Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Three, Episode Five - “Alone”
By Jack D. Elmlinger
PROLOGUE
Darkness…
Complete and utter darkness…
Ewan Llewellyn had no idea where he was. He felt weightless, a sensation that he hadn’t experienced since his zero-gravity training at Starfleet Academy. Surrounding him was a choking blanket of darkness. There was nothing but an endless shadow that seemed to stretch out for infinity.
Of course, the Welshman couldn’t tell. Tilting his head downward, he saw his own feet, cold and bare. Where the hell was his uniform? Damn it. No wonder he was freezing. He was completely naked!
Then a light…
Something was approaching him…
Something bright…
Ewan threw his hands up in front of his face. The light was too powerful. His eyes were accustomed to the darkness and he was recoiling in pain at the sudden flashes of pure white light. Whatever it was, it was approaching him fast. Blinking through the pain, he saw a sphere take shape. It was familiar and yet, strange to see. Rotating before him, growing in his field of vision was a planet… Class-M, with peaceful blue oceans meeting rolling green continents dusted with fluffy grey clouds.
For a moment, Ewan thought it was Earth, his homeworld, his birthplace… but no, it wasn’t Earth. It was another world entirely and suddenly he saw what gave it away. There, beside the planet, was a structure that he had seen before, knew of, and loved. It was a structure that was home to his friends and colleagues…
It was Starbase 499 and that made the planet to be Santrag II.
He was close now… so close that he could almost reach out and touch it…
The weightlessness was replaced with a sharp feeling of descent. Gravity, with all of its gut-wrenching horror, brought Ewan crashing down into the shadows. Santrag II fell away with Starbase 499 joining it…
Screwing his eyes tightly shut, he waited for the impact with nothing else to do…
That was when he woke up, alone, in his quarters.
Just like his nightmare, he was far away from the place that he called home.
ACT ONE
Captain’s Log, Stardate 51026.3;
It has been almost five weeks since my ship and crew were left blind and voiceless by an unknown suppression field. It’s also been almost five weeks since our warp drive was also rendered useless. Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to determine the source of our troubles. With no other course of action available to us, I have ordered the slow and steady course back towards the Santrag system charted and engaged. On a personal note, the circumstances have left me unable to sleep as I am deeply affected by the sense that this crew is my responsibility and that I am unable to save them from one hundred and fifty years of limping home like a wounded dog.
“Both shuttlecraft have returned to the ship,” Valerie Archer was saying,” and their crews report that they found nothing on the hull for the third time, Ewan. Their independent sensors are completely useless as ours are. Sollik wants permission to take one of them further out from Fortitude and see if we’re the one generating our own problems here.”
Llewellyn was completely tuned out. He hadn’t heard a single word. It took several well-placed coughs from his First Officer before she simply slammed her PADD against the surface of his Ready Room desk.
“Hmm… sorry, what?”
“Oh, hey, Ewan,” she quipped,” did I disturb you?”
“My apologies,” the Captain said, sighing. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. It’s been much like every other night since we stumbled into this nightmare. You were saying something about Sollik and a shuttlecraft?”
“Just another desperate scheme,” she assured him with compassion in her eyes. When he had lifted his head away from the desk, she had seen the exhaustion in his eyes, the utter remorse and hopelessness that he was desperately trying to hide from the crew. They needed a strong leader now… and a strong leader, Ewan was not. Of course, she couldn’t blame him. She would be feeling exactly the same way if she was in his position.
“Desperate schemes seem to be the order of the day,” Llewellyn pointed out to her, not needing to remind his close friend of the moment when he had ordered the ship to be navigated by noses pressed up against windows, over a month ago. “Tell Sollik if he thinks that it’s an acceptable risk, then he can make preparations and give me a full briefing within two hours. I’ll probably sign off on it anyways, but we might as well follow the rules. Although I can’t remember the part in the rule book that talks about procedures while drifting aimlessly through unknown space…”
“Well, let’s look at this on the bright side,” Valerie smiled. “We are truly going and doing what nobody has done before. That truly makes us Starfleet.”
“I’ll get out a bucket of paint and change the name on the hull to Enterprise…”
“That certainly wouldn’t hurt…”
They laughed together. It was a weak and hollow laugh but it was still a laugh. Ewan had almost forgotten what laughter sounded like since the past five weeks had been devoid of humor. Tensions had reached a snapping point on several occasions.
