Sorry for the delay folks, but RL has been a real pain in the gluteus maximus. I'm back and raring to go. So here is the first of the Dauntless vignettes, featuring one of the youngest members of the team. Eagle-eyed viewers may remember much of the story from the now defunct Triton series, but this should be the last holdover.
Enjoy...
MEMORIES
Kursica City, Kursica, stardate 57303.9
Ensign Daniel Larson walked down the main causeway which ran the length of the capital city. There was a market on and the squat aliens were selling their wares, everything from flowers to livestock, dairy products to dubious cooked meats. Larson looked around to see if he could spot any of his fellow crewmembers but there were none.
Seeing an alleyway, Larson ducked into it to avoid the looks being given by a few of the scarier looking Kursican males, heavyset for their size and probably very dangerous. He tried to double back and for some reason found his usual sense of direction failing him. Larson stepped toward the door and a figure appeared in the next doorway. He turned on instinct and raised his hand which contained a discreetly hidden phaser.
‘I wouldn’t try anything if I were you,’ the Kursican woman said.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘I’m just a woman waiting for a man.’
‘Am I that man?’ Larson asked, getting uncomfortable and aware that this alleyway was not at all deserted.
‘No offence, but I prefer my own species,’ she replied. ‘That isn’t any place a human should go, most of my kind wouldn’t go in there either.’
‘I think I’ll be leaving now.’
Larson turned to dash down the alley but instead found himself looking up at the darkening sky as a metal post swiped his head. Fat droplets of rain began to fall as three Kursican man hauled him off the ground and carried him into the building. He tried to reach for his phaser and combadge but they were quickly taken from him by the woman. She pressed something to his forehead and he slept.
Moving proved unsuccessful when he woke up strapped to a surgical table of some kind and there were voices that seemed to be close and getting closer.
‘Our patient is awake, Doctor,’ a female voice spoke with a lilt. He recognised it as the flirtatious woman who kept him talking some hours earlier.
‘Excellent, please prep him for surgery.’
‘At once, Doctor; which procedure will you be performing?’
‘I think the engram amplification will do nicely, it will be my first opportunity to perform the surgery on someone who has a far wider range of memories than the usual people we deal with.’
‘I’ll prep the patient now,’ the woman said as she approached the table.
Larson tried to struggle but the woman had strong arms and held him in position as she administered a cocktail of drugs. The Dauntless’ chief flight control officer slipped into a semiconscious state where he could see and hear everything, but feel nothing—physically at least.
‘He’s ready, Doctor.’
Larson saw out the corner of his eye, the doctor coming toward him, dressed in the obligatory surgical gown. The doctor began humming as he attached a series of nodes and wires to Larson’s brain. He set up a number of monitors and an interface.
‘Start recording please…ladies and gentlemen, this is Mister Larson, a visitor from the Federation starship in orbit. One aspect of both our culture and his that we both share is that of family. Using my pioneering memory engram amplification equipment, I hope to show you that I can read the neural impulses in the brain and show the images on these monitors. Observe.’
The doctor adjusted the controls on the interface and an image formed on the monitors, fuzzy at first but their clarity increased as the doctor manipulated the interface more. Larson was watching at a remove as his earliest memories of his parents were played before him. Seeing his father laughing and playing like that brought up an uncomfortable memory that the doctor seemed only too willing to watch and manipulate.
‘Watch as more memories surface,’ he said. ‘The patient, still awake, guides us through his own experiences, allowing for a more complete picture of his life. Watch as Mister Larson takes us through his own memories.’
Larson couldn’t help but think of the last time he was with his father. It was a memory that he would rather forget, but now he was watching it in full colour…
The asteroid field in the Sol system had been a favourite testing ground for tactical target practice since mankind had first set out into the stars in the late twenty-first century and Admiral Harry Larson preferred it to some of the others he’d used over the years. The Ayers Rock was the newest Steamrunner-class starship, the first of a new production line and had a few new tactical upgrades which needed testing out. This particular ship was being helmed by Admiral Harry Larson’s only son, one of the most capable young pilots in the fleet, and the tactical systems seemed to be working at Starfleet’s minimum standards—but that wasn’t high enough for him. He wanted them to be working at ninety-seven percent efficiency, a percentage that few ships ever achieved, even with his input and pushing. Ensign Daniel Larson tightened the ship’s turn between two large asteroids—each one several thousand kilometres apart—and Harry Larson found the perfect target for his next test.
