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Looking into Enemy Eyes. (Masterverse, co-written with Starswordc)
patrickngo
Member Posts: 9,954 Arc User
Looking into Enemy Eyes
By Patrickngo and StarSword-C
By Patrickngo and StarSword-C
Finally the hills are without eyes
They are tired of painting a dead man’s face red
With their own blood
They used to love having so much to lose
Blink your eyes just once and see everything in ruins
Did you ever hear what I told you
Did you ever read what I wrote you
Did you ever listen to what we played
Did you ever let in what the world said
Did we get this far just to feel your hate
Did we play to become only pawns in the game
How blind can you be, don’t you see
You chose the long road but we’ll be waiting
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Jacob’s ghost for the girl in white
Blindfold for the blind
Dead siblings walking the dying earth
Noose around a choking heart
Eternity torn apart
Slow toll now the funeral bells
“I need to die to feel alive”
Did you ever hear what I told you
Did you ever read what I wrote you
Did you ever listen to what we played
Did you ever let in what the world said
Did we get this far just to feel your hate
Did we play to become only pawns in the game
How blind can you be, don’t you see
You chose the long road but we'll be waiting
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
It’s not the tree that forsakes the flower
But the flower that forsakes the tree
Someday I’ll learn to love these scars
Still fresh from the red-hot blade of your words
How blind can you be, don’t you see
How blind can you be, don’t you see
How blind can you be, don’t you see
That the gambler lost all he does not have
Did you ever hear what I told you
Did you ever read what I wrote you
Did you ever listen to what we play
Did you ever let in what the world said
Did we get this far just to feel your hate
Did we play to become only pawns in the game
How blind can you be, don’t you see
You chose the long road but we’ll be waiting
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Nightwish, “Bye Bye Beautiful”
Songwriter, Tuomas Holopainen
They are tired of painting a dead man’s face red
With their own blood
They used to love having so much to lose
Blink your eyes just once and see everything in ruins
Did you ever hear what I told you
Did you ever read what I wrote you
Did you ever listen to what we played
Did you ever let in what the world said
Did we get this far just to feel your hate
Did we play to become only pawns in the game
How blind can you be, don’t you see
You chose the long road but we’ll be waiting
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Jacob’s ghost for the girl in white
Blindfold for the blind
Dead siblings walking the dying earth
Noose around a choking heart
Eternity torn apart
Slow toll now the funeral bells
“I need to die to feel alive”
Did you ever hear what I told you
Did you ever read what I wrote you
Did you ever listen to what we played
Did you ever let in what the world said
Did we get this far just to feel your hate
Did we play to become only pawns in the game
How blind can you be, don’t you see
You chose the long road but we'll be waiting
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
It’s not the tree that forsakes the flower
But the flower that forsakes the tree
Someday I’ll learn to love these scars
Still fresh from the red-hot blade of your words
How blind can you be, don’t you see
How blind can you be, don’t you see
How blind can you be, don’t you see
That the gambler lost all he does not have
Did you ever hear what I told you
Did you ever read what I wrote you
Did you ever listen to what we play
Did you ever let in what the world said
Did we get this far just to feel your hate
Did we play to become only pawns in the game
How blind can you be, don’t you see
You chose the long road but we’ll be waiting
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Bye bye beautiful
Nightwish, “Bye Bye Beautiful”
Songwriter, Tuomas Holopainen
Federation Starbase Deep Space K-7, Sherman’s Planet system. 6 January 2410.
Admiral Stephen Alcott looked haggard and worn this morning: there were unread PADDs on the desk, an unopened prescription bottle, and the pictures of his latest ex-wife in the recycler can next to it. “Morning, Kanril,” he said. “I’ve got something special I need you to look into.”
They’d worked closely for three years now. The Bajoran woman, sporting a set of shiny new captain’s pips at her collar and a fruit salad to make another admiral jealous, still seemed to him to be incredibly young for her rank, and she was indeed young enough to be an older sister to the sons he’d lost at Vega, but the scar on her face, the confident set of her stance, and the jaded look in her eyes gave away just how much she’d seen the last six years. “Well, it can’t be the Klingons, sir, the ink’s barely dry on the armistice.”
“Actually, it is the Klingons. Signals intelligence picked up traffic indicating they might already be violating the cease-fire. One of their battlecruisers was prepping for a mission of ‘unknown but possibly hostile’ nature, and she filed a flight plan from Moab III on a vector toward Federation space. Considering who might be on that battlecruiser, K’Ragh the Fool might be intent on restarting the war all by himself. At least, that’s what the confidential informants are telling our intel people. I’m trusting you, because we know from other sources he’s been inciting the Confederates to go after some of the same known pirates and black marketeers that Starfleet Intelligence uses for informants.”
“Ohhhhhh, phekk,” she groaned, sitting down heavily in a chair. Alcott didn’t even react, he had long since gotten used to her foul mouth. “K’Ragh’s good, I know that much. He wants something done, it’ll happen.”
“Well, you killed a Borg cube with half a dozen cruisers and a patrol escort. Your new command should be able to handle one battlecruiser, but be advised, I don’t want you picking a fight. You’re discreet, I’m counting on your discretion just in case this turns out to be bullsh*t. Your mission is to find him, find out what he’s doing, and use your best judgement from there. The rumor is he may be investigating the aliens who attacked First City in ‘06, but if he’s trying to General Chang the ceasefire…”
Kanril Eleya held up a hand. “Sir, I, uh, I see where you’re going, and, well, you know if it comes down to him or me I’ll do my damnedest to see it’s him, but…” She let out a breath. “If you’re talking about me having to shoot first, specifically try to assassinate a decorated IKDF officer, I’m going to want written orders from the President.”
