So I entered the STO fanfic contest over at Battleclinic =P
It didn't cost me nothin', and I figured it was worth a shot. I learned about it late and had to come up with something fast, so I wrote this.
It's based on something from the recent expanded universe novels, Admiral Jellico grumbling about Kirk's logs. He absolutely refuses to believe that Kirk flew through a giant ameoba in space, and believes that Kirk spent half his time just making sh** up.
It also ocured to me that Kirk/Picard's antics must frequently make the admiralty feel like tired old men/women/whatever.
So here you are, the adventures of Captain AlchemistiD, from the desk jockey's prespective. (This story is set sometime in the year 2409, when STO takes place.)
-----------------------------------------
TEXT MSG SENT: UFP SF DS20 STN 1131-293B RECIEVED: UFP SFC STN 57-992 / ENCRYPTED
From: Cdre. M. Halsey
To: Adm. M. Calhoun
Format: Text, dictated
Subject: Mac for the love of all that is holy help me get this insane sod away from my sector right now.
Hello, Mac. I was glad to recieve your message last month, I'm happy you're doing so well, and that you haven't gotten kicked out of Frisco yet. I'm sorry for taking so long to respond, but I've been having a big problem that's needed so very much attention lately, and dealing with his antics has eaten all of my time.
Yes, I said he, as in him, as in you know damn well who I'm talking about Mackenzie Calhoun. That terran nutter you sent me to fill out the exploration fleet in my little corner of the Milky Way. I want him gone, now. I don't care if you personally endorsed him or if James T. Kirk suddenly materialized from the ether and told me to shut it, take him away. Anywhere but here!.
You have no idea what I've been through the last six months. As a frontier outpost on the very border of explored space, it's our job and the ship captain's to go out there where angels fear to tread everyday. Some find glory out there, and some never make it back...but...Mac...this one...
Look, I've prepared a little crash course on how...what's that stupid nickname he has? Alchemistid? Alchemistid, is that it? "Alchemistid"...who calls themselves...what in the hell?
Anyway, I don't know who the hell taught this psycho, but here's a few highlights I've put togeather from reports I've gotten from his ship. This is how this guy handles encountering the unknown.
Summary:
En route to survey Yellow Hypergiant, USS Woglinde encountered a drifing ship from a pre-warp two civilization. Survivors on board describe their world as succumbing to a virulent plague of unknown origin. Survivors requested that the Woglinde assist in evacuating some one thousund immune survivors to a nearby uninhabited M-class world in system. CO agreed and the Woglinde landing party materialized in the shelter to meet with the co-ordinator of said evacuation, but found no survivors in facility. Victims were apparently eaten.
The planet-borne crew members were briefly stranded by athmospheric conditions and took temporary shelter in a sealed medical facility. Eventually the party founs a second stronghold set up as a fall-back point in case the original compound had been overrun, the evacuation was resumed minus some three hundred twenty who were killed in the attack. One of the warpship's crew succumbed to infection and began attacking crew via attempted mastication.
The disease seemed non-communicable to crewmen from examinations of victim's blood samples and the attacker's performed by the ship's LMH (Nicknamed "Lima"), the doctor noted the disease seemed to rapidly mutate to suit its current environment, and suggested an artificial origin.
Notable Information:
Landing party described attackers as appearing to be in varying stages of decomposition. Speed and strength seemed to vary from one individual to another. The participants claimed to often be accosted by dozens of opponenents or more.
The ship's CMO described to the captain a recorded journal entry made by a physician in the facility, noting the stages of infection from the plague. The infection somehow accellerated the victim's metabolism beyond sustainable rates, resulting in an urgent need for the infectee to feed. Meanwhile, it also attacked the nervous system and brain, particularly the regions responsible for higher brain function. As a result, the body begins to metabolize itself, consuming epidermal and muscular tissue to survive. At the same time, the victim is essentially being lobotomized.
The exact period between initial infection and the point where the physical damage becomes irreversible varyed depending on the infected subject, but the recording stated that the average was typically between twenty four to thirty three hours.
Comments:
My god. I can't believe this. I mean, wow, I actually feel dumber having even read it. Zombies? Zombies, Mac. Jesus. If the good captain didn't want to do a survey on a boring Yellow Hypergiant, what the hell is he doing in starfleet? And this is the worse excuse I've ever seen to stall a damn survey trip.
Look, I've done the boring grunt work, we all have. If he just didn't want to spend time sitting around staring a a giant fireball all day, I could sympathize. But this insanity demonstrates a clear disrespect for even basic protocol. I mean, zombies? Zombies. He expects me to believe he delayed a survey mission scheduled for months because of zombies. What the hell does he take me for?
