Owned, I'd say. I didn't see the twist with Parlan not being Parlan coming.
Geometries of Chance - ST: Gibraltar
- Thread starter Gibraltar
- Start date
Owned, I'd say. I didn't see the twist with Parlan not being Parlan coming.
Yeah, those damn sneaky Orions!
Geometries of Chance - Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Main Bridge, USS Gibraltar
In orbit of Pierosh II
“Status?” The query was meant for both Ashok and Plazzi, and as usual the Science officer was first to respond.
“Our beam is intersecting some kind of structure, sir. Size and composition are identical to the object that appeared in Sickbay.”
Ashok chimed in reticently, “I’m reading a positive energy tap from the object, Commander. Seventeen megawatts per minute and climbing.”
She turned to the petty officer manning Tactical. “How are the shields ho—“
A gravitic shear struck Gibraltar with sufficient force to overwhelm the inertial dampeners. Those crew not fastened to their seats were sent sprawling across the bridge with a chorus of yelps.
The NCO at Tactical pulled herself slowly back to her feet as she rubbed her jaw with one hand. She grimaced in pain and noted, “Shields now at thirty-two percent, sir.”
Thankful for the command chair’s safety harness, Ramirez glanced back at Ashok. “Route the power from the energy siphon and all auxiliary power to shields and the structural integrity grid, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, sir.”
The Tactical specialist’s voice raised an octave in alarm, “Unknown energy source has just appeared four-hundred kilometers off the port quarter…” The woman struggled to keep up as data rushed across her display, “…it’s on a direct intercept course… impact in…” She gasped, “It’s penetrated our shields!”
Ramirez braced herself for a collision but after a few seconds it became obvious that none was forthcoming. She activated the public address to announce, "All hands, this is the XO. Be prepared for an intruder alert…” she paused, frowned, and added, “That is, make ready for intruders other than the one currently on Deck 5.”
She caught a glimpse of Plazzi smirking at her from the Science station but pretended not to notice. An instant later, the bridge was bathed in an ethereal orange light as a bright sphere of energy passed up through the floor from the deck below and hovered just in front of the main viewer.
The exec released her safety restraints and rose from the command chair as she called out to the Science officer, “Elisto?”
“It reads as identical to the ones our away team encountered on the planet’s surface,” Plazzi said while he shielded his eyes from the orb’s brilliant glare.
Suddenly self-conscious, Ramirez raised her voice to open with, “I’m Commander Liana Ramirez of the Federation starship Gibraltar, representing the United Federation of Planets.”
{*We are Sentinel, guardians of the prisoner’s captivity.*} The words reverberated in the heads of everyone on the bridge. Ramirez caught some of the other crew flinching reflexively from the perceived volume, despite the fact that the message had completely circumvented their auditory nerves. {*We know of you and your people through the one called Saihra Dunleavy. It is imperative that you cease your efforts to neutralize the Betrayer’s vehicle. It is his craft that maintains the portal leading to the creature’s prison realm.*}
“Disengage the siphon beam,” she ordered without hesitation. Ramirez then asked hopefully, “What would you have us do?”
{*We have harried the creature, increasing its confusion. Now we must drive it towards the rift on the surface. To do this, you must generate a static warp shell as the Betrayer instructed. The creature has been programmed to be attracted to a subspace harmonic pattern at that wavelength. You must draw the creature back down into the gravity well of the planet. There we may be able to use our combined energies to force it back through the portal.*}
Ramirez frowned at that idea. “How close to the surface?”
{*The closer its physical proximity to the portal, the weaker it will grow. It will need to come within twenty kilometers of the surface. Outside of that range, the creature will be able to resist our efforts.*}
She cast a glance back at Ashok as Ramirez solicited, “Is that feasible?”
The lieutenant stood, the scowl on his face more pronounced than usual. “I’d recommend against it, Commander. 23rd century starship designs aren’t anywhere near as forgiving of atmospheric flight as more recent models. Our structural integrity grid wasn’t intended to cope with planetary gravity and atmospheric friction.”
Ramirez’s piercing eyes bore into the engineer. “I said feasible, Lieutenant, not preferable.”
Ashok inclined his head to concede the point. “It is feasible, sir, with a high probability of catastrophic failure.”
She smirked ironically. “I’m surrounded by the Optimists’ Society.” Ramirez stepped back and resumed her seat in the command chair. She took in a deep breath and steeled herself for the task ahead. “Lieutenant Ashok, initiate the static warp shell.” She met the eager gaze of their daring helmsman and put their lives in the young man’s hands with the words, “Mister Lightner… take us down.”
*****
“Fools!” the Baron rasped. “You’ve doomed us all. Once your ship has drained my reserves, the portal will collapse, freeing the beast.”
Kutav looked askance at the older man as he attempted to assist Sandhurst, “Aren’t you dead yet?” He then glared at Mutwen, “Finish him.”
Mutwen obeyed wordlessly. He stooped over the Baron and deftly ended the man’s life with swift, sure strokes of his blade. To his credit, the Baron met his end with more dignity than Kutav would have liked. The old man locked eyes with the Chameloid as the shape-shifter cut his throat.
His attention now back on Sandhurst, the ahmet inquired, “What is it you’re trying to do?”
“Contact my… ship… for starters.” The captain experienced a rasping coughing fit that soon passed. “Then put this… craft back aboard Gibraltar.”
Kutav weighed his options and found the captain’s proposed course most sensible. Certainly neither he nor Mutwen possessed the know how to pilot the timeship anywhere. Acting as the ailing Sandhurst’s hands, the Orion set to work.
*****
Deck 5, USS Gibraltar
Their phasers pulsed and whined in a symphony of energetic violence as they laid down a dizzying field of fire that the tactical android Parlan shouldered through with steely determination. The intruder had already fought his way free from the cargo bay. His shields had apparently been significantly reinforced since his foray into Gibraltar’s Sickbay.
Lar’ragos had exercised a fighting retreat down the long curving corridor which had left the hallway behind them pitted and smoldering from near-misses and blasts refracted from Parlan’s personal forcefield. The portable shield generators and duranium blast barriers now lay broken and scattered in the wake of the colossus’ advance.
The giant had weathered their assault and had replied in turn. He had launched blast after blast of energy from his outstretched hands that had collapsed one defensive containment field after another. Fortunately, no one among the ad-hoc security team had as yet been injured, but unless they could find a way to destroy or contain the massive humanoid, casualties were a certainty.
Ensign Diamato thumbed the initiator button on a photon grenade and lobbed it down the corridor where it detonated noisily at Parlan’s feet. This sent the android reeling as the deck plating beneath him exploded impressively. The junior officer ducked as debris and shrapnel skittered down the hallway towards them. He glanced at Lar’ragos and asked, "What do you think his game plan is, Lieutenant?”
Lar’ragos shouldered his rifle to send a volley of phaser energy at Parlan as the neigh unstoppable giant clambered back to his feet. “He’s heading for turboshaft two. If he gets in there it’ll be nearly impossible to stop him.”
Diamato ducked again as Parlan’s answering bolt struck a nearby doorway. The blast blew the sliders off their tracks and sent them spinning into the cabin beyond. Lar’ragos gestured vigorously for the security team to fall back even further, past the turbolift alcove. He hoped to regroup the scattered members and focus their combined fire on the android.
As his enemy retreated, Parlan opened his mouth wide. It would have been a humorous looking gesture, if not for the shrill ultra-sonic scream he emitted. It was so overpowering that it brought the security team’s hands reflexively to their ears. Phaser pistols and rifles clattered uselessly to the deck.
Lar’ragos staggered and fell against the corridor wall as he pressed his hands to his ears, screaming soundlessly against the mega-decibel assault.
The massive automaton disappeared into the alcove and the turbolift doors closed behind him to blessedly cut off the piercing scream that had incapacitated the ship’s defenders. Lar'ragos fumbled for his compin as his slid down the wall to the floor. His words were inaudible to his own traumatized ears, “Bridge, we’ve lost containment! He’s in turboshaft two, destination unknown!”
*****
With Kutav’s help, Sandhurst moved around the control table to pull levers, push buttons, and toggle switches on the ridiculously antiquated looking apparatus. Mutwen, who had apparently been impersonating the Baron’s companion long enough to have learned a few things about the vessel’s functions, moved with them and pointed out various controls and their purposes.
Without warning, an orange glow erupted from the other side of the dais, accompanied by a sound reminiscent of a strong wind blowing through foliage. The ahmet’s eyes narrowed in frustration. “Profit and loss, what now?” He motioned brusquely for Mutwen to investigate.
The Chameloid shuffled around the dais. He frowned with the smaller Parlan’s face as he remarked, “The Baron’s body is on fire.”
Kutav grumbled with annoyance and he apologized as he set Sandhurst against the base of one of the spiraling support beams that ringed the dais. “One moment, Captain.” He rounded the control station, a perplexed expression on his features as he observed gouts of radiant energy roaring from the Baron’s collar, sleeves, and pant legs.
Mutwen cast an inquisitive stare at the Orion prince. “Perhaps his species self-immolates at death?”
“Perhaps.” The ahmet’s finely honed sense of self preservation began to send warning signals, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck start to rise. “I prefer to take no chances, however. When whatever this is finishes, dispose of what remains of the body.”
Mutwen nodded mutely and drew his knife from within the late android’s 19th century Terran business suit. As he waited for the strange phenomenon to conclude, he reflected on how surprisingly simple it had proved to follow the smaller Parlan back to his recharging station. Mutwen’s good fortune had continued when the shape-shifter discovered that the android’s formidable defenses went offline with the rest of him when coupled to the Baron’s craft for replenishment.
As suddenly as it had begun, the fiery emanation ceased. Mutwen stepped forward and raised the knife, but hesitated fractionally as he realized he was looking at a completely different person. He had expected a charred husk of a body, he found instead a young man in the Baron’s place. His indecision stemmed from the strong Chameloid taboo against harming others of his kind, a cultural trait they apparently shared with their morphogenic cousins in the Gamma Quadrant.