Alcott eyed her face carefully. “I’m interested why you would say that, Captain,” he finally said. “I know you were opposed to the armistice.”
She shook her head. “No, sir, I was opposed to ceasing our offensive, giving up the strategic initiative while the talks were still in the early stages, especially when we were winning. I just… I don’t believe in limited war, can you understand that?”
“I’ll buy that, sure.”
“But with the armistice in place, my job becomes keeping it that way, and killing a general kind of goes the opposite direction, you understand?”
Alcott smiled. She really had come a long way from the overpromoted former NCO who had barged into his office in a righteous fury that fine October evening. He reached into his desk and pulled out a data solid. “Signed orders from the President. You investigate, you pull the trigger if necessary.”
“I understand. But if he’s got something else in mind, you want me to see if I can tag along, sir?”
“I want you to use your best judgement, Captain,” he repeated. “I’ll back any play except a mutiny, you know that. But find out what that sneaky, slippery little b*stard’s up to.”
“Investigate but don’t shoot first if I can avoid it,” she confirmed. “I assume the cruiser is his flagship, veQDuj?”
Alcott nodded, “You know he’s a bent one, naming his flagship the Garbage Scow. I’m not entirely comfortable with Klingons who have a sick sense of humour, and he’s probably why.”
“Takes a corkscrew brain to handle a corkscrew brain, I get it. I gotta bring my best game to this. Sir, about that crew transfer request—”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. There’s a bit of a shortage of skilled CPOs in the sector right now.”
“Damn it.”
“Cheer up, Leiningen came back from investigating that pirate outpost—someone got there first. Left playing cards, took ears. I was grabbing my ankles over subspace because Amnesty Interstellar tried to pin it on us in the news.”
“Playing cards, that sounds like Liz Tran out of Moab.”
“Her people at least,” he agreed, “but we’ve got intel showing she’s been staying home since Son Tay.”
“Good to hear somebody’s having some luck hunting those phekk’ta maktal kosst amojan. I’m starting to think even the Klingons didn’t know who they were letting loose when they started that. Did you see the broadcast from Risa? It was brilliant…ly shocking,” she hastily added, but couldn’t keep a muscle in her jaw from twitching.
“Nice save, Captain,” Alcott drawled, shaking his head.
She laughed. “All right, sir, last I checked, the last photon torpedoes for my forward magazine were due to arrive in an hour. I can issue a crew recall and be away from the dock in two.”
“Take this with you, it’s the intel on their little ‘expedition’, as filtered by Starfleet Intelligence. It should get you in detection range.” He laid another data solid on the desk in front of him and she quickly pocketed it.
“Glad of your confidence in my abilities, sir, sneaking up on a Klink without a cloak was a lot harder than I thought when I gave you that plan three years ago.”
“I don’t need you sneaking, exactly, but be careful.”
“Always, sir. Walk with the Prophets.” She stood, executed a slightly sloppy military turn, and marched out.
IKS veQDuj, departing New Saigon orbit, Moab system…
Agatha Trinh heaved her go-bag and field kit under the bunk with a grunt. Ninety days of basic military training didn’t qualify her for a post on a warship, and she knew it, never mind an actual officer’s commission. The Confederacy government gave her a warrant because of her engineering specialty and a four year degree from the WSU extension campus in Provo, which stayed in business mostly on the strength of the faculty being local and not running for Earth when they had the chance.
“Lieutenant, let me help you with that,” a young man said from almost beside her. She turned around, and started.
“Bekk Kor Duellen. The General assigned me to help you...adjust,” he said earnestly. The man was huge, looked part-Klingon. The lilt in his accent was familiar… “I’m from Kiska City, Cold Butte.”
“Not an exchange officer?” she asked.
He shook his head, “KDF Regulars, I’ve been on the ship for a couple years now, Ty’Gokor Fourth cycle, 3577 Current Era...um, class of 2408, winter quarter graduation.”
“Thanks… What am I doing here?” she asked. “I’m a civil engineer, I do power plants...”
“General wants an expert on fission piles,” he said. “That’s actually kind of obscure in the Empire, and you’re up on the technology and the theories of operation.”
“We’re going to a class-four colony?” she asked.
“Um, no.”
“Primitive planet?”
The young man shook his head again. “Don’t think so. We loaded a lot of pressure suits with mag-boots, and the infantry contingent are boarding specialists, so it’s probably a station.”
“Oh…kay… I’m not ready for this.”
“That’s why I was assigned to keep you out of trouble,” the young man told her. “You’re one of the General’s ‘mission specialists’, which is his way of rubbing the traditional officers’ nose in the fact he loaded up on scientists for this trip. You’re from New Saigon, you a saint?” he asked.
“Um, no, mom’s Catholic.” she said, “Why?”
“Well, ah, they’re serving bloodwine in the junior officer’s mess, it’s kinda watered down, but if you were a Saint, I’d have to find something non-alcoholic for you,” he told her. “Since you’re not…”
“Bekk Duellen, are you picking up on me?” she asked.
“Um, is it working?” he shot back.
“Let’s just be friends for now, okay? I don’t mix work with fun.”
“I diggit. Tell you what, I’ll keep the hardcore Romeos off your back if you want,” he said placatingly.
“Please do.” she encouraged, “this is so weirdass for me already, I don’t need to feel pressured for that.”
Duellen grinned wider. “I, milady Lieutenant, am both an officer and a gentleman. Dinner bell’s in an hour, and it’s roast targ tonight. Let me help you get stowed so you don’t miss out o on the good cuts—some of the older guys pack it in fast.”
