EP 9 "EPISODE NINE - LIBERTY BEL" - ACT 1
CAPTAIN'S OFFICE
Christian shuffled to a more upright position in his antique skipper’s chair, rotated to face aft, and looked out through the large multi-paned sloping window that elaborately mimicked Earth sailing ships of old. He heaved a burdened sigh – discipline was a part of every Captain’s duties, but given the loss borne by the crew and survivors aboard the Fantasy, it hardly seemed fair. O’Hara had been equally affected by the loss of her colleagues, he recalled, remembering her friend, (was Lee her name?), who she had been forced to leave behind. She had been acting in everyone’s best interests, after all, he thought, but as a Starfleet Captain he was duty-bound to maintain a sense of morality and decorum.
Mesmerised by the funnel of disappearing streaks of starlight, he forced his mind onto other matters. Despite now travelling at above light speed and covering a vast distance, he feared just how far they would have to go to escape the influence of the K’Tani, if not K’Tani pursuers themselves. He activated the small padd previously designated by Yeoman Lirik as the temporary store for his log, to be used only until Hedrik had the computer core licked into shape and the voice interface working properly.
“Captain’s Log, Supplemental. By the skin of our teeth the Command Yacht has successfully evaded the latest K’Tani incursion. I feel sure we haven't seen the last of them, but perhaps for a while we may find some peace. Our visit to the space station Erowoon wasn't without some gain. We have taken vital cargo aboard, including a healthy supply of food, fuel in our tanks and even a limited amount of medical supplies. And, with the survivors from the USS Van Gelder now on board, we have also increased our crew by one, and our civilians to five hundred and eighty one, according to Mr Lirik’s data.
“Having …’stitched up’ the Romulans, as my Helmsman would put it, we proceeded along the flight path towards the K’Tani refugee camp, as instructed by Erowoon officials, trying our best to appear inconspicuous to any observers..”
As he spoke, the streaks of stars shortened, until the starfield was practically stationary – they had almost reached their destination, not much time to finish his log. “Once out of the space station’s estimated sensor range, we immediately changed course, veering away on a D-minus quarter light year circular return vector that will take us back to the Dalmatian Nebula where we left the Beta Section safely parked. A longer return journey than we’d have liked, but most importantly one that-“
The ship suddenly rocked from what the Captain thought was an impact.
“Captain to the bridge!” the newly acquired Starfleet Crewman Able’s voice burst over the crackling, muffled intercom – she’d clearly wasted no time to get into the thick of things and assigned herself to bridge duty.
Christian leapt up from behind his desk, dashed across the office, out into the corridor and up the long sloping ramp onto the rear of the bridge. Able, seated at the Purser’s station to his left was pointing at the viewscreen as a second phaser pulse blast came at them from within the nebula ahead.
Too late, his helmsman Reb hauled the Yacht to starboard, barely taking the shot several metres off target. The entire ship shook again, this time bleeping and whining in protest at the rude assault. Several bridge stations spewed sparks as their insufficiently maintained workings failed miserably.
“Shields! Shields!!” Christian yelled.
“I’m trying!” a shaken Souveson exclaimed, stabbing frantically at her console – the first, unannounced volley she gauged to have been a blind shot, but one that unfortunately managed to connect with part of the shield generator grid and clearly damaged it. “Shall I return fire?”
“At what, Ensign?” an unusually calm Jackson asked from her seated position, staring into the impenetrable nebula gasses in front of them. “And more to the point, with what?” She spoke the truth - despite their best efforts, ballistics were still at an absolute minimum.
“It did not look like K’Tani weaponry,” Ganhedra commented softly from the lower bridge, casually flapping the sleeves of his robe to de-crease them.
“Ships emerging!” Andorian Ambassador Narli said, as five small and various old Federation craft swept out of the thick mists of the nebula in a pincer movement. Almost immediately the comm channel chirped and the ships slowed to a full stop. “We’re being hailed,” he grinned.
“On screen,” Christian was astounded to see Yeoman Lirik, seated in what looked like the cockpit of the Auroran Divebomber that now faced them head on. That type of vessel had only been used during the seven months of the Aurora/Horadi conflict, and had consequently become a ‘classic’ for all respectable collectors of vintage space vehicles.
The craft was essentially bullet shaped, heavily ridged in a black and dark metallic blue exo-frame from stem to stern. A blunt ended cylindrical back tapered swiftly to a needle point nose, it looked more like a huge bomb than a ship – and in a way that’s exactly what it was, as it had been specifically designed to cause maximum damage to the Horadi homeworld.
