I'm back with sum more crap from the Trek-hole. I'm still too lazy to italicise, so bear with me...
CH. 5
Ford bent close to the primary sensor display on the science console and tried not to breathe too hard on the secondary specialist sitting there. This was one of Surall’s lower officers whom occupied a prize placement in her astrometrics division. His capacity on space borne phenomena was unequalled amongst the remainder of the ship’s compliment. But Ford could not help but remain circumspect when anyone other than his primary science officer manned the scopes.
“Identified?”
Ensign Edmonson glanced back at his skipper, trying not to look like an irritated horse squatting at a barn fly. “Not yet, sir. The subspace band is within the E region, but that just proves their using a non-linear coil assembly. It could be Gorn, or it could be Vulcan, Orion, Breen or Ferengi.”
Ford scoffed.
“I doubt the Ferengi even exist.”
“Maybe some day we’ll find out.” The ensign replied, once again applying his eyes to the main scope. Ford raised back to his full height, intent on disturbing him no further. He glanced at the green ship on his viewer and then to operations. Another junior officer manned that post.
“How’s the plasma field looking, ops?”
Closing tighter, Captain. We have a clearance of just over one thousand meters port and starboard.”
This drew the captain’s gaze to Lieutenant Bronstien.
“Steady as she goes helm. Try to find us a nice stable exit from all this.”
Johnathan nodded half-consciously. All of his concentration was again piled upon his instruments. Even his reply sounded as though only a tenth of his brain were dedicated to it. “Aye, Cap’n. Speed steady at one-quarter impulse.”
“We’re continuing to close in on the warp field, sir.” The science spec intoned as well. Chevis returned to his seat at the conn and made himself relax. He hoped that Thomas would find the reason for their supposed lifeform reading, and soon. He did not fancy a conflict with some Gorn warship that might have been looking for their lost escort.
Ford considered hailing the unidentified contact. But if it were the Gorn, their signal would be ignored and it might actually boost their paranoia. He needed to provide Thomas with as much time as possible to come up with an answer about the lifeform reading without actually turning both ships around and heading in the opposite direction. He could also beam his men home till identity of the new craft was ascertained, but he had no guarantee that this was the Gorn coming in on them, nor that the supposed lifeform would last till their compatriots arrived.
Humanitarianism had its drawbacks, he decided.
“I don’t suppose the reading could have been coming from the ship’s shuttles or life pods, could they?” Smith asked Lieutenant Surall as Davenport finished coaxing the final hatch open. Each of the away party slowly entered this new, ill-lit chamber and began to look about.
“I mean,” the officer continued, “They’re self-contained and would last a long time.”
Surall gave a noncommittal shrug.
“If that were true, would they not have also launched from this vessel rather than remained locked inside a hulk with little or no motive power?”
Ronald solved the riddle for them. “The shuttle bay was damaged in a hull breach in the initial blast, and both shuttles were blown into space before they really knew what was going on. And the life pods are too close to the outer hull to sustain the heat, ionic bursts and hard radiation of the zone for very long. If they went there, they got cooked days ago. Besides,” he pointed to yet another huge, scaled body lying on the deck before them. “We’ve accounted for nearly all of the crew between here and engineering. I’d say the crew compliment is dead.”
Mister Thomas panned around with his shoulder and rifle lights. This room was much smaller than any of the others they’d thus been within. It was lined with pod-like machines laden with hoses and wiring harnesses. Each of the devices within this room was alight with glowing status indicators and was humming silently or making a wet pumping sound. Ben’s rifle-lamp’s beam fell across a large canister with transparent sides. He panned it back, to better examine what he’d seen.
“What the hell is this?” He called, voice an octave higher.
“Hold up…” Said Ron’s voice over the helmet comm, “This panel has power. Let me bring up the lights.”
The room’s own light sources took over, and the Starfleet team killed their own lamps. The tank Thomas had seen was only the outer most of three such pods, all made from clear glass-like alloy and perched atop a group of tall, boxy mechanical apertures that hummed and produced a sanguine field of heat that could just be felt through the material of their EVA suits. Within each transparent pod stood suspended ten or more brown, round objects that looked to be made of tanned leather. The fluid they floated in looked to be thick and gelatinous from its opacity. Ben’s jaw sagged as he realized what he must have been looking at.
Ford hunkered down close to his chair’s comm pickup and made a clearly confused face.
“Repeat that, XO. They’re what?”
“Eggs, Cap’n!” Ben’s voice exclaimed. “They rerouted their remaining power to provide life support for their incubators! They were carrying eggs! KIDS!”
Thomas was hardly an excitable fellow after decades in space. To rouse his gander so much meant that what he was seeing was something he found absolutely fantastic. Ford felt his back slacken as he sagged back into his chair. Eggs…
“Understood, XO. What is their condition?”
“Hold…” There was some barely made-out conversation on their end as Ben conferred with Keller. Finally: “Doctor Keller says they’re barely stable, and their temperature is droppin’. Davenport’s looking for the reason.”
“But they’re alive?”
“Aye, Cap’n. Definitely alive.”
“Can you stabilize the temp?”
“I’m gonna try,” Came Davenport’s country drawl. “But I’ve never worked with alien incubation technology before.”
Ford smirked. I anyone could rig up a fix for this situation, it was Ron.
“You go ahead, Ron. Just don’t scramble ‘em.”
“I like mine over easy, anyway, Cap’n,” The chief of ops said back. “We’ll get back to ya.”
Ford sat in silence, looking at the tiny ship on his screen. He felt at once relieved and amazed. He was glad they found the frigate in time. To think… they’d come through all this space and hazard, and rescued children who weren’t even born yet. Alien children.
