Star Trek Hunter Episode 16: Slavers

[Galen4]

The whole Orion slave market melee was rendered so well I thought I was watching it instead of reading it.

As I predicted, this mission wasn't going to be easy. The Orions aren't dumb. Liking the tidbit about knowing exactly where to dig in and squeeze in order to incapacitate an Orion---and how the Orion women are trained in combat and can take you out with their kicks alone. (Am I a bad caveman for thinking that I'd actually like to see that?)

I've said this before, but I always appreciate it when authors take the time to think through details, which lends to suspension of disbelief. Everything from how the transactions are handled with Damon Trock, to how and why certain slaves are selected is spelled out in ways that make sense. The bad guys in your stories are smart and slick and don't go down easily, which is true more often than not in real life, unfortunately. All victories are costly.

I'd like to order another round, if you please.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Great!

Glad you're enjoying - Thanks!! rbs

The whole Orion slave market melee was rendered so well I thought I was watching it instead of reading it.... I've said this before, but I always appreciate it when authors take the time to think through details, which lends to suspension of disbelief...

Very high praise - and exactly what I'm striving for - Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

A description of the U.S.S. Hunter:

The U.S.S. Hunter is the prototype for the Prowler class - a small patrol vessel dedicated more toward internal law enforcement within the Federation than for exploratory or expeditionary work. These ships are smaller than the Escort class (U.S.S. Defiant) - slightly taller, but shorter across the beam and far less wide.

The ship has 9 decks with the top deck (deck 9) dedicated to its support craft. These include the ship's tactical unit (a separate, warp capable section of the ship containing nearly half of the ship's armaments), the wagon (an up-armored shuttle with brig units) and 2 long-range interceptors (warp-capable fighters designed for in-atmosphere combat.)

Unlike most Star Fleet ships (which are products of Curtis Industries), the Prowler class are products of the Daystrom Institute and are built for stealth. The ships are dark, with hulls designed to be resistant to sensors. The saucer section is shaped more like an egg, perched over a single, broad, flat nacelle, which contains landing struts so the ship can be landed. It is not particularly heavily armed, being designed more for intercepting pirate schooners than military vessels.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter

Episode: 16: Slavers
Scene 14: The Badlands

16.14
The Badlands​

Ships in the Badlands typically left communication range within moments of entering the plasma fields. The walls and tornadoes of raging plasma storms interfered with communication. But with more than 400 probes launched from the U.S.S. Galaxy already coursing through the Badlands and hundreds more probes being manufactured and launched daily, signals could be relayed from the U.S.S. Hunter back to the Galaxy, on station just outside the Badlands.

The U.S.S. Galaxy, an aging Galaxy class ship – the first and namesake of its class – was far too large to enter the Badlands. But with the recent refurbishment, it contained several factories and housed hundreds of workers who were now dedicated to building more probes. And they were needed.

Orion slavers were still active inside the badlands and whenever one of their interceptors or their small marauder class ships encountered the probes, they would destroy them to avoid being tracked. In response, the Galaxy created a new class of hunter probe that, on being targeted by an orion ship or interceptor in the Badlands, would drop a signal buoy and then engage in a collision course with the orion vessel and detonate a small thermonuclear bomb against its hull. Since it was dangerous for ships to use shields in the plasma fields (shields tended to attract the blazing plasma) these bombs were extremely dangerous to the orion vessels even if they detonated within a few hundred meters. It took only a few such encounters to discourage the orions from targeting the Galaxy's probes.


The U.S.S. Hunter had been navigating the Badlands for two days. In order to better negotiate sometimes extremely narrow passages, the tactical unit was traveling separately from the platform, which reduced the Hunter’s platform unit’s height by a little more than two meters. The wagon and both interceptors were also deployed as these smaller vessels could thread through passages to investigate potential asteroids or look for derelict ships the two women might have found shelter on.

In this process, the Hunter’s crew had rescued a small number of starving human, bajoran and romulan refugees, barely clinging to life aboard one derelict Maquis outpost or another. Many of these were badly weakened by prolonged exposure to low gravity and had to be housed in the individual brig units where the artificial gravity could be individually adjusted to allow them to gradually reacclimate to planetary level gravitation.


Lt. Cmdr. Mlady was in command when the U.S.S. Galaxy was finally able to relay a message from Pomm Irons – from nearly halfway across the Alpha Quadrant near the Rigel system. He was too far away for any attempt at real-time communication. Within moments of reviewing it in her office, Justice Minerva Irons ordered the message broadcast ship-wide.

The senior staff (with the exception of Mlady) was gathered in the executive conference room. Irons watched Pomm’s message with them.


“Minerva, this is your grandson-in-law, Pomm. Your crew members rescued me and all are unharmed. We are en-route to Rigel IV. I am sending you a chart of the Badlands. This chart is out of date, but hopefully if you compare it to current mapping, you will be able to find a rogue planet named Vengeons-Roux that very few people know about. It was a secret Maquis base, but they abandoned it for logistical reasons. Oarama and I placed a number of supplies there. My wife and our passenger had Maquis flight suits. I launched them toward Vengeons-Roux. The planet is very isolated and there are no other bodies nearby. It is nearly impossible to get ships in and out of there – even interceptors. If they did not make it to the surface of the planet, they probably did not survive.

“Years ago when my wife and I stocked our hideout on Vengeons-Roux we used escape pods and beamed from them down to the surface and back up so we could make it back to the Prophet Motive. I harnessed those escape pods to an asteroid in the Back 40. There are several thousand asteroids in that field, but only one of them has a specific mass of 808,616.829 kilograms. That includes the mass of the two pods.”

“That should be all the information you need to find my wife and our guest. I have a request from a friend of Pep’s…”

Pomm was suddenly shoved aside to be replaced by an enormous plate of chest armor. The camera was manually angled upward and a massive klingon face revealed.

“Doctor Pepper!!! This is your collaborator and fellow poet Krull!!! Your friends won great honor in the cave of the green slavers!!! Especially the fat one here!!” There was a slap and some loud coughing that indicated the enormous klingon warrior had given Pomm an enthusiastic thump on the back.