Oh, dont't worry. That isn't the worst of it. You haven't seen anything yet.
Summary:
En route to survey Yellow Hypergiant, the USS Woglinde encountered an extremely advanced version of the planet killer encountered by Cpt. James T Kirk and Cdre. Matthew Decker. Science dept. head suspected the device was created some time after the original, before the builders vanished or went extinct. This Planet Killer was far larger and more heavily armed and armored than the original. The exterior was bristling with heavy point-defence anti-photon emmiters. Antimatter explosions near the weapon's "maw" had no effect.
After a co-ordinated attack on a single point on the device, the Woglinde primary hull was able to infiltrate the weapon and the crew were able to ensure the Planet Killer's destruction before escaping.
Notable Information:
Lt. Donovan, while reviewing sensor data, describes a strange similarity to the advanced Planet Killer's weapons array and the Kessok's solar former technology which caused the Vesuvi event in the late twenty three seventies.
Battle damages incurred included:
Stellar Cartography (destroyed)
Deck 10 Microbiology Laboratory (breached)
Deck 10 Machine Labs (breached)
Deck 10 Airponics Laboratory (breached)
Deck 09 Industrial Replicator 03 (destroyed)
Deck 04 Crew's Quarters Section A (breached)
Deck 06 Auxiliary Computer Core (damaged, emergency shutdown and all data archived)
Deck 03 Primary Hull Deuterium Storage 01 (breached, destroyed)
Materiel lost included:
Entire Photon Torpedo Compliment.
Entire Quantum Torpedo Compliment.
15 Phaser capacitors destroyed.
Primary Deflector Dish destroyed.
Shuttlecraft Gainsbourough (Used as munitions)
Shuttlecraft Valentine (Used as munitions)
Shuttlecraft Brea (Used as munitions)
Runabout Capulet (Used as munitions)
USS Woglinde Secondary Hull (Used as munitions)
Comments:
We all know how much of a bastard those things are to kill, but we have no indication of any inhabited, or even Class-M, planets out where the Woglinde was. So what the hell was so damn important about stopping that thing without waiting for backup? Again, he demonstrates a pure disregard for protocol, because there's obviously something he's not saying in these logs.
I'm not here to tattle on people like a preschooler, Mac. But there are rules, dammit. You don't just go flying around whereever you want, making up crap and saying whatever you damn well please into the reciever!
Especially when you come back after less than a month with one-fourth of the ship you left in! I mean, what kind of lunatic is he?! I had to order half a ship from Planitia, Mac. They sent me the stardrive of the Flosshilde. They had just finished her.
And that isn't even the worst of it! You might want to sit down for this one, Mac.
Summary:
Upon arrival in Yellow Hypergiant system, USS Woglinde began a survey of said system's "Goldilocks zone"; a region of space roughly 450 AU accross, inside which liquid water could exist on a planet's surface. The ship was then attacked by a species who have been colorfully designated "The Ozma" (Their own name is more or less impronounceable.)
From what information the Woglinde crew could ascertain, the Ozma believed the star contained a powerful entity, a creature the Ozma revered as a sort of god, capable of reshaping reality and destroying their enemies. Which meant more or less everything that wasn't an Ozma.
Co-ordinates taken from an Ozma derelict after an exchange of fire led the crew to a planet at the outer edge of the habitable zone, a planet they discovered was actually an artificial world. After an Ozma field base had been secured, a holographic message left by the construct's dying Administrator was discovered by the ship's chief of operations, and described the planetoid as a control facility for another massive construct. The Hypergiant itself.
The administrator's species were once explorers like the Woglinde crew, it said. But, one day, they encountered an alien creature of incredible mass and power. The creature seemed to be able to alter space-time around itself, causing ships, and entire worlds, to suddenly vanish. Eventually their entire species had become dedicated to finding a way to destroy the creature, after it had apparently removed entire worlds from existance.
They discovered that the creature seemed to somehow draw energy from subspace itself, and that trapping it somehow in another dimension may weaken it enough to be held indefinately. They also observed that, when it did tire, it somehow seemed to wrap itself around/within stars. They spent thousunds of years and billions of lives delaying the creature, while they constructed a massive trap/explosive device, the star system's Yellow Hypergiant.
Unfortunately, by the time they had successfully trapped the creature, only one of their kind remained. The Administrator was killed by a last attempt by the creature to break free. The monster was trapped, but there was no one left to kill it.
