Star Trek: Fortitude
Episode 1.9: “Healing”
By Jack D. Elmlinger
PROLOGUE
Damn… his head was killing him.
As if opening his eyes for the first time, Arden Vuro woke to the uncomfortable nature of both considerable pain and cold temperatures. Bolians preferred humidity, and this place, wherever it was, was anything but humid.
Regaining his focus, a chamber came into view from the foggy blur of grey that greeted him. Four bare walls, a small door in one of them, and well… nothing else. Glancing down at his muscular chest, he immediately lamented the lack of his Starfleet combadge.
His memory was coming back to him.
Bright flashes, just off of starboard. The shuttlecraft had been under attack. Shields were down in an instant, and then… did something beam aboard?
He couldn’t be sure.
With a groan, he sat upright, his blue hands pressing against the cold grey floor beneath him and recoiling in shock at the temperature. Vuro was only a pilot and while his Starfleet training had prepared him slightly for such occasions, he had always hoped to avoid them. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened.
Despite the fragmented memory that kept failing to consolidate into a single coherent image in his mind… they had been captured by somebody or some … thing. This was an alien prison cell and they were helpless. No combadges, no phasers, or tricorders, and he was lucky enough to still be wearing his boots.
Having to pause to clear away his aching here once more after sitting upright, Arden slowly blinked to clear his vision again. It was only then that he became aware of the figure lying prone on the cold cell floor beside him.
A red-shouldered Starfleet uniform just like his own…
Of course! Now he remembered who had been in the shuttlecraft with him!
Leaning over him, he checked for the pulse of the lifeless Captain Ewan Llewellyn.
ACT ONE
Ship’s Log Stardate 49133.5, Commander Valerie Archer, recording;
After an uneventful few days exploring the uncharted P-47 system, we are now heading for our rendezvous with Captain Llewellyn’s shuttlecraft. He and Lieutenant Vuro have been on a research expedition to a nearby Class-Eight nebula.
While I've enjoyed my time in command of the Fortitude, I’m looking forward to handing the reins of power back to Captain Llewellyn and taking a few shifts off. At the end of the day, whether it’s scanning planets or sailing into battle, occupying the Captain’s seat is still a high-pressure job.
“Approaching the coordinates,” Jason Armstrong reported from Ops.
“Drop to impulse power,” Valerie ordered in response.
“I have the shuttlecraft on sensors, Commander,” came the worried voice of Jim Morgan from Tactical. “They’re adrift at a bearing of one-five-one, mark two-four. Main power is offline and life-support is failing.”
Archer felt her stomach turn over like she had just eaten a live bowl of gagh. Her heart sank instantly as she rose and stepped towards the viewscreen. For all to see, there, rotating peacefully against the backdrop of stars was Shuttlecraft #01, the Domtar. It's usually-white hull was pock-marked with what appeared to be weapons fire. The nacelles weren’t glowing their usual blue and red lights. Instead, they were completely shut down.
Whatever had happened here, it didn’t look good.
“Biosigns?”
“Negative,” Armstrong reported. “I’m reading an empty compartment.”
“You mean they’ve been taken?”
“It sure looks that way, Commander.”
“Scan for an ion trail,” was her next order as she wasted very little time. “Whoever took them can’t have gotten far. They could have only been waiting for us for what? No more than an hour?”
“I’ve got something,” Jim chipped in, his tactical sensors working faster than Jason’s operations suite on such tasks. “There’s a residual ion wake. The rate of decay suggests that it was made just less than thirty minutes ago. I’m sending the readings to the Helm. it appears to lead to a nearby trinary star system. We’ll have to get closer before I can pinpoint a planet or destination.”
“Get a tractor beam on that shuttle and bring it aboard,” Valerie replied. “I want you and Jason to analyze those weapons signatures and compare then with --”
“Commander, the ion trail doesn’t match anything we know about End technology,” Jim reassured her, holding his hand up in a brave cut-off to his superior officer. Everybody had been thinking that same worried thought after all.
“Well, I’ll be grateful for that small mercy later. Although I would hate for this incident to result in us making another energy out here.”
“The shuttle is aboard,” Ensign Armstrong reported, a moment later.