‘Lieutenant, coordinates 212-mark-57, fire,’ the Admiral yelled.
A quantum torpedo streaked away from the starship’s underbelly and struck the asteroid dead centre, shattering it into a million pieces. Harry watched the fracture pattern and found that it was not as dispersed as it should have been. The relative speed of the fragments was much faster than it should have been and one of the larger fragments ricocheted off a medium-sized asteroid—sending both spinning in different directions. That ricocheted fragment was now headed directly for the ship.
‘All hands, brace for impact,’ the tactical officer yelled suddenly, grasping his own console as the other bridge officers got into position.
Harry Larson got himself back into his seat and activated the restraints just as the fragment hit them, sending the ship spinning out of control, more than a match for his son’s outstanding piloting abilities. He came to, the red lighting throwing shadows across the small bridge of the ship, and released the restraints. His crew were scattered across the deck, most lying unconscious. Daniel Larson was still at the helm and disengaged himself as his father knelt beside the closest officer. There was no pulse and Daniel looked into his father’s eyes as the former pushed his fingers toward the neck of the operations manager. He was dead.
‘Report, Ensign,’ Larson ordered.
The helmsman quickly finished checking the others on the bridge with the medical tricorder from the medkit. ‘Four dead and two critically injured, sir. Comm systems are out, our engines and deflectors are down.’
‘Can we get a signal out?’
‘I’ve already tried, sir. The subspace relay was destroyed when we were hit.’
‘Get down to sickbay and bring someone up here. I’ll try and get the engines back up. Without the deflectors we’re sitting ducks out here.’
He thought about disobeying his father before he realised that his father was an even better pilot that he was. ‘Aye sir.’
As the helmsman tried to force open the turbolift doors, main power came back online and the doors opened themselves.
‘Bridge to transporter room,’ Larson called out, kneeling by the two critically injured officers.
‘Go ahead, bridge.’
‘Transport three directly to sickbay, lock on to my combadge.’
‘Acknowledged, standing by.’
‘Energise.’
Daniel Larson dematerialised and he saw his father trying to coax the impulse engines to life, apparently without success. Once he deposited the injured duo in sickbay, he ran for engineering to see what he could do to help but was stopped by the anti-radiation barrier. An engineer sat in front of it, coughing.
‘It’s no use. Whoever’s in there is dead.’
‘We need deflectors and impulse engines back online.’
‘No good,’ the engineer said, coughing again. ‘The fusion generators were badly damaged, the best we’ve got is one-eighth impulse. We’ve got hull breaches on all decks.’
‘Can I get to deflector control?’
‘If you can get to an EVA suit and walk across the outside of the ship, avoiding all the hull breaches.’
‘It’ll be dangerous, but I can do it,’ Larson said and tapped his combadge. ‘Admiral, I think I have a way to get us out of here,’ he added and explained his plan.
‘Not a chance, Ensign. You’ll never make it with all the rocks out there.’
‘I have to try, sir, otherwise none of us will make it.’
‘Ensign, how many EVA hours do you have? I have more than four hundred hours. If anyone is going to do it, it’s me. Get yourself back up here and be ready to get us the hell out of here when I tell you to.’
‘Aye sir, I’m on my way.’
He didn’t receive a reply and made his way to the bridge. By the time he reached the bridge and took his place at the helm, he could hear his father’s running commentary as the latter traversed the ship as carefully as possible.
‘There’s a lot of debris out here, Danny. That photon torpedo should have shattered the asteroid a lot more than it did. Check it out will you.’
‘Will do.’
‘I’m almost there, and there is a massive breach in the hull in that section. Can you deactivate the forcefield surrounding it?’
‘I’ll try,’ Daniel replied. ‘But I might not be able to reactivate it.’
‘It’s a risk I’ve got to take, otherwise none of us will leave this ship alive—and we have no way to call for help.’