The rejuvenated Baron, however, suffered no such uncertainty. He raised the crystal he still clutched in his hand and sent a pulse of reddish energy surging into Mutwen that uncoiled his attacker's molecular structure with torturous sluggishness. The Chameloid screeched in agony and lurched backwards as his body was literally turned inside out and disassembled at the atomic level.
Having watched his loyal friend and servant annihilated, Kutav rushed forward and bellowed furiously as he kicked the crystal out of the Baron’s hand. The device clattered across the floor into the dark recesses of the control chamber.
The Baron reacted with surprising speed. He grasped Kutav's extended food and wrenched it to pull the larger man off balance. The ahmet collapsed on top of the Baron, and the two men struggled feverishly as Sandhurst looked on, unable to do anything but watch.
*****
Ramirez gripped the armrests of the command chair as the starship groaned and juddered around her. They plunged into the habitable envelope around Pierosh II, the starship’s shields glowing brightly as they absorbed the incredible heat generated by atmospheric entry.
The alien sphere had vanished as they’d begun their descent, presumably returning to the fight against the Baron’s creature. She desperately hoped the strange alien representatives knew what they were doing. Gibraltar had no means of detecting the entity, no way to confirm that it was following them down into the barren world’s gravity well. Hell of a thing to take on faith, she thought forebodingly.
Flashing red warning alerts began to appear on Ashok’s board with greater frequency as the stresses on Gibraltar’s spaceframe increased. The Bolian called out, his voice distorted from the vibrations that jostled him in his chair. “Structural integrity field running at one-hundred and twelve percent of nominal output. Shearing stress reaching design tolerances.”
“And the warp shell?” she asked.
“Holding,” Ashok replied tersely.
“Transitioning into the mesosphere, Commander… eighty kilometers from the surface,” Plazzi updated.
“Ensign, how’s she handling?”
Lightner’s hands were steady on his console as he made minute course adjustments to their descent. “She’s answering a bit sluggishly, sir, but that’s to be expected.”
Ramirez forced herself to relax her hands, “Nothing you can’t handle?”
The ensign smiled, the gesture going unseen by the XO. “I’m on it, sir.”
She turned her attention behind her to the Security/Tactical station. "Status of the intruder?" Ramirez inquired of the duty NCO.
“We’ve stopped the turbolift car the intruder entered and redirected it to the security team’s location, but it was empty. He apparently blasted his way through the car’s ceiling. We’re still unable to pinpoint his location, sir.”
As she gritted her teeth in frustration, Ramirez asked, “And our attempts to get a transporter lock?”
The petty officer shook her head as she braced herself against her trembling console. “All attempts to lock onto the intruder have failed. His personal defense field prevents an accurate lock, and our tries at area-effect transports were ineffective. The beam just couldn’t get a hold of him.”
Ramirez nodded curtly, the movement lost in the ship’s buffeting. She directed her gaze back to the viewer and struggled with her own impatience as they plunged into the stratosphere.
*****
Lar’ragos, Shanthi, and Dunleavy checked their weapons as they ascended in the turbolift car. The security team had been forced to disperse throughout the ship in order to cover the vessel’s most vulnerable areas. As Lar’ragos and the others headed for the bridge, he lamented this turn of events. If the entire force in concert had been overcome by Parlan, what chance did a three or four person team have against the behemoth?
All three of them were still effectively deaf as their ears continued to ring in the aftermath of Parlan’s auditory attack. What little communication went on between them was conveyed in simple tactical gestures. As Lar’ragos attempted to communicate his plan for them to secure the bridge, the lift car jolted violently and threw its occupants to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
When Lar’ragos’ head stopped spinning, he looked to his companions. The young Science officer and the Security specialist were both alive but unconscious, their pulses strong. He glanced up to see the entire roof of the car crumpled inward, the surviving illumination in the lift car flickered dimly as guttering sparks rained down from the shattered lighting matrix overhead.
He tapped his compin to make a brief report to the bridge which he was unable to tell had been received or not. Lar’ragos groped in the twilight for his phaser rifle and finally found it wedged beneath Shanthi’s insensate form. He pulled it free and set the weapon to maximum, then vaporized a hole through the collapsed ceiling. Lar'ragos slung the rifle over his back and wriggled awkwardly through the opening.
As he stood atop the shattered lift car and gazed upward, Lar’ragos discovered the source of their accident. Approximately fifteen meters above him in the turboshaft, Parlan climbed the emergency egress ladder. The turbolift car had collided with the giant and his personal shield. His features contorted in a feral grin, Lar’ragos retrieved his rifle and took aim.
*****
<cont'd>
Chapter 19
Main Bridge, USS Gibraltar
In orbit of Pierosh II
“Status?” The query was meant for both Ashok and Plazzi, and as usual the Science officer was first to respond.
“Our beam is intersecting some kind of structure, sir. Size and composition are identical to the object that appeared in Sickbay.”
Ashok chimed in reticently, “I’m reading a positive energy tap from the object, Commander. Seventeen megawatts per minute and climbing.”
She turned to the petty officer manning Tactical. “How are the shields ho—“
A gravitic shear struck Gibraltar with sufficient force to overwhelm the inertial dampeners. Those crew not fastened to their seats were sent sprawling across the bridge with a chorus of yelps.
The NCO at Tactical pulled herself slowly back to her feet as she rubbed her jaw with one hand. She grimaced in pain and noted, “Shields now at thirty-two percent, sir.”
Thankful for the command chair’s safety harness, Ramirez glanced back at Ashok. “Route the power from the energy siphon and all auxiliary power to shields and the structural integrity grid, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, sir.”
The Tactical specialist’s voice raised an octave in alarm, “Unknown energy source has just appeared four-hundred kilometers off the port quarter…” The woman struggled to keep up as data rushed across her display, “…it’s on a direct intercept course… impact in…” She gasped, “It’s penetrated our shields!”
Ramirez braced herself for a collision but after a few seconds it became obvious that none was forthcoming. She activated the public address to announce, "All hands, this is the XO. Be prepared for an intruder alert…” she paused, frowned, and added, “That is, make ready for intruders other than the one currently on Deck 5.”
She caught a glimpse of Plazzi smirking at her from the Science station but pretended not to notice. An instant later, the bridge was bathed in an ethereal orange light as a bright sphere of energy passed up through the floor from the deck below and hovered just in front of the main viewer.
The exec released her safety restraints and rose from the command chair as she called out to the Science officer, “Elisto?”
“It reads as identical to the ones our away team encountered on the planet’s surface,” Plazzi said while he shielded his eyes from the orb’s brilliant glare.
Suddenly self-conscious, Ramirez raised her voice to open with, “I’m Commander Liana Ramirez of the Federation starship Gibraltar, representing the United Federation of Planets.”
{*We are Sentinel, guardians of the prisoner’s captivity.*} The words reverberated in the heads of everyone on the bridge. Ramirez caught some of the other crew flinching reflexively from the perceived volume, despite the fact that the message had completely circumvented their auditory nerves. {*We know of you and your people through the one called Saihra Dunleavy. It is imperative that you cease your efforts to neutralize the Betrayer’s vehicle. It is his craft that maintains the portal leading to the creature’s prison realm.*}
“Disengage the siphon beam,” she ordered without hesitation. Ramirez then asked hopefully, “What would you have us do?”
{*We have harried the creature, increasing its confusion. Now we must drive it towards the rift on the surface. To do this, you must generate a static warp shell as the Betrayer instructed. The creature has been programmed to be attracted to a subspace harmonic pattern at that wavelength. You must draw the creature back down into the gravity well of the planet. There we may be able to use our combined energies to force it back through the portal.*}
Ramirez frowned at that idea. “How close to the surface?”
{*The closer its physical proximity to the portal, the weaker it will grow. It will need to come within twenty kilometers of the surface. Outside of that range, the creature will be able to resist our efforts.*}
She cast a glance back at Ashok as Ramirez solicited, “Is that feasible?”
The lieutenant stood, the scowl on his face more pronounced than usual. “I’d recommend against it, Commander. 23rd century starship designs aren’t anywhere near as forgiving of atmospheric flight as more recent models. Our structural integrity grid wasn’t intended to cope with planetary gravity and atmospheric friction.”
Ramirez’s piercing eyes bore into the engineer. “I said feasible, Lieutenant, not preferable.”
Ashok inclined his head to concede the point. “It is feasible, sir, with a high probability of catastrophic failure.”
She smirked ironically. “I’m surrounded by the Optimists’ Society.” Ramirez stepped back and resumed her seat in the command chair. She took in a deep breath and steeled herself for the task ahead. “Lieutenant Ashok, initiate the static warp shell.” She met the eager gaze of their daring helmsman and put their lives in the young man’s hands with the words, “Mister Lightner… take us down.”
*****
“Fools!” the Baron rasped. “You’ve doomed us all. Once your ship has drained my reserves, the portal will collapse, freeing the beast.”
Kutav looked askance at the older man as he attempted to assist Sandhurst, “Aren’t you dead yet?” He then glared at Mutwen, “Finish him.”
Mutwen obeyed wordlessly. He stooped over the Baron and deftly ended the man’s life with swift, sure strokes of his blade. To his credit, the Baron met his end with more dignity than Kutav would have liked. The old man locked eyes with the Chameloid as the shape-shifter cut his throat.
His attention now back on Sandhurst, the ahmet inquired, “What is it you’re trying to do?”
“Contact my… ship… for starters.” The captain experienced a rasping coughing fit that soon passed. “Then put this… craft back aboard Gibraltar.”
Kutav weighed his options and found the captain’s proposed course most sensible. Certainly neither he nor Mutwen possessed the know how to pilot the timeship anywhere. Acting as the ailing Sandhurst’s hands, the Orion set to work.
