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ST: Yorktown...7 - "The World Turned Upside Down, Part Two"

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen





The mood in the Pub was oddly mixed, based on Brenz's impression of it. Kincade him that the old Earth custom of a "wake" was supposed to be both a celebration and a solemn remembrance of the person who had fallen, in this case Peter Acton, so the melange of emotions that the Betazoid sensed was probably to be expected. However, on the other hand, considering how suddenly he had died, Brenz wondered if the light feelings now were just a precursor to the grief that tended to follow a memorial service. He gently nursed the drink that O'Malley, the unusually closed-off and unreadable bartender, had handed him, realizing now that it had been quite some time since he had a drink. Like his best friend at the academy, Brenz was quite the partier and arguably made Kincade even more so during their time there. However, while Brenz mellowed his wild ways in the years since, Kincade seemed to have a relapse every once and a while.

Upon the bar was a series of pictures of Acton taken during his years aboard the Yorktown, surrounded by bouquets of flowers. Set upon what was alleged to have been Acton's favorite chair was a board where members of the crew wrote notes and remembrances. Brenz only knew Acton during his time aboard the Yorktown a year ago around the time of the ship's first mission to Thraerra, so the impact of his death wasn't as strong as among those who had known him for even longer. Brenz turned from the bar towards the table that Kincade and Michelle were sharing in relative silence, the latter for some reason that was hard for Brenz to determine without probing further and the former because of a feeling that Brenz recognized in his old friend whenever he had to speak before a crowd. Reluctantly, the captain got to his feet and tapped on the side of his pint of Guinness with a fork as he walked to the memorial on the bar.

"Can I have your attention, please?" he asked in a loud voice. Though Kincade always had a sense of jitters when he had to give a speech before a large room, he had gotten better at hiding it from non-empaths, thanks to some coaching from Brenz on a couple occasions. Also helps with talking to women. "We're gathered here today to remember a friend and colleague, Peter Acton. Those of us who have served on this ship since her commissioning knew him quite well. He was our brother in arms during some of the worst times in the Yorktown's history. He was respected by those who worked with him and loved by those who knew him personally. I'll invite those who want to share their remembrances of Pete to speak, but I just wanted to say a few quick words about him.

"Those of you who knew Pete long enough would know that if you ever got into it with him, you'd know that he could be a real pain in the ass at times." That remark drew a laugh from the assembled guests/mourners. "But, being a man of my...moderate stature, some times I wondered just how much I could piss him off before he'd take a swing at me." Another laugh. "Hell, during our first mission I put him in hack...and for some reason he seemed to enjoy it there. If I had to pick one particular memory to relate to everyone right now, it'd have to be the time we took on Shaw at that asteroid base in a system whose name escapes me right now. It was a running firefight into the base's control center, but we got stopped by this door made out of cast rhodinium, some of the hardest stuff out there. I volunteered to use my phaser rifle to blast through it by overloading it. Before we set it off, Pete gave me his phaser 2, you know the old one he always used to have around, probably even slept with it. When he gave it to me, at first I didn't say anything about it expect a simple 'thank you.' It wasn't until much later that I realized what a symbol of trust that was, that in spite of some of the disagreements we've had up until then, he believed that one of his most prized possessions was safe in my hands. My one great regret was that I never told him how...that I should have told him that I felt honored to..."

Kincade's voice trailed off and he sat back down, apparently unable to go on. At the next table over, K'Doss got up and raised his glass of...something; Brenz didn't really want to know what strange Caitian concoction he was drinking. Though she had been sitting beside him, from the impression Brenz got, she might as well have been sitting on the opposite end of the ship. Guess it's a bad week for couples around here.

"My initial impressions of Peter Acton were probably like most of yours," K'Doss started to say. "He was arrogant, obstinate, and yes, a pain in the ass. He seemed not at all defensive concerning the loss of his hair, something that would send shivers down my spine. The one thing about Pete that I have missed and will continue to miss is his odd knack for telling obscure jokes at what seemingly would be an inappropriate time. Even though I never understood the human-centric references, I valued the levity he added even when I thought we were doomed. And many of us here remember the tongo games, which if I recall was quite useful during our 'trip' to that tongo tournament. I regret the fact that he left this ship when he did and I also regret that he also left this universe far too early."

So far, any feelings of levity that the wake was supposed to inspire was simply not materializing, as Brenz had figured it would. Sometimes the emotions tended to pour out at situations like this, no matter how much one tried to change the intent from one of mourning to one of celebration. After K'Doss sat down, there was an awkward silence, briefly punctuated by the occasional cough. Hernandez, who had been standing by the memorial on the bar, moved in front of it and raised her drink.

"The first time I met the chief was two days after I came on board," she started to say. Brenz noticed that she tried to close off her emotions more than unusual, as if she not only wanted nobody to see how she was feeling, but also didn't want the Betazoid to get a read on her. Though difficult, it wasn't impossible for humans to conceal their true feelings, but it did take practice. "He didn't have time to introduce himself to me and show me the ropes, so my introduction to this crew was when we had to beam down to raid an insurgent camp. He told me I should be careful; we were going down with a few senior officers with us and since I was the newest security officer, I had two bullseyes painted on my back. Sure enough, I got hit, twice even. Afterwards in sickbay, the chief told me I need to start learning how to duck..."

A polite chuckle returned some levity to the room once more. The successive stories that Brenz sat through each sounded a little more cheerful and humorous and though the mood in the Pub started to lift, but there was still that pall of tragedy that hung over the room. Peter Acton had been killed in the line of duty along with the entire crew of the Justice, an act that at the moment seemed random and senseless. And those are the deaths that are hardest to get over.

Once the final toast was held, Brenz made his way back over to the bar for a refill of his drink. Already at the bar was Dr. Carter, whom by the XO's count was on his third tequila since the wake began. After taking another drink from O'Malley, Brenz took a seat next to the CMO, who grunted the second the Betazoid's backside settled into the stool (which was odd, since Carter couldn't have seen it since he wasn't even looking in that direction), "As many of these I go to, they don't get any easier."

"Wakes or memorials in general?" he asked.

"Both," Carter replied. "Ever heard of that old human psychology line about the stages of acceptance?"

"Vaguely," Brenz said, holding back the temptation to comment that humans were under the mistaken impression that they invented the field of psychology.

"Wakes always struck me as being as stuck firmly in denial," the doctor said. "Trying to bury our grief under a bunch of weak jokes and booze. Never struck me as particularly healthy."

"Since when did you start sounding like a counselor?" asked the XO.

"Back in the day, us chief surgeons were the closest thing you emotionally unstable command-track folks had to counselors," Carter said before taking a sizeable gulp of his tequila. "It was any wonder more captains didn't go nuts like Matt Decker and Ron Tracy."

"History was never one of my strong suits," the Betazoid said.

"I've noticed, Son," quipped Carter.

"How's that miracle thing going?" Brenz asked, recalling one of the topics they discussed the last time they were both at the Pub.

"Still a miracle, as far as I can tell," the doctor replied bluntly. "And it'd be a miracle if I ever figure it out..."





During the each of the remembrance speeches and even afterwords, Danielle hadn't said a word, either to K'Doss or anyone else around her. She knew too acutely how such services went and the emotions that came out of them. During the Dominion War back when she flew small fighters, such remembrances became commonplace, as pilots were lost in almost every engagement with the enemy. Memorial services for one or two quickly became mass funerals held on the hangar deck; the first to die long remembered but the "nuggets" who came to replace them and ended up dead were quickly forgotten in the growing carnage. Of course, Richard Hawthorne's funeral was a tad bit different, both in its content and in its lingering effects on her. Hell, that wound still hasn't closed up quite yet.

She fixed a look to K'Doss, who sat across the table from her as he looked elsewhere. Since finding out that Richard Hawthorne was the father of her child, she had gone through just about as many explanations as possible, both in her head and to him, to see if she could make any sense of it. None of them were that satisfying to either K'Doss or Danielle's ears. She now doubted that she'd ever hear an explanation for it, so all that was left to her to do was to try to find some way for them to live with it.

"Jerry," she said in a low voice. It felt odd to be having this conversation here at Acton's memorial service, but Danielle had put this off for too long. K'Doss, however, didn't seem willing to respond. "Jerry?"

"Not now," he grunted in a low voice.

"Then when?" Danielle asked harshly. "We need to talk about this..."

He growled as he shot up from his chair and headed towards the exit. Danielle got up and quickly followed him back out into the corridor. With most of the crew either at their duty stations, their quarters, or in the Pub, the hallways were almost vacant, meaning that they had some privacy. "Dammit, Jerry, listen to me!"

"Listen to you what?" he snapped as he turned around to face her. "Listen to you try to come up with some excuse why he's Richard's father? You can't, can you, so there's nothing more to discuss!"

"You're right, I have no idea how this happened, but we're going to have to live with it," she said with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Yes, we always seem to have to live with it, don't we?" K'Doss said through his fangs. "I've spent the past year trying to live up to a dead man. Now I find out that somehow my wife had his child years after his death and I'm supposed to just live with it? How do I know some clone of him or version from a parallel universe isn't going to magically appear on the transporter pad? How in Sheznar am I supposed to deal with all of this?"

"I don't know!" she shouted. "How the hell was I supposed to know that any of this was supposed to happen? The guy who performed our wedding said 'in sickness and in health,' not 'and children conceived by dead people!' You want to blame me for all of this?"

"I'm not blaming you," he hissed. "I'm blaming...him."

"What?" asked Danielle.

"I know you probably still care about him, but I can't help but feel that he's been a major source of pain in your life," said K'Doss calmly. "I know that's a horrible thing to say, but a lot of the pain I've seen you go through, particularly now, is somehow his fault. And...I...I feel so guilty about it. I hate myself for hating him..."

"Hey," she said in a reassuring voice as she placed her hands on his broad shoulders. "It's okay for you to be upset. I was angry at Rick for a while after he died, but it's like I told you last year, he's gone. Right now, we just have to worry about you, me, and the baby. There's nothing we can do to change anything that's happened before."

"You know, I really hate it when you make so much sense that it stops me from being angry," he commented with a smirk. "Makes you look smarter than me."

"Well, they say women have more raw intelligence than men," Danielle half-lied.

"Human women over human men, maybe," K'Doss countered. "Come on; I doubt Pete would appreciate us bickering at his funeral."





"I liked what you said about Commander Acton," Michelle remarked from the couch a short time after she and Kincade had returned to his cabin. He wished he could agree with her, mad at himself for suddenly choking up when he did. A captain was supposed to maintain a sense of decorum and calm even under the most emotionally difficult circumstances. During his reflections on Acton, he suddenly just...froze; his conscious mind becoming so focused on his former security chief's death that he suddenly forgot what he meant to say. "Sounded pretty heartfelt, especially after how he left."

"Pete left because I pushed him to it," Kincade said bluntly as he took off his uniform jacket and draped it over his desk chair. Before he sat down to look over the messages that had been left for him since he left for the wake, he spotted the padd he had been working on that contained the re-design proposals for certain sections of the ship, including his new quarters. Deciding that now was just a good a time as any and wanting to change the subject, he picked it up to take over to her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked before he could hand the padd to her. There were many things that Kincade hadn't told her about the Yorktown's exploits, obviously since some of them were classified and yet there were certain things he didn't feel like dredging up around her again. Particularly when I've got a potentially bad argument looming.

"It's just that...I said certain things that probably made him want to leave," he replied. The truth was that Acton had barged into his ready room armed with the full knowledge of everything that had happened at Zavras, clearly disgusted with the captain's choices in that matter. The more Kincade tried to justify it, the more angry Acton became. "Actually, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?" she asked in a low voice. For some reason, Michelle had been especially withdrawn of late, as if she didn't want to talk with him as much as she did before. Kincade had written it off as her being annoyed by his breaking more and more dinner arrangements over the past few days, something he personally vowed to work on once the Yorktown returned to Earth.

"Well, Starfleet sent over a bunch of design proposals for our refit, one of them including a new captain's cabin," he answered as he offered the padd to her. "Seeing how you and I will be sharing it for the foreseeable future, I wanted to hear what you thought about it before I signed off on the plans."

"Jack, I..." Michelle said nervously without taking the device away from him. Uh oh. "Sure..."

"What's wrong?" asked Kincade cautiously.

"I've been offered a lead position on the new dig being sent to Tagus III," she half-blurted, as if she had been trying to hold back on saying this for some time. "And I...don't know whether or not I should accept."

"Don't look at me," the captain said with a sigh. "I wouldn't want to have to choose between you and this ship."

"But that's what they're asking me to do," Michelle said. "It's the opportunity of a lifetime..."

"What's so important about this planet, anyway?" he questioned.

"Do you know how hard it is to get permission from the Taguans to even beam down to the ruins?" she asked rhetorically, since he obviously did not. "So, that leaves me with a lot to consider, doesn't it"

"Unfortunately," the captain stated. "But, think of it this way. You stay here and you get to see stuff that no one in the Federation has ever seen..."

"You and I both know that I'm not Starfleet material," Michelle said. "I'm worried that if I stayed here with you, I'd get bored waiting for us to find a planet that had anything interesting buried on the surface. Tagus is one of those things that doesn't come up very often and I'd be a fool not to take it."

"And what about us?" Kincade asked. "Were you just going to walk out on everything that's happened to us over the past year?"

"Why does it have to be so absolute?" she questioned.

"Don't go," he urged, suddenly finding a new wind of determination.

"Why?" asked Michelle with a surprised look on her face.

"Because I need you here," Kincade said before he started to pace uncomfortably. "You're the one thing that's gone right for me this past year. If you left, after everything that's happened, I don't know what I'd do."

"What are you saying?" she questioned as she got up from the couch. "Are you asking me to marry you?"

"Well, I..." he hesitated. "If you want me to."

"I do," Michelle replied.

"You'll marry me or you want me to ask?" asked Kincade in confusion.

"You know, you're still cute when you're nervous," she said with a smirk. "That's a yes to both."

"But wait, does that mean I'm ugly when I'm confident?" he countered with a similar smile before leaning in to kiss her. He was completely emphatic when he told her that she was perhaps the only thing that was good about the last year of his life. Kincade was struck by the sensation that this moment might be the thing that would start to turn his life around.

Lord knows that I've seen a lot of life-changers in my day...
 
Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen





Seven years ago...






"Passing turn two four seven," Amber reported from the helm as Kincade returned to the bridge. As far as he could tell, she had been on duty since he had left the bridge and hadn't taken a break as she intricately steered Discovery in between the mines of the nebula. Despite having charts of safe routes through the minefield, there was always a risk of hitting a stray mine or a newly-laid set of mines. "Coming left to course one five eight, next turn in seven minutes, mark."

"Acknowledge seven," said Sara Hubbard, who in Fez's absence had the watch. She turned in the captain's chair to notice that Kincade had been standing by the tactical console. "Commander, I'm sorry, I should have noticed you earlier."

"Don't get up," he said with a raised hand. "I'm just here to see the captain."

"He's in the ready room," she answered as she got up from the captain's chair anyway, walking up next to him as he headed towards the ready room door. "Having trouble sleeping?"

"Just need to talk with him," Kincade said, ignoring her playful tone. Of all the times. Deflated, Hubbard returned to the captain's chair as Kincade reached for the door chime button.

"Enter," Wallace said after it rang. As the doors slid open, Kincade found the captain behind his desk, calmly looking over something on his monitor screen. Once inside, the CO glanced up from his desk. "Ah, Jack. I thought I told you to get some rest."

Deciding to get right to what he wanted to talk about, the XO bluntly said, "Fez just came to see me about the communication."

"Then you know why I relieved him of duty," Wallace said calmly, "because he wouldn't stop questioning my orders publicly."

"Sir, I believe he has a point," the commander said after swallowing nervously. "Considering the fact that the outpost needed to be confirmed as a military installation before we were tasked with destroying it, I think it it's only prudent that we try to find out what this message is."

"We have orders in hand," the captain countered. "Those orders are to strike at that outpost. Ducking out of the nebula early increases our chance of being detected by the enemy and if we leave the maneuvering lane, we could strike enough mines to blow up this ship. But let's suppose that isn't the case for the moment, okay?"

"Yes sir," Kincade replied calmly.

"You know as well as I do that any garbled order received is no order at all," Wallace said.

"Yes sir," the XO repeated.

"That's our number one rule outside of the Prime Directive," the captain added.

Sensing his point was being deflected, Kincade tried to get a word in edgewise. "Starfleet Com..."

"And that rule is the basis for the scenario we've trained on, time and time again," interrupted Wallace. "It's a rule we follow without exception."

"Captain, Starfleet Command knows where we're operating," the commander said firmly. "If the target information is erroneous, then it stands to reason that they'd try to warn us off before we were past the point of no return. Sir, if we did a Z-plus maneuver out of the nebula for just a few minutes, we'd be able to copy the entire message and avoid striking..."

"You're presuming that this 'message' originated from Starfleet, Commander," Wallace said coldly. "Well, as Captain, I must assume that given the Klingon Empire's long history of information warfare, which you of all people should be aware of, they're not above broadcasting false messages to deter attacks against vital installations."

"Sir, that was a different Klingon Empire a century ago," Kincade challenged, knowing what the captain was referring to. "Klingon warriors operate more..."

"'Honorably?'" he scoffed, finishing his XO's sentence. "Don't tell me you buy into all that bullshit. If that were the case, they wouldn't be using cloaking devices anymore, would they? We can play these games all night, Jack, but I don't have the luxury of your presumptions, flawed as they may be."

"Sir, I think that..." the commander started to protest.

"Jack, we have rules that are not open to interpretation, personal intuition, gut feelings, hairs on the back of your neck, little devils or angels sitting on your shoulder," said Wallace in a mocking tone. "We're all very well aware of what our orders are and what those orders mean. They come down from our Commander in Chief. They contain no ambiguity."

"Captain..." Kincade said firmly. Though he had come up to the bridge unsure of what he would do when he confronted Wallace, but now Fez's suggestion to relieve the captain of his command started to feel more appealing. He was potentially endangering the lives of civilians, something that ran counter to everything Starfleet stood for.

"Mr. Kincade!" Wallace said sternly as he rose from his chair. "I've made a decision. I'm the captain of this starship. Now, if you don't want to sit on your ass for the rest of this mission like Mr. Husseini, I suggest you shut the hell up!"

"Captain Wallace, if you continue upon this course, and insist upon launching this attack without confirming this message first," Kincade said coldly as he leaned towards him across the desk, "I will act, backed by the rules of precedence, relieve you of your command of this ship and assume command myself."

"You're not assuming anything!" the captain growled. Before the XO could carry through on his threat, the entire deck lurched beneath them suddenly. Kincade lost his footing and almost slammed his chin against the table as he fell to the floor. Wallace fell back into his chair, which rolled towards the window with him in it. "Jesus Christ!"

They both struggled to their feet as the red alert klaxon started to wail, the argument from before quickly set aside. Captain and commander nearly collided as they tried to get back to the bridge first, which was abuzz with alarms and open channels from other sections of the ship. Though he still sounded as angry as he had in the ready room, Wallace redirected his anger towards the looming problem. "I have the conn! Report!"

"We've struck a gravitic mine," Hubbard reported from ops as Kincade and Wallace took their seats. The XO glanced down at his personal console and started to call up damage and casualty reports. "Yield equal to five photon torpedoes. It wasn't on the map..."

"All stop!" Wallace barked.

"Engines answering all stop, sir," Amber replied.

"Damage reports coming in from decks seven through fourteen, sections five through twelve," Kincade reported as he read off of his display, which featured a top-down schematic of Discovery with a large red gash running along the starboard side of her elliptical primary hull. "Hull breaches on those decks and sections. Sickbay reports..."

"Bridge to engineering," the captain said, cutting off the casualty figures.

"Teshet here!" the Bolian chief engineer barked.

"We took some hits pretty close to the phaser power couplings," Wallace said. He thinks the phasers are more important than hearing how many people we could have lost? "What's the status of the main dorsal and ventral arrays?"

"Both down to fifty percent power, sir," Teshet replied. "Looks like one of the main power couplings has been severed. It'll take at least five hours to repair, to say nothing of the rest of the hull damage."

"Phasers first," Wallace said. "Everything else is secondary. Bridge out."

"Captain, sickbay reports eight dead, seventy injured, and fifteen listed as missing," Kincade said forcefully before the captain could ask about anything else. "Probably because of hull breaches."

"Thank you, Jack," he said in a low voice before rising from his chair and stepped down towards helm and ops. "Hubbard, is there any way to expand sensor range in the nebula?"

"None that I can think of," she replied. "The only way to get more warning about more mines is if we go slower."

"How slow?" asked the XO.

"I think I can get us out of the way if we go at three-quarters impulse power," Amber answered, "but that's going to tack on another hour before we reach the next void in the nebula."

"Sir, there's something else," said Suun'dek, a four-armed Terrellian who was now the senior tactical officer. "Klingon mines transmit a subspace signal an instant before they detonate, alerting the KDF that someone's entered their field. They could have a ship en route as we speak if it managed to cut through the interference."

"A tripwire, great," Wallace concluded as he turned back towards his chair again. "Resume course, three-quarters impulse power. Jack, call Chavot up here and get her working on boosting sensor efficiency. With all this scientific equipment we're carrying on board, I can't believe that we can't turn any of it into some kind of big metal detector."

"Aye sir," Kincade answered.

"Oh, and Jack," the captain said in a low voice. "It took a lot of guts for you to confront me like that a few minutes ago. A lesser officer would have kept his mouth shut or made a public spectacle out of it like Fez did, but you did it the right way. You were wrong, but you at least did it the right way. I'm going below to check on damage and injuries. You have the conn."

"Aye sir, I have the conn," he said reflexively as Wallace left the bridge through the forward turbolift. Kincade got up from his chair and walked down towards ops. "Sara, once we hit the next void pocket, do you think we should be able to get a clear signal from Starfleet?"

"That void is close to the edge," she answered. "Maybe."

"Commander, if the Klingons were to set up an ambush, I'd do it there," Suun'dek warned. "If Mr. Teshet's estimates are accurate, we won't have full phaser power by then."

"Assuming they got the message," Hubbard suggested.

"Even in all this gas, Lieutenant, a simple burst transmission could break through," the tactical officer countered. "They wouldn't even need to receive the coordinates of the mine to know that someone was trying to run the nebula."

"Terrific," Kincade commented. Odd how fortunes in war swing so dramatically. Ten minutes ago, he was ready to yank the captain's chair right out from under Wallace. However, assuming that they didn't encounter any more mines or any ships between now and the next void pocket, the dispute over the attack on the Klingon outpost could easily be resolved. It's that assuming part that could get us killed in the process...





Present day





Carter stared at the two sets of DNA on his screen in his office in sickbay, trying to make sense of the complex code of life as it streamed by as fast as he could process it all. Never before in his career had he been confronted by something so confounding, something that defied all explanation and he would be damned if he'd let this problem plague him for the rest of his career. Which might be shorter than some people think. On the left side of his desk screen was the complete DNA record of the late Commander Richard Hawthorne taken directly from Starfleet Medical's files. Opposite of that was the scan the doctor took the other day of the infant Richard Connors. Carter hoped that just by staring at the two sets he could find some kind of anomaly that could hint at what might have resulted in Hawthorne's DNA ending up in the baby's.

