Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Three, Episode Six - “Old Debts”
By Jack D. Elmlinger
PROLOGUE
“A sensory what…?”
Scratching his grey beard as he usually did in times of severe confusion, Rear Admiral Edward Blackmore frowned as he tried to concentrate on what Station Master Erica Martinez was telling him. Despite his better judgment, the Latina woman had demanded to accompany Boxer on his rescue mission.
Now, standing together in front of the main viewscreen of the USS Steamrunner, NX-52126, she was proving her worth as an excellent officer, acting outside the usual confines of her position as commander of Starbase 499.
“A sensory suppression field,” she was saying. “We’ve found six of these buoys positioned around this sector of the Korleenaq system. They’re designed to act in concert to drown out all communications and sensors.”
“And you think that Fortitude blundered into this and has gotten lost?,” Blackmore asked her.
“This was the last place that we knew they were stopping, Boxer,” Erica pointed out to him.
“Hmm… if that’s true, Ewan could be anywhere by now, flying blind…”
Despite her role as a defensive dreadnought, the Steamrunner had been flying into the deep unknown recesses of the Beta Quadrant for ten days solid now. Ever since his sudden declaration of a rescue mission, Blackmore had grown more and more concerned for his friends aboard the USS Fortitude, NCC-76240 with each passing minute.
With a long sigh belying his advanced years, the Rear Admiral nodded as he processed this new information. “Do we know who left this trap behind?,” he finally asked Martinez.
“That’s the interesting part,” Erica told him, raising an eyebrow. “Remember that virus that infected our new uniforms, a couple of months ago? Remember how we speculated about the source and how the Tah’Heen came up?”
“Don’t tell me…”
“You’ve got it, Boxer. These buoys are Tah’Heen technology.”
ACT ONE
Personal Log, Rear Admiral Blackmore, Stardate 51085.9;
Our search for the missing starship Fortitude does not proceed with as much success as I had hoped. While the limited speed and sensors of the USS Steamrunner were expected factors in the negative column, this new evidence of Tah’Heen involvement leaves me feeling cold. First, a virus, and now a dangerous web designed to incapacitate and blind innocent starships… and we just happen to lose contact with Ewan? A picture is being painted here and all of the brush strokes point towards a Tah’Heen plot against the Federation presence in this corner of space…
It had been a long time since Edward Blackmore had commanded a starship into space. Over a year had passed since the unfortunate incident with the USS Winchester, NCC-2799, and the subsequent loss of that Miranda-class starship to a devastating particle fountain. Each time that the Rear Admiral gathered up enough courage to consider taking the command chair again, the memory of that ill-fated mission came back to haunt him. It had shaken him considerably. Waking up on that Sickbay biobed and learned that his actions had resulted in her loss…
At his age, such things had bigger impacts on one’s outlook. Life was growing shorter and shorter. Mistakes couldn’t be made. And risks couldn’t be taken, not simply to satisfy a personal yearning.
That was Blackmore’s outlook, anyway. He had lived a full life with years packed with service both bold and outstanding. He had adventures that he had never even comprehended and seen sights that he could have never imagined. There was a reason that Starfleet Admirals were given desk jobs. They belonged behind them, making sure that those out there flying the starships around learned from the mistakes of their elders.
Not today. Today, he let the risks be damned.
Ewan was in trouble. With Fortitude missing… it justified everything.
Marching out onto the Bridge of the Steamrunner as she streaked across the stars at high warp, the Rear Admiral watched the crew work the sensors and the helm in their deployment of the search grid that he had personally overseen. If Fortitude was out there, limping around in the dark, thanks to the blasted Tah’Heen, he would find them and save them from whatever fate that whatever powers-that-be had planned for them.
There were too many questions to be answered for it to end this suddenly. Too many layers of the onion to peel back before the driving force behind the recent troubles could be exposed. He couldn’t do it alone. He needed his friend and trusted right arm.
He needed Ewan Llewellyn.
“Erica, report,” he growled as he assumed his place in the command chair.
“We’ve picked up nothing of interest,” the beautiful Latina woman replied from the First Officer’s chair beside him. “The stray ions that we picked up earlier turned out to be that… stray, and not the impulse wake that we believed them to be.”
Blackmore sighed. Yet another false hope. Turning he shook his head at the Station Master to his right. “How are you holding up?,” he asked her, sympathetically. “It can’t be easy. What with--”
“No, it’s not,” she cut him off, knowing full well that he was referring to her hidden feelings for Ewan that had been harbored for so long and nurtured in secret. “Being out here, looking for him… it helps. It’s damned better than just sitting back on 499, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for your call.”
