Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Four, Episode Thirteen - “All Hands, Part One”
By Jack D. Elmlinger
PROLOGUE
It drifted alone for light years from anything. Just all alone in the night.
Until today, that was.
Dwarfed by the arrowhead of the saucer section, the alien shuttlepod spun peacefully before the impressive technical might of the starship Fortitude. The glowing blue energy coursing through the Intrepid-class starship’s main deflector dish made the rusty brown hull plating glisten for what was probably the first time in years. Invisible fingers reached out across the void of space as Starfleet sensors probed the unknown for any signs of life. Maybe somebody needed help.
Still, there was something familiar about it…
“Analysis, Ensign Armstrong?”
Directing his findings towards Captain Ewan Llewellyn, the young blonde officer began to read from the operations console. The findings of the scan were quite detailed. The computer was taking a moment to run them through the comparative database and, at that moment, he could give the headlines to the rest of the Bridge crew.
“Outer hull composed of duranium… Very limited weaponry, no shields…”
“What about warp drive?”
“Negative, Captain. Wherever it came from, it didn’t get here by itself.”
Commander Valerie Archer stepped up to the aft section, joining Jason at the operations console and tapping a few instructions into the display. After drawing several blanks, the edge of familiarity subsided for a moment before she returned to the standard practice of analyzing an unknown alien vessel.
“Lifesigns?,” she asked quietly.
“One reading, very weak,” Armstrong answered her. “They’re… oh, my God…”
“What?,” Llewellyn barked immediately. “What is it?”
“Captain, they’re … End!”
ACT ONE
Captain’s Log, Stardate 52938.4;
We have encountered a malfunctioning shuttlepod belonging to our most feared enemy, the End, who were previously thought to be eradicated but they have survived in the form of a lone individual drifting through the Beta Quadrant. Barely alive, I’ve ordered him beamed to Sickbay under heavy guard. My feelings on the matter would have me destroy him along with his shuttlepod, but my conscience says otherwise. As Doctor Pulaski treats her new patient, Lieutenant Commander Sollik is analyzing the shuttlepod.
The decaying yellow skin… the rotting teeth…
It was a face that Ewan Llewellyn had hoped that he never had to see again.
The End pilot occupied the central biobed in Sickbay. As Doctor Pulaski worked over him, running her tricorder along the length of his reinforced armor suit, Llewellyn watched from a distance with Valerie Archer at his side. The two of them were beyond perplexed, beyond confused, and beyond scared. If this End vessel and this End soldier could survive the destruction of the Central Core three years ago, it begged the question of how many more potential threats remained there.
“He’s severely dehydrated,” Pulaski reported, collapsing her tricorder. “Malnourished, too. I would estimate that he’s been in that shuttlepod for quite some time, Captain. Longer than you or I could survive without food and water.”
“Some kind of endurance test?,” Archer mused aloud.
“No,” Ewan countered. “The End are the most single-minded race in existence. They even beat the Borg in that category. Their lives revolve around conquest, expansion, fighting, and suppression. I sincerely doubt that they allow endurance tests that stretch out for this long. It’s more probable that he’s been floating around out here, ever since we destroyed his people’s fleet. With no starship to return to, he must have been lonely.”
“That’s kind of tragic,” Valerie had to admit.
Of course, it was deeply tragic… but this soldier was End. Llewellyn didn’t care enough about the End to feel sorry for him.
“Doctor, treat him but keep him sedated,” he ordered. “The two security officers stay in the room and are armed at all times, understood?”
Turning around, he went for the door with Valerie following close behind him. He tapped his combadge. “Llewellyn to Bridge. Arden, set course for Starbase 499 and engage at Warp Nine!”
“Aye, Captain,” the Bolian helmsman replied instantly.
“Running for cover?,” Valerie asked him.
“With the End back in our lives, you bet I am.”
* * * *
They were leaving.
Good. The less to fight, the better for his chances.
The female was approaching his side again. She was holding a hypospray. Poor fools, trying to save his life when it didn’t need saving. How little that they understood the glory of the deception. Or how little that they understood his mission.
It had taken almost three years.
Three years since the Central Core was destroyed.
Three years since the fleet was lost.
Three years… and he was the last of his kind.
