YES - Close to the Edge: Star Beagle Adventures episodes 12 - 19

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 14: Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down
Scene 10: The Truth Is Written


The truth is written all along the page…

14.10
The Truth Is Written​

John, Jr., Steve, Steph, Jr., Sevrock, Rohn, Key, Jephan, K’Lon, Rock, Ork, and Rider were conferring. The Runt wasn’t able to contribute thoughts so much as emotions to this discussion. But The Runt got a vote. It didn’t matter that she was completely non-verbal and probably not very intelligent. She would get an equal vote. And this was important.


“We must kill her.”

“There is no hope for her?”

“Nothing. The regenerative process continues, but there is nothing left to regenerate. The result would be six clones, none of which could ever have any independence.”

“Worse, her continued presence would destroy our own futures.”

“It is a matter of survival, then.”

“And a matter of mercy! Imagine such an existence! No thought! No independence! Only the moment to moment flow of experience! A nightmare existence without context!”

“I don’t know. It’s one thing to allow a person to die. Another thing entirely to kill her.”

All attention was focused on Jephan. The thought had been offered as if it were self-evident. The new attention focused on Jephan made it evident that it was far from self-evident.


“What is so different? At least, what is so different in this specific instance?”


It was Jephan’s turn to be taken aback. “I… I… I don’t know. I just have this innate sense that it is wrong to kill unless it is absolutely necessary.”

The Runt agreed wordlessly with Jephan. Some of the others did too.

“In this case, it is absolutely necessary. If we don’t kill her soon, kill all of her, she will cut short our lives. We will starve. And the future will die with us.”

“So it is necessary?” Jephan asked.


“Not only necessary, it is compassionate!” Now all attention was focused on Ork.


“How is killing compassionate?” Jephan asked.

“Think of the life, or rather lives of what they, not she, they, will become! A fully developed brain with nothing in it! No memory! No future! No past! Just a frightening, meaningless, never-ending now! Not one such life! Six of them! Would you want that for yourself?” asked Ork.

“It won’t be easy to do. She’ll just keep coming back.”


“We eat her!”


This final suggestion met with unanimous approval. For a moment they fell silent. Then:


“What about her?”

“She has to stand trial.”

“No! We are not qualified to sit in judgement!”

“But she might kill us.”

“And she might protect us. And help us. We have to talk to her.”


“Then summon her!”

14.10​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 14: Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down
Scene 11: Her Own Domain


For the crucifixion of her own domain…

14.11
Her Own Domain​

Captain Rhonda Carter very suddenly stood up, then walked over to a locker near the command chair of the bridge of the U.S.S. Escort’s tactical launch. She pressed a mechanical release and a cabinet deployed, displaying an Extra Vehicular Activity suit. The cabinet was designed to present the suit for ready access. It took only seconds for Carter to step into the suit.

“Captain?” Warrant Officer Seprek Harrison asked as she donned the helmet and fastened it to the suit.

Carter touched a switch on the left arm of the suit. Her voice came out of the suit, slightly distorted. “You’re in command down here, Seprek. I have been summoned and I have to go.”

“Summoned by whom?” Harrison asked. “Rocky?”

Master Chief Bill Waller was sound asleep in his chair, his head propped up by the inflatable neck pillow.

“John’s children,” Carter replied. “Apparently they’ve… um… hatched.”

“You intend to allow them to sit in judgement of you?” Harrison asked.

“I’m not going there to be judged,” Carter responded. “I’m going there to parley. And remind them that, mushroom or no mushroom, this is my boat and I intend to get it back.” She attached a type II phaser to her waist and slung a phaser rifle over her shoulder. “I don’t know what it takes to kill a vulcan-human-mushroom-shrimp-thingy and I hope I don’t have to find out. But that doesn’t mean I’m about to let them take me.”

“I will have to bring the transporter back online, then,” said Harrison. “We had taken them offline, both here and in the shuttlebay so that we would appear less of a potential threat to Rocky.”

“Rocky’s not in charge anymore, Seprek,” Carter rejoined. “But take the transporter offline after you send me to the bridge. Now that my crew are outside of the contaminated area and as safe as I can possibly arrange for you, I am not leaving my bridge until I can safely evict those mushrooms. John’s children or not, I want those baby mushrooms off my ship.”

“Not an extremely healthy place,” Harrison observed.

“Hence the EVA suit. Do you have me dialed in?”

“Aye, Captain.”

Carter took a deep breath, then: “Energize.”




When Captain Carter had last been on her bridge, it was a dark and slimy place. All grays, no color, no active controls with the exception of one monitor that was tracking the ship’s distress signal. And all of it a bit wavy and out of focus.

The bridge she arrived on was clean, well lighted, and, probably most importantly, entirely in focus. She was the only person there. But something about the size of a small cat was standing on the helm station. It moved with a slight, skittering motion on six spindly legs, each ending in a small, three-toed foot. It looked like a minuscule cross between a stag and a tiger shrimp with dark orange and gray striping. It was, Rhonda Carter realized with a shudder, the exact likeness of its deceased mother.

