Well it aint quite the 15th, and no one else replied, but I'm here now so what the hell.
Here is the completion of the story. Enjoy!
CH. 4
Andrea Keller found her man sitting forlornly before the sole window of their cabin’s living room. He stared off into the depths of space, seeming not to notice the sound of the doors whispering closed. She knew better though. Commodore Chevis Ford would have to be lost indeed not to have heard her come in.
He was just choosing not to react.
Andrea watched him for a little while. Ford sat in the near dark of the room, stroking the long almond and tan fur of his sleeping dog. A steaming mug of something sat on the inn table near to him. The look on his profiled face spoke of troubled thoughts and reflection. It was one of the few times her lover wasn’t wearing his expressionless mask.
“Trial isn’t going well for the Number One, is it?” She ventured.
Chevy looked back at her with a softly bemused look.
“Didn’t figure it would. His record can be used to both hail and condemn him. He’s done as much bad as good, it seems.”
Keller approached and sat on a divan across from him. She also looked out at the stars rotating past the porthole. “Not bad, so much as… unwise. Drunken brawling is not murder.”
“But not looked upon any more favorably, I’m afraid.” Ford reached for his drink, taking care not to jostle his dog, China. He took a careful sip. The doctor could smell cinnamon and brown sugar in the cup.
“What is that?”
“Apple Pie,” He answered. “Cider, brown sugar, cinnamon and Ever Clear.”
“Ever Clear?”
“Pure grain alcohol.”
“Oh… Looking that bad for Thomas is it?”
Ford took a long moment to answer. When he did, it seemed like he was unhappy or torn over the answer. “Not any more.”
This made Andrea look at him fully with her head tilted in askance.
“What do you mean?”
Chevis smiled grimly.
“I took care of things.”
“What have you done?”
Andrea felt a shiver of fear at the look in her man’s eye. He looked as though he’d signed off on Shiloah’s murder. How far would Ford go to protect his friend from prison? What was he capable of doing toward that end? And did she really want to find out?
“Like I said. I took care of it. You’ll find out how if it works out.”
“That sounds awfully foreboding.”
“Indeed.”
Keller continued to stare at him in a questing manner. Ford merely went back to looking out the window into the black depths with a sorrowful look. She could not help but wonder what he’d done for Ben, and almost hoped she’d never find out.
***
“New contact, Commander.” Surall’s voice cut through the monotonous sounds of the bridge and drew everyone’s attention. “An intermittent polaron discharge from 340 mark 075. Range: seven hundred fifty thousand kilometers. Approaching at one quarter impulse.”
“Identification, Lieutenant?” Banks sat up in the conn, tensing as if he expected the other shoe to drop. The rest of the crew tensed as well. They had been at Condition Red for nearly seven hours now, and found nothing. Now they had what was probably an enemy contact well within torpedo range.
“Identification impossible, but I believe it to be from a cloaked source.”
“Tactical, lock photon torpedoes on that area of space.”
Ronald looked back at the acting captain.
“Commander, we don’t know who that is out there.”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
“For all we know it’s a Romulan ship or someone else with stealth technology.”
“We’re light years from Romulan space, XO.” Banks retorted. He was impatient and ready to hurl some weaponry around. Ronald fought to think of another alternative. Something was not right here. Why would this contact, if it were a Klingon marauder, be coming in at them from the direction of the Tempest? Would they not be getting out of the area before help arrived? And, if they were waiting to ambush said help, why had they gone so close to the Tempest in the first place? Why wait all this time to attack?
“Suggest firing a warning shot.”
“And let them know we’ve spotted them?” Banks looked back at the lieutenant commander with disbelief. “That totally spoils any advantage in surprise we have here.”
“And if this particular cloaked Klingon ship had nothing to do with the attack, sir…what then?”
Banks shook his head. He was done discussing the matter. “Tactical officer, torpedo status?”
“Locked and ready, Keptin.” Lieutenant Nechayev looked as though he possessed none of the conflict of conscience that Ron was experiencing. He stood ramrod straight at his post, somehow still looking totally relaxed and aloof from the situation.