“Do not think for a moment this settles your debt of honor to me – it is not settled – I am now indebted to you, my friend!! And I will find a way to redeem my honor for allowing myself to be captured by those quvHa’ blHnuch! One more thing… This fat little bajoran has the voice of a mighty klingon warrior – I have never heard so fine a singer! And now, Pomm, my friend, let us sing!”


“Fade!” said Justice Irons just as the enormous klingon warrior and Pomm Irons began a surprisingly melodic, if quite raucous duet.

“That was our song!” said Commander David Pepper. “Dive Into The Sun – we wrote that…”

“Another time, David,” said Irons quietly. “Hunter?”

The ship’s interactive holographic avatar appeared at the far end of the conference table.

“What is the range of our escape pods?” Irons asked.

“800,000 kilometers. A little over twice the distance from Earth to its moon,” Hunter replied.

“And what is the range of the pod’s transporter?”

“Just over 60,000 kilometers. Sufficient for geosynchronous orbit of most ‘M’ class worlds.”

Irons nodded. “Can they be remotely piloted – or I should say, can a pilot in one pod bring another in tow?”

“The latter would be more reliable,” Hunter said.

“Kenneth,” Irons turned toward her director of flight operations. “Use all six sleeping/escape pods from the flight operation lounge and both pods from the medical lounge. Select four pilots to lead this mission. Each pilot will guide a pair of pods to Vengeons-Roux. If we are very, very lucky, one of our missing persons will have made it to the surface.”

“Very, very lucky?” Dolphin queried.

“There is a reason the Maquis never used those flight suits to mount an attack,” Irons replied grimly. “They had a 50% failure rate. Half of the people who tried to use them either burned up in the atmosphere when the ablative part of the suit failed or plummeted to their deaths because the fixed wing failed to deploy completely – or flew off on its own. By those odds, my granddaughter and Pivin the Betrayer each had a 50/50 chance of reaching the surface of Vengeons-Roux alive – assuming they made it to the planet in the first place. If you can’t find them alive, see if you can locate and bring back their remains.”



* quvHa’ blHnuch! (dishonored coward)

16.14 (of 19)
​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter

Episode: 16: Slavers
Scene 15: Pod People

16.15
Pod People​

It took the U.S.S. Hunter another seven hours to locate Vengeons-Roux and maneuver into position to mount a rescue. It took Lt. Cmdr. Kenny Dolphin about that much time to prepare his pilots and the required sleeping/escape pods for the venture. He took out the lead pod with Flight Specialist Winnifreid Salazaar, Ensign Ethan Phillips and 2nd Lt. Gaia Gamor each piloting a pod. Each pilot brought a second pod in tow using tandem control protocols (causing each unoccupied pod to follow the exact path of its lead pod rather than simultaneously making the same maneuvers.)

Flight Specialist Dih Terri and Chief Thyssi zh’Qaoleq were covering the daisy-chain of escape pods with the two interceptors and Chief Flight Specialist Dewayne Guth was providing backup support along with 2nd Lt. Sun Ho Hui and Transporter Engineer K’rok in the wagon. Guth ended up having to park the wagon outside a plasma wall that was too dense to risk the wagon, but which provided ports through which the smaller craft could travel. Only a few hundred kilometers further in, Dih and zh’Qaoleq had to bring their interceptors to station keeping. They could catch glimpses of the planet through the plasma storm, but the momentary eddies of instability left few opportunities for the pods to enter and none for the interceptors.

Dolphin, in the lead pod, was the first one through. He waited until all eight pods were in geosynchronous orbit.


“Gaia, I’m leaving you in charge up here with Winnie. Ethan, please beam down with me.”


Within a minute, Lt. Cmdr. Dolphin and Ensign Phillips had beamed into the meadow that Oarama and Pivin had landed in. A number of ferocious looking quadrupeds with purple fur immediately scattered on their arrival, only to lurk in the tree line, watching curiously.

“Looks like they’re afraid of bipeds,” Phillips observed.

Dolphin picked up one of the abandoned fixed wings from a flight suit. “We’re not alone,” he said.

“I found the other one over here,” Phillips called. He removed a small device from the wing. “These emergency transponders are almost out of power. I’m surprised the pod’s sensors were sensitive enough to pick these up. Especially in this magnetosphere.”

“We have a clear trail at least to the tree line,” Dolphin replied. He set the wing down and hoisted a backpack, settling it firmly on his back. “Gear up.”

“Did we really need to bring two sets of these?” Phillips asked as he hoisted a similar backpack.

Dolphin unslung his phaser rifle, checked the settings. “What are you complaining about, Ensign? If we only had one set of these I’d be making you carry it anyway…”

“Ignore me, sir, I didn’t say anything. That was just my big lips flapping in the wind…”

“Survivors of the B.R. Prophet Motive, this is Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Dolphin of the U.S.S. Hunter. This is a rescue. If you can read this message, please respond. End transmission and rebroadcast on all relevant frequencies,” Dolphin said.

“Confirmed,” came the audible reply from the communicator embedded in his chest.


After a few hundred meters into the trees, the trail quickly went cold, leaving Dolphin and Phillips searching about on the hard, bare forest floor for any sign of the women’s passage.

“I’m no tracker,” Dolphin said. “I’m starting to wish I had brought Investigator Buttans along…”

“Tired of my company already, sir?”

“I didn’t say anything, Ethan. Just my lips flapping…”

“Maybe try calling again?” Phillips suggested.

“Transmission status?” Dolphin asked. Phillips could barely hear the communicator embedded in Dolphin’s chest reporting audibly to him. “My communicator is continuing to rebroadcast my call out to them. It’s rotating frequencies. It can punch a signal a little further in this magnetosphere by focusing on one frequency at a time rather than broadcasting the message over all frequencies at once.”

“Kenny – I think I found something over here,” said Phillips.

Dolphin walked over to look. About 6” from the base of a tree, the ground had been gouged, leaving a trough roughly 2” wide and about 8” long.