*****
Deck 5, USS Gibraltar
Their phasers pulsed and whined in a symphony of energetic violence as they laid down a dizzying field of fire that the tactical android Parlan shouldered through with steely determination. The intruder had already fought his way free from the cargo bay. His shields had apparently been significantly reinforced since his foray into Gibraltar’s Sickbay.
Lar’ragos had exercised a fighting retreat down the long curving corridor which had left the hallway behind them pitted and smoldering from near-misses and blasts refracted from Parlan’s personal forcefield. The portable shield generators and duranium blast barriers now lay broken and scattered in the wake of the colossus’ advance.
The giant had weathered their assault and had replied in turn. He had launched blast after blast of energy from his outstretched hands that had collapsed one defensive containment field after another. Fortunately, no one among the ad-hoc security team had as yet been injured, but unless they could find a way to destroy or contain the massive humanoid, casualties were a certainty.
Ensign Diamato thumbed the initiator button on a photon grenade and lobbed it down the corridor where it detonated noisily at Parlan’s feet. This sent the android reeling as the deck plating beneath him exploded impressively. The junior officer ducked as debris and shrapnel skittered down the hallway towards them. He glanced at Lar’ragos and asked, "What do you think his game plan is, Lieutenant?”
Lar’ragos shouldered his rifle to send a volley of phaser energy at Parlan as the neigh unstoppable giant clambered back to his feet. “He’s heading for turboshaft two. If he gets in there it’ll be nearly impossible to stop him.”
Diamato ducked again as Parlan’s answering bolt struck a nearby doorway. The blast blew the sliders off their tracks and sent them spinning into the cabin beyond. Lar’ragos gestured vigorously for the security team to fall back even further, past the turbolift alcove. He hoped to regroup the scattered members and focus their combined fire on the android.
As his enemy retreated, Parlan opened his mouth wide. It would have been a humorous looking gesture, if not for the shrill ultra-sonic scream he emitted. It was so overpowering that it brought the security team’s hands reflexively to their ears. Phaser pistols and rifles clattered uselessly to the deck.
Lar’ragos staggered and fell against the corridor wall as he pressed his hands to his ears, screaming soundlessly against the mega-decibel assault.
The massive automaton disappeared into the alcove and the turbolift doors closed behind him to blessedly cut off the piercing scream that had incapacitated the ship’s defenders. Lar'ragos fumbled for his compin as his slid down the wall to the floor. His words were inaudible to his own traumatized ears, “Bridge, we’ve lost containment! He’s in turboshaft two, destination unknown!”
*****
With Kutav’s help, Sandhurst moved around the control table to pull levers, push buttons, and toggle switches on the ridiculously antiquated looking apparatus. Mutwen, who had apparently been impersonating the Baron’s companion long enough to have learned a few things about the vessel’s functions, moved with them and pointed out various controls and their purposes.
Without warning, an orange glow erupted from the other side of the dais, accompanied by a sound reminiscent of a strong wind blowing through foliage. The ahmet’s eyes narrowed in frustration. “Profit and loss, what now?” He motioned brusquely for Mutwen to investigate.
The Chameloid shuffled around the dais. He frowned with the smaller Parlan’s face as he remarked, “The Baron’s body is on fire.”
Kutav grumbled with annoyance and he apologized as he set Sandhurst against the base of one of the spiraling support beams that ringed the dais. “One moment, Captain.” He rounded the control station, a perplexed expression on his features as he observed gouts of radiant energy roaring from the Baron’s collar, sleeves, and pant legs.
Mutwen cast an inquisitive stare at the Orion prince. “Perhaps his species self-immolates at death?”
“Perhaps.” The ahmet’s finely honed sense of self preservation began to send warning signals, and he felt the hair on the back of his neck start to rise. “I prefer to take no chances, however. When whatever this is finishes, dispose of what remains of the body.”
Mutwen nodded mutely and drew his knife from within the late android’s 19th century Terran business suit. As he waited for the strange phenomenon to conclude, he reflected on how surprisingly simple it had proved to follow the smaller Parlan back to his recharging station. Mutwen’s good fortune had continued when the shape-shifter discovered that the android’s formidable defenses went offline with the rest of him when coupled to the Baron’s craft for replenishment.
As suddenly as it had begun, the fiery emanation ceased. Mutwen stepped forward and raised the knife, but hesitated fractionally as he realized he was looking at a completely different person. He had expected a charred husk of a body, he found instead a young man in the Baron’s place. His indecision stemmed from the strong Chameloid taboo against harming others of his kind, a cultural trait they apparently shared with their morphogenic cousins in the Gamma Quadrant.
The rejuvenated Baron, however, suffered no such uncertainty. He raised the crystal he still clutched in his hand and sent a pulse of reddish energy surging into Mutwen that uncoiled his attacker's molecular structure with torturous sluggishness. The Chameloid screeched in agony and lurched backwards as his body was literally turned inside out and disassembled at the atomic level.
Having watched his loyal friend and servant annihilated, Kutav rushed forward and bellowed furiously as he kicked the crystal out of the Baron’s hand. The device clattered across the floor into the dark recesses of the control chamber.
The Baron reacted with surprising speed. He grasped Kutav's extended food and wrenched it to pull the larger man off balance. The ahmet collapsed on top of the Baron, and the two men struggled feverishly as Sandhurst looked on, unable to do anything but watch.
*****
Ramirez gripped the armrests of the command chair as the starship groaned and juddered around her. They plunged into the habitable envelope around Pierosh II, the starship’s shields glowing brightly as they absorbed the incredible heat generated by atmospheric entry.
The alien sphere had vanished as they’d begun their descent, presumably returning to the fight against the Baron’s creature. She desperately hoped the strange alien representatives knew what they were doing. Gibraltar had no means of detecting the entity, no way to confirm that it was following them down into the barren world’s gravity well. Hell of a thing to take on faith, she thought forebodingly.
Flashing red warning alerts began to appear on Ashok’s board with greater frequency as the stresses on Gibraltar’s spaceframe increased. The Bolian called out, his voice distorted from the vibrations that jostled him in his chair. “Structural integrity field running at one-hundred and twelve percent of nominal output. Shearing stress reaching design tolerances.”
“And the warp shell?” she asked.
“Holding,” Ashok replied tersely.
“Transitioning into the mesosphere, Commander… eighty kilometers from the surface,” Plazzi updated.
“Ensign, how’s she handling?”
Lightner’s hands were steady on his console as he made minute course adjustments to their descent. “She’s answering a bit sluggishly, sir, but that’s to be expected.”
Ramirez forced herself to relax her hands, “Nothing you can’t handle?”
The ensign smiled, the gesture going unseen by the XO. “I’m on it, sir.”
She turned her attention behind her to the Security/Tactical station. "Status of the intruder?" Ramirez inquired of the duty NCO.
“We’ve stopped the turbolift car the intruder entered and redirected it to the security team’s location, but it was empty. He apparently blasted his way through the car’s ceiling. We’re still unable to pinpoint his location, sir.”
As she gritted her teeth in frustration, Ramirez asked, “And our attempts to get a transporter lock?”
The petty officer shook her head as she braced herself against her trembling console. “All attempts to lock onto the intruder have failed. His personal defense field prevents an accurate lock, and our tries at area-effect transports were ineffective. The beam just couldn’t get a hold of him.”
Ramirez nodded curtly, the movement lost in the ship’s buffeting. She directed her gaze back to the viewer and struggled with her own impatience as they plunged into the stratosphere.
*****
Lar’ragos, Shanthi, and Dunleavy checked their weapons as they ascended in the turbolift car. The security team had been forced to disperse throughout the ship in order to cover the vessel’s most vulnerable areas. As Lar’ragos and the others headed for the bridge, he lamented this turn of events. If the entire force in concert had been overcome by Parlan, what chance did a three or four person team have against the behemoth?
All three of them were still effectively deaf as their ears continued to ring in the aftermath of Parlan’s auditory attack. What little communication went on between them was conveyed in simple tactical gestures. As Lar’ragos attempted to communicate his plan for them to secure the bridge, the lift car jolted violently and threw its occupants to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
When Lar’ragos’ head stopped spinning, he looked to his companions. The young Science officer and the Security specialist were both alive but unconscious, their pulses strong. He glanced up to see the entire roof of the car crumpled inward, the surviving illumination in the lift car flickered dimly as guttering sparks rained down from the shattered lighting matrix overhead.
He tapped his compin to make a brief report to the bridge which he was unable to tell had been received or not. Lar’ragos groped in the twilight for his phaser rifle and finally found it wedged beneath Shanthi’s insensate form. He pulled it free and set the weapon to maximum, then vaporized a hole through the collapsed ceiling. Lar'ragos slung the rifle over his back and wriggled awkwardly through the opening.
As he stood atop the shattered lift car and gazed upward, Lar’ragos discovered the source of their accident. Approximately fifteen meters above him in the turboshaft, Parlan climbed the emergency egress ladder. The turbolift car had collided with the giant and his personal shield. His features contorted in a feral grin, Lar’ragos retrieved his rifle and took aim.
*****
<cont'd>
Geometries of Chance - Chapter 19
Chapter 19 <cont'd>
Ahmet Kutav and the Baron thrashed wildly about the control center, both men locked in a life or death struggle that Sandhurst observed with a detached calm the he couldn’t explain. The captain felt the artificial energy and numbness from Kutav’s injections begin to wane, and realized that if he were going to be able to do anything helpful, it must happen soon.
He flopped onto his side and began to pull himself across the floor towards the base of the control dais. His breath roared in his ears and his vision grew dim with the effort, but after a few moments he reached his goal. The access panel at the base of the device came loose with surprising ease, and Sandhurst thanked every deity he could think of that he’d not been forced to fight with the thing.
Beneath it were the internal components of the command console. Sandhurst stifled a groan as he realized that the mechanisms and circuitry he was looking at were unlike anything in his experience. He had always harbored a fascination with alien engineering, the more exotic the better. Over the years he had become something of an expert in bio-mechanical devices, as he’d had the opportunity to study a few examples of such highly foreign technology in his career. But all this was something new.
