Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...Intro

[BrotherBenny]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

‘Vor’cha-class vessel decloaking ahead,’ Braithwaite said from tactical.

‘Relax, Iain, they saw the shuttle leave but they don’t know we’re here,’ Merrick replied. ‘Prepare to raise the shields and charge weapons.’

The engineer looked a little worried. ‘We’re being hailed.’

‘Ignore them.’

‘This is Commander Kruge of the HuQoQ. You are violating sovereign Klingon territory. Withdraw or you will be destroyed.’

Merrick ground her teeth. ‘Sovereign territory, huh?’

‘This is your final warning, Starfleet petaQ.’

‘Amanda!’ Underwood screeched. ‘The HuQoQ is turning toward the surface!’

‘That tears it,’ the former Starfleet captain muttered. ‘Drop the cloak, raise shields and prepare to fire.’

‘Finally,’ Braithwaite replied.

‘Today is a good day to die,’ Kruge yelled and cut the channel.

‘They’re firing,’ Underwood yelled as the photon torpedo slammed into them.

‘Shields holding.’

‘Open a channel.’

‘Channel open.’

‘This is Amanda Merrick of the salvage vessel Michelangelo. Why have you fired on us?’

‘Salvage vessel?’ Kruge replied with a guffaw. ‘With a cloak?’

‘We stole it from the Romulans, easy pickings.’

Kruge glared at her across the screen. ‘You may have bested the Romulans, but you are no match for a Klingon warrior.’

‘Are you a warrior, then?’ Merrick asked.

Kruge growled and cut the channel again.

‘Return fire, all weapons.’

Three photon torpedoes and a continuous barrage of phaser fire, all concentrated on the nacelles and neck of the massive Klingon vessel, collapsed the shields. It was a weak point in the vessel’s defence systems that the Dominion had discovered. Many of the newer Vor’cha-class ships had been strengthened, but this was clearly an older model.

‘Again, before they cloak,’ she barked.

Braithwaite fired just as the HuQoQ cloaked. He was just in time. The Klingon vessel exploded from the neck, tearing the vessel to pieces before the vacuum took care of the rest.

‘They died in battle,’ Merrick said.

‘Was that the only vessel assigned to the outpost?’ Underwood asked. ‘It seems a little light.’

‘Cloak the ship; let’s just hope there’s no one else around.’

‘Cloak engaged.’

‘Contact Lord, I want to know what is happening down there.’

‘There’s a lot of static on the channel,’ Braithwaite said. ‘I’m working to clear it.’

‘Merrick to Lord, what’s happening down there?’

‘We’ve blown…doors…the complex,’ Lord said through the static. ‘Klingons…attacking…’

She turned to her engineering expert. ‘Can’t you do better than that?’

Braithwaite sighed, used to overbearing commanders. ‘Try it now,’ he said, tweaking the settings on his panel.

‘I can barely hear you, Danny.’

‘The Klingons are attacking us with their Bat’leths but they’re not really proficient,’ the younger man responded.

‘Keep me posted, we’ve dealt with the ship in orbit. I don’t want to hang around here any longer than necessary.’

‘We’re dispatching them as fast as we can, Amanda,’ was Lord’s acerbic reply.

She smirked, ‘Merrick out.’

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

The bat’leth swung in a narrow arc preventing anyone with range to avoid it, and the Klingon facing it went down with his body almost cut in half. Daniel Lord ignored the sprays of blood from the Klingons around him and revelled in the joy of dispatching as many of the filthy animals as he could. He had only been married a short while when the devious warrior-animals had slaughtered his wife while she was trying to escape from something she knew nothing about. Lord had nurtured his hatred of the Klingons since that day seven years earlier and although the Federation had become their allies again, he didn’t he’d ever be able to trust one again.

Merrick’s unwelcome intrusion had forced him to concentrate on what he was doing and his thirst for blood had been sated once he realised what he was actually doing. The Klingons, to him a mortal enemy, were still sentient beings and he had no right to judge them. They were probably following the orders of a dead Chancellor and either knew nor cared what had happened since. It was that single realisation that made him hesitate as another Klingon came toward him. Lord didn’t move fast enough and the mek’leth sliced through his arm like a hot knife through butter. The bat’leth was impossible to use to fight with one hand but he used it as a sword and buried it in the Klingon’s chest before collapsing to the ground with a grunt.