Her first time in command of the Fortitude, and it turns out to be a crisis. With her brow furrowed and her mind racing, Archer returned to the command chair and crossed her legs to keep herself from becoming a nervous fidget.
“Helm, follow that ion. Maximum warp. Engage!”
* * * *
Captain Llewellyn had joined Vuro in the land of the living. With the door to their cell locked and no windows or other ways of surveying their surroundings, they assessed the situation and Ewan’s fragments of returning memory to what the Bolian helmsman had already pieced together. It had become pretty clear that they were dealing with a hostile alien abduction rather rapidly.
“I remember the sensor data before I blacked out,” the Captain was saying. “Their ship was small and came up alongside to dock with us. I don’t think they had transporters and they can’t be capable of much more than Warp Two. Maybe Warp Three at the most, judging from the size of their engines.”
“Their energy weapons were certainly crude,” Arden agreed with him. “Thank goodness that they developed a stun setting. Though, it looked like they were shooting from rusty bits of pipe.”
“You still can’t remember a face?”
“No. You?”
“All I know is that it wasn’t the End.”
That revelation did little to calm his worries. He was a brave and athletic figure of a man but despite all of his training and his better judgment after spending most of his life around Humans, he couldn’t deny his Bolian heritage and Bolians were notorious cowards. While he was far from being a coward, the back of his mind still taunted him and told him that he was going to die in this stinking dark prison.
Ewan saw the fear in the Lieutenant’s eyes. It was a fear that he had recognized in himself. The pacifist starship captain forced into combat and violent situations more often than he liked to admit was a fear that he had begun to overcome.
“Listen, Arden,” he reassured his subordinate,” Fortitude will arrive at the rendezvous, realize we’re missing and come looking for us. Commander Archer isn’t going to shrug this one off. Besides, if these aliens do only possess limited technology, then they’re hardly going to be able to hold onto us if an Intrepid-class starship knocked on their door, are they?”
“I guess you’re right, sir…”
“... but you can’t help feeling apprehensive. No, me neither.”
There was that famous brand of honesty from Captain Ewan Llewellyn that Vuro and the rest of the Fortitude crew respected so much. It made him smile
“You really place a lot of trust in Commander Archer, don’t you, sir?”
Ewan trailed off, stopping himself from voicing his own thoughts. He had to be careful, despite his relaxed command style and friendly, almost jovial attitude around the senior officers. There were some things that Starfleet regulations specified that you keep to yourself. Thankfully, Vuro turned away, just in time, to miss his cheeks flushing red.
Damn. That was a close call.
“Why don;t you get some rest?,” he suggested to the young man. “I’ll take the first watch.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
* * * *
High above the two imprisoned Starfleet officers, the Chief Warden deactivated his communications screen and turned to face his team of guards. The Makaren Prison Core was deep underneath the surface of a barren moon.. None of the prisoners would see the stars or the surface for their short,, unproductive lives. In the central command barracks, a vast panoramic window showed the gorgeous orange surface beyond the bulkheads of the structure. It helped the Chief Warden and his men remain professionally detached from their otherwise unpleasant duty.
“The word from the King is final, he told them, his cranial ridges convulsing into a frown as he spoke. “The newcomers have been found in violation of our space. We are to execute them immediately.”
“Another execution?,” one of the braver guards spoke up. “Chief Warden, do you believe that it’s right to keep slaughtering these people?”
“We do what we are commanded to do for the good of the Makaren Royal Family. Nothing more and nothing less.”
“Yes, Chief Warden,” sighed the guard, his argument defeated by that single phrase.
In his culture, it carried more weight than any other phrase. For the King of his race was a powerful person, by what some considered to be divine inspiration. Others faced the reality of blind luck as he had invented the Warp Drive on Makar Prime and used it to seize control of the government. Unfortunately, that newfound power had brought madness and despite their limitations, the Maar frequently found themselves in conflict with intergalactic enemies of unlimited strength. Everyone realized that it was stupid but nobody would speak up against the system, which was soul-destroying to say the very least.
With no alternative, the guards collected their weapons and marched towards the cargo elevator. The journey down through the Prison Core would take almost fifteen minutes. Upon their arrival, they would shoot Ewan Llewellyn and Arden Vuro.
ACT TWO
“Heads up, Lieutenant,” whispered Llewellyn.
