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Star Trek: Fallen Heroes

That would make for a great writing competition: Come up with suitable adjectives for the poor characters of Fallen Heroes!

I was going to say that the story isn't over yet, but that can be interpreted as both worrisome and reassuring.

I'll just close with Sledge Hammer's famous words: Trust me, I know what I'm doing ;)
 
And we're back with a chapter so new my keyboard's still smoldering! As always, I will upload it in four parts, with a new chapter segment released every Friday. Here's the first segment. Enjoy!

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Fallen Heroes Book 2 - Chapter 6a (of 9)

Captain Stephan Rinckes is lost in thought, figuring out how to get as many members of his crew as possible to survive. For now, he’ll have to focus on keeping the three officers riding the turbolift with him safe. “Discard your combadges”—he plucks his combadge from his jacket and tosses it to the floor—“so they can’t track us once we’ve left the turbolift.” The others do as he says.

Commander Erin Crow and Lieutenant Tony Blue stand side-by-side, shoulders touching for the smidgeon of comfort it brings. “We should switch turbolifts at the earliest opportunity,” Crow says.

Doctor Chris Kingsley leans against the wall and looks at Rinckes and Crow. “You two are the only ones with the authority to cancel the auto-destruct sequence. The S’Prenn will stop at nothing to control you.”

“The sooner we get to shuttle bay 4, the better,” Rinckes says, operating the turbolift LCARS display, which shows a cutaway diagram of the Achilles. “We’ll switch lifts on deck 5, section 14.” From the corner of his vision, he sees Tony has grabbed a tricorder. The lieutenant is typing into it while frowning. On the rear of the tricorder, a small depression houses an emergency transport unit. “Could that transport me and Erin to shuttle bay 4?”

“Yes, sir,” Tony says, “though configuring one of these is a bit of a—”

With an ear-piercing screech, the turbolift grates to a halt, a maneuver so rough its four occupants hit the deck. Rinckes bangs his head against Kingsley’s knee but is up in an instant. For a second he fears the incident has blinded him, but the lift has simply gone dark, its power cut. “Everyone all right?”

A vertical strip of light two meters high starting half a meter above the floor draws their attention. Pallid fingertips slip through from top to bottom, prying the turbolift doors open inch by inch.

“Phasers!” Rinckes shouts. He and his underlings back up against the lift’s wall to keep as much distance between them and the wriggling fingers. Rinckes presses the fire button on his phaser and shoots the first pair of hands, causing them to retract from the doorway. At least the S’Prenn experience pain via their host, which serves them right. Another pair of hands appears without delay. There must be a horde of S’Prenned crewmembers behind the door, and they have the distinct advantage of holding the high ground.

Kingsley and Crow assist Rinckes by firing at the slowly widening gap through which dilated pupils and foaming mouths grow visible.

“Surrender,” one of the taken—a young woman—growls. “Do not postpone the inevitable or we will tear Blue and Kingsley to shreds.”

To hear the S’Prenn speaking these vile words through the disfigured officer disturbs Rinckes to the core. In a violent act of mercy, he kills her and her puppeteer with a well-aimed shot. Even though he has no alternative, shooting his own crew goes against everything he stands for as a starship captain. How he wishes he were on the bridge, leading his faithful subordinates, instead of being trapped like a rabbit in its hole with predators digging their way in.

“S’Prenn incoming!” Crow shouts, adjusting her aim at the foot-wide arachnids scrabbling through the gap to tumble into the lift or sneak up the door slabs.

“Concentrate on the S’Prenn,” Rinckes says. “I’ll handle the S’Prenned.” If anyone should carry the burden of harming former shipmates, it should be their captain.

Despite Kingsley and Crow’s incessant firing and Tony’s valiant attempts to stomp any S’Prenn within range, the trickle of S’Prenn crawling in swells to a wave. With a decisive thud, the S’Prenned men and women open the turbolift doors fully. Two of them die by their captain’s hand in a single sweeping phaser hit. It’s hard to make a proper estimate from this low angle, but Rinckes guesses there are at least ten of them in the corridor. Two S’Prenned security officers jump into the turbolift together, arachnid and humanoid arms extended. Rinckes manages to shoot the first, who slumps to the stained carpet upon hitting the floor, eliciting a scream from Tony, before the second grabs the captain’s wrists.

“You will join us,” the mutated officer says, saliva dripping from his fangs. He pins Rinckes against the wall, which is alive and moving with spider legs. “You will be our captain again.”

With his wrists held above his head, his handphaser aimed at the ceiling, S’Prenn scratching at his back, and moments from being taken over by a heartless creature that will subdue his will and identity to serve the Altonoids, Rinckes stares into the ghostly face of a man who would’ve given his life to protect his captain. That man is still in there somewhere, struggling in vain against his S’Prenn master. The security officer’s blanched complexion, opaque eyes, and protruding fangs notwithstanding, the captain discerns subtle Coridan peculiarities around the mouth and eyebrows. “Ensign Munroz,” Rinckes says.

A hint of recognition crosses Munroz’s features.

“You did all you could, Ensign.”

Rinckes flips the phaser so it lies flat in the palm of his hand, points it at Munroz’s scalp from above, and presses the trigger button with his ring finger. Munroz dies in a flash of light, freeing Rinckes just as two S’Prenn clamber onto his shoulders. The arthropod duo raise their palps at each other, presumably to battle over who gets to control the Achilles’ captain. Competing for dominance, they creep toward Rinckes’ neck.

While bright phaser beams shine in from the corridor, Rinckes slams himself backward into the wall to rid him of these clingy arachnids, to no avail. S’Prenn are persistent.

Tony, also the persistent type, clutches the two S’Prenn with his bare hands, rolls them into a ball, and dropkicks them out through the open doorway. He follows up with a yell that’s part annoyed huff, part war cry. “I’m so fed up with them!” S’Prenn blood covers his face, sleeves, and pant legs.

Before Rinckes can express his gratitude, a mildly surprised blonde woman appears in the doorway. “I’m not fond of them either,” she says, her phaser rifle’s barrel fuming from activity. “Ensign Marian Horsch reporting, sir. Corridor is clear.”

The same cannot be said of the turbolift they’re in; its deck is lined with S’Prenn—half of them dead. Rinckes lets Horsch pull his senior officers into the corridor and protects them by firing at everything that moves on the walls and floor.

The ensign hoists her captain out last. S’Prenned officers are lying everywhere, narrowing the hallway, filling it with a burning stink. Most of them were shot by Horsch and her three fellow officers, who are currently firing into the turbolift to ensure nothing follows them out. Horsch, in her mid-twenties and built like a gymnast, is the only security officer of the bunch; her colleagues—two men and one woman—wear science division uniforms and carry their phaser rifles with less confidence than their de facto leader.

“This way to the escape pods, sir,” she says.

Rinckes collects a phaser rifle from a dead officer and passes it to Tony. There should be a weapons locker nearby for them to upgrade from handphasers to rifles. A wise precaution, because he wonders how long it will take for the S’Prenned to risk returning fire. “Thank you, Ensign Horsch, but we’re going elsewhere.”

“S’Prenned bridge officers have made it no secret you’re going to shuttle bay 4. It’s on every wall panel. I strongly recommend you come with us or at the very least choose a different shuttle bay.”

“Not happening.” He opts to keep the reasons for this particular shuttle bay’s importance secret. All it takes is a S’Prenn accessing one of his confidants’ memories and his strategy becomes common knowledge. He learned that the hard way when he told the bridge crew which shuttle bay they should meet up in. “Computer, recognize voice pattern Stephan Rinckes. How much time until auto-destruct?”

“Ten minutes and thirteen seconds.”

Crow exhales through her teeth. “We’ll never make it scurrying through Jefferies tubes.”

“We’ll have to chance riding another turbolift,” Rinckes says. Based on his familiarity with this deck, he determines which lift will get them there quickest. Provided they can get there fast enough, he is willing to share this information with the group. “The one in section 7 should suffice. Agreed?”

“Oh, please,” Kingsley says. “I’m done with turbolifts for today.”

“It’s our only shot,” Crow says.

“Fine…”

Horsch scratches her chin, smearing it with S’Prenn blood. “At least let us escort you there.”

“Negative,” Rinckes says. He sets off, signaling his senior officers to do the same. “Your orders are to evacuate. Head to the closest shuttle bay if you think it will increase your odds.”

“With respect, we’re with you, Captain.” Horsch and her team catch up with them. “It’s the least we can do.”

Rinckes pauses to remind her of the chain of command’s application in crisis situations. However, after staring the four junior officers in the eyes and seeing their determination and allegiance, undeserved as they may be, he nods his approval. “Double file. Take point, Ensign.”

Horsch nods back, telling him in one look she accepts that her gesture of loyalty may have sealed her and her team’s fate. They may not be able to change the hell they’re in, but they will tread fire and brave the flames to serve their captain once more.

* * *

Lieutenant Tony Blue and Ensign Marian Horsch lead their group into the fourth consecutive corridor filled with S’Prenn and S’Prenned. Directly behind them, Captain Rinckes and Commander Crow provide covering fire with the phaser rifles they procured. Also armed to the teeth, Doctor Kingsley and the three science officers cover the rear. This ship will soon blow itself to dust, so they are purposefully running toward danger while letting loose with their phaser rifles.

“Two lefts and two rights and we’re at turbolift 7-K,” Horsch says. Tony is sure nobody but him heard her in the din of combat.

“Press on!” Rinckes shouts. Moments ago, the captain had instructed the ship’s computer to raise lighting levels, hoping to thwart the S’Prenn by using their photosensitive skin against them, even though the interior lighting is in subpar condition throughout the ship, but the abominations residing on the bridge had had the foresight to lock out voice commands on such systems. And so, the hallways are poorly lit as usual. This renders intersections a challenge because they have the tendency to conceal threats until they’re on top of you. There are few crewmembers remaining who haven’t escaped or succumbed to a S’Prenn yet, and when they spot their captain being rushed past, they take it upon themselves to assist in expediting his journey and defending him from their positions.

These acts of support are becoming rare, and Tony is on the verge of instinctively shooting anyone wearing a Starfleet uniform, because most of them belong to S’Prenned individuals. He and Ensign Horsch clear a path by firing on sight at every enemy approaching over the carpet, bulkheads, and ceiling. Hitting their targets while running is quite demanding, so Tony mainly sticks to the left while Horsch handles the right. S’Prenn or S’Prenned who make it past their line of fire have to be picked off by the captain and the XO. It’s not ideal, but it’s effective for now. That is, until screaming erupts from the officers bringing up the rear. “Man down!” Kingsley shouts.

Tony sneaks a peek over his shoulder. A growing number of S’Prenned are after them, oblivious to how many they have to sacrifice to a tactic this insane, banking on the difficulties of their preys having to shoot in the direction they’re fleeing from. A quick headcount proves the home team is one officer short.

Refocused on the hallway ahead, Tony espies a S’Prenned woman clumsily taking aim with a phaser rifle. She hesitates, unwilling to hit the captain or the first officer. Doing so would ensure the Achilles’ destruction. Before she can reconsider, Tony ends her existence, repressing a pang of guilt over having to take two lives at once: that of a former colleague, and that of the S’Prenn controlling her. Both are victims to mind control in one way or another.

Behind them, horrific screaming indicates the loss of a second member of their team, sounding increasingly distant as the group pushes forward. “Dammit!” Kingsley says. “How much farther?”

“Not much!” Horsch replies.

Survival instinct prompts Tony to cast another look over his shoulder, in time to see two S’Prenned men leap from the darkness and tackle the science officer beside Kingsley to the ground. The young woman shrieks and reaches out for the running officers, who have no choice but to abandon her because the other S’Prenned are gaining on them.

Horsch signals the group into a right turn. As they swing around the corner, three S’Prenn jump out at them. One is too close to shoot, so Tony dives away in a reflex, and the spider soars past his head. Just as he wonders if Rinckes, Crow, and Kingsley can deal with the airborne S’Prenn, he notices many doors in this stretch of hallway have opened for S’Prenned to come stumbling out, forcing the group to slow down to eliminate these new targets.

“Hurry up, people!” Kingsley says, firing wildly at their pursuers.

“You don’t have to remind us.” Tony does his utmost to maintain a steady pace, but the complication of moving past rooms with opened doors has made clearing a path more taxing. He glances into the first room on the left.

Rinckes shoves him forward. “We can’t afford the delay, Lieutenant.”

“I know, but how else can I—”

Horsch screams as a S’Prenned technician emerges from the opposite room. She attempts to point her rifle at him, but he strikes her in the temple with a hyperspanner, knocking her out cold. As soon as she hits the deck, the merciless technician plants a foot in the small of her back to guard her until a S’Prenn accepts her as its new host.

Crow takes aim to shoot the man, but Kingsley drags her along. If he hadn’t, one of their chasers would’ve grasped her by the collar.

With Horsch out of the picture, Rinckes takes her place by Tony’s side. “Crow, Kingsley, forget about our six. All eyes forward!”