Jason Armstrong was running some of his infamous 20th Century B-movie holodeck programs to give the crew a chance to vent some of their violence and anger, but it hadn’t been enough to stop Arden Vuro and Gabriel Brodie from rediscovering their differences after the ever-so-slight hatchet burying that they had managed at the start of the current crisis. Reports of minor scuffles over minor things were becoming commonplace.
Oh, sure, they were only Human. Ewan knew it was either violence or retreat into one’s self and ever the pacifist, he had chosen the latter. Still, he was only one man out of a crew of a hundred and forty at the end of the day, no matter what the four pips on his red collar meant.
The weak laughter was broken when the Ready Room was bathed in a bright flash of topaz light. It was coming from outside the ship, from space. Whatever it was, it was both powerful and close.
Ewan stood, following Valerie to the window.
It was some kind of vortex, sensors or no sensors, that much was clear.
Both officers watched as a vessel emerged.
Fortitude had company.
* * * *
“There’s a vessel incoming,” Ewan Llewellyn told the Bridge crew as he entered from the Ready Room. “Go to Red Alert!”
Understanding the unusual order, Gabriel Brodie immediately instigated the shipwide klaxon and switched the lighting from standard to dark crimson. Normally upon meeting a new alien vessel, such drastic measures weren’t taken by a Starfleet officer with no sensors, no communications, or the ability to beat a hasty warp-powered retreat, it was the natural protective action for the heightened alert.
“All decks report ready, Captain,” Brodie reported a second later.
“Arden, what are your spotters saying?”
Hunched over the helm, the Bolian examined the reports that he was constantly being streamed by the crew members whose new permanent job was to watch the cold depths of the Beta Quadrant for anything that the sensors would usually find. Those at windows points in the right direction were eagerly chattering about the new arrival. Several images flashed upon his display and he routed them to the main viewscreen.
“She’s holding steady for now,” he said of the unknown vessel’s movements.
“At least, it gives us some time to speculate,” Ewan sighed.
“Are those weapons ports?,” Archer asked, moving forward with concern.
“No, ma’am,” Jason Armstrong called out from his practically redundant operations console, his insights as analytical as his sensors could ever be. “They’re sensor pods. I’ve seen similar designs on a Sheliak warship. They look formidable but it’s simply the arrangement of the directional finders.”
The vessel did look rather formidable. It was large and it had a pointed nose sweeping aft into a pair of rather impressive wings laced with the sensor pods. The large cluster of engines towards the rear of the craft glowed a deep orange hue which was at odds with the otherwise perfect silver chrome hull. According to the additional data being punched up by Vuro’s spotters, she was also large. From observation-only, her size was predicted to be that of a Galaxy-class starship, nearly six hundred meters in length and packed with decks.
“Captain, they’re moving,” Vuro suddenly exclaimed,” towards starboard. I’ve got three spotters predicting that they’re attempting to dock, sir! Starboard docking ring, saucer section… connection in three, two…”
The deck rocked underneath everyone’s feet.
Ewan showed Valerie his expression of apprehension. Who were they? What did they want? Why were they boarding Fortitude? Those questions needed answers and standing on the Bridge wasn’t going to find them.
“Valerie,” the Welshman said, nodding.
“Mister Brodie,” the First Officer barked upon receiving the nod from him,” you and your best security team, with me! Starboard docking ring! Let’s go!”
* * * *
Moments later, Valerie Archer stood with her phaser in hand, braced and ready for action as Gabriel Brodie moved to stand beside her. Together, they aimed their weapons at the airlock door of the starboard docking ring. They listened to the work underway on the other side, wondering who or what was trying to access Fortitude. Around them, eight young security officers flexed their muscles and their grips on their compression rifles, blinking through the fear of the unknown to get a better aim.
“You follow my lead,” Valerie warned the reckless Brodie. “Shoot when I tell you.”
“I’ll shoot when I see danger, Commander,” Gabe replied, his eyes narrowing.
Suddenly the airlock doors burst open into a shower of sparks. As soon as the shower had passed, the sparks cascading to the floor, several forms burst forth. Before anyone could react, the black tactical officer clamped his eyes on the weapons in their hands and jumped to the conclusion that he had always suspected.
The danger had arrived.
Gabe opened fire.