Without a tricorder or a schematic to guide him, Sandhurst reached into the mass of wires, tubules, circuitry and lights and set to work.
*****
“Nineteen kilometers from the surface and holding, sir.” Lightner’s announcement prompted Ramirez to glance back at Ashok. It seemed as if the engineer’s console was nothing but flashing crimson.
“Structural integrity has degraded to seventy-three percent, Commander. I’m reading stress related microfractures in both nacelle support pylons, and shield generators four and seven are exceeding thermal tolerances.” The lieutenant noted this stoically, as if he’d already made peace with the fact that this incursion was doomed to end badly.
Ramirez sat as far forward as the command chair’s restraint harness would allow, “Hold position here, Ensign.” Without looking behind her again, she addressed Ashok. “How long can we stay here, Lieutenant?”
He replied in a listless tone, “Five minutes, sir. Perhaps less.”
Plazzi pulled his eyes away from his Science display to fix a concerned look on the XO. “Now what, Commander?”
She would have shrugged, but her safety restraints wouldn’t allow it. “I really have no—“
A massive cone of golden energy projected from the surface flashed upward to engulf the starship. At the same instant, the doors leading to turboshaft two exploded inward and sent smoking shards of debris scything through the bridge. Ramirez gasped in pain as something hot sliced into her shoulder, and she looked to see a piece of superheated tritanium embedded in her flesh. Her eyes moved up to the smoldering doorway leading to the empty turboshaft, just in time to see a large hand gain purchase on the deck.
“Intruder alert,” she cried. “Security response to main bridge!”
*****
Chapter 19 <cont'd>
Ahmet Kutav and the Baron thrashed wildly about the control center, both men locked in a life or death struggle that Sandhurst observed with a detached calm the he couldn’t explain. The captain felt the artificial energy and numbness from Kutav’s injections begin to wane, and realized that if he were going to be able to do anything helpful, it must happen soon.
He flopped onto his side and began to pull himself across the floor towards the base of the control dais. His breath roared in his ears and his vision grew dim with the effort, but after a few moments he reached his goal. The access panel at the base of the device came loose with surprising ease, and Sandhurst thanked every deity he could think of that he’d not been forced to fight with the thing.
Beneath it were the internal components of the command console. Sandhurst stifled a groan as he realized that the mechanisms and circuitry he was looking at were unlike anything in his experience. He had always harbored a fascination with alien engineering, the more exotic the better. Over the years he had become something of an expert in bio-mechanical devices, as he’d had the opportunity to study a few examples of such highly foreign technology in his career. But all this was something new.
Without a tricorder or a schematic to guide him, Sandhurst reached into the mass of wires, tubules, circuitry and lights and set to work.
*****
“Nineteen kilometers from the surface and holding, sir.” Lightner’s announcement prompted Ramirez to glance back at Ashok. It seemed as if the engineer’s console was nothing but flashing crimson.
“Structural integrity has degraded to seventy-three percent, Commander. I’m reading stress related microfractures in both nacelle support pylons, and shield generators four and seven are exceeding thermal tolerances.” The lieutenant noted this stoically, as if he’d already made peace with the fact that this incursion was doomed to end badly.
Ramirez sat as far forward as the command chair’s restraint harness would allow, “Hold position here, Ensign.” Without looking behind her again, she addressed Ashok. “How long can we stay here, Lieutenant?”
He replied in a listless tone, “Five minutes, sir. Perhaps less.”
Plazzi pulled his eyes away from his Science display to fix a concerned look on the XO. “Now what, Commander?”
She would have shrugged, but her safety restraints wouldn’t allow it. “I really have no—“
A massive cone of golden energy projected from the surface flashed upward to engulf the starship. At the same instant, the doors leading to turboshaft two exploded inward and sent smoking shards of debris scything through the bridge. Ramirez gasped in pain as something hot sliced into her shoulder, and she looked to see a piece of superheated tritanium embedded in her flesh. Her eyes moved up to the smoldering doorway leading to the empty turboshaft, just in time to see a large hand gain purchase on the deck.
“Intruder alert,” she cried. “Security response to main bridge!”
*****
Chapter 14
Yay! Dunleavy (probably) isn't dead! Though I'm wondering just who it is that is taking such an interest and their ultimate aim.
Aww! Ramirez's away team are heading into bandit country with Plazzi on board! My Spidey senses are tingling.
And Parlan's change of appearance is slightly reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz. Mild mannered chap appearing as frightening chap to scare the locals? (Though I have been known to be wrong...from time...to time...)
Yay! Dunleavy (probably) isn't dead! Though I'm wondering just who it is that is taking such an interest and their ultimate aim.
Aww! Ramirez's away team are heading into bandit country with Plazzi on board! My Spidey senses are tingling.
And Parlan's change of appearance is slightly reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz. Mild mannered chap appearing as frightening chap to scare the locals? (Though I have been known to be wrong...from time...to time...)
Chapter 15
So Juneau's secret is out! At least to Tark. You have to admire the Section's skillset if perhaps not their somewhat distorted motives.
The scene in the descending shuttle where Plazzi has a 'death grip' on his seat... Are you really preparing us for the worst here?
And the vicious and unprovoked torture of Sandhurst is a real stomach turner. The Baron's warped (and obviously unstable) mind is a dark and twisted one indeed.
(As a sidenote, I suddenly seem to recognise the grinding gear noise of the portal's appearance and departure though I'm perhaps reading too much into it? I keep expecting a blue police box to appear though...)
So Juneau's secret is out! At least to Tark. You have to admire the Section's skillset if perhaps not their somewhat distorted motives.
The scene in the descending shuttle where Plazzi has a 'death grip' on his seat... Are you really preparing us for the worst here?
And the vicious and unprovoked torture of Sandhurst is a real stomach turner. The Baron's warped (and obviously unstable) mind is a dark and twisted one indeed.
(As a sidenote, I suddenly seem to recognise the grinding gear noise of the portal's appearance and departure though I'm perhaps reading too much into it? I keep expecting a blue police box to appear though...)
I wondered why the Baron didn't regenerate when Mutwen cut his throat. Apparently, it just took a bit longer.
Gibraltar's bridge crew can't get a break, it seems. Uh oh.
Gibraltar's bridge crew can't get a break, it seems. Uh oh.
Saihra's adventure has surely taken an unexpected turn...
Well, far be it from me to argue with a person's Spidey sense!
There are Parlans, and then there are Parlans.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
But now that she's told him, she's going to have to... oh... well, you'll get there.Chapter 15
So Juneau's secret is out! At least to Tark. You have to admire the Section's skillset if perhaps not their somewhat distorted motives.
Plazzi just really doesn't like dropping out of orbit in the middle of a hellacious storm, being piloted by someone young enough to be his grandson.The scene in the descending shuttle where Plazzi has a 'death grip' on his seat... Are you really preparing us for the worst here?
The Baron is a deeply troubled, seriously sadistic man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Unfortunately, through Donald he has the perfect tool to try and accomplish his goals.And the vicious and unprovoked torture of Sandhurst is a real stomach turner. The Baron's warped (and obviously unstable) mind is a dark and twisted one indeed.
I have no idea to what you are referring.(As a sidenote, I suddenly seem to recognise the grinding gear noise of the portal's appearance and departure though I'm perhaps reading too much into it? I keep expecting a blue police box to appear though...)
And I think we can both agree that there are definitely no angels associated with this particular 'box.' Thanks again for the terrific commentary.
No kidding! Gibraltar's bridge should have a warning sign that reads: WARNING!: THERE IS A HIGH LIKELIHOOD OF ASS KICKAGE IN THIS COMPARTMENT.
Gibraltar, I still love the whole Juneau situation. The first time I first read this you also had me wondering weather or not Dunleavy would become a non-corporeal being or stay human. Also in rereading this I am reminded how much I like Ramirez. The whole promotion coming through in the middle of the crisis was great writing by turning the whole emotional situation on its head.
One question, are you just re-posting what you have over at Ad Astra or are you giving each chapter a re-edit before posting at here?
One question, are you just re-posting what you have over at Ad Astra or are you giving each chapter a re-edit before posting at here?
Much obliged, I'm glad you liked that aspect. That's precisely what I was going for with that scene.
I've been touching the story up here and there, mostly minor grammatical adjustments. I'll be re-posting the edited edition back onto Ad Astra when I finish.
It's not every day I find myself rooting for an Orion. (Okay, that's not entirely true. )
Poor Sandhurst, he's like the Timex watch of starship Captain's - takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Now he's back playing engineer, muttering, "do I cut the red wire or the blue wire? . . ." Meanwhile, our friendly neighborhood Ahmet and the Baron are embraced in the floor dance of death.
You are the master of the tactical clusterfrak. I don't know anyone who writes close-order battle sequences better. Having Pava in the mix makes it all the better. When he grins, you know something bad is about to happen to someone!
If I read too much of this at one sitting, I'll have to switch to decaf. Well done, sir! 
)Poor Sandhurst, he's like the Timex watch of starship Captain's - takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Now he's back playing engineer, muttering, "do I cut the red wire or the blue wire? . . ." Meanwhile, our friendly neighborhood Ahmet and the Baron are embraced in the floor dance of death.
You are the master of the tactical clusterfrak. I don't know anyone who writes close-order battle sequences better. Having Pava in the mix makes it all the better. When he grins, you know something bad is about to happen to someone!
If I read too much of this at one sitting, I'll have to switch to decaf.
Well done, sir!
Well, I'm pretty sure one of Starfleet's recruitment posters showed an image of an officer being interrogated by Klingons with the caption, "We never promised you a rose garden."It's not every day I find myself rooting for an Orion. (Okay, that's not entirely true.
Poor Sandhurst, he's like the Timex watch of starship Captain's - takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Now he's back playing engineer, muttering, "do I cut the red wire or the blue wire? . . ." Meanwhile, our friendly neighborhood Ahmet and the Baron are embraced in the floor dance of death.