Phaser blasts from their four rifles zoom ahead to neutralize S’Prenn after S’Prenn, damaging the corridor even further. Wall panels explode, dangling light fixtures go dark, fresh char stains besmudge carpet and bulkheads. Tony’s mind goes blank as he loses himself in battle, selecting and subduing targets in an increasingly trancelike state—a blessing, considering the mayhem that surrounds him. His training kicks in to protect his psyche and adrenaline takes care of the rest. Despite Horsch’s fate, he forgoes checking every room he passes, feeling as if he is on rails, progressing through a holodeck shooting range, improving his score with each successful phaser hit.

Not knowing how he got there, Tony makes it to the final intersection along with his companions. “To the right!” he hears himself shout.

Only then does he see the S’Prenn crawling over Rinckes’ spine to his neck. Crow is behind the captain and raises her rifle before dismissing the idea to shoot at it. Instead, she squeezes her digits around the S’Prenn and tries to throw it away in mid-run. The S’Prenn thrashes its spider legs and bites her fingers. Startled, she lets go of it, allowing the furious arachnid to latch onto her face!

Where Tony and Rinckes take the required right turn, Crow goes straight ahead, desperately clawing at the S’Prenn attacking her. Kingsley trails her, trying to free her from the S’Prenn, which is coiling its legs around her neck to twist its scaly body closer to her brain. In her panic, she collides with the doctor, causing them both to lose their balance and sending them tumbling. Broken from his trance, Tony is once again inclined to slow down and assist.

Rinckes prevents this with a simple command: “No going back!” He’s right. The S’Prenned officers have followed Crow and Kingsley into the wrong corridor. This tragic diversion may have saved his and the captain’s lives. Sad as it may be, their singular objective remains: to reach turbolift 7-K and ultimately shuttle bay 4.

Tony has always been reasonably adept at estimating the passage of time—an instinct that stays intact during combat. How many minutes do they have left until the Achilles vaporizes in a matter/antimatter explosion? Tony settles for seven at most.
 
Ok then, so as far as frantic sci-fi action inside restrictive starship interiors with crawling creatures is concerned there is Aliens and then there is this.

The body count in this story is steadily climbing and it seems nobody is safe. Makes me wonder who'll be left standing at the end. Tony would be my guess, but honestly, I'm not so sure any longer.
 
Fallen Heroes - Book 2 of 2 - Chapter 6b (of 9)

There is the turbolift entrance. The promise of temporary refuge lures Tony and Rinckes closer. Tony is so focused on their destination and shooting the few scattered S’Prenn in their path that the click of an opening maintenance hatch barely registers with him. He is about to trigger the lift’s proximity sensors when Rinckes trips to the floor, firing blindly.

Behind them, an alien yet familiar voice asks, “Remember us, Captain?”

Tony pivots around and aims his rifle at Lieutenant Kels. Having grabbed the captain’s legs, she crawls on top of him, intending to pin him down as he lies prone on the floor. Her blue skin is discolored; her S’Prenn puppeteer’s eight spider legs complement her two antennae.

Something moves at the edge of Tony’s vision. When he spots its source, he draws in a rasping breath and watches aghast. Clinging to the ceiling upside down, Lieutenant Ernest Baxter looks through Tony with coal-black eyes and releases at least three of the six S’Prenn attached to his torso. There’s no sign of the helmsman’s benevolent personality or the friendship he and Tony shared. Locked up inside their minds by indoctrinated S’Prenn, Kels and Baxter must be horrified to be unwilling instruments of Tony and Rinckes’ potential demise, but they are lethal instruments nonetheless.

As Tony lowers his rifle to point its muzzle at the triad of S’Prenn creeping up on his struggling captain, Baxter’s tilted stare turns vicious. Tony shoots two of the phobia-inducing creatures as quickly as he can. A third one has already made it to Rinckes’ ear. The three other S’Prenn detach themselves from Baxter’s chest and land on the carpet.

The captain wriggles an arm loose and elbows Kels in the face, causing Tony to wince even though Rinckes has every right to defend himself. Blue blood streaming from her nose and onto her fangs, Kels hisses in anger while Tony takes out three S’Prenn scuttling dangerously close to the captain’s head. Rinckes repeatedly bashes Kels in the nose in an attempt to liberate himself. Even a regular Andorian would have called it quits by now, but her S’Prenn captor forces her to endure the beating and keep the captain in place.

Once Tony has shot the last S’Prenn, Kels changes tactics. She swings an arm around the captain’s throat and tightens her grip, then swivels her head to allow her S’Prenn to switch hosts. Its fangs’ intricate wiring retracts from her brainstem and reaches tentatively for the captain’s skin. Meanwhile, Baxter is inching toward Tony and getting ready to pounce.

Hesitation is not an option; to perform this precision shot, Tony lifts his rifle to peer through its scope at the S’Prenn preparing to seize the captain, holds his breath, and squeezes the trigger. The phaser blast strikes the S’Prenn dead center and smashes through its rigid carapace, which offers no protection whatsoever for poor Kels. The phaser blast strikes her in the neck and she goes limp in an instant.

An awful knot twists his stomach as Tony realizes what he has done, but he is given no chance to regret or mourn his snap decision, because Baxter jumps down from the ceiling and knocks the rifle out of his hands. Rinckes is still on the floor, reeling from his scuffle with Kels, and Tony is too shocked to react sensibly and ward off Baxter’s attack. Now that he bears responsibility for Kels’ death, how could he harm another of his dearest friends?

The mutated helmsman slams Tony against a bulkhead and presses his thumbs against his victim’s throat. “Why did you do that?!” Four arachnid arms confine Tony. “Monster! Do you have any idea how much my host cared for her? She didn’t have to die!”

Without the means to respond and lacking the resolve to defend himself, Tony permits Baxter’s verbal and physical assault to continue. In a distant recess of his mind, he does find it peculiar how Baxter’s S’Prenn is upset about Kels’ death and not the seven S’Prenn he shot in its presence. Perhaps the host’s influence, although negligible compared to a S’Prenn’s overpowering nature, is more prominent in the early stages of… It doesn’t matter.

“We would’ve served together on this ship, served our Altonoid masters! You robbed us of our destiny. We would have been together.”

Provided their assailants fail to subjugate Rinckes and access his vocal cords and memories, the Achilles will explode in a few minutes, ending this nightmare scenario and all its participants. Oxygen deprivation and remorse over Kels’ fate is already tricking him into a paradoxical calmness seducing him to surrender to the inevitable.

“I will not allow you to become one of us,” Baxter snarls. “You will die right h—” His bulging eyes go wide as the life is removed from them.

Baxter sags to the floor, revealing the S’Prenned Lieutenant Josh Donahue holding the S’Prenn he has ripped from the helmsman’s neck. The mortally wounded spider squirms and quivers until Donahue crushes it in his hand.

“E-Ernest,” Tony whimpers. “You killed…” Unsure how to react to his friends’ sudden deaths and the surprising reunification with something he’d tried his damnedest to forget, he stares at the abhorrence that chased him through the S’Prenn wreck.

Donahue regards his blood-soaked hand with disgust. “The Altonoids are our overlords.” Confusion taints his speech even more than the fangs in his mouth do. “They will lead us to glory.”

Rinckes scrambles to his feet and reclaims his and Tony’s rifles to aim both at Donahue. Tony raises a palm to hold the captain off and asks in a hoarse voice, “Josh, is it you?”

“The individual you call Josh Donahue is completely under my control.”

“We must go,” Rinckes says.

“If the Altonoids are so glorious,” Donahue continues, “why did they murder Kronn, his friends… his family? Was his heresy justified?”

Rinckes grabs Tony by the sleeve and hustles him into the turbolift.

Donahue keeps standing there, staring at his hand, while a new batch of S’Prenn pour in from across the corridor. “What if we’re wrong?”

Tony coughs and wheezes to enable himself to shout, against his better judgment, “Come with us!”

“Once freed, we shall retaliate,” Donahue mirrors Kronn’s dying words as he tightens his bloodied fist.

“Shuttle bay 4,” Rinckes instructs the turbolift. “We can’t risk bringing him.”

Donahue turns to face them, his ghoulish expression rueful. “What has become of us?”

“Come with us!” Tony prevents the turbolift doors from closing. He is aware of the foolishness of his behavior, incited by the fear of losing a third friend. “Please!”

Rinckes yanks Tony’s wrist free of the doorpost. “Pull yourself together!”

“Go,” Donahue says. “I don’t know how long I can resist… indoctrination… from the glorious Altonoids.”

As the doors slide shut, Tony shouts, “Find an escape pod! Get off the ship!”

Donahue gives him one last puzzled look before the doors close entirely and the turbolift starts its descent.

Rinckes releases his chief tactical officer’s wrist. “Focus on the present. That’s an order. We have to assume our position has been compromised. Prepare to switch turbolifts again.”

Tony would like nothing more than to let out a proper wail of sorrow, but he knows it must wait. The captain returns his phaser rifle to him. Tony is somewhat ashamed for having lost sight of it in the chaos. At least the captain is thinking straight, despite the horrible mess they’re in. The adrenaline pumping through Tony’s veins has no outlet with him stuck in the turbolift, cannot be transformed into defensive action, cannot prevent his mind from wandering to the horrors they fled. Travelling away from the corridor where his friends lie forsaken, Tony feels as if he has left an irretrievable part of himself there.

An announcement over the comm interrupts his spiraling thoughts. “All hands, this is Commander Erin Crow.” She does her best to sound normal, but her inflexion is tarnished by fangs. “I have cancelled my share of the auto-destruct sequence. All is well. Soon the captain will complete its cancelation. Please refrain from abandoning ship and surrender to the nearest S’Prenn. You will understand, as I do now.”

A cold chill runs down Tony’s spine and he suppresses another urge to grieve.

Rinckes remains steely-gazed. “We have them worried.” When he notices Tony is raising an eyebrow at him, he explains, “They’re starting to get polite.”

* * *

Doctor Chris Kingsley knows the Achilles in and out, yet the unmitigated disaster he finds himself in has a severe disorienting effect. He tried to rescue Commander Crow, tried to fight off the S’Prenn attaching itself to her neck, but all that his best efforts garnered was misplacing his rifle and losing track of Rinckes and Tony. While Crow lay convulsing on the floor, S’Prenn and S’Prenned had chased him deeper into the ship, where he is now, headed for sickbay, his harbor in a sea of madness.

Time is short, but he plans on gathering a few personal effects and checking if his medical staff managed to evacuate all patients before he’ll hop into an escape pod himself. Whatever Rinckes’ intentions were at the shuttle bay, he will not be part of it.

He pushes aside the rubber curtains leading into sickbay and enters the corridor, which stretches beyond the next corner. Transparent containers, left undisturbed by the S’Prenn sent by the Indefatigable and her conspirators, house dead or twitching S’Prenn unaware of the ship’s imminent demise.

How many S’Prenn had to suffer and die for the doctor’s hunt for the cure? Kingsley would rather not dwell on such statistics. Shame and self-reproach have no place in his job, not anymore, and these containers have simply blended into the scenery. He did what he had to do, and he’d do it again in a heartbeat. Yet, he recalls his days as a cadet at Starfleet Medical Academy. Hardly a straight-A student, he compensated his lack of innate talent with heaps of idealism and curiosity. The latter of which took quite a dark turn for him as despair set in on the Achilles.

A figure emerges from the far end of the hallway, shrouded in darkness.

“Doctor Kingsley,” the figure speaks. It’s Lieutenant Commander Jeremy Gibbs, wearing a hospital gown. At the current stage of his arduous recovery process, he has been able to go on sporadic walks. It surprises Kingsley he hasn’t been evacuated along with the rest of the patients.

“Are you all right, Commander?” Kingsley asks.

“Yes, Doctor,” Gibbs hisses. As he lumbers nearer, red alert panels illuminate his mutated face, the four spider arms having burst from his sides, and the eight trembling legs belonging to his S’Prenn master sticking out from behind his neck. Gibbs quickens his pace, striding more efficiently each consecutive step.

As Kingsley predicted in the treatment he had suggested, a linked S’Prenn is capable of rapidly improving the patient’s mobility by repairing damaged nerve pathways. Awestruck, he watches as Gibbs breaks out into a sprint until common sense kicks in and forces the doctor into a hasty retreat.

Even though it hinders his escape, Kingsley cannot resist looking back while fleeing to see his patient running flat-out. Because of this, Kingsley trips over a tube connecting a container to a bulkhead and goes sprawling. Scraping his wrists, he slides to a halt on the grimy floor.

Gibbs is on him in seconds and grabs him by the collar. Kingsley tries to punch his attacker, but Gibbs remains unfazed and drags him to a container in which a living S’Prenn sits pressed against the glass. The S’Prenn is tapping its tarsal claws in anticipation, eager to accept the doctor as its host. Luckily, it is separated from its would-be victim by half an inch of transparent aluminum; even a biologically souped-up Gibbs could not break it with his bare fists.

Still bent on having Kingsley merge with the captive S’Prenn, Gibbs throws Kingsley against the container. The doctor brushes off a sharp pain in his ribs to sit up right away and sneak a glance at the container. With a shudder, he realizes a single red indicator signals its emptiness. Then how…?

The S’Prenn crawls over the glass and onto the doctor’s shoulder. Kingsley was mistaken. This was never one of his wretched test subjects; it must have boarded the Achilles along with its fellow arachnid soldiers. With raisin eyes, it stares at the doctor as if to appraise him. It decides he is a suitable candidate and hops onto his neck.