“Breadcrumbs?” Phillips asked.

“I’m going to stand here so you can see where this one is,” Dolphin said. He pointed with his phaser rifle. “Go in a straight line, more or less, and wave if you find another one.”

Only a few dozen meters, Phillips stopped, turned to Dolphin and waved with his phaser rifle. Dolphin moved forward to join him and looked at the next gouge.

“Breadcrumbs.” Dolphin said. “End transmission and monitor all frequencies for reply.”

Phillips could barely hear the communicator in Dolphin’s chest responding, “Confirmed.”

“Who needs Buttans Ngumbo? I have an Ethan Phillips... Good work, Ensign.”


Dolphin and Phillips continued following the trail. Through the trees, they could see the wolf-like quadrupeds tracking them at a distance – then their lupine escort suddenly melted away. Phillips put up a fist and both he and Dolphin brought up their phaser rifles.

“Ethan?” came a voice from the trees nearby.

“Oarama?” Phillips responded.

Oarama Irons stepped into the open and lowered her phaser.

Phillips and Dolphin stepped out into the clear, phasers still raised.

“You are Lieutenant Commander Dolphin?” Oarama asked.

“And you are Oarama Irons. I am very glad to see you alive,” Dolphin replied. “Is your companion here?”

“She is. We encountered a small group of refugees. One of them has died since we got here. Can you transport the rest of them out too?”

“How many, including you and your friend?” asked Dolphin.

“Eleven, all told, but two are very small children and another is a small boy,” Oarama replied.

“We had anticipated that possibility,” Dolphin said. “We can do it in one trip, but the children will have to be sedated. The boy, too.”


Oarama led Dolphin and Phillips to the encampment, but had them wait in the trees until she talked to the elders in the camp. The elderly romulans were quite nervous when they saw the two men in black Star Fleet JAG uniforms walking into their camp. Dolphin handed his backpack to Phillips.

Dolphin addressed the romulans. “I know you are hesitant about being rescued by Star Fleet. But no one else will be coming to rescue you. So you can come with me, or you can remain here. I am Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Dolphin of the U.S.S. Hunter. Behind me, Ensign Ethan Phillips is setting up two pattern enhancement stations. We will need the pattern enhancers to strengthen the signal so we can be beamed up.”

“I have eight escape pods in geosynchronous orbit more or less directly above us. Each pod can carry two people. The young children will need to be sedated as they will be riding with our pilots in control pods and I will not risk the lives of my people on the possibility that one of the children might inadvertently come into contact with a control panel.” Dolphin handed a hyposyringe to Pivin. “I have set this to deliver 2 cc’s of Vsed, which is a safe amount for romulan children.” He turned to the elders. “One of you must calm the children so that Pivin can administer the sedative.” Dolphin pointed at the young romulan boy – a few years older than the two youngest children. “You first so they know you are not afraid. Then they will not be afraid.”

The boy looked briefly at the older boy (now very much one of Pivin’s followers), who nodded slowly. He walked up to Pivin and allowed her to administer the sedative. Pivin caught him as he lost consciousness and carried him to one of the sets of pattern enhancers.


“Winnie,” called Dolphin. “You’re going to have a sleepy passenger. Beam him up.” The next child was beamed up to Gaia Gamor’s pod. Then Ethan Phillips took the youngest child in his arms and beamed up. The oldest boy, the elderly romulans and Oarama were beamed up by twos into the vacant follow-pods until only Dolphin and Pivin the Betrayer were left.


“I have not heard your name before, Kenneth Dolphin,” Pivin said. “How long have you traveled with Minerva Irons?”

“A little over a year,” Dolphin replied. “I understand you met with her recently in Vulcan space. I was on Earth at the time.”

Pivin briefly laid her hand against Dolphin’s face. “Romulans are not as telepathically sensitive as vulcans are, but you project a very strong sense of confidence. The kind of confidence that makes people believe you. The kind of confidence that makes people believe in you. The kind of confidence that people will follow in large numbers and with great loyalty. I have only ever sensed this in people whose consciences are clean. Those people come in two kinds, Kenneth Dolphin…”

Dolphin had disassembled one of the sets of pattern enhancers, folding the tripods until they could be stored in Ethan’s backpack. He handed the backpack to Pivin, ushered her into the pattern enhancement field of the remaining set of pattern enhancers.

“And what would those two types be?” he asked.

Just as the transporter cycle started to take her up to the remaining vacant follow-pod, Pivin responded: “Heroes and monsters, Kenneth Dolphin, heroes and monsters. Which are you?” she asked as she vanished in a brightly colored haze of lights.

16.15 (of 19)​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter

Episode: 16: Slavers
Scene 16: The Second Battle for Pillo

16.16
The Second Battle for Pillo​

“Old Possum-Chicken won another one.” The gabby Lieutenant Commander in the blue uniform was part of the U.S.S. Galaxy’s medical department.

“You served with him?” asked Lt. Cmdr. Mlady.

“Let her talk!” said Commander David Pepper. “Let her talk! Come on, I want to hear about this…”


Several of the U.S.S. Hunter’s crew members had joined a large number of officers from the U.S.S. Galaxy on the newly opened Observation Deck – a combination of what had previously been 10-Forward with the arboretum. This expanded community area combined the 10-Forward bar with an enormous open space in the middle of the Galaxy that took up two decks and rivaled the Promenade on Deep Space 9 for an airy feeling in the middle of an enormous spaceship. An open deck with safety railing allowed passengers and crew to look down into the arboretum, from which large trees grew up and had yet another opening into the decks above to stretch their canopies, which could be viewed from balconies attached to the executive and ambassador staterooms.

The old Galaxy class ships had been designed to last (with retrofits) for at least 70 years and with the most recent retrofits, which included miniaturization of thousands of the ships systems, dramatically increased the available deck space on a ship that was originally designed to be a spacious, self-sufficient floating city in space. The impact of this enormous interior space, from which on several sides outer space could be viewed through a variety of windows and viewscreens, was simply stunning. Even with all this open space in the center of the ship, improvements in materials technology, area design, emergency bulkheads and safety procedures made the old Galaxy class cruisers far more resilient, sturdier and much safer to serve on than they had been nearly 40 years ago when they were first launched.