Obviously, Carter would be loathe to consider that Hawthorne somehow came back to the dead to impregnate Danielle without her knowledge and obviously he didn't do it through some kind of metaphysical act of God. There had to be a scientific explanation; someone wanted to use Hawthorne's DNA to conceive a child with Danielle. There were a couple methods with cloning being one of them, though that left easily recognizable traces in the DNA. Besides, if you wanted to clone someone, you wouldn't cross his DNA with someone else's; that'd defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?

"Hold on a second," the doctor muttered aloud. "Computer, run a comparative analysis of all genetic sequences that control physical characteristics for both subjects."

"Working," the computer replied. Thanks to the mapping of the human genome three hundred years ago, identifying the genes that controlled attributes like hair color, height, and build; all the characteristics that determined how a person would look. Thanks to the impressive processing power of the Yorktown's computer, the results quickly appeared on the screen. What they told Carter confirmed his growing suspicion.

"I'll be damned," he remarked. Every one of Richard Connors' physical traits were identical to Richard Hawthorne's. Same hair, same eyes, same stature and bone structure. Chances were that when the young infant grew up, he'd be the spitting image of his father. That was too close to be a coincidence in Carter's eyes. Certainly it wasn't unusual for children to look very much like one parent over the other, but they'd inherit traits from the other parent as well. Young Richard inherited absolutely no physical traits at all from Danielle; what DNA she did pass to the child were all recessive and thus incapable of manifesting in the baby. Considering the unusual circumstances surrounding the child's conception, that wasn't a coincidence. Someone wanted to make this child the reincarnation of Hawthorne, but who?

Unfortunately, while carefully scrutinizing the DNA yielded this new insight, it didn't tell Carter how the child was created or why, which was the answer he wanted to give to Danielle and K'Doss. And those answers were presently beyond his abilities to figure out. Or are they?

"Computer, hypothetical situation," Carter stated. "I want to make a child with the same basic physical attributes as my own without any of the mother's attributes taking dominance. How would I go about impregnating her without her knowledge?"

"Invitro fertilization of the mother with an embryo bearing the desired characteristics," it answered with its usual monotone female voice.

"No, that wouldn't work; not without kidnapping her," the doctor speculated aloud. "Does any method exist that can introduce specific and selected genetic material to a human female that would look like ordinary conception?"

"Affirmative," the computer said.

"Name it," Carter asked, slightly irritated by the computer's lack of a response.

"The use of artificial semen carried in an implant attached to the male reproductive system can introduce tailored DNA into a woman's uterus through natural sexual intercourse," it replied.

"My God," the doctor breathed aloud.

"Please restate request," the computer stated.

"Wasn't talking to you, dammit!" he barked. The implications were staggering, assuming what the computer told him was the case. Someone had gone to the trouble of taking Hawthorne's DNA, creating an implant to deliver that DNA, and having sex with Danielle at the right time in her menstruation cycle to conceive a child. That certainly answered how Richard Connors was conceived, but certainly not the why.

At this point, do I really want to know why?





"This is what I get for not taking Klingon in high school," Acton grunted as he tried to make sense of the communications panel of the bird of prey he helped to steal. After paying a visit to what passed for a sickbay on the purloined Klingon craft, he had filed down the piece of his biomechanical arm that jutted out slightly and bandaged the hole where his missing eye was. Now, one-handed, he was trying to locate the transponder signal of the Justice in the hopes of rendezvousing with her. Though most of the display was in the aforementioned tlhIngan Hol, any time Acton locked onto a Federation transponder, it would display the frequency code in Federation Standard before translating it. Simply broadcasting a signal or hailing Starfleet Command over subspace was out of the question for fear that J'Dak's forces would home in on the bird of prey and destroy them. "That's odd."

"What is?" Sanders asked from the helm station as he continued to pilot his prize.

"The ship's com system's been locked on to some transmitter ever since we took off," he replied as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. "It's a Federation signal, but if I'm reading this map right, it's coming from Romulan space. And it looks like it's moving. I wonder if that's what J'Dak is so interested in."

"Any luck finding that starship of yours?" questioned Sanders.

"Not yet," Acton answered grimly, "and I'm starting to wonder if we ever will."

"There's an independent port about a day away at warp six," the acting captain said. The fact that Acton had yet to find the Justice, which should have been close to Zavras, was troubling and suggested that something must have happened to the ship. "If we can't find your boat, we should probably find some place to lay low."

"No," Acton said firmly as he continued to scan. "We have to find a Starfleet ship or base to tell them about what J'Dak's planning."

"You seem to be forgetting who's driving the ship, Shaggy," Sanders stated. "Considering what a hex your Starfleet people have had on me lately, you'll understand if I want to give them the widest berth possible."

"We'll see about that," the security officer muttered just before the communications system discovered another familiar transponder signal, with a name and Starfleet registry about as recognizable as his mother's birthday. "The Yorktown."

"What about it?" Sanders said in a gruff voice.

"I've got their transponder signal moving along the Romulan border," Acton announced. "You got it on your board?"

"Yeah, but like I said, I'm the one driving here," he remarked. "And I'm of the mind that we head for the nearest free port, drop you off so you can get some medical attention and passage to the nearest starbase while I hire a new crew and try to fix the mess you damn yahoos left me in."

"You seem to be the one forgetting that there's only two of us on this ship of yours," the Starfleet officer said coldly. "And you've got to sleep some time."

"Fine," said Sanders through his teeth. "They're a ways away and still going, so if you want to get to them before hell freezes over, we'll have to push the engines past warp eight."

"Can this old crate handle it?" Acton asked.

"Don't insult Lucille, Slick," scoffed Sanders.

"Lucille?" he quipped in surprise. "All the names you could've picked for this ship and you pick Lucille?"

"Its my mother's name, thank you very much," the captain of the bird of prey named Lucille countered. "And since I'm once again going against my good sense to help you out, you should be grateful and keep your damn trap shut about what I call my ship."

"Funny, seeing how I was the one who came up with the idea to steal your precious Lucille, doesn't that mean I have some say in what she's called?" Acton asked.

"You know what they say," Sanders replied, "'Possession is nine tenths of the law.' So, unless you wanted to hang up your yellow uniform and sign on with me..."

"Having you as my boss with your luck?" he countered dubiously. "Hell no."
 
Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty





How long he had hovered over T'Mar's body in the morgue, Relek did not know. Wisely, no one had tried to disturb him. Though no longer completely detached from the physical realm as he was after he found her corpse in Thraketh's quarters, he was still riding a wave of emotional upheaval. For the moment, he was holding back the urge to weep or start smashing every medical instrument in sight. For a year if not longer, he had been denied the opportunity to be with T'Mar by circumstance. Now an assassin's disruptor had taken her from him once and for all and all he could think about now was how empty his life was going to be. It didn't matter if Thraketh succeeded anymore; somehow it wouldn't feel as satisfying.

T'Mar laid peacefully and serenely on the central slab in the morgue, bathed in the light green light of the minor stasis field that slowly retarded decomposition. Even in death she retained the grace of a Vulcan, which of course was learned not bred into her. Once a few years ago, Relek had come to touch that peace within her during a mind meld they shared which she used to keep him alive after he suffered grievous wounds. Ironically, it was that meld that forced T'Mar to confront the fact that she was really Romulan, albeit in a rather drawn out process. If only I hadn't left the ship...

That regret, which he had thought he had put behind him when T'Mar came aboard the Vrax, suddenly crept back to him. His decision to briefly (or so he thought) leave the Yorktown to visit the warbird his uncle was on in the Thraerran system directly resulted in his being forced into exile back in Romulan territory, tearing him away from T'Mar for a full year before they were just all too briefly reunited. Now Relek's anger started to seethe, for now his building anger started to extend beyond the man who pulled the trigger to kill him.

"I apologize if I'm disturbing you," his uncle's voice said, cutting through the silence in the morgue. Relek turned away from T'Mar to see him standing by the entrance. "But I deduced that it would be better for me to speak with you now rather than Commander Revar."

"Why?" Relek asked in a weak voice.

"We're about to arrive at the rendezvous point," Thraketh replied. "As soon as the plans are finalized, we'll be on our way to Romulus. I know and can sympathize with the 'situation' you are in, but I need every one at my disposal to..."

"How can you know anything about my situation?" snapped Relek. "The only thing that ever mattered about my life on the Yorktown is gone..."

"It sounds to me that it was indeed the only thing that mattered about your time there," the ambassador noted dryly.

"What is that supposed to mean?" the nephew asked bitterly.

"Relek, I know this isn't the best of times, but perhaps you should start to realize that your time in the Federation was not what you thought it to be," Thraketh said. "Your so-called friends on the Yorktown? From what I gather, you were nothing more than someone to be exploited by the Federation."

"Excuse me?" Relek asked as his anger started to rise once more.

"While you were on the Yorktown, you were greeted with constant suspicion," the ambassador explained in a stern voice. "Did you not tell me that the ship's security chief threatened to shoot you in the head during the battle with Tirok's warbird? And what about when Starfleet Intelligence refused to give you enough information to do your job because they suspected you of withholding critical information? I don't think I need to go into what happened with Norek, do I?"

"Why are you telling me this?" questioned Relek angrily.

"Because these are the same people that who put that disruptor in Lorak's hand!" Thraketh barked. "They sought to exploit you, either as a source of information, a tactical officer, or an assassin. These same people co-opted the Tal Shiar into trying to stop what we're doing! They're the ones who decided that T'Mar was a threat to their plans and killed her! You said it yourself that the Tal Shiar conspired with Starfleet to kill Norek; it's clear that they're the ones trying to kill us all!"

"Captain Kincade would not take part in this!" Relek challenged.

"Would he?" his uncle said sharply. "Was he not the one who bitterly tried to dissuade us from launching the coup? Wasn't he trained by Wallace, the man who set us up?"

"Wallace?" the nephew asked in surprise. What is going on?

"He promised to help us while at the same time he was planning our downfall!" Thraketh exclaimed, sounding more passionate and energized than Relek had ever heard him be before now. "You can't expect me to trust anyone in the Federation now, and neither should you. Your beloved died because their machinations put her in the firing line; don't fool yourself into thinking that the Federation is your friend, Nephew. Before this is all done, you may find them as your enemies. I'm sorry I had to tell you this now, but I need to know where your final loyalties lie. Are you for Romulus, or are you for the Federation?"

"I..." Relek said before he caught himself. He didn't know what to think anymore. Certainly Thraketh had a point, but his point of view was of someone in the Romulan Star Empire, where suspicion and treachery abounded. On the other hand though, Relek wondered for just a brief moment if his uncle was right. The Tal Shiar had conspired with Starfleet in the past to serve their own sinister purpose; if thwarting the coup was part of that purpose, would Starfleet assist them? Relek was expendable in killing Norek; what if T'Mar was expendable in killing Thraketh? Reluctantly, Relek finished his sentence. "I support you, Uncle."

"Thank you, Nephew," he said with a sigh of relief. "I know that was difficult for you to admit, but the sooner you realize that your years in the Federation weren't as idyllic as you believe, the sooner you can help rebuild your true home. I...I shall leave you alone."

Thraketh departed the morgue as quickly and silently as he entered, leaving Relek to contemplate his accusations with only T'Mar's corpse as company. There was wisdom to the ambassador's words, but they ran contrary to what Relek believed. Or do they? For all his anger, for all his contempt, Relek had to concede that his uncle was right in certain regards. Just whom could he trust anymore?





"I suppose it's too much to ask for Starfleet to give us an update on when we're getting pulled?" Kincade asked in exasperation as he left the starboard turbolift and returned to the bridge after hearing K'Doss' familiar call. Since approving of the proposed design changes, he had been looking around more and more to see what on the current bridge would still be there and what would be gone or altered. After taking his seat and signing off on another report handed to him by a junior officer, he fielded a look of concern from Brenz, who was sitting in his usual place. "What? If you're asking for what they're doing to the bridge, I'm not telling. Spoils the surprise and all."

"It's not that," the XO said in a low voice. "You seem...different."

Kincade waived his hand to dismiss his concerns, not wanting to reveal the events of the night before until he got in touch with his parents. Learned my lesson the hard way. "It's...nothing that I feel like talking about."

"Oh," Brenz said. "To answer your question, no, we haven't heard anything from Starfleet."

"Wasn't aware that I was asking a direct question," Kincade noted absently. "Makes you wonder if they forgot about us out here..."

"Tachyon surge directly ahead," K'Doss interrupted with concern in his voice, for chances were that a sudden surge of said particles could only mean one thing in this region of space. Without a full-time science officer, the Caitian had taken over most of the duties of relaying important sensor information to the captain on the bridge, something that most operations managers tended to do on other starships anyway. "Ship de-cloaking...it's a Klingon bird of prey."

"Klingons?" Brenz asked in surprise as the mystery vessel appeared alongside the ship while traveling at warp. "What are they doing out here?"

"I don't know, but given our luck lately..." the captain answered, letting his voice trail off on that ominous sentiment. "Yellow alert."

"All hands stand to condition yellow throughout the ship," K'Doss announced over the ship's intercom. "Repeat, all hands stand to condition yellow throughout the ship."

"Why's it just sitting there?" questioned the XO. Though the term "sitting" was a bit of a misnomer since both ships were traveling along at nearly four hundred times the speed of light, the fact that the bird of prey had done nothing since it de-cloaked was puzzling. "Tactical analysis?"

"It's an older model K24, probably from the first batch of this type of bird of prey a hundred years ago," al-Faisal reported. "Shouldn't be that threatening."

"Shouldn't be?" Kincade asked just as the bird of prey's distinctive wings started to fold downward, a sign that it was moving into an attack posture. "Sure is trying, though. Raise shields."

"Shields up," the tactical officer replied, "however I'm not detecting any power in the bird of prey's weapons. Odd."

"Try hailing them," the captain ordered.

"No response," K'Doss answered after the hailing frequencies trill was greeted with an error tone.

"Open a general channel," he then said. After hearing the requisite tone from the operations station, he got up from his chair and stood at the center of the bridge. "This is Captain John Kincade of the USS Yorktown to the unidentified Klingon vessel, respond and state your intentions..."

"We're getting a reply, finally," the Caitian said in an annoyed tone. The view of the bird of prey receded to an inset window off to the corner of the screen while a view of its bridge appeared, showing two people that Kincade thought he'd never see again.

"...see, there; that's the right button, dammit!" exclaimed Peter Acton, whom judging by the missing eye and the severed prosthetic arm looked like he had gone through hell. Though not bearing any heavy scars himself, Captain Marcus Sanders didn't look that much better. "Oh...right, hi Captain."

"Pete?!" Danielle exclaimed in disbelief.

"We thought you were killed," Kincade said in a voice that almost sounded out of breath. "How did..."

"Long story," Acton interrupted, "and I'd love to tell you guys all about it when I come aboard, but we'll need some crew to keep this bucket..."

"Stop bitching about my ship!"
Sanders exclaimed.

"Which one of us thought the attack configuration control for the wings was the button that opened hailing frequencies?" the Yorktown's former security chief countered.

"I'll have Shrel send over a team to take a look at it," Kincade said. "We'll also rig a tractor beam to tow your ship. In the meantime, it's good to see you again, Pete."

"Thank you sir," he answered. Despite how they left things the last time they saw each other a little over ten months ago, Kincade felt relieved to see him. "It's good to be back..."





"Well, leave it to me to be late to my own funeral," Acton quipped. The senior staff plus their former comrade and Sanders had reconvened in the observation lounge. Carter had tried to urge him to head to sickbay to treat his wounds, but Acton insisted on telling everyone what had happened to him. Kincade and the others had been listening in on the story of his undercover investigation that led to J'Dak and Zavras, their capture and the destruction of the Manta, and Sanders and Acton's daring escape aboard the stolen bird of prey dubbed Lucille. What a stupid name. Also, Kincade and his officers quickly relayed what had been going on with them over roughly the same period of time, including Amber's departure and the whole Thraketh mess.

"There's one thing I'm confused on, Commander," said al-Faisal. "Starfleet reported that the Justice was lost with all hands. Were you and Commander Vertran no longer members of the crew?"

"Part of our cover involved us having our names stricken from Starfleet records," he replied with a sigh. Considering everything that Acton had been through, Kincade imagined that finding out the ship he had just been serving on was destroyed and all his colleagues killed likely weighed very heavily on him. He's a survivor, but a man has his limits. "But, that's all in the past."

"Agreed," the captain said. The news about J'Dak and his mercenary army definitely piqued Kincade's interest. We can't catch a break around here, can we? "Do we have any idea where J'Dak plans on attacking?"

"I think I have an idea," answered Acton. "Before we found you, I noticed that the bird of prey's systems were tracking a Federation transponder signal. Whoever has it probably doesn't even know it's there; the model of transponder is small enough to be concealed as a decal. We've used them once or twice on the Justice to covertly track suspects. K'Doss, try locating its frequency, code number four...uh..."

"Four, eight, fifteen, sixteen, twenty-three, forty-two," Sanders interrupted, which drew surprised looks from the assembled Starfleet officers. "What? So I'm good at remembering numbers."

With an annoyed moan, K'Doss got up from his chair and walked over to the screen on the forward bulkhead. A map image of the sector the Yorktown was traveling in appeared, with the Yorktown's position marked by a Starfleet delta symbol. The location of the mystery transponder appeared within Romulan territory, marked by a blinking dot. However, that dot was starting to fade. K'Doss pressed a few more controls and concluded, "I have it, but we're losing the signal. They're entering a neutron star system and its interfering with the transmission, which is fairly weak at that."

"Part of the design," Acton commented. "The signal's supposed to look like simple background cosmic radiation so the ship being spied on can't detect it."

"And according to this, it's labeled with the Klingon word for 'target,'" added K'Doss.

"Well, I'd say that's fairly definitive," remarked Carter.

"Any idea who's carrying this transponder?" Brenz asked.

"The...uh...Lucille's been tracking the signal since the transponder was first activated," Acton said, trying to keep a straight face while saying the name of Sanders' ship. "The ship's logs might tell you something. Try linking with its computer."

"Assuming it'll let me," muttered the operations manager, which drew a harsh sigh from Sanders and a chuckle from the others. "It's working. Plotting the entire path..."

A line extended from the blinking dot, curving on a slightly erratic course inside Romulan space before turning back into nonaligned space and coming to a stop in the middle of nowhere. The way the line twisted seemed eerily familiar to Kincade, who leaned forward in his chair. "Where have I seen this before? Kincade to bridge."

"Connors here, sir," Danielle replied.

"Danny, punch up our flight path over the past week," he ordered. "Pipe it through to the screen in here."

"Aye sir; one moment," she answered. After a few seconds, a second line appeared marked in blue tracing back from the Starfleet symbol. It continued to hug the edge of the Romulan frontier before meeting and overlapping the first line from where it crossed into Romulan space back to where it had first appeared. Though the line continued tracing the Yorktown's course, Kincade had seen enough. Jesus.

"I don't get it," said Sanders.

"The Vrax," Brenz concluded. "J'Dak's going after the Vrax."

"How'd a Federation transponder get aboard Thraketh's warbird?" asked Acton.

There was only one possible explanation. Angrily through his teeth, Kincade answered, "Wallace."





Seven years ago...





"Passing turn three one five," Amber reported. According to the map Kincade had up on his XO's console, that was the final turn before the next void pocket in the April Nebula, where the vaccuum of space existed instead of the blinding gasses. That would allow them to engage their warp engines and shave hours off a trip. Unfortunately, if Suun'dek's warning was accurate, it was also the best place for a Klingon ship to stage an ambush. The first officer had relayed that concern to the captain and as the magenta clouds ahead started to part on the viewscreen, it was a concern that Kincade hoped had Wallace's full attention. "Now emerging from the cloud boundary."

"Getting full sensors back," Hubbard added. Entering the pocket also meant that they might be able to pick up Starfleet's broadcast in the clear. However, Kincade doubted that Wallace would order anyone to listen for it, so the commander had another screen up on his console waiting for Starfleet to repeat the broadcast. "No contacts."

"Helm, set a course for the opposite end of the void, warp two," ordered Wallace. They technically could go faster, but it was best not to chance slamming into the opposite end of the pocket before being able to slow down. Before Amber could acknowledge the order or the captain could add his usual line of "warp speed," Kincade's console started to chirp. Finally.

"Captain, we're getting a message," he said. "It's an official Starfleet signal..."

"What?" Wallace asked, more out of annoyance than surprise. "I thought I..."

"Tachyon surge dead ahead!" Hubbard warned suddenly. Kincade quickly glanced up from his XO station towards the viewscreen to see the telltale rippling effects of a cloaking device disengaging and the form of a Klingon cruiser start to appear. "Klingon attack cruiser...Vor'cha-class."

"Red alert!" Wallace barked. "Raise shields, ready phasers and photon torpedoes!"

"Battlestations, battlestations," the junior ops manager called out over the intercom. "Set condition red throughout the ship. This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill. Battlestations, battlestations. Set condition red throughout the ship. This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill."

As the red alert klaxon started to blare once more and status reports started to flood over the speakers, the Klingons fired, not just with one or two disruptors, but with every forward firing weapon the cruiser had. When they struck Discovery, the deck lurched forward suddenly. Cautiously, Kincade's attention drifted down towards his console again to read the message. It had been what Fez suspected it might be; an order from Starfleet to call off the attack on the outpost and regroup in the Federation side of the Archanis Sector to ward off the enemy invasion.

"Shields down to eighty-three percent!" reported Hubbard.

"Captain, main phaser banks are still down to only fifty-nine percent of total firepower," Suun'dek added.

"Then will have to use the ventral array on the battle section," the captain grunted. "Helm, pitch the bow up five degrees and come right to course eight-six. Tactical, return fire."

"Firing, aye," the tactical officer replied. After the ship's weapons cycled, the cruiser appeared to be unconcerned about it as it continued to close on Discovery. "Target shields down to ninety-two percent."

"IFF says she's the Ku'Vang, under the command of J'Dak," Hubbard reported.

"Captain, that message," Kincade said.

"Not now, Jack," Wallace said. "Roll starboard ten degrees. Keep them from getting a clear shot at us topside."

"Sir, Starfleet's ordered us to break off our attack on the Klingon outpost," the commander urged. "Without the primary phaser banks, there's no way we can take him on. We can duck back into the nebula and avoid this guy."

"You think he'll let us?" the captain asked rhetorically, not arguing with what Kincade warned him of.

"Collision course!" Amber warned as the Ku'Vang grew even larger on the screen.

"Turn into him!" Wallace yelled.

Though it was hard to tell based on what Kincade could see on the screen, the attack cruiser likely broke off its collision course at the last second, firing its weapons as it did. The image on the screen continued to track the Ku'Vang as it passed over Discovery and started to come around again, but not without getting off some more shots with its aft weaponry.

