Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

The Star Beagle Adventures                                                
Episode 14: Close to the Edge Part III - I Get Up, I Get Down
Scene 3: Regrets

Two hundred women watch one woman cry, too late…

14.3
Regrets

Warrant Officer Seprek Harrison sat quietly at the helm of the tactical launch, reviewing all of the sensor readings that were available to him. He could clearly hear Captain Rhonda Carter and Master Chief Bill Waller having a quiet argument at the rear of the tactical launch. 

The corpse of Flight Engineer Dion Draper had been placed in what was now the airless void of the tactical deck. This deck contained the primary deflector array for the U.S.S. Escort, along with secondary pulse phasers. The latter were rarely used as they shared a power array with the deflector. But when the tactical launch was deployed (which would only be done in an emergency), these provided some protection for the small space craft. 

The use of a separate warp power core for the deflector grid was part of what made these small destroyers so tough in battle. They could also transform this small portion of the ship into a high speed shuttle… Or a really powerful warhead.

“Okay, okay,” Waller was saying, very quietly. “Ensign John Sevork, Ensign Ronaldo Carmen, Chief Tactical Specialist Juan Rosa, Tactical Specialist Bong Diep Cao, Flight Engineer Dion Draper, Transporter Engineer Darius Yahya…” Waller breathed a heavy sigh. “Flight Specialist Maya Davi.”

“Fuck,” Carter said softly, then: “It’s been a long time since I lost that many people. And I’m very far from certain that I didn’t bring it on us…”

Waller’s voice was even quieter. “I don’t care about how you got us into this, Rhonda. Not now. All I care about is how you’re going to get us out of this!”

Harrison had had enough of this argument. 

“If it helps, Captain,” he said in a normal voice from the front of the control deck. “You might recall what you said at the end of your last court-martial.”

“My only court-martial, Seprek,” Carter retorted irritably. “And you weren’t there.”

“But I’ve heard the story so many times,” Seprek Harrison replied. 

Carter turned and scrutinized the martial arts instructor turned jack of all trades. “Vulcans only use sarcasm as a teaching tool.”

“Just because I can’t teach you anything about fighting doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to teach you,” Harrison replied.

“He’s right, you know,” said Waller. “Say it.”

Carter turned and looked at the veteran NCO. “Are you…”

Waller cut her off. “Just say it already so we can move on.”

The captain shook her head, sighed. “At the end of the day, I did what I thought was needed to keep my people safe and the remaining prisoners alive.”

“And you believe that today just as much as you did when you said it,” Waller observed. 

“I was putting on a brave face,” Carter retorted. “I got had by some clever secret agents with agendas that I never figured out.”

“And the same thing happened just a few minutes ago. You got had by a bizarre space shrimp and its pet mushroom and we still haven’t figured out their agenda,” Waller observed. “So what do we do now? Launch?”

“We stay put right here.”

“Why?” asked Waller.

“This lepreshroom shut down everything on the ship,” Carter replied. “It’s ignoring us because we’re not important to it. Yet…”

“Not everything,” Waller observed. “The distress beacon.”

“Exactly,” said Carter. “I had pre-programmed our distress signal to follow Commodore Yui’s beacon to the out door.”

“That’s some fairly involved math,” Harrison observed.

Carter tapped the fourth pip on her collar. “I can do math. Or rather, I can instruct the computer how to do the correct math. So why didn’t Rocky shut that distress call down? He shut everything else down…”

“So he can follow it out of the Jar Galaxy to the door that leads us back into the Milky Way,” Waller said, appreciatively.

“But we don’t know where in the Milky Way that door will land us,” Harrison objected.

“We’re a billion light years or more from home,” Carter replied. “If the doorway takes us to the Gamma Quadrant of the Milky Way, we’re still a lot closer to home. I’ll take 70 thousand light years away over a billion light years away any day. But think about this…”

Harrison and Waller both turned to watch Captain Carter as she walked from the back of the control deck to the command chair in the center.

“Those doors from this galaxy to our own wouldn’t be much use to those holy landers unless they were reasonably close together on the Milky Way side.” The blue-haired captain took her seat in the command chair. 

“So we sit. And we wait…” 

“And maybe Rocky will take us home.”

14.3