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  • Writer's pictureJack Elmlinger

Episode Fifty-Eight - "News"

Star Trek: Fortitude

Season Four, Episode Nine - ‘News’

By Jack D. Elmlinger



PROLOGUE


He sat alone at the table.


For some reason, he felt as giddy as the first time that he had met her. Before him, two tall glasses of Ktarian beer sparkled under the flashing artificial lights of Club 499. One was his and the other was waiting for her.


It was her favorite… or, at least, it had been her favorite. She had been gone for so long. They hadn’t spoken in over five years, a gap so remarkable that he had no problem accepting her apparent death.


Still, faced with seeing her again…


Maybe he should switch to Aldebaran whiskey, another of her favorites.


Something caught his attention. The panoramic bay windows of Club 499 overlooked the beautiful blue-and-green Class-M world of Santrag II and that, in itself, was a reason to turn his head but there was something else…. Something new…


It was sleek, a feat of 24th-century engineering. It was coming in low, positioning along Starbase 499 with an obviously skilled helmsman at the controls. He didn’t need to read the name and the registration number emblazoned across the bow of the saucer section, but it didn’t stop him from doing it anyways. His heart skipped a beat.


USS Fortitude, NCC-76240… an Intrepid-class starship…


Her ship…


A hand ran across his scalp with nary a single hair obstructing it. He had seen better days, of course. Time was to thank for that. Would she even recognize him? Would he recognize her?


He had only heard fragments of what had happened. Swept up by some gigantic alien starship and carried to a distant planet, only to be found almost two years later by Fortitude was purely an example of sheer good luck. There was no telling what kind of toll such a great experience would have had on her.


Well, it was time to find out. He sipped his Ktarian beer nervously. She would be here any moment now that Fortitude was back in the Santrag system.


“I still can’t believe it,” he whispered to himself. “Kate Pulaski… alive…”



ACT ONE


Captain’s Log, Stardate 52450.6;



Giving the severity of recent events, we’ve returned to Starbase 499 somewhat earlier than I had originally planned. It allows the crew some time to pause and reflect upon losing four of their colleagues to Naketha’s insidious actions.


I do also have a personal reason for the homecoming. Doctor Pulaski is hoping to use the extensive medical facilities on Starbase 499 to complete repairs to my left arm. I’m scheduled to meet with her soo after she finishes responding to a personal request.



The sharp intake of breath wasn’t meant as a shock.


Standing over the table in Club 499, and critically sweeping her eyes across his face and body, Katherine Pulaski didn’t quite know what to say. She hadn’t expected seeing him again would hit her so hard. Funny… of all of her three ex-husbands, Oliver Madden was the one that she missed the least during her time with the Eastleans. It was probably why she hadn’t bothered to contact him upon her return to Federation space. Now, seeing him sitting there, a pint of Ktarian beer being offered to her in his hand, she doubted those feelings. He was looking well.


Although…


“You’ve lost your hair,” she noted, stating the obvious.


“I’m glad to see that you haven’t lost yours,” Oliver retorted with his trademark sarcasm.


“That makes two of us. Ollie, it’s good to see you!”


They embraced over the table before taking their respective seats.


“You mean that?,” Oliver asked slowly. “I came across your name by chance, Kate, in some Starfleet database. It took me months to track you down! I thought, well… I thought you were gone forever. How come you didn’t contact me?”


Pulaski sighed. It was the question that was worth a million bars of gold-pressed latinum… that, unfortunately, she didn’t have an answer to. Why hadn’t she contacted him? It wasn’t like her return from beyond the grave was a state secret. She had sent a letter to her third husband within weeks of being aboard Starbase 499. It had developed into a lengthy exchange which had only been halted by the Tah’Heen incident, last year and the recent increase in Dominion activity. Hell, even Kyle Riker knew that she was alive and well in the Santrag system, serving aboard Fortitude. The doubt that she felt over her own reactions grew as silence followed Oliver’s inquiry.


Oliver viewed her silence with trepidation. Folding his arms across his broad chest, the tan-colored jacket that he was wearing parted around the midsection, revealing a shirt underneath that was hugging an impressive washboard stomach. Pulaski’s eyes widened as she caught a glimpse. A reaction that he noticed.