Before it latches on, Kingsley curses through his teeth and addresses Gibbs one final time. “I told you the treatment would work!”

Gibbs frowns at him.

Needlelike wires sting Kingsley’s neck, producing an ever-increasing pain as they dig to his brainstem and gradually seize control of his motor functions. Already, the S’Prenn is asserting dominance in Kingsley’s psyche, sweeping his thoughts aside as undesirable and irrelevant. Each muscle in his body trembles and spasms. A sensation of overwhelming nausea comes and goes. Memories are ripped from his skull and new ones come flooding in, altering his personality, shaping him into someone he never was and never should have been.

Showing no mercy, the S’Prenn locks the doctor into a tiny room inside his mind, where he will be trapped indefinitely. The S’Prenn is the new owner of his body and soul and bends both to its will. Kingsley is remotely aware of Gibbs helping him to his feet. Together, they will find other misguided officers and help them see.

Help them see the Altonoids know what’s best.

Help them see this is the way to serve aboard the Achilles.

Help them see the auto-destruct has to be called off at all costs.

Help!
 
Could it be? Is it possible that there's a chance for the possessed after all? A glimmer of hope, perhaps? Even if the answer is yes, the way the body count is piling up here, there might not be anyone left to save in the end.
 
Fallen Heroes - Book 2 of 2 - Chapter 6c (of 9)

Captain Stephan Rinckes catches his breath as he studies the wall terminal next to shuttle bay 4’s entrance. “You think this is Lieutenant Donahue’s doing?”

“It has to be,” Lieutenant Tony Blue replies, clutching his phaser rifle with whitened knuckles. He has holstered his tricorder and its appurtenant emergency transport unit for now, having made progress with learning how to configure them during their subsequent turbolift rides.

Rinckes is grateful these rides were considerably less eventful than the first one—thanks to Josh Donahue, as it turns out. Somehow, having the proper authority as a S’Prenned officer, Donahue has altered the ever-present wall panel messages to mislead the invaders. It reads: “Mission critical. Captain Rinckes is headed to shuttle bay 1 instead of 4. He must be apprehended to cancel auto-destruct.”

Shuttle bay 1 is on a different deck, and with Rinckes and Tony’s combadges discarded, the S’Prenn cannot easily pinpoint their location. The captain regrets they had to leave Donahue to his own devices. Of course, the risks involved with bringing him along would have been unacceptable. Maybe they could’ve persuaded the S’Prenn controlling the lieutenant to release him, but such ideas are relegated to the benefit of hindsight. The way the situation has unfolded, Donahue’s cooperation has served them well.

Rinckes lifts his rifle in preparation of entering shuttle bay 4. “Computer, time until auto-destruct?”

“One minute, nine seconds.”

“Resume audio warning. Tony, together we’ll go right, rush over to shuttle pad 2-R, and take one of the Altonoid shuttles we procured.”

His chief tactical officer gives him a shaky nod.

“Stay on my six, whatever happens.”

“Aye, Captain. I’m with you.”

With the push of a button, Rinckes opens the entrance’s sliding doors. “Let’s go!” In unison, he and Tony step into the shuttle bay, which is spacious enough to accommodate ten shuttles of varying types. As they feared, S’Prenn and S’Prenned are roaming the bay. Rinckes spots at least fifteen of them. It could have been much worse. Donahue’s meddling has given the ragged duo a fighting chance.

Their entry has caught everyone’s attention, so Rinckes and Tony let loose with their phaser rifles as they hurry to the three auburn Altonoid shuttles sticking out like a sore thumb among their Federation counterparts. Altonoid engineers gave them a distinct style by incorporating a multitude of spikes along each shuttle’s outer hull for intimidation purposes.

“Auto-destruct in forty-five seconds.”

Though some S’Prenned officers are armed, they refrain from firing to avoid hitting the captain. He and Tony have no such restrictions and shoot at everything that shambles or crawls as they bolt for the nearest Altonoid shuttle. In the chaos, Rinckes loses count of their arachnid foes. He cannot incapacitate them all in time, so he homes in on the shuttle’s port interface and punches in the access code he remembers. Soon after, the vessel’s side hatch lowers to the bay floor.

Tony dives to the ground to dodge a jumping S’Prenn aiming for his neck and springs back up immediately to follow Rinckes into the bulbous cockpit, which houses eight seats divided by a center tunnel. The front stations harbor the shuttle controls: a hodgepodge of stolen technology from all major players in the Alpha and Beta Quadrant. The Altonoids have never been big on the value of intellectual property.

Tony seals the hatch and claims the copilot’s seat. “I assume you’re the undisputed expert at flying these.”

Rinckes, at the helm, looks about and tests a few displays and buttons to familiarize himself with this particular layout. Baxter—poor guy—never got the chance to try one of these out, so the captain’s piloting skills will have to suffice.

Presumably out of habit, Tony acquaints himself with the shuttle’s tactical console to identify its weaponry and related functions. As Rinckes recalls, these warp-capable vessels are outfitted with four modest phaser arrays and a cubion microtorpedo launcher. Its interface and intuitive targeting system appear to suit Tony just fine, because he reports, “Powering up weapons.”

A confused huddle of S’Prenned has gathered around the shuttle, unsure of their next move. Firing at the shuttle would risk harming the captain, whereas letting him depart would guarantee the Achilles’ destruction.

Rinckes solves their conundrum. “Ventral thrusters engaged.” The shuttle lifts off the deck. “Destroy those bay doors.”

“So… still not a fan of shuttle bay protocols?” Tony says offhandedly, a remark Rinckes chooses to ignore. As the shuttle dashes forward, the lieutenant orders its forward phaser array to disintegrate the vast doors, causing an instantaneous explosive decompression that blows all surrounding S’Prenn and S’Prenned into space along with the accelerating Altonoid shuttle.

Adjusting for violent turbulence, Rinckes guides the shuttle through fragments of charred shuttle bay doors, over the Achilles’ marred stern, and toward the shimmering portal set in an infinity of stars. Seven and a half years have passed since they first boarded this vessel via the same shuttle bay, to be welcomed by the late Keith Harriman waiting to debrief them. And now they are leaving, with Rinckes withholding the key to rescuing the Achilles, preferring her obliteration over her falling into enemy hands.

The Zhukov, Ironclad, Alaska, Triton, and their lead ship, the Indefatigable, have encircled the Achilles. With tractor beams and phasers, they assault her escape pods and shuttles, reeling in helpless evacuees and destroying those who threaten to get away. While Tony fires phasers and torpedoes at the immovable starships, Rinckes steers hard to port to evade a tractor beam ensnaring an escape pod and initiates a series of evasive maneuvers, inadvertently offering him and Tony front-row seats to their vessel’s final moments.

The weakened Achilles, controlled from the bridge by S’Prenned crewmembers, assists her treacherous sister ships by capturing a type 11 shuttle in her tractor beam and holding it there for the Triton to beam its occupants aboard, where they’ll be summarily S’Prenned. A final act of betrayal from a starship that has served them so well during her impossible five-year mission. She cannot be blamed for this; the debt she is owed could never be repaid in full. Her crew may have put her through hell, yet she has always provided for them. The Achilles was their home.

In milliseconds, a buildup of flames spreads from Achilles’ engineering section to engulf deck by deck, consuming her blackened secondary hull and spawning detonations that trigger larger explosions along its path. At its height, it covers every corner of the ship, tears off her starboard warp nacelle, sets corridors and rooms ablaze, bursts her exterior windows, and turns her bridge into an inferno. A bright star of colliding matter and antimatter forms in the center of engineering, combining all flames and explosions into a mushrooming shockwave of unbridled devastation, ripping the starship apart until nothing recognizable is left.

Something deep within Rinckes dies with the Achilles. She may have been an inanimate object, a collection of tritanium/duranium alloy and assorted building materials, a lifeless vessel, but its heart and soul were the people it transported across the stars. Their indescribable loss smothers the last vestige of his stoicism. He lacks the opportunity to reflect on these matters, however, as the oncoming shockwave strikes the bows of the nearby starships with enough force to affect their bearings, then threatens to envelop the shuttle.

“Brace for impact!” Rinckes shouts as he steers the shuttle into the expanding bubble of pulverized debris. No holds barred, the shockwave hits the shuttle and sends it barreling away from the carnage. Countless alert messages flood the cockpit as he wrestles sparking interfaces to take advantage of the momentary distraction the starships are dealing with and orient the shuttle toward the portal.

“Warp drive offline!” Tony shouts over beeping and hissing machinery. “Weaponry disabled. Shields are down. Structural integrity—”

Rinckes stops listening, fully intent as he is on bowing the damaged shuttle to his will. Ahead spins their view of the portal, closer than ever, a growing pool of white vapor and liquid drawing them in like insects to a bug zapper.

“I can’t get any proper readings on the anomaly,” Tony says, still pretty vocal for someone who is undergoing several g’s of centrifugal force. “We don’t know what it’ll do to us. Last chance to reconsider.”

“We’re going in.” Rinckes permits himself a glance at his flickering situational display. None of the starships are pursuing them yet, and there are few—if any—escape pods or Federation shuttles by their side. He and Tony are going it alone as far as he can tell. So be it.

By the time the captain has stabilized the shuttle, they’re freefalling toward the rippling puddle of light spanning the entire window dome, headache-inducingly bright despite the window’s filters protecting their vision. Size and distance are impossible to gauge with an anomaly this abstract, but it dwarfs their shuttle as it swallows them whole in an endless kaleidoscope of optical illusions.

This miracle cultivated by S’Prenn exudes beauty and serenity, and Rinckes is at a loss for words. It’s as if they’ve reached the gates of heaven. Perhaps they never made it off the Achilles and this is some kind of afterlife where they will be reunited with their dear colleagues. It is unbearable to think of the additional loss of life to his name, sullying his captaincy, his humanity, his very being, so he refuses to do so. As long as he has at least one crewmember with him, he remains the captain. “Shuttle status update.”

“We have sustained severe damage,” Tony replies, “but impulse engines and thrusters are functional. Hull breaches are being contained by force fields. The portal seems to have little effect on us. We’re traversing it with great ease, almost as if it’s but a mirage.”

Ahead, a solid wall of reflective diamonds arises and grows in size as they near it. “I hope that’s a mirage as well,” Rinckes grumbles.

“It doesn’t register on sensors.”

“I’m slowing us down. Boost power to sensors.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rinckes wants to halt the shuttle approximately twenty meters shy of the wall, which stretches out in each direction, but his input changes nothing. “We’re not decelerating.”

“Confirmed.” Tony’s fingers race over his console. “No idea why.”

Their current speed is 800 kph and the wall closing in appears solid and unyielding. The captain dismisses a tiny sliver of panic. “Must be part of the ride.”

While Tony braces himself and struggles not to flinch, Rinckes is not impressed, not when the wall is upon them, and not when they and their shuttle ghost straight through it.

Tony lets out a big sigh. “What a… unique design feature.” In the distance, a dark pinpoint surfaces dead center.

“Engines are responding again.”

The dancing, bright patterns surrounding them dissipate to be replaced by redshifted light and darkness beset with stars. Before long, the portal is but a fading glow framing the dome’s edges, so Rinckes focuses on resuming the battered shuttle’s navigation.

“Good grief!” Tony exclaims, startling the captain. “The rumors! They were… Look!”

Rinckes looks up from his controls. Fleets of Altonoid warships patrolling the area have come into view, a comprehensive collection of spacefaring enemy vessels divided into clusters of five to fifty ships. But what are they guarding? When he sees what Tony is pointing at, his blood runs cold.

Even from miles away, the captain recognizes the space station that haunts his dreams.
 
Fallen Heroes - Book 2 of 2 - Chapter 6d (of 9)

Outside Station A-12, former Federation space – December 22, 2387 – Stardate 64970.5

It beggars belief, but there it is: the infamous space station, its substantial damage suffered during the Station A-12 Debacle patched up with ill-fitting black and brown hull plating. For Lieutenant Tony Blue, this sight evokes a distant memory of the USS Wolf colliding with the station, although the intervening years have distorted his recollection to an extent. He had heard vivid descriptions of the event from Emily, who was there with him, but he is unsure of having seen the actual collision occur. He may have been too spellbound by the Kennedy’s drifting wreckage.

Regardless, in preparation for the Aragos Sector mission, he leafed through the entirety of their collated intel on this station, so he knew about the extended decks added to either side of the already sizeable space station, yet seeing it in real life stumps him. It clashes with how he remembers this structure from his last visit. These modifications give Station A-12 a menacing aspect even to those unaware of the atrocities committed within.

Captain Stephan Rinckes pilots the shuttle toward it as Tony conducts a scan and says, “We’re inside the sphere of weaponized detection sentries. Seventeen Altonoid and six S’Prenn ships in our immediate vicinity. Total enemy vessel count incomplete. No Federation shuttles or escape pods.”

“Are you sure?” Rinckes asks, as reluctant to give up hope on other survivors making it through the portal as Tony is.

He rechecks his readings. “No-one, sir.”

“Then it’s up to us.”

Tony cannot begin to fathom the amount of death preceding their arrival, both in the Aragos Sector and here in this desecrated region of space. To occupy his somber mind and keep the last two representatives of the Achilles alive, he concentrates on his tasks. “Radiation leaking from our warp engines should mask our life signs, but not for long.”