Not for long…
The female reached out to administer more of a sedative. Now was his chance, and he didn’t waste it. Encased in an armored glove, a hand snatched out at her wrist. Another hand followed by the arm that it belonged to wrapped itself around her neck. In a second, he was up on his feet and away from the biobed, using the female as a shield. With the hypospray in his hand, he placed it against her throat.
The two guards that they had posted could do little. They had their weapons raised, of course, but that was stupid of them. They were far too compassionate to risk the life of their physician.
This was the Medical Bay of their vessel.
This place didn’t suit his purpose.
He needed one of the weapons from one of the guards.
He needed a transporter room.
He needed to act.
* * * *
Meanwhile, in the Main Shuttlebay, things were progressing slowly.
Sollik had only just figured out how to gain access to the End shuttlepod. The outer hull may have been covered in rust and age, but it was designed to last. The Suliban guessed that he could lock himself inside the vessel and throw it at a hypergiant star and emerge with nothing more than a deeper shade of green on his skin. The little auxiliary craft was so tough and durable that he considered pinching a few of its systems and specs in order to upgrade Fortitude’s own pair of Type-9 shuttlecraft.
Once inside the pointed tip of the End shuttlepod, he found nothing out of the ordinary. Empty food lockers backed up Doctor Pulaski’s diagnosis of malnutrition and the navigational system was definitely burned out, meaning that the pilot would have needed a degree in stellar cartography to get anywhere… and the End didn’t have such professions, did they? They only had one objective, one life, and it was filled with violence.
Sollik was about to finish his analysis when something unexpected happened. One moment, it was there, bolted to the floor, and the next…
“Bridge, this is the Shuttlebay,” the chief engineer barked over his combadge.
“This is the Bridge,” Captain Llewellyn replied. “Go ahead, Sollik.”
“Captain, a component of the End shuttlepod was just beamed out of here.”
“What? Which component and where?”
“It looks like the shuttlepod’s transporter buffer, sir. As for where, I’m not certain, although the dematerialization effect looked Starfleet to me.”
There was a period of uneasy silence over the intercom system. Obviously, the Bridge was busy trying to track down the unauthorized extraction of End technology from the shuttlepod, and Sollik, stuck down in the Shuttlebay, wasn’t part of that process. Suddenly, an answer was reached and Llewellyn had orders for his chief engineer.
“Sollik, get to Main Engineering on the double. The End pilot has broken out of Sickbay and he’s inside Transporter Room Two. He’s stolen his transporter buffer and there’s no telling what he’s planning on stealing next. I want an emergency shutdown of Transporter Room Two as quickly as possible!”
The Lieutenant Commander didn’t need to be told twice. “Understood, sir. I’m on my way!”
ACT TWO
He had his prize.
Stage One of his plan was complete. Now it was time for Stage Two.
The transporter buffer from his shuttlepod rested beside the alcove of Transporter Room Two, ready and waiting. He moved towards it, ignoring the flakes of dying skin that fell from his snarling visage. A quick check was all that it took… Yes, they were there, all inside, all trapped for an eternity, and all of them prepared for their mission. This would be a glorious process, he chuckled, returning to the transporter room controls.
There was hammering at the door.
Stupid idiots, trying to get it, trying to stop him.
Soon he would let them in.
Soon he would let his people out.
It only took a moment to link the shuttlepod’s transporter buffer to the main transporter pad. With his eyes narrowing, he activated the confinement beam and began the slow and steady procedure of rematerialization.
Here they came…
His brothers…
* * * *
“Doctor,” Llewellyn exclaimed,” are you all right?”
Katherine Pulaski walked onto the Bridge under her own power. It was a remarkable achievement, considering the sedative that was still running through her body. Rubbing her sore, aching neck, she nodded her status to the Captain.
The Bridge was dark, with Red Alert securely in place with crimson lights running around the bulkheads and duty stations.
With a caring arm, Ewan led Kate down to one of the central command chairs. “What happened?,” he asked him.
“The End pilot wasn’t unconscious,” she told him. “As I moved in to administer more sedative, he grabbed me and used me as a Human shield against the security guards. The next thing that I remember is the hypospray hitting my throat and sending me down to the deck. When I came to, the guards were dead and their phasers were gone.”
