Author's Note: This is a work-in-progress. Pandora's Jar is a follow up to Maelstrom. I hope you enjoy.
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DARK TERRITORY:
PANDORA’S JAR
PROLOGUE: THE ASSIGNMENT
January 2376
USS Aegis
Captain’s Ready Room
“He’s alive, I can feel it,” Admiral Samson Glover said, the conviction in his voice bordering on fanaticism.
Captain Terrence S. Glover hated to dash his father’s hopes, but he didn’t want the man to be getting his hopes up too high. “It’s only a beacon.”
His father snorted. “I know that.” The older man’s face scrunched up, crisscrossing his face with new lines to add to the ones he had gained surviving wars with the Klingons and the Dominion. Not to mention the Borg. “That’s why I want you to investigate this. That’s why I want you to bring him home. I owe him that much at least.”
“Dad,” Terrence paused, gathering his words carefully. “I know how much Captain Rahul meant to you. But you’ve got to stop blaming yourself for not wanting him to lead the mission into the Maw.”
“I know that in here,” Samson paused, tapping his salt and pepper-haired skull. “But not in my heart. Maybe my own vote of no confidence lead Command to choose another commander, and maybe that’s what led to the disaster that befell the taskforce.”
Terrence shook his head. “I knew his replacement. It was a good call. Rahul…is a good captain, but he…isn’t on Selmek's level.”
The admiral frowned, regarding his son coldly. “That was uncalled for Son.”
“I’m only telling you the truth,” Terrence wouldn’t back down.
His father sighed. “Bring them him home Terrence.”
“Dad, you know we had to put Aegis back on bricks after the shakedown cruise. I still have an inspection team onboard, rechecking our bioneural connectivity.”
“I’ve already cleared it with the Corps of Engineers,” Samson replied. “They informed me that the inspection should not interfere with critical ship systems.”
“But sir,” the captain said, trying to hide his annoyance behind exasperation, “The Maw is half a quadrant away. Starbase 375 has ships that can be at the Pyxis Cluster faster.”
“I’ve already discussed that with Admiral Salk,” Samson began. “The ships under his command are too engaged in postwar construction and security efforts in the former Cardassian Union. And most of our other starships are similarly engaged as well quadrant wide. That’s leaves you…”
“Glad to see I was first on your list,” Terrence groused, with a pinch of wounded pride.
“You were, but I had to exhaust all logical possibilities first,” Samson replied.
“Been spending more time with T’Prell again I see,” Terrence teased his father. The Vulcan intelligence operative had been one of his father’s oldest and closest friends, but Glover had sensed something more between them. He never knew if his father had sensed it and acted on it, but he hoped he had or would one day. His mother had been gone a long time now, and his father needed some happiness in his life.
“T’Prell’s v’tosh ka’tur remember?” Samson said, falling into his son’s trap. He caught himself seconds later, making a disgusted face. “Oh you.” Both men shared a laugh before the admiral became serious again. “The journey to the Pyxis Cluster will give the inspection team and your crew an opportunity to work out the kinks.”
“Yeah, right before we enter a region of space rife with black holes and other anomalies, a most appropriate way to test the Aegis’s capabilities,” Terrence replied sarcastically.
“You’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge,” Samson admonished.
“And I never will,” Terrence said, “Send the information from the beacon.”
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PART ONE: THE MAW
November 2375
Starbase 116
Main Concourse
“The look on your face says it all,” Commander Ananda Kapoor said sympathetically. “How did it go in there?” She chucked a thumb back in the direction of the ward room. The meeting had let out a few minutes ago, and its occupants had spilled out onto the main concourse, many rushing to their ships. But Captain Rahul hadn’t. He needed time to clear his head. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortuitously, his executive officer had been waiting outside the room for him and had since buzzed behind him like a gnat in an effort to get him to get his take on the meeting’s proceedings.