“Then—“ Banks halted as the star scape on the forward viewer began to waver and distort. The mirage of color morphed and solidified into a stout, grey-hulled Klingon warship. She bore obvious signs of weapon’s damage and her gunnery ports glowed with vengeful ire. Endeavour had lost that advantage in surprise…
“Brace for impact!” Banks called off.
A moment passed. No shots were forth coming from the alien cruiser. Ronald’s eyes focussed on the extent of the damage to the Klingon ship, particularly about the command pod. The warship had yet to fire, but seemed quite ready to do so. He turned and rapidly ran a scan over the cruiser. “I identify her as the Pang, Commander. Captain Dath’mar’s ship. She’s badly damaged over thirty percent of her outer hull. Her weapons array is damaged and is responding sluggishly. I read damage to her internal systems—“
A flash of emerald lit the bridge as the Pang unleashed her wing-mounted disruptors on them. The ship rattled with the impact, but it was obvious that the Pang’s weapons were not charged to full. Ronald intensified his scans.
“Return fire!” Banks roared from the conn.
Davenport turned from the science console so violently that it drew Nechayev’s attention.
“Hold your fire, Lieutenant!”
Banks was up in an instant, storming to the blue rail that encircled the command center. Rage and disbelief stained his face. “What the hell are you doing, Davenport!”
“That ship out there can’t possibly have taken out the Paris, Commander.” Ron explained, still refusing to call Banks ‘captain’. “She’s far more damaged than any amount of weapon’s fire from that kind of civilian ship could ever manage—“
“They got in a lucky hit!”
Another wave of disruptor energy blasted the unresponsive Federation vessel. The battlecruiser on the main screen banked and reeled away from Endeavour, as though trying to gain distance from the larger ship’s guns before they got into phaser range. Ron jabbed a finger at the images on his monitors.
“The Pang is coming in from the direction of the Tempest, Commander. Why would the attacker have gone there, then come back to the scene of the crime when she could have slipped away. Especially if she was in this bad of shape?”
“You want me to read that Klingon’s mind?” Banks shot back. He was not going to be convinced.
“Hail them!” Ronald shouted. He knew the circumstances here were way off.
“I will not, XO. We’re here to deal with a threat!” Tyron turned his back on the chief of operations and stalked back to the conn. “Weapons officer, target that cruiser and open fire! Helm, close to phaser range!”
Endeavour’s course changed suddenly and her engines ramped up to full impulse power. The Klingon ship receded from view, however, rather than growing larger.
Bronstien wasn’t taking them closer to the Pang. Banks whirled on the skinny lieutenant.
“Helm! What the hell are you doing!”
“Dath’mar saved our asses, Commander.” Johnathan growled back. He’d been beaten and injured by men under that captain’s command, but he’d also been the beneficiary of his good will also. “He doesn’t act…” the young man searched for the right word. “…dishonorably!”
“You don’t even know if Dath’mar is in command of that heap!” The commander pointed to Nechayev. “Have your men remove these two officers from the bridge!”
Daniel Nechayev stood impassively, staring darkly back at the acting captain. He made no motion to obey or to disobey. Banks raged, kicking the conn around on its mount.
“Damn you all! Security! Report to the bridge!”
Davenport stabbed a finger into the comm controls in an attempt to block the call. This had gone far enough. He left Surall’s side while the science officer stared up at him. He noted the tension and uncertainty among the bridge crew. “Surall,” he said as he approached Banks. “Confirm what weaponry caused the Pang’s damage.”
Ronald already knew what had done it. He’d recognized the impact marks just as soon as that ship had materialized. The science officer just confirmed what he already knew.
“Photon torpedoes, sir. Specifically… Starfleet Mark VI ADCAP.”
Ronald halted, leaning forward on the blue rail.
“Paris didn’t have torpedo launchers, Commander.”
“Another ship attacked the Pang then! That doesn’t mean they weren’t responsible for the Paris! They’re attacking US! What more do you need!”