“It’s okay, Kate,” Valerie Archer said to soothe her.
Llewellyn wheeled on his other officers. What was taking Sollik so long? Why wasn’t Transporter Room Two offline by now? Why wasn’t the End pilot in custody? Surely it didn’t take forever to force down a single door? And what the hell was the End trying to do anyway? Why steal his transporter buffer back? Nothing else had been taken… Well, nothing else as yet. What was going on?!
Gabriel Brodie got the answer sent to his tactical station before anybody else. “Captain, I’m getting some unusual readings from Transporter Room Two.”
“Elaborate, Mister Brode,” Llewellyn demanded.
“Sir, there are alien biosigns appearing on my screen… six of them. No, wait… twelve now, sir. Eighteen… twenty-four biosigns now, Captain. Sensors show that they all match the pilot of the End shuttlepod… thirty… thirty-six…”
Along with the rest of the Bridge crew, Ewan gasped in horror. It had suddenly become all too clear.
“He had patterns stored inside his buffer,” Jason whispered. “Patterns for an army…”
“Intruder alert! All hands to battle stations!”
“Mister Brodie, get your people away from the door down there!”
Brodie tried and failed to get through to his security team. With a forlorn expression, he watched as internal sensors recorded a wave of End soldiers bursting out of Transporter Room Two and swept over his four-man unit with sheer brute force.
Meanwhile, the numbers continued to grow, six at a time, and now hitting a total of almost seventy-five. Within the blink of an eye, Deck Four was overrun by End. emergency force fields immediately activated into place but some of the emitters had been shot in preemptive strikes. The decks above, including the Bridge, were safe, but the decks below, including Deck Eleven, and Main Engineering were open to the overwhelming hordes.
Llewellyn stood from his chair, shaking with rage as Fortitude became a battleground. When he could finally manage to speak, he looked towards the helm.
“Arden, distance to Starbase 499?”
“Three lightyears,” the Bolian noted with disdain.
“Increase speed to maximum warp,” he insisted. “Whatever happens in the next six hours aboard this ship, Lieutenant, you do not move from your station. I don’t care if End soldiers invade this very Bridge, you get this ship home. Have you got that?”
“Aye, Captain.”
Fortitude jumped beyond Warp Nine as the numbers of End continued to grow.
* * * *
One hundred and twenty… one hundred and twenty-six… one hundred and thirty-two…
It was Starfleet versus End, deck by deck.
Security teams directed by the steady guidance of Lieutenant Commander Gabriel Brodie did their best to rally support. What emergency force fields remained were instantly deployed, but many of them were quickly overcome by the sheer number of enemy forces. Ten Starfleet officers with phaser compression rifles were all well and good against, say, ten unarmed soldiers, but against thirty… against forty… against fifty? It stopped mattering how many End were shot because in the time that it took to shoot one, six more would materialize in Transporter Room Two and scurry towards the frontlines.
The Fortitude crew began to fail.
Ten deadly officers quickly became twenty dead officers… who quickly became thirty.
Their efforts were similar to standing on a shore and yelling at the waves to subside. It was impossible. Bravely, and prepared to do anything to defend their ship, their crew, their family, they stood their ground. They shot, punched, and kicked at the solid wall of End soldiers tearing through the corridors. They would never surrender, never retreat, even when their combadges screamed at them to do so.
The deck plating quickly became soaked in blood.
The End were ruthless, relentless… and unstoppable.
Slowly, they were overrunning the ship.
In Main Engineering, Sollik focused as hard as he could on remaining invisible.
Sticking to the ceiling and blending into the cold blue steel of the bulkhead, he watched as the main doors were blown wide open. Several Starfleet bodies were thrown aside, torn apart by the enemy before almost twenty End soldiers swarmed towards the warp core and the surrounding duty stations.
Sollik had to fight every fiber of his being to keep from dropping down and attacking the merciless bastards… but no. he would die in short order and as the chief engineer, he was needed elsewhere.
Though he had time to stay and watch one tiny glimmer of hope.
The End tried accessing Fortitude’s systems. Every button that they touched refused to cooperate.