Thanks, I'm rather proud of how well the whole shipboard battle scenes came together in this story. And yes, when Pava smiles... bad things man... bad things.You are the master of the tactical clusterfrak. I don't know anyone who writes close-order battle sequences better. Having Pava in the mix makes it all the better. When he grins, you know something bad is about to happen to someone!
Heh, better keep that quiet or my series will have to be regulated by the FDA!If I read too much of this at one sitting, I'll have to switch to decaf.
Thanks for the awesome commentary!
Geometries of Chance - Chapter 20
Chapter 20
Sandhurst picked through the unfamiliar technology and tried to differentiate which component did what as he struggled with his trembling hands and increasingly blurred vision. He could hear the brutal struggle being waged on the other side of the dais, the grunts and gasps of two men locked in mortal combat.
As Kutav’s drugs leached from his system, Sandhurst became conscious once again of the agonizing injuries he had sustained. His breathing became shallow; it hurt too much to inhale deeply. His hands grew increasingly clumsy and he found himself fumbling and dropping various pieces of hardware within the console housing. Sandhurst knew he must act quickly, that time was precious, but his mind kept wandering and he had to fight to maintain his concentration.
There was a series of wet smacking sounds, punctuated by a voice which bellowed incoherently with each fist fall. Then silence. Footsteps echoed in the room, and Sandhurst found himself murmuring an ancient prayer from his childhood that somehow the Orion had proved the victor. A pair of human looking hands grasped Sandhurst roughly and dragged him out from under the control table. The captain stared up into a youthful but unfamiliar face, now bruised and bloodied following the brutal struggle with Kutav. Sandhurst winced, coughed and said, “Compliments to… your cosmetic surgeon.”
The Baron roared as he picked Sandhurst up bodily and threw him against one of the spiraling support columns. Collapsing at its base, the captain struggled feebly to move, but found that he could not. He watched the Baron’s approach as he readied himself to meet his end. At least he had gone out fighting. It wasn’t much, he thought regretfully, but it was something. "What the hell... are you... anyway?" Sandhurst croaked.
The Baron grinned wickedly as he reveled in his new body, all swagger and arrogance despite the damage inflicted by the now unconscious Kutav. “Less a man than a god,” he growled and reached for Sandhurst’s throat.
Time froze, or it seemed to. The Baron’s hands, centimeters from Sandhurst’s neck, were immobilized. Sandhurst wondered briefly if, on the cusp of death, his brain had short-circuited somehow. It was then that he spotted the man.
Clad in the strange garb of a 19th century Union soldier from the American Civil War, the man stood outside the inner ring of the command room, backlit by one of the Baron’s pedestal displays. He stepped forward into the light to study both Sandhurst and the Baron. The expression on his unremarkable face was one of anguish.
Sandhurst’s head swam and spots appeared in his vision as he battled to remain conscious. “Here for the show?” he asked. “You’ve… arrived for the best… part.” It took every ounce of will Sandhurst could muster to raise his hand and point tremulously at the Baron. “...'bout to kill me.”
The man dressed in soldier’s garb held out his hand, palm up. There was a brief flash of white energy that vanished to reveal a miniature light show taking place just above his hand. It took Sandhurst’s fatigued mind a moment to place the image; a display of the battle raging throughout subspace. An amorphous blob of greenish energy, presumably the Baron’s creature, was surrounded by a swirling formation of orange spheres. Tiny pinpricks of energetic aggression lanced between them in a confused ballet of violence.
Sandhurst coughed into his hand, then spit out what looked suspiciously like a clotted piece of lung tissue. His chest wheezed threateningly as he asked, “Q… I presume?”
The stranger's face was not the one Sandhurst had seen in briefings on the god-like Q, and he wondered idly if this was some other member of the vaunted Continuum. The soldier appeared to ignore the human’s question and shook his head sadly as he continued to watch the clashing foes. He murmured, “This is unbearable. That it has come to this…”
The undulating field of green energy vanished, followed a second later by the rest of the image. Suddenly, the soldier stood cradling another man in his arms. The new arrival wore a uniform similar to that of the figure who held him, only his was grayish in color, its chest and shoulders stained with blood from what looked to be a mortal head wound.
The soldier in blue lowered his face. His eyes glistened and then closed tightly as he kissed the crown of the dying man’s head. “I’m sorry.”
Sandhurst watched the bizarre reunion, and found himself speaking without intending to. “A friend?”
The soldier opened his eyes and choked back tears before he replied in a voice thick with grief, “My brother.”
He inclined his head towards them with great effort and Sandhurst asked, “Who… did this?”
“I did,” was his sorrowful reply. “I killed him.”
“Condolences,” was all Sandhurst could think to say.
The soldier smiled wistfully as tears now coursed down his cheeks. “It was war. And he was so damnably stubborn.” He clutched his fallen brother to him and continued to speak, as if listing his sins to a confessor. “I cut him down on the field of battle, and thought he was dead. I hadn’t realized I’d only wounded him, hurt him so grievously that his mind shattered, though his body lived on.” He shook his head gently, “Killing each other over divergent ideals. How corporeal of us.”
Sandhurst fought back against a wave of dizziness that threatened to overwhelm him. He tried to anchor himself as he commented, “Join the club.” He pressed his hand on one of the more vicious wounds to his leg, the surge of pain helping him to focus. “Why have you… come for him… only now?”
“Until he was unleashed on your universe through the portal, we didn’t know what had become of him.” The soldier appeared to gather his emotional reserves and now looked somewhat less grief stricken. “Your ‘Baron’ tore our brother from his grave, and used him for his own malicious ends”
“He’s… rather good at that.”
“Then it was too dangerous to approach him in his current state. His higher functions were destroyed; he was acting largely on impulses provided to him by the Baron. Look at what chaos he’s wrought on this star system in his struggle with the Sentinel spheres. Had he seen the Continuum’s arrival as a mortal threat, he might have lashed out at us in blind terror, and without the normal constraints on his powers provided by an intact mind-state, he could have easily annihilated your entire plane of existence.”
“That would be... bad,” Sandhurst assessed gravely.
“Indeed,” the soldier replied. “It wasn’t until your people had drawn him to the surface and the Sentinels' portal had sufficiently weakened him that I could risk recovering him without undue peril.” He frowned slightly. “Which reminds me…”
A loud buzzing sound filled the room, followed by a sudden, echoing ‘pop.’ An orange sphere grew from a single speck to its full two meter diameter in an instant. It hovered directly in front of the Union soldier.
His eyes hardened with resolve as the soldier said, “I’m taking him home. He deserves to be laid to rest among his own kind.”
The sphere pulsed in quick succession. Something unspoken passed between it and the soldier.
“I know, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for all the torment he caused you.” He cast a hard look at the Baron’s frozen form before the soldier looked back to the sphere. “What was inflicted on my brother was a ghoulish crime; he was not acting of his own free will.”
Again, the sphere pulsated.
The soldier nodded slowly. “I understand.” He shifted the burden in his arms and looked momentarily discomfited with the weight of the body. As he clung to consciousness, Sandhurst found that strangely amusing. The man continued, “Were it not for your efforts and those of the humans, the Continuum wouldn’t have discovered the scope of this tragedy.” He looked down at the man he embraced. “Even during his incarceration you were never cruel to him. You did your duty without malice, and I thank you for it. That’s far more than can be said for the monster who desecrated his remains.”
The sphere appeared to answer as it simultaneously swept the Baron’s stationary visage with a fan of golden light.
The soldier frowned. “I’m afraid I cannot allow that. I brought you here only to explain my actions and convey my appreciation. As much as I wish all manner of horrors upon this man, you will have to locate him with your own means.” In answer to Sandhurst’s unasked question, he turned to the captain. “We’re under new management. New rules of conduct. No interference.”
Sandhurst’s heart sank. His fantasies of a miraculous rescue crashed down around him. The sphere vanished with another pop of displaced air, and Sandhurst was left staring at the two men. “I hope… you find some pe— peace,” he offered.
The soldier held Sandhurst’s gaze as he thought hard about something. “You and my brother are both his victims. I empathize with your plight. I truly wish I could help.”
Sandhurst coughed. “Your people… have broken the rules before.”
“I cannot deliver you from his clutches, Captain. Stiff penalties will be levied against anyone of us who break ranks among the new order.”
Sandhurst nodded towards the dais. “Could you push a few buttons for me?”
The soldier considered this. He shifted his brother in his arms and approached the control station. He appeared momentarily torn, but then shook his head with finality. “I cannot.” As he gave the human a last, remorseful look, the Union soldier vanished in a burst of light that took his Confederate kin with him.
Sandhurst closed his eyes and prepared himself for the Baron’s onslaught.
*****
Lar’ragos typed frantically on a padd with one hand as he struggled to change out his rifle’s power cell with the other. As Parlan reached back to launch an energy pulse down the turboshaft at him, Lar’ragos managed to erect a forcefield three meters above where he stood atop the damaged lift car. He flinched involuntarily as the purplish bolt slammed against the field. He muttered to himself as he drove the new power clip home, repeating over and over, “Lucky old man, lucky old man…”
He attenuated the field to the frequency of his phaser rifle and fired up through the now permeable barrier. His blasts struck the android’s fluctuating defensive shield as the juggernaut began to climb up through the shattered lift doors and onto the main bridge.
As he sensed the machine’s growing weakness, Lar’ragos pressed the advantage.
*****
<cont'd>
Chapter 20
Sandhurst picked through the unfamiliar technology and tried to differentiate which component did what as he struggled with his trembling hands and increasingly blurred vision. He could hear the brutal struggle being waged on the other side of the dais, the grunts and gasps of two men locked in mortal combat.
As Kutav’s drugs leached from his system, Sandhurst became conscious once again of the agonizing injuries he had sustained. His breathing became shallow; it hurt too much to inhale deeply. His hands grew increasingly clumsy and he found himself fumbling and dropping various pieces of hardware within the console housing. Sandhurst knew he must act quickly, that time was precious, but his mind kept wandering and he had to fight to maintain his concentration.
