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

Chapter Text

* * *

“Hi, Commander Usaku?” Garrett said to the individual on the other end of her subspace comm-pic to the starship Stargazer.

She was in her quarters, hunched over the computer workstation on her desk, which was strewn with half-a-dozen data-slates. Garrett usually didn't make unsolicited calls to colleagues, but her situation was so fraught with uncertainty that she couldn't even bring herself to speak with Davula about it.

“That’s me,” the Asian human replied jovially. “Please, call me Akio.” He sat down in front of his own personal monitor holding a bowl of something in one hand, his uniform blouse open with waist-belt dangling. “I just got off shift, please forgive me.”

Garrett laughed. “I’m not judging, and please call me Rachel.” She herself was only wearing the blue-grey turtleneck of her science division post. “If the commodore knew I was contacting another ship while out of uniform, she’d have me running wind-sprints around the largest deck of our saucer.”

Usaku quirked an eyebrow. “Really? Sounds like she could give our Captain Lakatos a run for her currency.” He raised a finger in a holding gesture just long enough to slurp down a mouthful of udon noodles with his chopsticks. He chewed frantically and blushed. “Sorry again. I’m starving. Got so wrapped up in collating our findings on the Azure Nebula last month that I forgot to take a meal break mid-shift. The report is due in two days, and I dare not disappoint the captain. Rumor has it my predecessor missed one too many deadlines and got booted right off the ship.”

“I’m so sorry, if I knew you were dancing with a deadline, I’d have bothered someone else,” Garrett offered.

He shook his head, his good-natured smile remaining. “Not to worry, I’ve got it pretty much wrapped up, though I’d kill for a second set of eyes to check my findings. Nebular astrophysics is not my strongest subject." He took a drink of water from a glass. "I'm afraid I haven't had the opportunity to get up to speed on the Magna Roma situation, as we were just assigned to the task force two days ago. Now, what can I help you with, Rachel?”

“Well, your CV indicated that you worked on the Juan de Fuca plate abatement project on Earth and the seismic regulators on Risa.”

“Guilty as charged,” Usaku said wetly, smirking around another mouthful of noodles. “Have rock hammer, will travel.”

“Might I make you an offer, Akio?” Garrett said sweetly.

Usaku dipped his head, gesturing with a regal, rolling sweep of his hand. “Let’s have it.”

“I need a geologist’s expertise on some readings our probes have come back with here on Magna Roma. You need an astrophysicist’s input. I propose a swap.”

He swallowed the last of the noodles, draining the liquid and finally set the bowl aside. “You drive a hard bargain, but I’ll take it,” he joked. “What have you got?”

Garrett sent the readings via subspace packet and waited a moment as Usaku pulled them up on his monitor.

“These are Orion seismic dampeners located along several of the planet’s most active fault zones. These versions are larger and more complex than the ones nearer the surface, and we had difficulty getting sensor returns of them from orbit until we utilized sub-surface geological probes.”

Usaku half-listened to Garrett as he began flipping through the scan results, his expression growing increasingly confused. “They’re shielded… I mean, of course they are, they’d have to be. But the shield frequencies don’t make sense. They’re all the way up into the interferometric bandwidths.”

“Right,” Garrett agreed. “Like they didn’t want anyone getting detailed scans.”

“Were they worried about proprietary rights over the technology?” Usaku asked.

“No,” Garrett countered. “The devices include Lissepian and Tellarite components, so they’re already an unpatentable hodgepodge of tech. Besides, the Romanii couldn’t duplicate anything of this level of sophistication anyway.”

“So… why would they—”

“Check the pressure variances,” Garrett coaxed, cutting his musings short.

“Yeah, those looked way off what you’d normally expec—” He stopped, a frown dominating his features. “This can’t be right.”

Garrett sat back, the knot in her stomach easing as someone with greater expertise also found the results nonsensical. She had experienced doubt and indecision in the face of these findings so soon after the utterly inexplicable data surrounding Magna Roma’s origins. Garrett had convinced herself that she was drawing incorrect conclusions from the data, and that two such bizarre discoveries could not rationally be made in nearly as many days.

Usaku muttered a curse in Japanese that the computer mercifully left untranslated. Five or more minutes followed in silence as the other science officer tapped feverishly at the keyboard set into the surface of his desk. Garrett waited impatiently, struggling not to fidget as her anxiety grew.

“They’re not dampeners,” he said finally.

“They’re not?” Despite the horror of the revelation, Garrett experienced the inappropriately satisfying sensation of vindication.

“Oh, the ones near the surface are, but they’re just a bandage on an avulsing wound. These larger, deeper versions are seismic resonators, which in concert are establishing a pressure differential around the planet’s core.”

“And when that differential finally overwhelms the resonators’ mutual field?” Garrett prompted, already having intuited the answer.

Usaku’s eyes moved from the data display to meet Garrett’s own on the split-screen image. “Then the process that’s already underway on Magna Roma happens in hours, rather than years or months. These sick sons-of-bitches have basically lit a fuse at the center of the planet.”

Garrett’s stomach flipped as she struggled with the overwhelming significance of what they had uncovered. “Dear God, I… I thought that’s what I was seeing, but I couldn’t make myself believe it. Why? Why the hell would the Orions do this?”

Usaku said nothing for a moment, staring off into space until taking in a deep, shuddering breath as though he’d suddenly forgotten how. “I’ve seen something very similar to this used in the Infernus system.” His wandering eyes found their way back to Garrett’s face.

“Akio, what—"

“Rachel, it’s a hell of a lot easier to mine latinum from an asteroid field than it is an intact planet.”