"Shields at sixty-four percent," Hubbard said. "Hold on, another ship de-cloaking, bearing two seven five mark one nine zero. It's an old K't'inga-class battlecruiser."

"On screen!" Kincade barked. The Ku'vang was replaced by a shot of the much older Klingon vessel whose dated back at least a hundred years if not more. Based on the background on the screen and the bearing that Hubbard called out, it was approaching from the opposite direction of the Ku'Vang. It did not waste time in opening fire. One cruiser blocked their way towards the far side of the void, the other maneuvering back the way they came. "They're trying to box us in."

Suddenly, that argument between Wallace and Kincade seemed like it happened years ago...
 
Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One







"I think it is time to get the hell out of here," Wallace said in realization. With two Klingon cruisers versus Discovery's weakened weapons systems, no one would argue with a strategic and rapid retreat. Certainly not his XO, who proposed the idea in the first place with word of the cancellation of their strike mission. "But without the shields, they'd tear us apart in the nebula."

"The mines," Kincade suggested, searching for any way to give Discovery an advantage in a fight that was stacked against him already. Like a one legged-man at an ass kicking contest. "Maybe we can turn them against the Klingons. We have all their positions mapped by now, right?"

"I see what you're getting at, but we'll have to be careful," Wallace said. He was being remarkably conciliatory, especially in a battle like this. Or maybe it's because I've never seen him in battle. "Helm, backtrack our old course through the nebula. Use the saucer impulse engines to get us to full power fast."

"Aye sir!" Amber replied nervously as the ship was struck once more by disruptor and torpedo fire. After everything the helmswoman had gone through to steer the ship through the nebula and the minefield within it, she was displaying remarkable calm even as the ship was being bombarded from all corners. And with the positions of all the mines plotted already, they could afford to go back through the nebula at full speed.

"Ops, can we get a tractor beam working inside the nebula?" the captain asked.

"Barely, sir," Hubbard answered. "Without sensors at full accuracy, we won't be able to..."

"I don't need to grab the damn mines, just shove them at the Klingons!" Wallace exclaimed. "Can you do it?"

"I'll try, sir, but the tractor beam might detonate the mines anyway," she replied in an uncertain voice just as the ship was struck again, this time hard enough to almost throw Kincade from his chair. "Shields down to less than fifty percent!"

"Nebula perimeter in twenty seconds," added Amber.

"Reverse angle on the viewscreen," Kincade ordered. The screen now showed that both cruisers had fallen behind the rapidly-accelerating Discovery, the Vor'cha-class Ku'Vang trying to bracket above the Federation ship's centerline and the older K't'inga-class trying to go below.

"As soon as we cross into it, take us towards the closest cluster of mines," the captain ordered. "Tactical, set aft torpedoes to detonate on a proximity fuse."

"Target lock will have to be on manual," Suun'dek warned.

"Best guess, then," said Wallace.

"Entering the nebula," Amber reported.

"Shields starting to fall due to interference," Hubbard reported. The viewscreen also started to flicker as the gas and dust within the nebula started to interfere with the ship's sensors. However, Kincade could barely see the Klingons fire through the static.

"Brace for impact!" the XO yelled. The weapons struck fairly close to the main bridge, judging by the fact that the aft science and engineering stations overloaded and knocked the watch standers out of their seats and to the deck. Based on where the Ku'Vang was when the visual started to fail, that shot had come from the attack cruiser. Kincade jumped from his chair to help the two crewmembers, who had burns on their hands and faces.

"Hull breach, deck three!" the ops manager yelled.

"This J'Dak person's playing dirty," Wallace muttered under his breath. "Ready tractor beam."

"I have five mines bearing directly ahead," Hubbard said. As soon as the relief crews escorted the injured bridge officers to a turbolift, Kincade returned to the captain's side. "The tractor beam might not be able to move all of them at once."

"We'll take that chance," the captain said firmly. "Engage tractor beam and rotate it one hundred and eighty degrees to stern. Tactical, prepare to fire torpedoes on my mark."

"Beam engaged, beginning rotation," she said. The ship shuddered again dramatically, as it had when Discovery collided with a mine earlier in the day. "Hull breach, deck twenty-two!"

"Sensors still show four mines in our beam," Suun'dek added. "Passing to stern."

"Shut the beam off!" Wallace barked. "Target the torpedoes on the mines...steady...steady...fire!"

"Torpedoes away!" Suun'dek exclaimed. Kincade could barely see the launch of the torpedoes through the flickering of the viewscreen, but the resulting explosion of both the torpedoes and the mines was bright enough to cut through the static.

"Any signs of pursuit?" Kincade asked.

"Can't see through all of this," Hubbard replied.

"Well, even if we didn't get them, we made them think twice about charging after us full speed," Wallace said as he turned in his chair to pat Kincade on the shoulder. "Good idea with the mines. Now they won't be sure if their maps aren't accurate or if we weren't actually here to plant some more."

"Thank you, sir," Kincade said with a smile.

"I should be thanking you, Commander," the captain said in a low voice. "Helm, put us back on the regular mapped course. You think you can avoid the mines at full impulse now?"

"Now that no one's shooting at us? Sure," Amber replied in a light voice.

Kincade exhaled slowly as he leaned back in his chair, trying to drain all the built-up energy from the battle. They had come so close to not getting out of that Klingon ambush alive and only did so through quick thinking by both the CO and the XO. And to think we were at each other's throats a few hours ago...





Present day





"Wallace?" Acton asked even as Kincade started to come out of his reverie while the conference in the observation lounge continued. Since being ordered into this twisting mission, the captain of the Yorktown had found himself drawn back to the events of seven years ago, mostly because of what Kincade was so close to doing before that first mine struck the ship. I could've changed all of this. "Son of a bitch."

After eluding the Ku'Vang (which Kincade only learned had survived when he encountered it aboard the Yorktown nearly four years ago) and the second cruiser, Discovery had weaved her way out of the April Nebula only to learn that the Klingons had taken most of the Archanis Sector and were in the process of landing troops at the Federation colony on Archanis IV. The war dragged out for over three months and only ended when one of Gowron's military advisors who had been the one to push for war was exposed as a Changeling infiltrator. A lasting truce finally came about when the Dominion invaded the Alpha Quadrant months later.

"So, does that mean Wallace is working for J'Dak or is J'Dak working for him?" asked Brenz. Ironically, lost in all the events of seven years ago was the fact that Fez Husseini was right, that Starfleet had recalled Discovery because their intelligence on the target was faulty. However, after the ship escaped from the nebula, Wallace returned Fez to duty and the dispute was put well into the past thanks to the subsequent fighting with the Klingons, the Borg attack, and the Dominion War. Fez, like so many of Kincade's other colleagues on Discovery, was killed during that latter conflict. The debate between Kincade and Wallace, meanwhile, was forgotten as easily as a brief yet heated argument between father and son. At least that was until Wallace's involvement in the assassination of Norek.

"I doubt it, especially considering what Commander Acton's just told us," said al-Faisal. "General J'Dak likely has no political ambition; he's just a hired gun."

"So this J'Dak character's out to kill Thraketh for Wallace, then," concluded Carter. For some reason, Kincade had been dwelling on something of late that he hadn't thought about that often at all since the events of seven years ago. If that Klingon mine hadn't struck Discovery, Kincade would have relieved Wallace of his command and would have been perfectly well within his rights to do so. He would have ordered the ship to duck out of the nebula to copy the full transmission from Starfleet and likely would have returned to port. After a formal investigation by everyone and their cousin in Starfleet, Wallace would have likely been shown the door and Kincade would have been promoted to take his place, at least ideally. And think about how different my life would have been...

"But why, though?" Brenz asked in a tone of voice that fully snapped Kincade out of his private reflections. "If anything, Wallace should be supporting Thraketh's bid to off Tal'Aura. He did have Norek killed and Thraketh sure as hell thinks she's his second coming."

"That's what makes this plan so perfect," Kincade said, speaking for the first time since he realized what was going on. He got up from his chair at the starboard end of the conference table and started to slowly walk in front of the windows along the aft bulkhead as his mind quickly started to focus on what was going on, what the real aim of the events in this part of the galaxy were all about. "It's the stated position of our government that stabilizing the situation on Romulus is in everyone's best interests, correct?"

"Right," al-Faisal replied when no one else would.

However, Brenz started to ask, "But why would Wallace go along with...?" Kincade raised a hand to cut his friend off as he stopped and stared out the window with is back to the rest of his officers.

"Weps, what would happen if Thraketh carried out his attack, assuming none of this other crap has been going on?" the captain asked. He knew that al-Faisal had studied about the Romulans a great deal, both during and after his time at the academy. Though he had the perspective of an outsider, al-Faisal was the best person sitting at the table to give an answer.

"Well first, based on the plan the ambassador outlined to you in your first meeting with him, he'd fail," his tactical officer answered. "He simply doesn't have enough ships and is relying far too much on..."

"Assume he succeeds in spite of that," the captain said as he turned back towards them. "What then?"

"Despite what he thinks, I don't believe he'd have much support from the other factions," replied al-Faisal. "I must confess that I'm not entirely clear on who's who within the Romulan political landscape these days, but Thraketh would need some kind of alliance with the other factions. Even though not everyone supports Tal'Aura, they won't automatically support Thraketh. In fact, I think that if he succeeds, he'll in fact cause..."

"Civil war," concluded Kincade.

"More or less," al-Faisal confirmed.

"A civil war that'd not only tear the empire apart, but drag in all of the Romulans' neighbors, wouldn't it?" the captain asked rhetorically. Suddenly, he started seeing everything about what was going on so clearly, though part of him worried it was because he understood the line of thought of the people who perpetrated this conspiracy. Like after Zavras. "It'd destabilize the entire quadrant."

"That's Wallace's logic, isn't it?" Carter questioned. "He thinks that by having Thraketh whacked, he can stop a quagmire in the Beta Quadrant this side of the rebuilding of Cardassia?"

"That's about it," confirmed Kincade.

"But to do something that'd support Tal'Aura, though?" al-Faisal asked. "He went to all the trouble to have Norek killed but now to do something to support her?"

"That's a good point," the captain replied. "But the answer lies in the Titan's mission to Romulus. Tal'Aura's desperate to build some kind of coalition government with all the factions that want to kill her. Even if Captain Riker and his people somehow succeed, the praetor will be on shaky ground; the military, Norek's old cronies, the Tal Shiar, even Ambassador Spock's people will all be trying to get a seat at the table. Even if she is trying to plot the downfall of the Federation, she's going to have a hell of a time trying to get any of that done while she's trying to hold the empire together at the same time."

"Suppose you're right, sir," Brenz prefaced. He hardly referred to his friend familiarly in front of the rest of the crew. "So why not have Thraketh poisoned in his sleep or something? Why get J'Dak to do it for him?"

"Or other Romulans?" al-Faisal added.

"Using one of our agents is obviously out of the question," Kincade answered. "And having a Romulan kill him would only create the kinds of problems that Wallace or whoever he's with are trying to prevent. Send J'Dak after him and it looks like just some random Klingon officer trying to grab himself some glory in a spectacular battle, something that can easily be explained away."

"And if J'Dak's using Zavras..." Carter said in a leading voice. The doctor had been one of the more outspoken critics of the operation at Zavras last year.

"It means Admiral Pujols is probably involved," the captain stated. "Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who got this whole thing started. Wallace could just be a mere accomplice."

"With all due respect, sir," Acton prefaced, "you could be right about this, but this is all just speculation. You don't have any proof and there's a couple holes in your logic. For instance, why'd Wallace come all the way out here just to plant a bug?"

"As to your latter question, Pete, there could be more going on than we think," Kincade replied. "Maybe it was ego; to see it all through. Maybe he did something else, but the answer's probably the same to your former question. We do need proof, starting with finding out who his accomplice is here on the ship."

"Sir?" asked Hernandez, whom until now had been completely quiet in this meeting.

"He was here under your people's guard the whole time," he explained. "Either he had help to plant the tracking device on the Vrax or he had one of our own do it for him. Chances are the guilty party is one of your people. I want you and K'Doss to start checking things out."

"Aye sir," she answered in a voice that sounded reluctant, though Kincade thought it was due to the fact Hernandez disliked having to investigate her own people.

"Before you do that, Jerry, politely ask your wife to set a course for the Vrax's current position, since chances are if J'Dak's going to launch an ambush, he'll do it there," ordered Kincade. "Maximum warp."

"Captain, I've been trying to locate the Marathon on sensors since you first brought up Wallace," K'Doss added, who hadn't moved from the screen on the forward bulkhead, "but I can't. It's almost like it completely vanished."

"I'm not surprised," Kincade remarked.

"Sir," Acton said as he slowly rose from his seat, "after all that crap two years ago with that shape-shifter blowing up that Cardassian cruiser, I've been boning up on how to rig a transporter. Maybe I should take a look at the transporter logs, since chances are whoever beamed that transponder over to the Vrax covered it up."

"Like hell you will," Carter said angrily. "You're missing a damn eye and half your arm. You aren't doing jack crap until you hit sickbay."

"You know, you used to be a lot kinder," remarked Acton.

"Fine," Kincade sighed. "Shrel'll get started and once Bones gets off his high horse, you can help, Pete. Dismissed."

"Wait a minute," Sanders interjected. "While I find all this talk about how dysfunctional your damn fleet is fascinating, what about me?"

"What about you?" Acton asked sarcastically.

"Starbase 123 is only about a half a day away at warp six," Kincade explained.

"And why would I want to go there?" questioned Sanders.

"Because I'll tell them to service this Lucille of yours and let you recruit a crew to help you out from the local civvie ship grunts," the captain answered. "No questions asked, unless you start spreading around what we've been talking about, then I'll recommend that you be arrested and extradited to the Klingon Empire for stealing a bird of prey."

"Anyone ever tell you you're one crafty son of a bitch, Captain?" Sanders asked with a smirk.

"Every goddamn day," the captain answered. "So, like I said, dismissed."

"Sir, a moment," Brenz said as the rest of the senior staff plus Acton and Sanders rose from their seats and started to file out of the observation lounge. Once the last of them left, the Betazoid asked, "You do realize the Vrax is inside Romulan space, right?"

"Right," Kincade confirmed.

"And that unless you can prove a link from Pujols and Wallace to J'Dak, this is nothing more than a Klingon general wanting to kill a bunch of Romulans, right?" added Brenz.

"Right," the captain repeated.

"Hate to tell you this, Jack, but you're going to have a hard time justifying this to Starfleet Command without that kind of proof," the XO concluded. "They're going to see it as you going on some personal quest to save T'Mar and Relek..."

"After everything they've done for this ship over the years, I think we owe them that much," Kincade said firmly.

"I understand that," Brenz said as he held up his hands in a conciliatory manner, "but unless you can somehow come up with everything to corroborate what you guys have been saying for the last fifteen minutes, they're going to come down on you like a slab of neutronium for violating the Romulan border on a mission to save your friends. I don't mean to second-guess you..."

"Tex, believe me when I say this, but don't stop second-guessing me," the captain interrupted as he started to pace before the windows. "If I had done that a long time ago..."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Brenz.

"It means that seven years ago I had the chance to have Wallace relieved of his command on Discovery when it was well within my rights, but I didn't," Kincade said. He felt a subtle vibration shimmer through the deck beneath his fleet, which along with the sudden shift in the refracted light in the warp field visible right out the window indicated that Danielle had changed course for the neutron star. "If I had done that..."

"Jack, you can't start thinking like that," his first officer challenged.

"If I had done that," the captain continued undaunted, "Relek wouldn't have become Norek's assassin and right now we would be trying to stop J'Dak from slaughtering Relek, T'Mar, and Thraketh."

"And what else would have happened?" Brenz questioned. "You shouldn't let one potential misstep cause you to question every decision you make."

"When you get your own command like me, Tex, then you can't help but question every choice you've made, especially when lives are on the line," Kincade noted grimly. "If I were you, I wouldn't be so eager to become a captain quite yet."

"Who said I was?" the Betazoid asked with a smirk.

"That's the smartest thing you've said in a while," the captain replied, matching his old friend's smile.





Acton tried to sit still in sickbay as Carter continued his work. Never fan of sitting and watching medical procedures especially when they were performed on him, he kept his one eye shut. Since he was eager to get to work on trying to find out how the covert transponder was beamed aboard the Vrax, he talked the doctor into putting off replacing the prosthetic arm and eye until the investigation was over. As for not having his arm or eye, he tried to put all that out of his mind, like the fact that the ship he had just been serving on had been killed along with its entire crew.

"Well, Shaggy, you're looking a lot better than the last time we saw you," a familiar and irritating voice said. Acton risked opening his eye to see Sanders standing over his bed. "'Course, you've still looked better."

"What the hell do you want?" Acton grumbled.

"You're little blue friend in engineering hooked up ol' Lucille's computer with a Klingon to English translator," Sanders said in his drawl laced with smugness. "I'll be shoving off soon to find a crew and start earning back everything I lost after the last time I worked with you people..."

"Well, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out," Carter remarked, sounding like he was annoyed about getting interrupted while he worked.

"Do you mind, Gramps?" Sanders interjected.

"I agree with the Doc," grunted Acton.

"I just wanted to..." he started to say, but couldn't for some reason. "I wanted to say..."

"What, thank you?" Acton said as he started to laugh. "You've never been thankful for anything in as long as I've known you."

"Maybe I don't need to thank you for anything," Sanders said as he started to turn to leave.

"I saved your damn life and I helped you steal that new ship of yours," he countered. "You're damn right you should be thanking me."

"What about all the times you threw me up against a bulkhead?" asked Sanders. "Or when you shot me?!"

"Look, I'm more than willing to recommend you two to a good couples therapist I know," Carter interjected, "but I really have some work to do here since Mr. Acton here decided to pretend to be a doctor using Klingon butcher knives. Say your business and get going."

"Fine," grunted the captain of the Lucille. "See you around, Shaggy."

"See you around, Sanders," Acton sighed as he shut his eye. Despite much of an annoying pain the ass Sanders had been, Acton thought he'd miss him. Not the nicknames, though...
 
Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two





Shrel fought the urge to look over his shoulder as he started to look over the transporter activity logs in his open-air office in main engineering. Though he had kept quiet during the staff meeting, the thought about a spy being on board helping someone like Wallace and J'Dak to kill Thraketh, T'Mar, and Relek sent chills up his spine. Who was to say that the spy was actually from ship's security and not from another department like engineering? He had just been made chief engineer two years ago when a shape-shifter came aboard, planted a bomb on a Cardassian ship, framed Acton for the deed, then went on to murder first officer Richard Hawthorne. The Andorian wasn't entirely thrilled with the prospect of facing that chance again.

Unfortunately, he didn't see much he could do to contribute to the investigation. Though he knew how to covertly alter a transporter to pull off something like this, he was by no means a detective or an expert on computer espionage. About the only thing he could see while reading through the logs for the evening that the transponder came online aboard the Vrax. All he could see were blank entries, stating that the transporters had not been used then. Perhaps those logs were in error or the transponder had been beamed over at a different time (perhaps when the captain went aboard the warbird), but there was no way for him to tell. Perhaps I need to think unconventionally.

If it was in fact Wallace who planted the transponder, he either brought it aboard with him when he first came aboard the Yorktown or he replicated it during his stay. Shrel called up the transporter logs of when Wallace beamed over from the Marathon, but then realized that if the transponder was in fact as small as Acton said it was, it would be too small to detect. However, since it was a complex piece of technology, finding it in the replicator records would be easier, assuming that they weren't tampered with, either. He'd rather get back to preparing his staff for the confrontation with J'Dak, which almost certainly would lead to shooting and damage to the ship. Just when we're supposed to be refitting her, too.

"Sorry I'm late," Acton's voice said, which startled Shrel so much that he jumped in his chair. "I...hope I'm not disturbing you."

"No, it's all right," the chief engineer replied as he turned to see Acton take a seat behind him at one of the assistant engineer's duty stations. He almost lost his balance as he did, clearly still trying to adapt to his injuries. The former security chief's right arm was still gone, but now there seemed to be some kind of bandage capped to the end of it. Also, over his right eye was a black patch that was secured diagonally around his head. "You're actually here earlier than I suspected."

"Doc said it'd take a while to make a new arm and build the occular implant and I didn't feel like waiting," he said. "Still trying to get used to not having two arms and two eyes."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I know the feeling," said Shrel. "When I was young, I had an accident with an Ushaan-Tor and lost both my antenna."

"Those prosthetics?" Acton asked.

"No, they grew back," the Andorian stated.

"Wish it worked like that with humans," the former security chief commented. He must have noticed that Shrel was staring curiously at the eye patch, as he said, "The patch was my idea, in case you were wondering; always wanted to be a pirate when I was younger. What've you got so far?"

"Only that whoever did transport the transponder over obviously altered the logs," Shrel answered. "Right now I'm trying to look over the replicator logs, see who created the transponder."

"Good idea," Acton remarked. "I'll have a look at the logs and the fuel consumption reports."

"Fuel consumption?" the Andorian asked in confusion, turning from his station to face Acton.

"Transporters use energy, don't they?" the human asked rhetorically as he started to work the console with his left hand. "Most spies know to change the transporter logs but the amateur ones forget about the fact that beaming consumes fuel from either the warp core or the fusion reactors. We find a mystery spike in energy usage that don't jive with our system use records, then we know the when and where."

"That could take hours," Shrel said. The Yorktown had hundreds of redundant systems and equipment that drew energy from the ship's power generators. "And trying to identify a spike that corresponds to transporter activity could be a shot in the dark."

"Never said it was easy," Acton said with a smirk. That smirk disappeared as he focused more intently on what he was looking at. "On the other hand..."

"What?" asked the chief engineer asked as he pushed away from his station to look over the larger human's shoulder.

"Well whenever Wallace decided to use the transporter, he did it twice," he replied, pointing to one of the screens he was looking at. "The power distribution logs show spikes near transporter room two within fifteen minutes of each other on the night in question. If it hadn't happened twice, I wouldn't have noticed."

"So he beamed something over then beamed something back?" Shrel speculated.

"Or Wallace went over to plant the transponder manually before coming back to the ship," Acton added. "Let's try pulling up the records for transporter room two just to see what's there."

"Try looking at the rematerialization subroutines to see if they've been altered," the Andorian suggested. When Acton gave him a look of curiosity, he added, "Well obviously the Romulan internal sensors didn't go off. Wallace must have modified our transporter to read like a Romulan signal to get him aboard covertly."

"You can do that?" he asked.

"Theoretically," Shrel repiled. "And if anyone could figure out how to do it, it'd be the company that Wallace keeps, wouldn't it?"

"Suppose so," Acton admitted as he started investigating the logs. "Interesting. The log for transporter cycles is blank, but the automated maintenance log shows someone reconfigured the array then reset it to standard specs fifteen minutes later. Must have forgot to purge that record."

"It also looks like they re-routed the transporter through lateral sensor array just like that shape-shifter did two years ago," commented the chief engineer. "They also must have tinkered with the resonator array and the annular confinement beam. Did they leave an ID code in the log?"

"They did," the security officer replied. "Don't recognize it, though."