“Did you think I’d let myself go in my middle age?,” he said, chuckling.


“The cargo business must be good to you.”


“The Alpha Quadrant is all systems go, thanks to the war,” Oliver explained, his hands moving behind his bald head. “I’ve upgraded my ship since the last time that we spoke. Remember the Atlantic, that old crate? She’s a goner. It was difficult to part with her, for sure, with so many memories. I thought you were a goner too, Kate.”


“You got rid of the Atlantic?,” Pulaski gasped in disbelief. “Ollie, that ship was your home for almost twenty-five years! You had it while we were married. It took us to our honeymoon on Risa!”


Suddenly, the Doctor realized what she was saying. Of course… he thought she was dead. Flying around in that cargo hauler day-in and day-out must have dealt a crushing blow to his emotions, especially during the mourning period. They had spent a lot of time together aboard the Atlantic in their younger days. It was where he had proposed to her. It didn’t just carry cargo. It carried memories.


“I’m sorry, Ollie,” she whispered because it was all that she could say. “I’m just sorry.”


“Don’t be,” came his reply. “I’m not. My new ship is faster, bigger… and better in every way except… Well, it’s still just me. I fly it around on my own, just as I always did before, and I guess I always will. At least, with the Atlantic, I had the history to enjoy, you know. There was a reason for keeping her.”


“I know you all too well, Ollie,” she reminded him. “What are you getting at?”


“I think you can guess, Kate. After all, you’re right. You do know me too well.”



* * * *



The fact that she was a technophobe made him nervous.


Oh, there was no question that he trusted her more than any other physician that he had encountered. Indeed, the track record of chief medical officers aboard Fortitude was hardly a glowing example of excellence, making her even more valuable and even more trustworthy in his eyes… but she was a technophobe. There was no denying it… and yet here she stood, leaning over his left arm, tinkering with technology.


“How many more of these tune-ups am I going to need?,” Ewan Llewellyn asked.


“As soon as I’ve connected all of the nerve endings,” Katherine Pulaski replied to his question,” there should be anything beyond regular housekeeping every month or so.”


“No offense, Doctor, but I’m glad to hear that.”


The new synthetic arm was an impressive feat of 24th-century medical genius, there was no question about that. When it was finished, it would look like a natural appendage and feel like one too if anybody were to touch it. To Captain Llewelly, it would never feel natural. The alloys were fused to the bone and to the skin. There were sensors in the fingers and cosmetic hairs would be implanted along the forearm to attempt to replicate when he had lost in the Aleh Terrh duel with Naketha… but it wasn’t the same.


As Pulaski administered another hypospray to keep the local anesthetic strong, he reached across his chest and poked his open palm.


Nothing.


No warmth from his natural hand and no feeling from the finger jabbing away.


Pulaski noticed, pausing in her work. “Checking something?”


“I feel like some reject from the Borg Collective,” Ewan sighed.


There was a brief silence. Pulaski was staring at nothing in particular. There was no reaction to his joke as forced as it was to try and cut through the morose cloud that surrounded him at the moment. Even though he wasn’t looking for one, the muted absence of even a token chuckle made Ewan move beyond his personal crisis and see that something wasn’t right with his Chief Medical Officer.


“Are you all right, Doctor?,” the Captain inquired with a frown.


“Sorry… Yes, I’m fine… Will be fine, thank you.”


“You seem preoccupied with something. I’m not going anywhere. You can talk to me.”


“Doctor-patient confidentiality?”


“I don’t see why it shouldn’t work both ways.”


Kate closed up the medical tricorder that she had been holding and smiled at Ewan. It was a grateful smile as though whatever was coming had been fighting against her and doing some serious damage. Slowly, she began to share.


“His name is Oliver Madden, and he was my first husband…”



ACT TWO


At that moment, Oliver Madden was ordering his latest drink.


It was all that he could manage to do. Upon arriving in the Santrag system and docking with the mammoth Starbase 499, he had built up every ounce of strength that he had towards the moment of asking Kate to leave Starfleet and come back to him. Now that the moment had passed and the answer was ambiguous, he didn’t know what to do with himself.


He didn’t know where to go.


He wanted the answer.