“We watched it on the view screens,” gushed Lt. Cmdr. Stacy Abrams. “Star Fleet Operations had information that the Nausicaan Collective wanted to make another play to take control of Pillo. So Rear Admiral Chekov deliberately left only two Prowler class ships to guard the system. The Nausicaans respect those new Prowlers – since your Lieutenant Dolphin…”

“Lieutenant Commander Dolphin,” 2nd Lt. T’Lon corrected.

“Oh… really? Cool!” said Abrams. “Lieutenant Commander Dolphin cleaned their plate with just the Hunter’s tactical unit up against three of their heavy cruisers.”

“So Chekov probably figured they would still try for Pillo as long as they thought they would only have the U.S.S. Prowler and the U.S.S. Trapper to face, along with maybe a dozen of the old short-range interceptors,” added a lieutenant in a red uniform.

“Of course he figured it out, Anton!” Abrams said. “He knew that would make them commit everything to the battle, especially with Possum-Chicken using the Milky Way to tow the Intrepid all the way back to Starbase 86 and the Victory stopped at Coridan for major repairs – they said it wasn’t even safe to travel at warp 3 because it was so badly damaged at the Battle of Coridan Corridor…”

“The Nausicaan Collective should have expected it… They walked right into the same trap he had just set for the orions,” said the lieutenant named Anton.

“He had the Intrepid play wounded bird with the orions. I think he was playing “wounded flock” with the nausicaans,” Abrams continued. “They committed their heavy interceptors and found that the Prowler and the Trapper were really effective against them. They were using some strange new configuration called the Quack Attack??”

This drew an unexpected laugh from the several Hunter crew members at the table.

“Please allow me to introduce Chief Flight Specialists Thyssi zh’Qaoleq and Dewayne Guth,” said Pep. “They’re the pilots who designed the Quack attack…”

“No way!” said Abrams. “Okay – I saw it in action – really impressive – that was you two? Why did you call it the Quack attack?”

“That was Kenny’s idea,” said Guth.

“You call him Kenny?” Abrams asked.

“Most people refer to him as Dr. Dolphin,” Guth responded.

“Okay… Well… So since their interceptors were getting torn up, the nausicaans committed their heavy cruisers – all three of them. And apparently they had learned their lesson from the last time they faced a Prowler class ship. The cruisers came in from three different angles so that no one could pull the Dolphin maneuver on them.”

“She doesn’t even know what the Dolphin maneuver is,” said the red-suited lieutenant.

“Neither do you,” Abrams retorted.

“Neither does anybody, it’s classified.”

“But it involved the cruisers being in tight formation. Anyway so the Trapper and the Prowler are in serious trouble, but then the Ravonnelle shows up and sends one of those heavy cruisers into a tailspin. Makes me really glad your people are on our side.” Abrams lifted her glass to Thyssi zh’Qaoleq. “Those andorian phasers cut through the nausicaan shields like butter…”

“Like a knife through butter,” said Anton. “Have another drink, Stacy…”

“Buy one for me, Lt. McNeill.” Lt. Cmdr. Stacy Abrams huffed up a little.

Lt. Anton McNeill rolled his eyes, then gamely walked off to the bar.

“So the nausicaans, they commit everything. Nearly 40 more heavy interceptors, 5 heavy destroyers and 9 marauders. That’s when the vulcans showed up. 60 long range interceptors. And then Chekov threw in everything and the kitchen sink. The Bellerophon, the Valiant, oh – thank you Anton!” Lt. Cmdr. Abrams said as Lt. McNeill returned with a beer for her (and another for himself).

She picked up the narrative before anyone could interrupt, not even bothering to take a drink: “The Vox, the Enterprise, the Ajax, the Eagle, the Hornet, the Monitor, the Thor, the Musashi, the San Francisco and then, just to top it off, the Victory and the kHov Bome – both fully repaired, the Nome and the Milky Way. The Nausicaans surrendered all their ships while Rear Admiral Chekov was still warping in…”

Abrams did not notice how the officers from the Hunter started to display more serious expressions as she rattled off ship names. Lt. T’Lon, Lt. Cmdr. Mlady and Cmdr. Pepper exchanged significant looks.

“…only four casualties. Four! And we got the entire… Nausicaan… Collective…” Abrams slowed down as she realized that something in her news was seriously worrying to the Hunter’s leadership.

“Those ships are with the sixth fleet,” Lt. Cmdr. Mlady mused. “Wasn’t the sixth fleet on assignment…” She paused at a warning glance from Pep, accompanied with a quick shake of his head. She wasn’t the only one to notice Pep’s warning.

“Commander Pepper,” said Lt. McNeill. “What is it?”

“You said 60 vulcan long-range interceptors?” asked Lt. T’Lon.

“Yes – it must have taken several days for them to warp from Vulcan to Pillo,” Abrams said.


Pep and Mlady both stood up and turned as if to leave.


At that moment the comm system on the U.S.S. Galaxy came alive: “This is Captain Janet Duncan of the U.S.S. Galaxy…” Captain Duncan had a strong Scottish brogue.

“And this is Captain Minerva Irons of the U.S.S. Hunter.” Justice Irons sounded more upset than any of her crew had ever heard her.


Captain Duncan spoke again, her voice emotional and her usually thick Scottish accent occasionally opaque: “To all crew and passengers aboard the U.S.S. Galaxy and the U.S.S. Hunter and to all persons within range of this transmission on all subspace frequencies, it is with great sadness that I have to inform you that our greatest contributor to science, especially the science of spaceflight, and Earth’s first interstellar ally, one of the 19 charter worlds of the Federation, the planet Vulcan… has fallen.

