Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Two - Episode 10 - “Call Sheet”
By Jack D. Elmlinger
PROLOGUE
She wondered if he would remember her.
Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore’s reaction to seeing Doctor Katherine Pulaski again told her all that she needed to know. He had obviously changed considerably since his Academy days and he had also fast-tracked his way up the promotion ladder. The bars around his rank pips suited him, she thought, smiling as they chose to embrace rather than shake hands formally. It wasn’t like they had parted on bad terms. Edward had graduated and had been posted away from Earth. Besides, their relationship was more friendly than romantic, despite several exciting… moments.
Blackmore introduced her to Station Master Erica Martinez before taking her personally to Starbase 499’s extensive sickbay facility. It was almost three times the size of a standard Federation starship’s Sickbay and Pulaski’s reaction was one of wide-eyed wonder. She had seen such places but she had never actually headed one before.
“Do you think you’re up to the challenge, Kate?,” Blackmore asked with a grin.
“Challenge, Boxer?,” Pulaski replied with a note of concern. “I was told that this was the quiet corner of Federation space.”
“Relax. I jest,” the Rear Admiral reassured her, his grin broadening from behind his greying beard as he moved towards the center console in the doctor’s office and tapping a few commands into the LCARS display. “Let the record show that as of thirteen-hundred hours on Stardate 50484, Commander Katherine Pulaski has been officially enlisted as the Chief Medical Officer of Starbase 499. Authorization: Blackmore-Alpha-Three-Eight-Two. Transfer all medical command operations.”
“Thank you, Boxer,” Pulaski smiled, settling down behind her desk.
“If you need anything, just call.”
“You know,” she said with confidence,” I think I’ll do just fine.”
ACT ONE
Captain’s Log, Stardate 50484.6;
Upon delivering Doctor Pulaski back to the Santrag system to begin her new position as Chief Medical Officer of Starbase 499, we have received a rare update from Starfleet Command concerning the growing tensions between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. For a year now, we’ve kept a simmering distance from them but it seems that sporadic conflicts along our borders are increasing. I’ve been given a call sheet direct from Admiral Bullock, requesting that several key personnel from Fortitude be sent to the front lines. I am not happy about this to say the least… but orders are orders…
“Damn it, Boxer! They’re screwing us!”
It was an uncharacteristic outburst from Ewan Llewellyn. Standing over his desk monitor in his Ready Room aboard Fortitude, his fists were clenched into balls as he blurted out his feelings regarding the call sheet to Rear Admiral Blackmore aboard Starbase 499. His cheeks were flushed red to match the shoulders of his uniform. He hated the idea of giving up his own people, his trusted officers, and crew, to some battle happening lightyears away from here. It was enraging nonsense to the captain who treated his colleagues like they were family.
“You told me that we were pretty much left alone out here,” he continued, his tirade now turning on Blackmore as the older man’s face fell in shock. “You told me that Starfleet forgot about us and rarely interfered. Well, I’d call this interfering, wouldn’t you?”
“Calm down, Ewan!,” Blackmore snapped at him. “I don’t like it either. I’ve seen the call sheet too. You’re losing some decent people, but Ewan, this is the Federation we’re talking about. A conflict to save us from a hostile aggressor! It’s our duty!”
“Bollocks to duty,” Llewellyn heard himself say in a curious out-of-body moment. “You know as well as I do that the Klingons kick up trouble every few years and we engage them in a few border skirmishes! Then we all sign another treaty and sit down to dinner! It’s overkill, Boxer, calling up personnel like this!”
“Not this time, Ewan. The situation has everybody worried. What with Ben Sisko over at Deep Space Nine and the growing threat of the Dominion, this Klingon situation needs a resolution, and the only language that they understand is the language of war.”
Ewan sighed, cooling over after he realized the power of his last statement. Slumping down into his chair behind his desk, he gave his full attention to Blackmore on the monitor screen and rubbed his tired eyes. Yes, this situation was hitting him where it hurt. This was an annoying example of Starfleet Command meddling in their little corner of space, but duty was duty, despite his previous outburst. Orders were orders, and there was nothing that he could do about them.
“Have you told them yet?,” the Rear Admiral asked him slowly.
“Their department heads are dealing with it.”
“What about Ensign Morgan? He’s a department head himself.”
“He’s on his way over here now. I’ll tell him personally.”
“Do you think he’ll like it?”
“Jim’s not the problem,” Llewellyn realized. “Ensign Armstrong? That’ll be the problem.”
How right the captain was.
* * * *
An hour later, Jim Morgan pressed the doorbell outside his partner’s quarters. It was something that he rarely bothered with. When Jason Armstrong opened the door, he was met with the ashen face of his lover and immediately knew that something was wrong. Quickly, he beckoned Jim inside and replicated them two cups of coffee before a single word was exchanged between them. There was an uneasy pause. Jason was waiting for Jim to start talking and Jim was waiting for Jason to ask him what the matter was. Knowing that he couldn’t wait any longer, it was the tactical officer who broke the silence.
“I’m being transferred,” he said.
“What?,” Jason gasped, feeling like he had been punched in the gut by a Nausicaan.
“The orders came through this morning,” Jim continued. “This Klingon nonsense has come to a head and Starfleet has issued call sheets to all systems and starships to requisition tactical personnel. I’m being assigned to the USS McCaffrey and deploying to an outpost along the border.”
