STAR TREK: KHITOMER
Yeah, she (that was the original CNB by the way) really knows what to do with a flame thrower and incendiary grenades ...
Maybe I should have said TEASER TO SEASON THREE?
Well, maybe this is better ...
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
March 24, 2401
“Leo?”
Wilkins was trying to read and understand once again the technobabble on the PADD, but it still made no sense to him. To his defense, B’Elanna hadn’t understood much of it either, and neither had Miles O’Brien and all the Corps of Starfleet Engineers, as all were quite simply baffled by the exaquads of data this “simple summary” represented.
“Leo?”
Wilkins had read that thing hundreds of times already. It was less than a thousand words. Yirina, Miral, Catherine and Taleria had done their best to make it as understandable as possible, but had failed to make it any easier for anyone who hadn’t spent months studying the Deletham’s systems. To the members of the Task Force it was crystal-clear. To everyone else, including the officers and crew, it was Ancient Bynarian.
B’Elanna had lowered her nightgown on her waist. Gently she caressed Wilkins’ cheek with her bare breast, from behind. He noticed it after a few seconds, and slowly started to forget what he was trying to do, abandoning himself to the sweet feeling of his new wife’s intoxicating body touching him just about anywhere, as B’Elanna took off his pajama vest and started caressing his back …
“It’s hopeless, honey” she said. “We are too old to understand those things. You are the one who said that you wanted to handle out everything to the next generation someday. Well, let them do their job and do yours.”
“My job?”
“Pleasure me.”
“That’s not a job, that’s my new passion.”
“Good answer. Now let that go, turn around and make love to me.”
***
Kai Onara paused. She so did not want to enter that forsaken place. But there was no choice.
She had followed all the instructions to the letter. The Prophecy of the Destitute was the only one in all the Bajoran Sacred Books which was written to be understood by anyone, and it gave precise instructions on how to find the Destitute and how to recognize him. The only thing missing was the date, which would be given to the Kai only, and only when the time would come.
The vision had come. She had left the day after for the small village of Paqir, at the feet of the Janitza Mountains. There she had cast aside almost all of her belongings, except for the essential: civilian winter attire. The villagers insisted that they should provide a guide and provisions, but she had answered, softly and with love and faith in her voice and eyes:
“The Prophets will provide.”
For three months, the Prophets had provided indeed: a refuge for the snowstorms, almost daily food and, of course, an infinite supply of water.
So Onara had kept walking, sleeping when she couldn’t go on, eating when she found comestible leaves or bays — which in winter seemed like as many miracles indeed — and otherwise rejoicing that her gods had found her worthy of that most sacred mission.
And now, there she was, at the entrance of the Fire Caves …
***
OK1.
That’s the nickname the humongous new creation of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, built thanks to a more than generous gift from their Klingon allies, had received.
It stood for Outpost Khitomer One, and that outpost was a huge station indeed, which dwarfed the ships orbiting around it, and would even have dwarfed Deep Space Nine, with its diameter of a little more than six kilometers, not counting the outside protrusions, which were the most original part of the design.
The external material was similar to the one used on the hulls of most new starships since the Sovereign. The central part was a large, very large donut, about four kilometers in diameter, hermetically closed to any access from the outside. In its center was a half-full, half-hollow part. The hollow half was on what was drawn on the blueprints as the lower side.
All around the donut was the second, most lethal and revolutionary part of the station: an outer ring, about one kilometer wide on each side, circular inside, mostly octagonal on the outside. Four of those eight edges were fitted with bizarre constructions, three kilometers long, vaguely similar to huge saucer sections at the end of a flat arm. Alternating with those four edges, the other four only showed some very wide slots, which seemed harmless.
At the end of each of the four arm-saucer assemblies were large docking bays, through which most small ships could enter to unload their stock or troops. But in case of attack, each of the four contractions started pivoting on a giant hinge and locked itself UNDER the outpost, revealing a giant array of transphasic torpedo launchers, to support the giant pulse cannon arrays hidden right inside the slots.
Of course, all around the rest of the hull, thousands of other weapons, less lethal maybe but still quite capable of fatally damaging an invader thanks to their sheer number, were permanently fully loaded. On the lower side, they also served to protect the access to the four docking bays, which when folded would be all in the middle of the donut, through which would eventually come out the small attack fighters being designed and tested by a dedicated team of Starfleet Engineers working 24/7 on the way to pack the biggest possible wallop in the smallest possible ship.