The Efrosian captain had eventually pulled up along the concourse. Gripping one of the rails, he had sighed and relented. “I am not pleased,” was all he admitted to, and that was quite the understatement. Though he knew the feeling was self-piteous, Rahul felt that no one believed in his command abilities. First Admiral Glover, a man he had served under and admired greatly, had thought his son Terrence was more qualified to lead the Starfleet contingent into the Pyxis Cluster, known colloquially as “The Maw”, to shut down a major ketracel white production facility. The Admiralty had thought differently.
But then the tribulations that had occurred on the pathway to bringing the Alshain Exarchate into the Federation Alliance had shelved the mission. The entry of the Alshain into the war had revived the plan, but in the spirit of comity Starfleet Command had agreed to cede authority of the mission to the Alshain. And the admirals wanted a more experienced Starfleet hand dealing with their largely unproven new allies.
As if reading his mind, the new Starfleet commander, Captain Selmek of the Concorde strode by, engaged in a conversation with Sub-Admiral Hesporian. The slender, silvered Romulan woman wasn’t happy about being replaced as mission lead for the combined taskforce and she appeared to be sharing her displeasure with the stoic brown-hued Vulcan. Selmek was taking the invective with typical Vulcan aplomb.
Moments later they were followed by Nauarch D’Arrosa and the Klingon Brigadier Karnon. The burly Klingon pounded the even burlier Alshain on his back, and guffawed loudly over the bustling concourse. He clutched his stomach and nearly doubled over as his entire frame shook. Whatever the Alshain admiral had said couldn’t have amused Karnon as much as the mortification on Hesporian’s face when Rear Admiral Aggarwal had announced the change in the command structure. Now D’Arrosa was the supreme commander of the Maw taskforce that had been reassembled around the starbase.
“So, that’s the new commander huh?” Kapoor whispered, though it was doubtful that the Alshain, even with his keen hearing, would’ve heard her over the cacophonous crowd. Even though Ananda was right beside him, Rahul was surprised that he had captured the woman’s question. The Efrosian nodded. “What’s your take on him?”
“I don’t know enough about him yet.”
“What does your gut say?” Kapoor pointed at her stomach for emphasis.
“My ‘gut’,” the captain paused to rub his midsection, “Says that I’m ready for lunch.”
Kapoor rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I mean.”
“What does that have to do with my hunger pangs?”
“Sir,” Kapoor rolled her eyes.
“Would you care to grab something before we head back up to Urania,” Rahul offered, “Because it will be nothing but replicated foodstuffs from there on out.”
“This sounds better all the time,” Kapoor muttered. The captain couldn’t agree more.
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Ketracel Production Facility
Pyxis III
“This is the price of cooperation,” Administrator Aneel scowled, her pallid skin stretching tighter over her skeletal face.
“I fear that the price is too high, but in our haste to remain viable in quickly shifting circumstances we have made a monumentally tragic error,” Chief Scientist Loma threw up his arms, his passion overtaking him, as usual.
“You exaggerate. The Dominion is our ally. They have provided this facility with more profit than the Orion Syndicate and the others could ever provide, even the fattest, laziest Alshain monarch,” Aneel said, lacing her words with a heavy dose of boredom. Loma went on these rants several times a week. It had been fortunate for him so far that he did so out of earshot of the Jem’Hadar guarding the facility.
“But what have they received in return, and if eventually they want to reevaluate our role in the Dominion what leverage will we have to stop them?” Loma pressed.
“The white!” Aneel was incredulous. She pointed out of her office’s large, wraparound window to the floor below. Tarlac, Elloran, and prisoners captured by the Dominion drudged on assembly lines that produced and stored the white, in various forms for consumption by various means. The Jem’Hadar used it for sustenance, while other species used it as a narcotic. It didn’t matter what they used it for Aneel thought, as long as their method of payment was valid. “We control the white,” she added for emphasis, hoping that salient fact would finally pierce through her colleague’s paranoia.
Loma actually chuckled. “Take another look on the floor. Count how many Jem’Hadar are stalking around, and remember how that number has grown steadily in the last several months. Though some may fancy us an Imperium, we are nothing more than a band of nomads, roaming the endless chasm in search of a permanent home.”
