Chapter Text
“Captain to the bridge!”
It was the undercurrent of alarm in Glal’s voice and the fact that he was shaken enough to have forgotten her brevet promotion that first worried her. The call summoned Trujillo from her desk and she stepped from her ready room out onto the bridge.
“As you were,” she called, preempting the announcement of her presence as she moved to the center seat.
The XO was completing a conversation with what sounded like Dr. Bennett over comms. “Understood, keep us updated,” Glal said, closing the channel.
He turned to Trujillo, stepping aside to offer her the command chair. “There’s been an attack on some of our personnel on the station, sir. DeSilva, Jarrod, and Garrett were ambushed and have been transported directly to Sickbay. Two of them are going into surgery now.”
“Who?” she demanded, sliding into the seat.
“Don’t know yet. Details are still coming in, sir,” he advised. “Transport coordinates were from the commercial concourse.”
The duty Operations officer called out, “Our data-link with the station indicates a security emergency has been announced on the commercial concourse, sir. Station constabulary are responding.”
“Any sign of docked ships readying for departure?” Trujillo asked.
“Yes, sir. A Xepolite freighter is powering up for departure and a Vulcan passenger liner is about twenty minutes out from docking.”
Trujillo brought her swing-arm console into play, referencing information. “Ops, hail Harksea station control and inform them of the attack. Let them know until the suspects have been apprehended, no ships will be allowed to depart or dock with the station.”
Glal shot a troubled look in Trujillo’s direction but kept his own counsel.
Garrett bolted through the parting turbolift doors, looking a disheveled mess. Her hair was unkempt, her uniform dusted with fragments of glass and splinters of wood, and her face and hands were spotted with tiny burns, some of them still oozing blood. “It’s Klingons!” she announced breathlessly, moving for the unoccupied Science station. Garrett began uploading telemetry from her tricorder to the bridge station.
Trujillo turned towards her in the chair. “Ensign? Report, what happened over there?”
“Lieutenant Jarrod saw a shopkeeper sharpening a Klingon sword and was trying to get information out of him on who it belonged to. I’d brought out my tricorder and started scanning the shop when we were attacked. My scans confirm they were both smooth-pate Klingons masquerading as other species.”
“Initiate scans and find me those Klingons,” Trujillo ordered.
“Incoming comms from the station, sir. It’s the station superintendent, Gem’lerr Bsor. Gem’lerr is his title, sir.”
“Understood. Put him on screen.”
The face of a bulbous-headed Aaamazzarite appeared on the viewer, his scowl presaging the anger of his words.
“By what authority are you trying to shut down this station? This is a non-aligned system; Starfleet has no jurisdiction here!”
“My apologies for the inconvenience, Gem’lerr. I am Commodore Trujillo of the Reykjavík. Three of my crew were just attacked aboard your station, and I am taking steps to assure that the persons responsible are unable to flee.”
“My security personnel are attending that situation right now, Commodore. There is no reason for you to interfere with the lawful operation of this facility.”
“So long as no one attempts to leave the station or dock with it prior to the attackers being apprehended, we will not interfere. I do offer the assistance of my security contingent in searching your station for these men.”
Bsor was unmoved. “I repeat, you have no authority here. If you attempt to interfere with the operations of this facility, you will be targeted by our defensive systems.”
Trujillo leaned forward in her seat, her expression hardening. “We are on an assignment to track down Klingon raiders posing as unaffiliated pirates operating in this region, Gem’lerr. I came to this station seeking information from anyone with potential ties to this group. The two men who attacked my crewmembers were disguised Klingons, and I will have them in my brig or my morgue before we depart this station.
"As for my authority, I’d encourage you to scan my ship’s armaments and those of the Zelenskyy. Six photon torpedo tubes and a brace of phaser banks is all the authority I require. If you try to take aggressive action against us I will respond in kind, and we enjoy a considerable advantage in firepower.”
Bsor fairly vibrated with anger. “I will be filing a formal protest with the sector’s Federation attaché’, Commodore.”
“You may do so at your leisure, Gem’lerr.”
Trujillo made a cutting motion and Ops severed the comm-link. Trujillo sat back into her chair, irritation evident on her features.
Glal approached her, speaking in a hushed tone. “Begging your pardon, sir, but we are overstepping our mandate rather boldly. Creating an interstellar incident here isn’t going to help our standing with Markopoulus or the Diplomatic Corps.”
“Noted,” Trujillo replied brusquely.
“I have them, sir!” Garrett blurted from her station. “They’ve gone into the station’s maintenance crawlways.”
