Prophets and Loss - Chapter 9
Chapter 9
USS Gibraltar
Federation Task Force Peacekeeper
Periphery of the Ba’ku System
The Briar Patch (Klach D'Kel Brakt)
With the away mission well underway, there was little to do aboard Gibraltar but sit and wait. Some people found themselves unable to sit for the duration.
The racquetball thudded off the far wall, caroming off the side barrier only to find its path obstructed by Pell Ojana’s racquet. She blasted it back towards the wall, imparting a downward spin that sent it dropping into the corner, thus making Sandhurst’s return nearly impossible. That didn’t stop him from trying, of course.
Sailing across the court, Donald made a valiant attempt to intercept the ricocheting ball, but succeeded only in splaying himself across the floor comically. Rolling over onto his back, he mock glared at Pell who was laughing so hard she had to brace herself against the wall.
Sitting up, Sandhurst joined in the moment of levity, chuckling. “Thanks for mocking my pain.”
Catching her breath, she replied, “You know, your game has actually improved since the days on the Cuffe. You’d never have even attempted that shot back then.” She stepped forward, offering him a hand up.
Clambering back to his feet with Pell’s assistance, Sandhurst noted, “Racquetball was a passion of Captain Ebnal’s. Being able to keep up was a prerequisite for being his XO on the Venture. I haven’t had much opportunity to play recently.”
She smiled, stooping to scoop up the ball. “I’m happy I could remedy that situation for you.” She glanced back, catching Sandhurst admiring her profile.
The young Donald Sandhurst she’d known would have blushed fiercely and tripped over himself apologizing for such a gaffe. This Sandhurst merely smiled approvingly.
She stood, scrutinizing him. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a bag of mixed signals.”
He shrugged, “Aside from my family, my friends, and my crew… no. Why do you ask?”
Shaking her head bemusedly, she served, sending the two of them dashing about the court once again.
The game proceeded for the next twenty minutes, both players elevating their games incrementally to the point where their individual sets were lasting minutes at a time. The two battled fiercely, neither willing to yield as on some level the contest became a microcosm of their failed relationship. Eventually, however, Pell’s greater skill and superior stamina won the day.
Looking tired but happy, Sandhurst wiped the sweat from his head and face as he called a holographic bench seat into being and sat heavily.
Toweling off, Pell observed him for a minute before she spoke unexpectedly. She hadn’t meant to have this talk, not yet, and Pell took herself by surprise with her own forwardness. “Where did we go wrong, Donald?”
He seemed to take a long moment, eyes averted as he fingered the strings of his racquet. Looking up at her, he finally replied, “Things weren’t the same after Tong Beak, for either of us.”
She frowned, her expression caught somewhere between pain and irritation. “Was she so irresistible? You and Terrence both threw yourselves at her.” She took a drink from a water bottle, working to reign in emotions held too long in check. “Him I can understand. He’d found someone who looked just like me, but wasn’t. Terrence wasn’t risking anything. But you? You had the real thing.”
Bracing his elbows on his knees, Donald leaned forward, gazing at the floor. “Don’t ask me to explain to you what I can’t justify to myself, Ojana.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Try,” she said, more harshly than she’d intended.
“Fine.” He stood, walking to the center of the court, folding his arms across his chest as he took a brief self-inventory. “You’d been on the Chevalier for months, and we were growing apart. You knew damn well I wasn’t comfortable abandoning Diaz after Monica stole you away from the Cuffe, but you jumped ship anyway.”
She began to protest, but he cut her off with a rebuking glare. “You said you wanted an explanation.”
Pell held up a mollifying hand, bidding him to continue.
“When we encountered the… other Ojana… your doppelganger was like you in image only. She was wild… unbridled, uninhibited in a way that I found enormously seductive.”
Shaking her head, Pell remarked, “A bad girl in your good girl’s body.”
“Something like that.” He sighed. “As it turned out, she was using the both of us. Not that it makes the deed any less hateful. Glover still despises me for telling you about his part in that whole mess.”
“And later?” she asked. “After you’d joined me on the Chevalier? I’d forgiven you, but you still kept pulling away.”
He turned to face her. “Guilt, Ojana. You may have forgiven me, but I couldn’t absolve myself. I couldn’t touch you without thinking about my betrayal. In the end, being with you was just making me hate myself all the more.”
“And that’s why you left?”
He nodded reluctantly, “The chief engineer’s post on the Venture couldn’t have opened up at a better time as far as I was concerned.”
“What about now?” She stood, approaching him slowly, moving to embrace him. Sandhurst tensed, but did not otherwise resist the gesture. “Is there any chance for us to start over?”
He looked into her eyes, his pain and reticence only too clear. “It’s not that easy, I’m afraid. Not so long ago, someone… hurt me. Badly.”
Staring up at him, she radiated waves of empathy. “I’d gathered as much.”
“Part of that experience was that my memories were altered. Memories of my friends and loved ones were ripped away and someone perverted them terribly. I still… I have faint recollections of hurting you, violating you in the most obscene ways.” His jaw tightened, and he struggled to keep the moisture brimming in his eyes from flowing over. “On Betazed they helped me to recognize which of my memories are real, and which aren’t. Logically, I know those horrible visions are a fraud, but they still feel real, and it’s all wrapped up with my guilt over Tong Beak and my genuine feelings for you.”
She held him tightly, her eyes glistening as well. “I’m sorry, Donald. I’m so sorry.”