"Let me see," said Shrel as he started to look closer at the screen. Unfortunately, he did recognize the identification code all too well. "That's..."





"Impossible!" Kincade barked in disbelief after Acton and Shrel made their accusation. Brenz stood off to the side of the captain's ready room desk while Kincade leaned back in his chair. This is ridiculous. "I mean, come on...Pete, you of all people should know you can't immediately believe that kind of proof..."

"Sir, I do know," Acton said in a serious voice. "And when that shape-shifting bitch tried to pin the bombing of the Ronor on me, she made the evidence that framed me rather obvious and easy to find. The ID code in the maintenance log is the kind of thing most people forget about when they're in a hurry; this wasn't a frame-job, this was sloppy."

"Shrel, you know her better than anyone here," Brenz said. Unfortunately, as Kincade knew all too well of late, it was easy and common to misread the intentions and motives of the people one loved. "Has Lieutenant Hernandez been acting unusual?"

"She's been...distant, at least around me," Shrel said before hanging his head down. His antenna also drooped; Kincade could tell that it couldn't be easy for him to implicate his girlfriend as a traitor, but the Andorian seemed confident in his accusation. "First I thought it had to do something with Sophia losing interest, but now I'm not entirely sure, except for the fact that she was involved."

"Her codes were used to reconfigure the transporter, she had clearance to replicate that kind of transponder, and she was in charge of security for Wallace during his stay here," added Acton. "She had the means and the opportunity..."

"But what about motive?" Kincade asked as he glanced over to his XO. "Tex, have you noticed her acting odd lately?"

"She's been a lot more closed off, like she's carrying around this big secret, but a lot of humans act like that around telepaths," the Betazoid replied. "Other than that, nothing."

My God, what has he done to my ship and crew? Kincade thought as he got up from his chair and started to pace around the far end of ready room. That Wallace had been able to get to one of his senior officers was troubling. Though he felt slightly grateful over the fact that she was found out so easily, he was also worried about what else Hernandez was capable of. Assuming she's alone.

"Pete," he prefaced firmly, "get down to security, find people you know and trust. Get them suited up and we'll take Hernandez into custody quietly and quickly before she can..."

"Wait, sir," Brenz interjected. "Let me talk to her..."

"Tex, I can't..." Kincade started to say dismissively.

"You swoop in on her right away and she'll lawyer up," the XO explained. "We'll never get her to expose her links to Wallace and we don't have time for conventional questioning methods. Where's she now?"

"On the bridge working with Commander K'Doss," Shrel answered. Then his eyes suddenly went wide. "She could be trying to conceal evidence."

"Just what did you have in mind?" the captain asked cautiously.





"My apologies for being late," Revar said as he entered the wardroom, where Thraketh and Relek (whom despite leaving the morgue still appeared as emotionally beaten as he had before). The ambassador didn't want to appear impatient, but he was; the fleet was due to arrive in a couple of hours at the binary system whose secondary neutron star would obscure their presence on long range sensors even if de-cloaked. As soon as all ships were accounted for, they'd set a course for Romulus and for whatever the Fates had in store for them. "I've just contacted our forces already on Romulus. They've confirmed that Tal'Aura will not be leaving until at least after the Titan's mission."

"That is good to hear," Thraketh said before he started to cough, though he quickly stifled it. "I called this meeting to go over the specifics of our plan once last time. Commander?"

"Yes, Your Excellency," the commander said before moving towards a screen on one of the bulkheads. On it was a graphical (and quite realistic) graphical representation of the home system. "As you know, we presently have twenty warships out our disposal. Fourteen of them, led by the warbirds Vrax and Nakath will assault the refitting station in direct orbit over the city of Rateg. We believe that there are currently five warbirds docked with the station, all of which were damaged during Tomalak's defense against the last coup attempt."

The image on the screen zoomed on Romulus and the station in question. "According to our last report, the station is guarded by at least one warbird, followed by a pair of cruisers and nearly a half-dozen smaller vessels. That is, of course, in addition to the planetary defense batteries, both on the surface and in orbit. Our fourteen ships will de-cloak and appear to be requesting permission to dock. As soon as their guard is lowered, our ships will open fire." Images of the fourteen ships appeared by the space station on the display and unleashed their disruptors and torpedoes. The ships that were already in frame and the barely visible defense satellites started to return fire. "The bulk of the other portions of Tal'Aura's forces protecting the planet will likely respond almost immediately." More warbirds and smaller warships moved into frame and joined the battle. "Once the defense units have fully engaged our first task force, we'll begin the next phase of the plan."

The view perspective moved through the atmosphere of Romulus down to the capital city of Ki Baratan, highlighted by the domed Hall of State in the main circular plaza along the coast. "During this time, the second task force of six vessels led by the cruiser Sarith will enter the atmosphere under cloak. Once in position, they will de-cloak and commence bombardments of the governmental sector." The six ships, which were either the same size of the moderately-proportioned Sarith or smaller, became visible over Ki Baratan and started to fire upon the government buildings in the plaza. "Once our ships open fire, the Romulan Guard will take Tal'Aura down to the catacombs underneath the Hall of State towards her personal command bunker. According to my information, they're trained to move the praetor to safety within three verak of an alarm sounding."

Next, the camera angle descended below the surface of the streets to show a three-dimensional schematic of the tunnels beneath the Hall of State. Crude graphical representations of soldiers and one robed figure (likely Tal'Aura) started to move down the corridor. "According to our sources, there are at least two alternate entrances to the tunnel from other buildings on the surface and we should have access to at least one of them." Just then, more soldiers appeared from a side chamber. The first group turned and started to head back the other way with the praetor in tow while both sides started to exchange fire, with the occassional soldier being struck and falling in a rather unconvincing manner. Well, I should not have expected much more for just a hastily assembled simulation. "However, my contacts assure me that in the confusion of the second attack, they should be able to gain access to both entrances." As Tal'Aura's primitively-drawn party fled from the soldiers running towards them, another group emerged from another entrance to the tunnel behind them, trapping the praetor between the two groups. The graphical representation of Tal'Aura and her associates raised their hands and surrendered.

"Naturally, that last part is a bit of an idealization of what could happen," Revar concluded, "however, I believe it is accurate."

"Casualty projections?" Thraketh asked in a weak voice.

"Unfortunately, upwards of seventy percent," the commander said grimly. "And most of those we expect to come from the attack on the space station. If we had more ships, perhaps..."

"Regrettably, we cannot," the ambassador noted, referring obliquely to the contacts provided by Wallace, before coughing once more. This one was far more severe than the last. Both Revar and Relek moved to see if they could assist him, but he raised a hand to stop them. "I shall be fine."

"Perhaps you should see the ship's surgeon," suggested Revar.

"I am all right, Commander," Thraketh lied. He was far from it, in fact. The ambassador was becoming more fatigued easily, felt colder even in rooms that were supposed to be warm, and could feel the fluids build up in his lungs that were contributing to his bouts of coughing. If he did not need to project the appearance of confidence and strength, he might have indulged the commander's concern. But how long can I put this off? "Now, are the commanding officers of the other ships in your first strike force aware of the danger?"

"Yes, and though they are as willing to give their lives to this cause as I am," he prefaced, "but not all of their crews are that...eager to die."

"Before we depart, I will want to speak to them all," the ambassador said. "Perhaps raise their spirits."

"Of course, sir," Revar replied. "May I ask where you wish to be during the attack?"

"On the Sarith, most likely," Thraketh answered. "I think it would be best for me to remain close to the capital in order to seize power. I think that the second fleet would also benefit with having someone with Relek's experience..."

"With respect, Ambassador, I would request that Relek remain aboard the Vrax," the commander said. "We need someone of his expertise against..."

"Out of the question," he challenged, not wanting to have his nephew assigned to a ship that would almost assuredly be destroyed.

"I agree with the commander, Uncle," Relek said in a tired voice. "The battle in orbit will be where we succeed or fail in this mission. The place where I can be the most effective is here."

"Nephew, I know your heart still burns for T'Mar," Thraketh cautioned, "but you should not let your grief lead you into this suicide..."

"I am not suicidal!" barked Relek loudly, displaying the same level of fury as he had shortly after T'Mar's death. Imagine how angry he would become if he knew the truth. After swallowing his rage once more, he added, "This is simply the best place for me to be when the time comes. I know it is a risk, but the simple fact is that the only safe place to be during this mission is in another star system."

"That is true, I suppose," the ambassador said with a chuckle. "The fight for freedom often is bloody, but it is shed for a noble cause..."





After everything was arranged and Acton was on his way down to the security section, Brenz returned to the bridge to find K'Doss and Hernandez respectively sitting at the Environment and Engineering I station on the starboard side of the bridge. Cautiously, he probed with his empathic sense towards the potential spy and to his surprise only felt nervous calm, as if Hernandez thought she was getting away with it. That only made Brenz even more angry. He walked up behind them and asked, "Have you found anything yet?"

"Nothing," K'Doss said in frustration. "Whoever is behind this is clearly skilled at covering their tracks."

"Or there's no one helping him," Hernandez pointed out, which felt like a blatant attempt at covering up, Betazoid senses or none. "Whoever's sponsoring Wallace could have given him the proper codes to access our systems. I can't believe anyone on the Yorktown could be helping him out willingly."

"Shrel and Commander Acton just came up with something," Brenz said half-truthfully. "We may have a suspect. The captain wants to get a security team together to bring this officer in for questioning."

"Who is it?" asked K'Doss.

"Not here," the XO said with a shake of his head, glancing around to suggest that the information stay secret for now. "Lieutenant, let's talk in the observation lounge."

"Aye sir," she answered as she got up from her station. Brenz followed behind her a couple steps behind as they walked towards the lounge, hearing K'Doss announce Kincade's return to the bridge just as they left it. So far, Hernandez wasn't feeling suspicious of Brenz, as if she had thought the name he was about to give her was of someone else. Once inside the observation lounge, the security chief turned toward him with her arms crossed in front of her chest. "Okay, who is it?"

"Acton and Shrel found a security code in the maintenance log of transporter room two," he prefaced, hoping to gauge her response as he revealed more and more of what they knew. The reference to the transporter used to beam the transponder to the Vrax had piqued her curiosity. "Our suspect reconfigured it to beam the device over to the warbird without it setting off the internal Romulan alarms."

"As I figured," Hernandez commented, though her voice sounded impatient, "but who did it?"

"The person in question used the transporter twice," continued Brenz, now noting that the suspect was becoming concerned. "We think Wallace himself might have gone over to the Vrax. Anyway, the suspect was good enough to wipe the transporter logs, but not the fuel consumption records and the maintenance logs..."

"Commander, I get it," she interrupted, now obviously angry. Time to drop the hammer. "Who..."

"You were sloppy, Lieutenant," he said bitterly. "Next time someone asks you to betray your crew, you should do a better job of covering your tracks."

"Excuse me?" Hernandez said with what on surface was indignation, but underneath was surprise and fear. She knew she had been found out and she likely thought the best way to get out of it was to deny everything and keep quiet.

"Acton found your security code in the maintenance log," Brenz said firmly. "You have the proper clearance to replicate that kind of transponder and you were in charge of watching Wallace while he was here."

"I did not!" she yelled. "Someone must have planted my code there!"

"You're lying, Lieutenant," Brenz said firmly. "And I know for a fact you're lying. Why'd you do it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hernandez pleaded, which was even more obviously a lie. "I had nothing to do with this..."

"Honestly, Sophia, I wish I could believe you," the XO said with a sigh before tapping his combadge. "Captain, we're ready."

The port door to the observation lounge opened, letting Kincade, Acton, and a contingent of armed and armored security guards enter. Brenz immediately felt the rage explode within the captain as Kincade briskly walked over to Hernandez, grabbed her by the front of her uniform, and shoved her up against one of the glass cases along the forward bulkhead, hard enough that Brenz heard a crack. Though tempted to intervene before Kincade took things too far, Brenz knew that a lot of his display was for show.

"WHY?!" he barked. "Why'd you do it?! Why'd you help Wallace?!"

"Sir, I didn't..." she started to protest.

"She's lying, sir," Brenz pointed out.

"I trusted you," Kincade said angrily, though he did let her go. Brenz now saw a split in the glass that protected the models of all the previous ships named Yorktown. He then pointed an accusatory finger at her. "This crew trusted you with their lives. How could you betray us all like that?"

"I...didn't want to betray anyone, sir," Hernandez said nervously, which was the only true thing she had said so far. "What I did...I did to protect the Federation."

"Definitely sounds like Wallace, doesn't she?" Acton remarked. She had been his choice to replace him when he left the Yorktown, or so Brenz had been told. Finding out his successor had done something like this was infuriating him; if Kincade hadn't thrown her up against a bulkhead, Acton probably would have.

"Does protecting the Federation involve getting T'Mar and Relek killed?" the captain questioned.

"I had no idea that was going to happen," she said. Brenz flashed a look to Kincade, trying to tell him that she was telling the truth. Part of him suspected (if not hoped) that Hernandez wasn't fully aware of the plot against Thraketh, which could be used to their advantage. It was one thing to help Wallace as far as she did; it was another thing to do it knowing that several of your former fellow officers would die as a result of your actions. "They...they never told me what this was all about, only that I had to help him..."

"Who?" Kincade asked.

"Sec...Section 31," Hernandez replied reluctantly, as if she knew that whoever she was talking about was a tricky subject.

"Figures," the captain remarked, turning away from Hernandez as if he couldn't stand to look at her.

"Wait, what's a Section 31?" asked Brenz.

"You were working in IA and you've never heard of them?" Acton asked rhetorically.

"What were your orders, specifically?" Kincade asked before the Betazoid could comment.

"They...they told me that they wanted me to install a program into the communications system almost a month ago," she explained. "I had no idea what it was for, but they did tell me before Starfleet contacted you that we'd be delivering the follow-up message to Thraketh and that we'd be getting a 'mission specialist' to assist us. My orders also were to help him whenever he needed it, but I didn't know he was Wallace until you brought it up in the staff meeting. He told me to give him full access to the replicators and rig the transporter so he could beam directly from his quarters over to the Vrax without being detected and back. I...I guess I forgot about the maintenance log."

"Why didn't you tell us this sooner when we learned about J'Dak?" asked Brenz.

"I didn't know what to do!" Hernandez exclaimed. "I joined Section 31 because they offered me a chance to get ahead in my career and to defend the Federation. After that last staff meeting...I wanted to say something, but I couldn't. I thought that since we're on our way to stop J'Dak, no harm would come of it."

"Did Wallace tell you what he was doing aboard the Vrax?" the captain asked as he turned back towards her.

"No," she answered weakly.

"What about that computer program?" questioned Acton. "What's its function?"

"I don't know that either," she said. "All I know is that I was told to install it in the communications subsystem within a ghost directory. I'd assume it was there to monitor your communications with Starfleet, but I don't know anything more than what I've told you."

"Tex?" Kincade said sharply.

"She's telling the truth, if that's what you're asking," Brenz said, which drew an angry look from his old friend.

"For your sake, you better hope he's right," the captain said to Hernandez. "You're under arrest and officially relieved of duty. Guards, take her to the brig."

"Aye sir," Chief Tomlinson, the tallest of the armored guards said. "Ma'am? If you'll come with us?"

"I think I know the way," Hernandez said in a tired voice. Surrounded by her former subordinates, she left the observation lounge.

"Jesus Christ," Acton remarked after the doors closed.

"I should have known Section 31 would be involved," Kincade said, which almost caused Brenz to ask once more what Section 31 was. "Pete, until further notice, you're acting head of ship's security."

"Aye sir," he replied.

"Tex, get back to the bridge," the captain ordered, "tell Jerry to get on this computer thing. If he's having trouble finding it, tell him he has my permission to wring Hernandez's neck to get the answers."

"Jack, what's going on?" Brenz asked. "What's all this Section 31 stuff?"

"It's a long story," Kincade said in a tired voice. "I'll explain it to everyone later. As soon as K'Doss has something on that computer program, call another staff meeting. I'll...be in my quarters."

Brenz and Acton stood in silence as they watched their commanding officer slowly walk out through the port door to take a turbolift down to his quarters. This had been as trying as anything Brenz had seen his old friend go through. But how far can he be pushed?
 
Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three





"Okay, so in case you haven't heard," Kincade prefaced the senior staff meeting that convened an hour later in the same observation lounge, "Lieutenant Hernandez has been placed under arrest for collaborating with Wallace. Thankfully, she's been cooperative with helping us unravel just exactly what's taken place here. Jerry, please tell me you have good news about the program she planted."

"Since she told you that it was within a ghost directory, it was rather easy to find," K'Doss explained in a gruff voice. In the hour since her arrest, word of Hernandez's betrayal had spread throughout the ship, so Kincade's announcement of it was slightly moot. Judging by the collective frowns on the senior staff's faces, they were all taking what she did personally. Truth be told, though, Kincade hadn't had time to process how her actions made him feel, since he was still trying to work through another betrayal from Wallace and trying to save T'Mar and Relek before J'Dak's fleet could attack. "It was also rather easy to remove."

"So what exactly did it do?" Acton asked cautiously.

"An interesting question," the Caitian said sarcastically. Kincade recalled how close Acton and K'Doss were as friends. In spite of what Hernandez had done, it felt good to have their old comrade serving alongside them again. At this point, I'll take anyone whose loyal. "The program appeared to route all our communications traffic directed at Starfleet through some kind of secret relay that I can't locate. It also provided a remote backdoor into our computers..."

"Why?" asked Brenz.

"I did not know that either, Commander, until I discovered that the program had downloaded and linked with another program in another of our systems," K'Doss said, which raised Kincade's concern suddenly. What now? "Specifically, the holodeck."

"The holodeck?" Carter remarked in confusion, though Kincade was having another moment of clarity. Son of a bitch! "What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"This mission...it's all been a lie," the captain said aloud. He looked down at the table with under the surface lighting. It had happened once again; he and his crew had been manipulated for someone else's agenda. And if they weren't fast enough, the price paid could be as costly as when Richard Hawthorne was murdered, if not more.

"Wait," al-Faisal interjected, "are you saying that we haven't been on a Starfleet mission? Our orders were faked; the holo-conference staged?"

"Except for Pujols," Kincade said firmly. "Just like what happened with the Norek assassination, Starfleet has no idea we're out here and probably has no idea what's going on with Thraketh."

"On the bright side, it means Starfleet Command isn't stupid enough to send an ex con like Wallace take part in this kind of mission," quipped the doctor.

"But why go through all these hoops?" asked Brenz.

"Plausible deniability," the tactical officer answered. "If something went wrong, Pujols could claim we had no orders; that we were acting on our own without consulting headquarters. We'd take the fall..."

"And how's this Section 31 fit into all of this?" the XO questioned. "Hell, who are they?"

"I'm surprised you haven't heard of them before Tex, at least in terms of rumors," the captain said. "They're a classified subdivision of Starfleet Intelligence and their name comes from Article 14, Section 31 of the original Earth Starfleet Charter, which supposedly authorizes them to do whatever's necessary to protect the Federation from threats..."

"How ominously vague," the doctor sighed.

"We've come across them before, though I've never told you about it," Kincade said cautiously, which perked up the interest of the crew. "Hell, even in our first mission they were messing around with us."

"Gray?" Acton asked in surprise. "You're saying that Gray's Section 31?"

"Uh huh," the captain replied with a nod. Jessica Gray was a mysterious operative who showed up twice on the Yorktown nearly four years ago, though her second visit was as a part of the infamous mission to assassinate Norek. Though they lacked any proof, the crew believed that Gray was the one who introduced the psychotropic compound to turn Relek into a murderer. However, that was only the tip of Section 31's involvement in the Yorktown's history. "So was Shaw...and Edward Hawthorne."

"What?" K'Doss asked in surprise. "The father of both Shaw and Commander Hawthorne is a member?"

"Hold on a minute," the acting security chief prefaced, " that means that Section 31's been dicking around with around with our missions from Chin'toka, to Romulus, to Shaw..."

"And maybe Thraerra, at least the first time," Kincade said. "And maybe Zavras...and now, of course. They're bent on manipulating anyone and everyone, kill anyone and everyone that gets in the way of their mission to protect the Federation. We're all expendable, in their eyes."

"An agency like that, with the power it wields and the people it hurts," al-Faisal said grimly, "it goes against everything I believed in when I put on this uniform."

"So let me get this straight," Carter began, surprisingly sidestepping the ethical considerations for a moment rather than going straight for it, "This Section 31, Wallace, and presumably Admiral Pujols all saw Thraketh as a threat to stability, that he could start a civil war that will drag in half the galaxy. They think the best way to get rid of him is to set him up to be killed by a renegade Klingon officer, but the only way to get the Klingon to Thraketh is to have Wallace use this ship to plant the tracking bug on the Vrax."

"But Hernandez said Section 31 told her to install the communications program weeks before Thraketh first showed up," Brenz noted. "Were they psychic?"

"Perhaps logical," al-Faisal suggested. "It's no secret to those of us who've studied what information on the Romulans we have that Thraketh is a bit of a maverick. If they knew that he was trying to stop Shinzon in the first place, it wouldn't have taken much thinking to guess he'd go after Tal'Aura. And considering Thraketh's connection to us, they may have deduced that it would only be a matter of time before either the ambassador or Relek sought us out. Hence the program Hernandez installed to monitor us for when that would happen."

"But what about Wallace beaming over to the Vrax personally?" asked Carter. "That I don't get."

"He might have been doing something else while there, perhaps stealing information from the Vrax's computers," K'Doss speculated.

"Jack, now that the program's gone, maybe we should try contacting Starfleet, let them know what's going on?" asked Brenz. "I'm sure they'd just love to hear about Pujols."

"It hardly ever works that easily," Kincade said coldly. However, for a second he realized that he was partially wrong. Zavras! He still had evidence of what happened last year even though he had concealed it. But now was not the time to dwell on it. "Unless we have definitive proof that ties Pujols to what Wallace and Hernandez did, he'll walk away from this particular one."

"But what about this Section 31?" asked the doctor. "If we can get Sophia to turn on them..."

"Not likely, Doc," Acton interrupted. "People have been trying to take down Section 31 for the last two hundred years with no success. If Hernandez even gets it into her head to turn state's evidence, Thirty-One will likely pressure her into keeping quiet by any means possible."

"What's going to happen to her?" Shrel questioned.

"I'll be damned if I'll let her ever return to duty on this ship again," the captain said firmly.

"But she did admit to what she did," the Andorian added.

"After she got caught," Kincade countered. "I'll recommend to the JAG Corps that they charge her with installing a malicious program on our computers and misusing the transporters. Jerry, what's our ETA to the Vrax?"

"Just under ninety minutes," he answered.

"Okay, so hopefully we'll beat J'Dak to Thraketh," the captain stated. "But, chances are our dropping in on the ambassador just as he's about to be attacked is going to put us in the crossfire. I want this ship ready to roll when we arrive."

"We'll also be entering the star system blind, sir," al-Faisal noted. "That neutron secondary is putting out too much interference..."

"I wonder why Thraketh was headed there," Brenz speculated.