“At least, it keeps you on your toes,” Blackmore noted, smiling slightly.
“Not only that, but it’s not just Ewan that we’re after,” she pointed out to him. “There are one hundred and forty crew members aboard Fortitude. All missing, all with loved ones or family or friends, somewhere. We have to find them, Boxer.”
As if on cue, an alert sounded from the helm console.
Both Blackmore and Martinez leaped to their feet, walking forward and leaning over the ensign’s grey-covered shoulders. The LCARS display was showing something that was both promising and gut-wrenching at the same time. Sharing a look of deep concern that smothered the glimmer of hope in Erica’s eyes, they returned to their seats and began preparing the Steamrunner for battle.
There was weapons fire ahead of them.
Starfleet weapons fire.
* * * *
“Shields, Mister Brodie?”
“At sixty percent, Captain,” yelled the black man through a shower of sparks that cascaded dramatically over his shoulders. “Now… fifty percent! We can’t take much more of this, that’s for sure!”
The USS Fortitude was under attack. Thanks to the total lack of sensors or communications, nobody aboard knew who their attackers were. The absence of any warp capability almost made any kind of effective escape impossible. That meant that the terrified and lost Intrepid-class starship was reduced to firing random shots into the cold recesses of the Beta Quadrant in the vain hope of hitting… well, something.
Slowly, reports had come through from Lieutenant Vuro’s spotters. Positioned at viewports and windows through the fifteen decks below the Bridge, they tried hopelessly to relay the positions of the enemy ships as the bulkheads holding them together rocked and buckled.
“Three more bandits,” the Bolian shouted from the helm towards Tactical,” bearing at three-nine-one, mark four-two-six!”
“Firing photon torpedoes spread three,” Gabriel Brodie confirmed from his station.
There was an uneasy pause with nobody quite knowing if any of the warheads had hit any of the aliens. With a foreboding sense of reality, the complete and utter desperation of the entire battle suddenly punched Captain Ewan Llewellyn in the chest when, finally, one of Arden Vuro’s spotters reported that the entire volley had missed. Lurching backwards into his chair with yet another precise strike by their faceless foes swarming around them, the Welshman’s tanned visage contorted as he shot a look towards Commander Valerie Archer. She shared his concerns silently in reply with a look of her own.
“We’re never going to win this,” he whispered.
“Listen,” Valerie began awkwardly,” I’ve been meaning to -- “
“Don’t… please, not like this at any rate. I refuse to accept that this is over.”
The deck shook again, violently enough to knock Valerie away from her chair and face-first onto the floor. Ewan was there, picking her up gently. With an arm wrapped around her shoulders, the bleak nature of the chaos around them was almost choking so much so that they grew closer… and closer… and…
“Captain!”
Snapped back to reality by the Kentuckian accent of Ensign Jason Armstrong, Ewan blinked hard before responding, brushing away the warm feeling that he had been enjoying while staring deep into his First Officer’s beautiful eyes.
“What is it, Jason?”
“I’ve got a crewman on Deck Six telling me… oh, yes!”
“Out with it, Ensign!,” the Captain barked, back on his feet.
“Sir, it’s the Steamrunner! She’s here!”
ACT TWO
Captain’s Log, Stardate 51085.9;
After a furious and spectacular four-against-one dogfight, the USS Steamrunner has succeeded in driving away the alien bandits who were threatening to destroy my ship. With communications offline, my crew and I have been left with the strange dilemma of trying to contact our friends without actually talking to them. To that end, I’ve ordered what remains of our shields to be lowered in the hope that somebody over there will work out our predicament and beam over directly.
It took longer than expected.
Drumming his fingers along the armrest of his chair, Captain Ewan Llewellyn had been waiting for five whole minutes for the crew of the Steamrunner to figure out that Fortitude was obviously incapable of holding a conversation with them over the communications system. While he had seen some of the space battle from his Ready Room window and knew that the other Starfleet vessel had taken several pretty nasty blows, surely they would be quicker to answer the blatant distressing needs of the larger starship, no?
When the whine of a transporter beam was finally heard, Ewan stood from his chair. Before him, at the center of the darkened Bridge, Rear Admiral Blackmore appeared before him.
“Boxer!,” cried the Captain, forgetting rank in front of his senior staff and other Bridge officers. “It’s so good to see you again!”
“Hello there, Ewan,” Blackmore grinned as he stepped forward, alone. “Listen, I’m sorry for the delay. We’ve taken quite a beating over there. Erica’s holding down the fort.”