Trong reached him a moment later with the medkit. ‘You look like hell,’ she said with a smile.

‘Thanks,’ he replied through gritted teeth. ‘Give me a painkiller, staunch the blood and let me get the rest of these…Klingons to the afterlife.’

Trong stared at him for a moment and he inwardly cursed. As an El-Aurian she would have picked up on his hesitation and word choice and would no doubt bring it up later. It was something he did not look forward to. ‘I can staunch the blood flow and bandage the stump but I’d rather not give you a painkiller. We need your knowledge of subspace weapons to tell us what we’re dealing with here.’

‘How are we doing with the Klingons?’

She gave him another stare. ‘They’re dead, all of them, including our escorts,’ she added, pointing to where Agents Darq and Lyt lay.

Lord hauled himself up off the ground without help and steadied himself against the cavern wall. ‘Now that we don’t have any more Klingons to worry about, we should be able to find out what they were working on and stop them.’

‘They’ve already been stopped,’ Trong said. ‘And we’re not going anywhere until I know what’s going on with you?’

‘Nothing is going on with me, let’s deal with whatever weapons they’re cooking up and get the hell off this god-forsaken rock.’

‘This rock used to be a Federation colony,’ Trong said. ‘What has you so worked up about being here?’

‘Haven’t you read my file? Didn’t Amanda tell you what happened here seven years ago?’

‘No and no.’

Lord knew that she wouldn’t release him until he told her, so he did, adding whatever he had learned in the intervening years. ‘I will never forgive the Klingons, even if the Chancellor himself apologised for their actions.’

‘From what you’ve told me, it seems like these Klingons aren’t—weren’t—acting under Martok’s leadership, but under Gowron. You know as well as I do that he was not completely honourable in everything he did. What you are doing is tarring all Klingons with the same brush. They are not all warriors and not dishonourable. What did you think of Agents Darq and Lyt?’

‘Honestly?’ he replied sheepishly. ‘I didn’t care about them. For me they were a means to an end.’

‘Getting here, getting rid of the Klingons and stopping them building their subspace weapons? Is that the only reason you joined the team?’

Lord nodded, not meeting her gaze.

‘And what about when this mission is over? What were you planning to do?’

‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead, to be honest. I still haven’t.’

‘We’re going to talk more about this later and I’m not going to tell Amanda. I know that she would be extremely disappointed in you for thinking and behaving like this, and might even reconsider your being a member of this team.’

Lord thought about her comment and then nodded. ‘Alright, we’ll talk later. But right now I want to find out exactly what the Klingons were working on.’

‘Then let’s go, this cavern leads directly to the laboratories doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, but it is a good kilometre away, we should get moving,’ Lord replied and tapped his combadge. ‘Amanda, the Klingons are down and we’ve Agents Darq and Lyt. Phan and I are now proceeding to the main complex, Lord out.’

 

[DavidFalkayn]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

Nice. Lord definitely has some issues to work out here. Looking forward to more.

 

[Mistral]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

Me too. Intriguing approach. Looking forward to more.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

After a brisk ten minute walk the two operatives had reached the end of the cavern. The bare walls gave way to plascrete flooring and bulkhead-covered rock. There was one long corridor that bisected the circular complex and one of the rooms on this level would be the main science lab where the Klingons would have done their work. Lord’s shoulder was aching from the pain of losing his arm, which he’d left somewhere in the blood and gore of the destroyed entryway, and he was beginning to feel lightheaded even with the medication which Phan had given him. She was taking point, phaser pointed ahead while he carried a tricorder in his remaining hand.

‘Are you picking up anything?’ she asked.

‘Not at the moment, the lab might be shielded. Do you think there are any Klingons left behind?’

She turned to look at him and he held up his arm in self defence. ‘I don’t want to lose this arm from a surprise attack.’

‘Alright, no there are no more Klingons that I can detect with any of my senses. Still nothing on which lab?’ she asked as they continued to walk down the central corridor.

‘Wait!’

‘What?’

‘I’m getting readings from every room but one, three doors down on the left.’

They both ran to the door and Phan entered first at a crouch in case a Klingon was wielding a bat’leth. The room was empty and Lord entered. It was completely empty except for another doorway at the end.

‘Sealed with some kind of magnetic lock.’

‘Can we override?’

Lord considered his options. He was not an engineer by trade, he was a pilot, but having run his own ship for a few years, he knew his way around an engine room. ‘We could. Reconfigure my tricorder to emit a magnetic pulse in opposition to the polarity sealing the door.’

