How hard could it be for a handful of Federation hybrids to capture a Romulan battle god with a million Romulans onboard? Probably the first step is to get inside. ✔️ Second step, have something up your sleeve. ✔️ -Will
Yeah... you could say that... And something up your other sleeve... Glad to see you getting caught up in the capture of the U.S.S. Hunter and crew! Thanks!! rbs
Star Trek Hunter Episode 20: Survival Scene 12: Pepperheart 20.12 Pepperheart “I estimate the first of the romulan warbirds will arrive in about eleven hours.” Lt. Commander Tauk, wearing a full EVA suit, was standing well behind Commander Kenneth Dolphin (also in an EVA suit), who was inspecting the wreckage of a klingon bird of prey. Dolphin carefully gripped a twisted hull plate. He easily lifted the massive piece of metal and tossed it into space. This exposed a corner of the bridge of the wrecked vessel. The asteroid the klingon ship had collided with was so small it had very little gravity. For safety, Dolphin and Tauk were independently tethered to pitons driven into the asteroid. Dolphin unhooked his tether from his EVA suit and magnetized his boots, then ducked and crawled into the bridge. Tauk followed him. They turned on their helmet lights. “Pep…” Tauk said, grief evident in his voice. Dolphin walked slowly over to join his 2nd officer. Wedged firmly into the captain’s chair, his legs crushed beyond any hope of recovery, an oddly beatific expression on his face - almost ecstatic - was the enormous body of Commander David Pepper. His chest had been ripped open from his neck to his waist, his enormous rib cage split open, exposing now completely desiccated organs. A hole in the middle of his organs where his heart should have been. For all this damage, there was surprisingly little blood. In Pep’s right hand was a viewer. Tauk took the viewer from Pep’s hand. He and Dolphin looked at each other. Tauk thumbed a control on the viewer. Two files were displayed. One was titled “Read Now.” The other was titled “Read Later.” Tauk looked at Kenny again, then pressed a control that activated the file titled “Read Now.” Pep’s image appeared on the screen. He didn’t look good. “Losing atmosphere. We’ve been here 6 days. Not enough power to send a signal. I have a hemorrhage. It is beyond Mlady’s ability to heal. I have left a longer message – for later. Within two hours, I will be dead. When you find me, my blood will be gone, but my heart is not missing. It will be where it has been for the past 20 years - with her. It should give her enough food for a prolonged hibernation. When you wake her, if she is still alive, do not feed her. Keep her bound. She will try to attack. But she should calm down within five minutes. Once she is calm, you can feed her blood, but only Tali’s blood will be truly nutritious for her. It may take a long time for her to recover to her normal state. You will find her in the atmosphere reclamation chamber, next to the warp core. This last is critically important. None of her remains may be allowed to remain here. Whatever you find of her, alive or dead, return all of it to the Federation. As for my empty shell, I die in command of the I.K.V. ‘Iw Hov. I am to remain with my ship.” “His heart!” Dolphin said suddenly. Tauk just looked at him. “Remember,” Dolphin prodded. “Carrera had this dream that Pep’s heart was missing. It was about two years ago, down on that mushroom planet…” Tauk nodded as Dolphin continued: “He said in the dream that Pep’s heart was missing, but that Pep said it wasn’t missing - it was where it belonged. At the time, we all thought it was about Pep getting stabbed in the heart by that nausicaan. But Sarekson must have figured out it meant that at some point Mlady would eat Pep’s heart… Meaning she would have to be in extremis and would need us to find her…” “Then let’s go do that,” Tauk replied. Lt. Cmdr. Tauk led the way slowly deeper into the broken klingon ship. “How are we going to feed her without Tali Shae?” Dolphin asked. “One step at a time, sir. Let’s find her and get her back to the tactical unit first,” Tauk replied. Dolphin could hear the ferengi’s tortured breathing through the communicator in his helmet. “So why didn’t Sarekson tell us?” Dolphin mused. “He must have adjusted her communicator before he left. Why did he have to send that bizarre borg to tell us about this?” “He didn’t know he wouldn’t be with us when it happened,” Tauk replied. Eventually they worked their way through a number of air locks to a section of the ship that was still pressurized. “Close to zero degrees Celsius,” Tauk said. “Almost no oxygen. Mostly CO2.” They found Lt. Cmdr. Mlady wrapped in a pile of blankets. “Can you beam her directly into the maintenance hatch?” Dolphin asked. “I set up a transporter code just for that,” Tauk replied. He touched a few controls on the arm of his EVA suit and with a familiar pattern of lights, Mlady was beamed out. “Time to try out our other new transporter program,” Dolphin said. “You first.” Tauk looked around, then found a cargo container – walked over and sat down on it. Dolphin touched a few controls on the arm of his EVA suit and Tauk was beamed out. Moments