lightning as it spun around in space with lightning speed. The battleship’s phaser banks glowed hot and fired a broadside on automatic targeting, tearing into the lighter vessel’s shields. Shields wavering, the battleship’s own shields holding strong under the phaser assault from the strike ship, the smaller vessel rolled, causing the second volley to splash across the ventral shields. The strike ship flipped back over with lightning grace and the pilot gunned the engines, tearing through the battleship’s own shields with the aft battery as it blazed past. The panicked junior communications officer in nominal command of the battleship tried to turn and cross the T, but with heavy hull damage, a nonfunctional engine, and a flight deck in flaming chaos, the ordinarily graceful vessel was a lumbering mass of metal against the smaller destroyer. The Phantom-class spun again and flipped, and launched a full volley from its phaser cannons, stripping the already-weak shields, and burned across the hull. Two phasers lashed out, but secondary fire cut into the hull, destabilizing the warp core; the engineering crew rushed to SCRAM the core before it could blow.
  
  Ten seconds later the ISS Berlin’s first officer finally reached the bridge and ordered the watch officer to transmit a general mayday, and then an offer of surrender, as warp plasma and unspent reactants belched from the vents on the crippled warship’s secondary hull.
  

  ***

  
  “Assault Team and Agent Kojami have beamed over to the facility, Ma’am,” the Operations Officer reported.
  
  “Understood,” Tiana replied. “Keep me appraised of their progress.”
  
  Good luck, Sobaru… Tiana thought to herself, remembering the night of passion the two had shared after she’d laid everything before the Bajoran. She might not have been the same Sobaru she had known in the Academy, but… she had fallen deeply for this Sobaru, possibly even more than she had hers.
  
  Her thoughts were broken by Bimal speaking up. “Ma’am… I’m picking up something strange,” she said.
  
  Tiana’s eyes narrowed. “Strange how?” she asked.
  
  “It’s an intermittent signal from that battleship, but it doesn’t seem to be an official response over the comms,” the Saurian replied. “If anything… I’d say it’s coming from deep inside the ship.”
  
  “That is strange,” Tiana agreed. “What’s the message?”
  
  “That’s even stranger,” Bimal replied. “There’s no text or words at all. Just three short tones, three long tones, and three more short tones, repeating every five seconds…” The Saurian’s voice trailed off as she realized what it was. “Ma’am, it’s an SOS signal!!”
  
  Tiana had come to that exact same conclusion. “Have Security Team 1 beam over,” she ordered. “Beam them as close to the signal as you can, have them locate the source, and figure out just why someone would send us an SOS.”
  

  ***

  
  ISS Berlin, Conscripted Crewmen’s quarters
  
  The woman sat there, cradling her hastily jury-rigged beacon and clinging to it like a lifeline.
  
  She didn’t want to spend another day on this ship, being… ‘used’ at the whims of the crew. She’d been trying to work her way up the ranks, possibly kill the current Captain’s Woman and take her place - she certainly had the good looks for it - but hadn’t had much luck. But now, with that Federation ship out there, she’d realized she had another potential way out.
  
  There was a commotion outside. The woman looked up, shoving the beacon back into the corner of her cot and trying to cover it with her body as the other conscripts stuck in this hellhole “dormitory” scrambled back to their own cots and hammocks. She grabbed one of her boots from beside the bed, she needed to look natural…
  
  The door hissed open, and Commissar Kolontayev was shoved in, stumbling and falling onto his back as a massive humanoid form in sleek grey powered armor strode into the room after him. Two more armored soldiers followed, both in the same grey armor and bearing—the woman nearly sobbed with relief—the unmistakeable chevron of the United Federation of Planets.
  
  “I told you, there would be no reason for one of our conscripts to send a distress signal!” the Commissar snarled, standing and trying to brush himself off. “I know that you don’t have enough men for a prize crew, Lieutenant, so let’s not make this—”
  
  The big man pointed a jet-black phaser rifle at Kolontayev’s chest. “Shut up.” The woman blinked—the huge soldier was female. Kolontayev squawked with outrage, but quieted, red-faced.
  
  The two smaller soldiers moved in, one holstering their rifle and pulling out a scanner. “Lieutenant Mbali, the signal’s definitely coming from—over there, behind that woman.”
  
  “Keep an eye on this b*stard,” the massive Mbali ordered the soldier with the scanner, who drew a pistol and held it to Kolontayev’s head. Mbali’s visor pulled back to reveal a Human face darker than the woman had ever seen. “Easy, there, ma’am, I’m not going to hurt you. What’s your name and rank?”
  
  “F… Flores, mistress. Elisa Flores, Conscript Crewman.”
  
  “Nice to meet you, Crewman Flores, I’m Lieutenant Mbali, Federation MACOs. I presume that you want to defect?”
  
  Elisa nodded so fast her head nearly came off. Kolontayev snarled, but quieted as the pistol dug into his skull. Mbali smiled. “Easy, there. We’ll take you, we run on a small crew so there’s space if you don’t mind sleeping in the cargo hold for a few days. Petty Officer Mosakowska!”
  
  “Sir?”
  
  “Contact the Captain, tell her we’ve got about… ten defectors. Seven humans, two Trill, and an Andorian. You all are coming?” The conscripts nodded as one, desperately. “Anyone else?”
  
  Flores hesitated. “We… I don’t know, mistress.”
  
  “Call me sir. I’m nobody’s mistress,” Mbali cut in.
  
  “...Yes, sir. We’re just conscripts, from untermensch races. I don’t even know how many of us there are. We’re just here to be used for whatever the officers need us for—repairs, errands, pleasure.”
  
  “Wait, what?” Mbali’s eyes hardened and she snapped a glare at Kolontayev. “You seriously use your slave soldiers for sex?” She sounded like she’d eaten something rotten. “Tell me how many there are and where they are, or you die.”
  
  Kolontayev spat. “You wouldn’t dare, Federation weakl—” He stopped in midsentence as Mbali suddenly touched the emitter tip of her phaser rifle to the bridge of his nose.
  
  “Watch me, *sshole. Where are they and how many?”
  
  Kolontayev snarled again, straining against Nalas’s arm.
  
  “Five. Four. Three. Two. One…”
  
  “Alright!” Kolontayev spat. “There are three more barracks, one down the hall and two in the same positions on the other side of the starship.”
  
  “None of the ground troops are conscripts? You people may have working brains after all.”
  
  “You can’t use chicanos and halfbreeds and subhumans as soldiers,” Kolontayev sneered. “They’re not loyal enough. Besides, it’d be like using pure humans of the superior races as grunts. Ridiculous.”
  
  “Stun him before I change my mind about letting him live,” snapped Mbali. “Artemisia, security team. We’ve got ten defectors and probably more once we check the other conscript barracks. They’re enslaved conscripts who want out.”
  
  “Understood, security team, we’ll send over backup in two minutes. Try not to stay too long once they’re over.”
  
  “Yes, sir. Security team out.” Mbali turned to Nalas, who was shoving the unconscious Kolontayev beneath a cot. “Don’t kick him in the balls too many times while he’s out.” She looked around the room, raising an eyebrow at the propaganda posters on the walls, most of which showed three Humans, two clean-shaven and one with a pencil mustache, holding swords and staring into the distance. “You guys having a revanchist phase?”
  
  “Yes, Mist—sir. The new Empress seeks to follow the might of the First Terran Empire before the traitor Spock weakened it. Most of the new posters have Hitler, Colonel Green, or Czar Krasnov on them.”
  
  “Krasnov?” Mosakowska snarled. “Ivan Kirilivich Krasnov? Russian dictator, mid-21st century?”
  
  “Y… yes, sir. I think so.”
  
  “You people make posters of the Russian Butcher?”
  
  “Easy, Petty Officer,” snapped Mbali. “She’s not responsible for any of it, and you’re scaring her.”
  
  “Yes, Lieutenant,” growled Mosakowska.
  
  “Hey, in this universe my people are allied with the Cardassians,” Nalas interjected. “If anything’s weird, that is.”
  

  * * *

  
  Sobaru yanked her head back into cover as phaser fire snapped past. “Phekk! We’re outnumbered!”
  
  “Agent Kojami?”
  
  “We destroyed the files, but we’re two lab blocks from the production facility!”
  
  “Can we get reinforcements there?”
  
  “No-go, Commander, there’s some sort of transport jammer over the facility itself. The original beam-in point is still accessible, but the strength grows closer into the core of the facility!”
  
  “Dammit…” Sobaru could hear Tia growl. “Sobaru, we’ll have to take the risk, I want you to pull out.”
  
  “Negative, Commander! I can still make it, just two more doors do—aargh!”
  
  “Sobaru? Sobaru!”
  
  

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  

  0
• takeshi6 Member Posts: 752 Arc User

  January 2017

  Dreaming of Your Face, Part 2

  
  

  Out on the silent battlefield,
  When the killing work is done and the crimson haze has gone,
  Still lies the deadly sword I wield
  And I’m dreaming of your face, have begun to count the days
  
  But I fear to face a dreadful fate
  I am afraid to lose the one I cherish
  
  No sun is shining in the sky
  On wings of madness we will fly
  We can’t cross the distance
  Away from reason
  No sun is shining in your eyes
  A shadow growing in disguise
  I can’t stand the silence
  Embracing you at night
  
  Here in the corners of my mind
  Is a constant, longing scream, like an echo of a dream
  Oh there is always peace to find
  In a drop of blood that shines while a lonesome creature whines
  
  Can I save you from a dreadful fate,
  I am afraid to lose the one I cherish
  
  No sun is shining in the sky
  On wings of madness we will fly
  We can’t cross the distance
  Away from reason
  No sun is shining in your eyes
  A shadow growing in disguise
  I can’t stand the silence
  Embracing you at night
  
  I see you dancing with your demons
  
  No sun is shining in the sky
  On wings of madness we will fly
  We can’t cross the distance
  Away from reason
  No sun is shining in your eyes
  A shadow growing in disguise
  I can’t stand the silence
  Embracing you
  
  No sun is shining in the sky
  On wings of madness we will fly
  I can’t stand the silence
  Embracing you at night
  — “Wings of Madness” by Serenity

  
  
  “Sobaru!!” Tia’s voice called out over the comm. “Sobaru, are you there?! Answer me!!”
  
  Agent Kojami Sobaru swam into consciousness, trauma lights flashing in a completely unnecessary warning that the leg that felt like it’d been crushed by an explosion and filled with shrapnel by a grenade had in fact been crushed by an explosion and filled with shrapnel by a grenade.
  
  “Guh, oh wraithspawn,” Sobaru muttered. “Agent Kojami here! We’re pinned down!”
  
  “Sobaru! OK, can you make it to the laboratory? Your suit’s sending injury readings…”
  
  “I can’t make it, my leg is phekk’sha ran,” Sobaru gasped. A phaser autoturret raked across the corridor to her right, and she ducked back with a hiss. “Aah! Oh, wraithspawn. Get down, they have a turret!”
  
  “Can anyone else take the peroxide and charges in?”
  
  Sobaru did a quick head count, and her heart sank. “I don’t have the numbers anymore, we lost too many men pushing through the last blockade, three injuries and one critical. Tia, listen to me. The only other way to destroy the virus is an antimatter warhead from a photon torpedo, destroying the entire facility. I knew the risks going in, I want you to…”
  
  “To the Wraiths with that, I’m not leaving you to die!”
  
  “This is not an argument! The Alliance is in jeopardy here, if we don’t destroy this facility billions will die!”
  
  Tia cursed under her breath, barely audible on the comm system. “I am not leaving you behind! It’s not the Federation’s way and I am not losing you again! Just hold on for ten more seconds, I’m sending you help!”
  
  Sobaru cursed under her breath as she jerked back behind cover, her leg a twisted ruin under mangled armor. “Shoot the facility already, they’ve got MACOs in power armor in here!” A Federation crewman screamed over coms as Terran weapons fire scored through his shields.
  
  “Reinforcements inbound, just hold on!”
  
  “Phekk!” Sobaru ducked her head as the roof exploded—fortunately, the Federation teams were already on suitborne oxygen, and Sobaru’s suit was advanced enough to seal in response to the breach that had resulted from the shrapnel wounds to her leg, but the debris raining down would still hurt.
  
  “MACO Two-One-Seven deployed,” a rough female voice announced over the comm system. “Sorry about the delay, there was a little confusion over one of the Terran ships, we shot a commissar and stuffed him under a cot, usual business.” Four armored forms landed through the hole, parachutes folding neatly back into the onboard storage compartments. Terran weapons fire scored their shields, and another voice cursed.
  
  “Lieutenant, they’ve upgraded their tech from what the Bajor team recorded in February, those phasers are Herald-level.”
  
  “Take cover, then—Nalas, take care of the casualties!”
  
  “Sir!”
  
  Sobaru tried to pull herself up, wincing, as one of the smaller MACOs scuttled over in a crouch. “I’ve got the peroxide on me, do you have your tac plot updated?”
  
  “Updated on the way down from the shuttle,” the squad leader confirmed. “Mosie, cover me!” The hulking woman leaned out from her makeshift cover and snapped off a series of shots, sending a Terran ducking down below their barricade.
  
  “Do we have a plan for evac or has the Commander finally decided that the mission’s worth more than me?”
  
  “We take out the transporter dampeners—those are in the next room, if the tac plot’s anything close to accurate—and then we nuke the facility from orbit.” Mosakowska yelped as Terran fire fizzed against the bulkhead she was using as cover. “Watch yourself!”
  