Its unique design and composite parts allowed the vessel to enter the Horadi system while still at high warp, slow to full impulse, maintaining the incredible speed required for its panelectric bow wave to penetrate the severe radiation belts of the Horadi homeworld’s outer ionosphere, and finally pierce through the planet’s security net. It took all of a pilot's skill to pull up in time – less than two seconds before ground level – in order to release his payload on target, dodging anti-spacecraft fire along the way and gather enough speed to penetrate the net on the way out. That’s if he’d managed to keep on course once out of warp in the first place – many either ploughed into the dozen surrounding moons or missed the planet entirely.
Only the very best pilots could take on the task – the whole manoeuvre took less than 20 seconds to complete by those who were successful; and from 750 flights, less than a third returned home. In spite of the heavy losses, the bravado was enough for the Aurorans to destroy much of the Haradi weapons factories (inevitably killing tens of thousands of civilians in the process) and eventually win the war. Rare craft, Christian hadn’t seen one since before his Academy days.
“Captain! I can't tell you how pleased we are that it’s you!” the Englishman was genuinely relieved, it seemed.
“What the hell’s going on, Yeoman?” the Commodore asked. “Why did you attack us?”
“We had detected ships in our vicinity. We couldn’t tell who they were or what they wanted, but they were circling us on and off for the best part of yesterday,” Lirik looked out of shot and tapped his controls. “We eventually managed to get a probe device outside of the nebula, but by the time we did there was nothing there, until a short while ago when we detected the wake of an approaching vessel about ten minutes ago on a direct heading – namely you. However, the cloaked effect of the Command Yacht meant we had no way to distinguish you from anyone else until at close quarters. Commander Struckchev and I agreed that while it could be you, it could just as easily be a larger K'Tani vessel, returning to pick us off. So he thought it was a question of shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Oh really,” Christian disapproved of the tactic, but wondered if he would have been able to sit tight if the roles were reversed. He turned hastily to Souveson. "Anything?"
“Nothing on sensors, Captain,” Souveson checked and re-checked the data. “I detect no ships and no spacial anomalies for about an hour. Captain, those vessels, they must have been the same ships we encountered as we left Erowoon.”
“You’ve been in battle?!” Lirik asked, surprised they would have survived such an encounter.
“Is everyone safe?” Jackson asked, interrupting, akin to a mother returning to her brood.
“Yes, Sir,” Lirik nodded. “And was your mission successful?”
“This can wait,” Christian interrupted. “We need to get out of here post haste. Yeoman, get those … vessels back aboard the Beta Section and tell Struckchev to move the ship out of the nebula. We’ve got an appointment to keep. Ganhedra is providing us with an appropriately convoluted route to our destination so I don’t want us to wait around here any longer than we have to.”
The Captain noted the other small ships were all apparently in full working condition and lightly armed and armoured – and, presumably, piloted by suitably qualified crewmembers or volunteers. This was potentially as good a find as the treasure in the Captain’s secret trophy room. Christian had considered there might be vessels aboard the Fantasy, but assumed if there were then they would be a lot more in keeping with a passenger liner – small worker bee’s, passenger launches and the like. He wondered just how many other surprises the ship held.
“Aye, sir,” Lirik terminated the transmission, and Christian watched as the Yeoman performed a reverse curl with half twist – show off. The other ships slowly banked their way back into the cloud in a more laborious, careful manner.
The Captain could feel Jackson’s gaze on his cheek. He turned and looked at her grinning face. “What..?”
* * *
Presently, the Beta Section had poured its vast length slowly out of the nebula. Once it was safely clear, Christian had Leonard run through the ship to ship fuelling procedure with Warnerburg and Struckchev. Remarkably quite smoothly and bang on the engineer’s anticipated schedule the Yacht successfully fed its larger siblings a healthy supply of fuel.
The process had also led to another major revelation. Leonard informed the bridge crew that in studying the ship to ship fuelling procedure, he had learned that the pitch-like cloaking substance covering the entire ship had been applied at a molecular level.
All the outside surfaces - airlocks, hatches, fuel covers and shuttle doors, were covered in such a thin coating that they still worked as if they didn’t have the coating on at all. Many of the smaller standard sized windows were fitted with retractable shutters covered in a ‘solid’ layer of the substance. The window in the theatre had also been painted in the same way. But the rest of the ship’s windows it seemed were coated with a different form of the same substance so that it appeared a solid black from the outside, but merely looked like tinted glass from the inside. He couldn’t wait to get to Bel’s dry dock and do more research.
In all it took only about twenty minutes for the Beta Section to have more than enough deuterium in its belly to make the onward trip. In spite of their nervous diligence, no other ships had come in range during the process, but the Captain felt the K’Tani would be delayed only for so long. Indeed, he didn’t doubt that Chaleth and the other Romulans might be using intel on him, Souveson and the compliment of the ship in bargaining for their freedom.
Christian and the others watched on the viewscreen as Warnerburg deployed the massive Passenger Section nacelles that she’d housed during their stay in the nebula. As she prepped the engines for warp flight from the eccentric surroundings of the Passenger Section Engine Room, on the outside of the vessel indentations automatically appeared in the main fuselage around, in front and behind of each nacelle.