"Possibly to rendezvous with his fleet?" the tactical officer asked. "Regardless, where the Vrax is right now is a perfect place for an ambush."

"No, that's it," Acton interjected. "J'Dak and Wallace aren't out just to kill Thraketh, they're out to take down his entire operation. We could be flying right into a warzone."

"Which is why we should be ready for that possibility," Kincade said as he rose from his chair and tapped an intercom control on its surface. "Kincade to bridge."

"Connors here, Captain," answered Danielle.

"Put the ship at battlestations," the captain ordered. All the feelings that this conspiracy had generated, from Wallace, Hernandez, and Section 31's machinations to concern over T'Mar and Relek, would have to wait until after what was to come. Once more, (and hopefully the last time for some time), the Yorktown was heading into battle. "Time we went to work."





Why am I here? thought Shrel as he entered the brig after mobilizing the engineering staff for battle. His decision to come to the brig had only been made in the final moments of the last staff meeting, when the captain declared his intentions over what to do with Hernandez. The Andorian knew what she had done without any doubt; he believed it the moment he saw here ID code in the maintenance logs. He certainly wasn't there to ask her if she had done it.

"Shrel?" she asked as soon as he approached her cell. Hernandez sat on the bunk along the rear wall of the cell, about as far away from the confinement force field as one could get. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to ask you a question," he said. "How much of it was a lie?"

"I...I don't know what you mean," Hernandez answered, which only set off his temper even more. He didn't want to get into every minute detail about his all-but-terminated relationship with her in front of the guards present in the brig, but for the sake of closure, he was willing to forego the embarrassment.

"You know exactly what I mean," Shrel said coldly. "Were you lying to me the same way you were lying to everyone else? Was what we were trying to share all fake?"

"Maybe we shouldn't be having this discussion, Commander," she said formally.

"I need to know, Sophia," he implored in a personal tone.

"Shrel, to be honest, I thought I could look past you being...similar to a male, but I can't," replied Hernandez. "I...I was waiting to find some way to let you down gently, but since you asked..."

"I see," Shrel stated simply. This was the answer he was seeking, so rather than stand around and engage in pointless bickering, he turned to leave the brig. He had to get back to engineering to keep the ship shape as they went to fix the problems that Hernandez created.

"Shrel, I'm sorry," she said after him, which made him stop for just one more moment.

"After what you did, you have a lot of people to apologize to," he said as a final, stinging insult. Not bothering to wait for another retort, he continued onward out of the brig, noting the glances from the security guards. Their eyes seemed to ask, "You were involved with a traitor and didn't see it?" The obvious counter to that question would be, "We all didn't see it."

After exiting the brig, Shrel paused in the corridor long enough to sigh to center himself. His bad luck in relationships seemed to know no end. Hernandez's betrayal had come over a year after one of Shrel's bondmates (who was also a Starfleet officer) had been killed in the conflict with the Tholians. That death had caused Shrel's remaining companions to dissolve the "marriage" for fear of losing him in the same manner. The Yorktown's soon-to-be former security chief had been the Andorian's first attempt at a relationship since then.

And it ends just as badly...





In spite of everything that had happened this day and how miserable he still felt, Relek was back at the weapons console on the bridge of the Vrax. The warbird was presently sitting in a planet-less star system known only by a series of hard to remember letters and numbers; its only distinguishing feature being a neutron star and a dying red giant, the former putting out enough interference to scramble long-range sensors, but that worked both ways. They weren't sure how long they would have to wait for the fleet to arrive from Etruria. In fact, for all they knew thanks to the interference, the fleet could have been ambushed and destroyed. With nothing left but the wait, Relek unfortunately couldn't help but have his mind wander.

"Your so-called friends on the Yorktown? From what I gather, you were nothing more than someone to be exploited by the Federation." Strangely enough, his thoughts drifted not towards the death of T'Mar, but what his uncle had told him in the morgue. He had been angered by what Thraketh had said and still was. However, at first his rage had been driven by believing that Thraketh was wrong in his accusations, but now was due to thinking that perhaps he was right. The thought had first occurred to him in the morgue, but his thinking now had expanded upon that idea to the point where he was no longer idly speculating on it.

During his time in exile in the Federation, Relek had been greeted by suspicion and doubt. When he first came aboard, a trio of officers (Acton and K'Doss, included) tried to persuade Kincade to have him thrown in the brig. Acton even threatened to shoot him on the bridge, once. After he became the Yorktown's tactical officer, Starfleet Intelligence was constantly hounding him for more information about Romulan technology and when they didn't get an answer they were satisfied with, they curtailed his ability to process intelligence for the captain. To say nothing of Wallace...

"Was he not the one who bitterly tried to dissuade us from launching the coup? Wasn't he trained by Wallace, the man who set us up?"
Thraketh had said that in regards to Kincade when Relek expressed his doubt about the captain's culpability in this conspiracy. Perhaps Relek could have dismissed such an accusation a month ago, but not so much anymore; not after what T'Mar had told him about Zavras. He almost didn't want to believe that Kincade intentionally concealed evidence of a conspiracy within Starfleet to conquer the planet, but he also saw no reason to doubt T'Mar. It smacked of something that Wallace did, and if in fact Wallace was a passenger aboard the Yorktown and not a stowaway, it said that Kincade might have been an accomplice in what was going on now.

Should I blame him for any of this? Kincade had, whether right or wrong, used Relek to help defeat Tirok just outside of the Cardassia system four years ago. He made Relek an officer when his first tactical officer was killed in battle. And even though Kincade claimed to feel some obligation to take a half-dead Relek off of Romulus following Norek's assassination due to some sense of camaraderie, Relek supposed he could have easily have done it to prevent the Romulan authorities from discovering the Federation's involvement. Thraketh had an excellent point in noting that Kincade had been mentored by Wallace. Just how different could they be? Perhaps it was wrong to accuse the captain of any wrongdoing, but he was certainly capable of it. Any of them are.

Except T'Mar, though; in hindsight, she was the only part of his experiences in the Federation that he enjoyed. Even though Acton never pointed a phaser at him again in anger, they couldn't be considered friends by any stretch of the imagination. No one else ever invited him on joint shore leaves, no one ever asked him to the weekly tongo game (even though he probably wouldn't have gone if asked). He was a coworker, someone whom no one went out of their way to spend time with him off duty. He was just "the Romulan;" not a stranger, but more like a casual acquaintance rather than a friend.

Again, except for T'Mar. While she had at first reacted to his presence on the Yorktown with hostility and annoyance (or as much as an adherent to the ways of Surak would allow herself to express), she had obviously warmed up to him. And now, this affair had claimed her life. Relek was looking for someone to blame, pure and simple; and though Lorak had pulled the trigger, Relek's thirst for vengeance wasn't quenched by it. Who put that disruptor in his hand? The answer, as he pondered that question more and more, was starting to look like the Federation...

His thoughts were disturbed by a chirp from his console, which was followed by more and more. "Commander, sensors have picked up multiple ships de-cloaking ahead. Fifteen vessels and increasing."

"Confirmed, sir," the sensor officer added. "Warp signature and transponder devices correspond to the fleet sir."

"Excellent," commented Thraketh, who was standing at Revar's side next to the command throne. "Open a channel to the fleet."

"Channel open," Relek answered.

"This is Ambassador Thraketh to all ships," he announced as he walked towards the viewscreen, filled with the various Imperial Fleet vessels that made up their task force. "Today, we begin the great crusade to liberate Romulus from the last vestiges of the tyranny that destroyed our leadership weeks ago. It will be a long and hard struggle; many of us will not live to see the fruits of our efforts. I know some of you have trepidation about giving your lives; I have them to, but what are our lives versus the stability and safety of the empire? What are we against the lives of our families?

"If we do nothing, then we are abandoning all of them. We might as well be dead, for will we have forsaken the two most important things in our lives. What is a Romulan worth without his home or without his family? If Tal'Aura remains in power, then..."

"Sir, new sensor contacts," the sensor officer interrupted. "More ships de-cloaking all around us."

"More?!" Thraketh asked, apparently not sounding annoyed about being cut-off in mid-speech.

"I have them too, they're..." Relek started to say before his disbelief caused him to pause for a moment. "...Klingon."

"Klingon?!" Revar repeated in alarm. On the viewscreen, Klingon vessels of varying types and sizes started to appear. Almost as soon as the Klingon ships de-cloaked, they started to fire their disruptors and torpedoes. Their presence here was not a coincidence in Relek's eyes, a belief that was quickly starting to spread around the bridge of the Vrax. "Ready attack procedure!"
 
Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four





"How did they find us?" Revar asked just as the alert klaxon started to wail. Relek quickly pressed the controls that raised the shields before the Klingons' weapons fire hit them. The bridge rattled slightly as errant disruptor fire impacted the deflector shields; none of the Klingons had locked onto them yet, but then again, there were still more de-cloaking.

"The Federation led them here, it has to be it," Thraketh stated as he continued to stand before the viewscreen. "They've led them here to slaughter us!"

"How many enemy ships?" asked the commander.

"I count over thirty," the sensor officer answered.

"Sir, I've lost contact with the Chereth and the Kavarek," the communications officer reported.

"I'm picking up target locks," Relek announced. "One Vor'cha-class cruiser and several smaller vessels closing in bearing one two five mark two five three."

"Pilot, come left to course one three zero," Revar ordered. "Communications, signal the Nakath and the Jihmn Ornaj to hold in close with us. We'll focus our fire on the larger vessels and punch through there. All other ships are to engage targets of opportunity; let them know that the ambassador's safety is our top priority."

"Enemy ships firing," warned Relek, noting that he said that Thraketh was the priority, not the Vrax. This ship is expendable. The Vor'cha-class attack cruiser was now visible among the conflagration of warships. Disruptor fire and torpedoes emerged from its weapon ports, as did from several escorting birds of prey. All that enemy fire slammed into the Vrax's shields and Relek felt the entire bridge lurch backward in response. "Shields down to seventy-three percent."

"Commence firing," the commander ordered. As Relek locked weapons onto the lead attack cruiser, he noticed something odd about the remaining ships of the mysterious Klingon fleet. "Have the Jihmn Ornaj take point..."

"Sir, there's something unusual about the enemy fleet," interrupted Relek while firing the ship's weapons. "Only the Vor'cha and seven of the birds of prey appear to be top-of-the-line Defense Force vessels. The rest appear to be surplus craft and pirate vessels."

"Mercenaries," his uncle concluded.

"It doesn't matter where they came from at the moment!" Revar exclaimed in a fluster. Passing in front of the Vrax on the viewscreen was the Mogai-class warbird Jihmn Ornaj, sent ahead of the two older D'Deridex-class warbirds to draw fire from the advancing Klingon ships. "Keep firing!"





"Primary target is breaking formation and is closing in on us," reported Gurok, who hovered over the shoulder of the Ku'Vang's chief gunnery officer. J'Dak had been pleased by the surprise they had achieved against the enemy fleet. They had been warned through their Federation contacts that Thraketh's rebel fleet left their base in the Etruria system to rendezvous with the Vrax, so J'Dak's fleet had shadowed the warbird until the rest of the Romulan's fleet arrived.

"Tactical plot," the general ordered. Though Admiral Pujols had given him a length explanation on why this Thraketh had to be killed, but J'Dak didn't care. So long as the admiral's promise kept to his promise that he'd force the Federation to ignore his later efforts, he didn't care if this ambassador was a benevolent saint instead of a dangerous revolutionary.

On the screen before J'Dak was a graphical representation of the battle with the Ku'Vang at the center of the screen. The larger graphics represented the three warbirds that were closing on them, including their primary target. When J'Dak's fleet de-cloaked, he had them arranged in a formation that completely encircled the Romulan ships. That was made all the easier because of the fact that there were less Romulan ships than the number Pujols had indicated. However, it didn't matter if there were only twenty ships or fifty; there was only one that J'Dak wanted to destroy first. And now that it had been goaded into trying to attack the oncoming Klingon ships, it had been exposed.

"Send to all ships," J'Dak ordered as the Romulans' weapons struck the Ku'Vang's shields once more. "Target your next volley on the primary target. It is time we behead the serpent..."





"Target's shields down to eight-four percent," Relek reported with frustration. With too many enemy ships coming right at them to divide their attention between, they were unable to focus their fire on any one ship. It was rapidly turning into an uphill battle whose summit seemed to move further out of reach. Unfortunately, any attempts to retreat would leave their flanks exposed and render them vulnerable to being hunted down like fleeing game. Their only hope was to thin out the ranks of the Klingons and then escape. But at what cost?

"Come right to course one four five," ordered Revar. "Have the Jihmn Ornaj commence a flanking move against the larger birds of prey. Continue firing all forward disruptors as soon as you have a charge."

"Aye, Commander," he answered.

"Who led them here?" Thraketh half whispered as he now stood by the weapons console. Relek's uncle was clearly in shock over the surprise attack and he supposed he might have been, too, if he wasn't too distracted by the battle. "How could they have known where we were unless we were betrayed? It has to be the Yorktown..."

"Commander, the Sarith reports taking heavy damage and is losing power," the communications officer reported.

"Detail the Comraney to take its spot on the left flank," Revar said, sounding more and more frustrated as the battle progressed. "Tighten those formations..."

"Multiple weapons locks!" Relek yelled in alarm. "Fifteen...no, every enemy ship has locked weapons onto us. They're firing!"

"Transfer all reserve power to the shields..." the commander started to say before the disruptors and torpedoes fired by the entire enemy fleet began to strike the Vrax. It wasn't one simultaneous impact; it was a continuous pelting of the warbird's shields. Relek gripped the edges of his weapons console for support as he helplessly watched the shield indicator on his panel start to diminish rapidly. As it started to dip below thirty percent, the impact of the enemy fire started to feel more severe, shaking and shuddering the bridge as if it were being punched by a giant. Consoles along the back of the bridge started to spark just as the impacts started to taper off.

"Shields are gone!" Relek yelled. He started to smell smoke and turned to see a small fire at the rear of the bridge, towards the corridor that led out of the bridge. Thraketh now was next to Revar, gripping to his command throne for support.

"Engine room reports main power is starting to drop rapidly," the communications officer announced. Relek turned back to his station to see the lead group of Klingon ships, likely KDF regulars leading the rag-tag force, closing on the Vrax's position for the kill. With power starting to fall off, they were quickly losing their ability to counter whatever the Klingons could throw at them.

"Shut down all non-essential systems!" exclaimed Revar, who likely now saw the Vor'cha-class cruiser and its escorts slowly yet menacingly bearing down on them. "Get the shields back..."

The cruiser fired and before Relek knew it, he was blinded and deafened. He felt his left eye wet and when he tried to reach to find out what was covering it, he found that his right arm was pinned under something. When he opened his right eye, he found that his arm was in fact pinned under him; he had somehow ended up lying on his side on the deck near the front of the bridge. He reached for his face with his left hand as he struggled to get to his feet. Somehow, something had opened up a severe gash above his left eye and green blood now trickled down the side of his face.

"Commander?!" the communications officer yelled in a frightened voice. Relek spun around to see what had inspired such horror. The weapons strike that had knocked Relek out of his chair had caused a portion of the ceiling to collapse. A sharpened end of a beam had swung down like a pendulum and impaled Revar through his chest as he sat in his throne. A look of mute surprise was frozen forever on the commander's face. Though he was tempted to seize control of the dying ship in absence of its commanding officer, Relek's attention was immediately drawn to the side of the throne.

"UNCLE!" he roared as he jumped to where Thraketh had fallen face down. He reached him and turned Thraketh over, immediately seeing that while he was still alive, his body was battered. "Uncle, we need to get you to the..."

"Too...too late for that," the ambasassor said in a weak voice. "You must...you must abandon the ship..."

"I'm not leaving you behind!" Relek said as tears started to well up in his eyes. I've had so much taken from me already...

"You must...keep fighting," Thraketh said, each word a struggle to utter. "There is...there was something I wanted to...tell you."

"What is it?" his nephew asked eagerly.

"I k...I kill..." he tried to say before his voice was choked away. Peacefully in spite of his injuries, his eyes closed and did not reopen. In shock, Relek stood straight up from the body of his now deceased uncle. He glanced around the wrecked bridge of the Vrax, only now noticing that the fires had started to spread and if any of the bridge survived, they had already fled.

They took T'Mar...now they've taken my uncle... Relek turned and headed for the emergency egress hatch on the starboard side, the only one not blocked by fire. The only way he saw a chance to escape the battle with the Klingons would be to head down to the hangar section and take a shuttle equipped with a cloaking device. Obviously, there were several problems with that plan, first and foremost being whether or not the Vrax would remain intact long enough for Relek to get to said shuttle.

The other problem became quite apparent the further he started to run down the corridor; with the damage that the warbird continued to take from the Klingons, corridors were starting to become blocked by debris and fires. Even hull breaches would force Relek to take different routes towards the hangar and thus slow him down. The Vrax suddenly lurched once more, hard enough for Relek to lose his footing and slam up against the side of the corridor.

Ahead of him, he saw a panel along the wall start to buckle suddenly before blasting free from the bulkhead followed by a column of flame. The explosive force knocked Relek off of his feet and the searing heat caused his skin to blister. As he struggled back to his feet, he was hit with the thought that he should perhaps reconsider his escape plan.

I have to get out of here...I must avenge this shame...





"Primary target has been crippled, M'Lord," said Gurok with glee in his voice. J'Dak didn't necessarily need his first officer to tell him that, since he could see the large and bloated warbird start to drift, with chunks of its green hull being carved out by repeated disruptor blasts. However, it was still mostly intact and the general wanted to be sure that he had killed his intended target.

"Maintain fire on the primary target," he ordered. "Order the Kut'luch and the QhonDoq to break and engage the other two warbirds. We'll finish off the..."

"Sir!" exclaimed the sciences officer. "Another vessel dropping out of warp at the edge of the system. Federation battlecruiser...Sovereign-class."

"What?!" the general roared as he sprang up from his throne. Of all the places and all the times for a vessel like that to show up, it could be only one ship. "The Yorktown."

"Yes, M'Lord," she answered in a grim voice.

"We cannot allow them to interfere," J'Dak said with clenched fangs as he turned back to the tactical display on the viewscreen. "Signal the..."

"Sir," interrupted Hagan, who had chosen to remain on the bridge during the battle. J'Dak thought his aide decided to do that just to annoy him. "You've already tested the terms of your agreement with Admiral Pujols to the limit once before by destroying a Federation ship. How will he react to you destroying another, especially one of the Yorktown's prestige?"

"Gratefully, I'd imagine," the general countered as he turned once more to the rear of the bridge. "I thought the reason for their being would be obvious, even to you. Acton and Sanders must have reached them and informed them of what is going on. If they know about us here, it's only a matter of time before they trace it back to our dear admiral. If something unfortunate were to happen if the Yorktown, perhaps if it inadvertently strayed into the middle of this...skirmish, I would think that Pujols would be pleased rather than upset."

"As you wish, M'Lord," the gin'tak said in an exasperated tone.

"Order a few of our smaller birds of prey to engage the Yorktown when it enters their firing range," J'Dak said as he sat back down in his throne. "We might as well make it look like an unfortunate mistake, shouldn't we?"





"My God," Kincade said in amazement as both he and Brenz walked closer to the viewscreen. On it well off in the distance was the ongoing battle between the Romulans under Thraketh's leadership and the Klingon mercenaries led by J'Dak. At their present range, it was hard to make out individual ships save the pair of massive D'Deridex-class warbirds in the thick of it. Flashing between the small shapes were green disruptor blasts and torpedo salvos, punctuated by the occasional orange explosion. Their distance from the battle when they dropped out of warp was necessitated by the fact that their sensors were blind to what was going on in the system until they did thanks the peculiarities of the neutron star. "Put the tactical plot on full screen."

"Aye sir," answered K'Doss. A circular overlay in the upper right-hand side of the viewscreen (which had several overlays as the ship headed into a battle situation) that showed a graphical representation of the battle area, expanded to encompass the entire display at the front of the bridge. On it were several dozen icons of various Romulan, Klingon, and independent ships, all engaged in a fierce battle.

"What's the condition of the Vrax?" asked Brenz. The captain, though, guessed by the fact that one of the icons representing the D'Deridex-class warbirds was drifting slowly that the ship that Thraketh, Relek, and T'Mar were on stood a 50-50 chance of being in bad shape. We're too late.

"She's sustained heavy damage and has lost almost all power," the Caitian answered. "Hull breaches in almost every section. If she were a sailing ship, she would have sunk a long time ago."

"We're too late," Brenz said, either coincidentally echoing the captain or intentionally repeating the stray thought he might have "heard."

"Not necessarily," al-Faisal remarked from tactical. "Sensors are still picking up life readings aboard the Vrax."

"Scan for Starfleet combadge signals," ordered Kincade quickly. Hopefully T'Mar hadn't thrown hers away for good.

"J'Dak's fleet is jamming most of the frequencies," K'Doss reported, "and that damned neutron star is causing even more interference at this range."

"Viewscreen ahead," the captain said as he turned back towards his chair with Brenz in close tow. As he sat down, he saw the battle grow larger and more detailed in the standard view as the Yorktown closed on the conflagration. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. We'll make one quick pass at the Vrax, beam over the survivors, hope we get lucky, then we get the hell out of here."

"Hopefully being lucky should be at the top of your list, Captain," remarked the XO. "I don't think that J'Dak's just going to let us stroll past his entire fleet and rescue his primary target, especially considering your history with him."

"I doubt he would," Kincade remarked. "Weps, what's your status?"

"Phasers and torpedoes ready, sir," he replied, adding, "just as they have been since we went to battlestations."

"Guess you've been itching to use those extra quantum torpedoes of ours," the captain commented with a smirk. He referred to the additional supply of the power and advanced warhead that the Yorktown had been equipped with as part of the now-aborted pilot program to provide heavier armament for Starfleet vessels initiated by the now-former presidential chief of staff Koll Azernal. A "gift" for my involvement in the Zavras thing. "Do not fire unless fired upon."

"Aye sir," said al-Faisal.

"Something tells me we won't have to wait long for them to fire first," noted Brenz.

"Danny, set a course for the Vrax, full impluse power," Kincade added.

"Full impulse power, aye," Danielle replied.

"Let's also hope that J'Dak let's us drop our shields long enough to beam everyone off without getting hit," the XO commented.

"You're starting to turn into a Doubting Thomas," the captain mockingly chastised. The warships engaged in battle ahead continued to grow larger on the screen as the Yorktown closed on the sight of the battle. Larger cruisers and warbirds slowly circled around each other, trading fire while smaller cruisers, birds of prey, and other light attack vessels strafed and dog-fought between them. The wrecks of those ships that had already fallen drifted within the battle site.

"None of the ships have targeted us," al-Faisal announced. "They might not even notice us."

"Knock on wood when you say that, Weps," said Kincade.

"What does wood have to..." K'Doss said before a pair of warning alarms started to beep, one from the Caitian's ops panel and one from the main tactical console. "Two B'Rel-class birds of prey have broken off from the fighting and are on an intercept course."

"They're locking weapons," added al-Faisal.