“I can’t thank you enough for your timing.” Ewan smiled, the pain and isolation of recent weeks melting away almost instantly upon seeing the face of his superior officer. It was a face that he hadn’t expected to see again with one hundred and fifty years being too long to survive the journey home. “A few more hits and we would have been even more crippled than we are now. I take it you guessed that we’ve hit a few snags?”
“Right,” Blackmore said, nodding. “I’m only sorry that we didn’t get out here sooner. Still, we’re here now, ready to tow you back to Starbase 499… Only the damage done by those alien ships to the Steamrunner was pretty heavy. Basically, I’m here to pinch your chief engineer if you’ll let me.”
“What’s mine is yours, Boxer,” Ewan answered immediately.
Silence reigned for a few seconds. Both men wore relieved smiles, despite the dirt and battle-weary creases on their foreheads. They had both shared a fear of it all being over, a fear of loss and defeat in the face of the dangers of the unknown… And they had both emerged victorious, and undefeated, to stand together in this moment. Both of them knew that, after today, their friendship would only grow stronger.
“It’s good to see you all,” Blackmore finally acknowledged, looking around the Bridge to all stations. “To survive this… you’re all made of strong stuff. Be proud.”
“I’ll round up Pulaski and a medical team for you as well,” Valerie cut in, heading for one of the turbolifts at the back of the Bridge as Llewellyn and Blackmore walked over to the other turbolift and prepared to make their way to Main Engineering.
“Good thinking, Valerie,” Ewan thanked her, turning towards the Rear Admiral. “Now, let’s try to get, at least, one of our ships moving again, shall we?”
“That sounds like a plan…”
* * * *
Erica Martinez hadn’t been near a warp core in almost ten years.
At least, this one was functional, she thought to herself. Beside her, with the swirling blue lights making his green scales appear turquoise, Lieutenant Commander Sollik had been telling her about the mystery surrounding Fortitude’s warp status. All systems were working, apparently, and everything checked out. Yet, for some reason, a warp field refused to be formed, leaving the Intrepid-class starship at impulse speeds, struggling around the stars like an elderly person besieged by some unknown illness.
Hopefully, Erica thought to herself, they would be able to tow Fortitude back to 499 soon and solve a few of these mysteries. For that to happen, it would require a tractor beam. Unfortunately for the Steamrunner and her crew, one of the places damaged by the battle with the unknown aliens was…
“Yep, you guessed it,” Martinez pointed it out to Sollik. “The tractor beam relays are through here, right where an EPS conduit blew out half that wall.”
The Suliban engineer from Fortitude snarled in frustration at the scene that he was currently surveying with his narrow yellow eyes. It was a simple job to fix the tractor beam relays. That wasn’t the problem. No, the problem was getting to them. Almost a metric ton of twisted durasteel and melted interfaces lay in his path, along with several bio-neural gel packs that had burst their azure contents over the industrial wound like blood, adding to the horror of the image. For a Chief Engineer, it was a sorry sight, but for Sollik, it almost represented another hurdle entirely.
“I can get through it,” he told Erica, much to her confusion.
“Uh… how may I ask, without spending hours with cutting equipment?”
Sollik took a deep breath. He had a difficult enough time aboard his own starship, dealing with the revelation surrounding his enhanced genetic abilities. Nobody outside of the men and women serving aboard Fortitude had been told. Hell, even some of them didn’t know yet! Now an entire engineering crew, not to mention the Station Master of the furthest Federation outpost in the Beta Quadrant, were about to witness him deploy those very genetic abilities that he had feared revealing.
The hell with it! He could deal with their reactions and possible prejudice later. Right now, his fear of being stuck out in the middle of nowhere overrode his fear of peer rejection and so, wordlessly, he stepped towards the wreckage.
First, his left hand… then his right… and then his head…
Slowly, his entire body morphed around the gaps in the debris, snaking through until he reached the opposite side of the tiny space beside the tractor beam relays. As his body solidified, the gray shoulders and gold undergarment of his biomimetic uniform returning to normality, Sollik could feel the eyes of Erica Martinez and the Steamrunner engineering crew bore into the back of his head.
“What the…?,” the Latina woman breathed in disbelief of her senses.
“Much has happened since we’ve been away,” Sollik simply told her, tapping several commands into the tractor beam control pad and finding success met his touch. “The tractor beam is back online. What’s next?”
ACT THREE
Captain’s Log, supplemental;
With the tractor beam and other repairs completed aboard the Steamrunner, we are finally underway, heading home to the Santrag system and the overhaul awaiting us at Starbase 499. As we travel, Rear Admiral Blackmore and I have started a full sensor sweep of Fortitude, using the unaffected sensor relays of the Steamrunner, to try and ascertain just what had been happening to us of late. Although, as I’m told, some of the answers may already be present…
“The Tah’Heen?” Ewan asked with a gasp. “Are you sure?”