She pulled on a set of working duties from her duffel while Bekk Duellen waited with his back turned in the hatchway. The MCDF uniforms were acceptable wear on a KDF ship, since her commission was with an auxiliary force, and she’d seen what the Orions on board were wearing—or more to the point, not wearing. She paused and replaced the warrant bars with the yellow bar of a junior Lieutenant on the Olive Drab collar, laced up her boots and bloused her fatigue pants, branch insignia on the pocket-flap, and the molecular-stik mission patch on her right shoulder, KDF patch on the left. Shipboard and under cover, she didn’t think she needed her cap, until Duellen reminded her, “Pistol belt?”
On KDF ships, even reservists were under orders to be armed at all times, which meant wearing the cover. Trinh paused to make sure her hair was up and off her collar. “How do I look?” she asked.
The young man turned around, looked her over, “yah, working-duty is considered appropriate on a KDF ship… but you need your service ribbons, and you forgot to fix your rank pin on the cap.”
Nature doesn't HAVE to be nice, or polite.
Free Hong Kong.
Free Hong Kong.
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Comments
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Is this a one-shot, or is there more coming?
Not a one-shot, and likely more still to come. I look forward to seeing it.
“General! There is something in here with us!!” came over the open channel, and whoever it was sounded human, female, and scared.
“Report!” K’ragh demanded immediately, “Trinh, calm down and describe your situation.”
“The team’s come under attack by something, sir—it got my security detail and… and I think it got the Starfleet people.” she was whispering, and clearly afraid.
“Remember your training, lieutenant,” he said patiently as Captain Kanril swore and unslung her rifle. “Evaluate your situation, do not let your fear govern your mind, first pattern, what can you perceive?”
“It’s moving along the plumbing runs, I see brief flashes of disruptor and phaser fire here and there, I hear someone screaming, but the echoes make it hard to figure out where...”
“Captain, can you contact your team in the engineering section?” he asked.
She tapped her combadge. “Petty Officer Gouv, report. Come on, answer me, you damn fool snipe.”
The combadge chirped back after a moment but the voice that came over was moaning, groaning, and incomprehensible… until the Tellarite started shrieking.
“Phekk. Chief, Fuchs, Zass, with me,” she said, taking the safety off her rifle and linking its computer to her tricorder before lowering her helmet eyepiece into place. “The rest of you, check your weapons and get to cover. Kanril to Hammond, I need another life form scan, a working one this time.”
General K’Ragh was already in motion, disruptor in hand, muttering instructions in something that was NOT Klingon over his commset. “nhớ đào tạo của bạn, tôi cần bạn để có được để hatchway bạn nhập vào, và tín hiệu con tàu khai thác.” There was an acknowledgement, and he continued, “bạn có thể làm điều đó? một bước tại một thời gian, Lieutenant.”
Chirp! “Hammond to Captain Kanril,” came the JOOD’s voice, “what did you guys do down there? The whole after section of the ship’s lighting up with heat sources, over.”
“Sound battle stations, Ensign Parker: we’ve got hostiles, unknown force. I’ve got at least one man down and weapons fire in the engineering section; we’re heading back there to check on it.”
“Damn it, Captain, be careful,” Phohl snapped. “One Purple Heart should’ve been enough for you, I don’t want you coming back with a second one.”
“I’ll try to avoid it, Tess, you just see what you can do to level the playing field. Ready phasers and post security teams at the transporter rooms and access points. Anything comes off this ship that isn’t us, blast it first and ask questions later. And tell Doctor Tretca to prepare to receive casualties. Out.”
They bolted back down the corridor through the missile bay, disengaging the maglocks on their boots to “fly”. At the hatchway, the Gorn Bekk signalled a hold, and pulled a canister from her pack pouch. “Vibrations,” was all she hissed, before undogging the lock, and tossing the flashbang.
PHOOMP! was followed by something metallic skittering away from the now open hatch, and they caught a glimpse of something shelled in a color that seemed to be created to provoke nausea and a rejection of what they were seeing.
“Oh gawd it hurts to look at.” Walston moaned, “like a Medusan...”
“The phekk was that thing? Anybody alive in here?” she bellowed.
BANG!!-ping! The discharge was from a firearm. There was more motion audible, clatters and clicks. The grey Caitian petty officer, Zasrassi, sniffed the air as she moved up to cover the opposite passage with a heavy phaser repeater. “Blood, that way. Iron and copper, but no cobalt.”
“Damn it, Zasrassi, the copper’s Ensign Soruk, Admiral T’Lon’s kid,” Fuchs growled.
K’Ragh bellowed, “Nguyên tắc đầu tiên là gì?”
A shaky voice from somewhere on the far side of the forest of plumbing answered, “Nguyên tắc đầu tiên là lắng nghe với giác quan toàn bộ của bạn!”
“Lieutenant, report your status,” he barked.
“I’m cornered sir… the bu-bug-things… they’re using weapons.” As if to punctuate the statement a rapid salvo of gunfire cracked out from down the corridor.
“Sounds like low-caliber rounds, five-mil at best,” Zasrassi said, her ears pricking. “Probably crew sidearms, too weak to breach the hull.”
“Defend your position, we will come to you!” he barked, “do you see anyone else?”
“No sir, I think I heard someone to my left a few seconds ago, um…” there was a brief flash of disruptor fire, “not good, not good..”
There was a brief flash of something greenish on the other side of the room and the Bajoran snapped up her rifle and cracked off a single bolt. A ululating screech of pain issued back. K’Ragh turned his head, momentarily impressed. “Good shot.”
“You didn’t think the designated marksman badge was for show, did you?” she rejoined, lowering the weapon. “Hammond, be advised, we have engaged the enemy. Zass, what do you see?”