Sandhurst made a valiant attempt at a wry smile. “Hey,” he said gently. “That’s supposed to be my line.”
*****
Planet Ba’ku
Dorian Mountains
“The Core Breach?”
“No.”
“Graceland?”
“Nope.”
“Beazy’s Backroom?”
“Um… no. And who the hell is Beazy?”
“The Wild West? We could have swinging doors into the lounge area, dress it all up in 19th century frontier Americana.” Lightner was nothing if not persistent. But as long as his mouth was moving, it seemed his legs were as well, and Ramirez needed him keeping up with the group’s grueling pace.
“I told you, Brett, the lounge doesn’t need a name. Or a theme.” The exec replied patiently, looking ahead at the group as they forged upward in the fading light of day. She’d moved to the back of the party to motivate the lagging ensign into matching the rest of the away team’s tempo.
“I think we just need to jazz it up a bit, Commander. Other ships have novel themes or decorations.”
She resisted the urge to smile, “We’re not other ships, Mr. Lightner. We’re not about flash or image. We’re about getting the job done.”
He grinned self-consciously, “I know that, sir. I’d just like to leave my mark on the sh—“ The thought went uncompleted.
As ambushes go, it was exceptionally well executed. Lar’ragos was in the lead, and the Bajora-Tavan soldier who initiated the attack waited until the lieutenant had moved past him and out of the target area before launching the antipersonnel munitions. This would maximize the effect on the largest number of the intruders.
A rippling wave of brilliant white flashes erupted in close proximity to Shanthi, Taiee, Dunleavy, and two more of the security detail. They were followed almost immediately by the zing of neural disruptors, which did not give off a visible light beam, but simply rendered the target insensate at short range.
Momentarily blinded and struck deaf by the flash grenades, Dunleavy was struggling to bring her phaser rifle up when a neural pulse struck her, sending her toppling off the trail and sliding down the ridge.
One of the munitions landed too close to Shanthi, and the science officer’s supposedly fireproof Starfleet field jacket and tactical vest erupted in flames as he lurched backwards away from the dazzling flare.
Taiee threw her hands up over her eyes, too late to stop the optical flash from washing away her vision. She threw herself onto the ground as the sounds of exchanging weapons fire and explosions roared around her.
Specialist Sharpe, who’d already donned his night-vision glasses in deference to the growing twilight, was spared the visual disruption of the opening assault. He toggled off his rifle’s safety and fired blindly, blanketing the uphill side of the trail in pulse phaser bolts.
Ramirez grabbed Lightner by the back of his vest, pulling him over the lip of the pathway and scrabbling down the ridge-face with the ensign in tow as the sounds of combat raged above them. Breathing heavily, Lightner fumbled for his phaser pistol, hissing, “Who is it, Commander? The Ba’ku?”
“Shut up,” she replied coldly, ramping up her phaser rifle’s power setting as she scanned the downward slope for signs of enemy targets. Tapping her compin, Ramirez was not terribly surprised by the device’s null-function buzz. Disrupting communications was a prerequisite for an effective surprise attack, denying the victims the ability to more readily coordinate a counter-offensive.
Pushing Lightner ahead of her, Ramirez began their clumsy descent down the steep ridge, hoping to avoid any immediate pursuit by the threat forces. She yearned to climb back to the path and engage this unknown enemy, but knew to do so would be both foolish and futile. Escape and evasion were their only options now.
Fifteen meters above them, Taiee looked up, blinking, just in time to see the solidifying image of a dark, armor-clad warrior standing over her. He leveled his weapon and she closed her eyes, searching desperately for a prayer she’d once learned from her great grandmother. She recalled the first few words, but the rest escaped her as the neural beam disrupted her cogent thought centers.
The soldier-priest who’d begun the attack turned back to bring down the lead intruder, only to find the man vanished from the trail. He scanned the vicinity with high powered optics and sensors, finding nothing. Odd, he thought. He could have sworn the man had been only a few meters away.
Multiple stunner beams converged on the wildly firing Sharpe, who collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been abruptly severed. The attackers began to advance down the slope towards the trail, their mimetic armor allowing only wavering, dissonant glimpses of their movement in the tree line.
Disoriented and deafened, Shanthi struggled out of his burning vest and jacket, too preoccupied to notice the arrival of their attackers in the away team’s midst. The Bajora-Tava had the courtesy to let the young man extinguish the flames before stunning him.
*****
Unable to locate the missing intruder, the Bajora-Tavan soldier turned back to rejoin his comrades as they moved to eliminate the last vestiges of enemy resistance. Despite the advanced optics in his helmet, he did not foresee the large rock that slammed into the side of his head. Reeling, he staggered backwards, only to have his legs cut out from under him by a phaser rifle wielded like a cudgel. The butt-stock of a rifle descending towards his face was the last thing he perceived before the blackness claimed him.
*****
Prylar-Captain Bral looked on with satisfaction as his soldiers gathered the shell-shocked prisoners and prepared to egress the ambush site. Turning to his lieutenant, he inquired, “All accounted for?”
“No, sir,” was his uncertain reply. “Thavid is missing, Prylar-Captain.”
Bral scowled behind his helmet. “Missing? How is that possible?”
“We estimate three or four of the intruders are unaccounted for, sir. Thavid might have been taken prisoner.”
Bral tried to wrap his mind around that unlikely scenario. “By doctors and nurses? A Soldier of Light?”