Only instead of gigantic, extremely alien and threatening, the small creature was, oddly, devastatingly cute.

The rear port door to the bridge opened with a hiss and a much larger and far more unsettling creature entered. It was tall enough to need to duck to get through the hatch. Its legs and feet were very similar to those of the tiny creature on the helm station, except there were only two legs and they were much larger. This creature was vaguely human-shaped, but with very long, spindly, straw-colored legs and very long, spindly, straw-colored arms. Loose folds of skin seemed to mimic a tunic reminiscent of a Star Fleet uniform. The creature's head was somewhat misshapen, a bit longer on the left side than on the right. Its face was the face of its deceased father, Ensign John Sevork, right down to the vulcan’s distinctive ears and eyebrows and even the purple mohawk that Sevork had sported the last week of his life.

It was more unsettling when the creature spoke. Its voice was, right down to the pronounced Texas drawl, very much the voice of its father. His father, Carter corrected herself.


“You can safely remove your protective suit, Captain Carter. We have adjusted this environment to your needs and have removed the spores from the air recycling for this compartment. We do not intend to harm you if you do not intend to harm us.”

Rhonda Carter was not about to do any such thing. She used the external speaker for her helmet. “Do you have a name?”

“I am John, Junior. My sister…” John Jr. waved a three-fingered hand toward the helm station… “The Runt. She is not able to speak. She can only convey emotion.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Twelve.”

“And I suppose you’re going to introduce the lot of you?” Carter looked about the bridge, then gestured toward The Runt. “Are most of them closer to your size, or hers?”

“Somewhere in between, but closer to mine.” John Jr. drawled, his west Texas accent wildly incongruent with his extremely alien appearance. “But I am only going to introduce three others for now. No need to overwhelm you or make the bridge too crowded. And there’s another reason…”

“What would that be?” Carter asked.

“Rocky is dying,” John Jr. answered. “Keeping his intermix chamber alive and successfully integrated with the Escort’s warp engine and keeping us on course to return to our home galaxy is taking a lot of effort. The Runt can’t help with that, so she is free to be here. My siblings insisted that two others accompany me to negotiate with you.”

“Wait,” said Carter. “You said, our home galaxy?”

“We may have been born here, but we were intended to be creatures of the Milky Way. It is as much our home as it was our father’s. We all regret that we can never meet him. We’re strongly motivated to make him proud of us.”


“So you and your siblings want to negotiate with me? Negotiate what with me?”


“Our surrender.”

14.11​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 14: Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down
Scene 12: Coming of Age


How old will I be before I come of age for you?

14.12
Coming of Age​

Ork was kind of formless. His shapeshifting was quite limited and he usually appeared as a roughly cone-shaped blob that occasionally became rectangular. In order to create sound, he literally transformed into a conically shaped speaker cabinet. A similar device functioned as a microphone, allowing Ork to hear.

He had no eyes, no nose, no mouth, no legs. He was able to move very quickly by changing shape into a ball and rolling. It was in this guise that Captain Carter first saw Ork. A light brown ball, about 1.5 meters in diameter rolled onto the bridge through the port entrance, then transformed into a conical speaker cabinet and, with a thick west Texas accent, announced: “My name is Ork!”


Carter was both deeply surprised and extremely amused. “And my name is Captain Rhonda Carter!”

“I know!” Ork replied. “You killed my father! And my mother! And Rocky!”

Carter was taken aback and left slack-jawed. Before she could muster a response, another creature with a feminine voice said, “Don’t mind Ork. He shouts everything. That’s just the way he talks. He’s not angry. Just loud.”

This creature had four spindly legs and two spindly arms. A paddle-shaped head with no mouth, eyes, ears or nostrils. But little wavy tendrils sprouted from the front of the paddle, giving her the look of both a stag and a giant tiger shrimp. but with hands. And a pronounced Texas drawl.

“And that is Stephanie, Junior!” Ork announced. “She is my sister!”

“He also has a habit of stating the obvious,” Stephanie, Jr. opined. Carter wasn’t quite certain where her voice was coming from. “But Ork is smarter than he sounds. And compassionate.”

“So, are all of you…” Captain Carter looked about in some confusion… “So… completely different from one another? Were all of you born fully formed?”

“Why does that matter to you?” Ork asked. The combination of his full volume delivery and thick Texas accent made him sound slightly like an auctioneer. “You just want your ship back! You’re thinking about how to kill us!”

“It’s true,” said John, Jr. “The Runt knows that you’re thinking about how to kill us.”


In response, Carter entered a number of commands into a control panel of the left arm of her EVA suit. Then she removed her helmet and walked over to the command chair and sat down.

“I don’t want to kill you. You’re John’s children. I have a responsibility toward you. But I also have a responsibility to my ship and my crew. So do not make me choose.”


“It is well beyond a matter of choosing,” said Stephanie, Jr. “When you killed mom and dad, you also mortally wounded Rocky. Rocky integrated with the heart of Escort. He is getting much worse and as he is breaking apart, your ship is breaking down with him. They are thoroughly integrated.”

