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

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 18: And You And I Part III – The Preacher and the Teacher
Scene 5: In the Sight


All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you ...

18.5
In the Sight​

“We have to rescue her!”


2nd Lieutenant Susan Gard had been desperately trying to establish communication with the inert holy lander destroyer only a few yards away from her voluntarily inert interceptor. They had resolutely ignored her hails and were doing their best to pretend to be nothing more than a field of debris, the supposed scant remains of a fabricated warp core breach. Gard had finally resorted to knocking on their front door.


Literally.


The young Star Fleet fighter pilot had exited her craft with a spanner, the largest, heaviest tool she had in her light interceptor, and banged on the destroyer's sensor array until a holy lander, surprisingly needing no Extra Vehicular Activity suit beyond an atmosphere tank and a mask that covered the creature’s face, emerged from a nearby airlock and ushered her into the craft.

The holy lander grasped the handle on the back of Gard’s EVA suit with one hand, while using its other two hands to seal the airlock. And Gard took the opportunity to use the quick release on her EVA suit, kicked herself free and raced to the fighting ship’s bridge, leaving the oddly ant-like alien struggling with the airlock and an empty EVA suit. Gard had, like all the pilots and security personnel in the task force, carefully studied the analysis of the wrecked holy lander destroyer that Captain Howard’s expedition had investigated months earlier on the south side of Mount Torlochtor, which included a detailed layout of the ship as well as instructions on how to activate the doors.


The holy lander from whom she had escaped started singing almost immediately. Gard’s only clue that the creature was attempting to use low frequencies to override her conscious volition was a silent notice from her communicator. The default setting for the communicator immediately counteracted those frequencies with frequencies of its own. Gard almost instinctively removed the pin from her uniform and pinned it to the inside of her undergarment.

Which left the befuddled ship commander arguing with an indignant, passionate Star Fleet officer much smaller than him, but whom he could not control. This was quite unsettling to the creature, causing his three antennae to vibrate uncontrollably. He was having difficulty responding. Only two of his three eyes had eyelids – these were starting to blink uncontrollably.

“According to the rules of honor, as a wounded enemy left on the field of honorable combat, your pilot can only be rescued by your forces at risk of honor damage to ship and crew…”

“No they do not!!!” Gard interrupted. “Captain sh’Zhiathis was hit by an honor shot intended to represent your weapons at full power. According to YOUR rules of honor, she has been vaporized and is therefore not recoverable by honor combatants.”

“Even if that is so, we have removed our ships from the field of honor and cannot move from this position,” the ship commander retorted.

“You can move under a white flag. Your queen has already recognized and honored the white flag signal for one of our vessels as a non-combatant on a rescue mission.” Gard thrust a tricorder into the commander’s middle hand. “That is the signal. Broadcast it and move this ship in to save the life of Captain sh’Zhiathis, or by all that you consider holy I will have this farce of a battle nullified as of this moment for your failure to follow your own rules of honorable combat!”


“I am following…”


“NO YOU ARE NOT!!!” The young Star Fleet pilot emphasized her words with an outraged and very accusatory index finger. “Every second sh’Zhiathis is out there, she presents a requirement to render aid to our ships, who may then be attacked on a mission of mercy that is caused entirely by your refusal to mount a rescue! If one of our ships is damaged on the field of honor because of your negligence, I will make it my life’s mission to have you identified as the violator of your own rules of honor! I don’t know what your queen will do to you, but I can guarantee that you do not want to make an implacable enemy of the Federation and draw us in to actual combat without the protection of your... rules of honor.” Gard spat these last words out with evident contempt.

“Even if we get to her ship, we don’t know how to…” the alien commander started, only to be interrupted by a creature he was now thoroughly frightened by. The combination of her evident rage, clear fighting ability and, more importantly, the fact that the efforts of now five singers to control her were failing to have any impact on her behavior, was causing the superstitious creature to wonder just what variety of minuscule, enraged, brown-eyed god might have gotten onto his bridge.