The Caitian poked her tricorder around the corner at the still-squealing target. “Insectoid, six legs but appears to walk upright, or did until you blew one of its legs off. Carbon-based, chitin exoskeleton, can’t tell much else without getting closer.”
“I see something,” the Gorn rumbled. “This way.” There was a hatch marked “reserve inspection”, and it was open.
From inside, they could hear both skittering, and voices.
“That leads into the fuel system for the reactors, it’s a manual inspection passage,” K’Ragh said. “At least, I think that’s what it is.”
A combadge floated nearby on a torn scrap of cloth. Walston reached out to grab it. “It’s Emmy-Three Gouv’s, ma’am.”
Bekk Sstalhasss shouldered up to peer inside, then pulled another flashbang from her kit. “Cover your eyes, mammal,” she rumbled, and lobbed it into the chamber, her disruptor rifle at the ready.
POOMPH!! The brief illumination and shockwave revealed that the chamber was empty of delicate equipment, and contained several bodies, some of them desiccated, three of them bloated and moaning.
“Aw, scheiße,” Fuchs muttered, then held up an arm and added, “Stay back, ma’am,” as his CO made to bolt forward. Kanril tightened her lips but nodded.
Kanril’s combadge chirped, “George Hammond to Captain Kanril, they just finished translating that document—the word isn’t ‘devoured’, it’s a compound word. It means nesting material to feed the young. I think we’re looking at a species that parasitizes a host, like some Terran wasps that lay eggs on spiders. That tracks with some foreign matter I found embedded in one of the cadavers I examined.”
“And I think we found the nest, Biri. You better get with Doc, see about finding a way to take them out of people. We’ve found three casualties already, and inflicted one.”
Bekk Sstahss and Chief Walston opened fire over Fuchs’ head, and an insectoid body bounced off the ceiling and downward, twitching from a thorax ruptured in two places.
“Make that two.”
“You enjoying this yet?”
“Not now, Biri.” Kanril firmly clicked the ‘end call’ section of her combadge.
Fuchs made it to the casualties, and ran a tricorder over them. “Mein Gott… Captain, they’re paralyzed with some kind of venom, and there are… masses clustered just below the diaphragm, if we don’t get them help, they’re going to suffocate.”
“Let me see.” Bekk Korog crawled into the chamber, and pulled out a medical tricorder. “Well, I don’t have to use anesthesia…” He didn’t draw a knife; instead, he opened a pouch and pulled out a paraplazer. “Get me some light, little man,” he snapped, “I don’t feel like cutting an artery by mistake!”
“We could just beam them out—”
“toDSaH SoH, this is an undefined xenolifeform, threatening, would you risk your ship like that? I do surgery here, maybe they get out alive.”
“Bekk, do what you can,” Kanril agreed. “General, no offense, but if I put my life in your crew’s hands, am I likely to get it back?”
“War’s over, and I have no enmity for you or your crew, Captain,” K’Ragh told her.
“Then let’s go find your girl, Trinh. I’m still missing zh’Planath and Surok, too. Zass, Fuchs, Walston, you stay here on guard.”
They moved down the corridor, until the plumbing made a four way branch. Sstalhasss took point, the Gorn’s eyecovers giving the same effect as sensor-enhanced night vision goggles. “Blood here… looks Andorian,” she rumbled, “expended cartridge casings, four point three millimeter at about nine meters distance, trace goes up, toward the dorsal fuel tanks.”
They kicked off and upward. For ten meters, there was only piping and conduit, and then…
“Captain!” an Andorian zhen peered out of a ‘y’ branch in the plumbing. She was holding a Klingon disruptor rifle with a sawed-off stock. “Frak, I’m glad to see you!”
“Report, Chief.”
“Flesh wound in my left leg, I’ve got it bandaged, but I’ve got a casualty in here with me, got bit or something while we were fighting off the, ah, bugs, ma’am. Klingon’s in bad shape, and I’ve lost contact with the rest of my team. I think the Brigadier’s pet human is still all right, but she freaked when we tried to contact her.”
“Do you have any idea where she is?”
“Down axis about six levels, she’s holed up in what I think is a tool locker,” the Andorian reported. “Not a bad defense point, but she doesn’t have any path of retreat.”
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
It’s under crimson skies, hell’s horizon
Our trap will spring
Unaware of our presence they’ll be marching
Straight to their doom
We are prepared for war, ready for fire
Stand by to charge
Counting down as they march into destruction
Their time has come
They’ll never know, we give no warning
We set a trap, they took the bait
Leading them straight into hell
They will not live to tell the tale
We’ll strike at dusk and fight ‘til dawn
Tonight our foe is bound to fail
Our time is now, all ready at arms
Upon our chosen ground dead men marching
No sign of hope
Victory will be ours before the dawn breaks
Tonight we charge
They’ll never know, we give no warning
We set a trap, they took the bait
Leading them straight into hell
They will not live to tell the tale
We'll strike at dusk and fight ‘til dawn
Tonight our foe is bound to fail
Our time is now, all ready at arms
Chaos and disorder, sound of the attack
Charging down the mountain, frontal assault
Guns light up the darkness, mortars rip the ground
Like a force of nature, shaking the field
They never knew, we gave no warning
We set a trap, they took the bait
Cut off retreat
Release
Unleash
The beast within, Berserker rage is
Released
Unleashed
A storm, a force, unbreakable war machine
Victims of the ambush stains the ground with blood
Fields of execution, murderous plans
Soldiers turn to madmen in the dead of night
Fighting with a fury, fiery eyes
They never knew, we gave no warning
We set a trap, they took the bait
Cut off retreat
Release
Unleash
The beast within, Berserker rage is
Released
Unleashed
A storm, a force, unbreakable war machine
Unleash
The beast within, Berserker rage is
Released
Sabaton, “Unbreakable”
Music by Joakim Brodén
Lyrics by Joakim Brodén and Pär Sundström
Portside access corridor…
Faint skittering echoed and lighting flickered on and off. “Hang on…” Chief Walston held up his fist in a halt-gesture. “Fuchs, you hear it?”
