Star Beagle Adventures, Episode 1: The Eye of the Beholder

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 1: Eye of the Beholder
Scene 28: The Backs of their Heads

1.28
The Backs of their Heads​

PFC Sean Young quickly took his bearings, then got down to the deck as Major Carter signaled him. They had beamed in on a scaffolding overlooking the ore processing floor, the largest area on the trill mining ship, Tyr’phoyx 8. The two trills were dismantling the primary ore processing machine, clearly intent on something located deep inside the machine.


Carter was surveying the area and observing the trills with field glasses - which consisted of a filter she could attach directly to the visor on her EVA helmet. As Young started to get up, she grasped the handle on the front of his EVA suit, pulling him back down to the scaffolding. She pressed her helmet against his so that he could hear her: “No sudden movements. They have eyes in the back of their heads. Three of them.” She handed Young the field glasses.

Young felt a chill run up his spine as he viewed the trill mining engineers - a triangle of eyes in the backs of their heads moving independently - looking about as the bodies they had merged with - or grown out of - were completely engaged in disassembling the machine they were working on.

Carter signaled him. For centuries, the U.S. Marines had refined a complex and rich sign language for field tactics that every marine was required to be fluent in. And like the other marines on this mission, Young had committed the manual for the trill mining ship to memory.


Their targets have eyes in the backs of their heads? Okay. There was a solution for that.


Carefully, quietly, Young and Carter moved in different directions. Young set his hand phaser for heavy stun, field effect and his phaser rifle for a 1-inch diameter, solid cutting beam. He checked his position, checked Carter’s position, then, using the sights on his phaser rifle, carefully measured the opposite wall. Carter was measuring the floor. He found his spot and could verify from her movements that Carter had found hers. They fired nearly in unison - Young at the opposite wall and Carter at the floor. Carter rolled to her back, found her secondary target, hit it, and the lights went out.

The marines’ helmets automatically adjusted to infrared combined with a heads up tactical display (HUD). At the same time the visors in their helmets became opaque to prevent the HUD lights from being visible to the enemy.

Young crawled four feet, then stood, grasped the railing of the catwalk and leapt over it. The gravity boots in his EVA suit counteracted the ship’s artificial gravity to slow his fall just enough for a safe landing. He rolled and charged through the darkness toward the trills.

Both Young and Carter lobbed golfball-sized power sinks as the trills turned flashlights on them. And the flashlights went out. The trills rushed forward toward where they had last seen the marines. But both had moved out to flank. Young and Carter hit the trills with heavy stun from their hand phasers - which seemed to have little effect on the trills. In the next moment they grappled, used injectors in the third finger of their left glove to inject the trills and with that, triggered the shuttle’s transporter, and both the marines and the two 5-eyed trills vanished in the transporter beam.

1.28​

 

[Will The Serious]

Go Marines. OO-RAH!

One of my favorite moments in the old Duke Nukem game was Duke coming around the corner to see the corps of the marine from Doom. "Damn, that's one domed space marine," he quipped.

Impressive action. Nothing as enjoyable as a well oiled machine at work.

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Impressive action. Nothing as enjoyable as a well oiled machine at work.

Thanks for the kind words... More action from the U.S. Marines coming up... Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 1: Eye of the Beholder
Scene 29: Hell’s Engine Room

1.29
Hell’s Engine Room​

While the teams that beamed onto the bridge, into medical and the mess had a much easier time than Carter and Young, their plans going off without a hitch, this was not the case for the much larger team that beamed into the main engineering section for the Tyr’phoyx 8.

Unlike the ore processing floor, a few well placed shots to the power conduits would not be able to put out the lights in engineering. While the warp core had been jettisoned, the impulse power plant had no shortage of power and the lighting was directly connected.


The trills were scattered about the room, diligently building what could only be a replacement warp core. Where they would obtain the drive plasma or the antimatter remained a mystery, but one that would need to be solved later.