The lieutenant knelt to retrieve one of the intruder’s rifles. Rising, he offered the weapon to Bral. “Respectfully, sir, I don’t believe they were all medical personnel. This is an advanced phaser rifle. Combat grade equipment.”
Fuming, Bral returned the weapon to his man. “Perhaps a vigorous interrogation of our prisoners will reveal what their comrades have done with Thavid.” Despite his leadership role, Bral had very little actual practical warfare experience. Thus far, the Army of Light had engaged in only a few skirmishes with the occasional vessel that wandered into their territory within the Prophets’ Veil. Those encounters and their recent clashes with the Alshain formed the sum total of their actual combat experience.
Bral suffered from a nagging sense of his own potential inadequacy. He wondered what they might have done differently here that could have given them a greater edge. Had he been too overconfident in their abilities? The prylar-captain vowed to banish his feelings of insufficiency by recovering his missing soldier, by whatever means necessary.
*****
2nd Scion Thavid of the Bajora-Tavan Army of Light awoke suddenly, feeling himself being carried with difficulty through an area of dense forest. Looking through the cracked visor of his helmet, Thavid saw he was in a fireman’s carry, across the shoulders of a humanoid male whose features were obscured by the darkness. He attempted to access his hands-free comms transmitter, only to find that function and a host of others including his infrared optics were inoperative.
He brought his armored elbow down, feeling a solid impact against the man’s head. Thavid crashed to the ground as the figure released his grip on the Bajoran. Rising to his feet, Thavid drew his sidearm, only to have the weapon kicked from his hand by an expertly placed boot to his forearm. The soldier deployed the scythe-shaped blade housed in his other forearm, driving a strike at the silhouette of his attacker.
His bladed arm carved through air only, and was subsequently grabbed by his opponent. Off balance already, Thavid’s momentum was used against him and he found himself pulled off his feet and launched airborne, flipped over the man’s shoulder. He hit the ground again, the impact driving the air from his lungs and leaving him gasping.
Thavid felt himself being rolled roughly over onto his stomach. Regaining his senses, he attempted to bring his arm-fixed blade into play, only to find that arm pinned to the ground by a foot. Suddenly he felt something cold and sharp bite into the back of his knee. With horror, he realized his attacker was severing the muscles and tendons in his knees; that small section of flesh left vulnerable by the flexible joints in his leg armor.
Repeated violent blows to the back of his helmet not only silenced the suddenly terrified young soldier’s screams, but also succeeded in knocking out the last of his integrated comms systems. Beaten, battered and literally hamstrung, the soldier wheezed in pain as his attacker located the clasp on his battle helmet and ripped the headgear off and away. “Prophets’ mercy!” he pleaded desperately. “Please don’t kill me!”
“The negotiations begin,” growled Pava Lar’ragos, examining the helmet briefly before tossing it aside. “Now I know what it is you want. You want to live.” Lar’ragos rolled the man over onto his back, and was clearly shocked at the sight of the young man’s distinctive nose ridges. “Interesting twist.”
The El Aurian straddled the soldier’s chest, his knees pinning the man’s arms to the ground. In his hand the lieutenant grasped a knife slick with the Bajoran’s blood. The blade tip inscribed a delicate figure-eight in the air just above the soldier’s throat. “Now, friend, let me tell you what it is that I want.”
*****
USS Gibraltar
Federation Task Force Peacekeeper
Periphery of the Ba’ku System
The Briar Patch (Klach D'Kel Brakt)
“Plazzi to Sandhurst.”
The communications prompt activated the ceiling light, shining a harsh spotlight onto the head of the bed that was guaranteed to wake even the deepest sleeper. Blinking against the intrusion, Sandhurst interposed his hand between his eyes and the light. Clearing his throat, the captain croaked, “Go ahead, Elisto.”
“Sensor contact from one of our passive drones, Captain. Looks to be a grouping of vessels entering the system at one-third impulse.”
Climbing out of bed, Sandhurst moved to the closet, feeling various twinges and complaints from his body from the heated racquetball match. “Any news from our away team?”
“No, sir. Ba’ku has been emissions quiet.”
As he struggled into a fresh uniform, Sandhurst sought to clear the cobwebs from his head. He and Ojana had sat up talking into the wee hours, catching up on their years apart now that the emotional dam between them had broken. “On my way, Elisto. Wake Commander Pell if you haven’t done so already.”
“Aye, sir.”
*****
Plazzi had already abandoned the captain’s chair for the Science station by the time Sandhurst stepped off the turbolift. The pale blue lighting scheme that dominated the bridge was a visual reminder of the ship’s reduced-power state, although the captain noted the yellow alert indicators had been activated.
“Report,” Sandhurst instructed as he assumed his seat.
“One of our passive sensors hidden in the Oort cloud detected a squadron of ships entering the Ba’ku system. They appear to be on a direct course for the planet.”
“Type and number?”
“One Son’a Shrike-class battlecruiser,” Plazzi intoned, putting a slowly rotating schematic of one of the enormous horseshoe-shaped vessels on the main viewer. “Escorted by eight smaller ships of unknown origin.” A view of one of the corsair-sized, lozenge-shaped escort ships appeared. Sandhurst couldn’t place the design, but it certainly appeared compact and lethal. It reminded him vaguely of the Federation’s Defiant-class.