“Transporter lock?”
Garrett took a moment to ascertain that. “Negative, sir. Too much interference from the power distribution grid that runs alongside those access tubes.”
“Shall I communicate their location to station security?” Glal asked Trujillo.
“No,” she responded after a moment’s consideration. “I’m not sure we can trust them, Commander. For all we know these Klingons are operating out of here with the station administration’s tacit approval. I want you to lead a security team in there and dig them out.”
His tusks quivered in anticipation. “Right away, sir.” He moved to a console and arranged for a security team to meet him in the transporter room and then stepped into the ‘lift, moving with purpose.
Trujillo toggled a series of commands into her panel, calling a sciences specialist to the bridge. She looked over to Garrett. “Ensign, as soon as you’re relieved, I want you back in Sickbay being tended to.”
“Sir?” Garrett looked crestfallen.
The commodore slid out of her seat and stepped over to the Science station. She grasped Garrett gently by the shoulder. “I need you at one-hundred percent, Rachel. This will all be much more difficult to do without you.”
“Yes, sir,” the ensign relented, feeling her adrenaline rush begin to ebb.
As Trujillo resumed her seat, a light began flashing on her armrest interface, a message tagged ‘discrete’ from Sickbay.
She found herself hesitating to press the icon, knowing full well that Gael Jarrod was one of the two seriously wounded officers from the attack. Trujillo and Jarrod had been involved for just over a year and allowing herself that outlet had opened an entirely new emotional paradigm for her. Even the prospect that Gael might be dead caused a tightness in her chest like an icy hand gripping her heart.
Trujillo opened the message, which read simply, ‘Please report to sickbay when you’re able.’
She glanced around, her eyes finally settling on a junior lieutenant taking DeSilva’s position at Ops. “Mister Shukla, take the conn. If Commander Glal calls, route him through to me via communicator.”
“Aye, sir,” the young man intoned, standing to assume the command chair as Trujillo vacated it. If it was his first time in the center seat, he gave no indication.
Trujillo moved to the turbolift, joining Garrett at the doors as they parted. The two women stepped into the lift car, each a prisoner of her own dark thoughts as they descended towards Sickbay.
* * *
As Trujillo and Garrett entered Sickbay a nurse stepped forward to lead the ensign to a nearby examination table for treatment.
Trujillo immediately saw Jarrod atop a biobed, his neck and lower face encased in a hemostatic collar. His uniform jacket was splayed open and the upper portion of his dark green undershirt was stained black with blood saturation. A quick glance at his readouts on the headboard display indicated stable life-signs, and she allowed herself to relax fractionally.
She then spotted another figure in an isolated treatment alcove, but the person on this biobed was covered head-to-toe by a blanket. The diagnostic monitor at the head of the bed was deactivated.
Dr. Bennett intercepted Trujillo on the way toward the bed. He wore the somber yet detached expression she had come to associate with physicians delivering unwelcome news.
“I’m very sorry, Commodore. Lieutenant DeSilva expired moments after being transported aboard. She suffered three impacts to the upper torso from an Orion pulse weapon at close range. One of those shots caused devastating injuries to her left lung and another ruptured her aorta. We were unable to stop the bleeding or repair the damage in time.”
Trujillo nodded distractedly, her eyes still fixed on the body. “I’m sure you and your team did everything you could, Doctor.” She hesitated, turning back toward where Jarrod lay.
“He’s been sedated, sir,” Bennett advised. “The collar apparatus is necessarily restrictive, and most patients struggle to try and tear it off. It’s easier this way and gives him a chance to heal.”
Bennett gestured towards the comatose officer. “Jarrod suffered a deep incision along his jawline that partially severed his tongue, as well as a significant concussion. He should make a full recovery, however.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Trujillo said, her voice lacking its customary timbre.
She found herself caught between competing emotions, both of which seemed to mock her. While part of her mourned the loss of a valuable and talented crewmember, another part of her experienced the selfish relief that it was DeSilva who had died rather than Jarrod.
Trujillo hated herself in that moment, loathing the concession of her personal relationship with Gael taking emotional priority over her responsibilities as a commanding officer. DeSilva deserved better, as did Jarrod.
She stepped forward and reached out, stopping herself just a few millimeters from touching Jarrod’s hand.
Trujillo chided herself for this crass self-indulgence and turned her back on Jarrod. Instead, she moved toward the exit, only to glance back just on the threshold of the doorway.
The commodore paused, then forced herself to walk step by reluctant step over to where DeSilva lay. So vibrant less than an hour earlier, DeSilva’s life and accomplishments were now ended, obscured by a blanket bearing the Starfleet chevron and Reykjavík’s registry.