The away team from the Puppy beamed in in two groups of five, located on either side of the engineering section. Captain Howard and Lance Corporal Salas beamed in to the center of the room, just in front of the walled off space where the original warp core had been before it was ejected. A large biomass was attached to this wall - the captain’s first in-person view of the so-called jellyfish he had seen in the telemetry from the planet. The plant was feeding directly on energy being generated in this room - little tongues of electricity could be seen inside along with swarms of mushrooms…They looked more like thumb-sized cauliflowers.

But the most prominent feature of the creature was an enormous eye, the size of a basketball - swarms of smaller eyeballs could be seen swirling inside.

Captain Howard activated the external speaker in his EVA suit: “Hi there! I know you can hear me and understand me through the trills. I am Captain Ronald Howard the 14th of the United Feder….woah…”

Lance Corporal Maria Salas had beamed in holding the handle on the back of the captain’s EVA suit. She pulled him back and neatly stepped around him as swarms of thumb-sized eyeballs spewed out of the pupil of the gigantic eye. Instead of splattering onto the captain’s suit, they splattered onto Salas’s suit, vanishing as soon as they hit.


The other teams of marines were swarmed with eyeballs, slamming into their EVA suits, impeding their attempt to get to the trills, who themselves were reaching for weapons. The marine weapons were set to heavy stun, wide effect, which knocked down any eyeballs caught in the beam effect, but did not seem to have much effect on the trills. As quickly as the trills armed themselves, they responded with cutting beams that started to ablate the marine EVA suits, eating through the layers of armor.

Lance Corporal Salas lifted a weapon that looked like a flare gun. A billowing plume of flame issued out of the barrel, enveloping the flying eyeballs and turning them into shrieking, hissing balls of purple flame. She stepped forward, the plume from her weapon reaching out for the giant eye that was attached to the warp core shell wall… when the giant eye detached itself and tried to escape the flames by sailing straight up… Salas tracked the creature with her weapon and hundreds of flaming eyeballs exploded out of it. What was left of the giant, flaming eye crashed and splashed and glooped down on her, merging with her suit and entering it, setting her on fire inside her suit.

Flaming eyeballs shrieked around the room, slamming indiscriminately into trills, marines and Captain Howard. Howard clicked a control inside his suit, triggering the transporter to retrieve the marines and himself from the growing inferno. Some of the marines were holding onto trills. Three marines were down, including what was left of Lance Corporal Salas, incinerated inside her own EVA suit.

Scant seconds after the transporter beam had evacuated the Puppy’s away team, the heat in engineering reached a critical point, igniting the thruster fuel, overcoming the firewalls in their fuel cells.

The Puppy pulled away from the Tyr’phoyx 8 just as the trill mining ship began to rip itself apart from series of explosions. A stream of eyeballs followed the task shuttle as it accelerated away from the planet and the exploding remnants of the trill mining ship.


Inside the vulcan-designed shuttle, the transporter activated, causing the inert figures of Sergeant Tommy Richards and 2nd Lt. Piper Akerele to vanish, leaving only a swirling mass of eyeballs in the cabin. Green gas quickly filled the cabin, causing the eyeballs to fall to the floor, inert. The rear hatch opened, evacuating the cabin of atmosphere, green atomized fungicide and inert eyeballs as the shuttle pulled away from the swarm of following eyeballs. The rear hatch closed again as the vacant ship enacted its program and entered warp, headed back toward the waiting Star Fleet and Ferengi Alliance task forces.

A volley of five micro-photon torpedoes issued from the rear tube - the entire complement carried by the shuttle. Two went to destroy the abandoned mining skiffs. The remainder were aimed at the Tyr’phoyx 8’s already nearly demolished engineering section.

1.29​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 1: Eye of the Beholder
Scene 30: Countersign

1.30
Countersign​

“Beagle, this is the U.S.S. Escort, Rhonda Carter commanding.”

“Escort, this is the U.S.S. Beagle, Dutch Holland commanding, we read you, go ahead.”

“Commander Holland, we have eyes on the Puppy. It is arriving along the expected vector, Warp 3. Telemetry indicates no life signs aboard. The rear hatch is open, along with all interior bulkheads, leaving the interior of the shuttle entirely exposed to space. We are reading no atmosphere and no organic matter.”

“Understood, Captain Carter. How about those buffers?”

“Stuffed to the gills and bulging.”