‘In other words, switch polarity.’

Lord smiled. ‘Whatever.’

Trong did as she was asked and door slid aside. She handed the tricorder back to Lord who whistled as he thumbed through the screens of data.

‘Anything interesting?’

‘Plenty, and all of it bad.’

‘What were they working on?’

He stepped further into the room and a forcefield went up, separating the two of them. ‘A subspace transphasic torpedo.’

‘Which does what?’

‘Imagine an improperly-calibrated warp bubble collapsing around an inhabited planet.’

‘Huh?’

‘This torpedo is designed to reached the core of a planet while phased and then erupt in subspace, taking the planet with it.’

Trong blanched, her Oriental features fading to a ghostly white. ‘That’s barbaric.’

‘I disagree,’ said a voice that could have belonged to a holonovel villain.

Trong turned. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Guy West, I am the man who paid the Klingons to set up this little outpost.’

‘And what are you doing here now?’

‘To see if they managed to get my little weapon working. I would advise against trying to stop it, Mister Lord, it will probably kill you.’

‘A small price to pay,’ he replied, realising that the Klingons were little more than hired mercenaries and scientists and not worthy of his hate. West however, was worthy of considerably more. ‘Is Ajilon going to be your first test? Wipe out the scene of the crime?’

‘Yes and no,’ West answered. ‘I have several hidden bases like this throughout Federation, Klingon and Romulan space. It comes in handy in my line of work.’

‘You’re an arms dealer, but instead of buying and selling, you create your own?’

‘Not quite,’ he said in the tone of a teacher speaking with a dense child.

‘You were almost there, Phan. He works on commission. Someone asks him for a weapon and he designs and builds it for them, for a price.’

‘At least the Borg have a goal,’ she said and launched herself at him.

He effortlessly avoided her, gliding out of the way and sending her sprawling at the same time. ‘I’m sorry but I really cannot let you live,’ he added and pressed a button on a device which materialised in his hands.

One of the torpedo casings vanished before their eyes.

‘You don’t have a choice in the matter,’ Lord replied and, dropping his tricorder to the floor, he tapped his combadge twice.

Nothing happened.

 

[DavidFalkayn]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

Lord and Phan are definitely in a situation here. Looking forward to seeing how they're going to get out of the situation they're in.

 

[Mistral]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

oh, crap. This is getting bad. Need description of West, though. Right now I'm picturing that guy from Galaxy Quest-the one that was so worried about dying. Don't know why...

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

West laughed. ‘Do not mistake me for a bad holonovel villain, Mister Lord. I think I will take your young friend here as an insurance policy to prevent your pathetic little team from following me,’ he said and both he and Trong vanished in a beam of light, quickly followed by the remaining subspace torpedoes.

‘Danny, what’s happening down there?’ Merrick asked.

‘Beam me up, now. A subspace weapon is about to go off.’

He materialised on the bridge and dived toward the helm. ‘I’m plotting a course away from here,’ he said to no one in particular and pushed the ship to warp eight.

‘Mind telling me what is happening?’

‘An arms dealer named Guy West strolled in, kidnapped Phan and the torpedoes and set one off on Ajilon.’

‘What does it do?’

‘It essentially pulls the planet’s core into subspace, setting off a nova-intensity explosion in both subspace and normal space. This region will likely be impossible to travel to for decades, perhaps centuries.’

‘And there’s no way you can—’ she broke off as the ship took a tumble.

‘Our warp bubble collapsed. The explosion is propagating through subspace.’

‘Meaning?’ Underwood asked as he pulled himself upright.

‘It means that the explosion was far more powerful than I expected and it could destabilise a much larger area of space,’ Lord shot back. He looked at Merrick. ‘Can someone check the sensors to see if any other ship nearby was thrown from warp?’

'We’re receiving a distress call,’ Braithwaite called from the tactical station. ‘About half a light year away.’

‘Set a course to intercept,’ Merrick ordered. ‘If that is this West character then we should be able to catch him.’

‘What do we do about turning him over to the authorities if we don’t officially exist?’

‘That is Admiral Hayes’ headache. I want to catch this bastard.’

‘He mentioned having a number of secret bases like that one throughout Federation, Klingon and Romulan space. I think we should leak that information to Praetor Tal’Aura and Chancellor Martok,’ Lord suggested.