“It is taking everything that we can do to hold it all together at this point,” said John, Jr. "If we had not been born fully formed, we would not have had a chance."

“We can’t survive without Rocky!” Ork exclaimed. “And Rocky is dying!”

“We need your help if we’re going to survive,” Stephanie, Jr. drawled. “And you need our help if you want your ship to survive. Since Rocky integrated with your ship, Escort has become vulnerable to Rocky’s deterioration.”

“Have you tried increasing the structural integrity field?” Carter asked.


“The what?” John, Jr. asked.


“We do not know how to use your ship things!” Ork announced.

“I’m going to need an increasing number of my people in various places on this ship to help hold it together,” Carter replied. “But if you cannot live without Rocky and Rocky is dying, how can I save you?”

“There are parts of Rocky that are still healthy enough to sustain each of us,” said John, Jr. “But they can only survive inside the rock environment. We will have to, somehow, break Rocky into a dozen pieces, build rock environments to transplant each piece into an environment.”

“But it all has to happen at once,” Stephanie, Jr. continued. “The pieces of Rocky cannot survive for more than a second outside, even if the environment is not fully sealed.”

Captain Carter leaned forward in the command chair, her elbows on the arm rests. “It can be done. But it’s not something that I could do by myself. I do have people who could do it, but it would be a team effort. In fact, between that and keeping this ship together, it’s going to require pretty much all of my people.”

“I do not understand!” Ork exclaimed. “Why would you help us? You killed our parents!”

“She doesn’t have much choice,” John, Jr. observed. “She needs us to keep Rocky alive until he can get us back into the Milky Way galaxy.”

“But will she keep her promise to help us survive?” asked Stephanie, Jr.

“I can’t promise it will work,” Carter rejoined. “But I can promise we will do everything possible to make it happen. It is not going to be easy. Well, actually, I have almost no idea just how hard it is going to be. I know how to do it in a general sense. But it is going to take tremendous precision. My people are great at teamwork and great at precision. But you and your siblings are going to have to be great at communication.”


Ork didn’t turn so much as simply flowingly change form so that his speakers were pointed at John, Jr. “Do you believe her?”


John, Jr. looked around the bridge and focused on the cat-sized replica of their mother stag / tiger shrimp.


“The Runt believes her.” He ran a long, spindly arm over the brush of what appeared to be purple hair on the top of his large, oddly misshapen head. “And if she believes the captain, so do I.”

14.12​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 14: Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down
Scene 13: I Get Up


I get up…

14.13
I Get Up​

“Just when I think I have the slightest clue about what we’re doing, everything goes topsy turvy.”


After having beamed everyone out of the tactical launch to various locations throughout the U.S.S. Escort, Master Chief Bill Waller was alone on the narrow bridge of the launch, seated in the command chair. Still wearing the inflatable neck brace. Captain’s orders.


“Come on, Bill, how long have you been in Star Fleet?”

“32 years. 33 years in a few months. Most of it seemed to make sense at the time…”

“Yeah, right Bill, consolidate your crap… Now you’re even talking to yourself…”

“Wait… is it “You’re talking to yourself?” or “I’m talking to myself?””

“Crap. I wouldn’t last five minutes in a monastery.”


Just as Waller was considering calling someone, anyone, to preserve his sanity, a call came through from Chief Flight Engineer Roman Hess. “Master Chief, I think we’re going to need your expertise with the structural integrity field generators. You helped Ki source the generators. Do you remember when the jem’hadar chased us into the atmosphere of that gas giant? It was right after we installed the supplemental shields and industrial replicators. Ki linked them to create a positive pressure within the hull to keep us from getting crushed by the atmosphere…”

“Chief Hess,” said Bill Waller with some exasperation. “Are you anywhere near asking a question?”

“Sorry, Master Chief,” Hess replied. “It’s just that the damage this mushroom is doing to the ship… Well, it’s as much the warp field as anything else that is holding it together. At the moment, I’m really concerned about the pylons holding the nacelles on. Especially considering our current velocity. It’s like this mushroom is trying to fly us apart…”

“I’m still not hearing a question, Chief,” Waller said.

“Well, do you have any recommendations on how to set up the structural integrity fields?” Hess asked. “I mean, the bulkheads are deteriorating so fast you can almost see them disintegrating…”

“Okay… let’s assume the little mushroom bugs have gotten into the metal itself and are trying to reconfigure the ship’s structure to rebuild its rocky shell. I think that’s how these things build their, um, shells,” Waller mused. “So we need to use the multiple structural integrity generators to address different issues. Use the primary SI to create apparent negative pressure to hold the ship together. You might have to continually fine tune it as conditions develop. Then use one of the secondary systems to create apparent positive within the structural elements themselves to drive those little subspace mushroom bugs out of the metal. Collect them with the transporter and beam them into the healthy tissue identified by John’s children.”

“And the other secondary SI generator?” Hess asked.