The aft lift doors swished open, pouring six more security guards into the control room. There were now a total of nine. Tension flared visibly as officers considered diving for cover. Everyone wondered how the next few seconds were going to be played out. Banks turned a self-righteous glare on the chief of operations.
“Security, apprehend Commander Davenport and Lieutenant Bronstien and confine them to quarters.”
The gathered men stepped forward in unison, pistols sliding out of black plastic holsters. Nechayev held a staying hand out to halt them. “The Keptin is in error. He has no justification to attack this varship. There is evidence of foul play—“
Banks interrupted with a vehement growl. He rounded the corner of the weapons console, shoving the security chief back with a chop to the throat. His groping hands pushed for the weaponry controls, but an iron fingered jab beneath the armpit from Nechayev stopped him from activating the torpedo launchers. Banks whirled on a heel, slamming the palm of his muscled fist into Daniel’s temple.
The security man nearest to the weapons officer stepped in and fired a short stun burst into the irrational commander. Banks staggered back, blinking, but did not fall.
Ronald blinked also, amazed at the exec’s stamina and resistance.
Banks growled animalistically and lunged forward. His jutting palm found the bridge of the security man’s nose and snapped it with a wet crack. The crewman fell back even as his cohorts grappled with the violent officer. Another phaser blast sounded. A blue lance of stun energy hit the commander full on in the chest and drove him back.
Tyron just coughed and stood straight once more with defined effort. Bleary eyes glared back at his attackers. Endeavour rumbled with another low powered weapon strike. Banks staggered with the subtle impact.
“Qo’vey chu ho!” He snarled.
Davenport’s jaw dropped. The men before Banks gaped, firing their phasers in unison as they realized what language had just been spoken.
Behind Davenport, Surall stood up from her post.
“That was Klingon, Commander.”
Banks tottered and finally fell onto the steps behind the conn. Ron waved the security men to cover the unconscious officer. He took the tricorder offered by the Vulcan scientist and went to kneel beside Banks. He scanned the large man, shaking his head.
“He reads as human.”
Another disruptor blast shook the Excelsior. Nechayev, still fighting for breath through a nearly collapsed trachea, stepped close to his panel and read over the shield status. “Deflectors showing some strain. Bronstien’s maneuvers have spread the damage between three shields.” He rasped.
Lieutenant Surall came to kneel near to the unconscious Banks. She rolled the brown skinned man over and held out her hand for the tricorder. With it, she made a scan of the area of Tyron’s forehead.
“He shows definite signs of surgical alteration along the cranial areas.” She readjusted the scanning parameters of the handheld device. With another scan, she located something of interest. She pointed to a dark shape depicted on the small screen of her scanner.
“There, Commander,” she said. “A transmitting device implanted in the intestinal tract. Likely the source of the human bio-emissions.”
“Like tricorder camouflage?”
“To fool medical scans when he changed posts. A genetic scan of his tissue might reveal his true species.”
Ronald shrugged, tugging the unconscious officer’s mouth open and stabbing a finger inside. Taking out a gooey sample of Banks’ saliva, he and Surall stepped away from the transmitter’s likely range and scanned the spit.
Surall nodded.
“Klingon, sir.”
Ron looked across the bridge even as yet another blast rocked the ship.
“Hail the Pang.”
Captain Dath’mar puzzled over the lack of response from the USS Endeavour. He had been aware of the Federation ship’s weapons lock on him while they closed in under cloak. This, added to the torpedoes fired at him a day previously, had been all he’d needed to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the Federation had sunk to treachery. He’d ordered an early start to his attack to prevent the enemy from firing first. The cloaking system had so drained his vessel’s weapons grid that it had taken a full twenty-five seconds to get off the first shots.
In that time, he’d expected to die. He hadn’t figured on winning against the Excelsior-Class ship anyway. His ship was far too badly damaged to survive. Nor had he figured he could slink away without being detected. He was doomed to destruction here either way.
He’d go down fighting.