‘Yes sir, deactivating the forcefield now.’
‘I’m in,’ he called out. ‘Reactivate it. I’ll need to take my gloves off to make the repairs.’
Daniel Larson breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that the forcefield had indeed reactivated. All he had to do now was wait for his father to complete the repairs to the deflector shield, so they could make themselves a path through the debris. The structural integrity field was losing power and the forcefields were beginning to fail.
‘Dad, hurry. The forcefields won’t hold much longer.’
‘Almost done,’ the admiral said. ‘That’s it, get us out of…’
‘Dad?’
When he heard nothing more, he checked on the status of the deflector shield. He had indeed got it working but…
‘I’m sorry, Danny,’ a voice said.
‘Doc? Is everyone else okay?’
‘Get us home.’
‘In a minute,’ he said. ‘Bridge to transporter room.’
‘Go ahead, bridge.’
‘Scan for human lifesigns out there, the admiral might still be alive.’
‘Aye sir, scanning.’
In what felt like an eternity, Larson prepped the impulse engines and rerouted as much available power as possible to the deflectors.
‘Transporter room to bridge, I have him…but it’s too late.’
‘This is Doctor West, I’m on my way. Danny, please, get us out of here.’
* * *
The death of his father would haunt him forever; that much Larson knew. Although his father had died saving the rest of the crew, questions were still being asked over a year later. The Ayers Rock was immediately decommissioned and an investigation was begun. The conclusion of the investigation was straightforward; the space-frame of the Ayers Rock was structurally unsound and it led to a catastrophic loss of life when the vessel was undergoing trial runs.
A sharp jolt brought him back to the present. The “nurse” had just injected him with something and he felt his consciousness slipping away. He heard the doctor talking again but couldn’t make out the voices. Gathering every ounce of strength granted him by his familial genes and Starfleet training, Larson willed his body to fight whatever drug had been given to him. It didn’t take long for his full faculties to return and he slowly levered the restraints. Being fabric rather than metal, they eventually gave a little, allowing him to free his hands.
‘He’s free!’ an orderly yelled as Larson freed his legs and reached for his phaser and combadge.
‘Stay where you are!’ the nurse spoke coldly, pointing a projectile weapon toward him. ‘I can probably shoot you before you fire the phaser, Mister Larson.’
‘Perhaps, but I am not planning to fire it,’ the young Ensign replied as his free hand tapped his combadge again. ‘Did you hear all that, Doctor?’
‘Loud and clear, Ensign, the Kursican authorities are approaching your position now.’
‘No!’ the doctor yelled and grabbed the pistol from his nurse.
Larson ducked as they struggled. The pistol’s shot rang out a moment later. He raised his head just as Kursican Planetary Security entered the room.
‘You do not need to remain here, Starfleet. You can return to your vessel.’
‘I’m pressing charges against these people,’ Larson retorted vehemently.
The security officer shook his head. ‘It won’t do any good. His work is sponsored by the Science Council. They’ll make it go away, they always do.’
Larson sighed. ‘This isn’t over, one to beam up.’
* * *
‘Perhaps next time you will not venture unaccompanied into unfamiliar territory,’ the Vulcan EMH remarked as she used the dermal regenerator.
‘Tell me again why we accepted a Vulcan template for you,’ Larson muttered.
‘The EMH Mark Four was made with a number of templates. The crew decided in the majority for a Vulcan, believing it to be superior to the others.’
‘Uh huh,’ Larson replied. ‘Did they have to make you so…realistic?’ he asked, staring at her chest.
‘I am modelled after a famous Vulcan of the past.’
‘Yes, yes, I know, Admiral T’Pol, the first Vulcan to serve on a Starfleet vessel.’
‘Then why did you ask?’
Larson sighed. The Vulcan template was so realistically like a Vulcan that you didn’t need a real one on board.
‘You are free to return to duty, Ensign.’
‘Yeah, thanks,’ the helmsman muttered as he returned to his quarters, hoping to get a peaceful night’s sleep with images of the Ayers Rock still vivid in his mind.
It wasn’t.