“Escort, you are clear to signal the Puppy.”

“Signal away. Countersign received. The Puppy is now coming out of warp and responding to all stop off our starboard bow. Sensor readings confirm the telemetry. No life signs, no atmosphere, no organic matter present, the rear hatch is open and the entire interior exposed to space. Sending visual and all sensor readings. No other contacts present, no anomalous readings. Commander, you are clear to come pick up your progeny.”

“E.T.A. 15 minutes, Captain, thank you for the assist.”

“Good luck, Commander. We all hope you find what you are looking for.”

1.30​

 

[BountyTrek]

Not sure if that all went down as planned. But it certainly went down.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Not sure if that all went down as planned. But it certainly went down.

I do eventually explain all of the Treknobabble miracles that occur in my stories. But not immediately. I like to preserve a sense of wonder before explaining how the trick was pulled. And give the reader a chance to figure it out first...

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 1: Eye of the Beholder
Scene 31: 68 Seconds

1.31
68 Seconds​

General Krank and Captain Rhonda Carter had spent so much time together that they might as well have gotten married. Both had lost their wives to the jem’hadar in the war. They found Captain Skip Howard in the well - a zero gravity sensor nexus in the forward section of the U.S.S. Beagle that was not generally populated except during maintenance cycles.

The room was a long corridor defined by three walls, essentially creating a triangular space. There was no general lighting - but illumination from dozens of colored indicators created a variety of shadows and illuminated the occupants of this area with patches of different colored light.

There was sufficient room in this area to sit, cross-legged, without touching any of the walls or machinery - which is what Captain Howard was doing. It was a position that General Krank could not assume, so he stabilized himself with a hand against one wall and a foot against another. Captain Carter was small enough to simply float in the area. For a long moment, no one spoke.


General Krank was surprised to find himself breaking the silence. “I knew we were only firing to disable that bird of prey. But it was like pushing my fingers through heavy clay to reach the firing controls.”

It was a few seconds before Howard turned to look at the elderly klingon. His green eyeshadow was heavily smudged and his eyes looked haunted. “How are you, Krank?”

“Concerned about you, Captain Howard,” Krank replied.

At this point, the aft door into the maintenance corridor opened and Major Janet Carter pushed off and floated into the area. She was much bigger than her older cousin. She took up a position similar to Krank’s.


“How many?” Howard asked.


“Sir, we rescued 11 trills and lost 4 marines,” Major Carter replied.

“All in my group?” Howard asked.

“You took the most dangerous assignment, sir. I took the second. Not an optimal use of command personnel.”

“I didn’t go to war like the rest of you,” Howard said. “I had no idea. This wasn’t war, but it felt like it. I’ve never lost people before.”

Major Carter took a breath. “I reviewed the video we captured in there. It’s so chaotic that you really can’t learn much from it. That thing you were trying to make first contact with - it looked like something straight out of a nightmare. And it was not friendly.”

Howard was no longer looking at her. Major Carter maneuvered around General Krank, then around her cousin. She assumed a seated position, cross legged. She steadied herself against a wall to keep from spinning in the zero gravity and ended up oriented slightly differently than Howard.

“They’re calling it ‘Hell’s Engine Room.’ Captain, you were in that place for 68 seconds. You went in with 11 marines. You came out with 11 marines. In a situation like that, that is what is expected of a commanding officer.”

“Four of them died,” Howard responded, hollowly.

“You can’t always bring all of them home alive, sir,” Major Carter replied. “But you are bringing all of them home. It was your planning and your understanding of what we were getting into that made that possible. They’re speaking very highly of you. And they’re proud of bringing back so many of those trill miners. It was a successful mission.”

“Doesn’t feel like a success to me.”

“Don’t ever let them hear you say that, sir.”

“Lance Corporal Salas?” Howard asked.

“Exchanged her life for yours,” Carter replied. “Private First Class Monica Johnson. Private First Class Susan Taylor. Private First Class Jeremy Stoltz.”

“I will write to their families.” Howard steepled his fingers, buried his nose in them. Black fingernail polish. Smudgy green eyeshadow. “I won’t forget them.”