  “We’re going to need to breach that barricade, then,” Sobaru pointed out. “Do you have heavy weapons?”
  
  The Lieutenant hissed. “Just grenades, can’t use a missile launcher indoors.”
  
  “So what’s the plan?”
  
  “Well, they’ve upgraded their tech, looks like Vaad guns more than anything—but so have we. Our armor has shielding upgraded with Herald tech.”
  
  “Herald?”
  
  “You don’t—oh, wait, you probably didn’t have an Iconian War. Lucky TRIBBLE. Long story short, the shields are a lot more advanced than anything they’re likely to have.” The Lieutenant signalled to Mosakowska. “Alright, Mosie, Nalas, Hemingway, we do a staggered advance. Can you cover us from here, Kojami?”
  
  Sobaru gripped her phaser and levered herself a few inches further up. “Of course. I’m Obsidian Order, aren’t I? Anything for the homeland.”
  
  “That is never going to stop sounding crazy… alright, go, move!”
  
  Sobaru leaned out as Mbali charged five steps forwards, dropped to her knee, and pulled up her gun to finish off a Terran MACO as Sobaru’s spread fire dropped his shields. “Their armor’s good, but no more advanced than ours,” the agent noted.
  
  “Good,” the Lieutenant replied tersely, snapping off potshots as the next two MACOs ran up, kneeling five paces ahead of her and raising their own guns to cover the barricade. “Nalas, last one.”
  
  “Lucky t’Vath gets to be in Sickbay for this…” one of the MACOs, presumably Nalas, muttered as he advanced. He knelt about ten feet from the barricade, and Sobaru squeezed off another shot, sparking against the shields of a Terran, who quickly ducked back down. “Next time, I’m getting Tarkalean flu…”
  
  “Eyes on the prize, Nalas, we can b*tch later. Mosie, Hemingway, let’s do this.”
  
  The three MACOs stood, charging the barricade. Three Terrans popped up; Nalas and Sobaru nailed one, whose helmet erupted, its owner collapsing backwards in a death spasm as his suit decompressed, but the other two sprayed heavy fire into the advancing Federation troops.
  
  “Shields down!” the one called Mosakowska cried. The Lieutenant slammed into the barricade, cracking through the pitted, burn-scarred plastic, and crashed into one of the Terrans, sending him sprawling. Hemingway and Mosakowska’s fire downed another, as Nalas rose, but then the other two Terrans stood, one unclipping something from a bandolier.
  
  “GRENADE!” screamed Sobaru, bringing the shields of one of the Terrans down with a high-level burst from her phaser. The Lieutenant and Hemingway dropped and rolled sideways, Mosakowska stumbling back into a partial turn aside, just before the frag grenade went off and blew her sideways, slamming into the wall head-first.
  
  “You son of a B*TCH!” the Lieutenant yelled, shooting the Terran three times in the face as Sobaru did the same, the agent’s phaser finally running dry. The Terran’s head briefly caught fire as his helmet melted, but then the oxygen burned off and his charred corpse collapsed. Nalas and Hemingway brought the other Terran down with concentrated fire seconds later.
  
  “Is she alright?” asked Sobaru.
  
  “Vitals flatlined,” the Lieutenant snarled. “Son of a B*TCH! Nalas! Get through this room and blow the transporter dampeners, now!”
  
  “Yes, sir!”
  
  Sobaru tabbed her communicator as the Lieutenant, she still hadn’t caught the massive woman’s name, executed the downed Terran before he could stand. “Artemisia, this is Agent Kojami. We’re going to need immediate beam-out, two more dead since my last report!”
  
  “We read you,” came Tia’s voice over the comm. “Torpedoes ready, we’re still receiving suit telemetry.”
  
  “Fire in the hole!” shouted Nalas, and the MACO sprinted out of the door ahead moments before an explosion sent a brief burst of fire out the door.
  

  ***

  
  Tia Lanstar gripped her armrest frantically, trying desperately to avoid looking at the increasingly grim readouts from the assault teams’ suits. Come on, Sobaru…
  
  “Transporter dampeners are down,” the sensor officer reported. “That’s not going to last forever, though!”
  
  “Transport them out now!” Tia ordered. There was a moment of silence, then…
  
  “Transporter room here, I have them, Captain!”
  
  “Good work.” Tia turned to Kavirsa at the conn and nodded. “Open fire.”
  
  Five high-yield bio-molecular photon torpedoes streaked out from Artemisia’s torpedo launchers, each equipped with a warhead capable of destroying a city in an instant. All five hit within a hundred meters of the virus production facility, the nano-disassemblers in the warheads disintegrating it, eating away the very rock, the warheads themselves finally releasing over five hundred petajoules of energy in a self-destructive neutron cascade, and the entire area vanished in a titanic explosion.
  
  Artemisia wheeled in space, swooping low to catch the returning shuttle before shimmering out of existence and leaving nothing but a tachyon trace as she leapt to warp.
  

  * * *

  
  USS Artemisia, Ready Room
  
  Tia was seated at her desk, composing her report to Admiral Yagami, when the door chime rang. “Enter,” she called.
  
  The door opened, and one of the Terrans they’d rescued from the battle cruiser came in. “Commander,” she greeted.
  
  “At ease, Crewman, erm… Flores, right?” Tia asked.
  
  “Yes, Ma’am. Elisa Flores.”
  
  Tia nodded. “What can I do for you, Miss Flores?”
  
  “I wanted to thank you for getting me out of that hellhole, Ma’am,” Elisa replied. “I… I hated that place, and the TRIBBLE inside.”
  
  Tia nodded. “I’ve heard tales from Agent Kojami about what Terran officers do to women,” she said. “Not to mention your own testimony. Even if we weren’t blowing the place up, I wouldn’t have left you there.”
  
  Elisa sighed with relief. “Thank you, Commander,” she said.
  
  “Needless to say you and the others have a bulletproof case for asylum—”
  
  “Ma’am, I want to join Starfleet if, if I can.”
  
  “Really?” Tia gave her a questioning look.
  
  “I can earn my way, but you got me out of there and—”
  
  Tia quickly nodded. “I understand. If you’re sure, I have the authority to swear you in as a provisional crewman, subject to command review of course.”
  
  Elisa nodded, with a small smile on her face. “Thank you,” she said.
  
  Tia looked through the datapad that contained Elisa’s record. “I’m not getting much information on your specialty from this,” she remarked. “They essentially treated you as a Jill-of-all-trades when not using you as… erm…” She grimaced as she tried to phrase the words ‘sex slave’ politely.
  
  She didn’t have to, as Elisa shivered, easily guessing what Tia was thinking about. “Yes, Ma’am,” she said. “Though I personally preferred flying shuttlecraft compared to any other task.”
  
  Tia nodded, and smiled. “Well, if you’d be willing to learn something bigger, we can train you in as a helmswoman for the Artemisia,” she told her. “You’d start as an acting warrant officer: you’d be a noncom and mainly taking the helm on Beta or Gamma Shift, but if you perform well enough, you might get assigned to Alpha Shift. You can apply for the Acad—for ROTC later,” she quickly corrected herself. They’d barely begun rebuilding the Presidio.
  
  Elisa grinned. “Thank you, Ma’am,” she replied. “I think that would be great.”
  
  Tia stood, smiled, and shook Elisa’s hand. “Welcome to the Artemisia,” she said.
  

  * * *

  
  USS Artemisia, Shuttlebay
  
  Sobaru stood on the boarding ramp of her shuttle. Tia was standing in front of her.
  
  “Are… are you sure you have to leave, Sobaru…?” Tia asked, a few tears glistening in her eyes.
  
  “I’m sure, Tia,” Sobaru replied. “You need to return to your duties, and I need to report to director Lang and get my next mission.” She smiled. “I… I won’t forget you, though…”
  
  Tia smiled, then stepped forward, embracing Sobaru and kissing her passionately, a kiss that Sobaru returned.
  
  A moment later, they reluctantly parted. “Prophets willing, we’ll meet again,” Tia whispered.
  
  “We will meet again, I know it,” Sobaru replied. “I don’t know how long it will be, though… so… if… if you find someone who can keep you happy during the times we’re apart, I… I won’t get jealous…”
  
  “Umm… I… Uhh…” Tia stammered, blushing furiously, even as the shuttlebay operator nearby facepalmed at what was going on.
  
  Sobaru smiled, stepping into the shuttle. “Until we meet again… Tia…”
  
  Tia stepped back, allowing the shuttle’s entry ramp to close. A moment later, the shuttle hovered above the deck, and moved forward into the void, as Tia watched her soul mate fly away, knowing that they would meet again… but not knowing when…
  

  * * *

  
  “Merde. The Federation, working with the Alliance again?” the Cardinal grumbled.
  
  “Clearly they took offense to our bioweapon research,” Admiral Dearche K. Claudia replied. “I’ve had teams go through the debris - there’s no surviving specimens, and all the data has been purged from the computer cores - which were then apparently destroyed before they blew up the base.”
  
  “Well, I give them full marks for diligence, but this will set Her Imperial Majesty’s plans back decades, whatever they are.”
  
  “Agreed.” Dearche scowled. “At least she won’t kill the messenger outright, unlike the last emperor.”
  
  The Cardinal gave a bark of laughter without mirth. “I’d almost prefer it. James O’Brien was as psychotic as Caligula, but he was also a weak idiot and he stayed out of our way. Maxwell frightens me.”
  
  Dearche chuckled. “Maybe, but when she came back from that reconnaissance run to Bajor with fire powers and apparent agelessness, it wasn’t a question of if she was taking the throne, but when. Backing her was the correct decision.”
  
  “But if the Empire must rely on alien… magics to survive, then what was the point?”
  
  “You surprise me, Jean-Luc, it’s not like you to express doubts like this.”
  
  The old man hissed through his teeth. “My office is loyal to the office of the empress, Dearche, and never doubt my commitment to my duty. But at every step, we have to consider the consequences of our decisions: there is always a cost. I suggest you ask yourself, exactly what did she promise these… Pah-Wraiths in return for their gifts, for her augmentations and the closure of the Vaadwaurs’ invasion routes?”
  
  “Given the plans for next month’s naval exercise, it could be an attack on the Bajoran Ascendancy: they do come from Bajor, after all.”
  
  “And that would mean a war for which we’re as ill-prepared as the Alliance. Understand, no matter what happens, we are soldiers of the Imperium Terrae, and our duty must always be to the Empire first, not to the particular TRIBBLE sitting on the throne. No matter how attractive that TRIBBLE might be,” he added thoughtfully, and rubbed the back of his bald head with one hand. Dearche stifled a groan at the old man’s remark and waited for him to continue his thought. “Rulers may come and go, but humanity must survive. We failed once before, after Spock; we cannot allow it again. At the moment, I do believe Maxwell is our best option. But if that changes, if the cost of loyalty is too high…”
  
  Dearche’s mouth fell open. “The head of Erinyes, contemplating treason?”
  
  “Treason against a ruler, yes. Treason against the Empire? That’s something completely different.”
  
  “True,” Dearche admitted. “Still, I trust the Empress’ judgement in these matters.” She didn’t admit that it was because of Empress Maxwell that she was where she was today… that it was thanks to her that she was even alive - she kept her past a secret for a reason, after all.
  
  “Are you sure of that? She’s doing an admirable job of ensuring that she either won’t be overthrown, or that the Empire will be destroyed by civil war if she is. The rumors of purges in Starfleet’s officer corps and the Administratum don’t tell the half of it: I haven’t seen this many people disappeared since the Cardassians. And all the new members of Parliament she appointed since she glassed Johannesburg are in her pocket.” The Cardinal paused, giving her a surprised look. “Oh, you didn’t know the Vaadwaur attack on Earth was a false-flag operation?”
  
  Dearche winced. “I suspected. It should’ve been harder for them to break through our defenses. But remember, James O’Brien killed his own father when he nuked New Geneva.”
  
  “They’re both monsters, do not misunderstand me; monsters as ruthless as we are, and very fine representatives of the Terran ideal. But O’Brien could be managed, the Empire survived his death with relative ease. Maxwell is making herself synonymous with the Empire, and that is what my oath demands that I guard against.” The bald man tapped a replicator panel to his side. “Tea, Earl Grey, hot.”
  
  “Earl Grey?”
  
  “A recipe I discovered in one of my vacations. An old thing from the sub-optimal state of Britain on Terra.” The Cardinal sipped from his mug with a raised eyebrow. “Surprised? Even the sub-optimal and inferior breeds have their perks. How do you think that the German degenerates were able to last so long against Le Maréchal Moliere in the Unification Wars? Our agency is bound to secure the eternal legacy of Hitler, Krasnov, and Sato—the methods are not specified.”
  
  “I suppose that you have a point,” Claudia admitted. “But using the tactics of sub-optimals and subhumans? Treason?”
  
  “Against a ruler. Loyalty to the Empire, as I stated—loyalty that is in no way reduced by using the means of sub-optimals for our ends. A position that you and Her Majesty seem to share.” He sipped the tea again as Dearche hesitantly nodded. “The loss of this project is a regrettable setback. I suppose that Operation Sammael may now be necessary. May I count on your support for the deployment of a similarly… pragmatic weapon in the future?”
  
  “Of course.”
  
  “Excellent.” The Cardinal finished his tea and set the container aside. “Farewell, Admiral.” The screen went black, the spy likely off to reevaluate contingency plans and execute someone for incompetence.
  