Sandhurst had ordered the pre-positioning of six passive sensor probes, disguised as pieces of cometary debris, a trick he’d picked up some months before from Cardassian insurgents. These drones had expanded Gibraltar’s sensor capacity, seeing as the ship could not actively scan the area without betraying her presence.
Looking to Plazzi, Sandhurst asked hopefully, “Life signs?”
The older scientist shook his head, still engrossed in the sensor scope. “Sorry, sir. Insufficient resolution with passive-only scans.”
“Ops, if we were to hail those ships, could we transmit through one of our probes by tightbeam and broadcast from it’s location? I don’t want to give away our position.”
Juneau checked the probe’s capabilities. “Aye, sir. We could.”
“Excellent. Set it up, please.”
Pell Ojana stepped onto the bridge, moving down into the well and taking a seat at the usually unoccupied mission specialist’s station. Rather than ask for a redundant update, she quietly put in an earpiece and accessed the ship’s bridge recorder, replaying the past five minutes of bridge activity to catch her up with their current circumstances.
Sensing the captain’s line of thought, Plazzi offered, “Are we certain we know the Son’a’s intentions here, sir? Or if they’re operating under duress?” He gestured to the schematic of the mystery ship still rotating on its axis on the viewer.
Sandhurst rubbed his chin, toggling the interface and removing the image of the alien craft, and instead displaying a tactical overlay of their relative positions within the system. “We’ve got a team on the planet, Elisto, and these people are heading right for them. I need to determine their objectives.”
Plazzi touched his controls, highlighting the tactical symbol representing the Son’a battlecruiser. “She’s four times our mass, with five times our firepower, Captain.”
Sandhurst nodded slowly, “Precisely why I’d like to remain hidden for as long as possible.”
Juneau announced, “Signal relay to our furthest probe has been established, sir.”
Sitting forward in his chair, Sandhurst ordered, “Patch me through. Audio only.”
“Channel open, sir.”
“Son’a vessel, please identify yourself and state your intent. I am the captain of a Federation starship, sent to recover Son’a, Ba’ku, Tarlac and Ellora survivors of the Alshain offensive in the Briar Patch. Please reply on this channel.”
“That got their attention,” Plazzi said after a moment, “Their scanning intensity just increased by a factor of seven. They’re trying to find us.”
“I concur, sir,” said Juneau. “Four of the smaller craft have broken formation and are establishing trans-system trajectories. They are now actively probing the vicinity of the broadcasting drone with full sensors.”
“Acknowledged,” Sandhurst replied quietly, awaiting a response to his hail.
“Federation vessel, this is the Son’a warship Ru’afo. We are currently surveying the damage to the Ba’ku settlement on the planet. Show yourselves and state your business within Son’a territory.”
Pell, now up to speed, turned in her chair to address the captain. “I’d advise extraordinary caution here, sir. That ship is named after a notable Son’a patriot who died at the hands of a Starfleet captain less than a year ago.”
“Yeah,” Sandhurst remarked dryly, “I’d picked up on that.”
Opening the channel again from his armrest panel, Sandhurst countered, “Under the circumstances, Ru’afo, I’m sure you can understand my desire to remain incognito for the time being.”
“That is unacceptable. You have violated the territorial integrity of the Son’a Imperium, and we demand that you make yourselves visible and present your vessel for inspection.”
At Ops, Juneau emitted a derisive hiss. “Sure. That’s gonna happen.”
Plazzi squinted at his display screen, looking troubled. “One of the smaller ships is scanning this area of the Oort cloud, sir. Their search pattern will intersect with our position in less than five minutes.”
“Damn,” Sandhurst breathed softly. He tapped his compin. “Sandhurst to Engineering.”
“Ashok here, sir.”
“Lieutenant, we’ve got potential hostiles sniffing around and we’re going to need full power in less than five minutes. Warm up the main reactor and prepare for combat power systems configuration.”
Sounding sullen, Ashok replied in his basso rumble, “Understood, sir.”
“He’s just delighted to be part of this plan, sir.” Plazzi noted wryly.
Sandhurst spared the scientist a smirk. “How can you tell? He always sounds like that.” Looking back at the stout Tellarite at the Tactical station, the captain said, “Master Chief, tactical analysis. If we have to trade fire with these people, what are our options?”
Quirking an eyebrow, the Tellarite replied. “We have three choices if confronted by the Son’a and their friends, Captain. One, we can run. Two, we can retreat. Three, we can flee.”
Glancing at Pell, Sanhurst noted, “I’m sensing a pattern, Commander. Would you concur?”
The acting exec look confused. “As to their cynicism or our being hopelessly outmatched, sir?”
Shaking his head, Sandhurst smiled despite the circumstances. “Helm, I want you to plot multiple evasive courses to the Ba’ku planet. If we have to fight our way through, that’s what we’ll have to do.”
The petty officer manning the Engineering station announced, “Main power restored, sir. Charging shields and tactical systems.”
An alarm warbled at Plazzi’s station. “That tears it,” he exclaimed, “They’ve found us.”
“Red alert,” ordered Pell.
Settling back into his seat, Sandhurst toggled the public address. “All hands, this is the captain. Our away team is stranded on a planet in this system, and a force of threat vessels stands between us and our people. We are going to run that gauntlet. I know I can depend on each of you to do your jobs to the best of your ability, and our collective lives may depend on that.” He took a deep, steadying breath as he felt the ship come to life around him. “All hands to battle stations.”
