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

Chapter Text

USS Excalibur

Commander Tristienne D’Vorr stepped out of the turbolift on deck three. She had been ordered by Captain Marshall to remain in auxiliary control, but she had another matter, a personnel matter, that required her urgent attention. The Caitian walked several meters down the corridor passing several crewmen whom she nodded to. She then found the cabin she was looking for and activated the door chime.

“Who is it?” asked Captain Marshall over the comm.

Tristi pushed a few buttons, initiating a command override to allow the doors to open and stepped inside the dimly lit room. “It’s me Captain,” she replied.

“I didn’t give you permission to enter,” he replied as he laid in his bunk staring up at the ceiling.

“Well then, you can file formal charges if you wish,” said D’Vorr.

“I don’t think we need to go that far, Commander,” said Alex. “Who’s handling things in Auxiliary Control?”

“Zarv,” she replied.

“Well, we’re only as far away as the nearest comm terminal,” said Alex knowing that while the engineer was competent in the center seat, it was not his preferred place.

“What’s going on Captain?” D’Vorr asked bluntly.

Marshall took a deep breath, exhaled, and said, “She threatened to remove me from command of the task force. Nandi Trujillo actually threatened to take this away from me just like Saavik did.”

“When did Saavik do that?” asked Tristi.

“Before I ordered you to hail the task force commanders,” he replied, “I argued against this mission. I told Saavik we were better off exploring, so that some piece of the Federation would be preserved, but she wouldn’t listen. Then she said she’d relieve me of command if I didn’t do it, and threatened to reassign me, and give the center seat to a subpar captain that couldn’t find the turbolift if his life depended on it.”

“I see,” said Tristi, “so rather than let the crew be commanded by an inferior captain, you went along with Saavik’s plan.”

“Yes, only because I felt like I didn’t have a choice,” said Alex. “I decided if I had to do it, if I had to put us on a suicide mission, and that’s what this is, I was going to do it my way. Then Saavik assigned Trujillo to head up Gauntlet.” His eyes closed for a moment as he recalled Trujillo’s exact words, “I’ll make the call the circumstances dictate, and you’ll either follow my lead or I’ll have you replaced as Alamo-Actual.”

“So, just follow her orders, and that won’t happen,” said Tristi.

Alex then sat up on the edge of the bed, and faced her. He said, “What if she’s wrong? What if Trujillo is wrong? It’s not what I would do under the circumstances. It should’ve been a combined fleet. We don’t have enough numbers to be effective out here.”

“This isn’t your mission. It’s not yours to command. The Klingons are the reason why we don’t have enough ships out here,” countered D’Vorr.

“Well, it should be,” said Marshall as he raised his voice a bit, now up on his feet. “My seniority should count for something. I was commanding a starship while Nandi Trujillo was still a lieutenant.”

“It only counts when you have the higher rank, and right now that’s Trujillo. She is the superior officer.”

“No, she’s merely a higher ranking one,” said Alex. He softened his tone as he asked, “Remember what you asked me when you first came on board?”

“About Tomed? Yes, I do, and you said to never ask you about the Tomed Incident,” said D’Vorr.

Alex decided it was time to level with her. “I was on the Athena, and when Captain Urum got killed I got up from the helm, and assumed command. Guess who the Tactical officer was?”

“As I recall it was Trujillo.”

“That’s right,” he said with a slight nod, “She’d fire her phaser before looking at a situation objectively. That being said, I wouldn’t have been able to get Athena out of that situation without her. What did Starfleet do? Give me an attaboy, pinned a few medals on my chest, promoted me, and gave me command of a starship.”

D’Vorr nodded now that she understood the relationship between the captain and the commodore better. “Let me guess,” she said, “you were hoping to succeed with this crisis so that Starfleet will take notice and give you that promotion.”

“Yes, maybe. I don’t know,” replied Alex, unsure of himself, “I turned down a promotion to commodore once already.”

“Why? When?”

“A few months ago. It was around the time you came on board while we were still at Starbase 47. Admiral Blackwell called me into his office and offered it to me. I turned it down. I told him I had the rank I wanted, the ship I wanted, and the crew I wanted. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Since then, I’ve come to realize that I’ve got maybe ten to fifteen years left in the center seat. I’d like to be more than just a footnote in the annals of Starfleet history.”

“You know those people in the history books are the exceptions, not the rule,” said Tristi.

“I know that,” said Alex. “I also know that what’s going on with the Tholians is damned peculiar. They’re in Longlax-Teko system probably gathering data on those spheres, and we’re sitting on our thumbs. We should be going in, repelling them out of there, and analyzing the spheres for ourselves. It worked against the Klingons.”

“We can’t deal with the Tholians the same way we dealt with the Klingons. Especially since like you said, the Tholians are not behaving like normal. You can’t always apply the same tactics to every situation.”

“That’s true, and you’re right. I was hoping to maybe, just maybe influence Trujillo enough that Starfleet would notice, and give me some recognition.”

“We all deserve recognition, Alex,” said D’Vorr.

“I’m not going to dispute that,” he replied. “Saavik didn’t behave logically.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

“If Saavik had been logical, she should’ve put the most senior officer in command of Task Force Gauntlet. If I had accepted promotion to Commodore, I would be the senior officer. I was hurt when she told me I would be commanding Task Force Alamo. I felt like she signed our death sentence. To defend Federation territory with only seven ships when the Tholians have… how many was it?”

“Sixty-four,” replied D’Vorr.

“Right,” said Marshall. “Those are overwhelming odds, and the only reason we’re still here is because the Tholians are not behaving like they normally would. Let’s face it, the only reason Trujillo is a Commodore is because Saavik wants her to be one.”