But the Endeavour had sailed ever closer, weapons armed but silent. The bloated ship had come on without a shot fired, allowing Dath’mar a second barrage. Then a third. It had been a full minute after his first attack before the ship had even began it’s first evasive turn.
Now his battlecruiser shadowed the larger craft, peppering its tail with half hearted blows. Endeavour could have ended all of this with a solid torpedo volley. But she hadn’t so much as fired a single shot…
“IKS Pang, this is the USS Endeavour!” Squawked a staticy human voice over the barely repaired comm system. Short-range communications had only just been restored when they’d sighted the Earth ship.
“Please respond, over.” The young voice went on. “IKS Pang, this is the Endeavour calling, please respond. Captain Dath’mar, please respond. We are not here to engage your vessel, please respond this frequency, over.”
The captain brooded over the human’s words even as another withered lash of disruptor energy sputtered forth from the forward battery. The Endeavour rolled to absorb the impact on her dorsal shielding, her hull darkening to a ruddy brown in places as her shields arced under the hit. Dath’mar sat, half tilted in his chair from the leaning slant of the damaged deck, watching the enemy. His mind worked on the equation. He did not like the answer he generated.
“Hold fire…” The captain muttered as though bequeathing an oath.
His weapons officer glanced back at him with uncertainty from the leaning, cobbled together gunnery station. As he looked back in confusion, another wave of weapons fire loosed on the Federation ship, fired by automatic systems. Dath’mar nailed a one-eyed stare through the boy’s face.
“I said…cease fire…”
The lieutenant nodded, turning to jab at the controls. “Yes, my lord!”
Commander Kurvis carefully stepped down the pitched slope of the ill-repaired deck to hunker near the command chair. Dath’mar met his gaze and saw that he was equally wary of Endeavour’s lack of action.
“They could have destroyed us by now, my lord.”
“Yes. And should have.”
“There is something afoot here. Trickery.”
“Yes… But theirs or someone else’s?”
Kurvis understood his commander’s implications.
“Response?”
Dath’mar studied the sleek, sloping fantail of the retreating starship on his froward viewer. The alien craft could have just gone to high warp had they not wished to do battle. They had nothing at all to fear from the Pang. What then, were they doing out here if they were not responsible for the aggression against his ship?
“Open hail. Put them on screen.”
The fore screen clicked onto the pristine image of a human bridge that was already familiar to the Klingon warrior. Ford was not there, though. Another officer…Davenport, stood in the fore ground, flanked by nearly a dozen of his soldiers. Dath’mar had saved this human and three others from an ill-fated shuttle ride months ago. This human was soft and uncombative, but oddly…amusing.
“Captain Dath’mar.” The round-faced officer greeted him with a nod. “A pleasure to see you again.”
“Save the courtly gestures. What is going on here? Where is Ford?”
“The commodore is temporarily on Starbase 23, attending a trial.”
Dath’mar’s lips curled at the thought of Ford being a junior flag officer. Now he would command more ships into battle. And then there was this trial Davenport had mentioned.
“Trial? His own?”
“No, the former First Officer’s. Captain, we have a problem over here.”
“Tell me.”
The human officer looked uneasily back to the security force behind him as they bent to pick a slacken form up from the floor. The man was large for a human, well muscled and dark of skin. His head lolled and it was quite obvious he’d been stunned.
“This man was in temporary command of Endeavour when we arrived here looking for the tradeship Paris. He’s also a Klingon.”
Dath’mar’s eye narrowed in suspicion. What manner of ruse was this? Interest peeked within him, though. The Starfleet officer had no discernable reason to lay any subterfuge upon an enemy he could just blast out of the sky with the minimum of effort. He would investigate this claim. What more could the Starfleet crew do to him or his ship that they couldn’t have already done?
“Bring him aboard…”
Dath’mar gave a cutthroat gesture to the comm deck and fixed his eye on Kurvis. “Ready the mind-sifter and a genetic probe. We will have our answers…”
Topic: Endeavour Story #8: Trial and Fire (Read 7062 times)