Even more unfortunately, the Ozma had already been there, and opened a hole in the pocket reality the creature was trapped in. They were then 'rewarded' by what the Woglinde staff universally describe as a massive tendrill extending out about 700 AU from the hole in the star's artificial exterior, wrapping around one of the Ozma ships, crushing it like a tin can.
Despite the Woglinde's best efforts from the control facility, the hole wouldn't close, and a failsafe countdown had activated when the creature had partially breached the star's exterior. To make matters worse, an Ozma ship had made off with a device designed to defend against the creature by 'muddling' it's connection to subspace. Only now, they were using it to 'muddle' the artificial star's connection, holding the door open for the creature to escape before the failsafe detonation could kill it.
After dodging several attempts from the creature to destroy the ship, the captain ordered the Woglinde helm officer to take the ship into the pocket reality inside the star, in order to destroy the Ozma ship holding the hole open. The CO had decided that the creature could not be allowed to escape, a creature capable of annihlating a civilization advanced enough to build artificial stars. All other concerns were secondary.
The Woglinde entered the pocket reality, dodging more attempts to destroy her, and commenced an Alpha Strike on the Ozma ship as soon as she was within range. The ship then used the gravity of the creature to accellerate beyond her standard impulse speed and escape the trap the Administrator's species had built.
The creature was unable to escape before the failsafe protocol detonated the artificial star, destroying the pocket reality with the being inside. The Woglinde was forced into maximum warp in-system in order to escape.
Notable Information:
Mention is made of transmissions recieved just prior to the destruction of the Ozma ship holding the hole in the pocket reality open. Logs seem to indicate some sort of commotion and general disorder aboard their ship. Not much is intelligible from the ship, but the crew seemed to be in some sort of distress. The senior science officer on duty speculates the Ozma crew may somehow have been suffering from extended proximity to the creature's effects on space-time.
Just prior to the Woglinde's Alpha Strike, the Ozma ship's shields began to fluctuate, possibly due to damage inflicted by the creature or the occupants.
Comments:
This is it. This is the kind of a lunatic he really is if he expects me to buy into this. Someone is way too far into his Lovecraft. I mean, what the hell, right? Sure there was a giant betentacled alien monster imprisoned in an artificial star built by a species that happens to be capable of such a thing, who just happen to be extinct, and all evidence of their existence was destroyed along with an entire solar system over 900 AU accross!
I mean, you've told me some whoppers. That whole Black Mass thing still gives me nightmares, and I wasn't even there! But this?
"I didn't blow it up on purpose, it just blew up all by itself! It was the aliens! The ones that no one has ever had any contact with nor encountered out here, they're the ones that did it!" Who does he think he is?!
And what kind of petty, childish, self-centered, scrap-for-brains space nut blows up an entire solar system just because he doesn't want to sit around scanning it?! Conveniently, there's as little evidence damning him as there is to corroborate his story. Just my luck.
Oh, I do believe the hypergiant blew up. I kind of have to. Because I had to wake up at an ungodly hour to my science staff calling to tell me about the sudden unscheduled existance of a brand-spanking new planetary nebula in my little corner of the Milky Way! I want him gone, Mac, do you hear me?!
Before he blows up my sodding station too!
AUTO CONFIRMATION: 25 8347 3453
--------------------------------------------------------
Let the moral of the story be learned. Never accept a gift from Calhoun. Ever.
EDIT: A little bit inspired by Lieutenant_Q, with whom I wholeheartedly agree.
--------------------------------------------------------
TEXT MSG SENT: UFP SFC STN 57-992 RECIEVED: UFP SF DS20 STN 1131-293B
From: Cpt. M. Calhoun
To: Cdre. M. Halsey
Format: Text, dictated
Subject: My sincerest apologies Megan...
I recently received your transmission regarding the new addition to your regions fleet. You have my deepest apologies for the stress you've had to endure these six months.
Unfortunately, since I have been demoted by a magnificent cad, I no longer hold the authority to reassign your problem elsewhere.
Luckily for myself, the current commanding officer of the Excalibur had just accepted promotion and is on their way to Earth, and so it seems there is now an opening for her commanding officer. Said admiral will be assuming my duties here in San Francisco, and I will be sure to forward all of your complaints before disembarking.
As for her next destination, I'm sure I can find something to do out in your neck of the woods until proper marching orders come through. I hear that you've got a new nebula that needs to be surveyed?
Perhaps I'll drop by and see you at Deep Space 20.
Unless it's not there.
AUTO CONFIRMATION: 11 4457 4897
--------------------------------------------------------
The galaxy is at peace. Sort of.
Topic: Beware Calhouns bearing gifts... (Read 2851 times)