Vuro’s eyes opened immediately. He hadn’t been able to sleep, despite the captain’s recommendation. Upon rolling over, he saw the door to the cell start to open.
Ewan was on his feet and he joined him. Within a few seconds, they came face to face with a platoon of humanoids and it was obvious from their weapons and weapons that they were the prison guards.
Now they remembered their faces!
“With us, follow,” the guard leader said in Federation Standard. They definitely had some basic form of the Universal Translator, but it clearly wasn’t working properly. “You keep wrists lowered, floor-bound. Anything violent, you cease.”
“Right. So it’s pretty much, try anything and get your head blow off,” Llewellyn growled back, half-sarcastic and half-menacing. “Listen, my name is Captain Ewan Llewellyn of the Federation Starship Fortitude. I’m sure that there’s been some kind of misunderstanding --”
“No discussion. With us, follow!”
“I demand to speak with your superiors!,” he persisted.
The guard leader was growing tired of his demands. He didn’t want to be here and this scene was just dragging the whole thing out. With just enough force to deliver the silence that he wanted, he lashed out and punched the captain in his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Vuro rushed forward, but weapons were raised up at his head and he got the message. Instead, he helped the captain back up to a standing posture.
“Captain, are you all right?”
“Even get bullied at school?,” the Welshman groaned. “Never mind. I’m fine.”
With nothing more to be gained, the two Starfleet officers decided to follow the suggestion of the Makar guard. Perhaps they were being taken to speak with legal representation or perhaps they were being led to their execution. They didn’t know enough about this species to come to a worthy conclusion. When they walked around a corner and saw what awaited them, that ignorance was lifted from their minds.
There was a wall, riddled with holes and doused in splashes of red, green, and blue…
All different types of alien blood.
It was an execution after all.
* * * *
At that very instant, above the barren moon, the USS Fortitude dropped out of warp and on impulse power, began an intensive sensor sweep. Ensign Armstrong found the central command barracks of the Makar prison, within seconds, but it took him a few minutes later to realize that most of the structure was based underground. His sensors showed a Human and a Bolian, deep within the Prison Core. his elation turned to frustration when he tried to get a transporter lock on the away team.
“The composition of the moon’s crust,” he reported to Commander Archer,” contains limited deposits of magnesite. I can’t get a clear reading on their biosigns for transport.”
“Can you compensate for the interference?,” Valerie Archer asked him, almost running up the side of the Bridge to join him at his operations console.
“I think so, but I’ll need to recalibrate the confinement beam. This could get a little tricky, Commander.”
“Helm, keep up from being detected by that structure on the surface. Jason, take all of the time that you need… but not a second longer!”
“I’m on it, Commander,” nodded the young ensign.
* * * *
“Now, wait a damned minute! What the hell are we being charged with?”
Llewellyn wasn’t going to allow himself to be shot quietly by a firing squad. He was protesting pretty loudly, stepping forward towards the guard leader, joined by Vuro. The Bolian could see where this situation was leading and he felt his muscles automatically tense up underneath his uniform. Meanwhile, Ewan was just angered by his own ignorance and fear of death.
Whatever worked, either way, the guards moved forward.
“Captain, look out!,” Arden cried out.
Spinning on his Lieutenant’s advice, he saw a guard coming right at him and his survival instincts took over. Grabbing the pipe-like weapon from the Makar, who was somewhat shocked by his actions and failed to react in time, he aimed it at the guard leader. Their response was that the unarmed guard leapt on top of him, pushing him to the ground and wrestled for control of the weapon.
Arden felt an approaching guard on his rear quarter and, again on instinct, delivered a spectacular blow to his jaw, sending another one of those pipe-like weapons flying. Two more guards attacked to subdue him, but the pilot kicked one of them clear away from him and engaged the other guard in trading a few punches.
For a pacifist, Llewellyn was doing remarkably well. Starfleet Academy’s Basic Self-Defense course had been one of his stronger moments at the Academy. Simply because there had been a girl in his class that he had liked and he wanted to impress her by being manly and physical.
Punching the guard across the face, he regained control of the weapon, only to have the guard leader shoot it out of his hands. Recoiling at the slight shock to his system, but otherwise uninjured, the captain raised his hands in defeat.