“Keep it in standby mode to address emergent issues and plug the leaks until you can get in with a focused program from one of the industrial replicators and conduct emergency repairs,” Waller replied.

“Thank you Master Chief. Hess out.”


Before Bill Waller could stop and think about structural integrity, another call came in, this one with Chief Transporter Engineer Eva Mendez, Chief Medical Technician Kara Garrity and General Krank. Mendez was doing the talking: “Master Chief, can you review the grand plan for us for what we’re doing with Rocky and John’s children?”

Waller took a deep breath. “Okay, draw up a flow chart because this is going to be intense and we have to precisely resolve each part of it. If any part isn’t up to specifications, we could fail, Rhonda’s godchildren could die and we might be left with a bunch of wild mushroom spores that could re-infest the ship and crew, which could be disastrous for us…”

“Okay,” Waller continued. “So here are the steps… First, we design a program that will tie the industrial replicators into the main transporter. The transporter will be set to divide the remaining living tissue into 12 parts as apportioned by Rhonda's godchildren. Each one of the godchildren will need a different amount of the, um… viable living mushroom tissue for their particular environment. At the same time that the mushroom tissue is beamed overboard to twelve separate locations, the industrial replicator will remove all the rocky shell from the interior of the ship and replicate 12 separate, complete shell environments for the living tissue to be installed in.”

“Now here’s the tricky part…” Waller added.

“You mean what you just described wasn’t the tricky part?” asked Chief Garrity.

“Yeah, the first part is just getting the math right,” Waller confirmed. “The art comes in with shaping the external environment that each, um… juvenile lepreshroom will extend above its… um… tabletop? Shape that external environment and install each godchild in each their own environment. The really tricky part will be creating and correctly sizing and positioning the ports through the top of the shell for their legs to comfortably extend through the shell and into the mushroom tissue. Positioning, angle, size all have to be correct or we’re going to cut these god-kids off at the knees and they’ll die before they can take control of their own lepreshroom.”

“And all of this has to happen simultaneously?” Mendez asked.

“That’s why Kara has to be part of the team,” Waller confirmed. “Kara, you have to think long term on each of these projects. We won’t really get much opportunity to adjust the positioning. Each godchild has a different number of legs in a different configuration. They’re going to have to live with this setup for at least a century. We want them to be comfortable, not spending decades and centuries in pain because their legs aren’t comfortably positioned…”


“The final part of this puzzle is the defensive position we are likely to find upon re-entry to the Milky Way Galaxy,” said General Krank. “John’s children may be attacked by the holy landers when we arrive. It isn’t our fight, but the... um... godchildren can make it our fight by trying to reintegrate with the Escort. So we need the separation to be complete shortly after and not before we re-enter the Milky Way. It will be to our advantage to provide them some sort of cover until they can go to warp and escape. After that, they are no longer our problem.”


“I never thought of klingons as such misty-eyed optimists,” Waller opined.

14.13​

 

[BountyTrek]

Caught up again. Was expecting weird, but maybe not this weird.

Still, I guess that's what happens when a Vulcan and a space shrimp love each other very much...

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Caught up again. Was expecting weird, but maybe not this weird.

Still, I guess that's what happens when a Vulcan and a space shrimp love each other very much...

Gets weirder...

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 14: Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down
Scene 14: I Get Down

I get down…

14.14
I Get Down​

“Another ship coming through,” Lieutenant Commander Senek announced. “It is the U.S.S. Escort.”

Captain Skip Howard and Dean Sakura Nakamura Holland both stood up slowly, their eyes widening, expressions tightening with mingled concern and wonder.

On the bridge of the U.S.S. Mako, Commander Jason Bates and Commodore Yui Song got to their feet equally slowly. Both veteran officers drew a slow breath.


“Gods below,” said Bates, quietly, his voice husky, almost a whisper, his head slowly shaking:

“What happened to her?”




The U.S.S. Escort had been the second ship of the Escort class. Its keel had been laid before the keel of its sister ship, the U.S.S. Defiant. The Defiant had become legendary under the command of Captain Benjamin Sisko.

The Escort’s original captain and first officer had not survived the first minutes of the ship’s first battle with the Klingon Empire. It was under the command of the ship’s 2nd Officer and tactical officer, Lieutenant Rhonda Carter, that the ship had attained notoriety. Over the course of the Second Klingon War, Carter had received one field promotion after another, and was ultimately elevated to captain so that Star Fleet could assign battle groups to her command, just in time for the beginning of the Dominion War. Carter's court martial from near the end of the First Cardassian War still hung over her head, but Star Fleet so desperately needed fighters that she had been promoted anyway, despite the written objection of the Star Fleet Judge Advocate General.

In defeat or in victory, the U.S.S. Escort had limped home in horrible condition from one battle or another. The ship had been rebuilt so many times it was difficult to identify any system that had not been overhauled or just completely replaced. But even after the worst battles during the two consecutive wars, Rhonda Carter had brought most of her ship and most of her crew home every time.