“Oh my God!” Jackson exclaimed, thinking that the warp engines were somehow buckling the ship’s hull.
“Nothing to worry about,” Leonard explained. “The ship’s fragmented database has at least identified these as ‘warp troughs’. Because of the long, relatively cylindrical shape of the vessel, it’s hard to create an efficient warp field around the ship from these centrally positioned nacelles. The troughs employ a special alloy to help arc the warp energy into a more efficient hourglass formation around the ship.”
“Neat,” the Captain whispered to himself. Could it be? Was he starting to fall in love with this strange and quirky elusive vessel?
“Proceed, Mister Rebbik,” the Captain sat in his seat, instinctively glancing at the main systems readout on his armrest, making certain that structural integrity was holding. It had become a minor ritual, ever since his time at Starfleet Academy when he and his classmates had been shown black box footage of what happened in SIF-failure when jumping to warp – a merchant crew of six reduced to jam on the back wall in a split second.
Both ships jumped to warp within seconds of each other – the Beta Section leading the way. Reb skilfully piloted the Yacht up alongside the Beta Section, just far enough away for their warp fields not to interfere with each other. Although travelling a much shorter distance than they’d made from Helub to date, because they were travelling at sustained warp uninterrupted for once it appeared to the passengers and crew that they were making significant headway. In fact, Christian noticed, hardly anyone spoke during the trip – a sense of calm (coupled with an element of exhaustion) had finally come to them.
* * *
The first four hours of flight took them along the Qovakian side of its border with the Wasapi, further away from Erowoon, angling back toward Tholian space. While the passengers and off-duty crew enjoyed an undisturbed rest, many simply staring out of the windows as the stars streaking endlessly past, for those on each vessel’s Bridge it was a heart-thumping ordeal due to the almost quarter hourly passes by Wasapi sentry probes. None apparently detected either vessel as they were in their almost entirely cloaked form, thankfully – Reb even turned the Yacht by ninety degrees, onto its side, just to be sure that its exposed, uncloaked belly would not give them away.
Both Struckchev and Jackson expressed to the Captain that this was a ridiculously long route for them to be taking - almost 5 light years out of their way. The old Helan had insisted it would ensure their safety and anonymity – already, the K’Tani may have posted sentries along common shipping lanes heading out from Erowoon. The nations in this part of the Outer Zone were relatively small, Christian was told – some only the size and composition of a single star system – but nearly all were friendly, after a fashion, if a bit under-guarded against unannounced visitors.
Nearing what Ganhedra described as an old but still functional commercial communications relay (that also served as a physical marker for the triangulation point between the borders of four nations), the ships dropped out of warp to make a sharp turn and fall down through a large cluster of wide-spread asteroids toward the Boklor States – a conglomerate of five nations joined in union as one.
Yeoman Lirik suddenly burst across the short range comm channel. “Sir, may I speak to Ganhedra?”
Christian pulled a face, distracted from the vista of huge rocks stretching into the distance, but then nodded over to Ganhedra.
“I’m here,” the old man said suddenly guarded.
“This array, would it be under the control of the K’Tani?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t think so, not yet at least,” Ganhedra said. “As I’ve mentioned before, I doubt the K’Tani currently have time or resources to do anything beyond securing Qovakia, principally Vekaria and the other capitols.”
“You’re referring of course to all the other K’Tani who don’t happen to be chasing after us?” Jackson blurted sarcastically.
Christian shot her a look, she seemed increasingly irritated by the old Helan, but he quickly returned his attention to Ganhedra to judge his reaction – mainly because the Captain was equally suspicious. How little they really knew about them – and how much they had been trusting them unreservedly. True, from the outset they’d been friendly and helpful, and had suffered along with the rest of the survivors at the hands of the K’Tani holographic programme and with the illness they’d contracted from the Ere. But there were unanswered questions – particularly, why they’d chosen to go to the Orlega One hangar before the invasion, how they’d ‘stolen’ the runabout Hudson and why they'd risked their own capture in helping them to escape.
Ganhedra remained impassive. “If you are wondering about accessing the array for information there would be any number of security measures to prevent unauthorised access.”
“Do you mean booby traps, restraints or some other kind of defence system?” Souveson asked.
“No..” Ganhedra conceded.
“What about alerting any local authorities?” Reb asked from the Helm.
“Doubtful currently, I suppose, but it’s equally doubtful you would gain access in the first place,” the old man shrugged dismissively. “And the data is sure to be encrypted several times over – that’s if it bothered to cache any in the first place. These old relays aren’t that effective with modern communication.”
“We have our ways,” Hedrik’s voice spilled over the comm channel from the Beta Section, causing the Captain to smile. Souveson, perched behind Tactical, became rigid with anger – the gall of the Orion to be so blatant.