He tried.
Turning, he saw his helmsman successfully dispatch the guard that he was fighting and managed to get up to his feet. What happened next felt like it was unfolding in slow-motion to him. Ewan felt his pulse quicked, his head rushing with blood and his stomach wrenching.
Unhappy with the staged revolt, the guard leader simply took aim and shot Vuro directly in the chest.
The Bolian officer crumpled, bleeding hard.
“No!,” screamed the Captain, lurching forward to help him.
At that moment, a transporter beam came out of nowhere and scooped Ewan and Arden up from within the Prison Core and back to the safety of the orbiting Fortitude. The stunned technologically-limited Makar were left with their mouths hung open in shock.
Valerie watched as the two forms materialized on the transporter pad. Her smile and relief at successfully retrieving them quickly faded when she noticed the situation that they were in. rushing to their side, she bent over the wounded body of Lieutenant Vuro who was alongside Captain Llewellyn. Dark blue blood was everywhere, and slowing his peaceful blue eyes rolled back into his head.
“I’m losing him,” Ewan whispered. “Beam us to Sickbay, right now!”
ACT THREE
Her hands were shaking. Panic gripped her very soul.
Lynn Boswell had been Chief Medical Officer of the USS Fortitude for a few days. The surprise departure of the previous incumbent of Sickbay had indeed forced the issue of a promotion from Nurse to Doctor and the poor young woman was overwhelmed by the sudden thrust up the career ladder.
The strangest thing was that people were congratulating her. Given the circumstances, why? And what had she done to deserve the post? Nothing, except be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Today, she felt like that old axiom was ringing true.
Arden Vuro was unconscious, his heart still pumping thick blue blood around his complicated internal organ system. Bolian blood had a remarkably high acidic content, and for the first time since she had been in medical school, Lynn was in surgical gear. The surgical gloves were limiting and frustrating, adding to the pressure of the situation.
Over her shoulder, Captain Ewan Llewellyn was pacing a canyon into the Sickbay carpet. Leaning against the central monitor, to make matters even worse, was Commander Valerie Archer. As if saving the life of a colleague wasn’t tough enough, she was completely out of her depth and under surveillance from her commanding officers. Her hands, damn them, just wouldn’t stop shaking. Her mind went into shutdown. The panic overwhelmed her. She screwed her eyes shut and stepped back, retreating from the biobed and the dying lieutenant.
“Doctor Boswell?,” Archer asked, noting her odd behavior. “Is everything all right?”
“Good news, I hope,” Ewan added, ceasing his pacing.
“I… I can’t… I simply can’t do this. I’m sorry! This is… it’s far beyond my level of expertise! I’m a nurse. Damn that Romulan bitch! Why’d she have to leave. She would have still treated him! I can’t do this!”
“Lynn…” Ewan’s tone was low and his mood was clear.
“No, I can’t do this!,” she repeated, tears stinging her eyes. “Computer, activate the Emergency Medical Hologram!”
Within a second of the words leaving her trembling lips, a fifteen person appeared in Sickbay, unfamiliar to everyone present, even to the woman who had summoned him from the recesses of the computer core.
“Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” it chimed.
“Central biobed, Bolian male, shot with an unknown energy weapon,” mumbled Lynn, snapping the gloves from her hands and storming out of the Sickbay doors in a final desperate act of escape. She didn’t know where she was going or what she was doing. She just knew one thing. She had to get out.
The Emergency Medical Hologram immediately picked up a medical tricorder and attended to Vuro dispassionately. As it did so, it shot a glance towards the shocked, motionless and speechless Captain Llewellyn and Commander Archer.
“I can’t treat two patients at once,” it flatly stated to them. “This man needs my attention, but one of you should really follow that distraught girl and see to her wellbeing.”
“I’ll go,” Valerie offered.
It took five minutes. By that time, the Emergency Medical Hologram had managed to repair most of the damaged tissue around Vuro’s wound and Ewan had somehow managed to find himself a cup of coffee.
Archer returned to Sickbay with Lynn in tow and sheepishly, the young Chief Medical Officer gazed at her captain with round apologetic eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Ewan said, immediately, stopping her from saying anything. “Besides, I think that the EMH could use a hand. Do you think you’re up to that?”
