Google Drive happened--but despite the fact that it causes formatting problems here in the Forums, I find it is a perfect medium for collaborative stories. The people involved can make edits and draw feedback from each other in real time, or as close as makes no nevermind--which is very useful for a collaborative story.
I've never used it (or heard of it ) but it does sound like a great collaborative tool :cool:
I've never used it (or heard of it ) but it does sound like a great collaborative tool :cool:
If you go to the main Google Search Page without doing anything else, there should be a bar along the top of the page. Click on the 'Drive' option to go to Google Drive--you'll need to have an active Google Account and Sign in to said account in order to use it, but it's worth it.
If you go to the main Google Search Page without doing anything else, there should be a bar along the top of the page. Click on the 'Drive' option to go to Google Drive--you'll need to have an active Google Account and Sign in to said account in order to use it, but it's worth it.
(Per a Request from patrick on the Google Drive document we're working on, I'm going to give a try at posting this update myself. Cross your fingers.)
USS Raging Tempest, 2 Hours from K-7 (Currently in Quantum Slipstream)
As the Raging Tempest sped through Quantum Slipstream, quickly making its way to K-7, Takeshi sat at the desk in his Ready Room, going over some of the files STIG had sent him: Dossiers on the Suharto's Senior Staff. One of the Junior Officers was currently taking over for him at the helm so he could look at those files, but he'd requested that they call him when they were getting close to K-7, so he could guide the ship in to dock himself.
First up was the Suharto's Captain, David Huntington.
Starfleet Academy class of '81, first assigment USS Ark Royal, progressed from a junior science ensign to Executive officer under two captains-the second one was Lewis McLain... citations for humanitarian actions in the Hobus crisis, and two cites for Valour... promoted to Captain and assigned to...USS Gabriel Bell, lost over Vega and presumed dead until they somehow found him as a Borg on Defera... The medical record following that included a few interesting names, including the wanted criminal Dr. Mary Moriarty and Captain Kevin Monroe, Moriarty was apparently consulted by on-site medical on methods to restore the man's personality...
Definitely an interesting career, and one of the best of his generation. Takeshi wondered just what it was that caused him to go rogue, before deciding to leave that question to the analysts (and interrogators, if Huntington was captured alive) and moved on to the next file, on the officer who was most likely the Suharto's new XO.
Edmund James Davillar, Starfleet Academy class of '87, Engineering primary, first assigned USS Gabriel Bell, one of 30 listed survivors, transferred for a time to Task Force Omega from 2409 to 2410, worked in technical analysis. Requested assignment to USS Suharto mid-2410. No dependents.... It was interesting-Omega personnel generally don't transfer out once they're there unless...Discipline notation: Commander Davillar has proven to be problematic in working with KDF personnel...high xenophobia index, passive-aggressive behaviours...
Takeshi's eyebrow quirked at that. The xenophobia index would possibly cause problems between the Commander and the Orions who the Suharto was working with... perhaps that could be used in some way? Anyway, next was that... Ah'vsath... the one he'd seen in that recording.
Lt. Ah'vsath (no last name): Species H'kkarank#, Enlisted Starfleet october 7, 2407 aboard the USS Gabriel Bell after being rescued. Class of 2408 at Starfleet Academy. Claims to be among the last of it's kind after a disaster (See Survey #821, Mutara bloc, USS Gabriel Bell). Ground combat cite, Defera, 2409/2410 period attached to group Echo, Southwestern district. Was requested by name and transferred to USS Suharto February 2410. No known relatives.
H'kkarank# species is limited amorph shapeshifting type capable of sustaining near-humanoid form with assistance. Scores 169 out of 200 on T'Von telepathic/empathic sensitivity scale. Dietary requirements are omnivorous, no sexual dimorphism.
Takeshi shuddered slightly at remembering how that one officer was... devoured by this Ah'vsath. Omnivorous, indeed... Putting that aside, he pulled up the next file on... a Pah-Wraith Cultist? Great... Religious Fanatics were always trouble, especially when they were essentially worshiping demons...
LTC Kala Maressa- Bajoran, Age 40. Starfleet Internal Security File 723498/u344871//bKalaMaressa22a3
Waiver under Federation treaty-citation of Federation Charter on Freedom of Religion under the Faulkner precedent (See UFP vs. Sylvia Faulkner).
LTC Maressa's religious preference is a matter of public record.
reassigned to Advisory Group Defera late 2409 after the destruction of the Gabriel Bell. Allegations of mistreatment of Breen Prisoners investigated, officer was cleared of wrongdoing.
Assigned surface relief, Defera, during the Borg invasion of that world, recommended for promotion by Capt. Kevin Monroe after battle of Hill 123, Promotion suspended pending article 32 investigation of misconduct regarding deferi civilians, reassigned USS Suharto upon request from that ship's captain...
Takeshi sighed. The Suharto's crew all seemed crazy in some form or another. It looked like the next entry was on an Android--hopefully that wouldn't have any of the problems the rest seemed to have...
Lt. Analytics-Soong/Daystrom model 47, android officer template:
Assembled at Macintosh Terra, 2408/12/15, standard officer training programme installed at Starfleet Academy, 2409/11/21, assigned USS Suharto.
Specification training package: Sciences, multidisciplinary.
The Soong 47 positronic processor is one of the most advanced currently accepted into starfleet service with an estimated 200 year lifespan. Special programming authorized by Adm. Quinn's office: Classified-Redacted.
Takeshi's eyes widened slightly. Admiral Quinn had authorized special programming in this android? That signalled a few alarm bells in Takeshi's mind, especially because it seemed that programming was classified, and could be anything. Before continuing to the next profile, he bundled up a copy of the Android's file, packaged it under the toughest encryption he knew, and sent it off on Comm Frequency 3754, a channel exclusive to a contact of his.
And as he continued looking through the files for the Suharto's senior officers, he just wondered if he'd be able to stop them from whatever it was they were doing...
Starbase K-7
K-7. Even after all the years since the incident that caused the station to hit the news nets over a century ago, it still reeked of tribbles and grain to beings with more sensitive olfactory perception. There were probably tribbles to this day in air ducts somewhere, they were the cockroaches of space. You could exterminate all you like, but they would never leave. Schrodi sneezed as soon as she re-appeared on the transporter platform, she wasn't allergic but it was still bothersome to her. "Now if I was Admiral Gilbert and Sullivan, where would I be?" she muttered.
"We could always follow the trail of polished brass fittings?"
"Fortunately, they don't use brass anymore in naval construction," Schrodi said with a chuckle, "or he'd have people tied up polishing it-eep!"
Ponta blinked, a second ago the cap'n was right beside her, then she was nowhere-wait, she was ducking behind a potted plant in the hallway. "Cap'n, are you ok?"
"Breathe, Cap'n," Ponta said, wondering if she should call a medic. Schrodi just took a deep breath, slowing down. "It's HIM!"
"Him who?"
"Dr Kevin Monroe! Oh jeez, I should have taken a shower, is there anything in my teeth? Ack my tail still has grease on it-"
Ponta peered down the hallway. "Where, behind the walrus?"
"No he is the walrus. I mean, he's not A Walrus, he's actually remarkably fit despite his appearance. OhmyGod, what do I do.."
"Talk to him? I mean he's just a starfleet officer, he may have a doctorate but you've got a pile of them yourself..." She was still trying to figure out just what had gotten her captain so flustered. Of course she knew of Monroe as well, from reading the tactical analysis of the battle of hill 123, but this level of..well, schoolgirl giddiness is something she'd never seen in the Captain-oh hell.
While she was puzzling it out Schrodi had somehow moved up when she wasn't looking, the Cap'n was good at doing things like that. She started over as Schrodi, standing behind Captain Monroe spoke up. "Excuse me, Dr Monroe," she said nervously, holding onto a cluster of PADDs? No, actual physical journals that she had pulled out of somewhere, there was no telling sometimes. When he turned around Schrodi's eyes got big as saucers as she fangirlishly squealed. "IreadyourpapersonBorgphysiologyandneurotransmittereffectsandIlovedthemthoughIhadafewquestionsaboutyourtheoriesonBorgcommunication-EEEP!"
Ponta was glad she brought the squirt bottle with her as she sprayed Schrodi with water, interrupting the Caitians breathless squealing. "Sorry about that, Captain Schrodinger can get a bit excited about Science sometimes, if you know what I mean, Sir."
Up close, Ponta could see the faint lines of tissue-regens--the kind issued in ground combat zones that are usually 'adjusted' and smoothed once the fighting is over (these tissue regens weren't), and in spite of how animated-seeming Gonzales was, her eyes had a permanent thousand-meter stare look that furtively searched for threats with textbook Post-Traumatic-stress. "THE Captain Schrodinger?" Kevin's eyes went wide. "I...wow...I mean, um...you actually read it..." he was flabberghasted and amazed-and speechless, OhwowIcan'tbelieveit he flushed self-consciously. "Um...wow, ah, I didn't think...your papers on quantum slipstream behaviour in the macro-scale, and the potentials for cross-dimensional mechanics are a hell of a lot better done than a few journal notes I made on Defera!" he said. "Really, I mean, I've been fooling with nanomedicine, you're theorizing the next step in civilization."
Schrodi calmed down, despite standing there with her ears dripping. "Technically just A Captain Schrodinger, there are a lot of me in the multiverse," she said with a shy grin. "and those were, well, they're ok, problem was I was on a deadline and doing those in my off time while teaching-one of the reasons I went back in the reserves, so I could work on the theories real time."
Commander Gonzales stepped lightly over to Ponta. "You got another one of those? maybe in 'BIG' size?" she asked. "If we don't get our captains moving, they're going to be standing there going gaga for hours."
"Really?" Ponta asked, regarding the small human engineer warily as she handed over a spare spray bottle.
"Really-Gordo's a HUGE fan of Captain Schrodinger," she said. "You would NOT believe the things I've had to talk him into NOT asking me to build after reading her published physics work-if I didn't talk him down, we'd probably be scattered quanta across half the universe." She extended a hand. "Melinda Gonzales, Chief Engineer and acting XO for the USS Smedley Butler."
"Ponta Der Trys," she said, shaking the human's hand. "XO, Tactical, and Helm for the quantum furball there."
Ponta's wits caught up. "Gordo...means big, or fat...he lets you get away with that?" she said, surprised. While Tellarites could get away with insults like that, being it was part of their racial nature, (which she admittedly took advantage of) humans generally couldn't.
Melinda shrugged. "So far. Mi Capitan es Bueno, but I'm the gal who keeps him under 350 kilos... if we let those two get acquainted before eleven hundred, we'll both be on the carpet in front of El Jefe incompetente de TRIBBLE, probably grabbing our ankles, or just enduring a lengthy lecture on decorum from El Nino Rata-that'd be Captain Dwyllin Zarkus, the Admiral's top aide."
"Yeah, plus the Cap'n does have a 'history' with the model of a modern major general from what she told me, probably best to get 'em moving." She walked over and poked Schrodi with a finger. "Put a cork in those carbonating hormones, Cap'n, we're due at the Admiral's office."
She squeaked when she was poked, but nodded. "She's right, it's best not to keep his Lordship waiting," she said. "Plenty of time to go over theories and things later."
They proceeded to the Admiral's office, where they all got to wait for another hour and a half...
USS Raging Tempest, Just arrived at K-7
Takeshi had guided the Raging Tempest into a spot at the shipyards with very little problems, even though the Main Deflector had burnt out upon dropping out of Slipstream. Now he, Linda, and Brok'tan stood upon the ship's main Transporter Pad, ready to beam over to the Starbase.
"I wonder what this briefing is going to be about," Brok'tan commented in his customary bass growl.
"Not sure, but it's got to be important if it's got that teme Kingsley scared," Takeshi remarked, before nodding to the Transporter Operator. "Energize."
The Raging Tempest's Transporter Room faded away, to be replaced by K-7's.
There were already a few people here-a Tellarite trader scowling and arguing with a Vulcan merchant, an Andorian quad in formal dress waiting to depart-obviously a recent group-marriage, three or four addtional security officers trying to direct traffic both here, and in the corridor beyond, and a thin, bookish-looking bajoran woman in an ill-fitting Starfleet sciences uniform sporting Warrant officer pips, trying to speak to one of the operations personnel while holding a stack of books and items that was clearly too much for her to safely handle.
"Where is the Admiral's office, again?" she was asking.
"I told you already twice, chief," the Ops guy was getting rude.
"NO, you told me a bunch of balderdash-I wound up two floors DOWN, near the power core!" the woman was clearly NOT an academy graduate... she was also too old to be a voluntary recruit, leaving her as a rare thing indeed-a civilian draftee under the Emergency act of 2407.
Takeshi walked up, Linda and Brok'tan alongside him. "Looking for Admiral Kingsley's office?" Takeshi asked, and at a nod from the Bajoran, he continued, "So are we--just got in, and already have a briefing to get to. Let's see if we can get there together, miss..."
"Akorem Tarel, I guess it's not Professor since I got drafted...and I'm your briefing," she said. "Or at least, most of it." She smiled weakly.
"Captain Takeshi Yamato, USS Raging Tempest. With me are Commander Brok'tan, my XO, and Commander Linda Allster-Yamato, my Security Chief. I take it most of the material you're needing is in those books?" Takeshi asked.
"A lot of it is, the Artifact's already secured with Captain McLain, I was...a little late getting the rest of this together," she admitted. "Hence getting lost here."
"Right," Takeshi replied, eyeing the books. "That looks like a bit much for you to handle, Miss Akorem... Mind if we help you with it?"
"OH THANK YOU." She passed a few over to him, the books were heavy, some of them were 'printed' on metal sheeting. Others were just...they felt incredibly old. "At the dig-site I was running, I had a Cardassian assistant, wonderful student...but she's gone back to Cardassia since the Dominion asked us to leave."
"Right," Takeshi remarked as he and Brok'tan each took a fairly decent portion of the stack, while Linda took a much smaller stack. Brok'tan wasn't much of a surprise--being Klingon, he was fairly strong--but some of the attending crowd looked rather shocked at Takeshi lifting about as many books as Brok'tan without breaking much of a sweat.
With the books distributed, Akorem scooped up a small crate with a grunt. "Okay, lead...the...way.." she said. Thank the prophets I don't have to come back for these...
Takeshi nodded, and began walking into the Starbase, Linda, Brok'tan, and Akorem right behind him.
He'd been to K-7 in the past, so he knew where most Admirals who stayed at K-7 for a while usually parked. As such, he didn't really need to ask directions.
As they exited the turbolift, the group could see a small knot of officers waiting in the anteroom.
This was the first time outside a holo that Takeshi, Linda, or Brok'tan had actually seen either Captain Schrodinger or Captain Kevin Monroe, both of whom were busily engaging in 'science talk' that left their aides looking both nervous, and bored.
Takeshi walked up to them, setting the books he was carrying down on a nearby table, as Linda, Brok'tan, and Akorem did the same. "Captain Schrodinger, Captain Monroe," Takeshi called, getting their attention. "Captain Takeshi Yamato, USS Raging Tempest. It's an honor to meet the two of you."
Kevin stood up, he seemed...larger in real life. (Or fatter than he looked in the newsholos, anyway...) "Pleasure's mine, Captain," he said, extending a huge hand. "So...anybody got any idea why we're all here?"
Schrodi stood as well, peering at Akorem curiously.
{She looks familar...}
{Oh! She was a big name in her field, then had a breakdown and committed suicide while teaching a class.}
{Well, she obviously didn't do that here-though from her scent, she may be a recovering addict.}
"Some folks never get a break," she muttered sadly, then smiled at the woman bearing books. "You must be Dr Tarel, I've heard you were doing research out in the Gamma Quadrant," she said. "As for why we're here, I've got a couple ideas, but probably best to wait for someplace more secure than outside an Admirals office."
(In case you are wondering, yes, I will most likely be taking over the posting of this story until it is completed or patrick manages to fix whatever problem he is having, whichever comes first.)
Episode 9, Scene 3
The door to the Admiral's inner office opened. "Captains, this way please," Dwyllin Zarkus announced.
Gonzo leaned to Der Trys, "El Nino Rata." she whispered-just loudly enough for Takeshi, Schrodinger, and Kevin to hear.
Captain Lewis McLain was seated near the window, looking bored and somewhat trapped. Admiral Vivian Lorus Gorton Kingsley III wasn't, he was standing there, looking a bit like a starfleet version of an Austro-Hungarian opera star. "Professor, I see you found your way here," the Admiral cracked. "WIllie, close the door, and engage the privacy field."
Takeshi's eyebrow quirked slightly, even as he remained standing at attention with Linda and Brok'tan. Apparently what was about to be revealed was not going to be able to leave the room.
"We are secure, Admiral, sir!" Dwyllin Zarkus announced in a grating, self-important, yet wheedling tone.
"Have a seat, or stand at your rest, ladies and gentlemen, this is Professor Akorem Tarel, she is a noted authority on Iconian and pre-iconian civilizations and an historian of note." the Admiral gestured to Akorem, "She's also a tenured professor on...loan...to Starfleet for the duration of the crisis you are about to be briefed on."
Akorem snorted in irritation, her fiery temperament overcoming her reserve. "Drafted," she muttered. "Okay, who here knows anything about the galaxy fifty thousand years ago?"
Takeshi didn't know much--he was a soldier, not a historian or archaeologist--but he did know a little bit from his history books. "Wasn't that around the time the Iconians were the dominant power in the galaxy?" he asked.
Schrodi nodded. "Also when they built and ran the gate network. I'm not too up on the historical end of things, my field's more how those things work, or shouldn't work as the case may be."
She opened the crate. "Head of the class." She tossed small packets of nibblets to Takeshi and Schrodi. "Very good, now, how many of you know more than a tiny bit about the Orions? Because they knew a lot about the galaxy fifty thousand years ago."
"Anyone, Rauffo?...no. Okay..." she started passing out the big stack of books. "Careful, some of these volumes predate human civilization by millenia...some of them even predate the pre separation-vulcans." then, she strode over, and activated the holostage in the middle of the central table, a map of the known galaxy appeared.
"There was a civilization before the Iconians," she stated. "We're not sure HOW far before them, we know they were active at the beginning and middle of the Iconian period, because we've got our hands on these records, and found...collaborative evidence as far afield as the Gamma Quadrant."
Takeshi had a pretty good idea as to how she knew about that. "I take it you were working out there on a dig before you were 'loaned' to Starfleet, Miss Akorem?" he asked, placing enough emphasis on 'loan' to identify that he knew she'd been drafted.
"I was. We had an agreement with the Dominion to study two sites in their space-my Vorta contact arrived on site with Captain McLain there...but that's an aside story for another day. What you need to know, is that this prior civilization apparently leaves the area for a while, then comes back...and that they are advanced, and likely to be incredibly hostile." Akorem changed the view. "This is a ship we were excavating at site Absalom...and here, is what an Orion recording says it looked like..."
The image shifted to display something that looked like a nightmare made of arms and technology and flesh. Next to it was the sensor-pulse record of a similar shape, crushed under millennia of dust, dirt, and the ruins of civilizations piled on top of it.
{oh geeze, talk about nightmare fuel for a design.}
{C'thulu f'tagan, what a wonderful phrase...}
Schrodi just muttered under her breath 'hush' as she looked close at the image. It was similar to something she'd seen before elsewhen...
"We do not know what they looked like, but we know from Orion records and the remains of Hebitian, early Klingon, and other species near and around the dig site, that they were a dominant, cosmopolitan power with a penchant for enslaving and altering subject races to suit their needs." Akorem paused and let that sink in.
"The Orions have a cult in their population, my present-day source indicates that they admit to around fifteen percent of the population adheres to it-this cult is responsible for the riot at Eryphis Station a few weeks ago, and my source indicates they may have been involved in triggering certain other events along the border with the Klingons." She paused. "This cult worships what they call 'the good masters'- the imagery changed to show a succession of locations, several of them contemporary, with translations of the orion-script grafitti. "The Masters Are Coming," she said. "It's their rallying cry, and we think they may have allies...what we KNOW, is that they're after relics left behind by these 'good masters', and that some of the relics are...powerful."
Takeshi frowned. This did not sound good... And suddenly he had a feeling in his gut that there was an answer to a question he'd had earlier. "These 'good masters'," he began. "How powerful would they be compared to, say, the Borg?"
"MUCH more powerful. I've found pieces that could only be fabricated using advanced nanoreplicator technology, materials that don't behave according to majority outcomes, power sources that are still active without maintenance for the last fifty to one hundred thousand years...and the Orions found more of them a few millennia ago...according to some of the records in your hands, the Iconians barely understood enough to reverse-engineer their gateway tech," she said. "Something that, thank the prophets, our green-skinned counterparts haven't mastered YET." She sighed. "And there is a specific set of artifacts they're after right now--imagine a device you can plant in, say, an asteroid, activate it, wait a few days, and collect a small fleet of warships? Imagine something you can dust from a low-flying shuttle, and in a few weeks, have an army of fanatical, trained soldiers in-place...that kind of technology."
Takeshi was shocked, and yet, somehow a piece of the puzzle fell into place. "And a Starfleet Captain, assimilated by the Borg, liberated, but traumatized by the experience, is more than likely willing to help these cultists do whatever it takes to bring these 'Masters' back, believing they're our only chance against them..." he whispered, but still loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
"It would explain what Dave did," McLain said in a quiet, but clear voice. "What he's doing..."
"NO excuse," Kevin countered. "I fought the borg, I've liberated dozens of officers, civilians, people, from them, most of them wouldn't...because they're still people."
"Gentlemen?" the Admiral harrumphed. "Professor."
"Right...speculations aside, we know what they're after-the specific what." she brought up another holodiagram.
"The Orion records, and what I've been able to translate from the Iconian, indicate this is a special sort of gateway--it sends a signal to the other end--telling the Masters it is...well...time to return. The Orions of centuries ago had the sense to break it up into components and hide them, the latest generation's...not so sensible--My father, a few years ago, was a free-trader, Mercenary, and general space-scum, he took on a contract with an Orion source to enter the Gamma Quadrant and retrieve one of the pieces...Captain?"
Lewis McLain reached behind himself, into the sofa cushions, and placed a ten by ten by ten black cube, inlaid with what appeared to be gold patterning, on the table in front of him. "This is what he brought back, before he killed his crew and suicided," McLain stated. "WE got to it mere HOURS before the Masaana syndicate's search teams would've retrieved it...when we tried testing it, it generated a subspace and gravity wave so intense they're still rebuilding portions of the docking ring at Deep Space Nine."
Schrodi's ears twitched. "Part of me really wants to take it apart and see how it works...the rest of me wants to stick it someplace safe. Cygnus X-1 perhaps."
"This is one of six pieces, we know where two others are-and one of those is in the hands of David Huntington," McLain stated.
"The others?" Kevin Monroe asked.
"The other one we know has been retrieved was left in the hands of a KDF Colonel who's after the same people we're going after--for different reasons, I expect..." McLain stated. "That leaves us with three more to find, and secure..." He looked at Akorem.
"We should tell them," Akorem stated. "All of it. NOT just what Starfleet Intelligence thinks they 'need to know'."
"All of what?" Takeshi asked. "Has something already happened regarding these 'masters'?"
"Admiral?" Lewis gestured to Kingsley.
"These are the Classified after action reports on the recent incident at Moab III," Vivian Lorus Gorton Kingsley III said, and started handing out single-use PADDS of the sort that children use for their studies. "I am not legally entitled to let you-any of you-see them...and this is what Starfleet witnessed recently in the Tau Dewa sector-the REAL disappearance of Empress Sela."
Takeshi looked over the reports on Moab, with Linda reading over his shoulder. He'd heard plenty of rumors, but what he was reading... "Bloody hell," he whispered. "This... this is..."
"S... so many casualties..." Linda added. "So many died... on all sides..."
"It seems the Fek'Lhri are also servants of these 'Masters'," Brok'tan rumbled, the Klingon's eyes in slight shock. "To think that the beings said to guard Gre'thor are coming into this galaxy, as servants of what might be our greatest enemy to date..."
Akorem cleared her throat. "Not servants, Creations," she said. "The Fek'Lhr were created to serve one of these 'master's' servant races...they didn't evolve. They live, they reproduce, but they can be generated by...what translates from the Hur'q language as 'war seeds'."
"The professor has a hypothesis that there were these 'war seeds' already in place in the Moab system, and that something at the archaelogical dig was activated-which activated THEM and summoned in more in the space around it," Kingsley stated. "For once, I have to agree with the civilian-that is what it looks like based on the AAR's communications intercepts-some through the gateways, some were already there, dormant and waiting...possibly for millennia."
"Well, all we can do is hunt down the rest of the artifacts, and any sites that might contain these 'war seeds', right? While battling Orion Cultists, Fek, and anyone else who seeks the return of the 'masters'?" Takeshi remarked with a bit of a grin. "I'm game--haven't had a decent challenge in over five months. Might need to wait a bit for proper repairs to my ship, but-"
"I can help with that" Schrodi said. "The Dauntless isn't part of the normal fleet, most of her crew is engineers and specialists from the Defiant Project department. I'll send some of them over to the Raging Tempest, they can upload the latest patches to the EPS firmware that haven't even hit fleet yet, as well as some other upgrades we're working on."
"Hope they work better than that cable reel." Gonzo smirked.
"Oh, the towed array worked spectacularly. The winch on the other hand, well it was borrowed from a tug that was on hand." She shrugged. "But I think I know where to look for them at," she said, pulling out her own PADD and syncing it to one of the larger viewers. "We were testing the towed array, when we picked up a transmission from a Ferasan scout ship that was shadowing an Orion Marauder class vessel. The Orions were in a binary system, probing subspace boundaries. Not sure if they were spotted or what, but the IKS Grr'sshssarrgle-Hhreaar-hssst, or Stalks the Underbrush sent out an encrypted burst transmission -then were swatted," she said, pointing to the trace on the display.
She shrugged. "They did try to launch a message probe, but odds are the Orions swatted that too."
Takeshi was glad that Captain Schrodinger was willing to help repair and even upgrade his ship--that would greatly help with the repair times. He then realized something about what she'd said. "Why would being in a binary system be important for something like that?" he asked.