Jason had stopped listening. The ache from the punch he had felt was fading away, just as he felt that he was. Falling into an endless chasm with Jim watched him from above… This was terrible news. It would have been bad enough just transferring the love of his life away from the Santrag system but to a war zone? It was everybody’s worst nightmare… and a conflict with the Klingons? Some people called them the ultimate enemy, the warrior race that sharpened their teeth before going into battle. They were a race that thrived on combat and desired violence.
No… no… this was wrong. This wasn’t what it was supposed to be life, not one bit. Slowly, his head began to shake, his blonde hair falling over his eyes as if to shield them as they began to well up with tears.
“Oh my God,” he mumbled.
“I know,” Jim nodded, trying to comfort him.
“Will you be coming back? I mean, when you’ve won…”
“If we win, Jay,” the tactical officer corrected him, never being one for false hope.
“When you’ve won, Jim,” Jason repeated, dismissing the correction without missing a single beat and clinging to whatever hope that he could, false or not. “Will you be coming back to Fortitude? To me?”
“Of course, I will! This isn’t my choice, damn it!”
“Okay…,” Jason breathed, apparently having some difficulty. It didn’t go unnoticed. Jim reached forward and grabbed his boyfriend’s head, cradling it in his arms as the tears were finally unleashed. They rolled down the Kentuckian’s trembling face as his breathing returned to normal, the outpouring of emotion helping. “Okay… okay… I’m okay… honestly…”
“No, you’re not,” Jim told him, keeping his own tears threatening to breach the surface and deciding to let them. “You’re not because I’m not, either.”
Together, they remained like this, holding each other, crying not over what was, but over what might be. It was the unknown quantity in the entire situation that was the most threatening, and the most frightening. The McCaffrey could see the entire conflict through without a scratch. Yet she could be the first ship to be claimed in the name of glory for the Klingon Empire.
So they cried.
They cried over what might be.
ACT TWO
The only person aboard Fortitude halfway pleased with the day was Sollik.
He was working in Engineering on a few upgrades, making the best of Starbase 499’s extensive facilities before the Intrepid-class starship would once again soar into the unknown depths of the Beta Quadrant. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge that the Suliban chief engineer had some serious prejudice towards the homosexual couple that were about to be separated by Starfleet Command. Still, the brightening of his usually-gruff mood was enough to make a few people take notice. Gradually, the news trickled through the decks of the ship and found its way to the ears of the Bolian helmsman, Lieutenant Arden Vuro.
“You are unbelievable!”
Looking up from his status display monitor, Sollik glared at his friend as he stormed into Engineering and headed right towards him. Gritting his teeth, as he was nowhere prepared for a social debate right now, he tried to turn away. However, the scene being created before him was one that he couldn’t escape from.
“Don’t you turn away from me!,” Vuro snapped at him. “I said you’re unbelievable!”
“Stand down, Lieutenant!,” Sollik hissed back in return, pulling rank quite effectively. “I know what you’re going to say! Curse this ship. There are no secrets on a ship this small. Damn, how true that is today…”
The Bolian stopped dead in his tracks.
“Come with me,” the Suliban beckoned to him, leading his friend away from the prying eyes of the engineering crew and to a small secluded corner. Despite his defense of the regulations, he could overlook the outburst. Arden was the closest thing that he had to a friend aboard and the only person that he felt that he could talk to. “Look, don’t blame me for being happy about Ensign Morgan’s transfer. He has caused me serious injury in the past and --”
“Bullshit!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You and I both know that your intolerance towards same-sex relationships is responsible for your mood! You’re glad to see the back of him because you don’t want to be serving alongside two men who love each other!”
Sollik was reaching the end of his tether and his patience was running out. “So what?,” he retorted back. “I mean, so what? Who cares? Besides, you are way out of line, Arden. You’re fortunate that I’m in a better mood today!”
“Don’t drag rank into this. I came here as your friend. I’m sorry to say that I won’t be leaving here in the same capacity.”
Ouch…
Even Sollik visibly recoiled at that razor-sharp comment from the helmsman as his green scales contorted into a scowl. Is it really that disgusting to have such prejudice? Vuro was always the one for embracing other cultures. So what if Suliban culture was intolerant of same-sex mating? His will was strong, his cultural identity secure and immovable. If staying true to his upbringing would cost him his friend, then so be it. Of all people, Arden should understand and a small part of the chief engineer hoped that maybe it would even make him back down.
“Fine,” he eventually snarled at him.
With nothing further to say, Vuro wasn’t backing down as Sollik had hoped. Turning, he fired off a final comment over his shoulder before his relationship with the Suliban returning to nothing more than colleagues inside of a chain of command.
“Like I said, you’re unbelievable.”
The call sheet wasn’t just destroying those upon it.
* * * *
Katherine Pulaski had enjoyed her first day.
Stepping into Rear Admiral Blackmore’s office before heading back to her new quarters aboard Starbase 499 for a well-deserved drink and an early night’s rest, she immediately detected the changed mood. With a face in synchronicity with the downbeat atmosphere, he gave a half-hearted smile towards his old friend.
“What’s the matter?,” Pulaski asked him.
