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

Chapter Text

XVI. Per Astra, Per Terram

Jamie gazes at the gas giant. He wonders if it is possible, that the answer is staring them right in the face. He turns back to A'lanna. “So how good are your shields?”

Her eyes flash again. “Nope. We’ve done that before. This bucket is a lot of things, but she ain’t made to dive into a gas giant. I had to replace the entire impulse energy buffering array, last time we tried it. We almost never got out of there and the risk/reward wasn’t worth it.” Her eyes seem to grow distant with a memory. “We lost some good people. And we nearly got crushed when we started to sink.”

Jamie looks to Ael'a. Her eyes can’t meet his.

Tardris looks up from the helm. “Major, we’ve taken some damage to the impulse drive.” She looks at her captain with flinty eyes. “We didn’t exactly replace the IEB array. We threw something together that looks like a Klingon took a bat’leth to it, because it was cheaper and she needed more play-pretties for her quarters. I think that’s where that damned marble bathtub and shower attached to her quarters came from.”

A'lanna shoots her another look of death. “You don’t seem to mind when you’re in there using up all of my hot water.”

“More ships coming in,” the weapons officer says.

“Well, here we go,” Tardris says.

All eyes turn towards the viewport.

Three shapes appear, but not what they expected.

Two Border Patrol cutters, the San Sebastián and an Avenger-class torpedo boat, launchers deployed sit in the center of the port. He shakes his head at the third ship. A version of the same class that the shattered Aerfen belongs to.

All in black.

A'lanna looks up at Croft. “Open a channel to the lead ship, whoever the hell that might be.”

The comms officer complies, but his heavy brow furrows. “They say the task force commander is inbound. With an expert.”

Another shape appears, similar to the others, but perhaps a bit less streamlined.

“That’s a marine ship,” Croft says. “A Puller-class.”

“Commpic coming in.

Croft turns towards the pickup, straightening his assault uniform, not knowing where a poker might be shoved on this particular jarhead.

His eyes widen as he sees a woman with red hair sitting in the command chair, wearing a Starfleet working uniform with a rear admiral’s insignia. He recognizes her, not in the least from the holos and descriptions he’d seen of another, but mostly from her time spent trying to hammer basic engineering principles into his head.

“Admiral Decker,” he breathes.

She looks at his uniform, shaking her head. “You really have fallen, Croft,” she says.

He snorts. “Why are you here?”

“I was already on the way. I got your updates about a gas giant. I remembered something I’d told Decker years ago. About a junior engineer on a frigate who had saved a good portion of his crew by sending them into a gas giant with their pods still in the housing. The pods and assembly still had enough artificial gravity and were still light enough to keep the gravity of the giant from pulling them down.” She looks away. “It’s amazing what children absorb.”

He nods. “Why the jarheads?”

“Careful, Croft,” she says. “They’re my ride. They have some skills that we’ll need.” A grin comes over her face. “Plus I found that junior engineer. Thought I’d go to the source.”

Croft closes his eyes as a large blue figure steps into the pickup.

“You are scraping the bottom of the barrel,” he murmurs.

Agon Zh'qithiq stares at him, his bare, muscled arms crossed over his chest. “I figured the bar was already low, with you involved, Croft.” His eyes harden. “After this little adventure, we’re going to have a little conversation about abandoning my wife’s prelanka-gere.”

XVII. When Bureaucrats Go Wild

Pavel Chekov watches as the three admirals and the civilian argue. He quickly grows bored and watches the young SFPD Inspector, Liz Torbert on a monitor, where she sits in a secure area. In his quick research, he had learned that she had served a hitch as a weapons technician, then as a security operator, finally earning a promotion as an Investigator-Warrant Officer before the hitch ended. He’d looked further into her career at SFPD; she’d only been in seven years, but had already earned the position of Inspector First Grade, equivalent to a lieutenant—something you couldn’t earn by passing a promotional exam, at least past the basic grade. In an agency that doesn’t investigate many serious crimes any more, she stands out as one of the most skilled.

He’d also learned that her younger sister, was currently in harm’s way, on assignment under Federation Command Authority sealed orders.

He himself had written those orders.

“I’m not sending any more Special Operations Command forces to that area,” Harriman intones. He glances at Styles, as if for confirmation. Chekov files that look for future reference.

Just as he files Styles’ blank look in return. Finally Styles nods.

“And what of our crew? We have credible evidence that they are alive,” McCall says.

“Credible from who? A pirate? Someone who is in deserter status from Starfleet?”

Pavel watches as McCall holds his temper, with great effort. He glances at Pavel, who says, “We believe the evidence is credible, Admiral. Also, Major Blackthorne isn’t a deserter. He merely requested a transfer to the Rapid Deployment Force, and was granted it, for a new assignment.”

He looks pointedly at McCall. You owe me, he sends in his mind. To his point, he sees a slight incline of McCall’s head with an accompanying curl of his lips.

“And what is your status, Captain Chekov? I checked with BUPERS and they say that you are assigned to the Board of Admiralty as staff secretary. That’s not exactly an assignment that has a lot of weight like you seem to be throwing around.”

Pavel smiles thinly. “The Board of Admiralty, as you know, is an advisory body to the President, the Federation Security Advisor, and the Secretary of State for Defense and Exploration. It is made up of some of our most experienced and distinguished retired Admirals. People like Grand Admirals Turner, Martinez, Brannigan, and Nogura, as well as your predecessor, Admiral Harriman—Grand Admiral Jokan.”

He sees the point scored. “That’s where my ‘weight’ comes from,” he finishes.