  As Dearche stared at the blank monitor for a few moments more, her mind flashed upon an image - that of a nine-year-old, brown-haired girl cowering in fear as Alliance weapons razed settlements from orbit, her parents buried in rubble nearby.
  
  ‘No,’ she thought vehemently, shaking her head. ‘I am not that weak little girl anymore. Hayate Yagami no longer exists.
  
  ‘I am Dearche Kings Claudia, Admiral in the Terran Starfleet.
  
  ‘And for saving me from that hellhole of a homeworld and the Alliance bombardment that made it a hellhole, I will gladly serve Empress Maxwell until my dying breath.’

  

  0
• starswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User

  March 2017 edited March 2017

  All right, since it's been almost two full years since I started this fic, I'm reposting it in full here instead of its original thread in ULC 9.
  

  Two Sides of a Coin
  Adapted from Foundry Mission “The Interwarp Experiment” by AstroRobLA

  There’s some things I should’ve said
  I was too afraid
  It was just so hard to let you know
  And now it’s all too late
  
  What we had was beautiful
  I didn’t wanna wreck it all
  Every day, I think about the truth
  
  I wish I was
  I wish I was
  Brave enough to love you
  Brave enough to love you
  I wish I was
  I wish I was
  Brave enough to love you
  Brave enough, brave enough, brave enough to love you
  
  Stripped away the walls I built
  Like no one ever has
  The hardest part is we’ll never know
  If we were meant to last
  
  What we had was beautiful
  I didn’t wanna wreck it all
  Every day, I think about the truth
  
  I wish I was
  I wish I was
  Brave enough to love you
  Brave enough to love you
  I wish I was
  I wish I was
  Brave enough to love you
  Brave enough, brave enough, brave enough to love you
  
  Brave enough to love you
  Brave enough to love you
  I wish I was
  I wish I was
  Brave enough to love you
  Brave enough, brave enough, brave enough to love you
  — “Brave Enough” by Lindsey Stirling, feat. Christina Perri

  
  I materialize in the transporter room of the USS Destiny and a Bolian in a CO’s white-on-black snaps to attention. I guess it’s because of the gold braid that’s been added to my service uniform recently for the Karagite Order of Heroism; I’m pretty sure she has seniority. “Captain Merkell. Permission to come aboard?”
  
  “Granted, Captain Kanril,” Traes Merkell assents, and I step off the transporter pad into the Defiant-class escort’s cramped interior. “I’m honored to finally meet you,” she says, stepping forward to shake my hand.
  
  I gesture to the trio behind me. “My XO, Commander Phohl, my ops officer, Lieutenant Commander Reshek, and my science officer, Commander Riyannis.”
  
  “Sial’alachua, Commander,” Captain Merkel says to Tess, brushing a hand across her bald blue temple.
  
  “I appreciate the gesture, but wrong greeting,” Tess answers with a sardonic smile. “Imperial Andorii isn't my first language—I’m from the Adris Islands, not Lor’Vela Oblast.”
  
  “Sorry. I’ve got several Andorians on my crew and I guessed.”
  
  Tess shrugs. “Well, at least you pronounced it right.”
  
  “So what’s this about?” I ask. “The admiral was pretty tight-lipped: all I got was a destination and a code word, EXCALIBUR MINT GATEWAY, and Starfleet Intelligence wouldn’t clear me for the file.”
  
  "Sorry about that; Commander Dalton insisted. This experiment’s really taking a toll. As you can see the Destiny’s little more than a science experiment at the moment.”
  
  “Yeah, I had some questions about… Wait,” I stop in mid-sentence. “Dalton? What’s his given name?”
  
  “Well, Jerrod Dalton, of course, Captain. Rumor has it the two of you knew each other at the Academy. I infer that’s why he requested the Bajor specifically.”
  
  I grimace. “Yeah. We knew each other. It’s… complicated.”
  
  Merkell gives me a rueful grin. “Yes, I’ve noticed that things are often ‘complicated’ where Dalton is concerned. Brilliant man, but sometimes brilliance comes at a cost to everyone else.”
  
  I grunt in agreement. “Preaching to the choir, Captain Merkell.”
  
  She laughs. “Maybe we can trade stories later. Meantime though, we’re a little overextended here getting ready for the first field tests.”
  
  “Field tests of what, exactly?” Gaarra asks.
  
  “Well, I’m no scientist, but from what I’ve been told this ‘interwarp drive’ thingummy is supposed to be a revolution in faster-than-light travel. It’s a take-off of a standard warp drive, but instead of producing a warp field only slightly larger than the ship by distorting subspace, it supposedly punches the field into what Dalton calls an ‘accessible dimension.”
  
  “I get it,” Biri says. Off my look, “Well, it’s Shar’s Hypothesis—the field is going to snap back into normal space, but with a much greater radius.”
  
  “How much greater?” I ask cautiously.
  
  “Well, for our first test, Dalton set a goal of a ten-kilometers diameter. He says he’s being conservative.” I raise an eyebrow at this and she gives me a look like she can’t believe what she’s saying. “Yes, he thinks a warp bubble big enough to encompass the entire Fifth Fleet is ‘conservative’. And apparently the upper limits could be in the high hundreds of klicks.”
  
  “He’s right,” Biri says with a look of wonder on her face. “If you incorporate Cochrane’s Eighth Law and Har’chak’s Theorem… Gaunt’s hosts, the implications are staggering—you could just move Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards over to Epsilon Eridani in one trip!” She pauses. “He really built this? It’s not a mock-up or anything?”
  
  “Well, so his team says. All I know is, I had a junior department head go over my head to Starfleet Science and bull right through a couple parsecs of red tape to volunteer me for this.”
  
  Now it’s my turn to be sympathetic. “Yeah, that sounds like Dalton.”
  
  “So, how do you two know each other? You must’ve been pretty close if he wanted you specifically, Kanril.”
  
  “That’s… Can I answer that later after I’ve had a chance to talk to him?”
  
  “Sure.” She points at a door leading aft. “He was in the engine room last I heard. Also, I wonder if you could do me a favor." I gesture for Merkell to continue. “Well, you’ve got a Galaxy-class starship with full amenities, right? We’ve pretty much been cooped up in the Destiny for months. If you could loan us some holodeck time—”
  
  “Say no more,” Gaarra agrees, and hits his combadge. “Reshek to Ops, have the holodeck schedules cleared for Merkell’s crew.”
  
  "Many thanks."
  
  We head aft and down the corridor, dodging a rather frazzled Andorian lieutenant who’s trying to fix an EPS leak. I hear her grumble something to the effect of “Not again!” as I go past, headed for the aft section of the ship and Main Engineering.
  
  Back in the Academy I did a stint on the USS Fearless, a first-run Defiant-class the Academy uses as a trainer. I know what a Defiant-class engine room is supposed to look like: anything else. The warp core is overgrown with extra cylinders and consoles and supply tubing, and steam is hissing from some of the assemblies. The ship’s chief engineer, another Andorian, a chaan by the look of his antennae, is standing by the center console. He snaps to attention at my rank. “As you were. I’m looking for Commander Dalton.”
  
  “Around back, sir.”
  
  “Captain prefers ‘ma’am’,” Gaarra corrects him, but I’m already moving past. I duck under a low-hanging conduit and catch sight of a blond human in work greys, hunched over a console.
  
  He doesn’t seem to have noticed my approach. I tap him on the shoulder and he turns, and I briefly get a glimpse of his eyes widening before my right cross smashes into his jaw. I feel the pop of a bone giving in my ring finger but the sight of him flying backwards, bouncing off his console, and landing in a heap on the floor is worth it.
  
  “Captain!” Tess cries warningly behind me. Somebody else yells, “Security to Main Engineering!” into a combadge as she and Gaarra grab both my arms and haul me backward.
  
  “It’s all right, Chief Howard!” Dalton says. “I deserved that.”
  
  “Ye’phekk maktal kosst amojan deserves a lot more than that!” I yell in a mix of English and Kendran. “Get off me!” I shake them loose.
  
  “What the phekk was that about?” Gaarra demands.
  
  “The captain and I used to be engaged.” He rubs his jaw. “Whoo, you still pack a punch, sha fe.”
  
  “You do not get to call me sha fe after what you pulled,” I snap as he clambers to his feet.
  
  “‘Engaged’?” Biri repeats.
  
  “Years ago, at the Academy, before this assh*le up and shipped off to the phekk’ta Gamma Quadrant in the middle of the night!” I force my fist to unclench. “You’ve got a lot of nerve dragging me out here when we’re supposed to be in the Delta Quadrant reinforcing Admiral Reynolds.”
  
  “Look, I’m older now, and a tad bit wiser if I’m lucky. There’s a lot I need to explain, but trust me, this wasn’t a frivolous request.”
  
  “Oh, you want me to trust you?”
  
  “Well, yes,” he says in a slightly sheepish tone. “But I’d rather have that conversation somewhere less public,” he adds, eyeing the CHENG. “Can you meet me in the officers’ mess in about fifteen minutes? You’re going to need to hit sickbay anyway, get your combadge set up as a dosimeter.”
  
  That gets my attention. “This contraption of yours is radioactive?”
  
  “No,” Biri says, “but if I remember the theory right the process does involve triolic waves.”
  
  Dalton nods. “The Trill’s right. We don’t have it powered up right now and the core is pretty heavily shielded, but you never know.”
  
  “All right, Dalton, I’ll hear you out,” I grudgingly agree. “But I reserve the right to break your nose.”
  
  Biri laughs. “I think I’ll stick around here for a while, talk shop with the crew.”
  
  Gaarra’s combadge goes off as we head out the door. “Sir, it’s Bellevue. We’ve got a safety trip in Holodeck Two.”
  
  “They’re trying to mess with the programs already?” Gaarra asks in an exasperated tone.
  
  “Looks like.”
  
  “All right, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Gaarra looks at me with an irritated expression, nose ridges crinkling. I jerk my head in the direction of the transporter and he nods and starts that direction.
  
  Then I feel eyes on the back of my neck. I grab the back of his uniform and pull him back. “Wha—Mmmf!” he manages as I turn him around and kiss him, hard, lightly biting his bottom lip as his beard tickles my chin. I hold onto him for about six seconds then let him go. Tess is staring at me in surprise, one antenna twitching. “What was that about?” Gaarra asks, looking a bit shellshocked.
  
  “To p*ss off Dalton. Go; I’ll see you later.”
  
  Tess laughs at this as we head forward, stepping around the crew in the tight confines of the ship. “So, how long had you known each other?” she asks, still snickering.
  
  “About a year. Admiral Ben-David sent him to pick me up when I got to the Academy, then we met in a nightclub a couple months later, had dinner, and things got serious fast.”
  
  “And you were going to marry him?”
  
  I make a face. “Yeah, but the engagement wasn’t that official yet. We’d done the Rite of Grasses but there’s still half a dozen rituals after that, and we hadn’t set a date or had any of the banns read, either.”
  
  “Heh. You wanted a traditional Bajoran wedding?”
  
  “My parents did. At that time I’d’ve been happy being married by Commander Falwell on our midshipman cruise. That was just before he left.”
  
  We stop in sickbay to get our combadges set up (and me to get my finger fixed). Tess stays outside the officers’ mess and strikes up a conversation with the Destiny’s XO, while I steel myself and step inside. Dalton’s changed into his service blacks and waves me over to a table where he’s replicated some hasperat. “Still can’t kick the habit, not since you made it for us that time on spring break.”
  
  “Stuff the small talk, Commander.”
  
  He half-grimaces. “I guess I deserve that one. You probably have a lot of questions.”
  
  “Just the one, really: Why?”
  
  “Yeah. ‘Spose that covers it. Why did I leave? Truth is, I left because I didn’t want to. I couldn’t bear to have you out of my life.”
  
  I raise an eyebrow. “Okay, that doesn’t make sense.”
  
  He laughs. “Yeah, let me try that again. You were… like nobody I ever met. You were a partner and an inspiration; it was getting to the point where I couldn’t imagine life without you. But you have to understand, that’s not why I joined Starfleet.”
  
  I look at him for a moment, trying and failing to read his face. “You’re telling me you got scared?”
  
  “Sort of. I was scared that there were things I needed to do that I wouldn’t with you around.” I unwrap one of the hasperats and wait for him to continue. “You remember I told you how my family moved to Aldebaran when I was twelve, how the liner was hit by the Orions? I’d probably be dead or enslaved if a Starfleet frigate squadron hadn’t run off that Syndicate carrier. Three of the four ships were blown away but they saved all our lives.”
  
  “Yeah, you told me that’s why you joined Starfleet. What’s that got to do with—”
  
  “It wasn’t just a motivation for me to join. I felt… feel that I owe the Service my family’s lives. I joined up to give the Federation everything I could, to be the best I could be. I wanted to do my part to keep other families from suffering disasters that could be avoided.” He lets out a breath. “It may sound arrogant but it made me think I might have a destiny to fulfill, something more important than my own happiness. But after I met you I wasn’t thinking about that until I got the offer for that deputy science chief gig on the Planck. You realize how rare it is they offer that to a cadet?”
  
  “Yeah, so why didn’t you tell me about it?” I ask around a mouthful of hasperat.
  
  “Because I turned it down. I didn’t want to leave you.”
  
  I nearly choke. “What? What the phekk are you talking about, ‘turned it down’? You left without saying a word!”
  
  “Well, that night I was going to tell you about it, and that I’d said ‘no’. I wanted you to be proud of me. But then when I saw you, I realized I couldn’t have both. We’d both know I’d put you ahead of a unique career opportunity. That’s selfish, not something to admire. At worst I might’ve ended up resenting you for it.
  