“With your permission, Captain?” Lirik said again.
“Do it,” the Captain said through thin lips. “We’ll monitor from here also. Ambassador, Professor, if you could please assist.” Christian watched as Narli eagerly joined the voluptuous Iranian scientist at her huge science station, and also noted the slight bend in her spine as she angled her body away from the Andorian’s.
Despite being Human, the Professor seemed uncomfortable with invasion of personal body space, particularly from men – or at least, non Vulcan men. He supposed that a person could end up that way if they spent enough time on Vulcan with little Human contact while pursuing the path of logic. And yet he also hoped that, in time, she would soften, and allow at least her Captain to come near. Christian immediately chastised himself, reminded that no matter how attracted he was to her, how much she reminded him of his first and only true love, as a recently promoted Captain and the leader of this mish-mash group of desperate survivors, his duty was first to his ship and crew, and any loinal thoughts needed to be set aside. At least for the moment.
*
Over on the Beta Section bridge, Struckchev was gripping the armrests of the Captain’s chair as tightly as he could to prevent himself from walking over to the cocksure Yeoman and punching his lights out. Despite their new-found mutual allegiance he still couldn’t wait for their bet to continue just to prove that a big mouth and a big attitude weren’t enough alone for command. Yet the Commander was genuinely concerned that he wasn’t making a big enough impression on the Captain and Commodore himself.
Bad enough that he’d conceded to Lirik to not confine the Passengers to the Shuttle Bay while repairs took place. Worse that he’d agreed to stay aboard the Beta Section while the Yeoman and a group of mostly unwilling survivors had charged out of the Marina Deck births to challenge the approaching unknown vessel. And unfortunate that it was Lirik, not he, who had appraised the Captain of their situation. And now, it was Lirik once again, not him, making constructive suggestions for the gathering of intel to the Captain. Against his better judgement he found himself being constantly aggravated by the Englishman and worse, of feeling increasingly competitive to prove to the Captain and Commodore that he was the better officer.
*
Back on the Command Yacht, the Captain turned toward the science station, addressing the perfectly formed, perfectly composed Professor and the huge gangling blue Andorian standing too closely beside her. He fought back a sudden image of blue flesh on olive skin. “It’ll take us about an hour to pass through the asteroid field. Hardly enough time to gain access, filter and download K’Tani or other transmissions, but we might perhaps be able to access basic navigational data on all ships using the array just prior to the K’Tani attack. We may also be able to ascertain if any Starfleet or other allied vessels managed to escape the invasion this far out.” The Professor nodded slowly, Narli licked his lips almost tasting the challenge.
“From memory, a number of allies were also on deeper space assignment rather than local to Vekaria,” Jackson added. In her mind, she was visualising the padds she’d been given by her team: and she was instantly back on Helub – her quarters, Inaami…her son’s cheekily smiling face as he scoffed his supper, memories she preferred to banish from her mind for now. “So it’s quite possible some of our own ships also escaped the attack, although Admiral Street had put the fleet on alert, which necessitated those ships return to base immediately.”
The atmosphere on the bridge turned up a notch, anticipation – and hope - forming in people’s minds. Perhaps they really weren’t the only ones to have survived after all? A few among the group imagined great warships like the Enterprise, the Vor’Ath and the Meus 451 coming to their aid, and it almost gave them a feeling of power.
The time went swiftly. Narli and Karnak had a good deal more success than Lirik had expressed, though it appeared the Diplomat was seeking specific intel rather than just anything he could get his hands on, and needed time to assess his paltry findings.
Presently, the two vessels passed out of the asteroid field and the Captain gave the order to return to warp. Lirik remained ambiguous (or possibly secretive) about any discoveries, but the Ambassador and Professor Karnak were more forthcoming, saying that they had downloaded a large number of navigational reference points and ship or flight IDs from just prior to the K’Tani’s invasion.
The journey continued in an almost mundane fashion – mundane compared to their travels so far. The Boklor States weren’t bothered about border incursions from Qovakia – it happened too often to police. Commonly, by the time they got a patrol ship out to make an intercept, the perpetrators were long gone, either back into Qovakia or on into Wasapi territory. Ganhedra advised Christian that even if they were eyeballed from afar, the pitifully slow reaction would give the Fantasy all the time it needed to travel along Boklor’s short border with Wasapi to a point where they were able to turn back into the latter’s own space.
The Wasapi, however, were more organised. A sophisticated but in places fairly weak sensor net spanned the borders, and Ganhedra advised that by flying at high impulse in a close formation, their cloaking substance would protect them from detection, or accurate identification at least. Christian and Karnak concurred. Circumstance was also on their side – due to the K’Tani invasion in neighbouring Qovakia, the Wasapi had deployed the majority of their small fleet along that border rather than the one with the Boklor. Souveson had grumbled something about a “crazy strategy not to defend your behind”, but at least it worked to the Fantasy crew’s advantage.