They’re approaching the station. Unfortunately, so is a group consisting of four Attack-class Altonoid warships and two S’Prenn ships, the latter of which looking even more intimidating than the sinister wreckage the Achilles investigated. Their arachnid design lends them a predatory appearance, especially when they’re turning to face a comparatively miniscule shuttle.

The shuttle’s sudden emergence seems to have baffled the fleet and their response is sluggish. They’re trained to engage S’Prenn vessels containing unindoctrinated specimens, not a solitary battle-damaged Altonoid shuttle. According to the intel he studied, Tony surmises that if they had arrived in a S’Prenn vessel, they would have been apprehended immediately.

While he and the captain are closing in on Station A-12, the group of Altonoid and S’Prenn starships are moving to intercept, acting like a herd of inquisitive sharks encountering a human diver.

An audio transmission forces itself into their comm system. “Unidentified vessel. This is the UEA Hupe. State your intent.”

Tony and Rinckes make eye contact and try to come up with a reply that won’t get them killed straightaway. Tony conveys his lack of ideas with a grimace and an exaggerated shrug.

“Identify yourself and state your intent.”

“Time is short, so I will keep it brief,” Rinckes improvises. “We are being chased by S’Prenn rebelling against their indoctrination. We fear they have found an antidote. We are hurrying toward Station A-12 carrying four dead S’Prenn for immediate dissection to ascertain the cause of their resistance.”

Tony sticks up two thumbs to show his support.

“These S’Prenn are controlling the small Federation fleet led by the Indefatigable, which is trailing us. They have betrayed us and must be stopped! Requesting immediate landing clearance in Station A-12’s main shuttle bay to hand over the specimens to the appropriate medical research teams.” The Hupe refrains from answering, so Rinckes continues, “We must ensure our delivery reaches Station A-12 before the Indefatigable catches us.”

“Hold position and stand by.”

Two Foora-class fighters undock from the Hupe and converge on the shuttle. Tony swallows something vile as he stares down the barrels of four phaser banks. The fighters are joined by a full-scale S’Prenn vessel looming over them, prompting Rinckes to decelerate.

“I repeat, we cannot afford to hold position. The more distance we put between ourselves and the portal, the better. They were right behind us.”

Tony admires Rinckes’ audacity. The Indefatigable and her associates may not have followed them at all. It’s a gamble, but it will buy them a few more seconds either way. He bites his tongue to keep from speaking up along the likes of “are they buying it, sir?” or anything else the Altonoids might hear. Meanwhile, the fighters and the S’Prenn ship slowly rotate about their axes to circle the shuttle and keep their weaponry trained on it.

The warships in the fleet spur to action, jolting him in his seat. To his relief, they are moving to assume formation by the portal.

“The Lurelt, Duler, and S’Ronn will escort you to Station A-12. Please confirm.” The fighters and S’Prenn ship keep maneuvering around the shuttle to face the station together.

“Affirmative. Ri… Ready for escort.” The captain ends transmission and orders the shuttle forward.

“You almost said ‘Rinckes out,’ didn’t you?” Tony deadpans.

“Old habits die hard.”

The S’Ronn takes point and the fighters flank the shuttle. It’s an odd experience, to say the least, to have a floating mechanical spider lead the way and to fly side-by-side with two Altonoid fighters capable of destroying this rickety shuttle in one shot.

A new blip on their sensors catches Tony’s attention. “Sovereign-class starship emerging from the portal.”

“The Indefatigable, most aptly named. Keep an eye on her.”

“It won’t be long till the Altonoids uncover our deception.”

“Can’t be helped. Stay frosty.”

As they close in on Station A-12, a warped sense of déjà vu causes a weird feeling to settle in the lieutenant’s gut. The S’Ronn makes a graceful left turn and reveals the station’s main shuttle bay, filled with Altonoid and S’Prenn shuttlecraft, located in the center of the 100-deck-tall space station, and completely rebuilt after the rudderless Wolf wreaked havoc upon it.

Tony attempts to deal with the avalanche of memories about the place he, Rinckes, and Emily fled from, but the captain sidetracks his ruminations by saying, “Grab your rifle. Step onto the transporter platform. We’re bailing out.”

Altonoid infantry units hurry toward the landing pad while Tony clambers out of his seat, mounts the shuttle’s transporter platform, and waits for Rinckes to finish typing commands into the helm console.

“Ready your weapon,” the captain says, dashing onto the platform as alerts go off throughout their small vessel. He lifts his phaser rifle, aiming it at an unseen foe to prepare for beam-out.

“This is Corporal Vuse piloting the Lurelt. Slow your approach or you will endanger everyone.”

The shuttle bay is near enough to discern its details, including the worried expressions of foot soldiers staring and gesturing at the shuttle coming in hot. Per the captain’s instructions, the shuttle is accelerating exponentially, which catches the enemy by surprise.

“Collision alert!” the shuttle warns. “Collision alert! Pull up!” Its roaring impulse engines sputter and protest against the strain they’re under.

“What are you doing?” Corporal Vuse says. “Slow down or we are forced to open fire.”

Rinckes presses a comm button on the starboard bulkhead and gets in character once again. “Mayday, mayday!”

Tony wonders if the universal translator has an adequate Altonoid translation for that old aviation chestnut.

“Helm not responding. We’re going down. Don’t shoot! We’re carrying—” Rinckes closes the channel and turns to Tony. “That’ll keep ’em occupied.”

A tractor beam emitter from the shuttle bay deck grapples the shuttle in an effort to slow its descent. Before Tony can question Rinckes’ plan, the captain taps a balled fist against the transporter interface, beaming the two of them off the shuttle just as it passes through the open bay doors at breakneck speed.

* * *

Station A-12 – December 22, 2387 – Stardate 64970.5

The deck shudders, flinging Captain Stephan Rinckes against a stack of medical containers. He deems it confirmation of their shuttle’s explosive arrival. He and Lieutenant Tony Blue have boarded the space station that once belonged to Starfleet and has been converted to a research facility dedicated to ensuring the Altonoids’ supremacy. “Let’s go,” he says to Tony, who appears dizzy from processing the whirlwind of events that brought them here.

The corridors have also been modified, its Starfleet technology from wall panels to lighting stripped and exchanged for Altonoid equivalents. The new owners also did away with Starfleet’s bright color palette; floor and bulkhead coverings have become sober and moody, presenting a handful of variations on gray, black, and brown shades.

Station A-12’s importance is inestimable, yet the two intruders encounter little security as they travel its research area’s gloomy corridors. Rinckes guesses the Altonoids never expected anyone would make it this far, what with the sphere of armed detection sentries and the abundance of patrolling vessels. Any S’Prenn ship or fleet venturing through the portal would’ve found itself quickly overpowered. Nobody counted on a single Altonoid shuttle operated by two brave Starfleet officers who refused to cower behind the Klingon border.

Tony sways his rifle about at the corner of an intersection. “Where do we go, sir?”

To be fair, Rinckes has no idea, a state of uncertainty each commanding officer worth their salt has learned to hide well. However, he beamed them to this location for a reason. “The cure to undo S’Prenn indoctrination must be nearby.” Having scrutinized and partially memorized the stolen floor plans, he chooses the most likely corridor.

Tony is lagging behind. “I hate to be a spoilsport, but how are we going to distribute it once we’ve found it? They’ll soon know we’re here and hunt us down.”

“The odds are definitely against us. Bear in mind, though, this station is packed with experimental technology from Altonoids and their ‘allies.’ There has to be something we can use.” Rinckes halts by an open doorway leading to a busy science lab and sneaks a peek inside.

Teams of Altonoid scientists are conducting gruesome biological experiments on live S’Prenn subjects. Rinckes doesn’t permit the particulars of the horrific scene to register. Survival depends on their ability to move on, so he signals for Tony to hurry past and says, “I mean, the technological leaps they’ve taken are beyond impressive. Right before we entered the Aragos Sector, Terrell…” He lets out a sigh of regret. It’ll take a while to grow accustomed to having people he trusted and worked with on a daily basis belong to the past. “Terrell reported he had discovered among the cross-referenced data an account of how, earlier this year, the Altonoids allowed a naturally occurring supernova to obliterate Romulus, then subdued it with a red matter singularity.”

“You mean the Romulan Empire has fallen?”

“So it seems, and what’s left is governed by Altonoids.” He looks into a chamber filled with S’Prenn carcasses, most of which contorted and disfigured. An acidic stink permeates the room, so he recoils in disgust and leads Tony further into the hallway. “S’Prenn technology surpasses whatever you’ll find in our Quadrant, and the Altonoids are reaping the benefits, usurping other alien technological advancements along the way. It won’t be long before they’ll consider expanding their empire to drive out the Klingons as well.”

Tony lets that sink in. “How do we stop them? It’s just us!”

“We do what they do,” Rinckes says, struck by a sudden inspiration. He turns around and guides the lieutenant into a corridor where empty containers lie stashed haphazardly. Careful not to make a noise, they sidle past the containers.

The farther they progress through the next hallways, the more disheveled and poorly maintained their environment becomes. They’re busy navigating a network of intersections when, to their dismay, the corridors go dark in an instant and an Altonoid computer announces in a cranky tone, “Intruder alert! Intruder alert!”

Rinckes calms his breathing. “This was unavoidable. Don’t worry and follow me.”

The section they’re in sees few visitors; dust coats the floor. A number of bulkheads feature Starfleet panels, the rest have been dismantled and reveal skeletal framework housing partial circuitry. Most doorways have been cordoned off in lackluster fashion, hiding technological and biological secrets destined to be forgotten.

“If I recall correctly,” Rinckes says, counting doorways, “there’s an interesting piece of technology for us to investigate. I hope they haven’t disassembled it.”

A sinister, familiar voice resounds through the hallways and no doubt the entire station. “Your ruse has delayed your elimination only a handful of minutes, Starfleet.” It’s Captain Donovan Sharpe, or rather, the S’Prenn speaking through him. “You have made it this far, but we will find you, the same way we tracked and killed your brethren. You’re the last one standing. We do not ask you to surrender. We ask you to make peace with your impending death.”

Chilling as Sharpe’s posturing may be, Rinckes ignores it, because he is confident he will find a specific chamber he remembers from Station A-12’s schematics, the one chamber containing hardware that might convert their hopeless mission to a viable one, that might give them a fighting chance.

He has never bothered to believe in anything but himself, but right here, right now, he prays for his plan to succeed.

Everything depends on it.
 
So here's a little update on how work on the final chapters is progressing. I've just finished the second draft of chapter 7 and hope to finish the third one this week. After that, I will begin working on chapter 8 and 9 before diving back into chapter 7 for the final revisions. This way, the wait between these final chapters will be shorter. As it stands now, chapter 7 will be released on November 1st.

Man, I wish I could write these faster, but I have this nasty habit of needing a roof over my head and food in my stomach, so I can't quit my day job just yet ;)

Thank you for your patience!
 
Well, gives me something to look forward to.

By the way, pretty awesome you keeping us updated on your progress.
 
And here we are: November 1st. And guess what? Chapter 7 is done and ready for you avid readers! As per usual, it will be published in four segments, with a new chapter segment being released each Friday.

A quick little recap to bring you up to speed before we plunge into a new chapter:
Captain Stephan Rinckes and Lieutenant Tony Blue have made it to the Altonoid-controlled Station A-12, where a cure for the S'Prenn's brainwashed state is rumored to be hidden. However, with no way to escape, their enemies closing in from all sides, and the fate of billions of the Federation's citizens resting squarely on their shoulders, Rinckes and Tony have to rely on their knowledge of Station A-12's horrors to continue their impossible mission.

Enjoy ;)

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 of 2 - Chapter 7a (of 9)

Station A-12 – December 22, 2387 – Stardate 64970.5

Five minutes ago, the intruder alert revealed the Altonoids are aware of Lieutenant Tony Blue and Captain Stephan Rinckes’ presence aboard their space station. Once a Starfleet outpost, Station A-12 has been perverted into a mockery of Federation principles by filling it with illicit and stolen information and technology, most of which acquired through bloodshed and the trampling of human and alien rights. The Altonoids do as they please.

Although he has already spent half an hour on this defiled station, Tony still considers the situation absurd. The last time he was here, he was injured, the Federation was losing the battle for this station, and he had to flee for his life. The phaser scar above his right hip never quite healed, and it’s been hampering his walking and running ever since. Revisiting Station A-12’s corridors reminds him of the energy-sapping agony of staggering around with a fresh phaser wound. Thank heavens Emily had been there to help him reach the shuttle bay.

As if removing cobwebs, Rinckes pulls away tape cordoning off a doorway. Aided by Tony, he strains to open the double sliding doors, which have been powered down in this abandoned section of forgotten wonders and horrors.

Standing close to his captain, Tony realizes what a mess they both are. Rinckes is bruised and battered, his dark-blond hair bears more resemblance to lion manes than the combed-back tidiness it used to be, his face and hands are ridden with contusions and minor lacerations from the Achilles’ final space battle and his fight with Kels, and he carries himself like a vexed animal rather than a man. Tony may look even worse: On top of his similar collection of bruises and cuts, S’Prenn blood sticks to his skin and uniform, and his throat hurts from Baxter’s attempt to choke him.