“I also must report to you that Vice Admiral Senvol ordered the evacuation and self-destruction of Starbase 18 along with all ship-building infrastructure. Admiral Senvol and a security detail of 200 Star Fleet personnel remained onboard to prevent the station and gantries from being taken and all of these personnel gave their lives in the line of duty. To our knowledge, there were no other casualties. A comprehensive list will be released once all casualties are accounted for and the families notified. The Federation Council has sent a delegation to meet with the Romulan Imperial Senate to negotiate formal terms of surrender…”

16.16 (of 19)


​

Author's Notes:

The first Battle for Pillo occurs in Episode 7: The Great Mushroom. The "Dolphin Maneuver" was an act of desperation that by all rights should have ended disastrously and was classified by Captain Irons to keep a generation of cadets from getting themselves killed trying to replicate it.

In Episode 5: The Fires of Pon Farr (and several times subsequently) Section 31 Director Julian Bashir mentioned an ongoing effort to conceal what should be publicly available demographic information. The reason for that conspiracy (and the people behind it) will soon become clear...​

 

[Galen4]

There's a lot of intriguing stuff happening here.

First, I liked the rescue operation mostly because I haven't seen it handled this way in ST before. We've got pods, which is more interesting than just doing a blanket transporter operation. Even more unusual is the idea of sedating the younger children so they don't dick with the control panel! LOL. I'm glad that our heroes practice "safety first"!

You handled the Galaxy's observation deck really well. The reasoning behind it actually makes sense, unlike a certain ST movie I could mention that has shopping mall style bridges on a certain starship that do nothing but waste space---just because the production designer though it would look cool. But then the same movie also has steampunk engine rooms, so what do you expect? So, thanks again for things that make sense!

Man, Vulcan has fallen?? Again, this is a much more interesting take on the idea than a certain movie had, because I think that a narrative around occupation adds complexity that's absent if you just blow up someone's home planet with the Death Star red stuff weapon. That's one and done. But your story sets up multiple character and story arcs that will be fun to explore, even if they get Vulcan back at some point. Spock once said that Vulcan had never been conquered in the planet's collective memory. Sounds like great material just waiting to be harvested.

Keep it going!

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Even more unusual is the idea of sedating the younger children so they don't dick with the control panel!

Dolphin had considered the possibilities and done sufficient research to know the appropriate sedatives for various children he might encounter... Chance favors the prepared mind. You're not the first reader who enjoyed that little detail... Glad you're enjoying!

Spock once said that Vulcan had never been conquered in the planet's collective memory.

He may yet be correct... I'll just let that one sit out there... Thanks again for the reviews!!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter

Episode: 16: Slavers
Scene 17: 2 Romulas

16.17
2 Romulas​

The fall of Vulcan had cast a pall over everyone on the U.S.S. Hunter. Most buried themselves in their daily tasks. Without any immediate assignment, the Hunter, traveling next to (and completely dwarfed by) the U.S.S. Galaxy, patrolled the border of the Badlands. Support craft from both vessels continued rescue operations into the badlands, retrieving a surprising number of refugees - most of whom were starving and in very bad health from being stranded in terrible conditions.


News of the secession of Cimera III from the Andorian Empire and the declaration of martial law in the Andorian colonies on Alrond and Beta Prime made everyone realize how fragile the United Federation of Planets actually was and had been all along. More than two hundred species had joined the Federation primarily to shelter under the powerful three-way military alliance of the Vulcan High Command, the Andorian Imperial Guard and Star Fleet - which, while actively recruiting and open to all Federation members and even ex-patriots of other civilizations, remained an overwhelmingly human endeavor.

With Vulcan captured by the Romulan Senate and the Andorian Empire embroiled in civil war, more than ever, tens of billions of non-humans were now almost exclusively dependent on Earth for protection - only to find themselves terrified of deep divisions within human populations about the use of so much of the resources of Earth and its many colonies to protect not only space-faring allies, but dozens of planets with pre-warp indigenous civilizations that were completely ignorant of humanity or the many threats posed by other species that their unknown human benefactors had been protecting them from for centuries.


Oarama Irons had taken a transport to Cun Ling, where a new spaceship had been purchased for her. Her husband, Pomm Irons, was to meet her in Ba Sing Se. Pivin the Betrayer remained aboard the Hunter and was staying with Justice Minerva Irons in the captain’s stateroom. The elderly romulan woman was surprised to find herself comforted by sleeping in the bed of a Star Fleet captain. She and Irons used the bed at different times, maintaining different sleep schedules. But both women were elderly and it was not uncommon for them to share the bed while napping. Irons had always been a recluse on her own ship and spent most of her time in her quarters or her office. This threw her and Pivin, who simply never left the stateroom at all, together for most of each day.

They avoided talking about the fall of Vulcan with one exception. Pivin made note that it was the Romulan Imperial Senate Praetorian Guard and not the Romulan Star Navy that had taken Vulcan. Star Fleet Intelligence had identified every one of the 39 Romulan warbirds that had appeared in orbit of Vulcan and Pivin was able to verify that these represented the bulk of the Praetorian Guard, leaving only four of their warbirds unaccounted for.


“For centuries there has been a rift between the Senate and the Navy.” Pivin was reclining on the couch in Irons’ quarters. Justice Minerva Irons was laid back in her lounge chair, eyes closed, just resting. But the older romulan woman knew Irons was listening. She continued. “It had gotten to the point that just before Romulus was destroyed in the Hobus event, the Naval Supreme Command were beginning to openly discuss recovering the Imperial Scepter and establishing a new emperor. There hasn’t been one in more than a thousand years. What most outsiders failed to realize about the Romulan Star Empire - and because we all went to great length to hide it - was that there were really two romulan cultures. A militaristic culture in the Romulan Star Navy that controlled the colonies and most of the empire, but the Senate, popularly elected, that controlled the heart of romulan culture - Romulus itself.”

“And the Praetorian Guard answers to the Senate,” Irons said. She sat up and poured a shot of a dark, syrupy kanar for her guest. Another for herself. The strong cardassian beverage gave off a pungent, sour, alcoholic aroma.