And so the two ships made good headway through the narrowing wedge of Wasapi space before re-entering the neutral corridor, far beyond Erowoon. From this point forward, the corridor kinked, turned and twisted in a near perpendicular fashion away from Qovakian space as it traversed the older and less geometric borders between the surrounding nations.
By taking Ganhedra’s route, they had bypassed the more densely populated area of the neutral corridor. This more historical part of the ‘conduit’ was littered with all manner of space debris. Over the millennia the nations had consistently relocated to less hazardous and travel inhibiting anomalies until only a few grains of civilisation had been left behind.
With the station light years behind, and a firm point between them and the Qovakian border, everyone was now more at ease about their onward flight into safety. They continued apace through the neutral corridor with the Penzar Empire to their left, the Ja’Waii to their right, the Korinarian Empire above and the VauWin Collectorate below.
Ganhedra put them onto a little used shipping lane, and although they occasionally passed other local traffic – all civilian – none appeared to take any notice, even if they did somehow manage to detect them.
At Jackson’s recommendation, Christian hailed across the short range comm channel to address the passengers and crew on the Beta Section and summarise their visit to Erowoon (best we keep them in the picture, she’d said, but make it a happy one). He opened by asking everyone to welcome their newest addition to the ship’s company, Crewman Able and her many charges. He omitted any detail about their encounter with the Romulans, but did tell them of their acquisitions, and touched on the bare facts about their destination – all good, upbeat news. He agreed with the Commodore that it would be unwise to tell them about how they had almost been captured by the K’Tani. That information he would leave for his command crew, along with more details about Reb’s meeting with Bel, and giving a detailed account of their encounter with the Romulans. But they also knew that information would filter down, eventually reach the non-volunteering passengers, and then there could be unease. For the meantime, though, everyone was as content as they could be.
Once he’d finished, he took some down time. According to the coordinate information left with Reb, Bel’s ship was located toward the end of this neutral corridor several light years from its end, where it was cut off by the border with B’Det space.
* * *
1615 HOURS
Several hours later Christian stood among the remaining booty in the Captain’s brightly lit secret Trophy Room. Surveying the gold, jewels and works of art he considered how much of it he was about to lose to the captain of the private dock facility.
“Bridge to Captain, we’re approaching Bel’s vessel,” from the tone of his voice Reb sounded uneasy.
“On my way.” Christian side-skipped through the narrow corridor to his office then bounded out and up the incline to the Bridge. He thought about how all this running up the ramp would help maintain his fitness in the long term.
The main viewscreen showed a distant metal structure against a backdrop of blackness sparsely studded with stars. Ganhedra had told them that although they were close to the edge of the Galaxy, in this region there was a lot of dark matter which obscured sensors from certain star systems and even entire clusters of stars and nebulae.
“Captain on the bridge!” Ensign Souveson loudly informed the bridge crew, startling him slightly. Christian hated such protocol as a rule, but noticed that everyone nonetheless sat up and seemed to pay more attention to their consoles.
Professor Karnak, conversely, appeared to be buried in some mathematical analysis, a meditative expression on her face. He caught Souveson’s patient smile and returned a discrete wink. The small blonde youth blushed, tucked a fallen lock behind her ear and returned to her tactical analysis of the ship on her scanners with a wider smile on her face. Christian made his way past Able and Narli and stepped down to the lower bridge and across the deck to stand beside the helm.
“That can’t be the repair vessel, it’s far too small,” Reb exclaimed, sounding more than a little concerned. Ambassador Narli tutted and Christian turned to see his head shaking in a churlish manner.
Reb swallowed hard. In his life, he’d been duped more than his fair share of times, and he felt that all too familiar sinking feeling in his gut once again. He looked up at his boyish Captain imploringly. “She assured me that she could accommodate something even larger than the Fantasy within her dry dock.”
The Captain tried to look and sound reassuring. “I’m sure there’s a good explanation.” At least he damn well hoped so – they’d taken a massive risk in using up a not insignificant amount of time and effort to get here. The thought of having to return to Erowoon or someplace like it with a damaged ship filled him with dread.
Christian walked back up the short central flight of stairs onto the upper bridge, noticing that the Commodore, seated on the command bench, was deeply engrossed in the navigational data Narli and Karnak had uncovered. To his left Leonard was steadily working through a number of systems checks at the Engineer’s station. A Helan seated behind him at Environment Control – while also keeping an eye on Gravity Control - glanced at him and smiled as he passed round behind the Tactical station.
“Any other ships in the vicinity?” Christian asked.
“None, sir,” Souveson replied – she’d already made a full tactical assessment on long range sensors. “This locale is free of general shipping lanes for nearly three parsecs, although there are multifarious gaseous drifts and magnetic distortions on our sensor periphery.”