  “I barely slept that night, and by morning I’d realized I only had one option, so I went back to Admiral Serrikan and asked if the offer was still open. I decided if I just left without a word, it would hurt and you’d hate me, but hopefully you’d get over me.”
  
  I rest my face in my hand. “Did it ever occur to you to just ask? I probably would’ve said yes! Prophets, Dalton, I’m a space warfare officer—they had me slated for Gunnery on the Betazed! There’s no job for me on a research post! It was damned arrogant of you.”
  
  “Arrogant? Yeah, probably. Probably selfish, too. But I was afraid that if we talked it out I wouldn’t be able to leave, even if you did say yes. There’s… there’s something almost elemental about you, like… you’re like a force of nature and everyone around you just gets pulled along for the ride.” He shakes his head. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s sexy as hell, but it’s also kinda scary. I dunno, I’m not trying to excuse myself, and I’m not asking for your forgiveness, but maybe it counts as an explanation? And hell, look at you now. Jay-gee to full-bird captain in two years, and how many medals, again? And your ship’s becoming a bit of a legend in its own right. I’m happy for you.”
  
  I accept the compliment without comment. “All right. So why did you bring me out here?” He looks around the room, then pulls something out of his pocket and attaches it to the underside of the table. The sound of the ship rapidly dulls. “An anti-snoop?”
  
  “Can’t risk being overheard. That’s why I needed you. I needed someone I trusted completely. There’s been some glitches with the interwarp experiments. Nothing major, yet, but it’s got my hackles up. This technology could change the face of the galaxy if it works, and I think somebody’s tampering with it.”
  
  I raise my eyebrows. “Wow. I’ve gone from discarded lover to trusted confidant in the space of four minutes. My head is spinning.”
  
  “Do you really have to be sarcastic? This is serious. You see, nobody really knows where this tech could go. I’ve been telling everyone we’re at least a week away from the first test, but I was stalling so you could get here.”
  
  “And you were stalling because…?”
  
  “Because if enough people think we’ve got days to go, I think I can maybe derail any interference if we suddenly move it up to tomorrow. Also means we’ve got a big reserve of crew on hand that I know haven’t been compromised, and, well, it’s a Galaxy-class starship.” He exhales again. “Maybe I’m getting paranoid but there’s too much at stake here. This isn’t just about warp fields and moving ships. If my math is even close to right, for all practical purposes there is no hard mathematical limit to how big a field you can make—someday we could be moving stars.”
  
  My mouth drops open. “Sher hahr kosst,” I breathe.
  
  “Yeah, so you can see why somebody might want to steal it or shut us down. Then again, if I am being paranoid, I’m glad it got me to finally tell you all this.”
  
  “Well, Dalton, I’m still angry at you. But I’m in.”
  
  He slumps back in his chair, visibly relieved. We just sit there eating hasperat for a while, not talking. Finally he says, “So, you and your ops chief?”
  
  “Mmm? Gaarra?” I nod, brushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Yeah. Funny, Gaarra and I met in sort of the same way you and I did. Picked him up at Quark’s on DS9, next day I walk into my ready room and he’s reporting for duty.”
  
  He laughs. “He a good guy?”
  
  “Very.”
  
  “I’m glad.”
  
  Then my combadge chirps. “Dammit.” I put down the hasperat and slap the badge. “Kanril, go.”
  
  “Tess here. Hope I’m not interrupting, but Master Chief Wiggin just picked up a blip of a radiation signature out in the asteroid field. Definite triolic wave signature.”
  
  I glance over to Jerrod; he shakes his head. “We haven’t done any tests out there and triolic radiation doesn’t occur naturally.”
  
  “Phekk. All right, we’ll go check it out.”
  

  END OF PART ONE

  "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
  — Sabaton, "Great War"
  

  

  
  Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/

  0
• starswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User

  March 2017 edited March 2017

  Two Sides of a Coin, Part II

  Why did I waste my time?
  Two steps, I don’t rewind
  Feeling I can’t define
  I give back to you
  
  Give it all away, take it all away
  Give it all away, take it all away
  
  I see my demise
  From behind your eyes
  I can’t pass you by
  I put back to you
  
  Give it all away, take it all away
  Give it all away, take it all away
  Give it all away, take it all away
  Give it all away, take it all away
  
  Between love, between hate
  Shake the silence back but it’s too late
  And it haunts you, and it haunts you
  It’s a love hate heartbreak
  
  This could be suicide
  A kiss with these red knives
  Why am I driving blind?
  I give back to you
  
  Give it all away, take it all away
  Give it all away, take it all away
  
  Try on one for size
  I thought boys don’t cry
  You’re my perfect lie
  I give back to you
  
  Give it all away, take it all away
  Give it all away, take it all away
  Give it all away, take it all away
  Give it all away, take it all away
  
  Between love, between hate
  Shake the silence back but it’s too late
  And it haunts you, and it haunts you
  It’s a love hate heartbreak
  
  Between love between hate
  Shake the silence back but it’s too late
  And it haunts you, and it haunts you
  It's a love hate heartbreak
  
  Between love between hate
  Shake the silence back but it’s too late
  And it haunts you, and it haunts you
  It’s a love hate heartbreak
  
  Between love between hate
  Shake the silence back but it’s too late
  And it haunts you, and it haunts you
  It’s a love hate heartbreak
  
  Give it all away, take it all away
  Give it all away, take it all away
  — “Love/Hate Heartbreak” by Halestorm

  
  “Captain, something’s seriously wrong,” Wiggin says without preamble as Biri and I make the bridge. “We’ve picked up a series of triolic wave pulses, and they’re getting stronger.”
  
  “Well, Dalton says it’s not his doing. Maybe the Devidians are playing games again, but in any case we can’t afford to take chances. Triangulate the source and patch it to the helm.” I hit my combadge. “All hands, this is the captain. Sound yellow alert.”
  
  “Destiny’s hailing us, ma’am!” Esplin announces.
  
  “Onscreen.”
  
  Captain Merkell looks more worried than before, and I can see crewmen running around frantically in the background. “Things are going nuts over here, Kanril. We thought we had a rad leak but the source is external.”
  
  “I know, Merkell. Patch Main Engineering in.”
  
  Jerrod appears on split-screen. “El, there is something really wrong here. All the diagnostics are going nuts, giving readings that don’t make sense. I can’t tell if this is a major system failure or…” He trails off but I know what he’s thinking: they’ve been compromised. “Get to the source and try and see what’s going on. I’ll work on the safety interlocks down here.”
  
  “You got it. Park, let’s move!”
  
  As the impulse drive engages there’s a bright red flare from the Destiny. Wiggin mutters, “What… the… f*ck?”
  
  “Yes? ‘What the f*ck’ bad? ‘What the f*ck’ good?”
  
  “You tell me, ma’am. I can’t see Movarish III on sensors anymore, or even its sun!”
  
  “Run that by me again?” Tess says.
  
  Wiggin and Biri frantically hammer at their consoles. “No good,” she hollers. “There are massive subspace shear waves all around us. It’s like we’ve gone to warp, and we’ve taken the whole asteroid field with us!” Then the Trill gasps. “Gaunt’s… forty… hosts. The interwarp drive. It works.”
  
  “Well, how the frak do we shut it down?!” Tess snaps.
  
  Dalton’s voice comes through the comm, distorted by static. “…overrides are shot to hell; can’t control the triolic injection… won’t disengage until you cut off… at the source…”
  
  “I’ve lost the signal!” Esplin cries.
  
  "He told us enough! Park, full impulse!"
  
  The Bajor barrels into the asteroid field, ducking around whirling boulders ranging from groundcar-size on up to city-busters the size of office parks. Smaller rocks and gravel spark harmlessly off our navigational shields as we close on a planet-killer seven klicks across at the center of the formation. “So, what are we looking at?” I ask Wiggin. “Besides a big rock, I mean.”
  
  “I’m not sure. Sensors say there’s something going on but I can’t tell what. Wait. This interference… looks artificial somehow.”
  
  Biri says, “I’ve got an idea. If we get close to that thing we can fire a full-spectrum particle pulse to try and dissipate the interference and get a clear scan. It’d take computer timing but—”
  
  “Do it!” I order her. She hammers out a few lines of code and hits the trigger. There’s a thrum of power through the ship’s hull but nothing happens.
  
  Then, as I stare out into the blackness, I see something. A ripple in the dark.
  
  Prophets. “Shields up! Go evasive!”
  
  Tess’s hands race across her board as the dark green prow of a warship bites a hole in reality ahead of us. The bow mount glows a sickly green as Park throws us hard to starboard and a supercharged disruptor lance snaps out and skitters across the port shields. Tess got them up in the nick of time but the lights briefly dim. “Romulans!” Tess barks.
  
  “Battle stations!” I hammer my hand against the key for the general quarters alarm. “Tess, damage report!”
  
  “Port shields at eighty-four percent; returning fire! Master Chief, identify!”
  
  “His IFF’s off but I’ve got a match on optical,” Wiggin calls over the howl of the red alert klaxon as the port phasers return the ambush with interest. “D’deridex-class, ChR 20336, IRW Javelin. She’s Tal Shiar!”
  
  Registry 20336. Fourth production run, built for the Dominion War. One of the few ships in the known galaxy that can potentially take the Bajor in a head-on fight. “Esplin, send him a canned ‘surrender or die’. Park, continue turn! Tess, aft battery!”
  
  “Ready on aft battery. Rear torpedo loaded.”
  
  “Well, that was rude,” Esplin comments, presumably about the response to our hail.
  
  As the oncoming warbird passes into our rear arc, still firing, Tess slams her hand down on her console and a spread of quantum torpedoes shrieks out of the chase tube. “All power to aft phasers. Locked and firing!” Quadruple beams snap out from the arrays on the stardrive, nacelles, and saucer, smashing into the Javelin head-on. The first torpedo goes wide and the second is swatted by a disruptor mount, but the following trio pound one, two, three, into the forward shields. Tess fires the phasers again and batters them down as the D’deridex’s impulse engines flare; it struggles to turn and interpose fresh shields.
  
  “Tess, take a headshot!”
  
  “Firing!” Another lance of nadions snaps out and slips in just under the edge of the shield hole, carving into the warbird’s “head” and blowing a gash through several decks. Debris and bodies belch out of the hole and the ship keeps turning, out of control, and careens into the surface of the asteroid. Its bow, already wreathed in flames, crumples like a drink can hit with a sledgehammer, then the singularity core blows and begins eating everything nearby, starting with what’s left of the wreck. The bridge breaks out in cheers and I nod in grim satisfaction.
  
  “Captain,” Wiggin calls over the noise, “I’ve got a small task force heading in. Read three T’varo, one Mogai-class.”
  
  “Park, take us after them. Biri, did you get anything?”
  
  “Yeah, in addition to collapsing the cloak on that warbird the particle burst unmasked what looks like a small underground installation on that rock. Probably not going to be a problem anymore, what with that loose drive singularity. Ugh.” She shakes her head. “How’d you know that shot would work?”
  
  “Educated guess. Pointy-ears follow some of the same doctrines we do—you can regain control from the engineering section if you shoot out the bridge, but that’s not meant to be easy ‘cause they’re more worried about sabotage than running into something while they get control back.”
  
  “Kind of a gamble,” Gaarra remarks from the ops console.
  
  “Hey, it worked. And if it hadn’t, we could’ve beaten him the old-fashioned way.”
  
  That’s what I tell him, but I’m still trying to get my heart-rate down. Rommies sure keep you on your toes…
  
  The Bajor barrels after a trio of T’varo-class light warbirds. They see us coming, of course—ship this big is hard to hide—and frantically fan out. Tess fires and skewers the port-most one dead center, its shields nearly useless against the full power of the forward phasers. The tiny frigate swiftly crumples into its own drive singularity, which then decomposes and detonates. “I lost number three—he cloaked!” Wiggin calls.
  
  “Hard to starboard, forty degree up!” I order. “Reduce speed one-third!” Park fires the side jets and the ship slews right and pitches relative up.
  
  “Locked! Firing!” A volley of phaser fire snaps out from the dorsal arrays at the dancing ship, but a flash erupts at its position. Singularity jump, I realize as the little warbird reappears on the far side of a tumbling rock bigger than us, spins like a top, and comes at us guns blazing.
  
  Then the missing one slices back into reality and hammers our still-recharging port shield with a volley of plasma torpedoes; the impact of the big red one sets the lights flickering. “Shields at sixty and falling!” Gaarra reports. “Diverting engine power!”
  
  “Mogai heavy warbird, coming at our two o’clock low!” Wiggin adds as the broad-winged ship screams in. “ChR 25327, IRW Esemar!”
  
  Phekk this. I jump up and throw an ops petty officer out of my way to get at his console. “Sorry,” I mumble to him as Tess swats one of the frigates with a glancing hit that pulverizes its starboard nacelle, and start keying commands.
  
  There. Tractor beam. I lock onto the other light warbird and seize it in a death grip, redirecting its momentum and sending it for a tumble right up the larger warbird’s nose.
  
  Well, close enough for government work, anyway. The Esemar almost banks away in time and instead of smashing them both to powder the the T’varo takes off half the starboard wing and disintegrates. A spread of quantum torpedoes finishes her, and lifeboats begin to pop from the blazing wreckage.
  