‘Why?’

‘To piss him off.’

Merrick smiled. ‘You don’t like him do you?’

‘I don’t like anyone that kills for the sake of it or has the morality of dust mote.’

Merrick nodded and motioned to her ready room.

Once inside she sat down let him sit. ‘What does that say about you? I heard what was going on down there after the Klingon attack.’

‘I don’t know what to say to that.’

‘Let’s find this arms dealer and then we’ll talk.’

‘Sure, I think we should call Hayes about this. He might have something on West that we can use,’ Lord replied.

Merrick nodded and entered a sequence of commands into the console on her desk.

‘You have news to report?’ Hayes asked.

Lord filled him in on the events at Ajilon, the arrival of West and the subsequent subspace explosion. Merrick added the chase to find what could be his vessel.

‘I was hoping you would be able to stop it. I’ll inform President Bacco, this could upset any kind of peace talks she has with the Klingons, and possibly the Romulans as well.’

‘What do we do with him when we have him in our custody?’ Merrick asked.

‘Drop him at the Rashanar base and I’ll have him transported to Earth.’

‘He’s slimy, Jack. Make sure he’s got nothing on him, use a microcellular scanner if you have to,’ she replied.

‘You have to catch him first.’

‘Bridge to Amanda, we’re approaching the ship,’ Underwood called.

‘I’ll call again soon, Jack,’ Merrick replied and closed the channel. ‘Let’s go get this son of a bitch.’

Lord volunteered to beam onto the ship, and Merrick sent Underwood with him in case Trong was injured. Braithwaite would be manning the controls to bring them all back. Both men had their phasers out as they materialised on the bridge of an old civilian freighter which had obviously been heavily customised.

‘My tricorder isn’t picking up any lifesigns,’ Underwood said.

‘She could be in a shielded location.’

‘She could be dead, Mr Lord.’

‘I’m not entertaining that possibility because then I’ll want to kill West instead of capturing him.’

Underwood said nothing at that, instead focusing more intently on the tricorder. ‘I’ve got her, ten metres to starboard.’

‘That would be an escape pod on this thing,’ Lord muttered. ‘You get Phan back to the ship, I’m going to find out what is on this ship and why West left it behind.’

An alarm klaxon suddenly sounded and Merrick yelled into the comm. ‘I’m beaming you back now, we’re getting out of here.’

‘Wait!’ They ran to the escape pod and launched it with all three of them inside. ‘Now!’

‘Energising.’

Just before they were beamed back to the Michelangelo, Lord caught sight of a Romulan warbird decloaking. Phan would be dead if they hadn’t spotted that ship. He didn’t care now about anything else. West was going to die, regulations or not.

 

[DavidFalkayn]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

It looks like Lord has met his nemesis just as Blofeld was Bond's. West ought to be thankful that Phan wasn't killed as I get images of the opening montage of "Diamonds are Forever" where Bond relentlessly pursues Blofeld and then supposedly kills him here with Lord taking on the Bond role.

 

[Mistral]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

Looks like this West guy miscalculated. Now he's in trouble.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

EPILOGUE

Lord was back at the helm almost as if he had been beamed into that position, awaiting Merrick’s orders.

‘There’s no way we can go toe-to-toe with a warbird,’ she mused.

‘It’s not here for us, it’s here to pick up West,’ Lord replied.

‘Is he going to let us live?’

‘I hope so; I want to give him the opportunity to regret it.’

Merrick sighed. ‘Get us out of here, maximum warp.’

‘On it,’ he replied and the Michelangelo jumped to warp.

‘They’re pursuing,’ Braithwaite said. ‘Intercept in fifty seconds.’

‘Any ideas?’ Merrick asked. ‘You’re the engineer.’

‘Whatever I do will postpone the inevitable for only a few minutes, I doubt we’ll survive.’

On the viewscreen, the Romulan warbird grew closer with each passing second. Lord was concentrating on preparing for evasive manoeuvres when he had an idea. ‘I had my tricorder set to record everything. There might be a copy of the signal he sent to the weapon to arm it. If we can use that, we can set the device to home in on the warbird’s singularity drive.’

‘Will that work?’ Merrick asked.

‘Our odds just increased exponentially,’ the former engineer replied with a wide grin as he started searching through the computer.

‘Intercept in twenty seconds,’ Merrick called out. ‘Do you have the signal?’

‘Yes, preparing to send it on your mark.’