None of those battles had left the Escort looking anywhere near as bad as it looked now. Even while traveling at the cusp of Warp 10. Bits of ablative armor and hull plating were falling off, but remained trapped in the warp field and tumbled along with the ship. And the ship had evidently been skewered by a giant thorn made of rock.

A cone of rock protruded below the ship and a broken and crumbling castle of rock jutted up over the bridge. Broken bits of rock were also caught in the warp field and tumbled along with the ship, creating a trapped trail of debris.


Re-entry into the Milky Way Galaxy required the Escort to drop out of warp and engage in station keeping at an exact set of coordinates and wait for the out door from the Jar Galaxy to sweep across the ship at a velocity far higher than any warp engine conceived would be capable of.

From the perspective of the U.S.S. Escort, a tiny Milky Way Galaxy approached at an incredible speed and swelled to full size and the only evidence that the transition was complete was the sudden appearance of the U.S.S. Mako, the U.S.S. Beagle, the U.S.S. Puppy, the U.S.S. Arizona, the U.S.S. Bluebird, and two additional support craft that had never before been deployed during the mission of the Beagle Task Force.


From the perspectives of the Beagle Task force, the broken and skewered U.S.S. Escort gradually emerged from nowhere, accompanied by tumbling bits of rock and hull plating.


Then the pieces of rock protruding from the ship’s hull and the bits of rock that had been tumbling along with the ship were energized by a combined transporter and replicator program, removing all of the rock only to be replaced by a number of small thorns of rock, each with what appeared to be some sort of creature atop it.


Only seconds after the combined transporter/replication program was complete, the port side nacelle broke away from the ship, spilling 5 crew members out of the ship and leaving them drifting in the vacuum of space…

Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down

___________________________________________________________​

This is the final scene for Episode 14.

The adventure continues in Episode 15 - Close to the Edge Part IV - Seasons of Man, to be posted in this thread.

 

[BountyTrek]

Gets weirder...

I wouldn't want it any other way

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures Episode 15: Close to the Edge Part IV - Seasons of Man
The Star Beagle Adventures is designed to be enjoyed wherever you pick up the story.

But if you want to catch up with the story from the beginning, use the following link:

The Star Beagle Adventures on Ad Astra
The following episodes will be posted to this thread:
Episode 12: Close to the Edge Part I - The Solid Time of Change
Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain
Episode 14: Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down
Episode 15: Close to the Edge Part IV - Seasons of Man
Episode 16: And You And I Part I - Cord of Life
Episode 17: And You And I Part II - Eclipse
Episode 18: And You And I Part III - The Preacher and the Teacher
Episode 19: And You And I Part IV – Apocalypse


Star Beagle Adventures Episode 14: Close to the Edge Part IV - Seasons of Man

Throughout this episode, snippets of lyrics are quoted. These are from the fourth movement of the song, “Close to the Edge part IV - Seasons of Man“ by Jon Anderson and Steve Howe. The song first appeared as track 1 on Close to the Edge, the fifth album by the progressive rock band, YES, 1972, Atlantic Records.

YES fans generally consider the 18-minute, 4-movement masterpiece, Close to the Edge, to be not only the band's crowning achievement, but simply the most transcendent audio experience ever recorded.

Do not let your life pass by without devoting 18 minutes strictly to listening to this piece of music.

Enlightenment awaits.

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 15: Close to the Edge Part IV - Seasons of Man
Scene 1: The Time Between


The time between the notes relates the color to the scenes…

15.1
The Time Between​

“U.S.S. Mako, this is the U.S.S. Escort, Rhonda Carter commanding. Please do not approach. Please maintain a peaceful stance toward the lifeforms that have been transported off our port and starboard stern.”


Captain Rhonda Carter was seated on the command throne of the U.S.S. Escort, wearing an EVA suit with her helmet on a tether. Two other persons could also be seen on the bridge, also wearing EVA suits with helmets attached by tether. The fact that the helmets were floating indicated that the artificial gravity was, at the moment, off.

Commodore Yui Song was clearly stunned at the evident deterioration of the toughest ship in the task force. “Rhonda, you are aware that you currently have at least 5 crew members drifting outside of your ship?”

“They have a job to do, so they won’t be drifting for long,” Carter rejoined. “As you can see, Escort is coming apart at the seams. Which is why the entire crew is wearing EVA suits. Even those in sections of the ship that weren’t torn up by our passenger. Are there any of those holy landers in the area?”

“One of them came out of the rift just before you,” Commodore Yui advised. “But they took off for the in door and long range telemetry indicates they are still headed that way at about warp 7, which seems to be their top speed.”

“That is good news for us,” Carter opined. “I assume Skip is watching, because he’s going to like this part, as a biologist…”

The commodore signaled to someone behind her and Captain Skip Howard was brought into the conversation via split-screens.


“Okay, that motley collection of creatures riding on those landthorns are, actually, the children of one of our now-deceased crew members, Ensign John Sevork. In addition to being part human and part vulcan, they are, apparently, part mushroom and part some other creature from some galaxy billions of light years away that we can no longer see the light from.”