“Get me close and I will rescue her!” 2nd Lt. Gard’s chocolate brown eyes smoldered. “NOW!!”

18.5​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 18: And You And I Part III – The Preacher and the Teacher
Scene 6: All Expression Laid


Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid ...

18.6
All Expression Laid​

One of the holy lander destroyers hit the U.S.S. Beagle directly amidships and a great gaping hole appeared in the antique vulcan ship…


The U.S.S. Mako was embroiled in its own complicated dance. For a large ship, much larger than the holy lander destroyers, the Intrepid class ship was remarkably nimble, able to dart about and evade the holy lander destroyers while maintaining much higher rates of fire.

The value of the phaser strips had immediately become evident, allowing the Mako, even in the midst of wild maneuvers, to keep a steady bead on each target until both the Mako’s sensors and the holy lander sensors registered a kill. It had taken only two kills for the holy lander crews and the Star Fleet crews to verify and synchronize their readings. The difference between those readings had started as a 0.4 second difference. Without any negotiations, both crews compromised, the holy landers reducing the time to register a kill by 0.2 seconds.

Commodore Yui Song was not holding photon torpedoes in reserve. Like the phasers, the yield of the torpedoes had been reduced to 1.34% of their normal yield.


The Mako’s bridge crew – along with the rest of the crew – was as absorbed by their own fight as they would have been if all the ships had been firing weapons at full power. None of the control panels or EPS conduits were actually exploding, but some went dark and the crew in proximity announced their injury. Medical staff raced throughout the ship, intent on providing first aid and lifesaving procedures to people who were not actually injured.

This included the Command Information Center, from which two crew members had already been removed by medical staff and four stations had gone dark. That did not distract Commodore Yui Song from noticing what happened to the U.S.S. Beagle. She caught her breath and gasped in alarm as an enormous, gaping hole appeared in the middle of the ship. Next to her, the Beagle’s captain, Ronald Howard, XIV, giggled merrily.

The weakened particle beam passed harmlessly through the hole in the Beagle while the ancient vulcan ship unleashed a withering volley of entirely harmless light. And torpedoes whose explosions would barely affect their adversaries’ navigational screens, much less battle shields.

And the holy lander destroyers could not hit the antique vulcan cruiser. Every shot would pass harmlessly through some impossible, gaping hole. While the Mako was far more maneuverable than the holy lander destroyers, it was nothing compared to the unbelievably nimble Beagle.

Because the holy lander destroyer guns were fixed, the Mako was able to minimize contact with any of the beams from these particle weapons. Which was critical because both ships were being swarmed.

A few of the holy lander destroyers re-tasked from attacking the Mako to instead target the Beagle. In one brilliant moment, holy lander destroyers on opposite sides of the Beagle hit each other as their beams passed harmlessly through impossible holes in the Beagle.


In the Mako’s CIC, Captain Skip Howard whispered to his commanding officer, “Sakura is cheating. And it’s brilliant!”

“I had no idea the Beagle could do that!” Yui responded.

“It can’t,” Howard observed. “That’s not the Beagle.”

Dawning astonishment and understanding widened Yui Song’s eyes. “That’s a hologram???”

“Yes. And Sakura is doing what we would normally do in battle, but the holo-transporter does not have sufficient power for active phasers and photon torpedoes.” Skip Howard chuckled again.

“Then how is she shooting those destroyers? Their kill rate is better than ours!”

Howard tapped the small workstation in front of him with a highly polished, black fingernail. “The DTG in holotransporter mode does not have sufficient power for weapons at full power. But Sakura doesn’t need to give them full power. She can simulate weapons at 1.34% yield. And that’s cheating.”

“That is extremely dangerous!" Yui Song wasn’t shouting. She was whispering intently, almost hissing. "The holy landers could take that as desecration of their field of honor!”

“They won’t,” Howard rejoined. “We would destroy the Beagle before allowing…”


“I am hit.” Lieutenant Commander Senek calmly announced.