"Subspace is affected by things in real space. That's why it's not, uhm, recommended to go to warp too close to a gravity well-"
"You mean like in an Atmosphere?" Ponta said with a grin.
Schrodi just made a face. "Yes, it's not a good idea, but it can be done. Thing is, when you have two stellar size masses close together, especially when you throw in the eddies in graviton fields, and a whole bunch of n dimensional physics that while interesting, doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion...subspace is weak there. Easily breakable...And they were poking the hell out of it."
While the Captains discussed stellar phenomena, Akorem loaded the cartographical chart she and Mary Moriarty had assembled from the captured records, her own research data, and materials she'd translated over the last few weeks from the digsites. She added time-adjusted locations...
"Interesting," she finally said, as the holostage displayed nearly two dozen marked locations-all had a few things in common. "Very interesting...binary, binary, Trinary...binary, recent supernova, binary..." Out of the target sites, the ones with multiple Stars cut the number of locations by two thirds.
"Captains...assume we have four ships to do the search with...Assume we have limited time, and assume we need to cover as much ground as we can..." she announced. "Can four ships cover eight star-systems within a two-hundred light year radius?"
Kevin Monroe rose to his feet and loomed. "Professor, WHO is your mysterious source?" he asked bluntly. "Because I recognize that notation style-and I suspect when Captain Schrodinger's finished discussing repairs to Captain Yamato's vessel, she will too."
Schrodi peered at the chart. "You're right, I have seen that before," she said, frowning.
Lewis McLain gave a start, and eyed the huge Captain warily.
"um...I can't?" Akorem said, "Really, I can't."
"Uh-huh...you've been talking...working with...Mary Moriarty, haven't you?" Kevin demanded, "WHERE IS SHE, and why in hell isn't she in here if you've got her nailed down doing your spatial calcs?"
"Um...what makes you say that?" McLain asked.
"Because I worked with her for months on Defera, and two, how many modern scientists will use elizabethan english describing what amounts to unclaimed star systems?" Kevin asked, adding, "Or use longhand notation for calculations when they could use a computer?"
"Wait, isn't she a wanted-" Kingsley began.
"Immaterial in this case-she was pardoned with the rest of the bunch from Moab after that dust up on Risa in '10," Kevin stated. "Not exactly 'key to the federation' pardon, but as long as she's not committing a crime, she's immune to arrest with prior charges held in abeyance-by order of Hizzoner, President Okeg," Kevin recited. "So...where do you have that psychopath stashed?"
Kingsley eyed McLain. "Might as well let it out, Lewis, he's got you cold," the Admiral said. "I myself found the transfer orders rather...interesting."
"She's in my brig," McLain said. "Her choice-she's been working with the Professor here for the last few weeks on...well, this, she popped into my ship through an Iconian gateway that was malfunctioning...Because she broke it...she's been technically a Prisoner of War since the middle of last month...but I had Longfellow rule her to be 'mentally and emotionally unstable'-so technically she's a mental patient."
Kevin nodded. "Which she'd need to be, if you intended to suspend contact with any KDF representatives or Starfleet Diplomats, it also allows you to refuse any transfer out of custody for the duration of her...'treatment'...My god you're a TRIBBLE."
"She's with us on this, Kevin-she wants these 'good masters' kept out or put down as much as we do-more...maybe...and she's admitted to a spot of genocide," Lewis said. "She's the reason-so she claims, that Lt. Ah'vsath's race is, for all intents and purposes, nearly extinct...she turned a gray-goo loose on their homeworld."
Schrodi's ears went back at the thought of a gray-goo world.
{Good but not good enough-I'd have hit their sun with a Stellar Lance}
{Not an option, that tech doesn't exist in this reality}
{Ooh! We could make one-}
{{NO!!}}
{Sorry, sheesh. Don't bite my head off}
"EW," Kevin didn't stop looming, but his face twisted in disgust. "Gray goo...yikes."
"Um...Gray Goo?" Takeshi asked.
"Uncontrolled nanobot replication-create nanites, tell them to build more of their own kind, so that all they do is consume materials and reproduce. Gray Goo," Kevin explained. "It is the reason Starfleet regulations and Federation Laws forbid experimentation with self-replicating nanobots on planetary surfaces. The nearest tactical equivalent is a bioweapon that destroys everything. The Federation has some strict treaties with...everyone else...about weaponizing that technology. Even Omega won't touch it, and they're fighting the Borg."
"She tried to gray-goo the Orion homeworld as a last-ditch try to stop Huntington from getting the artifact there-and to stop Huntington and Eiral Masaana from gaining the use of the Gate-it destroyed the gate, but that destroyed the replicators. We got a good look at the results," McLain explained. "Which convinced me that the ***** may be smart, but she's bughouse nuts, and while her smart might be useful, letting her go anywhere without tight supervision is a supremely bad idea."
"I don't see trying to deny them the use of the gate nuts, gray goo or not. Hell, if nothing else it got her to one of the few ships that is trying to fight this thing," Schrodi said, pacing as she thought, her tail swishing back and forth. "Kevin's right though, we need her in on this, and if you don't think she can be brought here, we need to go talk to her. We also," she continued, "need to get in contact with her commander, being that from what you said. If we can get them concentrating on Binary and other multiple star systems, it would help. As would sending them the tac info on the Suharto," she said, knowing what a can of worms she just opened.
"What! But that would compromise every Odyssey class in the fleet!"
"They've already been compromised, as soon as Huntington turned. You think one of those Orions on board haven't already downloaded the specs and shopped them for the highest bidder? Admiral, you need to call a Broken Arrow on this, so the Odyssey design team can do an emergency update."
"Agreed," Takeshi remarked. "Though I doubt it's that simple, given that the Admiral has called for total privacy in this meeting. I'd imagine that this entire operation, searching for the Suharto and trying to stop the return of the 'masters', is going to be 'off the record'?"
KIngsley's face fell. "I contacted Starfleet Command as soon as...I was told to look away," he said. "Never mind what Huntington is doing." He sighed. "I know I have a...reputation, that I'm seen as a buffoon, a fool, an arrogant TRIBBLE..." he shook his head. "But someone had to do something about this."
Takeshi nodded. He could respect Kingsley for that, at least. "In that case, publicly calling a Broken Arrow on the Odyssey would draw too much attention to us. Heck, we might have to consider the possibility that Command itself is compromised, infiltrated by agents of these 'masters'. If we're going to call for an upgrade to the Odyssey, that call must also be 'off the record', so that the design team can try to disguise it as an official upgrade somehow."
Schrodi started grinning. "Oh I know the perfect excuse for upgrades. There's a bug in the replicator systems, that can cause, well, issues with certain flexible replicated materials-mostly uniforms. Causes them to turn to dust whenever exposed to a strong EM field..or when transported. I know someone on the Odyssey team that can quietly add that bug to the autoupdate system. Twenty four hours later, they'll be scrambling to put the next major upgrade out, after people start arriving without clothes."
{it's already done, you're welcome!}
She sighed "But you're right. I was supposed to be doing more advanced research into drive systems. I don't mind having the Dauntless, but it seems like a waste of resources."
{Definitely. We need a science ship for the project.}
{One of those new Vestas would be nice!}
{И пока мы мечтали, я хотел бы пони.}
Kevin nodded. "Some of the orders we've all had over the last few years haven't made sense," he said. "Starting for me with Defera--what about you, Captain Yamato, anything weird from Starfleet Command in the last three years?"
"A few," Takeshi admitted. "Though mainly in regards to being ordered to withdraw from systems that I felt we could still hold, and that whole mess in the new DMZ--I've read the history books, and the last time Starfleet created a DMZ on the border with a potential hostile power, it gave rise to the Maquis. So leaving those colonies on the Klingon border to their fate while ordering those same colonies to disarm was extremely odd, because I thought we learned from our mistakes."
"Not if it's intentional," Kevin stated. "After Defera, I was sent down here--out of the way so to speak, then they send..." He looked at the Admiral. "You didn't volunteer for this, did you?"
Kingsley shook his head in silence.
"And everyone who follows the newsies knows Minister Cave's got a hard-on, and not in a good way, for Captain Schrodinger...so I gotta wonder, Yamato, who'd you TRIBBLE off?" Kevin asked.
"No one I can think of... but it could be related to my family."
At confused looks from most everyone else in the room (the only ones not confused were Linda and Brok'tan, who instead shared brief looks of worry), Takeshi explained, "It's not that well-known, in fact it's a rather well-kept secret, but Federation Councilwoman Ryoko Hibiki, a well-known proponent for 'Peace with Honor', is actually Ryoko Yamato, the biological daughter of my adopted parents Tetsuya and Fumiko Yamato, and my younger sister."
"I remember her debate with the Hawk faction last month," Kevin said. "She made Cave turn a fair shade of purple in exasperation when she pointed out that-" he stopped, "Not that I follow anything as gross as politics, mind..." He gave an impish look to go with the feigned innocence in his tone. Gonzales, on the other hand, looked faintly guilty.
"Sirs, Ma'am, I do follow Politics," Gonzo said. "I made him sit through the entire debate."
"Sit? you had me on a treadmill and I couldn't run away!" Kevin countered.
"I know. It was hilarious," Gonzo grinned. "But I've been tracking fleet movements. You realize that they've penny-packeted most of the Federation's effective forces across an area we can't defend?"
Kingsley nodded. "I argued about that while I was part of Starfleet's G-3 staff...it got me promoted out of there."
Takeshi nodded. "So, the odds are rather high that Command has been compromised in some fashion, given all that has been happening that we know of." After a few moments, he said, "Really, I think there's only one group we can trust, though I doubt a lot of you will like it. One of their members is a contact of mine, and they're among the few people who know of my connection to Councilwoman Hibiki--according to my contact when I asked, they have their own people watching and protecting her in addition to her regular guard detail."
"I trust Admiral Clayburn, she set me on this," McLain stated. "She also got me coverage to grab Monroe..."
"You know," said Schrodi, "if you look at some of the assignments that have gone on..while they don't make sense up front, maybe they really do." She kept pacing. "It's a given that someone in command is turned, and the fleet's chasing butterflies for New Romulus here of late--then you get sent out here Admiral. Yes, you are an TRIBBLE at times-but you're also one of the best administrators in the Federation. Between Dr. Tarel, Dr. Monroe, myself and now Dr. Moriarity, there's enough advanced degrees here to wallpaper a starbase. Maybe command has turned...but maybe also someone is trying to sabotage the sabotage."
"I don't really trust anybody," Kevin admitted. "Not since Defera."
"Well, along with this current mission, we need to covertly get in touch with those people we trust, let them know what's going on," Takeshi said. "We need to make sure as many people we trust as possible know about these 'masters', and what needs to be done in order to stop them."
"I know a few who I know can be trusted as well. Unfortunately Melissa Travis is off doing something with Omega, and Polekitty just lost her ship to the Fek'iHir." Schrodi sighed "It would be nice to have them, the Nighthawk is a tough ship in a fight, and I've known Rhonda Evans since she was fourteen. But we've got what we've got."
Ponta looked confused. "I thought Evans was from an alternate timeline?"
It's two a.m. the fear has gone
I'm sitting here waitin' the gun is still warm
Maybe my connection is tired of taken chances
Yeah there's a storm on the loose sirens in my head
I'm wrapped up in silence all circuits are dead
I cannot decode
my whole life spins into a frenzy
-Golden Earring, "Twilight Zone"
New Saigon, Basecamp Alpha
Eialu finished the reports on Colton county at some time after mid-night. The results were... She took another drink from a bottle of So'ju one of the enlisted found in the ruins of a shop.
The alcohol burned it's way down her throat, suffusing her with a warmth that she didn't feel-a warmth she'd never feel again.
"Captain, you're still awake?" K'tagh asked, stepping through the flaps of the oxy tent.
"No sleep for the wicked," Eialu said. "Want some?"
The Klingon shook her head. "I avoid human booze," she said. "it's...too potent and kind of tasteless."
"Your loss, I wish we had something stronger," Eialu said.
"Still thinking about that locker?" K'Tagh asked, sitting down on the cot.
Eialu nodded. "Were the results on the grubs what I thought they were?" she asked.
"Fek'lhr tissues, preadolescent, yeah. We know, now, what Fek offspring look like...and how they're raised," K'Tagh said grimly--"Feeding on live victims."
"Oh, lovely," Eialu said. "Do we have a progress report on the peace talks?"
"The Federation and the High Council are still discussing terms for extending the Armistice," K'tagh answered, "but the rumours in the Fleet are that the Federation negotiator's not got the full backing of Starfleet Command."
"It would be in the pattern," Eialu poured another shot.
Deep Space K-7...
Takeshi looked over the scene with a moderate amount of exasperation. Yes, he'd agreed to Captain Schrodinger's offer to repair and upgrade his ship. And yes, he had told her the extent of the damage, and how it had been caused. But he still hadn't been prepared for this.
"I need another ten meters of conduit!" There were voices coming from inside the walls of the ship, and almost every access panel that could be removed, was. Close to twenty engineers, some in uniforms, some just wearing jumpsuits, and one wearing shorts and a floral print shirt had taken over, it seemed. Still they looked like they knew what they were doing, normally it would take days to get into the ship to this level during a refit, and here it was not even six hours later. A green skinned woman stuck her head out of a hole in the ceiling, not orion though, no orion had ears anywhere close to that big. "Morning, your Captainship, Sir!" Heiki squeeked as she saw Takeshi looking around. "We're finishing up the installation, should be ready for power testing in about ten minutes."
Takeshi's eyebrow twitched. "Out of curiosity, just why was it deemed necessary to practically take my ship apart and put it back together?" he asked in an unnaturally calm voice. "Even Matt tends to only take out the damaged equipment if he needs to replace it."
"Because," Mr Thag, the Neanderthal in the Hawaiian shirt said from his seat at the console, "your ship came from the Yoyodyne yards. They're great at cutting costs in building... Not so good in making it easy to upgrade. Cap'n Schrodi said you needed to be able to run the latest tracking and acquisition gear for the dash 16 torps, which means we had to get behind the EPS conduits for three decks, where we found stress fractures that required more things pulled..."
"There were two structural trusses over the bridge that had a notch cut into them in the yard to run a cable through. A good hit, you'd have an I beam falling from the ceiling!" Heiki said from her upside down perch. "Not to mention a half dozen console panels, that were the old Mark 23 processor controlled ones-they tended to go boom when the shields went down."
"...and then, there's the collection of Ground Faults!" Cdr. Gonzales popped up out of a floor-plate less than a meter from Takeshi's right foot. "Pendejos at Yoyodyne do the shoddiest work with their static and plasma runs!" She tossed a burnt looking section of light conduit out. "Oh, Hi Captain Yamato. Thag, how's it look now?"
He pressed a couple switches on the console back, the lights came up both on the board he was working on, and across the bridge. "Looks like that got it Commander," he said. "soon as Heiki's crew gets the conduits buttoned up we can start full power tests."
"Yeah yeah, I'm on it" the short green girl muttered, disappearing back into the ceiling. "Ok, we're connected, hit it!" came her voice from the ceiling.
Thag waited for Gonzo to climb clear before activating a few more controls, despite his appearance, he knew this class of ship blindfolded. "Ok, power's coming up, everything is in the green."
"What's that smell?" Gonzo asked, sniffing the air.
Thag put his palm over his face. "Heiki, are you on fire again?"
"What? No, I don't think-AAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
He stood sighing, pulling out an extinguisher and standing up on his seat, spraying it into the opening overhead. "For the last time, stop playing with the plasma flow. Now button it up and lets get this going!"
Gonzo watched in silence for a moment, then asked. "So...this happens a lot?"
"She's highly resistant to a lot of stuff that would kill most folks..fortunately."
Gonzo looked thoughtful. "Reminds me of a guy I dated in the Academy..." She gave Thag a crooked grin. "We called him 'lucky'."
Takeshi shook his head. "Sheesh," he muttered. "I'm glad that Matt's never complained of any of his techs catching on fire before..."
Gonzo carelessly wiped her hands on her uniform. "No fix ever works right unless you bleed, burn, or squirm for it," she said. "Machines demand blood sacrifice."
"Yeah, but so far no burns as far as my crew is concerned," Takeshi remarked. "Gashes, yes, broken bones, yes, but nothing more severe than that."
There was a whiff of smoke, and then a smouldering engineer dropped from the overhead. "Ok, it's secure," she said, grinning at Gonzo. "Finally someone who gets it. Anyway, there were no leaks in the EPS system, I think we can start closing things up here. Couple more hours, you'll be ready to rock, your Captainship, Sir!"
"Okay, well...I have to be back on duty in an hour, and I guess I better shower first, thanks for letting me play with you guys," Gonzo said. "It was fun."
"And it's good to hear that my ship'll be ready to go again," Takeshi added. "Thank you all very much."
Thag peered at Gonzo. "One hour..when were you planning on sleeping? You've been here with us all night."
She displayed a small hypo. "Modern medical miracles, I'll sleep when I have no other choice, it's better here than in there...better in reality than back on Defera."
"Those are unreliable, and worse, you get to the point where you need them just to get by" he said. "I'm just a civilian I know...but you're putting yourself and your crew at risk for temporary relief."
"I'll get some sleep after shift, okay?" she bargained. "It's only 36 hours, no big deal..."
Thag snorted. "You're only a cro-magnon. You've evolved to sleep at least eight in every twenty four hours. It's your life, and I am only a Civilian," he said, glancing at Takeshi...
"He's right, you need rest," Takeshi added. "I'm not your direct superior, so I can't order you... but I can bring this up with Captain Monroe, who can order you to get some rest. Also, if you're having nightmares, I'd probably suggest taking up the issue with a Counselor, a Vulcan or Betazoid might have the best chance of helping you."
"Ours got sucked out of Three deck when we tangled with that Fek Carrier group a few months ago," Gonzo said. "I'll take it up when Starfleet gives us a new one...who's seen the Elephant."
She took a shot off the stim. "Permission to depart, sir?" she asked.
"Permission granted," Takeshi replied. "However, I will be contacting Captain Monroe, and informing him of your... issue..."
"Aye sir..." she keyed her combadge. "Butler, one to beam out."
And she vanished.
Thag sighed. "Damnit. Didn't quite go how I wanted it to. Oh well," he said. "we'll get started on the final checks, Captain, your engineers should be done installing the new firmware for the engines down below by now. We'll have everything ready in a couple more hours."
"Understood," Takeshi replied, starting for the door out of the Bridge. "In the meantime, I'll be in my Ready Room. I need to have a chat with Captain Monroe about his XO..."
USS Smedley Butler, Ready Room, 0445 station time...
"...and then, Gonzales suggests we try the experiment under theta radiation...." Kevin was telling Captain Schrodinger an amusing anecdote about his research into Borg communications.
The story was interrupted by a chime from the comm panel. "Sir, you have a call from Captain Yamato, he says it's important." Threll's voice was tinny-the PA hadn't quite broken in yet.
Kevin looked puzzled. "Hold that thought...I'll take it in here, Threll."
Schrodi just nodded as she stood and stretched, one of these days she really had to clean her cabin out, sleeping on that hammock wasn't good for her back. "No problem" she said with a smile.
Takeshi's image came in on Monroe's monitor. "Sorry if I caught you at a bad time, Captain, but I came across a bit of an... issue... regarding your XO."
"No problem, unless she's started another fight," Kevin said. "We were just catching an early breakfast before going over to the Bradbury....to visit the Professor and her...assistant," Kevin alluded. "Don't suppose you care to join us?"
"I'd definitely be willing to join you, but I suggest you not let Commander Gonzales do so," Takeshi said. "In fact, it'd probably be better if you ordered her to bed fairly soon--she was over here helping with the repairs, and I just found out she's been surviving on Stims, without getting any sleep!!"
Kevin's expression DARKENED. "Again?" he blurted. His scent showed anger and disappointment in equal measures, undercurrent of worry and frustration. "What time did she check out from your ship, Yamato, she was supposed to be back here six hours ago."
"She only just left--said her shift started in an hour, and wanted to catch a shower before going on duty," Takeshi replied. "One of Captain Schrodinger's Engineers, I think his name was Thag, was the one who called her out on it."
"Sounds like him, great guy, brilliant engineer, very caring--and all the tact of a warthog," Schrodi said with a sigh. "What is she trying to avoid by not sleeping?"
Kevin looked at Schrodi. "Nightmares. I usually have to drink to get to sleep, she...last month I had her on patient status for three weeks trying to help her deal with the nightmares, the flashbacks, the anxiety-I'm not a good counselor, but after she threw Escobar through a window the Station boys won't touch her case." He picked up his coffee-cup and drained it. "She was on the line when the Borg sent a couple thousand little kids at us."
{Wish there was something we could do for her--she seems like a nice person}
{Wait-maybe there is...}
Schrodi looked puzzled for a second, as if talking to herself. "what do you mean?" she muttered.
{oh that's right, you weren't there-but it was that gadget Doctor Moriarty used in the big heist at the Golden Giza}
{oh that!}
"Can I use your replicator for a minute?" Schrodi asked. "I think I may have a way to help her."
Kevin nodded. "Sure," he said. "I know her problem's way beyond MY ability."
She got up and started programming something, rather rapidly in fact. it took her a few minutes, before something smallish and fuzzy appeared on the replicator
"Um...what is it?" Kevin asked.
"It was used by, well I guess the closest thing you can call her would be a supervillain, to kidnap a plane load of Senator's kids" she said holding up the stuffed animal. "When squeezed, it puts the holder into a deep sleep, and triggers hours of very pleasant dreams. well pleasant for kids."
She shrugged as she held the fluffy pink pony out at arms length. "Oddly enough, it was invented by an alternate reality version of our Doctor Moriarty."
"Yamato, beam on over, you can be part of the process, we're going to do some science," Kevin grinned. "Better hurry though, I want to catch her before she heads for engineering."
"Understood," Takeshi replied. "I'll be there momentarily. Linda will probably be with me as well--we have the same shifts, so we can share the off-shifts."
Holding the fluffy pony at arms length, Schrodi just nodded. "After you, you know where to find her."
"Computer, exact location of Commander Gonzales," Kevin ordered.
"Commander Gonzales is currently leaving the crew shower area on deck five," the machine said. "She is in corridor P-21, 11 meters from junction four."
Kevin's grin grew fierce. "Good. Stall the turbolifts in that level on my authority."
He looked to Schrodi. "We're taking the Jeffries tubes down there."
She grinned back and followed, ignoring the looks of the bridge crew as she carried a bright pink stuffed animal to the Jeffries tube. "It's got a short range, so won't have to worry about anyone else."
"If it works on her, I want one...for me," Kevin said. "I'd as soon not turn diabetic just to suppress a few nightmares of my own."
{I don't know, this is a one time thing. Really shouldn't be letting this tech out-}
{We're not. We're giving one to Gonzo, and one to Kevin. Can trust them}
"Fair enough, though something a bit, well, more manly than a pink pony?" she grinned.
Kevin laughed. "Hopefully-though it would be a superb joke. I could get months of mileage off of it...did you know, right after..." he opened a jeffries tube panel. "Right after we were chewed up by that Fek, I spent the next month pretending I didn't know she'd got the Turbolifts back on-line?"
"Really? Why was that?" she asked, following him inside, the Caitian having no problem navigating the tube one handed.
"Threll ratted her out-she had this idea that she could get me past a physical review if I lost some weight-by exercise, so she tried to concoct this story about not being able to get the Turbolifts running all the way from Officer's Country to the Bridge..." He bounded across a gap, landing fairly gracefully in the next passage. "I, of course, went along with it-with one eentsy fillip-I didn't shower until she'd gotten the Enlisted showers working..." he extended a hand to catch Schrodi at the crossing point. "Naturally, I had quite an aroma by then."
She just giggled at that, jumping across gracefully. "Oh my, definitely got her there," she said. "Not that you needed to lose the weight, it's natural for someone from your world if I understand correctly," she said. "and while you don't smell bad, rather the opposite, er..." she said with a bit of a blush, "after a few days I can see how that would change."
"Ah, the wonders and graces of soap, and you are too kind, fair lady," Kevin said. "Sshh... look through the inspection port... see? There she is, right below us." His expression was filled with glee.
"Anyone else down there? Hate for someone else to catch this when we drop it on her."
Kevin's grin got even more gleeful. "THAT won't be an issue..." he powered the hatch open and dropped to the deck below, motioning for Schrodi to follow.
"COMMANDER!!!" he barked, from right behind Gonzo.
She jumped, hands out in a fighting stance, her spare clothes, shampoo bottle, and other personal kit hitting the floor-along with her towel.
The ferocious fighter turned into the blushing maiden INSTANTLY, and Gonzales' hands flew as if of their own accord to cover her nakedness.
Schrodi followed down, almost jumping at Kevin's bellow herself, still holding onto the pink plush toy.
"Stimmies?" Kevin asked. "Really? Didn't we have a talk about that?"
Gonzales stammered speechless for a moment, and Kevin 'politely averted his eyes'...
"Towel, Commander?" he said.
She scooped it up, shaking with wordless outrage.
"Captain, you had a present from...one of your people, a token of appreciation?" Kevin 'asked'. It was clearly a setup for the joke...whatever joke it was Gonzo didn't know, but she knew it was a setup for a joke.
Swishing her tail, Schrodi just smiled-and tossed the fuzzy toy both accurately and fast towards Gonzo, knowing the natural reaction in humans was to grab something thrown towards them. Sure enough, looked like she was going to grab it.
Gonzo played softball in the mission school, then played an exhibition game between males and females at the Academy-she caught the pink, fuzzy thing instantly, momentarily proud she didn't reveal any...skin while she did it.
The effect was rapid, but not instant...
"Ohh I'm...gonna get yo-" and she was out.
Schrodi was also fast, leaping over to catch her before she hit the deck. "There we go. She'll be out for eight to ten hours. Incidentally, I'd appreciate it if you didn't let too many know bout this thing," she said, pointing to the stuffed toy clutched in Gonzo's arms.
"Um...I want one," Kevin said. "But I'll keep it quiet-Monroe to the bridge, Threll, Commander Gonzales pulled a really late night last night, you're Gonzo for the rest of the day."
"Do I have to cut my hair?" the Andorian asked, half-seriously.