No, he needed the answer.


Without it, he simply sat at the table in Club 499, drinking synthehol and wishing quietly to himself that it was real alcohol.


Come on, Kate. it wasn’t that difficult of a question, was it?


Across from his table, a more happy reunion was taking place. After sharing a passionate embrace, not a second thought was given to the public nature of their feelings as Erica Martinez and Gabriel Brodie parted and took their seats. Continuing to hold hands, the Station Master and the tactical officer just grinned at each other for what seemed like an eternity. They hadn’t been together in months.


“Damn,” it’s good to see you again,” Erica finally spoke.


“We’ve been speaking almost every single day!,” Gabe pointed out to her before backing down from his position and widening his grin. “Yeah, it’s good to see you too.”


“I’m glad that we’ve got this chance…”


“What do you mean?”


“Well… what with Naketha and all…”


“It’s like I said,” Gabe soothed, reminding Erica once again that he was never truly in the path of danger, much to his chagrin. “I was aboard Fortitude the entire time. We traded a few torpedoes with a Warbird, nothing serious.”


“I know,” the beautiful Latina woman admitted, letting her dark hair breeze across her face as she began to admit her feelings. “It wasn’t so much the situation. I just know you, Gabe, and that means any dangerous situation that you find yourselves in out there makes me worry. You would never shy away from a fight. On the contrary, you would seek one out, and it puts you at risk. When you’re out there, those are the risks that I can’t help you with.”


The old Gabriel Brodie would have rolled his eyes at such an outpouring of emotion. It had been a while, though, since he had been in a relationship, or making love to a woman was all that he could think about. Erica was different. She evoked emotion from him. Something that very few women had ever managed before. He recognized her admittance for what it was, a sweet-natured concern for a loved one, and yeah, he shared it too. Gently, he squeezed her hand in reassurance.


“Hey,” the dark man whispered, dipping his head to see underneath her fringe and making eye contact,” no matter what trouble Fortitude gets into, and no matter who we face off against, I promise you… I’ll be back, at this table, telling you all about it in person, every time. It won’t stop you from worrying… but it’s the best that I can do.”


“You know,” Erica smiled,” that’s more than enough for me.”


“So,” Gabe continued after a short pause,” dinner… your place or mine?”


Station Master Martinez entertained a short laugh.


Regardless of his developments, once a womanizer, always a womanizer.



* * * *



Work on the Captain’s synthetic arm proceeded slowly.


It was due to the conversation taking place between Ewan and Kate. Never before had the Doctor encountered a commanding officer so willing to invest time and effort in the personal problems of his crew. While he dismissed that it “takes my mind away from what you’re doing to the infernal contraption fused to my arm”, Pulaski knew this wasn’t true.


He had made the senior staff into a family and not just shipmates. It was for this reason that she had gone into so much detail and soon she realized that she had run out of history to divulge. Ewan knew everything that there was to know about Oliver Madden, cargo captain, and Katherine Pulaski’s first husband.


Everything except for the details of this morning’s meeting.


“Do you know why he’s here?,” Llewellyn asked as another relay inside his metal forearm was calibrated. “I mean, aside from making sure that you really are alive?”


“While it wasn’t actually said between us,” she revealed,” I think I do.”


“He wants you to leave Starfleet, doesn’t he?”


“How did you…?”


“I’m a good listener,” Ewan smiled. “Well, what are your thoughts?”


Removing the instrument from the mechanical depths of the Captain’s new limb with great care, Pulaski considered the question. There were many factors, too many of them to even comprehend all at once. She wasn’t getting any younger. Had she envisaged being in Starfleet service forever? Even if serving aboard starships wasn’t her thing, she knew that all it would take was a well-timed application and she could hold down a swanky desk job at Starfleet Medical Headquarters in San Francisco.


Then came the question of companionship.


Despite telling herself at several different stages of her life that some form of relationship didn’t matter to her anymore, she would only be lying to herself if she said the natural impulses weren;t still there.


Oliver… Oliver had been young and so had she when they had tied the knot. Her passion for medicine forced her to seek a life other than that of a cargo ship’s physician. It had been rather fun though. Forced to improvise in a less-than-outstanding Sickbay, she had discovered her fondness for old-fashioned remedies and developed her distrust of technology. Oliver, the Atlantic...those years had been the making of Katherine Pulaski. They were who she was.