Trujillo pulled back the covering, exposing DeSilva’s face, now ashen in death. There was no sign of the young woman Trujillo had recruited as a junior lieutenant to join her crew as Operations manager and later, second officer. Arwen DeSilva, native of Lisbon, the person who had saved Trujillo’s life from an ambush on Crastus. The woman who’d drank with Trujillo on Risa and fought alongside her at Gamma Taxel, that woman was gone. Her life had been ended prematurely, the victim of a pointless ambush on an unremarkable space station in an utterly forgettable corner of the quadrant. She had been sacrificed for a mission Trujillo had cobbled together because chasing pirates and hunting Klingons was more fun than sensor surveys.
Though Trujillo’s footsteps to the exit were measured and steady, she fled the compartment all the same.
* * *
Glal’s summons to the brig had been a brief three-word summation over comms, ‘We have them.’
Trujillo fairly stormed into the security bay having prepared herself for additional casualties from the security team.
Instead, she found two disheveled Human-looking individuals lying unconscious in separate holding cells and being examined by medical personnel.
Glal and the security specialists were stowing gas cylinders of some kind into the armory vault and at Trujillo’s arrival the Tellarite paused to address his CO.
“Two soft-shelled Klingons for you, Commodore. We’ve confirmed their species with blood and tissue samples.”
“No injuries among your team?” she inquired, still hurting from the mission’s recent loss.
“No, sir. They were heavily armed with disruptor rifles, pistols and various bladed weapons, but we didn’t give them the opportunity to use any of it. Once we had them located, we sealed off that section of the conduit and gassed them with neurozine. We drug them out of the service conduits and beamed back. Station security wisely opted not to intervene.”
She raised an appraising eyebrow, impressed.
“Fight smarter, not harder,” Glal quoted from behind his scraggly beard. He cast a glance at one of the newest prisoners as the medics and security specialists backed out of the cell and activated the forcefield barrier. The fields of the other holding cells containing the Klingon brigands had been set to opaque sound-proofed, denying them the spectacle of Starfleet’s most recent captures.
“Agents of the Klingon So’taj, I’d bet my pension on it,” Glal grumbled. “It appears our Klingon friends may have directed significantly more resources into this little operation than we had guessed.”
“It makes sense,” Trujillo concurred. “If their military wanted this to be a covert affair, it stands to reason the Klingon intelligence service would be involved.”
Trujillo crossed her arms, looking thoughtful. “Is it fair to assume that if we couldn’t extract information out of the pirate crews then getting anything out of two of their intel types is a lost cause?”
“Yes, sir. They’re rumored to be subject to torture as part of their training, to include bouts with their own mind-sifter device.” Glal performed a safety check of his phaser pistol, removed its power-pack, and handed the weapon and e-mag over to the armory chief. “We’ll go through the motions just the same, sir, but everyone involved will know it’s just for show.”
Trujillo considered that for a moment. She then bade Glal to follow her and led him out into the corridor and into a nearby empty crew break room, assuring their privacy by sealing the door. “I presume you’ve heard?”
Glal sighed. “Yes, sir. A damn shame. She was a fine officer.”
“Indeed she was. In that vein, we need someone heading up Operations. I don’t like that post sitting vacant for too long. Ops is too integral to the smooth operation of the ship.”
An inclination of Glal’s large head conceded the point. “Agreed, sir. Shukla would be my first choice, given that he’s the deputy Ops manager.”
Trujillo appeared unconvinced. “He’s pretty new. He’s been aboard for all of what, two months?”
“Almost five now, sir. He got top marks aboard the Guangzhou, and he’s coming up on a time-at-grade promotion to full lieutenant. DeSilva told me herself she was impressed with how he was coming along.”
Trujillo appeared to mull that over. “I’d been considering promoting Naifeh to JG and moving him over to the post.”
Glal’s reticence was apparent. “Naifeh’s a good pilot and he’s advancing well as a junior officer, but he’s lacking a lot of the prerequisite Ops data and personnel management training that Shukla’s already got under his belt. That, and putting a newly promoted JG over Shukla in the department’s chain-of-command would be a slap in Shukla’s face. I’d anticipate an almost immediate transfer request.”
She nodded. “Sage counsel as always, my friend. Thank you. Shukla it is, then. I’ll let him know this afternoon.”
Trujillo turned to leave but paused as Glal called, “Commodore?”
She turned back.
“How are you doing with this, sir?” Glal’s concern was a palpable thing.