Tristi offered, “Did it occur to you that Saavik put Trujillo in command of Gauntlet because she knew Trujillo would get the job done?”

Alex sighed, “That thought had crossed my mind, but not until a few minutes ago.”

“Has it also occurred to you that just like you needed Trujillo to help you get the Athena out of harm’s way during Tomed, she needs you now to help her make this mission succeed?”

Marshall took a moment to consider what the Caitian was saying before he replied, “I hadn’t thought of it quite like that, but you do make a very valid point.” He walked over to the food replicator and asked for a glass of cold water. He took a small sip from the glass. “We were supposed to be out in deep space right now. We were supposed to be exploring. That’s the reason why I joined Starfleet.”

“It’s why I joined Starfleet too, but orders are orders, and we go where we are needed the most. Right now, that’s here. This ship, this crew would benefit more from a captain that was level headed, not someone trying to be a hero again.”

“I won’t dispute that,” said Alex.

“I have to say that what you did earlier on the comm with Trujillo, she could call that insubordination,” said D’Vorr, “You might want to extend the olive branch before it’s too late.”

“You might be right about that,” said Alex. He exhaled a very deep breath. He then said, “There are only two other people I’d let talk to me the way you just did, one being Doctor Gustafson.”

“And the other?” she asked.

“My wife,” replied Alex as his eyes went to the picture of his wife that he kept on the bedside table. He thought for a few seconds, and came to the conclusion that D’Vorr was right. He said, “I need you to get Commodore Trujillo on the comm, and tell her that I want to talk to her privately. I don’t want anyone to overhear what I have to say, and I’d like it on a secure channel.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said D’Vorr as she turned to exit the room, “Oh, and sir?”

“Yes?”

“Welcome back.”

“Thank you,” said Alex as he watched her leave. He then walked over to the small desk in his cabin, pulled out the chair and sat down. He needed more time to think, to consider what he was about to do. Deep down, he still held the conclusion that Tristienne D’Vorr was right, and that he was being a basket case. He only hoped it was not too late to extend that olive branch.

“Captain, I have Commodore Trujillo for you,” said D’Vorr over the comm system a few moments later.

He tugged on his uniform jacket, and called out, “Put it through in here.” He watched as the image on the desktop monitor changed to the face of Nandi Trujillo.

“Go ahead, Captain,” Trujillo said guardedly from the confines of her ready room.

“I’m going to get right to the point,” said Alex. He took a deep breath and cleared his mind. ‘Here goes,’ he thought to himself. He said, “Commodore, I’d like to apologize for my earlier behavior. It was brash, rude, and uncalled for. It’s not something I would tolerate, and if you want to reprimand me for it, I won’t fight you on it.”

Trujillo studied him for a moment before inclining her head. “This is an imperfect situation where we’re dealing with ambiguous information and grasping at straws. You and I had an honest disagreement as to our respective authorities and our prospective courses of action. Granted, I would rather you had made those statements from the privacy of your ready room rather than from the middle of a crowded bridge, but that’s something for you to address with your crew, should you choose.”

“I understand,” said Marshall with a nod. “You tell me what to do, and I’ll do it, no questions asked,” he added.

“I appreciate that,” she replied, “but I don’t demand blind obedience, Captain. You have decades of experience and may well have a better take on a given situation than I do. I expect your honest opinion, which I will give due consideration. I don’t care about who gets the credit for what, only about the results. In my chain of command, the people under me get the credit for success, and I take the blame for failure.”

“I’m going to level with you,” Marshall said candidly. “The reason why I did what I did is because I think our roles should be reversed. You should still be a captain, and I should be a commodore,” he continued, before explaining to Trujillo what he had told D’Vorr earlier.

Trujillo nodded. “I’d gathered as much. As I said before, I know the circumstances are awkward.”

“I had my chance for it, and I didn’t take it. Part of me regrets that decision now. I can only ask for your forgiveness, and I hope we can still work together on this. I think it would be better that way all around.”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Captain. As far as I’m concerned, this was a disagreement between two opinionated officers. If Command hears word of any of this, it won’t be through me.”

“I appreciate that Nandi, and Command won’t hear anything about it through me either,” said Alex feeling some sense of relief. He knew he had behaved like a fool, and the current crisis was not one that would resolve itself. “So, Commodore, where do we go from here?” he asked.

“You’ll hold your position with Alamo. Just because the first wave of Tholians bypassed the Draius-Arigulon system doesn’t mean the second wave will. Once we’re confident the Draiians aren’t in any danger, Gauntlet and Alamo will link up outside the Longlax-Teko system. I’m tasking Gol to reconnoiter the spheres and see if there’s any reaction from the Tholian ships. Once we have more information on what’s going on in there, I can decide if we’re going to wait and see or charge in there and contest their incursion.”

“Understood, Commodore,” Marshall affirmed agreeably.

“I’ll be in touch, Captain. Reykjavík, out.”

In her ready room, Trujillo sat back in her chair, laying her head against its headrest. The conversation had gone better than she had dared hope, and it appeared Marshall might not be the thorn in her side that she’d feared. She would keep her word, and hadn’t divulged any of their argument to anyone, not even Admiral Saavik. Marshall, however, had been openly insubordinate to a superior officer in front of his senior staff and enlisted personnel, and unless his crew was ferociously loyal, something like that would be a tale for the telling over drinks on a dozen starbases within weeks.

Ultimately, it was not her problem. With her personnel issues now in order, the mysteries and dangers of the Longlax-Teko system awaited.

* * *