There was a rumble of machinery in the distance. One of the adult-phase Hur’q had activated something.
“Hey, Korog, what part you think that’s connected to?”
Korog shrugged. “Medic, remember? My guess is something big, back the way we came.”
“The midsection had some stuff built for spin gravity…” Fuchs had seen the ship from the outside before they beamed over.
“I think you’re right,” Walston whispered.
The deck under their feet felt like it was angling. It was just enough warning. Walston grabbed the corner and managed to roll up onto the corridor’s edge before it became a shaft.
“Down is toward space, up is toward the central corridor, the center of the ship,” Fuchs interpreted.
“I guess they decided to alter the terrain,” Walston agreed. “Unless it was one of your people?”
Korog shook his head. “Not one of mine, the General was… particular about activations. He wanted to oversee power-up himself—and he’s back toward the nuke plants right now.”
The spin-gravity grew stronger, and the whole place echoed with the sounds of objects falling.
There was a rumbling sound, transferred through the structure, and klaxons sounded.
“What the hell?”
Bridge, USS George Hammond.
“It does spin for gravity!” Ensign Trayvon Parker said, fascinated. On the viewscreen, the blocky center section was starting to rotate, as lights continued to come on along the hull of the derelict. “Okay, the missile systems are here in the forward area that isn’t spun, and aft of it, the drive sections are still cold…”
On the forward and aft sections, ports opened, and bright pinpoints of light ascended from them.
“Sir, missile separation!”
“Brace for impact!” Tess Phohl barked, her hand flashing out too slowly for the deflector controls.
There was hardly a flutter as the missiles flashed against…
“We didn’t even need shields for that!” Senior Chief Drem crowed. “They hit the nav deflector and smashed themselves to pieces. I’m seeing some mild gamma and beta and thermal debris.”
“Primitive nuclear weapons,” Tess said, smiling grimly. “Even a basic deflector will stop ‘em, never mind a primary shield.”
“Should we return fire?”
“Are the Klingons?”
“Umm… no, sir.”
“Right answer, Ensign Parker. The Captain’s still over there and their weapons appear completely useless, so no, we don’t return fire.”
“And we need to keep shields lowered to use the transporters.”
“Right again. However, no sense in being reckless.” She ordered the communications officer to open a channel to the veQDuj. “Captain Karah, this is Commander Phohl. Be advised, I’m bringing main phasers online in point-defense mode and I have you tagged as a friendly.”
“Agreed, Commander. I was about to suggest the same.”
“Just maintain tractor lock and braking thrust,” she said to the other bridge crew members, “and let’s try to trace where that launch signal originated.”
“Okay, uh… Okay, sir, I have an idea, but it could be completely stupid.”
“Try me.” Tess always tried to indulge boot ensigns when possible, having been one not too terribly long ago herself.
“Okay, did the away teams say anything about whether the computers on that thing were networked at all?”
The Andorian raised an eyebrow. “They barely have working computers, how—”
“You said you wanted my stupid idea, sir.” Tess barely kept a straight face: he sounded like Eleya. “I mean, they developed warp drive before they figured out fusion weapons or Doppler radar, right? I want to have our AU extrapolate from the code bases we’ve recovered and try and break into the mainframe through the radio communications array.”
“You’re assuming there’s a connection.”
“More like hoping,” he admitted.
Tess turned to the Denobulan at comms. “Lieutenant Grevex?”
“Sir.” She quickly stood and allowed Parker into her chair.
“Okay, uh, whew. Senior Chief, is there still power to their communications array?”
“It came on when the away teams reactivated the ship’s bridge, sir.”
“Great. Computer, extrapolate a code library and emulator from samples and sort a ‘new admin’ command or equivalent for radio transmission. Broadcast when ready.” The screen of his console lit up.
Tess nodded her approval. “Good work, Ensign.”
“Okay, looks like… Okay, sir, everything feeds into a central mainframe, Commander Riyannis already found that room. Too little memory for anything but basic firmware so they store it on removable tapes. I’m trying to—yes! There’s a record of which terminals got activated and when. Of course, naturally it’s all in Klingon; Computer, translation please.” The early pIqaD was quickly replaced by English lettering.
“I thought you spoke Klingon,” Grevex said. “Didn’t you grow up on Ajilon Prime?”
“Just basic stuff, sir, mostly just trash talk for tackle football games. This is way too technical for me. Okay, I don’t have the foggiest how their IP addresses or terminal numbers work, but based on timing, that’s the captain and the rest of them on the bridge, which means that...” He leaned back in the chair. “All right, sir, with your permission, I’m going to start turning this console on and off.”
“You can do that?”
“At least the monitor. Senior Chief, I need you to tell me if you can detect any local fluctuation in electrical flow. I’m going to turn it off two seconds at a time, every five seconds. Mark.”
After a moment: “Sir! I got them! Upspin of Chief Walston’s position!”
“Infinite’s bones, that actually worked.” Tess grinned and clapped Parker on the shoulder, already making a mental note to put him up for a commendation medal. She pressed the intercom key. “Lieutenant al-Qahtani,” the shen sent to the security chief, “direct Chief Walston’s fireteam to the following coordinates.”