*****
Chapter 9
USS Gibraltar
Federation Task Force Peacekeeper
Periphery of the Ba’ku System
The Briar Patch (Klach D'Kel Brakt)
With the away mission well underway, there was little to do aboard Gibraltar but sit and wait. Some people found themselves unable to sit for the duration.
The racquetball thudded off the far wall, caroming off the side barrier only to find its path obstructed by Pell Ojana’s racquet. She blasted it back towards the wall, imparting a downward spin that sent it dropping into the corner, thus making Sandhurst’s return nearly impossible. That didn’t stop him from trying, of course.
Sailing across the court, Donald made a valiant attempt to intercept the ricocheting ball, but succeeded only in splaying himself across the floor comically. Rolling over onto his back, he mock glared at Pell who was laughing so hard she had to brace herself against the wall.
Sitting up, Sandhurst joined in the moment of levity, chuckling. “Thanks for mocking my pain.”
Catching her breath, she replied, “You know, your game has actually improved since the days on the Cuffe. You’d never have even attempted that shot back then.” She stepped forward, offering him a hand up.
Clambering back to his feet with Pell’s assistance, Sandhurst noted, “Racquetball was a passion of Captain Ebnal’s. Being able to keep up was a prerequisite for being his XO on the Venture. I haven’t had much opportunity to play recently.”
She smiled, stooping to scoop up the ball. “I’m happy I could remedy that situation for you.” She glanced back, catching Sandhurst admiring her profile.
The young Donald Sandhurst she’d known would have blushed fiercely and tripped over himself apologizing for such a gaffe. This Sandhurst merely smiled approvingly.
She stood, scrutinizing him. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a bag of mixed signals.”
He shrugged, “Aside from my family, my friends, and my crew… no. Why do you ask?”
Shaking her head bemusedly, she served, sending the two of them dashing about the court once again.
The game proceeded for the next twenty minutes, both players elevating their games incrementally to the point where their individual sets were lasting minutes at a time. The two battled fiercely, neither willing to yield as on some level the contest became a microcosm of their failed relationship. Eventually, however, Pell’s greater skill and superior stamina won the day.
Looking tired but happy, Sandhurst wiped the sweat from his head and face as he called a holographic bench seat into being and sat heavily.
Toweling off, Pell observed him for a minute before she spoke unexpectedly. She hadn’t meant to have this talk, not yet, and Pell took herself by surprise with her own forwardness. “Where did we go wrong, Donald?”
He seemed to take a long moment, eyes averted as he fingered the strings of his racquet. Looking up at her, he finally replied, “Things weren’t the same after Tong Beak, for either of us.”
She frowned, her expression caught somewhere between pain and irritation. “Was she so irresistible? You and Terrence both threw yourselves at her.” She took a drink from a water bottle, working to reign in emotions held too long in check. “Him I can understand. He’d found someone who looked just like me, but wasn’t. Terrence wasn’t risking anything. But you? You had the real thing.”
Bracing his elbows on his knees, Donald leaned forward, gazing at the floor. “Don’t ask me to explain to you what I can’t justify to myself, Ojana.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Try,” she said, more harshly than she’d intended.
“Fine.” He stood, walking to the center of the court, folding his arms across his chest as he took a brief self-inventory. “You’d been on the Chevalier for months, and we were growing apart. You knew damn well I wasn’t comfortable abandoning Diaz after Monica stole you away from the Cuffe, but you jumped ship anyway.”
She began to protest, but he cut her off with a rebuking glare. “You said you wanted an explanation.”
Pell held up a mollifying hand, bidding him to continue.
“When we encountered the… other Ojana… your doppelganger was like you in image only. She was wild… unbridled, uninhibited in a way that I found enormously seductive.”
Shaking her head, Pell remarked, “A bad girl in your good girl’s body.”
“Something like that.” He sighed. “As it turned out, she was using the both of us. Not that it makes the deed any less hateful. Glover still despises me for telling you about his part in that whole mess.”
“And later?” she asked. “After you’d joined me on the Chevalier? I’d forgiven you, but you still kept pulling away.”
He turned to face her. “Guilt, Ojana. You may have forgiven me, but I couldn’t absolve myself. I couldn’t touch you without thinking about my betrayal. In the end, being with you was just making me hate myself all the more.”
“And that’s why you left?”
He nodded reluctantly, “The chief engineer’s post on the Venture couldn’t have opened up at a better time as far as I was concerned.”
“What about now?” She stood, approaching him slowly, moving to embrace him. Sandhurst tensed, but did not otherwise resist the gesture. “Is there any chance for us to start over?”
He looked into her eyes, his pain and reticence only too clear. “It’s not that easy, I’m afraid. Not so long ago, someone… hurt me. Badly.”
Staring up at him, she radiated waves of empathy. “I’d gathered as much.”
“Part of that experience was that my memories were altered. Memories of my friends and loved ones were ripped away and someone perverted them terribly. I still… I have faint recollections of hurting you, violating you in the most obscene ways.” His jaw tightened, and he struggled to keep the moisture brimming in his eyes from flowing over. “On Betazed they helped me to recognize which of my memories are real, and which aren’t. Logically, I know those horrible visions are a fraud, but they still feel real, and it’s all wrapped up with my guilt over Tong Beak and my genuine feelings for you.”
She held him tightly, her eyes glistening as well. “I’m sorry, Donald. I’m so sorry.”