“Science station concurs,” Professor Karnak’s steady voice surprised everyone, particularly the Captain. “However, they remain consistent with the other naturally occurring anomalies in the Outer Zone.”
“Keep your sensors trained on them nonetheless,” the Captain turned to look down into the impassive expression on the beautiful olive-skinned face, “we don’t want any surprise attacks.”
The Vulcan-trained scientist nodded, unblinking, and turned back to her controls and displays.
“Shall I hail them?” Narli asked, bringing everyone’s attention back to the viewscreen. Christian noted there was still an air of superiority about the big blue man.
“Negative,” Christian rubbed his forefinger across his lips. “Let’s wait until we can use a normal space frequency.”
The sound of thick flapping material heralded Ganhedra’s arrival on the bridge from the aft starboard corridor. ‘Where had he been?’ the Captain wondered. He swiftly descended the stairs onto the lower bridge and took up a secondary engineering position below Leonard. Christian noted he was wearing more elaborate chieftan robes than before, but wasn’t aware of a reason for it.
At the Chief Purser’s command station, Crewman Able silently pointed out to the Captain the internal sensor display above her head. It showed several dozen of the survivors she’d brought aboard were making their way from the accommodation decks below up into the observation lounge forward of the bridge via the newly accessible port and starboard ramps from belowdecks. The view there was sure to be far more dramatic than any image the viewscreen on the bridge could provide. He wondered if these people might be interested in becoming a part of the crew. But that, as he well knew, could be more difficult in practice. At least they were certainly maintaining a keener interest than the other passengers who remained, he guessed, in the womb like ignorance of the beauty spa over on the Beta Section.
Narli’s panel trilled. “Bel’s ship is hailing us on short-wave analogue frequency.”
“On screen,” Christian passed around tactical and down to the bank of command seats, taking his position in the slightly larger central chair. He glanced at Jackson, who was paying little attention to what was going on around her. He wondered if she was even aware of their arrival. But as the viewscreen image changed to the smiling, squinting face of Bel through a faint haze of static, she instinctively looked up from the data on the screen she was so interested in. She caught Christian’s quizzical stare.
“What?” she asked quietly.
Christian shook his head and stood up to greet their new host, as if he’d been sitting there all along. “Good afternoon, Captain Bel. I’m glad to finally make your acquaintance,” he said.
“As am I you,” she looked around at each individual on the bridge. “And the rest of your crew. If you’ll come alongside, we’ll prepare the drydock for you.” The viewscreen reverted to an image of Bel’s ship.
The Fantasy’s bridge crew were puzzled, and glanced at each other looking for explanation. Christian studied the smaller vessel and equally wondered what Bel could have meant. The ship was large – two sections, the forward part like a flattened jelly mould on its side, and the rear, bun-shape, which seemed to be 90% engine. Both sections were significantly higher and wider than the Fantasy’s girth but not even a fifth as long and were locked together by four short, massively thick cylindrical struts. There was no way any part of the Fantasy would fit aboard, let alone the Command Yacht and Beta Section as separate parts.
But before anyone could respond, the Captain and his bridge crew realised that the cylinders were expanding, elongating, the two parts of Bel’s vessel stretching away from each other. For several minutes they telescoped further and further out. Although the cylinders had reduced slightly in girth, they were still ten metres thick at their narrowest. Finally, the two end sections had stretched the cylinders an impossible distance, at least a kilometre, Christian guessed.
“So it’s not a dry dock at all,” Jackson glowered at the Helm position. “It’s just a docking rig.”
As soon as the struts locked into position, Christian saw dozens of tethers shoot out of the top of the nearest upper strut just like the row of fireworks on Sydney Harbour Bridge at new years, arcing up and over, and locking into place on the opposite strut to form a series of thin high arches.
Then, between each of the thin tether lines, a silky, metallic membrane of some sort flooded up and over from one strut to the other, filling each empty space entirely, and creating a huge multi-ribbed tent in space. It reminded Leonard of a gargantuan distortion of an old fashioned horse-drawn wagon as seen in the Western films that his former Academy room-mate Winston Winston loved to watch on lazy summer afternoons.
After these inner membranes, many thin sheets of metal plating tracked up from both sides and over the top of each membrane panel until they joined in the middle at the top, locking together as a temporary upper hull section. It now looked more akin to an armadillo.
“Ingenious,” Leonard commented from the engineer’s station.
The uppermost part of the drydock complete, the spaces between the upper and lower struts were filled in the same way, leaving only the underside open to space.
“Christian to Beta Section,” the Captain finally sat down again, taking in the whole spectacle with a little less surprise. “Commander Struckchev, we’ll go in first and you follow. Once we’re inside, you and the other team leaders come across to the Yacht in the runabout.”