“And they’re anchored in mushrooms that are encased in shells of rock,” Captain Howard observed.

“Those are the remnants of a much larger creature…” Carter started. “But that’s a long story for another time. For right now, those rockthorn mushroom things don’t get along well with the holy landers. And they’re capable of hurting them. They’re also capable of hurting us. We want to keep that from happening, we need to get these kids to somewhere they can hide. Some place with an asteroid field.”

“There’s a trinary system about 18 light years from here, but we would be going toward a swarm of holy landers,” Commodore Yui offered.

The image of the U.S.S. Beagle’s bridge was replaced with star charts on the split-screens of the Escort and the Mako. “According to the star charts we got from the silicone life forms back about 8 months ago,” came Howard’s voice. Most of the star chart lit up with additional highlighting. “That appears to be the Jar Galaxy. We were wondering why the star charts the serrati gave us showed so many more stars than we could see. Two groups of them. One of them was the QLock we narrowly escaped a few months ago. The other one appears to be the Jar Galaxy…”

Carter pressed a few controls on the arm of her chair and a single system on the edge of the Milky Way was highlighted. “How about this one? 31 light years from here, no holy landers in the area…”

“How are we going to get those strange mushroom children there?” Yui asked.

“They come warp capable,” Skip Howard suggested. “Biologically generated warp fields?”

“The fastest we've observed creatures of their size is about warp 4,” Carter confirmed. "The big one topped warp 6."


“Rhonda, we’re going to have to tow you… can your ship even stand up to being towed?” Yui Song asked.


“Two backup structural integrity field generators say it can,” Carter replied. “And we're in process of re-rigging the artificial gravity generator to temporarily serve as an additional structural integrity generator. Apparently they work on very similar principles. I could use some fresh engineers to help hold Escort together and my people need a safe place to sleep for a few dozen hours.”

15.1​

 

[Will The Serious]

Messy, very messy. Lots of threads to untangle, but it is fun pulling on the threads to watch the knots release or slip tighter. "Wierd" is a good word for it, but... incomplete. Spooky Action, and Complexity Theory, along with Dark Energy, all coming together to create a story of Singularity.

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

"Wierd" is a good word for it, but... incomplete.

Rhonda's godchildren will become important characters in this story... The children of Ensign John Sevork... Sevorklings...

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 15: Close to the Edge Part IV - Seasons of Man
Scene 2: Vogue of Triumphs


A constant vogue of triumphs dislocate man, so it seems…

15.2
Vogue of Triumphs​

“I haven’t decided what to do about this mess. Suffice that you have both significantly damaged our operation out here. You have both really bungled critical first contact situations, in both cases involving life forms that have proven to be exceptionally adaptive, having adapted to life in multiple galaxies. Do I have to remind you that this is exactly why we are out here? To make sure that first contact with powerful alien cultures is not mishandled so we don’t get into something like the Dominion War again.”


Commodore Yui Song was coldly furious. Her tone was calm, but her icy glare would have withered even the emotionless former premiere of the Vulcan Science Academy, T’Eln. Captains Skip Howard and Rhonda Carter were withered. It felt as though the ambient temperature in the commodore’s ready room were in free-fall.

“For now, I want complete, written reports. Captain Howard, that means a written report from everyone who was on that giant space station with you, from your shuttle pilot, from the transporter operator who beamed you off that space station…” Yui Song’s expression managed to become even colder. “And I want a written report from every officer on the bridge at the time you ordered yourself and your party to be transported back to the U.S.S. Beagle in full view of a powerful, valuable, but technologically less advanced species… One that could have become a very valuable ally in this region of space.”

Rhonda Carter stole a sideways glance at her fellow captain. She had known Skip Howard for more than a year now. She had grown fond of the odd young man who seemed genetically incapable of not smiling. He wasn’t smiling now.


“Captain Carter,” Commodore Yui continued in a voice that would make the near absolute zero of outer space seem warm by comparison. “You fled a situation that could potentially be threatening to the Federation without adequate investigation, endangered your crew and severely damaged your ship by inadequately investigating a potentially dangerous situation before barging in, you used the transporter as a weapon against a sentient life form, and following that, you apparently summoned a powerful telepathic entity and then fired on that entity before it had proven to be hostile. Killing one of your crew members in the process and leading to the deaths of six more. Ah!!” Yui held up her hand as Carter opened her mouth to interrupt.

“You will have your chance later,” Yui continued. “This is just an executive overview of what is going to happen over the course of this investigation.”

Commodore Yui sat down behind her desk. Carter and Howard remained standing as they had not been invited to sit. “I am going to make some changes, effective immediately. These are long overdue administrative changes and are not, in themselves, intended as punishment for the current disciplinary situation. Although I do hope they will help forestall similar situations from developing in the near future.”

“Captain Carter, your promotion to captain was a battlefield promotion. But you never completed the Star Fleet captain’s course and testing. That was an acceptable situation for wartime, but we are no longer at war. Effective immediately, you are reduced in rank to the rank of commander until you pass your captain’s exams. Commander Jason Bates will present the course work and I will administer the exam.”