"No, and you don't have to keep up with her array of practical jokes, nagging, or provoking starbase crew to fits of rage and hilarity. Just keep the ship running and defer engineering decisions to Lt. Angos...and could you send a couple Security matrons to the women's locker room on Deck three? Gonzo needs a ride to her bedroom, Over."
"Um, sir, do I want to know?" Threll asked.
"Not really, nothing indecent, but the rumour mill's going to go nuts if I'm seen carrying her snoring, happy, stuffed-animal-clutching body to her quarters," Kevin said. "And yes, I have a witness this time."
She set Gonzo down on the deck and stood back up, the snoring filling the hallway. "Well then, I think we had a meeting to get to?" Schrodi said, her tail twitching in amusement.
"An excellent use of mad science...and yeah...Transporter, point to point, my location, two conscious to beam to Transporter room two."
Transporter Room Two
"...could've, but it's more fun this way." Kevin was explaining as they materialized. "She will get me back for that, you know."
Takeshi and Linda were already waiting, having just arrived. "Good to see you two," Takeshi remarked. "You managed to get Commander Gonzales to get some rest?"
"In a manner of speaking," Schrodi said with a grin. "Give her about ten hours and she'll be fine. Unless the dream she gets includes the song that never ends... I think I filtered that one out."
"Experimental treatment for Traumatic Stress disorder cases," Kevin said. "Very radical, but she asked for it when she started hitting stimmies after she promised to lay off them."
"Right," Takeshi replied. "Let's just hope she doesn't visit my Tactical Officer for any tips on payback... Lieutenant Commander Maxwell's the most inventive prankster I know."
"Eh, it could be worse, at least you don't have engineers who think setting each other on fire is a fun way to spend time," Schrodi said. "I'll take practical jokes over would be pyromaniacs anyday. So anyway, did we get anything more overnight on the situation?"
Kevin nodded. "Right here," he handed a Padd to Schrodi and Takeshi. "Dr. Akorem's waiting for us to arrive in about twenty minutes."
"Well, let's get going--don't want to keep her waiting," Linda remarked.
"Jimmy, you know where we're going," Kevin said.
The Chief at the console nodded. "ready when you are, Bradbury's already been informed."
Kevin looked to the others. "Eh, Energize."
The Transporter Room faded around them, as they were transported to the Bradbury.
(By the way the funeral will be in the epilogue to "The Road.")
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
so, anyone got suggestions as to how and why the ******ned text is posting with all the punctuation replaced by "?"
Your last post looked fine to me when I read it.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
I wear this crown of thorns,
upon my liar's chair,
full of broken thoughts,
that I can not repair.
-Trent Reznor, "Hurt"
Canh Tho, Moab III...
Saul Moskowitz pulled his overcoat closer, and stepped through the debris field of Nha Tranh's largest suburb...or what HAD BEEN the city's largest suburb.
Today, Captain Eialu of the "Fierce Defender" was with him, touring the devastation, reassuring media commentators both planetary, and interstellar, that Landing County was once again under KDF control.
He checked a positioning sensor. "This is where my house was--the house Elizabeth grew up in," he told the Orion. He pointed, at a distance it would look like some grand gesture, but as close as they were, she could see the tears he was holding back.
"I took her to Synagogue over there--her father may have been christian, but he tasked ME with her religious upbringing-and I took it seriously..." He sighed an old man's sigh, and shoved his hands into his pockets. "God tests us all, I suppose, but he saves a special sort of hell for his chosen people."
"You don't really believe in that nonsense, do you?" Eialu asked, keeping a neutral expression for the cameras.
"As I grow older, I find that I do," he told her. "and I find myself regretting my sins as well-my arrogance, my pride, my brutality, the murders I've done and the things I stole." He nodded to the devastation. "In many ways, I feel as if this is god's punishment to me in particular for my many sins-to hurt the ones who look to me, and take the ones I loved."
"At least your god did not create the Fek'lhr, Minister, or twist the evolution of races to fill a vile desire understood only to himself...at least your god is unprovable, unreachable, untouchable, and not just some powerful alien race," Eialu told him. "I envy you for having a god so thoroughly uninvolved in your day to day existence."
He pulled out a rolled smoke-tobacco and paper, and lit it with a lighter. "True...but I am no less damned for what I've done and not redeemed," he told her. "I'm a Jew, but I'm not a good Jew..."
"They're waiting at the memorial," she told him.
"I know..." he replied. "You're sure you don't want the job?"
"Orions aren't exactly popular people here--My aunt notwithstanding." Eialu told him, "I'm only sticking around until a new governor can be appointed, but I promise on my word as a Klingon Defense Force officer that I will champion your home-rule to the fullest extent I can, and I have General Ssharki's support, so that's a lot of leverage with the Council."
They reached the foot of the remains of the highway bridge. The area was blasted flat, but garish gold-and-red plastic fragments and broken brick lay half-melted into the burnt macadam of a parking lot.
"This is where Echo company died," Saul said. "They bought the defense of the city nearly an hour here."
The tarp was pulled away, revealing a group of four soldiers, in battle positions-one Klingon, three humans, their expressions firm with resolve, courage and idealism sculpted into the magnesite-impregnated bronze. The statue stood nearly twice the height of a man, each sculpted form vaguely idealized, the expressions filled with passion and resolve, the body language of the four showing strength in the face of hopelessness.
"Who was the artist?" Eialu asked absently.
"A Klingon," Saul said. "One of the ranchers from An Loc, a recent immigrant... His son was in Echo-that's him, standing beside Major Truoc, next to Sargeant Dayyan and just in front of Corporal Chau."
"Hmmm...he must have died early..." she noted.
"Yes, but the sculptor was his father, and who am I to deny a father his grief?" Saul asked. "There are so many who deserve to be up there, one brave son is, in the balance, as good as any other to represent them all...and we have four."
Beyond it, out away from the town, she could see the stone garden laid out-hundreds of headstones-most marking graves that would always be empty.
The simplicity was astounding-but incredible both in it's power, and it's grace. Looking back toward the town, was the wall. Carved black marble, all it bore was an endless list of names, and the tokens of mourners who had already come by to find a loved one's marker...
Klingon warriors guarded the statue, and the flag-pole, and marched the graveyard alongside their native counterparts-a subtle reminder of Moab's overlords, but also a statement of solidarity-a shared experience, a common enemy, a shared self was forming here.
Saul walked up to the wall first, then, he turned and walked out into the stone garden, looking...
Eialu followed him to a single marker-set aside from the rest, it was no bigger than the others, but it was already littered with flowers and offerings.
He knelt. "Hello Elizabeth, I...I brought you something," he told the stone, and laid a deck of cards, still sealed in the wrapping, and a flimsy little top-hat on it. "In case you get bored." Eialu had seen the vid of the funeral, but being here somehow it was less...staged with false grandeur. She read the inscription on the headstone. "The greatest Illusion is Truth."
Saul rose, and prayed silently for a moment, then, "We can go now. Work to be done," he said.
And they left the dead in that place, to see to the problems of the living.
IKS Val'Gyr II, Dining hall, 19 hours from the Armistice line, 7 hours from Deep Space K-7...
"That's twice we've struck out," Ngoc stated. "One because they got there first, the second because someone else got there first."
The others looked around. "You're not wrong on that." Kobor said, pouring the bloodwine. "We're falling further behind."
"We need to know more...we need to figure out how to anticipate their next move," D'Moj said it. "We need information."
B'tara, the only real 'scientist' on-board, frowned. "We need Mary back," she said. "Or someone like her..."
D'Moj sighed heavily. "Yeah...no, what we need is a dedicated physicist with an interest in ancient history-the problem we face, is that I've got the historian, but we don't have the advanced physicist." She looked at the KDF science officer. "I'm sorry, B'Tara, but.."
"I'm a scientist, Colonel. Part of that is admitting when I'm out of my depth even when it hurts my pride," B'Tara stated. "In this case, it hurts it quite a bit."
Their guest, whom had been silent up to now, spoke, "You still know that fat scientist from Starfleet?" K'Tirr asked.
D'Moj looked thoughtful. "He's assigned to the K-7 group, I was expecting we would be fighting him when the Armistice collapsed."
"Well..." and K'tirr's whole body-language seemed to change, his voice deepened and his shoulders squared. "Speaking as R'riorr-K'Tirr, I'd suggest we may find, once things are explained to him, that he will be willing to assist us...and he DOES have access to high-end physicists as well as archaeologists unlikely to be contaminated or compromised by your cousins."
"Ask Ssharki." Ngoc suggested, "Maybe he can set something up, make an excuse...I know that the talks are stalling according to the newsies, if we were to give them an excuse to proceed, it would probably buy us more time to stop this."
"We're still a few hours from the A-line..and a prisoner exchange could assist the talks." Kobor mentioned.
"D'Ghon won't be happy about that," Ngoc observed. "He's started really liking Cadet Marina...er, Ensign Jessup."
"He'll have to learn to like her from a big distance." D'Moj stated, "I'm going to use some of my carefully honed political ties and drop her off on K-7."
"To see your ex?" Ngoc teased.
"No, because she's not KDF no matter how hard you try to make her, and I can't have a foreign agent on my ship no matter how much I happen to like her as a person." D'Moj said, "But I'm not airlocking her, I'm taking her home...from there, we might be able to get some perspectives on how to fix this mess."
Ngoc stood up, "In that case, Colonel, Majors, I have to do some course plots and fuel useage calculations...after which, I intend to spend some quality time with my wife."
"...can arrange it, give me six hours," General Ssharki's image said. "I've actually been getting inquiries about Ensign Jessup, they included some very...interesting video. I'm glad you did not airlock the girl."
D'Moj's face shows next. "She's not baggage, General, I've had her shadowing Bekk D'Ghon in security. As long as the Armistice holds out, she's safe from me."
"Glad to hear it." Ssharki says. "I'll contact some...people on the other side, get them to give you a pass and an escort in to K-7 space, that should buy you time to contact your friend and see what they can do to help you in this...quest." the Gorn's expression on the recording was unreadable.
"Thank you general. I have had Ngoc prepare a flight plan and we're already en-route."
"Good luck." Ssharki says.
-Record End.
Briefing room, USS Bradbury...
Admiral Vivian Lorus Gorton Kingsley III stepped back from the display panel, and looked to the assembled Captains. They had not yet met with Mary Moriarty.
"Well, Captain Yamato, what is your assessment?"
"Well, at least Ensign Jessup is still alive, and she's managed to impress the captain she ended up with," Takeshi said. "Might be interesting to see if she wants a spot in any of our crews after this is all said and done."
Kevin frowned. "D'Moj wouldn't be coming here for just that reason-" he stopped. "Okay, I know her personally, christ..." he was uncomfortable about...something. "She's a pro, if she's diverting all the way out here, crossing the Armistice line, getting clearance and asking for diplomatics when she could've just handed Jessup over to KDF authority and let the diplomats do it, she's after something more significant."
"Dr. Moriarty did mention in the report you gave us that D'Moj was working to stop the same folks we're trying to stop" Schrodi said "It's possible this could work to our advantage here."
Takeshi thought about it for a moment. "Hmm... If she's wanting an in-person exchange, then she wants a prisoner we might have here at K-7, or in one of the nearby ships..."
"Or," Schrodi said as she paced as she often did when thinking "She's using this as an excuse to talk to someone she thinks can help, perhaps because she know's you're here" she said to Kevin. "ship movements aren't exactly kept secret nowadays."
"It's not impossible she knows where Mary Moriarty is," McLain suggested. "KDF intel isn't as incompetent as a lot of Federation commentators seem to think-they spotted the Dominion takeover of Cardassia, and the Undine infiltration at the Peace Talks on Risa..."
Kevin nodded. "Mary's her doctor, one of the few canker-mechanics she'll let touch her."
"Which means she more than likely wants Mary back," Takeshi remarked. "Well, do we want to meet her here at K-7, or some other system where her presence wouldn't cause as much of a stir?"
"I'd say elsewhere maybe. We know someone went to a lot of trouble to get you out here where you'd be 'out of the way' Admiral, and sent Kevin and Takeshi out here as well." Her tail twitched as she continued "it's possible, hell probable, that whoever tried to exile you, may have someone watching as well."
Admiral Kingsley looked thoughtful. "Leverage," he said. "Correct my misunderstanding, but D'Moj is an orion, one that has...issues with her own kind?"
"You could say that," Kevin observed. "She was taking pheromone suppressors when we were on Defera, she dresses more modestly than...we do, and she doesn't like other Orions."
"And she's a KDF officer?" Kingsley said. "I mean, more than a status, she's a willing convert?"
Kevin shrugged. "She mentioned being something called 'Ohn'gallau' on a few occasions-I had a hell of a time looking that up, it translates roughly as 'heretic' or 'iconoclast'."
"We have a lever on her then, and it's sitting in your brig, Captain McLain," Kingsley stated. "I think we'll all be more secure if she has to come HERE to get her pet doctor back-we'll have the advantage, in some other system, she could easily arrange an ambush and just take what she wants."
"What makes you say that?" Kevin asked.
"I read the report on the Son Tay raid," Kingsley stated. "I seem to recall sending a copy to out to every Tactical Department Captain in the fleet once Intelligence finished with debriefing the rescuees...did you get it, Captain Yamato?"
"I think so," Takeshi replied. "It's a little fuzzy right now, but wasn't she the one who led that raid?"
Kingsley shook his head. "Not led, she was the KDF advisor who helped the Moab Militia plan it, and she took part in it."
"So she planned it...and she led it," Kevin countered. "You know as well as anyone that 'KDF advisors' usually end up in charge of missions taken on by their client races..."
"Which means she's not only an experienced captain, but also a skilled tactician," Takeshi remarked. "So if she wanted to plan an ambush, she could easily pull it off."
"We'll know in about three hours," Kingsley said. "In the meantime, I've got the station's patrols out and station security on alert-standby."
"You think she'd just attack?" Lewis asked.
"Not her, necessarily, but given who she's likely aligned against, her enemies might not be so...circumspect," the Admiral stated.
"So...let's go meet with Mary," Kevin suggested, standing up from his seat. "If we ARE looking at a prisoner transfer, we probably should pump her for the data we can get while we've got her."
"Agreed," Takeshi remarked, standing up with Linda. "Even if we end up working with her ship's crew on this, we should still see what she knows."
Schrodi nodded "And make sure She knows what we know. Because, if something does go pear shaped..at least if she gets away to her ship, they'll have more info in where to look than they do now."
kinda like a dog
w/ seven pupils
in its eye
kinda like a madness
that refuses
to subside
kinda like everything you want
just w/ in your grasp
kinda like
how a banshee-wail
dances
on a living heart
-Glenn Danzig, "Left hand black"
Brig Area, USS Bradbury...
Mary had covered nearly a full wall of the brig in calculations and geometric patterns painted in blood.
Her blood. Scratched on with her fingernails.
She was a mess. The neatly, almost natty grooming had completely vanished, her red hair stringy and unwashed, eyes feverish, clothes torn.
"WHAT HAPPENED?" Lewis McLain bellowed. Akorem lay unconscious on her side of the energy field. The two guards were just starting to wake up from...something.
"Ahab, what happened?" Capt. McLain demanded. The others saw the scene as they entered.
"Professor Tarel tried to open the box." Mary said and let out a giggle, "The lucky thing is, she failed-lucky for her, lucky for us...poor AHAB though...I think he's not watching the cells anymore."
At the mention of the box, Schrodi looked around franticly "where did it go?" she said, before relaxing a bit, spotting it.
The box lay near the field-inside the cell.
"You can thank me later for making it close." Mary added, "I think I may need a doctor...I seem to have lost a little bit of blood..." She held up her arms, showing long ragged cuts down each forearm, and severe burns on her palms and fingers.
The calculations were mind-bendingly complex-a description of some sort of temporal/dimensional interaction that shouldn't be possible.
"You wrote down more than a little bit" Her tail thrashed as she read the formulae on the wall "Doctor Moriatry, I am both awed and frightened at the same time" she said, "but this ties in with what I thought."
"I had to write it down before I forgot...but I think I forgot too much...anyone got some juice? the interface is at least partially telepathic, I had a haaarrrrd time holding the patterns to close it again...thou mayestt want to put her in the next cell when she wakes up-I think some of it may have bled through." Mary giggled again, a dry, creaky sound...then she seemed to sober up, "Seriously, I think I may have let too much out... if thine will's not strong enough it takes over, I learned that when I used the first one-did thou know sanity is a one-trick pony? all it gives you is...I forget..."
"Where's Hawkes?" Lewis demanded.
"He's over here." Takeshi Yamato knelt next to the unconscious security chief. "I can't tell, but his pulse feels kind of weak..."
"Sickbay, Medical Emergency in the Brig, multiple casualties!"
As the medical teams ran in, Takeshi looked at the carnage, then at the box. "If that artifact caused something like this..." he whispered.
"There's no telling what it could do if it were to be fully opened/activated..." Linda replied, her eyes wide in shock. "My goodness..."
"Why did Akorem have it down here?" Lewis asked.
"She didn't," Mary said. "She was in the lab...I...made it...bring her here." She smiled. "The math wasn't that hard...while I could hear it. Don't touch it, she was weak, but thou'rt not much stronger." She sighed, "I am so...tired right now." Her face was gaining the gray tone of shock.
Takeshi went over to the entrance to her cell, even as he signalled for a medical team. "Get her to sickbay!!" he told them even as he dropped the field, allowing the medical team access.
Mary glared at the medics. "Secure it!" she said, "Don't touch it, but secure it-if the wrong person, someone whose will is weak, touches it, we are all in deep, deep trouble, Grupp...and all I need is a pass with a regen and some type-B positive human blood, or plasma, eh? Just flesh wounds..." she looked into Takeshi's eyes, and he looked into hers, and saw a deep, solid sanity looking back at him. "It tries to dominate the user-it digs into the subconscious, I have centuries of experiences to reassert my sense of self. You don't."
Schrodi had meanwhile been fiddling with a small piece of equipment she had stuck in her pocket. "no problem, I've got it " she says. Activating the widget, a small force field formed around the box on the floor, lifting into the air, secure from any touch.
"Do you always carry an antimatter maniuplator unit with you?"
She just grinned "Hey you never know. It should be safe enough this way at least till we can get it someplace more secure."
Takeshi nodded, cataloging the fact that Doctor Moriarty wasn't speaking in her traditional Old English Dialect as something to ask about later. "Right," he said. "We'll probably need a Vulcan to handle it, then, or someone else who's lived long enough to develop a strong sense of self."
The Medics quailed for a moment, but blood bags and regenerators were brought to the Cell bloc instead of moving Mary to the Sickbay.
"It best be an Old Vulcan." She said, "I was barely able to hold on the first time, and that one was still mostly dormant-this one is mostly awake."
Schrodi noticed it-Mary's arms were healing faster than they had any right to-and the burns on her palms were nearly gone under the regenerator's influence-it wasn't beyond the upper limits of the machinery, just that for a human, it was extremely fast.
"Why do you want to stay in your cell?" Kevin asked.
"Because...because unlike thee, I am still a danger right now," she said. "Thou hast no idea what it feels like to have that much power-even briefly. Someone weak of will can be swallowed in the pure sensation alone, the influence...hast thou ever experimented with Sezzanine?"
"Um, NO." Kevin said.
"Sezzanine is a pleasure drug, it fogs the mind with joy and well-being, it is pure bliss, it grants the sensation of being loved..." she said. "What lives in yon box is like that, but enhanced a thousand times or more. It be like a computer virus for thine brain-attacking through the pleasure centres, granting power and all thou hast to do, is surrender thine will to it."
"God in a box," Linda observed tartly. "an Addict's ultimate high."
Mary nodded. "Exactly-I fought it off, but I'm still fighting the desire to possess it right at this very moment...and it wants to be opened. The first time, THAT box wanted to be handled, but left alone. This one wants more."
"The...first time?" Schrodi asked.
"The first time...I had just escaped from quarantine, and I had made some exchange doing a bit of medical work on a refugee freighter-this was fifty years ago," Mary said. "We were travelling through the Mutara sector, I had a few things I had...borrowed from the camp doctors, one of them was a batch of then-experimental nanotech, that I had scrubbed the programming from to facilitate a few experiments of mine own. There were four hundred sentient beings crammed into that ship with me, and at that time, I was still in hiding from Starfleet-you see, technically, after a century and a half, we were still classified as a pre-warp civilization-this in spite of generations of teachers and experts helping us reclaim what was left of our world-and waiting to see how long it would take us to grow up and become viable again."
"Viable?" Kevin looked confused.
"The Onlies were small in numbers, and until the Kirk and the McCoy came, we didst not live long past puberty-certainly not long enough to bear offspring, one day, you stop being an Only, and start being a Grupp-death usually follows madness in a few short turnings-until the plague was...'cured'," her lip twisted cynically. "Of course, three hundred years of childhood in violent anarchy tends to set in certain priorities-one of the main reasons we were kept quarantined was the fear that the virus our parents created would find a way to become a viable killer again-but that was nothing compared to the psychological damage every single one of us had. By then-and-present standards, we're a bunch of sociopaths and Psychopaths-even the good ones, like Miri...as I was saying, I had broken quarantine, and was out, seeing the Galaxy...because even before the Kirk, I'd been one of the few that looked to the sky and wondered if there was somewhere better...somewhere where you didn't have to look forward to turning into a Grupp," she smiled. "It took more than seventy years before I realized that I could understand enough of the Tutor's sciences to maybe go on my own...and another fifty before I was tall enough to sit in the control seat and reach the switches, and strong enough to use cunning to steal a ship...by then, I'd seen even Vulcans grow old, and humans flit through their lives in fast-forward...some of the oversight teams were allowed to bring families-and by the day I chose to leave, I'd actually had a boy from offworld, watched him become a man, grow old, and die. My children were middle aged while I still had the body of a fifteen year old-the cure worked..it just didn't work on US. I worked out the shift in my aging-from one year per century to one every couple decades. Fifty years ago, I was the equivalent of a 22 year old, now...I'm physically the equivalent of a 25 year old, ergo, if thou hast a vulcan examine it, they should be a very old, very experienced Vulcan....but back to my story."
She cadged a ration-pak from a spot under her mattress, and tore it open. "I was on a refugee ship-I don't even remember which one, or who they were fleeing, or why. It was fifty years ago and those details don't matter...and it was attacked. The ship had no weapons and poor engines-it was probably a late period warp-boom ship. The attackers were from a race that had begun preying on such ships, and on minor neighbouring worlds, quite some time ago. This race was...non-humanoid, but they had an artifact that their ruler carried within his body, the artifact gave him powers his subjects did not have, and their race a purpose-it was a cube-like that one." She gestured at the one in the containment field. "This race may have evolved, but it was probably engineered as much as it was evolved-they possessed a kind of 'touch empathy' linked to their reproduction-you see, they have to consume a living, sentient being, in order to reproduce-which they do by asexual means. The commoners usually consume one another, the rulers, though, had access to spaceflight, and with it, new victims." She nibbled on the ration bar, adding. "Starfleet Leutenant Ah'vsath is from the ruling caste-you can tell because he is more or less fully sapient. Over the course of the sixty four days I was captive, I watched them feed on the others taken when they overcame the ship, I observed what happened...I resolved that I would not become a meal, and I formed a plan. I was inadvertently helped in this, because I didn't just give in to despair or terror-their RULER wanted me...wanted to eat me, to absorb my neural tissues and patterns. This gave me the opportunity that I needed-and I took it-and in taking it, I took their artifact." She sighed. "It sang to me, but my mind was, at that time, stronger-my savagery saved me from the lulling joy, and I made it reveal some of its power to me--I drained the ruling court of their life-essence--all of it, and for a short time, I was stronger than anything they had...so I unleashed the nanites in the room, at the centre of their largest hive, and stole a ship-the same ship I'd been taken from-and while the nanites ate their foul world, I escaped them."
"Why did you have to kill them that way?" Kevin asked.
"Because they were grupps-well, grupp-like, a threat to my survival," she said. "A threat to the survival of anyone LIKE me...at that time, and to this day, I still consider myself a person, you see? These things ate people because they LIKED TO and because they HAD TO. There would be no negotiation, no way to curb it, it's written into what they are." She sighed. "Grupps go mad, they attack anyone and everyone, sometimes they **** first, sometimes they **** you while eating you. These beings were like that, only MORE...they had to die, because they do it rationally. Even a Grupp is overcome with madness, but these things were doing what they were doing in a full state of rationality...combined with a solid biological drive."
"We have Ah'vsath on video eating someone," Takeshi said.
Mary frowned. "He'll want to divide soon, then," she said. "If he's eating sentients, he's preparing to reproduce....making babies is a fundamental biological directive."
IKS Val'Gyr II...
"...meet up with you at the Rendezvous in ten days, K'Tirr." D'Moj said. Rrio'rr-K'tirr's image on the com-screen nodded, "Good hunt to you, and watch for shadows."
K'Tirr gave a 'hrr', "Success in your own mission, Colonel, Herdthinner out."
"Time to our destination?" D'Moj asked.
Ngoc, sitting at the helm console, sipped replicated ca'phe from a metal cup, and said, "Two hours, twenty minutes at present speed."
"I'm picking up something on long-range sensors," B'Tara announced. "Subspace wake says it's an Orion built vessel...harmonics looks like a Corsair class medium cruiser."
"Interesting." D'Moj said, "How far off our present course?"
"She's parallel, about three hours behind us, should we ambush?" B'Tara asked.
"It's tempting," D'Moj said. "No. If they're going to K-7 to raid, we will be bringing advance warning, if they're on legitimate Empirial business, we don't want to interfere, and if it's cousin Eiral's supporters, we don't want them knowing where we are."
"Understood," B'Tara said. "Should I maintain a track routine on them anyway?"
"Yes," D'Moj stated. "Keep on the low-power and passive side, no reason to let them know where we are with a full burst sensor sweep."
"Do you anticipate returning to Starfleet, Ensign Jessup?" D'Ghon asked, standing beside her at the door to the bridge. "You do want to go home, yes?"
"Uh...yeah...wha'?" she replied. "Don'chall evah git homeseck?"
The Klingon laughed. "My ship is my home, my crew is my family, but my Honour belongs to my House-yes, I do miss it sometimes."
"Ah dun seed how y'all flurts with Bekk Lursata, an she flirts raht back." she observed.