“Oh, nothing,” Edward lied before he realized that he had lied unconvincingly. “Starfleet sent through some transfer orders and it’s breaking apart a few relationships, and sending away some friends. It’s not pretty for morale to put it that way.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Pulaski replied, her tone even and detached. After all, she didn’t know anybody here yet. It wasn’t her place to grieve alongside her newfound colleagues quite yet.
“No, I’m sorry, Kate,” Blackmore apologized, gesturing towards her. “It’s just, well… we gain one but we lose ten. Those numbers are numbers that I could live without.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Later, perhaps. Status report. How has your first day been?”
* * * *
Her day had certainly been more upbeat than the day that Jason Armstrong and Jim Morgan had endured. With his shift coming to an end, a cloud of melancholy dominated his mindset as he trudged back to his quarters, Ensign Armstrong almost dreaded facing his partner. While on the Bridge, his mind hadn’t been really on his duties as the crew prepared Fortitude for their next adventurous leap into the nether regions of the Beta Quadrant. He had come to a conclusion, a course of action that he felt justified in asking and in trying to pursue. Jim wouldn’t like it but there it was, his only option,” the young Kentuckian thought with his resolve strong and his emotions weak.
Entering his quarters, he found Jim already there. They shared a knowing look that threatened to bring back the tears from earlier. Blinking that torrent of emotions away, Jason replicated himself a coffee and joined his boyfriend.
“How are you holding up?,” the tactical officer asked him, looking concerned.
“Not well, Jim,” Jason admitted to him, knowing full well that keeping a secret was difficult and lying was entirely out of the question. “I’ve only thought about one thing all day. It’s an image that I never want to see and never want to face…”
“Let me guess…”
“... and it’s you leaving,” Jason continued, interrupting him and wanting to get the speech that he had played over, a thousand times in his head, finished. “You’re on the transporter pad and you disappear forever. I never get you back, Jim. I could never get you back, and I don’t think I could do too well with that.”
His voice was crackling. He had to get this out in the open.
“Don’t leave.”
“Jay…,” Jim sighed, placing a hand on his yellow-topped shoulder.
“I know, I know… orders are orders. So don’t follow them. Jim, I want you to resign your commission and leave Starfleet.”
ACT THREE
It had blown open a mountain of possibilities.
The shocking request, which was almost unthinkable to Jim Morgan, had knocked him off-balance, instantly dividing his mind straight down the middle. The young ensign had two passions in his life. There was Jason Armstrong, of course, and there was his duty to Starfleet and the Federation. Now one of those passions had asked him to abandon the other. It was tearing him up inside, fighting a silent battle with himself with no backup or support from anybody or anything to help him. Jason, his closest confidant, and best friend was far too biased to be objective about the situation. So they remained silent. The request went unanswered and the evening had been uncomfortable.
Waking up early, Jim enjoyed the brief seconds of rebirth when his mind failed to catch up to his stirring body. For the most perfect of moments, he was oblivious to the call sheet and the possibility of frontline service in the Federation/Klingon War. Instead, he was a young healthy man in bed alongside the love of his life.
Then came the memory. It was a creeping insidious memory that made him want to run and hide. A tear had graced his dark skin, rolling down through the stubble on his chin and dropping down onto the pillow beneath him. Watching the stain expand as the moisture was soaked up by the fabric, Jim saw it as blood and felt sick.
Would it be his blood?
Would we suffer at the hands of the call sheet physically as well as emotionally?
Could his sense of loyalty to Starfleet result in his death?
Sliding away from the bed that no longer seemed safe and had become a harbor for his nightmares instead of a safe haven for his dreams, he donned his uniform and quietly left his quarters without eating breakfast. Heading for the Bridge, he was on autopilot, his thought process hardly taking in the route or the bulkheads or even the murmured commands to the turbolift that he managed to remember. The fog was broken when he reached the Bridge and turned towards the tactical console.
Sollik was there.
Crouched inside the small alcove, he was replacing an EPS relay.
Both of them noted each other’s presence. Standing to his full height, the Suliban chief engineer locked his gleaming yellow eyes upon the tactical officer of Earth Indian descent. A tiny snarl of displeasure crossed his lips, the green scales of his face contorting in a wordless expression of loathing.
Jim wasn’t in the mood so he simply stood aside and let him pass by. The tension was unbearable but it was thick enough to serve as Fortitude’s defensive shield grid, he thought to himself in an odd moment of sarcasm. His mind was such a mess that it hardly surprised him.
Sollik paused before entering the turbolift. “I suppose I should wish you good luck on your new assignment,” he hissed at him.
“Only if you want to,” was Jim’s retort.
That should have been the end of the conversation but Sollik found himself continuing to speak, despite his prejudiced mindset. For whatever distrust or hatred that he had manifested in his prickly relationship with Ensign Morgan, he was still a Starfleet officer and still a principled man. The problem was his own principles telling him to object to same-sex pairings.
“For what it is worth,” he continued with sincerity,” I respect your bravery.”
“Pardon me?”
“Facing the Klingons… will be difficult. I respect your bravery.”
Sollik literally fled into the turbolift after that, trying to escape his uncharacteristic generosity of comment and wondering whether Lieutenant Vuro’s almost violent reaction to his prejudice, the other day, had changed his mind and forced him to reconsider some of his positions.
