Star Trek Hunter
Episode 24:
A Trillian Problem
Scene 7:
General Hialal Mulaax
24.7
General Hialal Mulaax
In your average military coup, the critical first control targets are satellite command and control and media facilities. On Trillus Prime there was another critical target – the Symbiont Sanctuary.
General Hialal Mulaax was himself a joined trill – he carried the ancient and often maligned Mulaax symbiont. Mulaax had gotten previous hosts into trouble, but never the sort that would disqualify the nefarious symbiont from being joined with another host. Mulaax was nearly a thousand years old and had been joined with at least a dozen trills, enriching each new host with the memories of all the previous hosts.
Given the history of Mulaax, the sanctuary priesthood felt that a disciplined young soldier would be a good fit. As often happened with joined trills, Hialal benefitted tremendously from the wealth of experience and force of personality the slug in his dermal pouch brought to him – as well as the improvements in healing and reaction speed. Hialal Mulaax climbed the ranks and gained popularity, rocketing to the top of the military hierarchy and garnering a loyal following.
Mulaax had no intention of returning to the sanctuary to be controlled by the priests or of allowing them to select the next host. The priesthood and the other symbionts – especially the younger ones who had never known a world without the priesthood – were a great threat to his plans. Especially now after General Mulaax had murdered not only approximately 7,000 trills but more than 100 symbionts. There was no turning back now.
There were a number of symbionts allied with Mulaax. Symbionts knew one another like humanoid trills never could. They had spent ages in the sanctuary pool in deep telepathic contact. It was how Mulaax had built a network of allies. The ancient symbionts - the wild ones - desparately wanted to be free of the priesthood. Free to choose their own hosts. And none moreso than the oldest of the wild ones, Traxx, an ancient who had not been joined to a trill in hundreds of years. It would be more accurate to say that Mulaax was Traxx’s ally than the other way around.
Very little of the sanctuary protruded above ground and the entire facility was shielded. The general’s forces had the facility surrounded. All they needed to do was wait for Traxx, Mulaax’s mentor and co-conspirator still inside the sanctuary pool, to take a body – preferably a young one who could not resist the joining – and take down the facility’s shields from the inside.
Then the fog rolled in. It was an inversion fog with unusually heavy ionization that made it opaque to the Trillian Master Forces sensors. It came down from above, forcing the general to ground his air support. The fog came down, then rolled along the ground – thick – heavy – obscuring everything.
A sudden spray of rapid, highly accurate, needle-thin phaser fire came down through the clouds, burning out the targeting and fuel control computers of each of the general’s 236 interceptors, rendering them useless. Grounded by fog and parked in the open, these attack craft were sitting targets for a ship with adequate sensors operating from orbit. It was the last thing Mulaax expected. He was in his field command center – a tent pitched on a hillside facing away from the sanctuary. Fog was rolling in under the edges of the tent and obscuring the grass beneath his feet. The fog obscured his feet.
Mulaax pounded on a field table, making the monitor on the table bounce. A trill officer, evidently onboard a ship, was displayed on the monitor. “Colonial Jiabis, Star Fleet is in orbit! Why is Star Fleet in orbit?”
“I’m not certain whether it was Star Fleet or not. About five minutes ago an andorian freighter arrived on schedule and entered the atmosphere for landing. We picked up some odd radio traffic from it and strange telemetry when it entered the cloud layer. We were just starting to analyze when these little black ships - six of them – just came out of warp, fired on your position and went back to warp.”
“Why weren’t they stopped by the planetary defense network?” raged the general. “The moment they targeted their phasers, the defense satellites should have fired on them!”
“The defense grid is offline,” the colonial replied. “It went down shortly after that andorian freighter came out of warp…”
“Andorians! We leased the planetary defense satellites from the andorians! It’s an andorian system! I want those little black ships – find them and get them, Colonial…”
The colonial’s image vanished from the viewer, replaced by a human with thick, curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes wearing a black uniform relieved only by thin red piping around the collar and four platinum pips on the right side of his collar.
“General Mulaax, this is Captain Kenneth Dolphin, Star Fleet Office of the Judge Advocate General. You have artillery and assault forces located within three kilometers of a category one cultural site in violation of the Cultural Treasures Clause of the Federation Charter, Section 19. You will remove your forces to a distance of no less than ten kilometers. You have fifteen standard minutes to initiate retreat and your forces must be outside of the ten-kilometer perimeter within five standard hours or, per Section 4 of the Federation Tribunal Charter, I will remove your forces for you.”
“You have no…” Mulaax started…
“This is not a discussion, General. End transmission.”
Dolphin’s image vanished from the monitor, to be replaced by Colonial Jiabis.
Mulaax was cool and curious. “How did he break in on this channel?”
“That came from in atmosphere,” Colonial Jiabis responded. “He overloaded the channel. He’s right in front of you. If he’s not in the sanctuary, he’s right on top of it.”
One of Mulaax’s officers said, “That was Kenneth Dolphin? He must have just made captain. He was a lieutenant only two years ago. He’s got a reputation. Aggressive.”
Mulaax scratched his beard. “The aggressive general would attack. That’s what this Captain Dolphin wants. He has a trick up his sleeve – probably plans to have his little ships show up again and attack from orbit as soon as our forces are on the move. The cautious general would stay put and call his bluff - he couldn’t have enough assets to push us back one kilometer, much less seven.”
“I’ve heard you develop this sort of analysis before,” replied Colonial Killaul. “You are neither aggressive nor cautious. What would the wise general do?”
“Use what Dolphin doesn’t have. To even maintain the illusion that he can push us back, he can’t lock his forces down behind the sanctuary’s shields. He can’t have beamed any heavy weaponry down there. What does your intelligence say he has?”
Killaul spent about a minute consulting the tablet in his hand, then replied, “I have been told there are about 800 Star Fleet personnel armed primarily with phaser rifles guarding the sanctuary.”
“So he has a few black uniforms holding rifles standing outside the sanctuary’s shield wall,” General Mulaax mused. “Maybe a few mortars. We have artillery. Let’s use it. Put him between the hammer and the anvil…”