Janet Carter put her hand on his shoulder without looking at him. “You never do.”

1.31​

 

[BountyTrek]

Big moment for a captain. Will be interesting to see how that impacts Skip’s character from hereon in.

Still loving the wacky set design.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

...Still loving the wacky set design.

Part of why I wanted the Beagle to be a refurbished vulcan-built ship. There is a reason that an old Star Fleet hull wouldn't work and that they needed the vulcan ship for the experimental improvements...

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 1 : Eye of the Beholder
Scene 32: The Grand Nagus Rom

1.32
The Grand Nagus Rom​

Daimon Ubok was very upset that the results of the mission did not include sterilization of the 6th planet in the D, Red South 179 system. And he was coldly making the captain of the U.S.S. Mako, Yui Song, aware of his intense displeasure.

“Considering that your mission did not include eliminating the threat, we will have to assess our costs in this effort. You got what you came for and have not repaid us for allowing your ships into our space and the accompanying costs for this mission. My accountants estimate…”

The image of an apparently bored Captain Yui Song was suddenly replaced with the face of the Grand Nagus, Rom - or rather the image of his face, expressed in gold on his staff of office. The announcement was not in his voice, but in the voice of a powerful and widely disliked director for the Ferengi Commerce Authority, Brunt, whose new job was to be Rom’s emissary from the FCA. Rom had chosen well - Brunt’s voice and his reputation tended to cause opposition to the Grand Nagus’ wishes to wither like dry brush in a firestorm.

“Stand by for a message from the Grand Nagus!” came Brunt’s voice.

Rom had obtained superb political advice and had become extremely careful with his public image. The screen faded to black slowly around the image of his golden face, which gleamed more brightly.

“We congratulate our friends from the Federation and thank them for removing the threat posed by the Tyr’phoyx 8 and its inhabitants in proximity to D, Red South 179. We understand a certain level of reporting will be required, but we request that all information regarding this mission be treated as diplomatic top secret, in keeping with the requirements of the 2nd Treaty of Deep Space 9. We wish you safe passage from our home space, but ask that you remain a few moments longer.”

The golden face was replaced by an image of the space just outside of Ubok’s ship, the F.M.V. Avretta and the U.S.S. Mako. Into that space, a much larger ferengi cruiser shimmered into view as it decloaked.

Rom’s voice continued. “We request to dock with the U.S.S. Mako so that Project Director Pel, and only Project Director Pel, may board for debriefing, then return to the U.S.S. Mako with a special offer from the Grand Nagus.”

1.32​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 1: Eye of the Beholder
Scene 33: Asylum

1.33
Asylum​

“I knew your secret the moment I met you.” Captain Skip Howard was meeting with Captain Yui Song and Project Director Pel in Yui Song’s ready room following Pel’s return to the U.S.S. Mako.

“How did you know?” asked Pel.

“One old girl to another,” Howard said. “I have an instinct for when I’m being lied to. And your entire life is a lie. Don’t worry, I won’t expose you here, although Song will probably figure it out in time.”

Captain Yui looked quite annoyed, but kept her silence.

Pel was clearly ashen. The tiny ferengi took a deep breath. “I am here to formally request asylum, and safe passage to your first port of call outside of ferengi space.”

Yui answered with a single word: “Why?”

Pel seemed to deflate - making him seem even smaller than usual. He sighed. “There is a political movement among ferengi females, seeking increased rights. Clothing. Managing capital. Business ownership. Honored Mother - that’s what the movement is called. But there’s a splinter group, an apocalyptic religious cult that wants to restore the ancient matriarchy. Honored Grandmother. They believe our civilization has to fall back to a barbaric state before they can build their utopia. Intelligence says those females on that bird of prey were HG terrorists. They’ve been blamed for a lot of cybercrimes, taking down the exchange. But if they’re behind this…” Pel shuddered. His voice trailed off.

“That still does not explain why the Nagus is sending you into exile,” Yui observed.

Pel had a far away expression. “It has come to light that I facilitated a few business deals for some of the Honored Mothers who have now been identified as members of the Honored Grandmother cult. I made a profit, which has been confiscated. Most of my holdings have been frozen. The Nagus is a good man. If everything settles down in the next five years, he will allow me access to some of my accounts. Maybe someday I’ll even get to go home.”