Watching the Suliban leave in stunned silence, Jim found his way behind the tactical console and felt a part of the fog clear from his mind. The surprise praise from the chief engineer… Was it leaving him in shock? Was that it? For some reason, it struck the right chord, the right note, and slowly… Sam felt a smile emerge from the depression within him.
He loved Jason Armstrong. There was no question of that.
In that instance, he made his decision.
He would fight for what he believed in, stand up for the freedom that the Federation represented and do battle against the tyrannical Klingon threat. He wouldn’t run like a coward, leaving it up to other people to decide his fate. If there was something that he could do to help and if that something was a posting aboard the USS McCaffrey, then that was what he would do.
* * * *
The other nine officers on the call sheet were aboard the two Danube-class runabouts waiting alongside Starbase 499 for departure. Jim Morgan was the last of them to leave the Fortitude behind, the last to make his farewells, and the last remaining person in Transporter Room One who didn’t belong there anymore. Proudly, he faced Captain Ewan Llewellyn with a fixed expression of warmth, yet with tradition and respect as he listened to the Welshman’s heartfelt farewell.
“When you came aboard, a year ago,” Ewan was saying,” you were joining us midway through a mission, facing unknowns that we had encountered for the first time. I’ve never known anybody to adapt so quickly or as smoothly as you, Jim. It was as you have been with us since day one. I can only hope that you settle into life aboard the McCaffrey with the same professional ease and I know you will. They’re a lucky ship and a lucky crew to have you aboard, and it’s been an honor to have served with you.”
“The honor was mine, Captain,” Jim replied.
Turning, he faced Commander Valerie Archer and Lieutenant Arden Vuro, his two other friends from the Bridge, and Doctor Lynn Boswell. Naturally, Sollik was absent from the senior staff sendoff but he was sure that everybody had heard the words that they had previously exchanged on the Bridge, especially Vuro. The Bolian had subsequently apologized to the Suliban, mending their broken friendship for the time being as a final request of Jim’s. The call sheet was doing enough damage without turning those that it didn’t mention against one another.
“Each and every one of you have been excellent colleagues and dear friends,” the tactical officer told them collectively, not wanting to drag out any personal goodbyes separately. “I will miss you, but I’ll also look forward to the day that this Klingon business is wrapped up because I will be transferring back here quicker than you can order warp speed!”
Then came the last person in the room, the other senior officer left.
Jason Armstrong.
“Jay, I…,” Jim started to say.
“No, don’t,” he interrupted him. “I understand now. I’m sorry for the added pressure that I placed upon your decision.”
“I might have done the same thing,” Jim admitted truthfully. “I’d do anything to stay with you, to keep you safe and beside me because I love you so much. I won’t ever stop loving you. This duty that I’m undertaking is such a small thing to give back to the society that has allowed us to live together. I have to try.”
“I know… and if it’s possible, I love you even more for doing this.”
The transporter chief signaled from behind Jason that the runabout was ready to depart. The time had come for Jim to leave and Captain Llewellyn moved alongside him, motioning towards the transporter pad. Overcome by grief that was precariously balanced with pride, Jason suppressed a tear. His vision was coming true and suddenly he realized that Jim would be dematerializing at any moment. He couldn’t let it end like this, not without one final goodbye.
“Preparing to energize,” the transporter chief announced.
“Wait!,” Jason yelled.
Lurching forward and bounding up onto the transporter pad, he seized Jim’s face in his palms and gave him the most passionate kiss that he had ever managed, his hands running through his thick black hair and across his smooth cheeks. The assembled crewmembers had to suppress their own tears as they watched, letting the moment last as long as possible before Ewan gave a gentle cough.
Separating their interlocked lips, the couple parted.
With a final reassuring wink, Ensign Jim Morgan was beamed away.
EPILOGUE
He was gone.
It finally hit Jason Armstrong almost an hour after the two runabouts had jumped to warp, leaving the Santrag system behind… and taking Jim away from him. It hit him while he was walking through Fortitude’s corridors, and he slowly felt his legs weaken as his heart literally ached with a gut-wrenching feeling of loss and crippling sadness.
Reaching out, he supported his weight on the bulkhead as his spare hand clutched at his uniform as if it was trying to tear his damaged heart from out of his chest.
Walking around a corner as she had come aboard to deliver some medical supplies to Doctor Boswell, Katherine Pulaski saw Jason’s private moment of anguish on her way back to Starbase 499 and rushed over to his side.
“Are you all right, Ensign?”
When he raised his head, she recognized him and knew what the matter was.
“Ah… Ensign Armstrong, I presume?”
A feeble nod was his reply.
“You look exhausted. When was the last time that you slept?”
“Uh… I’m not sure, Doctor…”
“Tell you what,” Pulaski soothed him, reaching around his shoulders and helping him to a proper standing position. “You’re going to come with me and I’m going to fix you some PCS. we’ll talk about things and it’ll help you get some rest. No objections now. These are doctor’s orders, whether you like them or not.”
“PCS…?,” Jason mumbled in confusion.
“The best medicine available,” she answered him, guiding him with all of the careful attention and empathy that a proper doctor should have. “Come on now… Come with me…”
She was here to heal and heal is what she would do.
If there was one person who was in need of healing, it was Jason Armstrong.
The End.
