Star Trek: Fallen Heroes

[Alexbright99]

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 - Chapter 1a

Behind enemy lines, USS Achilles – July 9, 2386 – Stardate 63517.8

The holographic representation of a S’Prenn ship looms over the forward bridge consoles. Black as space itself, its irregular shape is hard to discern, save for a few arachnid properties. Smaller than the average Federation or Altonoid vessel, it floats in forlorn emptiness like a spider drowned in a pool. It looks grisly and uninviting, yet it may turn out to be the most important object the Achilles has ever encountered.

Lieutenant Tony Blue, manning his tactical station, watches Captain Stephan Rinckes study the alien ship from his captain’s chair. Seeing a S’Prenn vessel up close is a rare occasion indeed, even for a Starfleet captain. Tony’s successor, First Officer Commander Erin Crow, shifts uneasily in her seat to the captain’s right. That has nothing to do with her being nervous about her new commission and everything to do with her suspecting this derelict to be a trap. To the captain’s left, Doctor Chris Kingsley also fidgets in his seat, for completely different reasons: the doctor cannot wait to perform an autopsy on an actual S’Prenn.

“The S’Prenn ship’s forward momentum is 300 kph,” Chief Helmsman Lieutenant Baxter reports. “We’ve matched speed and heading.”

“Keep her steady,” Captain Rinckes says. “Lieutenant Kels, report.”

The Andorian Lieutenant Kels shakes her head, wiggling the blue antennae towering over her snow-white hair. “It’s hard to obtain useful readings from the scanners, Captain. There’s too much interference emanating from the vessel. We need to boost power to sensors.”

The Vulcan Lieutenant Surtak stationed next to Lieutenant Baxter raises an eyebrow and demonstrates his penchant for stating the obvious. “We would have to disengage our cloaking device in order to do that, sir.”

While carrying a cloaking device is in direct violation of the treaty of Algeron, Tony realizes the Achilles wouldn’t have survived this long in hostile territory without it. Since the Altonoids are using this technology as well, thereby gaining an otherwise unfair advantage, Starfleet’s brass agreed to put the cloaking device the Klingons supplied to good use. Regulations exist for a reason, but sometimes rules have to be broken—an act of desperation rather than defiance.

A calculating stare from the captain ends his musings. “Lieutenant Blue, tactical analysis.”

Tony has had less than a day to get used to his new tactical post, but experience kicked in soon enough and he already feels in control. “There’s nobody around. We should be all right.” He inadvertently triggers a silent intruder alert on deck 6 and quickly corrects his mistake. “Weapons and shields are standing by in case anything goes wrong.” From the other side of the bridge, Lieutenant Commander Terrell and Lieutenant Gibbs are grinning at him. He guesses his accidental intruder alert didn’t go entirely unnoticed. Luckily, they’re kind enough to refrain from making a fuss.

“Drop cloak,” Captain Rinckes says. As a result, the bridge lights come on, revealing an amalgam of old and recent battle damage. Scorch marks stain the bulkheads and carpet, panels are missing, and some consoles have had to be scrapped and rerouted, but everything is generally speaking in working order. Functionality trumps cosmetics in this covert mission past its four-year mark.

“Boosting power to sensors,” Chief Engineer Lt. Cmdr. Terrell says.

Everyone waits for Lt. Kels to process her science terminal’s incoming data. Cmdr. Crow deems it necessary to ask, “Is it a setup?” which causes Dr. Kingsley to roll his eyes.

“I’m still having trouble reading the vessel’s interior,” Lt. Kels says. “There is a breathable atmosphere. No detectable life signs. And that’s all I can tell. The ship could be damaged beyond repair or simply powered down.”

“Suspicious,” Cmdr. Crow says.

“I agree,” Tony adds, which gains him the new XO’s undivided attention. “I must point out that an activated S’Prenn ship could easily destroy us.”

Captain Rinckes keeps focused on the viewscreen while no doubt weighing the available options. “Your concerns are warranted. However, we cannot let this opportunity go by.”

“I agree wholeheartedly, Captain,” Dr. Kingsley says. “And if you are to send an away team, I recommend they wear environmental suits.”

It’s as if the doctor has read the captain’s mind. “Commander Crow, assemble an away team.”

Her delayed response denotes her reluctance. “Understood, sir.”

Tony can’t squelch a smile.

“Lieutenant Blue, you’re with me,” Crow says in a thinly veiled diabolical tone.

Tony wishes his smile-squelching abilities were better.

She rises from her chair. “You too, Commander Terrell.”

The dark-skinned chief engineer stands up immediately and says with a broad grin, “A mysterious ship filled to the brim with giant sentient spiders who may or may not be alive, and the chance of it being a deadly trap? Blimey, count me in.” Joking aside, analyzing technology this advanced is an enticing prospect for any chief engineer, and he knows it.

Tony and Terrell follow Crow into the nearest turbolift. “Deck 4, transporter room,” she says to the turbolift’s interface.

A modest cough from Terrell. “Um. Belay that. Deck 5, armory.”

The two men await Crow’s reaction, but she pretends nothing has happened. She’s as willing to be armed to the teeth on this mission as they are.

* * *

The few times the mysterious S’Prenn intervened in Federation-Altonoid conflicts, they had always been on the Federation’s side. After the war erupted, the S’Prenn assisted in three separate battles and then, oddly enough, went silent. As the war raged on, they were nowhere to be found. One can imagine the surprise when they showed up all over the Alpha Quadrant a year later, integrated into Altonoid assault fleets. Since then, everyone has been wondering why the normally benign S’Prenn teamed up with a military force of aggressive xenophobes.

Less than a month ago, the crew of the Achilles located a crash-landed Altonoid starship and uploaded its database. Confronted by two investigating Altonoid warships, Captain Rinckes had to abandon Tony Blue’s wife Emily and field medic Ensign Ted Barton on the planet, effecting the young officers’ demise. The intel recovered, however, proved vital. It was discovered that the S’Prenn have been aiding the Altonoids since as far back as the brutal attack on Earth, and they are being coerced to do so by means of brainwashing. With that, the Altonoids not only neutralized the Federation’s most important ally, they enlisted them, enslaved them, despite the S’Prenn’s superior intellect and sophisticated engineering. The Altonoids are not to be underestimated.

* * *

Aboard the S’Prenn derelict, four Starfleet officers materialize in a cramped chamber. In a place this unwelcoming, they’re glad to be wearing their robust EV suits, which leaves only their faces visible.

Commander Erin Crow’s miserable expression betrays she is resisting the urge to ask the transporter chief to beam her back and let the others sort it out. Per the new XO’s request, security officer Ensign Josh Donahue has joined the away team, carrying three cylindrical pattern enhancers. Lieutenant Tony Blue examines his phaser rifle to make sure it is in perfect condition, even though he has checked it twice already before beaming over. Lastly, Lieutenant Commander Jon Terrell almost strangles himself with his weapons’ shoulder straps as he checks his three phaser rifles—each a different type—and his handphaser, adjusts his shoulder-mounted isomagnetic disintegrator, and inspects the imposing ceremonial Klingon knife he snatched from the armory’s decorative display.

The air seems putrid and thick, and Tony is grateful for his suit’s oxygen supply. The ship’s interior remains badly lit when Crow and Donahue switch on their wrist-mounted SIMs beacons and Terrell and Tony activate their phaser rifles’ flashlights. Evidently, these matte bulkheads absorb light. Acting on instinct, the away team huddles together as the three men await the first officer’s orders.

With her mixed ancestry, the jet-black-haired Erin Crow is beautiful even when wearing an EV suit—her petite figure makes her deceptively adorable—yet she appears to be on a continuous mission to counter her good looks with an assortment of scowls and frowns. The expression she’s sporting at the moment scores a solid four out of five scowling stars, as she waits for Terrell to stop fiddling with his weapon collection and concentrate on the tricorder he has detached from his suit.

Anxious as he may be, Terrell summons a friendly—if not broken—smile as he scans the surrounding area and says, “The computer room is located several decks away, I think.” He waves his tricorder around with steady precision. “From what I can gather about this area’s infrastructure, I might have an idea of where we should go.”

“Could you be more specific than that?” Crow asks.

“Not yet, though I’m starting to believe the computer room is the source of the interference.” Terrell scans the chamber wall to wall, testing the commander’s patience. “Yes, now I’m sure. If we follow the source, we’ll end up in the computer core room.”

“Is it safe?” Donahue asks, blinking more rapidly than his suit’s multi-colored status indicators. “The interference, I mean.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Terrell says.

This halfhearted reassurance does not placate Donahue’s nerves. “So we find the room, place the pattern enhancers, study their computer, and get out?”

“There’s a problem,” Terrell says in a manner that makes everyone check for spiders crawling up their legs. “S’Prenn hallways are tiny.” He shines the three phaser rifles’ flashlights on a corridor entrance, which measures two by two feet at most. “There’s no way we can crawl through there with our EV suits on.”

* * *

Lieutenant Tony Blue and Ensign Josh Donahue have ditched their EV suits. In their identical, gray excursion uniforms with a gold department color stripe running across yoke and sleeves, they could pass as brothers, seeing as they both are in their mid-twenties and have pale complexion, dark blond hair, and deep brown irises. Donahue is slightly taller and fitter and—as opposed to Tony’s default weary gaze—has an air of youthful optimism about him.

Although fully clothed, Tony feels naked compared to his superiors. Terrell, no doubt relieved he wasn’t selected to enter the crypt of multi-legged terrors, offers Donahue a phaser rifle. The ensign politely declines, deeming the handphaser he has secured to his belt more useful in cramped quarters. Tony, however, holds on to his phaser rifle for dear life.

“I’ve linked our in-suit communicators with your standard-issue ones,” Terrell says. “We won’t be able to hear each other once you’ve advanced too far into the interference.” This makes Tony feel even more exposed. “Just make sure you follow the waypoint on your tricorders. It should lead you to the computer room. Place the pattern enhancers there and you will be able to contact us and the ship.”

“I need not stress the importance of this mission,” Crow says from within the safety of her EV suit. “We may never get another chance. The S’Prenn have been an enigma for far too long. We must learn their side of the story. Gentlemen, this could turn the war around in our favor.”

“Or it could be a trap,” Tony says. Crow’s ensuing frown reminds him that she’s pretty when she’s angry, in a terrifying kind of way.

“I know, Lieutenant.” She enjoys calling him by his lowered rank. “Trust me, I know.” She takes a stride forward, armored and imposing in her EV suit despite her smaller stature. “For the record, I did not choose you for this mission because you were laughing at me on the bridge. I chose you because of your prior dealings with the S’Prenn and your away mission experience in general. I know you can handle this.”

Tony doesn’t believe her. However, he has no choice but to respect his place in the hierarchy. “I am ready, Commander. So is Donahue, right?”

Donahue gives a confident nod while adjusting the shoulder belt keeping the pattern enhancers strapped to his back.

Having run out of excuses to dawdle, Tony and Donahue say their goodbyes and set off. Tony crouches down first and crawls into the tight corridor while clutching a tricorder and shining his phaser rifle’s flashlight into the foreboding darkness. Donahue reactivates his wrist-mounted SIMs beacon and follows. Scary as this may be, Tony is duly motivated and confident in his and the ensign’s abilities. That is, until he hears Crow say to Terrell, unaware of her involuntary eavesdroppers, “If they don’t report back in twenty minutes, we’ll send in a new team.”

 

[CeJay]

Spooky and creepy. Tight quarters and possible spider-like lifeforms makes this even worse.

I do enjoy the little tidbits you sprinkle in your story to make your characters more human, such as Tony's innocuous mistake when operating his console, it really adds a level of depth to the story.

I'm less sure about Crow though. She doesn't appear entirely qualified to be the XO and that might very well be intentional and a foreshadowing of things to come. Or she might grow into the role.

Regardless, the tension is ramped up all the way to 11 here. Looking forward to see what latest disaster will befall this crew

 

[Alexbright99]

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 - Chapter 1b

Commanders Crow and Terrell’s comm chatter reduces to static and disappears altogether as Lieutenant Tony Blue and Ensign Josh Donahue make their way single file through alien corridors barely wide enough for one person. Tony adheres to his tricorder’s navigational instructions, which consist of a single three-dimensional arrow pointed into what Terrell assumed to be the right direction. Behind him, Donahue is monitoring his own tricorder to double-check every path Tony might take. A makeshift compass is far from an ideal means of navigating this maze; it’s only one or two steps up from wielding a dowser.

Without their EV suits, nothing shields them from the sights and smells they encounter. The air is heavy and strangely acidic, and the enveloping heat is causing Tony’s attire to stick to his skin and his hair to sag into a mess on his sweaty scalp. Their flashlights cast insufficient light into the corridors, which unfortunately have the same matte finish as the bulkheads in the first room.

After the duo has rounded several corners and negotiated a small network of intersections, the navigation arrow finally points straight ahead. Tony halts to inspect the corridor they’ve entered, using his rifle’s flashlight despite its limited effectiveness. Just as he intends to signal the coast is clear, he does a double take, thinking he has caught a glimpse of an ill-boding shape lying on the deck plating a few dozen feet ahead. A product of his imagination? Tony flicks on his rifle’s night vision and squints into its scope. It’s hard to make out from this distance, but it’s there: a lifeless S’Prenn.

The S’Prenn are highly intelligent arachnids comprising two body segments the size of clenched fists, two lengthy palps flanking a set of disproportionally big white fangs, and eight straight, scaly legs, which make the average S’Prenn over a foot wide. They perceive the world with two—not eight as you might expect—raisin-like, obsidian eyes. Because of their remarkable intellect belying their relatively small brain size, it has been surmised their brains use a biological equivalent of quantum computing. Whether there is any truth to this hypothesis is yet to be confirmed.

Tony sways his rifle about. Its light beam dances around the S’Prenn’s features, casting grotesque shadows on the nearby bulkheads.

“What’s the delay?” Donahue asks.

“We’ve run into a dead S’Prenn.”

“Oh, good,” Donahue says with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

Tony chortles at his colleague’s remark, a welcome diversion from the gloomy setting they’re in. “If we scan it, we may find out how it died.”

“Lead the way…”

Tony readies his tricorder to scan the creature. The hairs in the back of his neck stand up as he approaches the S’Prenn. The way it’s lying there motionlessly, it’s clearly dead, but what if it—

The floor disappears. Apparently, because S’Prenn are adept climbers, some of the major corridor junctures go up and down as well as left and right. With no time to react, Tony plummets headfirst into a vertical corridor shaft. Screaming and flailing, he slides down, occasionally grasping an intersecting hallway, only to have to let go moments later. With an ominous splash, his tricorder and phaser rifle land at the bottom of the pit.

No matter how hard he tries, he cannot break his fall. Sounding high-pitched and powerless, he manages to utter, “Help me!” At least the rapidly closing-in floor looks soft—a little too soft, actually. His tricorder and rifle are floating in some sort of biological muck. As he slides closer, he discerns assorted S’Prenn body parts sticking out of the slush, among them several contorted spider legs.

In one last-ditch attempt, Tony grabs two opposite entrances, pain be damned, bringing himself to an abrupt halt. His aching arms nearly succumb to this sudden weight shift. Grunting with effort, and wishing he had spent more hours at the gym of late, he slowly pushes himself up. Still upside down, Tony glances at the sludge of nightmares three feet below him. If his arms give way—and they will eventually—he will drown in a pool of liquid S’Prenn and share Emily’s fate of dying in the line of duty. His muscles and tendons burn as his tiring arms lose strength. Did one of those S’Prenn legs move just now?