"See what I mean?" the captain asked rhetorically. "Lock phasers on target and prepare to fire on my command..."
 
Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five





"Phasers locked," Tariq al-Faisal reported, feeling that familiar chill that always seemed to come up whenever he was about to enter battle. Hasn't happened much lately, though. The pair of birds of prey that had broken off their attack on the Romulans to pursue the Yorktown were descendants of the type like Sanders' Lucille; small, scout-sized vessels that handled more like fighters than starships. Even two of them were hardly a threat to the Yorktown, but apparently their commanders didn't see it that way. "Pursuing craft firing."

The battlefield was, by al-Faisal's estimation, divided into three "rings." In the outer ring, there were small frigates, attack ships, and interceptors dog fighting with each other. In the inner ring, there were cruisers, both light and heavy, trading fire as they passed by each other at a slower pace. In the center were the largest ships on both sides, unloading almost everything they had against one another. At the moment, the Yorktown was at the edge of the outer ring, while her destination was at the center of the inner ring.

"Light 'em up, phasers only," Kincade ordered just as the ship was hit by the relatively weak disruptor fire, which did little shield damage. The captain likely wanted to save the ship's torpedo compliment for the larger Klingon vessels that were assaulting the Vrax and the other two warbirds, despite the fact that the ship carried a lot more quantum torpedoes than it had in its last engagement nearly a year ago.

"Firing phasers," the tactical officer replied. Though the main viewscreen had most of the tactical information that al-Faisal had before him plus a better view of the battle raging outside the ship, he preferred to see the simplistic yet more informational display on his console. A series of beams shot out from the top-down schematic representation of the Yorktown towards the two birds of prey closing from her five o'clock. According to the target information on the main part of the tactical console, both ships' shields dropped to a little under seventy percent after the first salvo.

Al-Faisal fired again once the phaser banks recharged, knocking the target's shields under fifty percent. Both ships quickly started to peel off from their attack run, however there was another problem that brewing. "The birds of prey are breaking off, but I show two old K't'inga-class cruisers moving in to block our approach."

"I can see it, too, Weps," said Kincade. The one thing that al-Faisal liked about his commanding officer the most was that Kincade wasn't the type of captain that liked to micromanage a battle. He never dictated when each shot should be fired or a course down to the most minute of degrees, at least not that often. If al-Faisal saw a shot that he should take, then he'd take it. If Danielle saw a course change that needed to be taken, then she'd take it. When al-Faisal was named tactical officer to succeed Relek, he had been told as much by the captain. Specifically, he had said that each of his senior officers were experts at their respective positions. If in a crisis situation they thought they knew better than him, then they shouldn't hesitate to take action to save the ship; he was more than willing to check his ego in that situation. That's what makes a good leader. "Danny, bring us around to starboard. Weps, see if you can find us an opening. Don't be stingy with the torpedoes."

"Don't be stingy, aye sir," al-Faisal quipped. The pair of old yet formidable cruisers fired both disruptors and torpedoes at the Yorktown. Though the original design dated back over a century, the K't'ingas were still impressive combatants, knocking the ship's shields down to eighty-five percent in their opening salvo. Al-Faisal returned fire with the Yorktown's forward phaser banks, along with several quantum torpedo shots from the main turret situated on the underside of the ship's elliptical primary hull. The phaser fire weakened the cruisers' shields, but the torpedoes each took a lot more out of the enemy cruisers. Though their shields were each down around thirty percent, they pressed onward and fired again.

"Guess these guys can't take a hint," said Brenz as the bridge vibrated. "So why is J'Dak keeping his big guns off of us?"

"They're after the Vrax," the captain said in realization. That much was true, according to what al-Faisal could see. J'Dak's flagship Ku'Vang was still firing on the devastated warbird, along with a pair of K'Vort-class birds of prey; the latter belonging to an enlarged bird of prey, with heavier firepower and expanded troop capacity at the expense of acceleration and maneuverability. What worried al-Faisal was the fact that there was also a Vakk-class attack cruiser lurking about on the battlefield; if that ship, which was a direct forerunner of the Vor'cha-class, entered the fray against the Yorktown, then their problems would multiply severely.

Without prompt, al-Faisal fired again at the pair of K't'ingas. Apparently their shields had not been reinforced with additional power as the phasers sliced through them while the quantum torpedoes penetrated their hull. Al-Faisal glanced up towards the main viewscreen to see that one of the torpedoes had even blasted through the ventral section of one of the crusier's secondard hulls and out through the dorsal section before detonating. The other K't'inga, while not as dramatically damaged as its twin, was still fairly bad off. Both vessels were now drifting towards the stern of the Yorktown.

"There's our opening," Kincade said. "Let's take it. And put the Vrax on screen."

Looking at the tactical display atop his console, al-Faisal knew that the warbird was in bad shape, but it was hard to tell just how much based on a small graphic. He again looked up towards the main viewscreen and saw just how badly off the Vrax was. Her hull was charred and pitted, with portions of it either sliced off or completely blasted away. And more and more of the warbird was still being blown apart as more weapons fire continued to rain down on the Vrax. By the distance reading on the tactical display, they were still too far out of range to use the transporters. We're too late...





How long Relek had been struggling through the Vrax's corridors, he did not know. Seemingly every time he thought he found a route that would lead him to the hangar bay, it suddenly became blocked off by an explosion. It felt as if every hallway on the ship was on fire, as Relek was now forced to pull himself across the deck with his right arm; the left either rendered useless by another aforementioned explosion or simply blown clean off. His legs weren't much help either, but Relek didn't have time to tend to his injuries.

Only one thing kept him moving at this point: hate. Hatred of the Klingons who had attacked the fleet, hatred of those who perpetrated the conspiracy, even hatred of the people he once called friends in the Federation. They had betrayed him, killed those he loved, and doomed the empire to be ruled by a tyrannical ruler. If he were to get off the Vrax, he would dedicate his life to seeing that they would pay. I owe it them...they will be avenged!

The ship was rocked once more by a heavy blast, but since Relek was already off of his feet, he barely felt it. However, he did notice that the standard corridor lighting had gone dark, leaving the only source of illumination the fires that still raged. Like the gravity plating (which Relek noticed might have been starting to fail, or he was just getting light-headed from all his injuries), the emergency lights were usually the last thing to fail before a ship was destroyed. He wasn't going to make it to the hangar bay, so he was forced to utilize a method of escape that was far more dangerous in the midst of a major shooting battle, but at least it was far closer to his present position.

Assuming I can get there in time...





"Are we in transporter range yet?" Kincade asked as he saw the Vrax continue to be torn to pieces by the Klingon weapons. There were limits to what one did in battle and this was akin to repeatedly shooting an already wounded soldier.

"Just outside of it," K'Doss replied just as the hull of the warbird started to collapse. The two halves of the engineering section started to buckle. The aquiline command section broke off and explosions started to tear through the decks, blasting out the exterior windows. The Vrax had, quite obviously, been destroyed, taking with it both T'Mar and Relek. Kincade slumped in his chair and the bridge drew quiet over the shock of failing.

"Captain!" al-Faisal interrupted, breaking the brief mournful silence. "The Vakk-class cruiser is locking on to us, along with a few more birds of prey."

"I think it's time we got out of here," Brenz said in a low voice. He was right; their stated goal in coming here was to prevent the attack against Thraketh's forces and if not save T'Mar and Relek before it was too late. Rationally, though, Kincade knew it wouldn't be that easy to escape; according to the tactical plot overlay on the main viewscreen, the incoming Klingon ships were approaching to stern. On the other hand, there was a very irrational reason why Kincade wanted to remain a bit longer.

"Weps, lock quantum torpedoes onto the Ku'Vang," Kincade ordered coldly.

"Sir, with all the ships between us and them, I can't get a clear shot," the tactical officer replied.

"Just get their attention," the captain said. "Danny, change course to bring us in on the attack cruiser."

"Uh...aye sir," al-Faisal said nervously. "Firing torpedoes."

"Changing course, sir," added Danielle just as the deck vibrated slightly as the quantum torpedo launcher fired.

"Jack, what are you doing?" asked the XO, using the captain's first name to get his attention, most likely.

"I'm getting us out of here," he replied. "I'm just taking the scenic route..."





J'Dak had little time to revel in the destruction of the Vrax as the bridge of his flagship suddenly lurched as if hit by a tremendous weapons fire. The only problem was that up until a minute or so ago, the only ship that the Ku'Vang was directly engaged against was the Vrax; the K'Vort-class ships that escorted the attack cruiser were concentrating on the other two warbirds along with the Vakk-class Gorrelk.

"Who fired that?" the general asked aloud.

"We were hit with a Federation quantum torpedo," Gurok reported. "Shields down to eighty-one percent."

"Kincade," J'Dak said through his teeth. Part of him had been waiting for this moment for a long time. It was only after his first encounter with the Yorktown that he had learned that its captain was the first officer of the Discovery seven turns ago during the Battle of Archanis. His ship had barely survived the detonation of the mines within the April Nebula while their cruiser escort had been destroyed outright. The Ku'Vang spent the rest of the war with the Federation in dry dock getting repaired. The general relished the chance of taking care of Kincade personally. "Helm, change course to intercept the Yorktown, half impulse power only. Gunnery officer, lock weapons and prepare to fire. Gurok, order the Mek'leth and the Yan to accelerate and engage them first."





Though al-Faisal didn't question the captain's order to fire on the Ku'Vang as much as he really wanted to, he certainly understood the reason why the captain wanted to go after J'Dak. Unfortunately, that wasn't an easy task. Though the Klingon ships that had tried to attack the Yorktown from astern had been tied up by the two remaining warbirds, the Ku'Vang had sent its two K'Vort-class escorts ahead to engage the Yorktown. If the captain wanted his attention, he's got it.

"Shields down to seventy-three percent," K'Doss reported as the incoming ships fired.

"Weps, target the K'Vorts," Kincade ordered. "Aim for their underside."

"Understood," he answered, biting back the temptation to point out that he knew about the enemy ships' weak point. And here I was praising him for not micromanaging a battle. He opened fire with both phasers and torpedoes, hitting both K'Vorts with equal amounts of fire. Though the Yorktown was more powerful than the incoming Klingon ships, they were a deadly combination in pairs. "Target shields down to seventy-nine percent."

"Bring us around to the left," the captain said. "Let's see if we can sneak a couple shots at the Ku'Vang through their right flank."

"Aye sir," Danielle said.

"How many Romulan ships are left?" asked Brenz.

"Sensors read only a dozen," K'Doss answered, "but they are all damaged and continuing to fight."

"Captain," al-Faisal interrupted once he caught sight of something on his tactical console. "The Vakk has broken free of the warbirds. It's firing on us..."

Once the disruptor fire impacted the shields, al-Faisal felt himself thrown against his station. I hope the new bridge has a chair for me...assuming we make it back for the refit. Before he could steady himself, the K'Vorts fired again, causing al-Faisal to grab onto the console before he fell backwards. The hits were getting more powerful the closer the attacking ships got to the Yorktown, the results of which were on painful display, both on al-Faisal's screen and the main viewscreen.

"Shields down to sixty-six percent!" K'Doss yelled.

"I know, Jerry!" Kincade barked back. "Weps, get that second cruiser off our tail!"

"I'm trying sir," he said as he fired the aft phasers and torpedoes at the pursuing ship. Unfortunately, it was a simple matter of numbers; they were one ship trying to fight off multiple ones, and as each Romulan ship was destroyed, no doubt more Klingon ships would join the fray against the Yorktown...





"I have a clear firing solution," the gunnery officer reported. J'Dak had previously gotten up from his throne to stand closer to the screen, which showed the Yorktown surrounded by the K'Vorts and the Vakk. Unfortunately, that meant that the Ku'Vang was blocked from firing on Kincade's ship by one of its own escorts.

"Bah!" J'Dak ordered. The Ku'Vang's impressive array of weapons unloaded on the Yorktown.

"Target's shields down to fifty percent," Gurok reported. "They continue to fire on the other ships with only their aft and lateral weaponry."

"They're hoping to fire on us," the general guessed. "Helm, maintain this distance from the Yorktown. Do not let them get a shot at us."

"M'Lord," Hagan said cautiously. "We aren't going to directly confront the enemy?"

"I will not be made to fight on Kincade's terms," J'Dak said angrily, not liking the implied accusation of cowardice. "He'll want to engage us at close range; count on using his quantum torpedoes to overpower our shields. Well, I won't give him what he wants. Maintain this distance and continue firing. There is no shame in picking off a superiorly-armed opponent from a distance..."





"Shields down to forty-seven percent!" K'Doss yelled as the entire bridge continued to shake from the repeated bombardment by the four Klingon cruisers. Kincade was doing his best to stay in his seat with a death grip on his armrests. Really could use those seatbelts right about now! "We're showing bleed-through damage on deck five."

"Jack, I hate to be a nag, but isn't it about time we tried to get out of here?" asked Brenz. Were their situation not so dire, the captain imagined that his friend might have added an "I-told-you-so."

"That'd be a good idea if we could get out of here, Tex," Kincade replied. The problem obviously was that the three cruisers were circling so close that it was almost impossible to break out. So close to each other, too...hey, wait a minute. The K'Vorts orbited around the Yorktown faster than the Vakk, so fast in fact that they occasionally passed by closely. "Danny, reduce speed to half impulse. Jerry, ready a tractor beam."

"Ready," K'Doss replied immediately before the ship was struck again with a harder blast, which was a sign that the Ku'Vang had fired again. "Shields down to thirty-three percent!"

"Lock on to one of the K'Vorts," the captain added. "As soon as it passes close to the Vakk, nudge him."

"Nudge him?" Brenz asked skeptically.

"You know," Kincade explained cryptically, "nudge him, preferably at the Vakk."

"I see," the Caitian answered. "Tractor beam locked."

"Engage on my command," the captain said just as one of the K'Vorts started to approach the old attack cruiser. "Wait for it..."





"Bah!" the general ordered once more and his gunner fired again. He had the Yorktown exactly where he wanted it; pinned behind three of his cruisers and its shields on the verge of losing its shields. Though he would have perhaps enjoyed scoring the killing blow against Kincade's vessel personally, he felt that his nemesis' death would be satisfaction enough.

"Target's shields at twenty-five percent," Gurok said, sounding just as pleased as J'Dak felt. "Wait...the Yorktown is powering up their tractor beam."

"What?" he asked as he turned towards his first officer for a moment. When he did, he saw that Hagan was standing next to him and pointing back towards the viewscreen. J'Dak spun back towards it just in time to see one of the K'Vorts, the Yan, suddenly collide with the Gorrelk, the former's port wing striking the starboard warp pylon of the latter cruiser. Both blows were fatal to both ships, as they both vanished in a powerful explosion. Emerging from the devastation like some fearsome demonic beast out of the fires of Gre'thor was the Yorktown, headed straight for the Ku'Vang.

And me...





Perhaps this wasn't the best idea the captain had, thought al-Faisal as the ship continued to shudder through the aftereffects of the destruction of the two ships that had collided close enough to damage the Yorktown in the explosion. What little shields they had were being stripped away as they passed through the fiery remains of both the K'Vort and the Vakk. However, the risk maneuver had eliminated two enemy targets in one blast and gave the Yorktown a clear shot at the Ku'Vang. "The other K'Vort's falling off. Looks like they've lost their shields."

"Lock phasers on the Ku'Vang and fire," Kincade ordered. Al-Faisal did so without replying; each shot landing against the shields of the Vor'cha-class ship. Unfortunately, its shields were still relatively intact whereas their shields were practically nonexistent. J'Dak didn't waste any time in returning fire, which this time struck the Yorktown's bare hull.

And the effects of that volley were readily apparent even on the bridge. To al-Faisal's right, the auxiliary consoles on the starboard bulkhead each overload, one so much so that it sent a stream of fiery sparks onto the crewman who had been manning it. He did not have enough time to worry about his shipmate as the back of his neck suddenly felt like it was on fire. He turned behind him to see that a column of flame had erupted out of the deck by the turbolift entrance. The ship's fire suppression system quickly snuffed it out.

"Hull breach, deck four section two!" yelled K'Doss.

"Keep firing!" barked the captain, which got the tactical officer to focus back on the battle. He returned fire, using the ship's phasers once more along with a few photon torpedoes from the auxiliary tubes. Again, the Ku'Vang's shields weakened but they were still up. "Well, at least J'Dak's consistent."

"Oh?" asked Brenz.

"Seven years ago he tried to take out the bridge of Discovery while we were trying to retreat," Kincade answered. Al-Faisal fired once more with phasers only. Slowly but surely, the Ku'Vang's shields were weakening to the point where a full spread of quantum torpedoes would tear right through her. However, the Klingons still packed a punch and al-Faisal's eyes widened in horror as the cruiser opened up with every one of its forward firing weapons. "Incoming!"

Though he had braced himself against the tactical console, the weapons strike knocked al-Faisal off of his feet and onto the deck. His head landed hard against the carpeted floor, though not hard enough to knock him out, thankfully. The lights on the bridge started to fluctuate. More consoles along the bulkheads sparked and overloaded, including the Master Situation Display behind Kincade and Brenz.

"Damage report!" ordered the XO.

"Still trying to sort it out, sir," K'Doss answered, "but we have hull breaches in the primary and secondary hulls."

"Engineering to bridge!" Shrel's voice exclaimed over the intercom. As al-Faisal pulled himself back up to a standing position at tactical, he could hear several panicked voices in the background down in the engine room. "We've lost two of the primary EPS conduits to the shields..."

"That's really kind of moot at the moment, Shrel!" Kincade countered.

"...and one of the main lines to the phasers!" the Andorian added loudly. "We could lose the rest to an overload if you don't ease off the..."

"Your opinion's noted, Kincade out," the captain said to cut him off. "Weps, fire again."

"Firing, aye," al-Faisal answered reluctantly. Unfortunately, Shrel had a point; with as much power as the Yorktown's main phasers required, losing even one of the conduits that supplied energy to the weapons put the remainder at risk of an overload. And at the worst possible times. He judiciously fired the phasers at the Ku'Vang and another barrage of photon torpedoes. After they struck the attack cruiser, their shields were dropped to right where al-Faisal wanted them. "Captain, a full spread of..."

"I see it, Weps," Kincade said. "Lock quantum torpedoes onto the Ku'Vang's command section, full spread."

"Aye sir," the tactical officer replied as he punched up the proper settings. Before he could fire, the Ku'Vang again fired its standard disruptors. Al-Faisal didn't wait for the incoming shots to strike before launching the torpedoes.

This is going to be close...





We have them!
thought J'Dak to himself after the full power of his flagship's weapons impacted the Yorktown, landing critical blows both in its main saucer section and its engineering section. Perhaps I will indeed have the glory of the kill. "Prepare to fire again!"

"Disruptors still recharging," the gunnery officer reported.

"Enemy vessel has sustained heavy hull damage," added Gurok. "One more and...they're firing!"

Orange phaser beams shot out from the Yorktown, causing the deck beneath J'Dak's boots to shudder but once. Mere photon torpedoes struck the attack cruiser next. Are they out of their vaunted quantum torpedoes?

"M'Lord, shields down to thirty-four percent," Hagan said unnecessarily, more like a criticism than a report.

"Bah!" J'Dak exclaimed.

"But sir, only the standard disruptors are ready!" protested the gunnery officer.

"I said fire!" the general yelled angrily. Fortunately for him he did, but just as the Ku'Vang fired again, so too did the Yorktown, and contrary to J'Dak's speculation, it was with quantum torpedoes. A lot of them. Even though the disruptor fire hit the Yorktown, the bluish-white warheards loomed ominously on the viewscreen. With the shields in the condition they were in, they wouldn't last against such a powerful barrage.

Defiantly as the quantum torpedoes neared the end of their run, J'Dak let out a challenging roar to the dead in Sto-vo-kor, letting them all know that he was about to join them...





Kincade fought the urge to jump out of his seat as the torpedoes tore through the Ku'Vang's shields and blasted through its hull. The first set blasted into the forked bow of the cruiser, where the heavy disruptor and forward torpedo launchers were. The second group impacted against the bridge module. Explosions traveled back across the boom towards the secondary hull and consumed the entire ship. Like the two ships destroyed in the collision, the Ku'Vang was quickly wiped out.

"Target destroyed, sir," al-Faisal said, partially out of breath.

"The other Klingon and Romulan ships are starting to break off and cloak," added K'Doss.

"Guess they didn't want to stick around without their flagships," remarked Brenz, but Kincade wasn't about to wait around as he got up from his chair and started to walk towards the front of the devastated bridge. Without the other attacking ships, the only thing on the flickering viewscreen were the wreckages of the destroyed Romulan and Klingon ships.

"Scan for Romulan escape pods," he ordered, hoping to find some trace of Relek and T'Mar.

"Captain, we didn't detect any launches from the Vrax when it went up," K'Doss replied.

"Scan anyway!" Kincade said angrily.

"Jack," Brenz said in a calm voice as he approached the captain. "We can't stay here and conduct extended search operations. We have to get out of here before anybody else shows up. You know, like a Romulan patrol?"

As much as he wanted to try to deny what his XO was saying, he unfortunately had to concede that he was right, albeit grudgingly. "Fine. Danny, set a course back to Federation space by the most direct route. Maximum warp."

"Aye sir," she replied as the captain headed back to his chair.

"Sickbay to bridge," Carter's voice announced.

"Go ahead, Bones," Kincade answered absently in a tired voice before mouthing "Engage" towards Danielle.

"Injury report for you, Captain," he stated as the warp drive sprang to life. There was a noise in the background of the open channel that didn't sound like what one would have heard in sickbay, but it was too faint for him to pick out. "We have a total of seventy-six injured, fifteen of them critically. No deaths so far, thank God."

"I get worried when you get religious on me," the captain remarked.

"Me too," the doctor quipped. That odd noise got louder and Kincade recognized it as a baby's cry. That sound caused both K'Doss and Danielle to suddenly turn in their seats towards the rear of the bridge. Like most parents, they instantly picked out Richard Connors' cries. "Oh, and we have one patient in particular who's complaining non-stop..."

"Is he..." the helmswoman started to ask. Considering all the damage ship took, her concern was understandable.

"Little Richard's fine, child," Carter explained in a reassuring voice. "Just needs a little attention, preferably from his parents."

"Sir?" asked Danielle.

"Both of you, go," Kincade said as he jerked his thumb towards the turbolift. Mother and step-father quickly sprang up from their stations to leave the bridge. "Help's on the way, Bones."

"I appreciate it," the doctor replied. "Sickbay out."

"Well, I suppose that's good news," Brenz commented after the channel closed. "No fatalities, I mean."

"No, Tex," said Kincade with another sigh, "we did lose two people today..."

And it's all my fault...
 
Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six





"Ah, Steven, welcome back," Edward Hawthorne said to Steven Wallace as he entered the former's office. When the senior agent from Section 31 first showed up at his apartment in Sydney, Wallace should have guessed that the consulting firm that hired him upon his release from prison nearly a year ago was just a front for the secretive agency. The fact that they were having this encounter at the offices of the firm in Melbourne just added more confirmation to it. "And congratulations on a job well-done. Section 31 is most pleased."