Season Two - Episode 10 - “Call Sheet”
By Jack D. Elmlinger
PROLOGUE
She wondered if he would remember her.
Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore’s reaction to seeing Doctor Katherine Pulaski again told her all that she needed to know. He had obviously changed considerably since his Academy days and he had also fast-tracked his way up the promotion ladder. The bars around his rank pips suited him, she thought, smiling as they chose to embrace rather than shake hands formally. It wasn’t like they had parted on bad terms. Edward had graduated and had been posted away from Earth. Besides, their relationship was more friendly than romantic, despite several exciting… moments.
Blackmore introduced her to Station Master Erica Martinez before taking her personally to Starbase 499’s extensive sickbay facility. It was almost three times the size of a standard Federation starship’s Sickbay and Pulaski’s reaction was one of wide-eyed wonder. She had seen such places but she had never actually headed one before.
“Do you think you’re up to the challenge, Kate?,” Blackmore asked with a grin.
“Challenge, Boxer?,” Pulaski replied with a note of concern. “I was told that this was the quiet corner of Federation space.”
“Relax. I jest,” the Rear Admiral reassured her, his grin broadening from behind his greying beard as he moved towards the center console in the doctor’s office and tapping a few commands into the LCARS display. “Let the record show that as of thirteen-hundred hours on Stardate 50484, Commander Katherine Pulaski has been officially enlisted as the Chief Medical Officer of Starbase 499. Authorization: Blackmore-Alpha-Three-Eight-Two. Transfer all medical command operations.”
“Thank you, Boxer,” Pulaski smiled, settling down behind her desk.
“If you need anything, just call.”
“You know,” she said with confidence,” I think I’ll do just fine.”
ACT ONE
Captain’s Log, Stardate 50484.6;
Upon delivering Doctor Pulaski back to the Santrag system to begin her new position as Chief Medical Officer of Starbase 499, we have received a rare update from Starfleet Command concerning the growing tensions between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. For a year now, we’ve kept a simmering distance from them but it seems that sporadic conflicts along our borders are increasing. I’ve been given a call sheet direct from Admiral Bullock, requesting that several key personnel from Fortitude be sent to the front lines. I am not happy about this to say the least… but orders are orders…
“Damn it, Boxer! They’re screwing us!”
It was an uncharacteristic outburst from Ewan Llewellyn. Standing over his desk monitor in his Ready Room aboard Fortitude, his fists were clenched into balls as he blurted out his feelings regarding the call sheet to Rear Admiral Blackmore aboard Starbase 499. His cheeks were flushed red to match the shoulders of his uniform. He hated the idea of giving up his own people, his trusted officers, and crew, to some battle happening lightyears away from here. It was enraging nonsense to the captain who treated his colleagues like they were family.
“You told me that we were pretty much left alone out here,” he continued, his tirade now turning on Blackmore as the older man’s face fell in shock. “You told me that Starfleet forgot about us and rarely interfered. Well, I’d call this interfering, wouldn’t you?”
“Calm down, Ewan!,” Blackmore snapped at him. “I don’t like it either. I’ve seen the call sheet too. You’re losing some decent people, but Ewan, this is the Federation we’re talking about. A conflict to save us from a hostile aggressor! It’s our duty!”
“Bollocks to duty,” Llewellyn heard himself say in a curious out-of-body moment. “You know as well as I do that the Klingons kick up trouble every few years and we engage them in a few border skirmishes! Then we all sign another treaty and sit down to dinner! It’s overkill, Boxer, calling up personnel like this!”
“Not this time, Ewan. The situation has everybody worried. What with Ben Sisko over at Deep Space Nine and the growing threat of the Dominion, this Klingon situation needs a resolution, and the only language that they understand is the language of war.”
Ewan sighed, cooling over after he realized the power of his last statement. Slumping down into his chair behind his desk, he gave his full attention to Blackmore on the monitor screen and rubbed his tired eyes. Yes, this situation was hitting him where it hurt. This was an annoying example of Starfleet Command meddling in their little corner of space, but duty was duty, despite his previous outburst. Orders were orders, and there was nothing that he could do about them.
“Have you told them yet?,” the Rear Admiral asked him slowly.
“Their department heads are dealing with it.”
“What about Ensign Morgan? He’s a department head himself.”
“He’s on his way over here now. I’ll tell him personally.”
“Do you think he’ll like it?”
“Jim’s not the problem,” Llewellyn realized. “Ensign Armstrong? That’ll be the problem.”
How right the captain was.
* * * *
An hour later, Jim Morgan pressed the doorbell outside his partner’s quarters. It was something that he rarely bothered with. When Jason Armstrong opened the door, he was met with the ashen face of his lover and immediately knew that something was wrong. Quickly, he beckoned Jim inside and replicated them two cups of coffee before a single word was exchanged between them. There was an uneasy pause. Jason was waiting for Jim to start talking and Jim was waiting for Jason to ask him what the matter was. Knowing that he couldn’t wait any longer, it was the tactical officer who broke the silence.
“I’m being transferred,” he said.
“What?,” Jason gasped, feeling like he had been punched in the gut by a Nausicaan.
“The orders came through this morning,” Jim continued. “This Klingon nonsense has come to a head and Starfleet has issued call sheets to all systems and starships to requisition tactical personnel. I’m being assigned to the USS McCaffrey and deploying to an outpost along the border.”