Sandhurst made a valiant attempt at a wry smile. “Hey,” he said gently. “That’s supposed to be my line.”
*****
Planet Ba’ku
Dorian Mountains
“The Core Breach?”
“No.”
“Graceland?”
“Nope.”
“Beazy’s Backroom?”
“Um… no. And who the hell is Beazy?”
“The Wild West? We could have swinging doors into the lounge area, dress it all up in 19th century frontier Americana.” Lightner was nothing if not persistent. But as long as his mouth was moving, it seemed his legs were as well, and Ramirez needed him keeping up with the group’s grueling pace.
“I told you, Brett, the lounge doesn’t need a name. Or a theme.” The exec replied patiently, looking ahead at the group as they forged upward in the fading light of day. She’d moved to the back of the party to motivate the lagging ensign into matching the rest of the away team’s tempo.
“I think we just need to jazz it up a bit, Commander. Other ships have novel themes or decorations.”
She resisted the urge to smile, “We’re not other ships, Mr. Lightner. We’re not about flash or image. We’re about getting the job done.”
He grinned self-consciously, “I know that, sir. I’d just like to leave my mark on the sh—“ The thought went uncompleted.
As ambushes go, it was exceptionally well executed. Lar’ragos was in the lead, and the Bajora-Tavan soldier who initiated the attack waited until the lieutenant had moved past him and out of the target area before launching the antipersonnel munitions. This would maximize the effect on the largest number of the intruders.
A rippling wave of brilliant white flashes erupted in close proximity to Shanthi, Taiee, Dunleavy, and two more of the security detail. They were followed almost immediately by the zing of neural disruptors, which did not give off a visible light beam, but simply rendered the target insensate at short range.
Momentarily blinded and struck deaf by the flash grenades, Dunleavy was struggling to bring her phaser rifle up when a neural pulse struck her, sending her toppling off the trail and sliding down the ridge.
One of the munitions landed too close to Shanthi, and the science officer’s supposedly fireproof Starfleet field jacket and tactical vest erupted in flames as he lurched backwards away from the dazzling flare.
Taiee threw her hands up over her eyes, too late to stop the optical flash from washing away her vision. She threw herself onto the ground as the sounds of exchanging weapons fire and explosions roared around her.
Specialist Sharpe, who’d already donned his night-vision glasses in deference to the growing twilight, was spared the visual disruption of the opening assault. He toggled off his rifle’s safety and fired blindly, blanketing the uphill side of the trail in pulse phaser bolts.
Ramirez grabbed Lightner by the back of his vest, pulling him over the lip of the pathway and scrabbling down the ridge-face with the ensign in tow as the sounds of combat raged above them. Breathing heavily, Lightner fumbled for his phaser pistol, hissing, “Who is it, Commander? The Ba’ku?”
“Shut up,” she replied coldly, ramping up her phaser rifle’s power setting as she scanned the downward slope for signs of enemy targets. Tapping her compin, Ramirez was not terribly surprised by the device’s null-function buzz. Disrupting communications was a prerequisite for an effective surprise attack, denying the victims the ability to more readily coordinate a counter-offensive.
Pushing Lightner ahead of her, Ramirez began their clumsy descent down the steep ridge, hoping to avoid any immediate pursuit by the threat forces. She yearned to climb back to the path and engage this unknown enemy, but knew to do so would be both foolish and futile. Escape and evasion were their only options now.
Fifteen meters above them, Taiee looked up, blinking, just in time to see the solidifying image of a dark, armor-clad warrior standing over her. He leveled his weapon and she closed her eyes, searching desperately for a prayer she’d once learned from her great grandmother. She recalled the first few words, but the rest escaped her as the neural beam disrupted her cogent thought centers.
The soldier-priest who’d begun the attack turned back to bring down the lead intruder, only to find the man vanished from the trail. He scanned the vicinity with high powered optics and sensors, finding nothing. Odd, he thought. He could have sworn the man had been only a few meters away.
Multiple stunner beams converged on the wildly firing Sharpe, who collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been abruptly severed. The attackers began to advance down the slope towards the trail, their mimetic armor allowing only wavering, dissonant glimpses of their movement in the tree line.
Disoriented and deafened, Shanthi struggled out of his burning vest and jacket, too preoccupied to notice the arrival of their attackers in the away team’s midst. The Bajora-Tava had the courtesy to let the young man extinguish the flames before stunning him.
*****
Unable to locate the missing intruder, the Bajora-Tavan soldier turned back to rejoin his comrades as they moved to eliminate the last vestiges of enemy resistance. Despite the advanced optics in his helmet, he did not foresee the large rock that slammed into the side of his head. Reeling, he staggered backwards, only to have his legs cut out from under him by a phaser rifle wielded like a cudgel. The butt-stock of a rifle descending towards his face was the last thing he perceived before the blackness claimed him.
*****
Prylar-Captain Bral looked on with satisfaction as his soldiers gathered the shell-shocked prisoners and prepared to egress the ambush site. Turning to his lieutenant, he inquired, “All accounted for?”
“No, sir,” was his uncertain reply. “Thavid is missing, Prylar-Captain.”
Bral scowled behind his helmet. “Missing? How is that possible?”
“We estimate three or four of the intruders are unaccounted for, sir. Thavid might have been taken prisoner.”
Bral tried to wrap his mind around that unlikely scenario. “By doctors and nurses? A Soldier of Light?”