“We’ve finally found one,” Aneel concluded, “With the Dominion.”
Loma started to speak and then his brain registered what Aneel had said. He stood before her, open mouthed and dumbstruck, just the way she liked him. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do,” Aneel said, stepping from behind her desk. She pressed her hands against the cool pane of the window, gazing down with satisfaction. “We are feared once again. The Dominion is more powerful than the Alshain or Federation ever was. It was a mistake to ally with them to begin with. Only the Founders’ mastery of genetics might save the extinction of our species. With their help we might not even need the metaphasic rings around Ba’ku. We won’t have to grovel back to our forebears like Gallatin and the others did. In fact, I look forward to the day that we erase that accursed planet from existence.”
She paused, stepping back, shocked and excited by the rage pumping through her system. She fantasized standing beside her lover Rufaro, on the bridge of his ship, watching Ba’ku burn; the first of many planets that would fall before them. The Son’a had been denied so long, but finally it was their turn, finally they would have a place in the sun. And Aneel couldn’t be happier. “If you speak ill of our alliance again, I will hand you over to the Jem’Hadar personally,” she said, without looking back at him. “Now, get out of my office.”
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Central Command Vessel Gianour
Pyxis Cluster
Gul Omal Panar paced the bridge, her frustration mounting. “The prisoners are not working fast enough,” she muttered, his head down. She wasn’t interested in looking at the person on the main viewer. His pinkish, striated face disgusted her. “This project is a waste of time and resources.”
Subahdar Rufaro, sitting in his plush office in the administrative quarters of the Hazred Array, leered at her. “Tell that to Sarkos,” he said breezily, referring to the Vorta that had been dispatched to oversee the project for the Dominion.
The goad worked. Panar looked up; seething at the mention of the supercilious Vorta boiled her blood. At Chin’toka he had embarrassed her on her own bridge, stopping her attack on the Starship Cuffe because his gooey Founder wanted to strike terror into the hearts of the Federation by allowing survivors. Of course the Federation Alliance was so terrified that they added the Alshain and a fourth front to the war that had overtaxed Dominion forces. The Son’a didn’t have the men or materiel to match the Alshain war machine. And the Breen seemed to be holding back, but one could never be sure with those shifty creatures.
Dominion forces had failed to take advantage of Chin’toka victory and the war had slipped back into a bitter stalemate, but Panar knew that that state of affairs benefitted the Federation Alliance. Chin’toka, coupled with the Breen attack on Earth, should’ve broken them, but their forces had only expanded. While Legate Damar’s defection had splintered her people, and the gul knew that the Dominion stood no chance of conquering and holding the Alpha Quadrant without unified Cardassian support.
Damar’s actions had spurred a paranoiac mindset among the Vorta. They were testing each loyal Cardassian commander, searching for sedition. Panar felt her loyalty test came in being assigned to the Pyxis Cluster, under Sarkos’s authority again. She had little doubt that it was the bastard’s idea after she dared defy him at Chin’toka. Her anger and frustration roiling in her gut, and warring on her face, she pinned Rufaro with a glacial stare. “The sooner you can field a successful immobilizer ray, the sooner we can end this war.”
“Dr. Nahn assures me that he is back on schedule, after that nasty sabotage incident,” Rufaro’s face became even more wrinkled.
“Can you be certain that he wasn’t involved in the sabotage?” Panar asked.
Rufaro confidently shook his head. “Yes,” the Son’a declared. “Nahn cares only for his research, not politics, and he joined us willingly because he knew the Dominion would fund him completely.”
“I’m sure that once he has successfully captured a wormhole that can be altered into a pathway back to the Gamma Quadrant, the Dominion will level Trill in thanks,” Panar said, her voice dripping with irony.
“That’s not a note of…dissension I detect, is it?” Rufaro’s face cracked when he smiled. He wiped away the glob of blood from his split lip.
“It’s an observation,” Panar replied, smiling predatorily. “Surely observations haven’t become illegal.”
“Not yet,” Rufaro chanced a smile back. “But tomorrow is a new day.”
