Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Two - Episode Three: “Winchester”
By Jack D. Elmlinger
PROLOGUE
Three stars. Perhaps the most beautiful sight that he had ever seen.
Standing on the Bridge of the aging Miranda-class USS Winchester, NCC-2799, Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore stroked his equally-aging beard with satisfaction. For months, he had remained aboard Starbase 499 and presided over system status reports, formal banquets for newcomers and issued orders to the four starships under his direct regional command. Now was a rare opportunity for him. The old spacedog was stretching his space legs and loving every moment of it.
The trinary star system, roughly five lightyears from the Santrag system and where the Rear Admiral would call home, had yet to be officially charted by the Federation. When the omission was discovered in the Starbase Database (jokingly nicknamed “Base, Squared'' by the junior officers), he had jumped at the chance. The Winchester had been fully repaired earlier for several hours and the finishing touches were being polished and screwed into place aboard Fortitude, Katherine Johnson, and Steamrunner, meaning there was a spare starship and a spare few days. Here, soaking in the spectacular vista of the swirling light between the triad of celestial giants, he welcomed the break. Besides, Miranda-class starships had comfortable command chairs. It had been too long since he had done this.
A Lieutenant manning the science station had been scanning and collecting a myriad of technical details for quite some time when his console lit up like a Christmas three.
It was enough to draw Blackmore’s attention. “What is it, son?”
“I’m not sure, sir,” he replied. “I’m getting ridiculously high energy readings from beyond the trinary cluster. It’s like nothing that I’ve ever seen before!”
“Any ships? Planets?”
“Negative,” admitted the Lieutenant, flummoxed,” Just energy readings. Big ones!”
“Do we return to Starbase 499, sir?,” asked the Helmswoman, a young inexperienced crewwoman of a nervous disposition.
“Are you kidding?,” Blackmore grinned with relish. “Let’s go exploring!”
ACT ONE
Captain’s Log, Stardate 49339.3;
It has taken a great deal of time and effort but my crew and I have finally completed our repairs to Fortitude. These Intrepid-class starships are certainly robust and built to withstand a hefty beating. Our largest undertaking was relatively minor compared to the extensive attention required for Starbase 499 and the rest of the fleet, contrary to our initial analysis.
Despite this, I find myself as the ranking officer in the Santrag system, after Rear Admiral Blackmore left with the Winchester, two days ago. I’m eager for him to return. Exploring is my job, after all, and I wish I were out there with him.
Captain Llewellyn was aware of the interest.
After all, she was hardly trying to hide her feelings. This morning, once again, he had gotten the distinct expression that Station Master Erica Martinez was finding insignificant excuses to meet with him. Was the status report really important enough to warrant a personal delivery? Oh, she had wanted to see Fortitude too. All of this time and she had never once left Starbase 499. So it was nice to walk around and while I’m here, Ewan. She liked calling him Ewan. Yes, the interest was hardly noticed.
Sipping at his umpteenth mug of coffee as he browsed through the report, Llewellyn smiled to himself, shaking his head. The words were simply not being processed in his mind. Thinking about matters like who had a crush on whom was a nice change of pace.
No more wars, no more evil aliens, just getting ready to explore. So, Erica liked him, did she?
The Welshman was flattered to say the least. She was definitely a very attractive woman. There was no question about that but a connection? Perhaps the crush was purely physical. There was a complication when it came to that aspect of analyzing relationships. Anyways, a complication in the shape of a certain First Officer…
Ewan blinked hard, refocusing on the report. That was something that he had been pondering for quite some time, and try as he might, he either failed to find an answer or failed to find the resolve to act upon such an answer, whenever it would present itself. He wouldn’t find an answer today so he went back to the report, finishing his coffee as he did so.
The door chimes rang. Speak of the Devil.
“Valerie,” he greeted her as she stepped into the Ready Room. “I trust everything is ticking over nicely?”
“Good news, Ewan,” Commander Archer beamed triumphantly, her brown hair falling playfully in a new hairstyle that she had been experimenting with. “499 reports that Katherine Johnson and Steamrunner are fully repaired. The last of the Santragan crews are returning to the surface as we speak. The finishing touches to 499 itself can be handled in-house.”
“Excellent. I think I’ve had my fill of self-pity. We’ve licked at our war wounds for long enough. It’s time that we got going again.”