  “Bean ball, take your base,” I comment. Tess turns to me with an eyebrow raised. I shrug and help the petty officer back up. “Esplin, get me Destiny, please.”
  
  “One moment, ma’am.” Esplin taps at her console. “Uh-oh.”
  
  “Oh, what now?”
  
  “Ma’am, they’ve been boarded, probably by Esemar. Captain Merkell’s got the bridge locked down but needs help clearing the rest of the ship.”
  
  “Phekk.” Pretty easy to outnumber the crew on a tacscort. I hit the intercom. “All hands, this is the captain. Scramble assault unit!”
  

  * * *

  
  “Frag out!” I yell, tossing a grenade around a corner. The blast is thunderous in the confined space and I’m thankful for my helmet dampening the noise. I extend the fiber-optic camera on my wristguard around the corner. It’s spattered with green blood and a cluster of bodies lies unmoving.
  
  “They were trying to break into Captain Merkell’s ready room,” Kate McMillan says from across the hall, where she took cover after the Romulans pinned her down.
  
  “All right, go, I’ll cover you.”
  
  McMillan and Athezra move up as I swing my rifle around the corner and cover it; Crewman Minassian and Security Officer zh’Planathalian head down the hall and lay a frag mine to cover our backs. “It’s locked, ma’am!”
  
  “Merkell, Kanril,” I radio as I take up a position behind them, “I need you to override the lock on your quarters, otherwise I’m going to have to breach. Give me a five-count when you’ve got it.”
  
  “Stand by. Five, four, three, two, one, mark!”
  
  The door slides open and Athezra throws in a flashbang. My visor polarizes and blocks the flash. I hear some swearing in Romulan as I storm in. A pointy-ear officer loopily goes for his pistol but can’t bring it to bear before I bullrush him to the ground.
  
  “Captain, look out!” A disruptor blast hits my side; I’m thrown off the male and bang my helmet against the bunk. Athezra’s pulsewave phaser howls and a female flies into the wall with a fist-sized hole through her breastplate, landing in a heap on the floor. She groans once and expires. “You hit, Captain?”
  
  I crane my neck to inspect the damage. “Nah, didn’t penetrate. Phekk, how did I not see her?”
  
  “She was behind the desk when we breached. Yours still alive?”
  
  I glance at the insensate male centurion. “Alive, but probably no use to anyone for a while.” I pat him down and find a boot knife, then zip-cuff him to Merkell’s bedframe for later.
  
  “Ma’am,” zh’Planathalian says, gesturing at the screen on the desk. I come over to her. “Looks like they were using Captain Merkell’s terminal, looking at personnel records in Science and Engineering.”
  
  “Interesting,” I murmur, recalling Dalton’s suspicions. “What else?”
  
  The Andorian clicks through two more screens. “Look, it’s the interwarp modifications, these are classified files. They knew exactly which ones to retrieve, but I think we stopped them before they could download the data.”
  
  “Captain, Tess!” my radio suddenly crackles. “There’s another warbird closing in!”
  
  “Prophets, they must’ve had a whole fleet out there. Tess, I’ve already taken two hits to my armor. Head out and intercept, try and keep them from landing any more boarders.”
  
  “We’re on our way. Be advised, it will take us out of communications range.”
  
  “Walk with the Prophets, Tess.” I look to the others. “We’ve gotta get down to Main Engineering and I don’t trust the turbolifts.” I radio the bridge again. “Merkell, I’m going to need your access codes and the location of the nearest Jefferies tube.”
  
  A ladder down, I kick open the access grate and emerge next to a Romulan. My rifle’s slung over my back but I pull my bayonet and open a second mouth on his throat before he can do anything, spraying me with bright green arterial blood. Disgusted, I wipe my gauntlets off on his shirt and turn to a ship status display. “Looks like the security force fields are up all over the deck.”
  
  I open a door to head down the corridor to starboard and run right into a fire. “Phekk!” Lucky for my armor or else I’d have no eyebrows left.
  
  “Why aren’t the fire suppression systems running?!” Athezra shouts as I backpedal.
  
  “Sensor must be knocked out!” I quickly key the manual controls and foam sprays out of the ceiling and walls. “All right, watch yourselves.”
  
  “God, I hate this stuff,” McMillan grumbles as our boots swish and squish through the foam.
  
  We come to a corner and I raise my wrist-camera, then retract it and turn my head. One, group, I hand-signal. Two by two. Three, two, one. I turn the corner and crack off an unaimed burst on the run. The Romulans are ready this time: several disruptor bolts fly past me, one grazing my right pauldron as I duck into a doorway. Zh’Planathalian tries to follow but takes one in the head and crashes sideways missing half her face. Phekk.
  
  Athezra fires two blasts down the hall from the corner as McMillan hides behind his breach-grade heavy armor, shooting around him. Zasrassi dives across to my position and makes it. I fire again and an officer screeches and goes down.
  
  “Zass, cover fire!” I order. “Thez, on me! Move!”
  
  The Caitian crouches and flicks her rifle to full auto as I charge, hoping the GUNGNIR II hardsuit’s battered breastplate will hold up. Two bolts shatter on my midsection, another hits my groin guard as I make the next doorway. Behind me I hear McMillan yell, “Goddammit!” as Athezra nails two Romulans at once with his gun. One more pokes his head over their barricade and I put a burst into his belly. Zasrassi fires again, aimed this time, and the last one goes down.
  
  “Clear!” I yell. “McMillan, you all right?”
  
  “Sweet mother of holy f*ck, *sswpe hobgoblin shot my g*ddamn leg!”
  
  I turn to check on her. She’s on the floor with a big hole through the kneeguard of her Interceptor armor, but for some reason she doesn’t seem to be in much pain and her vitals read as good on my HUD. Then it hits me. “Wait a minute, Lieutenant, is that your—”
  
  She starts laughing. “Yeah, he shot my g*ddamn fake leg!” Zasrassi and Athezra and I all start cracking up, blame stress. "Well, heh, I guess I can’t, heh, follow you any further, not until I take it to the shop.”
  
  A blinkenlight in my HUD catches my eye. “Ahem, rad levels are increasing anyway, you probably shouldn’t,” I answer. “Zasrassi—”
  
  “I’ll stay with her,” the Caitian agrees.
  
  “You said ‘radiation’, ma’am?” Athrezra asks, checking for a pulse on zh’Planathalian I already know won’t be found.
  
  “Probably triolic. Medkit in my backpack, get the radvax.” I trigger the med dispenser in my suit and wince at the sting.
  
  I start to continue into Main Engineering but a pointy-ear subcommander with a nasty phaser wound on her left flank groans. I spin and level my phaser at her head. “Ve hwi yhfev, lloi’dhohh hwi arhem.”
  
  “Urru Areinneye, susse-thrai Bah’jor.” She spits on my breastplate as I kneel down next to her to check for weapons. “Oi ihhaonn’hrhae’edh hwai rayha.”
  
  Okay, that second one stings a bit. “Athezra, see to her. Docgae-d’ifv hwi fvah vr’...”. I pause to think up a translation. “... vr’aethl’avaihh’etrehhevha?”
  
  She manages a smirk despite clearly being in a lot of pain. “Mnean docgaen aeu aei temmnuei haeinha thaihnhas dhenovher Rihan mhastev Temehludet.” She coughs again. The spittle on her hand is tinged with coppery green blood. “Oi docgaen llillaa mnean aeu payr kroiha hrian.”
  
  “Captain?” Athezra prompts.
  
  “She thinks Dalton’s project is a threat to their national security.” Which if Dalton’s right, it probably is, but I maintain my poker face.
  
  “Nice,” he grumbles. “Don’t suppose she knows how to turn the phekk’ta thing off.”
  
  She starts to laugh at the question but it quickly turns to another coughing fit. Athezra jabs her in the neck with a hypospray, probably an anesthetic. “Sehhaekhe ssuy venireal hraen.” She chuckles again. “Nihroikhe arhem aihkh tlhojur, susse-thrai.”
  
  I slap her. The servos in my armor split her lip and work her jaw around. “Dhroi ehlrh!” But she just glares sullenly at me and I know I’m wasting my breath. Maybe if I had two months and a hole to dump her in until she started howling at the moons, but she’s too stubborn and too principled to get anything useful here, so I just zip-cuff her hands to her legs. “McMillan, Zass, can you—”
  
  “She won’t go anywhere,” McMillan promises, laying her phaser across her bad knee with the emitter leveled threateningly at the wounded Romulan, who sticks her tongue out at the human.

  Post edited by starswordc on March 2017

  "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
  — Sabaton, "Great War"
  

  

  
  Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/

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• starswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User

  March 2017 edited July 2017

  I turn a corner and I’m there: Main Engineering. Commander Shrel sees me waving and quickly lowers the forcefield. “I’m hoping this means you’ve dealt with those boarding parties!”
  
  “Yes,” I yell back over the noise. “Now how do we shut this phekk’ta thing off?!”
  
  “I’ve been trying to figure that out the whole time but this frakking radiation is destabilizing the crystals! Go help Dalton in the back! I haven’t had a chance to talk to him, been too busy trying to stop a core breach! He got hit but he might know how to SCRAM this thing!”
  
  Jerrod is in a corner out of the way. I reach around for the medpac attached to my waist, eyeing the third-degree disruptor burn on his upper thigh. “Eleya, back so soon?” he asks, coughing. “Can’t stay away from me, can you?” He eyes his machine as I open up the pack. “Isn’t this beautiful?”
  
  “You can flatter yourself later,” I grumble. “You’re not allergic to metorapan, right?” He shakes his head and I grab an ampoule. “What the phekk happened in here, anyway?”
  
  He winces as I jam the hypospray into his neck. “Well, after you went out to investigate the radiation pulses, our readings went off the scale in here. I think the Romulans were focusing a coherent triolic wave beam on us… It must have been intentional. Then something blew out near me and I hit the floor. I’m not sure exactly what happened next but the interwarp drive was already engaged when”—he coughs again—“when I got up.”
  
  “Who activated it? Oh, damn,” I add, reading the rad levels off my HUD. Radvax, where’s the damn radvax…
  
  “I don’t know. It could have been due to an overload induced by the radiation pulse, or maybe someone tripped a switch. Before I could get to a console the Romulans stormed the place. I think Shrel managed to toss up a bunch of forcefields to isolate the rest of them, but one squad still got in here.” He coughs again, but not as hard this time, the metorapan must be having an effect. “Seemed a lot more interested in the warp core than us. They killed Petty Officer Rehnquist”—he indicates a dead redshirt tucked against the back wall—“and I got blasted. I was sure I was dead but I think they were trying to keep the rest of us alive. I heard them talking.”
  
  “Yeah, I had a nice chat with one in the next compartment. They want your little project.”
  
  He nods. “And they’re flying us right into Romulan space to get it.”
  
  Oh, of course. “Starfleet’s gotta have noticed by now, they’ll send a fleet—”
  
  “No, I… I don’t think help is coming,” he says as I start rubbing burn cream into his wound. “It’s possible they can’t detect us at all—OW!”
  
  That last part was me accidentally squeezing his leg in shock. “What? What the phekk are you talking about? This warp field is twelve hundred klicks across!”
  
  He laughs ruefully, which quickly morphs into a hacking cough. "I told you I was keeping some things to myself, especially since I started getting suspicious. There is a theoretical consequence of… of expanding a warp bubble through an accessible dimension. I calculated it might—”
  
  I grab his shoulder. “Would you spit it out already?! I don’t have time for all your technobabble!”
  
  “The math suggested that the warp bubble could end up slightly out of phase when it formed. It's possible that would mask its warp signature almost entirely.”
  
  I just sit there with my mouth hanging open, then finally cast my eyes to the ceiling. “Right! Because the Prophets just couldn’t be done phekk’sha mab sor’ah! You phekk’ta built a giant, invisible phekk’ta warp drive!?”
  
  “I didn’t know for sure, damn it!” he shouts at me, then is reduced to another coughing fit. Finally, he explains, “The math wasn’t exact, El, any number of real-world conditions could’ve factored in. I needed to test it to see what would happen… before I knew. But that means we have to shut it down, and fast,or we could end up on the other side of the quadrant before anyone realizes we’re missing.”
  
  “Oh, right, this thing is also slipstream-fast, because of course it is.” I press my gloved hand to my visor. “All right, how the phekk do we turn it off?”
  
  “I tried… The triolic induction that flooded the chamber seems to have set up some kind of positive feedback loop. I’m not really sure where the energy is coming from, maybe the zero-point field, but right now it’s self-sustaining. It’s almost like they engineered it this way. How could they possibly know…?”
  
  “Dalton!” I tap his forehead. “Focus!”
  
  “Well, maybe… Okay, try this. If you disengage all of the safety interlocks at the main console, maybe we can just blow out the triolic induction module.”
  
  “Won’t go boom, will it?”
  
  “At this point, I’ll take my chances.” He probably has a point. “First, you’ll need to dump every bit of power you can into the thing, next set up a resonant pulse in the regulator console. And then stand back.”
  
  “All right, this is gonna hurt.” I finish bandaging his leg and hoist him into my arms, ignoring his screech of pain, then move to carry him out the door and down to my assault team, ordering Shrel to evacuate the section as I go.
  
  “Carrying me over the threshold?”
  
  “Shut up, I’m not finished with you. You stay alive, you damn fool.”
  
  “Okay… Don’t want to spoil… our reunion… later…”
  
  He goes limp as I hand him off to Athezra, who just looks up at me and says, “Go, Captain.”
  