Commodore Yui Song had been looking at Captain Howard. She saw a momentary look of horror and heartsickness on the face of her subordinate. Howard covered it quickly, but she had not seen that expression when other crew members had been identified by the Mako’s computer as battle victims. For a brief moment, all the life went out of the young captain’s eyes. Then the momentary flash of hopelessness was followed by a flash of rage before Howard regained control of himself. The emotions played across his face at tremendous speed, less than a second, almost so fast that Commodore Yui wasn’t at first certain of what she had seen. But Howard had also briefly overcorrected, his expressive features becoming almost a vulcan mask of calm before returning to normal, cementing the moment in Yui’s mind.

She filed it away for later. Even with the Beagle’s miracles, the Mako was rapidly coming to the end of its ability to withstand the imaginary damage it was taking.


The U.S.S. Arizona, despite its upgrades, had originally been constructed as a small freighter by the technologically backward oeast in the Oulheadry and was too sluggish to avoid the first shot - it had been the first ship to go down in the battle. The U.S.S. Bluebird and the U.S.S. Puppy together had managed to take out one holy lander destroyer, only to both fall prey to a second.

Captain Rhonda Carter had managed to take out nine of the holy landers before the tough, nimble, but relatively weak tactical launch was pasted by the main cannon of another holy lander destroyer. Despite its enhanced shielding, this small part of the U.S.S. Escort, the only part of her ship that could now fly, could not withstand a single hit. Her tactical launch now drifted, inert, along with well over half of the holy lander fleet.


And the simulation of the U.S.S. Beagle suddenly vanished. The actual ship emerged from the field of artificial asteroids that had been constructed from the planet’s orbital debris, two holy lander destroyers in hot pursuit. Both destroyers were quickly incapacitated by utterly harmless beams of light and harmlessly exploding photon torpedoes coming from Fortress Escort.

“They figured it out,” Howard observed, then, quietly: “Damn.” The Beagle had attempted to flee the system, but the holy lander destroyers were too quick and virtually disabled the vulcan-built warp drive. There were now only six destroyers left active on the field of honor, but the Mako, already registering crippling damage, had no chance against them.


They were now just fighting to the bitter end. Theoretically.


“How close is Captain Phlox?” Captain Howard asked.

“Not close enough,” Yui responded.


On the bridge of the U.S.S. Mako, Commander Jason Bates gave the order that had long been planned for this moment in the battle:


"Take us in to Fortress Escort."

18.6​

 

[BountyTrek]

The most intense game of laser tag ever played. Love it.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 18: And You And I Part III – The Preacher and the Teacher
Scene 7: A Moment Regained


A moment regained and regarded both the same ...

18.7
A Moment Regained​

“How soon?”

“Not soon enough.”


Captain Phillip Phlox was in the engine room. At the moment this was the most important part of the gargantuan and recently refurbished Galaxy class U.S.S. Citadel. More important than the bridge at this point. Which was why both the ship’s newly assigned captain and its long-serving first officer were in engineering.

Along with a nervous looking and sounding chief engineer and an even more dicy looking and sounding engine. Both engine and its yridian engineer were showing dangerous signs of redlining. Dangerously.

Of course, to humans, yridians looked nervous and kind of seedy under the best of circumstances. Commander Leklek Lek had graduated with high honors from Star Fleet Academy and overcome tremendous suspicion and prejudice. He was one of only 6 yridians serving in Star Fleet and had earned the respect of his entire department. At this moment, even in his spotless engineering uniform, he looked pitiful.

Captain Phlox, as a hybrid human and denobulan, had encountered a surprising amount of prejudice himself, from species who were generally thought of as tolerant toward hybrids. He knew that he had to be looking at one of the most dedicated engineers in the fleet. Leklek Lek had to be at least 10% better than anyone else just to be standing here wearing three solid pips on his collar.


“Commander Lek, what would happen if you open that engine all the way? Can we make warp 9.999?”