‘Drop to impulse, raise shields and charge phasers.’

As Braithwaite complied, Merrick set a plan B into motion that would put an end to West. None of the other members of the crew knew about it, and it could only be authorised by her, or another duly-appointed commanding officer. It would leave the ship a sitting duck, but the threat would have been neutralised.

‘Amanda,’ Lord said, ‘We’re not going to be very popular back home if this works.’

‘We’ll be dead if it doesn’t and either way, I’m not particularly bothered.’

‘Intercept in eight seconds,’ Braithwaite added, his hand hovering over the send key.

‘Will they have to drop their shields for the signal to get through?’

‘No, it should reach them just fine with their shields up, like a communications signal.’

‘Okay, let’s see how lucky we are.’

‘They’re hailing us.’

‘On screen.’

‘Captain Amanda Merrick, good to finally meet you,’ Guy West said jovially.

Merrick stared. ‘And you are?’

‘Guy West, though I’m sure your crewmen told you everything they knew. How is the young woman?’

‘Fine thanks,’ Lord said, standing. ‘Why don’t you drop your shields so we can throw a couple of torpedoes at you, do the galaxy a favour.’

West’s smile faded like an eclipse. ‘That’s no way to treat a fellow explorer.’

Merrick turned to Braithwaite. ‘Now.’

West turned to his side as a member of the unseen crew spoke to him. ‘What have you done?’ he asked in a panicked voice before closing the channel.

‘Guess it worked,’ Merrick said. ‘Danny, get us out of here.’

‘My pleasure.’

The Sabre-class ship jumped away just as an almost unseen small scout ship fled the massive warbird. The subspace torpedo detonated and the warbird collapsed in on itself.

‘By the holy cows of India!’ Braithwaite cursed.

Merrick spun round. ‘Tell me he didn’t escape?’

‘A small scout left at the same time we did. It could have been him.’

‘We’ll get him next time. Danny, set a course for Rashanar. Ian, get me Admiral Hayes on subspace. I’m not looking forward to this.’

‘Sickbay to bridge, Phan is going to be ok. But she would like to know when she can – and I quote – “give that Tenebian slime monkey his dues.”’

‘As soon as we find his sorry ass,’ Lord muttered just loud enough for the comm system to pick up.

‘I’ll relay the message,’ Underwood said, closing the channel.

‘Danny, this isn’t going to turn into a vendetta like the Klingons is it?’

‘Nothing so mundane,’ Lord replied, not caring who heard what he was about to say. ‘The Klingons did what they were paid to do like the hired scientists or thugs they were, but they died in honourable combat. West is a different kettle of fish altogether. He has no morals and plays everyone against everyone else to make profit. At least the Ferengi follow their Rules of Acquisition for the most part. I intend to find West and providing that I don’t kill him with my bare hands I want to see him face justice for every single death that he has caused, directly or indirectly.’

‘Why?’ Braithwaite asked.

‘Because he nearly killed Phan. I don’t want to lose anyone else I care about.’

‘Hayes is on for you, Captain.’

Merrick told the former admiral everything and waited for the inevitable chewing out.

‘President Bacco is smoothing things over with the Praetor and Chancellor. Get yourself to Rashanar and I’ll get back to you when this mess has been sorted out. Amanda, this is not how I wanted the mission to go.’

‘I know, sir. I’m not making any excuses.’

Hayes smiled. ‘Have some time off, all of you. I expect a full report from each of you. And while Starfleet might allow some latitude in goes in them, I do not. I want your full report, feelings, hunches, and the usual. Don’t make me regret putting this team together. Hayes out.’

‘That could have been worse.’

‘Yes, it could, and I have a feeling that it might well do next time we talk.’

 

[Mistral]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

good story but kind of an abrupt resolution. I think guy should start screwing with them through proxies in a long-term viewpoint. Just an opinion, though. I liked it. Nasty little story. Limbs flying everywhere...

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

I wanted to end it on tenterhooks, but I'm not sure about continuing this series. Star Trek: 500 and Starship Dauntless seem to be far more popular with my readers so I think that for now, Sub-Rosa is on hiatus.

 

[DavidFalkayn]

Re: Star Trek: Sub-Rosa...The Hunter

I like the ending--it does give you flexibility as to when you wish to continue. One of the nice things about doing multiple series is that when you get bored or blocked on your others you can always switch to this one.

Nicely done!