"Well-done?" Wallace quoted angrily, keeping his distance from Hawthorne's simple yet elegant desk. Standing behind him, wearing the same black leather Section 31 uniform jacket, was Hawthorne's ubiquitous number two woman, Jessica Gray. Wallace had crossed paths with her enough times back in his Starfleet days that he knew enough not to cross her. Today, however, was different. "You call the Yorktown nearly getting blown up 'well-done?'"

"I owe you lunch," Gray quipped in a low voice to Hawthorne.

"They weren't supposed to be there!" Wallace exclaimed. If he had known that Kincade and his crew were going to be put in danger, he wouldn't have agreed to take part in this plan.

"It looks as though we overestimated the late General J'Dak," Hawthorne explained calmly with a smirk on his face. "If he had managed to keep a tighter leash on Mr. Acton and Captain Sanders, they wouldn't have told your former apprentice about J'Dak's plans."

"Besides, it was Kincade's decision to try to intervene," added Gray. "If anything, he's the one responsible for nearly getting himself killed."

"But, on the bright side, Jack did solve a rather pesky problem about what to do with J'Dak down the road," said Hawthorne. "So, even though we had a few bumps in the road, everything worked out just as we hoped. Thraketh is dead, his resistance movement has been eliminated, and right now the Titan is trying to glue the pieces of the empire back together. Unfortunately, Thraketh didn't entertain your offer, so we weren't able to get rid of those three troublesome commanders, but thankfully as far as most people are concerned, the battle between Thraketh and J'Dak's forces was nothing more than a simple border skirmish between renegades."

"Whoopee," noted Wallace sarcastically.

"But, we do have one little problem," Hawthorne said in a serious tone, "and I'm afraid it has to do with our mutual acquaintance Captain Kincade."

"What do you mean?" Wallace asked cautiously.

"It seems that not long after the Yorktown returned to Federation space, Jack sent off a coded message to Starfleet Command," the man from Section 31 explained. "He's accused you, Admiral Pujols, and myself of conspiring to assassinate Thraketh. He's also brought up that whole Zavras situation from last year. You can understand why this is a concern for us."

"I see," he said simply. "So what do you plan to do about it?"

"Nothing you need concern yourself with," Hawthorne said with a smirk. "Suffice it to say that your pesky protégé will get exactly what he deserves. Now, that's all; when we require your services again, we'll..."

"What are you going to do to Jack?" Wallace asked harshly. Despite what Kincade had done to him three years ago, there was still a part of him that respected and admired his former XO, perhaps even cared for him like a son. If he wasn't willing to be a party to leading Kincade into the ambush by J'Dak, then he certainly wouldn't stand by while Section 31 exacted their own patented brand of retribution against him.

"That's not your concern, Steven," he answered sternly. "As I said, that is all. I certainly hope that you understand that occasionally we need to take extreme actions in the interest of our goals and the survival of our organization, yes?"

Wallace didn't bother to reply; he quickly spun on his heel and shoved his way through the doors back out into the outer office. This had gone too far. In spite of doing what he thought was right in setting up Thraketh to be assassinated, he wasn't going to sit by and let Kincade take the fall for what he did, if he read Hawthorne's intent correctly. And considering the computer program Section 31 had Hernandez install on the Yorktown, he could only guess that they planned on turning the legal tables on Kincade. I have to hurry...

Even though he had been tossed out of Starfleet in disgrace, he still had friends there. Unfortunately, the hardest part would be trying to get them over the fleet-wide fear of Section 31 and their reach, but he knew there was an active resistance to it; a cabal formed a century ago by Captain James T. Kirk that was dedicated to rooting them out. As Wallace entered the turbolift to take him down to the lobby level, he realized that finding them would be difficult, but not impossible. Maybe I should look up that guy on Deep Space Nine who's bumped heads with these people before...

His scheming was quickly and surprisingly interrupted when a hand reached out to stop the closing doors a split second before they shut completely. The doors reopened to reveal a determined-looking Gray. She stepped inside and Wallace suddenly felt afraid for his life.

"We need to talk," she said cryptically as the doors closed behind her.





Captain's Log: Stardate 56981.6

The
Yorktown is on her way to Vulcan to take part in the memorial service for former officers T'Mar and Relek. Following the ceremonies, we will proceed to Earth where the ship will begin her extensive refit ahead of her new mission out on the frontier. Commander Shrel has indicated that the battle damage we recently sustained will add several weeks to the Yorktown's stay at Earth Station McKinley, but until he knows for certain how extensive the refit will be, it's hard to get an accurate estimate.

Meanwhile, my efforts to pursue the perpetrators of this conspiracy is proceeding slowly...





"Let me be frank, Captain,"
said Vice Admiral Husband Rivers, the officer at Starfleet Command that Kincade managed to contact when he first started to mobilize an investigation into Pujols, Wallace, and Hawthorne's activities. The captain tried to sit still behind his ready room desk as Pujols' direct superior's mustached face contorted in what looked to be severe skepticism of the charges he made. Then again, Rivers always seemed to look angry, based on what he had seen of him over the past year or so. "What you're claiming is...shocking, to say the least. A Starfleet admiral and two former officers conspiring..."

"One's a Section 31 agent, sir," Kincade interrupted, though he almost wished he bit his tongue before he could say it. I really need his help; sniping at him won't accomplish anything. His eyes drifted away from the screen on his desk and towards the bulkhead across from where he sat. After the refit, this room would look a bit different. I know engineers; they love to change things.

"Setting aside whether or not I believe in this Section 31 business,"
Rivers said in an annoyed tone, "you're barking up one hell of a tree, Captain, and you've got only a bit of flimsy evidence to balance yourself on it."

"Which is why I'm asking for a full and official investigation," the captain said. "Sir, I have proof of Wallace beaming over to the Vrax. I have his accomplice in custody. And I have evidence dating back a year to Pujols and Azernal's activities at Zavras..."

"Now I've known Francisco Pujols a long time, Captain," interrupted Rivers. "I was the one who pinned his first star onto his collar. I would never in a million years suspect him of doing something like this. And I'm more than a little suspicious about the fact that you kept quiet about Zavras for the past year."

"That doesn't change the rest of the facts, sir," countered Kincade firmly.

"And I'm forced to question your judgment concerning crossing into Romulan territory to intercept J'Dak," Rivers added. "You put your ship and crew at risk, not to mention this entire situation with the Romulans. And for what? Two former officers who left of their own accord?"

"I wasn't about to let J'Dak carry out what he was planning, not if I could help it at least," he replied in a half-lie. "Thraketh's death is the second assassination of a prominent Romulan in the last four years at our hands, at least the second I know of. Considering the situation we're in with the Romulans right now, you can see how this would completely screw up the works."

"Lucky for us that this is playing like a mere skirmish between renegade factions," noted Rivers. "I agree, though; we're going to have to play this one close to the vest. I'll contact JAG and Internal Affairs, get them quietly rolling on this. In the meantime, continue on your scheduled course. You should probably enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts."

"Yes sir," Kincade said simply.

"I'll be sure to keep you in the loop as much as they'll let me," the admiral said. "Rivers out."

The admiral disappeared from Kincade's screen and the captain got up to head towards the door back to the bridge, passing by the shelf that had fallen over during the battle. He tapped the door control and they only opened up a quarter of the way, yet another example of the damage the ship sustained. Standing outside was Acton, who now had his new prosthetic arm and an ocular implant.

"Sorry about that, Pete," the captain said, referring to the fact that Rivers returned Kincade's first call a split second before he was to have a meeting with Acton. "Come on in and have a seat."

"I take it Starfleet's a little interested in what's been going on out here, eh?" Acton asked rhetorically as they both entered.

"More or less," Kincade said as he sat down behind his desk once more.

"This is why I never went out for a red shirt," said Acton as he sat across from the desk. "So, what'd you want to talk about?"

"I take it you heard that Starfleet's planning a memorial service for the crew of the Justice when we get back to Earth?" the captain asked, to which Acton nodded. "And that there'll be a standard formal inquiry into the ship's destruction?"

"I talked with Admiral Yulana about it yesterday," he replied, referring to the flag officer at Starfleet Security who had overseen the missions of the Justice. "I'll likely be called to testify, but since she was Captain Mullins' direct supervisor, a lot of the scrutiny is going to be focused on her. Hell, inside word among my contacts back on Earth says she'll probably take the blame and resign just to avoid dragging this out. Too bad, too; last I heard was that she was lobbying Starfleet to chop over a second starship, but now who knows what'll happen?"

"So...you don't know where you'll be going next?" asked Kincade cautiously.

"I hear Tahiti's nice this time of year," Acton answered in a deadpan voice, "but if you mean where I'll be going for my next job, then I don't know."

"I'd...I'd like you to stay on board as chief of security," the captain said uneasily, considering the circumstances that forced him to leave in the first place. "I know we didn't exactly part on the best of terms and I wanted to apologize for how I acted. Hindsight's twenty-twenty, but that didn't excuse what I did, especially after what happened with J'Dak."

"Actually, sir, I should apologize, too," said Acton with what sounded like the same level of cautiousness. "I...overreacted when I found out about your conversation with Azernal. And you shouldn't blame yourself, sir; you had no idea about J'Dak. What he did wasn't your fault."

"Wish I could believe that," Kincade muttered half to himself. Since even before he talked with Admiral Rivers, back even before the Yorktown returned to Federation space, the captain had been plagued by doubt; finding reasons to attribute everything that had happened over the past several weeks to his own actions. Perhaps if he had relieved Wallace of his command seven years ago, perhaps if he hadn't tried to keep Relek's faked death a secret, and especially perhaps if he had continued to press the Zavras investigation after Azernal's call, he could have stopped everything from happening. Relek and T'Mar wouldn't be dead, either. It was his greatest failure as a captain, something that would stick with him for the rest of his career, even if the specifics were classified. But, now was not the time to dwell on it. "So, are you interested?"

"Well, what kind of idiot would I be if I turned down an offer like that?" Acton said with a smirk. "I accept."

"Good," Kincade said as he got up from his chair and offered him his hand. "Welcome back, Pete."

"Thank you sir," he replied as he shook the captain's hand. "You know, one of us may have to shave our beards off so no one thinks that we're trying to copy each other."

"Don't look at me," said Kincade as he ran a hand across his beard. "Captain's prerogative."

"Maybe I should look into upgrading to a red shirt one of these days," the new security chief remarked. "Well, I better go officially introduce myself to the department, maybe even play with those new toys they got while I was gone."

"Don't forget there's a staff meeting in a couple hours," the captain said.

"I won't," Acton said as he turned to leave. "Oh, and Merry Christmas."

"What?" Kincade asked in surprise.

"It is December 25th, isn't it?" he questioned rhetorically.

"Oh, guess I've been too busy to notice," the captain said. Gone were the days of his childhood where he eagerly anticipated the approach of Christmas morning; now it was just another day buried among all his duties and obligations. "Merry Christmas to you, too."

"I'll see you later, sir," Acton said before trying to leave the ready room only to stop in surprise when the door failed to open wide enough for his broad shoulders to pass through normally. "I hope they plan on fixing this."

Kincade said nothing more as his new security chief departed. Speaking with Acton and bringing up Zavras once again had only turned his mood sour again. He returned his focus back to his monitor screen, realizing that on top of getting through approving the last of the proposed design changes for the refit, he still had to come up with something to say at the memorial service on Vulcan, neither of which he really had any interest in doing at the moment.

Before he could sulk further, the intercom trilled and K'Doss announced, "Bridge to Captain Kincade."

"Yeah?" he asked in a tired voice.

"You have a coded communication coming in over subspace," the Caitian replied.

"Put them through," Kincade ordered, glancing down again at his relatively small screen. Maybe I should have the engineers put in something bigger on the wall for calls. However, the brief brightening of his mood was quickly dashed when he saw the face that appeared on his screen. "You?!"

"Hello, Jack," said Wallace. "We need to talk."

"Unless you're going to give me a full confession or season's greetings, then we have nothing to talk about," the captain said angrily as his hand reached for the button to sever the transmission.

"Jack, wait!" his former mentor exclaimed. "If we don't act quickly, things are going to get really bad for the both of us."

"I guess Admiral Rivers works pretty fast," quipped Kincade. "Suddenly afraid that you'll wind up back in that prison cell again before you know it?"

"Will you listen to me for a minute?!" Wallace asked in frustration. "They're after both of us; Pujols and Hawthorne. Right now they're working to charge the both of us with conspiring with Thraketh to assassinate Tal'Aura!"

"What?" he snapped in surprise.

"That was part of their plan," explained Wallace in a more calm tone. "Right now, Admiral Pujols is going to Starfleet Security with evidence that you and I both planned to help Thraketh's coup. That faked holo-conference you had with Starfleet? Pujols is going to make it look like you staged it in order to give the Federation plausible deniability over our actions."

"How the hell do they expect to make this stick?" asked Kincade.

"With everything that Hawthorne's capable of, I wouldn't be surprised if he managed to convince your own mother that you're guilty," Wallace replied. "Right now I'm trying to work on something to thwart them, but there's something I've been meaning to tell you, something that I wanted to say when I was aboard but couldn't."

"Oh?" the captain asked skeptically.

"Do you remember when I came to visit you in the hospital during the war?" asked Wallace.

"Barely," Kincade answered bluntly, not sure of what the point was.

"I said something to you then," he said slowly, "something that I think bears repeating..."





Four years ago...





Rear Admiral (lower half) Steven Wallace emerged from the turbolift towards the main nurse's station for the floor, once again getting the odd glances that he had yet to become accustomed to. It was partly due to the fact that he hadn't been a flag officer for very long and partly because he still had yet to replicate a proper admiral's uniform for himself and instead wore the standard black and gray duty uniform. Hopefully no one will mistake me for an ensign. He walked up to the counter by the station, which was only manned by two officers at this late hour.

"Excuse me," he said to the male with a blue lab coat standing by a large board that appeared to have the duty assignments for the medical staff. As he turned, Wallace noted he bore the rank of lieutenant and judging by his authoritative yet academic countenance and lanky frame that he was probably a doctor. "I'm looking for Commander Kincade's room."

"I'm Dr. West, Admiral," he replied immediately, "and visiting hours have been over for a while."

"I'm hear on official business, Doctor," Wallace said sternly, holding up the padd and the small jewelry box he had brought with him. "I promise I won't be long."

"I suppose it's all right," West sighed after considering the admiral's words for a moment. He stepped out from the nurse's station and grabbed a large padd that likely contained Kincade's chart. "You should know that he's still under sedation for the pain."

"How is he?" asked Wallace as they started to walk down a corridor, presumably towards Kincade's room. A few weeks ago, his former first officer was in command of a Defiant-class warship named Upholder. It was part of a task force under Wallace's command from Discovery and was participating in a joint attack against a Dominion position near the Badlands when the Upholder was crippled by a Jem'Hadar battlecruiser. Before the ship's warp core could breach, Kincade set his damaged vessel on a collision course with its assailant. Another blast to the Defiant-class ship had caused part of the bridge's ceiling to collapse on top of him, crushing his legs and part of his spine. His XO Amber Haswell managed to pull him out and into an escape pod before the ship exploded and took the enemy cruiser with it.

"Like I just said, he's still in a lot of pain," the doctor explained in a quiet voice. The entire hospital, which was fairly close to the front, was still filled with wounded. The Discovery (where Wallace still retained his flag until Starfleet saw fit to reassign him somewhere else) had arrived to drop off even more injured. "Unfortunately, this facility lacks a lot of the equipment needed to fully treat his injuries. We'd like to transfer him to the rehabilitation facility on the Geminion Colony, but with all the Dominion activity in the sector, we can't risk a medievac."

"I've talked with Starfleet about deploying more ships to the area to cover against enemy attacks," Wallace said. Unfortunately, the Dominion didn't recognize any treaties governing the conduct of war, meaning medical ships that would have had some protection in other conflicts were fair game in the eyes of the Jem'Hadar. "One of the perks of the star."

"I hope it works out," West remarked as he stopped before a door. "Here's his room, sir. Don't be disappointed if he's not too communicative; with all the damage to his lower back and legs, we need to keep his dosage of painkillers up just to keep him comfortable."

"Thank you, Doctor," the admiral said as he tapped the control to open the door. He stepped inside to see Kincade laying on a bed, with a blanket pulled up right to his chin and the only sound in the room being the quiet chirp of the status monitor over his head. "Hello, Jack."

Kincade's only response was a quiet groan, which suggested that he was at least partially aware of Wallace's presence. The admiral walked around his bed, unsure of how he was going to say what he had come here to say. Hell, I'm not going to get another chance for a while. "Jack, I wanted to tell you that Starfleet's already convened a board of inquiry about the loss of the Upholder. Since I was in command of the task force and since you're...in your condition, I took the blame. Thankfully, they agreed with me that there was no way to save the ship under the circumstance and you weren't to blame for what happened.

"But, there is some bad news," he said with a playful smirk. "Starfleet's decided to punish you, anyway; as soon as you get out of here, you'll wish they'd thrown you prison with everything you'll be forced to deal with...ah, hell. This would be funnier if you were awake."

Wallace set the padd down at the foot of Kincade's bed and flipped open the jewelry box. "By authority of Starfleet Command, I'm proud to promote you to the field commission of Captain, with all the rights and privileges thereto."

Captain Kincade didn't react either way to the news. "Don't get too excited," Wallace joked weakly. Seeing him in this condition was painful; even though he was alive and expected to make a full recovery, Wallace couldn't help but dwell on how close Kincade came to dying. He set the open box down on the nightstand next to the bed. In the box were four golden rank pips, though they lacked the shine of a freshly replicated set. "It's tradition for captains to give their XO their fourth pip right off their own collar, keeps it passing down from officer to officer. But, since I got my star I don't need my four anymore, I figured why not give them to you. They've got a lot of mileage on them, so wear 'em proudly."

The idea to give Kincade his four captain's pips came to Wallace almost immediately before beaming down to the hospital from Discovery when he realized he didn't even have one line officer pip on his collar to give him anymore, so he ran back to his cabin to collect the four that his flag officer pips had replaced. He had two of the pips since Starfleet switched over to the current rank system almost thirty years ago and had the rank of captain for nearly twenty years. Damn, they're almost as old as he is. Wallace picked up the padd next.

"Oh, and in case you were wondering, Starfleet's already got your next assignment all laid out for you," he said. "They're offering you the new Yorktown, thanks in no small part to my persuasion and lobbying on your behalf. She's one of the new Sovereign-class ships; armed to the teeth, too, from what I hear. A lot of officers are in line trying to get a ship like her with her kind of pedigree, but you've got first dibs on the center seat. The only catch is that you'll obviously have to get out of here in order to take command. If this war drags out even longer, we're going to need ships like the Yorktown and captains like you..."

Wallace suddenly felt a sudden pang of emotion come to him without any control on his part. Perhaps now was the time to say something he had been meaning to say; with the way the war was going, there was no telling if Wallace would get another chance. "I want to tell you something, something I've never told anyone else under my command before. You see, I had a son once; lot like you, as a matter of fact and only a few years older than you. Decided to follow the old man into Starfleet. He had a good career ahead of him, but unfortunately he happened to be aboard the Pegasus when she went up.

"I'm not exactly sure how to say this, but when I look at you I see a lot of him in you. If he hadn't taken that post way back when, he might have his own command now, too. When...when I saw the Upholder explode, I thought I had lost you like I did him. After my son died, I fell into a kind of funk; got divorced, nearly resigned, that sort of thing. I don't know what I would have done if you died, since in many ways, you're like a son to me."

He stopped, unsure of what else there was to say. Wallace was never particularly emotional around others and though Kincade was only semi-conscious, the admiral suddenly felt embarrassed. However, he had meant every word. After setting down the padd next to the jewelry box on the nightstand, he stood up straight in a more formal posture. "Well, get well soon, Captain; the Yorktown needs her commanding officer. Carry on."

After leaving Kincade's room, he found that Dr. West was still standing out in the corridor as if he was waiting for the admiral. Or he didn't believe that I wouldn't take too long. "See that Captain Kincade gets whatever he needs."

"Captain Kincade?" West echoed with a surprised look on his face, which quickly disappeared when Wallace frowned. "Uh, aye sir."

"Good lad," Wallace said with a smirk.





Present day





"Why are you telling me all this?" Kincade asked, fighting the temptation to run his fingers over the hand-me-down pips on his collar. Since he was sedated at the time, he only barely heard Wallace tell him that he had been promoted and he had been offered command of the Yorktown. He didn't remember anything about Wallace telling him about his son or that the captain was like a son to him. Certainly he once regarded Wallace as a father-figure (at least in professional terms and at least after the events in the April Nebula), but never knew that the relationship went the other way, as well.

"Because, Jack, in spite of everything that's happened between us, I still respect you," Wallace said in a humble tone, perhaps the first time the captain ever remembered hearing him speak like that. "And somehow, I wouldn't be surprised that no matter how much you deny it, you feel the same way."

"After what you've done," the captain said angrily, now thinking he was being played, "you've lost a lot of that respect."

"If I had known that if this plot was going to get you nearly killed, I would have never gone along with it," he countered. "This was supposed to be about killing Thraketh and trying to prevent a Romulan civil war. But, Hawthorne's apparently got more on his mind and it's our heads on the chopping block."

"What exactly is going on?" questioned Kincade. Though he was still mad and not likely to reach the same sort of catharsis that Wallace had any time soon, he was at least willing to hear him out on this particular subject. He sounds more believable with his ass on the line. Then again, he had found that men who perpetrated such conspiracies were usually motivated by self interest.

"This is going to take a while," Wallace replied with a sigh.
 
Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven





There was an old comparison that likened a warm place to being "hot as Vulcan." Kincade had heard that saying since his childhood but only now understood the logic behind it as he sat with his crew before the altar that stood in the shadows of the Kurat Mountains that bordered the famous Vulcan's Forge. Though the heat bordered on the uncomfortable and the air was extremely thin, there were two saving graces. The first was that the sun was starting to set and Vulcan's sister world of T'Khut was starting to become visible through the reddish sky. The second was that he and his officers were in their white dress uniforms, which offered some relief from the heat.

As the high priest who was conducted the spiritual portion of the memorial service sounded like he was nearing the end of his meditations, Kincade started to get nervous, not necessarily over the fact that his eulogy was coming up next, but for what else was supposed to be happening on this day far from Vulcan. In spite of his obvious disgust, he and Wallace had spent a good deal more time talking over subspace after the former admiral tried to have a heart-to-heart with him. He started off by explaining the full extent of the conspiracy, starting when Hawthorne and Gray first approached Wallace about his aiding Section 31. Just as Kincade and his officers had reasoned, Section 31 felt that Thraketh's actions would encourage a civil war, one that would compel President Bacco to act and drag the Federation into a long and protracted conflict.