Jason had stopped listening. The ache from the punch he had felt was fading away, just as he felt that he was. Falling into an endless chasm with Jim watched him from above… This was terrible news. It would have been bad enough just transferring the love of his life away from the Santrag system but to a war zone? It was everybody’s worst nightmare… and a conflict with the Klingons? Some people called them the ultimate enemy, the warrior race that sharpened their teeth before going into battle. They were a race that thrived on combat and desired violence.
No… no… this was wrong. This wasn’t what it was supposed to be life, not one bit. Slowly, his head began to shake, his blonde hair falling over his eyes as if to shield them as they began to well up with tears.
“Oh my God,” he mumbled.
“I know,” Jim nodded, trying to comfort him.
“Will you be coming back? I mean, when you’ve won…”
“If we win, Jay,” the tactical officer corrected him, never being one for false hope.
“When you’ve won, Jim,” Jason repeated, dismissing the correction without missing a single beat and clinging to whatever hope that he could, false or not. “Will you be coming back to Fortitude? To me?”
“Of course, I will! This isn’t my choice, damn it!”
“Okay…,” Jason breathed, apparently having some difficulty. It didn’t go unnoticed. Jim reached forward and grabbed his boyfriend’s head, cradling it in his arms as the tears were finally unleashed. They rolled down the Kentuckian’s trembling face as his breathing returned to normal, the outpouring of emotion helping. “Okay… okay… I’m okay… honestly…”
“No, you’re not,” Jim told him, keeping his own tears threatening to breach the surface and deciding to let them. “You’re not because I’m not, either.”
Together, they remained like this, holding each other, crying not over what was, but over what might be. It was the unknown quantity in the entire situation that was the most threatening, and the most frightening. The McCaffrey could see the entire conflict through without a scratch. Yet she could be the first ship to be claimed in the name of glory for the Klingon Empire.
So they cried.
They cried over what might be.
ACT TWO
The only person aboard Fortitude halfway pleased with the day was Sollik.
He was working in Engineering on a few upgrades, making the best of Starbase 499’s extensive facilities before the Intrepid-class starship would once again soar into the unknown depths of the Beta Quadrant. It wasn’t exactly common knowledge that the Suliban chief engineer had some serious prejudice towards the homosexual couple that were about to be separated by Starfleet Command. Still, the brightening of his usually-gruff mood was enough to make a few people take notice. Gradually, the news trickled through the decks of the ship and found its way to the ears of the Bolian helmsman, Lieutenant Arden Vuro.
“You are unbelievable!”
Looking up from his status display monitor, Sollik glared at his friend as he stormed into Engineering and headed right towards him. Gritting his teeth, as he was nowhere prepared for a social debate right now, he tried to turn away. However, the scene being created before him was one that he couldn’t escape from.
“Don’t you turn away from me!,” Vuro snapped at him. “I said you’re unbelievable!”
“Stand down, Lieutenant!,” Sollik hissed back in return, pulling rank quite effectively. “I know what you’re going to say! Curse this ship. There are no secrets on a ship this small. Damn, how true that is today…”
The Bolian stopped dead in his tracks.
“Come with me,” the Suliban beckoned to him, leading his friend away from the prying eyes of the engineering crew and to a small secluded corner. Despite his defense of the regulations, he could overlook the outburst. Arden was the closest thing that he had to a friend aboard and the only person that he felt that he could talk to. “Look, don’t blame me for being happy about Ensign Morgan’s transfer. He has caused me serious injury in the past and --”
“Bullshit!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You and I both know that your intolerance towards same-sex relationships is responsible for your mood! You’re glad to see the back of him because you don’t want to be serving alongside two men who love each other!”
Sollik was reaching the end of his tether and his patience was running out. “So what?,” he retorted back. “I mean, so what? Who cares? Besides, you are way out of line, Arden. You’re fortunate that I’m in a better mood today!”
“Don’t drag rank into this. I came here as your friend. I’m sorry to say that I won’t be leaving here in the same capacity.”
Ouch…
Even Sollik visibly recoiled at that razor-sharp comment from the helmsman as his green scales contorted into a scowl. Is it really that disgusting to have such prejudice? Vuro was always the one for embracing other cultures. So what if Suliban culture was intolerant of same-sex mating? His will was strong, his cultural identity secure and immovable. If staying true to his upbringing would cost him his friend, then so be it. Of all people, Arden should understand and a small part of the chief engineer hoped that maybe it would even make him back down.
“Fine,” he eventually snarled at him.
With nothing further to say, Vuro wasn’t backing down as Sollik had hoped. Turning, he fired off a final comment over his shoulder before his relationship with the Suliban returning to nothing more than colleagues inside of a chain of command.
“Like I said, you’re unbelievable.”
The call sheet wasn’t just destroying those upon it.
* * * *
Katherine Pulaski had enjoyed her first day.
Stepping into Rear Admiral Blackmore’s office before heading back to her new quarters aboard Starbase 499 for a well-deserved drink and an early night’s rest, she immediately detected the changed mood. With a face in synchronicity with the downbeat atmosphere, he gave a half-hearted smile towards his old friend.
“What’s the matter?,” Pulaski asked him.