The yiridian engineer managed to look even more miserable “For about 2 hours, maybe, under the best of conditions. Then it would overheat and explode. In its current state, no more than 20 minutes, if that. I can’t even guarantee we can keep it moving at its current velocity and still get there with enough of an engine to provide shields, much less weapons.”

“Damn it!” Phlox cursed quietly. “If we were there right now, we could clean their chronometers. I thought this upgraded Galaxy class carried the most powerful warp engine ever seen in the Alpha Quadrant.”

“Three of them,” observed Commander Alicia Wyr, a tall, slender young woman of Scandinavian descent with a short shock of snow-white hair, snow-white eyebrows, pink eyes and extremely pale skin.


Phlox whirled on his albino first officer. “Three of them?”


“All star fleet ships carry two back up warp engines. One fully assembled and enough pieces to construct another…”

Phlox started rapidly snapping the fingers of both hands. He turned on the miserable looking yiridian, stepping toward him and towering over him. “How long would it take you to prepare the 2nd engine to replace this one?”

“It’s set up ready to replace now,” Commander Lek replied. “We would have to jettison the primary engine first, then jettison the backup engine from its current mount, and draw it back up through the primary hatch into the active mount.”

“How long from stop to go for the entire procedure?” Phlox asked. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets to avoid snapping his fingers.

Lek looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. The nervous, jerky movements, native to his species, made him look, to human eyes, extremely shifty. For yiridians, this movement simply indicated excitement or agitation. “Um… 10 minutes to eject, draw back up and install and another 10 for diagnostics…”

“Do we have to run full diagnostics? Can you save me any time on that?” Phlox asked.

The terrified chief engineer was wringing his hands. “If we don’t want to explode… I suppose the primary diagnostics could be done in 2 minutes and we could do the rest in transit…”


“As of this moment, Commander Lek, you are flying this ship.” Phlox took a half step back and landed a large hand on the chief engineer’s shoulders, then gestured to the complaining, overheating engine. “Run this engine into the ground and be a little conservative about when to jettison it. We’re going to have to get some distance from it before it blows…”

“There is a small, emergency nacelle attached to the engine,” Lek interjected. “The moment it is ejected, the nacelle will activate and take the engine away from us at warp.”

“Why didn’t I know any of this stuff?” Phlox asked. “I’ve been aboard more than 40 days and it’s like I just stepped on board.”

“You have been getting to know the crew, sir,” Commander Wyr observed.

“Evidently, I should have spent more time getting to know the technology. I’m 100 years out of date. In my day ships were helpless if they jettisoned their warp core.” Phlox took another step back, aware that his considerable height was making the already nervous yiridian chief engineer even more nervous. He fought the instinct to ball his fists. “Mr. Lek. Run this engine until it’s ready to blow. Don’t ask permission. Don’t wait for any orders. The moment you think that engine is about to go, jettison it and send it on its way.”

“And once the 2nd engine is installed?” Lek asked.

Phlox’s voice and expression were both hard. “Redline it. Give me everything it has and start building the third engine. We may be a little late to the party, but we’re going to get there. And when we do, we’re going to clean their chronometers.”

Phlox’s resolve was infectious. Commander Leklek Lek seemed calmer and more resolved than was usual for a yiridian. His voice carried the sound of a man re-energized: “Aye Captain!” He turned and started barking orders at his engineers.


Captain Phlox turned to see his albino first officer on her knees, her hands raised above her head.

“Commander?”

Commander Alicia Wyr performed a full genuflection, then came back up to her knees, hands raised, head slowly shaking, her voice rich and low: “I am not worthy…”

Phlox burst into laughter, laughing so hard that tears came out of his eyes. He stepped forward and reached down a hand to his first officer. “On your feet, Commander Wyr,” he said, still laughing. “We’ve got work to do.”

She took his hand with both of hers and let him pull her to her feet.


“Aye, Captain!”


“Take me to this 2nd engine,” Phlox replied. He gestured toward the corridor outside. “After you.”

The half-denobulan captain, still chuckling quietly, followed his albino first officer out of engineering.