Yui Song’s expression softened.


Pel took a deep breath and looked up. “So how did you do it? Jump a light year in less than a second to attack that bird of prey? Survive those brain thingies slamming into your bodies?”

“I’d like a few of those answers too, Skip,” Captain Yui added.

“Well, the technology behind those apparent ship movements is classified,” Howard said. “But I suppose you guessed that we had programmed the Puppy’s computer to return to the task force and surrender control to the U.S.S. Escort. We, the trills and a whole bunch of baby beholders were stored in the transporter buffer. Just before we beamed over to the trill ship, we injected ourselves with fungicide. At that point we had no more than an hour to live before that poison killed us too, but it killed the beholders on contact. Which was a good thing.”

Howard removed a grain from the corner of his eye with a lavender polished fingernail. “When they recovered us from the pattern buffer, each one of us had gained 3 to 5 pounds. That's how many of those little eyeballs passed through our EVA suits and right into our bodies. Dr. Uto and his team extracted the fungicide out of us too, but we’re still in for a few weeks of medical treatment to manage the toxic shock - and, in the case of the survivors of Hell’s Engine Room, 2nd and 3rd degree burns. It has not been pleasant.”

“I’ve heard the trills are recovering,” Yui song observed. “So now they can stand trial when they get home.”

“How did you know they would recover?” Pel asked.

“Like I told you,” Howard replied, “They’re trills. Their species co-evolved to share their consciousness with an intelligent parasite - the symbionts. If anyone can recover from infestation by an intelligent parasite, it would be a trill.”

Yui stood up, turned her attention to Pel. “Ensign Peterman will escort you to your quarters, Project Director.”

Pel stood up. “Not Project Director anymore. I’m afraid it’s just Trader Pel, now.” He walked to the door out of the captain’s ready room, turned just before exiting: “Thank you, Captain.”




Skip Howard stood as Pel exited. “Trader Pel,” he echoed.

“More like Agent Pel,” said Yui. “His left ear is a prosthetic. It includes a sophisticated transmitter…”

“Prosthetic ear,” Howard echoed. “You don’t say…”

Yui’s eyes suddenly opened wide. “You… He…” She facepalmed, then shook her head. “Am I blind? Or just that stupid? You knew right away, didn’t you?”

Howard giggled. Then sighed. “Humans tend to think of gender as something fixed. Immutable. Even when the biology of gender fluidity is staring us all right in the face. Our species has a marked deafness toward biology when it tells us something we aren’t ready to hear. And the follies that arise from those misunderstandings are many and not always amusing.” He lightly brushed his eyebrow with a lavender nail. Matched to his eyeshadow.

Yui continued shaking her head. “Well, our next port of call is Deep Space 9. We’re to turn the trills over to representatives from the Federation Tribunal and await our various new assignments. It has been quite the adventure, Skip.”

Skip Howard smiled. “Somehow, I don’t think the adventure is over with just yet.”

The Eye of the Beholder​

Notes:

This is the final scene for Episode 1.

The adventure continues in Episode 2: Astral Traveller.

Episode 1 is nearly three times as long as the average episode for the Star Beagle Adventures. ​

 

[Will The Serious]

Ha ha ha, Honored Mother Pel. I knew it. Not really; only when Skip Howard said, "one old girl to another."

Again, excellent puzzle piecing at the end.

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Ha ha ha, Honored Mother Pel. I knew it. Not really; only when Skip Howard said, "one old girl to another."...Again, excellent puzzle piecing at the end...

Thanks for the kind words!! Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes series are very much inspirations for this series - Skip being an amalgam of both the great detective and the old girl who invented and chronicled him.

I wanted to write a legitimate hero who is not only gay, but queer. Having a series character (even though Pel only appeared in one episode of DS9) who is transvestite, just sweetens the deal.

Thanks!! rbs

 

[BountyTrek]

Really fun opening episode. Glad to see that Pel is sticking around, and looking forward to seeing more adventures for another interesting crew with an equally interesting ship.