“Oh, nothing,” Edward lied before he realized that he had lied unconvincingly. “Starfleet sent through some transfer orders and it’s breaking apart a few relationships, and sending away some friends. It’s not pretty for morale to put it that way.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Pulaski replied, her tone even and detached. After all, she didn’t know anybody here yet. It wasn’t her place to grieve alongside her newfound colleagues quite yet.
“No, I’m sorry, Kate,” Blackmore apologized, gesturing towards her. “It’s just, well… we gain one but we lose ten. Those numbers are numbers that I could live without.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Later, perhaps. Status report. How has your first day been?”
* * * *
Her day had certainly been more upbeat than the day that Jason Armstrong and Jim Morgan had endured. With his shift coming to an end, a cloud of melancholy dominated his mindset as he trudged back to his quarters, Ensign Armstrong almost dreaded facing his partner. While on the Bridge, his mind hadn’t been really on his duties as the crew prepared Fortitude for their next adventurous leap into the nether regions of the Beta Quadrant. He had come to a conclusion, a course of action that he felt justified in asking and in trying to pursue. Jim wouldn’t like it but there it was, his only option,” the young Kentuckian thought with his resolve strong and his emotions weak.
Entering his quarters, he found Jim already there. They shared a knowing look that threatened to bring back the tears from earlier. Blinking that torrent of emotions away, Jason replicated himself a coffee and joined his boyfriend.
“How are you holding up?,” the tactical officer asked him, looking concerned.
“Not well, Jim,” Jason admitted to him, knowing full well that keeping a secret was difficult and lying was entirely out of the question. “I’ve only thought about one thing all day. It’s an image that I never want to see and never want to face…”
“Let me guess…”
“... and it’s you leaving,” Jason continued, interrupting him and wanting to get the speech that he had played over, a thousand times in his head, finished. “You’re on the transporter pad and you disappear forever. I never get you back, Jim. I could never get you back, and I don’t think I could do too well with that.”
His voice was crackling. He had to get this out in the open.
“Don’t leave.”
“Jay…,” Jim sighed, placing a hand on his yellow-topped shoulder.
“I know, I know… orders are orders. So don’t follow them. Jim, I want you to resign your commission and leave Starfleet.”
ACT THREE
It had blown open a mountain of possibilities.
The shocking request, which was almost unthinkable to Jim Morgan, had knocked him off-balance, instantly dividing his mind straight down the middle. The young ensign had two passions in his life. There was Jason Armstrong, of course, and there was his duty to Starfleet and the Federation. Now one of those passions had asked him to abandon the other. It was tearing him up inside, fighting a silent battle with himself with no backup or support from anybody or anything to help him. Jason, his closest confidant, and best friend was far too biased to be objective about the situation. So they remained silent. The request went unanswered and the evening had been uncomfortable.
Waking up early, Jim enjoyed the brief seconds of rebirth when his mind failed to catch up to his stirring body. For the most perfect of moments, he was oblivious to the call sheet and the possibility of frontline service in the Federation/Klingon War. Instead, he was a young healthy man in bed alongside the love of his life.
Then came the memory. It was a creeping insidious memory that made him want to run and hide. A tear had graced his dark skin, rolling down through the stubble on his chin and dropping down onto the pillow beneath him. Watching the stain expand as the moisture was soaked up by the fabric, Jim saw it as blood and felt sick.
Would it be his blood?
Would we suffer at the hands of the call sheet physically as well as emotionally?
Could his sense of loyalty to Starfleet result in his death?
Sliding away from the bed that no longer seemed safe and had become a harbor for his nightmares instead of a safe haven for his dreams, he donned his uniform and quietly left his quarters without eating breakfast. Heading for the Bridge, he was on autopilot, his thought process hardly taking in the route or the bulkheads or even the murmured commands to the turbolift that he managed to remember. The fog was broken when he reached the Bridge and turned towards the tactical console.
Sollik was there.
Crouched inside the small alcove, he was replacing an EPS relay.
Both of them noted each other’s presence. Standing to his full height, the Suliban chief engineer locked his gleaming yellow eyes upon the tactical officer of Earth Indian descent. A tiny snarl of displeasure crossed his lips, the green scales of his face contorting in a wordless expression of loathing.
Jim wasn’t in the mood so he simply stood aside and let him pass by. The tension was unbearable but it was thick enough to serve as Fortitude’s defensive shield grid, he thought to himself in an odd moment of sarcasm. His mind was such a mess that it hardly surprised him.
Sollik paused before entering the turbolift. “I suppose I should wish you good luck on your new assignment,” he hissed at him.
“Only if you want to,” was Jim’s retort.
That should have been the end of the conversation but Sollik found himself continuing to speak, despite his prejudiced mindset. For whatever distrust or hatred that he had manifested in his prickly relationship with Ensign Morgan, he was still a Starfleet officer and still a principled man. The problem was his own principles telling him to object to same-sex pairings.
“For what it is worth,” he continued with sincerity,” I respect your bravery.”
“Pardon me?”
“Facing the Klingons… will be difficult. I respect your bravery.”
Sollik literally fled into the turbolift after that, trying to escape his uncharacteristic generosity of comment and wondering whether Lieutenant Vuro’s almost violent reaction to his prejudice, the other day, had changed his mind and forced him to reconsider some of his positions.