18.7​

 

[Will The Serious]

I hope captain Phlox knows about the 1.34% yield rule. Otherwise, "Oops, sorry, I didn't realize. I thought it was odd that none of the damage registered on sensors."

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 18: And You And I Part III – The Preacher and the Teacher
Scene 8: Emotion Revealed


Emotion revealed as the ocean maid ...

18.8
Emotion Revealed​

Governor T’Eln’s return to Rattleroot Island on Al Salamais A 4 was a rather frightening and unexpected affair.


Most of the colonists, consisting of a small unit of United States Marines, a large number of tellarite biologists and a smattering of other scientists, including both the denobulan and human planetologists, Cetris Rye and Phillip Gorman, the trill oceanographer, Akri Dexx, two human archaeologists, Fish Head and Arizona Kind, the vulcan astrophysicist, Falok, and the very human theoretical engineer, Gan Baatar, were gathered under the large rock pavilion, watching a number of viewscreens depicting different views of the mock battle in orbit of ASA 4.

Even though none of the ships, aside from Captain sh’Zhiathis’ wrecked interceptor, were actually damaged, the colonists were watching this battle intently, well aware that their futures and the future of the Beagle Task Force, were hanging in the balance, awaiting the outcome of this simulated combat.

“They don’t want to make an enemy of the Federation,” Lance Corporal Petra Spitze was quietly explaining to the denobulan planetologist, who was sitting next to her. “And the last thing the Federation needs is to make an implacable enemy of a powerful, intergalactic species that could probably swarm us with untold numbers…”


The tiny, pink-skinned tellarite, Norkaond Vef, was the first to notice that the colonists had been joined by a gigantic, rubbery-looking squid-like animal, its 12 tentacles folded back along its body, resting on four of them, complete with four giant red eyes evenly spaced around a mouth that looked like an enormous sphincter made out of beaks.


Vef cleared her throat nervously, then said, “He’s back…”


The colonists turned to see that the huge creature, easily twice the size of a bull elephant, had silently joined them and was only a few feet ouside of the pavilion. Was taller than the pavilion, despite its horizontal orientation. The colonists quickly rose from their seats

“Weapons down,” Spike ordered, quietly. “Nobody, and I mean nobody is to point anything that even looks like a weapon at him.” Her own phaser carbine remained clipped to her jacket, her right hand resting on the top of the weapon, its business end pointed at the pavilion’s stone floor.

It was the tall, sultry, gorgeous trill oceanographer, Akri Dexx, who stepped forward to challenge the huge creature:


“What do you want? And where is Governor T’Eln?”


In response, the cthulhuoid opened its gigantic, sphincter-like mouth and started to retch.

Dexx stepped back reflexively.

The ancient vulcan was ejected from the creature’s gullet. While she came out at some speed, the creature caught her with several of its tentacles, and, with surpising dexterity and gentleness, deposited the slimy, ancient vulcan on her feet in front of the astonished, frightened, and now thoroughly disgusted colonists.

“I am unharmed,” the former premiere of the Vulcan Science Academy announced. “And we have a new colonist and a new friend.” She gestured to the enormous creature behind her. “SkipRock has been exiled to this island and also charged with studying and protecting us. He is unable to speak and can only, at this time, effectively communicate with those of us who have some telepathic ability. He can hear and in time, we will teach him our languages and develop a gestural language for him so that he can communicate with all of us. Ah, thank you, Falok,” she added as the young vulcan provided her a wet rag.

Governor T’Eln paused to carefully wipe slime off of her ancient, lined face and hands.

“It appears I will require a change of clothing,” she observed, dryly. She looked up again at the colonists. “There are 22 females among our colony of, now, 41 conscious beings. Skip has made me aware that all of us have been unusually sexually active. While this is a normal reaction of colonists when establishing a new settlement, it appears that Skip, at the behest of his community, has been using his considerable telepathic and telekinetic powers to alter our hormonal responses toward far greater than normal sexual adventurousness. Including me.”