“We’re just waiting on the Winchester then…”
He had to hand it to her. Valerie was the perfect First Officer for one simple reason. She could read people like they were open books in a matter of seconds. With a flick of her eyes and a few exchanged sentences, she could run a scan that was more detailed than the most sophisticated tricorder and determine the nature of somebody’s mental state and the focus of their desires.
Despite his preoccupation with romantic overtones today, Ewan was clearly longing to join Rear Admiral Blackmore in exploring the trinary star system. As it was, he would be sitting on his hands for a few more days and it was driving him nuts.
“You’re getting freakishly good at that,” he told her.
“When you make it too easy,” she said with a wink.
“I won’t hold it against Boxer,” the captain admitted, using Blackmore’s nickname as he relaxed in his chair. “He hasn’t been out in space for years. If I were in his shoes, I would be chomping at the bit, just as much as he was, the other day. Plus, remember that he used to command a Miranda-class starship? I won’t stand in the way of nostalgia.”
“If I am ever offered a desk job, you have my permission to shoot me if I accept it,” Valerie observed with mock-sincerity. “My career is an explorer and my place is in space.
“If it all falls through,” Ewan teased her,” you could write bad poetry instead.”
The commander was about to protest at his sneaky little jibe when the communications system chriped for attention. Ensign Jason Armstrong’s boyish Kentuckian accent called out to the Ready Room, hailing the captain from the Bridge, just outside the door.
“Go ahead, Ensign.”
“Captain, I’m getting a distress signal on a Starfleet carrier wave.”
* * * *
The captain and the first officer were on the Bridge within seconds. “Play it,” Llewellyn snapped.
Armstrong began relaying the repeating transmission to the entire Bridge. Lieutenant Arden Vuro and Ensign Jim Morgan joined him with expressions that were laded with concern. Archer stood beside him and it was no question, the voice belonged to Rear Admiral Blackmore.
“... I say again, this is the Federation starship Winchester, calling for any available assistance! We have become trapped in a subspace undercurrent and we’re being pulled against our will into a --”
Silence reigned and all eyes turned to the operations console. “That’s all that I could get,” he said. “We’ve lost the signal.”
“What’s the position of the Winchester?,” Ewan demanded to know.
“The distress signal originated from the vicinity of the trinary star system. I’d estimate that it’s no more than a lightyear in any direction but the signal is weak. I’m sorry, Captain, but I can’t get any better than that.”
“He said that they were being pulled into something,” a concerned Archer observed, folding her arms while she speculated. “Pulled into what, exactly?”
“That’s what I intend to find out,” Llewellyn said. “Bridge to Engineering. Sollik, I’m going to need maximum warp. I hope those repairs of yours are going to hold. Divert all power to the warp engines.”
“Aye, Captain,” replied the voice of the Suliban chief engineer.
“Fortitude to Starbase 499,” was his next call.
The viewscreen flared to life, displaying a worried Erica Martinez overlooking the Bridge of the ship from the Station Master’s Office. Obviously, she would have been able to intercept the distress signal simultaneously, triangulating the source, just as her colleagues aboard Fortitude had after recognizing Edward Blackmore’s voice instantly.
“Don’t worry about checking in,” the Latina woman barked at him. “Get out there, Ewan! We’ll be waiting when you bring them back safe.”
“As soon as the other ships are ready, and if we’re not back within twenty-four hours, send them in as well.”
“Will do. Good luck, Ewan!”
With the groan of mechanical gears, the glowing warp nacelles of the USS Fortitude folded upwards, locking securely into place and boosting the starship to speeds far beyond the speed of light. It was an image that Erica watched with a heart heavy with hope for the safe return of the USS Winchester, and Rear Admiral Blackmore, her friend and commanding officer.
ACT TWO
“Well, that’s all that we can manage,” the Rear Admiral realized with disdain.
Nostalgia was all well and good but the simple fact of the matter remained. Miranda-class starships were old. Retrofits could be made. The most sophisticated systems could be installed but above it all, stood the same design flaws, the same power regulation systems, the same weak spots and now they were failing him. His knowledge of the class meant that he had done all that he could do to divert power to the faltering engines, but it was nowhere near enough.
The only thing left to divert was life-support but Edward Blackmore didn’t give up that easily.
There was always a way out.
Just what this situation would provide as a way out, he was at a loss to see at this time. All he could see was the image dominating the main viewscreen, the image of Winchester’s impending doom.
Stunning to behold but deadly to observe, it was the classic siren call scenario.
It was a particle fountain.