Watching the Suliban leave in stunned silence, Jim found his way behind the tactical console and felt a part of the fog clear from his mind. The surprise praise from the chief engineer… Was it leaving him in shock? Was that it? For some reason, it struck the right chord, the right note, and slowly… Sam felt a smile emerge from the depression within him.
He loved Jason Armstrong. There was no question of that.
In that instance, he made his decision.
He would fight for what he believed in, stand up for the freedom that the Federation represented and do battle against the tyrannical Klingon threat. He wouldn’t run like a coward, leaving it up to other people to decide his fate. If there was something that he could do to help and if that something was a posting aboard the USS McCaffrey, then that was what he would do.
* * * *
The other nine officers on the call sheet were aboard the two Danube-class runabouts waiting alongside Starbase 499 for departure. Jim Morgan was the last of them to leave the Fortitude behind, the last to make his farewells, and the last remaining person in Transporter Room One who didn’t belong there anymore. Proudly, he faced Captain Ewan Llewellyn with a fixed expression of warmth, yet with tradition and respect as he listened to the Welshman’s heartfelt farewell.
“When you came aboard, a year ago,” Ewan was saying,” you were joining us midway through a mission, facing unknowns that we had encountered for the first time. I’ve never known anybody to adapt so quickly or as smoothly as you, Jim. It was as you have been with us since day one. I can only hope that you settle into life aboard the McCaffrey with the same professional ease and I know you will. They’re a lucky ship and a lucky crew to have you aboard, and it’s been an honor to have served with you.”
“The honor was mine, Captain,” Jim replied.
Turning, he faced Commander Valerie Archer and Lieutenant Arden Vuro, his two other friends from the Bridge, and Doctor Lynn Boswell. Naturally, Sollik was absent from the senior staff sendoff but he was sure that everybody had heard the words that they had previously exchanged on the Bridge, especially Vuro. The Bolian had subsequently apologized to the Suliban, mending their broken friendship for the time being as a final request of Jim’s. The call sheet was doing enough damage without turning those that it didn’t mention against one another.
“Each and every one of you have been excellent colleagues and dear friends,” the tactical officer told them collectively, not wanting to drag out any personal goodbyes separately. “I will miss you, but I’ll also look forward to the day that this Klingon business is wrapped up because I will be transferring back here quicker than you can order warp speed!”
Then came the last person in the room, the other senior officer left.
Jason Armstrong.
“Jay, I…,” Jim started to say.
“No, don’t,” he interrupted him. “I understand now. I’m sorry for the added pressure that I placed upon your decision.”
“I might have done the same thing,” Jim admitted truthfully. “I’d do anything to stay with you, to keep you safe and beside me because I love you so much. I won’t ever stop loving you. This duty that I’m undertaking is such a small thing to give back to the society that has allowed us to live together. I have to try.”
“I know… and if it’s possible, I love you even more for doing this.”
The transporter chief signaled from behind Jason that the runabout was ready to depart. The time had come for Jim to leave and Captain Llewellyn moved alongside him, motioning towards the transporter pad. Overcome by grief that was precariously balanced with pride, Jason suppressed a tear. His vision was coming true and suddenly he realized that Jim would be dematerializing at any moment. He couldn’t let it end like this, not without one final goodbye.
“Preparing to energize,” the transporter chief announced.
“Wait!,” Jason yelled.
Lurching forward and bounding up onto the transporter pad, he seized Jim’s face in his palms and gave him the most passionate kiss that he had ever managed, his hands running through his thick black hair and across his smooth cheeks. The assembled crewmembers had to suppress their own tears as they watched, letting the moment last as long as possible before Ewan gave a gentle cough.
Separating their interlocked lips, the couple parted.
With a final reassuring wink, Ensign Jim Morgan was beamed away.
EPILOGUE
He was gone.
It finally hit Jason Armstrong almost an hour after the two runabouts had jumped to warp, leaving the Santrag system behind… and taking Jim away from him. It hit him while he was walking through Fortitude’s corridors, and he slowly felt his legs weaken as his heart literally ached with a gut-wrenching feeling of loss and crippling sadness.
Reaching out, he supported his weight on the bulkhead as his spare hand clutched at his uniform as if it was trying to tear his damaged heart from out of his chest.
Walking around a corner as she had come aboard to deliver some medical supplies to Doctor Boswell, Katherine Pulaski saw Jason’s private moment of anguish on her way back to Starbase 499 and rushed over to his side.
“Are you all right, Ensign?”
When he raised his head, she recognized him and knew what the matter was.
“Ah… Ensign Armstrong, I presume?”
A feeble nod was his reply.
“You look exhausted. When was the last time that you slept?”
“Uh… I’m not sure, Doctor…”
“Tell you what,” Pulaski soothed him, reaching around his shoulders and helping him to a proper standing position. “You’re going to come with me and I’m going to fix you some PCS. we’ll talk about things and it’ll help you get some rest. No objections now. These are doctor’s orders, whether you like them or not.”
“PCS…?,” Jason mumbled in confusion.
“The best medicine available,” she answered him, guiding him with all of the careful attention and empathy that a proper doctor should have. “Come on now… Come with me…”
She was here to heal and heal is what she would do.
If there was one person who was in need of healing, it was Jason Armstrong.
The End.