* * *

Task Force Hannibal

USS Reykjavík – Shangri-La-class attack cruiser – Commodore Nandi Trujillo

USS Stargazer – Constellation-class cruiser – Captain Lavinia Lakatos

USS Zelenskyy – Miranda-class light cruiser – Commander Eldred Withropp

USS Altishutnal – Tempest-class light cruiser – Captain Anelie Eleonore

USS Perseus – Wasp-class frigate – Lt. Commander Ulit Toom

USS Planck – Newton-class frigate – Captain Ba'oria Tamedon

USS Shackleford – Avery-class frigate – Captain Millicent Chang

USS Azulon – Columbia-class frigate – Captain Sorn Dinlite

USS Koh Yor – Lenthal-class destroyer – Lt. Commander Aronas Žukauskas

USS Hallia – Larson-class destroyer – Lt. Commander Phí Cao Tiến

USS Gol – Akayazi-class tactical scout – Commander Glal <<DAMAGED>>

USS Corrigan – Franklin-class medical frigate – Commander Ylthandra

USS Puget Sound – Cle Dan-class repair tender – Lt. Commander Amarith Pyrixian-Mosk

* * *

Helvia had returned to his family’s old agricultural estate, but this time he had come alone. He had neither asked for nor received permission to come, and yet had beamed down just the same.

He walked along a dirt road towards the villa, lost in his thoughts, his mind struggling with just how unchanged the property was despite the passage of time.

Helvia was clothed in a button up shirt and dark slacks with casually sturdy footwear, his outfit unremarkable for a nobleman touring his property. He caught a few lingering looks from those at work with various tasks, but no one stopped him or attempted to engage him in conversation.

He finally reached the great house and wandered around its perimeter to find the old tobacco drying barn, one of the most hallowed buildings on the entire estate. He entered and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light within and then wandered through the structure, observing the equipment, the stacks of tobacco leaves drying and the heady, nearly overpowering scent of the leaves themselves.

That is where Helvia finally found the old man. He sat at a table, painstakingly hand rolling individual cigars from dried, aged tobacco leaves. His was a wizened countenance, with deep wrinkles and character lines creasing his face. Tufts of white hair ringed the sides and back of his otherwise bald head, the crown of which had grown cluttered with liver spots, moles and a few stubborn hairs which refused to surrender to the ravages of time.

He was dressed in a simple shirt and shorts under a thready, stained toga of questionable provenance.

“It was rumored you had returned,” the old man said after observing Helvia for a long moment.

The giant sank to his knees before the venerable octogenarian. Helvia began a litany in whispered Latin, his head bowed reverently.

The old man’s voice was a melodious rasp, the timbre of many decades and countless trials. “Rise, young man. I am no god. I am not even a disciple any longer. I am only a faint echo of that glory.”

Helvia rose, but only to one knee. “I yearn to share the blessings of the church, its wisdom, and its divine reckoning, but I can find no sign of our people. I have used the wondrous technology of my starship to search them out, but the buildings are gone or were repurposed, and even our secret shrines are abandoned.”

The ancient man laughed hoarsely in response; the sound devoid of humor. His fingers still molded the wrapper leaves as though moving without conscious thought. “The faith has fallen, and nothing remains. After your family and others fled, the government turned fully against our church. They told the people that all the quakes and volcanoes and tidal waves were the wrath of the old gods in the face of our heresy. After a time, the people were so desperate to forestall further calamity that they began to listen.”

Helvia’s head came up, his eyes disbelieving.

“They refurbished the Temples of Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Mars and others, and used those gods to bless their new anti-volcano weapons. Most of our faith turned their backs, and those who still clung to their beliefs were hunted down and put to the sword.”

“And the secret?” Helvia pressed.

“The secret endures,” the old man answered. “The chain in that respect remains unbroken.”

“And so, she may yet return,” Helvia murmured.

“Return to what?” the old man asked, pausing to add a completed cigar to the pile and gesturing broadly to the surroundings. “There will be little to return to. Despite the interventions of the government’s alien friends, the mountains continue to shake, the oceans boil, and the air fills with ash. She will step onto a blighted world, bereft of life.”

Helvia’s eyes probed the old man’s. “Even you? You have abandoned the faith?”

“Never,” he said heavily. “She will return, as promised, but there will be no one left to greet her.”

Tears streamed down Helvia’s face as the religion to which he had devoted his life appeared to vanish like a mirage in summer heat. The faith which had kept him alive in the arena, which had steeled his heart as a refugee, and had helped strengthen his resolve in his most difficult moments at Starfleet Academy was no more.

A man ducked through the doorway from outside, shielding his eyes to better make out the figures in the darkened room. “Cethegus, the local constabulary has arrived. I believe they seek your friend.”

The aged figure rose from his stool and came around the long table to coax Helvia to his feet and embrace him with surprisingly strong arms. Cethegus wiped Helvia’s tears away with gnarled, tobacco-stained fingers. “You and your family will soon be the last of us, my son. Perhaps she will return to your other Earth and spread her message there.”

“Strength, charity, mercy,” Helvia intoned by rote. “Her blessings upon us.”

“Upon us all,” Cethegus answered. “Go now, before they make an example of you.”

Helvia dug in his pocket and produced his communicator, flipping it open and requesting emergency beam-out. He held Cethegus’ gaze until he had grown insubstantial in the grip of the transporter beam.

Their church had crumbled, their faith fading into history like so many others before it, but their secret endured.

For decades the Romanii authorities had searched in vain for the man around which their faith had coalesced, blissfully unaware that this spiritual being, representative of a single, all-powerful deity, was actually a woman. The Children of the Son were in fact, the Children of the Mother.

* * *