“Always has,” said Pivin, accepting the shot glass. She savored the pungent smell of the beverage, then set it down without drinking it.

“So if there wasn’t a Romulus to popularly elect them - most of the populace of Romulus killed in the Hobus event…” Irons started.

“The Senate was homeless and losing support. The colonial romulans, who had been heavily taxed to keep the senators popular at home - were refusing to support the Senate,” Pivin concluded.

“So the Imperial Senate desperately needed a new homeworld,” said Irons. She drained her glass - it took a moment for the thick fluid to drip into her mouth.

“And they had been fixated on Vulcan for more than 400 years,” Pivin said. “After Romulus was destroyed, there really was no potential new homeworld within the empire. Whatever colony they landed at quickly became hostile to them and the Romulan Star Navy kept the Praetorian Guard from taking over any of the colonies. So the Senate really had nowhere to go…”


“Nowhere, but Vulcan,” Irons concluded. She poured herself another shot of kanar.


Pivin took a deep breath “They are going to bring the survivors of Romulus to Vulcan. It won’t be long before there are two billion romulans on Vulcan. And the Romulan Star Navy will help move them there, just to get them out of the colonies. That has been the real disaster going on in the empire - trying to resettle 2 billion refugees from Romulus when none of the colonies wanted them. And the Senate wasn’t about to let them get dispersed - that population was all that was left of their power base…”

16.17 (of 19)​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter
Episode: 16: Slavers
Scene 18: The Solution

16.18
The Solution​

Ensign Geoffrey Horatio Alstars had called for three holographic clear dry-erase boards in the engineering conference room. These had replaced the clear lacquer conference table, which, like the antique teak table in the executive conference room, was also a hologram, projected only when needed.


But Alstars had, for the moment, given up working on his recursive warp equations. Instead, he was walking from one board to the next, randomly writing numbers and bits of equations in random places among the three boards. This was his long established method for clearing his mind and he thought of it as more of an art form than any disciplined attempt at mathematics.

He strode back and forth on his long legs, writing randomly on each board with both hands. Sometimes simultaneously, stretching his arms wide, sometimes with his eyes closed. As more and more numbers and operands and other figures appeared on the clear boards, equations started to run into each other, up and over each other, down and under, wandering off at diagonals. Alstars didn’t care. He was just scrawling.

After nearly an hour of this, he stepped back to scowl at his creation.


“Graffiti,” he grumbled. “Modern art… Insanity… I don’t need tea… I need a straight jacket.” Alstars chuckled grimly. “I have loaded a bushel of numerals into a trebuchet and launched them into space…” He raised his hands and his voice. “Hunter get ri..”

“STOP THAT!!!” came an unfamiliar voice. Alstars couldn’t make out who had shouted through the equations - he could see part of a uniform. Someone short - but everyone was short around here - with a few notable exceptions. Alstars stepped to the side so he could see around his cluttered clear boards.

“Lieutenant Tauk?” Alstars asked, surprised to see the ferengi director of ground operations in engineering.

“Come here, Ensign,” Tauk ordered.

Alstars loped over to join Tauk. He had joined Star Fleet for new experiences and being ordered about by a ferengi about 2/3 his height and more than three times younger than him certainly counted as a new experience.

“Look,” said Tauk, gesturing toward the cluttered clear dry-erase boards.

“We’re looking at it from the back. It was gibberish when I was looking at it from the front. It even has a couple of nonsense symbols…”

“Base twelve,” said Tauk.

“What? No! It’s just nonsense. I was just grabbing numbers and symbols out of a bag and throwing them at the board,” Alstars responded.

Tauk walked up to the clear boards. He pointed at a symbol that looked vaguely like a house with a caved in roof. “Ten.” He pointed to another symbol that looked vaguely like a butterfly with a knife jabbed through it. “Eleven. Then the 1 followed by the 0 is twelve.” He stepped back to stand next to the towering mathematician.

“No, that’s nuts, we use the letter A for ten and the letter B for eleven…”

“You humans do. Vulcans use those symbols,” said Tauk.

For a moment, both mathematicians just stared at the backside of the clear boards, viewing all of Alstars mathematical doodling in reverse.


2nd Lt. Sun Ho Hui’s voice drifted down to them from deck one: “Tommy, have you seen Geoff?”

From somewhere on the other side of the engineering deck, Thomas Hobbs’ thick, Scottish brogue could be heard: “Over there, by the conference room.”

“Thanks Tommy. Geoff, would you mind…”

“Hui,” said Alstars, “Come, come come here. Have, have a look at this... would... would you please?”

Lt. Sun walked to the back of deck one, ducked into the ladder and slid down the ladder like a fire pole. Alstars had finally adjusted to this breach of safety protocols because everyone in engineering (at least those under the age of 50) did it endlessly. He had given up trying to discourage Yolanda Thomas and Kerry Gibbon from doing it when their department director and assistant director did it all the time.

Sun, only a few inches taller than Tauk, easily more than a foot shorter than Alstars, stepped over and stood on the other side of Alstars from Tauk. After staring with them at the back of the clear boards, he turned and shouted up to deck 2: “Salek!!”

The engineering director, Lt. Moon Sun Salek, stepped out of the navigation/deflector control room at the front of deck 2 and looked down over the railing to the main engineering deck, two decks below. “You don’t have to shout, Hui - it came through my communicator…”

“Salek,” said Sun, “would you come down here and look at this, please? Bring Gaia with you.”

Dr. Moon turned to the still open door into navigation/deflector control and said, “Gaia, Hui wants us on the floor.” She straddled the ladder and slid down straight through the access for deck one to the main engineering floor, followed by 2nd Lt. Gaia Gamor, who climbed down the traditional way almost as quickly. They walked over to the other officers and stood next to 2nd Lt. Sun.

After a minute of gazing at the jumble of numbers and operands in reverse from the backside of the clear boards, Dr. Moon called for the ship’s interactive holographic avatar: “Hunter…”

The holographic old man appeared next to her.