"Not the same thing," D'Ghon stated. "That is...just recreational. Someday, I will find a true mate."
"Mister D'Ghon!" she said, mock-scandal in her tone. "Ah do b'leive we-uns already done been down thet road, an it ain't nice flirt'n when y'all's goin' gone so soon."
"We'll always have the Deserts," he said-referring to the barren, blasted world they'd conducted ground exercises (and other exercises) on earlier. He smiled at her blush.
"You'll probably want to stop with the phony accent now," B'Tama said, stepping onto the bridge. "Or start with the phony, learned, middle-Starfleet-english tone you WERE using when we picked you up."
Jessup frowned. "Mah-er, My accent?" she asked, carefully forming the words.
"Precisely," B'Tama stated. "You've improved in terms of physique, and you've loosened up, but I guess we let you get too loose--you've been reverting--and while D'Ghon thinks it's cute, others do...not." She checked the Starfleet guest's uniform for deficiencies. "Remember, Professionalism....Now, You're both relieved for your lunch break. The Galley's got Brecht lung and it's actually pretty good..."
Two hours later...
"K-7 Control, this is Diplomatic Charter 674Echo, Callsign IKS Val'Gyr on approach vector, we require corridor assignment, Over."
"Six Seven Four Echo, this is K-7 Control, decloak dammit," was the response.
"Oh, yeah..." B'Tara shot D'Moj an impish grin.
"Drop the cloak," D'Moj said mildly.
They decloaked within 50 meters of the upper deck of the station. "Better, K-7 control?" B'Tara asked, using her most saccharine imitation-starfleet tone.
The consternation and the shouting on the other end of the line cracked D'Moj's reserve, and she laughed-and the laughter was infectious, spreading through the whole bridge.
"How about you just give me a parking slot," D'Moj said using the communications override. "And have some troops standing by when we clear the lock, I've got your Ensign here and I am eager to discuss some related matters with Mac Calhoun or whoever else might be in charge over there."
Docking took another twenty minutes, but finally, the airlocks met up and the personnel hatches opened.
In the corridor beyond, the first person D'Moj noticed, was an enormous, familiar person. "KEVIN!!!" she greeted him with a big smile and a wave.
This drew looks from the other Starfleet officers in the docking corridor. Foremost because Colonel D'Moj was wearing a full uniform covered with a long, khaki coloured overcoat-and her hands were gloved.. (For an orion this is as atypical as the idea of a Starfleet Captain showing up for duty in a bikini top and loincloth...) the overall impression was almost shapelessness-no hint of her curves on display, nothing to entice or seduce in her manner.
Kevin Monroe shrugged, "We worked together for several months after the battle." he said as an explanation, "Colonel, you've got one of our people with you?"
"I do...you've got something to trade." She didn't ask.
"I do-" Kevin stepped aside, and Mary Moriarty stepped forward.
"How-" D'Moj frowned. "Mary?"
"Tis me...a bit worse for the wearing, they're after the same prey thou'rt," she said. "I've even come to learn some...interesting facts."
"Well...then we need to talk," D'Moj stated. "Somewhere more...secure than a Starbase full of transients..."
"Sounds bad," Kevin said sotto-voce to Takeshi.
"Worse than bad," Takeshi replied, also sotto-voce. "My instincts are acting up, in conjunction with my Spatial Awareness... trouble's coming. I can feel it."
Marina Jessup walked up the gangway and she looked a HELL of a lot more confident than the frightened almost-child in her recording. She stopped in front of the assembled officers. "Ensign Marina Jessup, Permission to come aboard the station?"
"Permission Granted, Ensign...were you mistreated?" Admiral Kingsley asked casually.
"No sir, I was not mistreated at any time during my time in KDF hands," she said, adding, "They only interrogated me once, an' thet wa'nt even with th' pain sticks..." Her accent, which in the recording had been relatively mild for someone from New Ozarkia, had thickened and acquired a slight gutteral undertone. She added, "Ah k'n now speak Klingon."
"For someone with your aptitudes, I should hope so..." Kingsley said. "Willie, take Ensign Jessup to debriefing....under heavy guard."
"I guess that it's time to go then, Mary?" D'Moj inquired.
"Not yet, Ma'am," Mary Moriarty stated. "Ah, Admiral, if thou wouldst please..."
"I would appreciate it if you you would join us in my office--with some of your selected personnel. Under the Armistice, I'm allowed to offer your crew...shore leave aboard the station, for so long as you may be here." His expression showed that the words were...unwelcome to speak.
"Then we'll do that instead..." D'Moj shifted to Klingon. "Kobor, you and B'Tara watch the ship, Ngoc, D'daku, Talash, B'Tama, D'Ghon, you're with me."
She turned to the Admiral and his party, and in Federation English, said, "I'm bringing five."
"This is my Helmsman, Mister Ngoc, Coxswain First Class Moab Militia and Leutenant junior grade Klingon Defense Force," D'Moj introduced the human first.
Ngoc's Moabite dress uniform was something familiar to any student of Earth History-Moab's militia chose to pattern their dress uniforms after American uniforms from the mid-20th Century, complete with placement of rank insignia and unit identifiers, and most atrociously, a tie. Somehow, the cut worked with Klingon Defense force insignia as well.
"This is my Senior security officer, Major Talash, and Bekks D'Ghon, and B'Tama, and finally, my second shift engineering chief Major D'Daku."
D'Daku was another orion-and like D'moj, she was clothed from neck to toe, including her hands. Unlike D'Moj, her outfit was catsuit-tight tailored leathers.
Admiral Kingsley cleared his throat. "I'm Admiral Vivian Lorus Gorton Kingsley the Third, you already Know Captain Monroe, This is Captain Takeshi Yamato, and Dr. Schrodinger, a well known Physicist and Captain in her own right, and Captain Lewis McLain."
D'Moj nodded to each of them, a curt, professional gesture. "So...let's go have a talk." she said.
"This way."
As they walked to the Admiral's office, Takeshi looked at Ngoc again. "Moabite?" he asked.
"New Saigon," Ngoc said quietly. "You've heard?"
"We all heard," said Schrodi, her ears and tail drooping in sympathy. "It's all over the news nets now."
The young man shook his head in disbelief. "Really...leave it to the newsies to focus on that." The groups drew immediate attention on the main deck of the starbase--mostly hostile stares directed at the KDF personnel, but there were more than a few pitying looks directed specifically at Ngoc from officers and civilians familiar with the region.
Linda Yamato joined the parade from the main deck area, falling in with her husband. "You're probably going to get enough pity from quite a lot of officers here, so we won't give you any more," Takeshi said as his wife nodded. "I will say, however, that if you need any help from myself, my crew, and my ship, don't hesitate to ask."
Ngoc laughed softly. "There are twenty million people who need it more than I do, and two hundred million more that need it at least as much. They're still looking for survivors, but the ones they've found so far might be termed 'better off dead'."
"Still, you're probably in the best position to ask for my specific help," Takeshi replied. "I'm a combat captain, not a relief worker, and my ship's a Tactical Escort, not a Hospital Ship."
"The only thing I'd ever ask of you, or anyone else, is to help me kill the TRIBBLE that set this up, made it possible, and caused it," Ngoc stated. "Slowly."
"We could certainly help with that," Takeshi replied. "We'd leave the actual killing to you, because that's your right in my book, but we could definitely clear out the small fry and clear you a path to those you want to kill."
"And I'm already working on how to track them down, so they can be wiped out, to the last," Schrodi added, drawing some looks from passing starfleet officers. "Some things that are out there need to be exterminated." she said.
"There's going to be killing enough for everyone," D'Moj interjected sourly. "More than enough, I suspect." She looked back over her shoulder, giving Takeshi and Linda the closest look they'd had. She looked younger than she'd seemed in the airlock, but there was a worn look in her eyes, like... like Kevin, or Gonzo... Takeshi realized. "More than enough even for you, Captain Yamato. More than enough for me as well."
"Understood," Takeshi replied. "I'm not really looking forward to it--most people don't, I suspect--but I know that it is necessary sometimes. And from what I've learned of our latest foes, it is probably more than necessary in this circumstance."
They reached the Turbolift, and went up to Admiral's country.
Zarkus was at the office to meet them, and fussed about with the privacy settings before offering canape' trays and refreshements.
"Since it's technically a diplomatic visit, certain forms have to be observed," the alien aide to Admiral Kingsley stated.
"Snacks." Bekk B'Tama said, "Husband, what...is this?" she held up a shrimp.
"Um, it's good?" Ngoc replied.
One of Takeshi's eyebrows quirked up. "Husband?" he asked. "What did you do for her to choose you as her mate?"
Ngoc looked quizzically at B'Tama, who just nodded. "I have, to this day, no idea," Ngoc said. "I was assigned over to the Val'gyr for transfer to the Academy on Qo'Nos after the Son Tay mission-we don't have a lot of commissioned officers-I was a coxswain's mate first class, and one day in the corridor near the Enlisted quarters, she just...grabbed me," he said. "And announced to all and sundry 'I want this'. We've been together since."
B'Tama looked pleased with herself, but didn't add anything.
Ngoc continued, "So...after a pretty exciting trip to Eryphis station where we made some new...acquaintances and put down a riot, the Colonel made it formal, legal, and all the rest--right along with a confirmed field-commission to Lieutenant."
"Wow," Takeshi remarked. "That's rather interesting. My XO is Klingon, so I've heard a lot of tales about the culture, but he's never mentioned anything about a female claiming a mate without at least stating a reason to said mate... though I'd assume the reason would be obvious if said claiming was right after a major fight or battle."
B'Tama spoke up. "Actually, I picked him during the Son Tay mission--he took a shuttle into heavy fire to get my team out, and stayed until everyone was aboard," she said. "Plus, he has the most amazing TRIBBLE I've ever seen."
Takeshi and Linda both blushed slightly, figuring the last part to be a little TMI. "That explains it, I guess," Takeshi said.
"And he blushes," She added, noting the crimson tone of Ngoc's cheeks. "And...he's adorable, fun, smart, and creative--he used blastex and a photon grenade to get us into the labyrinth under Masaana Dihava, then laid the most amazing pattern of mines and traps when the Suharto's crew tried to overrun us in the Archive." She added this part with genuine pride. "MY husband can turn...he can turn anything into a weapon," she beamed. "OH, and you should see what he does with metalwork! Show them..." she urged.
Ngoc sighed, and drew-cleared-and opened his pistol before offering it over. It was a copy of a 20th century automatic handgun, and it was engraved.
"I actually got offered money for it...it's just a hobby," he said. "The tough part was replicating a decent forging to start off with. After that it's just hand engraving and patience."
"Wow," Takeshi remarked. "You don't see quality stuff on old firearms like this anymore... mainly on more... traditional weapons."
He then brought out a 17th Century Japanese Katana, slowly drawing it out of its sheath and allowing them to see the sheen of the blade, as well as the Kanji engraved on it. "This is Akatsuki no Ken, a sword that's been in the Yamato Family since the ancient Japanese Feudal Era," he said. "It has always been passed down to the firstborn of the family when they leave home to seek military service--my adoptive father passed it on to me when I went to join Starfleet Academy, which I considered a sign that he truly thought of me as his child, even though I was adopted."
"Beautiful work," Ngoc said, admiring the sword. "I have done SOME blade work, but it's hard to balance the thicknesses while retaining the structural integrity--the old masters really were masters."
He did something and the blade rang in a bell-tone that lingered. "Beautiful, she's a singing sword..." he presented the blade hilt-first back to Takeshi. "Mine's just a modern copy, you have a genuine treasure here."
"Thank you," Takeshi replied. "Once my own child is old enough to enter the Academy, I'll pass this down to them as is tradition, and then most likely forge a new blade of my own. I only hope that I am able to maintain the same level of craftsmanship."
"Let's get to the reason we're all up here in this office," D'Moj said. "I assume Mary's briefed you on the Cult, and what they are planning?" She stood with hands-in-pockets, her overcoat askew.
"She has... well, indirectly," Takeshi admitted. "She briefed the crew of the Bradbury, who found her, and an Archaeologist on the Bradbury's crew briefed the rest of us."
"Well...Let's start with what you DO know, and then we can straighten out any misconceptions." D'Moj stated. "So...what do you know about the situation?"
"There is an ancient civilization that predates the Iconians," Takeshi replied. "The Iconians actually served this civilization for a time, as did the Ancient Orions. There is a cult of modern Orions who worship these 'masters', and seek to bring about their return. Am I right so far?"
D'Moj nodded. "So far you have the basics down, but kind of shy on specifics. My mother was a driving force in this cult for a period of decades," she said. "Currently our prime enemy candidate is my sister, Eiral, who's moved in to take over the Masaana Syndicate's holdings after mothers'...removal from power on Eryphis Station...now, further complications are mostly internal Orion Politics, but what you need to keep firmly in mind, is that Mother was heavily invested in assets on the Federation side of the border--and she worked with Federation and Starfleet intelligence fairly frequently, even before the war."
"Meaning she's likely corrupted at least a few officials, who now are in Eiral's pockets," Takeshi guessed, glad that Ryoko never suffered from that kind of corruption.
"More than a few," D'Moj stated. "My guess is, while I was growing up, she kept a rolling stream of...'clients'--I remember when I decided to run away, that Starfleet looked a lot less secure than the Empire did--she had relatively few Klingon visitors, but starfleet uniforms were often a common sight at the Manor, or on her stations-and not as prisoners." She paused, and drew out a hand to take a glass of water from the table. "She often did...favours, for officers like captain Sandra Fitzsimmons or Rear Admiral T'Nae...I guess they've both been promoted since those days, if they haven't retired." She studied their reactions. "One of her most frequent...clients was a Trill Captain named Quinn, does that ring any bells?"
Takeshi's eyes widened. "Quinn? ADMIRAL Quinn?" he asked. "He's one of the Fleet's most important Admirals--oversees operations from Earth Spacedock!! If he's been corrupted, we're in deep trouble..."
"Fitzsimmons is an Admiral now, too," Schrodi's tail lashed in frustration. "She is the reason I was taken out of research, where I was trying to figure out how to shut down the Iconian gateway network, and stuck me out doing weapons testing. Quinn is the one that had me put in command of the Dauntless."
"It was twenty years ago, Captain," D'Moj said. "He generally only rented a girl for a few weeks, but his real business with Mother was information," she said. "Buying and selling, an occasional item would change hands, and through him, she was able to obtain prior notice of certain fleet patrol movements that impinged on The Trade." It was the casual way she said it-no emphasis, no rehearsed lines, she might as well have been stating that the ceiling was clean, or the carpets well maintained. "Now, is anyone surprised that the captain of the Suharto is working with my little sister?" D'Moj asked, "Mother was setting this up for decades."
Takeshi frowned. "No surprise on my end," he said. "His ship took a potshot at me while I was on my way here, and I then learned about his defection from a message that Ensign Jessup managed to get off before she made it to your ship. So, no surprise, except possibly for the sheer scale of your mother's operations."
"Fifteen percent of the Orion population, plus the heads of most of the big Trade Houses." D'Daku reminded him. "The 'cult' as you call it, is one of the bedrock foundations of Orion society, and has been for millennia--I think the closest thing I could attribute, would be...well, that doesn't even match right--The colonel and I were both raised in the Masaana household, when she came of age to be sold, she ran away--I didn't...I was leased out to another Great House, one run by another...I guess you can call it 'priestess' of the Faith, to improve their broodstocks." she sighed. "It took the events on Eryphis to change my outlook and open my eyes to what they were doing...Six months ago I was the most traditional Orion you would meet, I believed in the Return, I sincerely thought it would be best for everyone, of all species to bring the Masters back, especially after the nightmare we experienced on Defera."
"But the actions the cult took with their uprising, and the reactions of the other powers, convinced you otherwise," Takeshi remarked, "and so you joined the colonel."
D'Daku shook her head. "No, it was the actions of Matron Masaana Di'al, her...decisions. How and why she was doing it," D'Daku said. "It was seeing through Their eyes." She pointed at Ngoc and B'Tama, "Their world, that convinced me. I was ready to kill D'Moj, all I required was an instruction from the Matron before I realized...it was wrong." She sighed, "I am still a proud Orion, Captain, I still believe in the System, in the Trade, we've had a stable civilization free of most ills that befall others for thousands of years, we don't need to summon ancient oppressors to maintain it...but my Colonel asked me a question--and after spending time with the crew, away from Orion influences, I started to also ask..." she walked over to where some of the ancient books taken from the Homeworld lay. "Where are our artists, our artisans? Where is OUR great philosophy? It's all rooted in instructions from an ancient conqueror who altered our genetics--we have no great artists, we have no artisans of our own, no innovators--an Orion ship from ten thousand years ago is, with the exception of imported technology, the same as an Orion ship from the yard last week." She lifted the book. "We're stagnant, the Cult and the Masters are the reason."
"And so, by stopping them, you believe you might be able to start bringing the Orions out of Stagnancy?" Takeshi asked. "A rather bold objective you've set for yourself, there."
"It is my hope," D'Daku said. "We persist, but we do not grow. Mere existence is not life--Ngoc's illness proved that."
"I understand," Takeshi remarked. "I'll do what I can on our side of the fence--and I'll pass word along to the contacts I know I can trust, so they can provide any help that is in their specialties. What I can do is work on taking down any followers of these 'Masters' I come across--I'm a Combat Captain, not a diplomat."
"Hopefully, we can prevent the Masters from coming back at all," D'Moj had taken the moments her deputy bought with her speech, and slid an isolinear rod into the player.
"This is what they're after," she added, as a construct formed in the air over the holostage, "It's effectively a combination of gateway and beacon, the Legends say that the Masters will come when the 'stars are right'," she said. "There were certain interstellar phenomena that the Cult was watching for--a massive subspace supernova was one of them. Another was the recent collapse of the Tenk'al binary--the star finally fell into the black hole it was orbiting--that was twenty five years ago--five years prior to Hobus." She stood back from the player. "the astronomical sighting data was the trigger, the legends said that the artifacts would begin gaining power...and they would call the servants to assemble them-which is what Mother was doing, and what Eiral is doing now..." she looked at the Starfleet Captains. "There were other prophecies--the arrival of powerful new enemies was included--those were pretty close descriptors to the Borg."
"So the Borg invasion is a 'sign of the Apocalypse,' huh?" Takeshi asked. "The Borg are powerful enough on their own, without needing to point to any larger threats."
"Not specifically, the prophecies actually refer to the mass migration and movements of powerful races into the quadrant," D'Daku said. "Like a wind before a storm--and a time of chaos--which with the Undine infiltrations and the war, the collapse of the Khitomer accords, and the incursions by Hirogen, Elachi, and others, fits--My colonel is...sometimes too focused, and she didn't stay long enough to memorize ALL the scriptures," she said it with a sad smile.
"Wait...you said you believe in the system, but if you get what you want, won't that pretty much shatter it?" Kevin asked.
"I suppose that's a risk. You have to understand, Captain--the Trade is more akin to a social welfare system with the same objectives your Federation's social welfare system holds, the difference being, ours is not vulnerable to a single-point failure..." D'Daku said. "Everyone is cared for--nobody starves, there are severe penalties for theft, murder, and ****. Addicts get treatment--because even an addict represents a significant investment for their owner, and there is order. The only real difference, is that we acknowledge that nobody is free, that everyone is responsible for someone or responsible to someone."
Kevin glowered. "What about self-determination?" he asked.
"What about it? How much 'self determination' is there, really?" D'Daku asked. "A HUMAN observer noted that when most people are given the option of doing whatever they wish, they tend to do whatever they think everyone else is doing, no?" she said in a teasing tone. "Ngoc here, he wanted to join Starfleet--he was rejected because of a recessive potential medical condition--yet he serves the KDF and the Moab Militia with distinction in spite of his potential disability."
"Don't bring me into this, ma'am." Ngoc barked.
"What disability?" Schrodinger asked.
"Progressive Degenerative Nerve Sheath Erosion Disorder--it's inherited, nobody's found a cure, we might've found a way to slow it down so I'm not screaming myself to death by the time I'm forty," Ngoc told her. "I was diagnosed here...about five years ago when I went in for the induction physical...now, IF it goes out of remission and starts through the progression, I'll end up insane, in agony, and dying...of course, My wife here has promised that if I do end up that way, she'll give me a mercy shot, because once you hit stage three, you're untreatable and basically a bag of agony." He let that sink in for a moment. "About eighteen percent of Moab and twelve percent of New Saigon residents have, or will have it, Starfleet Medical's failed to find an effective treatment short of Euthanasia for the last two hundred years."
"It's an immediate medical disqualifier if you even have the markers in your genetics. I know what that is," Kevin said. "You've got it?"
"Yeah. We're trying a new treatment method to prevent it...if it works, millions of people won't have to kill their loved ones to end their pain," Ngoc said. "Hell, I might actually live to see the age of forty." Ngoc said it with optimism. "Back on our main topic though--as much fun as it is for you senior officers to wander off on weird political, religious, and social tangents, or to discuss obscure and incurable diseases, fact is we have a problem--all of us do." He nodded to Admiral Kingsley, Captain Schrodinger, Captain Yamato, and Captain Monroe. "Our problem isn't these 'good masters', it's the TRIBBLE trying to bring them back."
He stood up. "In a way, I guess my condition does factor into this--I have a chance to live long enough to see my kids actually be born and grow up-to adulthood, not just to 'big enough to use the shotgun', savvy?" He asked. "I sure as hell don't want those kids to grow up with an implant in their skull and a leash on their neck. If stopping that means I don't get to see them grow up, that I miss them being born because I'm dead, I can live with that...but what we need now, is a plan of action." he paused, "We KNOW they have a plan-they've been happily executing it for a long, long time...we need an actual plan to stop them from succeeding-and running pell-mell trying to beat them to targets they've had locked for years-maybe decades-isn't it." He directed that at Colonel D'Moj.
"My world is dead because of those TRIBBLE--and maybe some of that was a kindness--my mom's been a Neurohead for ten years, most of the time she doesn't remember her own name until the next drop from my sis." He took off his hat, and set it down on the holostage. "We know what they want. We need to know more than who they are, we need to figure out where they're going to try and open it...and then, we need to stop them."
"To do that, we have to find them, and I've got a lead on that." Schrodi said as she stood, hitting playback on the recording the Dauntless made on their way in of the late lamented IKS Stalks the Underbrush's last transmission. "There's some more deaths these TRIBBLE need to pay for. But thanks to this information, and after going over the very scary equations by Mary, we have, instead of thousands of possible targets, eight systems."
She highlighted them on the star charts. "All of them are Binary or Trinary systems, where the boundary between subspace and normal space is much weaker, more brittle. One good hit, in the right spot with the right tool, and a nice big portal to elsewhere can be ripped."
Takeshi nodded. "So, we need to monitor these eight systems, and if they show up at one, we swoop in and hammer them flat. Sounds good to me."
"We need a setup, secure operating instructions," Ngoc stated as the senior officers examined the map Schrodi had adjusted. "Something we can use that isn't in anyone's existing databases."
"Starfleet Regulations, general order 12," Kingsley said approvingly.
"Exactly. we have six ships--a Hegh'ta--the IKS Herdthinner, the Val'gyr II, my ship, the Bradbury, Roaring Tempest, Dauntless and Smedley Butler," D'Moj said. "Five specific codesigns, that we can hit a general frequency and nobody outside this group will know what we're talking about."
"We'll also need to pre-plan rendezvous points," Kevin observed. "And eight nonmap designations for the target systems--something outside of Starfleet or the KDF's SOI files-we have to assume the Suharto is getting updated Federation codes and sitreps from someone on the inside at Starfleet Command--and if they're compromised that way, then we have to assume the Masaana Syndicate, and by extension, the rest of the Cult, is getting that data."
Schrodi was typing rapidly on the PADD she was holding. "Done and Done," she said as she updated the map with both new designations for the systems, as well as rally points.
"Anyone you guys feel you can bring in besides us?" Lewis asked, "Two escorts, one cruiser, two BoPs and a science vessel isn't enough, not if they're running multiple carrier groups."
"Not at ths level--but we should consider who we'd trust to call in if it drops in the pot," Ngoc said pointedly. "The Militia's fleet's in tatters, I know a few that would come, but that leaves big gaps in defense back home if they did."
D'Moj nodded. "I didn't brief Ssharki in fully," she said. "Otherwise I'd be able to call in his task-forces...maybe, but I have a niece who's 'seen the light'--and she has a carrier."
"No dice," Ngoc said. "I saw the same orders you did--that carrier's under orders to camp in the Moab system until the Ferasan Reserve fleet can send in a battlegroup--she's effectively nailed to a post that way."
"Rutherford, maybe," Kingsley said. "Assuming Pickens doesn't get the order from me."
"Stage one," Takeshi announced. "We have to establish monitoring on eight separate systems-I notice that Moab is still on the list, so we can break that down to seven...and we've got six ships to do it with. which leaves one empty, assuming we go one-for-one...which isn't too smart considering the damn Orions figured out how to break Klingon Cloaks and BoPs are not exactly stand-and-deliver fighters."
"Triplines." Ngoc suggested, "Seed the target systems with probes as we pass through, we don't stop moving until we hit a live contact--when that happens, whoever hits it, sends out a shout-me signal and evades until reinforcements get there. We don't linger unless it's a live hole, since the spread is pretty good, we'll have to maybe do it by sector?"
"Probes and mines," Schrodi pointed her finger at one of the systems, at a spot between the binary stars. "Here. This is where subspace is weakest, if they want to find a place to open a hole for the things that should not be, they'll come in here to push at subspace. Drop them between the stars in the system. No one legitimately going in these systems would go there, and we might get lucky and take a couple of them out at best, at worst slow them up. I'm assuming," she sighed, "that we're outnumbered in this, so every advantage we can find helps."
"In the meantime we cover it claiming standard patrol or survey operations," Kevin added. "For the Starfleet group, that comes down to Armistice patrols for the Escorts and survey missions for the Science ship and the Butler."
"Our excuse is pre-made, we're hunting Orion mutineers and rebels." D'Moj added.
"Okay, so...who wants objective Alpha as their start-point?"
"I can take it," Takeshi replied. "I'll also get in touch with one of my contacts--let him know what's going on, see if he can get us some backup from his contacts."