They were small but deadly spatial anomalies. Blackmore had heard the horror stories about one discovered in the Hupar system. Starfleet had attempted to map the phenomenon, only to lose a small fleet of nearly a dozen ships to it. As the swirling cornucopia of energy drew the Winchester in even closer, all that he could think about was the list that would occupy a database somewhere.
The list would identify the USS Winchester, NCC-2799, as the thirteenth casualty of such an unknown and natural destructive power. Thirteen, yes… it would have to be number thirteen, wouldn’t it? It was certainly unlucky for some, but the number had always been unlucky for the Rear Admiral
Damned subspace… Of all of the places that subspace could have destabilized and it does it right here, sucking innocent things into the gates of Hell itself. Maybe there was a connection. Maybe he had just made the biggest scientific breakthrough about particle fountains. It was just an unfortunate footnote that he paid for the information with his life.
The young Lieutenant at the science station was in a complete state of panic. Sweat poured from his face as the lights on the Bridge began to fade. All that remained of them were the pulsing flashes of crimson red from the strips in the floor. Through the shadows and the chaos, Blackmore sat the Lieutenant’s face and felt the responsibility and regret that a commanding officer always did in such situations.
“Take it easy, son,” he tried to soothe him. “We’ll get out of here yet. That distress signal is bound to have been heard by somebody.”
“Yeah?,” panted the Lieutenant, fighting the fear. “What if… what if they’re hostile? What if they come to … to finish us off? To kill us before the fountain does?”
“What’s your name, Lieutenant?”
“Moore. James Moore, sir.”
“You’re one of the science boys from 499, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh. Sir, with all due respect, you didn’t answer my question. What if whoever gets that signal is hostile?”
Blackmore wiped his brow with the back of his hand, letting his fingers run down to his beard and indulge in a good scratch. There was no sense in coddling this young man. He had to be told the truth. Captain Llewellyn would have told him the truth. He was an honest person with his crew and he was respected for it. The Rear Admiral knew that it was the only decent thing to do.
As harsh as it sounded, he gave the honest answer. “Then we’ll die quicker.”
It was at that time that the sensors gave their last reading.
Somebody was answering the distress signal.
* * * *
“Secure from warp!”
With a flurry of lights, the USS Fortitude dropped to sunlight speed. With his blue hands dancing across the helm display, Lieutenant Arden Vuro logically kept a safe distance from the drifting hull of the Miranda-class starship that they were here to rescue.
It was a precaution on the order of Commander Valerie Archer. What was it that Oscar Wilde would have said? She put it as, ‘To lose one starship may be regarded as misfortune, but to lose two starships would seem like carelessness’.
It was a blunt reminder to think things through and to look before leaping. Ewan appreciated her wisdom. His drive to save the Rear Admiral and the Winchester had the potential to cloud his judgement.
Damned emotions… Where were the Vulcans when you needed them?
“Status?,” he called out.
“She’s in bad shape, Captain,” Ensign Jason Armstrong reported from Ops. “Her main power has been completely drained in attempting to escape from the subspace undercurrent. Life-support is gailing and structural integrity is getting weak!”
“Crew complement?,” Archer asked, knowing full well that Blackmore only cobbled together enough people to fly the Winchester in his eagerness to undertake his foray into unknown space. It would work to their advantage.
“I’ve got thirty-five biosigns, all stable,” Jim Morgan chimed in from Tactical, working with the sensors from a different angle and providing, as always, the perfect balance to Jason’s analysis. “They’re mainly collected in groups. Engineering, the Bridge, and a few of them in Sickbay. It should be easy to transport them.”
“Hail them.”
“No response, Captain,” Jason said, shaking his head. “Our transmission is being scattered by subspace interference.”
“Bridge to Transporter Room One,” Llewellyn ordered without wasting a second. “Lock onto the crew of the Winchester and start beaming them aboard!”
No response.
“Transporter Room One --”
“Bridge, this is Sollik in Main Engineering,” came the eventual reply. “The subspace distortions surrounding the particle fountain make using the transporters impossible so I’ve diverted their power to our shields as a precaution. I knew that you would try transporting right away. I apologize for acting without your approval.”
“Explain!,” the captain shouted, frustrated by his helplessness.
“Captain, I’ve been analysing the subspace undercurrent pulling them in while you’ve been scanning the ship itself. If we tried to use a transporter beam, it would scatter the compressed molecules of whoever we tried to beam aboard. I don’t know about you but I don’t exactly want to bring our people back… inside-out.”
“Tractor beams?”
“They would scatter just as the transporter beam would, Captain.”