The doors open with a double thud and the two Starfleet officers shine their phaser rifles’ flashlights into the room. Two beams of light pierce settling dust to find a rectangular device the size of a hovercar sitting on the floor in the center of the chamber. Worn tubes and wires curl from the apparatus to each bulkhead, as if it’s hanging on for dear life in its neglected state.

“There you are,” Rinckes says as he lowers his rifle and approaches the device. “Recognize this?”

“Not really.” Tony circles it, notices details such as its azure color scheme and sharp-edged design features, and tries to deduce its origins and purpose. It does seem familiar somehow. He stumbles upon an embedded glass door and smudges it with S’Prenn blood in an effort to wipe it clean. “Is it Loïdian?”

“You guessed it.” Rinckes uses his sleeve to remove a crusty layer of dust from the access panel clinging to the machine like a tilted shelf. “And what did Loïdians excel at before they were conquered by Altonoids?” He starts tinkering with the darkened console.

“Temporal mechanics. It’s in their weapons, defense systems, propulsion. Wait, is this a…?”

“It has to be.” Rinckes locates the correct button and presses it. The device croaks and groans to life, filling the chamber with blue light coming from its access panels, status indicators, and the hardware shielded by its blurry glass door. “This is an actual, hopefully functional—”

“Time machine?”

“Indeed.”

The tactical opportunities of this discovery are overwhelming. Curiosity prompts Tony to pry open the wobbly glass door to peek inside. At that precise moment, the device begins producing a violent rattle. “What did I do?”

“Nothing.” Rinckes types into the console. “It’s just in poor condition.”

“Still hiding, Starfleet?” the Indefatigable’s captain, Donovan Sharpe, controlled by S’Prenn, broadcasts over the stationwide comm system, giving Tony a proper scare. “We know there are two of you—just two. With how many men and women did you start your mission? Four hundred twenty? Heavy losses for such a dismal endeavor.”

“Ignore his nonsense,” Rinckes says, “or embrace it as an incentive to stay focused and hurry.”

“Yes, sir.” Employing brute force, Tony opens the glass door entirely. Inside the time machine, there is room for two persons sandwiched between a briar patch of wires and circuitry. A finished seating area would have been nice. “So we take the cure and escape through this?”

“Let’s be realistic. Being tracked down is a matter of minutes at best, so obtaining the cure is unfeasible at this point.” Rinckes lets out a sigh. “There are two things we have to worry about: getting this contraption to work and devising a plan to use it to our advantage.”

Through sheer determination, Tony tries to quiet the storm raging in his skull and conjure up viable ideas. None are forthcoming so far.

“We haven’t confirmed your identities yet,” Sharpe continues, “but rest assured we will not permit you to live after the Achilles’ destruction. The ship and her crew were a package deal. No ship, no need for a crew. Death will suit you fine.”

Tony blocks the S’Prenned captain from his mind and thinks aloud, “We travel back to Earth, Starfleet Headquarters, say, a few days before the Station A-12 Debacle and inform them of what’s to come.”

After typing in a new string of commands, Rinckes shakes his head. “Once activated, this machine becomes quantum locked to its surroundings in four dimensions with a gravitational quotient in play.”

“Yeah, I hate it when that happens.”

“So we can only travel back and forth in time to wherever we activate this machine, limiting us to this exact room on this station.”

“Okay, Earth isn’t an option.” Tony paces around, careful not to get snagged on wires. “You remember the date of the Debacle? Of course you do. We both do. Our only chance is to travel back to before the Altonoids occupied the station. We go back to five days prior to the takeover, emerge from this room, and warn the station commander and Starfleet of the impending attack.”

Rinckes stares through the access console. “Return to Station A-12? Before it fell?”

“If we prevent this station from being taken over and turned into this monstrosity, we prevent the Altonoids from gaining access to the S’Prenn portal we traversed.”

“We can go back seven and a half years,” Rinckes says, emphasizing each syllable yet maintaining a level tone of voice.

Tony is glad his suggestion is heard, but the captain’s response does seem a bit off. Regardless, he continues, “We had no idea the portal would form next to Station A-12, so the station was deemed an unfortunate loss at most instead of the strategically vital locus of Altonoid-S’Prenn activity it became during the war.”

“We know where you are hiding,” Sharpe interrupts, oblivious to the conversation taking place. “Spying in our research labs? How do you intend to smuggle your ill-gotten gains off-station?”

“Shut up, I’m explaining!” Tony says to the ceiling. “Anyway, no station, no excuse for the Altonoids to linger. No access to the portal, no mind control over the S’Prenn. No mind control, no crazy S’Prenn allies. No S’Prenn allies, no distinct advantage over us. In fact, we know the S’Prenn were our allies, and by ensuring Station A-12 remains ours, it will stay that way.”

“And we will save a lot of lives, Tony.” Rinckes meets his gaze, looking… vulnerable. “People we cared about a great deal.”

“Yes, sir.” Tony fondles the wedding ring he never stopped wearing. Emily—an ensign then—was there on Station A-12 and saved Tony’s life in more ways than one. He thinks of his father and his friends from the Kennedy and the Achilles. Will this device allow him to see them again? To reclaim them from Death’s cold embrace?

“So you’ve taken an interest in scrapped technology? Study it well before you die.”

Tony grumbles. “Speechifying over unclosable comm channels should be illegal.”

“They’ll be here soon,” Rinckes says. “Temporal coordinates set for us to arrive five days early.” His expression goes from vulnerable to pondering as he studies the console. “The machine itself doesn’t travel anywhere, only its occupants. We must guarantee the Altonoids can’t go after us. One of us has to stay behind to destroy it.”

Tony did not anticipate such a contingency.

“I think it should be you,” Rinckes says a little too quickly.

“Oh, wow. I, uh… Hold on.” Unwilling to commit so easily to what amounts to a death sentence, Tony joins Rinckes by the console and examines its intuitive layout. “Unless… we destroy the machine directly after use. Given its rickety state, that shouldn’t be too hard.” He brings up several informative screens and crosschecks the data they display. One by one, they provide him with clues that lead to a hypothesis first and a conclusion next. It requires forty valuable seconds, but the solution is pretty straightforward.

“I see,” Rinckes says. “We expand the temporal relocation area nanoseconds after we’ve dematerialized and send half the time machine along with us. That should certainly do the trick. I’m impressed, Lieutenant.”

“Time travel used to be second nature to me. I’ve retained the tiniest smidgeon of knowledge on the subject.” They proceed to reconfigure the time machine. “Although snapping my fingers and simply willing myself elsewhere was less of a hassle.”

Above the rattling and sizzling of the dilapidated machine, shuffling feet and muttered orders grow audible. Tony makes out a gruff voice saying, “They should be close. Kill them on sight.”

“All set,” Rinckes says. “Into the time machine we go.”

Exposed wires and machinery render it a challenge, but Tony, carrying his rifle, squeezes into the occupant area and finds an acceptably comfortable position sitting on the bare metal floor, holding his head to one side to keep his hair from tangling with heating-up cables. “I must point out we are breaching all sorts of temporal regulations by doing this.”

Rinckes also climbs into this cramped, unwelcoming space and needs but a weary glance to make it abundantly clear the lieutenant had better drop that particular issue. He wedges himself between a circuit board and a cluster of glowing tubes, leaving the glass door ajar to aim his phaser rifle at the entrance to this room. “There are more pressing matters, headache-inducing ones. Explain to me, if we save the Federation, won’t we prevent ourselves from finding and using this time machine? Won’t that create a paradox?”

The lights brighten as the machine prepares to fulfill its final purpose. “Depends on the principles on which this device operates,” Tony replies. “Long story short, in case we’re successful, we either become immune to any changes and become orphans of a lost timeline, or our interference will cause the timeline to branch off into a new one, which will coexist separately with the original as a parallel universe.”

A blank stare from the captain. “So it’ll work?”

“It’ll work.”

Their metal cage shudders and heats up considerably. This time travel apparatus could double as a sauna; Tony is sweating like a marathon runner in winter clothes. In the background, almost drowned out by the din this enigmatic device generates, Sharpe is going on about something—something unpleasant, most likely. To soothe his nerves, Tony translates the muffled threats in his best approximation of Sharpe’s inflexion. “Starfleet, we have set your time machine on full grill.”

Acknowledging the spot-on impression with a faint smile, Rinckes keeps his rifle aimed at the entrance, ready to oppose the numerous Altonoids who will appear soon. “This is a one-way trip, so will there be two versions of us roaming the galaxy once we go back? How are we going to deal with that?”

Tony withdraws his hands from the boiling-hot floor. “Believe it or not, there are methods to reintegrate us with our younger selves. Once we’ve restored Federation rule, I surmise we’ll automatically restore our future agencies protecting the preferred timeline. They have the technology to—”

A phaser blast fired from Rinckes’ weapon kills the first Altonoid to sneak into the room. “Final question!” the captain shouts. A second shot claims the life of another soldier as a group of Altonoids spread out and hide behind the doorway.

“Go ahead,” Tony says.

“This’ll take us to the exact same location, years in the past. Do we know what was in this room back then?”

“We kind of don’t.”

“So we could end up fused into a workstation or container?”

“Yup!”

“Just checking.” Rinckes fires his rifle at a smoke grenade the soldiers have tossed at them and causes it to go off in midair. As soon as the grenade spews out its chemical gases, the captain slams the glass door shut to keep out the harmful cloud of smoke billowing toward them.

The machine’s noise has become deafening and the heat unbearable; beads of sweat on Tony’s brow are starting to evaporate. He closes his eyes, clenches every muscle, and tries to ignore the penetrant smell of burnt plastic. The same evaporating effect now tugs at his digits. What if something has gone wrong? What if it doesn’t function as it should and cooks them right here, right now? His nails tingle as they dematerialize in painless fashion, followed by his fingers, his toes, his hair. Even the phaser rifle he’s clutching is feeling progressively insubstantial.

It doesn’t matter if the machine functions or not; there’s no backing out. Altonoid soldiers are waiting outside to slaughter them.

As the time machine slowly dissolves Tony, he submits to the choices he has made and surrenders to what’s beyond. Someone speaks to him. It’s his captain, raising his voice yet sounding atypically gentle. “Whether we succeed or not, we will be with our loved ones.”

Before Tony has the chance to contemplate those words, the machine’s hissing and roaring grows distant and its flashing lights fade into the same emptiness he is being sent to. He possesses nothing recognizable as a human shell, having transcended to a realm of existence unbound by matter or reason. For a moment, he is everywhere at once, then nowhere at all. Bright explosions and unsettling pops of nearby hardware being snapped to pieces surround him as time folds into itself.
 
Very cool to have this story back.

And wow, what a way to kick things off. Normally, introducing a time machine into the equation feels a bit like cheating, but honestly, after so much bad luck and sheer misery, this is a welcome change of pace. A real chance to change the disastrous events which have unfolded in this story.

If anything is going to derail potential success now (other than fusing with a workstation) it's the personal stakes for both of these men who seem almost more concerned about reuniting with those they have lost rather than saving the galaxy.
 
Fallen Heroes - Book 2 of 2 - Chapter 7b (of 9)

Station A-12 – June 26, 2380 – Stardate 57485.7

At first, there is darkness, as black as the starless views in his nightmares. Captain Stephan Rinckes, seated in the void, attempts to shift his position and realizes he has no body to shift. That is, until his corporeal form gradually unfolds itself along with time and space and materializes inside a hissing, flaming heap of debris. He reaches for the glass door, which is hanging askew, and kicks it off its hinges.

The Altonoids have gone. The only living soul in this room apart from himself is Tony, who is wincing in pain. Part of the machine has collapsed on him and melted cables have draped a smoldering wreath around his shoulders and neck. “Hang on, Tony. I’ll get you out.”

“Did it work? Have we travelled back in time?”

Rinckes briefly looks about. The setting is different enough for him to consider the time jump a success, but something is amiss. Having no idea what that might be, he instead refocuses on freeing Tony from his precarious half-buried state and drags him out from under the debris and into the room, which appears to be the same one they departed from, but its lights are out so it’s hard to tell. Developing flames lick at the wrecked time machine, which has been partially warped, partially shredded, and partially left behind.

“Ow,” Tony says, trying to uncoil the wiring etched into his skin and jacket. Rinckes can’t decide if it resembles a garland to honor the lieutenant’s bravery or a noose that nearly did him in. Regardless, seeing the lieutenant struggling like this invokes pity. Tony is basically still a kid at twenty-five years old, so the captain assists him out of an instinctive sort of mercy.

Hot to the touch, the wires resist detachment, but Rinckes removes them as quickly as he can to minimize the discomfort, pulls them over Tony’s head, and tosses them aside. Black and red burn marks betray where the plastic had adhered itself, but it could’ve been much worse. “You’ll be fine.”

When Rinckes stands up, Tony points a finger and gasps, “Oh no!”

Only now does Rinckes notice a sharp pain in his left leg. A two-inch piece of metal has grafted itself onto it.

“No,” Tony groans.

Rinckes inspects it and determines the metal’s intrusion is merely skin-deep. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” He yanks it out in one swift motion. “See?”

“This can’t be happening.”