The fractal encryption code had worked. The seconds that his engineering crew had bought him outside in the corridor hadn’t been wasted. The End would never, ever be able to take over the ship’s systems now… and even if they did, it would take them years. The Bridge remained in total control, just the way that it should be.
Heading for the Jefferies Tube, Sollik decided to head upwards.
ACT THREE
He emerged from the crawlspace to the sight of phasers.
“Sollik!,” Valerie Archer exclaimed, lowering her sidearm along with the others.
Clambering to his feet, the Suliban appreciated the stand down with a nod. Casting a narrow eye over the Bridge, he saw the entire senior staff was present. Thank goodness that Doctor Pulaski had escaped from Sickbay and that all of the major stations were manned. Well, at least, that was something… a tiny consolation. Along with the encryption code that kept the End in Engineering busy, that had gained them some time.
“Report,” Captain Llewellyn asked him, scowling from behind a permanent frown.
“Engineering has fallen, sir,” Sollik lamented. “I managed to lock every vital system with a fractal encryption code but they already have control of our transporters and the Shuttlebay. We’re trapped, Captain.”
“Hopefully,” Ewan replied,” not for long.”
Lieutenant Vuro had the answer to Sollik’s silent question. The Bolian activated the viewscreen as he pulled Fortitude out of warp. Waiting there for them was Starbase 499, hanging with a serene ignorance over Santrag II. Immediately, Llewellyn moved down to stand at the center of the Bridge alongside Valerie and Doctor Pulaski. Sollik headed for his engineering console as Arden announced their arrival back home.
“Jason, hail Station Master Martinez,” the Captain ordered.
“Hey, there,” Erica replied, a second later,” we weren’t expecting to see you --”
“Erica, we have very little time,” Llewellyn interrupted her bluntly. “Our transporters are down. I want you to lock onto every single Starfleet crew member aboard Fortitude and beam them across to Starbase 499 immediately. This is an emergency situation, Erica. Do it quickly, and do it right now!”
“Uh… yeah, sure,” the stunned Latina woman agreed. “Madre Dios! Ewan, I’m only picking up seventy-one Starfleet-registered biosigns! What the hell is going on over there?!”
Seventy-one… from a crew of one hundred and forty…
Everybody on the Bridge closed their eyes, the pain of such loss slamming into them.
Ewan shook visibly with wrath.
“Just start beaming them over, Erica! Now! All of them, and quickly!”
“Understood. Energizing now.”
Almost as if he was in a dream, the Captain moved over to his command chair and slumped down into the leather. He watched as his mechanical hand reached out and gently pressed a small button on his console. It was almost as if he wasn’t in control of his actions or, at least, he didn’t want to be. No Captain even wanted to make this call. It was the only call that remained, however. It was the only viable choice to ensure the survival of his crew… or rather what was left of them. The entire Bridge crew watched him.
Burying his tears, he addressed his people for the last time. His voice echoed across every deck, every room… and yes, every bloodstain.
“All hands, this is the Captain. Abandon ship.”
Beaten, bruised, and yet still throwing punches and firing hand phasers, the exhausted crew of the USS Fortitude started to disappear. Scooped up by the caring hands of Starbase 499 and taken away from the nightmare before them, the violence of the battle, and the constant shadow of certain death, many of them welcomed the call to abandon ship. Many of them were also infuriated by it, waiting to return and make as many of the End die at their hands.
From one lone shuttlepod and one lone pilot came an army, as if from beyond the grave. Soldiers from a dead race had risen out of hatred and evil to obliterate them. Nobody could blame Captain Llewellyn for his order, but nobody had to like the idea of running either.
With the powerful transporters of Starbase 499, it took mere minutes.
“That’s everybody except the Bridge crew,” Erica Martinez reported on the viewscreen, anguish etched into her expression. “Sixty-eight men and women have been beamed directly to our medical facility. Stand by for transport.”
“Take everybody but Commander Archer and I,” Llewellyn replied.
Erica was about to protest when she realized why. There was still a job to do, one final defiant act. After all, in beaming the crew over to the starbase, she had seen the sensor data on the occupants of the Intrepid-class starship. Questions as to how and why could be asked later. Right now, nearly two hundred End soldiers covered the interior of the ship and they needed to be defeated once and for all.