“Yes…it is,” Panar riposted.
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DARK TERRITORY:
PANDORA’S JAR
PROLOGUE: THE ASSIGNMENT
January 2376
USS Aegis
Captain’s Ready Room
“He’s alive, I can feel it,” Admiral Samson Glover said, the conviction in his voice bordering on fanaticism.
Captain Terrence S. Glover hated to dash his father’s hopes, but he didn’t want the man to be getting his hopes up too high. “It’s only a beacon.”
His father snorted. “I know that.” The older man’s face scrunched up, crisscrossing his face with new lines to add to the ones he had gained surviving wars with the Klingons and the Dominion. Not to mention the Borg. “That’s why I want you to investigate this. That’s why I want you to bring him home. I owe him that much at least.”
“Dad,” Terrence paused, gathering his words carefully. “I know how much Captain Rahul meant to you. But you’ve got to stop blaming yourself for not wanting him to lead the mission into the Maw.”
“I know that in here,” Samson paused, tapping his salt and pepper-haired skull. “But not in my heart. Maybe my own vote of no confidence lead Command to choose another commander, and maybe that’s what led to the disaster that befell the taskforce.”
Terrence shook his head. “I knew his replacement. It was a good call. Rahul…is a good captain, but he…isn’t on Selmek's level.”
The admiral frowned, regarding his son coldly. “That was uncalled for Son.”
“I’m only telling you the truth,” Terrence wouldn’t back down.
His father sighed. “Bring them him home Terrence.”
“Dad, you know we had to put Aegis back on bricks after the shakedown cruise. I still have an inspection team onboard, rechecking our bioneural connectivity.”
“I’ve already cleared it with the Corps of Engineers,” Samson replied. “They informed me that the inspection should not interfere with critical ship systems.”
“But sir,” the captain said, trying to hide his annoyance behind exasperation, “The Maw is half a quadrant away. Starbase 375 has ships that can be at the Pyxis Cluster faster.”
“I’ve already discussed that with Admiral Salk,” Samson began. “The ships under his command are too engaged in postwar construction and security efforts in the former Cardassian Union. And most of our other starships are similarly engaged as well quadrant wide. That’s leaves you…”
“Glad to see I was first on your list,” Terrence groused, with a pinch of wounded pride.
“You were, but I had to exhaust all logical possibilities first,” Samson replied.
“Been spending more time with T’Prell again I see,” Terrence teased his father. The Vulcan intelligence operative had been one of his father’s oldest and closest friends, but Glover had sensed something more between them. He never knew if his father had sensed it and acted on it, but he hoped he had or would one day. His mother had been gone a long time now, and his father needed some happiness in his life.
“T’Prell’s v’tosh ka’tur remember?” Samson said, falling into his son’s trap. He caught himself seconds later, making a disgusted face. “Oh you.” Both men shared a laugh before the admiral became serious again. “The journey to the Pyxis Cluster will give the inspection team and your crew an opportunity to work out the kinks.”
“Yeah, right before we enter a region of space rife with black holes and other anomalies, a most appropriate way to test the Aegis’s capabilities,” Terrence replied sarcastically.
“You’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge,” Samson admonished.
“And I never will,” Terrence said, “Send the information from the beacon.”
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PART ONE: THE MAW
November 2375
Starbase 116
Main Concourse
“The look on your face says it all,” Commander Ananda Kapoor said sympathetically. “How did it go in there?” She chucked a thumb back in the direction of the ward room. The meeting had let out a few minutes ago, and its occupants had spilled out onto the main concourse, many rushing to their ships. But Captain Rahul hadn’t. He needed time to clear his head. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortuitously, his executive officer had been waiting outside the room for him and had since buzzed behind him like a gnat in an effort to get him to get his take on the meeting’s proceedings.