The lieutenant knelt to retrieve one of the intruder’s rifles. Rising, he offered the weapon to Bral. “Respectfully, sir, I don’t believe they were all medical personnel. This is an advanced phaser rifle. Combat grade equipment.”
Fuming, Bral returned the weapon to his man. “Perhaps a vigorous interrogation of our prisoners will reveal what their comrades have done with Thavid.” Despite his leadership role, Bral had very little actual practical warfare experience. Thus far, the Army of Light had engaged in only a few skirmishes with the occasional vessel that wandered into their territory within the Prophets’ Veil. Those encounters and their recent clashes with the Alshain formed the sum total of their actual combat experience.
Bral suffered from a nagging sense of his own potential inadequacy. He wondered what they might have done differently here that could have given them a greater edge. Had he been too overconfident in their abilities? The prylar-captain vowed to banish his feelings of insufficiency by recovering his missing soldier, by whatever means necessary.
*****
2nd Scion Thavid of the Bajora-Tavan Army of Light awoke suddenly, feeling himself being carried with difficulty through an area of dense forest. Looking through the cracked visor of his helmet, Thavid saw he was in a fireman’s carry, across the shoulders of a humanoid male whose features were obscured by the darkness. He attempted to access his hands-free comms transmitter, only to find that function and a host of others including his infrared optics were inoperative.
He brought his armored elbow down, feeling a solid impact against the man’s head. Thavid crashed to the ground as the figure released his grip on the Bajoran. Rising to his feet, Thavid drew his sidearm, only to have the weapon kicked from his hand by an expertly placed boot to his forearm. The soldier deployed the scythe-shaped blade housed in his other forearm, driving a strike at the silhouette of his attacker.
His bladed arm carved through air only, and was subsequently grabbed by his opponent. Off balance already, Thavid’s momentum was used against him and he found himself pulled off his feet and launched airborne, flipped over the man’s shoulder. He hit the ground again, the impact driving the air from his lungs and leaving him gasping.
Thavid felt himself being rolled roughly over onto his stomach. Regaining his senses, he attempted to bring his arm-fixed blade into play, only to find that arm pinned to the ground by a foot. Suddenly he felt something cold and sharp bite into the back of his knee. With horror, he realized his attacker was severing the muscles and tendons in his knees; that small section of flesh left vulnerable by the flexible joints in his leg armor.
Repeated violent blows to the back of his helmet not only silenced the suddenly terrified young soldier’s screams, but also succeeded in knocking out the last of his integrated comms systems. Beaten, battered and literally hamstrung, the soldier wheezed in pain as his attacker located the clasp on his battle helmet and ripped the headgear off and away. “Prophets’ mercy!” he pleaded desperately. “Please don’t kill me!”
“The negotiations begin,” growled Pava Lar’ragos, examining the helmet briefly before tossing it aside. “Now I know what it is you want. You want to live.” Lar’ragos rolled the man over onto his back, and was clearly shocked at the sight of the young man’s distinctive nose ridges. “Interesting twist.”
The El Aurian straddled the soldier’s chest, his knees pinning the man’s arms to the ground. In his hand the lieutenant grasped a knife slick with the Bajoran’s blood. The blade tip inscribed a delicate figure-eight in the air just above the soldier’s throat. “Now, friend, let me tell you what it is that I want.”
*****
USS Gibraltar
Federation Task Force Peacekeeper
Periphery of the Ba’ku System
The Briar Patch (Klach D'Kel Brakt)
“Plazzi to Sandhurst.”
The communications prompt activated the ceiling light, shining a harsh spotlight onto the head of the bed that was guaranteed to wake even the deepest sleeper. Blinking against the intrusion, Sandhurst interposed his hand between his eyes and the light. Clearing his throat, the captain croaked, “Go ahead, Elisto.”
“Sensor contact from one of our passive drones, Captain. Looks to be a grouping of vessels entering the system at one-third impulse.”
Climbing out of bed, Sandhurst moved to the closet, feeling various twinges and complaints from his body from the heated racquetball match. “Any news from our away team?”
“No, sir. Ba’ku has been emissions quiet.”
As he struggled into a fresh uniform, Sandhurst sought to clear the cobwebs from his head. He and Ojana had sat up talking into the wee hours, catching up on their years apart now that the emotional dam between them had broken. “On my way, Elisto. Wake Commander Pell if you haven’t done so already.”
“Aye, sir.”
*****
Plazzi had already abandoned the captain’s chair for the Science station by the time Sandhurst stepped off the turbolift. The pale blue lighting scheme that dominated the bridge was a visual reminder of the ship’s reduced-power state, although the captain noted the yellow alert indicators had been activated.
“Report,” Sandhurst instructed as he assumed his seat.
“One of our passive sensors hidden in the Oort cloud detected a squadron of ships entering the Ba’ku system. They appear to be on a direct course for the planet.”
“Type and number?”
“One Son’a Shrike-class battlecruiser,” Plazzi intoned, putting a slowly rotating schematic of one of the enormous horseshoe-shaped vessels on the main viewer. “Escorted by eight smaller ships of unknown origin.” A view of one of the corsair-sized, lozenge-shaped escort ships appeared. Sandhurst couldn’t place the design, but it certainly appeared compact and lethal. It reminded him vaguely of the Federation’s Defiant-class.