I really like all the details you're throwing in - Takeshi's sword in particular was a nice touch. But you guys are starting to repeat yourselves, rehashing major plot points.
Less talking, more shooting!
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
I really like all the details you're throwing in - Takeshi's sword in particular was a nice touch. But you guys are starting to repeat yourselves, rehashing major plot points.
Less talking, more shooting!
Well, some rehashing is necessary - there are suddenly a lot more people who need to be brought up to speed, and fast. It would be kind of immersion-breaking for Takeshi and Monroe and everyone to abruptly know already everything they need to know to save the day.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Comments
I've never used it (or heard of it
If you go to the main Google Search Page without doing anything else, there should be a bar along the top of the page. Click on the 'Drive' option to go to Google Drive--you'll need to have an active Google Account and Sign in to said account in order to use it, but it's worth it.
USS Raging Tempest, 2 Hours from K-7 (Currently in Quantum Slipstream)
As the Raging Tempest sped through Quantum Slipstream, quickly making its way to K-7, Takeshi sat at the desk in his Ready Room, going over some of the files STIG had sent him: Dossiers on the Suharto's Senior Staff. One of the Junior Officers was currently taking over for him at the helm so he could look at those files, but he'd requested that they call him when they were getting close to K-7, so he could guide the ship in to dock himself.
First up was the Suharto's Captain, David Huntington.
Starfleet Academy class of '81, first assigment USS Ark Royal, progressed from a junior science ensign to Executive officer under two captains-the second one was Lewis McLain... citations for humanitarian actions in the Hobus crisis, and two cites for Valour... promoted to Captain and assigned to...USS Gabriel Bell, lost over Vega and presumed dead until they somehow found him as a Borg on Defera... The medical record following that included a few interesting names, including the wanted criminal Dr. Mary Moriarty and Captain Kevin Monroe, Moriarty was apparently consulted by on-site medical on methods to restore the man's personality...
Definitely an interesting career, and one of the best of his generation. Takeshi wondered just what it was that caused him to go rogue, before deciding to leave that question to the analysts (and interrogators, if Huntington was captured alive) and moved on to the next file, on the officer who was most likely the Suharto's new XO.
Edmund James Davillar, Starfleet Academy class of '87, Engineering primary, first assigned USS Gabriel Bell, one of 30 listed survivors, transferred for a time to Task Force Omega from 2409 to 2410, worked in technical analysis. Requested assignment to USS Suharto mid-2410. No dependents.... It was interesting-Omega personnel generally don't transfer out once they're there unless...Discipline notation: Commander Davillar has proven to be problematic in working with KDF personnel...high xenophobia index, passive-aggressive behaviours...
Takeshi's eyebrow quirked at that. The xenophobia index would possibly cause problems between the Commander and the Orions who the Suharto was working with... perhaps that could be used in some way? Anyway, next was that... Ah'vsath... the one he'd seen in that recording.
Lt. Ah'vsath (no last name): Species H'kkarank#, Enlisted Starfleet october 7, 2407 aboard the USS Gabriel Bell after being rescued. Class of 2408 at Starfleet Academy. Claims to be among the last of it's kind after a disaster (See Survey #821, Mutara bloc, USS Gabriel Bell). Ground combat cite, Defera, 2409/2410 period attached to group Echo, Southwestern district. Was requested by name and transferred to USS Suharto February 2410. No known relatives.
H'kkarank# species is limited amorph shapeshifting type capable of sustaining near-humanoid form with assistance. Scores 169 out of 200 on T'Von telepathic/empathic sensitivity scale. Dietary requirements are omnivorous, no sexual dimorphism.
Takeshi shuddered slightly at remembering how that one officer was... devoured by this Ah'vsath. Omnivorous, indeed... Putting that aside, he pulled up the next file on... a Pah-Wraith Cultist? Great... Religious Fanatics were always trouble, especially when they were essentially worshiping demons...
LTC Kala Maressa- Bajoran, Age 40. Starfleet Internal Security File 723498/u344871//bKalaMaressa22a3
Waiver under Federation treaty-citation of Federation Charter on Freedom of Religion under the Faulkner precedent (See UFP vs. Sylvia Faulkner).
LTC Maressa's religious preference is a matter of public record.
reassigned to Advisory Group Defera late 2409 after the destruction of the Gabriel Bell. Allegations of mistreatment of Breen Prisoners investigated, officer was cleared of wrongdoing.
Assigned surface relief, Defera, during the Borg invasion of that world, recommended for promotion by Capt. Kevin Monroe after battle of Hill 123, Promotion suspended pending article 32 investigation of misconduct regarding deferi civilians, reassigned USS Suharto upon request from that ship's captain...
Takeshi sighed. The Suharto's crew all seemed crazy in some form or another. It looked like the next entry was on an Android--hopefully that wouldn't have any of the problems the rest seemed to have...
Lt. Analytics-Soong/Daystrom model 47, android officer template:
Assembled at Macintosh Terra, 2408/12/15, standard officer training programme installed at Starfleet Academy, 2409/11/21, assigned USS Suharto.
Specification training package: Sciences, multidisciplinary.
The Soong 47 positronic processor is one of the most advanced currently accepted into starfleet service with an estimated 200 year lifespan. Special programming authorized by Adm. Quinn's office: Classified-Redacted.
Takeshi's eyes widened slightly. Admiral Quinn had authorized special programming in this android? That signalled a few alarm bells in Takeshi's mind, especially because it seemed that programming was classified, and could be anything. Before continuing to the next profile, he bundled up a copy of the Android's file, packaged it under the toughest encryption he knew, and sent it off on Comm Frequency 3754, a channel exclusive to a contact of his.
And as he continued looking through the files for the Suharto's senior officers, he just wondered if he'd be able to stop them from whatever it was they were doing...
Starbase K-7
K-7. Even after all the years since the incident that caused the station to hit the news nets over a century ago, it still reeked of tribbles and grain to beings with more sensitive olfactory perception. There were probably tribbles to this day in air ducts somewhere, they were the cockroaches of space. You could exterminate all you like, but they would never leave. Schrodi sneezed as soon as she re-appeared on the transporter platform, she wasn't allergic but it was still bothersome to her. "Now if I was Admiral Gilbert and Sullivan, where would I be?" she muttered.
"We could always follow the trail of polished brass fittings?"
"Fortunately, they don't use brass anymore in naval construction," Schrodi said with a chuckle, "or he'd have people tied up polishing it-eep!"
Ponta blinked, a second ago the cap'n was right beside her, then she was nowhere-wait, she was ducking behind a potted plant in the hallway. "Cap'n, are you ok?"
"OhmiGodohmiGodohmyGod,can'tbelieveitshimohmyGodohmy-"
"Breathe, Cap'n," Ponta said, wondering if she should call a medic. Schrodi just took a deep breath, slowing down. "It's HIM!"
"Him who?"
"Dr Kevin Monroe! Oh jeez, I should have taken a shower, is there anything in my teeth? Ack my tail still has grease on it-"
Ponta peered down the hallway. "Where, behind the walrus?"
"No he is the walrus. I mean, he's not A Walrus, he's actually remarkably fit despite his appearance. OhmyGod, what do I do.."
"Talk to him? I mean he's just a starfleet officer, he may have a doctorate but you've got a pile of them yourself..." She was still trying to figure out just what had gotten her captain so flustered. Of course she knew of Monroe as well, from reading the tactical analysis of the battle of hill 123, but this level of..well, schoolgirl giddiness is something she'd never seen in the Captain-oh hell.
While she was puzzling it out Schrodi had somehow moved up when she wasn't looking, the Cap'n was good at doing things like that. She started over as Schrodi, standing behind Captain Monroe spoke up. "Excuse me, Dr Monroe," she said nervously, holding onto a cluster of PADDs? No, actual physical journals that she had pulled out of somewhere, there was no telling sometimes. When he turned around Schrodi's eyes got big as saucers as she fangirlishly squealed. "IreadyourpapersonBorgphysiologyandneurotransmittereffectsandIlovedthemthoughIhadafewquestionsaboutyourtheoriesonBorgcommunication-EEEP!"
Ponta was glad she brought the squirt bottle with her as she sprayed Schrodi with water, interrupting the Caitians breathless squealing. "Sorry about that, Captain Schrodinger can get a bit excited about Science sometimes, if you know what I mean, Sir."
Up close, Ponta could see the faint lines of tissue-regens--the kind issued in ground combat zones that are usually 'adjusted' and smoothed once the fighting is over (these tissue regens weren't), and in spite of how animated-seeming Gonzales was, her eyes had a permanent thousand-meter stare look that furtively searched for threats with textbook Post-Traumatic-stress. "THE Captain Schrodinger?" Kevin's eyes went wide. "I...wow...I mean, um...you actually read it..." he was flabberghasted and amazed-and speechless, OhwowIcan'tbelieveit he flushed self-consciously. "Um...wow, ah, I didn't think...your papers on quantum slipstream behaviour in the macro-scale, and the potentials for cross-dimensional mechanics are a hell of a lot better done than a few journal notes I made on Defera!" he said. "Really, I mean, I've been fooling with nanomedicine, you're theorizing the next step in civilization."
Schrodi calmed down, despite standing there with her ears dripping. "Technically just A Captain Schrodinger, there are a lot of me in the multiverse," she said with a shy grin. "and those were, well, they're ok, problem was I was on a deadline and doing those in my off time while teaching-one of the reasons I went back in the reserves, so I could work on the theories real time."
Commander Gonzales stepped lightly over to Ponta. "You got another one of those? maybe in 'BIG' size?" she asked. "If we don't get our captains moving, they're going to be standing there going gaga for hours."
"Really?" Ponta asked, regarding the small human engineer warily as she handed over a spare spray bottle.
"Really-Gordo's a HUGE fan of Captain Schrodinger," she said. "You would NOT believe the things I've had to talk him into NOT asking me to build after reading her published physics work-if I didn't talk him down, we'd probably be scattered quanta across half the universe." She extended a hand. "Melinda Gonzales, Chief Engineer and acting XO for the USS Smedley Butler."
"Ponta Der Trys," she said, shaking the human's hand. "XO, Tactical, and Helm for the quantum furball there."
Ponta's wits caught up. "Gordo...means big, or fat...he lets you get away with that?" she said, surprised. While Tellarites could get away with insults like that, being it was part of their racial nature, (which she admittedly took advantage of) humans generally couldn't.
Melinda shrugged. "So far. Mi Capitan es Bueno, but I'm the gal who keeps him under 350 kilos... if we let those two get acquainted before eleven hundred, we'll both be on the carpet in front of El Jefe incompetente de TRIBBLE, probably grabbing our ankles, or just enduring a lengthy lecture on decorum from El Nino Rata-that'd be Captain Dwyllin Zarkus, the Admiral's top aide."
"Yeah, plus the Cap'n does have a 'history' with the model of a modern major general from what she told me, probably best to get 'em moving." She walked over and poked Schrodi with a finger. "Put a cork in those carbonating hormones, Cap'n, we're due at the Admiral's office."
She squeaked when she was poked, but nodded. "She's right, it's best not to keep his Lordship waiting," she said. "Plenty of time to go over theories and things later."
They proceeded to the Admiral's office, where they all got to wait for another hour and a half...
USS Raging Tempest, Just arrived at K-7
Takeshi had guided the Raging Tempest into a spot at the shipyards with very little problems, even though the Main Deflector had burnt out upon dropping out of Slipstream. Now he, Linda, and Brok'tan stood upon the ship's main Transporter Pad, ready to beam over to the Starbase.
"I wonder what this briefing is going to be about," Brok'tan commented in his customary bass growl.
"Not sure, but it's got to be important if it's got that teme Kingsley scared," Takeshi remarked, before nodding to the Transporter Operator. "Energize."
The Raging Tempest's Transporter Room faded away, to be replaced by K-7's.
There were already a few people here-a Tellarite trader scowling and arguing with a Vulcan merchant, an Andorian quad in formal dress waiting to depart-obviously a recent group-marriage, three or four addtional security officers trying to direct traffic both here, and in the corridor beyond, and a thin, bookish-looking bajoran woman in an ill-fitting Starfleet sciences uniform sporting Warrant officer pips, trying to speak to one of the operations personnel while holding a stack of books and items that was clearly too much for her to safely handle.
"Where is the Admiral's office, again?" she was asking.
"I told you already twice, chief," the Ops guy was getting rude.
"NO, you told me a bunch of balderdash-I wound up two floors DOWN, near the power core!" the woman was clearly NOT an academy graduate... she was also too old to be a voluntary recruit, leaving her as a rare thing indeed-a civilian draftee under the Emergency act of 2407.
Takeshi walked up, Linda and Brok'tan alongside him. "Looking for Admiral Kingsley's office?" Takeshi asked, and at a nod from the Bajoran, he continued, "So are we--just got in, and already have a briefing to get to. Let's see if we can get there together, miss..."
"Akorem Tarel, I guess it's not Professor since I got drafted...and I'm your briefing," she said. "Or at least, most of it." She smiled weakly.
"Captain Takeshi Yamato, USS Raging Tempest. With me are Commander Brok'tan, my XO, and Commander Linda Allster-Yamato, my Security Chief. I take it most of the material you're needing is in those books?" Takeshi asked.
"A lot of it is, the Artifact's already secured with Captain McLain, I was...a little late getting the rest of this together," she admitted. "Hence getting lost here."
"Right," Takeshi replied, eyeing the books. "That looks like a bit much for you to handle, Miss Akorem... Mind if we help you with it?"
"OH THANK YOU." She passed a few over to him, the books were heavy, some of them were 'printed' on metal sheeting. Others were just...they felt incredibly old. "At the dig-site I was running, I had a Cardassian assistant, wonderful student...but she's gone back to Cardassia since the Dominion asked us to leave."
"Right," Takeshi remarked as he and Brok'tan each took a fairly decent portion of the stack, while Linda took a much smaller stack. Brok'tan wasn't much of a surprise--being Klingon, he was fairly strong--but some of the attending crowd looked rather shocked at Takeshi lifting about as many books as Brok'tan without breaking much of a sweat.
With the books distributed, Akorem scooped up a small crate with a grunt. "Okay, lead...the...way.." she said. Thank the prophets I don't have to come back for these...
Takeshi nodded, and began walking into the Starbase, Linda, Brok'tan, and Akorem right behind him.
He'd been to K-7 in the past, so he knew where most Admirals who stayed at K-7 for a while usually parked. As such, he didn't really need to ask directions.
As they exited the turbolift, the group could see a small knot of officers waiting in the anteroom.
This was the first time outside a holo that Takeshi, Linda, or Brok'tan had actually seen either Captain Schrodinger or Captain Kevin Monroe, both of whom were busily engaging in 'science talk' that left their aides looking both nervous, and bored.
Takeshi walked up to them, setting the books he was carrying down on a nearby table, as Linda, Brok'tan, and Akorem did the same. "Captain Schrodinger, Captain Monroe," Takeshi called, getting their attention. "Captain Takeshi Yamato, USS Raging Tempest. It's an honor to meet the two of you."
Kevin stood up, he seemed...larger in real life. (Or fatter than he looked in the newsholos, anyway...) "Pleasure's mine, Captain," he said, extending a huge hand. "So...anybody got any idea why we're all here?"
Schrodi stood as well, peering at Akorem curiously.
{She looks familar...}
{Oh! She was a big name in her field, then had a breakdown and committed suicide while teaching a class.}
{Well, she obviously didn't do that here-though from her scent, she may be a recovering addict.}
"Some folks never get a break," she muttered sadly, then smiled at the woman bearing books. "You must be Dr Tarel, I've heard you were doing research out in the Gamma Quadrant," she said. "As for why we're here, I've got a couple ideas, but probably best to wait for someplace more secure than outside an Admirals office."
Episode 9, Scene 3
The door to the Admiral's inner office opened. "Captains, this way please," Dwyllin Zarkus announced.
Gonzo leaned to Der Trys, "El Nino Rata." she whispered-just loudly enough for Takeshi, Schrodinger, and Kevin to hear.
Captain Lewis McLain was seated near the window, looking bored and somewhat trapped. Admiral Vivian Lorus Gorton Kingsley III wasn't, he was standing there, looking a bit like a starfleet version of an Austro-Hungarian opera star. "Professor, I see you found your way here," the Admiral cracked. "WIllie, close the door, and engage the privacy field."
Takeshi's eyebrow quirked slightly, even as he remained standing at attention with Linda and Brok'tan. Apparently what was about to be revealed was not going to be able to leave the room.
"We are secure, Admiral, sir!" Dwyllin Zarkus announced in a grating, self-important, yet wheedling tone.
"Have a seat, or stand at your rest, ladies and gentlemen, this is Professor Akorem Tarel, she is a noted authority on Iconian and pre-iconian civilizations and an historian of note." the Admiral gestured to Akorem, "She's also a tenured professor on...loan...to Starfleet for the duration of the crisis you are about to be briefed on."
Akorem snorted in irritation, her fiery temperament overcoming her reserve. "Drafted," she muttered. "Okay, who here knows anything about the galaxy fifty thousand years ago?"
Takeshi didn't know much--he was a soldier, not a historian or archaeologist--but he did know a little bit from his history books. "Wasn't that around the time the Iconians were the dominant power in the galaxy?" he asked.
Schrodi nodded. "Also when they built and ran the gate network. I'm not too up on the historical end of things, my field's more how those things work, or shouldn't work as the case may be."
She opened the crate. "Head of the class." She tossed small packets of nibblets to Takeshi and Schrodi. "Very good, now, how many of you know more than a tiny bit about the Orions? Because they knew a lot about the galaxy fifty thousand years ago."
"Anyone, Rauffo?...no. Okay..." she started passing out the big stack of books. "Careful, some of these volumes predate human civilization by millenia...some of them even predate the pre separation-vulcans." then, she strode over, and activated the holostage in the middle of the central table, a map of the known galaxy appeared.
"There was a civilization before the Iconians," she stated. "We're not sure HOW far before them, we know they were active at the beginning and middle of the Iconian period, because we've got our hands on these records, and found...collaborative evidence as far afield as the Gamma Quadrant."
Takeshi had a pretty good idea as to how she knew about that. "I take it you were working out there on a dig before you were 'loaned' to Starfleet, Miss Akorem?" he asked, placing enough emphasis on 'loan' to identify that he knew she'd been drafted.
"I was. We had an agreement with the Dominion to study two sites in their space-my Vorta contact arrived on site with Captain McLain there...but that's an aside story for another day. What you need to know, is that this prior civilization apparently leaves the area for a while, then comes back...and that they are advanced, and likely to be incredibly hostile." Akorem changed the view. "This is a ship we were excavating at site Absalom...and here, is what an Orion recording says it looked like..."
The image shifted to display something that looked like a nightmare made of arms and technology and flesh. Next to it was the sensor-pulse record of a similar shape, crushed under millennia of dust, dirt, and the ruins of civilizations piled on top of it.
{oh geeze, talk about nightmare fuel for a design.}
{C'thulu f'tagan, what a wonderful phrase...}
Schrodi just muttered under her breath 'hush' as she looked close at the image. It was similar to something she'd seen before elsewhen...
"We do not know what they looked like, but we know from Orion records and the remains of Hebitian, early Klingon, and other species near and around the dig site, that they were a dominant, cosmopolitan power with a penchant for enslaving and altering subject races to suit their needs." Akorem paused and let that sink in.
"The Orions have a cult in their population, my present-day source indicates that they admit to around fifteen percent of the population adheres to it-this cult is responsible for the riot at Eryphis Station a few weeks ago, and my source indicates they may have been involved in triggering certain other events along the border with the Klingons." She paused. "This cult worships what they call 'the good masters'- the imagery changed to show a succession of locations, several of them contemporary, with translations of the orion-script grafitti. "The Masters Are Coming," she said. "It's their rallying cry, and we think they may have allies...what we KNOW, is that they're after relics left behind by these 'good masters', and that some of the relics are...powerful."
Takeshi frowned. This did not sound good... And suddenly he had a feeling in his gut that there was an answer to a question he'd had earlier. "These 'good masters'," he began. "How powerful would they be compared to, say, the Borg?"
"MUCH more powerful. I've found pieces that could only be fabricated using advanced nanoreplicator technology, materials that don't behave according to majority outcomes, power sources that are still active without maintenance for the last fifty to one hundred thousand years...and the Orions found more of them a few millennia ago...according to some of the records in your hands, the Iconians barely understood enough to reverse-engineer their gateway tech," she said. "Something that, thank the prophets, our green-skinned counterparts haven't mastered YET." She sighed. "And there is a specific set of artifacts they're after right now--imagine a device you can plant in, say, an asteroid, activate it, wait a few days, and collect a small fleet of warships? Imagine something you can dust from a low-flying shuttle, and in a few weeks, have an army of fanatical, trained soldiers in-place...that kind of technology."
Takeshi was shocked, and yet, somehow a piece of the puzzle fell into place. "And a Starfleet Captain, assimilated by the Borg, liberated, but traumatized by the experience, is more than likely willing to help these cultists do whatever it takes to bring these 'Masters' back, believing they're our only chance against them..." he whispered, but still loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
"It would explain what Dave did," McLain said in a quiet, but clear voice. "What he's doing..."
"NO excuse," Kevin countered. "I fought the borg, I've liberated dozens of officers, civilians, people, from them, most of them wouldn't...because they're still people."
"Gentlemen?" the Admiral harrumphed. "Professor."
"Right...speculations aside, we know what they're after-the specific what." she brought up another holodiagram.
"The Orion records, and what I've been able to translate from the Iconian, indicate this is a special sort of gateway--it sends a signal to the other end--telling the Masters it is...well...time to return. The Orions of centuries ago had the sense to break it up into components and hide them, the latest generation's...not so sensible--My father, a few years ago, was a free-trader, Mercenary, and general space-scum, he took on a contract with an Orion source to enter the Gamma Quadrant and retrieve one of the pieces...Captain?"
Lewis McLain reached behind himself, into the sofa cushions, and placed a ten by ten by ten black cube, inlaid with what appeared to be gold patterning, on the table in front of him. "This is what he brought back, before he killed his crew and suicided," McLain stated. "WE got to it mere HOURS before the Masaana syndicate's search teams would've retrieved it...when we tried testing it, it generated a subspace and gravity wave so intense they're still rebuilding portions of the docking ring at Deep Space Nine."
Schrodi's ears twitched. "Part of me really wants to take it apart and see how it works...the rest of me wants to stick it someplace safe. Cygnus X-1 perhaps."
"This is one of six pieces, we know where two others are-and one of those is in the hands of David Huntington," McLain stated.
"The others?" Kevin Monroe asked.
"The other one we know has been retrieved was left in the hands of a KDF Colonel who's after the same people we're going after--for different reasons, I expect..." McLain stated. "That leaves us with three more to find, and secure..." He looked at Akorem.
"We should tell them," Akorem stated. "All of it. NOT just what Starfleet Intelligence thinks they 'need to know'."
"All of what?" Takeshi asked. "Has something already happened regarding these 'masters'?"
"Admiral?" Lewis gestured to Kingsley.
"These are the Classified after action reports on the recent incident at Moab III," Vivian Lorus Gorton Kingsley III said, and started handing out single-use PADDS of the sort that children use for their studies. "I am not legally entitled to let you-any of you-see them...and this is what Starfleet witnessed recently in the Tau Dewa sector-the REAL disappearance of Empress Sela."
Takeshi looked over the reports on Moab, with Linda reading over his shoulder. He'd heard plenty of rumors, but what he was reading... "Bloody hell," he whispered. "This... this is..."
"S... so many casualties..." Linda added. "So many died... on all sides..."
"It seems the Fek'Lhri are also servants of these 'Masters'," Brok'tan rumbled, the Klingon's eyes in slight shock. "To think that the beings said to guard Gre'thor are coming into this galaxy, as servants of what might be our greatest enemy to date..."
Akorem cleared her throat. "Not servants, Creations," she said. "The Fek'Lhr were created to serve one of these 'master's' servant races...they didn't evolve. They live, they reproduce, but they can be generated by...what translates from the Hur'q language as 'war seeds'."
"The professor has a hypothesis that there were these 'war seeds' already in place in the Moab system, and that something at the archaelogical dig was activated-which activated THEM and summoned in more in the space around it," Kingsley stated. "For once, I have to agree with the civilian-that is what it looks like based on the AAR's communications intercepts-some through the gateways, some were already there, dormant and waiting...possibly for millennia."
"Well, all we can do is hunt down the rest of the artifacts, and any sites that might contain these 'war seeds', right? While battling Orion Cultists, Fek, and anyone else who seeks the return of the 'masters'?" Takeshi remarked with a bit of a grin. "I'm game--haven't had a decent challenge in over five months. Might need to wait a bit for proper repairs to my ship, but-"
"I can help with that" Schrodi said. "The Dauntless isn't part of the normal fleet, most of her crew is engineers and specialists from the Defiant Project department. I'll send some of them over to the Raging Tempest, they can upload the latest patches to the EPS firmware that haven't even hit fleet yet, as well as some other upgrades we're working on."
"Hope they work better than that cable reel." Gonzo smirked.
"Oh, the towed array worked spectacularly. The winch on the other hand, well it was borrowed from a tug that was on hand." She shrugged. "But I think I know where to look for them at," she said, pulling out her own PADD and syncing it to one of the larger viewers. "We were testing the towed array, when we picked up a transmission from a Ferasan scout ship that was shadowing an Orion Marauder class vessel. The Orions were in a binary system, probing subspace boundaries. Not sure if they were spotted or what, but the IKS Grr'sshssarrgle-Hhreaar-hssst, or Stalks the Underbrush sent out an encrypted burst transmission -then were swatted," she said, pointing to the trace on the display.
She shrugged. "They did try to launch a message probe, but odds are the Orions swatted that too."
Takeshi was glad that Captain Schrodinger was willing to help repair and even upgrade his ship--that would greatly help with the repair times. He then realized something about what she'd said. "Why would being in a binary system be important for something like that?" he asked.
"Subspace is affected by things in real space. That's why it's not, uhm, recommended to go to warp too close to a gravity well-"
"You mean like in an Atmosphere?" Ponta said with a grin.