“Coming up on a break in the plasma string cluster, Cap.” Bronstien’s tired resonance reported from helm. The kid sounded like he could use a break. “I read clearing space on the other end.”
“Confirmed, Captain.” Ops supplied.
“Keptin,” There was ice in Nechayev’s own tone. It caused the captain to swing his chair to face the weapons chief. The bearded Russian looked down at him. “I am also reading a large wessel within the clearing. Definitely of Gorn design. She’s detected us. Both of us…”
Commander Thomas made a face of pure aggravation that no one in the galaxy could see. The Gorn could not have shown up at a worse time. He turned away from the spot on the deck where Surall and Davenport had opened a machinery hatch and were diving into the alien workings beneath.
“Cap’n, we’re gonna have a problem then.”
“Why. Something gonna delay beam-out?”
“Yeah. The incubator system is nearly at shutdown level. The power system directed to it has almost been depleted and Ron’s already started patching the supply from his rifle to it. If we hadn’t caught this just now, I doubt the eggs would’ve made it for another hour or two. How far out is the Gorn ship?”
“At impulse power, another seventeen minutes. They’ve detected us, and I believe they know you’re aboard their ship.” The captain told him. Ben could hear the building tension in his CO’s voice. As always, he felt a slight twinge of concern for his friend’s cardio health.
Ben looked back to his officers, who were hooking leads from the phaser power pack to the EPS cables of the alien system. This was going to take some time. The wisest option, for their sakes, was probably to get the hell off this ship. Doing so was a death sentence for the kids in those eggs.
“Ron and Surall are switching the incubator to our supply now. I figure this will take them the better part of a half an hour to finish. We’ll still be here working when the Gorn are knocking on our door.”
“I’ll stall ‘em if I can. Ford out.”
Thomas stepped closer to his men. Both Smith and Keller’s suits twisted as the people within looked at him. “How much trouble are we in, Commander?” Asked the British voice.
“Could be a lot if the Captain can’t get them to understand why we’re here.”
“What’ll we do if they board us?”
Ben had only one answer for such a thing.
“We’ll defend ourselves. Get your weapons ready and make sure they’re set for max stun. Smith, you and me will man the door. Keller, you’ll cover the other officers and remain behind the incubator for cover. Hopefully they won’t be too keen on firing with their kids so close by.”
As he and his men moved to their positions, Thomas considered the irony of fighting a battle he didn’t want in the middle of a nursery.
Ford looked at the hazy image of the boxy warship that was gliding their way. This vessel was many times the escort’s mass, and had six times the firepower. Endeavour would be hard pressed in a confrontation with such a beast. But he did not intend to let it come to that. Ford glanced at the relief comm officer.
“Bates, hail the Gorn warship.”
“On speakers, Captain.” The Southerner replied.
“Gorn vessel,” Ford began, trying to sound calm and nonplussed. “This is Captain Ford of the USS Endeavour. We mean no harm to your escort craft and are rendering assistance to the children it carries.”
The viewer snapped to show the growling image of a huge, huffed up Gorn with nearly black eyes. The alien had a short, broad snout denoting its feminine nature. Her teeth were bared and the snarling yowl of language coming from the overheads did not sound friendly. Ford instantly looked to comm for explanation.
Mister Bates looked back with even more confusion.
“The UT didn’t catch a lick of it, sir. I think she’d using a different language than what we’ve encountered. Or maybe her vernacular is different.”
Ford looked back to the viewer. The Gorn captain gesticulated with a thick, clawed finger. Her growling rant hadn’t slowed yet and had only grown louder. She advanced menacingly toward her visual pickup.
“Work faster, Comm!” Ford shot at the short officer.
The Gorn on screen punched a key. A gravelly reproduction of Ford’s own voice came back over the speakers. “I’ll stall ‘em if I can. Ford out.”
“Oh-sh*t.” Ford breathed out. He’d been taken out of context. The alien captain may not have even heard or understood the rest of what they’d intercepted between himself and Thomas. They did, however, know that he’d been planning to buy his men time.
“You have to understand, Captain,” he reasoned with her. “My people are trying to get your incubator system back online. If they hadn’t been there, it’s likely your children would have died already. If you’ll just accelerate your approach, we’ll gladly hand the job over to you.”
Finally, English began to spill from above, high pitched and grating though it was.
“—Your people will vacate our ssship immediately, Captain! Your attemptsss at essspionage will go no further! It is no coincidence yoursss isss the only ssship in the area of our injured craft.”
Ford was further stunned. This situation was sinking into an abyss that it shouldn’t ever have gone into. He was on a rescue mission. Now they thought he was responsible for the destruction of their craft?
“We’ve done nothing to your ship.”
“Yet you are aboard it!”
“My people are in the nursery section with the surviving eggs—“
There were times when one knew things had gotten out of hand. The moment the Gorn captain screeched and killed the comm link was among those times. The warship on the screen accelerated, growing larger much more swiftly.
“They have gone to varp!”
“Red alert!” The Captain settled himself securely into the conn and strapped a safety belt over his lap. The bridge lighting dimmed and became highlighted in bloody tracers. The bark of the alarm had officers racing to their posts and guards taking position near each entrance. Ford figured he had about a minute till the Gorn battleship was within weapons range. “Tactical, tractor the frigate to within one hundred meters of the fantail and deploy our aft shields around it. Standby forward weapons. Comm, keep trying to hail the Gorn back and get me Mister Thomas.”
***
Dum-dum-DUUUMMM!!!
Let me know any thoughts on the above. Bash it if you want. But no matter what, enjoy!
--thu guv!
Topic: 'No Good Deed'--Story #2 (Read 12673 times)