And, boy, they had been exciting.


She was older now, and so was Oliver. Still, he did look good…


The recent action in the L’Raka village proved that she still had some fight left in her…


How strange. She never would have believed it, but she was tempted.


“I don’t know,” she finally admitted to Ewan. “Honestly, I’m not just sidestepping the question. There’s history between us. I really have no idea as to how we would work out together, and that’s a huge gamble.”


“You do love to gamble, Doctor,” he pointed out to her, a lopsided grin brought straight from the poker table to the biobed in a flash.


“I must say,” Pulaski observed with genuine admiration,” that you are nothing like the previous captains I’ve served with. I mean that as a compliment. Fortitude is a lucky ship with you sitting on the Bridge… seriously.”


The Welshman felt his cheeks flush red, matching the color of his uniform collar. “It’s just nice to be nice, Doctor.”



ACT THREE


Captain’s log, supplemental;


Tomorrow sees the last upgrade to my synthetic arm. It also sees Captain Oliver Madden’s deadline for departing Starbase 499. Despite my long conversations with Doctor Pulaski, I believe she will be waiting until the last moment to make a decision regarding her future. On a personal and entirely selfish note, I hope she decides to stay… but I’m confident that whatever the result may be, she won’t arrive at it lightly.”



“It’s a no, Ollie.”


Katherine Pulaski was trying to break the news as gently as she would treat any of her patients, but sugarcoating it wasn’t making it any less difficult for him to hear. Standing in her quarters aboard Fortitude this time, away from the cluttered noise of Club 499, and relaxing in a more private environment, Oliver Madden let out a slow, deep breath. At least, it was an answer, despite it not being the answer that he had hoped for. If anything, the waiting had been hurting him the most. Oh, this rejection would still hurt, there was no doubt of that… but now he could move on.


There was no harm in asking why, though.


“We’ve both changed,” she pointed out to him. “No, that’s not right. We’re both the same people actually. Our worlds have just changed around us. I still want to practice medicine and you still want to run freight, but we’ve found ways to expand our desires. As a matter of fact, I’m in the process of giving someone a new arm.”


“So cleaning grazed knees in Cargo Bay Four is beyond you now?”


“You know that’s not what I mean, Ollie.”


“Yeah,” Oliver said, nodding and regretting his last proposition. “I know… I’m sorry, Kate. I was just all hopeful again. I felt young again. At my age… At our age, that’s a rare thing, although I’ll be willing to bet that you see your fair share of excitement out here. Somebody’s arm, you say? Wow… damn, you’re really something, Kate. These people are lucky to have you at their side, picking up the pieces.”


“Thank you,” Kate accepted. “That means a lot to me.”


“Hell, I was even prepared to give you my only shuttlecraft…”


That made the Doctor indulge in a chuckle.


Oliver picked up his tan-colored jacket from the sofa and slid it over his shoulders, preparing to leave. There was little more to say. He had seen her, said his piece, made his case, and gotten the answer that logic told him it would be.


Damn… he had listened to his heart instead of his mind. It was the Human thing to do, after all. Nevertheless, it had been great to see her again, alive and well, doing what she did best and what she always wanted.


Before he could make it halfway to the door, a hand took a hold of his. It stopped him dead in his tracks, turning him back around.


“Don’t be a stranger,” she asked… no, ordered him.


“I’ll be around the Galaxy, out there as usual. You know me. Oh, I almost forgot…” Reaching into his jacket, Oliver produced a small isolinear chip. “Transponder codes,” he told Pulaski,” for the Atlantic II.”


“You named your new ship, the Atlantic II?”


“What else was I going to call the damned thing?”


In taking the chip, Pulaski released his hand from her grasp. The cargo captain’s heavy boots carried him closer to the door. It swished open at his proximity. This time, it was his own responsibility to stop himself from leaving. One final time, he tilted his hairless back towards his first, and only love.


“It’s because I’m bald now, isn’t it?,” he joked, always someone to leave on a joke.


“On the contrary,” Kate smiled, countering the joke with the truth. “There’s a bald man out there in the galaxy like you, flying a starship around who carries my undying respect alongside him. Now… now I guess there are two.”