Schrodi just made a face. "Yes, it's not a good idea, but it can be done. Thing is, when you have two stellar size masses close together, especially when you throw in the eddies in graviton fields, and a whole bunch of n dimensional physics that while interesting, doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion...subspace is weak there. Easily breakable...And they were poking the hell out of it."
While the Captains discussed stellar phenomena, Akorem loaded the cartographical chart she and Mary Moriarty had assembled from the captured records, her own research data, and materials she'd translated over the last few weeks from the digsites. She added time-adjusted locations...
"Interesting," she finally said, as the holostage displayed nearly two dozen marked locations-all had a few things in common. "Very interesting...binary, binary, Trinary...binary, recent supernova, binary..." Out of the target sites, the ones with multiple Stars cut the number of locations by two thirds.
"Captains...assume we have four ships to do the search with...Assume we have limited time, and assume we need to cover as much ground as we can..." she announced. "Can four ships cover eight star-systems within a two-hundred light year radius?"
Kevin Monroe rose to his feet and loomed. "Professor, WHO is your mysterious source?" he asked bluntly. "Because I recognize that notation style-and I suspect when Captain Schrodinger's finished discussing repairs to Captain Yamato's vessel, she will too."
Schrodi peered at the chart. "You're right, I have seen that before," she said, frowning.
Lewis McLain gave a start, and eyed the huge Captain warily.
"um...I can't?" Akorem said, "Really, I can't."
"Uh-huh...you've been talking...working with...Mary Moriarty, haven't you?" Kevin demanded, "WHERE IS SHE, and why in hell isn't she in here if you've got her nailed down doing your spatial calcs?"
"Um...what makes you say that?" McLain asked.
"Because I worked with her for months on Defera, and two, how many modern scientists will use elizabethan english describing what amounts to unclaimed star systems?" Kevin asked, adding, "Or use longhand notation for calculations when they could use a computer?"
"Wait, isn't she a wanted-" Kingsley began.
"Immaterial in this case-she was pardoned with the rest of the bunch from Moab after that dust up on Risa in '10," Kevin stated. "Not exactly 'key to the federation' pardon, but as long as she's not committing a crime, she's immune to arrest with prior charges held in abeyance-by order of Hizzoner, President Okeg," Kevin recited. "So...where do you have that psychopath stashed?"
Kingsley eyed McLain. "Might as well let it out, Lewis, he's got you cold," the Admiral said. "I myself found the transfer orders rather...interesting."
"She's in my brig," McLain said. "Her choice-she's been working with the Professor here for the last few weeks on...well, this, she popped into my ship through an Iconian gateway that was malfunctioning...Because she broke it...she's been technically a Prisoner of War since the middle of last month...but I had Longfellow rule her to be 'mentally and emotionally unstable'-so technically she's a mental patient."
Kevin nodded. "Which she'd need to be, if you intended to suspend contact with any KDF representatives or Starfleet Diplomats, it also allows you to refuse any transfer out of custody for the duration of her...'treatment'...My god you're a TRIBBLE."
"She's with us on this, Kevin-she wants these 'good masters' kept out or put down as much as we do-more...maybe...and she's admitted to a spot of genocide," Lewis said. "She's the reason-so she claims, that Lt. Ah'vsath's race is, for all intents and purposes, nearly extinct...she turned a gray-goo loose on their homeworld."
Schrodi's ears went back at the thought of a gray-goo world.
{Good but not good enough-I'd have hit their sun with a Stellar Lance}
{Not an option, that tech doesn't exist in this reality}
{Ooh! We could make one-}
{{NO!!}}
{Sorry, sheesh. Don't bite my head off}
"EW," Kevin didn't stop looming, but his face twisted in disgust. "Gray goo...yikes."
"Um...Gray Goo?" Takeshi asked.
"Uncontrolled nanobot replication-create nanites, tell them to build more of their own kind, so that all they do is consume materials and reproduce. Gray Goo," Kevin explained. "It is the reason Starfleet regulations and Federation Laws forbid experimentation with self-replicating nanobots on planetary surfaces. The nearest tactical equivalent is a bioweapon that destroys everything. The Federation has some strict treaties with...everyone else...about weaponizing that technology. Even Omega won't touch it, and they're fighting the Borg."
"She tried to gray-goo the Orion homeworld as a last-ditch try to stop Huntington from getting the artifact there-and to stop Huntington and Eiral Masaana from gaining the use of the Gate-it destroyed the gate, but that destroyed the replicators. We got a good look at the results," McLain explained. "Which convinced me that the ***** may be smart, but she's bughouse nuts, and while her smart might be useful, letting her go anywhere without tight supervision is a supremely bad idea."
"I don't see trying to deny them the use of the gate nuts, gray goo or not. Hell, if nothing else it got her to one of the few ships that is trying to fight this thing," Schrodi said, pacing as she thought, her tail swishing back and forth. "Kevin's right though, we need her in on this, and if you don't think she can be brought here, we need to go talk to her. We also," she continued, "need to get in contact with her commander, being that from what you said. If we can get them concentrating on Binary and other multiple star systems, it would help. As would sending them the tac info on the Suharto," she said, knowing what a can of worms she just opened.
"What! But that would compromise every Odyssey class in the fleet!"
"They've already been compromised, as soon as Huntington turned. You think one of those Orions on board haven't already downloaded the specs and shopped them for the highest bidder? Admiral, you need to call a Broken Arrow on this, so the Odyssey design team can do an emergency update."
"Agreed," Takeshi remarked. "Though I doubt it's that simple, given that the Admiral has called for total privacy in this meeting. I'd imagine that this entire operation, searching for the Suharto and trying to stop the return of the 'masters', is going to be 'off the record'?"
KIngsley's face fell. "I contacted Starfleet Command as soon as...I was told to look away," he said. "Never mind what Huntington is doing." He sighed. "I know I have a...reputation, that I'm seen as a buffoon, a fool, an arrogant TRIBBLE..." he shook his head. "But someone had to do something about this."
Takeshi nodded. He could respect Kingsley for that, at least. "In that case, publicly calling a Broken Arrow on the Odyssey would draw too much attention to us. Heck, we might have to consider the possibility that Command itself is compromised, infiltrated by agents of these 'masters'. If we're going to call for an upgrade to the Odyssey, that call must also be 'off the record', so that the design team can try to disguise it as an official upgrade somehow."
Schrodi started grinning. "Oh I know the perfect excuse for upgrades. There's a bug in the replicator systems, that can cause, well, issues with certain flexible replicated materials-mostly uniforms. Causes them to turn to dust whenever exposed to a strong EM field..or when transported. I know someone on the Odyssey team that can quietly add that bug to the autoupdate system. Twenty four hours later, they'll be scrambling to put the next major upgrade out, after people start arriving without clothes."
{it's already done, you're welcome!}
She sighed "But you're right. I was supposed to be doing more advanced research into drive systems. I don't mind having the Dauntless, but it seems like a waste of resources."
{Definitely. We need a science ship for the project.}
{One of those new Vestas would be nice!}
{И пока мы мечтали, я хотел бы пони.}
Kevin nodded. "Some of the orders we've all had over the last few years haven't made sense," he said. "Starting for me with Defera--what about you, Captain Yamato, anything weird from Starfleet Command in the last three years?"
"A few," Takeshi admitted. "Though mainly in regards to being ordered to withdraw from systems that I felt we could still hold, and that whole mess in the new DMZ--I've read the history books, and the last time Starfleet created a DMZ on the border with a potential hostile power, it gave rise to the Maquis. So leaving those colonies on the Klingon border to their fate while ordering those same colonies to disarm was extremely odd, because I thought we learned from our mistakes."
"Not if it's intentional," Kevin stated. "After Defera, I was sent down here--out of the way so to speak, then they send..." He looked at the Admiral. "You didn't volunteer for this, did you?"
Kingsley shook his head in silence.
"And everyone who follows the newsies knows Minister Cave's got a hard-on, and not in a good way, for Captain Schrodinger...so I gotta wonder, Yamato, who'd you TRIBBLE off?" Kevin asked.
"No one I can think of... but it could be related to my family."
At confused looks from most everyone else in the room (the only ones not confused were Linda and Brok'tan, who instead shared brief looks of worry), Takeshi explained, "It's not that well-known, in fact it's a rather well-kept secret, but Federation Councilwoman Ryoko Hibiki, a well-known proponent for 'Peace with Honor', is actually Ryoko Yamato, the biological daughter of my adopted parents Tetsuya and Fumiko Yamato, and my younger sister."
"I remember her debate with the Hawk faction last month," Kevin said. "She made Cave turn a fair shade of purple in exasperation when she pointed out that-" he stopped, "Not that I follow anything as gross as politics, mind..." He gave an impish look to go with the feigned innocence in his tone. Gonzales, on the other hand, looked faintly guilty.
"Sirs, Ma'am, I do follow Politics," Gonzo said. "I made him sit through the entire debate."
"Sit? you had me on a treadmill and I couldn't run away!" Kevin countered.
"I know. It was hilarious," Gonzo grinned. "But I've been tracking fleet movements. You realize that they've penny-packeted most of the Federation's effective forces across an area we can't defend?"
Kingsley nodded. "I argued about that while I was part of Starfleet's G-3 staff...it got me promoted out of there."
Takeshi nodded. "So, the odds are rather high that Command has been compromised in some fashion, given all that has been happening that we know of." After a few moments, he said, "Really, I think there's only one group we can trust, though I doubt a lot of you will like it. One of their members is a contact of mine, and they're among the few people who know of my connection to Councilwoman Hibiki--according to my contact when I asked, they have their own people watching and protecting her in addition to her regular guard detail."
"I trust Admiral Clayburn, she set me on this," McLain stated. "She also got me coverage to grab Monroe..."
"You know," said Schrodi, "if you look at some of the assignments that have gone on..while they don't make sense up front, maybe they really do." She kept pacing. "It's a given that someone in command is turned, and the fleet's chasing butterflies for New Romulus here of late--then you get sent out here Admiral. Yes, you are an TRIBBLE at times-but you're also one of the best administrators in the Federation. Between Dr. Tarel, Dr. Monroe, myself and now Dr. Moriarity, there's enough advanced degrees here to wallpaper a starbase. Maybe command has turned...but maybe also someone is trying to sabotage the sabotage."
"I don't really trust anybody," Kevin admitted. "Not since Defera."
"Well, along with this current mission, we need to covertly get in touch with those people we trust, let them know what's going on," Takeshi said. "We need to make sure as many people we trust as possible know about these 'masters', and what needs to be done in order to stop them."
"I know a few who I know can be trusted as well. Unfortunately Melissa Travis is off doing something with Omega, and Polekitty just lost her ship to the Fek'iHir." Schrodi sighed "It would be nice to have them, the Nighthawk is a tough ship in a fight, and I've known Rhonda Evans since she was fourteen. But we've got what we've got."
Ponta looked confused. "I thought Evans was from an alternate timeline?"
"Well another me knew her. Anyway!"
It's two a.m. the fear has gone
I'm sitting here waitin' the gun is still warm
Maybe my connection is tired of taken chances
Yeah there's a storm on the loose sirens in my head
I'm wrapped up in silence all circuits are dead
I cannot decode
my whole life spins into a frenzy
-Golden Earring, "Twilight Zone"
New Saigon, Basecamp Alpha
Eialu finished the reports on Colton county at some time after mid-night. The results were... She took another drink from a bottle of So'ju one of the enlisted found in the ruins of a shop.
The alcohol burned it's way down her throat, suffusing her with a warmth that she didn't feel-a warmth she'd never feel again.
"Captain, you're still awake?" K'tagh asked, stepping through the flaps of the oxy tent.
"No sleep for the wicked," Eialu said. "Want some?"
The Klingon shook her head. "I avoid human booze," she said. "it's...too potent and kind of tasteless."
"Your loss, I wish we had something stronger," Eialu said.
"Still thinking about that locker?" K'Tagh asked, sitting down on the cot.
Eialu nodded. "Were the results on the grubs what I thought they were?" she asked.
"Fek'lhr tissues, preadolescent, yeah. We know, now, what Fek offspring look like...and how they're raised," K'Tagh said grimly--"Feeding on live victims."
"Oh, lovely," Eialu said. "Do we have a progress report on the peace talks?"
"The Federation and the High Council are still discussing terms for extending the Armistice," K'tagh answered, "but the rumours in the Fleet are that the Federation negotiator's not got the full backing of Starfleet Command."
"It would be in the pattern," Eialu poured another shot.
Deep Space K-7...
Takeshi looked over the scene with a moderate amount of exasperation. Yes, he'd agreed to Captain Schrodinger's offer to repair and upgrade his ship. And yes, he had told her the extent of the damage, and how it had been caused. But he still hadn't been prepared for this.
"I need another ten meters of conduit!" There were voices coming from inside the walls of the ship, and almost every access panel that could be removed, was. Close to twenty engineers, some in uniforms, some just wearing jumpsuits, and one wearing shorts and a floral print shirt had taken over, it seemed. Still they looked like they knew what they were doing, normally it would take days to get into the ship to this level during a refit, and here it was not even six hours later. A green skinned woman stuck her head out of a hole in the ceiling, not orion though, no orion had ears anywhere close to that big. "Morning, your Captainship, Sir!" Heiki squeeked as she saw Takeshi looking around. "We're finishing up the installation, should be ready for power testing in about ten minutes."
Takeshi's eyebrow twitched. "Out of curiosity, just why was it deemed necessary to practically take my ship apart and put it back together?" he asked in an unnaturally calm voice. "Even Matt tends to only take out the damaged equipment if he needs to replace it."
"Because," Mr Thag, the Neanderthal in the Hawaiian shirt said from his seat at the console, "your ship came from the Yoyodyne yards. They're great at cutting costs in building... Not so good in making it easy to upgrade. Cap'n Schrodi said you needed to be able to run the latest tracking and acquisition gear for the dash 16 torps, which means we had to get behind the EPS conduits for three decks, where we found stress fractures that required more things pulled..."
"There were two structural trusses over the bridge that had a notch cut into them in the yard to run a cable through. A good hit, you'd have an I beam falling from the ceiling!" Heiki said from her upside down perch. "Not to mention a half dozen console panels, that were the old Mark 23 processor controlled ones-they tended to go boom when the shields went down."
"...and then, there's the collection of Ground Faults!" Cdr. Gonzales popped up out of a floor-plate less than a meter from Takeshi's right foot. "Pendejos at Yoyodyne do the shoddiest work with their static and plasma runs!" She tossed a burnt looking section of light conduit out. "Oh, Hi Captain Yamato. Thag, how's it look now?"
He pressed a couple switches on the console back, the lights came up both on the board he was working on, and across the bridge. "Looks like that got it Commander," he said. "soon as Heiki's crew gets the conduits buttoned up we can start full power tests."
"Yeah yeah, I'm on it" the short green girl muttered, disappearing back into the ceiling. "Ok, we're connected, hit it!" came her voice from the ceiling.
Thag waited for Gonzo to climb clear before activating a few more controls, despite his appearance, he knew this class of ship blindfolded. "Ok, power's coming up, everything is in the green."
"What's that smell?" Gonzo asked, sniffing the air.
Thag put his palm over his face. "Heiki, are you on fire again?"
"What? No, I don't think-AAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
He stood sighing, pulling out an extinguisher and standing up on his seat, spraying it into the opening overhead. "For the last time, stop playing with the plasma flow. Now button it up and lets get this going!"
Gonzo watched in silence for a moment, then asked. "So...this happens a lot?"
"She's highly resistant to a lot of stuff that would kill most folks..fortunately."
Gonzo looked thoughtful. "Reminds me of a guy I dated in the Academy..." She gave Thag a crooked grin. "We called him 'lucky'."
Takeshi shook his head. "Sheesh," he muttered. "I'm glad that Matt's never complained of any of his techs catching on fire before..."
Gonzo carelessly wiped her hands on her uniform. "No fix ever works right unless you bleed, burn, or squirm for it," she said. "Machines demand blood sacrifice."
"Yeah, but so far no burns as far as my crew is concerned," Takeshi remarked. "Gashes, yes, broken bones, yes, but nothing more severe than that."
There was a whiff of smoke, and then a smouldering engineer dropped from the overhead. "Ok, it's secure," she said, grinning at Gonzo. "Finally someone who gets it. Anyway, there were no leaks in the EPS system, I think we can start closing things up here. Couple more hours, you'll be ready to rock, your Captainship, Sir!"
"Okay, well...I have to be back on duty in an hour, and I guess I better shower first, thanks for letting me play with you guys," Gonzo said. "It was fun."
"And it's good to hear that my ship'll be ready to go again," Takeshi added. "Thank you all very much."
Thag peered at Gonzo. "One hour..when were you planning on sleeping? You've been here with us all night."
She displayed a small hypo. "Modern medical miracles, I'll sleep when I have no other choice, it's better here than in there...better in reality than back on Defera."
"Those are unreliable, and worse, you get to the point where you need them just to get by" he said. "I'm just a civilian I know...but you're putting yourself and your crew at risk for temporary relief."
"I'll get some sleep after shift, okay?" she bargained. "It's only 36 hours, no big deal..."
Thag snorted. "You're only a cro-magnon. You've evolved to sleep at least eight in every twenty four hours. It's your life, and I am only a Civilian," he said, glancing at Takeshi...
"He's right, you need rest," Takeshi added. "I'm not your direct superior, so I can't order you... but I can bring this up with Captain Monroe, who can order you to get some rest. Also, if you're having nightmares, I'd probably suggest taking up the issue with a Counselor, a Vulcan or Betazoid might have the best chance of helping you."
"Ours got sucked out of Three deck when we tangled with that Fek Carrier group a few months ago," Gonzo said. "I'll take it up when Starfleet gives us a new one...who's seen the Elephant."
She took a shot off the stim. "Permission to depart, sir?" she asked.
"Permission granted," Takeshi replied. "However, I will be contacting Captain Monroe, and informing him of your... issue..."
"Aye sir..." she keyed her combadge. "Butler, one to beam out."
And she vanished.
Thag sighed. "Damnit. Didn't quite go how I wanted it to. Oh well," he said. "we'll get started on the final checks, Captain, your engineers should be done installing the new firmware for the engines down below by now. We'll have everything ready in a couple more hours."
"Understood," Takeshi replied, starting for the door out of the Bridge. "In the meantime, I'll be in my Ready Room. I need to have a chat with Captain Monroe about his XO..."
USS Smedley Butler, Ready Room, 0445 station time...
"...and then, Gonzales suggests we try the experiment under theta radiation...." Kevin was telling Captain Schrodinger an amusing anecdote about his research into Borg communications.
The story was interrupted by a chime from the comm panel. "Sir, you have a call from Captain Yamato, he says it's important." Threll's voice was tinny-the PA hadn't quite broken in yet.
Kevin looked puzzled. "Hold that thought...I'll take it in here, Threll."
Schrodi just nodded as she stood and stretched, one of these days she really had to clean her cabin out, sleeping on that hammock wasn't good for her back. "No problem" she said with a smile.
Takeshi's image came in on Monroe's monitor. "Sorry if I caught you at a bad time, Captain, but I came across a bit of an... issue... regarding your XO."
"No problem, unless she's started another fight," Kevin said. "We were just catching an early breakfast before going over to the Bradbury....to visit the Professor and her...assistant," Kevin alluded. "Don't suppose you care to join us?"
"I'd definitely be willing to join you, but I suggest you not let Commander Gonzales do so," Takeshi said. "In fact, it'd probably be better if you ordered her to bed fairly soon--she was over here helping with the repairs, and I just found out she's been surviving on Stims, without getting any sleep!!"
Kevin's expression DARKENED. "Again?" he blurted. His scent showed anger and disappointment in equal measures, undercurrent of worry and frustration. "What time did she check out from your ship, Yamato, she was supposed to be back here six hours ago."
"She only just left--said her shift started in an hour, and wanted to catch a shower before going on duty," Takeshi replied. "One of Captain Schrodinger's Engineers, I think his name was Thag, was the one who called her out on it."
"Sounds like him, great guy, brilliant engineer, very caring--and all the tact of a warthog," Schrodi said with a sigh. "What is she trying to avoid by not sleeping?"
Kevin looked at Schrodi. "Nightmares. I usually have to drink to get to sleep, she...last month I had her on patient status for three weeks trying to help her deal with the nightmares, the flashbacks, the anxiety-I'm not a good counselor, but after she threw Escobar through a window the Station boys won't touch her case." He picked up his coffee-cup and drained it. "She was on the line when the Borg sent a couple thousand little kids at us."
{Wish there was something we could do for her--she seems like a nice person}
{Wait-maybe there is...}
Schrodi looked puzzled for a second, as if talking to herself. "what do you mean?" she muttered.
{oh that's right, you weren't there-but it was that gadget Doctor Moriarty used in the big heist at the Golden Giza}
{oh that!}
"Can I use your replicator for a minute?" Schrodi asked. "I think I may have a way to help her."
Kevin nodded. "Sure," he said. "I know her problem's way beyond MY ability."
She got up and started programming something, rather rapidly in fact. it took her a few minutes, before something smallish and fuzzy appeared on the replicator
"Um...what is it?" Kevin asked.
"It was used by, well I guess the closest thing you can call her would be a supervillain, to kidnap a plane load of Senator's kids" she said holding up the stuffed animal. "When squeezed, it puts the holder into a deep sleep, and triggers hours of very pleasant dreams. well pleasant for kids."
She shrugged as she held the fluffy pink pony out at arms length. "Oddly enough, it was invented by an alternate reality version of our Doctor Moriarty."
"Yamato, beam on over, you can be part of the process, we're going to do some science," Kevin grinned. "Better hurry though, I want to catch her before she heads for engineering."
"Understood," Takeshi replied. "I'll be there momentarily. Linda will probably be with me as well--we have the same shifts, so we can share the off-shifts."
Holding the fluffy pony at arms length, Schrodi just nodded. "After you, you know where to find her."
"Computer, exact location of Commander Gonzales," Kevin ordered.
"Commander Gonzales is currently leaving the crew shower area on deck five," the machine said. "She is in corridor P-21, 11 meters from junction four."
Kevin's grin grew fierce. "Good. Stall the turbolifts in that level on my authority."
He looked to Schrodi. "We're taking the Jeffries tubes down there."
She grinned back and followed, ignoring the looks of the bridge crew as she carried a bright pink stuffed animal to the Jeffries tube. "It's got a short range, so won't have to worry about anyone else."
"If it works on her, I want one...for me," Kevin said. "I'd as soon not turn diabetic just to suppress a few nightmares of my own."
{I don't know, this is a one time thing. Really shouldn't be letting this tech out-}
{We're not. We're giving one to Gonzo, and one to Kevin. Can trust them}
"Fair enough, though something a bit, well, more manly than a pink pony?" she grinned.
Kevin laughed. "Hopefully-though it would be a superb joke. I could get months of mileage off of it...did you know, right after..." he opened a jeffries tube panel. "Right after we were chewed up by that Fek, I spent the next month pretending I didn't know she'd got the Turbolifts back on-line?"
"Really? Why was that?" she asked, following him inside, the Caitian having no problem navigating the tube one handed.
"Threll ratted her out-she had this idea that she could get me past a physical review if I lost some weight-by exercise, so she tried to concoct this story about not being able to get the Turbolifts running all the way from Officer's Country to the Bridge..." He bounded across a gap, landing fairly gracefully in the next passage. "I, of course, went along with it-with one eentsy fillip-I didn't shower until she'd gotten the Enlisted showers working..." he extended a hand to catch Schrodi at the crossing point. "Naturally, I had quite an aroma by then."
She just giggled at that, jumping across gracefully. "Oh my, definitely got her there," she said. "Not that you needed to lose the weight, it's natural for someone from your world if I understand correctly," she said. "and while you don't smell bad, rather the opposite, er..." she said with a bit of a blush, "after a few days I can see how that would change."
"Ah, the wonders and graces of soap, and you are too kind, fair lady," Kevin said. "Sshh... look through the inspection port... see? There she is, right below us." His expression was filled with glee.
"Anyone else down there? Hate for someone else to catch this when we drop it on her."
Kevin's grin got even more gleeful. "THAT won't be an issue..." he powered the hatch open and dropped to the deck below, motioning for Schrodi to follow.
"COMMANDER!!!" he barked, from right behind Gonzo.
She jumped, hands out in a fighting stance, her spare clothes, shampoo bottle, and other personal kit hitting the floor-along with her towel.
The ferocious fighter turned into the blushing maiden INSTANTLY, and Gonzales' hands flew as if of their own accord to cover her nakedness.
Schrodi followed down, almost jumping at Kevin's bellow herself, still holding onto the pink plush toy.
"Stimmies?" Kevin asked. "Really? Didn't we have a talk about that?"
Gonzales stammered speechless for a moment, and Kevin 'politely averted his eyes'...
"Towel, Commander?" he said.
She scooped it up, shaking with wordless outrage.
"Captain, you had a present from...one of your people, a token of appreciation?" Kevin 'asked'. It was clearly a setup for the joke...whatever joke it was Gonzo didn't know, but she knew it was a setup for a joke.
Swishing her tail, Schrodi just smiled-and tossed the fuzzy toy both accurately and fast towards Gonzo, knowing the natural reaction in humans was to grab something thrown towards them. Sure enough, looked like she was going to grab it.
Gonzo played softball in the mission school, then played an exhibition game between males and females at the Academy-she caught the pink, fuzzy thing instantly, momentarily proud she didn't reveal any...skin while she did it.
The effect was rapid, but not instant...
"Ohh I'm...gonna get yo-" and she was out.
Schrodi was also fast, leaping over to catch her before she hit the deck. "There we go. She'll be out for eight to ten hours. Incidentally, I'd appreciate it if you didn't let too many know bout this thing," she said, pointing to the stuffed toy clutched in Gonzo's arms.
"Um...I want one," Kevin said. "But I'll keep it quiet-Monroe to the bridge, Threll, Commander Gonzales pulled a really late night last night, you're Gonzo for the rest of the day."
"Do I have to cut my hair?" the Andorian asked, half-seriously.
"No, and you don't have to keep up with her array of practical jokes, nagging, or provoking starbase crew to fits of rage and hilarity. Just keep the ship running and defer engineering decisions to Lt. Angos...and could you send a couple Security matrons to the women's locker room on Deck three? Gonzo needs a ride to her bedroom, Over."