later, Commander Dolphin was transported into the pilot seat on the bridge of the tactical unit. Tauk was rocking back and forth in the tactical/navigation seat next to him, eyes squeezed shut, a grimace of pain on his face. “Looks like your idea worked, Tauk,” Dolphin said. “The transporter successfully separated me from my EVA suit and beamed the suit’s components directly into storage.” He paused, watched Tauk rocking. “The painkillers and stimulants aren’t working anymore, are they?” “We need to leave before the romulans get here,” Tauk replied. “Then we need to revive Mlady.” “I don’t know how we’re going to do that without Tali Shae.” “One step at a time, Kenny. Let’s find a nice secluded patch of space to go dark in. Far away from here.” “I’m not taking any chances with the remains of the ‘Iw Hov,” said Dolphin. “A photon torpedo to its weapons array should be sufficient. The secondary explosions will take care of the rest.” “Aye, Commander,” Tauk responded, then touched a few controls. “Torpedo away.” Then, very softly, “Goodbye, Pep.” The tactical unit glided away as a photon torpedo struck the wreck of the bird of prey just below the bridge, causing massive secondary explosions from its unexploded munitions, demolishing the remains of the small attack vessel and the asteroid it had collided with. * ‘Iw Hov – (thlingn hol - Blood Star) 20.12 (of 14) Author's Note: This scene includes a callback to Episode 7: The Great Mushroom, Scene 9: Mushroom Dreams. If you follow the link, Scene 9 is at the bottom of the first page.
Star Trek Hunter Episode 20: Survival Scene 13: Breaking Buddy 20.13 Breaking Buddy A majority of the U.S.S. Hunter’s crew were gathered around the stockade. The anaixes looked like a rather nightmarish cross between a moose and a grizzly bear (if a bit on the large side for either) – only with downy brown and purple feathers instead of fur. And short, very businesslike tusks. It was clearly an intelligent animal and had no desire to be yoked for field service. But Lt. Napoleon Boles did not intend to yoke the beast. A large saddle, clearly designed for the anaixes, was displayed prominently on the fence. The animal regarded the saddle with what could only be described as contempt. “He had to choose the biggest one,” Dr. Tali Shae groused, not without some grudging admiration for the half-bolian, half-human biologist. “Not that any of them are really approachable. But I think that one’s got the nastiest temper, too.” “Okay, Buddy,” Boles said. He entered one gate of the stockade, then went through the second gate. 2nd Lt. Sun Ho Hui quickly closed the gate behind him – letting the lock drop into place. “We talked about this,” Boles continued. He was of average height, but solidly built. In addition to his Star Fleet uniform, he was wearing a pair of heavy gloves and carrying a large rope coiled in his left hand, the knot of a lasso in his right. “You and me, we’re going to be the best…” Apparently the word “best” was exactly the sort of word that would cause a feral anaixes to lunge – which the beast did, thrusting its tusks in an attempt to gore its blue interlocutor’s midsection. What it got instead was a lasso neatly looped around its neck as Boles danced expertly away. For the next several minutes the anaixes made a variety of enraged, ear-piercing shrieking noises and altered between charging at the blue cowboy and trying to remove the lasso. Boles expertly evaded each attack and gave the beast plenty of rope to allow it to move freely about the stockade while allowing only minimal slack between the coil of rope in his left hand and the lasso around the animal’s neck. “Best friends,” Boles continued, managing a soothing sound even though he was breathing hard. Which did not have a soothing effect on the anaixes – it charged him again. This time Boles stood his ground and with a quick twist of the rope, caused the anaixes to turn to its right and circle around him. Boles gradually reeled the beast in as it charged, was forced to circle and charged again until the powerful animal was next to Boles, its head close to the ground, forced to stay in position because Boles had one foot on the rope. “We just have to sort a few things out first,” Boles said, then leapt cleanly over the anaixes’ neck and landed on its other side just as the beast lunged sideways at him. It took another forty minutes before the animal finally calmed enough to allow Boles to remove the lasso from its neck. The anaixes backed away and crouched, prepared to lunge. It glared intelligently at Boles. “Now you have a decision to make, Buddy. You can decide to trust me, or we can do this all over again. I can do this all day long and all day tomorrow. Or you can come over here quietly and we can have a little talk about that saddle…” It had been nearly an hour of very hard work for the anaixes. Boles appeared to hardly have any dust on his uniform. “Now give me some credit – we went through all of that and I never hurt you. We just had to come to an understanding about a few things…” Gradually, the anaixes relaxed, its breathing slowed. “That’s good, Buddy,” said Boles, “but you have to come over here to me. That’s the