“Aye, sir,” the Kosovan accent agreed.
The Captain was confident in Reb’s skill to pilot the Command Yacht into a corner of the dry dock space, but he had a little apprehension about Struckchev’s ability to coax the massive beta section up into the atrium.
As Reb piloted the Yacht beneath the covered space, already they could see many small, one-person shuttle pods filing out of the farthest sections of Bel’s ship. They appeared to be much like the worker bees of Starfleet - ferrying lighting and maintenance rigs into position around the high ‘roof’.
* * *
1710 HOURS
By the time both parts of the Fantasy were safely in the dry dock space, the Yacht’s charred underside poised metres above its damaged Beta Section housing, the entire internal area was brightly lit and buzzing with activity. Bel’s crew it seemed worked not just in the little pods, but also in space suits fitted with clever thruster packs, each EVA specialist skilfully moving around the exterior of the Fantasy, whilst others secured the dock for high level maintenance.
“The underside is now forming, Captain,” Souveson reported. Then, with a worried look on her face: “Sir, the structure is interfering with our sensors and communications. None of my scans can penetrate beyond the hull.”
Without warning, Bel and two of her burly assistants materialised onto the bridge. To their surprise, and also to Christian’s, Souveson, Narli and Ganhedra had all instantly drawn sheathed weapons and taken up a variety of defensive crouching positions, each device trained on the unannounced intruders.
“Er…is this how you welcome your hosts, Captain?” Bel asked, hands on hips though otherwise unperturbed.
“Merely a precaution, Miss Bel,” the Commodore rose, her voice full of contempt, even though she was herself a little startled by the abrupt arrival. “Where we’re from it’s considered rude to beam aboard someone’s vessel unannounced.”
Bel regarded the overweight Commodore with a mocking down-up look, a wry smile on her face.
“Lower your weapons,” Christian instructed his bridge crew, who slowly complied. “This is my First Officer, Commodore Jackson,” Christian gestured to his superior.
“’Commodore’?” Bel asked vampishly. “Isn’t that a higher rank than you?” Jackson swallowed but didn’t react otherwise.
Christian’s jaw dropped slightly. “How do you know about our rank structure?” he asked.
“I know a lot of things,” Bel said mysteriously. “We’re not completely ignorant of you Visitors, even all the way out here.”
Christian cracked a half smile. “I was kind of counting on you saying that.”
“Interesting transporter technology you have there,” Leonard changed the subject. “We didn’t even detect your transporter lock.”
Bel smirked. “Thank you, my transporter team are the best money can buy. But I hear your own transporters are in some state of disarray.”
“If Reb filled you in on the particulars of our situation, then you’ll know we’ve got a lot that needs seeing to,” Christian said.
“He told me some,” Bel glanced over at Reb and winked.
“We’re not looking for a total refit,” Christian iterated. “Just enough to get us in good working order. But even that is no mean feat with a vessel this size. It’s equipped with a bunch of disperate, quirky technology – some, state of the art, top of the line, some as old as the oldest part of the ship. And that’s old. Some of it has been damaged, much lies dormant having been unmaintained for so long. Some systems have been stripped right back-”
“Then you came to the right place, Captain. My crew are among the best – and quickest - in the sector,” Bel grinned, glancing around at the mismatched Fantasy Bridge crew in their dishevelled clothes.
Christian followed her gaze. “As you can see, we don’t even have a trained crew to speak of, but we hope that will change very soon. Actually, if you’re agreeable, I’d very much like our volunteers to work alongside your crew as they make repairs – learn on the job, as it were, and lend a hand with the workload at the same time.” Christian noticed Bel’s face contort into disapproval. “They are very willing.”
“I run a repair ship, not a space school, Captain..” she saw his eyes, full of hope, and glanced again at his battered crew. She reminded herself that these people had been through a lot already. And things were going to get much worse for them before long. “…but I guess more hands could make for speedier work.”
“Good,” Christian beamed. “I’ve asked my team leaders to join us shortly in order to discuss the repair schedule.” The Captain noticed Bel was distractedly looking around the Bridge, more at the general architecture now.
“Of course…“ her eyes then fell on Ganhedra. It was as if she recognised him, but also knew instinctively that they’d never met before. It was an odd feeling – in fact more of a sensation than a memory, yet she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Captain, there is one burning issue that needs to be addressed before we get started-”
“If you’re worried about the money, ma’am, then don’t. We have more than enough to pay you,” Jackson regarded their new host with distrust.
Bel ignored the remark and continued to address Christian. “Reb mentioned you have arachnids on board?”
“Oh!” Christian said, surprised but pleased by her priorities. “Well, yes. We’ve only encountered one, possibly two creatures so far, but reportedly there are many eggs on the passenger section. For now we’ve secured that part of the ship.”