The emotionless vulcan took a moment to notice the surprise registering on the faces of all but one of her fellow colonists. Many turned to look at Falok, but he was registering sufficient mild surprise to make it clear this was news to him as well. Governor T'Eln took a deep breath. "It seemed entirely logical to me at the time, but, in retrospect, I find myself as astonished by that detail as you are."

“While I have long passed beyond my fertile years, I am informed that the remainder of our female colonists are all now pregnant. Many of you have had several different partners during our brief residence on this island. Skip has enhanced your fertility and invalidated any prophylactic you might have relied upon. Skip has chosen which mate is the father of your child, with a preference toward interspecies fertilization. If you have had sexual relations with a member of a species other than your own, that is most likely the father of your unborn child.” The ancient vulcan looked about again at her astonished audience. “This is the requirement of Skip’s fellow cthulhuoids for our continued survival. We will remain on this island. We will give birth to a generation of hybrids. Each of whom, I am now given to understand, will have sufficient telepathy to communicate with Skip, our new protector and benefactor.”


Lance Corporal Petra Spitze was the first to speak up. “Governor, why did you name him Skip?”


“SkipRock,” T’Eln elaborated. “One of the godchildren of Captain Rhonda Carter, who goes by the name Rock, used her powerful telepathy to graft part of Captain Skip Howard’s personality into our new friend. Part of his consciousness, and part of her own. Emotion, volition, and indeed consciousness as we understand it, are all very new experiences for our new friend. And those are the reasons his pod has exiled him.”

18.8​

 

[Will The Serious]

Pretty freaky.

-Will

 

[Bynar0110]

Feels like we're getting near the end

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Feels like we're getting near the end

But near the end of what?

 

[Will The Serious]

But near the end of what?

One... never... knOooOoows <

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 18: And You And I Part III – The Preacher and the Teacher
Scene 9: A Clearer Future


A clearer future, morning, evening, nights with you ...

18.9
A Clearer Future​

“The task force's probes have managed to break through the alien jamming of all transmissions from the Al Salemais star system. They're transmitting their monitoring of the battle, such as it is. This is really, really strange…”


Telemetry of the strange battle in orbit of ASA 4 was playing, from various angles, on the viewscreen of the bridge of the U.S.S. Citadel. Both Captain Phillip Phlox and his albino first officer, Commander Alicia Wyr, were watching the first stage of the battle in stunned silence.

Phlox stood up and walked forward to the viewscreen. He pointed at the guns that were registering 1.34% of their actual firing power – at least the Star Fleet ships. “Why are these people shining flashlights at each other?”

“It looks like a battle simulation,” opined a very confused Commander Wyr.

“I know we missed something when these… What are these people called?” Phlox asked.

It was the communications officer, Lieutenant Boba Sharma, who answered. “According to the transmission we received just before they started jamming outgoing signals, they call themselves “Paladin.” I don’t know whether that’s a title, a species, a religion... I couldn’t get the context.”

“Play back that last message,” Phlox ordered.

For the next few minutes, the bridge crew of the U.S.S. Citadel were treated to the same message that the Beagle Task Force had reviewed a few hours before the battle.

“...If you fight with honor, you need not die. We will demonstrate our power on arrival. Follow our example, and we will meet you on the field of honor…” the holy lander queen was saying.

“Hold,” Phlox ordered. He turned toward his first officer.

“It’s not a battle simulation,” he said.

“It’s ritual combat,” Commander Wyr responded. “And our side is losing. They’re doing well. Far better than they should be. But they’re losing.”

“E.T.A.” Phlox asked.

“11 minutes,” Ensign Remi Howe responded from the navigation station.

Phlox touched his communicator pin. “Commander Lek, can you give me any more?”

The voice of the ship’s yiridian chief engineer came back over the bridge comm system: “If I were holding anything back, I would tell you.”