For another few minutes, six mathematicians stood in a row, just looking at the pile of equations, most of them fragments, from behind. Dr. Sun, Dr. Alstars, Dr. Tauk, Dr. Gamor and Dr. Moon, almost in unison, slowly tilted their heads to the left at a 45 degree angle. Hunter, on noticing this odd behavior, mimicked it a few moments later.


“Hunter,” said Dr. Moon, “what are we looking at?”

“A set of interrelated, interactive equations expressed in base 12,” the pudgy, elderly-looking avatar replied.

“Actually,” Hunter continued, “Unless I’m mistaken, I think it’s…”

Alstars finished his sentence: “The solution. Give me another clear board…”

Another holographic clear dry-erase board appeared between the mathematicians and the original sets of equations. With one great stride of his long legs, Dr. Alstars stepped forward. He held out his left hand: “Marker…”

A holographic marker appeared in the old mathematician’s hand. He quickly and deftly sketched out a very simple equation in base 12.

“That’s it!” said Hunter. “That’s what I’ve been trying to come up with all year! We can run controlled tests to confirm, but if you’re right…”

“We can safely get the entire Prowler class of ships, all 46 of them, into recursive warp without needing artificial intelligence,” said Dr. Moon. “And just when we have never needed a critical strategic advantage more…”

“But it’s such a simple equation…” Dr. Sun objected.

“Elegant,” said Tauk, “simple in terms, but nearly impossible to come by. It took all that,” he waved his hand at the gibberish they had all been looking at, “all that and more to bring this epiphany to Dr. Alstars. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions of mathematicians have been looking for this simple equation and didn’t find it.”

“Most of those mathematicians weren’t working in base 12,” Dr. Sun observed.

“I didn’t know I was working in base 12 until Tauk pointed it out,” said Alstars.

Gaia Gamor turned toward Dr. Moon. “Weren’t all those math equations we found in the library of the progenitors in base 12?”


Moon turned toward Alstars. “Geoff, do me a favor…”

“Sure,” said Alstars. “What?”

“You know those math treatises that Dr. Carrera downloaded from the library of the progenitors?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t ever read them. You’re easily as smart as Sarekson and I don’t want you to wander off at a right angle to reality and vanish on me. I’d like to keep you around for awhile…”

16.18 (of 19)

​

Author's Note: Why are there so many Ph.D.'s among the U.S.S. Hunter's officer corps? The U.S.S. Hunter is a prototype and the most advanced starship not only in Star Fleet, but in any known service in the Alpha Quadrant. Justice Minerva Irons, as captain, set a requirement that any officer from 2nd Lt. up must hold an advanced degree (although she does not specify what field.) For the characters in this scene those degrees are:

Lt. Moon Sun Salek, Ph.D. in Advanced Warp Field Design, Star Fleet Academy
Lt. Tauk, Honorary Ph.D. in Game Theory, University of Lower Trantor
2nd Lt. Gaia Gamor, Ph.D. in AstroPhysics, Days University in Nairobi, Kenya
2nd Lt. Sun Ho Hui, Ph.D. in Warp Field Theory, Universidad de Chile
Ensign Geoffrey Horatio Alstars, Ph.D. in Mathematics, Oxford University

No matter what kind of fuel a space ship uses, all space vessels run primarily on math.​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter
Episode: 16: Slavers
Scene 19: A Voice in the Dark

16.19
A Voice in the Dark​

Justice Minerva Irons had fallen asleep in the armchair in her quarters. Two empty bottles of kanar and two shot glasses were on the table in front of her - one empty, the other, Pivin’s glass, untouched from when the Betrayer had set it down earlier.

Irons’ head was moving slightly. It was a deep, unsettling sleep. Somehow she was aware that Pivin the Betrayer had gone to bed. She wanted to wake up. Was trying desperately to wake up. But she was dream locked. Her armchair was so comfortable, but the rest of her room was so far away - so far away in the darkness that she could not see any of it. Just the table next to her with a carafe of ice water and two tumblers and another armchair, just like hers, set at a 90 degree angle.*

“I don’t think my next guest needs a long introduction,” said the Director of Section 31 in his polished British accent. “Here at Subspace Radio Bashir, I have been simply inundated with a request to interview At Large Appellate Justice Minerva Irons, a remarkable woman who has returned to service at the helm of a starship as a Star Fleet Captain no less than four times to avoid the many expectations her family has placed on her as matriarch of the enormous and fabulously wealthy and powerful Irons family. Minerva has published a number of treatises on the finer points of pre-First Contact Earth law from several cultures, particularly that of the People’s Republic of China as well as Vulcan law and several in-depth studies of the finer points of Andorian law. She has also published a history of the United Federation of Planets that, like all of her other works, misses some of the most interesting aspects of Federation history.”

“Justice Irons is also responsible for missions on assignment for Section 31, the most secret organization in the Alpha Quadrant. An organization so secret that the only two klingons who have ever heard of it served as members and died in service to Section 31. So, Minerva, and I call you Minerva because we have been friends as well as co-conspirators for more than a decade, why do you think I have not trusted you with the most important operation in the history of Section 31?”


Irons found herself unable to answer. She did not have a mouth.


“That’s right!” said Chief Justice Julian Bashir. “You are too personally invested. Your loyalties are conflicted. You serve Star Fleet. You serve the Tribunal. You serve the Federation. All of that, you might be able to set aside with the understanding that Section 31 also serves all those things, but we must occasionally - far more often than we want, we must make great sacrifices and it is Star Fleet, the Tribunal, the Federation, even occasionally the sacred innocents we protect in their pre-warp ignorance - sometimes we must sacrifice them too for the longer range interests entrusted to us under our charter. To preserve Federation culture - not the culture of Earth or of Vulcan or of Andoria - those may have to be sacrificed too… no, the culture of the Federation itself that made the grand alliance of Earth, Vulcan and Andoria - and all the other worlds who shelter under their power - possible.”