Bel nodded to her men. “They’re a common and dangerous pest to the unsuspecting right across what you call the Outer Zone, and a bitch to find as they’re indeterminate to conventional internal scanners. They have a nasty habit of hiding behind corridor walls and springing out on anyone passing by.”
Everyone was distracted by the arrival of the team leaders from the Beta Section, along with O’Hara from below decks, via the turbolift behind Narli (who appeared unusually engrossed with his Operations console).
Bel continued. “So unfortunately my crew won’t even start the repair assessment until they’ve been totally eradicated.” Christian nodded. Bel turned to her men. “This is Vorn, my cleansing specialist. And this is Darmian, my tactical officer and self-taught expert in behavioural science – he’s studied these and other species of arachnids and their community behaviour at great length.”
Christian shook their hands in turn – an odd custom to them, but their grips were firm and warm despite the inexperience. Vorn was a handsome, if slightly greasy looking young man. Darmian, on the other hand, was swarthy, bearded and nicked here and there by an assortment of deep and shiny scars.
The Commodore took a step closer to their ‘host’ with blatant suspicion written across her face. “It’s a lucky thing for us that you have such specialists on your payroll,” Jackson stated. Bel turned to her, now looking a little pissed.
“As I said, spider infestations are a common occurrence in the Outer Zone,” she took a breath and tried to be more businesslike. “I run a good dry dock facility, Commodore, and provide a thorough service. I wouldn’t possibly be able to be this good without experts like these men among my crew.”
There was a slight pause before Christian spoke. “Ahem. Well, let’s not dally any longer. We have a lot to discuss,” Christian gestured Bel toward the aft of the ship, but Narli’s swift interjection stopped him.
“Er, Sir, with the Captain’s permission, I have an urgent matter for your attention?” Narli’s grip was firm on the Captain’s elbow, his tone quite fake. “It won’t take a moment,” he forced a smile and Christian almost laughed at the curious sight.
Christian hesitated as the others shuffled slowly toward the aft. “Er..you all go on ahead, I won’t be a moment.”
Bel regarded him with a curious stare and proceeded into the rear corridor along with the miscellaneous (and slightly off-smelling, she thought) others. And something nearby was making her hair stand on end…
As soon as the party had disappeared through the starboard rear exit toward the Officers’ Mess, Narli was clicking his fingers urgently. “Tricorder,” he snapped to no-one in particular.
Ganhedra moved in closer, intensely curious about what Narli had to say. He reached inside a nearby under-console storage compartment and passed the Ambassador a triangular shaped device – about seven years old, and non-Starfleet issue, but still adequate.
Christian followed Narli down to the lower bridge, closer and closer toward the carpet where Bel and her men had first stood. Sure enough, a trill sounded.
“What is it?” Christian asked curiously. The Ambassador whipped his head round, violently pressing a finger to his lips, eyes wide open urging him, and the others gathering around, not to speak.
The Captain knelt beside the big blue man and glanced down at the tricorder reading. A microscopic sensor device, barely detectable to internal scans, had been embedded in the carpet fibres, presumably at the time of transport.
Narli withdrew his sheathed phaser from his robes, set it to a sufficient disrupter level and fired in the general area of the mechanism. The tricorder immediately indicated the mechanism had been neutralised.
“A listening bug?” Christian frowned.
Ganhedra slipped quickly away into the forward corridor toward the Observation Lounge, mostly unnoticed.
“Won’t they still be able to scan us?” a volunteer crewman asked. “If they could beam aboard, couldn’t they listen to us also?”
“If that were the case, why the need of the bug?” Narli explained.
“Perhaps it’s just their standard procedure,” Christian suggested. “We are relative strangers, and these are dangerous times for everyone in the Outer Zone – locals included.”
Narli cocked his head. “It doesn’t exactly bode well, though, does it?”
“I won’t play any cloak and dagger games here,” Christian said. It was an obvious snub against Narli’s mistrustful spy approach. “I’m going to confront her about this. At least give her a chance to prove herself. She, and many like her probably, had to deal with the K’Tani last time around, and they’re sure to be cautious. But you know what, Ambassador?” He turned to Narli. “I have the strangest feeling that she’s not only on our side, but something much more.”
“With all due respect,” Narli smiled, sounding as disrespectful as possible. “Right now we’re effectively at their mercy. I’ve scanned tractor beam housings, transporter nodes, cutting rigs and some small weapons structures in the ship that now surrounds us. We have little tactical capability of our own, and our shields wouldn’t operate in this confined space-“
“So you’ re saying we’re a sitting duck?” Christian summarised his thoughts with an air of displeasure.
“I’m saying we should proceed very carefully,” the Ambassador stood to his full height.
“Well, whatever her motives,” the Captain sighed, to himself as much as anyone, and relieved Narli of both the phaser and the tricorder; “the simple truth is, Ambassador, we need her repair yard.”
* * *
ACT 2