At last, Rinckes suspects Tony isn’t referring to this superficial wound. “What? What do you—?” From underneath the doors leading to the corridor, blinking red light shines in onto the carpet. The station is at red alert! As the devastating implications those lights might have on their mission dawn on him, it’s as if a fist has gripped his heart. “Maybe it’s a security drill.” No conviction in his voice whatsoever. He rushes toward the nearest workstation, which wasn’t here before they travelled back, and activates it.

“Are we too late?” Tony asks. “I knew we were in trouble when the dematerialization process went disturbingly slowly.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions.” Inputting his authorization codes has the desired effect—thereby proving the station belongs to the Federation at present, whenever that is—and grants him access to onboard and external sensors. It takes but a few seconds to confirm his fears beyond the shadow of a doubt. Sensors do not lie; the station is absolutely teeming with Altonoids. “Tony, check if our rifles still work.”

“Sir?”

“Just do it.”

“Aye, sir.”

According to the sensors, countless Altonoid life signs are concentrated primarily around the station’s upper and middle decks. However, he’s also reading at least a hundred other life signs, most of which human. This workstation provides a rather simplified status overview, but external sensors suggest there are currently six starships in proximity to the station: two Altonoid, four Starfleet.

“Rifles check out fine. Don’t tell me—?”

“Hang on.” By locking on to the starships’ transponders, Rinckes gets a proper indication of their positions and identities. They’re engaged in combat, judging from their wild maneuvering. “A battle’s going on outside. Two Massal-class Altonoid vessels. Our ships: Akira-class, USS Wolf. Sovereign-class, USS Kennedy.”

Tony opens and closes his mouth a couple of times in a row until he is capable of saying, “My friends.”

“Saucer and lower section of a Prometheus-class vessel, USS Sundance.” Rinckes chuckles incredulously. “They read as two ships.” His previous command, the Sundance, had the ability to split into three independent sections, a feature called Multi-Vector Assault Mode. Regrettably, her middle section had been destroyed early on during the losing fight for the station. Her saucer and lower section will soon meet a similar end. “The Satellite is already gone; sensors detect scattering jetsam matching a Defiant-class’ configuration. Tony, we’re in the midst of the Station A-12 Debacle.” Rinckes glowers at the pile of rubble that brought them here. “No thanks to this infernal piece of junk. I’m dead certain I entered the correct date.”

“Could this be my fault?” Tony buries his face in his hands. “Perhaps sending part of the time machine with us to outwit the Altonoids—”

“Doubtful. Once set up, it created a stable timestream outside our physical universe for our journey. Your trick couldn’t have altered our time jump. No…” He kicks a loose metal cover and sends it flying. “Maybe they scrapped this thing for a reason.”

“Okay… I hope you’re right.” Tony smoothens his ruffled hair, grabs his knees, and slowly rises up. “We need a new plan, though. Not everything is lost; the Wolf, Kennedy, and Sundance are strong assets.”

“Agreed.” It’s vitally important they shelve their disappointment, regain their bearings, and discover a way to come out on top despite this crushing setback. Asking Tony to recount what happened today might be redundant because they both possess clear memories of the day that changed everything for the worse. Nevertheless, he asks, “What do we know about today and how can we spin this foreknowledge to our advantage?”

Tony summarizes, “A diplomatic conference between the Federation and the Altonoids was revealed to be a trap laid by the latter and sprung by the former. The station’s crew and residents were hunted down and killed; the captains and first officers of the Kennedy and Wolf were being held hostage in the conference room. Having won the first ensuing space battle, our ships sent troops to the station—me included—to try to find the shield generator preventing the hostages from being beamed out.

“Two heavily upgraded Massal-class warships showed up and beamed in reinforcements who gradually overpowered our troops. The upgraded warships destroyed our vessels—starting with the Satellite—in a drawn-out, brutal attack. Meanwhile, you and I were stuck on the station, fighting for our lives.”

“A no-win scenario we wound up escaping via the shuttle bay.” Rinckes finds it bizarre to have these historic events taking place as they speak. It seems impossible, surreal.

“With the Satellite gone and the station overrun, we have an inkling of the battle’s present stage, but can we narrow it down further?”

“Apart from checking the time, I’m not sure.” The workstation is Rinckes’ single window into the mess they’re in, so he returns to squeezing it for every bit of data it contains.

“Captain…”

“What is it, Tony?”

“I’m so sorry we couldn’t save everyone.”

Rinckes sighs. “We do what we can.”

“We’ve done nothing else the past years.”

“True.” After careful consideration, he opts to eavesdrop on the comm chatter and conduct a search through the audio channels for mentions of Commander Tony Q. “Who were… Who are your squad members?”

Tony recites these names instantly. “Doctor Rose Van Oers, Lieutenant Steven Appels, Lieutenant Clayton, Ensign Lucas.” He hesitates. “Ensign Emily Murphy. I can’t believe she’s running around on this station, alive and breathing.”

So is Melanie. “Inputting their names. Anyone else?”

“Lieutenant Norbert Hoper, the Wolf’s security chief. He sacrificed himself for our team.”

“Hmm… I think I found something worth a listen. Putting it on speaker.”

“—Hoper to squad 4-C. Report in.”

“Hasder checking in. We’re—Oh damn! More of them!” Phaser fire and screaming erupts.

“This is Lt. Hoper to squad 4-D. Report in? This is Lt. Hoper to squad 4-Delta. Please respond! This is Lt. Hoper to sq—”

“Perhaps it would be better if you’d stop asking your squads for a report,” a young Commander Tony Q says. “It doesn’t seem to be very helpful or morale boosting.”

Tony gasps. “Is that me? I sound so… so much like a whiny teenager. Good grief, how did you guys put up with me?”

“Transmission stops here. Does it ring any bells?”

“It does. A group of Altonoids ambushed our squad a minute after this exchange.” He places a hand on the phaser scar above his right hip, the cause of a limp that never quite abated. “They proved quite conclusively my immortality had been rescinded and I was as fragile as anyone else.”

The captain dips his chin. “I hear you. Combined with the bio-signs and the outside battle status, this gives us an improved timeframe to work with.” Now what? He had expected this mission to be a breeze, to consist at most of a few awkward conversations with a skeptical station commander. Instead, he has to make rushed decisions while playing for the highest stakes imaginable: the future of the Federation, many of her planets, and the billions of souls residing on them. “I’m responsible for the Sundance as well,” he thinks aloud, “and my crew.”

“Sorry, sir?”

“We need to get moving.” He retrieves his rifle and heads for the exit. “How about we stick to the original plan till we come up with a better one?”

Tony loosens his marred shoulders to prep himself for action. “Disable the shield generator, free the hostages.”

Before Rinckes triggers the double sliding doors, he thinks of the floor plans he studied and all the knowledge of the Station A-12 Debacle he has accumulated over the years. “As opposed to our brave colleagues, we do have a pretty solid idea of where the shield array may be located.”

“Let’s do this,” Tony says, a subtle tremble in his voice.

The doors open for the captain and his chief tactical officer, who step out into the corridor. Flickering red alert panels snake the walls and shower the area in an intermittent red hue. Rinckes switches his rifle’s flashlight on and off—mainly to assure himself it’s casting a bright beam of light instead of the feeble glow it emits in his nightmares.

Striding away from the chamber that served as a gateway to 2380, he does his utmost to focus on why he’s here: to use this opportunity to set things straight for the Federation and right the wrongs he committed by neglecting the Sundance and everyone on this station. Tracking down Melanie in a futile attempt to protect her made him desert his duties. This time, he will do what’s right. He is a Starfleet captain, an experienced officer who has devoted his adult life to serving the Federation and upholding its ideals, so he should act like one.

Yet every step, every footfall reminds him of the only goal that mattered to him back then: Melanie must be saved. She is alive but destined to die. Yes, completing this mission should outweigh the one life she brings to the equation. And if anything, his pragmatism defines him and his ability to lead. This same pragmatism informs him there’s a chance her life may even be spared by his actions to preserve the Federation.

Despite his best intentions and his strongest justifications, one question refuses to leave him be: What would remain of him if he lost her again?
 
So, things didn't exactly go according to plan here. Little surprise.

But hope remains and I'm looking forward to find out how things will play out this time.
 
Fallen Heroes - Book 2 of 2 - Chapter 7c (of 9)

Lieutenant Tony Blue tries to keep up with Captain Rinckes as they jog through Station A-12’s corridors into what the captain trusts to be the right direction. Marks left by the melted wiring sting like hell and treat him with the scent of singed flesh wherever he goes. Feeling as if he has survived three consecutive hovercar crashes, he concentrates on being prepared for the first Altonoid to make his inevitable appearance.

“Follow me to the nearest turbolift,” Rinckes says. “The shield generator is twenty decks up.”

“Presumably,” Tony adds in reflex. Pessimism on demand, his special forte.

Having rounded a corner, they encounter a Starfleet ensign slumped against a bulkhead. He has been killed on the spot, rifle in hand, phaser burns on his arms and torso. The captain rushes past the corpse, but Tony can’t help but linger on this sad sight. Firstly, this guy is the youngest person he has seen in a while. Their prolonged mission behind enemy lines saw an increase in the mean age of the Achilles’ crew. Secondly, their time machine problems cemented this young man’s demise. How many officers and civilians lie scattered aboard the station, how many are currently suffering and dying, all because he and his captain returned from a bleak future to let them down once more?

In this race against the clock, Rinckes appears to be unaware of his chief tactical officer’s lagging pace, so Tony mentally blocks out the dead as best he can and hurries up. Once he is within earshot, the captain says to him, “In essence, our objective has stayed the same. A few lightyears away, in the Nedron system—”

“The backup fleet,” Tony blurts out. “Of course! Led by the Achilles. Oh, what I’d give to lay eyes upon her again.” It’s downright insane how their vessel is both vaporized and doing fine from their perspective—another lost love they could be reunited with if they play their cards right.

“Currently, they’re being trounced by an overwhelming Altonoid fleet, but the S’Prenn will interfere and rescue eleven of our ships, including the Achilles.”

“I liked those creepy-crawlies better when they were on our side.”

“As did I.” Rinckes once again switches his rifle’s flashlight on and off, for reasons that elude Tony. “If we hold the station, the backup fleet will arrive in a few hours to investigate and they’d be obliged to fulfil their mission and defend us.”

Schooled as Tony may be in time travel and assorted fourth-dimensional shenanigans, the repercussions of each and every action affecting this timeline are kneading his brain into mush. “Because our younger versions fled to the backup fleet and told them the station had been lost, the fleet had no reason to go here.”

“Should we prevent our younger selves from leaving?”

Tony rubs the grimy stubble that should pass for a circle beard. “Wouldn’t matter. If the station is overrun by Altonoids, the backup fleet will investigate but retreat nonetheless. It simply isn’t deemed important enough to warrant retaking.”

“Nobody cared about this place until the portal formed next to it.” Rinckes scoffs. “The Altonoids rapidly established a presence aboard this station out of convenience, and it won them the war…”

A sense of hopelessness washes over Tony. “By the time we’ve convinced the higher-ups in Starfleet to reconquer Station A-12, the Altonoids will have already fortified it.” He flinches as Rinckes suddenly fires ahead, launching a series of phaser bursts that speed through the corridor and hit their mark at the far end: an Altonoid soldier Tony had failed to spot.

The captain grits his teeth, resulting in an unsettling half-smirk. “Warning the S’Prenn isn’t an option either because we have no idea how to contact them unless they’re physically present in our universe.” He shoots the second Altonoid to emerge in the distance. “Which rarely happens.”

Tony refrains from commenting on Rinckes’ spiking bloodlust. “The S’Prenn contacted the backup fleet during the Battle of Nedron. If we’d fly a shuttle there and somehow…” He trails off, realizing how difficult it would be to execute this plan.

“What? Somehow survive battling seventy-eight Altonoid warships and not get caught in the subspace well the S’Prenn summoned? Okay… Let’s assume we manage to pull that off against all odds. Even when they were our allies, the S’Prenn talked and we listened. They see themselves as superior to us ragtag bunch of primates. Good luck persuading them to do as we tell them, because they never bothered to listen much when they came to our aid in the skirmishes to follow.”

Tony nearly trips over an Altonoid Rinckes shot and says, “History dictates they’ll help us thrice in the upcoming months before going silent. None of those occasions they replied to our hails. They simply showed up and secured victory for us.”

“Warning them may go ignored or be too late. Then again, maybe not, but… can we risk it?”

“We should warn them as soon as we can, but we cannot bank on it saving the Federation.”

“Exactly. So—”

The turbolift they’ve closed in on opens its doors and four Altonoid soldiers pile out.

Without hesitation, Rinckes opens fire at the surprised soldiers. Tony has to be fast to get a shot in. He shoots one Altonoid, while Rinckes takes care of the rest. So far, the Altonoids they’ve encountered—albeit in small numbers—didn’t stand a prayer against the two officers. It’s not so much the soldiers’ fault; Rinckes has changed upon entering the first corridor. Tony has spent many an evening honing his shooting skills in the holodeck, yet he cannot hope to match the amped-up captain’s speed and accuracy. It’s impressive and unnerving in equal measure. “So,” Tony says as they step into the lift, “we stick to the main plan.”

“Deck 58, science labs,” Rinckes says to the turbolift interface. “And finish the job we started seven and half years ago.”