The Efrosian captain had eventually pulled up along the concourse. Gripping one of the rails, he had sighed and relented. “I am not pleased,” was all he admitted to, and that was quite the understatement. Though he knew the feeling was self-piteous, Rahul felt that no one believed in his command abilities. First Admiral Glover, a man he had served under and admired greatly, had thought his son Terrence was more qualified to lead the Starfleet contingent into the Pyxis Cluster, known colloquially as “The Maw”, to shut down a major ketracel white production facility. The Admiralty had thought differently.
But then the tribulations that had occurred on the pathway to bringing the Alshain Exarchate into the Federation Alliance had shelved the mission. The entry of the Alshain into the war had revived the plan, but in the spirit of comity Starfleet Command had agreed to cede authority of the mission to the Alshain. And the admirals wanted a more experienced Starfleet hand dealing with their largely unproven new allies.
As if reading his mind, the new Starfleet commander, Captain Selmek of the Concorde strode by, engaged in a conversation with Sub-Admiral Hesporian. The slender, silvered Romulan woman wasn’t happy about being replaced as mission lead for the combined taskforce and she appeared to be sharing her displeasure with the stoic brown-hued Vulcan. Selmek was taking the invective with typical Vulcan aplomb.
Moments later they were followed by Nauarch D’Arrosa and the Klingon Brigadier Karnon. The burly Klingon pounded the even burlier Alshain on his back, and guffawed loudly over the bustling concourse. He clutched his stomach and nearly doubled over as his entire frame shook. Whatever the Alshain admiral had said couldn’t have amused Karnon as much as the mortification on Hesporian’s face when Rear Admiral Aggarwal had announced the change in the command structure. Now D’Arrosa was the supreme commander of the Maw taskforce that had been reassembled around the starbase.
“So, that’s the new commander huh?” Kapoor whispered, though it was doubtful that the Alshain, even with his keen hearing, would’ve heard her over the cacophonous crowd. Even though Ananda was right beside him, Rahul was surprised that he had captured the woman’s question. The Efrosian nodded. “What’s your take on him?”
“I don’t know enough about him yet.”
“What does your gut say?” Kapoor pointed at her stomach for emphasis.
“My ‘gut’,” the captain paused to rub his midsection, “Says that I’m ready for lunch.”
Kapoor rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I mean.”
“What does that have to do with my hunger pangs?”
“Sir,” Kapoor rolled her eyes.
“Would you care to grab something before we head back up to Urania,” Rahul offered, “Because it will be nothing but replicated foodstuffs from there on out.”
“This sounds better all the time,” Kapoor muttered. The captain couldn’t agree more.
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Ketracel Production Facility
Pyxis III
“This is the price of cooperation,” Administrator Aneel scowled, her pallid skin stretching tighter over her skeletal face.
“I fear that the price is too high, but in our haste to remain viable in quickly shifting circumstances we have made a monumentally tragic error,” Chief Scientist Loma threw up his arms, his passion overtaking him, as usual.
“You exaggerate. The Dominion is our ally. They have provided this facility with more profit than the Orion Syndicate and the others could ever provide, even the fattest, laziest Alshain monarch,” Aneel said, lacing her words with a heavy dose of boredom. Loma went on these rants several times a week. It had been fortunate for him so far that he did so out of earshot of the Jem’Hadar guarding the facility.
“But what have they received in return, and if eventually they want to reevaluate our role in the Dominion what leverage will we have to stop them?” Loma pressed.
“The white!” Aneel was incredulous. She pointed out of her office’s large, wraparound window to the floor below. Tarlac, Elloran, and prisoners captured by the Dominion drudged on assembly lines that produced and stored the white, in various forms for consumption by various means. The Jem’Hadar used it for sustenance, while other species used it as a narcotic. It didn’t matter what they used it for Aneel thought, as long as their method of payment was valid. “We control the white,” she added for emphasis, hoping that salient fact would finally pierce through her colleague’s paranoia.
Loma actually chuckled. “Take another look on the floor. Count how many Jem’Hadar are stalking around, and remember how that number has grown steadily in the last several months. Though some may fancy us an Imperium, we are nothing more than a band of nomads, roaming the endless chasm in search of a permanent home.”
“We’ve finally found one,” Aneel concluded, “With the Dominion.”