“One hundred percent positive,” Ed was telling him, standing outside the only cargo bay found aboard the Starfleet dreadnought. As they entered, they locked their eyes upon the Tah’Heen buoy that they had picked up from the Korleenaq system. It was resting peacefully with an air of ominous intent around it. “This, along with six of its brothers and sisters was surrounding the area in which you got lost. The technology is confirmed as Tah’Heen, although we’ll get a better match once we return to Starbase 499.”
“We’ve got an image of an unidentified vessel,” Ewan started to explain, his hand running across the pockmarked surface of the buoy as he spoke. “When we lost sensors, Mister Brodie came up with a plan to station crew members at all of the windows … just in case, to avoid running into anything. Besides the Shurvun, who we managed to actually entertain a dialogue with, and those aliens that you just scared off… Well, it’s the only thing that we’ve encountered. I wouldn’t mind betting if we process the image through the Starfleet Database…”
“... that we would get a match,” Blackmore observed,” to the tune of the Tah’Heen.”
“Damn it, Boxer! Why us? Why do we, once again, find ourselves to be targeted?”
The Rear Admiral had no answer.
Together, he and the Captain left the buoy resting in the cargo bay, walking through the narrow corridors of the Steamrunner as their discussion turned to more personal matters.
Entering a turbolift, Llewellyn waited until the door was safely sealed and the familiar hum of transportation was heard before he opened up a little and released some honesty to his best friend. “I had a dream, Boxer,” the Welshman began, his expression being akin to both of the emotions derived from concern and relief. “In fact, I’ve had several. For almost five weeks, I’ve survived on barely any sleep and industrial amounts of coffee. I just kept thinking… it was my fault, you know? My ship, my crew… stranded, isolated… and under my command, my protection. I couldn’t save them.”
“What are friends for? Besides, I’ve owed you one ever since you saved my ass from the Winchester. Consider this to be an old debt repair.”
“And I thank you. I honestly do,” Ewan said, nodding with a smile. “But what if you hadn’t arrived when you did? We could all be dead. All of us.”
“But we did and you’re not.”
That statement ended the conversation right there. Ewan and Ed knew each other too well. Here was a possible slide into depression, or at least, serious self-deprecation on the part of Ewan Llewellyn. It was Ed Blackmore’s job to snap him back to reality and to remind him of what good that there was to still live for, to work for, and fight for. Together, they were underway, heading home… and that was enough for now.
“Bridge to Rear Admiral Blackmore,” the comms system interrupted their moment of silence.
“Go ahead, Bridge.”
“We’ve found something attached to the hull of Fortitude that I think you should see.”
* * * *
The viewscreen was dominated by a close-up of the port ventral quarter of the engineering section. It was as clear as day. It wasn’t even cloaked or disguised with any kind of camouflage paint or anything. It just sat there, flashing away, doing its nefarious suppression tasks to the systems of the USS Fortitude. As more and more data came in about the device, Ewan felt his hands clench into fists with uncharacteristic loathing and anger boiling within his pacifist exterior.
“It’s generating a micro-inversion around Fortitude,” Erica Martinez reported from the science station, standing beside the Steamrunner’s science officer who had detected the device in the first place. “That inversion is what was preventing you from forming a stable warp field, Ewan. it was also performing the tasks that those buoys were, but on a much smaller scale. No communications, and no sensors.”
“Is it Tah’Heen?,” Blackmore asked immediately.
“Unknown at this stage,” Erica replied with a frown. “We need to analyze it.”
“Beam me back over to my ship,” Ewan asked. “I’ll tell my people where it is and send them out in environmental suits. We’ll pry it from the hull and find some way of shutting it down. Then we’ll join you back at Starbase 499 as soon as we have warp power.”
The Rear Admiral nodded, signaling towards Erica for a PADD containing all of the data that Fortitude’s crew would need to find the device. As he handed it to Ewan, he paused, keeping a strong hold on it as he locked eyes with the Captain. He had noticed the rage within him and he knew what that rage was capable of when it was unleashed in those rare moments of inner exposure that had exploded over the past two years. They needed the device intact so they could study it to prove anything and to have any leads in the coming investigation.
Tah’Heen buoys, Tah’Heen ships, Tah’Heen viruses… they all needed as much confirmation as possible, and if Llewellyn were to blast that thing from his hull…
“Take it easy,” he warned him slowly. “As Erica said, we need to analyze it.”