Spin section, outboard…
The floor was definitely a floor now, at .3 gravity. Fluorescent tubes flickered as they climbed downward, each deck had a hatch, and the ladders were laid out in a staggered formation. Whatever else, it hadn’t helped the crew hold off the boarders, but there was definitely sign of a hard fought battle here. Broken barricades, empty cartridges and the odd discarded dagger, and holes in the cheap plastic and thin aluminum of the wall paneling, the dark stains and drag marks in the carpet…
Chief Walston had seen this scene a dozen times over the course of the Klingon war. The only things missing were bodies.
On the third level down, with nearly .5 gee, they found the first body. The pressure suited form was webbed between sturdy titanium-steel beams. The suit itself was a relic, layers of vulcanized cloth, metallic foil, and plastic, and it had torn open from the inside, outward, in a spray of now-dried fluids, but the relatively clean environment preserved the face inside the helmet.
She died screaming, and to Walston, she almost looked human—human enough, anyway, close enough she could’ve been his mom, except for the delicate ridges.
Dangling now, over the torn open abdomen, probably worn under the suit, was a thin steel chain, with an ornate bauble on the end of it.
“What’s that?” he asked, controlling the nausea reaction.
Korog answered, “I’ve seen the design on some ruins near where I grew up in the Highlands.” He shrugged. “My father used to tell me to ignore the symbol, but he once hinted that the area we lived in was one of the last hold-outs of the old faiths among the Klingon people.”
Walston took it in one hand, and examined it. Three figures, the central one was pretty clearly feminine. It opened under his thumbs, and a pair of photographs were fixed inside. Two children. The color hadn’t faded on one, and a smiling woman was on the other. They look so...normal. “Family pictures?” he asked.
Korog shrugged. “Probably.” he said.
A few hairs drifted out of the locket.
Walston felt a sick horror building inside him looking at the locket’s internals, the children in the pictures had been dead for two thousand years. It hadn’t sunk in, not until now, looking at this.
These weren’t the mock-barbarian ‘cartoon warriors’, chest-beating their way across the quadrant.
“They didn’t expect to come back, did they? They really were...” He couldn’t articulate it.
Fuchs picked up the strands of hair from the carpet, amid the dried fluids, and gave them to the chief, who put them reverently back into the locket, and closed it.
Politics be damned, these people deserved respect. Respect, and revenge… He found the clasp on the chain, opened it, and took it off the body. It was a medieval action, but it felt right.
Then he wrapped it around the emitter end of his phaser rifle. “We’ll get the things that did this,” he said to the corpse. He turned to the rest of the team. “We should be pretty close to the outboard deck, and the drag marks lead to the ladders,” he said, “Let’s go clean this nest out.”
“Hammond to Chief Walston. There appear to be control signals from the compartments on the level directly below you…”
“We’re on it, sir.” Walston replied absently, “Fuchs, two grenades, set to flash-stun, set your phaser to wide beam dispersal, we’re going to clean this nest out.”
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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Ruqayya al-Qahtani walked into the lab, and was greeted by music. It felt familiar, like an old Earth country or folk song, but the vocals were… different.
“Any more progress on that log?” she asked Atti Innan, the Bajoran ensign supervising the lab, giving him a discreet peck on the cheek.
“Yeah, and we’ve got some of the ‘extra’ data from one of the tapes the away team scanned. You’re hearing it.”
“Thought they were all into that screechy opera; those strings remind me of my dad’s oud. This from the datatapes on the ship?”
“Yeah,” Commander Riyannis said from where she was nodding along to the beat instead of supervising Atti. “The dialect is pretty thick but it’s been very helpful decoding the written docs. I’d say the lingual drift is as far as from modern tlhIngan Hol as pre-Norman Saxon tongues are to modern Federation English.”
“What’s the song about?”
“She’s singing about missing her mother and father, when their home was destroyed. She’s mourning that her children will grow up without the open skies of her youth.” The tech’s fingers drummed, keeping time with the odd 5/4 rhythm of the music. The language was softer than modern tlhIngan Hol, al-Qahtani noticed. “There’s a lot of words in it that don’t show up except as shortened forms in the modern language, and a few that don’t show up at all in our language databases. I think I’ve identified at least two of their ancient religions just from the music files the away team’s recovered.” The tech put his stylus aside, “want the really rotten part?”
“What?”
“Five or six of these so far, and they all are saying the same thing: ‘the gods have abandoned us’…” The song changed tempo, and went into a chorus.
“What’s she saying?”
“...you have abandoned us.
The sky is falling down and we are abandoned.
Damn you all, damn you all.
I will not lay down and die for you…”
“Or something like that. The dialect’s thick, but the sentiment’s clear. It fits with some of K’Tang’s, uh, the ancient ship commander’s logs. He mentions that there are only a few hundred million Klingons left, and that billions died in the first two attacks, whole continents destroyed, that they’re facing extinction. Some of those personal logs go long on worry.”
“Wlih,” she muttered. “There’s a few songs like that where I’m from, stuff passed down from the civil war.”
Riyannis leaned forward, giving her a look. “When did Aldebaran have a civil war?”
“Oh, uh, they didn’t. My family way back’s originally from Iraq, just outside Mosul.”
“Ah, got it.”
“You know, I thought the Klingons’ mythology said they killed their gods.”
“Well, there’s a couple versions, actually, but…” Atti scrolled down the text of the lyrics. “Would either of you be offended by me saying that myths tend to be an attempt to explain the incomprehensible aspects of one’s place in the world?” Both women shook their heads. “Okay, so my best guess would be, after winning their war with the Hur’q through no apparent divine intervention, they symbolically ‘killed’ their gods,” this said with air quotes, “by abandoning their worship of them.”