There was a series of wet smacking sounds, punctuated by a voice which bellowed incoherently with each fist fall. Then silence. Footsteps echoed in the room, and Sandhurst found himself murmuring an ancient prayer from his childhood that somehow the Orion had proved the victor. A pair of human looking hands grasped Sandhurst roughly and dragged him out from under the control table. The captain stared up into a youthful but unfamiliar face, now bruised and bloodied following the brutal struggle with Kutav. Sandhurst winced, coughed and said, “Compliments to… your cosmetic surgeon.”
The Baron roared as he picked Sandhurst up bodily and threw him against one of the spiraling support columns. Collapsing at its base, the captain struggled feebly to move, but found that he could not. He watched the Baron’s approach as he readied himself to meet his end. At least he had gone out fighting. It wasn’t much, he thought regretfully, but it was something. "What the hell... are you... anyway?" Sandhurst croaked.
The Baron grinned wickedly as he reveled in his new body, all swagger and arrogance despite the damage inflicted by the now unconscious Kutav. “Less a man than a god,” he growled and reached for Sandhurst’s throat.
Time froze, or it seemed to. The Baron’s hands, centimeters from Sandhurst’s neck, were immobilized. Sandhurst wondered briefly if, on the cusp of death, his brain had short-circuited somehow. It was then that he spotted the man.
Clad in the strange garb of a 19th century Union soldier from the American Civil War, the man stood outside the inner ring of the command room, backlit by one of the Baron’s pedestal displays. He stepped forward into the light to study both Sandhurst and the Baron. The expression on his unremarkable face was one of anguish.
Sandhurst’s head swam and spots appeared in his vision as he battled to remain conscious. “Here for the show?” he asked. “You’ve… arrived for the best… part.” It took every ounce of will Sandhurst could muster to raise his hand and point tremulously at the Baron. “...'bout to kill me.”
The man dressed in soldier’s garb held out his hand, palm up. There was a brief flash of white energy that vanished to reveal a miniature light show taking place just above his hand. It took Sandhurst’s fatigued mind a moment to place the image; a display of the battle raging throughout subspace. An amorphous blob of greenish energy, presumably the Baron’s creature, was surrounded by a swirling formation of orange spheres. Tiny pinpricks of energetic aggression lanced between them in a confused ballet of violence.
Sandhurst coughed into his hand, then spit out what looked suspiciously like a clotted piece of lung tissue. His chest wheezed threateningly as he asked, “Q… I presume?”
The stranger's face was not the one Sandhurst had seen in briefings on the god-like Q, and he wondered idly if this was some other member of the vaunted Continuum. The soldier appeared to ignore the human’s question and shook his head sadly as he continued to watch the clashing foes. He murmured, “This is unbearable. That it has come to this…”
The undulating field of green energy vanished, followed a second later by the rest of the image. Suddenly, the soldier stood cradling another man in his arms. The new arrival wore a uniform similar to that of the figure who held him, only his was grayish in color, its chest and shoulders stained with blood from what looked to be a mortal head wound.
The soldier in blue lowered his face. His eyes glistened and then closed tightly as he kissed the crown of the dying man’s head. “I’m sorry.”
Sandhurst watched the bizarre reunion, and found himself speaking without intending to. “A friend?”
The soldier opened his eyes and choked back tears before he replied in a voice thick with grief, “My brother.”
He inclined his head towards them with great effort and Sandhurst asked, “Who… did this?”
“I did,” was his sorrowful reply. “I killed him.”
“Condolences,” was all Sandhurst could think to say.
The soldier smiled wistfully as tears now coursed down his cheeks. “It was war. And he was so damnably stubborn.” He clutched his fallen brother to him and continued to speak, as if listing his sins to a confessor. “I cut him down on the field of battle, and thought he was dead. I hadn’t realized I’d only wounded him, hurt him so grievously that his mind shattered, though his body lived on.” He shook his head gently, “Killing each other over divergent ideals. How corporeal of us.”
Sandhurst fought back against a wave of dizziness that threatened to overwhelm him. He tried to anchor himself as he commented, “Join the club.” He pressed his hand on one of the more vicious wounds to his leg, the surge of pain helping him to focus. “Why have you… come for him… only now?”
“Until he was unleashed on your universe through the portal, we didn’t know what had become of him.” The soldier appeared to gather his emotional reserves and now looked somewhat less grief stricken. “Your ‘Baron’ tore our brother from his grave, and used him for his own malicious ends”
“He’s… rather good at that.”
“Then it was too dangerous to approach him in his current state. His higher functions were destroyed; he was acting largely on impulses provided to him by the Baron. Look at what chaos he’s wrought on this star system in his struggle with the Sentinel spheres. Had he seen the Continuum’s arrival as a mortal threat, he might have lashed out at us in blind terror, and without the normal constraints on his powers provided by an intact mind-state, he could have easily annihilated your entire plane of existence.”
“That would be... bad,” Sandhurst assessed gravely.
“Indeed,” the soldier replied. “It wasn’t until your people had drawn him to the surface and the Sentinels' portal had sufficiently weakened him that I could risk recovering him without undue peril.” He frowned slightly. “Which reminds me…”
A loud buzzing sound filled the room, followed by a sudden, echoing ‘pop.’ An orange sphere grew from a single speck to its full two meter diameter in an instant. It hovered directly in front of the Union soldier.
His eyes hardened with resolve as the soldier said, “I’m taking him home. He deserves to be laid to rest among his own kind.”
The sphere pulsed in quick succession. Something unspoken passed between it and the soldier.
“I know, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for all the torment he caused you.” He cast a hard look at the Baron’s frozen form before the soldier looked back to the sphere. “What was inflicted on my brother was a ghoulish crime; he was not acting of his own free will.”
Again, the sphere pulsated.
The soldier nodded slowly. “I understand.” He shifted the burden in his arms and looked momentarily discomfited with the weight of the body. As he clung to consciousness, Sandhurst found that strangely amusing. The man continued, “Were it not for your efforts and those of the humans, the Continuum wouldn’t have discovered the scope of this tragedy.” He looked down at the man he embraced. “Even during his incarceration you were never cruel to him. You did your duty without malice, and I thank you for it. That’s far more than can be said for the monster who desecrated his remains.”
The sphere appeared to answer as it simultaneously swept the Baron’s stationary visage with a fan of golden light.
The soldier frowned. “I’m afraid I cannot allow that. I brought you here only to explain my actions and convey my appreciation. As much as I wish all manner of horrors upon this man, you will have to locate him with your own means.” In answer to Sandhurst’s unasked question, he turned to the captain. “We’re under new management. New rules of conduct. No interference.”
Sandhurst’s heart sank. His fantasies of a miraculous rescue crashed down around him. The sphere vanished with another pop of displaced air, and Sandhurst was left staring at the two men. “I hope… you find some pe— peace,” he offered.
The soldier held Sandhurst’s gaze as he thought hard about something. “You and my brother are both his victims. I empathize with your plight. I truly wish I could help.”
Sandhurst coughed. “Your people… have broken the rules before.”
“I cannot deliver you from his clutches, Captain. Stiff penalties will be levied against anyone of us who break ranks among the new order.”
Sandhurst nodded towards the dais. “Could you push a few buttons for me?”
The soldier considered this. He shifted his brother in his arms and approached the control station. He appeared momentarily torn, but then shook his head with finality. “I cannot.” As he gave the human a last, remorseful look, the Union soldier vanished in a burst of light that took his Confederate kin with him.
Sandhurst closed his eyes and prepared himself for the Baron’s onslaught.
*****
Lar’ragos typed frantically on a padd with one hand as he struggled to change out his rifle’s power cell with the other. As Parlan reached back to launch an energy pulse down the turboshaft at him, Lar’ragos managed to erect a forcefield three meters above where he stood atop the damaged lift car. He flinched involuntarily as the purplish bolt slammed against the field. He muttered to himself as he drove the new power clip home, repeating over and over, “Lucky old man, lucky old man…”
He attenuated the field to the frequency of his phaser rifle and fired up through the now permeable barrier. His blasts struck the android’s fluctuating defensive shield as the juggernaut began to climb up through the shattered lift doors and onto the main bridge.
As he sensed the machine’s growing weakness, Lar’ragos pressed the advantage.
*****
<cont'd>
Geometries of Chance - Chapter 20
Chapter 20 <cont'd>
Ramirez watched in horror as Parlan began to clamber onto the bridge. The lift-tube behind him was lit with brilliant flashes of light as someone further down the turboshaft pelted the android furiously with pulse blasts.
The surging adrenaline in Ramirez’s system sparked an acute hyper-awareness, and her movements felt unnaturally slow and cumbersome as she struggled to access the phaser housed in a recessed compartment in the command chair.
Before she could bring her weapon to bear, multiple phaser beams from other bridge personnel converged on Parlan to impact his wavering forcefield. Ramirez added her sidearm’s discharge to the melee, and their combined effort drove him backwards. Parlan’s protective field suddenly collapsed as the phaser beams scored across his torso to punch through his outer casing and into his internal structure. The giant was thrown backwards into the void where he vanished soundlessly down the shaft, a puzzled expression etched into his artificial features.
*****
Lar’ragos cursed and threw himself to the side as Parlan’s smoking frame thundered down the turboshaft. The giant spun wildly and caromed off the walls before slamming into the forcefield just over Lar'ragos' head. The lieutenant was both amazed and relieved when the field held firm on impact and the colossus’ body began to thrash against the crackling barrier. Lar'ragos put another dozen pulses into Parlan’s convulsing form for good measure.
He allowed the field another few seconds to further deplete the android’s reserves before shutting it off. Parlan landed atop the turbolift car with a resounding clang, his body still twitching as the blackened holes in his torso sparked and sizzled. Lar’ragos stood over him and placed his foot atop the android’s chest as he pointed the rifle’s emitter at Parlan’s head.