“Get to work on a Plan B, Sollik,” Archer snapped at him,” and when you’re done, we’ll be having words about the proper protocol during emergency situations.”
“I understand, Commander.”
“This would be a whole lot easier without that undercurrent,” Ewan growled.
“This wouldn’t be a crisis without that undercurrent,” Valerie pointed out to him.
“What options do we have?”
“Orthodox options?,” confirmed the First Officer, folding her arms. “We’re out of them, Captain. It’s time to time outside the box.”
* * * *
Blackmore slammed his fist into the LCARS display with rage. “Son of a bitch!”
Just as Fortitude had attempted, Winchester had tried and failed to send a ship-to-ship transmission out of the gigantic deathtrap that dominated this sector of space. They were so close and yet, so far away. Someone might as well scurry down to the nearest airlock, throw a tin can into the stars and pull back until the string grew taunt.
Shaking his furrowed brow, the Rear Admiral cleared the sarcasm from his mind.. Now was not the time to get sarcastic. Now was the time to think clearly.
“Any idea, no matter how stupid or ridiculous it is,” he told his Bridge crew,” I want to hear it! No hesitation and no questions!”
Beneath their feet, the deck plating shuddered. A horrible groaning protest came from the bulkheads around them as the Winchester fought to the end as the stress and strain placed upon her by the approaching particle fountain began to take their toll. Even the emergency lighting began to falter, fading in and out of existence as Lieutenant Moore became the trendsetter for a panicked expression.
Even Blackmore let himself go. “This is it…”
ACT THREE
Well, it was certainly an unorthodox idea.
By Jim Morgan’s estimates, the Winchester would lose structural integrity and suffer from a catastrophic containment breach in less than thirty minutes. Watching with dismay, the Bridge crew had already watched the foreboding sight of sections of the hull plating being torn from the Miranda-class starship, spinning towards their inevitable fate of complete vaporization within the vortex of the particle fountain. It was startling but the sinister nature of the subspace undercurrent meant that it would be a slow process. Those people aboard would suffer, and that was what Captain Llewellyn was here to stop.
“You’re sure that this will work, Sollik?”
They stood in Main Engineering. Yellow-shouldered members of the crew darted around in organized alarm, each one of them scrambling to beat the clock. Llewellyn and Archer watched their Suliban chief engineer put the finishing touches on a very ugly device that he called a Grappler.
“Captain, starship history is something of a fascination with me,” Sollik explained while he worked, frustrated with the distraction but yet loyal to the rank. “You name a class of starship and I’ll tell you all about her systems. Think back to your history lessons at the Academy, sir. Does Jonathan Archer and the Enterprise, NX-01 ring any bells?”
Valerie smiled. She could feel Ewan’s eyes on her. “Archer?”
“Before you ask, Captain,” preempted the First Officer,” yes.”
“We can trace family trees later. You were saying, Sollik?”
“Those old NX-class ships didn’t have tractor beams to start with. Before they were invented by Starfleet, starships were equipped with something called a Grappler. In essence, it’s basically a large magnetic claw attached to a tether.”
“You’re going to fire this thing at Winchester?”
“With your permission,” nodded Sollik’s mottled green head. “By my calculations, an overburn of the impulse engines should give us enough thrust to pull the Winchester away from the subspace undercurrent.”
“She’s already losing structural integrity,” Valerie pointed out to him. “Won’t yanking her out of there be a risk? What if she breaks apart?”
“Commander, we’ve already lost Winchester. All I’m talking about is getting her out long enough for us to beam the crew aboard. I mean, we could try locking a tractor beam on her when she’s clear but to be honest, at that rate of decay, my apologies, but not even the engineers at Utopia Planitia could rebuild and repair her after today.”
Llewellyn weighed the options. Valerie was right and there was a risk. Tugging on an already loose thread might unravel the entire situation, quite literally. All they needed were ten seconds. In ten seconds, both transporter rooms and the cargo bay transporters could be simultaneously activated to rescue the thirty souls in mortal danger.
Winchester might be the favorite of the Rear Admiral, but he knew that he would understand. She was a collection of metals and fibers, with energy for blood, not like the people aboard. They were men and women. Some of them with children and all of them with parents somewhere. People came first. That was a rule that was universally recognized by all species.
“Get down to the shuttlebay,” he finally ordered,” and get that thing installed. We’ve got less than half an hour so I want it to be ready in fifteen minutes.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“22nd century technology. Well, Valerie, you did say to think outside of the box.”