"Um, sir, do I want to know?" Threll asked.
"Not really, nothing indecent, but the rumour mill's going to go nuts if I'm seen carrying her snoring, happy, stuffed-animal-clutching body to her quarters," Kevin said. "And yes, I have a witness this time."
She set Gonzo down on the deck and stood back up, the snoring filling the hallway. "Well then, I think we had a meeting to get to?" Schrodi said, her tail twitching in amusement.
"An excellent use of mad science...and yeah...Transporter, point to point, my location, two conscious to beam to Transporter room two."
Transporter Room Two
"...could've, but it's more fun this way." Kevin was explaining as they materialized. "She will get me back for that, you know."
Takeshi and Linda were already waiting, having just arrived. "Good to see you two," Takeshi remarked. "You managed to get Commander Gonzales to get some rest?"
"In a manner of speaking," Schrodi said with a grin. "Give her about ten hours and she'll be fine. Unless the dream she gets includes the song that never ends... I think I filtered that one out."
"Experimental treatment for Traumatic Stress disorder cases," Kevin said. "Very radical, but she asked for it when she started hitting stimmies after she promised to lay off them."
"Right," Takeshi replied. "Let's just hope she doesn't visit my Tactical Officer for any tips on payback... Lieutenant Commander Maxwell's the most inventive prankster I know."
"Eh, it could be worse, at least you don't have engineers who think setting each other on fire is a fun way to spend time," Schrodi said. "I'll take practical jokes over would be pyromaniacs anyday. So anyway, did we get anything more overnight on the situation?"
Kevin nodded. "Right here," he handed a Padd to Schrodi and Takeshi. "Dr. Akorem's waiting for us to arrive in about twenty minutes."
"Well, let's get going--don't want to keep her waiting," Linda remarked.
"Jimmy, you know where we're going," Kevin said.
The Chief at the console nodded. "ready when you are, Bradbury's already been informed."
Kevin looked to the others. "Eh, Energize."
The Transporter Room faded around them, as they were transported to the Bradbury.
They had a meeting to get to.
(By the way the funeral will be in the epilogue to "The Road.")
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
I wear this crown of thorns,
upon my liar's chair,
full of broken thoughts,
that I can not repair.
-Trent Reznor, "Hurt"
Canh Tho, Moab III...
Saul Moskowitz pulled his overcoat closer, and stepped through the debris field of Nha Tranh's largest suburb...or what HAD BEEN the city's largest suburb.
Today, Captain Eialu of the "Fierce Defender" was with him, touring the devastation, reassuring media commentators both planetary, and interstellar, that Landing County was once again under KDF control.
He checked a positioning sensor. "This is where my house was--the house Elizabeth grew up in," he told the Orion. He pointed, at a distance it would look like some grand gesture, but as close as they were, she could see the tears he was holding back.
"I took her to Synagogue over there--her father may have been christian, but he tasked ME with her religious upbringing-and I took it seriously..." He sighed an old man's sigh, and shoved his hands into his pockets. "God tests us all, I suppose, but he saves a special sort of hell for his chosen people."
"You don't really believe in that nonsense, do you?" Eialu asked, keeping a neutral expression for the cameras.
"As I grow older, I find that I do," he told her. "and I find myself regretting my sins as well-my arrogance, my pride, my brutality, the murders I've done and the things I stole." He nodded to the devastation. "In many ways, I feel as if this is god's punishment to me in particular for my many sins-to hurt the ones who look to me, and take the ones I loved."
"At least your god did not create the Fek'lhr, Minister, or twist the evolution of races to fill a vile desire understood only to himself...at least your god is unprovable, unreachable, untouchable, and not just some powerful alien race," Eialu told him. "I envy you for having a god so thoroughly uninvolved in your day to day existence."
He pulled out a rolled smoke-tobacco and paper, and lit it with a lighter. "True...but I am no less damned for what I've done and not redeemed," he told her. "I'm a Jew, but I'm not a good Jew..."
"They're waiting at the memorial," she told him.
"I know..." he replied. "You're sure you don't want the job?"
"Orions aren't exactly popular people here--My aunt notwithstanding." Eialu told him, "I'm only sticking around until a new governor can be appointed, but I promise on my word as a Klingon Defense Force officer that I will champion your home-rule to the fullest extent I can, and I have General Ssharki's support, so that's a lot of leverage with the Council."
They reached the foot of the remains of the highway bridge. The area was blasted flat, but garish gold-and-red plastic fragments and broken brick lay half-melted into the burnt macadam of a parking lot.
"This is where Echo company died," Saul said. "They bought the defense of the city nearly an hour here."
The tarp was pulled away, revealing a group of four soldiers, in battle positions-one Klingon, three humans, their expressions firm with resolve, courage and idealism sculpted into the magnesite-impregnated bronze. The statue stood nearly twice the height of a man, each sculpted form vaguely idealized, the expressions filled with passion and resolve, the body language of the four showing strength in the face of hopelessness.
"Who was the artist?" Eialu asked absently.
"A Klingon," Saul said. "One of the ranchers from An Loc, a recent immigrant... His son was in Echo-that's him, standing beside Major Truoc, next to Sargeant Dayyan and just in front of Corporal Chau."
"Hmmm...he must have died early..." she noted.
"Yes, but the sculptor was his father, and who am I to deny a father his grief?" Saul asked. "There are so many who deserve to be up there, one brave son is, in the balance, as good as any other to represent them all...and we have four."
Beyond it, out away from the town, she could see the stone garden laid out-hundreds of headstones-most marking graves that would always be empty.
The simplicity was astounding-but incredible both in it's power, and it's grace. Looking back toward the town, was the wall. Carved black marble, all it bore was an endless list of names, and the tokens of mourners who had already come by to find a loved one's marker...
Klingon warriors guarded the statue, and the flag-pole, and marched the graveyard alongside their native counterparts-a subtle reminder of Moab's overlords, but also a statement of solidarity-a shared experience, a common enemy, a shared self was forming here.
Saul walked up to the wall first, then, he turned and walked out into the stone garden, looking...
Eialu followed him to a single marker-set aside from the rest, it was no bigger than the others, but it was already littered with flowers and offerings.
He knelt. "Hello Elizabeth, I...I brought you something," he told the stone, and laid a deck of cards, still sealed in the wrapping, and a flimsy little top-hat on it. "In case you get bored." Eialu had seen the vid of the funeral, but being here somehow it was less...staged with false grandeur. She read the inscription on the headstone. "The greatest Illusion is Truth."
Saul rose, and prayed silently for a moment, then, "We can go now. Work to be done," he said.
And they left the dead in that place, to see to the problems of the living.
IKS Val'Gyr II, Dining hall, 19 hours from the Armistice line, 7 hours from Deep Space K-7...
"That's twice we've struck out," Ngoc stated. "One because they got there first, the second because someone else got there first."
The others looked around. "You're not wrong on that." Kobor said, pouring the bloodwine. "We're falling further behind."
"We need to know more...we need to figure out how to anticipate their next move," D'Moj said it. "We need information."
B'tara, the only real 'scientist' on-board, frowned. "We need Mary back," she said. "Or someone like her..."
D'Moj sighed heavily. "Yeah...no, what we need is a dedicated physicist with an interest in ancient history-the problem we face, is that I've got the historian, but we don't have the advanced physicist." She looked at the KDF science officer. "I'm sorry, B'Tara, but.."
"I'm a scientist, Colonel. Part of that is admitting when I'm out of my depth even when it hurts my pride," B'Tara stated. "In this case, it hurts it quite a bit."
Their guest, whom had been silent up to now, spoke, "You still know that fat scientist from Starfleet?" K'Tirr asked.
D'Moj looked thoughtful. "He's assigned to the K-7 group, I was expecting we would be fighting him when the Armistice collapsed."
"Well..." and K'tirr's whole body-language seemed to change, his voice deepened and his shoulders squared. "Speaking as R'riorr-K'Tirr, I'd suggest we may find, once things are explained to him, that he will be willing to assist us...and he DOES have access to high-end physicists as well as archaeologists unlikely to be contaminated or compromised by your cousins."
"Ask Ssharki." Ngoc suggested, "Maybe he can set something up, make an excuse...I know that the talks are stalling according to the newsies, if we were to give them an excuse to proceed, it would probably buy us more time to stop this."
"We're still a few hours from the A-line..and a prisoner exchange could assist the talks." Kobor mentioned.
"D'Ghon won't be happy about that," Ngoc observed. "He's started really liking Cadet Marina...er, Ensign Jessup."
"He'll have to learn to like her from a big distance." D'Moj stated, "I'm going to use some of my carefully honed political ties and drop her off on K-7."
"To see your ex?" Ngoc teased.
"No, because she's not KDF no matter how hard you try to make her, and I can't have a foreign agent on my ship no matter how much I happen to like her as a person." D'Moj said, "But I'm not airlocking her, I'm taking her home...from there, we might be able to get some perspectives on how to fix this mess."
Ngoc stood up, "In that case, Colonel, Majors, I have to do some course plots and fuel useage calculations...after which, I intend to spend some quality time with my wife."
"You're excused." D'Moj said.
Communications Intercept [classified Stardate classified]
"...can arrange it, give me six hours," General Ssharki's image said. "I've actually been getting inquiries about Ensign Jessup, they included some very...interesting video. I'm glad you did not airlock the girl."
D'Moj's face shows next. "She's not baggage, General, I've had her shadowing Bekk D'Ghon in security. As long as the Armistice holds out, she's safe from me."
"Glad to hear it." Ssharki says. "I'll contact some...people on the other side, get them to give you a pass and an escort in to K-7 space, that should buy you time to contact your friend and see what they can do to help you in this...quest." the Gorn's expression on the recording was unreadable.
"Thank you general. I have had Ngoc prepare a flight plan and we're already en-route."
"Good luck." Ssharki says.
-Record End.
Briefing room, USS Bradbury...
Admiral Vivian Lorus Gorton Kingsley III stepped back from the display panel, and looked to the assembled Captains. They had not yet met with Mary Moriarty.
"Well, Captain Yamato, what is your assessment?"
"Well, at least Ensign Jessup is still alive, and she's managed to impress the captain she ended up with," Takeshi said. "Might be interesting to see if she wants a spot in any of our crews after this is all said and done."
Kevin frowned. "D'Moj wouldn't be coming here for just that reason-" he stopped. "Okay, I know her personally, christ..." he was uncomfortable about...something. "She's a pro, if she's diverting all the way out here, crossing the Armistice line, getting clearance and asking for diplomatics when she could've just handed Jessup over to KDF authority and let the diplomats do it, she's after something more significant."
"Dr. Moriarty did mention in the report you gave us that D'Moj was working to stop the same folks we're trying to stop" Schrodi said "It's possible this could work to our advantage here."
Takeshi thought about it for a moment. "Hmm... If she's wanting an in-person exchange, then she wants a prisoner we might have here at K-7, or in one of the nearby ships..."
"Or," Schrodi said as she paced as she often did when thinking "She's using this as an excuse to talk to someone she thinks can help, perhaps because she know's you're here" she said to Kevin. "ship movements aren't exactly kept secret nowadays."
"It's not impossible she knows where Mary Moriarty is," McLain suggested. "KDF intel isn't as incompetent as a lot of Federation commentators seem to think-they spotted the Dominion takeover of Cardassia, and the Undine infiltration at the Peace Talks on Risa..."
Kevin nodded. "Mary's her doctor, one of the few canker-mechanics she'll let touch her."
"Which means she more than likely wants Mary back," Takeshi remarked. "Well, do we want to meet her here at K-7, or some other system where her presence wouldn't cause as much of a stir?"
"I'd say elsewhere maybe. We know someone went to a lot of trouble to get you out here where you'd be 'out of the way' Admiral, and sent Kevin and Takeshi out here as well." Her tail twitched as she continued "it's possible, hell probable, that whoever tried to exile you, may have someone watching as well."
Admiral Kingsley looked thoughtful. "Leverage," he said. "Correct my misunderstanding, but D'Moj is an orion, one that has...issues with her own kind?"
"You could say that," Kevin observed. "She was taking pheromone suppressors when we were on Defera, she dresses more modestly than...we do, and she doesn't like other Orions."
"And she's a KDF officer?" Kingsley said. "I mean, more than a status, she's a willing convert?"
Kevin shrugged. "She mentioned being something called 'Ohn'gallau' on a few occasions-I had a hell of a time looking that up, it translates roughly as 'heretic' or 'iconoclast'."
"We have a lever on her then, and it's sitting in your brig, Captain McLain," Kingsley stated. "I think we'll all be more secure if she has to come HERE to get her pet doctor back-we'll have the advantage, in some other system, she could easily arrange an ambush and just take what she wants."
"What makes you say that?" Kevin asked.
"I read the report on the Son Tay raid," Kingsley stated. "I seem to recall sending a copy to out to every Tactical Department Captain in the fleet once Intelligence finished with debriefing the rescuees...did you get it, Captain Yamato?"
"I think so," Takeshi replied. "It's a little fuzzy right now, but wasn't she the one who led that raid?"
Kingsley shook his head. "Not led, she was the KDF advisor who helped the Moab Militia plan it, and she took part in it."
"So she planned it...and she led it," Kevin countered. "You know as well as anyone that 'KDF advisors' usually end up in charge of missions taken on by their client races..."
"Which means she's not only an experienced captain, but also a skilled tactician," Takeshi remarked. "So if she wanted to plan an ambush, she could easily pull it off."
"We'll know in about three hours," Kingsley said. "In the meantime, I've got the station's patrols out and station security on alert-standby."
"You think she'd just attack?" Lewis asked.
"Not her, necessarily, but given who she's likely aligned against, her enemies might not be so...circumspect," the Admiral stated.
"So...let's go meet with Mary," Kevin suggested, standing up from his seat. "If we ARE looking at a prisoner transfer, we probably should pump her for the data we can get while we've got her."
"Agreed," Takeshi remarked, standing up with Linda. "Even if we end up working with her ship's crew on this, we should still see what she knows."
Schrodi nodded "And make sure She knows what we know. Because, if something does go pear shaped..at least if she gets away to her ship, they'll have more info in where to look than they do now."
kinda like a dog
w/ seven pupils
in its eye
kinda like a madness
that refuses
to subside
kinda like everything you want
just w/ in your grasp
kinda like
how a banshee-wail
dances
on a living heart
-Glenn Danzig, "Left hand black"
Brig Area, USS Bradbury...
Mary had covered nearly a full wall of the brig in calculations and geometric patterns painted in blood.
Her blood. Scratched on with her fingernails.
She was a mess. The neatly, almost natty grooming had completely vanished, her red hair stringy and unwashed, eyes feverish, clothes torn.
"WHAT HAPPENED?" Lewis McLain bellowed. Akorem lay unconscious on her side of the energy field. The two guards were just starting to wake up from...something.
"Ahab, what happened?" Capt. McLain demanded. The others saw the scene as they entered.
"Professor Tarel tried to open the box." Mary said and let out a giggle, "The lucky thing is, she failed-lucky for her, lucky for us...poor AHAB though...I think he's not watching the cells anymore."
At the mention of the box, Schrodi looked around franticly "where did it go?" she said, before relaxing a bit, spotting it.
The box lay near the field-inside the cell.
"You can thank me later for making it close." Mary added, "I think I may need a doctor...I seem to have lost a little bit of blood..." She held up her arms, showing long ragged cuts down each forearm, and severe burns on her palms and fingers.
The calculations were mind-bendingly complex-a description of some sort of temporal/dimensional interaction that shouldn't be possible.
"You wrote down more than a little bit" Her tail thrashed as she read the formulae on the wall "Doctor Moriatry, I am both awed and frightened at the same time" she said, "but this ties in with what I thought."
"I had to write it down before I forgot...but I think I forgot too much...anyone got some juice? the interface is at least partially telepathic, I had a haaarrrrd time holding the patterns to close it again...thou mayestt want to put her in the next cell when she wakes up-I think some of it may have bled through." Mary giggled again, a dry, creaky sound...then she seemed to sober up, "Seriously, I think I may have let too much out... if thine will's not strong enough it takes over, I learned that when I used the first one-did thou know sanity is a one-trick pony? all it gives you is...I forget..."
"Where's Hawkes?" Lewis demanded.
"He's over here." Takeshi Yamato knelt next to the unconscious security chief. "I can't tell, but his pulse feels kind of weak..."
"Sickbay, Medical Emergency in the Brig, multiple casualties!"
As the medical teams ran in, Takeshi looked at the carnage, then at the box. "If that artifact caused something like this..." he whispered.
"There's no telling what it could do if it were to be fully opened/activated..." Linda replied, her eyes wide in shock. "My goodness..."
"Why did Akorem have it down here?" Lewis asked.
"She didn't," Mary said. "She was in the lab...I...made it...bring her here." She smiled. "The math wasn't that hard...while I could hear it. Don't touch it, she was weak, but thou'rt not much stronger." She sighed, "I am so...tired right now." Her face was gaining the gray tone of shock.
Takeshi went over to the entrance to her cell, even as he signalled for a medical team. "Get her to sickbay!!" he told them even as he dropped the field, allowing the medical team access.
Mary glared at the medics. "Secure it!" she said, "Don't touch it, but secure it-if the wrong person, someone whose will is weak, touches it, we are all in deep, deep trouble, Grupp...and all I need is a pass with a regen and some type-B positive human blood, or plasma, eh? Just flesh wounds..." she looked into Takeshi's eyes, and he looked into hers, and saw a deep, solid sanity looking back at him. "It tries to dominate the user-it digs into the subconscious, I have centuries of experiences to reassert my sense of self. You don't."
Schrodi had meanwhile been fiddling with a small piece of equipment she had stuck in her pocket. "no problem, I've got it " she says. Activating the widget, a small force field formed around the box on the floor, lifting into the air, secure from any touch.
"Do you always carry an antimatter maniuplator unit with you?"
She just grinned "Hey you never know. It should be safe enough this way at least till we can get it someplace more secure."
Takeshi nodded, cataloging the fact that Doctor Moriarty wasn't speaking in her traditional Old English Dialect as something to ask about later. "Right," he said. "We'll probably need a Vulcan to handle it, then, or someone else who's lived long enough to develop a strong sense of self."
The Medics quailed for a moment, but blood bags and regenerators were brought to the Cell bloc instead of moving Mary to the Sickbay.
"It best be an Old Vulcan." She said, "I was barely able to hold on the first time, and that one was still mostly dormant-this one is mostly awake."
Schrodi noticed it-Mary's arms were healing faster than they had any right to-and the burns on her palms were nearly gone under the regenerator's influence-it wasn't beyond the upper limits of the machinery, just that for a human, it was extremely fast.
"Why do you want to stay in your cell?" Kevin asked.
"Because...because unlike thee, I am still a danger right now," she said. "Thou hast no idea what it feels like to have that much power-even briefly. Someone weak of will can be swallowed in the pure sensation alone, the influence...hast thou ever experimented with Sezzanine?"
"Um, NO." Kevin said.
"Sezzanine is a pleasure drug, it fogs the mind with joy and well-being, it is pure bliss, it grants the sensation of being loved..." she said. "What lives in yon box is like that, but enhanced a thousand times or more. It be like a computer virus for thine brain-attacking through the pleasure centres, granting power and all thou hast to do, is surrender thine will to it."
"God in a box," Linda observed tartly. "an Addict's ultimate high."
Mary nodded. "Exactly-I fought it off, but I'm still fighting the desire to possess it right at this very moment...and it wants to be opened. The first time, THAT box wanted to be handled, but left alone. This one wants more."
"The...first time?" Schrodi asked.
"The first time...I had just escaped from quarantine, and I had made some exchange doing a bit of medical work on a refugee freighter-this was fifty years ago," Mary said. "We were travelling through the Mutara sector, I had a few things I had...borrowed from the camp doctors, one of them was a batch of then-experimental nanotech, that I had scrubbed the programming from to facilitate a few experiments of mine own. There were four hundred sentient beings crammed into that ship with me, and at that time, I was still in hiding from Starfleet-you see, technically, after a century and a half, we were still classified as a pre-warp civilization-this in spite of generations of teachers and experts helping us reclaim what was left of our world-and waiting to see how long it would take us to grow up and become viable again."
"Viable?" Kevin looked confused.
"The Onlies were small in numbers, and until the Kirk and the McCoy came, we didst not live long past puberty-certainly not long enough to bear offspring, one day, you stop being an Only, and start being a Grupp-death usually follows madness in a few short turnings-until the plague was...'cured'," her lip twisted cynically. "Of course, three hundred years of childhood in violent anarchy tends to set in certain priorities-one of the main reasons we were kept quarantined was the fear that the virus our parents created would find a way to become a viable killer again-but that was nothing compared to the psychological damage every single one of us had. By then-and-present standards, we're a bunch of sociopaths and Psychopaths-even the good ones, like Miri...as I was saying, I had broken quarantine, and was out, seeing the Galaxy...because even before the Kirk, I'd been one of the few that looked to the sky and wondered if there was somewhere better...somewhere where you didn't have to look forward to turning into a Grupp," she smiled. "It took more than seventy years before I realized that I could understand enough of the Tutor's sciences to maybe go on my own...and another fifty before I was tall enough to sit in the control seat and reach the switches, and strong enough to use cunning to steal a ship...by then, I'd seen even Vulcans grow old, and humans flit through their lives in fast-forward...some of the oversight teams were allowed to bring families-and by the day I chose to leave, I'd actually had a boy from offworld, watched him become a man, grow old, and die. My children were middle aged while I still had the body of a fifteen year old-the cure worked..it just didn't work on US. I worked out the shift in my aging-from one year per century to one every couple decades. Fifty years ago, I was the equivalent of a 22 year old, now...I'm physically the equivalent of a 25 year old, ergo, if thou hast a vulcan examine it, they should be a very old, very experienced Vulcan....but back to my story."
She cadged a ration-pak from a spot under her mattress, and tore it open. "I was on a refugee ship-I don't even remember which one, or who they were fleeing, or why. It was fifty years ago and those details don't matter...and it was attacked. The ship had no weapons and poor engines-it was probably a late period warp-boom ship. The attackers were from a race that had begun preying on such ships, and on minor neighbouring worlds, quite some time ago. This race was...non-humanoid, but they had an artifact that their ruler carried within his body, the artifact gave him powers his subjects did not have, and their race a purpose-it was a cube-like that one." She gestured at the one in the containment field. "This race may have evolved, but it was probably engineered as much as it was evolved-they possessed a kind of 'touch empathy' linked to their reproduction-you see, they have to consume a living, sentient being, in order to reproduce-which they do by asexual means. The commoners usually consume one another, the rulers, though, had access to spaceflight, and with it, new victims." She nibbled on the ration bar, adding. "Starfleet Leutenant Ah'vsath is from the ruling caste-you can tell because he is more or less fully sapient. Over the course of the sixty four days I was captive, I watched them feed on the others taken when they overcame the ship, I observed what happened...I resolved that I would not become a meal, and I formed a plan. I was inadvertently helped in this, because I didn't just give in to despair or terror-their RULER wanted me...wanted to eat me, to absorb my neural tissues and patterns. This gave me the opportunity that I needed-and I took it-and in taking it, I took their artifact." She sighed. "It sang to me, but my mind was, at that time, stronger-my savagery saved me from the lulling joy, and I made it reveal some of its power to me--I drained the ruling court of their life-essence--all of it, and for a short time, I was stronger than anything they had...so I unleashed the nanites in the room, at the centre of their largest hive, and stole a ship-the same ship I'd been taken from-and while the nanites ate their foul world, I escaped them."
"Why did you have to kill them that way?" Kevin asked.
"Because they were grupps-well, grupp-like, a threat to my survival," she said. "A threat to the survival of anyone LIKE me...at that time, and to this day, I still consider myself a person, you see? These things ate people because they LIKED TO and because they HAD TO. There would be no negotiation, no way to curb it, it's written into what they are." She sighed. "Grupps go mad, they attack anyone and everyone, sometimes they **** first, sometimes they **** you while eating you. These beings were like that, only MORE...they had to die, because they do it rationally. Even a Grupp is overcome with madness, but these things were doing what they were doing in a full state of rationality...combined with a solid biological drive."
"We have Ah'vsath on video eating someone," Takeshi said.
Mary frowned. "He'll want to divide soon, then," she said. "If he's eating sentients, he's preparing to reproduce....making babies is a fundamental biological directive."
IKS Val'Gyr II...
"...meet up with you at the Rendezvous in ten days, K'Tirr." D'Moj said. Rrio'rr-K'tirr's image on the com-screen nodded, "Good hunt to you, and watch for shadows."
K'Tirr gave a 'hrr', "Success in your own mission, Colonel, Herdthinner out."
"Time to our destination?" D'Moj asked.
Ngoc, sitting at the helm console, sipped replicated ca'phe from a metal cup, and said, "Two hours, twenty minutes at present speed."
"I'm picking up something on long-range sensors," B'Tara announced. "Subspace wake says it's an Orion built vessel...harmonics looks like a Corsair class medium cruiser."
"Interesting." D'Moj said, "How far off our present course?"
"She's parallel, about three hours behind us, should we ambush?" B'Tara asked.
"It's tempting," D'Moj said. "No. If they're going to K-7 to raid, we will be bringing advance warning, if they're on legitimate Empirial business, we don't want to interfere, and if it's cousin Eiral's supporters, we don't want them knowing where we are."
"Understood," B'Tara said. "Should I maintain a track routine on them anyway?"
"Yes," D'Moj stated. "Keep on the low-power and passive side, no reason to let them know where we are with a full burst sensor sweep."
"Do you anticipate returning to Starfleet, Ensign Jessup?" D'Ghon asked, standing beside her at the door to the bridge. "You do want to go home, yes?"
"Uh...yeah...wha'?" she replied. "Don'chall evah git homeseck?"
The Klingon laughed. "My ship is my home, my crew is my family, but my Honour belongs to my House-yes, I do miss it sometimes."
"Ah dun seed how y'all flurts with Bekk Lursata, an she flirts raht back." she observed.
"Not the same thing," D'Ghon stated. "That is...just recreational. Someday, I will find a true mate."