Though gravely wounded, many of Parlan’s secondary and tertiary backups were still functional. At speeds exceeding that of light, his positronic network analyzed his present situation. He could not self-destruct, for in so doing he would destroy the starship that was acting as bait for his master’s plan. He could not allow himself to be captured, as that would allow his enemy valuable insights into his functioning should the Baron send his smaller cousin aboard to finish the job. Instead, he found the only acceptable course of action was escape. He activated his internal distress beacon that linked to the timeship’s transmat system. A black wall of energy rose from the floor to engulf Parlan and the unwitting El Aurian and whisked them both away.
*****
The immediate threat having been dealt with, Ramirez turned her attention back to the ship’s dilemma. The strain on Gibraltar’s spaceframe had become so great that they were losing structural integrity by the second. Lightner had been forced to stand the ship on its tail to direct the impulse drive downward in order to maximize thrust. The overtaxed impulse engines screamed in protest as they fought for purchase against the inexorable pull of planetary gravity.
Ramirez had to yell over the growing roar of the engines to be heard as she called back to Plazzi. “Where’s that energy field coming from?”
Plazzi looked ashen as the clash of artificial shipboard gravity and it’s natural counterpart sent conflicting messages to his inner ear. He swallowed hard and the older man tore his eyes away from his display long enough to answer, “The meteorological station, sir. The power readings are off the charts, but it looks like a massive meson field.”
“Commander!” Ashok bellowed from the Engineering station. “We’ve got thirty seconds to begin our ascent, or we’re going to lose the impulse drive before reaching escape velocity. The fusion reactors are at critical and I can’t force any more coolant into the system without rupturing a line!”
Ramirez bit unconsciously at her lower lip as she struggled to keep the images of Phoenix’s shattered bridge from her mind. Her own voice chanted denials in her head, Not again - not again - not again. “You heard the man, Ensign!” she called to Lightner at Flight Control. “Get us out of here!” She ardently hoped that they had fulfilled the spheres’ requirements, but she wouldn’t sacrifice the ship and crew needlessly.
The starship Gibraltar trembled ominously as it clawed its way back up through the atmosphere of Pierosh II, withstanding stresses that her designers could scarcely have imagined.
*****
The Baron’s hands had just begun to close around Sandhurst’s throat when the sound of a transmat field activating caught his attention. He looked up in time to see Lar’ragos and Parlan deposited mere meters from where he and Sandhurst were situated.
Lar'ragos glanced around in confusion for a moment, but then quickly absorbed his new surroundings. His eyes determinedly fixed on the Baron as he ramped his phaser rifle to maximum and incinerated Parlan’s now defenseless form.
The Baron stood to look around frantically for his crystalline hand device. He would not suffer to be shot down like some animal by an inferior. It would not end this way for him; it could not.
A strangely peaceful look descended across Lar’ragos’ features as he deactivated the rifle. He ejected the energy magazine and threw it and the rifle in separate directions as he slowly rounded the dais. Though he had never before seen the Baron's new face, Lar'ragos evidenced no confusion as to the man's identity as he moved towards his intended target.
The Baron eyed him warily, scarcely believing his luck. He recognized the man as the officer from the starship’s bridge who had vowed revenge on him. The fool wanted to engage him in hand-to-hand combat. Regardless of the injuries he’d sustained in his fight with Kutav, he had a vigorous new body and countless centuries of unarmed warfare training. He had just bested a man nearly twice his size, and he still had stamina to spare. The Baron reflected elatedly that this young man’s conceit would spell certain doom for he and his captain.
Sandhurst’s eyes fluttered as he reached the limits of his endurance. Before he slipped into unconsciousness, he muttered, “Just don’t… kill him, Pava. That’s all I ask…”
The Baron assumed a defensive stance and took measure of his foe. He scanned up from the officer's feet to judge weak spots in the man’s physiology that he would exploit. It was when he reached the man’s eyes that the Baron first experienced doubt. There was cold certainty there, as if the contest’s outcome was a foregone conclusion. The Baron sensed then that his enemy was not merely human, as he had assumed, but something different. Something more. For the first time in a very long time, fear tickled at the edges of the Baron’s mind.
*****
“WARNING: Structural integrity failure in twenty-six seconds.” The computer’s infuriatingly calm voice projected their fate with utter stoicism.
Various alarm klaxons yowled, apparently trying to drown one another out amidst the pandemonium that had consumed Gibraltar’s bridge. All shipboard power, including artificial gravity, had been routed to the impulse drive and the thrusters. Like the astronauts of yore, Ramirez and the others were pressed into their seats by five standard gravities. They struggled to breath as their vessel groaned and juddered around them.
As he fought to keep from blacking out, Ashok watched with dread as the microfractures he had detected earlier in the nacelle pylons worsened. He summoned his voice despite the uncomfortable weight pressing down on him to shout, “Shearing stress on the pylons is too great, Commander. It’s causing sympathetic vibrations that are carrying into the secondary hull and are compromising our anti-matter containment. We’re going to lose the engineering section, probably the whole ship!”
Pinned to the command chair, Ramirez fought for enough breath to respond. “Eject the nacelles and the pylons!”
Ashok’s eyes went wide without the assistance of multiple gravities. “Sir?”
“Do it!”
The well muscled engineer forced his hand onto the console and grunted with the effort. He struggled through three separate security overrides before the computer was convinced that he did indeed want to blow the warp nacelles free from the vessel’s superstructure.
Monotanium sphincters constricted to stem the flow of warp plasma to the nacelles seconds before a series of explosive charges detonated in succession that sheared the graceful pylons and their respective nacelles from the secondary hull. The warp engines blasted free to fall lazily back towards the planet as Gibraltar punched through the exosphere and strained to achieve escape velocity.
*****
The fight unfolded like a painstakingly choreographed dance. The Baron threw strike after strike, but his blows were deflected by his opponent with unbelievable speed and an uncanny prescience.
Lar’ragos parried the Baron’s attacks fluidly to follow with punishing counter-strikes that took a discernable toll on his foe. The Baron was good. Better than good, in fact, the man bordered on fantastic. But this wasn’t a fair fight. The words of Pava’s first unarmed combat instructor echoed in his ears. “Always cheat, always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.”
Lar'ragos delivered a knife-hand strike to the Baron’s throat. Can’t breath, can’t fight. He gouged the time traveler’s left eye with his finger. Can’t see, can’t fight. He dropped to a crouch and slashed out with his foot to blow out the man’s right knee with a sickly crunch. Can’t brace, can’t fight. Lar'ragos then rolled across the Baron’s body as the man collapsed. He grasped the Baron's left arm and jerked the limb to dislocate shoulder from socket before taking hold of the man's head and slamming it against the floor in a series of concussive blows that finally settled the matter.
As much as he might have wished otherwise, the El Aurian took no satisfaction from his systematic deconstruction of the Baron. It was pure instinct, channeled impulse. His senses guided his body to where the enemy's next blow would land. It was the ultimate perversion of a Listener’s abilities, honed by centuries of hard won survival across the great expanse of the galaxy.
When it was finished Lar’ragos stood over the man as the Baron lay still and blood pooled around him. He was terribly hurt, broken and contused, but he would live. Lar’ragos had his orders, after all.
Only then did Pava go to his friend.
*****
Chapter 20 <cont'd>
Ramirez watched in horror as Parlan began to clamber onto the bridge. The lift-tube behind him was lit with brilliant flashes of light as someone further down the turboshaft pelted the android furiously with pulse blasts.
The surging adrenaline in Ramirez’s system sparked an acute hyper-awareness, and her movements felt unnaturally slow and cumbersome as she struggled to access the phaser housed in a recessed compartment in the command chair.
Before she could bring her weapon to bear, multiple phaser beams from other bridge personnel converged on Parlan to impact his wavering forcefield. Ramirez added her sidearm’s discharge to the melee, and their combined effort drove him backwards. Parlan’s protective field suddenly collapsed as the phaser beams scored across his torso to punch through his outer casing and into his internal structure. The giant was thrown backwards into the void where he vanished soundlessly down the shaft, a puzzled expression etched into his artificial features.
*****
Lar’ragos cursed and threw himself to the side as Parlan’s smoking frame thundered down the turboshaft. The giant spun wildly and caromed off the walls before slamming into the forcefield just over Lar'ragos' head. The lieutenant was both amazed and relieved when the field held firm on impact and the colossus’ body began to thrash against the crackling barrier. Lar'ragos put another dozen pulses into Parlan’s convulsing form for good measure.
He allowed the field another few seconds to further deplete the android’s reserves before shutting it off. Parlan landed atop the turbolift car with a resounding clang, his body still twitching as the blackened holes in his torso sparked and sizzled. Lar’ragos stood over him and placed his foot atop the android’s chest as he pointed the rifle’s emitter at Parlan’s head.
Though gravely wounded, many of Parlan’s secondary and tertiary backups were still functional. At speeds exceeding that of light, his positronic network analyzed his present situation. He could not self-destruct, for in so doing he would destroy the starship that was acting as bait for his master’s plan. He could not allow himself to be captured, as that would allow his enemy valuable insights into his functioning should the Baron send his smaller cousin aboard to finish the job. Instead, he found the only acceptable course of action was escape. He activated his internal distress beacon that linked to the timeship’s transmat system. A black wall of energy rose from the floor to engulf Parlan and the unwitting El Aurian and whisked them both away.
*****
The immediate threat having been dealt with, Ramirez turned her attention back to the ship’s dilemma. The strain on Gibraltar’s spaceframe had become so great that they were losing structural integrity by the second. Lightner had been forced to stand the ship on its tail to direct the impulse drive downward in order to maximize thrust. The overtaxed impulse engines screamed in protest as they fought for purchase against the inexorable pull of planetary gravity.
Ramirez had to yell over the growing roar of the engines to be heard as she called back to Plazzi. “Where’s that energy field coming from?”