Something seizes his feet! Tony shrieks in terror and almost loses his grip. Whatever is holding him, it is trying to pull him up, reducing the strength needed to keep from nose-diving into the horrors beneath. “Hang on, Lieutenant,” the nearby Donahue says, clutching Tony’s ankles. With his feet planted firmly on two opposite corridor entrances two levels higher, the ensign supports their combined body weight. It looks as awkward as it does acrobatic, but this unplanned circus act is a godsend for the lieutenant.

With Donahue taking the burden off his arms, Tony is able to clasp the left corridor entrance. “I got it from here, Ensign.” As soon as Donahue lets go of him, Tony pushes off against the side and slips into the corridor—a horizontal one at last. Gasping for air, he crawls forward three meters at most before collapsing. The floor is lined with the same creepy sludge, but Tony couldn’t care less. He is exhausted, bruised and battered; his arms hurt like hell and he is sick to his stomach, but at least he’s not neck-deep in spider soup.

After angrily spitting out the metallic taste in his mouth, he notices a purple glow at the far end of this confining hallway, indicating it might open up into a room. Without waiting for his colleague, he army-crawls toward it.

* * *

This used to be a lounge of sorts, equipped with miniature food stations now displaying rotting, unknown substances. Purple wall panels illuminate the room, which is two decks high—though that isn’t saying much on a S’Prenn ship; a humanoid cannot stand here. Encircled by balconies, this lounge must’ve been able to cater to hundreds of S’Prenn at once. Not anymore; the S’Prenn in this tomb have been liquefied to varying degrees, shrouding each surface, mingling with food, hanging from the balconies. Strangely enough for an enclosed space containing so much decay, there’s only that typical acidic odor—and silence, complete silence.

Tony sits cross-legged in a corner of the lounge, his shoulders drooped and his head hung low, when Ensign Josh Donahue enters the room. Picking up on Tony’s dour mood, he adopts a respectful tone. “Lieutenant, I retrieved your gear.”

Tony doesn’t reply, preoccupied with staring at a clot of fused S’Prenn.

Donahue sets down the grimy rifle and tricorder and maintains a reverent silence as he unbuckles his shoulder strap, gingerly places the pattern enhancers on the floor, and sits down cross-legged opposite the dejected lieutenant. They should proceed with the mission, yet Donahue chooses to join this unanticipated wake and be patient.

Quiet seconds pass by until Tony speaks up. “There is no afterlife.”

Donahue doesn’t have a reply ready for that.

“Even in our enlightened civilization,” Tony continues, “mortals have a tendency to believe in ways to cheat death, to… not lose.” He wants to meet Donahue’s gaze, but the ensign averts his eyes. “The thought of disappearing… They crave some kind of reason, a reunion with people they cannot bear to live without.”

Donahue watches the melted S’Prenn surrounding them, frozen in their death throes—some unnaturally flat, others with coiled-up legs reaching for the ceiling.

“And who can blame them?” Tony asks, his voice shrill. “Who can be blamed for desiring something better… than this? Yet there is no afterlife.”

His discouraging statement lingers for a moment.

Donahue finally returns Tony’s stare and says, “I am not saying there is more to life and death.” He musters a comforting half-smile. “But how can one be absolutely sure?”

Tony’s attempt to mimic his colleague’s smile devolves into a morose parody. “When I was a Q, I received the gift of knowing things no mortal was ever supposed to find out: answers, depressing answer, the removal of uncertainty so often misinterpreted as hope.” He grits his teeth. “When you breathe your last, you breathe your last. The universe is done with you.”

The ensign lets out a doleful sigh. “We haven’t spoken since our last mission together. Must’ve been… three weeks ago? I never got the chance to say it, but I am deeply sorry for your loss. Emily was a fine officer and she is sorely missed.”

Despite Tony’s best efforts, his lips tremble and his words falter. “I am scared, Ensign.” A stray tear or two rolls down his cheeks. “I’ve lost so much already. My friends, my father, my… my Emily. I don’t know how to go on without…” He pulls himself together enough to say, “My life is next. And then it’s all over.”

They sit together in mutual silence while time seeps away.

Against his better judgment, Donahue lets his gaze wander once more to the distressing collection of massacred S’Prenn covering the deck plating, walls, and balconies. “I had a younger brother named Virgil.”

Surprised by this sudden change of subject, Tony shelves his self-pity and listens to his colleague.

“What a character. He was the kid who would fall out of the treehouse and then climb back in right away. He always managed to pick fights with the bigger kids, and of course it was up to his older brother to come to the rescue.” Donahue chuckles softly. “His fearlessness never failed to land him in trouble, creating these impossible situations where the odds were stacked against him and he pulled through anyway. I honestly don’t know how he did it. No matter what, he never lost his fighting spirit. Even after shattering his leg in a shuttle accident, he recovered faster than anyone I ever met. He joined Starfleet like his big brother. The whole family was so proud of him. I was proud of him, too.”

Tony braces himself for the inevitable tragedy to strike in Donahue’s story.

The ensign doesn’t keep him waiting. “Virgil served on the USS Goddard, part of Earth’s defense force. He died protecting our home. Never stood a chance.” Donahue sets his jaw. “So yeah… this time his brother wasn’t around to fight off the bigger kids… I had dozens of relatives living on Earth. Nobody made it out. And when I die, so does the last member of our once happy family. It’ll be as if we never existed.” He gets to his feet and straightens up as much as the low ceiling allows. “I think we’re all scared, Lieutenant. You, me, the captain, everyone.”

Many thoughts go through Tony’s mind, many things he ought to say and share. All he can bring himself to say is, “Fair enough.” He dries his tears and inhales deeply, then locks eyes with the ensign. “Thank you for saving me.”

Donahue straps the pattern enhancers to his back and says with a congenial smile, “It’s what I do.” He hands Tony his phaser rifle and tricorder. “After you, Lieutenant.”

Tony glances at his tricorder and grumbles, “We may have some climbing to do.”

 

[Alexbright99]

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 - Chapter 1c

The lieutenant and the ensign make their way through another set of slimy corridors in their journey to the main computer room. Lieutenant Tony Blue makes a mental note that the first thing he will do once safely aboard the Achilles is ritually burn his uniform and take an eternal sonic shower. Luckily, the S’Prenn ship’s unusual and seemingly arbitrary layout has one advantage: they didn’t have to climb up more than a handful of decks to compensate for their brief detour.

Crawling through eerie passageways harboring limitless supplies of deceased S’Prenn, Tony studies his tricorder, distracting himself from the scaly legs and squishy bodies he’s moving under and over while keeping on the lookout for sudden drops. It’s impossible to gauge how far they have to go; all he has is that arrow steering him in the right direction—presumably. These corridors, offering no room for U-turns, let alone standing up, filled with spider slush, provide the perfect breeding ground for a cozy hybrid of claustrophobia and arachnophobia.

“No doubt about it, Lieutenant,” Ensign Josh Donahue says over the familiar warble of his scanning tricorder. “They died of exposure to a volatile chemical reaction. That would account for the acidic smell.”

“Dangerous to us?” Tony asks, just to be sure. If it were indeed dangerous to humans, they would’ve started melting too by now.

“I don’t think so. I’m not a science officer, so don’t ask me about the specifics—“

“I won’t,” Tony says as he removes a loose spider appendage from inside his sleeve.

“—but this reaction is very harmful to S’Prenn biology in particular, as if it were engineered for this purpose.”

“An assault with chemical weapons?”

“Likely. Then again, there are other possible explanations, such as an accident caused by malfunctioning equipment or a medical experiment gone awry. We know so little about them, and I’m neither a biologist nor an engineer. My job is to shoot at things.”

The joke is lost on Tony, who’s too busy loathing the black slush clinging to his person, intermingling with his sweat, permeating his lungs with every inhalation. It’s enough to make anyone sick. In fact, Donahue has started gagging and making other repulsive sounds in the background. He can’t blame him; the conditions they have to work in are disgusting beyond measure.

So many questions about this place are difficult to answer. However, there is no doubt that these S’Prenn got the short end of the stick. Tony recalls an earlier attempt by the Altonoids to brainwash a group of S’Prenn. The normally docile S’Prenn had gone insane and killed everyone in sight, including the Altonoid scientists, leaving it up to him to save the day—something he used to be more proficient in with his Q powers intact. He ponders whether a similar incident doomed this vessel, if this bloodbath was caused by merciless Altonoid soldiers or by unhinged S’Prenn attacking themselves in a blind rage.

Donahue’s pace quickens. Without giving it any thought, Tony quickens his pace too. With his senses returning to the real world, he grows aware that something is amiss, as if Donahue’s reassuring presence is no longer with him. He hears the ensign hitting the bulkheads every other step despite the discomfort this must cause. Somehow afraid to speak up, and unable to look over his shoulder without losing speed, he follows his instincts and presses forward.

Heartbeat rising, Tony pushes a few buttons on his tricorder, temporarily forgoing its navigational function to activate its integrated camera and display. He points the impromptu mirror over his shoulder and tries his best to stabilize the image—no easy feat when crawling through a narrow tube. When he succeeds, he wishes he hadn’t bothered.

Ensign Donahue, the man he had a good conversation with minutes earlier, has become rabid, his skin white as snow, foam dripping down exposed teeth. He thrashes his limbs as he closes in, his face growing in size on the tricorder’s display. Disfigured spider legs, four on each side, stick out from behind his neck like skeletal fingers. A surviving S’Prenn must have lowered from the ceiling and latched onto the poor ensign. Once a S’Prenn sinks its large fangs into its victim’s brain stem, it intertwines their nervous systems and assumes control—an unpleasant process in which the subject has no chance of winning.

With fully dilated pupils locked in a furious scowl, and speaking like someone unaccustomed to possessing vocal cords and a human mouth, Donahue hisses, “Stop!”

Unable to suppress a terrified scream, Tony upgrades his hasty retreat to an outright scramble for the end of this passageway, though there is no escape plan besides getting as far away from the mutated ensign as possible. His elbows and knees are sore already, and tunnel vision caused by his fight-or-flight response only serves to elongate this nightmarish corridor. It might impair his speed a little, but his hands remain glued to his tricorder and rifle, the latter’s flashlight shining erratically ahead.

No matter how fast he goes, what’s left of Donahue is right behind him, clawing at his ankles. The S’Prenned ensign is nothing short of irate. “Come back!” he commands in an otherworldly voice sending shivers down Tony’s spine.

Tony catches a face full of dead S’Prenn hanging from the ceiling and uses the back of his hand to knock its remains away from his eyes and nose. This slows him down enough for the livid ensign to grab him by the shoe and stab deformed fingernails through its fabric and into his foot. Wincing in pain, he kicks Donahue in the head and breaks free at the cost of losing his right shoe. The bloodcurdling cry this elicits from his attacker distracts him from the fact that his sock has become soggy already.

Ensign Josh Donahue is a good officer and, from what Tony could gather in the brief time he has known him, a good person as well. As much as he hates the idea of having to hurt his colleague, Tony cannot allow this chase to continue.

While trying to maintain velocity, he raises his phaser rifle and makes several attempts to point it at his chaser, but the rifle keeps getting jammed between the bulkheads. With a sinking feeling, it dawns on him that in a space this cramped, turning his rifle around is physically impossible, rendering him defenseless. The one upside is that he is free to use the rifle to light his escape path, and he spots another hazardous intersection with a long drop.

With the ensign hot on his trail, he picks a random corridor in a hopeless effort to shake off his pursuer. His stomach churns as he crosses the hundred-foot-deep chasm and enters the left hallway. Too late, he realizes he could’ve used the juncture to rotate his rifle, but it is impossible to think straight with busloads of adrenaline pumping through his veins. Moments after he has entered the corridor, he hears Donahue—uncoordinated as the ensign is with a giant spider controlling him—plummet into the gap, his limbs clattering against rock-solid bulkheads.

Out of caution, Tony rushes onward for another thirty feet before stopping. With a trembling hand, he lifts his tricorder, which is still doubling as mirror. Distant light from the SIMs beacon Donahue must have shed during his violent transformation scarcely pierces the darkness. He listens for signs of activity, but he can’t hear anything over his panting. Donahue must be at the bottom of the pit—wounded or worse. Not the fate he deserved, but at least Tony is out of danger.

As he catches his breath and terror yields to fatigue, he permits himself to drop to the deck. He considers shouting after the ensign, but it’s no use… Donahue is either dead or still S’Prenned. “I’m sorry, Josh. I really am,” he says, wiping filth off his tricorder with his filthier sleeve and ending up with a smudged screen. As he selects the navigation program, the sound of someone clawing his way up the vertical corridor threatens to reignite his hyperventilation.

Careful not to make any noise, Tony gets a move on to increase the distance between him and the junction behind him, undeterred by the navigation arrow on his tricorder indicating he’s going in the wrong direction. Slush clings to his hair, skin, and clothes, filling his nose with an acidic stink. His right sock makes a nauseating squishy sound with everything it connects with, be it deck plating or yet another unidentifiable spider body part.

The rattling of his pursuer climbing the corridor shaft ceases abruptly. Before Tony can jump to conclusions, Donahue yells from the intersection, “Get back here!” and recommences pursuit. It is difficult for Tony to rely on his hearing while panting and scuttling, but Donahue seems to be gaining on him.

A shallow pool of thick sludge conceals the floor, deepening as the fleeing lieutenant progresses. Belatedly, he notices the corridor declines at a faint angle. Despite his regained tunnel vision, he discerns rows of tiny rooms to his left and right, their open doors revealing lifeless S’Prenn. Without an angry monster going after him, these living quarters would have intrigued him. Now he just dismisses them. He is already having trouble lifting his tricorder and rifle clear of the sludge.

Entering this corridor was a mistake. The ensign is catching up with him, noisily splashing around while traversing the same slush. Tony will have to make do with the cards he has been dealt, so he presses on, even though the acidic mire has risen to his chin. The lumps in the sludge are the worst, and he has to work hard to keep from freaking out. There is no time to vomit or cry; there is only the need to survive.

His left hand slips and he almost swallows a mouthful of muck. Frantically, he spits out the spiders’ remains and wipes his mouth with his free hand, all the while sustaining his momentum. Then it hits him: his tricorder is gone! Without it, he is lost in this labyrinth of horrors. It must be close by, yet there is no opportunity whatsoever for him to retrieve it. He can already hear Donahue hissing at him, and as far as Tony can see with his flashlight occasionally submerged, the corridor continues to slope downward.

“You know what? Enough of this!” He sets his rifle on a high setting and fires away at the slush, thereby giving the corridor and the tiny residences an unnerving orange hue, as if they’ve been set ablaze. Unable to maintain a steady aim, Tony sweeps an irregular path as his rifle’s phaser beam vaporizes the liquids, leaving singed S’Prenn fragments in its wake. The laws of physics are unavoidable and fresh muck flows in from the far end of the corridor. This is by no means a permanent solution, but he keeps the trigger squeezed and sloshes onward, even though Donahue is also taking advantage of the path Tony clears. As opposed to the lieutenant, he doesn’t seem to be tiring.

Finally, Tony catches a break and detects a gap in the ceiling, a vertical corridor leading to higher decks, which is a welcome change from corridors leading to an endless fall. Grateful for a chance of escaping this passageway from hell, he clambers into the vertical shaft, making sure he rotates his phaser rifle so it points down.