* * * *
Aboard the Winchester, cold and dark, the mood was grim.
Palm beacons had been distributed, using the last few seconds of available light before the Miranda-class starship surrounding her panic-stricken crew gave up on her inhabitants and finally laid herself to rest.
The white light flashed across the bodies of crewmembers, people checking on their friends and colleagues every few minutes with a grunt or a whispered question. Life-support had officially gone offline.
Well, nobody had known. They had lost count. What they did know was that the air was getting ridiculously thin and awfully stale. It was freezing, yet many of them sweated in their seats or at their stations, waiting for the inevitable shroud of death to fall upon them.
Rear Admiral Blackmore felt his stomach turn over for the seventh time that minute. It was really happening, wasn’t it? Hope had only lasted for so long. Seeing Fortitude arrive before the sensors went down had seen him through the rest of the power failures but now… surely they could have done something by now? What if there was nothing to be done? What if the subspace undercurrent was that crippling?
“Lieutenant,” he called out, his throat parched.
James Moore lifted his head from the colorless LCARS display, weakly responding to the light in his eyes.
“Stay with me, Lieutenant,” Edward urged him. “Stay with me.”
“For what, sir?”
“Rescue.”
As if on the command of the Rear Admiral himself, something struck the hull. A reverberating clang was heard and it was accompanied by a slight tremor in the deck plating which everybody had felt but nobody could identify.
“What was that?,” Moore gasped, slightly more awake now.
“I’ve got no idea, son. Just hang in there.”
Then Lieutenant James Moore began to disappear, surrounded by a blue beam of sparkling energy.
The rest of the Bridge crew followed.
Feeling the same energy envelop his body, Rear Admiral Blackmore managed a weak smile. Good old Ewan, always at the last minute.
* * * *
“We have them, sir!”
Heavy applause broke out across the Bridge. Llewellyn nodded his satisfaction as it died away, returning his attention to the viewscreen as it played out the final moments of the ill-fated USS Winchester.
Sollik’s Grappler had worked just as planned, but also the side-effects of the device were just as predicted. Just as the final survivor was beamed aboard Fortitude, the section of hull seized by the makeshift device tore away. Twisted metal and debris floated away, sucked into the raging torrent of destructive power at the heart of the particle fountain, followed by the rest of the Miranda-class starship. One of the warp nacelles broke away, exploding inward on itself as the shockwave obliterated the ventral side of the saucer section. The roll bar and its sensor pod collapsed and soon the entire wreck was spinning out of control.
“Arden, get us the hell out of here before that thing breaches!,” Ewan barked.
“Aye, Captain, with pleasure!”
They made it out just in time.
The matter/antimatter explosion that followed was perhaps the largest explosion that anybody had ever witnessed. Llewellyn, Arch, and the rest of the Senior Staff threw their hands across their faces, shielding their eyes from the furious flash.
The USS Winchester, NCC-2799, was gone.
“Bridge to Sickbay,” Commander Archer demanded in short order. “Doctor Boswell, medical teams to the transporter rooms.”
“I’m on my way, Commander,” replied the young Lynn Boswell.
“All’s well that ends well, Captain,” the First Officer allowed herself to smile.
“It could have been worse, Valerie,” Ewan admitted. “Yet we have lost a starship today.”
“Indeed.”
EPILOGUE
“Poker, Ewan?”
Rear Admiral Blackmore was sitting up in his biobed as Doctor Boswell finished her tricorder scan and allowed Captain Llewellyn to approach. They would be arriving back at Santrag II soon to dock with Starbase 499 and deliver the sad news about the Winchester to the rest of their colleagues in the system. Four ships were now down to three. There was a major hole in their defenses now, a hole that needed to be mended at some stage. However, today, the thirty officers rescued from the particle fountain, including Edward Blackmore, were just happy to be alive.
“Haven’t you learned anything from the last time that I beat you?”
“Men,” Lynn chuckled to herself as she left. “All the same…”
“I presume that we lost her, Ewan,” Blackmore asked with a serious expression across his face as he referred to the Winchester and not the doctor.
“We did all that we could, Boxer.”
“Ah, I know you did. Sollik was in here, a moment ago. I heard about his Grappler. Heh, I thought I was old, but I’ve never heard of one! I don’t know. Do you think there’s a lesson to be learned from all of this?”
“Yes,” the Welshman nodded, taking a seat beside the biobed. “Next time, if there’s something to be explored, leave it to us. Okay?”
The End.