The commodore held out her left hand. Rhonda Carter set her jaw, her skin starting to turn a little pink, but otherwise tried to maintain a stoic expression as she removed the fourth pip from her collar and dropped it into Yui’s hand.


Yui Song turned her attention to Skip Howard. “Captain Howard, you aced your score on every promotional exam, achieving the highest average score for any captain currently serving in Star Fleet. You are a very smart man. And like so many smart men, you are unbelievably arrogant. You hide it well, but you only attended enough of the course work for your captain’s exam to avoid getting kicked out.”

The commodore rapped her knuckles on her desk. “You will audit Commander Bates’ courses and the commander will set daily tests to assure you are paying attention. Jason knows how to make a test that does more than test your ability to take a test. Your attendance and scores will be perfect or I will have that fourth pip on your collar as well. Am I understood?”

Carter and Howard responded in unison: “Aye Commodore!”


“Captain Howard, I don’t need reports from your crew to have noticed that something has been distracting you recently. I don’t care what it is. Deal with it, get your head out of your ass and into the game. You need more than intellect and instinct to function as a captain, especially out here so far from the Federation. You need discipline. To that end, I am placing Commander Carter and the U.S.S. Escort under your general command. Commander Carter will retain command of the Escort, but it will be your responsibility to put that ship back together.”

“Furthermore, I am temporarily moving Commander Holland to the Escort to serve as Commander Carter’s first officer. Make sure that strange luchadore understands that any order from Commander Carter is an order from you. I am also reassigning General Krank to the Mako to facilitate his role as military advisor.”

“While I have Commander Bates detailed to your mutual re-education, I will need someone to stand in as my executive officer. I am reassigning Lieutenant Commander Zizara Gross from the Escort to the Mako for that purpose. I am also reassigning Lieutenant Commander Senek from the Beagle to the Mako to serve as my science officer and 2nd officer. Lieutenant Commander Gregg Clark will transfer to the Beagle to serve as your first officer and science officer.”

Yui Song thumped her desk again, fixing an icy glare on Captain Howard. “I don’t know what your problem with Gregg is, Ronald, but you need to get over it. I do not like the tone you’ve taken when speaking to him and I am not the only person who has noticed.”

“Finally, we have gotten a little too familiar and lax in our observance of the ranks. Effective immediately, we will be observing the ranks in all communication and during duty hours. I expect each of you to enforce this within your commands. Am I understood, Captain Howard? Commander Carter?”

“Aye Commodore!”

“Dismissed.”


It was only after Carter and Howard were alone in the turbo lift that Skip Howard broke the uncomfortable silence between them:


“Let’s find somewhere where we can talk in private…”

15.2​

 

[Will The Serious]

Just a little shake-up, things will get back to abnormal quickly enough, I'm sure.

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Just a little shake-up, things will get back to abnormal quickly enough, I'm sure.

-Will

I am experiencing a serious bout of writer's block. I've written the first part of Episode 22 - The Remembering: High the Memory. I'm at 22.3 and I'm just honked.

I haven't run out of ideas, just feeling quite demoralized and not like writing. But I just had a cloudburst of new ideas, so hopefully I'll be able to break out of it and get some writing done.

I very much appreciate the readership. Exchanging these stories helps with the depression. A lot.

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 15: Close to the Edge Part IV - Seasons of Man
Scene 3: Focus Shape Ascend


And space between the focus shape ascend knowledge of love…

15.3
Focus Shape Ascend​

The U.S.S. Escort was being towed behind the U.S.S. Beagle. Or at least most of it was. The U.S.S. Arizona had been dispatched to pick up a few dozen pieces of ablative armor that had sloughed off and were drifting in open space.

Shadow, having been trained, among other things, as a nasqua, turned out to be quite useful in corralling these pieces into the small cargo ship’s surprisingly spacious bay and, more importantly, arranging them so that nearly all of the debris was stored in an interlinked web within the Arizona’s cargo bay.


“Okay, now I understand why there’s a separate gravity generation system back here.” Lieutenant Camille Salgado was the director of engineering for the U.S.S. Mako. She had asked Pel’s advice about optimal loading for the U.S.S. Arizona in part because the small freighter, although leased to Star Fleet, was titularly Pel’s property.

Pel had, in turn suggested consulting Shadow’s least developed personality, Spun Verz Nasqua. The three of them were in Arizona’s flight cabin along with U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Petra Spitze. Because the task force was restricted to warp 3.5, Arizona was traveling under its own power, as were the U.S.S. Bluebird and the U.S.S. Puppy.


“For very large loads, cargo loading is far safer and more efficient in a zero gravity environment,” Shadow/Verz observed.

“But this is actually the first time you have loaded a zero-g cargo bay?” Lt. Salgado was a small, dark, round Columbian woman. She had entered Star Fleet through a reserve officer program at the Universidad de Chile while completing a master's degree in warp field theory in what was now considered one of the highest rated warp field programs in the Federation, second only to the Daystrom Institute itself.