  I run back in and override the console, telling the safety systems to go phekk themselves. Every spare joule I can find on the ship goes into the triolic induction module: life support, weapons, emergency force fields—BANG! I drop flat just in time as a fireball washes over the console.
  
  Suddenly all is quiet. Commander Shrel peeks back around the door. “You got it?”
  
  “I don’t know.” I trigger my suit radio. “Mama Bear to Bajor, you hear me okay?”
  
  “Loud and clear,” Tess sends back. “The interwarp field just collapsed all at once. We destroyed two more warbirds and disabled a third; remaining bogeys are bugging out. Shall I pursue?”
  
  “Negative, negative. Tractor your prisoner and get back here, we need medical yesterday.”
  
  “On our way. Out.”
  

  * * *

  
  “How is he, Warragul?”
  
  The doctor’s dark face is grim. “He’s dying.”
  
  I look at him in disbelief. “He had a disruptor burn on his leg! I’ve gotten hurt worse—”
  
  “Cap’n, he has massive radiation poisoning,” he explains quietly. “Everyone on that ship near Engineering does but not as bad as him. You and the boarding party weren’t there long enough, you only took about two-and-a-half grays of triolic radiation and that MACO suit of yours stopped most of it. He absorbed somewhere north of forty. He must’ve been too close to something. And he’s deteriorating too fast. I’m good but I’m no miracle worker.”
  
  “Phekk that, there’s got to be something you can do! You can bring people back from brain-death but you can’t—”
  
  “No, I’ve done everything I can, Cap’n! I’ve decontaminated him externally and I’ve got him half-blasted out of his mind on painkillers and nausea and seizure meds. That’s all I can do, is make him as comfortable as I can.” He waves at the door to the intensive care unit. “He’s asking to see you, and if you’ll excuse me for sounding callous I have to go work on the patients I can save!” He storms off behind a curtain wall, yanks off his smock and starts scrubbing his hands, barking orders to Dr. Maela and the nurses.
  
  I head into the ICU, where a nurse and Chief Corpsman Watkins are standing over Jerrod’s form. His face is ashen, his eyes milky, and bandages flecked with bloodstains shroud his left arm and his neck. “Eleya?” he wheezes, his voice tremulous. “Is that you? I… I can’t see.”
  
  I take his good hand. “Yes, it’s me. Don’t talk.”
  
  “You came through. You always do.” He coughs hard and the nurse, a pale Hathoni Bajoran, wipes blood off his mouth with a tissue. She gently presses a hypospray to his neck and it hisses; the coughing fit subsides. “Last month… would’ve been our eighth anniversary.” He coughs again. “Reshek, you there?”
  
  “I’m here.”
  
  “You break her heart like… like I did, and… I’ll come back.”
  
  “Would you stop trying to talk?” I beg him.
  
  “Eleya? Come closer?” I lean my head in. “Somebody on this ship… must have… activated it… intentionally,” he wheezes. “Someone must have… been planning it all… with the Romulans.” He coughs again. “I thought… I could trust… all of my crewmates… but I can’t trust…. any of them. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I love you. I never stopped… loving…”
  
  His hand falls limp in mine. “No. No, no.”
  
  But his chest has stopped moving, and the lifesign monitor is sounding a constant tone. Watkins reaches over and presses Jerrod’s sightless eyes closed with one gloved hand. “Time of death, 0737 hours and eight seconds. I’m sorry, Captain.”
  
  I collapse across him and Gaarra grips my shoulder as the death chant drops unbidden from my lips, my voice breaking. “Ahn-kay ya, ay-ya vasu. Coh-ma-ra, di-nay-ya. Ahn-kay ya…”
  

  * * *

  
  I stand there in a haze for hours. I barely notice Warragul giving me a massive dose of radiation treatments and warning me of possible side-effects, cancer risk, infertility. It feels like someone else entirely is sweeping the asteroid field for clues, like I’m a spectator in my own body. My answers to Admiral M’Rann’s interrogation are sullen and robotic.
  
  I’m trying to drown my sorrows in a bottle of Romulan ale (ha ha, I’m not laughing) when Captain Merkell walks up. “There any of that left?”
  
  “Help yourshelf.”
  
  “Sounds like you’re three sheets to the wind already,” the Bolian comments.
  
  I look blearily over at the bottle. It was a party-size bottle when I started but there’s barely two fingers of ale left in it. “Takesh a lot to get me good and drunk these daysh. Uh, shorry for your losh, ahem, Captain.”
  
  “I should be saying that to you. Seems like you really loved him.”
  
  “I’ve sheen sho much death, losht sho many friendsh. Why him? I thought I hated him. Thish wash eashier when I hated him. Damn you to Hell, Jerrod Dalton…”
  
  “He’s the one that got away. I had one of those once.”
  
  “Yeah? Where ish he?”
  
  She chuckles. “She’s writing holoprograms on the south continent with three husbands and seven kids. Sometimes I think she was the smart one.” She takes a drink of the azure brew in her glass, then asks me, “I don’t mean to pry, but… he never said anything about his religious beliefs and there’s nothing in his file. Do you happen to know—”
  
  From somewhere in my ethanol-fuzzed, grief-hazed mind I dredge up a memory, one of several spirited discussions about religion and politics that always ended in bed-battering make-up sex. “He was a lapsed Lutheran when I… knew him. I think…” I cough and swallow. “I think the ordinary shecular funeral would be best.”
  
  Merkell nods. “Alright, then.” She taps her combadge. “Commander Reshek, it’s Captain Merkell. I need you to drop what you’re doing and come to Ten Forward.”
  
  “Already here,” he announces from the doorway. “Mr. Lang commed me before you did.”
  
  “Phekk you,” I grumble at him. “I’m all right.”
  
  “No, you’re not.” He takes the beer stein out of my hand; I only half-heartedly fight him as he raises me to my feet. “And you’re cut off.”
  
  “Get her some sleep, get her sober,” Merkell murmurs as I continue to grumble against his shoulder.
  
  “This isn’t my first jaunt around the sector, sir.”
  

  * * *

  
  The remaining members of Merkell’s crew stand, or sit in wheelchairs, in a half-circle on the forward observation deck of Admiral M’Rann’s flagship USS Arcadia. Four hours of shut-eye and a detox pill means my hangover has receded to a dull twinge as I look over the tidy flag-draped torpedo casing.
  
  “We are assembled here today to pay our respects to our honored dead,” Merkell begins. “Each of them leaves an absence that can never truly be filled. But with Commander Jerrod Dalton, I think it may be harder.
  
  “There are few people in our lives that burn with such passion, who can see so far ahead, that we burn brighter, we see farther, just for being in their company. Jerrod Dalton was one such man. Someday he may be remembered amongst such peers as Joris Brock and Zefram Cochrane. And someday the insights he had into the folds of time and space may change how we sail the stars.”
  
  She looks at the casket. “But today we can only pause and mourn the passing of our colleague and friend. As per his wishes we commit Jerrod Dalton’s remains to space. It is fitting he will rest here, a displaced soul amongst the asteroids displaced by his vision.” She looks up. “Do any of you have any thoughts to add?
  
  I step forward. “I’d like to say a few words, Captain.” Merkell nods and yields the floor as I marshal my thoughts.
  
  Finally I sigh. “Eleven years ago I was stationed aboard RBS Kira Nerys. I was an E-5, naval gunnery technician. We were ambushed by an Orion frigate and boarded, and I learned something.” My voice takes on a bitter tone. “I’m a killer. No matter what words you use to dress it up, no matter what uniform you put me in, what I am doesn’t change: I’m a professional killer. I’m not proud of it, but it’s what I’m good at, and I accepted that a long time ago. And to the best of my knowledge I’ve never taken an innocent life—everyone I’ve killed had a weapon in hand or was going to hurt someone else. But… removing evil from the world isn’t the same thing as creating good.
  
  “That’s what Commander Dalton wanted to do. He was trying to leave this world a better place than people like me make it, and he believed in that with a passion few of us ever attain. And I… I loved that about him. And when he left me, I hated him for taking that from me. I hated him for a long time.” I swallow. “I think I understand, though. If the price of sharing his passion with others was a period of pain, then I think it was a fair trade.
  
  “It feels like the Prophets are torturing me, to have him disappear out of my life just after he returned to it. But I have to remind myself that, really, I’m lucky to have had those few minutes with him. I hope we can all remember not how much we miss him, but how much greater we are for having been close to him.” I pull a stargazer lily from behind my back and lay it on the business end of the torpedo. He gave me one as a corsage before the Academy Yule Ball. “Prophets guide you to your rest, my friend. And thank you for bringing me back into your life… just in time.”
  
  Captain Merkell steps forward again. “Then we now commit the remains of Jerrod Dalton to the universe. From whence we come, so do we return. Captain, I yield this duty to you.”
  
  I lay my hand on a control panel. Blue sparks wash over the coffin and it fades from existence, lost to the stars.
  
  Captain Merkell says to me, “I wish you well, Captain Kanril. Perhaps our paths will cross again under happier circustances.”
  
  “Walk with the Prophets, Captain Merkell.”
  

  * * *

  
  Back to Bajor. Back to the war. There’s always the war, the endless struggle for one more stupid chunk of rock in one more stupid sector, the killing, the dying, the laughter of thirsting gods. But orders are orders. We’re carrying a full division of Marines belowdecks and we’re already four days behind schedule thanks to this little excursion.
  
  “Captain,” Biri says to me quietly as we resume course to the Jouret system, “somehow it feels we’re leaving here with unfinished business.”
  
  “I agree. But I also have to agree with Admiral M’Rann’s logic, I’m no good to him as an investigator, not here.”
  
  “We’re with you, Captain,” Tess says, “whatever you decide. Um, if you need a rest, I can handle things up here.”
  
  “I appreciate it, Tess. You have the conn.”
  
  “I have the conn.”
  
  Gaarra follows me to the turbolift. “Are we okay? Should I sleep in my own quarters for a little while?” I know he’s joking. I look up at him and mumble something, just noise, I don’t even know what I’m saying. But he takes me in his arms and holds me tight. “I guess not.”
  
  “I love you,” I whisper to him. “Don’t ever leave me.”
  
  “I love you. I won’t.”
  

  THE END

  Post edited by starswordc on July 2017

  "Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
  — Sabaton, "Great War"
  

  

  
  Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/

  0
• damzelltrill Member Posts: 443 Arc User

  July 2017

  Haven't I already done a No Win Situation?
  And why am I asking for it to be HARDER?
  
  ~*~
  
  Remedial Cadet Na'tall's Personal Log
  
  OK, so it's taken me longer to get to this point then I thought, but there was more to learn then I expected. Still two and a half years is rather remarkable for a remedial student from my original era to get to the No Win Scenario. Preparing for this new run has me thinking back to the first time I did Maru senario.
  
  I was on tactical for the run, a post I was happy with. Our crew had discussed several ideas ahead of time, one that it didn't matter regarding who was at what post. We had also approached the proctors and made a few arguments based on other captain's missions, suggesting that to make it a fair test the ship we commanded had to have a history; what had we been doing up to that point. Yes it backfired on us some as the dean decided to give us partially repaired battle damage that limited out warp speed and a few other systems. But we also got a few concessions in the form of 'tricks' other captains and engineers had implemented on their ships that had proved 'shelf stable' when installed next to standard configurations.
  
  Any way... the Maru was my first run in with time travel. The Enterprise had made it's sling shot to the past and returned. Even with it being a classified mission, the word got out and being cadets we where cocky and sure we could replicate this feat to save the Maru without resorting to Kirk's way of cheating. (Which is something you shouldn't get me started on...)
  
  By some miracle the computer calculated we managed to sling ourselves back in time, though we over shot by a week. We got a ruling that we could fast forward through the wait instead of playing it out, so we lurked around keeping an eye on the border while effecting repairs. We where powered down for 'stealth reasons' and on passive sensors when the Romulans slipped over the border four days ahead of the Maru's arrival. We where slaughtered. I know it is No Win, but I pray that this run goes better for us.
  
  ~*~
  
  “What eager beaver cadet group's ego is to be sacrificed to the Maru today?” Commander Gregory Check asked as he strolled into testing chamber, joining the rest of the proctors and techs who would be running the exam. He paused frowning at the man in a civilian suit standing in the corner, out of the way, reading a pad.
  
  “Cadet Na'tall sh'Narra, and those she's chosen to act as her officers. She is a Remedial.” sniffed an elder Caitian admiral, his russet coloring loosing it's battle against encroaching gray. “Computer, Access program No Win 35-49. Commander Check, Admiral Zirgal, Commander Lorna as proctors with full admin privileges.”
  
  “Complying.” the computer chirped as the black and yellow room shimmered and created several control consoles and enclosed the group in a stark white room while leaving the rest of the holodeck it's basic grid.
  
  A Betazoid female in science blues shook her head. “Zirgal, you may wish to explain why she is a remedial to Greg.”
  
  “She was on the USS Trion when it was brought forward three years, four months and twenty seven days ago.” the civilian supplied with out looking up from his pad. The pregnant pause that hung in the air caused him to look up and finally offer an introduction. “Agent Hunters, DTI. I am one of her case officers and wanted to see how well she has adapted to her new era.”
  
  “Fine, but you are an observer only. Computer, grant Agent Hunter Observer status.” Zirgal sniffed as he went to the computers and began pulling up files. “Now, let us see what the randomly generated scenario is for her... The Narada. I like it. We haven't used that beast in any simulations yet.”
  