Al-Qahtani nodded slowly. “So they go from venerating intangible deities to venerating mortal heroes such as Kahless.”
“Exactly: gods didn’t save the species, mortals did.”
“But they were warp-capable, they would’ve kept records, right? How do we get from a nuclear war to the Klingons thinking they beat the Hur’q with swords?”
“Well, uh, not to get into any sensitive territory, Ruki—ah, Lieutenant, but weren’t there ever factions on your planet that destroyed temples and texts that were, shall I say, politically inconvenient?” Al-Qahtani bit her lip. “Yeah, we had a few of those, too. One big one: thousands of years before the Cardassians the Church declared this guy named Ohalu a heretic. Burned him at the stake, destroyed every copy of his writings they could get their hands on, though it being a big planet they didn’t get all of them.” He chuckled. “Joke was on them: most of his prophecies came true after first contact.”
“Also the simple matter that digitized files sometimes get lost or have data corruption. Even us joined Trills forget stuff,” she added, tapping the pouch below her breastbone. “The little guy here won’t live forever. History becomes legend, legend becomes myth.” She held out her hands, spinning in her chair. “But that’s why we’re out here, isn’t it? To learn that history.”
“Maybe you are, sir. My boys and girls are here making sure you blueshirts get to do it.” She quickly danced out of range of a half-hearted swat from Atti.
Outboard spin section, IKS Qo’noS BortaS
The aliens tried to lay an ambush at the lock. Smallbore bullets didn’t stand a chance against Starfleet body armor or targ leather woven with durasteel netting, much less against both body armor, and personal shields. The return fire from the assault team, on the other hand, was the sort that benefited from centuries of advancement, auto targeting systems, and zero recoil, line straight destruction paths, designed to hammer organic armor while leaving the inorganic hull materials unharmed.
Chitin that had turned bullets four centuries ago was no match for phaser and disruptor fire aimed by professionals, and for Chief Security Officer Bartholomew Walston, each beam was an act of justice, each ruptured and killed Hur’q an act of righteously delivered vengeance.
The corpse he’d seen on the upper deck, she had obviously not been some trained-from-birth warrior, because the Klingons who crewed this ship two millennia ago, had been just ordinary people, people forced to fight for the survival of their race, and it was against these things...ordinary people.
People like the ones that relied on HIM, and Starfleet… but there hadn’t been a Starfleet for them.
The aliens tried to flee, and he found his blood pumping with rage. A rage that went back to his ancestors, maybe, pursuing the Optimums across Canada and Britain, getting justice for the murdered victims of Thorsen and Green.
But all he saw, with every trigger pull, was his children, and his wife, and the ruptured body of a mother who came out into the deep black to protect her children from the fate she eventually suffered. Part of him knew it wasn’t an attitude that Starfleet’s commanders, safe on Earth Spacedock, would condone...but he didn’t care. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Fuchs felt it too.
Crewman Dieter Fuchs was afraid. He was afraid of seeming hesitant, afraid of seeming as lost as he felt, firing into the retreating crowd of insectile aliens, afraid that Walston’s mania would infect his innate reason, and most of all, afraid of how thoroughly he was enjoying the slaughter of these aliens, the Hur’q. Their forms triggered an instinctive nauseous hate in his heart, a revulsion he could no more explain than he could the sickened horror he felt at that revulsion. His very reasonable mind struggled with the feelings while his hands worked the controls of his repeating phaser, hammering and slaughtering mechanically, efficiently.
Assault Squad Officer Zasrassi, her charcoal fur nearly invisible in the dark, struck and struck again in silence, a huntress in her element, sniffing and listening for the telltales of her targets. It was silence very much at odds with the howl of her phaser, the thumps and bangs from her grenades. It was said on Cait and her mother-world Ferasa that where animals, prey, pounded and smashed, cats pounced and cut. Granted, Zass had never been much of a pouncer, always preferring the comforting weight of an antitank missile or grenade launcher. These Hur’q, though, they had pounded many a world to dust, which made them prey. It was as natural to her as breathing; rather, the strangest part was the novelty of having a Klingon behind her instead of in front.
Bekk Korog simply let the zen of his training place each shot, methodical and focused, no feeling at all as he hammered the monsters. These were The Enemy-the first enemy, and he killed them as a Klingon warrior should-without feeling, without rage or remorse.
They cleared compartment after compartment, finding more remains, bodies and pieces of bodies, each time, it seemed to drive Walston harder, seemed to twist Fuchs’ expression to more disgust and horror…
And Korog felt nothing except residual heat from his disruptor. This wasn’t war, it was pest control, little different from dealing with surba-rats or wild targs on his grandfather’s estate… but in his heart, he burned to find someone to save. He knew his father would never understand that feeling, and he was ashamed of it himself. It was unseemly for a warrior to feel as he felt, to want to ease pain and save lives instead of seeking battle. Korog hated combat, he hated the screams of the wounded, the smell of blood, the expressions of pain. This too was unseemly, it was weak… but he felt the pain of others in ways he suspected his brothers, even his colleagues, didn’t. It was the reason he chose medicine, biosciences, instead of engineering in school. The excuse he gave his father was an interest in biogenic weapons research, but the truth was, he could hardly stand the suffering of others...and it made him ashamed.
But he could kill these things; he understood enough, looking at the cadaver and at the two they’d saved in the engineering area, to know what these were. Parasites, preying on healthy creatures, living on the suffering and deaths of others. He could kill them the way he would kill any pathogenic entity: with simple efficiency, to protect and save others… but he felt nothing about the the act.
The enemy had retreated to a section with crude armored hatches, and they’d managed to apply powered locking mechanisms ahead of them.