“Deep personality mapping,” Shadow responded. “Drugs, hypnosis, hours of direct memory stimulation fueled by memories collected directly from kidnapped and drugged subjects… It’s a very painful and dangerous procedure for them. As it was for me. They created 17 of us. I was the only one who survived the entire development program. For me, when channeling Spun Verz, it felt like I had been webbing zero-g cargo all my life.”

“I suppose we’re quite fortunate that there was a EVA suit for your species in that escape pod,” Pel observed.

“That was not a matter of luck,” Shadow rejoined. “I brought it with me from the shuttle when the anointed commandeered our crew and supplies.”

“Do you mind if I touch your fur?” Spike asked.

Shadow looked at the marine and thought for a few moments before responding. She got up and walked over toward Spike. “You may.”

Spike moved very slowly and deliberately, paying attention to Shadow’s reactions. She very gently ran her fingers through the fur on Shadow’s arm. “It’s heavier and more bristly than it looks,” she observed. “Such a beautiful color. Very few living things on my homeworld produce a purple color like that.”

Shadow relaxed slightly as Spike withdrew her hand. She had been very wary of a creature she recognized as a skilled and capable killer. Somehow, the physical contact made Spike seem less threatening.

“My people are very conscious of color,” said Shadow. “I’m not even sure I should call them “my people.” I was genetically engineered to have the perfect color and a lot of other unusual attributes. I was made and trained for a single purpose: To expose the anointed.”




Jephan and Key were riding their landthorns just in front of the Arizona, Jephan just off the port bow and Key just off the starboard bow. With the exception of John, Jr., John Sevork’s children shied away from the larger vessels and seemed more comfortable clustered around the Puppy, the Arizona and the Bluebird.


“They’re so different from one another,” Salgado mused.

Key was shaped like a long ribbon that tapered down to a single leg. She used her body to create the image of a human head by wrapping her ribbon-like body around as if it were wrapped around a head. This image rippled continuously, left gaps between each wind, giving the appearance of a spring in the shape of a female face. A female version of John Sevork.

Jephan was a bizarre mashup of his father and mother. His right side was vulcan in appearance and had one leg and one arm. His left side had three legs and the left side of his head was paddle-shaped and sported four snake-like, prehensile whiskers.

“Genetically engineered,” Shadow observed.

“How do you figure?” Pel asked. “From what I was told their mother and father were killed shortly after he, um, contributed his part.”

“The program wasn’t complete,” Shadow replied. “But they all survived. The diversity goes well beyond appearance. They’re experiments. The variety is to give the coalition the best chance to survive in a new galaxy.”

“And we’re assisting this new life-form in invading and adapting to the Milky Way Galaxy,” said Lt. Salgado.

“Because they are children of a colleague of yours,” Shadow observed. “This was part of their mother’s plan, to bind you to her children. I suspect she even engineered her death and the death of the father to create a stronger bond. So they have family in this galaxy that will look after them. I've heard people say Captain Carter is their godmother - I assume that means an adoptive parent. The anointed do something similar with their songs. They create a dependence among native people to help them survive in a new galaxy.”

“You should tell that to Commodore Yui,” said Pel. “It might be very helpful for Captain Carter. There will be an investigation around why she fired on the parents of these, um… her godchildren.”

15.3​

 

[Will The Serious]

Pel had, in turn suggested consulting Shadow’s least developed personality, Spun Verz Nasqua.

This is quite the concept. What if there was a species for whom it was normal to have multiple personalities. Say, for every physical citizen, there were 3 to 10 personalities. Maybe a society that can recognize female or male persons "trapped" in the physical bodies of their opposite, they could also recognize multiple individuals occupying a single physical form. Each personality could have full citizenship status, and each would be independently responsible for their contribution to society. Of course, that also assumes a society can know who all the personalities are and hold them to their social contracts.

This could make for a very interesting legal/morale story about not wanting to punish the innocent personalities for something one independent personality was responsible for. If there was a way to know when one personality or another was in charge of the body, there might be some sort of sci-fi device that could allow freedom until the quilty personality manifested.

I can picture a possible division of personalities into factions within the one mind. Maybe one commits the crime while another uses his/her freedom to aid in escape from punishment. The others, objecting to their co-occupants of their one mind, might fight to thwart the criminal plot.

Might there be a technological development that allowed for personality transfers from one mind to another? Might such a device be a temptation to abuse, trapping opponents into bodies that were institutionalized, and therefore, out of the way?

Diabolical is the word that comes to mind. I'll ask my other self what I think .

I am experiencing a serious bout of writer's block.

When I feel writer's block, it, like you said, is not for lack of ideas, but I go through cycles of enthusiasm. Sometimes, I'm just overwhelmed by all the others things that need to be done in life, sometimes I just don't wanna. It can often help just to start writing something, and I find my enthusiasm returning as the story begins to captivate me again. I just want to know what comes next.

-Will