* * *

Turbolift doors swooshing aside reveal five Altonoids who have shot a lone Starfleet security officer in the back and have the audacity to guffaw at their senseless act of violence. It will be their last laugh, because Captain Stephan Rinckes makes quick work of them, assisted by Tony. The captain and the lieutenant caught them unawares, a tactical advantage that won’t apply to the next Altonoids to cross their path.

Closer to the heart of the station, the corridors become identical copies of those in Rinckes’ dreams. Or is it the other way around? He shakes off his disorientation and leads Tony deeper into the hallway. Every ten feet, at least one slain person lies abandoned. Officer or civilian, regardless of age, the Altonoids shoot them like animals and leave them to rot. It’s the fate that awaits Melanie, but he’s coming for her. He won’t let—

No, no. He’s headed for the shield generator to liberate the hostages. Maybe remembering the names of the four flag officers held captive in the conference room will keep him centered. There’s Admiral Coen Van Aken, commander of the USS Wolf, and his first officer Dennis Levine. Returning them to their vessel might tip the scales of this battle.

An Altonoid steps into the corridor and swivels toward them to take aim. With lightning-fast reflexes, Rinckes shoots him.

The other two hostages are Mathieu Duvivier and Grad Jansen, captain and first officer of the USS Kennedy. Rinckes and Duvivier will never be friends. Duvivier’s mother died at Wolf 359 because Rinckes was forced to seal an escape pod hatch in front of her during the Saratoga’s destruction. Courtesy of Tony Q, Captain Duvivier got to witness that harrowing incident. He has resented Rinckes ever since. Freeing him might restore their professional relation to an extent, but the distance between begrudging respect and forgiveness is to be measured in parsecs.

His rifle stock slams into an Altonoid’s face with such force it breaks the soldier’s neck.

“Close one,” Tony says, pushing himself off the floor to stand by Rinckes’ side. What happened? Has the captain missed an entire sequence of events? Was he so lost in thought his subconscious took over? He blinks and tries to regain clarity of mind.

“Captain, are you all right?”

Two Altonoids are marching toward them, rifles raised. Somehow, these hostiles perish in bursts of lethal phaser energy. He cannot recall pulling the trigger, but a plume of smoke rises from his rifle barrel. He switches on and off his rifle’s flashlight, earning him a questioning look from Tony. “Press on,” Rinckes says, hiding his confusion.

Instead of solely getting the flag officers back to their ships, shouldn’t he consider returning to the Sundance as well? Be the captain they thought he was, the man he should have been? Their deaths have weighed on his conscience for so long, and they still do, but… He believed he had dealt with this as best he could. And now, these ghosts from the past are orbiting the station, clamoring for his attention.

A phaser beam soars by, barely missing his head, followed soon after by a gurgling shriek near the beam’s source. One more enemy taken down, apparently by the captain himself.

“There’s so many of them!” Tony shouts, almost out of breath.

Are there? Efficiently, he fires at everything that moves while keeping on the lookout for friendlies, who are either dead or dying, like the Altonoids who’ve had the misfortune of being caught in his crosshairs.

“Captain?”

“There’s a maintenance hatch two intersections from here. We’ll continue our journey to the shield generator through the Jefferies tubes.”

“Good idea, sir.”

Getting out of these corridors also means a healthy change of scenery, so he finds the hatch in nothing flat and opens it for Tony. As the lieutenant enters the network of maintenance tubes first, Rinckes fires at any Altonoid who dares to enter his peripheral vision. Only then does he notice his enemies have drawn blood; a gash reddens his right lower arm. How and when that happened is a mystery to him. All he knows is he has killed the guilty party.

He gives the corpses in the hallway a final glance. They have started to resemble Melanie, but that’s okay. He will save her. She won’t have to die this time. He’ll see to it.

“You coming or what?” Tony asks from inside the crawlspace.

This snaps him out of his hallucination, though his grasp on reality remains tenuous. He dives into the Jefferies tube and overtakes the lieutenant.

“I just realized something,” Tony says, trailing his captain. “But I don’t know what to think of it.”

Rinckes welcomes anything capable of stopping his thoughts from wandering to places unknown and undesirable. “Let’s hear it.”

“The backup fleet will arrive at a fixed time, because they have to wait for the subspace well to dissipate before they can venture out. What if…” His tone becomes apologetic, as if he’s afraid to say it. “What if we ask them to destroy the station?”

“Excuse me?”

“No, listen. Would the Altonoids have claimed this region if Station A-12 had been destroyed? They would’ve had no reason to. I’m talking worst-case scenario, if we can’t hold the station.”

Rinckes ought to kick him in the head for suggesting this. “Asking the fleet to destroy Starfleet property? Regardless of our persuasive skills, they would have to request approval from Starfleet Command for such a draconian strategy and await a decision, which might take days and brings us back to our earlier conclusion: waiting will result in the Altonoids setting up shop. Yes, destroying the station could work, but accomplishing such a breach of protocol is just another long shot. We need to hold the station, no matter what, which is what we are doing right now.”

“When you put it like that, I agree, sir.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I value your input,” Rinckes hears himself say, for his own sake rather than Tony’s. “Let’s make sure we won’t have to rely on such desperate measures.”

“Aye, sir.”

As the conversation ends, so does the one effective diversion from his troubled state of mind. A new diversion presents itself right away, an unwelcome one: behind them, the distinct clunk of a hatch being opened reverberates through the narrow maintenance tube, which prompts the two officers to army-crawl toward their destination even faster.

“In here,” a distant Altonoid barks. “Check for life signs.” Multiple thuds and scrapes betray a group of enemy soldiers are entering the Jefferies tube. Rinckes and Tony will have to lose them at the next junction, or else they’ll run the risk of a problematic phaser battle in these cramped quarters.

One thing is certain: nowhere is safe on this cursed station, this lynchpin in time connecting events historical and tragedies personal.
 
Fallen Heroes - Book 2 of 2 - Chapter 7d (of 9)

“Through here,” Captain Stephan Rinckes says, clambering out of the Jefferies tube and into the blinking red light of the adjacent corridor.

“Do you think we’ve shaken them off?” Lieutenant Tony Blue asks. They haven’t heard their Altonoid pursuers in a little while, not since they made several extra turns navigating the tight maze, but the lieutenant’s heart is pumping enough blood and adrenaline through his veins for him to bench press a shuttle.

“Doesn’t matter. We’re close.”

Tony follows his captain, as he has done for years, though he admits to himself he doubts lowering the shield trapping the hostages will be the decisive factor in a scenario this complex. It is a solid starting point, however; he cannot think of a better alternative. It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it? Once again on the backfoot, in way over his head, sneaking around, outnumbered, betting against the house and having to go all in.

“This is the place.” Rinckes peeks around the corner of an intersection. “Four soldiers guarding the entrance. The ones on the right are yours. Ready?”

Tony nods, or maybe he is just shaking.

“Go.”

Jittery or not, Tony is an excellent sharpshooter, and he takes down his targets with admirable precision. Rinckes neutralizes his opponents in a similar flurry of destruction and leads the lieutenant to the entrance, where they take position at each opposite end.

At Rinckes’ signal, they rush into the chamber, which is long and narrow—a variation of a corridor in of itself—and features a lone workstation manned by two Altonoids facing a transparent aluminum partition running along the elongated room’s entire right side. Though armed to the teeth, the two Altonoids are so immersed in the main interface’s readouts that their deaths by phaser fire are swift.

Behind the partition, nine man-high coils grouped in threes emit turquoise light clashing with the chamber’s red alert lighting. Before Tony can guess at their significance, a third Altonoid soldier emerges from an entrance to the left and fires at the disheveled Starfleet duo. An emerald phaser beam grazes Rinckes’ shoulder, singeing part of his uniform and the skin underneath, but the captain is unimpressed and returns fire immediately, eliminating the trigger-happy Altonoid with three successive phaser bursts to the chest.

“You okay?” Tony asks Rinckes as they inch toward the console. An answer will have to wait, because a burly Altonoid soldier leaps from the shadows, mere feet away. Infuriated, the soldier swings his rifle at the captain and strikes him in the jaw. In a reflex, Tony fires a volley of bursts and misses because the muscular soldier lunges for the unsteady captain, who has somehow managed to stay on his feet.

The Altonoid tackles Rinckes to the floor and continues the tussle bare-fisted until he notices Tony is trying to take aim at him. No doubt itching to resume the brawl at his earliest convenience, the soldier kicks Rinckes in the gut once more for good measure and then sprints for the lieutenant with the intention of slamming him into the transparent partition.

Tony enjoys a split second of cursing the disadvantages of rifles in close quarters combat before that bull masquerading as an Altonoid reaches him and knocks him into the unyielding glass. Air is ousted from his lungs and his vision blurs as his back and neck send up stabbing pain. Slumped against the partition, he looks up at the figure, who raises his arms in preparation of delivering the finishing blow.

A muffled phaser blast precedes the soldier convulsing and crashing to the floor. In his place, the hazy image of Rinckes appears, holding out a hand. “Come on, you can rest later.”

An appropriately witty remark eludes Tony, so he accepts the captain’s gesture and gets hoisted off the floor, which keeps spinning along with the chamber for at least ten seconds.

Meanwhile, Rinckes unholsters his tricorder and initiates a scan. “Hm… Altonoids have put up a transporter and sensor scrambler in here. Nobody’s beaming in.” He heads over to the lone workstation and begins typing. “Locking the doors to this room. We’ll be safe for now.”

Hobbling like an old man, Tony joins his captain by the main interface. A ghostly hue seeps in from the other side of the partition, coming from the nine coils. “Is that the shield generator?”

“These coils should power the station’s science labs, but the Altonoids have jury-rigged them to boost their shield around the conference room. We disable this, the shield goes down.” He hesitates, then brings up a number of screens providing live footage of the battle raging outside. “This’ll help us pinpoint when we are.”

“And how much time we have left.”

“All of which borrowed.”

Together they stare at the screens displaying starships deemed long lost by history. There is the damaged lead ship, the Wolf, letting loose with her weapon pod located atop her catamaran-like hull. As the Kennedy moves into view, a mixture of relief and horror grabs Tony by the throat. Yes, the majestic ship is still fighting, but it’s hard to find an intact segment of her armor, and some of her corridors and rooms are exposed to open space; tiny, shimmering force fields vainly attempt to seal her breaches. Every turn and maneuver results in a subtle twisting and bending of her structure, bespeaking how much her hull integrity has already suffered.

Tony glances at Rinckes, who is watching the Sundance fight back with her two remaining segments: her saucer and her lower section, separated but attacking in unison. The lower section looks terrible; plasma is venting from its engines as four phaser beams slice into weakening armor.

“She won’t hold out much longer,” the captain remarks.

The phaser beams’ origin, a huge Massal-class vessel, seems to be in prime condition. Coffin-shaped and a mile long, this intimidating warship is outfitted with an experimental network of phaser arrays entwined around its deep brown hull like rivers of molten lava. Its identical sister ship is watching from the sidelines, being permitted the luxury of conducting repairs while the active vessel is dominating the battle, shrugging off hit after hit from the desperate Federation vessels, and continuing to pick on the Sundance’s lower section.

“I don’t see how we can win this,” Tony mutters. Underlining his words, the phaser beams set the lower section ablaze. Its hull starts tearing itself apart and its interior decompresses deck by deck.

Rinckes switches off the feed and resumes working on the shield. “By freeing the hostages we can influence the rest of the battle.” His corded neck muscles are the only indication of the emotions he might be experiencing.

A barely noticeable shudder travels through bulkheads and floor, evidence of an explosion having occurred outside. How many people served on the Sundance’s lower section? Dozens, probably. More deaths added to today’s expansive casualty list.

“The Altonoids have certainly made an effort to guarantee this shield stays up,” Rinckes says. “I can’t disable it.”

“There has to be a way. We’ve come so far.”

“Whatever I do, I’m blocked by security algorithms and redundancies that keep the shield activated.” Rinckes strokes his bruised jaw. “Let me try something.” He meddles with the power settings, ignoring and circumventing warnings, letting his fingers fly over the interface, and goes through every menu and screen he can summon. It’s hard to follow for Tony, but eventually the captain garners the result he was after. “There,” he says. “Instead of trying to power it down, let’s do the opposite. Hold on.”

Not knowing what to expect, Tony braces himself. Over the course of half a minute, the coils brighten from a glow to a glare. When it reaches lumen levels rivalling a star’s, he shields his eyes, leaving him to focus on the coils’ furious humming and crackling that builds and builds and culminates in a low bass drone rattling the partition, then the chamber, then his skeleton. This overpowering noise threatens to pierce his eardrums, and blinding whiteness engulfs his vision. Sticking his thumbs in his ears while covering his eyes with his remaining digits, he curls into himself. “Make it stop!”

“Already on it!” Gradually, the onslaught of light and sound dissipates. Rinckes lets out a deep breath. “So much for that idea. We damn near tore the station to pieces.” He scoffs. “Shield is still up.”

As the captain retries manipulating the shield, yielding only alerts and error messages associated with denied permissions, Tony stares blankly ahead, past the coils and into something unseen. For the first time since setting foot on this station, the reality of their impossible predicament truly sinks in.