Aboard the U.S.S. Mako, things weren’t going so well. More than half of the phaser cannon that had been placed on individual asteroids had been destroyed. Nearly all of the hidden photon torpedoes were gone. But these weren’t the only tricks embedded within Fortress Escort. As the Mako wound its way among the artificial asteroids, the moving, remotely controlled chunks of rock and metal interposed themselves, clanging off the hulls of the holy lander destroyers. Holy lander destroyers that managed to get a firing solution were impeded by local shields created by shield generators hidden among the asteroids that made up the bulk of Fortress Escort. Then there was the central control station of the fortress, lurking somewhere within the field. As Mako approached this unit, it powered up its own shields and was still fully armed, and protected by several layers of ablative armor...




“Now arriving in the Al Salemais system,” announced Ensign Remi Howe.

Captain Phillip Phlox was pacing just behind the navigator’s station. “Broadcast to all…” he started, only to be interrupted by Lt. Sharma.

“Sir, we are receiving a broad-spectrum broadcast to all ships.”

Phlox resumed the center seat on the Galaxy-class cruiser’s bridge. “On screen.”


The screen was dominated by the image of the holy lander queen standing very still, staring, apparently transfixed, by a cone-shaped rock, about the size of an average ice-cream cone, floating a few inches away from her face.



“All ships, all crews, please cease all operations now and engage in station-keeping,” came a voice with a pronounced West Texas accent. “I am speaking now to the self-described paladin. What you are looking at is a small part of my brother, Steve. Steve has given his life, but it is up to you to decide what my brother sacrificed his life for: Peace. Or victory. My brother’s strong preference would be for peace. Other segments of my deceased brother are similarly positioned on the bridge of every ship among the paladin. While my brother is dead, these pieces of him are very much alive. You, the paladin, know what these are. You know what they can do. You are faced with this choice: Immediate and unconditional surrender to Star Fleet, or utter destruction not only of yourselves, but of all of the paladin within the Milky Way galaxy by the very nightmare you have been seeking to avoid. I await your decision with substantial impatience. I have lost my brother. I am determined that his death will not be in vain.”



On the bridge of the U.S.S. Citadel, Captain Phlox, very, very quietly ordered, “Station keeping. Let’s see how this plays out.”

On the viewscreen, the holy lander queen could be seen opening, then closing her mouth, as if considering and reconsidering what to say before saying it. Then, after nearly a full minute, she closed her eyes and straightened herself. “The conditions of honor have been met. Star Fleet has won fairly on the field of honor. On behalf of the paladin, I surrender.”

The cone of rock retreated from the queen at a slow, steady pace. Then the image of the holy lander bridge was replaced by the oddly misshapen face and head of John Jr.

“That is satisfactory. As of this moment, the paladin are our guests within the Al Salemais system. Allow me to introduce myself. I am John Junior, the godchild of Captain Rhonda Carter and the son of Ensign John Sevork, both Federation citizens. I and my surviving siblings now claim Federation citizenship as our birthright. We were born aboard the U.S.S. Escort, deep in interstellar space within the galaxy known to Star Fleet as the Jar Galaxy and to the paladin as the Great Wheel. On behalf of my fellow godchildren, I now claim the Al Salemais system as our home. And by the might provided to us by my brother’s sacrifice, I now declare the entire Al Salemais star system, all 3 stars, 13 planets, and, most importantly, every living thing native to this system, to be under my protection.”

“The Federation colony of Al Salemais A 4, having been established before my arrival, is included within my countenance. But no other colonies are to be established within this system. Star Fleet has a right to resupply and assist in the protection of their colony. The paladin are welcome to visit, but only as our guests. You shall not interfere with the normal development of the indigenous life and the indigenous peoples arising from and living within this star system.”

18.9​

---

NOTE: This is the final scene for Episode 18.

The adventure will continue in Episode 19: And You And I Part IV - Apocalypse, to be posted in this thread.

 

[BountyTrek]

Starships carrying backup warp cores with them is...just about the most sensible thing I've ever heard. Now all we need is for someone to design a warp core ejection process that doesn't immediately fail during exactly the sort of crisis you might actually need to use it in.