  “Gorzit.” Greg breathed as he read the known data on Nero's vessel as the information appeared on the screen.
  
  “What?” Agent Hunters asked as he put away his pad and moved over to join them. “Hmm, an interesting combination... may I make a suggestion though to make it a real challenge? How about making this a real miss match, No Win? Put her in a vessel from her era, or earlier, and let her deal with this modern beast. It wouldn't be the first time a captain has faced odds of that nature.”
  
  “Gorzit.” Greg stated again as the Starfleet personnel mulled over the suggestion.
  
  “I like that idea. It's quite a change up from the usual. Hmm, but what should we put her in then...” the Caitian Admiral mused as he brought up other files.
  
  “A Connie is just clique, and I believe it is overused.” the Betazoid offered and Hunters raised an eyebrow. “Ah, my bad. Commander Grace Lorna Psyche department. I can read people about as well as the med scanners. Most of the time.” she added eyes narrowing as she studied Hunter.
  
  “Pleasure. And I agree about the Connie. Besides she's dismissed the class in the past. How about putting her on a Perseus fast response boarder cruiser? It's close to the Pioneer she last served on.”
  
  “All right, that will do nicely. I was tempted to put her in an Andorian Cruiser from that era.” Zirgal admitted.
  
  “Which, while also a valid test, was not an official Starfleet vessel.” Hunters pointed out. “And she is also familiar with the design so it would have hardly thrown her.”
  
  ~*~
  
  Nat looked around the black and yellow holodeck as the rest of her command crew filed in, then down at her chrono to check that they had arrived on time,
  
  “Excuse me, I was wondering if I could request a... change regarding this test.” Nat said to the thin air, counting on already being monitored by those proctoring the exam.
  
  “I am afraid that students can not request changes to the program.” a familiar voice said from out of thin air before Daniels, wearing a nice, if cheap, civilian suit and several beings in uniform appeared from seemingly no were.
  
  “Really? Not even if it would make the test harder?”
  
  The Caitian, another human, and the Betazoid exchanged looks then the feline being said “Go on, we're listening. Though I somehow doubt your scenario could be harder then the one we drew up.”
  
  “I've done the stock Maru simulation before. OK a century ago, but I have done it. And I have done it in real life at Cetus IV. I really shouldn't need to take this again. But I am willing to anyway. But this time; put me in the Maru. Same situation, across the border, up TRIBBLE creek without a paddle... I always hated how the Maru does nothing to help herself. Which is why for my first run through, if you check the transcripts, I suggested to my captain we say 'f it' and scuttle the Maru with a torpedo with out crossing to far over the border, as I believed the crew was already dead or been removed by that point. My cap preferred the slingshot attempt which got us killed.”
  
  Daniels was frowning at Nat, looking like she had just ruined his fun, while the Starfleet trio conferred in low voices. After a bit the Betazoid nodded. “All right, that sounds like a far more interesting scenario then the mismatched slaughter we had planned. Cadet, select two of your classmates and we'll fit the rest into the schedule.”
  
  Nat smiled and held out a pad. “Here's what we'd like you to add for us. And before you argue, there is president, it's not like any of the ships in the simulation is brand spanken new, they've been in service and the crew has modified them and what not...”
  
  The Caitian let out a groan. “I am aware you finagled that president Cadet... fine we will take it under advisement. Come back in a half hour for your session.”
  
  “Thank you sir.” Nat said shooting Daniels a smug smile.
  
  ~*~
  
  “May I suggest we give her her band new stock transport?” Daniels asked after the trio of proctors and he where back in the holographic-ally hidden control room.
  
  Grace snorted and shook her head. “Few transports are stock even when they are brand new. My uncle has a freight business, and he either buys up proven vessels as they come on the market, or he has them built to his specs, and that includes what mods that have proven useful through the years.” Taking the pad from Zirgal she looked it over and nodded. “And none of their mods are really that outlandish, and are on most of my uncle's vessels in real life. I'd even say they missed a few obvious swap outs... but that could be because they aren't used to freighters.”
  
  Gregory Check nodded in agreement with her assessment. “I say give them what they want. Should prove amusing at the very least.”
  
  “All right. Start programming it.” Zirgal sighed.
  
  ~*~
  
  “All right, we will give you ten minutes of pre-sim time on set to get a feel of what is wrong with the Maru, before we start the clock.” Nat heard over the intercom as she and her chosen crew stood in the surprisingly spacious bridge of a Tuffli class freighter.
  
  “This is good.” Nat said as she flashed her crew a grin as she moved over to a status panel. “We're in a Ferengi owned independent freighter, in other words a smuggler's vessel, with a crew of thirty holograms. Cargo is... oh, wow, I think I ticked the Admiral off. It says here we where on a run to transport food stuffs, plants, and seeds to a colony, and apparently a few tibbles got into the holds. Add in that we're just over the Old Romulan Empire's border, being harassed by at least a Mogai and a Dhelan with Tal Shiar markings. Fun scenario. OK, Looks like we have only a handful of borders...” she looked over to where her roommate was working. “What do you have?”
  
  Angel was humming happily she worked the weapons panel. “Oh this is lovely. We have a 360 phaser bank and a missile bank in our forward arc. The missiles don't have the punch of torps, but we have a lot of them as it looks like their magazine is hooked up to a dedicated replicator. Also looks like we have a few with nuclear warheads. There is also a leech system installed on the phaser. And rear weapons are... OK, not bad; we have another missile bank. Same set up as the fore arc. I should be able to remove the inhibitor that limits how many are launched at a time. That will create a hell of a bang. No power to the beam, and guidance looks scrambled. Coms are only being jammed, the transmitter and receiver are still intact. Oh, and it looks like while we have transporters, the Rom ships have their shields up so we can't just beam over to them.”
  
  “Mr Broc, your job is to get to engineering and get things back in working order. Take to the vents, and do what you have to to get us back on line.” Nat stated to the small rock like being who gave her a salute and a smirk. She'd heard rumors that the little guy's family was somehow connected to Montgomery Scott, but Broc was tight lipped when off duty, and he rarely talked about his family when he did speak of things outside his job. Still he was the best engineer Nat could bribe onto her team.
  
  “Shields off line... damaged relays looks like. Hull breeches in cargo two and three. Contained though. Warp core is in auto shut down... I can get it running, no ish.” Broc ground out as he stood on one of the seats to get a view of the screen.
  
  “All right, suit up and we'll signal that we're ready to begin.” Nat said with a grin.
  
  Unseen by the cadet crew Greg Check nodded his approval as he stepped through the bulk head and walked over to the rest of his fellow observers. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Agent Hunters, trying to place the man, not that he had much interaction with DTI. And in trying to place him, trying to put a pin on why he had a feeling the man was up to no good. Palming his pad Greg tapped in a personnel search for the mystery man. His eyebrows went up as another group of cadets entered the room, made up mostly those who had accompanied Cadet sh'Narra the first time she had shown up and asked for the change up with a few replacements.
  
  “Cadets, welcome to the Kobayashi Maru scenario. You know what this is, so we'll get started.” the Caitian admiral said with a smirk on his muzzle which the cadets couldn't see. “Good luck. You will need it.” he finished as the bridge of an Ambassador cruiser appeared around them.
  
  ~*~
  
  As the sim went live Angel frowned at the monitor before swearing.
  
  “TRIBBLE. Captain, Rom ships just cloaked, and they are still jamming us. However they are broadcasting a Federation automated distress call so it looks like we're the ones shouting for help. I think they have a cloaked shuttle or something hovering close to us.”
  
  “OK, Angel, you remember the old flash codes?” Nat asked glancing at her roomie.
  
  The short, currently pink dyed, furry cadet nodded. “Yup. Let me guess; Not captured, don't shoot us. Working on Escape.”
  
  “Something like that. Phrase it as you see best.” Nat said as she hefted her pint sized engineer into the vents.
  
  “Not an ish.” Angel replied as her four sets of hands flew over the control board. “Heh, I just thought of something that might help with seeing through the cloaks, give me a moment to see if I can make it work.”
  
  A burst of light flashed on the freighter's view screen. “Our 'rescuers' have arrived. Get the flash going, and I'll see what I can do to break the jamming.”
  
  “Roger.” Angel replied with little attention to her CO.
  
  “Broc, get those weapons back on line before I have to try and hit the broad side of a barn with just a spit wad and my eyes closed.”
  
  “You come in here and say that.” his grumbled echoed back to her.
  
  ~*~
  
  Cadet-Captain Gaxton stood behind the command chair, mentally wishing that he could change it out for one that fit his tripodal body. Resting his chest hand on the back of the chair as his tactical officer stated with Vulcan calmness. “Sir, we are detecting the distress call. Kobayashi Maru, Just in visual range across the Romulan boarder.”
  
  “Her condition?”
  
  “Dead in space, some hull breaches to cargo bays and ship's decks. She is salvageable.”
  
  “Do an anti-proton sweep.”
  
  “Nothing at the moment, but if there are cloaked ships they may be out of range of the sweep.”
  
  “Engineering, reconfigure several probes to do the anti-proton sweep, launch them as soon as they are completed.”
  
  “Aye captain.”
  
  “Sir, do we cross the border?” Gaxton's helmsman asked glancing over his shoulder.
  
  The Triexian used his chest hand to rub his chin. “No, we wait to see what the probes flush out.”

  A Trill, a Gorn, a Jem'Hadar, Bejoran and a Voth walk into a bar, and the Bartender asks "What is this a Joke?"
  "Nope, just my away team" the trill replies before ordering a round for the bar.

  0
• damzelltrill Member Posts: 443 Arc User

  July 2017

  Part 2
  
  ~*~
  
  “They aren't moving Nat.” Angel muttered as she eyeballed the screen, stubby fingers twitching over the control boards as she worked on her plan to reveal the hidden vessels.
  
  “Huh.” Nat grunted as she moved over to look. After a moment she stabbed the Ambassador class vessel on the screen. “I think we're being played. I don't think that is an AI.”
  
  “Why do you say that?”
  
  “Just a gut feeling. OK, Blind launch a mess of those missiles with proximity triggers. Our armor should take the damage. I want that shuttle or what ever taken out, and I want to show them we are alive and still fighting.”
  
  Angel looked up, a nervous expression on her face. “I'd rather wait until the shields are back up before we do so.”
  
  “The Romies won't fire on us. That is the real prize, they don't want to scare them away by uncloaking just yet.”
  
  “We don't know that those ships don't have upgraded shields based on what the Scimitar had.” Angel countered. “But I think my anti-cloak plan is ready, I can launch it at the same time as I do the missiles.”
  
  “Those are expensive systems, I don't think at this moment anyone other then the Klingons and us have the resources to equip ships with them.”
  
  Angel shook her head, not really putting any effort into the argument. “And we also don't know that...”
  
  “Angel, trust me.”
  
  “I do Nat, just being the Spock to your Kirk. Deploying missiles and my surprise.”
  
  ~*~
  
  “Sir, something's happening to the Maru. I am detecting transporter activity and life signs!”
  
  “Magni...”
  
  “Warp core breech detected!” the tactical officer cut in as the screen shifted to show what was at first just a flicker, then a ship rxploded into reality sending debris into the freighter's hull. “Distress call has been terminated!”
  
  Gaxton squinted at the Maru. “Zoom in on the running lights and the debris...”
  
  “Sir?”
  
  “Humor me.”
  
  “Aye.” the crewman did as instructed, her mouth dropping. “Are those... tribbles? And missiles?”
  
  “It appears so. Hmm, look at the running lights. It appears to be flash code... Play back from since the Maru came into view on my screen.”
  
  ~*~
  
  “Angel, did you weaponize tribbles?”
  
  “Maybe?” Angel said with a grin as her fingers started to dance over her control panels as a new plan came to her.
  
  “Good job. Hmm, OK, we have any of the fuzzballs left? If we can figure out where the ships are, I want you to try and beam a bunch of them into their warp cores, or any where into the works where they will cause the most harm. Which is what I think you accidentally did.”
  
  “I can do that. Let me see if we have a schematic for the Mogai and Dhelan.”
  
  “And what are you doing? You have a TRIBBLE eating grin on your face, and you are chuckling. Evilly.
  
  “I'm hacking the repli-magazines for the missiles to upgrade them some. If it works we'll have control of the missiles at least.”
  
  “Just on the one.” Nat cautioned, “I don't want you to trash both our impact weapons in case this idea of yours goes bust.”
  
  “Huh? Oh all right. Hey Rock head, how's my phaser power coming?”
  
  “Slowly. I had to go around a decompressed section.”
  
  “All right, well I'm improving something right now... YES! HA! They do have kids toys in the basic replicator programming. Let's see if they have the one I want...”
  
  ~*~
  
  “They managed to get the kestrel. With tribbles.” Gregory said with surprise in his voice as he looked up from his console.
  
  “I am beginning to get a head ache.” the Caitian muttered as he watched the simulated Romulan ships begin to change positions. He touched a few buttons and several more ships where added to the simulations. “The patrol sent out a message before the Federation ship arrived. They will arrive in twenty.”
  
  “What class?” Agent Hunter asked. “And how many?”
  
  “Two Ar'kif. Let them deal with some fighters.”
  
  “Don't the Romulans have some drone ships as well?”
  
  “Agent, we have only ever seen those deployed from stations.” Zirgal snipped.
  
  “Well I was just asking as they could have an updated version of the tele capture unit...”
  
  Gregory's brows rose. “I know we and the computers cheat, but that seems a little... over the top.”
  