Through his years as a human being, having forfeited his immortality and Q powers at the onset of the Station A-12 Debacle, his goals were clear: to help the Federation win this war, to save the lives of countless officers and civilians, and to protect the people he loves. The harsh truth is he failed to achieve any of those goals. He failed everyone who made the fatal mistake of trusting him. Stacking sacrifice upon sacrifice was the highest price he could afford, but it was never enough, couldn’t make a dent in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps all it takes is one more sacrifice, at a much higher cost than the previous ones combined.

No, there has to be some strategy, some trick to hold the station, to save his friends trapped in the battle, to be the hero he set out to be. Emily is on the station too, destined to carry his younger self to a shuttle and embark on an adventure that would, of course, end in heartbreak. Their short life together was filled with love, but they were always on the run, always dealing with loss after loss. It isn’t much of a future he has to offer her.

Rinckes slams his palms onto the interface. “The shield won’t budge!”

Tony hardly listens. His captain’s despair simply confirms what he already knows: the people who have died here will do so again. The Debacle’s death toll is meaningless compared to the slaughter and destruction awaiting those who survive today, including his father, who is living on an Earth slated to be purged of its residents by the upcoming S’Prenn-Altonoid alliance.

There is a way to prevent his father’s death and that of innocent billions.

Just one more sacrifice.

“Captain.” He scrounges together the courage to ask the one question prefacing their next, inevitable course of action. “What are our options?”

“I don’t see any.”

“We have the means to destroy the station. We repeat what you did, and—”

Rinckes’ eyes go wide. “I don’t want to hear it!”

“And we let the process run its course.”

“You’re out of your damned mind!”

“We destroy the station so the Altonoids won’t be here when the portal develops.”

Chest puffing in and out, the captain makes a valiant effort to restrain his anger and listen to his chief tactical officer.

“It would even allow our ships to disengage, because they’d have nothing to defend.” On the verge of choking up, Tony continues, “I don’t think the Kennedy can make it… She didn’t seem warp capable anymore. The Wolf, the Sundance—they stand a chance.”

Rinckes gazes into the distance, perhaps visualizing the Sundance’s saucer escaping mostly intact, sparing a hundred lives for which he bears responsibility. “I am willing to concede your plan makes sense to a degree, but what about the people on the station?”

“Every officer and civilian here has died and will die again if we fail to affect the outcome. I’m not understating the severity of this decision, this dilemma; I’m merely pointing out this is the only viable strategy we have at our disposal.”

“What about our younger selves? If we blow up the station now, they’ll die with us.”

“You’re afraid of causing a paradox? As I explained—”

“Who cares about paradoxes? Have you been paying attention? We have one shot at this!”

“Captain, if we fail to influence the future, our younger selves will live the lives we’ve had and end up here, arguing with each other, back at square one.” The coldest chill runs through Tony’s sore body, and he gasps, raising a fist to his mouth. “What if we’re caught in a temporal loop? What if we’ve been here many times, and each time…” Though he resists the sensation, the mere thought gives him goosebumps, the worst kind. “And each time we fail? And history keeps repeating itself, trapping us indefinitely?”

This leaves Rinckes speechless.

“I don’t like having to resort to this, Captain. I really don’t. But… realistically speaking, what are our options?”

The distraught look on the captain’s face disappears. His mouth forms a thin line and he frowns at his subordinate. “I don’t have any alternatives, but we are not going through with your plan. It reeks of desperation.”

Tony shuffles past the captain to access the left side of the interface and brings up the live feed. The Sundance’s lower section is conspicuously absent. Her saucer section, the Wolf, and the Kennedy are under heavy fire from the unflinching Massal prototype, and the second warship is powering up its identical network of phaser arrays. Even without the benefit of hindsight, anyone would agree defeat is imminent. “Tell me, is my desperation not justified?”

“We won’t go through with your plan.”

“Sir, saving the Federation has to take precedence. Billions will die otherwise.”

Rinckes clenches his fists. “No, billions have died. To get where we are, we have waded through seas of blood of those we let down. It’s happened, and if it’s to happen again, so be it. I won’t let you destroy this station.”

“Sir, if you consider—”

“I won’t let you kill Melanie.”

“Sir?”

“Step away from the console.”

Confusion delays Tony’s reaction. Melanie? Is he referring to the Sundance’s first officer?

“Step away.” Rinckes aims his phaser rifle at Tony. “Now, Lieutenant.”

Nausea thickens his throat. “You mean Commander Melanie Simons?” He remembers the Sundance was lost with all hands, but he had practically forgotten Commander Simons had been on the station too, having avoided being held hostage through sheer luck, like her captain. She, however, never made it to the shuttle bay.

A brief, high-pitched whine from Rinckes’ phaser rifle reveals it’s primed and ready to fire. “I won’t ask you again.”

“I’ll step back if you tell me what Melanie Simons has to do with this.”

“She’s here, Tony, on the station. I must… I can’t… Step away, Lieutenant!”

A halfhearted step backward is the best Tony can give him. “I don’t understand.”

“She wanted to split up, to increase our chances of disabling the shield generator.” His mouth quivers as he struggles to maintain his composure. “I never should have let her.”

“I had no idea she meant so much to you.”

A joyless chuckle. “Those who did are currently dying in the space battle.”

Tony takes another step back, yet Rinckes makes zero effort to lower his rifle.

“All my life, Tony. All my life.”

Worried, the lieutenant instinctively tightens his grip on his rifle and carefully positions his left hand underneath its barrel.

“The universe robs you of the things… the people you dare to love,” Rinckes says. “My parents died for nothing. The Sundance, what’s left of her, will soon burn in space. The Achilles… You’re intimately familiar with her fate.”

Tony has nothing to say; no words of wisdom or solace present themselves.

“I’d long ago made peace with the universe’s indifference. It is how it is. The more you care about something, the more it hurts when you lose it—a law as rigid as any law of nature. And it was okay.” His finger slides from the trigger guard toward the trigger itself. “Then I met Melanie, and she shattered my preconceptions, my reliance on an embittered worldview.” A crooked smile appears. “And it floored me. I didn’t know what to do, how to act, how to break free from the stone prison I’d constructed around myself. And just tell her…” His smile falters. “Tell her I care, you know?”

“Captain,” Tony manages to say. “I’m sorry you had to lose her.” Slowly, bordering on imperceptibly, he raises his phaser rifle to defend himself if necessary. “Losing the one person you care about most… It’s brutal.”

“I found her. I was too late but I found her. As she lay dying in my arms, I…” The captain’s voice breaks. “I couldn’t… couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say anything, Tony, anything worthwhile. I lied to her, lied to her about taking care of our ship, which had already perished. She didn’t know.” His tearful gaze drifts to the console. “The Sundance is still with us. So is Melanie.” When he sees Tony is aiming his rifle at him, he grimaces. “Really? Your sweet Emily died because you couldn’t shoot me. Do you honestly think you can shoot me now?”

Despite his mouth going dry, Tony replies, “Captain, let’s discuss this with our rifles lowered.”

“You first. That’s an order.”

For a few seconds, the standoff continues without anyone moving a muscle. What can he say to dissuade his captain from doing anything rash? All he has available is the truth. “I can’t, sir. I’m afraid you’ll kill me.”

Keeping his rifle trained on his target’s chest, Rinckes says, “Lower your weapon, Tony.”

“We’ll find a way, a way to save the Federation and Melanie.”

“You and I know that’s impossible.”

“I could help you save her,” Tony tries.

Rinckes shakes his head. “You won’t.”

His heartbeat thumping in his ears, he makes one more effort to reason with his captain. “I am the last remaining crewmember of the Achilles.”

“No, Tony.” Rinckes’ eyes unfix into a thousand-yard stare. “You’re an orphan of a lost timeline.”

Rinckes pulls the trigger the exact moment Tony dives away. A searing-hot phaser blast misses Tony’s scalp with inches to spare as he smashes into the bulkhead. Immediately, he crawls backward as fast as he can, away from his unhinged superior, whose expression has gone entirely blank as he levels his rifle at Tony.

“Dammit, Captain! We’re on the same side here!” Saying this has no effect on Rinckes whatsoever, so Tony reluctantly fires a warning shot into the ceiling in hopes of deterring him.

Sparks and rubble fragments rain down on the captain, who’s advancing toward his final reminder of a doomed vessel. “I am so sorry, Lieutenant. You’ve become a liability.”

Tony spots a shallow alcove off to the side and presses himself into it for the temporary shelter it will provide. At least the equipment protruding a foot or so from the bulkhead will keep him out of the captain’s direct line of sight, but not for long. All doors leading to this chamber are locked. Rinckes has him cornered. “Please, Captain. Please lay down your weapon. I don’t want to fight you!”

Another phaser blast strikes the protruding equipment next to Tony’s head, spraying him with tiny shards of smoldering plastic and metal, which he quickly pats off his skin and uniform before they injure him further. Resolute footsteps approach him; the captain is out for his blood.

“Stop this!” Tony begs. “Listen to me!”

No response.

“Don’t make me do this! Don’t make me fight back! You know I’m a good shot!”

The captain’s silence speaks for itself.

Although he wishes with all his might it didn’t have to come to this, Tony decides to shelve his reservations, toss aside his loyalty, and do what must be done to protect himself and the Federation.

Allowing his combat experience and training to take the reins, he pops out from his hiding place and returns fire.
 
Oh man, Rinckes really lost it, didn't he?

This has been brewing a little while now, in fact, I think you've set this up masterfully throughout your story. This eventual breakdown was due to happen sooner or later.

I can't even totally blame him for it. Sure, a starship captain must be held to a higher standard, but what he and Blue have been through over the last few years is more than can be reasonably expected of anyone, really. So perhaps the bigger surprise is how well the younger man has held up and how Blue is the one who instantly understands what must be done without going totally insane.

The idea that they might be caught in a time loop is a chilling one as well. Although I sincerely hope that's now how this thing concludes, it would be an appropriate end to this tragic tale.
 
Thanks as always for your analyses, CeJay. I appreciate your thoughtful feedback.

I think the only reason Blue didn't go bonkers right there and then is that the extreme conclusion he had to arrive at aligned with his core motivation throughout his journey: to make a difference in helping the Federation.

Ooh, I have so much planned for the final few chapters :D I'm currently working on the second draft of chapter 8 and it's been one of the toughest chapters to write so far with all that's happening storywise. I can confirm its release date: February 7, 2020. It's a ways off (two months to be exact) but I think it'll be well worth the wait.
 
Hi everyone! The next chapter's release is one month away. What better way to start the new year than with an exclusive sneak preview for chapter 8? Mind you, it's not the final version because I'm still in the process of proofreading and editing, but it's not like it's in a different language at this point, so why not share it? :D

Here goes, the first few paragraphs of the upcoming chapter:

Lieutenant Tony Blue unleashes his phaser rifle at the man he once trusted with his life. With each devastating packet of energy exiting his handheld weapon, Tony’s hesitance to fire decreases and his combat instincts take over. Captain Stephan Rinckes seeks cover behind the elongated room’s standing interface console and fires blindly from his hiding place. Tony drops to the floor to avoid these lethal phaser bursts and tries to ascertain if the interface console fails to conceal his captain entirely. One carefully aimed shot could stop this unwanted phaser battle. A shot to the leg might snap the captain out of his violent state and invite reason, Tony hopes against his better judgment. Another salvo of phaser blasts fly over his scalp, just as he determines he cannot hit the captain from here.

It pains him to use his tactical abilities and training against his captain, no matter their personal history or the cause of this death match. Admittedly, Tony’s intention of destroying Station A-12 with everyone on it to safeguard a future where billions will get to live unsettles him to the core, and he questions whether he has the grit to go through with such an extreme course of action. The whole argument is rendered moot by Rinckes’ stance on the subject. The captain may realize sacrificing Station A-12 is a harsh necessity, but his desire to save Melanie Simons has obliterated his rationality. If only Tony can be granted the opportunity to access the interface console and overload the shield generator coils on the other side of the transparent partition. The resulting cascading reaction would rip this space station apart and mend the future.

Rinckes emerges from cover and shoots at Tony, who presses himself against the partition while firing. “Throw me your weapon!” Rinckes orders as he returns to cover. “This doesn’t have to end in bloodshed.”

Tony knows Rinckes well enough to discern between sincere and insincere remarks. In addition, the captain’s icy stare as he shot at Tony betrays his dangerous frame of mind. For a moment, Tony considers firing at the interface console, because it would ruin Rinckes’ cover. It would also complicate overloading the coils, so it is a careful consideration to make.

That is, until Rinckes makes the decision for him. By his doing, the interface console reddens as if blushing and explodes in a fountain of debris. Out of instinct, he flees the carnage, making sure to stay close to the floor, heading for the exit at the far end despite knowing it’s locked.
 
Dear people who read my work,
Tomorrow's the release date/deadline for chapter 8. Unfortunately, I am not going to be able to post it tomorrow. It's nearing completion and I was right on track and schedule, up until the moment my health took a significant turn for the worse mid-January. I am expected to make a full recovery and that's the important thing. Also, I am still able to work on Fallen Heroes, but as you will undoubtedly understand, my health takes precedence over a strict writing schedule.

The second-to-last revision of chapter 8 is almost done. And then it's just one final revision and it's ready for launch. I expect to be able to post the new chapter the 20th or the 27th of this month, so at least I got the February part of the release date right ;). Thank you for your patience!
 
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