It’s great to have plenty of headroom for once. Intersecting decks provide him with handhold and foothold for his rapid ascent. The pain and hopelessness he felt seconds ago have evaporated as he positions his feet on two adjacent hallways and takes aim with his rifle. The right hallway entrance stinging his shoeless foot doesn’t compromise his determination in the slightest. Roughly eight meters below him, the horizontal corridor he fled is slowly filling with slush. Donahue is audibly wallowing through it, closing in on him, while Tony’s flashlight shines at the intersection like a spotlight failing to locate the lead actor. “Come on, show yourself,” Tony says through his teeth.

Leaning back, his free hand planted on the nearby bulkhead, he tries to calm his breathing. It’s a challenging shot, and accidentally shooting himself in the leg is not going to help, so he aims his lowered rifle at the exact center of the clearing, his biceps twitching with tension.

There he is! At the first sign of movement, Tony pulls the trigger. Pure phaser energy illuminates the area as it travels down the shaft in a split second and vaporizes the sludge directly below. Donahue scampers off while fresh muck gushes in to cover buckled deck plating. Tony has missed his target, but he has made his point.

Being in charge of the situation refuels Tony’s depleted energy reserves. “You didn’t expect that, did you?” he shouts, nearly losing his footing. After a wave of vertigo, he regains his balance and commands himself to stay focused. His enraged colleague makes another loud approach, so Tony steadies his rifle in its downward aim and waits. It’s like shooting spiders in a barrel, he thinks and immediately hates himself for the terrible pun.

Donahue shows his pale face again, his white fangs reflective in the flashlight’s beam, and Tony pulls the trigger, this time striking the pattern enhancers the ensign is carrying. Leaving a trail of sparks, the growling ensign scurries off as if chased by the devil himself. Without further hesitation, Tony climbs up, forbidding himself to fret over how the odds of him getting off this ship have all but vanished now that he has inadvertently damaged the pattern enhancers. After each three-deck ascent, he fires a shot, just to be safe, but Donahue keeps out of sight. He must still be down there, preparing for another assault, infuriated by his target’s defiance.

Fatigue forces its way back into Tony’s system. That and his grimy hands, missing shoe, sodden clothes, and having to hold on to his rifle increases his chances of slipping and falling every second he prolongs his stay in this corridor shaft, so he deactivates his flashlight and dives into the nearest hallway. Crawling on all fours again, he proceeds as quietly as possible. The purple hue at the end of the tunnel is a more than adequate replacement for the false sense of security his flashlight gave him.

Tony is relieved to discover that, after following the purple glow into a left turn, the corridor opens up into an area where he can stand. He takes another left through an almost humanoid-sized doorway and enters a storage room littered with anti-grav units, packing materials, and decaying S’Prenn—a mishmash of black and purple bound by faint light. He should check if they’re really dead; escaping Donahue’s ire will be rendered moot if he winds up S’Prenned himself. He shudders at the thought but realizes checking every nook and cranny is too impractical. As soon as he is convinced his disappearing act fooled his pursuer, going back to look for his tricorder is the next logical step, yet he is already having trouble remembering how he got here. With no other options available, he sits down opposite the doorway and waits, too scared to change his lifted phaser rifle’s setting back to stun.

 

[CeJay]

Boy, this has turned into a cat-and-mouse game of the most disgusting and variety. I could practically feel my skin crawl while reading this. Curious to see if there are any other phobias you manage to unleash on poor Tony.

 

[Alexbright99]

I can quite confidently say Tony will never have to deal with clowns, well except for the one who's writing his story

 

[Alexbright99]

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 - Chapter 1d

===Continued from previous scene===
Now that Tony has transitioned from running to hiding, he notices a fang sticking out of his right sock. Without flinching, he yanks it out of his foot and casts it aside, leaving a trickle of blood in its place. Banning disgust and overexertion from his mind, he urges himself to listen. He will not allow himself to contemplate the mess he’s in—literally and figuratively—while he remains in danger.

Somewhere out there, the mighty Achilles hangs in space, ready to whisk him to safety, teams of trained security officers standing by. They might as well be in another galaxy for all the good it will do him here, trapped in the catacombs of a S’Prenn derelict, lost in its maze, surrounded by death, hounded by a former crewmate, exhausted, dirty, injured, and most of all… very alone.

He has been here before.

He had forgotten, moved on. So much had happened so quickly after that fateful day forever changed his existence. He tries to resist, tries to concentrate on staying vigilant, but a sudden upsurge of memories tears through the walls he set up and forgot about in another lifetime.

He was so young—thirteen—when the Borg invaded the space station in which he and his father resided. He had always felt protected and complacent until the invasion shattered that childlike illusion. Mere seconds after the intruder alert went off, cybernetic beings beamed into the station and began their indiscriminate killing and assimilating spree. A tactical drone shot his father—fatally, Tony had believed. In a state of shock, he fled deeper and deeper into the station, hemmed in by panic and chaos. The Borg were everywhere, taking people left and right, growing more resilient to phaser fire with every hit they took. Dozens of people died or were claimed by the Borg to join their collective of mindless cyborgs. He had sought shelter in a maintenance alcove, whimpering to himself, praying the mechanical zombies wouldn’t find him.

The Borg’s unified voices haunt the corridors and assert resistance is futile, occasionally drowned out by phaser fire and screams. They are calling for him. They will find him huddled in a corner of this alcove and kill him; or worse, enslave him, replace organs and limbs with machinery, his thoughts with theirs, forcing him to bow to their will until they deem him unworthy of repair. He is absolutely defenseless.

No, he is not.

He is holding a phaser rifle. During the Borg attack, he was unarmed. Cold to his aching fingers, the rifle’s grip reassures him. The rifle’s weight empowers him. And with that realization, Tony snaps out of it and returns to the present, to the S’Prenn storage room and its dim purple lighting, to the angry snarling and panting of someone in the adjacent corridor.

Tony scrambles to his feet and takes a squishy step back. He hears Donahue stop dead in his tracks. He has been spotted! The S’Prenned ensign lets out a hair-raising shriek before dashing toward the room’s entrance. With a racing heartbeat, Tony readies his rifle, fully prepared to defend himself.

He didn’t expect the good ensign to crawl in on the ceiling.

Too shocked to react sensibly, Tony stares open-mouthed at the upside-down abomination, feeling like a fly caught in its web. Donahue sticks to the ceiling, defying gravity, and his head swivels in an unnatural angle, locking opaque eyes on his helpless prey. It takes Tony a handful of precious seconds to regain the presence of mind to raise his phaser rifle and aim it at his attacker. Too little, too late.

Using his full body weight, the ensign springs off the ceiling, extending his six arms (four of which arachnid in nature), and grabs his target with torso-crushing force. This knocks the wind out of Tony’s lungs and the phaser rifle out of his hands, and the lieutenant bangs his head against the deck plating. Bright spots dance around in his vision as the ensign pins him down, his morbidly pale face mere inches away, growling at him, ready to bite his throat out. Tony closes his eyes and waits for Donahue to strike.

Yet, the ensign hesitates, as if brutally murdering him isn’t going to satisfy his bloodlust. Donahue’s voice sounds throaty and not his own when he screeches, “How can you live with what you’ve done?”

Tony slowly opens his eyes and watches in disgust as foamy saliva drips from Donahue’s fangs. The hellish face hovering above him leaves him at a temporary loss for words. “I don’t know what… Am I supposed to answer that question, or…?”

Not the reply Donahue was looking for. He tightens his grip on Tony’s waist, squeezing his victim’s ribs with four spider arms to such a degree that inhaling becomes impossible. “You deserve a more painful death than I can grant you.”

Fruitlessly trying to draw breath, Tony feels his ribs nearing their breaking point, rendering him unable to plead for his life, ineffective as it would be; there’s no mercy in his captor’s disfigured expression. Eight trembling spider legs belonging to the S’Prenn controlling him stick out from behind Donahue’s neck.

Struck by a sudden insight, Tony recalls the ensign started the mission with a handphaser secured to his belt. He might be able to reach it and subdue his assailant.

“You have seen the mayhem you have caused,” Donahue hisses. “And if only that were all. If only.” His face contorts in a ghoulish attempt at a smile. Tony stretches his right hand as much as the scaly arms allow until his fingernails scratch Donahue’s phaser holster. It is empty.

That’s it. That was his one chance of escape.

Donahue notices this and explains with the same twisted smile framing his fangs, “I tried to shoot you, Lieutenant, vaporize you, but the energy weapon slipped from my grasp. Humanoid bodies are clumsy.” He looks away suddenly, lost in thought, but unrelenting in choking his prisoner.

With his attacker’s head turned, Tony has a decent view of the S’Prenn wedged between the ensign’s neck and the pattern enhancers. It is severely injured and mutilated beyond healing. Its mental faculties must have been affected as well. With regained ferociousness, Donahue snaps his head back at Tony while his tight grip drains the life from the defenseless lieutenant.

“You couldn’t stand our rebellion, could you?” Donahue shrieks, his complexion a lurid purple in the storage room’s light. “You had to hunt us down. One by one, we fell. And when that wasn’t enough…”

Gagging and wheezing, Tony fights to stay conscious. The world around him is already growing dark and distant, as if someone else is experiencing this ordeal. A brief tug on his shoulders lifts him up, only to shove him back to the floor and back to the moment.

Donahue releases his crushing hold a little, enabling Tony to gulp for air. “I’m not letting you off the hook that easily, Lieutenant.” Doubt flashes across Donahue’s visage, gone as quickly as it came. “The chemical weapon you deployed on our ship was very elegant, I must concede. Biting through every living thing, melting us from the inside out. I can sense its acid in my system.” He pulls Tony in closer until there’s barely an inch between them.

To Tony’s astonishment, Donahue’s lips begin to quiver and his bulging eyes with their fully dilated pupils convey unequivocal sorrow.

“The pain, the ineffable anguish coursing through my veins as my friends succumbed. Helpless, I watched them melt. None were spared. Some tried to flee, some tried to seek concealment, some went mad and slaughtered their loved ones… tore them limb from limb. Others gathered in search of support, reprieve from the horrors. Sooner or later, everyone was reduced to gurgled screams and cries.”

Tony listens in shocked silence.

Hot tears roll down Donahue’s cheeks. “I watched the children dissolve, screaming for as long as their lungs existed. Then, as rivers of dead S’Prenn formed, the crescendo of screams diminished and faded. All became quiet.”

This time it’s not the chokehold that robs Tony of his breath, for now he sees that the S’Prenn controlling his colleague is acting out of suffering rather than malice. He lies there face to face with a S’Prenn, a person, who has gone through hell and back.

“I… I waited for death to release me from those images.” Donahue’s joyless chuckle sounds as otherworldly as his other attempts at vocalization. “No, not me. I was destined to roam this derelict, guard those I have failed, and be tormented indefinitely, plagued by memories and agony, indescribable agony—” His sad expression morphs into a baffled one, as if he cannot comprehend why the humanoid he has captured mirrors his grief.

Tony can’t help but sympathize with the poor soul. Hoarse with emotion, he says with complete sincerity, “I’m sorry you had to go through this.”

Confused, Donahue strains to push himself away a slight bit. Only now does Tony notice how utterly exhausted and weakened his opponent has become. Donahue glances around, pondering and frowning. “Lieutenant…” He gives Tony a scrutinizing look. “You are not the enemy.”

Stifling a sigh of relief, Tony wants to say something along the lines of “on the nose.” Instead, he says in a clear and calm manner, “I am not an Altonoid. I am human.”

Donahue’s gaze drifts off while the S’Prenn deciphers his memory. “You are Lieutenant Tony Blue. You were Commander Tony Q. You have fought us in our days of confusion and fought alongside us in our days of understanding. You are as much an enemy of the Altonoids as we are.”

“The Altonoids are using your brainwashed compatriots to wage war on us.” This draws Donahue’s attention again, his intimidating appearance a disconcerting sight even though they are on the same page now. “They ravaged our home world, Earth, and swiftly moved from planet to planet until we were either annihilated or cast out. They could not have done this without subjugating the S’Prenn.” With Donahue listening, Tony’s resolve supplants his subsiding fear. “Our ship, the Achilles, is trapped behind enemy lines. Our mission is to find out how to reclaim our territory. Regaining your support is vital.”

“Tony Q,” Donahue says, his voice a guttural whisper. “Tony Q has proven his worth over and over.” Before Tony can admit he is no longer this legendary figure, Donahue reels him in close. “Your efforts are not in vain. The Altonoids’ rule over us can be reversed. There is a cure. We can be freed.”

“A cure? Tell me more.”

Weakening further, Donahue struggles to concentrate. “Tony Q will fight for us once more. Tony Q will heal us.” Life ebbs from him and his grip loosens accordingly.

“Please! Tell me, what is this cure? Where do I find it?”

With a weary smile plastered onto his face, Donahue gazes into nothingness and keeps repeating, “Tony Q will save us,” while the mortally wounded S’Prenn gradually loses control over Donahue’s nervous system.

“Tell me. I can’t help you if I don’t… If I…” Tony shoves aside the four spiderlike arms and embraces Donahue as the S’Prenn gently rests its host’s body against him. He doesn’t know if a S’Prenn understands the consolation a simple hug can bring, but he hopes it will comfort the dying alien somehow.

Perhaps it does matter, because Donahue stops repeating his mantra and lets himself wilt in Tony’s arms. With Donahue’s neck so nearby, Tony stares into the soulless eyes of the melted S’Prenn offset by blackened pattern enhancers. Donahue presses his mouth against Tony’s ear and collects the energy needed to utter his final words. “Once freed,” he whispers, using his last vestige of strength to instill his voice with vile and bitter hatred. “We shall retaliate!”

This vindictive promise echoes in Tony’s mind as the S’Prenn relinquishes his possession of Donahue and expires. Unable to hold on, his arachnid corpse slumps off the ensign’s neck, bounces off Tony’s shoulder, and lands in the muck to join his fallen comrades.

Seconds creep by as Tony tries to ignore his aching ribs in favor of processing these events. Donahue’s limp body weighs on him, but Tony is too stunned to do anything about it. Instead, he cradles his motionless colleague and thinks about the repercussions of what the dying S’Prenn has told him. Was he telling the truth? Is there a cure available? Or was it nothing more than the idle ramblings of a physically and emotionally scarred individual completing its descent into madness? Regardless, the enticing possibility of ending the Altonoids’ dominion over the S’Prenn warrants further investigation. It would indeed turn the tide of the war.

Yet, lying here in this ship rife with gruesomeness and waning tragedies, he decides the mere act of freeing the S’Prenn, of making sure their costly rebellion meant something, made the difference, is enough for him.

That’s when Donahue opens his coal-black eyes and starts screaming at the top of his lungs.

 

[CeJay]

It was all just a big misunderstanding. Good. And perhaps now, light at the end of the tunnel?

While reading this, one thing did strike me again. Tony has not had an easy life, has he?

 

[Alexbright99]

Yes, he has had to stitch himself together with determination and sarcasm to be able to function at all.

 

[Alexbright99]

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 - Chapter 2a

Despite his bruised ribs, Lieutenant Tony Blue does an admirable job matching Ensign Josh Donahue’s overture of terrified screams. The ensign, still pinning Tony down, grabs at his neck to make sure the dying S’Prenn is really gone. It is. However, his screaming intensifies as his fingers reach his deformed face with its protruding fangs and bulging eyes, and develops into outright shrieking when he touches the four spiderlike arms that have burst from his sides.