Oliver Madden flashed his teeth as he left.


“Until next time, Kate…”


“Until next time, Ollie…”



* * * *



They were to be found in Main Engineering. Not her favorite place.


Striding past the swirling azure reactions mixing within the warp core, she mounted the small elevator and ordered it up to the Chief Engineer’s main diagnostic station. There were tools strewn in her path that had mysterious functions that she could never understand. Not that she wanted to understand them. Technology, the hell with it. Neatly sidestepping the most important devices, she approached that pair of men that she was here to check upon.


“Here for a last-minute approval, Doctor?”


“Just making sure that my partner does a decent job, Captain.”


Ewan Llewellyn accepted Pulaski’s presence as she watched the deft green fingers of Lieutenant Commander Sollik complete the final intricate touches to the cybernetic limb that she had attached in Sickbay. While it was strictly a medical procedure, replacing the lost arm with a synthetic alternative, there was always an engineering aspect to the larger, more complex methods of biomechanical body parts.


Artificial organs were small and easy to maintain. An entire limb? Working fingers, a wrist joint, and pressure sensors… had all been hooked up to the central nervous system but all of it needed calibrating. That wasn't the job of a doctor but rather the job of somebody altogether more qualified, especially when your doctor wasn’t a huge fan of technology.


The Suliban was doing fine work. With an impressed inclination of his eyebrows, Ewan showed off his newfound ability to move his fingers. The arm looked as natural as it was possible, save for the open hatch through which Sollik wrapped things up. Even skin pigmentation had been matched accordingly since it was an important feature for a Welshman proud of his tan. It took just a moment to seal and, in that instance, Llewellyn was as close to Human again as he was ever going to get. Rolling his uniform sleeve back down over the synthetic limb, he thanked his chief engineer and turned towards Pulaski.


“I’m glad to see you’re still here to perform the final checkup, Doctor.”


“Thank you, Captain.”


“Are you all right? I mean, it must have been difficult…” Ewan paused, taking note of the smile that she was wearing. It was the last thing that he would have expected to see. Yet, there it was, nevertheless… a smile. Curious at what was so amusing, he responded with a frown as they left Main Engineering together.


“This life of ours,” Pulaski answered upon noticing his frown. “I remember you asking me if I’d be all right after that Oxeeni business and that Vazai cult. I was just about to ask you if you would be all right given your own recent experience. We put ourselves through some really complicated situations, don’t we?”


“You can say that again,” Llewellyn agreed with a nod, pushing back his dark fringe.


“Yet we stay. We keep doing it to ourselves.”


“And do you regret that, Doctor?”


The smile on her face broadened as she replied,” Oh no… you couldn’t drag me away…”



EPILOGUE


The Ktarian beer in his hand was the last treat that he would allow himself.


The last reminder… It was time to move on.


With various sounds associated with decompression and docking, the many tendrils of Starbase 499 disconnected themselves from the outer hull of the Atlantic II. At the command of Oliver Madden, yellow impulse engines roared to a deeper orange hue as they pushed forward, away from the support of the blue-gray superstructure and into the welcoming orbital glow of Santrag II. the cargo vessel with the color matching her captain’s jacket, rotated slowly towards the road home, her bow pointing to her next destination.


Oliver was inches from tapping the warp drive control.


With his mind elsewhere, he gave in to reflection. He blamed the Ktarian beer.


It evoked strong memories.


Memories of another time… of another age… of a younger age.


“Pull yourself together, Ollie,” he hissed, feeling his eyes grow wet with tears, hoping that his own voice would force them back to wherever they had come from. “You’re in command of your own ship. The Galaxy is big enough… They’ll be others out there. She wasn’t the only one!”


She might as well have been.


Katherine Pulaski left a lasting impression. That much was certain.


Well, it had been worth a try. Now it was time to move on. Jerking his head back, he downed the remainder of the beer in one expert gulp. As it flooded his insides, Oliver Madden clenched his jaw in defiance of his emotions and discarded the empty glass before he punched the appropriate control.


Immediately, the Atlantic II jumped to warp.


Yes.. It was time to move on…



The End.

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