A commander steps in. “Begging your pardon, Admirals, ma’am, Captain. A Klingon Imperial envoy is asking permission to join by holocomm. She says she has something to add to an ‘issue’ we may have.

XIII. SOS

D’aina t’Sonrees stares at the local security forces arrayed around Pier 45. She sees them milling around the door of her covert communications center. She watches, knowing what will happen if they tamper with it. She sees one of the local soldiers start to touch it.

A tall, bird-like being, one that bears some resemblance to the raptor on most Romulan warships, quickly moves up. She sees a large transport pull up and several heavily armored and padded beings get out, along with some sort of an automaton on antigrav lifts. The locals move back, especially as a young human woman with medium dark skin walks up and orders them away, to form a perimeter.

She is confident in Section 31 technology to keep secrets. No one may die when they tamper with the compartment, but there will be destruction.

D’aina moves away from the scene, already moving towards a different plan. She can’t imagine that she was tracked here the last time she used it. She wonders if she has already been betrayed. She is sure that it wasn’t Stivek, but she isn’t sure if the human captain might not be responsible. She was, after all, close to Jameson McCall, the Prince of Starfleet Intelligence.

After an hour’s walk, in which she had doubled-and-tripled back, she comes to another communications blind. It had also taken her longer as she’d had to inject herself with another stimulant for the loss of blood. The pain she deals with herself.

She pulls out the black delta and prepares to insert it into the small slot. D’aina pauses for a moment. She can only hope that Section 31 hasn’t discovered what she actually is.

If it even cares.

She senses a presence behind her. She turns and sees a shadowy figure in a hood step out. She reaches for the Starfleet phaser, but the figure holds out both hands, palms together, as if in prayer. The figure opens the hands palm up, then lifts the cowled hood away from the face.

D’aina’s heart twists as she sees the delicate, upswept brows, and pointed ears, along with a mass of dark curly hair. The woman’s brown features are calm.

D’aina recognizes the dark robes of the Qowat Milat.

The followers of the Way of Absolute Candor. Some of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the galaxy, all women. She exhales sharply as she realizes that she recognizes the woman’s features.

Features that are similar to those that she had last seen looking up at her from the floor of an execution chamber, after she had been subjected to the slow execution known as the Remedy, her head readied for display.

A face beloved to her, as her Commander, and more.

There were differences. This face was younger.

“You’re Tiyana t’Lorcana,” D’aina says. “Grala’s younger sister.”

The woman smiles serenely—probably one of the broadest, warmest smiles D’aina has ever seen on a Romulan.

Or any being, for that matter.

“I’ve been sent on a impossible quest,” she says. “Something we sisters of the Qowat Milat specialize in.” Her smile grows harder.

“To keep you from making a mistake of galactic proportions, D’aina.”

XIX. Revelations

Captain Sandiya Prandi listens with half an ear to the other captains on the holoconference, seated around the table in the Constitution’s briefing room.

She can see Vice Admiral Walsh’s irritation grow with Captain Stivek. Captain Chandra, the commander of the Border Patrol Group and the direct commander of the missing Goddess, doesn’t have to let her irritation grow. She had come in to the conference, as an old security officer of Prandi’s had once said, ‘safety-wired in the pissed-off position.’

“We cannot make an incursion into Klingon space,” Stivek says, in his precise voice. “We have made great progress since Khitomer. We mustn’t jeopardize that for one crew.” Sandiya recognizes that his control must be slipping as well, if he had used a contraction.

“The reports are that the ships that attacked our client ship identified themselves as belonging to the Klingon Free Systems,” Chandra says, an edge to her voice. “The holos and telemetry that were sent to us, as well as copied to Starfleet Operations and Intelligence, indicated both physical markings and virtual IDs from the House of Klinzhai—the known leading house of the secession movement.”

“Known to you, perhaps,” Stivek says. “But we are not sure that the totality of the House was a part of that ‘secession movement’ that you speak of.”

Sandiya sees the anger flare in Chandra’s usually gray eyes, turning them to shades of piercing blue. Sandiya watches her reach up and touch the angry scar on the side of her bald head.

Walsh turns to her. “You haven’t said much, Sam,” he observes.

There it is. The moment that my little controller has been waiting for. She lets the self-loathing rise in her mind. She pushes it away, after an appropriate amount of time, along with Commander Reese’s features. “I…agree with Captain Stivek,” she says, hoping that Walsh and Chandra, as well as the captain of the Pathfinder takes her hesitation for something other than static on subspace. “We can’t risk a war, now. Not when we’re especially starting to see more activity on the Romulan part of the border.” She looks at Chandra. “Especially when the Patrol has been allowed to atrophy so. We’re down to only eight active groups, with the shuffling that Admiral Hunter has had to do.”

Chandra gazes at her. In this particular instance, Sam can’t tell if the anger is now directed at her, or if there is something else in play.

Mike Walsh looks at a PADD handed to him. He sighs. “At any rate, it’s a moot point. SPECOPS has gotten OPSTAR and Antares Deep Space Area Command to agree. We can’t move into the area around the gas giant.”

Sam clicks off with the rest. She closes her eyes, wondering how Harriman had been able to get the full Admiral with responsibility for Starfleet Operations and his subordinate area commander to agree.

Her pocket buzzes. She reaches in and pulls out the black delta. She sighs and reaches for the PADD. At the insertion of the object, a holo appears above the device, given to her by Reese.

It isn’t who she had expected. Captain Stivek’s face stares at her. She keeps her smile to herself.

She finally has something to give her so-called masters.