On the other hand, Section 31 wasn't too keen on stabilizing a woman like Tal'Aura's regime for fear that it would come back to haunt them. Therefore, the decision was made to only stabilize her government to a point, but that point was not above having someone like Thraketh killed. Knowing that sooner or later, Thraketh would use Relek's connection to the Yorktown to make an entreaty to the Federation, Thirty-One ordered Hernandez to install the spy program in the ship's computers. As soon as the Vrax first de-cloaked alongside the Yorktown, the plan was set in motion pretty much as the captain had deduced it had, save for the reason why Wallace himself transported aboard the Vrax to plant the tracking device. Section 31 had identified three Romulan commanders who were sympathetic to anyone trying to dethrone the praetor, so they had Wallace offer a promise of false support to Thraketh including contact information for these commanders in order to have as many insurgent vessels present as possible when J'Dak attacked.

Once the priest concluded his sermon, he withdrew from the altar area. Kincade rose from his seat and moved to take his place, noting that the only other people there aside from a select number of his officers and the members of the temple conducting the service were T'Mar's parents, plus the security guards from the prison that they were granted a temporary leave from for the memorial. It felt like an oddly small gathering, considering the impact that both T'Mar and Relek had on the crew.

"We're here to remember two of our former comrades, Relek and T'Mar," he intoned. He had been tempted to use the traditional opening used at Starfleet funerals, but officially, both T'Mar and Relek had resigned their commissions. And even as he spoke, his thoughts continued to drift away from the words he had memorized towards what else was happening. Obviously, the one thing that Pujols and Hawthorne failed to count on was Acton getting to the bottom of what J'Dak was up to and manage to get to the Yorktown to warn the crew. And it was Pujols and Hawthorne whom right about now was going to have the tables turned on them...





Francisco Pujols poured himself a glass of cabernet from a bottle he kept in his office wine chiller despite the earliness of the hour in San Francisco. He did have a reason to celebrate, though. Within the hour, agents of Starfleet Security would arrest Kincade and Wallace on the charge of conspiring to assassinate Praetor Tal'Aura, thus completing the plan the admiral had conceived with Section 31 and removing two potential threats to it. Pujols took a cautious sip, noting that the wine was perhaps too chilled for his tastes. He set the glass aside and returned his full attention to the latest intelligence reports coming out of the Romulan Empire.

When he was first approached about utilizing J'Dak for the plan to take out Thraketh (and potentially future plans, though that was now unlikely), Pujols agreed with it wholeheartedly, though he worried about involving Kincade. Since the Zavras operation last year, Pujols feared that the captain would one day turn on them and reveal what he knew about it publicly, particularly after President Zife and Koll Azernal resigned. He was even skeptical that Azernal's attempt to talk Kincade out of pressing for an inquiry would work and never fully trusted the captain again. With possible retribution from the Yorktown captain on his mind, Pujols was surprised that Hawthorne didn't require much persuasion to tailor the evidence to put the blame all on Kincade. Wallace was just a nice bonus.

Once the two of them were in custody, chances were that they'd speed through a board of inquiry straight to a general court martial. With the evidence that Section 31 said it was preparing, Wallace would likely end up back in his cell and Kincade would have one right next to him. Wallace's part in the operation to assassinate Norek was just sloppy, something that could have easily provoked a war rather than prevented one. Getting him out of the way was a privilege. Kincade, on the other hand, was simply just dangerous; a man who's sense of ethics made him a liability in operations like Zavras and this mission to take out Thraketh. Such men in such circumstances were a threat.

Pujols picked up his wine glass again, noting that it had warmed enough to his liking. However, before he could sip it, the door to his office opened. Pujols had left orders not to be disturbed with his secretary, who was chasing the two large officers wearing gold collars and carrying type 2 phaser side arms.

"I'm sorry, Admiral, they just barged..." his secretary tried to protest.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked in a stern voice as he rose from his chair.

"Admiral Francisco Pujols," the taller and burlier of the two said, "you're under arrest for the assassination of Ambassador Thraketh of the Romulan Empire..."





"And though history will choose to recognize the fact that they were not officially of this world, that they were Romulan not Vulcan," Kincade said, "they represented the idea that these two sundered peoples will one day be reunited. They themselves were torn apart before being rejoined, but unfortunately it was not for long, nor will they be able to see the future that they represent. Still, no matter what they represented to others, to those of us aboard the Yorktown, they were our friends..."





"Well, Steven, I'm surprised to find you here," commented Hawthorne as Wallace and his uneasy ally Gray entered the Section 31's study. It seemed all too appropriate that it happened to be raining in this part of the English countryside at this time of night, with the precipitation streaming down the side of the window like a waterfall. "I would have expected you to have been led away in handcuffs right about now."

"We need to talk," Gray said forcefully. Wallace nervously clutched the item that he held behind his back, still constantly thinking of ways how this plan could go wrong. Hawthorne didn't become an important member of Section 31 without the ability to see ahead several moves or to recognize treachery within his own ranks. He's no slouch.

"Watch your tone, my dear," Hawthorne counted politely. "You seem to forget who is in charge here."

"Not for much longer," countered Gray. "Section 31 has had it with your activities."

"I beg your pardon?" he said as his tone grew more harsh.

"You've run out of rope, sir," she stated evenly. "First with trying to conceal the fact that Shaw was your son, then giving that unstable lunatic a job here, then trying to give your other son a job, then moving heaven and Earth to try to avenge his death. And that's all on top of your obsession with Kincade..."

"Obsession?" Hawthorne asked dubiously, though Wallace was stuck on the revelation that Shaw was his son. "You're always the one who's trying to protect him. Weren't you the one who took off to the Chin'toka system to warn him about Steven's plan to trap Gul Jesak? I find it far more disturbing that you fail to recognize just how dangerous he is."

"The trouble is, Edward, is that you're making this personal," Gray stated. "You blamed Kincade for abandoning Shaw on Tracken VI during the war, the act that turned him renegade. That act that your bastard son had your other son murdered on board the Yorktown made things worse, but the tipping point was when Kincade killed Shaw right in front of you..."

"My, that's a bit of supposition on your part, my dear," said Hawthorne coldly. "You shouldn't go around throwing accusations like that."

"You've been spying on Kincade for the last two years," she replied. "You even spent considerable time and effort to ensure one of our operatives was assigned to the Yorktown and to be in a position to become the ship's chief of security. Did it not occur to you we were cultivating Hernandez for another post?"

"I used my best judgment in utilizing our assets," he replied angrily. "In case you've forgotten, I have the power to do that."

"Not anymore," Gray said through her teeth. "You've made this thing with Kincade personal, and in our business, we can't make allowances for personal vendettas. Did you really think you'd get away with bringing him and Wallace up on charges without our approval?"

"This from the people who didn't bother to consult me when they executed the President of the United Federation of Planets!" Hawthorne roared. Wallace nervously glanced out of the corner his eye. They killed Zife? Certainly the publicly stated reasons behind the former president's decision to resign struck him as dubious, but he'd never guess that Section 31 was capable of assassinating the leader of the Federation. Suddenly, Hawthorne's expression brightened as he turned towards Wallace. "Do you know the sort of people you've decided to involve yourself with?"

"I have an idea," he replied. "At least a better one, now."

"You have no idea," challenged Hawthorne sternly. "What is it they expect you to do here, Steven? Gloat?"

"No; something else, actually," Wallace said coldly as he brought out the item he had been hiding behind his back. It was an antique that had been in his family since the early 20th Century, first belonging to a member of the old United States Marine Corps who had fought during some of the more intense battles of the Second World War in the Pacific. Its technical name was the 1911A1, but it had come to be colloquially known as the Colt .45, which Wallace aimed squarely at Hawthorne's head. To emphasize his statement, Wallace cocked the hammer...





"...and even though they both chose to leave the ship before their passing," Kincade continued, "we feel their loss just as keenly as if they still wore the uniform. They had been with us since near the beginning of our journey together. They have been with us through our most trying times and our greatest victories. They were our family..."





"What?" Pujols asked in surprise. The two guards continued to stand by the door with their arms crossed. "This is ridiculous! You have no authority to detain me. Get out!"

"Sir, we have orders to take you into custody coming directly from the Director of Starfleet Security," the shorter of the two stated. "If you'll come with us, sir."

"I want to see those orders in writing," the admiral said angrily. Somebody had outmaneuvered him, but who? He wouldn't put getting stabbed in the back by Section 31 by them, but after everything they accomplished together, it seemed like an unnecessary waste. Someone's betrayed me...

"It's all in order, Francisco," a voice from behind the group by the door to the office said. Elbowing his way past the guards was Admiral Rivers, which caused the junior flag officer to walk around the table to confront him. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to relieve you of duty."

"On what grounds?" Pujols snapped. "What evidence do you have?"

"Captain Kincade and former Captain Wallace have both turned state's evidence on you," said Rivers. "They've outlined the full extent of the conspiracy you perpetrated, plus everything that happened last year in the Zavras system. I'm afraid that's enough to place you under arrest..."

"This isn't over, Hub," the junior admiral said angrily as he jabbed his index finger into his superior's chest. "You and I both know that Kincade and Wallace aren't entirely clean in this matter. They have enough dirt on their hands to taint whatever their testimony will be."

"We shall see, won't we?" the senior admiral asked rhetorically.

"You don't want all this to be aired in open court, do you?" Pujols questioned. "Think of what it would do to our relations with the..."

"This won't be in open court," Rivers countered. "It'll be within a classified tribunal session; I've thought this thing the whole way through. Guards, take him to a holding cell."

"Admiral, I am authorized to discharge my sidearm if you refuse to comply," the larger of the two guards said.

"It's all right; I surrender," Pujols said with a sigh. It's Section 31, it has to be. Hawthorne had said that all the altered evidence was supposed to point at Wallace and Kincade; that was why he took part in the partially faked holographic conference and was the only one the Yorktown had been in contact with during its mission. As they led him out of his office, Pujols wondered if he had been the one set up to take the fall instead of Kincade and Wallace all along. Chances were that he'd easily be convicted and likely placed in the cell that Wallace once occupied at the prison facility in Sydney. And with Section 31 pulling the strings, there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.





"...Family's supposed to stick together, supposed to watch out for each other," Kincade added, starting to drift away from his prearranged notes. "When they're in trouble, we're supposed to help them..."





"Really, Steven," Hawthorne scoffed at the gun Wallace was holding. Considering the tight security at Hawthorne's house, the antique firearm was one of the few non-melee weapons that could have gotten past his personal security system. For having a weapon aimed at his forehead and ready to fire with the barest pressure on the trigger, Hawthorne didn't appear to be stressed out, yet. "You expect me to believe that you'd stoop to being her triggerman?"

"Well, I was the only one who had the gun," Wallace said dryly.

"What did they promise you?" he countered. "Membership? Do you really want to condemn yourself to my fate? Do you know how often someone's allowed to retire from Thirty-One? Almost never; we simply know too much to let us simply sit quietly in our homes and potentially devastate the organization. Someday it will be you with the pistol pointed at his forehead."

"The one thing I'm going to miss about you Edward is all of these speeches," Gray commented with a sigh. "Finish this."

"You know, Steven, we're a lot alike, you and I," Hawthorne said as he walked out from behind his desk. Wallace's grip on the gun tightened as he stopped within six inches of the barrel. "We both had promising careers in Starfleet that were taken away from us, we've both been betrayed the men we trained, and now you'll join Section 31. Ironically, during my time in Starfleet, I had heard the stories of Section 31 and initially thought them to be abhorrent; an anathema to what the Federation stood for. When they offered me a job, I almost turned them down. But then I realized, quite naively I may add, that I could perhaps change them. But you can't; the Bajorans have a saying, 'Those who study evil are studied by evil.' You don't change Section 31, they change you."

"On second thought, I'm not going to miss these pontifications," said Gray. "Kill him."

"You pull that trigger, Steven, and you'll be condemning Jack to your fate, as well," interrupted Hawthorne, which did cause Wallace to ease off his trigger. That slightly backing off caused Hawthorne to smirk. "As I told Jack once, he had all the makings of a Section 31 operative in spite of his own conscious. If you go through with killing me and join up, you're merely paving the path for him to one day succeed you. And like me and ultimately you, he will one day share our fate, even if he doesn't officially join Thirty-One. Do you want destroy the man whom you feel as close to as your late son?"

Wallace partially lowered his pistol, struggling with the realities of what Hawthorne said. However, it only took him a brief second to raise it back up and pull the trigger in one swift motion. The weapon fired with a loud pop and Edward Hawthorne fell back on top of his desk with a small reddish hole in the middle of his forehead. Blood started to pool instantly on the desk from the exit wound on the back of his skull.

"Congratulations, Mr. Wallace," Gray said as she turned towards him. "Welcome to Section 31."





"...And we did try to help them," the captain continued, feeling unable to keep all of his emotions bottled up, "but we failed them. I...I failed them..."

He stopped, realizing how far he had come off his written remarks and how emotional he was starting to sound. Thinking that he couldn't dig himself out of this hole, he left the altar and returned to his chair. I've failed... That feeling had been growing since they returned from the Romulan frontier; it had gone from doubt over his own actions towards the realization he had let down everyone. He had created the circumstances that allowed the assassination conspiracy against Thraketh to be carried forward. He had ordered the Yorktown to plunge headlong into battle against J'Dak's forces in an attempt to save T'Mar and Relek, but failed spectacularly. I've failed before...but not like this...

Even the thought of those responsible for what happened getting what they deserved wasn't alleviating his depressed feelings. As Wallace had explained to him over subspace, Section 31 had agreed to turn over their evidence of Pujols' culpability in both the Zavras and Thraketh conspiracies. Wallace would also testify against his co-conspirator in exchange for immunity from prosecution. After a closed-door trial, Pujols likely would be spending a lot more time in prison than Wallace had and Thirty-One likely wouldn't use its influence to get him out early.

The real question was what was going to happen to Hawthorne. Wallace was not specific about it, but it was clear that he would have to be dealt with in an "unconventional" manner. "Trust me, he won't be a problem anymore," was what he had said, leaving little doubt to the means that would be employed against Hawthorne, and leaving a question for Kincade that begged to be asked.

"That mean you're joining them?" Kincade had asked.

"I...maybe, Jack," Wallace had replied. "Look, it may be a while before we can talk again, if at all, but I want you to know that I'm not doing this for myself. If they'd let me, I wouldn't have sought out immunity. I...just wanted you to know that."

"You all right, Jack?" Michelle asked in a low voice, likely picking up on her future husband's mood.

"Sure," he lied. He obviously was far from it; the events of the past several weeks were a culmination of mistakes Kincade had made over the past year. Even though Starfleet wasn't going to reprimand or chastise him for what happened (partly because doing so would be a public admission of events that "didn't" happen), Kincade was blaming himself for it all. Two of his officers...two of his friends had died because of it and his mentor was making a Faustian deal to save him.

But...maybe I can put all that in the past and look to the future, starting with her.





Several hours after the memorial service and after the Yorktown left orbit of Vulcan for the final leg of the trip back to Earth, Carter flashed a warm smile to both K'Doss and Danielle as they brought in young Richard to his office in sickbay. At his age, he ended up going to a lot more funerals of his friends than to any other kind of gathering, so he had learned to at least look on death in a different manner than younger people. Kind of helps when death's just around the corner waiting on this old coot. K'Doss and Danielle's collective mood still seemed dampened by the service, but Richard seemed positively fascinated by trying to latch onto his step-father's long whiskers whilst in the grasp of his mother.

"Thanks for coming on such short notice," he said as they sat down on the chairs across from his desk. "I know you've been wrestling with the identity of your son's father, but I think I have a theory on how it happened."

Carter reached down and turned on the screen behind his desk. A side-by-side image of the DNA strands of Richard Hawthorne and Richard Connors appeared. Select portions of the strands on both sides started to blink. "I started by isolating the specific sequences in the baby that matched the late commander. Funny thing is that almost every one of little Richard's physical traits are an exact match to his biological father. In case you didn't know, something like that is impossible to happen under normal circumstances..."

"As opposed to a child being conceived by a dead guy?" Danielle muttered.

"But there is a way to introduce selected elements of his DNA to you in order to ensure that your child would look exactly like him when he grows up," the doctor explained. "According to my research, there are several methods to do that without your knowledge, but unfortunately the most likely way it was done was with some kind of device that would have delivered the DNA into your system through...sex. Perfect way to do it without your knowledge."

"Who would do that?" K'Doss asked angrily.

"That's what I've been wondering about until lately," Carter replied. "My guess is the actual...delivery boy was just a hired hand of someone with the kind of power and influence to pull something like this off. I figured out the guy behind all of this during the last briefing we had before the battle against J'Dak. Chances are if I'm not senile, the man you're looking for is Edward Hawthorne."

"Rick's father?" she questioned in surprise. "Why?"

"He lost both of his sons," K'Doss speculated aloud. "And when he was here, he seemed awfully friendly with you."

"And he comes from a rather big Starfleet family," the doctor added. "Maybe in his twisted mind, he needs to continue the family legacy. I suppose you'll have to ask him when we get back to Earth."

"So what do we do now?" Danielle asked as she looked into her son's eyes. "What am I supposed to tell him when he gets older?"

"The truth," said Carter bluntly. "But, who he'll come to know as his father is entirely up to you two."

K'Doss and Danielle both turned to look in each other's eyes before he took her free hand in his paw. A smile appeared on the Caitian's face, something that Carter hadn't seen him do all that often. "I suppose he's right."

"Of course he is," she said before turning back to the doctor. "Thanks, Bones."

"Any time, my dear," he replied with a sly grin. "I would have hated if I left without solving that one."

"You're leaving?" K'Doss asked in a shocked voice.

"Damn slip of the tongues," Carter cursed. He certainly didn't want to reveal his decision to leave in that fashion. "If you couldn't tell, I'm gettin' too old for this. I have a family back home that I hardly ever see and traveling a thousand light years from them for years on end with this new exploration mission isn't going to help. Hell, I was technically retired before the captain drafted me to come here two years ago. This hopping galaxies thing is a game for the young."

"Oh," Danielle said simply.

"Please keep this under your hats until I get a chance to tell the captain face to face," the soon-to-be-former Chief Medical Officer requested, his voice catching just slightly when he realized he'd miss this ship. "And be sure to keep in touch with an old fart like me..."
 
Epilogue

Epilogue





Two months later...






"Captain on the bridge," K'Doss said as Kincade emerged onto the bridge. In spite of everything that had happened with Zavras, Relek, and T'Mar, it felt good to hear those words again. The repairs and refit were finally over and now he was ready to lead his ship on a new mission, something that Kincade might have lost all enthusiasm for after the most recent events had it not been for one thing.

"Attention everyone," he said as he stood next to the auxiliary tactical console. "I just wanted to introduce you all to our new ship's archaeologist, Dr. Michelle Kincade."

He gestured to his new bride who had followed him out of the turbolift nervously. The bridge crew started to applaud Michelle's official arrival as an officer aboard the Yorktown. Most of them had been present when the couple said their "I do's" on a sandy shore on one of the Caribbean Sea's many islands, though they probably did not know that she had changed her last name, as well. Figures that an archaeologist would be old fashioned.

"What's our status?" asked Kincade as he headed towards his new chair, one of the upgrades to the new bridge. It supposedly came with automatic shoulder and lap restraints that would snap on in the event of an emergency. Michelle took a seat in a similar chair to his left.

"Warp and impulse reactors are in full power line-up," replied Shrel from the engineering officer's console. "Propulsion systems standing by, Captain."

"Structural integrity field and inertial dampeners are fully energized, sir," added K'Doss. "Navigational deflector, tractor beam, and sensors are also ready. Operation systems standing by, sir."

"Warp and impulse engines answering on all bells, Captain," said Danielle. "Thrusters ready and nav computer has been updated. Helm standing by."

"Shields and weapons are standing by," said al-Faisal.

"All decks standing by, Captain," finished Brenz, whom as usual was at the captain's right.

"Well, time to get this show on the road," Kincade said with a chuckle. "Jerry, hail dock control."

"Channel open, sir," K'Doss said.

"McKinley Control, this is the Yorktown," he announced. "Requesting permission to depart."

"This is dock control, Yorktown," a female voice answered over the intercom. "Clearance to depart granted."

"Acknowledged," Kincade stated. "Clear all moorings. Thrusters at station keeping."

"Moorings deactivated," said K'Doss.

"Thrusters at station keeping," added his wife.

"Aft..." the captain started to say before catching himself, glancing back and forth between his wife and XO. "Screw it. Ahead one quarter impulse power."

"Ahead one quarter impulse power, aye sir," Danielle said, turning briefly to flash the captain a smirk over his order to intentionally violate velocity regulations for their departure.

Seeing his crew together again alongside his wife made Kincade realize what it had taken to get here and the friends that had come and gone between the first time he had ordered the Yorktown out into space and now. Gone now were the likes of Garv, Richard Hawthorne, Grant West, Carla Bianchi, Dr. Carter, T'Mar, and Relek. The ship and her crew had weathered conflict and catastrophe and now they were on their way to do what every Starfleet officer dreamed of. The pain of the loss of T'Mar and Relek still lingered, as did the realization that their deaths were the result of his actions, but somehow his marriage and his new mission made the problem seem distant. Like the deaths of Garv and Hawthorne, they'd stay with him forever, but now was the time for him and his crew to lose themselves in the depths of unexplored space.

"We've cleared the dock, Captain," Danielle reported.

"You know, Jack, you've never said exactly where we're going," Brenz pointed out.

"That'd be nice to know, especially since I'm driving," commented the helmswoman.

"Hell, he didn't tell me where we were getting married until we got there," Michelle added.

"Patience, people," Kincade said with a chuckle. Some things never change around here. "Danny, lay in a course for Sector 815-H, warp factor seven."

"Now that's a ways away," commented Acton, who hovered around the port side of the bridge.

"Course laid in, Captain," said Danielle.

"Well, time we found out what is out there for a change," the captain said with a whimsical smirk. Kincade leaned forward in his chair before adding, "Engage."

The warp engines of the starship Yorktown sprang to life and the ship shot to warp speeds, for the first time heading off into the unknown...





Captain's Personal Log: Supplemental

USS
Yorktown now underway on her first mission of exploration, an assignment that puts the last four years seemingly further in the past than it actually is. While the effects over the loss of two of my former officers...my friends...will likely linger with this crew for the rest of our journey together, embarking out into the unknown has breathed new life into what could have been a very sorrowful ship. Perhaps we, and by extension myself, are still in denial. Relek and T'Mar died because of my decisions over the past year. My former mentor, who now I probably understand better than I ever have before, is now a member of the organization that helped to orchestrate those events.

And yet, things are somehow different. When I look upon the faces of my crew, both new and old, there's a new sense of optimism that hasn't been prevalent since this ship first left the yards. Maybe, if I were to think egotistically as I sometimes do, my marriage has something to do with it, maybe not. Perhaps it's the same feeling that's happened on any other ship since the days when Zefram Cochrane first fired up the warp engine of the
Phoenix; that no matter how painful and devastating our recent past has been, there is something special to look forward to in venturing into the unknown. For whenever in our history we have explored strange new worlds, we've found a purpose that's rejuvenated our collective spirits.

Well, enough rambling. Time to boldly go where no one has gone before for a change…
 
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