Plazzi looked ashen as the clash of artificial shipboard gravity and it’s natural counterpart sent conflicting messages to his inner ear. He swallowed hard and the older man tore his eyes away from his display long enough to answer, “The meteorological station, sir. The power readings are off the charts, but it looks like a massive meson field.”
“Commander!” Ashok bellowed from the Engineering station. “We’ve got thirty seconds to begin our ascent, or we’re going to lose the impulse drive before reaching escape velocity. The fusion reactors are at critical and I can’t force any more coolant into the system without rupturing a line!”
Ramirez bit unconsciously at her lower lip as she struggled to keep the images of Phoenix’s shattered bridge from her mind. Her own voice chanted denials in her head, Not again - not again - not again. “You heard the man, Ensign!” she called to Lightner at Flight Control. “Get us out of here!” She ardently hoped that they had fulfilled the spheres’ requirements, but she wouldn’t sacrifice the ship and crew needlessly.
The starship Gibraltar trembled ominously as it clawed its way back up through the atmosphere of Pierosh II, withstanding stresses that her designers could scarcely have imagined.
*****
The Baron’s hands had just begun to close around Sandhurst’s throat when the sound of a transmat field activating caught his attention. He looked up in time to see Lar’ragos and Parlan deposited mere meters from where he and Sandhurst were situated.
Lar'ragos glanced around in confusion for a moment, but then quickly absorbed his new surroundings. His eyes determinedly fixed on the Baron as he ramped his phaser rifle to maximum and incinerated Parlan’s now defenseless form.
The Baron stood to look around frantically for his crystalline hand device. He would not suffer to be shot down like some animal by an inferior. It would not end this way for him; it could not.
A strangely peaceful look descended across Lar’ragos’ features as he deactivated the rifle. He ejected the energy magazine and threw it and the rifle in separate directions as he slowly rounded the dais. Though he had never before seen the Baron's new face, Lar'ragos evidenced no confusion as to the man's identity as he moved towards his intended target.
The Baron eyed him warily, scarcely believing his luck. He recognized the man as the officer from the starship’s bridge who had vowed revenge on him. The fool wanted to engage him in hand-to-hand combat. Regardless of the injuries he’d sustained in his fight with Kutav, he had a vigorous new body and countless centuries of unarmed warfare training. He had just bested a man nearly twice his size, and he still had stamina to spare. The Baron reflected elatedly that this young man’s conceit would spell certain doom for he and his captain.
Sandhurst’s eyes fluttered as he reached the limits of his endurance. Before he slipped into unconsciousness, he muttered, “Just don’t… kill him, Pava. That’s all I ask…”
The Baron assumed a defensive stance and took measure of his foe. He scanned up from the officer's feet to judge weak spots in the man’s physiology that he would exploit. It was when he reached the man’s eyes that the Baron first experienced doubt. There was cold certainty there, as if the contest’s outcome was a foregone conclusion. The Baron sensed then that his enemy was not merely human, as he had assumed, but something different. Something more. For the first time in a very long time, fear tickled at the edges of the Baron’s mind.
*****
“WARNING: Structural integrity failure in twenty-six seconds.” The computer’s infuriatingly calm voice projected their fate with utter stoicism.
Various alarm klaxons yowled, apparently trying to drown one another out amidst the pandemonium that had consumed Gibraltar’s bridge. All shipboard power, including artificial gravity, had been routed to the impulse drive and the thrusters. Like the astronauts of yore, Ramirez and the others were pressed into their seats by five standard gravities. They struggled to breath as their vessel groaned and juddered around them.
As he fought to keep from blacking out, Ashok watched with dread as the microfractures he had detected earlier in the nacelle pylons worsened. He summoned his voice despite the uncomfortable weight pressing down on him to shout, “Shearing stress on the pylons is too great, Commander. It’s causing sympathetic vibrations that are carrying into the secondary hull and are compromising our anti-matter containment. We’re going to lose the engineering section, probably the whole ship!”
Pinned to the command chair, Ramirez fought for enough breath to respond. “Eject the nacelles and the pylons!”
Ashok’s eyes went wide without the assistance of multiple gravities. “Sir?”
“Do it!”
The well muscled engineer forced his hand onto the console and grunted with the effort. He struggled through three separate security overrides before the computer was convinced that he did indeed want to blow the warp nacelles free from the vessel’s superstructure.
Monotanium sphincters constricted to stem the flow of warp plasma to the nacelles seconds before a series of explosive charges detonated in succession that sheared the graceful pylons and their respective nacelles from the secondary hull. The warp engines blasted free to fall lazily back towards the planet as Gibraltar punched through the exosphere and strained to achieve escape velocity.
*****
The fight unfolded like a painstakingly choreographed dance. The Baron threw strike after strike, but his blows were deflected by his opponent with unbelievable speed and an uncanny prescience.
Lar’ragos parried the Baron’s attacks fluidly to follow with punishing counter-strikes that took a discernable toll on his foe. The Baron was good. Better than good, in fact, the man bordered on fantastic. But this wasn’t a fair fight. The words of Pava’s first unarmed combat instructor echoed in his ears. “Always cheat, always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.”
Lar'ragos delivered a knife-hand strike to the Baron’s throat. Can’t breath, can’t fight. He gouged the time traveler’s left eye with his finger. Can’t see, can’t fight. He dropped to a crouch and slashed out with his foot to blow out the man’s right knee with a sickly crunch. Can’t brace, can’t fight. Lar'ragos then rolled across the Baron’s body as the man collapsed. He grasped the Baron's left arm and jerked the limb to dislocate shoulder from socket before taking hold of the man's head and slamming it against the floor in a series of concussive blows that finally settled the matter.
As much as he might have wished otherwise, the El Aurian took no satisfaction from his systematic deconstruction of the Baron. It was pure instinct, channeled impulse. His senses guided his body to where the enemy's next blow would land. It was the ultimate perversion of a Listener’s abilities, honed by centuries of hard won survival across the great expanse of the galaxy.
When it was finished Lar’ragos stood over the man as the Baron lay still and blood pooled around him. He was terribly hurt, broken and contused, but he would live. Lar’ragos had his orders, after all.
Only then did Pava go to his friend.
*****
Turns out this is one of those stories that loses nothing in it's second reading. On the contrary.
From Pava's coma dreams of his sins in the distant past, which by the way I thought to be much more poignant this time around, now that I know the whole story, to the little details like Sandhurst ordering Taiee to stop treating a crew member to revive the Baron (controversial?!) and Ramirez's flashbacks to her last (short) command and her sudden promotion, and Pava's dirty fighting techniques, everything feels meticulously crafted and told with a vivid attention to detail.
And all this is not even mentioning the 'big' things that are happening here. The disturbing imagery created by the insane Q (Hey, it's raining blood) to Sandhurst's diabolic torture and one of the most memorable villains to ever grace a Trek fan-fic.
It's an all together dark and sometimes disturbing tale but - most importantly - it's also a helluva read.
From Pava's coma dreams of his sins in the distant past, which by the way I thought to be much more poignant this time around, now that I know the whole story, to the little details like Sandhurst ordering Taiee to stop treating a crew member to revive the Baron (controversial?!) and Ramirez's flashbacks to her last (short) command and her sudden promotion, and Pava's dirty fighting techniques, everything feels meticulously crafted and told with a vivid attention to detail.
And all this is not even mentioning the 'big' things that are happening here. The disturbing imagery created by the insane Q (Hey, it's raining blood) to Sandhurst's diabolic torture and one of the most memorable villains to ever grace a Trek fan-fic.
It's an all together dark and sometimes disturbing tale but - most importantly - it's also a helluva read.
Thanks!
This was an ugly mission for just about everyone on the crew, to be sure.
Thank you, the Baron is flattered, and he tells me he might not come after Captain Owens as a result.
Much obliged, my friend!
hapter 16
Woohoo! Dunleavy's back! Nice moment with the hand raising.
OK so I was wrong about Plazzi. Was that an intentional misdirection or are you just lulling me into a false sense of security? Hmmm, his comment of "I'm about a month away from a well deserved second retirement, Commander. Rest assured I'm not going to start gambling with my life now," makes me wonder.
Sandhurst's torture and the Baron's seeming revelling in it is very dark and heart rending but extremely well portrayed.
Serving aboard the Gibraltar wouldn't be my first choice of posting methinks.
Woohoo! Dunleavy's back! Nice moment with the hand raising.
OK so I was wrong about Plazzi. Was that an intentional misdirection or are you just lulling me into a false sense of security? Hmmm, his comment of "I'm about a month away from a well deserved second retirement, Commander. Rest assured I'm not going to start gambling with my life now," makes me wonder.
Sandhurst's torture and the Baron's seeming revelling in it is very dark and heart rending but extremely well portrayed.
Serving aboard the Gibraltar wouldn't be my first choice of posting methinks.
Chapter 17
I was quite prepared for the Sentinel to be in a position to handle this...beast, but to discover that they too are equally afraid is worrying. Perhaps more so now that the beast has sensed this.
Juneau's (sorry, alter-Juneau's) handling of Tark was very sly and obviously well prepared for and it seems that Juneau herself is just as much in the dark as those around her.
Pava's reaction to the sight of Sandhurst's torture from the bridge is all the more revealing for the reflections it gives him from his own past.
And a possible ally for Sandhurst, unrepentent though the Orion may be, sheds a small light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
I was quite prepared for the Sentinel to be in a position to handle this...beast, but to discover that they too are equally afraid is worrying. Perhaps more so now that the beast has sensed this.
Juneau's (sorry, alter-Juneau's) handling of Tark was very sly and obviously well prepared for and it seems that Juneau herself is just as much in the dark as those around her.
Pava's reaction to the sight of Sandhurst's torture from the bridge is all the more revealing for the reflections it gives him from his own past.
And a possible ally for Sandhurst, unrepentent though the Orion may be, sheds a small light at the end of a very dark tunnel.