Tony rivals his colleague’s horrific shrieks for a good ten seconds. Then, as if on cue, they both go silent and stare at each other with no idea what to do or say next. The ensign lying in his arms appears to be on the verge of tears and the situation’s awkwardness is at maximum anyway, so Tony gives him a big hug and says, “Welcome back, Josh.”

This has the desired soothing effect, and Josh gently pushes himself away from the lieutenant. With a great amount of effort, he summons his mutated body to straighten up, and he raises his arms to the ceiling. To his disgust and fascination, his new spider arms move in tandem with their human counterparts. However, when one of the arms starts twitching, he goes down on all eights and empties his stomach on the grimy floor.

As is becoming a theme of late, Tony’s empathy wins out over revulsion. “I’ve had my share of dealings with the S’Prenn.” His encyclopedic tone is meant to reassure them both. “Being taken over by one is called being S’Prenned.”

Josh gives him a sidelong glance, his charcoal eyes sorrowful, seemingly begging him for good news.

“If a S’Prenn releases its host of its own volition, the host will make a complete recovery.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Josh asks in a croaky voice, the first intelligible words he has spoken since regaining control over his vocal cords.

“If the S’Prenn is forcefully detached or killed?” He hesitates. “Instant death.”

“Yes. I remember. The S’Prenn released his hold on me before he died so I would live. Physically, I will revert to normal in a few days.”

Tony sits up slowly. “Possibly sooner once we get you to sickbay.” Then it hits him. “Wait, how would you know that?”

Josh, using his arachnid arms without thinking, crawls over to the dead S’Prenn lying next to Tony and kneels beside it. The half-melted spider lies supine in the muck, gruesome yet peaceful, its disfigured legs flexed. “His name was Kronn. He was an engineer who lived with his family on this ship. When the Altonoids attacked and everyone started dying, he tried to protect his and his friends’ children. He thought he could keep them safe. He couldn’t—” His breath hitches. “They died in front of—“

“I know,” Tony says to quell the lump forming in his throat.

“They look so different from us.” Moisture in Josh’s enlarged pupils reflect the scarce light around them. “Yet their concepts of love and family are so similar to ours.”

“He gave you his memories, didn’t he?”

“All that was left.”

“No S’Prenn has ever done that, as far as I recall.”

“Lucky, lucky me,” Josh says, followed by a sad chuckle.

“Lucky, lucky you.” Tony inhales deeply, only to be reminded of his injuries. He may not share the ensign’s temporary deformities, but he feels a total mess anyhow.

Josh takes another look at Kronn’s corpse. “He put me through hell… but I can’t blame him. The poor bastard was at the end of his rope.”

“Ensign, I need to know,” Tony says, waiting until he has Josh’s undivided attention. “Kronn spoke of a cure. Do you remember?”

Josh stands up, strength returning to his limbs, and extends an arm—a human arm, fortunately—to help the battered chief tactical officer to his feet. “I remember, as vividly as the death of Kronn’s children. The cure is real.”

Relief and newfound determination cast aside Tony’s discomfort and fill him with confidence, yet all he can bring himself to say is, “Good,” and in a flat tone at that.

Josh unbuckles his shoulder strap and three singed pattern enhancers drop to the floor. They became scrap metal the instant Tony phasered them. The ensign accesses a computer interface near the doorway. “I can resolve the interference from here. We, or rather Kronn and his fellow engineers, created it as a last defense to keep Altonoids from beaming into vital areas after the shields failed.” He pauses and lowers his gaze. “Clever.”

Tony is too lost in thought to reply. With an actual cure on the horizon, the Federation might overthrow the Altonoids at long last. This gives them a clear purpose, but it also increases the pressure they’re under. If only the Achilles weren’t alone in her crucial mission.

“Interference resolved,” Josh says while using his arachnid arms to operate the computer. “We should contact Commanders Crow and Terrell.”

“I think they already heard our screaming.” Tony presses his combadge. “Lieutenant Blue to Commander Crow.”

“Finally.” Cranky and impatient rather than relieved. Figures.

“You must’ve been worried sick,” Tony says in a wry tone and immediately regrets it. His sarcasm may be a reflex, but why does he keep forgetting the new XO doesn’t have a detectable sense of humor?

A faint grumble confirms this. “What happened down there? What’s your status?”

Frankly, neither Tony nor Josh know where to begin.

* * *

Lieutenant Tony Blue and Ensign Josh Donahue have arrived in the computer core control room at last. With the interference taken care of, the Achilles simply beamed them there, an anticlimactic but welcome conclusion to their journey. Crow and Terrell stayed put to confer with the captain via their combadges. The S’Prenn wreckage is theirs now, and Josh is working the many computer interfaces like he has done so all his life. In a way, he has.

Tony is grateful this multideck chamber permits humanoids to stand upright. He has propped himself against a support strut, phaser rifle held across his chest in a firm grip, and looks on as the ensign zigzags across the room, using six arms to bow the ship’s computer to his will. Its interfaces are as black as the bulkheads they’re on and light up in purple when touched. It is a mesmerizing sight, or it would be, if Tony hadn’t suddenly felt a wave of homesickness. Not to the Achilles, mind you. No, to his dad’s cottage overlooking San Francisco. Seven months he had spent there, from the onset of summer to the end of winter, reconnecting with his father and falling in love over and over with Emily. Memory colludes with nostalgia and therefore cannot be trusted, and that period saw the rise of war as gradual as the loss of hope, but he would barter his soul to plant his bare feet in that backyard’s grass and listen to the laugh of his then-fiancée once more.

“Are you all right, Lieutenant?”

He must be in a pretty sorry state to be asked this by Ensign Spidey. “Carry on, Mr. Donahue.”

“You’re worried about that cure, aren’t you? That we won’t find any more info on it?”

“Uh… Sure.”

“No need. Though the database is damaged and incomplete,”—Josh casually scales the bulkheads and ceiling to access another interface terminal—“it remains a goldmine of information.”

“Bloody hell,” Tony says to the upside-down ensign with the ghoulish face. “Could you at least warn me before you go all Fred Astaire on me?”

Before Josh can no doubt ask to whom Tony is referring, two swirls of blue light transport Commanders Crow and Terrell into the room. They’re in their white EV suits, immaculate and untarnished—quite a contrast to the two colleagues they sent ahead. Crow and Terrell gawk at the pale mutant clinging to the ceiling and drop Tony and Josh’s EV suits in order to reach for their weapons: a handphaser for Crow and an isomagnetic disintegrator for Terrell. If fired, the disintegrator would take out the ensign and half the room with it.

“Don’t!” Tony shouts as he fumbles for his rifle and sets it to stun. “That’s Donahue!”

It takes a while for Crow and Terrell to recognize the ensign. Tony keeps his rifle at the ready just in case fear gets the better of them.

Then, Erin Crow reattaches her phaser to her suit but keeps staring wide-eyed at their mutated colleague. “Stand down, Commander,” she says to Terrell.

Jon Terrell puts down his shoulder-mounted weapon and gapes at the many decaying S’Prenn blanketing the floor and bulkheads. For the first time since Tony has known him, the chief engineer has nothing witty to say. He just spins around slowly, taking in the grisly environment.

Crow composes herself and nods at the EV suits they dropped. “We brought your suits.”

Tony leans back against the pillar. “Keep it. I could use a clean uniform, though.”

“You sure do.” She purses her lips in a grimace that almost conveys pity. Tony is on the verge of growing accustomed to traipsing around with a bleeding, shoeless foot and being soaked head to toe in spider muck of varying solidity, but he and the ensign must be quite a pitiful spectacle. “Ensign, I have your EV suit here if you want it.”

“It wouldn’t fit anymore,” Donahue says as he lets go of the ceiling and lands next to Terrell, who then needs a moment to jumpstart his respiratory system. “I need your help, Commander Terrell. The ship’s in worse condition than we feared.” He points his left arms at the main server. “I have accessed the ship’s database. We’ll need to find a way to merge it with our own.”

A soft “blimey” is all the response he gets from the chief engineer.

“We were scared too, Jon,” Tony says, “until we underwent extensive exposure therapy… I can only speak for myself, but you get used to it. Kind of.”

“A nightmare is what this is.”

“Oh, I won’t deny that. But being the first Starfleet engineer to set foot in a S’Prenn computer room has to be a dream come true.”

This elicits a nervous chuckle. “You’re right, Tony. I just need a minute.” Terrell’s breathing normalizes soon after, and he straightens his back and follows Donahue to a set of interfaces.

As the odd couple walks off, Crow removes her helmet and places it atop the pile of rejected EV suits. She steps closer to Tony and gives him a quick visual inspection. “Where’s your tricorder?”

“Somewhere near my right shoe.” He points at his right sock and wiggles his toes for the strict commander, who expresses her disapproval with a deep sigh. She refrains from responding for a long while, and Tony doesn’t have to be clairvoyant to sense an incoming admonishment.

“You did well,” she says instead. “We needed this mission to succeed. We needed this… small victory.” They take a moment to look at Terrell and Donahue collaborating. “This could’ve gone so much worse.” There’s tiredness in her eyes and voice. She becomes aware of this as soon she meets Tony’s gaze and seems startled by her letting down her guard. Her countenance galvanizes to that of the coldhearted officer she aspires to be. “You need medical attention, Lieutenant. Your work here is done. I suggest you contact the Achilles and have them beam you to sickbay.”

“No, ma’am.” Tony tightens his grip on his phaser rifle. “I’m not going anywhere until the database upload is complete and the entire away team ready for beam-out.”

His defiance is met with a three-star scowl at first, which then morphs into a prolonged thoughtful expression and ultimately a weak smile. “I understand. You do that, Tony.” She puts a hand on his shoulder and gives it an encouraging squeeze before heading over to Terrell and Donahue.

Tony’s visit to this S’Prenn wreck has been rife with twists and surprises, but that smile and shoulder squeeze top his personal list of today’s unexpected events.

 

[Alexbright99]

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 - Chapter 2b

USS Achilles – July 13, 2386 – Stardate 63527.1

Of course he should be asleep at this hour, but Captain Stephan Rinckes is still in uniform and monitoring the crew’s studying every corner of the S’Prenn wreckage. His quarters’ windows offer a perfect view of the shuttles and other spacecraft the Achilles could spare surrounding the crippled bulk like flies swarming a dead body. Brave men and women in EV suits are stripping its outer hull with plasma torches while tethered to their vehicles. All this activity gives the S’Prenn ship the aspect of a decomposing spider the size of a hill, a silenced behemoth undergoing its final rites by the desperate.

At least it wasn’t a trap.

Transfixed, the captain stands at the window, hands clasped behind his back, staring at the S’Prenn ship, the first of its kind to be analyzed by the Federation after nearly a decade of mystery. Any scientist or engineer would donate a non-essential body part for the chance of picking apart one of these. It is doubtful if its technology is readily compatible with theirs, but the gained insights alone could prove vital, not to mention the importance of the precious contents of its database.

This lucky break sparks in him a fleeting scientific curiosity he had considered extinct. After surviving the infamous Battle of Wolf 359, during which the Borg massacred 39 Federation vessels, Rinckes—a lieutenant commander back then—had lost his appetite for the security division. He had requested a transfer to a science vessel, and the admiralty made him first officer of the Cochrane. He spent his six-year tenure as XO on that small Oberth-class ship overseeing uneventful transport missions, scientific exploration, and interstellar charting. His colleagues and especially his captain were eagerly curious about the workings of the universe and their enthusiasm was infectious.

It was the closest he had ever come to being at peace with himself.

In those years, conflicts were brooding, culminating in another Borg invasion and the onset of the Dominion War, which occurred one month after Rinckes took command of a science vessel of his own, the brand-new Solar Field. Peacetime was over, though the fledgling captain took on every available science mission in a bid to hold on to his new persona.

His venture into the art of science was bookended by a Borg cube vaporizing the completely evacuated Solar Field in 2379, right before Tony Q interfered and rescued the Federation once more with his near-infinite powers.

When given the Sundance, Rinckes held the reins of a powerful combat cruiser that found itself on the frontline, dealing with the Altonoids, who in turn made sure his battle skills were put to the test continuously. The transition from a peaceful man to a warrior was—to his regret—as easy as switching uniform jackets.

Fatigue engulfs him; belatedly so, considering midnight crept by and vanished into this sleepless night hours ago. Mesmerized by the orderly chaos on display, he pulls up a chair and eases his tired body into it. Watching his talented crew’s efforts fills him with a sense of pride that warms what should pass for his heart. They’re good people, the whole lot of them. One misstep on his part, one wrong snap decision, one slight tactical error, and all those souls will be extinguished by a cold universe indifferent to their plight.

When he lost the Solar Field, he lost his ship. When he lost the Sundance, he lost his crew. He neglected them, abandoned them in favor of searching for Melanie, her one life outweighing all others on scales imbalanced by infatuation.

He had charmed his way out of it, fooled the admirals and the Federation council. The Altonoids had unwittingly destroyed all evidence and killed all witnesses of the poor excuse for a captain he was that day. He had gotten away with it, had believed his failure to protect those under his command to be justified—a delusion given credence by his assignment to the formidable Achilles.

Stirred by these musings, Rinckes rises from his seat, walks over to his desk, and picks up an isolinear chip lying atop an assortment of PADDs. On it is information exclusive to this chip; the Achilles’ database has been purged of it, the captain saw to that. He clenches his fist around it, its edges burrowing into his skin. He ought to keep it secured in one of his desk’s encrypted drawers, but it always manages to find its way to the top of the pile. Unable to sweep this under the rug as casually as his lamentable behavior during the Station A-12 Debacle, this physical manifestation of his guilt is here to stay—for now.

Rinckes places the chip back on the pile and returns to his ringside seat. Outside, two shuttles tear loose a section of S’Prenn hull plating, exposing its underlying decks.

I cannot be held accountable for actions kept secret. I can only keep history from repeating itself.

* * *

“Computer! Lights!”

Obedient as ever, the computer raises the light level in Lieutenant Tony Blue’s quarters, thereby scaring off yet another imaginary parade of Altonoids, Borg, and S’Prenn. Tony kicks aside the stifling bed sheets, allowing the climate-controlled air to cool his sweat-drenched pajamas while he waits for the rush of adrenaline to wear off. It wasn’t a nightmare that made him feel like parrying a strangler’s hold; his nightly anxiety attacks don’t permit him the luxury of REM sleep before bombarding him with images of ruined cities, unbeatable enemies, and dead relatives.

Ever since his return from the S’Prenn vessel, after making absolutely sure his away team was in safe hands, falling asleep has been a problem. While he does fall asleep eventually, he has to suffer through a series of panic attacks whenever he dares to enter the realm one travels prior to losing consciousness, until he is too exhausted to care and surrenders to the horrors that await him.

He has somehow escaped the clutches of his bed and pajamas and made his way into the sonic shower, which rids his body of its sweaty film and emits a gentle hum as it cleans him with sound waves. He takes a deep breath, his healed ribs free of pain. In these instances, reality is preferable to dreaming.

Once he has stepped out of the shower, he contemplates fetching himself a fresh set of pajamas and taking another spin on the wheel of night terrors. No matter how alluring and comfortable that bed may seem, it has become a trap. Besides, what’s the point of stepping into bed when there’s always one person missing?

Tony selects a uniform with the right department color in one go and puts it on. He relishes in its neatness—such a far cry from the soggy mess he wore on the S’Prenn ship—and heads out, planning to check in on Josh, whose S’Prenn features have visibly diminished each passing day. The valiant ensign had spent every waking moment assisting the away teams with his unique knowledge until the doctor ordered him to report to sickbay, not so much to rest as to sate the doctor’s boundless curiosity about S’Prenn physiology.

At this hour, the corridors are always quiet, but with half the crew analyzing and dismantling the S’Prenn wreckage, the Achilles seems deserted, and Tony arrives at sickbay’s entrance in no time. Its twin doors swish open in front of him, and a fully human Ensign Josh Donahue comes marching out. To prevent collision, they grab each other by the upper arms as if they’re about to initiate an impromptu dance act.

“I just sent him out,” an unseen Doctor Kingsley says from within sickbay. “Could you try not injuring him again?”

“Sorry, Doc.” Tony directs the ensign to the opposite corridor bulkhead where they can talk without the doctor riffing their every sentence. “How are you doing, Josh?”

Nothing about his appearance suggests Josh has endured the last three days as a human/spider hybrid. All deformities have vanished, leaving no scars, his skin tone has reclaimed its healthy shade, and his eyes are friendly and hazel instead of dilated and coal-black. “You were right. I’m good as new.”

Despite Tony’s bleariness, he simpers while saying, “Be honest, do you miss your ability to climb walls?”

The ensign chuckles. “I do, yes, but the worst thing is I’ve no excuse left to cancel this month’s piano recital.”

“Don’t be so modest. I’ve heard through the grapevine you’re a natural entertainer.”

“I guess, but those spider arms sure would’ve come in handy during La Campanella.”

As their joviality fades, the seriousness of the past couple of days pushes to the forefront like an unwanted guest. No escaping it now; they might as well acknowledge it. “What you went through was quite an ordeal, Ensign. If this doesn’t earn you an official commendation, then—”

“Then that would be all right. I’m glad to be of service.” A trace of sadness crosses his features for the briefest of moments, a sadness Tony recognizes all too well—the kind that is meant to be hidden but emerges nonetheless.

“Kronn’s memories never left, did they?”

Josh sighs. “A blessing and a curse. The captain asked me to record every iota of valuable intelligence, especially regarding the cure. Soon, we’ll leave this area for good.”

“But that won’t be the end of it.”

“Not for me.”

“If only psychological trauma healed as quickly as its physical counterpart.” Tony offers him a drowsy but earnest smile. “Hang in there, Ensign.” He pats him on the shoulder and starts toward sickbay’s entrance, but Josh isn’t done with him yet.

“Lieutenant, before you go. I… it wasn’t my fault, but I keep reliving how I chased you down the corridors and hurt you, almost… killed you.”

“It’s not like you had a say in the matter.”

“I was present, conscious, from beginning to end. Maybe if I’d tried harder to fight off Kronn’s mind control—”

“No, no, let me be clear about this. You are not to blame. I’ve dealt with S’Prenned people before. They all fought back, and none succeeded. It’s a biological impossibility to regain control without the S’Prenn’s permission.”

The ensign needs a few seconds to let that sink in. “I’m still sorry, Lieutenant.” The way Josh stands there, arms hanging by his side, his posture crumpled, Tony can’t help but feel bad for him.

Of course, this automatically deploys Tony’s sarcasm. “Yeah, well, without you I would’ve drowned in a pool of S’Prenn limbs in that vertical corridor, so there’s that. Also, most people would’ve freaked out or gone catatonic after having been puppeteered by an insane S’Prenn. Not you; how you’ve handled it so far is nothing short of impressive. Give yourself a little credit, man.”

“I’ll try, sir,” Josh says, the shine returning to his eyes.

“I spoke to Gibbs about you, and he’s impressed as well.” Tony makes for the sickbay doors, which open for him promptly. “If he doesn’t recommend you for promotion this year, I’ll have him committed.”

Without missing a beat, the as-yet-unseen Doctor Kingsley adds, “Oh great! More loons to take up my precious time.”

Tony and Josh share a laugh over this. “Take care, Josh.” And with that, Tony enters sickbay in search of their chief medical heckler.

The positivity he got a taste of vanishes without a trace once he has stepped through the doorway. A chill races up and down Tony’s spine as he is confronted by the collection of S’Prenn cadavers and body parts on exhibit all throughout sickbay. Each of the four biobeds on the right-hand side, which are usually reserved for convalescing humanoids, support multiple transparent containers showcasing arachnid remains in varying degrees of decomposition.

As Tony approaches the surgical biobed at the far end of the room, he notices the half-melted S’Prenn on it, its sternum cut open, revealing a grey mass of equally melted innards. He leans in closer to see if he can identify any separate organs in the goop. Out of nowhere, a hand grasps him by the shoulder and yanks him backward. He staggers and lets out a mighty yelp, which is cut short by the sight of Doctor Kingsley grinning widely.

As if nothing happened, the doctor upgrades his shoulder-grabbing to putting an arm around Tony in collegial fashion as he begins waxing lyrical about the wonders of S’Prenn anatomy. It takes a while before Tony’s flush of adrenaline subsides and allows him to listen to the overzealous physician.

“—incision in the cephalothorax revealed a brain so large and complex it has engulfed the stomach, and that’s not just because this fellow’s organs have melted and fused.” As he’s talking, he pokes and prods the carcass with a gory delight that makes Tony squeamish. “We’re barely scratching the surface as to the intricacies of their brains, but we’ve discovered that proper stimulation by compatible forms of energy causes their neuropeptide levels to go off the charts. Here’s the kicker: When electrically charged, their insides become magnetic as all hell.” He finally lets Tony go, if only to spread his arms in a gesture as abundant as his smile. “I’ve no idea why, but here’s hoping it has to do with the proposed quantum mechanical nature of their brains.”

Tony steps back and shakes out his hands to stop them from tingling. “That’s—“

“This corpse right here could revolutionize our understanding of exobiology… or at the very least make one heck of a novelty fridge magnet.”

“Uh, what are—” Tony is interrupted by the doctor grabbing him by the collar and dragging him over to another biobed.

Kingsley taps the glass of a random transparent container, as if to provoke the abominations within. “I’d bet anyone a month’s worth of holodeck privileges these suckers aren’t from our galaxy.”

Tony frees himself from the doctor’s grasp and straightens his jacket. “Doctor, these ‘suckers’ were sentient beings who became victims of a horrible bioweapon. A little more respect should be in order.”

Kingsley keeps tapping the glass. “What’s done is done.” He maintains his upbeat tone, though there is a bittersweet edge to it. “Dwelling on tragedy won’t bring them back. In death, they are of immense value.” He stops tapping the transparent casing and presses his hand against it. “In death, they can provide us the means to avenge them.”

Tony sighs ruefully. “That we agree on. Any progress in that department?”

“Nothing viable,” Kingsley says. “Not yet,” he hastens to add. He heads over to his office and signals Tony to follow. Once there, the doctor slumps into his chair and waves both hands at the towers of PADDs that cover the entire desk and are precariously close to teetering over. “I won’t be getting any sleep anytime soon, that’s for sure.”

Despite the subliminal invitation in the form of an empty chair, Tony refrains from taking a seat, mostly because the stacks of PADDs would obstruct his view of his conversation partner.

“Not that I’m against burning the midnight oil, mind you,” Kingsley says, leaning over to the replicator embedded in the nearest bulkhead. “Coffee, black as my heart.” Impervious to the doctor’s wry humor, the replicator whirls a cup of coffee into existence. “I grew up on Faros 5. Ever heard of it? A moon on which it is always night, lit solely by countless stars, grouped together in constellations that change color like diamonds in the sun. Something to do with the atmosphere. Great for working at night, terrible for working on your tan. Made me a nyctophile for life.”

Quiet seconds float by, a rarity when interacting with the good doctor.

A mischievous twinkle appears in Kingsley’s eyes. “So that’s my excuse for being up and about at three in the morning. What’s yours?”

This catches Tony off-guard. “I, uh, came by to check in on Ensign Donahue.”

The doctor takes a sip of coffee. “Not much of an answer. Visiting hours aren’t limited to the middle of the night. Trouble sleeping?”

Tony hesitates. If there’s one person who can help him combat his recent bout of flashbacks and insomnia, it’s the doctor, but he can’t yet bring himself to discuss these subjects, especially the resurfaced memories regarding the Borg. They’re so unwelcome, he fears speaking of them will grant them undeserved validity.

“You should be in bed,” Kingsley says. “I believe your next shift starts in a few hours.” He finishes the rest of his beverage in one gulp and gets up to escort the young man out of sickbay. “These past weeks have placed a tremendous physical and mental strain on you.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Tony admits as he lets the chief medical officer guide him to the exit.

“Get some rest, Tony, hypocritical as it may sound coming from this over-caffeinated night owl.”

“Will do, sir.” With that, the lieutenant enters the corridor and begins his stroll to the nearest turbolift. Panic attacks be damned, he needs his sleep. His role on this ship is too important—or so he’d like to believe—to hand over his life’s reins to anxiety.

 

[CeJay]

Doctor Kingsley continues to be quite the character. Very nice.

I suppose it is quite troubling that Tony seems to be in a worse mental state than the man who has been literally transformed into a spider and absorbed the memories of its dying crew and family.

This ship needs more counselors!

 

[Alexbright99]

I think all counselors fled the ship after one meeting with Rinckes and Tony

 

[Alexbright99]

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 - Chapter 2c

USS Achilles – July 13, 2386 – Stardate 63527.6

The viewscreen’s three-dimensional representation of the S’Prenn wreckage and its circling flock of shuttles and work bees forms an image so hyper-realistic it makes the actual view from Captain Stephan Rinckes’ quarters pale in comparison. Rinckes keeps a close eye on the proceedings from his captain’s chair. They are in the process of wrapping up activities, despite the Achilles having no clear next destination.

Commander Erin Crow, seated to his right, breaks his trance. “Kingsley’s reports are promising, Captain. He’s unearthing more data on S’Prenn physiology with each passing hour.”

“Very good. What’s Commander Terrell’s latest report?” Jon Terrell has scarcely left the wreckage since he set foot on it days ago. Rinckes can’t help but admire his bravery, in light of the chief engineer’s blossoming arachnophobia.

“Optimistic,” Crow replies. “Though most S’Prenn technology is incompatible with ours, his analyses have been insightful.”

Rinckes’ gaze drifts over to the security station behind his first officer, inadvertently permitting the security chief, Lieutenant Jeremy Gibbs, to chime in with a barely contained smirk. “I bet the first thing Terrell does upon his return is lock himself in the holodeck and surround himself with fluffy bunnies, puppies, and kittens.”

Most members of the bridge crew laugh, including Lieutenant Tony Blue, who adds, “I can think of a few people who’d be happy to join him there.” Another peal of laughter. Great, an extra class clown on his bridge. Given how the young lieutenant showed up five minutes late for his shift today, for which he was properly admonished, the captain had expected him to keep a lower profile.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Crow says, channeling Rinckes’ impatience.

Of course, instead of abiding by her attempt to restore order, Tony zeroes in on her. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the look on Terrell’s face when he saw Ensign Donahue clinging to the ceiling.”

Despite her best efforts to stay composed, a subtle smile appears as she says, “I haven’t.”

Before anyone can react to this, Lieutenant Surtak speaks up in his usual dry monotone, either oblivious to or annoyed by the incessant banter. “Work bees Alpha through Gamma have docked with our ship.”

This non-sequitur silences the bridge until Gibbs deadpans, “I’ll have holodecks 1 and 2 prepped for their arrival.”

Once again, the majority of the bridge crew cannot keep from laughing. There’s a time and place for lightheartedness, and Lord knows they’ve all deserved their shot at levity, but bridge duty is arguably the most important task on the ship. Rinckes is about to issue a stern reminder, when Lieutenant Kels does it for him with superior effectiveness.

“We’ve got company,” the Andorian woman says gravely. “Explorer-class Altonoid ship, cloaked and on a direct intercept course.”

To his credit, Tony immediately switches from wannabe comedian to astute chief tactical officer. “Confirmed. One Explorer-class vessel, weapons armed. They’ll be within weapons range in four minutes.”

This gets the captain’s blood pumping, all right. The prospect of taking this battered vessel into armed conflict yet again becomes more horrifying with each ill-advised yet unavoidable skirmish, but he cannot deny the appeal of distraction from his worries, violent as it may be. There’s a faint echo of guilt in the recesses of his mind for this, which he easily suppresses. “Red alert! All hands to battle stations.” The bridge lighting dims, red alert panels blink into action, and the red alert claxon blares its intermittent warning. “Lieutenant Surtak, send word to all work bees, shuttles, and personnel. Have them return to us at once. Lieutenant Blue, keep our shields down until everyone is accounted for. Warn me fifteen seconds before the Altonoids enter range.”

While the crew prepares for battle, Rinckes reflects on the engineering staff’s recent improvements to the sensor arrays, enabling them to detect cloaked Altonoid vessels much sooner—a modification arisen from their tragic encounter at Nedron Eight. Granted, a four-minute warning is far from sufficient, but it is a significant step in the ongoing high-stakes arms race.

“I am coordinating with our transporter chiefs to beam all personnel off the wreckage,” Surtak says. Shown on the viewscreen, several shuttlecraft and work bees return to the Achilles like chicks fleeing to mother hen. “I will request them to prioritize beaming shuttlecraft directly to cargo or shuttle bays. Even then, by my estimation we will be short twenty-eight officers, divided over one work bee and seven shuttlecraft, once the Altonoid vessel enters range. That is taking into account their leaving behind non-essential equipment and space vehicles.”

“Noted,” Rinckes says. Without having to look sideways, he’s aware of Tony staring at him, ready to judge his every decision. Are you willing to stay and fight for twenty-eight people as opposed to a mere two? he must be about to say. Thank heavens Tony is no longer his first officer. However, the captain realizes the same question is on everyone’s lips, given the abrupt silence that befell the bridge the instant he issued his single-word reply.

The tireless red alert claxon along with beeps of confirmation from their workstations prevent the bridge from going too quiet. On screen, the occasional work bee or shuttle dissipates in a bright-blue dance of transporting molecules. Others disappear from view as they begin final approach to one of the Achilles’ aft hangar decks.

Perhaps it was a matter of time before the Altonoids discovered their location. After all, the S’Prenn wreckage sticks out like a sore thumb in this region of space. The notion of ever finding a safe haven was discarded as soon as the Achilles stumbled upon the heavily guarded border and had no choice but to double back.

“Captain,” Tony says in that cautious, moralizing tone of his. It was inevitable. The young man would never let an opportunity slip by to plead from the comfort of his high horse.

“We stay and fight,” Rinckes says. “Once the Explorer’s in range, we raise shields and order the remaining shuttles to withdraw. Once we’ve defeated or disabled the enemy, we continue packing up shop.” There, he said it. “We can take on an Explorer.”

“I agree,” Tony says. “That’s not… I’m reading multiple power signatures on the Altonoid vessel, consistent with those of Foora-class fighters.”

“How many power signatures?” Rinckes asks, having mastered the art of keeping a level voice while asking questions that merit anything but calmness.

“Ten and rising, sir. They must be powering up. Yes, they’re arming weapons too.”

They can take on an Explorer, sure, but not one filled to the brim with fighters. It would be a bloodbath. While he calculates all probable outcomes of different strategies for handling this scenario, one simple truth dawns on him: they cannot win this.

It seems Crow has done some calculating of her own, and her conclusion stuns her to such a degree that it ends up sounding like a question. “When Lieutenant Blue issues his fifteen-second warning, we must leave at high warp.” This causes murmuring among the bridge crew, and anger gets the better of her. “What other choice do we have? Those shuttles are sitting ducks. The fighters will pick them off one by one while we’re busy dealing with the Explorer. And with our shields up we can’t beam anything or anyone aboard.”

“Can’t we open an EM window in our shields,” Baxter asks, “like we did before?”

Crow doesn’t answer that question, so Kels kindly explains, “Beaming five people through an EM window was already bordering on unfeasible, and they were in a confined, fixed space surrounded by pattern enhancers.”

No-one offers a counterargument. Surtak is yet again the one to speak up, regardless of the prevailing mood, although there is nothing humorous about it this time. “We have one minute and thirty seconds to consider our options.”

“Tactical analysis,” the captain says, adhering to procedure.

Tony grabs the sides of his tactical station and lets out a pained sigh. “We don’t stand a prayer.” Not quite the professional reaction Rinckes wanted to hear, but nobody here will fault the lieutenant for his honesty. “We’re dealing with a total of sixteen Foora-class fighters in addition to the Explorer-class starship.” He bites his bottom lip and hangs his head. “The odds are impossible.”

“I concur,” Rinckes says. “Lieutenant Baxter, lay in an escape course, maximum warp. The millisecond the Altonoids enter weapons range… punch it.”

A noticeable beat of hesitation precedes a sullen “aye, sir” from the helmsman.

“Once we hit high warp, engage cloak,” Rinckes continues. Besides its tactical advantages, cloaking the ship might hide a portion of his shame for signing twenty-eight unlucky crewmembers’ death warrants. Though he does his damnedest to keep his voice emotionless—and succeeds as always—his next words are a supplication straight from the heart. “I am open to suggestions.”

None seem forthcoming and not for lack of trying. Even as he awaits a response, he devises and rejects several plans in the back of his mind, any idea, no matter how farfetched in his refusal to bow to fate’s callous decrees. If he is willing to favor life over materiel, he’ll open a doorway to new alternatives. Before he can see one clearly, however, his chief tactical officer interrupts him.

“We cloak the ship right before the enemy enters range.”

Crow huffs at Tony’s suggestion—an act of frustration, not indignation. “How are our shuttles supposed to dock with a cloaked ship? Barring that, our cloak is useless at such close range. I need not remind you of our last battle at Nedron—”

“That’s right,” Gibbs says loud enough to shut her up. Standing right behind her at his security station lends credence to his intimidating aspect as well. “You need not remind him.” He breathes in sharply and nods to Tony. “Under cloak our shields remain offline. Shuttles won’t have to dock. We’ll keep beaming them aboard. As for its close-range detectability—”

“I might have a trick up my sleeve,” Lt. Commander Jon Terrell says, fresh from the S’Prenn wreckage, surprising everyone as he steps out of the turbolift. Grime covers him and the toolkit he carries. “A pet project I’ve been laboring on since the last run-in with our bristly haired friends.”

Rinckes pivots his captain’s chair to face Chief Engineer Terrell, who rushes over to his station. “Terrell, we have an inbound Explorer carrying sixteen fighters and we’re not all accounted for. We—”

“This is our fifteen-second warning,” Tony says solemnly.

Rinckes wags a finger at Baxter. “Belay my previous order. Hold position.” He refocuses on the chief engineer. If he were within arm’s reach, he’d grab him by the collar and rattle him about. “What can you give me, Commander?”

“Using the deflector to bend our energy output away from us in a controlled manner, including thrusters, transporter activity, and the like, giving them false readings on our whereabouts.”

“Chance of success?”

Terrell breaks eye contact, a bad omen. “The simulations were promising.”

“Altonoids have entered range!” Tony says. “Decloaked, prepped for combat.”

Rinckes’ blood runs cold and he swivels back toward the viewscreen. “Abort transport. Raise shields. Baxter, position us between the enemy and the shuttles. Align dorsal torpedo launchers. Blue, fire at will!”

 

[CeJay]

Oh the tension, the sweet, sweet tension ...

 

[Alexbright99]

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 - Chapter 2d

=====================continued from previous scene================================
A squadron of fighters escorting a beam-shaped Explorer behemoth disperses and opens fire, pelting the Achilles’ shields with emerald destruction. Due to the realistic nature of the viewscreen, it seems as if miniatures of enemy vessels have penetrated the bridge’s defenses in person to rain fire and death onto the bridge officers.

“Can we cloak?” Rinckes shouts at Terrell as the Achilles shudders and shakes her tired hull. She retaliates in the form of short bursts of scarlet phaser fire that dissolve in the fighters’ shields.

“Soon, Captain!” Terrell says, working the controls like a concert pianist gone mad.

The lights flicker and an overhead EPS conduit severs with a violent hiss, prompting Rinckes to share a worried look with his first officer. If the squadron circumvents the Achilles, the shuttles will be defenseless; without cloaking the ship, lowering shields to recommence evacuation is out of the question.

Dozens of quantum microtorpedoes, each one irreplaceable, brighten the bridge as they begin their final voyage from the launch bays on the spine of the ship. Most of these torpedoes strike their highly maneuverable targets, inflicting damage and instigating a reaction in the squadron akin to flaming arrows shot at a pack of wolves. However, like their lupine equivalents, hunger for blood impels them to reassume formation as soon as the volley is over. Worse yet, the Explorer’s captain must have taken offense, because the large enemy warship exacts revenge with a full spread of cubion torpedoes.

“Boost power to dorsal shields!” Crow shouts.

Rinckes braces himself. “Evasive maneuvers. Make sure we don’t expose the shuttles. Blue, another volley of microtorpedoes, now!”

Despite Baxter’s top-notch efforts, at least three cubions slam into the Achilles’ top shields to combine with several fighters’ incessant phaser fire. The starship’s massive size notwithstanding, the Achilles rocks about like a trawler struggling to stay afloat in a hurricane. At least the shields held.

“Deflector’s almost ready,” Terrell says.

As a swarm of microtorpedoes pummels and distracts the enemy fleet once more, Rinckes rises from his seat and puts into action a plan his subconscious has been concocting in the background. “Surtak, contact the shuttles and work bee on a secure emergency channel. Order them to beam their total crew complements to the two largest shuttles and signal us once they’re done.”

“As you wish, Captain,” Surtak says.

Another spread of cubions quakes the bridge, which would’ve knocked the captain off his feet had he not planted them on the floor with his usual fortitude. “Have them dash for the S’Prenn vessel so it can shield them.” Rinckes has no idea how long the partially stripped wreckage is able to endure enemy fire, but it’s better than having those shuttles out in the open. “Baxter, line up our bow with the squadron. Blue, fire phaser cannons and quantum torpedoes at your discretion. Boost power to forward shields.”

“Aye, sir,” Tony says. “We could set the empty shuttles on autopilot and have them fight alongside us.”

“You heard him, Surtak. Make it happen,” Rinckes says as the onslaught of phaser fire and cubions begin to pellet the bow of the ship instead of its dorsal section, as if the Achilles is facing a biblical hailstorm head-on.

“Deflector charged and ready,” Terrell says, wiping the sweat from his smudged brow.

“Excellent. Let’s create an opportunity to use it. Ahead full! Target all fighters and blast them to hell!”

Bright pulses of raw energy conspire with fusillades of quantum torpedoes to wreak havoc upon the enemy fighters. This ship excels at full frontal assaults, devastating those subjected to its unbridled fury. Sure, even during an alpha strike like this, the ship cannot belie her wear and tear; sometimes a phaser pulse fizzles in a cannon misfire, and the front-facing starboard torpedo bay sets off a distinctive wobble felt throughout the bridge each fifth launch, but who cares in the midst of an invigorating battle?

Rinckes’ heightened senses alter the laws of physics, slow the battle to a crawl, demote the rumbling and shuddering of undergoing continuous bombardment to the breaking of tidal waves. He deserves each and every explosion chipping away at his shields, lambasting his hull, ripping his flesh, shattering his bones—he deserves all of it. The ferocity of battle tranquilizes his pain and soothes his inner turmoil. He is meant to suffer. It grants him immortality. Rooted firmly in the center of his bridge, he is unstoppable.

Two fighters cannot perform evasive maneuvers fast enough; their shields succumb to the relentless barrage and cobalt-blue quantum torpedoes tear them to shreds. A third fighter loses its left wing and careens out of control, resembling a struck WWII plane with an incongruous starry backdrop.

One fighter threatens to escape the Achilles’ direct line of fire. Rinckes is not in a merciful mood. “Top left!” In an impressive display of tactical prowess, Tony adds an old-fashioned phaser array into the mix to wear out its shielding, complemented by an on-the-fly adjustment of the port quantum torpedo launcher and phaser cannon, while the starboard weapons provide covering fire, keeping the rest of the squadron in check. Bright-orange phaser pulses slice through the wayward fighter’s weakened hull and reduce it to blackened jetsam, lifeless as the surrounding vacuum.

Three vacant shuttles have already joined the attack. Though their comparatively puny phaser arrays and torpedoes inflict little damage, they inflict damage nonetheless and provide a much-needed diversion. It is not effective enough to restrain the enemy’s wrath, however; the thunderous clattering of the Achilles’ structure is reaching worrisome levels—she cannot suffer this abuse indefinitely.

“Shuttlecraft Carson and Pauling report all twenty-eight crewmembers aboard,” Surtak says. “They have sought refuge behind the S’Prenn vessel.”

A rupturing plasma conduit showers Terrell in sparks as he clings to his engineering station. “Forward shields are down! Should we cloak, sir?”

“Negative!” Rinckes bellows. Dropping shields and powering down weapons mid-battle demands meticulous timing. “Baxter, pull up! One hundred eighty degrees! Then—” Like an ocean liner striking a reef, the ship suddenly lists to the left. The lighting and workstations go dark, only to come back online an agonizing three seconds later, flickering in anger. “Pull up! Evasive pattern Epsilon!”

Irregular outlines of developing flames reflect off the bulkheads, their source unseen and irrelevant to the chief helmsman. “Maneuvering thrusters and impulse engines damaged, switching to secondary systems.” The ship rises in shocks and shudders as Baxter wrestles its faltering engines.

“Major hull breaches reported on decks four through twelve,” Surtak says. “Casualty reports are flooding in, sir.”

“Alert sickbay,” Rinckes says, suppressing the urge to swear. On the viewscreen, veiled by jumbled streams of static, the Explorer hangs in space, immovable, unleashing its full complement of cubions in patient doses, providing indispensable support for the remaining fighters, ensuring the Achilles’ ventral shields will fail soon. “Baxter, we need your wildest evasive maneuvers, as erratic as possible.” He turns to his chief engineer and places their lives in his capable hands. “Terrell, cloak the ship.”

No “aye, sir,” no nod, no acknowledgment other than a clenching of the jaw as Terrell engages cloak. Consequently, the downpour of enemy fire reduces to sporadic thunderclaps. The captain doesn’t require any verbal confirmation of the shields lowering, because even Baxter’s piloting métier cannot prevent stray phaser fire and torpedoes from impacting the Achilles’ naked hull, sending unsettling tremors up and down her skeleton. Worse yet, these chance hits betray her position, further complicating Baxter’s job. Rinckes must concede, however, that without Terrell’s adjustments, the Achilles and her crew would have been dust in an expanding debris field by now.

Without the extra boost of fear, Surtak’s casualty and hull breach reports can hardly compete with the cacophony of warfare. Rinckes doesn’t have that handicap. “Beam aboard the shuttles!”

Sparks rain from the ceiling and blast through the flickering viewscreen, leaving crimson burn marks on Baxter and Surtak’s skin. Neither of them react to these pinpricks, fully engrossed as they are in their duties. “Pauling is aboard, shuttle bay three,” Surtak says. “Preparing to beam aboard Ca—”

A massive explosion, amidships, darkens the bridge and launches its crew into the air. Rinckes lands on the carpet face-first, sending a tooth through his lip, a pain immediately dulled by adrenaline. Regardless of where the bridge crew ended up or in what shape, they return to their stations—by clambering and crawling if necessary—while the emergency lights come on again, as resilient as the people they illuminate.

Terrell has somehow held on to his workstation and rattles off a series of damage reports the captain can’t hear over the ringing in his ears. Rinckes spits out a glob of blood and saliva and staggers to his feet. “It doesn’t matter, Commander. Is the cloak still up?”

“It is, sir. But did you hear me? Shuttle and cargo bay transporters are offline.”

Rinckes needs but a moment to regain clarity of thought. “Baxter, fly us to the Carson. Surtak, ready tractor beam.”

Crow subdues a coughing fit courtesy of the smoke-filled bridge and says, “Sir, tractoring the Carson will reveal our position.”

Rinckes ignores her doubts the way he ignores the occasional weapon strike. “Status of warp engines?”

“Shaken but functional,” Baxter replies. “Maximum warp available.”

“Tactical report.”

Lit by his wavering tactical station, Tony bares his teeth. Whether that is caused by sheer determination or the painful gash running from his forehead to his right cheek is impossible to gauge. “Explorer is in tiptop condition. Twelve fighters left, six of which heavily damaged.” The lieutenant straightens his jacket with an angry tug. “I recommend we set the empty shuttles’ warp cores to overload and crash them into the fighters once we’re outside the potential blast radius.”

The captain has never agreed more with the ardent young man. If the last remaining work bee had a warp core he’d send it into the fray as well. “Surtak, execute his plan.”

On screen, four fighters and the S’Prenn wreckage they circle grow in size as the Achilles swoops in. Intermittent enemy fire striking the Achilles’ aft section serves as a firm reminder that the lone Federation flagship cannot afford to overstay its welcome, even while cloaked. Three shuttles—one of them the Carson—buzz around the S’Prenn vessel, locked in their hopeless battle with the fighters. The fighter pilots attempt to zero in on the Carson and forego battling the empty shuttles, whose autopilots manage to get a few good shots in with their limited weaponry. The Carson, a type 11 shuttle filled to the brim with people, is already venting warp plasma and floundering like a bird with a clipped wing.

“Engage tractor beam. Ahead full impulse!” Rinckes says. A blue graviton beam ensnares the besieged shuttle and snatches it away from the ongoing battle at the Achilles’ current velocity. It must be quite a scene for the fighter pilots, having a disembodied tractor beam appear from nowhere and run off with their quarry. “Surtak, order the Carson to lower shields and have our transporter rooms beam the twenty-eight aboard. Then release tractor beam and send it back into battle with an overloading warp core.” He clears his throat, which feels parched in spite of having to swallow blood every so often. “If we can’t have it, we might as well blow it up in their faces.” This sentiment earns him an appreciative nod from Tony.

The quartet of fighters take potshots at the beam’s origin, further buckling the Achilles’ ablative armor as it carries the shuttle like a quarterback outrunning his opponents. Other fighters have caught up with them and join in on the harassment. One of them even makes a direct run for the Carson, but Baxter’s clever maneuvering keeps it out of reach.

Surtak’s console sparks like an arc welder gone awry, yet the Vulcan remains unperturbed. “Shuttle occupants are safely aboard. I am uploading combat instructions to its computer and releasing tractor beam.”

As soon as the tractor beam disappears, the invisible Achilles rolls to starboard, confusing the fighters, who focus their ire on her presumed trajectory and miss each shot as a result. The Carson’s engines glow as they power up, plasma leaks be damned, and the empty shuttle turns to confront its assailants in a final act of defiance.

Rinckes’ pulse is throbbing in his temples. “Get us out of here, maximum warp, erratic flight path.” He has barely finished his sentence before Baxter pushes the sputtering engines to the limit and propels the Achilles to unimaginable speeds. “Aft viewer on.”

On screen, the tiny Carson storms the battlefield, phasers blazing—a lone barbarian against a Roman army, the last avenger of this S’Prenn massacre. Ahead of it, five shuttles explode in a shockwave of conflicting matter/anti-matter, detonating near the Explorer and its accomplices, destroying three fighters and disabling two more. After a moment of perplexity, the remaining seven fighters target the Carson and forego pursuing the Achilles, which is making subtle course changes with significant results while travelling at roughly 8,000 times the speed of light. The last visual before the garbled viewscreen can no longer provide an accurate representation of the battle they abandoned is the bright flare of a warp core breach.

“No vessels on intercept course,” Kels says on an otherwise eerily silent bridge, save for the hissing of fire extinguishers and that ubiquitous red alert claxon. “We’ve escaped,” she adds with more than a touch of incredulity.

Rinckes expresses his relief with but a quiet exhale. “Cancel red alert.” At long last, the red alert panels and claxon cease their warnings. With the cloak engaged, the regular lighting is left switched off, leaving the bridge shrouded in darkness. As the violent encounter’s coda seeps into his memory like one of his nightmares, pain fills the void. Yet, to his surprise, the knowledge of having saved his men and women in a daring move abates his sorrows for an instant. But at what cost? How wounded is the Achilles and how high are the casualties in exchange for those twenty-eight lives?

Having no further need to stand in the center of his bridge, Rinckes turns around to seek the comfort of his captain’s chair and is shocked to discover that a ceiling joist, a foot thick and made from solid metal, has pierced it. Rinckes cannot keep his eyes off the macabre sight, cannot escape its implications.

The Grim Reaper had swung his scythe and missed.

 

[CeJay]

Can I breathe again?

Damn, that was one hell of a battle. I'm sure one that will be felt by the ship and her crew for weeks/years to come. That is, if they manage to survive that long.

 

[Alexbright99]

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 - Chapter 3a

USS Achilles, lightyears from the S’Prenn wreckage – July 15, 2386 – Stardate 63534.8

To save twenty-eight, eighteen crewmembers died the day before yesterday, nearly five percent of the total crew complement. Four asphyxiated when emergency force fields couldn’t immediately seal a deck-wide hull breach, six burned to death while trapped under debris, and the partial collapse of deck 12 claimed eight lives.

Lieutenant Tony Blue rummages through the XO’s office to pack up his belongings and goes over these morbid details in his mind. Every survivor on this ship knows them by heart, doubly so for the twenty-eight evacuees who owe their lives to their fallen colleagues. Similar to how Tony is collecting his possessions to place them in a cargo container, thereby saying his belated goodbyes to his life as a first officer, crew quarters of the deceased are being emptied, their possessions stored or recycled, depending on the items’ practical or intrinsic value. Soon, it will be as if those brave men and women never existed, as if they never embarked on this Quixotic mission, the same way people mention Emily less with each passing day.

He touches the healed tissue on his face. In days of old, the deep gash running from forehead to cheek would’ve left an impressive scar, but the medical staff did an exemplary job despite the avalanche of patients they have treated during the past forty-eight hours. As opposed to the death tally, statistics regarding the wounded often go ignored; the entire crew sustained injuries in this battle.

There’s no denying it, the XO’s office is a mess, its prominent desk upturned, its bulkheads and carpet stained with burn marks, the adjacent wall terminal blackened and malfunctioning.

Against a bent table leg lies a small, green object. “Oh, hello there,” Tony says. “Long time no see, pal.” It’s a plush frog, a gift from Emily celebrating his one-year anniversary as this ship’s first officer. She had come into his office while he was toiling away at whatever kept him busy back then and surprised him with this replicated toy.

After making sure nobody could possibly be watching, Tony picks up the frog, gives the fluffy amphibian a big hug, and instantly remembers why he had hidden it out of sight. This particular frog comes equipped with motorized arms and a sound synthesizer chip, and it is programmed to do two things when hugged: clench its tiny arms around its new friend in a firm grip one step below a chokehold and proclaim its eternal devotion in a high-pitched voice. “I love you, I love you, I love you! You’re the best!” And just like it did three years ago, it scares the bejesus out of him.

So there Tony stands amid the ruins of his career and family life represented by overthrown furniture and a few scattered personal effects, comforted by an over-affectionate and downright creepy relic of the past. The sheer absurdity of the situation makes him chuckle at first, then laugh out loud to such an extent that he sinks to the floor, caught in the grasp of that silly toy frog, which still carries traces of his wife’s scent. Or is it just his imagination, a desperate ploy to hold on to her memory? He honestly has no idea.

While he sits there in the rubble, holding on to the plush frog for dear life, running his fingers through its soft fabric, he forfeits his constant struggle to stay composed and permits himself to shed a handful of tears. He is grateful for having known Emily, for having been part of her life, grateful for her comforting smile, her unwavering support, her offbeat sense of humor, her continuous attempts to make him a better person, and yes, her ridiculous surprise gifts.

The door chimes and Tony makes no effort to answer it; he cannot free himself from his sad epiphany, wants to relish the moment, despite it being as transient as any other.

The door chimes again and again, eventually breaking him from his self-cast spell. With considerable reluctance, Tony releases himself from the frog and nostalgia’s clutches and sets both aside. He pushes himself off the ground, dries tears with his sleeve, and stumbles for the door. Rubble fragments crunch beneath his soles. He halts shy of the door and clears any lingering emotion from his voice with a hearty cough. “Who is it?”

“The executive officer of this starship, who doesn’t appreciate being locked out of her own office.”

With the press of a button, Tony opens the entrance and seals his fate.

Commander Erin Crow, scoring a disturbing five out of five scowling stars, brushes past her precursor and homes in on his cargo container. “Haven’t you finished packing yet? How long have you been in here?” She swivels to face the lieutenant, the intensity in her eyes matching the output of a Type XII phaser array. “Your departure is long overdue. Don’t stretch it out further by idling about.”

Reeling from the unannounced switch from grappling with the complexities of grief to having a hotheaded superior waltz in, Tony slips his hands into his pockets and watches as Crow angrily shoves whatever item she can find into the cargo container. She doesn’t seem to have noticed he has been crying; the damaged lighting fixtures might’ve helped in this regard, but let’s not rule out the power of indifference.

It takes her nearly breaking the frame of a family holopicture in half for Tony to intervene. “Just leave that up to me, please.” He walks over and takes the picture from her.

Crow lashes out with a West Coast accent she usually keeps under wraps. “I’m on a tight schedule, Lieutenant, and I need this office asap.”

“Uh, why? This place is a mess.”

“Because it is mine. A first officer should have her own office. My previous office is waiting for you”—she looks around and lets out a frustrated sigh—“in much better shape than this.”

“Then maybe you should return to it.”

Big mistake. She steps in so close he feels the heat of her breath. “It’s bad enough you hogged this position for so many years, and I strongly disagree with the captain’s decision to let you keep your quarters even though I have every right to—” She recoils slightly and narrows her eyes. “Wait, have you been crying?”

Tony refrains from answering.

“You have, haven’t you?” She groans. “Is that what kept you from sticking to my schedule? Geesh, we’re all a little sad sometimes, Lieutenant, and for good reason, but you cannot let personal issues interfere with your duties. You’re a senior officer, for crying out loud!”

“Crying out loud… Really?” Tony mutters.

Her unfortunate choice of words eludes her. “Why don’t you soldier on like the rest of us? Everyone considers you this symbol for loss, sacrifice, heroism. The dauntless Tony Q, trading his godlike powers and immortality for sharing his glorious presence and wisdom with us poor mortals.” Her forehead nearly touches his nose as she continues her reproach. “I am genuinely sorry for you losses, I really am, but you don’t have the market cornered on sacrifice and grief, Lieutenant. We all suffer, and none of us give in to our pain.”

“Which is laudable,” Tony replies in the brief window of opportunity his conversation partner grants him.

“At least you know what happened to your family: when they died, how they died, where they died.”

Though each mention of “they died” hurts like being zapped by a plasma conduit, he lets her vent nonetheless.

“Last I heard of my parents and brothers, they were together in Santa Monica, going about their lives. That was three days before the Altonoids ravaged the surface.” For the first time during this reprimand, she averts her gaze. “I read reports of some people making it out of LA. They could’ve survived, but… let’s be realistic.”

Tony offers her a thoughtful expression. “There’s a chance.”

“How the hell should I know?” She gestures at the family picture in his hands. “Tough as it may be, you get to have closure. You can be certain Emily is never coming back.”

Ouch. He prefers the plasma conduit over this. This conversation has run its course, but the new commander is on a roll.

“I haven’t seen my Arthur in over half a decade. One minute he’s en route with six colleagues to a training colony, the next his shuttle has vanished without a trace. No debris field anywhere near its filed flight path, no signs of spatial anomalies, no nothing. Seven officers gone up in smoke like a cheap magic trick. And believe me, Lieutenant, we searched and searched, for weeks, months even.

“Captain Harriman was not one to give up, and he led our search efforts with undeniable stalwartness, but even he had to call it quits eventually and have us move on with our missions. Because that is what we do.” She pokes his chest with an outstretched index finger. “We suck it up and perform our duties.”

Just as Tony believes—and hopes—the lecture is over, Crow snatches the family portrait from his grip and holds it up, shaking it in anger. “You’re one of the lucky ones. You can stare them in the eyes and find comfort in the finality of it all.” She tosses him the picture. “So quit your moping and get over yourself.”

For a good ten seconds, uneasy silence pervades the room as Crow treats him to a proper death glare. Tony absentmindedly fidgets with the frame’s edges and tries to ignore the stomachache this tirade has summoned. When he speaks up, his voice is calm. “I understand why you are the way you are.”

She crosses her arms and raises her brow.

“If you let grief fester, it becomes something vile: bitterness, Commander. And it will take hold of you, control you like a S’Prenn biting into your brainstem to dictate your every move. You’ll be inseparable, forever at its mercy. You hope distributing your anger to others will dilute the pain. But it never does.”

Her mouth forms a thin line, a cherry-red protest to his viewpoint.

“Tell me,” Tony says, bracing himself for her upcoming reaction. “How do I avoid becoming like you?”

Instead of retaliating with a snarky comeback, she lowers her gaze to the frayed carpet and says, “I wish I knew.” Tony sees in her the same tiredness he saw back in the S’Prenn wreckage’s computer room. She buries her face in her palms for an instant and takes a deep breath. “Listen, it’s been a hectic few days with the ship and its crew being a shambles, and it’s on me to bring order to chaos. I need you to clear out at your earliest convenience, okay?”

“I’ll get right back to it.” He crouches next to the container and adds the family picture to its contents.

“I admit I may have been a bit harsh toward you. I just… I am a little stressed out.”

“Don’t sweat it. I have something here that might soothe your nerves.”

“Oh, that would be very welcome. Thank you.”

“Happy to help,” Tony says as he reaches for the plush frog.

* * *

USS Achilles – July 16, 2386 – Stardate 63537.6

“Aren’t you a beauty?” Lieutenant Commander Jon Terrell says to the incomplete fruit of his labor: a two-foot-high, nine-foot-long wire model of a Galaxy-class Federation starship, constructed from leftover relays, cables, and conduits—stuff that usually gets recycled—given new life by the chief engineer’s favorite creative outlet.

He uses his engineering jumpsuit’s pant legs to wipe the grease from his fingers and clicks a loose phaser charge indicator into the wires representing the main impulse engine. Artworks lie strewn about in his quarters, mostly smaller depictions of familiar spacefaring vessels, some of which displayed in broken vitrines, others placed haphazardly on furniture or the floor, in sight but forgotten, overshadowed by Terrell’s pièce de résistance, his magnum opus in wireframe form: the not-so-mini miniature of the USS Enterprise-D.

It feels right to pay tribute to his early days. He was twenty-two, a naïve ensign, when he accepted his first commission as Starfleet engineer, unaware of the adventures and misadventures he would have on that illustrious flagship and her successor, the Enterprise-E.

However, choosing to sculpt a model starship may not have been his best choice of pastime. With each alteration, each addition of a junked piece of hardware, he reminds himself of the Achilles’ wounded state. Her main warp and impulse engines need a major overhaul; they cannot rely on secondary systems indefinitely. Her warp core has developed moods and an apparent dislike for its reserve batteries. Her weaponry takes more force and patience to hammer back into alignment after each skirmish, as if to rebel against her tormentors and protest against her dwindling torpedo count. Her hull integrity cannot be pushed above seventy-eight percent, no matter how much effort his teams put into restoring its weak spots. One day, the chief engineer fears, the Achilles will be as fragile as one of his sculptures.

His engineering crew is so busy patching up important systems that the ship’s once pristine interior is but a fading memory. This goes double for his quarters. Everything is functional despite appearances, from the exposed LCARS panels stripped of their interfaces to the barebones replicator doubling as a stand for what a sparrow would look like if nature only had isolinear chips at its disposal.

“Luxury is for the lazy,” he says, accustomed to having nobody around to hear his spontaneous insights. Probably for the best. Although being chief engineer demands excellent people skills, he considers solitude to be life’s sweetest blessing. Voluntary solitude, to be precise, in sharp contrast to the loneliness associated with losing a loved one.

Terrell wanders over to his couch, designed by himself during what he has dubbed his ascetic aesthetic period, and lifts the lightweight construction to grab what it conceals: a wireframe heart, twice the size of a human one, torn in two but held together by near-invisible strings. It was supposed to be a gift for Tony, and he had begun working on it the day after Emily Blue perished. He had completed it in two days flat, if only to cope with how powerless he felt on the Altonoid wreck, unable to quell the then-commander’s despair, and on the bridge, with Tony’s desperate pleas falling on deaf ears.

As Terrell holds up the seemingly broken heart and lets his quarters’ scarce lighting dance on its intricate metal pattern, he ponders how embarrassing it must’ve been had he given this pitiful attempt at handling these multifaceted emotions to the grieving young man. “So sorry for your loss,” he says to thin air. “Lost all you held dear, did ya? Here’s a symbolic piece of junk to brighten your mood!” Terrell chuckles to himself as he picks up the isolinear sparrow from the replicator pad and throws it across the room with a flick of the wrist. It doesn’t quite fly as efficiently as the real thing and it crash-lands on his sofa.

He places the broken heart on the replicator pad, or the Pedestal of the Damned, as he calls it. The procedure goes as follows: once he has gathered the courage (this could take weeks), he’ll initiate the replicator’s Kill Your Darlings protocol, which happens to have the exact same effect as saying “recycle,” namely immediate dematerialization, usually reserved for disposal of dirty dishes and table scraps. Each work of art is meant to be devoured by oblivion; this device simply speeds up the process.

Favoring practicality over sentimentality, Terrell had redirected his creativity to what became the cloaking trick, which ended up saving the away teams, the majority of which consisted of his engineers. The tradeoff, however, came at a steep cost: four of his engineers died on the Achilles during the ensuing battle.

Terrell deigns the broken heart another look. Despite its deceptively fragile appearance, it has withstood the harshest of circumstances, including lying abandoned under a couch during a devastating attack. It has maintained its shape.

That’s got to be worth something.

 

[Alexbright99]

Fallen Heroes - Book 2 - Chapter 3b

USS Achilles – July 16, 2386 – Stardate 63537.8

Captain Stephan Rinckes stands alone, surrounded by eighteen torpedo casings, ordered in three groups of six, each one draped across with a Federation flag. In them lie the men and women who did not survive his latest command decision. The dead do not assign blame; that’s a privilege exclusive to the living, and the captain does so on their behalf while adopting their stone-cold silence as his own. The vastness of the main cargo bay should serve to mask the tragedy’s extent, but all it does is humble the captain even further as he meanders through the rows and inspects each casket in a futile display of paying respects. Paying respects… for whose sake? Who is watching other than himself?

Part of him wishes he could join their ranks, occupy a nineteenth casing. Not out of envy or some sort of death wish, but to be relieved of the burden stacking up, brick by brick, of people he let down and who paid the ultimate price for it. His actions and inactions have extensive consequences, and he is the one to carry the sum of all responsibilities and their repercussions. Had he chosen differently, he would’ve found himself in the exact same cargo bay on a ship with less damage, sans the bodies and torpedo casings, preparing to eulogize twenty-eight souls who vaporized along with their shuttles.

He steps onto to the platform overlooking the casings and the rows of seats filling the rest of the cargo bay. Soon, he will spout inspirational platitudes Starfleet and naval captains have uttered for generations, honoring those who died similar meaningless deaths. All the while, he will think back to that one particular moment, post-battle, when he turned around and saw his captain’s chair impaled.

If this, if that, it doesn’t matter. He is still here. By pure chance, he evaded bestowing Erin Crow with the cross only he was meant to bear.

* * *

Lieutenant Kels values punctuality, yet she arrives at the well-attended funeral service thirty seconds late. A security officer attempts to guide her to a front-row seat reserved for senior officers, but she politely refuses and searches for a place to sit in the back. She spots one off to the right, smackdab in the middle of the last row. The attendees pay her no attention as she mutters apologies and sidles to the empty seat; they are listening to Commander Erin Crow’s solemn opening words.

To Kels’ relief, from her vantage point, the torpedo casings beneath the elevated platform remain hidden from view. She’s here for the speech, or so she tells herself. The idea that the maimed bodies of eighteen former crewmembers, people she worked with and greeted in the hallways, lie encased in them is unsettling enough.

After a respectful introduction from his first officer, Captain Stephan Rinckes takes center stage. The size of this venue diminishes his imposing stature to a degree, but he appears strapping nonetheless. By nature, Andorians are a militaristic race, and Kels appreciates a commanding officer who has physical presence in abundance.

The captain’s voice reverberates through the cargo bay. “We have been out here for a substantial amount of time. Driven from our homes, cut off from our friends and family, we have come to depend on one another, here, on our starship Achilles. We celebrate our victories, we look out for each other, cooperate to accomplish our goals, and yes, when we are harshly reminded of the dangers, as we are today… we band together and honor those who have laid down their lives for us.”

The captain is a fine public speaker, favoring projection and artful pauses over excessive modulation, keeping the audience transfixed while listing the names of those who lie beneath the platform. It’s hardly the opportune moment for it, but Kels can’t help but admire his oratory skills.

“Countless men, women, and children, who are waiting behind the Klingon border, who share our fate of being outcasts, rely on the successful completion of our mission, a mission requiring sacrifice, a sacrifice… we know too well. Let us never forget those whose courage led them to relinquish their safety for the greater good, for a chance to make a difference, a chance to reclaim our worlds.”

Kels finds it jarring to hear her captain stringing together sentences other than the terse pairing of grumbled syllables. Judging by his stern demeanor on the bridge, where efficiency is key, she never would have guessed his still waters ran this deep.

“We live in a universe in which the Federation’s principles of peace and exploration are trodden on. When acts of violence bereave us of our loved ones, it is natural to crave vengeance. But that is not why we’re out here. If we were to exact revenge for the billions we have lost, how would we go about it? No, really, how would we accomplish such a feat? Kill every Altonoid we encounter? Poison their worlds, slaughter their inhabitants, soldier or citizen alike? Become like them?”

One could hear a pin drop.

“No! That is not who we are! That is not what these eighteen fine men and women died for. We are here to drive the Altonoids from our homes, phasers blazing if and only if we have exhausted every other avenue. And as we’ve learned recently, we must liberate the S’Prenn from their appalling mistreatment by the Altonoids, their slavery. We embrace strange new life instead of abusing them for our own gains, something the Altonoids do not understand—yet.”

Rinckes extends both arms. “It’s something our deceased friends and colleagues understood fully, something they lived and died by, something so many of our own have lived and died by throughout the Federation’s bicentennial existence. They form a long line of honorable people from all races and walks of life, who cherished and upheld a firm belief in interspecies cooperation and its benefits, how it taught us to learn from each other.”

The captain pauses for a good five seconds to allow his words to sink in. “Let us never forget these eighteen people who are ready for their final voyage among the stars. And let us never forget those whose bodies we couldn’t recover, who cannot be granted a proper space burial.” Rinckes bows his head in respect to someone in the first row. Kels’ skin tingles as she realizes that has to be Tony Blue. Muffled gasps betray others share her surprise. What a kind but potentially controversial gesture. She is unsure what to make of it.

Rinckes continues as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. “Most of all, let us honor them by keeping them in our thoughts while we go above and beyond the call of duty each and every day, to fulfill our mission… so we will once again have a place to call home.”

An uneasy silence builds into a standing ovation, and Rinckes hurries offstage to make way for an ensign readying an electronic boatswain’s whistle. Once the applause has dwindled, the ensign bids the departed an official farewell. Commander Crow then ends the ceremony with a few closing remarks, to which Kels doesn’t listen, because she is mulling over the implications of Rinckes’ speech, especially the surprising nod to Ted and Emily’s demise. One thing is certain: hard times lie ahead for the valiant crew of the Achilles, a crew that has found itself in a long-term battle of attrition.

* * *

The funeral service alternated between crushing and lifting Lieutenant Ernest Baxter’s spirits. As he steps out of the cargo bay and into a corridor, conflicting emotions grab him by the throat. The service ended nine minutes ago, but he chose to tarry instead of making a hasty exit—perhaps in the hopes of running into Lieutenant Kels, even though having a conversation partner as beautiful as her usually entails tripping over his tongue and struggling to remember his name. She had already left.

Compelled to visit each individual torpedo casing, Baxter had read the names engraved on them and whispered his goodbyes. Sadness and confusion overspread the cargo bay, stifled the air, yet a small group of brave souls remained in order to deal with their sorrow head-on. It reminded him so much of the hopelessness on Starbase 43 while their homeworlds burned. That was where he first met Tony, helped him find his wife in the chaos—eons ago.

He enters a turbolift. “Holodeck 2.” It jostles into motion with a shudder and a brief dimming of the lights. Nothing to worry about, Terrell had assured him; damage to the turbolift system may result in a bumpy ride, but its safety features checked out okay. Compensating its lack of comfort with practicality, the lift takes him to his destination: a corridor leading to the correct holodeck. Fortunately, holodecks are embedded deep within the ship and have a separate power source, so they haven’t been affected too much by the countless battles.

A quick inspection of the LCARS panel beside the holodeck’s entrance confirms its program is already running. The doors slide open to reveal a complex interaction of photons and force fields recreating an early-21st-century Earth café rife with holographic patrons. The chief helmsman enters the holodeck and the doors close behind him and disappear into the simulation, completing the illusion of entering a different realm. Everything down to the last detail, from the smell of sweat and beer to the numerous records hanging on the walls, is painstakingly accurate. Baxter saw to it himself when he designed the program.

Here it is forever midnight. The outside darkness does the crimson and sapphire lighting justice as the period-correct Robert Cray Band jams into the night from a corner dedicated to the finest guest musicians. At the bar sits the only other flesh-and-blood person, Lieutenant Tony Blue, hunched over his synthehol approximation of a fine whiskey. Meanwhile, the Robert Cray Band breaks into an expert rendition of “What Would You Say.”

Baxter mounts the stool next to the chief tactical officer and signals the barkeeper to bring him a refreshment. “So, Tony, seems like you beat me to it.”

“Made a beeline for this bar as soon as the boatswain’s whistle sounded.” Tony takes a sip of whiskey. “For what it’s worth, asking me to meet you here after the service was one of your better ideas.”

Baxter raises the glass of liqueur the bartender has served him. “I’ll drink to that.”

Tony looks around. “I’ll admit this is a much better setting to relax in than most of our lounges nowadays. Smashed to bits, the whole lot of them. Lounge Delta even had its exterior windows broken and lost its furniture in an explosive decompression.”

“Luckily, nobody’s doing any lounging during red alert.”

This elicits a soft chuckle from Tony. In the background, Robert Cray lets loose on his sunburst Fender Stratocaster, mouthing and singing the corresponding notes as he exalts his solo to bluesy perfection.

“So, what did you make of the service?” Baxter asks, trying to sound matter-of-factly despite the heavy subject matter.

“Appropriate, I guess. I just can’t get used to him opening his trap for more than three consecutive sentences, putting his hypocrisy on display with an elaborate speech that was no doubt meant to be inspirational.”

This rapid and brutally honest response nearly causes a sip of liqueur to enter Baxter’s lungs instead of his stomach. Forced to set down his drink, he is treated to the sensation of synthehol burning the inside of his nostrils, which doesn’t prevent him from giggling and saying, “No, tell me what you really think.”

Tony fails to hold back a smirk. “Yeah, I surprised myself too there. I wish I could say these things to the captain’s face. Truth be told, I do, but it’s always an imaginary captain I scold.” He takes another modest sip of whiskey and savors its taste. “Man, the things I’ve told imaginary Captain Rinckes. I love telling him off.”

“And what will you tell faux captain about his alluding to Ted and Emily’s fate in his speech?”

Tony’s gaze drifts off and his smile fades as he considers his reply. Robert Cray is singing apt lyrics in the background, broaching the subject of ending all wars and getting along for a change—a sentiment recorded almost four centuries ago, as fitting now as it was back then. “You know what, Ernest?” Tony says at long last. “I would say, ‘What the bloody hell were you thinking?’” He sighs deeply. “And then I’d say… ‘Thank you, for acknowledging them, at least. It’s a start.’”

As Tony gently shakes his glass to jangle the ice cubes in it, Baxter finds himself speechless for a few seconds. “I, uh…”

“Go ahead. You can speak freely. We have the same rank.”

“I wonder what your speech would’ve been like had you been the captain.”

Tony grumbles. “Don’t talk like that.”

“I’ve no doubt you would’ve done the same, back at the S’Prenn wreck, put it all on the line to save the twenty-eight. You would’ve held the speech, and it would’ve been… less hollow. You’ve given so much for the success of this mission, for the Federation.”

“I’d have to live with eighteen deaths on my conscience.” Tony’s stare bores its way into Baxter’s skull. “Trust me, I don’t envy him.” He lets out another deep sigh. “I envy Lieutenant Surtak and his surefire methods for putting a lid on the strongest of emotions.”

“Tony, some of us would like nothing more than to have you lead—”

“Surtak has the ability to do his job and do it well, without being sidetracked by what life throws at him. Perhaps we should’ve sent a ship full of Vulcans on this mission.”

Lieutenant Jeremy Gibbs seats himself next to Tony and Baxter and taps a fingernail against Tony’s glass. “Hot damn! There has to be real alcohol in there for you to say that!”

Baxter had nearly forgotten he invited the security chief over too. Being a pilot, he is quick to adapt. “Welcome to Baxter’s, the finest blues bar in town.”

“Eh, more of a jazz guy,” Gibbs says as he orders a beer by lifting an index finger. “Anyway, I’m here now, so you owe me a try at my favorite martial arts training program.” While Baxter tries to come up with a polite declination, Gibbs pats Tony on the shoulder and says, “What a nice thing of the captain to do, bowing his head to you and everything. It seems we’ve led the captain on the road to redemption. I’m telling you, that icy heart of his is thawing.”

Baxter can’t resist putting in his two cents. “Maybe. He’s no Captain Harriman, that’s for sure.” Before Gibbs can mitigate his statement, Baxter adds, “Keith Harriman would never have ordered me to abandon two crewmembers.”

“I never took you for being the resentful type, Ernest,” Gibbs says as the bartender hands him a beer. “It doesn’t suit you. I’m not saying you’re wrong, though. Harriman was a class act.”

Baxter nods. “A captain who actually cared for his crew, who never lost sight of an individual’s value, who was part of a rare breed of commanding officers who can be a leader and a friend.”

Gibbs raises his half-full glass. “To Captain Harriman.”

“To Captain Harriman,” the chief helmsman echoes. Only then does he notice Tony has been quiet ever since Gibbs arrived; the young man is staring into his whiskey glass the way he tends to stare out of windows.

It’s as if Tony senses he is expected to speak up. “Rinckes is a pragmatist, erring on the side of caution.” He finishes his whiskey in one swig. “Memories of my Q days have grown vague, but I’ll never forget my visit to the Saratoga with my dear friend Captain Mathieu Duvivier, may he rest in peace, when we travelled to the year 2367, to the battle of Wolf 359.”

Baxter and Gibbs listen to him slack-jawed. He hardly ever shares stories concerning his former life as a member of the Q Continuum.

“I gave us temporary non-corporeal forms in order to preserve the timeline. I wanted to teach him about the Borg, warn him of an impending invasion. He ended up hating Rinckes’ guts for the remainder of his life. You see, Mathieu’s mother, Sandra, was the Saratoga’s chief medical officer. The Borg crippled the ship, the computer began counting down to an imminent warp core breach, and its crew and passengers fled to the escape pods.”

The band keeps playing, but even the barkeeper and nearby patrons are eavesdropping on the lieutenant.

“Sandra was the heroic type, the kind of woman who puts others’ wellbeing before her own. It’s why she became a doctor. She could’ve made it out alive if she hadn’t stopped to help an injured man. In the chaos, she got separated from her patient, so she resumed her way to the escape pods, which were filling up with scared officers and civilians. You know who else was there?”

Nobody answers.

“Lieutenant Commander Stephan Rinckes—Saratoga’s old security chief—was on a two-week visit to streamline their security division. A fool’s errand, in hindsight. Nine days in, the Saratoga was ordered to engage the Borg cube headed for Earth and suffered critical damage. Rinckes was one of the first to arrive at an escape pod. Its pilots had discovered a malfunction: the doors had to be closed manually. So he assumed command of the pod and began guiding people in from the starboard side entrance. The computer announced there were ten seconds left before warp core containment failure.”

Baxter can already guess how the story ends.

“Like I said, had Doctor Duvivier hurried to the escape pod in favor of assisting the wounded man…” He lets out a long breath. “Commander Rinckes locked eyes with her as she ran toward him from the other end of the corridor. He whispered ‘sorry’ and closed the door.”

“Tough call to make,” Gibbs says in a somber voice.

“Mathieu and I witnessed the whole ordeal. I… I shouldn’t have put him through that. I was so blinded by my powers I’d become oblivious to the pain of others.”

Baxter wants to say something comforting, but words elude him.

“Thing is,” Tony continues, “while we stood there watching Doctor Duvivier sag to her knees in defeat, the three of us waiting for the inevitable explosion that would tear the Saratoga apart, we realized it took quite a while. Six seconds, to be exact.”

“She could’ve made it,” Baxter says.

“Yeah.” Tony bites his lower lip and fondles the wedding ring he’s still wearing. “But Rinckes… errs on the side of caution.”

 

[CeJay]

A lot of stuff happening here. Liking the sorrowful mood, which of course can be said for most of this depressing tale.

Rinckes speech was good, appropriate and his controversial gesture quite telling. Really liked the switch to Kels's POV as well.

Tony taking Duvivier back in time to witness his wife's death, however: A total douche move. So, yeah, right on brand for a Q.