ACT TWO
They were fast, whoever they were… whatever they were…
After Gabriel Brodie’s first two shots had taken down the first two intruders, Commander Archer had taken a few steps back to find a better cover position. Three more of the aliens emerged from the smoke clouding around the docking ring.
They were also armed and thanks to the exchange of weapons fire already underway, they were now prepared to return the shots that had dropped their comrades. This time, everyone had a better look before responding to the plasma bolts that now burned through the air towards them.
Their arms and legs were simply too thin to be organic.
As they walked, the sound was almost… metallic.
Shooting one of them directly in the chest, Valerie watched it twitch and writhe in supposed agony. Then she noticed that the open wound wasn’t seeping blood but rather tiny arcs of energy. This wasn’t due to the agony of the phaser blast but rather due to a short-circuit in the alien being’s systems. They were a boarding party of robots: slender, mechanical men who returned fire with a methodical and precise aim.
Two Starfleet security officers fell to their plasma rifles, groggy from the blasts but very much alive if only stunned.
Then Archer heard a voice cry out, a strange unfamiliar voice. “Protocol Vunek! Stand down! Stand down!”
The robots stopped in their deathmatch, their arms neatly folding their rifles to one side as they snapped to some form of attention. Only the lead pair closest to Valerie Archer and Gabriel Brodie kept their rifles in a trained position. Poking her head out from behind the bulkhead, she watched as the voice that had stopped the robotic attack was given a form. It stepped over the broken metal of the dead machines and took up a position behind the obviously defensive and still active ones.
It was humanoid and Valerie guessed male, but no one could ever tell.
In fact, this individual looked incredibly Human… except for the skin tone which almost matched the polished chrome of his vessel and his robotic army. A small cranial ridge, nothing too pronounced, poked out from underneath a mane of jet black hair.
“We come in peace,” he was shouting. “Peace! I apologize!”
Despite a glare from Gabriel Brodie who still had his phaser raised in anger, Valerie cautiously rose from her position and lowered her sidearm. She locked eyes with the organic individual before her, trying her best to convey sincerity and forgiveness through her expressions it was hardly needed, seeing that the Universal Translator was already working, but it was the Human thing to do.
“My name is Commander Valerie Archer,” she slowly stated. “You have boarded the Federation starship Fortitude with an armed party… and I need to know why.”
“Forgive me,” the alien blustered. “Our robotic assistants should not have been armed as they are programmed to respond to threats without calculating any of the factors that you or I would normally consider… I’m sorry. My name is Tano Jmara of the Shurvun exploratory vessel Vunara. We attempted to communicate with little success so we assumed that you were having some kind of trouble.”
“That’s awfully forward of you to dock right away with us.”
“We are a headstrong people,” Jmara replied earnestly. “I only meant to make First Contact with you. I didn’t mean for there to be a firefight. Rest assured that our weapons are always set to a stun setting. Your people will be fine.”
As the smoke of the battle drifted before her, Valerie Archer didn’t know what to say.
* * * *
“Tano Jmara, I’m Captain Ewan Llewellyn. Welcome aboard Fortitude.”
Awkwardly shaking hands, the new friend of the starship Fortitude had obviously never encountered such a gesture before. Beckoned to a seat in front of Ewan’s Ready Room desk, he wore a permanent expression of timid guilt. Ewan understood why after having been fully briefed by Valerie about the docking ring shootout. Taking his own seat, he arched his fingers as he posed the question that everybody involved had been dying to ask, especially with sheer curiosity overcoming perhaps even more pressing requests.
“Robotic shipmates…?”
“It’s something of a new trend in our fleet,” Tano admitted sheepishly. “As I told Commander Archer, the Shurvun people are a headstrong people. If we don’t get responses or we can’t find answers, we, unfortunately, have a tendency to jump right in and take a look around for ourselves. It is a habit that our people have lamented, but it simply cannot be helped. For whatever reasons, Captain, once again, I apologize profusely for the misunderstanding.”
“You can’t fight your nature so I can’t hold you to any blame. If anything, I should apologize to you,” Llewellyn smiled, surprising his guest. “Our crew will be fine, thanks to your weapons being kept on stun. However, my tactical officer destroyed two of your robotic crewmates. Are they easy to replace?”