On the station also worked the Deletham Task Force. Objective: to adapt everything they had gotten out of the ship before she threw them out and self-destructed herself — a story Wilkins had to believe, but which he still found quite unbelievable — on a Defiant-type (not -class) ship, and supervise mass production.
Quite a mission, quite a station. And their roles would eventually grow larger as time would go by, Wilkins was sure of it. That’s why OK1 was watched over by almost fifty Klingon ships, until she became completely operational, which would take just a little more time …
***
The Chameleon had joined the Klingon fleet protecting OK1 after intensive upgrades given to her after her return from the Bootes Supercluster, via the Delta Quadrant. Soon though she would have to return to her original mission: explore the Alpha and Beta quadrants and look for the Borg.
Varel had reported on her crew. Yes, they were children for the most part, but they had learned very quickly, especially after the disappearance of their beloved captain. They had rallied around Varel and learned to do a job for which several of them had not been prepared: Annie as First Officer, Molly as Chief Engineer — she had almost always worked on starbases before — and Neema as a nurse.
Neema Dax had asked for a permanent transfer to the Chameleon. So had Molly O’Brien. And, a surprise which had made Varel almost lose her composure, so had Rose McCoy. They were ready to go.
Annie had jumped into her work as her only palliative to the pain still charring her heart. Maybe the others had forgotten, but she had not. Her perfect body, her perky breasts, her sparkling hazelnut eyes, the way she smiled, the way she sighed …
***
The character was sitting on the ground.
Meditation was a good thing. A thousand times, between prophecies, the Sacred Books said so. Meditation was the key to understanding. The more one needed to understand, the more one needed to meditate.
But there was a time for meditation, and there was a time for action. That time would soon begin. Soon it would be the moment to stand up and get to work, to finish what the other had started.
And someone was coming …
***
Onara had entered the Fire Caves, leaving her shoes at the entrance. She did not understand why, as the ground was much colder than the name “Fire Caves” would have left anyone to believe, but that too was part of the instructions.
Now she was walking, checking all around very cautiously. She was afraid of that place, but the Prophets wanted her in it, so there she was, looking in every direction until …
There was a silhouette. She walked slowly towards it.
The silhouette stood up and came towards her, slowly. They kept walking until Onara could figure out the face. It was a Bajoran all right, but with a look which really surprised her, as the silhouette said:
“Eminence?”
To which she answered:
“Emissary?”
Yeah, she (that was the original CNB by the way) really knows what to do with a flame thrower and incendiary grenades ...
Maybe I should have said TEASER TO SEASON THREE?
Well, maybe this is better ...
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
March 24, 2401
“Leo?”
Wilkins was trying to read and understand once again the technobabble on the PADD, but it still made no sense to him. To his defense, B’Elanna hadn’t understood much of it either, and neither had Miles O’Brien and all the Corps of Starfleet Engineers, as all were quite simply baffled by the exaquads of data this “simple summary” represented.
“Leo?”
Wilkins had read that thing hundreds of times already. It was less than a thousand words. Yirina, Miral, Catherine and Taleria had done their best to make it as understandable as possible, but had failed to make it any easier for anyone who hadn’t spent months studying the Deletham’s systems. To the members of the Task Force it was crystal-clear. To everyone else, including the officers and crew, it was Ancient Bynarian.
B’Elanna had lowered her nightgown on her waist. Gently she caressed Wilkins’ cheek with her bare breast, from behind. He noticed it after a few seconds, and slowly started to forget what he was trying to do, abandoning himself to the sweet feeling of his new wife’s intoxicating body touching him just about anywhere, as B’Elanna took off his pajama vest and started caressing his back …
“It’s hopeless, honey” she said. “We are too old to understand those things. You are the one who said that you wanted to handle out everything to the next generation someday. Well, let them do their job and do yours.”
“My job?”
“Pleasure me.”
“That’s not a job, that’s my new passion.”
“Good answer. Now let that go, turn around and make love to me.”
***
Kai Onara paused. She so did not want to enter that forsaken place. But there was no choice.
She had followed all the instructions to the letter. The Prophecy of the Destitute was the only one in all the Bajoran Sacred Books which was written to be understood by anyone, and it gave precise instructions on how to find the Destitute and how to recognize him. The only thing missing was the date, which would be given to the Kai only, and only when the time would come.
The vision had come. She had left the day after for the small village of Paqir, at the feet of the Janitza Mountains. There she had cast aside almost all of her belongings, except for the essential: civilian winter attire. The villagers insisted that they should provide a guide and provisions, but she had answered, softly and with love and faith in her voice and eyes:
“The Prophets will provide.”
