Chapter Text
The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 12: Close to the Edge Part I - The Solid Time of Change
Scene 15: My Boy
Now that it’s all over and done…
Now that you find, now that you’re whole…
12.15
My Boy
“So that’s my boy… I want to get a look at him. And I want a chat. On my terms.”
Captain Rhonda Carter was seated in the command chair of the U.S.S. Escort. For the first time since entering the Jar Galaxy, she was relaxed, her thin arms draped over the chair’s control panels, head leaned back, looking up at her wraparound screen.
“Computer, on my monitor, show me our follower. Best image, from whichever source. John, prepare a probe. I want a dogfish on it. When ready, we will drop it and leave it dark. I want it programmed to pursue our follower and beam the dogfish onto whatever it is that’s following us. Then I want images. Program the probe to take readings in passive mode, and to transmit them to us compressed at the same time it beams the dogfish over. I suspect both will be destroyed in short order, so we need to get as much as possible in a single burst.”
“Aye Captain,” the young vulcan replied from the “eyes” station. He had been entering commands into the panel from the moment she had started instructing him.
A few minutes later: “It is ready.”
“Drop it.”
Carter thumbed a control on the arm of the command chair. “Roman, I’m going to need a burst of speed for two minutes. How much can you give me without burning out our repairs to the nacelles?”
The voice of Chief Flight Engineer Roman Hess came back through the comm system. “I wouldn’t risk anything over warp 6. We’re doing well at warp 5. When you drop back, I would recommend warp 4 for an hour before taking it back up.”
“What if we stop?” the captain asked.
Hess’s voice came back over the comm, but Carter was reading his words on her screen. “I wouldn’t recommend that unless you’re prepared to not go again for some time. If we drop below warp 2, we have to stop for repairs, which will take a few hours.”
Carter thought for a moment, then: “Get ready to make those repairs Roman. And understand that you may have to do them in the middle of a fight.”
“Aye, Captain.”
The bridge remained largely silent. Carter noted General Krank entering the bridge and finding his favorite corner from which to observe.
It was well over an hour later when the young vulcan at the “eyes” station reported, “Our follower has just passed our probe. Probe activated.”
“All right, Bill,” said Carter. “Take us to warp 6. Let’s see what our tail-chaser does.”
“Now responding to warp 6,” the chief of the boat replied from the helm.
Ensign John Sevork reported from the “eyes” station, “Your boy is matching our velocity, staying exactly at the edge of our sensor range.”
Master Chief Bill Waller began counting from the helm. “15 seconds.” It seemed an eternity before he said, “30 seconds…” The bridge was silent except for his counting: “1 minute, 15 seconds…”
When he got to 1 minute, 45 seconds, he began counting every 5 seconds. At 1 minute, 55 seconds, Carter ordered: “All stop.”
“”Getting a compressed data stream from the probe and readings from the dogfish,” Sevork reported, then: “And the probe has gone silent.”
“Let’s see it, John,” Carter said.
The image of a thorn made of rock appeared on the screen. Except on the nearly flat top of this thorn, something was standing, gripping the rock.
“It’s a giant lepreshroom inside a land thorn,” Master Chief Waller observed, quite unnecessarily.
“Yeah,” Ensign Sevork replied. “But what’s that thing standing on it? Looks kind of like a cross between a stag and a giant tiger shrimp.”
“That would be my boy,” Carter replied.
“Captain,” Sevork started, “New information is riding in on Commodore Yui’s beacon. It’s telling us the way into this galaxy is not the way out of it.”
“What have I been telling you all this time?” Carter said.
“And our friend is coming to meet us,” Sevork continued. “Warp 6.”
Carter looked down for the first time to the main viewscreen. Her translucent, wraparound screen lowered to remain in her field of vision. “Turn us around to greet him, Bill.”
She thumbed a switch on the arm of her command chair, linking her to every speaker ship wide:
“All hands… Battle stations…”
Close to the Edge Part I - The Solid Time of Change