“Oh, my, please… please, think nothing of it. The reason that we’ve adopted robotic machines in our more dangerous roles is simply to prevent the loss of actual life. We have a plethora of space machines in our cargo hold to account for such losses. So again, please… don’t apologize for simply defending your ship. I can only hope that you can forgive me for my inquisitive nature and for my presumption in boarding Fortitude.”
“You had good intentions,” Ewan pointed out to him.
“Indeed. Your communications are broken somehow, yes?”
“Not only that but our sensors too. Our warp field is also refusing to cooperate with the laws of physics at the moment. We’re suffering rather badly, I’m afraid to say, and that brings me to my next question.”
“I believe I can guess that question, Captain,” Tano interrupted him, his silvery skin folding into something akin to a child caught with his hand deep inside the cookie jar as he spoke. His guilt was evident. “I’m afraid that my answer is going to have to be no.”
Ewan’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “No…?”
“We cannot help you.”
ACT THREE
Captain’s Log, supplemental;
The glimmer of hope that was provided by our meeting with the Shurvun has faded. Tano Jmara had revealed to me that the Shurvun equivalent of the Prime Directive expressly forbids the use of Shurvun technology to benefit another race. Even if relations with that race are friendly and sincere. I now have the difficult duty of explaining this to my senior staff.
“What kind of selfish -- ?
“Okay, I’m going to stop you right there, Sollik,” Captain Llewellyn immediately cut in, causing the Suliban chief engineer to freeze with his scaled jaw locked in a silent gasp. “We have a series of laws just like the Shurvun. While the Prime Directive upholds the principles that we hold dear and find to be just and proper, there are those who we have encountered who believe it to be a pompous and overblown document. I’m sure that I don’t have to remind you of the incident with the Pekeni, eighteen months ago, do I? When a war-torn race asked us to share our weapons systems with them and we had to refuse them?”
“That’s totally different,” Sollik continued to protest. “That was about arming a race. All we’re asking for here is a tow and perhaps a once-over of Fortitude with their sensors to check for anything that we might have missed!”
Ewan decided to stand. It was such a minor aspect of these briefings but when he stood over the table and over the seated senior staff, it made him feel like the Captain. It made him feel that little bit more important. Even if, deep inside, he felt wretched about these decisions that he had to make on their behalf.
Today was one of those days. He was preparing to let the Shurvun vessel depart without pleading for assistance and for the simple reason that, like it or not, he could see where Tano Jmara was coming from. Clasping his hands behind his back, he recited what he had been told in his Ready Room and the reason why Fortitude was being left behind, blind, mute, and limp in the middle of nowhere.
“The Shurvun are an insanely nice race,” he began his recitation. “They have a culture built around charm, peace, and expanding their knowledge. I must admit that it was jolly nice to see such things for a change. They are headstrong and impatient at times, as we learned today, but it is born out of a genuine desire to explore. According to Tano Jmara, when the Shurvun first began to explore space, they met a race that openly shared technology with them. Eager to please their new friends, the Shurvun vessel provided some sensor enhancements… that were later used to plan out an imperialistic invasion. Since then, the Shurvun have vowed never to offer any piece of their technology, no matter how small to anybody outside of their own culture. I can understand why.”
Sollik rolled his beady yellow eyes as he was clearly not impressed.
The rest of the senior staff responded slightly differently from the chief engineer. Looking from face to face, Ewan could see that some of them agreed with Sollik. Gabriel Brodie, in particular, appeared to be mightily annoyed with the situation. However, the others were more compassionate to the Captain’s position and his overall decision.
Jason Armstrong nodded in agreement as did Katherine Pulaski from the other end of the table. Vuro was silent, reflecting on the morality of the issue as he always did, and Valerie… Ewan could see that she was being her usual wonderful self. She simply smiled at him with a smile that warmed his heart and made it skip a few excited beats.
“You’re right to accept their rule book, Captain,” Pulaski said, breaking the silence. “As you say, we have our rules that we would never dream of breaking. We would be hypocrites to uphold the Prime Directive and yet expect other cultures to abandon their moral codes just because we need their help.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Llewellyn nodded gratefully at her. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
“So, in a hundred and fifty years when Fortitude floats into Santrag II,” Gabe piped up, voicing the other side of the coin,” what then, sir? What happens when we’re all wasted away and dead?”
Ewan fixed his tactical officer with a stare. “We’re not dead yet.”