Sandhurst had ordered the pre-positioning of six passive sensor probes, disguised as pieces of cometary debris, a trick he’d picked up some months before from Cardassian insurgents. These drones had expanded Gibraltar’s sensor capacity, seeing as the ship could not actively scan the area without betraying her presence.
Looking to Plazzi, Sandhurst asked hopefully, “Life signs?”
The older scientist shook his head, still engrossed in the sensor scope. “Sorry, sir. Insufficient resolution with passive-only scans.”
“Ops, if we were to hail those ships, could we transmit through one of our probes by tightbeam and broadcast from it’s location? I don’t want to give away our position.”
Juneau checked the probe’s capabilities. “Aye, sir. We could.”
“Excellent. Set it up, please.”
Pell Ojana stepped onto the bridge, moving down into the well and taking a seat at the usually unoccupied mission specialist’s station. Rather than ask for a redundant update, she quietly put in an earpiece and accessed the ship’s bridge recorder, replaying the past five minutes of bridge activity to catch her up with their current circumstances.
Sensing the captain’s line of thought, Plazzi offered, “Are we certain we know the Son’a’s intentions here, sir? Or if they’re operating under duress?” He gestured to the schematic of the mystery ship still rotating on its axis on the viewer.
Sandhurst rubbed his chin, toggling the interface and removing the image of the alien craft, and instead displaying a tactical overlay of their relative positions within the system. “We’ve got a team on the planet, Elisto, and these people are heading right for them. I need to determine their objectives.”
Plazzi touched his controls, highlighting the tactical symbol representing the Son’a battlecruiser. “She’s four times our mass, with five times our firepower, Captain.”
Sandhurst nodded slowly, “Precisely why I’d like to remain hidden for as long as possible.”
Juneau announced, “Signal relay to our furthest probe has been established, sir.”
Sitting forward in his chair, Sandhurst ordered, “Patch me through. Audio only.”
“Channel open, sir.”
“Son’a vessel, please identify yourself and state your intent. I am the captain of a Federation starship, sent to recover Son’a, Ba’ku, Tarlac and Ellora survivors of the Alshain offensive in the Briar Patch. Please reply on this channel.”
“That got their attention,” Plazzi said after a moment, “Their scanning intensity just increased by a factor of seven. They’re trying to find us.”
“I concur, sir,” said Juneau. “Four of the smaller craft have broken formation and are establishing trans-system trajectories. They are now actively probing the vicinity of the broadcasting drone with full sensors.”
“Acknowledged,” Sandhurst replied quietly, awaiting a response to his hail.
“Federation vessel, this is the Son’a warship Ru’afo. We are currently surveying the damage to the Ba’ku settlement on the planet. Show yourselves and state your business within Son’a territory.”
Pell, now up to speed, turned in her chair to address the captain. “I’d advise extraordinary caution here, sir. That ship is named after a notable Son’a patriot who died at the hands of a Starfleet captain less than a year ago.”
“Yeah,” Sandhurst remarked dryly, “I’d picked up on that.”
Opening the channel again from his armrest panel, Sandhurst countered, “Under the circumstances, Ru’afo, I’m sure you can understand my desire to remain incognito for the time being.”
“That is unacceptable. You have violated the territorial integrity of the Son’a Imperium, and we demand that you make yourselves visible and present your vessel for inspection.”
At Ops, Juneau emitted a derisive hiss. “Sure. That’s gonna happen.”
Plazzi squinted at his display screen, looking troubled. “One of the smaller ships is scanning this area of the Oort cloud, sir. Their search pattern will intersect with our position in less than five minutes.”
“Damn,” Sandhurst breathed softly. He tapped his compin. “Sandhurst to Engineering.”
“Ashok here, sir.”
“Lieutenant, we’ve got potential hostiles sniffing around and we’re going to need full power in less than five minutes. Warm up the main reactor and prepare for combat power systems configuration.”
Sounding sullen, Ashok replied in his basso rumble, “Understood, sir.”
“He’s just delighted to be part of this plan, sir.” Plazzi noted wryly.
Sandhurst spared the scientist a smirk. “How can you tell? He always sounds like that.” Looking back at the stout Tellarite at the Tactical station, the captain said, “Master Chief, tactical analysis. If we have to trade fire with these people, what are our options?”
Quirking an eyebrow, the Tellarite replied. “We have three choices if confronted by the Son’a and their friends, Captain. One, we can run. Two, we can retreat. Three, we can flee.”
Glancing at Pell, Sanhurst noted, “I’m sensing a pattern, Commander. Would you concur?”
The acting exec look confused. “As to their cynicism or our being hopelessly outmatched, sir?”
Shaking his head, Sandhurst smiled despite the circumstances. “Helm, I want you to plot multiple evasive courses to the Ba’ku planet. If we have to fight our way through, that’s what we’ll have to do.”
The petty officer manning the Engineering station announced, “Main power restored, sir. Charging shields and tactical systems.”
An alarm warbled at Plazzi’s station. “That tears it,” he exclaimed, “They’ve found us.”
“Red alert,” ordered Pell.
Settling back into his seat, Sandhurst toggled the public address. “All hands, this is the captain. Our away team is stranded on a planet in this system, and a force of threat vessels stands between us and our people. We are going to run that gauntlet. I know I can depend on each of you to do your jobs to the best of your ability, and our collective lives may depend on that.” He took a deep, steadying breath as he felt the ship come to life around him. “All hands to battle stations.”
*****