“So, Minerva, I am using this method of communication to give you instructions. I know you have languished in ignorance of our greatest and most significant endeavor. Now that it has been accomplished, you can contribute to it. But to do so, you must understand that your highest duty is to Section 31. Not Star Fleet. Not the Tribunal. Not the Federation. And not the Irons family. You may be required to sacrifice any or all of those things. Believe me, I have sacrificed. I have sent thousands of people to their deaths. I have withdrawn shelter from the innocents and seen them taken as slaves, ripped from their safe worlds, used as biological resources. I have allowed them to die in slavery and torment by the hundreds of thousands. Can you do the same?”


Julian Bashir stopped and took a deep breath. “What I am about to tell you is the biggest secret in the Alpha Quadrant. This information is need-to-know and until this moment, you did not need to know. Now you do.”

“Section 31 engineered the Fall of Vulcan. It has been 10 years in the making. We designed this plan less than a week after Romulus was destroyed in the Hobus Event. Over the past 10 years, we encouraged a mass migration of nearly half of Vulcan’s population out to the colonies and to Earth. I ordered Vice Admiral Senvol to make sure the Romulan Senate could walk in and take the planet without firing a shot - I ordered my friend to his death - to sacrifice himself and hundreds under his command to make this takeover possible. I am now ordering you to see this project to its fruition. This is the most important thing you will ever do in your very long life.”

“Here are your assignments,” Bashir continued. “You must keep Vulcan in the Federation - with new council representatives to be provided by the Imperial Romulan Senate. You must help the Romulan Star Navy to rip a world full of innocents from their homes. Not some of them - all of them. You must set a world on fire, consigning all life on it to death. And you must save another world full of enslaved innocents and bring them from that place to a new home where they will still be slaves. To do that, you must violate not only the Prime Directive - and egregiously… To get these people to give up their homeworlds to be brought into what amounts to a lifetime of hard labor, building new worlds from the wreckage of the old, you must violate the First Commandment. You must give them not just a god, but a monster. Now you may speak…”

“MMMmmmm, mmmMMmmMMM, mmmMMmMMMMHHH!” Irons moaned in a mixture of anguish, rage and terror - she still did not have a mouth.

“Oh, sorry about that,” said Bashir. He waved his hand and Justice Irons found to her relief that she now had a mouth.


She took a deep, trembling breath. “Is this real? Or is this a dream?”


“Of course this is a dream, Minerva!" Bashir hissed. "But what in all the Milky Way makes you think for even a second that this is not real?”

16 – Slavers




​

*The dreamscape and Julian Bashir's introductory remarks deliberately mirror Emory Ivonovic's podcast studio and his opening remarks from his interview with Dr. Kenny Dolphin in Episode 10: The Philosopher.

​

Here ends Episode 16.

The Adventure continues in Star Trek Hunter, Episode 17: Terms of Surrender.​

 

[Galen4]

What an ambitious and audacious plan. To stage an invasion of Vulcan after Romulas was destroyed? Wow.
That whole reunification threat just won't die, will it? Vulcan has been living under its shadow for decades, if not centuries.

And it seems Bashir is now out Sloaning Sloan. Jeez. I think it's safe to say his younger self would hate what he's become. And I wonder what Section 31 and Bashir feel is so justified about the invasion of Vulcan, that they would go to these extremes? It's tempting to just say they're all evil, but clearly, they have some reasoning behind this. Is it because the Romulan refugees are destined to become a fatal threat to the Federation in the future fi they aren't resettled? That's the scary thing about the whole "ends justify the means" philosophy...because anything can be justified for the greater good.

Will Minerva go along? Time will tell.

Nice mathematical detailing by the way. Sounds like you have a background. I'm so math challenged; I doubt I could write such scenes with the convincing authority you have. More power to you!

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

And I wonder what Section 31 and Bashir feel is so justified about the invasion of Vulcan, that they would go to these extremes? I

Glad you're getting into the complexities of this story. Julian never does anything without very good reason. And, oddly, like Luther Sloan, Julian is very much a humanist (well... humanoidist?) But sometimes the most brilliant move in chess is to sacrifice your queen... The payoff is revealed in Ep 17...

Nice mathematical detailing by the way. Sounds like you have a background.

Flotsam and jetsam left over from an attempt to declare a major in math (that ended up being a minor) and a fair amount of general science reading. I was heavily influenced by Numb3rs, which presented some great stories about game theory without getting into the details of the equations. If I were to screen STH, I would use famous equations for these scenes (like Bayes Theorem or some of Maxwell's equations) as easter eggs for any alert physicists who might be watching.

Thanks again for the reviews!! rbs

 

[Gibraltar]

Review 16.4 - I love that Julian takes the emotional weight and pain of such horrors onto himself voluntarily. That's so him. The young doctor at the core of him still remains after a fashion, cocooned within the augmented Section 31 operative and justice.

 

[Gibraltar]

Review 16.5 - A veritable nerd-fest in engineering, and you have to love the Johnny-come-lately grizzled ensign rounding out the team. Time to sift through the Badlands, ladies and gentlebeings!

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Review 16.4 - I love that Julian takes the emotional weight and pain of such horrors onto himself voluntarily. That's so him...

I'm so gratified that Julian's emotional torment rings through - a compassionate man crushed under the weight of what he believes he must do...
Also glad you're enjoying hoary old Sir Geoffrey!
Thanks!! rbs

 

[Gibraltar]

Review 16.6 - Now that's how you make a stirring fleet-wide announcement about a hard-won victory. Nicely done!

 

[Gibraltar]

Review 16.7 - Political machinations with a side of Section 31 skullduggery. There's a lot happening behind the scenes here, and the stakes keeping being raised.

A fascinating after-action analysis of Rear Admiral Chekov's strategy and tactics in The Battle of the Coridan Corridor... he's still just as calculating as I'd expect. But hey, he gets results.

 

[Gibraltar]

Review 16.8 - “We’re method actors.”

Ah, poor lad, the things he's made to endure for king and country!

 

[Gibraltar]

Review 16.9 - Castaways from multiple conflicts, and now from ruthless slavers. They are the textbook definition of survivors.