* * * *
The next few hours went by at a crawl. Tano Jmara had one final meeting with several members of the senior staff before he was called to the starboard docking ring to finally bid farewell to the Intrepid-class starship. While he and Captain Llewellyn wished that they could stay in one another’s company a little longer, both of them the explorers that their chosen professions demanded of them, Ewan knew that his crew would become restless hanging out with an alien race that refused to help them in their hour of need. The lack of sensors, communications, and warp drive had been plummeting morale to an all-time low lately and despite the slight boost that the Shurvun had initially given them, there was something to be said for the road home, however slow that road might be.
To that end, the silvery hand of Tano Jmara was taken by Ewan once more, this time as a parting gesture between understanding friends. Flanking the alien explorer were two of his robotic crew members, static, lifeless, and no signs of plasma rifles on them this time. Ewan found them a little unsettling like ethereal skeletons that whiffed of grease and oil but it was all part of the experience in meeting new races.
“My apologies again, Captain,” Tano was saying.
“Please, there’s no need,” Ewan said, shaking his head. “I’m a member of Starfleet, working in the employ of the United Federation of Planets. I respect the laws of other cultures. That’s what my crew and I are out here for.”
“My only hope is that we might meet again, one day. Our star system is not too far from here, although I am prohibited from revealing its exact location. I’m sure that you understand that too. If you do return, you shall be welcomed with open arms, let me assure you. I’ll even give you a tour of the capital myself!”
“I look forward to that,” Llewellyn smiled, only half-faking it. “That is if we ever get ourselves sorted out.”
Tano pondered for a moment before making his parting promise. “Tell you what, Captain. While I may not be able to help you directly, I will give you my word that any other vessels that we encounter will be told of your plight. If they appear to be friendly and are willing to offer you assistance, I’ll give them your heading and tell them what you require. Of course, only with your permission?”
Llewellyn smiled again, this time his handsome features were grinning with a genuine appreciation for his guest. It was a work-around that he hadn’t even considered as he had been so adamant to stick to the moral debate of the issue rather than bothering to think up any alternatives that had been pushed far out of his mind.
Opening the repair airlock door, he stepped aside to allow Jmara to pass into the waiting Vunara with his unadulterated thanks. “You are a true gentleman, sir. Thank you.”
Ewan watched him leave, seeing the immense silver chrome vessel disappear from sight, knowing full well that he had made a friend and that he would like to see the Shurvun homeworld for himself, one day.
It was literally the silver lining to the whole crisis.
EPILOGUE
Revolving peacefully in orbit of the glistening Class-M jewel of Santrag II, Starbase 499 hadn’t been visited in quite some time. Neither the Steamrunner nor the Katherine Johnson had been launched in almost a week. The daily schedule of events was so empty and so infrequent were communications from the surface, thanks to the recent political upheaval that had been witnessed firsthand by Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore and Station Master Erica Martinez.
It wasn’t the empty spaces on the schedule that had either of them concerned. No, once more, a day had slipped through the sands of time where the scheduled events had failed to come to pass and that simply deepened the worry lines spread across Blackmore’s forehead.
The Rear Admiral’s office rotated to face the unexplored depths of the Galaxy, the rest of the Beta Quadrant’s maw yawning towards Edward’s unblinking gaze. He wasn’t looking at the stars today. He was looking into them, searching in some idealistic and yet hopeless fashion to see a glimpse of the USS Fortitude, NCC-76240.
The door chimes rang behind him. “Come on in,” he growled, motionless.
Erica Martinez entered the room, her striking Latina features were a picture of disquiet from behind the cascades of her long dark hair. She was holding a PADD and yet it was hardly needed for the news that she was about to deliver. It was the same as it had been for the past four weeks. The same when Blackmore asked the question: “Have we heard from Ewan lately”? Today, as it always was, the answer came in the form of a negative.
“Let me guess,” Edward foretold her response. “Nothing new.”
“Silence on all frequencies, Boxer,” Erica answered with a sigh.
Gritting his teeth behind his salt-and-pepper beard, Blackmore turned on his heel sharply and marched right up to the Station Master. His gray-shouldered uniform was held perfectly in place by the Federation Crest belt buckle despite his rough and sudden movements.
“Screw this, Erica,” he hissed with determination. “Fire up the Steamrunner for me and prepare her to launch as soon as possible. I’m going to find out just what the devil Ewan Llewellyn has gotten himself into this time!”
The End.