“Zass, let’s show ‘em how it’s done.” Walston said, “pop the hatch the rough way.”
“Aye, chief.” Zasrassi took a pair of photon grenades, and altered their settings to a cutting charge, and set them on the door itself, with a third forming a bell-charge to blow it in, armed the fuses and the team backed off out of the backblast zone.
WHAM!!!
The bugs on the other side weren’t ready—and the door smashed through a tripod-mount gun that might’ve actually done damage.
The boys came through firing, instinct-shooting, they almost hit the man webbed to the far wall.
“Medic!” Walston barked, and Korog rushed forward, almost being hit by the three Starfleeters as he crossed the room, the Hur’q quailed ahead of him because of the storm of phaser bolts.
The kid was from the engineering team. His memory supplied a name, Duellen, to the slack face staring alive from the half-cocoon of webbing holding him, among the bodies of others, in what was probably a weapons locker. While Walston and Fuchs suppressed the Hur’q in a place they had no retreat, Korog began cutting the one living man here down. “I’ve got you…” he told the young man, “hang on and I’ll get those things out of you.” Korog had what he needed—a patient, he could let those that delight in battle keep the bugs away now.
Around them, the red glow of Klingon transporters heralded the arrival of reinforcements…
A/N: BTW, the name of the Qo'noS bortaS's captain, K'Tang, was my idea. In keeping with the language drift mentioned in this segment, it's a takeoff of the Ki'tang-class BoP in-game.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
And in turn, even though K'Ragh is basically right on most of the details, Eleya sees his attitude as paternalistic at best, the idea that the Klingons "have to be" the biggest baddest motherfrellers in the galaxy because few others could take up the mantle of defending everybody from the monster under the bed. The Bajorans of course have their own ugly history of various kinds of bigotry (besides the religious discrimination mentioned in the bit with Ruqayya and Atti, Eleya occasionally gets guff for defying her caste despite the caste system having been abolished well before she was born). As mentioned, she also instinctively dislikes the idea that the Klingons "had no choice" but attack the Federation, and the alliance with the Orion Syndicate of all groups, well...
Additionally, she's also (in "Sound the Alarm") observed the logical consequence of a socially stratified system where the only real ways to improve your position are through military victories or killing your boss. You eventually end up with what happened during the decline of Rome: after the caesars stopped leading armies in the field (on account of Emperor Valens getting himself barbecued by Fritigern's Ostrogoths at Adrianople in 378), an already extant wariness of their commanders ultimately became self-destructive. The shining example being what happened to General Flavius Aetius. By all accounts he was a very great patriot of Rome and their best general in a generation, but after he beat Attila the Hun at the Catalaunian Plains, Emperor Valentinian III murdered him out of fear he was planning to overthrow him, which can be partially blamed for the final collapse of the Western Empire.
Or another example, a scholarly article I read that traces Arab states' historical underperformance at conventional warfare compared to Western states to similar stratification (classism leading to mistreatment of enlisted by the officer corps) and fear of coups (since many of those leaders came to power by military coup in the first place). This leads to micromanagement, purges, and poor inter-unit coordination (because training in army-wide combined arms tactics that Westerners would see as completely normal, are feared as something that could make coup attempts more successful).
And we saw all of those basic traits in action in the Klingon Empire in "When It Rains..." and "Tacking into the Wind".
One thing K'Ragh and Eleya do have in common, though, they both view personal integrity as extremely important. To use the Klingon terms, prizing batlh, or internal honor, over quv, external honor or glory. (Not to be confused with Quv, spatial coordinates.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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He was, however, a consummate political animal quite capable of fighting dirty: besides suspending habeas corpus and imprisoning state legislators to stop Maryland from going Confederate and the wheeling and dealing he did with various Congresscritters to get the 14th Amendment passed, PBS's series History Detectives did an episode on an instance where he protected a corrupt Union quartermaster whose criminal negligence led indirectly to a major riverboat accident, because said excuse for an officer was related to an important political ally.
Better example for this discussion isn't Lincoln but rather the whole Lost Cause mythos, the idea that the North provoked the war, and that the South WASN'T fighting to protect slavery and the economic fortunes of the rich white guys who controlled the state governments, but rather against federal government tyranny. This despite the fact that every secession resolution said the exact opposite, citing fear that the North would ban slavery, including two cases where the legislature voted to secede anyway despite state referenda coming out AGAINST it. And it's not a coincidence that the myth started to gain in prominence during Jim Crow, including the construction of the various Confederate war memorials. (Note here, I'm a white Southerner with confirmed ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. My Virginia and North Carolina history textbooks in elementary school didn't even mention a lot of what I just wrote, I learned it as an adult.)
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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(Keep in mind that only a tiny fraction of whites in the North at the time favored abolition at all - vanishingly few could even entertain the concept of equality. We've made some pretty significant social strides over the past 150 years, albeit with some significant recent backsliding against which we must guard...)
Changing the subject, I snuck a couple David Drake references into the closing scene. "Slash" as a term for engine room hooch comes from the Leary-Mundy novels, where it's usually distilled from the alcohol-based hydraulic fluid used in power rooms. There's a minor running gag of Daniel Leary being offered native liquor of some kind and remarking that he'd had slash that tasted a hell of a lot worse. (In general I find that Leary reminds me a lot of Jim Kirk...) The bit about the "miracle", I borrowed from his "George Washington IN SPACE!" Citizen Series: one of Allen Allenson's compatriots acquires moonshine for use in Molotov cocktails that way.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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Although my personal favorite is actually the Russian Army: their tanks carry a reserve fuel tank of chemically pure ethanol labeled as "emergency fuel".
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/