“Awful, actually, but I’ll muddle through.” Trujillo was caught off guard by her own admission. “It was just so damned sudden.”
“It nearly always is, sir.”
“Bridge to Commodore Trujillo,” the bridge called via the overheads.
“Go ahead.”
“Sir, the starship Exeter is on approach at high warp, ETA thirty minutes. Captain Kiersonn is requesting to come aboard to meet with you.”
Trujillo’s jaw tightened noticeably. “Understood. Make arrangements to have him beamed over. Commander Glal will meet him in transporter room three.”
“Well,” Glal noted acidly, “this can’t be good.”
“This smells like Markopoulos,” she agreed. “He’s sent his little pet out here to check up on me.”
Glal eyed her warily. “All due respect, sir, this would be one of those times when we want to play nicely with the other children, at least until we figure out what his angle is.”
“So noted,” she sighed. “Please greet the captain and see him to my ready room.”
* * *
“Enter.”
The doors parted to admit Glal, who stepped aside to bid entry to Captain Olaf Kiersonn of the Excelsior-class USS Exeter.
“Thank you, Commander,” Trujillo directed towards Glal, who stepped out of the compartment with a mischievous wink that went unnoticed by Kiersonn.
Trujillo stood, gesturing for Kiersonn to take a seat. “Please make yourself comfortable, Captain.” She extended a hand, mindful of Glal’s advice.
Kiersonn was tall, just under two meters, with a slim frame and a well-kept grey beard. His grey hair was long, worn in a single braid down his back that was rumored to honor his Viking ancestry. He wore a stylish captain’s-jacket variation of the uniform tunic over his white turtleneck undershirt.
“Thank you, sir,” he shook her hand and waited for Trujillo to resume her seat before he took his.
“I presume this isn’t a social call?” Trujillo asked pointedly.
“Not as such, no,” he replied, somewhat ill-at-ease. “As I’m sure you’ve already surmised, Admiral Markopoulos has dispatched me on a fact-finding mission to ascertain your progress with Operation Venatic.”
“It’s all in my reports, Captain. If you’re checking up on me, I’ll assume you have access to those missives I’ve sent up the chain.”
“I do, sir, and I’d like to offer my condolences on the loss of Lieutenant DeSilva.”
Trujillo inspected him as she accepted his gesture with a nod. “Thank you.” Was this genuine, she wondered, or was he setting her up for bad news or a knife in the back?
“You know,” she said, “the admiral dropped your name when he bought off on my mission proposal, Captain. I half expected you were here to nudge me out of my chair and assume command of the task force.”
He shook his head. “No, sir. Exeter just finished a three-month refit, and we performed a max-speed run out here to test out our engine upgrades.” He appeared momentarily pained. “Permission to speak freely, Commodore?”
She waved a hand. “Please.”
“Yes, Markopoulos sent me out here in a blatant effort to light a fire under you, despite the fact that based on your reports you’re doing everything you can to locate the Klingons. He sent along provisional orders to have me assume command of the task force if I found that you weren’t up to the job. I have no intention of executing those orders.”
He sat forward in his chair, hands clasped together in his lap. “Look, I know I’ve earned a reputation as the admiral’s errand boy, but those efforts, however detestable, have finally paid off for me. Exeter’s slated to start a five-year deep space exploration mission next month, hence our refit. I got what I want, and I don’t feel I owe the old man anything in return at this point. I’ll tell the cranky old bastard whatever you’d like.”
Her skepticism was all too obvious. “Really?”
Kiersonn held up his hands. “It’s true. I’ll be hundreds of light years away soon, far from the admiral’s clutches. I’m technically under Exploration Command right now; this was more of a last personal favor to him that jibed with our need for a shakedown. I’ve hated having to work under that man’s thumb. You may be on his shit list, but at least you have the self-respect that comes from knowing you’ve never had to lick his boots.”
“So, what do you plan to tell Markopoulos?”
His answering smile appeared genuine. “Whatever you tell me, Commodore, short of ordering him to piss up a rope.”
She surprised herself by laughing out loud at that. “Wouldn’t that be a sight?”
Kiersonn’s grin faded, and he grew more serious. “I do have something I’d like to offer, sir, if you’ve a mind to hear me out?”
Trujillo presented the same wave of her hand. “Certainly.”
“In going over your mission reports, I’ve seen that you’re having no luck getting answers from the Klingons you’ve captured. I may have a solution to your problem.”
“An airlock?” she joked. “I have those, too.”
“Better, sir. A Betazoid.”
“A what now?”
* * *