There were glances of protest from other officers but they were quickly seized by the transporter beam. Pulaski, Brodie, Jason, Arden, and Sollik were all beamed to safety.
Alone, the Captain turned to his First Officer and time felt like it had slowed down to a foreboding crawl.
“Well,” she whispered,” I guess this is it, huh?”
“I guess so,” he agreed.
The dull thuds and screams of the raging battle below them had stopped. Even the Red Alert klaxon faded to a dim echo. Allowing for privacy, the viewscreen had deactivated the link to the Station Master’s Office and returned to showing Santrag II, glistening unaware below them.
Reaching out his right hand, Ewan interlocked his fingers with Valerie’s and the two of them simply stood there, linked, absorbing their final moments on the Bridge of the USS Fortitude, NCC-76240… their ship…
After what seemed like an eternity had passed by, Valerie squeezed Ewan’s hand.
“It’s time, she told him.
“Yeah,” he acknowledged, his heart sinking and his head rising. “Computer, activate auto-destruct sequence, authorization Llewellyn Alpha-Foxtrot 2421. Set a one-minute silent countdown on my mark.”
“Computer, authorization Archer Delta-Bravo 2479… order confirmed.”
“Auto-destruct sequence initiated with a one-minute silent countdown. There will be no further audio warnings. Awaiting final confirmation.”
Llewellyn filled his lungs with the atmosphere of his ship for the last time.
Enough was enough.
“Thank you, Fortitude,” he quietly concluded. “Computer… mark!”
* * * *
The Station Master’s Office aboard Starbase 499 was a crowded place.
Stepping down from the transporter pad in the corner and joining the throng of worried faces, some of them familiar and some of them not, Captain Llewellyn and Commander Archer finally released their grip on one another’s hands.
Ewan immediately felt his legs break into a run, dashing over to the large window that overlooked the Santrag system. His misty eyes found her within seconds. Fortitude was adrift with nobody to control her or to guide her through the stars. There was only an army of End soldiers running through her corridors now, like infected blood running through the veins of an organism. In desperation, he placed a hand to the glass, not wanting her to die.
Archer moved over to join him when a hand grabbed her shoulder. Turning around, she saw an expression of panic on Station Master Erica Martinez’s face. Something wasn’t right. Something beyond the loss of Fortitude. Something more… sinister…
As the senior staff milled around data terminals, giving orders, the Latina woman briefed the Commander on the situation. “Our emergency evacuation of Fortitude was done so quickly that we didn’t even check for signal interrupt,” she explained. “There was a piggyback pattern to each transporter beam. Valerie, there are just short of one hundred End soldiers aboard my starbase and they’re scattered across all levels!”
Valerie gasped, turning back to look at Ewan’s defeated stance.
His nightmare had followed him here.
“Damn it,” she whispered. “This isn’t over yet.”
Just as she had finished her foreboding observation, it finally happened. The silent countdown was over. The minute was up and the self-destruct sequence had begun. The first explosion tore the port nacelle clean off. Spinning away, it crumbled under the natural pressure of space as the structural integrity field was lost.
In an instant, two more plumes of flame erupted from the secondary hull, tearing great wounds into her steely skin. The deflector dish blew out, with shards of relays and debris bursting growth before finally, the antimatter pods around the Bridge detonated. The saucer section broke in half and the other nacelle exploded at the same time.
Ewan bowed his head, unable to watch.
As one struggle ended, another was just beginning.
At that moment, all that anybody could do inside the Station Master’s Officer was mourn the violent and tragic loss of the USS Fortitude, NCC-76240.
EPILOGUE
“Where’s that cordrazine?”
“Here…”
“Make sure he’s stable. I want him to be moved as quickly as possible.”
“How many End did they say were aboard?”
“I don’t know. Our job is to treat these wounded. Security will keep them away.
“Okay…”
“Damn! Where is Bronson with that hypospray?”
“He went to the other treatment room to get it. He should be here by now!”
“Go find out where he --”
“Bronson to Nurse Denton.”
“Denton here. Where the hell are you with that hypospray?”
“I’m sorry, but… Well, I’m in the other treatment room and there’s a problem.”
“What? What’s the problem?”
“Rear Admiral Blackmore’s biobed…”
“What about it?!”
“It’s empty!”
To Be Continued…