“I should be able to manage more than that, sir,” Lynn stated confidently, striding over to the central biobed and almost pushing the project form of the Emergency Medical Hologram aside. With a medical tricorder in hand, she got back to work, despite the obvious frustration on the holographic program’s face.
“Now, wait just one moment,” it protested. “I haven’t finished the procedure yet!”
“Computer, deactivate Emergency Medical Hologram.”
“Well, really, that’s quite…”
Almost managing to smile at the admittedly funny exchange between the EMH and Doctor Boswell, Ewan turned to Valerie who simply raised a playful eyebrow and nodded towards the steaming cup of coffee in his hand. With a shrug, he preempted the question, just as he had preempted Lynn’s apology. He was on fire today, he told himself. Perhaps it was the adrenaline of the altercation with the alien prison guards that was still in his system.
“I’ve had a very long day,” he said in his defense.
“I could put you in an escape pod and leave you floating in a nebula, and you’d still find yourself a cup of coffee!”
“You could, but surely that would be classified as mutiny?”
“Good point.”
“What’s our status?,” he then asked, getting down to business.
“Our scans indicate that the prison complex that we rescued you and Lieutenant Vuro from never detected Fortitude. We’ve also concluded that, while they have warp capability, they have limits to their technology. Obviously, for example, no transporters. It’s your call what we do from here.”
“I’m not eager to make another enemy out here, Valerie,” Ewan admitted to her, sipping his coffee with a sigh. “Return to the Bridge and set a course back to Starbase 499, maximum warp. I think we’re done here.”
“Understood,” she nodded, turning to leave.
“One last thing…”
“Yes, Captain?”
“What did you say to Doctor Boswell to make her come back?”
Valerie simply smiled and shook her head, wagging her finger in mock-disapproval at Ewan. “Oh, no,” she answered him. “Doctor patient confidentiality.”
As the Sickbay doors slid shut behind her, Llewellyn turned back to watch Lynn working on Lieutenant Vuro. Her skill was apparent and that much he was completely confident in. He wouldn’t have granted her a field promotion to Chief Medical Officer had he not been. Yes, recent events had forced his hand and Rear Admiral Blackmore had a team of three doctors working in the Santrag system. Taking one of them would have been very easy.
Recent events… indeed. That was the reason for promoting Lynn. It was becoming very clear that, whenever outsiders got involved, this little corner of space suffered. Romulans, the End, Klingons, Section Thirty-One… No, it was time to start protecting his crew and keeping it in the family. It was finally time to start acting like a properly experienced Starfleet captain.
He stayed until Boswell finished her operation on Arden. Making sure that she was all right, Ewan walked away as a satisfied man for the first time in what felt like an eternity.
EPILOGUE
When the Bolian helmsman finally returned to the land of the living, it took him a moment to find his focus. The last time that he had opened his eyes like this, he had stared up at the dark, damp, and rotting ceiling of an alien prison cell.
Now mercifully, he was looking up at the lights of Sickbay. That familiar Starfleet style of interior design that many people found cold… Damn, it had never looked better to him. Aware of an approaching figure, he turned his head slightly and winced at the dull pain that replied.
“Easy there, Lieutenant,” Doctor Boswell warned him. “You’ve had quite a rough time of it. It’ll be a while before you’re performing evasive maneuvers again.”
“I was shot?,” Vuro asked, trying to confirm his erratic memory.
“Yep, and you were operated on by two doctors as well.”
“Two?”
“If I were to take full credit,” she confessed to him,” it wouldn’t be the whole truth. To be honest, I suppose I should thank you, Lieutenant. If it weren’t for your heroics, the captain would have been in danger of becoming a victim of my own self-doubt, and if you hadn’t been shot, I suppose that I would have never overcome it either.”
Arden frowned, still somewhat confused but determined to make sense of Lynn’s cryptic response.
“Don’t worry,” she laughed, noting his confusion. “I’ll explain everything later. Right not, you should get some rest.”
“My head hurts,” he told her.
“Never fear, I’ve got a hypospray for that. Now sleep.”
“Is that an order?”
“From your ship’s Chief Medical Officer?,” Lynn Boswell grinned at him, her chest expanding with pride. “You better believe it!”
The End.