“Gotcha,” Ewan said, agreeing with a lopsided smile and an understanding wink. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
* * * *
They stood together in Main Engineering. There had been very little reason lately to visit the technical heart of Fortitude. With the warp drive rendered useless, the core had been reduced to a pretty-looking centerpiece in an otherwise redundant chamber and nothing more.
That was about to change.
As Sollik entered, still wearing the white protective armor of his environmental suit sans the helmet, he approached Captain Llewellyn, Commander Archer, and Ensign Armstrong and held the device up for inspection. It was no bigger than a standard European football. Three menacing claws jutted out for it at strange angles and it had obviously been manhandled with considerable force to pry it from the hull.
“Whatever it is, it’s still working,” Sollik told the group with disdain. “I can’t find out how to disarm it. Sensors, communications, and the warp drive are still being suppressed by the inversion that it’s producing.”
“It looks like there’s a panel underneath there,” Jason pointed out, taking it from the chief engineer’s gloved hands and lifting it to get a better look. “Maybe we can get inside and gut it like a fish…?”
Valerie reached for a tricorder as Ewan reached for something else entirely.
“Put it over here,” Sollik was saying, heading for his console.
“I’ll get tools,” Jason offered, moving away.
Valerie saw what was coming next and she barely had time to get out of the way.
Ewan had a phaser.
Within a second, he aimed and mercilessly opened fire.
Sparks of energy flew from the device as the shell tore open. Smoke and flame swept through the technology inside of it, riddling it with injury. The flashing lights died away as did the tiny buzz that it gave off. No sooner had it finished to cease operating, a satisfying new sound filled the air. The warp core jumped back to life, joyous clunks and hums building to a victorious crescendo.
“We have warp power now?,” the Captain asked the stunned officers before him.
“Yes… yes, Captain!,” stammered Sollik, impressed and somewhat shocked by the outburst that he had just witnessed from his normally calm commanding officer. “Sensors, communications… everything’s back online!”
Ignoring the small cheer from the engineering crew, Ewan raised his head as he lowered his phaser. Valerie joined him, standing at his side as he called out to the communications system and got a gratifying response.
“Fortitude calling Steamrunner,” he said triumphantly. “Boxer, thanks for the lift but I think you can deactivate your tractor beam now. The device is offline. We managed to save, well, at least something to analyze later. We’re setting course for Starbase 499 and we’ll see you when we get there!”
“Acknowledged, Ewan,” replied Blackmore’s voice. “Welcome back.”
“It’s good to be back,” Llewellyn smiled, sharing it with his First Officer before making another, more local call. “Bridge, this is the Captain. Arden, I was wondering… has your console lit up like a Christmas tree yet?”
“A what tree, sir?,” answered the confused Bolian.
“Never mind! Set a course for Starbase 499 and engage at Warp Eight!”
“With pleasure, Captain,” came the response. “Warp Eight, aye.”
EPILOGUE
Santrag II… Starbase 499… What a glorious sight…
Standing with his hands clasped behind his back in a ponderous stance, Ewan was enjoying the simple experience of gazing out of his Ready Room window without having to file a report on what he was seeing. The sensors were doing that for him now, along with linking up with the Starfleet Database and working on the analytical process of matching a name to the image that they had sent over. That, and confirming that the buoy and the suppression device were definitely of the suspected Tah’Heen origin.
Such questions overshadowed his relief at being home. One time he might have called a different place home, but he hadn’t seen Earth in over two years now. The Santragan system, for all of the political problems that it had thrown up and all of the battles that it had suffered, was the safe haven, the place that he had fought for and suffered for, the place that had healed old wounds and it was healing his starship right now.
The door chimes rang behind him.
Katherine Pulaski entered upon his answer to the summons. The chief medical officer had been dealing with the transfer of the injured Steamrunner crew members over to the starbase hospital and the caring hands of the medical staff on Starbase 499. She approached her Captain with her arm outstretched and with a PADD grasped in her hand.
“Doctor?”
“I was on my way back from 499 when Boxer asked me to deliver this,” she informed him with a grim tone, though it was obvious that she had read it already. “He asked me to tell you that an investigation is underway and that the proper authorities are being contacted, hence his inability to brief you himself.”
“Proper authorities?”
“The Tah’Heen government, Captain,” she said with a nod. “All of it matches.”
Ewan took a deep, cleansing breath as he took the PADD from her. It wasn’t only to collect himself but it was also to brace himself against the unknown future that had just become a whole lot more dangerous for him, his ship, and his crew.
“And so it begins…”
The End.