For three months, the Prophets had provided indeed: a refuge for the snowstorms, almost daily food and, of course, an infinite supply of water.
So Onara had kept walking, sleeping when she couldn’t go on, eating when she found comestible leaves or bays — which in winter seemed like as many miracles indeed — and otherwise rejoicing that her gods had found her worthy of that most sacred mission.
And now, there she was, at the entrance of the Fire Caves …
***
OK1.
That’s the nickname the humongous new creation of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, built thanks to a more than generous gift from their Klingon allies, had received.
It stood for Outpost Khitomer One, and that outpost was a huge station indeed, which dwarfed the ships orbiting around it, and would even have dwarfed Deep Space Nine, with its diameter of a little more than six kilometers, not counting the outside protrusions, which were the most original part of the design.
The external material was similar to the one used on the hulls of most new starships since the Sovereign. The central part was a large, very large donut, about four kilometers in diameter, hermetically closed to any access from the outside. In its center was a half-full, half-hollow part. The hollow half was on what was drawn on the blueprints as the lower side.
All around the donut was the second, most lethal and revolutionary part of the station: an outer ring, about one kilometer wide on each side, circular inside, mostly octagonal on the outside. Four of those eight edges were fitted with bizarre constructions, three kilometers long, vaguely similar to huge saucer sections at the end of a flat arm. Alternating with those four edges, the other four only showed some very wide slots, which seemed harmless.
At the end of each of the four arm-saucer assemblies were large docking bays, through which most small ships could enter to unload their stock or troops. But in case of attack, each of the four contractions started pivoting on a giant hinge and locked itself UNDER the outpost, revealing a giant array of transphasic torpedo launchers, to support the giant pulse cannon arrays hidden right inside the slots.
Of course, all around the rest of the hull, thousands of other weapons, less lethal maybe but still quite capable of fatally damaging an invader thanks to their sheer number, were permanently fully loaded. On the lower side, they also served to protect the access to the four docking bays, which when folded would be all in the middle of the donut, through which would eventually come out the small attack fighters being designed and tested by a dedicated team of Starfleet Engineers working 24/7 on the way to pack the biggest possible wallop in the smallest possible ship.
On the station also worked the Deletham Task Force. Objective: to adapt everything they had gotten out of the ship before she threw them out and self-destructed herself — a story Wilkins had to believe, but which he still found quite unbelievable — on a Defiant-type (not -class) ship, and supervise mass production.
Quite a mission, quite a station. And their roles would eventually grow larger as time would go by, Wilkins was sure of it. That’s why OK1 was watched over by almost fifty Klingon ships, until she became completely operational, which would take just a little more time …
***
The Chameleon had joined the Klingon fleet protecting OK1 after intensive upgrades given to her after her return from the Bootes Supercluster, via the Delta Quadrant. Soon though she would have to return to her original mission: explore the Alpha and Beta quadrants and look for the Borg.
Varel had reported on her crew. Yes, they were children for the most part, but they had learned very quickly, especially after the disappearance of their beloved captain. They had rallied around Varel and learned to do a job for which several of them had not been prepared: Annie as First Officer, Molly as Chief Engineer — she had almost always worked on starbases before — and Neema as a nurse.
Neema Dax had asked for a permanent transfer to the Chameleon. So had Molly O’Brien. And, a surprise which had made Varel almost lose her composure, so had Rose McCoy. They were ready to go.
Annie had jumped into her work as her only palliative to the pain still charring her heart. Maybe the others had forgotten, but she had not. Her perfect body, her perky breasts, her sparkling hazelnut eyes, the way she smiled, the way she sighed …
***
The character was sitting on the ground.
Meditation was a good thing. A thousand times, between prophecies, the Sacred Books said so. Meditation was the key to understanding. The more one needed to understand, the more one needed to meditate.
But there was a time for meditation, and there was a time for action. That time would soon begin. Soon it would be the moment to stand up and get to work, to finish what the other had started.
And someone was coming …
***
Onara had entered the Fire Caves, leaving her shoes at the entrance. She did not understand why, as the ground was much colder than the name “Fire Caves” would have left anyone to believe, but that too was part of the instructions.
Now she was walking, checking all around very cautiously. She was afraid of that place, but the Prophets wanted her in it, so there she was, looking in every direction until …
There was a silhouette. She walked slowly towards it.
The silhouette stood up and came towards her, slowly. They kept walking until Onara could figure out the face. It was a Bajoran all right, but with a look which really surprised her, as the silhouette said:
“Eminence?”
To which she answered:
“Emissary?”