way this works. Slow and friendly now…” - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - Commander Hundeeth touched the door chime for Sela’s office. He was carrying a portable viewer. The door opened. “Come in Commander,” Sela said. “Supreme Commander, you wanted to be notified of the progress of the prisoners in 179,792 with the anaixes…” “They have already started to try harnessing them?” Sela asked. Her eyes and attention were on a report on her desk viewer. “I’m not certain you will believe this until you see it.” Hundeeth tapped his viewer. “That odd looking bolian is riding one of them…” “Half bolian, half human,” Sela corrected, almost murmuring, still staring into the monitor on her desk, still absorbed in her report. She looked up suddenly, shocked. “He’s doing what???” 20.13 (of 14)
Read Monte Roberts, the Horse Whisperer. It will give some insight into the psychi of pack animals, such as horses. We used the John Lyons' round penning methods, similar ideas, on our horses. Sounds like Boles is familiar with their methods. Can't wait to see where this is going. Perhaps a metaphor for bringing the enemy into your camp? The inverse of Stockholm Syndrome? -Will
She's in for a few more surprises. But she's pretty good about rolling with the punches. And she has more than a few surprises up her sleeve... My inspiration for that scene was a video I saw of a very small woman - couldn't have been 100 pounds - saddle-breaking a wild camel. The camel was easily 10 times her size and was not happy - if it had managed to kick her, it would have mangled her. But she was completely in control of the animal. Fearless. In Episode 9, Boles told Tali Shae that he had worked as a wrangler and had saddle-broken horses and camels. It took some time for me to figure out how to pay that off in the story. Thanks!! rbs
Picture of camel wrestling from our trip to turkey. The males fight by trying to pin the other into submission for the chance to get the female kept nearby. It is a lot of gentle shoving and head pining. No real trauma, and their owners are highly protective of them. -Will
Star Trek Hunter Episode 20: Survival Scene 14: The Inevitable 20.14 The Inevitable The tactical unit was nearly invisible, drifting dark in dark space, power dropped to minimal levels. The tiny, darkened bridge was empty. The door behind the command chair that led to the maintenance hatch was open. A needle in Commander Kenneth Dolphin’s arm allowed blood to flow into a line. Lt. Cmdr. Tauk was holding the other end of the line over Lt. Cmdr. Mlady’s open mouth, a thin stream of blood flowing directly into her mouth. The expression on her face was pathetic. She was clearly starving and the thin, unenriched human blood, though easy for her to digest, was not very nutritious. “That’s a half-liter,” said Tauk. “You may be feeling a little dizzy and you need to increase your protein intake for the next week or so.” “But she’s still starving…” Dolphin said. Tauk carefully removed the needle from Dolphin’s arm and bandaged the small hole it had left. “It’s time for you to go to the bridge. You should get some sleep before you power this boat up and head toward the rendezvous point. Mlady will need to stay in here and you cannot release her from her chains. She will hibernate after she’s had her fill.” “Tauk…” “Kenny, you knew this was going to be my last mission…” “Wasn’t she supposed to heal you? Tali said she was your only hope…” “My only hope is for a few moments without pain,” Tauk replied. “That’s all I want now. Just a moment without all this pain. She takes away my pain and I give her all the blood and organ meat she needs to recover. No arguments, Kenny,” Tauk added as it was clear from Dolphin’s expression that he was in a mood to argue the inevitable. “You knew all along this was coming. You just couldn’t admit it to yourself.” “Tauk…” There was nothing else Dolphin could say. The grimace of pain on Tauk’s face ended any argument before it could begin. “We have already said everything that needs to be said. It will be all right. It’s time. Be sure to lock the hatch.” Dolphin reluctantly backed out of the cramped maintenance hatch, leaving Tauk and Mlady. Just as he was about to close the door, he heard Tauk’s voice – “Kenny…” Dolphin looked back into the hatch to see the ferengi, suddenly relaxed, clearly relieved of his pain, an almost blissful expression on his face. Mlady’s fangs were embedded in his arm. “It’s been an honor to serve with you, sir…” - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - In a nearby region of romulan space, the massive battlegod, the Imperial Romulan Warship Bestia, briefly eclipsed one star, then another in a distant star cluster as it cruised toward the beacon source point where the I.K.V. ‘Iw Hov and the asteroid it had crashed into had been. Then the entire distant star cluster was eclipsed by the much larger ship that was following the Bestia… 20 – Survival This is the final scene for Episode 20. The adventure continues in Episode 21: The Enemy of My Enemy.
A sad moment for a favorite character. But, maybe Mlady really is Tauk's last hope. Fingers crossed. A ship bigger than a battle god? -Will