Loma started to speak and then his brain registered what Aneel had said. He stood before her, open mouthed and dumbstruck, just the way she liked him. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do,” Aneel said, stepping from behind her desk. She pressed her hands against the cool pane of the window, gazing down with satisfaction. “We are feared once again. The Dominion is more powerful than the Alshain or Federation ever was. It was a mistake to ally with them to begin with. Only the Founders’ mastery of genetics might save the extinction of our species. With their help we might not even need the metaphasic rings around Ba’ku. We won’t have to grovel back to our forebears like Gallatin and the others did. In fact, I look forward to the day that we erase that accursed planet from existence.”
She paused, stepping back, shocked and excited by the rage pumping through her system. She fantasized standing beside her lover Rufaro, on the bridge of his ship, watching Ba’ku burn; the first of many planets that would fall before them. The Son’a had been denied so long, but finally it was their turn, finally they would have a place in the sun. And Aneel couldn’t be happier. “If you speak ill of our alliance again, I will hand you over to the Jem’Hadar personally,” she said, without looking back at him. “Now, get out of my office.”
*******************************************************************
Central Command Vessel Gianour
Pyxis Cluster
Gul Omal Panar paced the bridge, her frustration mounting. “The prisoners are not working fast enough,” she muttered, his head down. She wasn’t interested in looking at the person on the main viewer. His pinkish, striated face disgusted her. “This project is a waste of time and resources.”
Subahdar Rufaro, sitting in his plush office in the administrative quarters of the Hazred Array, leered at her. “Tell that to Sarkos,” he said breezily, referring to the Vorta that had been dispatched to oversee the project for the Dominion.
The goad worked. Panar looked up; seething at the mention of the supercilious Vorta boiled her blood. At Chin’toka he had embarrassed her on her own bridge, stopping her attack on the Starship Cuffe because his gooey Founder wanted to strike terror into the hearts of the Federation by allowing survivors. Of course the Federation Alliance was so terrified that they added the Alshain and a fourth front to the war that had overtaxed Dominion forces. The Son’a didn’t have the men or materiel to match the Alshain war machine. And the Breen seemed to be holding back, but one could never be sure with those shifty creatures.
Dominion forces had failed to take advantage of Chin’toka victory and the war had slipped back into a bitter stalemate, but Panar knew that that state of affairs benefitted the Federation Alliance. Chin’toka, coupled with the Breen attack on Earth, should’ve broken them, but their forces had only expanded. While Legate Damar’s defection had splintered her people, and the gul knew that the Dominion stood no chance of conquering and holding the Alpha Quadrant without unified Cardassian support.
Damar’s actions had spurred a paranoiac mindset among the Vorta. They were testing each loyal Cardassian commander, searching for sedition. Panar felt her loyalty test came in being assigned to the Pyxis Cluster, under Sarkos’s authority again. She had little doubt that it was the bastard’s idea after she dared defy him at Chin’toka. Her anger and frustration roiling in her gut, and warring on her face, she pinned Rufaro with a glacial stare. “The sooner you can field a successful immobilizer ray, the sooner we can end this war.”
“Dr. Nahn assures me that he is back on schedule, after that nasty sabotage incident,” Rufaro’s face became even more wrinkled.
“Can you be certain that he wasn’t involved in the sabotage?” Panar asked.
Rufaro confidently shook his head. “Yes,” the Son’a declared. “Nahn cares only for his research, not politics, and he joined us willingly because he knew the Dominion would fund him completely.”
“I’m sure that once he has successfully captured a wormhole that can be altered into a pathway back to the Gamma Quadrant, the Dominion will level Trill in thanks,” Panar said, her voice dripping with irony.
“That’s not a note of…dissension I detect, is it?” Rufaro’s face cracked when he smiled. He wiped away the glob of blood from his split lip.
“It’s an observation,” Panar replied, smiling predatorily. “Surely observations haven’t become illegal.”
“Not yet,” Rufaro chanced a smile back. “But tomorrow is a new day.”
“Yes…it is,” Panar riposted.
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