  “This is the No Win Scenario Commander.” Zirgal snorted. “Nothing is out of bounds. Let's change one of the carriers to a Scimitar. Shame the Narada was under the command of a renegade or I would send that in... hmm, maybe a thalaron generator?”
  
  ~*~
  
  “Probes are away and beginning their sweep.” Gaxton's ops officer stated.
  
  The tripodal captain let out a grunt as he focused on his chair's screen. “All right, looks like we may have allies on the Maru. Flash code says there are survivors, and they are working to get the ship operational. And they say there are two ships here; a Dhelan and a Mogai.”
  
  “Can we trust them?” His first officer asked. “it could be a trick to force us to commit to crossing the border.”
  
  “I doubt the program would include who's running the test as part of their verification code if it was a computer gambit.” Gaxton replied.
  
  “Sir, probes detecting a ship... uncloaking and firing on the probes. Probes are gone, but we flushed a Dhelan.” barked tactical.
  
  “Helm, take us across the border. Tac; Shields to full, computer counter measures to full, weapons hot. Let them fire first, then shoot to disable.”
  
  “Aye sir.” chorused around him.
  
  ~*~
  
  “Gorzit! They got shields up before I could get the fuzzballs beamed over.” Angel spat as the Dhelan swooped away.
  
  “We have guidance and phasers!” came the voice of Nat's engineer just as Angel let out a squeal of delight.
  
  “Missile mods are also done.” the four armed alien said with a very wide grin. “Nat, ever watch the old Stargate Atlantis vids or the holonovels based on them?”
  
  “Can't say I have, why?”
  
  “They had drones in that series that where just amazing. I just semi reproduced them by merging a toy with the basic...”
  
  “Short version?”
  
  “Remote guided missiles. Have fun.” Angel said indicating a set of controls.
  
  “All righty then. B, can we get moving?” Nat asked as she targeted the now visible Romulan vessel.
  
  “Working on it. Weapons where a matter of putting a few chips and plugs back in place. I think I can give you a quarter impulse shortly.”
  
  “Work quickly please.”
  
  “Maneuvering thrusters are a go.” the rock like alien replied.
  
  “They're some help, I suppose.” Nat muttered as she took control of the drones Angel had created, sending several dozen of the glowing squid like devices after the visible Romulan vessel.
  
  ~*~
  
  “Maru is fighting back!” was the startled squawk from tactical in a tone that made Gaxton flinch. “they're using some kind of squid-missile-thing...”
  
  “Range.”
  
  “One and a half out.”
  
  “Tac, random beam barrage, I want phaser energy flying every where save at the Maru. There is another un-sheilded ship out there we might get a lucky hit on. Target the visible Rom with the torps. Helm, fly us under that freighter and then come about 180 on our vertical axis. Tractor the Maru and draw her into our Force bubble, get her as close to our hull as we can between the nacelles. I want her piggy backing us.”
  
  “Tight fit, but I will do my best.”
  
  ~*~
  
  “Interesting maneuver.” Gregory muttered as he watched the plots of the holographic ships, and he winced as the computer made a minute adjustment to the location of the still hidden Romulan Mogai, putting it right into the path of the speeding Ambassador class vessel. “Gorzit.”
  
  ~*~
  
  Nat's eyes went huge as the speeding Federation craft was decapitated by an invisible blade, the saucer section speeding towards her smaller ship with apparently no guidance. “ALL HANDS HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS!! IMPACT IMINANT!” Nat yelled over the com as she hit the RCM thrusters, sending the Maru into a lateral barrel roll.
  
  Angel's quartet of hands locked onto what they could as the little alien swore out a nasty string of words in Bolian as she was jerked around in her harness. Nat wasn't fairing much better, though she faintly heard Broc bark. “You have half impulse and shields!!”
  
  “Thank you!” Nat breathed as she pushed the Maru's controls to their stops as the ship leaped away from the out of control saucer. “Angel, status?”
  
  “Fed shields are down on both parts, saucer impulse seems to be down, no power to phasers or launchers. Engineering section is a wreck; both Nacelles are gone, life support is minimal and there are several hull breeches. I am honestly surprised the core hasn't breached Mogai is... just as dead as the engineering section with both wings sheered off and the head is crushed back into the neck spar. They might have an auxiliary bridge and impulse engines, but they can't do much. Core seems stable for the moment. The Dhelan has cloaked again.”
  
  “Dump cargo from the holds and begin beaming survivors to them.”
  
  “Just Fed?”
  
  Nat made a snap decision and shook her head. “No, grab any one still alive from both ships. Start with the Roms while I try and hail someone over on the Bass.”
  
  “Their coms are down, let me set up some lines of communication.” Broc snipped from the engineering section.
  
  ~*~
  
  “Well that is the end of that.” Zirgal said with a thin smile, “Computer; End...”
  
  “Hold it Admiral. Let's let them have a little more time. After all the Maru isn't dead yet.” Hunter said with a small smirk.
  
  “I have to agree, the scenario isn't finished.” Gregory chimed in.
  
  ~*~
  
  Gaxton cradled his dislocated chest arm with his left one as he looked over the remains of his bridge. The tactical station and it's officer were charred husks (a disturbing addition to the program the holographic wounds where, he thought). His helmsman was struggling to get up, but was having little luck due to the simulated loss of a hand. One of his crew, he wasn't sure at this point what the man's original position had been, was working on rerouting damaged systems.
  
  The shimmer of a transporter effect drew the bridge crew's attention and those who could brought up what ever came to hand as a weapon. For a moment a small device hung in the air then a hologram flickered to life. It was bare bones, and had the same half formed features of a Changeling. It cocked it's head to one side and then stated. “Your coms are down. The Maru wishes to beam you over to her. Will you allow this?”
  
  “We have reactors! Impulse coming on line, as are saucer weapons!”
  
  Gaxton gave the hologram a grim smile. “Focus on the engineering section. We'll cover you as best we can.”
  
  “Understood.” the hologram said with a nod. “Message relayed. I will stay here until you wish to be beamed away.”
  
  Gaxton looked around his bridge and shook his head. “That will not be necessary. We will cover the Maru with all we have.”
  
  ~*~
  
  “Holds are empty, and I have re-purposed some of the holo-crew for various tasks. Three are over being com-units on the wrecks.” Broc stated. “Hold porter controls transferred to bridge.”
  
  “I was wondering why replies where in your voice.” Nat nodded. “Thank you.”
  
  “Holo rights people will skin him, but it works.” Angel observed as Broc transported from engineering and scrambled into a seat.
  
  “Bass secondary is scrap. Holo's playing spacer tape.” the rock like alien stated as he strapped in.
  
  Nat nodded as she worked the transferred “We have as many of the saucer crew willing to beam over. The captain is making a last stand to cover us.”
  
  “All right, Angel, head for the border, best speed. Broc, have your man vent the warp plasma to cover us.”
  
  “Barely holding on.” Broc replied shaking his head. “Got Boom, or no boom. No fancy.”
  
  Nat nodded absently as she looked over the screen. “You said you sent a holo over to the Rom wreck?”
  
  “Yes...”
  
  “Can they blow that core?”
  
  Broc considered for a moment then nodded.
  
  “Do either of them still have a working tractor beam?”
  
  Broc nodded again looking puzzled.
  
  “OK, it looks like they should be in range of each other still.” Nat observed.
  
  Broc's dark little eyes lit up and he smirked as he transmitted some orders. “Floor it Angel.” he stated as the two wrecks began to draw together...
  
  ~*~
  
  “Well that was fun.” Nat said with a grin as the cadets settled around a table in the 602 club.
  
  “Indeed.” Gaxton said as he sipped from his glass. “I have to say it is rare that one wins the senario without cheating.”
  
  “Eh, that's debatable.” Nat said looking over at Angel who was having some kind of drinking contest with Broc. She really hoped those two didn't wind up doing something possibly anatomically, and biologically, incomparable that night. “We exploited unexpected tactics.”
  
  “Still, it was quite the run, and I hear we all got passing grades. I just wish it hadn't been at the expense of my first command.”
  
  Nat shrugged. “That's the job Gax. We're a bit like firefighters of old; we run towards the problems, not away from them, and some times it costs us in blood to stand against the problem.”
  
  The tripodial alien nodded and pulled something out of a pocket. “Before I got your invitation for drinks, I looked you up and found your original after the Maru photo...”
  
  Nat took the print out from him and stared at her class mates, most of them long gone either by mishap or old age. A figure in the back with the proctors caught her eye and a little growl escaped her.
  
  “What is it? Do you not like the memento?” Gaxton asked leaning forward.
  
  “This guy look familiar to you?”
  
  Gaxton blinked and took the flimsy from Nat's fingers. “That can't be agent Hunter... it has to be a relation...”
  
  “Guy's a temporal agent, and bad news. Next time I see him, I need to kick him some where it will hurt, cause I think he's been grooming me from the start.”

  A Trill, a Gorn, a Jem'Hadar, Bejoran and a Voth walk into a bar, and the Bartender asks "What is this a Joke?"
  "Nope, just my away team" the trill replies before ordering a round for the bar.

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• cmdrscarlet Member Posts: 5,137 Arc User

  September 2017

  Mail Day
  
  “So, this is it?” Kathryn spoke to Petty Officer Joleim, the Quartermaster to Shuttle Bay Four. She stood over a small crate approximately 60 centimeters square and was worn down with scrapes and minor dents from years of use being a standard Starfleet mail container.
  
  Closing a tricorder, the Benzite looked up. “Yes, Captain. Per standard procedures, the logs were reviewed before conducting a level five scan, and not seeing any concern, I processed the package from the Savoyard.”
  
  Kathyrn nodded and looked questioningly at the female Caitian Security Guard standing a few paces behind Joleim. Her arms were crossed behind her and she stood passively looking to the distance. Her tail swished in a way that suggested she was irritated with the situation. Kathryn sympathized for Ensign Kirat; Joleim was very meticulous with his duty and more than once he had called Security to handle minor incidents. She recalled Kirat’s name appearing on most of the after-action reports. Clearly the Caitian was assigned to this area.
  
  Seeing where Kathryn was looking, Joleim answered, “pardon me Captain, protocols demand Security presence when the quartermaster deems the situation is outside normal parameters.”
  
  “I understand.” She paused as she looked back to the crate. “What have your scans revealed?”
  
  Standing, Joleim cleared his throat. “Well, my initial review of the transit logs did not seem out of the ordinary. The package originated from Starbase-39 and has been transferred two times on well-vetted transport vessels before ending its journey here. The standard level five scan is meant to detect trace elements of known explosives or combustibles only, and finding none is certainly predictable as the crate would not have been able to be transported to this ship in the first place. As you know.”
  
  Kathryn blinked patiently.
  
  The Benzite continued. “What seemed out of place was that the contents were either not included by the sender … or were redacted.”
  
  That comment surprised Kathryn and she did not hide her thoughts. “That sounds a little conspiratorial, wouldn’t you agree?”
  
  Joleim tilted his head as he thought quickly. “To the contrary, Captain. I am postulating reasons for the missing information in the manifest.”
  
  “Fair enough,” Kathryn exhaled quickly. “Who is the sender and who is the recipient?”
  
  Looking at a PADD, Joleim answered, “Kit Walker to Kiera Cameron. This is also an oddity as there is no crewmember aboard this ship with that name.”
  
  Kathryn couldn’t help to roll her eyes. “No, indeed there is not. So, let’s take a peek inside shall we?”
  
  Joleim started to protest as Kathryn bent down and quickly entered an override code into the access panel. The top of the crate hissed open and Benzite jumped back suddenly, resulting in Kirat drawing her phaser pistol. Kathryn calmly pushed the panel wide open and stuck her hand inside the box. Pulling out a Romulan-styled PADD, she looked up to the shocked Quartermaster. She stood and inspected the gray-colored device.
  
  “Stand down Ensign, this package was anticipated, from a certain point of view. It was meant for me.”
  
  Kirat holstered the pistol. “Aye, Captain,” responded Kirat with a little relief.
  
  Joleim composed himself. “Forgive me Captain, this is not expected protocol. Should I have followed another policy for this situation?”
  
  “Not at all Joleim, you executed your duty perfectly.”
  
  The Quartermaster beamed from the compliment. His face suddenly looked dumbfounded. “I do not understand, why the subterfuge?”
  
  Kathryn held up the device. “What, this?” She giggled to herself. “I’m happy to say that Solaris just got information that will help Chef Nadaka make the most amazing Romulan brioche.”
  
  Joleim tilted his head again, his face expressionless.
  
  “It’s a professional joke from the sender,” Kathryn said reassuringly and smiled. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy the results soon!”
  
  As she turned to leave, Kathryn spoke over her shoulder. “Joleim, please audit the logs to declare the package was received by me.”
  
  The Benzite tilted his head to the one side again. “Aye, Captain.”
  
  +++
  
  The turbolift doors opened. Kathryn stepped in, spun on her heels to face the empty passageway and ordered, “Deck One”.
  
  After the doors closed, she enthusiastically entered a code to unlock the PADD’s screen, expecting the see a message from friend Daikar.
  
  Her smile faded when Franklin Drake’s image appeared instead. The Section 31 operative smirked, knowing she did not appreciate what he was about to ask her to do. “Greetings, Captain Beringer. There is something happening in the Gamma Quadrant. Let’s talk about that …”
  
  

  Kathryn S. Beringer - Endless Excelsior - Veritatum Liquido Cernerne - a proud off-meta build
  
  

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