"Mister D'Ghon!" she said, mock-scandal in her tone. "Ah do b'leive we-uns already done been down thet road, an it ain't nice flirt'n when y'all's goin' gone so soon."
"We'll always have the Deserts," he said-referring to the barren, blasted world they'd conducted ground exercises (and other exercises) on earlier. He smiled at her blush.
"You'll probably want to stop with the phony accent now," B'Tama said, stepping onto the bridge. "Or start with the phony, learned, middle-Starfleet-english tone you WERE using when we picked you up."
Jessup frowned. "Mah-er, My accent?" she asked, carefully forming the words.
"Precisely," B'Tama stated. "You've improved in terms of physique, and you've loosened up, but I guess we let you get too loose--you've been reverting--and while D'Ghon thinks it's cute, others do...not." She checked the Starfleet guest's uniform for deficiencies. "Remember, Professionalism....Now, You're both relieved for your lunch break. The Galley's got Brecht lung and it's actually pretty good..."
Two hours later...
"K-7 Control, this is Diplomatic Charter 674Echo, Callsign IKS Val'Gyr on approach vector, we require corridor assignment, Over."
"Six Seven Four Echo, this is K-7 Control, decloak dammit," was the response.
"Oh, yeah..." B'Tara shot D'Moj an impish grin.
"Drop the cloak," D'Moj said mildly.
They decloaked within 50 meters of the upper deck of the station. "Better, K-7 control?" B'Tara asked, using her most saccharine imitation-starfleet tone.
The consternation and the shouting on the other end of the line cracked D'Moj's reserve, and she laughed-and the laughter was infectious, spreading through the whole bridge.
"How about you just give me a parking slot," D'Moj said using the communications override. "And have some troops standing by when we clear the lock, I've got your Ensign here and I am eager to discuss some related matters with Mac Calhoun or whoever else might be in charge over there."
Docking took another twenty minutes, but finally, the airlocks met up and the personnel hatches opened.
In the corridor beyond, the first person D'Moj noticed, was an enormous, familiar person. "KEVIN!!!" she greeted him with a big smile and a wave.
This drew looks from the other Starfleet officers in the docking corridor. Foremost because Colonel D'Moj was wearing a full uniform covered with a long, khaki coloured overcoat-and her hands were gloved.. (For an orion this is as atypical as the idea of a Starfleet Captain showing up for duty in a bikini top and loincloth...) the overall impression was almost shapelessness-no hint of her curves on display, nothing to entice or seduce in her manner.
Kevin Monroe shrugged, "We worked together for several months after the battle." he said as an explanation, "Colonel, you've got one of our people with you?"
"I do...you've got something to trade." She didn't ask.
"I do-" Kevin stepped aside, and Mary Moriarty stepped forward.
"How-" D'Moj frowned. "Mary?"
"Tis me...a bit worse for the wearing, they're after the same prey thou'rt," she said. "I've even come to learn some...interesting facts."
"Well...then we need to talk," D'Moj stated. "Somewhere more...secure than a Starbase full of transients..."
"Sounds bad," Kevin said sotto-voce to Takeshi.
"Worse than bad," Takeshi replied, also sotto-voce. "My instincts are acting up, in conjunction with my Spatial Awareness... trouble's coming. I can feel it."
Marina Jessup walked up the gangway and she looked a HELL of a lot more confident than the frightened almost-child in her recording. She stopped in front of the assembled officers. "Ensign Marina Jessup, Permission to come aboard the station?"
"Permission Granted, Ensign...were you mistreated?" Admiral Kingsley asked casually.
"No sir, I was not mistreated at any time during my time in KDF hands," she said, adding, "They only interrogated me once, an' thet wa'nt even with th' pain sticks..." Her accent, which in the recording had been relatively mild for someone from New Ozarkia, had thickened and acquired a slight gutteral undertone. She added, "Ah k'n now speak Klingon."
"For someone with your aptitudes, I should hope so..." Kingsley said. "Willie, take Ensign Jessup to debriefing....under heavy guard."
"I guess that it's time to go then, Mary?" D'Moj inquired.
"Not yet, Ma'am," Mary Moriarty stated. "Ah, Admiral, if thou wouldst please..."
"I would appreciate it if you you would join us in my office--with some of your selected personnel. Under the Armistice, I'm allowed to offer your crew...shore leave aboard the station, for so long as you may be here." His expression showed that the words were...unwelcome to speak.
"Then we'll do that instead..." D'Moj shifted to Klingon. "Kobor, you and B'Tara watch the ship, Ngoc, D'daku, Talash, B'Tama, D'Ghon, you're with me."
She turned to the Admiral and his party, and in Federation English, said, "I'm bringing five."
"This is my Helmsman, Mister Ngoc, Coxswain First Class Moab Militia and Leutenant junior grade Klingon Defense Force," D'Moj introduced the human first.
Ngoc's Moabite dress uniform was something familiar to any student of Earth History-Moab's militia chose to pattern their dress uniforms after American uniforms from the mid-20th Century, complete with placement of rank insignia and unit identifiers, and most atrociously, a tie. Somehow, the cut worked with Klingon Defense force insignia as well.
"This is my Senior security officer, Major Talash, and Bekks D'Ghon, and B'Tama, and finally, my second shift engineering chief Major D'Daku."
D'Daku was another orion-and like D'moj, she was clothed from neck to toe, including her hands. Unlike D'Moj, her outfit was catsuit-tight tailored leathers.
Admiral Kingsley cleared his throat. "I'm Admiral Vivian Lorus Gorton Kingsley the Third, you already Know Captain Monroe, This is Captain Takeshi Yamato, and Dr. Schrodinger, a well known Physicist and Captain in her own right, and Captain Lewis McLain."
D'Moj nodded to each of them, a curt, professional gesture. "So...let's go have a talk." she said.
"This way."
As they walked to the Admiral's office, Takeshi looked at Ngoc again. "Moabite?" he asked.
"New Saigon," Ngoc said quietly. "You've heard?"
"We all heard," said Schrodi, her ears and tail drooping in sympathy. "It's all over the news nets now."
The young man shook his head in disbelief. "Really...leave it to the newsies to focus on that." The groups drew immediate attention on the main deck of the starbase--mostly hostile stares directed at the KDF personnel, but there were more than a few pitying looks directed specifically at Ngoc from officers and civilians familiar with the region.
Linda Yamato joined the parade from the main deck area, falling in with her husband. "You're probably going to get enough pity from quite a lot of officers here, so we won't give you any more," Takeshi said as his wife nodded. "I will say, however, that if you need any help from myself, my crew, and my ship, don't hesitate to ask."
Ngoc laughed softly. "There are twenty million people who need it more than I do, and two hundred million more that need it at least as much. They're still looking for survivors, but the ones they've found so far might be termed 'better off dead'."
"Still, you're probably in the best position to ask for my specific help," Takeshi replied. "I'm a combat captain, not a relief worker, and my ship's a Tactical Escort, not a Hospital Ship."
"The only thing I'd ever ask of you, or anyone else, is to help me kill the TRIBBLE that set this up, made it possible, and caused it," Ngoc stated. "Slowly."
"We could certainly help with that," Takeshi replied. "We'd leave the actual killing to you, because that's your right in my book, but we could definitely clear out the small fry and clear you a path to those you want to kill."
"And I'm already working on how to track them down, so they can be wiped out, to the last," Schrodi added, drawing some looks from passing starfleet officers. "Some things that are out there need to be exterminated." she said.
"There's going to be killing enough for everyone," D'Moj interjected sourly. "More than enough, I suspect." She looked back over her shoulder, giving Takeshi and Linda the closest look they'd had. She looked younger than she'd seemed in the airlock, but there was a worn look in her eyes, like... like Kevin, or Gonzo... Takeshi realized. "More than enough even for you, Captain Yamato. More than enough for me as well."
"Understood," Takeshi replied. "I'm not really looking forward to it--most people don't, I suspect--but I know that it is necessary sometimes. And from what I've learned of our latest foes, it is probably more than necessary in this circumstance."
They reached the Turbolift, and went up to Admiral's country.
Zarkus was at the office to meet them, and fussed about with the privacy settings before offering canape' trays and refreshements.
"Since it's technically a diplomatic visit, certain forms have to be observed," the alien aide to Admiral Kingsley stated.
"Snacks." Bekk B'Tama said, "Husband, what...is this?" she held up a shrimp.
"Um, it's good?" Ngoc replied.
One of Takeshi's eyebrows quirked up. "Husband?" he asked. "What did you do for her to choose you as her mate?"
Ngoc looked quizzically at B'Tama, who just nodded. "I have, to this day, no idea," Ngoc said. "I was assigned over to the Val'gyr for transfer to the Academy on Qo'Nos after the Son Tay mission-we don't have a lot of commissioned officers-I was a coxswain's mate first class, and one day in the corridor near the Enlisted quarters, she just...grabbed me," he said. "And announced to all and sundry 'I want this'. We've been together since."
B'Tama looked pleased with herself, but didn't add anything.
Ngoc continued, "So...after a pretty exciting trip to Eryphis station where we made some new...acquaintances and put down a riot, the Colonel made it formal, legal, and all the rest--right along with a confirmed field-commission to Lieutenant."
"Wow," Takeshi remarked. "That's rather interesting. My XO is Klingon, so I've heard a lot of tales about the culture, but he's never mentioned anything about a female claiming a mate without at least stating a reason to said mate... though I'd assume the reason would be obvious if said claiming was right after a major fight or battle."
B'Tama spoke up. "Actually, I picked him during the Son Tay mission--he took a shuttle into heavy fire to get my team out, and stayed until everyone was aboard," she said. "Plus, he has the most amazing TRIBBLE I've ever seen."
Takeshi and Linda both blushed slightly, figuring the last part to be a little TMI. "That explains it, I guess," Takeshi said.
"And he blushes," She added, noting the crimson tone of Ngoc's cheeks. "And...he's adorable, fun, smart, and creative--he used blastex and a photon grenade to get us into the labyrinth under Masaana Dihava, then laid the most amazing pattern of mines and traps when the Suharto's crew tried to overrun us in the Archive." She added this part with genuine pride. "MY husband can turn...he can turn anything into a weapon," she beamed. "OH, and you should see what he does with metalwork! Show them..." she urged.
Ngoc sighed, and drew-cleared-and opened his pistol before offering it over. It was a copy of a 20th century automatic handgun, and it was engraved.
"I actually got offered money for it...it's just a hobby," he said. "The tough part was replicating a decent forging to start off with. After that it's just hand engraving and patience."
"Wow," Takeshi remarked. "You don't see quality stuff on old firearms like this anymore... mainly on more... traditional weapons."
He then brought out a 17th Century Japanese Katana, slowly drawing it out of its sheath and allowing them to see the sheen of the blade, as well as the Kanji engraved on it. "This is Akatsuki no Ken, a sword that's been in the Yamato Family since the ancient Japanese Feudal Era," he said. "It has always been passed down to the firstborn of the family when they leave home to seek military service--my adoptive father passed it on to me when I went to join Starfleet Academy, which I considered a sign that he truly thought of me as his child, even though I was adopted."
"Beautiful work," Ngoc said, admiring the sword. "I have done SOME blade work, but it's hard to balance the thicknesses while retaining the structural integrity--the old masters really were masters."
He did something and the blade rang in a bell-tone that lingered. "Beautiful, she's a singing sword..." he presented the blade hilt-first back to Takeshi. "Mine's just a modern copy, you have a genuine treasure here."
"Thank you," Takeshi replied. "Once my own child is old enough to enter the Academy, I'll pass this down to them as is tradition, and then most likely forge a new blade of my own. I only hope that I am able to maintain the same level of craftsmanship."
"Let's get to the reason we're all up here in this office," D'Moj said. "I assume Mary's briefed you on the Cult, and what they are planning?" She stood with hands-in-pockets, her overcoat askew.
"She has... well, indirectly," Takeshi admitted. "She briefed the crew of the Bradbury, who found her, and an Archaeologist on the Bradbury's crew briefed the rest of us."
"Well...Let's start with what you DO know, and then we can straighten out any misconceptions." D'Moj stated. "So...what do you know about the situation?"
"There is an ancient civilization that predates the Iconians," Takeshi replied. "The Iconians actually served this civilization for a time, as did the Ancient Orions. There is a cult of modern Orions who worship these 'masters', and seek to bring about their return. Am I right so far?"
D'Moj nodded. "So far you have the basics down, but kind of shy on specifics. My mother was a driving force in this cult for a period of decades," she said. "Currently our prime enemy candidate is my sister, Eiral, who's moved in to take over the Masaana Syndicate's holdings after mothers'...removal from power on Eryphis Station...now, further complications are mostly internal Orion Politics, but what you need to keep firmly in mind, is that Mother was heavily invested in assets on the Federation side of the border--and she worked with Federation and Starfleet intelligence fairly frequently, even before the war."
"Meaning she's likely corrupted at least a few officials, who now are in Eiral's pockets," Takeshi guessed, glad that Ryoko never suffered from that kind of corruption.
"More than a few," D'Moj stated. "My guess is, while I was growing up, she kept a rolling stream of...'clients'--I remember when I decided to run away, that Starfleet looked a lot less secure than the Empire did--she had relatively few Klingon visitors, but starfleet uniforms were often a common sight at the Manor, or on her stations-and not as prisoners." She paused, and drew out a hand to take a glass of water from the table. "She often did...favours, for officers like captain Sandra Fitzsimmons or Rear Admiral T'Nae...I guess they've both been promoted since those days, if they haven't retired." She studied their reactions. "One of her most frequent...clients was a Trill Captain named Quinn, does that ring any bells?"
Takeshi's eyes widened. "Quinn? ADMIRAL Quinn?" he asked. "He's one of the Fleet's most important Admirals--oversees operations from Earth Spacedock!! If he's been corrupted, we're in deep trouble..."
"Fitzsimmons is an Admiral now, too," Schrodi's tail lashed in frustration. "She is the reason I was taken out of research, where I was trying to figure out how to shut down the Iconian gateway network, and stuck me out doing weapons testing. Quinn is the one that had me put in command of the Dauntless."
"It was twenty years ago, Captain," D'Moj said. "He generally only rented a girl for a few weeks, but his real business with Mother was information," she said. "Buying and selling, an occasional item would change hands, and through him, she was able to obtain prior notice of certain fleet patrol movements that impinged on The Trade." It was the casual way she said it-no emphasis, no rehearsed lines, she might as well have been stating that the ceiling was clean, or the carpets well maintained. "Now, is anyone surprised that the captain of the Suharto is working with my little sister?" D'Moj asked, "Mother was setting this up for decades."
Takeshi frowned. "No surprise on my end," he said. "His ship took a potshot at me while I was on my way here, and I then learned about his defection from a message that Ensign Jessup managed to get off before she made it to your ship. So, no surprise, except possibly for the sheer scale of your mother's operations."
"Fifteen percent of the Orion population, plus the heads of most of the big Trade Houses." D'Daku reminded him. "The 'cult' as you call it, is one of the bedrock foundations of Orion society, and has been for millennia--I think the closest thing I could attribute, would be...well, that doesn't even match right--The colonel and I were both raised in the Masaana household, when she came of age to be sold, she ran away--I didn't...I was leased out to another Great House, one run by another...I guess you can call it 'priestess' of the Faith, to improve their broodstocks." she sighed. "It took the events on Eryphis to change my outlook and open my eyes to what they were doing...Six months ago I was the most traditional Orion you would meet, I believed in the Return, I sincerely thought it would be best for everyone, of all species to bring the Masters back, especially after the nightmare we experienced on Defera."
"But the actions the cult took with their uprising, and the reactions of the other powers, convinced you otherwise," Takeshi remarked, "and so you joined the colonel."
D'Daku shook her head. "No, it was the actions of Matron Masaana Di'al, her...decisions. How and why she was doing it," D'Daku said. "It was seeing through Their eyes." She pointed at Ngoc and B'Tama, "Their world, that convinced me. I was ready to kill D'Moj, all I required was an instruction from the Matron before I realized...it was wrong." She sighed, "I am still a proud Orion, Captain, I still believe in the System, in the Trade, we've had a stable civilization free of most ills that befall others for thousands of years, we don't need to summon ancient oppressors to maintain it...but my Colonel asked me a question--and after spending time with the crew, away from Orion influences, I started to also ask..." she walked over to where some of the ancient books taken from the Homeworld lay. "Where are our artists, our artisans? Where is OUR great philosophy? It's all rooted in instructions from an ancient conqueror who altered our genetics--we have no great artists, we have no artisans of our own, no innovators--an Orion ship from ten thousand years ago is, with the exception of imported technology, the same as an Orion ship from the yard last week." She lifted the book. "We're stagnant, the Cult and the Masters are the reason."
"And so, by stopping them, you believe you might be able to start bringing the Orions out of Stagnancy?" Takeshi asked. "A rather bold objective you've set for yourself, there."
"It is my hope," D'Daku said. "We persist, but we do not grow. Mere existence is not life--Ngoc's illness proved that."
"I understand," Takeshi remarked. "I'll do what I can on our side of the fence--and I'll pass word along to the contacts I know I can trust, so they can provide any help that is in their specialties. What I can do is work on taking down any followers of these 'Masters' I come across--I'm a Combat Captain, not a diplomat."
"Hopefully, we can prevent the Masters from coming back at all," D'Moj had taken the moments her deputy bought with her speech, and slid an isolinear rod into the player.
"This is what they're after," she added, as a construct formed in the air over the holostage, "It's effectively a combination of gateway and beacon, the Legends say that the Masters will come when the 'stars are right'," she said. "There were certain interstellar phenomena that the Cult was watching for--a massive subspace supernova was one of them. Another was the recent collapse of the Tenk'al binary--the star finally fell into the black hole it was orbiting--that was twenty five years ago--five years prior to Hobus." She stood back from the player. "the astronomical sighting data was the trigger, the legends said that the artifacts would begin gaining power...and they would call the servants to assemble them-which is what Mother was doing, and what Eiral is doing now..." she looked at the Starfleet Captains. "There were other prophecies--the arrival of powerful new enemies was included--those were pretty close descriptors to the Borg."
"So the Borg invasion is a 'sign of the Apocalypse,' huh?" Takeshi asked. "The Borg are powerful enough on their own, without needing to point to any larger threats."
"Not specifically, the prophecies actually refer to the mass migration and movements of powerful races into the quadrant," D'Daku said. "Like a wind before a storm--and a time of chaos--which with the Undine infiltrations and the war, the collapse of the Khitomer accords, and the incursions by Hirogen, Elachi, and others, fits--My colonel is...sometimes too focused, and she didn't stay long enough to memorize ALL the scriptures," she said it with a sad smile.
"Wait...you said you believe in the system, but if you get what you want, won't that pretty much shatter it?" Kevin asked.
"I suppose that's a risk. You have to understand, Captain--the Trade is more akin to a social welfare system with the same objectives your Federation's social welfare system holds, the difference being, ours is not vulnerable to a single-point failure..." D'Daku said. "Everyone is cared for--nobody starves, there are severe penalties for theft, murder, and ****. Addicts get treatment--because even an addict represents a significant investment for their owner, and there is order. The only real difference, is that we acknowledge that nobody is free, that everyone is responsible for someone or responsible to someone."
Kevin glowered. "What about self-determination?" he asked.
"What about it? How much 'self determination' is there, really?" D'Daku asked. "A HUMAN observer noted that when most people are given the option of doing whatever they wish, they tend to do whatever they think everyone else is doing, no?" she said in a teasing tone. "Ngoc here, he wanted to join Starfleet--he was rejected because of a recessive potential medical condition--yet he serves the KDF and the Moab Militia with distinction in spite of his potential disability."
"Don't bring me into this, ma'am." Ngoc barked.
"What disability?" Schrodinger asked.
"Progressive Degenerative Nerve Sheath Erosion Disorder--it's inherited, nobody's found a cure, we might've found a way to slow it down so I'm not screaming myself to death by the time I'm forty," Ngoc told her. "I was diagnosed here...about five years ago when I went in for the induction physical...now, IF it goes out of remission and starts through the progression, I'll end up insane, in agony, and dying...of course, My wife here has promised that if I do end up that way, she'll give me a mercy shot, because once you hit stage three, you're untreatable and basically a bag of agony." He let that sink in for a moment. "About eighteen percent of Moab and twelve percent of New Saigon residents have, or will have it, Starfleet Medical's failed to find an effective treatment short of Euthanasia for the last two hundred years."
"It's an immediate medical disqualifier if you even have the markers in your genetics. I know what that is," Kevin said. "You've got it?"
"Yeah. We're trying a new treatment method to prevent it...if it works, millions of people won't have to kill their loved ones to end their pain," Ngoc said. "Hell, I might actually live to see the age of forty." Ngoc said it with optimism. "Back on our main topic though--as much fun as it is for you senior officers to wander off on weird political, religious, and social tangents, or to discuss obscure and incurable diseases, fact is we have a problem--all of us do." He nodded to Admiral Kingsley, Captain Schrodinger, Captain Yamato, and Captain Monroe. "Our problem isn't these 'good masters', it's the TRIBBLE trying to bring them back."
He stood up. "In a way, I guess my condition does factor into this--I have a chance to live long enough to see my kids actually be born and grow up-to adulthood, not just to 'big enough to use the shotgun', savvy?" He asked. "I sure as hell don't want those kids to grow up with an implant in their skull and a leash on their neck. If stopping that means I don't get to see them grow up, that I miss them being born because I'm dead, I can live with that...but what we need now, is a plan of action." he paused, "We KNOW they have a plan-they've been happily executing it for a long, long time...we need an actual plan to stop them from succeeding-and running pell-mell trying to beat them to targets they've had locked for years-maybe decades-isn't it." He directed that at Colonel D'Moj.
"My world is dead because of those TRIBBLE--and maybe some of that was a kindness--my mom's been a Neurohead for ten years, most of the time she doesn't remember her own name until the next drop from my sis." He took off his hat, and set it down on the holostage. "We know what they want. We need to know more than who they are, we need to figure out where they're going to try and open it...and then, we need to stop them."
"To do that, we have to find them, and I've got a lead on that." Schrodi said as she stood, hitting playback on the recording the Dauntless made on their way in of the late lamented IKS Stalks the Underbrush's last transmission. "There's some more deaths these TRIBBLE need to pay for. But thanks to this information, and after going over the very scary equations by Mary, we have, instead of thousands of possible targets, eight systems."
She highlighted them on the star charts. "All of them are Binary or Trinary systems, where the boundary between subspace and normal space is much weaker, more brittle. One good hit, in the right spot with the right tool, and a nice big portal to elsewhere can be ripped."
Takeshi nodded. "So, we need to monitor these eight systems, and if they show up at one, we swoop in and hammer them flat. Sounds good to me."
"We need a setup, secure operating instructions," Ngoc stated as the senior officers examined the map Schrodi had adjusted. "Something we can use that isn't in anyone's existing databases."
"Starfleet Regulations, general order 12," Kingsley said approvingly.
"Exactly. we have six ships--a Hegh'ta--the IKS Herdthinner, the Val'gyr II, my ship, the Bradbury, Roaring Tempest, Dauntless and Smedley Butler," D'Moj said. "Five specific codesigns, that we can hit a general frequency and nobody outside this group will know what we're talking about."
"We'll also need to pre-plan rendezvous points," Kevin observed. "And eight nonmap designations for the target systems--something outside of Starfleet or the KDF's SOI files-we have to assume the Suharto is getting updated Federation codes and sitreps from someone on the inside at Starfleet Command--and if they're compromised that way, then we have to assume the Masaana Syndicate, and by extension, the rest of the Cult, is getting that data."
Schrodi was typing rapidly on the PADD she was holding. "Done and Done," she said as she updated the map with both new designations for the systems, as well as rally points.
"Anyone you guys feel you can bring in besides us?" Lewis asked, "Two escorts, one cruiser, two BoPs and a science vessel isn't enough, not if they're running multiple carrier groups."
"Not at ths level--but we should consider who we'd trust to call in if it drops in the pot," Ngoc said pointedly. "The Militia's fleet's in tatters, I know a few that would come, but that leaves big gaps in defense back home if they did."
D'Moj nodded. "I didn't brief Ssharki in fully," she said. "Otherwise I'd be able to call in his task-forces...maybe, but I have a niece who's 'seen the light'--and she has a carrier."
"No dice," Ngoc said. "I saw the same orders you did--that carrier's under orders to camp in the Moab system until the Ferasan Reserve fleet can send in a battlegroup--she's effectively nailed to a post that way."
"Rutherford, maybe," Kingsley said. "Assuming Pickens doesn't get the order from me."
"Stage one," Takeshi announced. "We have to establish monitoring on eight separate systems-I notice that Moab is still on the list, so we can break that down to seven...and we've got six ships to do it with. which leaves one empty, assuming we go one-for-one...which isn't too smart considering the damn Orions figured out how to break Klingon Cloaks and BoPs are not exactly stand-and-deliver fighters."
"Triplines." Ngoc suggested, "Seed the target systems with probes as we pass through, we don't stop moving until we hit a live contact--when that happens, whoever hits it, sends out a shout-me signal and evades until reinforcements get there. We don't linger unless it's a live hole, since the spread is pretty good, we'll have to maybe do it by sector?"
"Probes and mines," Schrodi pointed her finger at one of the systems, at a spot between the binary stars. "Here. This is where subspace is weakest, if they want to find a place to open a hole for the things that should not be, they'll come in here to push at subspace. Drop them between the stars in the system. No one legitimately going in these systems would go there, and we might get lucky and take a couple of them out at best, at worst slow them up. I'm assuming," she sighed, "that we're outnumbered in this, so every advantage we can find helps."
"In the meantime we cover it claiming standard patrol or survey operations," Kevin added. "For the Starfleet group, that comes down to Armistice patrols for the Escorts and survey missions for the Science ship and the Butler."
"Our excuse is pre-made, we're hunting Orion mutineers and rebels." D'Moj added.
"Okay, so...who wants objective Alpha as their start-point?"
"I can take it," Takeshi replied. "I'll also get in touch with one of my contacts--let him know what's going on, see if he can get us some backup from his contacts."
Less talking, more shooting!
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Now that is more like it! :cool:
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon