Star Trek: Fortitude - Season Five

[admiralelm11]

Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Five, Episode One - “All Hands, Part Two”
By Jack D. Elmlinger


PROLOGUE

Last time on Star Trek: Fortitude…

While exploring the Beta Quadrant, Captain Ewan Llewellyn and the Fortitude crew locate a shuttlepod belonging to the End. thought to be extinct for almost three years, there is one member of the End left. The pilot, who is beamed to Sickbay, appears to be the last of his savage, warlike race. Ordering an investigation, Captain Llewellyn hopes that they are only witnessing an echo of the past and not a new beginning for his most feared enemy.

Unfortunately, those hopes are dashed as the End pilot wakes up and escapes from Sickbay. Infiltrating Transporter Room Two, he extracts the pattern buffer from his shuttlepod and begins to materialize an army of hibernating End soldiers. Stored for three years and ready to start establishing a new order, almost two hundred soldiers of the End swarm the decks of Fortitude and take control of key areas. Emergency force fields keep them away from the top four decks, including the Bridge but they are a relentless foe.

Just under half of the Starfleet crew are lost in the battle. With no other alternatives and with Fortitude dropping out of warp back home alongside Starbase 499, Captain Llewellyn accepts defeat and orders an emergency evacuation. All surviving Starfleet officers and crew are transported to the starbase while Llewellyn and Commander Valerie Archer activate the auto-destruct system. Upon escaping themselves, they watch with heavy hearts as the End-filled Fortitude is blown to pieces.

However, End soldiers managed to beam across the void to Starbase 499 amidst the chaos. The battle isn’t over with almost one hundred End still alive and scattered throughout the superstructure. To make matters even worse at the apocalyptic moment, Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore, who had been comatome in the Starbase 499 medical facility for almost a year, is discovered to be missing…


… and now the conclusion.


ACT ONE

The debris from Fortitude hadn’t even settled yet, and people were already turning away from it. Reports were starting to fly over the communications system from the bowels of the starbase with reports of terror at the hands of the End intruders. Station Master Erica Martinez, the center of attention in the Station Master’s Office, was doing her level best just to keep her head above the waves of requests and calls.

By the way of assistance, the senior staff of the doomed Fortitude went straight into action, manning those stations that were going unmanned and began issuing orders. Commander Valerie Archer started directing security teams with her tactical knowledge augmented by the capable professionalism of Lieutenant Commander Gabriel Brodie. Ensign Jason Armstrong began securing emergency force fields, remembering how the End had carried out preemptive strikes on the emitters and Lieutenant Arden Vuro gave his friend, Lieutenant Commander Sollik, a hand in searching for all of the remote End biosigns.

It was all hands on deck.

All, that was, except for one.

Captain Ewan Llewellyn was in a complete daze. His first command had been blown out of the stars at his order, and over one hundred enemy casualties as a result. Half of his crew, his brave crew, had been lost, thanks to those bastards. It was all far too much for his system. With his head thumping and his heart pounding, he simply stared out at where his Intrepid-class starship had once been and where there was now only wreckage.

He tuned out the voices that surrounded him.

“Okay,” Sollik growled,” I've got ten End biosigns near Club 499!”

“Sending a security team,” Valerie nodded as Brodie worked the station security console.

“Emergency force fields are responding,” Jason observed with a triumphant grin.

“Good. That should keep them contained,” Erica Martinez thanks the young Kentuckian with a pat on his back. “My primary concern is the civilian population. I want to begin evacuation procedures right away, but with so many of the End scattered about all decks, I’m not sure where to send them.”

“What about the Steamrunner?,” suggested Valerie.

“What about her?”

“Put all of the civilians aboard and get them to a safe distance!”

“Excellent idea,” the Latina woman grudgingly acknowledged. “Doctor Pulaski?”

“I’ll see to it,” Katherine Pulaski agreed.

“Six more End biosigns near the drydocks,” Sollik suddenly blurted out. “They’ll need to be neutralized before anybody can get to either the Steamrunner or the Katherine Johnson for escape or anything else!”

“There are only three security officers in the area,” Brodie noted with disdain. “However, there is a science team, seven-strong, aboard the Katherine Johnson.”

“Get them armed and fighting!”

“They’re only scientists…”

“It doesn’t matter, damn it!,” Erica snapped at her dark-skinned lover. “They have access to weapons and they’re Starfleet officers! We need to protect the civilians at all costs… That goes for everybody! Our primary concern is getting the civilian population of Starbase 499 to the Steamrunner and getting them away from this warzone! Nothing else comes first. Understood?!”

Everybody did and everybody acted accordingly.


* * * *


Kate Pulaski was on her way out of the Station Master’s Office when one of the incoming comms reports caught her attention. Slowly, she paused, frowning as strained to hear the distorted words over the chaos. Frustrated at the lack of clarity, she marched over to the comms panel and answered the call.

“This is Doctor Pulaski,” she said loudly. “Please repeat?”

“Doctor, this is Nurse Denton, calling from the medical level,” a panic-filled voice began to say once again. “I know you’re probably got bigger problems up there, but Rear Admiral Blackmore has gone missing and we can’t find him!”

That did it.

Captain Llewellyn broke out of his emotional stupor and turned towards Pulaski. “What did they just say?”

“I… I don’t get it…,” Pulaski whispered. “Edward was comatose with no signs of recovery. I get reports on his condition every week, even when we’re not here! Uh, Nurse Denton, has the medical level been breached by the End?”

“No, not yet,” replied Denton,” although I guess some security guys would be nice!”

“I’m going down there,” Llewellyn snapped immediately.

“Now wait for just a second, Captain,” Pulaski protested, her hand on his shoulder. “We’ve got a crisis situation going on and civilians that need evacuation. As much as this pains me to say it, Edward Blackmore is just one man.”

“And so am I, Doctor,” the Welshman retorted. “Besides, it seems that the last thing that’s needed around here is a starship captain… seeing as I don’t have a ship anymore. I will find Boxer, and if I run into any End, I’ll shoot them for you. Focus on those civilians. That’s an order… and don’t try to stop me!”

Watching the argument between Llewellyn and Pulaski from a distance, all Valerie Archer could do was silently observe as Ewan tore his phaser from his hip holster and ran out of the Station Master’s Office.

She didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Forcing herself back to work, she hoped that he would be all right.


* * * *


Starbase 499 was engulfed in terror.

As Ewan worked his way through the labyrinth of corridors, his phaser sweeping around every corner, he continually encountered expressions of panic, fear, and desperation. They were found on the faces of Starfleet personnel and civilians alive. The mere mention of the End was like firing a photon torpedo at a warp core. The very first time that he had laid eyes upon Starbase 499, he had seen the extent of the End’s crippling damage. Four years… and it was happening all over again, only worse this time. This time, Starbase 499 was being consumed from the inside-out.

Those near windows had seen the destruction of Fortitude.

They feared that the same would happen to their home.

Llewellyn couldn’t blame them.

Coming around a corner, he came face-to-face with the enemy. Two End soldiers were leering over an assortment of body parts. There was a tiny fraction of consolation when the remains of a Starfleet uniform was spotted but it was only a tiny fraction. It did little to calm down his rage. He had missed the chance to fight the irredeemable bastards that had overrun his ship. This was his first encounter with this modern, rematerialized breed. They had used their bare hands on the poor man sprawled across the deck.

Breathing deeply, the Welshman felt his blood pressure rise and his heart rate increase. Anger drove his very soul and fuelled his reactions. How dare they…?

Without hesitation, the Captain took aim and fired.

The End vaporized one after the other. It was intentional. His phaser was set to maximum.

If they weren’t showing any mercy, why the hell should he?


ACT TWO

“I’m getting a call from the Katherine Johnson science team.”

“Put it on speakers.”

Gabriel Brodie knew what would be coming. Despite having one extra man than the End that they were fighting, the science team wasn’t trained for combat on the level of the vicious, insidious enemy race. Inwardly, the black tactical officer winced at Erica Martinez’s request to broadcast the incoming message. It wouldn’t be a nice thing for the Station Master’s Office to hear.

“This is… Crewman… Daunt…”

“Go ahead, Crewman,” Erica acknowledged, not a dent in her steely exterior.

“The End are… dead, ma’am. The… the path is… clear…”

“Good man, Daunt.”

“Request… emergency… transport to the medical… level…”

“How many members of your team are left to hold the drydocks?”

“Just me… ma’am… and I’m… in a bad way…”

“Then your request is denied. If you can still shoot, I need you there.”

A smattering of gasps rolled around the Station Master’s Office. All of them were directed at the Latina woman standing in the center of the room. Even Brodie, well-known for being a battle-hardened brute in such situations, felt his mouth involuntarily open in shock. It was almost as if he and Erica had gone through some kind of role reversal since they had begun their relationship earlier in the year.

He had softened slightly, understanding more about the wider ramifications of the Galaxy after having served with the Fortitude crew… and Erica, with her starbase being threatened, was becoming emotionally detached from the situation. She was doing everything in her power to fight and defeat the End.

It had all fallen on her shoulders.

The weight of Starbase 499 was hers to bear alone.

“Valerie,” she snapped, turning towards the Commander quickly,” get down to where we’re holding the civilian evacuees and lead them to the starboard drydock. Take all of the security officers that you encounter with you. Do anything, sacrifice anything… Just get those people to safety and get yourself back here!”

“I’m on my way,” she nodded, heading out with her sidearm in hand.

Brodie instantly reopened the channel to Crewman Daunt. “Hang in there, Crewman,” he urged. “Help is on the way.”

There was no answer.

“Crewman Daunt? Crewman? Respond!”

Silence filled the air. The scientist had succumbed to his injuries.

Erica Martinez watched, cold as ice, as a furious Gabriel Brodie punched the bulkhead.


* * * *


She found them in short order.

Faces filled with dread, panic, ignorance, anxiety, and fright… Faces of children, men, women, and faces of aliens from various corners of the Galaxy who made up the civilian population of Starbase 499… hundreds of them. Trying to appear calm and collected, yet riddled with the very same emotions as those that she was about to guide to safety, Valerie Archer addressed the assembled masses.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she yelled out,” please cooperate with the security officers alongside you and follow their directions! We’re heading to the starboard drydock where you will be placed aboard the Steamrunner and taken to safety!”

“What’s going on?,” a voice screamed from the crowd.

“Are we going to die?,” another voice called out.

“Please, everybody just stay calm!,” Archer replied before the voices could swell up to drown her out entirely. “I’m not going to lie to you. Starbase 499 is under siege and we are doing our best to defeat the enemy… but that is why you cannot stay here! Your place is not on the field of battle! Come on, move out!”

Legs started to move, albeit slowly and with caution.

The pace quickened after a while.

Soon, the starboard drydock access corridors were all that remained. At the direction of the Starfleet officers, innocents rushed forward. They crammed aboard the Steamrunner, finding yet more Starfleet officers aboard. Erica had obviously sent them down as they were directing people to quarters and cargo bays. It would be a squeeze but hopefully, it was a temporary one. If only Santrag II was on better terms with their Federation guardians right now, Valerie found herself wondering… in between all of the thoughts and worries that she was experiencing about Ewan.

It took some doing but soon Steamrunner was full and ready for launch.

“Sollik to Commander Archer!”

“Go ahead, Sollik?”

“We’re showing three End biosigns closing on your position!”

Archer exchanged a fearful glance with the two security officers standing alongside her in the starboard drydock access corridor. Her eyes shifted, looking towards the innocent faces collected aboard the Steamrunner… and then she looked back into the darkened crimson corridors of Starbase 499. There was only one option, of course.”

“Ensigns,” she ordered the security officers,” secure the Steamrunner and launch!”

“What about you, Commander?,” one of them asked her with genuine concern.

“I’ll hold them off and make sure that they don’t screw with the drydock controls. Go on! Go!”

They did as they were told.

On her way back towards the End, with her phaser raised and stuck out ahead of her, Valerie Archer passed by the corpse of the heroic Crewman Daunt and hoped that she wouldn’t be joining him anytime soon.


* * * *


Captain Llewellyn watched as his tricorder readings fluctuated.

Unregistered biosigns were nearby… but they weren’t the End.

Maybe it was Rear Admiral Blackmore, Ewan heard his mind whisper excitedly. Then again, maybe it was somebody’s cat. There was no way of telling at this range. The chances of it being the AWOL Boxer were slim. After all, Starbase 499 was a big place. Still, he pressed on with renewed vigor.

The latest report from the Station Master’s Office said that almost half of the End soldiers had been subdued, leaving around fifty of the monsters to be dealt with by the resilient and brave Starfleet security teams who, despite their heavy losses, were not giving up. They reminded him of his own security teams… Well, what was left of them, of course.

His tricorder pinged again, dragging him away from his dark pit of regret. The biosigns were getting stronger, just around this corner…

When Ewan entered the viewing chamber, the breathtaking sight of Santrag II and the space beyond it wasn’t what caught his attention. Instead, he gasped as he saw a beautiful woman being used as a Human shield… used by a desperate, snarling End soldier.

“Oh, shit,” he breathed, instantly dazed and traumatized by the scene. “Valerie!”

 

[admiralelm11]

ACT THREE

The disgusting creature was digging the stolen phaser into her temple. Cracked flakes of yellow skin stuck in her soft brown hair, some of which fluttered in the breeze from the End soldier’s flared nostrils and hissing gritted teeth. There was no clean shot and no way of striking him without harming the defenseless Valerie Archer in the process… and it drove Ewan Llewellyn insane.

All he could do was try to steady his right arm as it pointed his phaser at the End. on his left, the mechanical gears of his artificial limb formed a tight fist.

It was a standoff.

“Drop your weapon, Human!,” the End spat at him with venom.

“Let her go and I’ll consider it,” Llewellyn retorted, attempting to remain calm and he was only just succeeding.

“You must think I'm a fool… Must think all of us are fools… but we are not!”

Ewan had to admit that the End had a point. Until now, he had only ever thought of them in terms of mindless soldiers hell-bent on galactic conquest and rule through fear. Yet here, holding his beloved Valerie hostage, was somebody who was capable of negotiation, self-preservation, and not simply blindly throwing himself into combat, but trying to gain a tactical edge by wrapping his armored arm around Valerie’s neck.

A quick visual scan of the viewing chamber showed two other End corpses. Perhaps it had been a surprise attack, catching his First Officer off-guards. Perhaps the others had sacrificed themselves to gain the valuable hostage. Were they even capable of such thinking? Was this race, grown in vats long since destroyed, developing a stratagem?

“Damn it, Ewan,” Valerie gargled, the End’s arm digging into her throat,” shoot!”

He couldn’t. His phaser was set to maximum.

Any move to change the setting could give the End the second that he needed to fire.

The standoff didn’t budge.

Through the gigantic viewports beside them, the Steamrunner crawled away from the starboard drydock of Starbase 499. It had made it with the civilian passengers saved before any of the wretched End soldiers could claim any more of their innocent lives. Ewan and the End holding Valerie glanced at the same moment. Returning to their previous staring contest, he saw the fury in his adversary’s eyes.

“Bad luck,” he managed to observe dryly.

“We shall claim them later,” the soldier arrogantly predicted. “We are the chosen army, the ones who have waited for our chance to strike back at the enemy who destroyed the Central Core and who wrongly believed to have wiped us all out. It is our destiny to prevail and our objective is to kill every last one of your species!”

“It sounds like you’ve got lots to be getting on with… Yet, you can’t move until I lower my phaser, and I won’t do that until you let your hostage do. So why don’t you do us both a favor and hand her over to me?!”

The tension increased as the glow from Steamrunner’s nacelles filled the viewing chamber. Ewan felt as though he could hear ticking as though a countdown to inevitability had started without him. His hand continued to shake slightly. Sweat beaded underneath his dark fringe and rolled down his forehead. Valerie… he had never seen her look more scared for her life, not once. All he wanted to do was hold her, to protect her from the End, and there was nothing that he could use to do so.

Something caught his eye.

It was moving behind the End soldier and Valerie… a shape…

Not wanting to give anything away, he kept his gaze locked upon the End.

Whatever the shape was, it was approaching silently… deliberately…

It was going to strike…

Suddenly, the unsuspecting End soldier felt hands on either side of his decaying face. They were strong, powerful hands that wrenched his head aside. The subsequent breaking of his neck echoed for a distasteful moment. The phaser was dropped, allowing Valerie to stagger forward and Ewan to catch her.

Together, they embraced before turning to identify their savior.

He looked like a mess, but it didn’t matter. The medical robe sported a few drops of blood, some of it crimson, some of it were various other colors but none of it, thankfully, was coming from his own body. There was a small cut above his eyebrow but nothing serious. A cortical monitor was still attached to the base of his skull where his salt-and-pepper beard dissipated into his neck. Panting from exertion that was well beyond recommended for a man of his age, and still grinning with success, he noted Ewan’s and Valerie’s intimacy with a grunt.

“Boy, I’ve missed a lot, haven’t I?”

The Welshman didn’t know how to reply. He just laughed.

Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore was back.


* * * *


The Station Master’s Office remained a hub of chaos.

Despite the turn of the tide against the End, despite the incoming calls of success stories from all over Starbase 499, Erica Martinez had no intention of letting her current tunnel-vision relax any time soon. There were still intruders aboard in dwindling numbers but they were all the same. The Latina woman wanted every last one of them hunted down and removed from her station and she wasn’t standing down until she had gotten what she wanted.

“Tell this security team to head for Club 499,” she ordered Gabriel Brodie, and join the others to locate these End biosigns!”

“You’ve got it,” Brodie answered quietly, subdued ever since the tragically emotional passing of Crewman Daunt that he had observed earlier. For some reason, doing Erica’s bidding today was exhausting his fighting spirit. The dark-skinned tactical officer was having a hard time deciding whether it was his relationship with Erica or simply the fact that he had changed, but he just wanted to leave.

“Station Master Martinez,” the intercom chirped,” this is Doctor Pulaski.”

“Go ahead, Kate!”

“System Traffic reports that the civilians are away. I’ve taken some of the wounded to the medical level. I belong there for the remainder of this crisis unless you have any objections to that?”

“No, you’re in the right place. Stay there and do some good.”

“Has there been any news on Rear Admiral Blackmore?”

She was about to answer in the negative when the doors opened. Her reaction was unexpected. She had been considering the variables of Boxer’s disappearance and one of the biggest possibilities was that he had risen from his coma… but still, after a year, seeing him walk into the Station Master’s Office was overwhelming.

“There is good news,” Boxer barked into the communications system, answering Pulaski. “He is up, about, and ever-so-confused as to what the hell is going on!”

“Boxer?”

“In the flesh, so to speak. Listen, Kate, I’ll call you back.”

“What the … I mean, how did… when…” Erica stammered, tears welling up in her eyes.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Blackmore shook his head, letting Llewellyn and Archer pass by him as they headed for duty stations alongside their senior officers. “I woke up to the sounds of emergencies across the medical level. It’s all a little hazy. I just bolted out of fright, I reckon… Next thing I know, I see End in the corridors!”

“They overran Fortitude…”

“Uh-huh. Ewan brought me up to speed. We’ve got a fight on our hands.”

“A fight… Boxer, you’re standing there in a robe!”

“It didn’t stop me before,” the Rear Admiral growled,” and it won’t stop me now. I’m going to secure my starbase and protect my people, Erica. Then, and only then, will I think about getting dressed.”

There was nothing else that the Latina could object to.

She was no longer the ranking officer. The responsibility was no longer hers.

With the weight lifted from her shoulders, she apologetically turned to Gabriel Brodie. “I… I’m sorry, Gabe…”

He just beckoned her over to his side. “Come one,” he whispered compassionately,” we’ve got some End to find…”


EPILOGUE

At zero-four hundred hours on Stardate 52939.1, a desperate End soldier attacked a group of security officers on Deck Forty-seven of the Federation deep-space outpost Starbase 499. After taking down one Human and one Vulcan, two phaser beams vaporized his body. He was the very last of his kind. After three years of waiting inside of a transporter buffer, he and his comrades in arms fought for a bloody, apocalyptic two days before being defeated.

At zero-four hundred hours and six minutes, the Steamrunner returned safe and sound to the starboard drydock. All of the people aboard her were alive and well. In total, eighteen innocent civilians were lost in what would become known as the Battle of Four-Nine-Nine. This was a remarkable number considering the amount of Starfleet personnel who gave their lives in the struggle against the End army. One hundred and seventy-five men, women, and members of several transgendered species died, all of them to be decorated with posthumous awards.

At zero-four hundred hours and ten minutes, Rear Admiral Edward “Boxer” Blackmore returned to his quarters, pleased to find that his Starfleet uniform still fit him after a year of lying on his backside. He would later join Station Master Erica Martinez in Club 499 for an address to the survivors of the Battle of Four-Nine-Nine. From there, he made arrangements for the remaining crew of the USS Fortitude, NCC-76240 to have a bed for the night. He only ate and rested himself when everybody had been settled.

Everybody, that was, except for one man.

At zero-four hundred hours and fifteen minutes, Captain Ewan Llewellyn said goodnight to his beloved Commander Valerie Archer and went for a walk. Along the way, he surveyed the carnage that littered the decks of Starbase 499. It was the same carnage that had littered the decks of his Intrepid-class starship the day before… The starship that he had ordered to be destroyed. Unable to sleep, he found a window and tried to search for any remains of his vessel out in the depths of the Beta Quadrant.

There would be proceedings. Questions would be asked.

The End were gone and that particular fight was over.

The fight that remained was the fight for the career of Ewan Llewellyn.


The End.

 

[Cobalt Frost]

Yowza!!

 

[admiralelm11]

Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Five, Episode Two - “Norway”
By Jack D. Elmlinger


PROLOGUE

He awoke early.

Leaving Valerie Archer to her dreams, Ewan Llewellyn slid his robe over his semi-naked body and padded over to the replicator. Quietly, he typed in the code for coffee, not wanting to wake the woman beside him but shouting at the terminal for his beverage, and took the steaming cup into the other room. Only when the door was closed did he stretch and let out a whimpering yawn.

His surroundings were unfamiliar. It was to be expected. He would never sleep again in his quarters aboard his ship because it was gone. His quarters had been blown to smithereens when he had ordered that auto-destruct sequence over Santrag II.

They had probably been trashed by the invading hoard of End soldiers, he told himself as he took a sip of coffee. Well, it had saved him from tidying up the place, hadn’t it? Shaking his head at the inwardly-terrible joke, he began his journey towards the window.

It had been almost three weeks since the final End soldier had been defeated in the conclusion of the Battle of Four-Nine-Nine. Three weeks… and only now Ewan could get some sleep, albeit interrupted and never needing an alarm clock. Something kept waking him. It was either the faces of all of those crew members that he had lost to the End under his command or it was the sight of Fortitude breaking apart and being engulfed in flame. Sometimes it was even the battered, weary and confused face of Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore, standing over the broken body of an End soldier, awake after being in a coma for almost a year.

Ewan knew that such images wouldn’t pass away quickly, especially not today. Reaching the window, he opened the curtains and recoiled at the sunlight.

Today, all of those images would be discussed, analyzed, and repeated over and over again to a group of hard-nosed Starfleet admirals who wanted to know why such a young and capable officer had lost his ship. Today, the Welshman was in San Francisco, back on Earth after eighteen months of absence.

Today was the official inquest of Ewan Llewellyn’s captaincy.


ACT ONE

Personal Log, Stardate 52959.6;

Starfleet Command in San Francisco can be one hell of a formidable building, especially when one approaches it to learn the fate of one’s career. Valerie and I, along with Rear Admiral Blackmore, have been on Earth for only a day and already my head is filled with images of being stuck here behind a desk as punishment for ordering that auto-destruct sequence. While Boxer visits some old friends and plays catch-up after his year of inactivity, Valerie and I are heading to the inquest.


Ewan closed his eyes in an attempt to capture a mental photograph of her smiling face. He wagered that he would need such a perfect memory to sustain him through the stern, angry faces that he expected to meet on the other side of the door. Giving a small, awkward wave to Valerie Archer, the former captain of Fortitude turned on his heel and marched as defiantly as he could manage into the inquest.

The chamber beyond was larger than he had imagined. The view of the San Francisco bay area, complete with the sparkling Golden Gate Bridge was breathtaking, almost enough to distract him from the somber tones of the occasion. Whoever had decided to have the inquest in here was an annoying bastard. After all, he had been missing Earth recently.

Maybe it was the stress of command finally getting to him or maybe it was just the horrible nature of recent events… but something inside of him just wanted to run back here, where he had grown up, and to a time before End soldiers, Shurvun backstabbers, and Borg Cubes had filled his days. Adjusting his focus back to the proceedings, he walked to his seat with a short shake of his head.

The faces that greeted him were just as stern as he had feared. Four senior admirals, three men and one woman… and one of the men was a Vulcan. With no hint of racism, Llewellyn lamented the Vulcan’s presence. After all, the actions that were being questioned here were moments of extreme emotion and stress. He needed compassionate people to determine his future, not the cold, relentless logic of a Vulcan.

Unfortunately, the biggest shock of the morning was yet to come. A side door opened and it released a man into the chamber.

Ewan gasped when his memory put a name to the grey-white hair, the waspish facial features, and the aged gait. Only the polished wooden cane was new to the aghast Welshmen. No, this was the worst luck! It couldn’t be random, could it? Had the bastard requested to hold this inquest out of spite?

“Captain Cooper,” he whispered under his breath.

“Ah, Captain Llewellyn,” Charles Cooper noted with obvious enjoyment. “We finally meet again after all of these years…”

Llewellyn wasn’t listening. He had turned towards the admirals.

“Sirs, I formally request another JAG officer in this inquest. There is history between Captain Cooper and I. He was responsible for a witch hunt against me, just under four years ago. It was a witch hunt that was completely unprofessional and unfounded, resulting in his failure. I believe him to hold a personal bias against me.”

The Vulcan admiral raised a curious eyebrow. “Four years have passed, Captain Llewellyn,” he stated logically,” and you have only just met the Captain again. I hardly believe that you have the grounds for such an accusation… and besides, Captain Cooper is the only chair available.”

Ewan fumed, retracting his request.

Cooper just smirked as he walked by. “Nice try, Ewan.”

The female admiral rang a tiny bell that rested on the bench before her. It was an antiquated touch, but tradition was tradition. Everyone got to their feet before the four senior officers. A young Ensign entered, a pretty Bajoran girl who was fresh from the Academy whose grounds could be seen within sight of the inquest chamber. She activated a small recording device that would be used to chart the course of the proceedings. The order was given to hit and everyone complied.

“We are here today,” Charles Cooper began with as much pomposity and gusto as his advanced years would allow,” to question the command competency of Ewan Llewellyn, the Starfleet captain responsible for the recent destruction of the USS Fortitude, NCC-76240, an Intrepid-class starship, some forty-seven months out of the Utopia Planitia shipyards. I have access to certain logs, both personal and official, that I shall be using in my case against Captain Llewellyn. No witnesses shall be called.”

Of course, they wouldn’t, Ewan thought. Cooper had tried that stunt the last time, trying to manipulate Lieutenant Commander Sollik into admitting certain flaws in his command style. It seemed that you could teach an old dog new tricks.

Cooper was loving every second of this. It seemed that he had finally found his opportunity for revenge.


* * * *


She still wasn’t used to seeing him up and about.

Despite his age, Edward Blackmore still cut a dashing figure. The uniform draped over his broad shoulders, gold trim tapering towards his United Federation of Planets crest belt buckle, was smarter than ever before. After all, he was back in the corridors of Starfleet Command, and as a Rear Admiral, he had to carry a certain class. His graying beard was trimmed to perfection and a permanent smile was etched onto his creased visage when he moved around the corner and waved towards Valerie Archer.

“How’s our boy doing in there?”

“I wish I knew,” Valerie lamented.

“Give it time,” Blackmore tried to console her. “Hopefully, this means that they’re pushing through everything today and they’re trying to reach a quick ruling. Hey, if I were on that inquest panel, I know how I would rule. Ewan had no choice in ordering that auto-destruct. It was either that or become another victim himself.”

“If I may be so bold, sir, it was sweet of you to come here.”

Aboard Starbase 499 in the Santrag system, the ranks would have been dropped without question. Here, back on Earth, there was a system to uphold. Blackmore grinned at the Commander, appreciating the gesture. While it was refreshing to visit old friends and catch up on a year of missed history, he couldn’t wait to be back in the company of his true family… Kate, Erica, Ewan, and the others.

The first week of being back had been difficult. Finding Veth Ka’Gerran was hidden away in guest quarters and in exile from his own people. Then there had been the letter from his brother that Ewan explained that had been sent, just too late. They were developments that he could have done without. Nevertheless, he had dealt with them, accepted them, and battled through them.

Being in a coma had opened his eyes to the future. Life didn’t last forever.

He wanted to move on.

The door to the inquest chamber slid open, tearing Edward’s attention away from his train of thought. Valerie spun around to see a fuming, seething Ewan Llewellyn literally storm into the corridor. He barely registered Valerie and it was only the unexpected attendance of the Rear Admiral that had caught him mid-stride.

“That bad, huh?,” Blackmore grunted.

“What happened, Ewan?,” Valerie asked him.

All that the Welshman could growl was one word… one name. “Cooper…”


ACT TWO

The second day of the inquest kicked off into a solemn tone immediately.

“Admirals,” Charles Cooper postulated in his opening statement,” At this moment in time, the United Federation of Planets is in the process of rebuilding the Alpha Quadrant after the devastation that we suffered at the hands of the Dominion. What starships that we have remaining in service need to be commanded by level-headed pragmatists. What I plan to show you today is that Ewan Llewellyn is anything but a pragmatist. The Federation cannot afford to have captains who blow up their own starships!”

Ewan winced at the overblown nature of Cooper’s tactics, only to see the Admirals lining the bench remain stony-faced and objective. Damn it, for goodness’ sake, was this an inquest or a trial? Well, he had been offered legal representation from the Starfleet JAG Corps but he had politely declined their offer. That was before he knew that Cooper would be calling the shots. No looking back, he told himself… focus…

The elderly lawyer scooped up a PADD in his gnarled hand, turning towards Llewellyn with a menacing intent and a glint in his sparkling, narrowed eye.

“Captain Llewellyn, on Stardate 49045.2, you took Fortitude into a dense asteroid field in pursuit of a single End spacial probe. You endangered the one hundred and forty men and women under your command to, what, catch an automated device? I wonder if these are truly the actions of a level-headed captain or an unstable and inexperienced young officer out of his depth in the big chair.”

That was four years ago. Was he really digging this all up again?

“You attempted to use that incident as evidence against me before, Captain,” Ewan noted with a grimace. “It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. My actions were justified. The End probe was carrying information regarding Fortitude back into End space. If I hadn’t chased it down and destroyed it, we would have been facing an End invasion fleet at the end of the week!”

“And yet you faced that invasion all the same,” Cooper smirked,” later that same year, on Stardate 49219.3 when Starbase 499 was attacked. Was steering Fortitude into an asteroid field really worth the few months?”

“Yes, I believe it was.”

The bench remained unmoved and Cooper continued his assault.

“There is a pattern to this behavior, I’m saddened to learn. On Starbase 50892.5, you knowingly engaged a Borg Cube without any indication that you realized the sheer risk involved in such a maneuver. Tell me, Captain, were you more interested in stopping the Borg or in saving your Chief Medical Officer, one Doctor Lynn Boswell, who had been previously captured and assimilated by the same Cube?”

How dare he? What kind of insinuation was this?

There was not a single reaction from the bench. They clearly thought that the question was valid.

Ewan didn’t and he didn’t want to answer him.

“I object to the nature of that question. Starship captains have faced insurmountable odds since the beginning of Starfleet. You can’t question my competency as Captain by spinning my efforts to stop the Borg invasion.”

“Hmm…,” Cooper mused, turning to the young Bajoran ensign who was recording the inquest. “Please make sure that the record shows that Captain Llewellyn refused to answer.”

Llewellyn rolled his eyes.

The questions continued all the same.

“On Stardate 52447.9, a duck blind mission on the planet L’Raka was uncovered by the very same Tal Shiar agent who had posed as your Vulcan Chief Medical Officer for the first months of your time as Captain of Fortitude. Your chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Sollik, was testing modifications to isolation suits that allowed the wearer to appear invisible. I will brush over the implications that these suits would have on the Treaty of Algernon to ask a more direct question to Captain Llewellyn. You lost your arm during this incident, didn’t you? Your left arm, just below the elbow, if I’m correct?”

“What about it?,” Ewan snapped, sensitive to his artificial limb.

“Do you believe that this makes you disabled?”

Llewellyn was too busy reeling from the disgusting proposition from Captain Cooper to notice but two of the Admirals on the bench shot Cooper disapproving looks. There was nothing officially to object to here but everybody could see where this line of questioning was leading. Even the Vulcan Admiral raised an eyebrow.

This was the 24th-century. Taking this line of questioning, Cooper wouldn’t get anywhere. Ewan stood his ground and remained silent.

“I believe that it does,” Cooper continued. “I also believe that the psychological implications of receiving such a wound warrant question marks to be placed over your mental health and your capability to command a starship.”

If he bit his tongue any hard, he would draw blood. He simply couldn’t keep quiet.

“So you’re saying, Captain, that if somebody is disabled, then they should be excluded from serving in Starfleet? Or should we just keep them away from the really big jobs, hmm? Why not draw the line at disabilities anyways? There are some species serving in Starfleet that only have one arm. Let’s deny them command responsibilities!”

“I don’t like your tone, Ewan,” Cooper hissed at him.

“I’m not finished yet,” Ewan retorted, now that he was in full swing. “You also seem to think that people should retire from the service after receiving injuries in the line of duty. That’s brilliant! Just down the road is Starfleet Medical. Why don’t you go down there now and tell all of those recovering from the Dominion War that they’re fired, eh? All of those who sacrificed their limbs, and more, to protect us. Show them the door, why don’t you?!”

The final word echoed around the inquest chamber.

Captain Cooper took a step back. He had suddenly realized what he had done. He had allowed Ewan Llewellyn to champion 24th-century morality.

He had made him look like a hero.


* * * *


“Zack, you old devil…!”

“Edward! I heard you were back from the dead!”

“Not quite dead yet, old friend. Listen, how are things over at Fleet Operations?”

“All right, yeah. Things are finally getting back to normal. In fact, I’ve got a project right now. A new retrofit test to enhance some of the older, weaker classes and give them more responsibility. Heh, why am I telling you this? You don’t want to hear about my work. You’ve got a whole year to catch up on…”

“Actually, Zack, I do want to hear about your work.”

“Oh…?”

“Tell me everything about this new retrofit test, will you?”

 

[admiralelm11]

ACT THREE

The Starfleet Command class-three travel pod banked graciously away from the powerful glare of Earth’s sun. inside the pod, Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore blinked his eyes back into focus, turning to share a chuckle with Ewan Llewellyn and Valerie Archer. The three of them were flying high above San Francisco with the blunt nose of the travel pod pointed towards open space as the topaz atmosphere faded around them and transformed into the darkness of the Galaxy. With his hands moving slowly over the flight controls, he tried to remember the last time that he had piloted… well, anything.

There was a celebratory mood between the three friends. After the shocking outburst from the embittered Captain Charles Cooper at Ewan’s inquest, the case against the Welshman had fallen to pieces. All possible hints at any charges were dismissed. The only problem was that, thanks to the weakened state of Starfleet, none of the Admirals on the bench could promise Ewan another starship. Of course, he was just pleased to have Charles Cooper off of his back. Only now, taking to the stars once more, did the reality of his situation sink in, he might never explore space again.

Valerie caught her lover’s expression as the travel pod swooped around the imposing hull of an Excelsior-class starship. She knew that it must be tearing him apart, his lack of a command, but she also knew what was to come. Rear Admiral Blackmore had pulled her aside after the inquest closed and let her in on the surprise. Without wanting to give anything away, she squeezed Ewan’s hand.

“Cosmic thoughts?,” she cooed.

“I was just wondering,” came his reply as he nodded his dark fringe towards the passing Excelsior-class starship,” will that ever be me again?”

“Who knows what the future will hold for you and your crew.”

“That’s the trouble, though. They’re not my crew, not while I don’t have a command. What good is this fourth rank pip on my neck without the chair that usually comes with it? Jason, Arden, Sollik, Kate, Gabe… they could all be reassigned and I would have no say in the matter whatsoever. We would lose the family.

Valerie nodded with sympathy. She tapped Rear Admiral Blackmore on the shoulder. “I think we’ve made him wait long enough…”

“Gotcha,” Edward grinned. “Changing course and heading in.”

“What’s going on?,” Llewellyn asked innocently.

The answer could be seen from the travel pod viewport in seconds.

One of many drydocks hung in Earth’s orbit. This particular drydock was being approached by the travel pod. Inside of it, clamped into place by arms that were the size of tower blocks, was a starship. It was instantly recognizable as Starfleet. Red and blue warp nacelles were swept backyards from the shovel-shaped saucer section. The front of it glowed with the power of the main deflector desk.

Ewan frowned.

It was a Norway-class frigate... But it wasn’t. There were key differences to her appearance. For one of them, the gap between the nacelle struts was filled with an extra compartment.

The confusion was entertaining to watch, but it quickly became just cruel.

Blackmore pulled back on the controls, lifting the travel pod high into the drydock. “She’s an experimental retrofit,” he explained while he piloted. “Thanks to the losses that the fleet took against the Dominion, bright sparks have been upgrading small classes to take on bigger jobs. This is the first Norway-class retrofit. She’s designed for deep-space assignments and exploration duty.

Ewan was barely listening. He had spotted the name painted on the dorsal hull.

All he could do was gasp.

“Ewan,” the Rear Admiral concluded with a wide grin,” I got you a present… and if you’re not too shell-shocked, I’d like to give you and Valerie a tour of your new command personally. Initiating docking procedures…”

Carefully, the travel pod connected with the USS Fortitude, NCC-76420-A.


* * * *


The Bridge was the last place on the tour.

Llewellyn felt his head spin as he stepped into the turbolift alongside Valerie and Boxer. The eight decks of his new starship were all hugely impressive. So much was jammed into every corner. For something so small, it was so remarkable. He had seen several extensive science labs. One of them had been converted into a holodeck, correcting the usual Norway-class mistake of lacking recreational facilities. He had seen a miniature Engineering section, complete with an upgraded warp core that was capable of punching up to an extraordinary Warp Nine. He had seen a Sickbay, a Mess Hall, and a Shuttlebay complete with gorgeous new shuttlecraft. Far from the two Type-9 vessels kept aboard the old Intrepid-class Fortitude, this craft was Type-11 in design, sleek, angular, and until today, could only be used aboard the larger Sovereign-class starships.

As the turbolift ascended towards Deck One, Blackmore briefed his friends.

“Now here’s the deal,” he growled, serious in his tone. “This ship was due to be extensively tested in the coming months. I’ve got an old pal over at Fleet Operations who told me all about her and I told him all about you. He owed me a favor and he quickly got some guys up here to paint a new name on the hull and slap together a new dedication plaque on the wall. We’re taking her back to Starbase 499 and you’ll continue your mission of exploration, but everything that you do with her out there will be logged and sent back to Earth for analysis. When the testing period is complete, you get to keep her for a five-year exploratory mission.”

“Boxer,” Ewan whispered, his head bowed,” I can’t thank you enough.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” objected the Rear Admiral. “The Fortitude-A is my way of thanking you. Listen… I saw the internal sensor feed from the medical level back on 499. I know that, over the past year, you’ve been at my side. I know what you’ve said and I know what you’ve done.”

Ewan’s cheeks turned red, matching the collar of his uniform.

Blackmore saw it and laughed. “So, as I said,” he concluded,” this is my way of thanking you.”

The turbolift ground to a halt and the doors slid open to reveal the Bridge.

It was a sight to behold. The walls were made of LCARS displays, all state-of-the-art interfaces that sparkled with the familiar hues or orange, purple and blue. They swept dramatically around to the large holographic viewscreen which hung over the pair of seats reserved for operations and the helm. Behind them, raised on the slightest hint of a dais, was something that Ewan mistook for a throne… but it was, in reality, his command chair. He would be central to the Bridge, elevated from his other officers and able to rotate towards any station in an instant.

“Try it on for size,” Blackmore suggested, slapping the Captain’s back.

As the Welshman settled into the plush leather seat with a low, impressed whistle, he felt the raw power of command flow through his veins. Valerie Archer found only standing room for the First Officer. She actually found it to be quite refreshing to stand on duty if it was somewhat old-fashioned. Looking around, she caught the bronze dedication plaque in the corner of her gaze and moved to read it.

“Hey, look,” she noted,” they’ve kept it the same…”

“What?,” Ewan asked, spinning his chair to face her.

“The quote … on the plaque. It’s the same as before. Francis Bacon…”

Llewellyn got up and walked over to join the Rear Admiral alongside Valerie. Together, they peered at the small line of text underneath all of the names involved in constructing the Norway-class Fortitude. Blackmore’s beard framed a knowing smile and he enjoyed watching the reactions of his friends as they read.

“Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.”

“I ordered that it remain,” the older man grunted. It feels kind of apt, even more so now.”

“It’s perfect,” Ewan agreed with him. “All of it, the whole lot… just perfect…”

“What do you say we take her to her new home?,” Valerie offered with a playful expression.

“I’d say yes to that…”


EPILOGUE

“What’s all of this about?”

Erica Martinez frowned as she walked out into the Station Master’s Office of Starbase 499 to find a gathering of old Fortitude officers cluttering her duty stations and staring out of her windows. Katherine Pulaski was the closest and therefore she was the one who turned to answer the Latina woman’s question. Behind her, Gabriel Brodie gave his lover a cute little wave. Failing to return it, Erica noticed that Sollik, Arden Vuro, and Jason Armstrong were all present and all of them were wearing confused, if excited, expressions.

“We all got messages to be here,” Pulaski explained to her,” from Captain Llewellyn.”

“He’s coming back?”

“Apparently so,” Sollik nodded,” although we have no idea why he wants all of us here.”

“I reckon he’s gotten us a new ship,” Jason theorized eagerly.

“The chances of that are pretty damn low,” Arden whispered, not wanting to get his hopes up, just to have them dashed by some inquest ruling. “I, for one, will be just as happy to get some answers on this… on our future.”

A communications panel behind Erica flared to life with an incoming call. She spun around, pressing the REPLY button.

“Starbase 499, this is Captain Ewan Llewellyn, please respond.”

“Captain Llewellyn, this is 499,” the Station Master acknowledged. “I’ve got an office full of your senior staff here, Ewan. Apparently, they’re all here at your request. Would you mind telling them, and me, why?”

“Get them to look out the window.”

Everybody did as they were told. For a moment, nothing happened. Space remained calm and still with Santrag II revolving away in the background… and then, with a bright flash and a loud crack, something dropped out of warp. It was small, sleek, punchy, both aggressive and inspiring at the same time. Jaws dropped when the realization of the moment set it. It was a starship, Norway-class, but slightly different… and better. The name on the saucer section caused spontaneous applause.

The USS Fortitude, NCC-76240-A gave all of them their answers without doing a thing.

The crew had a new home.


The End.

 

[Cobalt Frost]

Excellent! Now, there's the matter of a pesky Romulam who needs to get what's coming to her...

 

[admiralelm11]

Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Five, Episode Three - “Fresh Approach”
By Jack D. Elmlinger


PROLOGUE

They had certainly earned it.

Captain Ewan Llewellyn couldn’t fight the lopsided grin that broke out across his tanned face as he watched his Bridge officers find their new duty station. Together, right before his command chair, Ensign Jason Armstrong and Lieutenant Arden Vuro were deep in excited conversation about the new, experimental features at their disposal. The Bolian helmsman danced an expert waltz over his LCARS display, calling up all kinds of information about the speed and flight capabilities of the Norway-class USS Fortitude, NCC-76240-A. He was trying to show the young Kentuckian beside him but Ensign Armstrong was deep into his operations console. Advanced high-resolution sensors, long-range subspace amplifier… There was so much to test and so much to enjoy!

Ewan spun his chair to the left where, behind an imposing C-shaped alcove, Lieutenant Commander Gabriel West was marvelling at the punch that such a small starship could pack. There were phaser banks on all available surfaces, eleven in total. The forward and aft torpedo launchers came preloaded with both photon and quantum warheads. Even the shields were enhanced with multiphasic emitters and the structural integrity was beyond reason at a percentage well about what the black tactical officer was used to aboard the Intrepid-class starship that they had all just come from. Well, he reasoned that the Norway-class starships were originally developed alongside the Defiant-class escorts. It made sense that some of their teeth had been left in the jaws.

Commander Valerie Archer stepped onto the Bridge and gave Ewan the nod. She had been down in Sickbay, making sure that Doctor Katherine Pulaski was getting settled in. All of this modern technology must have been overwhelming for a technophobe, the Captain had predicted, and so his First Officer had been dispatched accordingly. The nod ensured that everything was settled… for now. He still foresaw a grumble or two, but there was nothing that he couldn’t handle himself next time.

“Engineering, this is the Bridge. Sollik, how’s it going down there?”

“Just fine, Captain,” the Suliban chief engineer replied to his query. While Main Engineering might be somewhat cramped compared to the multi-level engineering suite from their old vessel, Ewan knew that he would be distracted by the various new and exciting trinkets at his disposal. “We’re ready to get underway at your discretion.”

Llewellyn wheeled his chair around towards the viewscreen, an index finger raised in anticipation.

Everybody took a deep, excited gulp of air. With the order, the index finger was pointed forward to the stars. “Helm, Warp One. Engage!”


ACT ONE

Captain’s Log, Stardate 53171.9;


The first assignment of my new command is to undertake a series of tests on the various upgrades bestowed upon this retrofitted Norway-class starship. The weapons, shields, and engines will be pushed to maximum in the coming days with all of the collected data being sent back to Earth for analysis. After such a traumatic start to our year, and after so much had been lost, the seventy-four officers aboard the Fortitude-A couldn’t be happier. It’s time for a fresh approach. God knows that we’ve paid enough for it.


Arden Vuro cracked his knuckles and sighed with content as he leaned back and allowed his athletic body to be carried away by the comfort of the shuttlecraft’s seat. Surely, this was the reason why he had signed up for Starfleet Academy. Oh, fine, he had wanted to break a few records while he was there. He had been a little hotheaded, he could admit to that, and the status of his relationship with Gabriel Brodie was a testament to his ambition… but, given all of that, the main reason why he wanted to be out here?

“Flying sexy ships about,” he exhaled aloud. “It doesn’t get any better…”

He was supposedly testing the capabilities of Fortitude's new Type-11 shuttle, the Bromley. Upon seeing it for the first time, earlier this very morning, the Bolian had almost collapsed with excitement. The Captain had been there to catch him, of course, enjoying the reactions of his crew like a father doting upon his children. With a casual wave of his hand, he had dispatched Arden in the Bromley with the vague orders to “find out what she’s got” and “find out her limits”. Well, he had certainly been doing that. Already the helmsman had navigated a binary system, run rings around a gas giant’s rings, and sustained Warp Four-point-Five for almost an hour, despite the shuttle’s maximum speed being Warp Four. It appeared as though the Fortitude-A wasn’t the only thing laden with prototype retrofits, and now… now he was heading home.

“Computer, what’s the estimated time of return to Fortitude?”

“Two hours, and eleven minutes.”

Arden decided to sustain Warp Two. He was enjoying the ride far too much to hurry back, vowing instead to compensate later by staying an extra hour on the Bridge or something. Closing his eyes and, once again, letting a happy sigh pass his lips, his mind ran to peaceful thoughts and a few prayers.

“Llewellyn to Shuttlecraft Bromley,” interrupted the communications system.

“Wha…?,” a sleepy Vuro replied at first. “Oh, I mean, yes, Captain? Go ahead!”

“I hope you’re enjoying yourself out there?”

Damn it! Those new enhanced sensors of Jason’s must have shown the meandering, slow route of the Bromley! Feeling his cheeks turn an even deeper shade of blue, Arden lunged forward to the controls and started to make himself look busy… not realizing that nobody could see him.

“Just running a few final tests, sir,” he blurted out.

“Well, make it quick. We’re moving on to a nearby asteroid field. Mister Brodie is eager to find out how efficiently we can decimate it. You’d better punch up that shuttle’s warp core, Lieutenant, as we’re leaving in one hour!”

“Understood, Captain. Computer, increase speed to Warp Four!”

With the comms system now silent, Arden slouched back into his chair with a disgruntled frown.

Leave it to Gabe to ruin his fun.


* * * *


Meanwhile, back aboard Starbase 499, in orbit of Santrag II…

“How’s your morning been, Boxer?”

Erica Martinez watched as her old friend and colleague entered the Station Master’s Office with a downtrodden expression on his bearded face. They had worked together for so long that she could almost predict the Rear Admiral’s mood before the turbolift doors slid open. Therefore, the question was completely redundant. Edward Blackmore simply trudged past the striking Latina woman and took the nearest available seat. It was at the internal sensor grid station, not that he was bothered.

“It’s Veth,” the old man growled, referring to the former Santragan leader who was, at this moment, in exile aboard Starbase 499. As a long-term pal, seeing his current emotional state just served to depress him. “I’ve just had breakfast with him. Huh… I guess it turned into lunch too. Santrag II… damn, I didn’t know.”

“It’s a seriously messed-up situation, I’ll grant you that.”

“I just feel like if I had been around this last year, things would be different.”

“Okay, you can stop that shit right now,” Erica chastised him, stepping beyond the normal rank boundaries without so much as an afterthought. “It wasn’t your fault that you were in that coma. So you can’t blame yourself for what might or might not have happened if you were awake. Besides, I happen to think that Ewan made all of his decisions based on what he thought that you would do. He respects the hell out of you, Boxer. We all do.”

Blackmore managed a weak smile.

She had a point, his ego told him.

Nevertheless, seeing Veth Ka’Gerran talk and act like a frightened puppy had struck at his very heart this morning. No matter how much they conversed about the state of the Santragan People’s Freedom Democracy and no matter how much they were to reminisce about the days gone by when Veth was the Prime Minister and communications flowed freely between the surface and the Starbase, nothing was to change. There would be no welcoming call to return for the exiled Santragan. There had been no congratulatory message for Edward Blackmore on his recovery. Hell, did anybody down there even know that he was back? Who was to know? Members of the Federation… yeah, right…

Something caught his attention, tearing him away from his thoughts. Internal sensors were detecting an anomaly.

“Erica,” the Rear Admiral scowled,” we’ve got a visitor!”

“What do you mean?”

“One intermittent biosign, Deck Fifteen… no, Sixteen… Whoever it is, they’re using the Jefferies Tubes and crawl spaces, and they can really move, too.” While reading from the display screen, Edward caught the panic on Erica’s face and quickly ran a trace. “Don’t worry. I was thinking the same thing, and the biosign is not End. Unfortunately, I haven’t got anything else to tell you. I can’t see who or what the devil they are!”

The Station Master moved to the door, turning back towards her superior officer. “Do you want to flush out a gremlin?”


ACT TWO

“The Bromley works perfectly. Engines are beyond what we expected with a top speed of Warp Four-point Five, although that’s pushing them. She’s fast, nippy, and packs as much firepower as a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. In short, the Bromley compensates for more than any of our previous shuttles did.”

Captain Llewellyn nodded, genuinely impressed as Vuro concluded his report. Many of the other senior officers shared similar nods. The senior staff was gathered together, for the first time, around the gentle curvature of Fortitude’s Observation Lounge table. It overlooked the aft section of the ship. Rather than off to one side as before, the new venue for such meetings was directly behind the back wall of the Bridge. It was perhaps the only thing about the new Norway-class starship that was larger than her predecessor.

The only person who wasn’t letting Arden’s report slide by was Gabriel Brodie.

“Maybe I should test the Bromley’s weapon systems myself,” he suggested. “I mean, no offense or anything, Lieutenant, but when it comes to shooting things, there’s nobody better to run the shakedown.”

“I can assure you that I tested them fully,” the Bolian helmsman objected to the tactical officer’s suggestion,” and I didn’t need to hunt down an asteroid field to do so!”

“That might be okay for you,” Gabe winked with semi-serious arrogance,” but I’ve got something a little bigger in my torpedo tubes, if you know what I mean.”

“Gentlemen,” Llewellyn interrupted them with a raised palm,” you can play one-upsmanship games on your own time. We’ve got a starship to test out. I’m considering the Bromley a closed book from this point. She’s nice but she’s not as important as her home. We’ll proceed to the asteroid field and give our phasers and torpedoes a proper shakedown, but we’re not staying put forever. There are still the engines and the shields to go.”

Cutting through the childish face-pulling contest underway between Arden and Gabe, and just pleased that such events no longer had the added danger of real hatred and possible brawling after the meeting, Lieutenant Commander Sollik stood from his place at the table and headed for the large monitor embedded into the bulkhead behind Ewan’s chair. With a few commands, he pulled up the specifications for Fortitude’s warp core and shield grid which everybody turned to observe.

“I’m currently getting eighty-one percent efficiency from the warp drive,” the Suliban lamented to the senior staff. “I blame the upgrades myself. They look and sound wonderful… on paper, but in reality, seven of them have been installed without the proper testing.”

“Can you fix them,” Valerie Archer asked him,” and get them working as they’re meant to?”

“I can try,” he admitted. “Beyond that, I can’t promise any results.

“What’s our maximum speed?”

“Warp Eight at a stretch. It’ll be some time before Warp Nine is within reach.”

“It’ll have to do for now,” Ewan accepted, his Welsh accent pitched for calming effect after seeing disappointment cast around the Observation Lounge. “Do I need to remind everybody that we’re dealing with a prototype retrofit here? There are bound to be a few kinks to be worked out of the design. All of you know your duties. I suggest we get back to them because the sooner that we’re done with exploring our new ship, then the sooner we can use it to explore the rest of the Beta Quadrant. I don’t want to be looking in the mirror for the rest of our mission. I want to be looking out there, and so do all of you, right?”

Nodding heads answered his question with murmured agreements.

“Great. Then let’s be about it, please. Dismissed.”


* * * *


Captain’s Log, supplemental;

While en route to Mister Brodie’s asteroid field, Ensign Armstrong has detected something rather worrying with the advanced sensor array. A rogue comet is heading for a Class-M planet that sustains a pre-warp civilization of millions. If the comet impacts with the planet, there will be an extinction-level event.

I’ve ordered a course change. If there is anything that we can do to save the population unaware of their imminent destruction, we have to try. Still, there is a twinge of apprehension that I cannot ignore. This situation has turned from a simple system test into a real mission with real dangers…


“Jason, activate the holographic viewscreen, intrusive mode.”

The Captain had been looking forward to testing this latest upgrade to his new Bridge. It was a feature that many had only dreamed of until now. At the touch of a button, Ensign Armstrong created a three-dimensional holographic projection of the viewscreen’s current image. Floating between the central command chair and the two forward stations, a miniature version of the icy blue comet appeared. Slowly, as the computer worked to process the task, a much larger projection of the M-Class planet formed.

Ewan gasped at the amount of high-definition detail, soaking in all the tiny clouds and snow-capped mountain ranges that he could see. Valerie joined him as he walked around the interactive image. It was nearly as tall as he was, leaving little room to maneuver across the Bridge. But then, the Welshman told himself that it was just a trick of the light. He could walk through it.

“Whoa…,” Jason Armstrong breathed from the operations console.

“We’ll have to enjoy it later,” Llewellyn snapped, bringing himself back to the developing situation with a shake of his head. “Remove the planet. Let’s enlarge the comet and bring up a multispectral analysis.

The Kentuckian complied, making the world dissolve into thin air and expanding the comet hologram to maximum. Across the frigid surface of the rogue celestial object, small words lifted from a LCARS readout pointed to features of interest. Ewan did another lap of the projection, reading the ones that caught his attention.

Gabriel Brodie moved down from Tactical to join him. Finding what he wanted, the dark-skinned tactical officer pointed to one of the labels.

“Here,” he said quickly. “This deposit of silithium is highly unstable."

“A photon torpedo,” Valerie agreed,” or maybe two?”

“I was thinking of quantum torpedoes,” Brodie grinned,” and four of them!”

Arden tilted his head to his left side, sharing a pair of raised eyebrows with Jason. It always had to be huge, and overdone. With a snarky tone, the helmsman echoed Gabe’s own words from the Observation Lounge, keeping the jibe down to a low whisper so as not to disturb the rest of the Bridge.

“He did say that he hadn something bigger in his torpedo tubes…”

Jason stifled a chuckle as new and urgent orders came in from Llewellyn. “Get us within weapons range.”

“Closing…”

“Mister Brodie, load forward torpedo launchers and target that silithium!”

“Ready, Captain,” Gabe nodded a second later.

“Fire!”

Nothing happened.

The viewscreen, which had returned to its normal display, just showed the comet soaring towards the innocent Class-M planet. No quantum torpedoes blasted towards it. No weapons of any kind were fired. Silent inquiries were directed to Tactical as Ewan, Valerie, Arden and Jason all turned their heads and frowned at Gabriel Brodie. He hardly noticed them as there was a problem with his console.

“I said, fire!,” Llewellyn repeated immediately.

“And I did, Captain, but… damn it, weapons are malfunctioning! The upgraded launchers overloaded as soon as I hit the button! All weapons are offline!”

So the practical test had failed?

Perfect timing.

 

[admiralelm11]

ACT THREE

Only seven officers could fit into Engineering at any given time. Such was the nature of the downsized crew aboard the downsized Fortitude, it ensured that nobody could do anything without somebody else noticing. Actions were observed and undertaken almost collectively, with Lieutenant Commander Sollik keeping a regulatory eye over the duty stations that surrounded the swirling blue column of matter and antimatter. Objectives were worked towards together. The team was getting to know one another, if they didn’t already, extremely well.

Today, the collective responsibility was shattered.

“I’ve got it!,” Sollik hissed with victory.

“Got what, sir?,” the closest ensign, a young Australian male, asked him.

“The answer to our problems, Sean. If you need me, I’ll be on the Bridge.”

The Suliban chief engineer darted for the door, leaving his six colleagues to frown at one another in the glow of the warp core. Nobody had seen what he had been working on, not this time. Would they need to know? Would they need to prepare for something… and what was this answer? Engineering would be involved. There was no question of that. So would they have to access certain systems to make this answer ready?

One of the more plucky members of the team stopped Sollik short of the door. “Sir, what’s going on?”

“No time to talk,” came the reply. “There’s a world to save!”


* * * *


“Go ahead, Sollik,” the Captain urged. “I’m listening.”

“The problem that I had,” the Chief Engineer began to explain, standing before the imposing command chair on the Bridge, pitching his idea like a Ferengi pitching a highly-questionable business deal,” was thinking in terms of our old ship. Before, we had a powerful Intrepid-class starship at our disposal. She had strength. Shifting the trajectory of this comet would have been no problem for her… but now we’ve got a small Norway-class ship. That strength isn’t there anymore.”

“So what’s your plan?,” Ewan asked him, cutting through the history lesson.

“Instead of strength, we now have maneuverability on our side. Fortitude is now a nippy little insect, not a powerhouse capable of charging in. That ability comes from the extra RCA thrusters lining the outer hull. If we diverted all power to the starboard RCS thrusters, we would generate enough thrust to tear that comet away.”

“How?,” frowned Valerie Archer. “Tractor beams are tied into the weapons systems, and as such, are offline!”

“We’ve got multiphasic shield which, the last time that I checked, were still working.”

“You mean…?,” Llewellyn trailed off. “Shit, that’s risky!”

Sollik agreed, but he concluded his pitch on a personal note. “Captain, if this was our first year serving together, I wouldn’t be recommending this course of action. I thought you to be far too reckless to be a starship captain and I was far too concerned with regulations. If you’ve taught me one thing, sir, it’s that sometimes taking risks is worth it. There are millions of innocent lives on that Class-M planet who don’t know about their impending doom and couldn’t even stop it if they did. We are here, now, and we have a chance to change their fate. It is the official recommendation of your chief engineer that we don’t let a few numbers in the rulebook stop us now!”

Despite the circumstances, Ewan broke out into a wide grin.

“Sold,” he replied instantly. “Helm, move us into position, full impulse! Mister Brodie, prepare to extend the shields around the comet! Jason, take your fancy sensors offline. I want all power directed to structural integrity and the starboard RCS thrusters!”

With a fluid grace, the crew began to prepare.

Sollik took a moment to return the Captain’s grin before he headed over to the engineering console on the starboard bulkhead and began entering the necessary commands. Looming over everybody’s work was the image of the comet on the holographic viewscreen. All that it wanted to was continue to barrel straight towards the planet. All that it wanted to do was cause an extinction-level event. All that it wanted to do was to be left alone. It wasn’t going to make the crew’s job easy and it wasn’t going to be gentle on Fortitude. It wasn’t going to let them move it without causing some serious damage.

“Helm ready, Captain,” Vuro called out first.

“Power diverted, sir,” Jason Armstrong confirmed next.

“Shields are holding,” Brodie reported a second later. “I have the comet!”

“Ready whenever you are,” Valerie whispered.

“All right…,” Ewan accepted, sharing a do-or-die glance with the rest of the Bridge. “Do it!”


* * * *


Back aboard Starbase 499 in the Santrag system, heads were being scratched.

Erica Martinez could have sworn that she had the mysterious biosign within scanning range, but now, checking her tricorder… nothing! Not a single biometric fluctuation, not one damn molecule to indicate the location of this gremlin, whatever or whoever it was. Damn, it was frustrating! The Station Master had only recently battled with some fiercely unwanted visitors aboard her starbase. She didn’t want another long struggle, this time to find one stupid gremlin, being dragged out.

“Blackmore to Martinez,” buzzed her combadge.

“Martinez here,” she replied after tapping her combadge. “Go ahead, Boxer.”

“Internal sensors have lost the biosign. I don’t know… Maybe it was just a sensor glitch after all. I mean, the readings were intermittent, at best. There are plenty of people crowding the decks. If there was something, it should get spotted.”

“That’s just the point,” Erica countered, crouching under a relay as she worked her way through the system access tunnels that crisscrossed every level of 499. “I don’t want anything surprising jumping out at us. What if a child spots it and it turns out to be hostile? I want to keep looking for a while longer.”

“You’ll throw your back out in those crawl spaces if you stay down there another hour.”

“Then you’ll take over while I kick it in a biobed. I hear there’s one free now.”

“Cheap shot, Erica,” the Rear Admiral chuckled.

Erica wasn’t listening. She had found something.

Collapsing her tricorder, she reached out and picked it up.

“Boxer,” she whispered into her combadge,” it wasn’t a sensor glitch.”

“How do you know?”

“Because sensor glitches don’t eat Starfleet rations,” the Latina woman noted, turning over the empty silver foil in her hand. “We’ve got a gremlin! There’s no doubt about it!”


EPILOGUE

Lieutenant Vuro was the first to awaken.

Around him, the Bridge of Fortitude was dark. What little light remained from the few intact LCARS displays flickered ominously across the faces of his colleagues. Taking a deep mouthful of oxygen, the Bolian helmsman was pleased to discover that life-support was still functional. He was about to move over to the Captain, slumped as he was in his chair when he saw movement. The others were regaining consciousness, stirred by his awakening and brought back to the reality of the moment.

Systems were shot to pieces. There was smoke pouring from a broken conduit with clouds of the substance billowing across the deck plating. Seeing Ewan Llewellyn lift his groggy head with a painful moan, Arden decided to stem the flow of the smoke before checking him for injury. On the way, he encountered Sollik, who was himself slowly finding his feet once more.

“Lieutenant,” the Suliban hissed,” are we…?”

“We’re intact, my friend. Be thankful for that, right now.”

“Did we… succeed?”

It was the Captain asking this time. He was helping Valerie Archer up from her place, sprawled across the floor, blinking through a splitting headache to cast his eyes over her and make sure that she was uninjured. Thankfully, she was and so was the Welshman with his arm around her. Together, they turned towards the viewscreen, an action echoed by Jason Armstrong and Gabriel Brodie. There seemed to be no lasting damage, at least, to the senior staff. Arden returned to his station, one of the intact ones, to bring the main viewer back online and to answer everybody’s singular question.

There it was… the comet.

With a graceful arcing tail, it was backing away from the M-Class planet.

Blue lips parted with glee as Arden thought it was the most beautiful sight that he had ever seen.

“It looks like you were right, Sollik,” he observed. The risk was worth it!”


The End.

(I would also like to add that Star Trek: Fortitude has a new series poster, thanks to Jonathan Bromley-Crosby over at Deviant Art.) Star Trek: Fortitude - Season Five Artwork by jonbromle1 on DeviantArt

 

[admiralelm11]

I was too wired on sweet tea to sleep. Anyways, here's another story for everyone.


Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Five, Episode Four - “Target Locked”
By Jack D. Elmlinger


PROLOGUE

“My Lord, I have a report.”

While he was technically in command of the Shemosi cruiser upon which he served, the gruff, weathered Admiral Na’Gren always had another level of authority above him. It had been a constant source of aggravation throughout his entire career. He had sacrificed countless soldiers, lost out on the opportunity for a family, given his very blood to the Shemosi Fleet… and for what? To deliver reports to this child? This was no reward for his service and no task that a decorated admiral should be undertaking!

Despite his feelings on the subject, however, Na’Gren was a man of honor. The report would be delivered all the same.

“What is it?,” hissed a voice from the darkness of the chamber.

“A vessel has entered the sector. We have yet to establish our perimeter. I theorize that they are unaware that the Shemosi Fleet has conquered the neighboring systems. What action do you recommend against them?”

“Tell me about the vessel.”

“Our scans are limited, My Lord,” Na’Gren admitted, bowing his head out of respect for the rules, and not out of respect for his superior. “All that we have been able to determine is that it appears to be twice the size of a Shemosi cruiser. I can only speculate as to its firepower and speed. They do have warp capability.”

A figure emerged from the shadows of the chamber. It was only an inch shorter than the steadfast Admiral, shrouded in a dark robe that only allowed its cranial ridges and the trademark hawk nose of the Shemost people to be seen. The young nobility were so obsessed with such theatrics, Na’Gren snorted to himself. Why, under all of that nonsense was a man just out of school… The noble bloodline was wearing thin these days. Putting these idiots in command of the Fleet wasn’t making it any thicker.

“Give me the report,” the figure growled.

Handing over the paper that the report was written upon, Na’Gren waited.

The hooded face dipped close to the image. There were visible markings on the outer hull of this intruder. Some odd language…

USS Fortitude, NCC-76240-A…

How very strange…


ACT ONE

Ewan Llewellyn was barely watching where he was going.

Stepping out onto the Bridge with his uniform jacket still flapped open, he screwed the knuckles of his fists into painfully exhausted eyes. The efforts to shock them into opening were partly successful. The Welshman stopped short of walking into the bulkhead with mere centimeters to space, stumbling around to face his command chair and its current occupant, Ensign Jason Armstrong.

“My apologies, Captain,” the young Kentuckian gushed.

“Jason, it’s four in the morning,” he mumbled. “I don’t care if you’re sorry or not.”

“I thought I called Commander Archer to the Bridge, sir…”

“You did.”

“Oh…,” Jason blushed. “Gotcha…”

“Look, I just want to get back to sleep,” Llewellyn pointed out to him. “What’s the problem?”

“Sensors are indicating an unidentified vessel closing in fast,” the operations officer explained quickly. “Normally, I wouldn’t hit the panic button, but they’ve got their weapons armed and targeted directly at us. There are also three more vessels of the same configuration in this system alone.”

In an instant, Ewan was awake. His eyes stopped hurting. His hands immediately zipped up his uniform to the base of his chest and straightened out his maroon collar. With a flick of his head, Jason moved from the captain’s chair and he sat down, crossing his legs.

On the viewscreen before him, was the incoming vessel. It was a harsh, aggressive vessel. The very fact that the angular hull plating was pitch black struck a resonating chord of apprehension in the Captain. He had seen his fair share of enemy starships during his tenure as a Starfleet officer, and this one looked like an enemy. Training be damned, this thing looked threatening. The weapons lock was just adding to the prejudgement. Slowly and menacingly, the distance between it and Fortitude closed.

“Raise shields and charge phasers,” Llewellyn ordered. “Hail them!”

“No direct response.” Jason shook his head, his blonde hair cascading over his frown.

“Open all channels and flood subspace with the following: this is Captain Ewan Llewellyn of the Federation starship Fortitude. We are on a mission of peaceful exploration. We intend no harm. Repeat the entire sequence every five seconds.”

Twenty seconds passed by, allowing for the message to be repeated four times.

Jason turned back towards the Captain and shrugged.

“I gave you command of these night shifts on the understanding that you would avoid stuff like this,” Ewan noted with questionable sarcasm.

On the viewscreen, the alien ship reached the threshold of firing range and, without hesitation, unleashed the full range of its arsenal upon the shields of the Norway-class starship. Both Ewan and Jason braced for the inevitable rocking of the deck plating… but it never came. More weapons fire assaulted the shields but there was nothing to be felt from the impact.

Ewan winced in curiosity. “Report?”

“They have very minimal firepower, sir,” Ensign Armstrong replied to his question.

“What’s the status of the shields?”

“Holding at ninety-eight percent. They’re not even waking anybody up over here!”

“Back up away,” a bemused Ewan suggested. “Let’s see what happens.”

As Fortitude began to retreat from the pathetic excuse for a dogfight, Llewellyn spun his chair around towards the tactical officer. The tactical officer on duty, a female Denobulan, gave him a facial expression that was best described as underwhelmed. Whoever these aliens were, they certainly had aggression on their side but they lacked the technology to back it up. On the viewscreen, the shining black vessel pulled forward.

“They’re staying with us, Captain,” Armstrong called out from Ops.

“Still no response to our hails?”

“Negative.”

“Okay, we’ll have to do things on their wavelength. Target their engines with a low-level phaser blast and let’s see if we can’t discourage them from annoying us any further. You can fire when ready, Ensign Kasala.”

What happened next left the Welshman in utter shock.

Ensign Kasala carried his orders out to the letter. The phaser blast was at the lowest possible output. It struck the engine assembly of the alien vessel, with no shields to stop it, and tore a gaping hole in the black armor. There was a gut-wrenching moment when a few sparks escaped into space, right before the fireball erupted from inside the vessel. It consumed the engine assembly before greedily consuming the rest of the ship, ending in a spectacular explosion.

Only debris remained.

He had only meant to scare them… but Ewan Llewellyn had ended up killing them.


* * * *


“My Lord, I have a report.”

Swallowing hard in dread of the coming reaction, Admiral Na’Gren felt the ridges running down his throat expand and contract accordingly. The nobility rarely responded well to bad news. The old soldier knew what he would do, of course. This intruder vessel was an unknown quantity in the situation. Unknown quantities were his worst nightmare. The recommendation that he intended on giving the hooded figure before him would be simple. Sit tight, shut up, and let the damned thing pass by them.

But what if they didn’t want to pass by?

What if they were here to challenge the Shemosi?

What if they were here to defend the recently annexed star system?

Such questions didn’t trouble the Admiral. They troubled the nobility. No, Na’Gren was just here to deliver a report. He berated himself internally, telling himself not to get ahead of his position and his rank. Just serve the Fleet, just as you’ve always done, just as you always would, right? Keep it calm, keep it official, and keep it sane.

“Go on,” the rasping voice from the shadows beckoned after a pause.

“Our first cruiser intercepted the intruder. They engaged them and they were destroyed.

“They are powerful. Divert more ships at once!”

Na’Gren couldn’t help himself. Military boots knocking against the steel steps upon which he stood, he moved forward and clasped his arms tightly behind his back. This was not his place but he had just lost thirty good men and one cruiser. He didn’t want to lose any more, not now, not right after a major victory.

“My Lord, they will be destroyed as well. I recommend -- “

“I’m not interested in your recommendation, Admiral. Carry out my orders!”

Bowing his head on instinct, Na’Gren had to comply with the young fool. “Yes, My Lord.”


ACT TWO

Captain’s Log, Stardate 53362.8;


Our nocturnal encounter with a mysterious alien vessel has left me shaken. An attempt to scare them away from engaging us led to their total destruction. I don’t know. Perhaps it was a miscalculation on my part. All that I do know is that three more of the same alien vessels are heading our way. Waking up the senior staff, I’ve called for an emergency meeting to try and find an escape from this nightmare without causing any more deaths, alien or otherwise.


The mood in the Observation Lounge was a dreadful mixture of early morning fog and somber reflection on the deaths of admittedly unknown lifeforms. There was one small consolation that helped cut through the almost choking melancholy. Every single person seated around the beautiful curve of the table agreed with the actions of Ewan Llewellyn. It wasn’t just out of camaraderie or loyalty either. While some reactions differed in the small details.

For example, Gabriel Brodie believed that the phasers should have been first earlier. Everyone would have done the same thing. Boosted by the support of his crew and the fresh coffee running through his veins, the Captain began the meeting.

“All right, so that’s what happened. Now we need to think about what’s going to happen when those three other ships reach us. I think that it’s safe to assume that they’re on their way because they detected the destruction of their friends.”

“So if we have to fight,” Brodie cut in,” we fight, simple as that!”

“Hardly, Mister Brodie,” Valerie Archer reminded the tactical officer. “If a low-level phaser blast is enough to wipe out one of their vessels, and we actively engage them in combat, we would be presiding over a massacre. A fight is entirely out of the question. We’re Starfleet officers, not emotionless thugs.”

Subdued, Brodie backed down. Beside him, Lieutenant Vuro took over. “Okay, so what about some evasion tactics?”

“Throw them off the scent?,” Doctor Pulaski asked with a nod, feeling that her medical expertise would be somewhat wasted at this particular meeting but still joining in where she could. “Make them think that we’ve left the system, perhaps? Actually, Captain, why not just leave the system? It would end this before it could begin.”

Ewan denied her speculation with a jerk of his head.

“This has already begun, Doctor. I destroyed one of their ships. If there’s any chance that we can apologize, I have to find it. Besides, this system is massive. Going around it would take months that we don’t have.”

Sitting next to her commanding officer and lover, Valerie caught the fact that he had placed the blame for the destruction of the alien vessel squarely on his own shoulders. She quietly reminded herself to bring that up later, in private. She also fought the urge to place a reassuring hand on his forearm, an action that was totally inappropriate for a senior staff meeting.

He was kicking himself for this, wasn’t he?

Adjusting her focus back to the issue at hand, Fortitude’s First Officer turned to Lieutenant Commander Sollik and fixed the Suliban with an inquisitive stare. “Can we disrupt their sensors somehow? Slip past their attack?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Sollik speculated with his palms flat and raised in the air. “I don’t know enough about their sensor capabilities. We could end up blinding them or we could end up drawing them towards us, even faster. Sorry, Commander…”

“Don’t apologize, Sollik,” Llewellyn whispered, his Welsh accent wavering. “We’re going about this the wrong way. At first, my instincts told me to drop everything and make a run for it. Well… not anymore. I have to find a way to contact these people. The fact that we can sustain an attack from their vessels gives up time. When they show up and open fire, we’ll flood subspace again, only this time with regret. Hopefully they’ll listen… Hell, maybe that first ship of theirs was a trigger-happy mistake? We simply don’t know enough about them.”

Gabriel Brodie visibly cringed at the idea. Naturally, he hated it. However, everybody else agreed with the Captain.

“No more shooting,” he concluded with an authoritative tone. “Ensign Armstrong, how long do we have until we’re joined by the others?”

“Just over an hour, sir,” Jason answered without hesitation.

“Good. That’s enough time for all of you to get some breakfast. You’re dismissed.”


* * * *


She found him in his quarters.

“Hey, Valerie,” Ewan smiled weakly. “Checking up on me?”

“Am I that predictable?,” Commander Archer chuckled, copying the smile.

Allowing her to come inside, the Welshman played the perfect host, fetching some coffee from the replicator and sharing a fleeting kiss with his guest before he motioned towards the sofa.

A deep sigh echoed around the bulkheads as he sank into the plush leather. It was only zero-nine-thirty-hundred hours and already the day was beginning to take its toll. Brushing his dark hair aside, he gazed at his ever-faithful partner.

“Hell of a morning,” she simply observed, letting Ewan talk only if he wanted to.

“Top marks, Detective,” came his sarcastic reply. “Sorry… Valerie. That came off as a little rude of me. You’re right, though. It’s certainly an eventful start to the day.”

“I couldn’t help but notice in the meeting. You said that you destroyed the alien vessel earlier. Ewan, there was nothing that you could have done differently. Nobody blames you for what happened, so you shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“What I left out of that meeting,” he revealed slowly,” was that I prejudged that ship as soon as I saw it on the viewscreen. Damn, it was a nasty-looking ship… All dark and sharp edges, lots of weapons ports… and I didn’t know that they weren’t harmful weapons ports. All that I could see in my mind’s eye was a big Red Alert sign. I ignored my Starfleet training, my morality, and the fact that appearances aren’t everything. I just assumed that it would be hostile.”

“But it was,” Valerie pointed out to him. “They fired first, remember?”

“Yeah, they fired first, but I can’t help wondering just how much of my response was based on that prejudgement, that fear of the unknown. Darling, we were out here for four years aboard the first Fortitude. Now that we’ve been given a fresh start, a chance to take what we learned in those four years and begin again.”

“And you think that all we learned was to shoot first and ask questions later?”

“Based on this morning’s actions… well… yes…”

It was her turn to sigh now. Sipping at her coffee, she considered Ewan’s position, and there was an element of truth to it, she had to admit. If it wasn’t dodging the End space fleet in the first year, it was battling the Borg in the second. Finally appearing to make a lasting friend in the third, only to have him turn around and be a traitor. Then, of course, there was the ever-present menace of Naketha. This was before she even considered the gathering storm back on Santrag II, but did all of them mean that they had become a starship with an overdeveloped trigger-finger?

“I don’t believe it for a second,” she finally resolved firmly,” and neither should you.”

“I’ll try,” Ewan promised through the vapor of his own coffee. “Thanks, Valerie.”


ACT THREE

“They’re closing, Captain!”

Lieutenant Vuro was incredibly tense. Seated at the helm, he suppressed every natural instinct in his athletic body, the instinct to run, to turn away, and to move. All of that had to be overcome if Captain Llewellyn’s order to hold position was to be followed.

On the viewscreen, as though gunning for the Bridge officers themselves rather than the Norway-class starship towards which they flew, were three of the black-armored alien vessels. They were in attack formation and they weren’t slowing down. They were here for revenge.

“Prepare to transmit the following message,” Llewellyn demanded from his chair, rotating it towards Jason Armstrong and waiting for the nod of readiness. “This is Captain Ewan Llewellyn of the Federation starship Fortitude. We are on a peaceful mission of exploration. I personally wish to apologize for the destruction of your vessel. It was the result of a miscalculation on our part. Please allow us to establish a dialogue!”

Jason did as he was told. The message repeated itself over and over again on all subspace bands, waiting for a reply. The plea didn’t take long to be heard. Weapons could be fired, literally, within seconds. Everybody held their breath.

Then the first alien cruiser fired all of its weapons at Fortitude.

“Damn it!,” Ewan cursed, watching the shields absorb the weak incendiary charges and low-yield photon cannons. Beside him, Valerie shook her head. Here was a race determined to do battle, and they were clearly spoiling for a brawl. Were they worth the Captain’s pity? Were they worth apologizing to? Seeing them here, now, attacking in the face of insurmountable odds, the First Officer doubted it.

“Shields are holding at ninety-six percent,” Gabriel Brodie reported, barely having to raise his voice over the dull, distant thuds of so-called combat. “The other two vessels are preparing to fire.”

“Let them,” Llewellyn snapped,” and keep transmitting!”

Even with the combined firepower of all three cruisers, there was no lurching from one side of the Bridge to the other. There was no cause for panic or alarm. The multiphasic shields held, staunchly resisting the ongoing bombardment. A deliberately tired expression was shot between the operations console and the helm, Jason catching Arden’s attention with a semi-faked yawn.

“Got a scarecrow, perhaps?”

“A what?,” the Bolian asked in confusion.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Farm joke. Don’t worry about it.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” the Captain finally blurted out, leaping up from his chair in frustration at the complete and utter silence responding to his appeal for peace. “Mister Brodie, do you think you could fire a couple of warning shots? Maybe just graze them” That should get them to think that we’re going to repeat ourselves and blow them up.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it, sir,” Gabe surprised himself by saying. “My scans indicate that armor of theirs is all for show. If I so much as breathe on them with phasers, it would cause a hull breach. They’re weak, Captain… stupidly weak.”

“And yet they seem to be doing quite well for themselves in this sector,” Valerie mused aloud, stroking her jaw pensively. “I wonder how they’ve managed to establish themselves with such an easily-defeated space fleet?”

“Most probably,” Arden offered,” luck.”

With limited options available, Llewellyn gave the only order that he could conjure up. “Mister Brodie, lock phasers onto the lead vessel. See if that scares them.”

“Aye, sir. Target locked.”


* * * *


They were locking their weapons on them… on him!

With his eyes bulging from his skull, Admiral Na’Gren finally got to see the levels of power surging within the intruder for himself. No wonder they had decimated that cruiser before. For crying out loud, this thing was apocalyptically qualified to wipe out the entire Shemosi Fleet single-handedly!

Shaking with a terror unknown to even the freshest of recruits, the old soldier brought his head up from the monitor to stare out of the central viewport and stare at… it. There it sat, before his vessel, unmoved by all of the Shemosi firepower being thrown at that energy shield that it had.

And now they were locking weapons onto him.

“No more of this,” Na’Gren muttered to himself. “This is insanity!”

Turning around, he caught the attention of the five soldiers with who he shared the command center and relayed his mood through his facial tics and quirks. They understood completely that the Admiral wanted to withdraw… but what of the Lord’s orders? Weren’t they explicit? Didn’t they say to engage the intruder until defeat befell either side? The small fleet of three Shemosi cruisers were still here, still blasting away. The time for a withdrawal was far from this moment, surely?

Na’Gren had other ideas. He had seen what the intruder was capable of.

“Prepare to reverse course!”

“Admiral,” one of the soldiers began to protest before being glowered into submission.

“I said reverse course! Deactivate all cannons and put all power to the engines!”

“Do not listen to him!”

Shocked faces spun around to lay eyes upon the cloaked young figure stepping out of the elevator and into the command center. Collectively, the soldiers all gasped. All of them except for Admiral Na’Gren. It was unheard of, having a member of the nobility dirty their hands with the actual implementation of command, but here he stood nevertheless, the Lord responsible for their orders to engage the intruder. Everybody took a step backwards. It was as though the hooded being radiated power.

Na’Gren chose to remain where he stood.

“Explain yourself,” the hood hissed with malice.

“They are locking weapons onto us, My Lord. We will not survive!”

“They dare to breach our borders!”

“Frankly, My Lord, they can dare to do whatever they like with that starship!”

“You will do as I say and remain to fight!”

“No… I will not!”

Unexpectedly, Na’Gren drew his sidearm and pointed it directly at the Lord. nobody quite knew what to do. If the nobleman being in the command center was unheard of, then this was stretching to the realms of reality! A loaded gun pointed at a Lord on a fleet control ship… The five soldiers under the Admiral’s leadership stood, frozen at their stations, unable to comprehend the unfolding scene.

“Do it then,” growled the voice from underneath the hood. “Shoot me.”

Admiral Na’Gren was in severe conflict. A lifetime of service… Could it be sacrificed for a moment of logic?

With a scowl, he answered his own question.


EPILOGUE

Ewan couldn’t believe it. The tactic had worked.

Simply locking phasers onto the alien ship had, after a pause, stopped the attack and made them turn around. As they disappeared from visual range, the Captain returned to his command chair and fell, relieved and exhausted, into it.

The Welshman’s only regret was that the situation was resolved by the threat of further violence that he also regretted. If only they had established communications! They could have talked, seen one another face-to-face, perhaps even formed an alliance out of an unfortunate incident, but no… it wasn’t meant to be.

Three hours later, he was eating lunch in his quarters when a message came through from the Bridge. It had taken some time to detect the sly, covert transmission buried deep within the subspace background chatter.

According to Jason Armstrong, it came from the alien vessel just before it peeled away and retreated. It was on a layer of subspace that was so crowded, and so distorted that the communications system had beverly turned itself inside-out to find it and clear it up.

“Don’t even get me started on the Universal Translator,” the young Kentuckian sighed as he sent the message to Llewellyn’s screen.

“Thank you, Ensign. That’ll be all.”

“Enjoy your lunch, sir.”

Opening the message, the Captain punched in his authorization code and read it.

The words were short, simple, and sweet.

He absorbed it repeatedly with each re-read healing more of his anxiety. Finally, with a smile, he returned to his sandwich.

It wasn’t his fault after all.

He really wasn’t to blame.


The End.

 

[admiralelm11]

Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Five, Episode Five - “I Now Pronounce You…”
By Jack D. Elmlinger


PROLOGUE

The disguise was holding.

Her unaltered face was too well-known around these parts. Well, not only that, but the very nature of her race would make her a target. Still, she decided to steer clear of any crew members that she recognized, especially members of the senior staff. Luckily, Starbase 499 was large enough to get lost in the crowds. How well she knew that fact, considering that she had been undercover here for what seemed like forever.

It was her final big chance to prove herself. The failure on the L’Rakan planet, last year, had angered her superiors. There was nothing more fear-inducing than standing before an unpredictable Tal Shiar admiral. Things were supposed to go smoothly, especially since those things were never meant to be widely known… but a failure? A failure had lasting consequences that could be seen by others and broadcast by others.

She had been lucky. The situation on L’Raka had been manageable. It still remained a secret operation and it would be for the rest of time.

Besides, she had taken something away from that incident to cherish.

Traversing the length of Club 499, brushing shoulders with civilians and Starfleet officers alike, she felt the constant surge of adrenaline that one received when acting undercover enhanced by the memory of his face… His anguish, his terror, and the sheer pain at having his left arm severed. She had waited years for such a chance, but when it came, it had surpassed all expectations. She would take that little gem to her grave.

Reaching the bulletin display, she paused to take stock of the coming events.

Some big fancy tour for a dignitary… No, not interested…

Velocity tournament tryouts? How pathetic!

Ah… yes, there it was!

The wedding of Captain Ewan Llewellyn and Commander Valerie Archer is to take place aboard Starbase 499 on Stardate 53647 in a ceremony presided over by Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore. Club 499 is proud to be hosting the reception to all who are invited. Congratulations to the happy couple!

She barely managed to contain the maniacal laughter within.

This was perfect. She would do it then.

Naketha would break cover and kill Ewan Llewellyn at his own wedding.


ACT ONE

“Erica? Hello? Erica… are you in there?”

It took a short wave of a hand across her face to bring her eyes back from the middle-distance into which they stared. Satisfied to have brought her back to reality, Gabriel Brodie gave his trademark grin and gently kissed her forehead. There was nobody else about at this late hour. With Starbase 499 shut down for the evening, the Station Master’s Office was empty. For that reason alone, Erica Martinez didn’t mind the sign of affection. It was nice to have Gabe back in the Santrag system after all.

“Hey,” she breathed, standing and giving him a proper welcoming kiss.

“You act like you weren’t expecting me,” Fortitude’s tactical officer observed, taking a seat beside her. “I would have thought that you would be the first to see our return, being in here and all. Is something the matter?”

Erica chuckled at the question. Gabe had been away, and he couldn’t be blamed. “I’ve got a gremlin running about my starbase.”

“Is that some kind of euphemism?”

“No! Seriously… from time to time, unidentifiable biosigns keep fluctuating across the internal sensors and I can’t, for the life of me, pin them down! And it’s not like we’re dealing with an innocent stowaway anymore. Whoever or whatever, the gremlin is, has stolen a phaser from the armory and eaten its way through a sizable chunk of our organic food stores, not to mention three lockers of rations!”

The black man whistled. This was a serious situation. He had heard Captain Llewellyn mention something about this on the Bridge of Fortitude, saying that Erica and Rear Admiral Blackmore were worried about it… and the Latina woman hadn’t been keeping in regular contact with him lately. Subspace chats were limited and short, at best. It was certain that this hunt was one major preoccupation for her.

“Okay, so he’s armed and potentially dangerous,” Gabe nodded. “What’s next?”

“Next, we have to draw him out,” Erica said with a sigh.

“Do you need any help coming up with a plan?”

“Oh, I’ve got a plan. Don’t worry about that… but it’s very dangerous. Knowing that this gremlin now has a phaser, I would feel terrible if everything backfired and somebody ended up getting hurt or worse. That is what’s keeping me up at night, Gabe. I’m risking the lives of two very good friends of mine.”

Gabe understood her dilemma. Despite the onslaught of recent events, he and Erica still retained their basic characteristics. He would have no problem, whatsoever, putting lives on the line to stalk and capture a potential security breach. However, the Station Master was a different breed of Human, one who had more in common with today’s society. Peaceful thoughts filled her head that were, at times, overridden by a survival instinct but otherwise intact.

Whatever this plan of hers was, whoever it endangered, it would be keeping her awake. Sighing deeply, the tactical officer placed a reassuring arm around his lover’s shoulders and drew her in tightly.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s gonna happen?,” he suggested.

“You’ll think it’s insane,” she protested. “I think it’s insane too… but I’m at a loss!”

“I know… Come on. Tell me what’s going to happen…”


* * * *


Naketha continued to move through Starbase 499 undetected.

So far, everything had gone smoothly. Sneaking aboard had been child’s play for someone so well-trained and so skilled in the art of deception. For one who was so Romulan… It reminded her of her brief tenure as Doctor T’Verra, chief medical officer, and a cold, emotionless Vulcan. At least now, she could smile. She wasn’t playing a Vulcan this time. This time, her ears had been blunted and her cranial ridge repressed. This time, she was playing a Human… and she was enjoying it.

Reaching inside of her green jacket to remind her of home, he slowly patted the phaser that she had procured weeks beforehand. Bringing a disruptor aboard 499 would have been a futile attempt. She would have been detected before she had even placed a steel-heeled boot aboard the starbase. No, she had to call upon her memory. She knew her way around, after all. Stealing the phaser had been a tricky but rewarding experience.

Naketha paused for a moment of reflection outside her guest quarters. They had been her home for too long. Soon, her quest for revenge would be complete.

She would almost miss this place.

However, the one thing that she wouldn’t miss, she vowed, would be Ewan Llewellyn.


* * * *


“You know, I think I’m having second thoughts…”

“Pre-wedding jitters?”

“Don’t joke, Ewan. this is a damned risky idea if you ask me.”

“Risky, sure… but I think that the plan is inspired. Besides, it’s been a long time since I’ve acted in anything. This is all just so outlandish that it just might work out. I’m just sorry that I didn’t come up with the idea myself.”

“Oh…?”

“Not the marriage idea. You and I both know that we’re not there yet.”

“Ah, you mean the idea to stage a public event…”

“... to draw out the gremlin, yeah. Erica definitely pulled this stunt out of a hat.”

“She’s obsessed with catching… well, whatever it is.”

“Or whoever it is.”

“Now who's got the pre-wedding jitters?”

“Okay, okay… come on. I had better get my dress uniform ready for the big day.”

“Ewan…”

“What is it, Valerie?”

“Do you think that we’ll ever be here again? Getting married, I mean?”

“As much as I would like to make you a promise, darling, I’m not going to. We’re grown-up enough to realize that our jobs aren’t exactly the safest in the Galaxy. Perhaps, if we were behind desks somewhere, I would say yes, but in our line of work? A Starship Captain and a First Officer, serving together? Let’s just be thankful for the days that we share. I’m sorry if that wasn’t the answer that you wanted.”

“Don’t apologize. It was the answer that I expected.

“Ever the realist… Is that why you love me?”

“It’s why you love me!”

“Touche…”


ACT TWO

Captain’s Personal Log, Stardate 53646.9;


The construction of tomorrow’s fake wedding is proceeding quickly. Station Master Martinez is, obviously, wrought with worry and potential guilt. She fears that her plan to ensnare the 499 gremlin will place Commander Archer and I in extreme danger… and of course, she would be right.

Nevertheless, there’s an unidentified being somewhere, within striking distance of innocent civilians and they have a phaser. While the actual wedding ceremony itself will not be taking place, I still feel butterflies in my stomach… but they’re not butterflies of excitement, but rather of apprehension.


Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore had done some crazy things in his servitude with Starfleet, but to preside over a fake wedding? This was certainly a new one of those life experiences that he would remember for years, or at the very least, laugh about for a good week afterwards… That was providing that everything went smoothly, of course. Putting Ewan and Valerie up on the center stage was similar to painting a gigantic bullseye on each of their chests and parading them around the crawl spaces. It was inviting them to become targets, and inviting the gremlin to a nice, juicy clean shot.

That was providing that the gremlin was a hostile being, though. Blackmore had to admit that they knew nothing about this thing. Only that it was hungry and that it had stolen a phaser from a security locker in the armory. What did it all mean? Well, the only way to find out was to capture the thing, and that meant that bait was needed. Erica had certainly come up with an impressive lure.

With everybody at Club 499 for the reception, the gremlin would be weeded out.

Rounding the apex of the corridor through which he marched, the Rear Admiral came to the quarters of Captain Ewan Llewellyn aboard Fortitude and rang the door chimes. Upon being beckoned inside, he looked up to see the Welshman standing in his full Starfleet dress uniform. The crisp white tunic was at odds with the jet-black hair that neatly swept back from his tanned, young face… but somehow it all came together to make Ewan look even more dashing than usual.

Blackmore had to smile. Even though this was all a gigantic hoax, he felt a twinge of pride for the man that he considered his very own son.

Of course, Llewellyn noticed that pride and winced. “That bad, eh?”

“On the contrary, you’re making this old man jealous!”

“Stop it,” the Captain said, blushing. “If this plan is going to work, then everything needs to be flawless and I don’t know how many weddings you’ve been to, Boxer, but the bride and the groom are usually the most important components.”

“Hey, it was only a compliment,” the Rear Admiral surrendered. “It doesn't take a Betazoid to notice that you’re a little tense about this whole thing.”

Ewan shook his head.

“Faking my own wedding to ensnare a potentially dangerous unknown? Tense doesn’t even quite cover it. Damn, I just hope that this goes, according to plan. Valerie had her own doubts yesterday too. Now that I’m actually going through with this madness, I’m beginning to see where she was coming from. I mean, bloody hell, Boxer, Club 499 is going to be heaving with almost every single man, woman, and transgendered being in the entire sector! That’s quite a crowd! What if the gremlin manages to evade the security forces, or worse, doesn’t even show up?!”

“Then we’ll backtrack any embarrassment later,” Blackmore growled,” after we finally catch the bastard. Look, this was never going to be easy for you and Valerie. I respect you for going ahead with it. I respect that I didn’t have to make it an order.”

“You wouldn’t have,” Ewan gasped at the idea,” would you?”

The older man present just scratched at his beard in silence, his answer being self-evident.

“Ah… I see…”

“Besides,” Blackmore picked up,” any excuse for a party, right?”

“Well,” Llewellyn admitted,” I could certainly use a drink.”


* * * *


Naketha had a newfound respect for Humans and their allies.

Standing as part of the murmuring crowd in Club 499, all of them awaiting the arrival of the happy couple, the disguised Romulan spy was impressed at the natural formality that descended over the gathering. Despite the ridiculous number of people crammed into such a relatively small gathering space, she had barely so much as rubbed shoulders with anybody… which was so much the better. With everyone being so kind and attentive to one another, she would have no problem with making her way forward through the vast throng of innocent people and taking her shot.

The phaser was set to maximum. It would vaporize Ewan Llewellyn in an instant.

She would have preferred to make him suffer. The lasting suffering of Valerie Archer would have to make do in that regard, Naketha wasn’t stupid. She knew that as soon as she arrived at Club 499 that something wasn’t right. Finely honed by years of Tal Shiar training, her instincts told her that this wasn’t an ordinary wedding reception. Casting her piercing emerald eyes around the assembled crowds, she recognized several Fortitude security officers in plain clothes… then several more… and several more after that. It was a number that was far too great to simply be a coincidence. They couldn’t all be off-duty at once, could they?

No… this felt like a trap.

But she had come this far”

Killing Ewan Llewellyn was all that mattered to her now. Her entire life had been given over in service to the Empire. This would be her final act, whether shot dead on sight as a result of her treacherous action or incarcerated in some drab Starfleet prison until time stole her life away from her. She didn’t care anymore. For too long, that sniveling Welsh fool had stolen victory from her grasp. For too long, he had interfered in her assignments and in her affairs.

After today, he wouldn’t be meddling in anything. After today he would be dead.

There he was now, grinning from ear to ear.

On a crescendo of applause, Captain Ewan Llewellyn entered Club 499 with Commander Valerie Archer beside him. Everybody was complimenting the First Officer on her beautiful silken dress, each thread was interwoven with sparkling Eastlean crystals. Her rolling blonde hair cascaded over her bare shoulders, many people commenting on how rare it was to see her wear it down. All the while, Valerie just smiled and nodded, clinging to her new husband’s right arm.

Naketha noted that little detail with a snort. No artificial appendage for her, eh? How she had loved giving him that lasting reminded of their previous encounter. She had enjoyed the potential anguish and psychological damage that it had caused him. Watching with a neutral expression that concealed the storm of emotions raging within her, she started to move.

Would there be a speech? Not yet… The happy couple was still shaking hands.

With faith in her Human appearance, Naketha held her head high as she strode towards them. Slowly, she clawed at the phaser hidden beneath her green jacket.

The surging crowds were preparing to make a toast, their glasses lifted skywards. The perfect note on which to take her shot…

Naketha stopped, digging her boots into the deck plating. She drew her phaser and aimed right for Ewan Llewellyn’s smug face…

… and then her world went dark.


ACT THREE

It was utter anarchy. Panic-stricken chaos broke out.

Turning around on the crowd, Captain Llewellyn only caught the after-effects of the phaser blast. The ever-spectacular lance of burning energy had come from somewhere deep in the recesses of Club 499 and slammed into one of the guests. It was a woman, by the look of things, who had collapsed mere meters away from his position. Leaving the side of Valerie Archer, he rushed forward. The victim was face-down on the floor, stunned or, even worse, dead.

Curse this insane plan! He knew it would end up like this!

Screams and thundering footsteps drowned out the attempts of security officers to reign in some kind of order to the gathering. Nobody could blame the poor, frightened civilians for their frenzied rejoinder. There was live fire at the wedding reception.

Live fire!

It had only been a matter of months since the Battle of Four-Nine-Nine since every person present had been at risk of extermination. As one, the masses pushed towards the exits, and Club 499 was cleared out quicker than during that awful Klingon Opera karaoke night… Only this time, nobody was laughing at the Captain of a visiting Saber-class starship. He was Caitian.

Ewan reached the victim’s side and froze.

There was a discarded phaser at her side. The readout said that it was on the maximum setting.

She wasn’t one of the security officers. Who was she? Who had been hit?”

When the Captain turned her over, he felt sick. To anybody in passing, she was just another Human female. Sharp, hawking features, and a definite vicious edge to her appearance, but just another female nevertheless. However, to him, she was a face that he would never forget, no matter the amount of cosmetic alteration could disguise. Recoiling in shock, he backed into Valerie, who stumbled to catch him.

“Naketha…,” he whispered to her.

“Oh, my God,” gasped his false bride,” was she the gremlin all along?”

Ewan didn’t answer her. He couldn’t answer her. The panic that had gripped the reception guests, moments beforehand, was now gripping his very soul. The last time that he had seen Naketha, she had been standing over his beaten body with a white-hot sword, preparing to amputate his left arm. Seeing her again, fallen at his feet, lifeless, was too much of a blow to his system. His breathing quickened and his heart raced.

What in blazes did this mean?


* * * *


Erica Martinez chastised herself and the plan. For all of the manpower that she had spread out across Club 499, for all of the security that she had carefully intertwined with the guests and for all of the angles that she had covered, a phaser was nevertheless discharged. The Latina woman felt absolutely rotten. It had gone terribly wrong and it had been her stupid fault! Well, she told herself, there would be time to wallow in regret later. Right now, she had a job to complete and results to gather.

“Come on, people. Speak to me,” she barked into her combadge.

“This is Matthews,” a flustered voice answered her. “I saw the shooter. They were humanoid, disheveled, and definitely not one of our own people, ma’am. I didn’t get a clear look at their face, whoever they were. It could have been anybody!”

“Can you track them?”

“Negative, ma’am. I’m sorry. They made it into an access tunnel.”

An access tunnel… The crawl spaces… oh, no…

“Are you absolutely certain that you saw what you saw, Matthews?,” Erica confirmed with him.

“One hundred percent, ma’am,” came his reply.

Brilliant! All of this effort, the planning, the preparation, the security, and the gremlin showed itself long enough to shoot some poor woman in the back, and once again became part of Starbase 499’s bulkheads! It wasn’t until the Station Master was told just who exactly that the poor woman was that her mood brightened and she went from complete self-loathing to sheer confusion.

“Run that by me again, please?”


* * * *


They were collected around the Observation Lounge table aboard Fortitude. The mood over on Starbase 499 was one of defeat. Rear Admiral Blackmore had joined the entire senior staff for the meeting and he was beginning to regret doing so. The nature of the events that were being discussed was making his head spin. Slowly, not quite grasping the words himself, Captain Llewellyn tried to explain.

“The gremlin is still at large,” he began again. “He, she, or it was the one that fired into the crowd during the reception. The victim of that shot was Naketha. She was disguised as a Human and she was armed with a phaser set to kill.”

“She was trying to assassinate you,” Katherine Pulaski pointed out,” but why?”

“Surely she must have known that it would be her final act,” Valerie chipped into the conversation.

“That may be so. I’ve looked into her eyes on more than one occasion,” Ewan ventured, feeling out a possible answer. “Naketha is a woman of extreme emotions. While she managed to keep them well-hidden during her time as Doctor T’Verra, it made them all the more fierce and shocking when they’re exposed… and I’ve been the one to expose them the most. The bitterness, the rivalry… the hatred that exists between us is galactically strong. I know that several times over the years, I’ve battled with my own violent urge to… well, I think you can imagine.”

“Smash her face in,” Gabriel Brodie spelled it out for everybody. “Sorry, sir.”

“Well,” you’re right, Mister Brodie, in your own unique way,” the Captain said, smiling weakly.

“How did she get aboard?,” Jason Armstrong wondered aloud.

“Not only that, but how did she get a weapon?,” Arden Vuro added, backing up his shipmate’s own musings with a point that nobody had yet to mention. “Starbase reports show that only one phaser was stolen from 499’s armory, correct? That obviously ended up in the hands of the gremlin. So, where did Naketha get her weapon from?”

It was yet another aspect of the aftermath to ponder.

Rear Admiral Blackmore had pondered enough for one day. He stood, and on doing so, dragged the rest of the officers to their feet. Waving them down in defiance of the rules of rank, he turned to Ewan and sighed.

“I should return to Erica and see if we can piece this mystery together.”

“Thanks, Box… err, I mean, Rear Admiral.”

“Don’t sweat it, Ewan. Oh, and congratulations. You’ve just survived your wedding day.”

Indeed, he had, but it hadn’t been through his own virtue or skill. He had been saved by the quick reactions and precise aim of the gremlin… Whoever or whatever it was. Despite the capture of Naketha and that tiny glimmer of hope, there was still one hell of a mess to clean up, and the gremlin was still at large aboard Starbase 499.

Ewan really didn’t know whether to celebrate or not.


EPILOGUE

She just sat there and watched him talk.

“What was your mission?”

Naketha almost laughed at the ignorance of the question. Bathed in the azure glow of the Brig’s force field generator, her newly-restored Romulan features twisted into a dissatisfied smirk. It infuriated him, she could tell, and that was why she kept doing it, morphing the smirk into a snarl. Despite her ignominy, she would remain a silent prisoner for the glory of the Romulan Star Empire, the Tal Shiar, and as a testament to her unparalleled espionage training.

Standing on the other side of the force field, Ewan Llewellyn just continued with his interrogation.

“Were you here to assassinate me? Finish what you started, last year, with my arm? Perhaps, take another piece out of me… or was it revenge? Seeing as I’ve beaten you… three… no, four times in the past, I couldn’t blame you.”

Nice try, Naketha thought, but it wasn’t enough to make her talk.

Silence reigned. Only the hum of the Brig could be heard.

Ewan wondered why he had come down here to face her. It was the last thing that his temperament had told him to do. Just letting his eyes rest on her wicked visage was enough to turn his stomach and bring back the trauma of the incident at the L’Rakan village.

Yet, he stood there, attempting to question her, attempting to find some kind of resolution to the day’s wild events. There was nothing to be gained here. It was like interrogating a targ or pulling teeth from a Ferengi.

“Fine,” the Welshman finally spat at her,” sit in silence. See if I care.”

Turning away, he shot one last look of absolute daggers into Naketha’s soul.

“You’ll rot in here forever, you bitch.”


The End.

 

[Cobalt Frost]

Argh! Comeuppance delayed

 

[admiralelm11]

Just wait and be patient, please.

 

[Cobalt Frost]

I am patient, mostly

REALLY enjoying this series!

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Considering the pace of your updates, I'm surprised to only find you here. Have you considered double-posting to AdAstrafanfic.com or fanfiction.net ?

Thanks!! rbs

 

[admiralelm11]

I post where I feel comfortable.

 

[admiralelm11]

Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Five, Episode Six - “Maelstrom”
By Jack D. Elmlinger


PROLOGUE

“What’s up? You seem… pensive.”

Valerie Archer inwardly chuckled at how Ewan Llewellyn had started his sentence with an almost-Americanized twang but ended it and kept true to his Welsh roots. Staring at him over the breakfast table, she had to admit that he was right. Something was troubling her, making each sip of coffee and bite of toast through a thick layer of confusing worry before it could be finally swallowed. Their relationship may have started because the First Officer knew her Captain too well, but he had been overcompensating for that imbalance lately.

“It’s Naketha,” she admitted to him,” and all of the question marks that she carries with her.”

“I think I’ve decided to blank them from my mind,” Ewan said sternly. “It was driving me insane. The fact that she’s here, in our Brig, and yet as silent as a tomb. We could all try and try until we die, but I doubt that we’ll ever pry any information from her.”

“Hence blanking her. Well, it’s a nice idea in theory.”

“You don’t think I’ll last?”

The Commander shook her head. A lock of hair, unregulated at this time of the morning and yet to be secured into place, brushed across her face as she recalled an anecdote from her childhood and decided that it fit the current situation.

“When I was six years old, my mother and father were serving aboard the USS Ranger near the Mutara Sector. The captain of the Ranger was a Kreetassan and, remarkably for his species, was almost one-hundred and fifty years old. Boy, did he have some stories! The one that I remember the most is from his youth. He and his parents lived on the shore and every year, fire serpents would wash in and out with the various tides.

“Throughout his teens, he had become obsessed with catching a fire serpent. He tried and tried and tried until one year, he finally caught one.”

“Lucky man,” Ewan interrupted her, his mouth filled with toast. “What’s your point?”

“The fire serpent stung him and he ended up in the hospital for a month.”

“Ah… right…”

Leaning back, as breakfast was finished, Valerie ended her story with a warning.

“Ewan, just be careful. I have a very bad feeling about all of this.”


ACT ONE

Across from the Captain’s quarters aboard Fortitude, another breakfast was underway inside Starbase 499 and in the office of Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore. Once again, the mood across the table was wrought with fear, concern, and unanswered questions. Sitting opposite of his host, the exiled Veth Ka’Gerran munched his way through a slice of replicated bacon absentmindedly. Noting the complete lack of his usual accompanying indulgent smile, the Rear Admiral quickly swallowed his coffee and after if everything was all right. Of course, it was a pointless inquiry. Everything was most certainly not all right but the former Santragan leader was normally all over bacon, his favorite Earth delicacy. It was a question worth asking.

“For now, Boxer,” Veth quietly responded,” for now…”

“This gremlin hiding aboard the Starbase. My concern is not out of arrogance or vanity but I do find myself wondering if it could be an agent of the Santragan People’s Freedom Democracy. I wonder if it could be after me.”

Blackmore nodded. He had already formulated the same conclusion himself.

“I won’t rule it out,” he growled in admittance. “We know nothing about this gremlin, so chances are equally strong for all theories, Veth. What I will tell you are the facts that we know so far, namely, whatever it was that shot a Romulan spy who was attempting to murder Captain Llewellyn. That doesn’t sound like the action of a Santragan agent to me. Besides, your people think that you made a run for it from what I’ve been told.

“The vessels that they sent out to find me returned empty-handed in short order,” Veth sighed, massaging the ring of gnarled horns that crowned his head. It was an effort, albeit a futile one, to calm himself down. “I know Tret Bra’Kala. He won’t be satisfied with an assumption. He demands proof of everything.”

“Bra’Kala. He’s the rotating leader or whatever it is now, right?”

“Yes, and you are fortunate never to have dealt with him.”

“Ewan told me that he was, at least, polite…”

Veth Ka’Gerran quickly stopped his old friend from continuing. Breakfast was over for now. The old statesman rose from the table and walked broodingly over to absorb the spectacular view of his homeworld. Every single look upon the blue-green jewel was like a dagger through his heart. To know that he could never set foot again upon its surface was knowledge that was slowly stealing years away from his life expectancy. Blackmore compassionately joined him at the window, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Tret Bra’Kala is a man of ambition, Boxer. His ego is as large as his stature and waist, matched only by his thirst for power and glory. He is also a man of great patience. Ever since the revolution threw me out of office, he quietly waited his turn to become the People’s Council Rotating President. One of your years… that’s all that he’s supposed to be in power for. I guarantee you that he’ll be there longer than that.”

“If he’s corrupt,” the Rear Admiral said, trying to soothe him,” then the Federation will --”

“... do what, exactly?,” Veth interrupted him. “Bra’Kala won’t care. He isn’t exactly the biggest fan of the Federation anyway. He objected to our initial membership. I mean, with all due respect, if your people weren’t so desperate to keep alliances running in the wake of the Dominion War, then Santrag II would have split away, long ago.”

“Leave the Federation?,” Blackmore gasped with surprise. “But, Veth, the whole point of the revolution was to bring your world up-to-speed with the rest of us! I’m sorry, my friend, but I think you’ve been away too long!”

Ka’Gerran turned to face the Rear Admiral, his eyes glistening with tears. “I hope you’re right, my friend,” he whispered,” for your sake.”


* * * *


Ewan Llewellyn turned his command chair on Jason Armstrong with a frown. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir,” the young Ensign explained with his easy-going drawl. “They’re heading straight for us, not Starbase 499, and they’re hailing you, personally, by name. I’m getting a request from Station Master Martinez also. She wants to know why they haven’t made the call to register with her yet.”

“Put Erica on hold,” Ewan ordered. “Show me the runabout.”

In a flash, a three-dimensional hologram of the Danube-class runabout appeared before the Welshman’s face. It rotated slowly, allowing for a visual analysis of the craft without having to leave his seat. Crossing his legs as he ran a finger across his legs, he looked for anything unusual.

Who were they?

Why were they asking for him?

Why weren’t they docking with Starbase 499? All Starfleet arrivals in the Santrag system were instructed to. All these issues engulfed the Captain’s mind when he suddenly spotted something on the runabout’s hull.

The designation… He had seen it before, three years ago…

It carried nothing but terrible news.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” Ewan spat out. “All right, Jason, open a channel and brace yourself.”

Ensign Armstrong did as he was instructed. The holographic display of the runabout vanished with the main viewscreen switching to show her sole occupant. It was somebody that none of the Bridge officers had ever thought that they would see again. His untrustworthy expression was only amplified by the unsettling nature of his facial features. It was almost as though Section Thirty-One chose their agents based on their ability to visually upset people.

“Agent Hawkins,” Llewellyn snarled. “What the hell do you want?”

“Ewan,” retorted the blast from the past,” it’s wonderful to see you again.”

“The feeling isn’t mutual. Cut to the damned chase, will you?”

“I can see that you haven’t changed. You’re just as rude and uncooperative as usual. I’m disheartened. I know what you and your crew have been through since my last visit. I had hoped that such turmoil would have helped you to understand the need for people like me… Alas, I suppose your stubbornness will never let you amend your ways.”

“I’m not in the mood, Hawkins. I won’t listen to you ramble on forever.”

“Very well. Let me beam aboard.”

“And why the hell should I do that?”

“Because you and I need to have a talk… in private if you will.”

“That’s not a very tempting offer. I would sooner show you to the airlock than chat.”

The communications channel hissed with a frustrated sigh as Hawkins rubbed his cheek and rolled his eyes at Ewan’s hostility. It was bad enough that his senior staff knew about Section Thirty-One. The Welsh fool chose to spill everything to them, rather than operate under the usual rules of espionage. Undergoing such a verbal joust was to be expected, too, but he had suffered through a long journey.

Enough was enough.

“I know that you have Naketha in custody.”

Ewan froze. How did he know that? Curse that slimy bastard!”

“Let me beam aboard,” Hawkins repeated slowly.

“Very well, but you’re not staying for long. I’ll meet you in the Transporter Room.”

As the conversation ended and the viewscreen went dark, Llewellyn stormed from his seat and into the turbolift, resisting the urge to punch a hole in the bulkhead. As if life hadn’t been stressful enough lately, things were just going from bad to much, much worse.

“Transporter Room,” he seethed aloud,” Deck Four.”


ACT TWO

Captain’s Log, Stardate 53650.4;


The arrival of Agent Hawkins has added to an already troublesome situation. Upon transporting aboard Fortitude, he had demanded the use of guest quarters and several hours of time to himself. The very fact that he knows about Naketha’s imprisonment is the only reason that I am allowing him to remain aboard. As soon as he’s told me what he wants to say, I’ll take great pleasure in kicking him back to his runabout. Although the mystery surrounding just what he wants to say is cause for serious apprehension on my part.


He was marched in under guard.

Even though he had never been unfortunate enough to meet Agent Hawkins before, Lieutenant Commander Gabriel Brodie had been fully briefed on the Section Thirty-One spy by his commanding officer. The startling trust that this briefing exposed was that the black tactical officer had been approached by Section Thirty-One to act as an operative. Not by Hawkins himself, but by another of his kind.

Obviously, he had declined. No matter how short his fuse was, or how violent his urges, he was a man of honor. Captain Llewellyn respected his honesty. It was with a nod of understanding between these two men that Hawkins was delivered to Fortitude’s Observation Lounge.

Seated by the head of the table, Ewan watched the object of his hatred being shoved roughly into the closest chair. Appreciating the creative flair added by Brodie, the Welshman dismissed him.

“Honestly, Ewan,” reeled the uncomfortable Hawkins immediately.

“Before you try and tell me that there was entirely no need for that, think again,” Llewellyn said. “This is my ship. I say what there’s a need for. Trust me, Hawkins, you should be thankful that floggings are illegal in Starfleet.”

“Naketha,” the spy said, cutting to the chase. “I want to see her.”

“That’s out of the question.”

“You owe me some leeway when it comes to her, Ewan. Do I need to remind you that it was my actions that helped to expose her presence as your Chief Medical Officer back in seventy-two? If I hadn’t intervened, you would still be flying around with her aboard, every one of your missions reported back to Romulus…”

“If I remember correctly,” Ewan corrected his guest,” the bomb that you planted nearly killed Naketha and it wasn’t even targeted at her. It was by complete accident that your insane plan uncovered her presence. Oh, and you nearly killed Sollik as well.”

“Does it really matter how results are achieved?”

“Yes, it bloody well does, and if you had an ounce of morality, you would know that!”

“Ewan, Ewan… must we do this…?”

Hawkins hauled himself up to standing and he began to walk slowly around the Observation Lounge table. All the while, he kept Ewan fixed with his steely, piercing gaze. It was like watching a predator stalking his prey, despite the fact that the prey was bigger, stronger, and altogether more secure. A simple call to Security was all that it would take to have him removed from Fortitude. Nevertheless, he acted with so much arrogance and self-importance. Such was the nature of being a Section Thirty-One agent and of Hawkins.

Finally, he came to rest on the table beside an unimpressed Captain Llewellyn.

“Look, I want to see Naketha. You’re going to let me.”

“Before I even consider letting you see her,” he said, deliberately making this sentence convoluted to ram his point home,” why don’t you tell me your reasons for wanting to see her?”

“That is classified information and none of your concern.”

“Again, this is my ship. Play by my rules or don’t play at all.”

“Section Thirty-One has a vested interest in any captured Tal Shiar agents. You’re a smart man, Ewan. I’m sure that you can figure it out. One spy agency versus another… The temporary alliance that Earth formed with Romulus during the Dominion War is over now. We’re back to our old staring contests.”

“Uh-huh, the same old excuses,” Llewellyn dismissed mockingly. “I’m not buying them for a second, Hawkins. There’s something personal about all of this. The history between you and Naketha makes you the last person that any sane, level-headed commander would send to retrieve her. Then again, you are bonkers. I can only assume the same thing about your superiors back on Earth. Come on, the real reason, Hawkins, and now!”

The spy did his best to ignore the jibes at Section Thirty-One. Those in the service were beyond fanatically loyal to the tasks that they were set to. For anybody to call the top brass ‘bonkers’ was close to insulting one’s very own mother. Flared nostrils vented Hawkins’ anger as he tried to continue his diplomatic approach.

“You can be there the entire meeting, Ewan.”

“You’re kidding… over your shoulder?”

“Where you stand is none of my concern, but yes, I have only a few questions.”

That made things different. The chance to see Hawkins go toe-to-toe with Naketha was too great of an opportunity for Llewellyn to pass up, despite his reason and logic telling him to simply deny the request anyway. Slowly, his head tilted as he considered all of the angles before he got to his feet and reached a decision.

“All right,” he relented,” you get ten minutes, and not a second longer.”

“Thank you, Ewan,” Hawkins grinned in eventual triumph. “Lead the way!”


* * * *


Llewllyn definitely led the way into the Brig.

With every step, he could feel Hawking definitely breathing down his neck, the red collar of his uniform causing a prickly heat of despising and distrust. Why was he agreeing to this again? The tentative allowance for an interrogation had turned into a tentative urge to turn around on the spy and march him to the Transporter Room instead. Something wasn’t right about all of this. He could watch? What could possibly be so important?

Entering the Brig, all doubts were pushed aside.

The Captain had a bigger worry.

The security officer on duty, a young Axanarian, was sprawled out dramatically across the deck. What remained of a thin layer of gas, putrid green and obviously toxic, covered them entirely. Rushing forward without a second thought to his own safety. Ewan was about to call for medical help when he noticed the larger problem. The main cell, the one that was supposedly containing Naketha, was empty.

“Hawkins, don’t just stand there! Give me a hand!”

There was no answer.

Reeling back towards the door, Llewellyn found no trace of the Section Thirty-One agent. He had disappeared, and Naketha had disappeared.

“Captain to the Bridge,” screamed the Welshman, his lungs burning,” Red Alert!”

 

[admiralelm11]

ACT THREE

Captain’s Log, supplemental;


The runabout that had delivered Agent Hawkins to the Santrag system vanished from our sensors around the same time that her owner disappeared from our Brig. I can only surmise that he used the few hours of preparation time to orchestrate the kidnapping of Naketha, although the technicalities of such a feat are beyond me. I’ve been left with a dead crewman, an empty cell… and an even bigger hatred of Section Thirty-One.


Veth Ka’Gerran appreciated their efforts.

Surrounding the table in Rear Admiral Blackmore’s office, Katherine Pulaski and Erica Martinez were stacking piles of curious round discs and shuffling some rectangles of cardboard. Apparently, they were part of a ritual known as Texas Hold’Em, something that he had been told was simultaneously fun, relaxing, and tactical. The Santragan frowned, not quite understanding how all of that was possible. Picking up one of the discs, remembering that it was referred to as a chip, his frown intensified. Hadn’t he seen crew members eating chips in Club 499 once? They didn’t look anything alike… How strange…

He was trying his best. The dark nature of his moods hadn’t gone unnoticed by others aside from Edward Blackmore. While this Texas Hold’Em meeting had been arranged by the Rear Admiral, both women sitting before Veth were sympathetic and receptive to the overall situation all the same. Besides, it was something of a joint therapy session as the recent mystery surrounding the Starbase 499 gremlin had caused nothing but headaches for the Latina Station Master on his right side. She finished shuffling the rectangles, referred to as cards, and placed them on the table.

“So, these cards,” Veth tried to grasp slowly, "do they have some value?”

“Only in certain combinations,” Doctor Pulaski explained to him. “Don’t worry. We’ll play a practice hand for you to get a feel for things. Not that you’ll stand a chance, that is… when Boxer shows up. He’ll clean us all out of chips.”

“And chips equal money?”

“After a fashion, yes,” Erica nodded. “They’re your objective.”

“Whoever has the most is victorious. I see. Santragan children play something that is not unlike this. I confess to worrying about this tactical edge that you speak of, and the way in which you believe Boxer will emerge as the champion.”

“He always does,” Pulaski chuckled.

“And being routinely beaten by him is… fun and relaxing?”

“Well, yes and no. It’s a little complicated, I suppose.

“Speaking of which,” Erca added, looking towards the door,” where is Ed?”


* * * *


He was in the quarters of Captain Ewan Llewellyn. The topic of their conversation was easy to predict. Between them, despite their analytical minds, they could find no concrete way of explaining the recent events in the Brig. Of course, the standing theory was one that was reached within seconds. Somehow, Agent Hawkins managed to break Naketha out of prison and spirit her away into the clutches of Section Thirty-One. The disappearing trick performed by the runabout was an indication of a level of espionage that was beyond anything that the Starfleet officers would even dream of.

None of it was good news for Ewan’s temper. Flexing his left hand, he was coming dangerously close to wearing a hole in the carpet. Blackmore had tried and failed to make him sit down. The pacing had become like a violent tempest, utterly unavoidable, unstoppable, and uncontrollable. He couldn’t even stop if he wanted to. There was no option but to sit down and watch the Welshman pace himself out and that’s what the Rear Admiral did.

“The only goddamned bonus to that ridiculous fake wedding nonsense was getting Naketha into custody,” Ewan said, fuming. “With her lost, tell me what we’re left with? Some complete unknown running about between the decks of 499 and egg all over our faces, not to mention a dead security officer… That’s what we’re left with!”

“I would be thankful that we didn’t lose more,” Blackmore pointed out to him.

“Yeah, well, we came close. That’s for sure,” his friend retorted.

“Look, Ewan, I have to…”

“Go on, go,” the Captain snapped at him. It wasn’t out of annoyance at Ed, of course, but rather just his general temperament that couldn’t be helped. “I’m sorry, Boxer, but you’re just watching me wear myself down here. Thanks for coming over all the same.”

“Just take it easy, all right?,” came the parting warning. “I’m ordering Fortitude back onto her mission of exploration in the morning. There’s nothing more that you can do here. We’ll stay in touch but maybe getting back out into space will distract you from the nightmare of the past few days. It’s the best that I can do.”

“Thank you… Oh, and say hey to Veth for me, okay?”

“I always do.”

The Rear Admiral left the Captain alone with his thoughts. He just kept beating himself up over and over again, mentally kicking himself for allowing Hawkins aboard his Norway-class starship in the first place. That whole approach of his, openness and honesty, was all one giant ruse, and like a complete fool, the Welshman had actually gone along with it.

Why?

After all of this time, he knew that the spy couldn’t have changed. But no, sure, let’s go see NAketha in the Brig. That should be no problem…

Idiot!

The desktop console beeped and it took a repeating beep to catch the Captain’s attention.

There was an incoming message. It was just enough to rip Ewan away from his pacing. Storming over to his desk, letting his anger guide his actions, he almost punched the console’s answer button, rocking the monitor back and forth. The face that greeted him only served to intensify his rage.

“Hello, Ewan.”

“Hawkins, you son of a bitch!”

“Please restrain yourself. There isn’t much time. In two minutes, a virus will sweep through your computer systems and erase all mention of my visit. It will also erase all mention of Naketha and her capture, along with this conversation… but I wanted you to know the truth beforehand, Ewan. I wanted you to know that I had won.”

“You’ve got her, haven’t you?”

“Don’t patronize me with such obvious questions.”

“Is she alive?,” Llewellyn demanded to know. “Hawkins, did you kill her?”

“What difference does that make? In whatever state that she may occupy, Naketha is the property of Section Thirty-One. If you attempt to pursue me, I will have no choice but to destroy you from within. Your career, Ewan, will be over. You’ll have no evidence to back up your ridiculous claims about me. You’ll have no evidence to show that you had captured an agent of the Tal Shiar either. I’ve run you through and I’ve taken great pleasure in doing so. I suggest that you don’t give me any further incentive.”

“And I’m just supposed to accept that?”

“No. You will accept that.”

The faint whisperings of diabolical laughter echoed over the communications system as Ewan failed to contain his wrath any longer. Yelling with all of his might, he brought his artificial forearm thundering down into the monitor, shattered the glass desk beneath it, and ended his conversation abruptly. Sparking relays and broken shards of glass littered the area as the trembling Welshman just stood there, scowling at the floor.

He had been well and truly defeated.


EPILOGUE

“Perhaps he did you a favor in the end.”

“What do you mean?”

Valerie Archer took a deep breath as she braced herself for the possible fallout that her musings would generate. Finding her lover in such a terrible station had been shocking, to say the least, and bringing him down to some level of calm had been a mammoth undertaking. Now, several hours later as Fortitude prepared to restart her mission of exploration, the First Officer was fearful of sparking that temper back into existence.

Ewan was back in control, however. Merely having her at his side was enough to guide his pulse away from dangerous levels. There was no alternative but to accept the outcome of Hawkins’ visit and move on. Talking in hindsight served to reinforce that approach, solidifying the dreadful few days in harmless history.

“Taking Naketha away, out of reach… Hell, maybe even killing her,” the Commander ventured,” saves you the constant shadow that he was casting over your days. Hawkins inadvertently defused a possible photon torpedo.”

“You may be right,” Ewan sheepishly admitted. “You’re the only one who knows the true extent of my feelings towards Naketha. That time that I was prepared to shoot her…”

“I remember.”

“Well, I guess we’ll never know what would have happened, will we?”

“From my perspective,” Valerie smiled,” I think that it’s better that way. What about yours?”

“What about my what?”

“Your perspective. Do you regret… I don’t know…”

“If you’re asking me if I regret not having the option of killing Naketha myself, then the answer is emphatically negative,” he reassured his beloved. “The day that I lament the chance to commit murder is the day that I stop being Human. Don’t worry, Valerie. That day isn’t here yet.”

Valerie Archer sighed with relief.

She chose to ignore the use of the word ‘yet’.


The End.

 

[Cobalt Frost]

We wonders if the nasssty agents aren't in cahoots, eh Precious? We waits to find out, yes...

 

[admiralelm11]

Who let Gollum in the studio? He's supposed to be next door on the LOTR set!

 

[admiralelm11]

Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Five, Episode Seven - “The Good Fight, Part One”
By Jack D. Elmlinger


PROLOGUE

Arden Vuro cowered as the cloud of debris showered his bald head.

Deafened by the sounds of rumbling artillery, the Bolian helmsman felt a sudden pang of empathy with those who had fought and died in the various ground assaults that made up the terrible history of the Dominion War. Such war zones were not places that could be easily forgotten. He wished he could forget this place. Alas, he was part of it now. It wasn’t his history yet. It was his present and he had to fight.

With his rugged combat boots digging into the dust, he hauled himself away from the shelter and took wild aim with the ugly plasma rifle that he wielded. If given half a choice, he would have discarded the rifle. It was a brutal thing with a complete lack of a stun setting. The shots that hit their targets caused ghastly wounds that proved to be fatal anywhere between a second and an hour, depending on which part of the target was hit.

Arden would have traded anything for a Starfleet-issue phaser. Anything with a stun setting or anything to keep himself from taking any lives. Sure, they were twisted and misguided. Some of them were even lives with pure unforgivable evil, but they were lives all the same.

Leaping across the ruins of the town, with rubble attempting to trip him over as his athletic legs stormed forward, he sent three rounds of deadly plasma energy towards the nearest gathering of enemy soldiers. It was laughable to call them soldiers. They were people without honor, rank, and not adverse to committing severe war crimes that showed that they were entirely devoid of morality. No… they were the enemy, plain and simple.

Vuro had to believe in what he was doing. It would keep him sane. When all was said and done here, he wanted to return to the helm of Fortitude with a level head and a newfound appreciation of his career.

Ah, Fortitude… his life as a Starfleet lieutenant. How he had missed it already.

Narrowly avoiding the returning fire, he slammed himself back down into the dust and broken remains of the town’s clock tower. The broken face of the timepiece provided temporary cover from the battle. Arden gratefully used the seconds to gulp a few mouthfuls of air and found himself pondering just how he had gotten here.

How had he landed himself in this mess?

Why was he fighting this fight?


ACT ONE

TWO DAYS EARLIER.


“Ah, Lieutenant, please take a seat.”

There was only mind confusion present on his blue face. Doing as suggested, Arden carefully placed himself at one end of the Observation Lounge’s table and cast his eyes over the occupants at the other end. Captain Llewellyn was joined this morning by somebody that the helmsman had never seen before. He was obviously from the surface of the Class-M planet that Fortitude was currently orbiting. Keveshi VI was the latest addition to the First Contact registry for this part of the Beta Quadrant. They had been here for a lengthy two weeks already, meaning that he had spotted a few Keveshians wandering the corridors of the Norway-class starship.

“This is Chancellor Ravka,” Ewan introduced. “Chancellor, this is Lieutenant Arden Vuro, my helmsman and friend of almost five years.”

Vuro nodded politely towards the visitor who returned the gesture. The Keveshians were a stately race. Their average height seemed to be a few inches taller than the average crew member aboard Fortitude. Otherwise, they looked more or less like Humans… that was, except for the eyes. Just above the usual pair, squarely in the center of their foreheads, another pair of eyes blinked away. He could only imagine what looking through them would be like. Such was his reason for being out here, seeing new sights and meeting new people.

“Arden,” Ewan continued with little pause,” I’ve called you in here for a very special and important mission. As you know, since the end of the Dominion War, the Federation had been eager to accept new members. Our First Contact with the Keveshians has gone so well that I’ve received permission from the Federation Council to begin a survey. We are to assess the potential membership status of Keveshi VI.”

“That’s excellent news,” the Bolian grinned.

“It would be,” the stern tone of Chancellor Ravka reverberated,” were my people not suffering from a political crisis of confidence!”

“I don’t quite follow -- “

“Let me explain the situation,” offered the Captain, moving to the halfway point of the Observation Lounge and resting himself on the table’s shining surface. “There is a faction of dangerous insurgents causing political heat on Keveshi VI. They've seized four major towns near the capital through brutal oppression and highly illegal means. Normally, it isn’t the policy of the United Federation of Planets to get involved in such turmoil and this is no different. However, the Chancellor, out of honesty, came to me this morning and told me all about the insurgency.

Arden nodded. This was all starting to make sense now. If Keveshi VI was welcomed into the Federation, only to be overrun by a radical group of revolutionaries, it would be a disgrace to a weakened and desperate Federation Council. Leaning back in his chair, the Lieutenant also drew parallels with events from his past. His actions on his own homeworld of Bolarus IX, came to mind, along with the current tension on Santrag II. it seemed that rising up against the government was becoming a running theme in his life.

“The assessment of Keveshi VI’s potential membership must include an assessment of these insurgents,” Llewellyn went on. “The Chancellor makes some serious claims against them. Claims that are rather horrific.”

“Such as?”

“They have no problems with using biogenic weapons but that isn’t the worst part of it. They enlist, brainwash, and fight using child soldiers. While the first point is enough to cause a gigantic legal and moral black home into which this entire assessment could vanish, the second is simply… well, I can tell from your reaction that you and I, Lieutenant, are on the same wavelength, correct?”

He was correct. Vuro’s blue hands were balled up into fists at the mere mention of using a fighting force that contained children. There was something about the concept that made his acidic blood rush at twice the normal speed. Noticing this reaction as well, Chancellor Ravka stepped forward to Ewan’s side.

“Federation membership could unify my people and stop this madness,” he pleaded in genuine desperation,” but our intelligence on the insurgents isn’t enough for your Captain’s assessment report. We require proof of their crimes.”

“Is this where I come in?,” Vuro asked.

“Yes,” Llewellyn replied quickly. “I’m going to give you a very unusual order. We need to place an operative inside the insurgency. To establish a workable cover would usually take months, but a recent counterattack against one of the insurgent camps robbed them of their more experienced pilot. They’re desperate for anybody with flying skills. We were hoping that means the door should be open enough for you.”

“Without wanting to be obvious,” the Bolian pointed out to them cautiously,” but I hardly think that I would blend into a crowd of Keveshian nationals.”

“Our spaceports are rife with insurgent recruitment centers,” Ravka was quick to respond. “The fact that you’re not Keveshian will not be a problem. From what my agents have been able to gather, the insurgents use mercenaries for certain jobs that don’t require a belief in their cause. A pilot is one of those jobs. Once you have proven your skills to one of their regional cell leaders, you’ll be useful.”

“I’m sorry, but your own agents… Why not use one of them?”

Ravka hung his head in shame.

“It would seem that the insurgency has supporters inside my government,” he whispered in embarrassed tones. “Recently, a list of our undercover agents was broadcast across the planet. It resulted in the cold-blooded public executions of thirty men and women.”

“Oh,” Vuro gulped,” great…”

“All I’m asking is that you get in there and establish that biogenic weapons and child soldiers are actual tactics of the insurgency,” Llewellyn concluded. “You’ll have six days to keep your cover and gather your proof. After that, we’ll automatically beam you back to safety. There will be no communication during those six days. Do you understand what this entails, Lieutenant?”

“I understand, Captain,” he answered immediately. “When do I leave?”

“You’re a good man, Arden,” Ewan smiled.


* * * *


“I’ll be keeping a constant lock on your biosigns,” Katherine Pulaski explained as her colleague mounted the transporter pad. Arden had abandoned his Starfleet uniform, going for a dirty-looking brown jacket that simply screamed ‘mercenary’ no matter what language that you spoke. He gave the Doctor a grateful little wave as she concluded her reassurance. “At the first sign of trouble, I’ll order you beamed up. Hopefully, this infernal contraption won’t bring you back inside-out.”

“Thank you,” said the Bolian confidently,” but with my luck, I’ll be returning in six days and your efforts will be for nothing.”

Lieutenant Commander Sollik had also dutifully shown up in the Transporter Room to bid farewell and good luck to his friend. If there was one thing that the Suliban respected, it was bravery. Bravery had once made him put aside his differences with a certain ensign long enough to wish him well. In this situation here, it just amplified the value of his friendship with the helmsman.

“Watch your back,” he hissed, his green scales morphing into a smirk.

“I always do,” Vuro nodded. “Okay, energize…”


ACT TWO

He materialized in the storage locker that he expected to.

Beyond the flimsy metallic door before him, Arden could hear the bustling sounds of the busiest spaceport on Keveshi VI. A myriad of species would greet his eyes with their various accompanying smells filling his nostrils already.

This was it.

There was no turning back, not at this stage.

There was no combadge on his person and no way of contacting his ship in orbit. Just Pulaski at a biosign monitor watching his general movements.

Well, this was certainly a challenge, wasn’t it? Vuro relished it, but above that, he relished the idea of scoring points against the hateful beings that would use innocent children as soldiers to fight in their cause.

Reaching the door’s handle, he paused. Slowly, he pointed the index finger of his left hand towards the ceiling. Dipping his bald head, he let the finger trace the bifurcating ridge split vertically from his forehead to his chin. He whispered a prayer from the teachings of the First Church of Bolarus IX as he went, his eyes screwed tightly shut. He was about to undertake the most dangerous assignment of his entire career. It didn’t hurt to make sure that the gods were on his side.

His eyes snapping back open, Arden pulled on the door.

The sensations of the spaceport instantly and relentlessly slammed into him.

Adopting an expression of pure wonderment, the helmsman couldn’t help himself. It was all so exciting for an explorer to walk through. Despite the easily forgotten duranium construct that surrounded the teeming variety of life, Arden thought that it was one of the most impressive sights that he had ever had the honor of seeing. There had to be upwards of fifteen different species, all of them occupying one and all of them, save for the native Keveshians, were completely unknown to the Bolian. He could have spent hours, just meeting and learning about aliens in this one boarding ramp… and he wanted to.

“Focus, Lieutenant,” he growled under his breath. “Not now!”

The expression had to change. It took a second to force it away from amazement and back into the easygoing, distant stare that he thought would be best suited for his character. For yes, when undercover, one played a role and his role was that of a mercenary pilot. Luckily, he never had the misfortune of meeting such an individual so he was forced to improvise.

After several minutes of strolling about, the improvisation seemed to work. He fleetingly made eye contact with a burly Keveshian.

That was all it would take.


* * * *


Seven hours. It had to be some kind of a record.

Within seven hours, Vuro was standing in a dirty, rundown bunker that was some fifty feet under the central plaza of an insurgent-held town. Either side of him snarled Keveshians of deep mistrust. They refused to stop glowering at him, fearing that even blinking would give the Bolian the instant that he needed to attack… If he wanted to attack, which they immediately suspected. The insurgency had been nearly crippled by agents of the government that they so reviled. This off-world hotshot could be anybody or working for anybody. For that reason alone, nobody blinked.

Passing under a dripping pipe and not caring for the substance that rolled down his armored shoulder, a towering Keveshian emerged from the dark recesses of the bunker and loomed over Vuro. without giving into the soul-crushing feat that danced a wicked dance through his intestines, the helmsman simply tilted his head accordingly and gazed with a deliberate lack of care at the obvious insurgent leader. Two Bolian eyes met four Keveshian ones and, for a good deal of time, nothing happened.

“You’re a pilot, yes?,” the leader finally demanded to know.

“That’s why I’m here,” Arden retorted. “I heard that you were looking for one…?”

“I’m Nakrava. I don’t recognize your species.”

“I’m Vuro, Arden Vuro, and I’m a Bolian. I’m a long way from home and let’s put it at that.”

“Ah, a drifter…?”

“I prefer mercenary but sure…”

Nakrava laughed. Much like Chancellor Rakva back in Fortitude’s Observation Lounge, the insurgent leader had a reverberating tone that echoed around the bunker and caused the tension level to lift slightly. As he laughed, he puffed up his impressive chest muscles as a sign of dominance. Playing it fast and loose, Vuro copied him, flexing his athletic form under his dirty jacket and getting attention for doing so.

“I like you, Vuro,” Nakrava admitted to him.

“Does that mean I’m hired?”

“Not as yet. You must be tested. I need to make sure that money is all that you care about from this venture. You see, my soldiers and I are fighting for a cause and we aren’t afraid to do anything to obtain our goal. Mercenaries are easy to use. They’re single-minded, simple to control… and effortlessly disposed of. I want you to remember that in case you have any untoward reaction to the test.”

“And what test would that be?”

“Follow me…”

Decaying as it was, the bunker had a launch bay. Boots thundering against the cold concrete floor, Nakrava marched Arden and his two guards into the center of it. Waiting for some unknown frontier to deliver her deadly payload, there was a Keveshian tactical dropship. She had seen better days with her hull plating having lost the war against rust, long ago, but she was worthy of flight… and probably not expected to return from the battlegrounds of the insurgency.

What was the point in keeping her repaired?

“Your test,” Nakrava announced dramatically, his arms sweeping wide,” and your first assignment, worth ten thousand credits if you should survive, is to fly this dropship to the town approximately eighteen eshni to the south. You’ll land, make sure she’s unloaded and return here. Do you think you can manage it?”

“Sure,” Vuro said, truthfully. “What’s this untoward reaction that you spoke of?”

“Many of our pilots dislike the nature of the cargo.”

“Really? Why?”

Nakrava answered by pressing the hatch release on the side of the dropship. With a sinister hiss of the hydraulics, the tarnished surface was flung aside, revealing a sight that nearly made Arden lose his cover completely. Seated in rows of then, adding up to a grand total of forty, were members of the insurgency fighting force. They swayed back and forth with a unison only achieved through constant brainwashing and blatant trauma, all of them clutching hideous plasma rifles like they were cherished toys. Each one of them stared blankly at nothing, their four round eyes glistening with unshed tears.

The oldest of them looked to be about sixteen years old. The youngest looked like they were only six.

Child soldiers… ready for combat.