Star Trek: Fortitude
Season Three, Episode Three - “Leap of Faith”
By Jack D. Elmlinger
PROLOGUE
Sollik gritted his teeth as the butt of the ugly weapon was jammed into his back.
Walking slowly with a somber acceptance of his fate, Captain Ewan Llewellyn was alongside him with his head bowed down. The darkness of the corridor was depressing and almost soul-destroying, considering where they were heading. Their uniforms were dirty, their combadges discarded and they were alone.
The Suliban chief engineer of the starship Fortitude turned his head slightly to share a final glimpse with his Captain. “Sir, I --”
“Don’t worry, Sollik,” Ewan whispered without looking up. “It’s not your fault.”
“But, sir, I--”
“No buts. There’s no way out of this. I’d rather not spend my final moments wallowing in regret. I mean, the shuttlecraft is only a few chambers away, but the amount of weaponry on display around here? Forget about it.”
“Captain, please listen, I’m saying that--”
It was too late. They had reached their final resting place.
Before them stood a towering creature that was much like the other aliens who had captured them. Much like the aliens standing behind them with their weapons drawn. Llewellyn didn’t know their name. All he knew was that they had attacked with any warning or provocation while he and Sollik had been returning to Fortitude aboard the shuttlecraft Honor. It was a simple dash behind them. The shuttle, an escape, but to what end? They were deep inside the alien moonbase with, at least, seven guns trained on them.
The creature stepped forward.
“You seem wealthy,” he spat out with contempt and greed. “Your ship, your clothes… you are wealthy people. Your deaths will help us. We will track down your mothership and use your deaths as examples of our power. We will have what is yours.”
“Over my dead body,” Ewan snapped at him.
Unfortunately, that was the idea.
Sollik had failed to get his message across to the Captain, to warn him in advance.
He simply had to act.
ACT ONE
Ewan Llewellyn couldn’t believe his eyes.
Beside him, Sollik had leaped into action. The manacles that had bound his wrists together were gone, falling to the floor… but how? It hardly mattered as the Suliban chief engineer was already attacking the closest alien creature. Everybody in the room was suffering from the sudden shock of all of it. A Starfleet issue boot shot out. It kicked another creature, sending him flying. Tied up and helpless, Llewellyn threw himself to the cold stone floor of the grimy chamber and watched with amazement.
Sollik was grabbed from behind. The Captain was sure that this was the end.
Then, what happened next, seemed to defy logic.
Sollik simply squeezed himself free, morphing his shape to become thinner.
In an inconceivable display of moves, he defeated two more of the creatures before another pair stormed into the chamber with their weapons drawn. Quicker than a flash, Sollik leaped upwards, higher than any normal humanoid could ever leap. He struck the ceiling and, remarkably, stuck to it.
“Sollik?” Ewan mouthed in awe.
Before he had even gasped the name, Sollik had disappeared from his sight.
What the hell was going on?
Suddenly the Chief Engineer reappeared, blending back into existence behind the two new arrivals. A brutal clubbing sound knocked them both out of consciousness and the chaos ended its reign. Ewan opened his eyes, having shut them to see if he was dreaming or not, only to see Sollik standing over him. Aghast with astonishment, the Welshman found himself entirely lost for words.
“Captain, are you all right?”
“I’m… well… what the…?”
“Sir, we should get out of here. The shuttle! Come on!”
With his hands still confined by the alien manacles, Llewellyn got up and followed him as he armed himself with one of the discarded weapons. It was never used. Apparently, the entire gang of thugs had been congregated to watch the execution of the Starfleet officers. Soon, they were running for the shuttlecraft Honor which was parked exactly where they had seen it last and still intact.
Sealing the hatch behind them, Sollik turned to his Captain and grabbed the manacles. Ewan was in shock. For now, the Suliban was giving the orders.
“Turn away, sir.”
A blast from the alien rifle melted the durasteel bindings and he was free.
“I’m going to need a copilot, sir. Are you with me?”
Ewan nodded weakly. He was aware of what he had just witnessed but he was at a loss to even attempt to comprehend it. Sollik had turned invisible, slipped out of his manacles, and out of the arms of an enemy! He had run up walls and stuck to the ceiling! For goodness’ sake, he was an engineer, not some kind of… ninja magician! Cutting through the mental fog, he analyzed the situation dispassionately and realized that regardless of the insanity that he had just witnessed, they were still here. They were inside the shuttlecraft and they had to escape. Taking his seat. He began to fire up the impulse engines.
Moments later, the shuttlecraft Honor broke orbit of the desolate moon.
They had escaped.
“Okay,” Ewan breathed, turning towards the Suliban,” now… do you mind explaining… that?”
Sollik turned his bald green head towards his commanding officer and adopted an apologetic look.
Yes, he did mind explaining it… but he had no other choice.
* * * *
Captain’s Log, Stardate 50963.4;
Upon escaping from the unknown alien compound where we were imprisoned against our will and our imminent execution, I found myself utterly surprised at the previously hidden abilities of Lieutenant Commander Sollik. As we’ve set a course for our rendezvous point with Fortitude and sent out an emergency subspace signal, I can only hope that we’re left alone long enough to make it home safe… and for my Chief Engineer to give me some answers to the spectacle that I’ve just witnessed.
“Are you aware of the history of my people, Captain?”
They sat together in the rear of the Type-9 shuttlecraft, each man sipping slowly at a water pack from the rations stored underneath their seats. The surprise alien attack, the subsequent imprisonment, and attempted execution was easy enough to reason away for Ewan Llewellyn. He had been involved in similar situations before and there was enough information to gleam from things said and actions taken to draw reasonable conclusions.
They had been wealth-based acquisitionists who had been hell-bent on using the corpses of two Starfleet officers as bait to lure in the big prize, Fortitude, into their net. There were a dozen such log reports about a dozen such unknown species from a dozen different starships commanders across the past ten years alone… but Sollik? Ewan was at a loss to draw any conclusions about him. There was no information to gleam there.
“Barely,” the Captain answered honestly, staring at the Suliban across from him.
“We don’t like to dwell on it,” Sollik sighed, his yellow teeth matching the shade of his collar, having discarded his grey-shouldered uniform jacket. “During the mid-twenty-second century, we were nomadic… misguided. Significant portions of Suliban were ensnared into a cult known as the Cabal. Unfortunately for our society, for our culture, the Cabal became a fact of life for most Suliban. They were rich, successful, and powerful. It was a lure for many young people, and soon, standard Suliban society died out. There only remained the Cabal and their followers.”
“What did this… Cabal stand for?”
“They were agents in the Temporal Cold War,” Sollik stated gravely. “You were taught all about that conflict at the Academy, weren’t you?”
“We all were,” Ewan noted with a frown, recalling the details.
“Well, I won’t rake over common knowledge. What’s important is that the Cabal was given genetic enhancements from the future as payment and rewards for doing the bidding of the Temporal Cold War aggressors. One man, in particular, was responsible for bestowing great powers onto the Cabal. To this day, his identity remains a mystery.”
“Let me guess…,” Ewan pieced it together,”... shapeshifting, invisibility…?”
“To name but a few of them” nodded Sollik with his head bowed with regret.
“And you have these abilities because…?”
“We’re a proud people, Captain. We don’t like that period in our history but it had left many Suliban with the latent genetic coding installed in our ancestors. I have no choice in the matter, but one such ancestor of mine was in the Cabal, and they obviously had the full arsenal of enhancements carried out… because now I have them.”
Ewan sighed, rubbing his forehead.
This was huge news. Genetic engineering was banned in the Federation for just this reason, and here sat a man who didn’t like, nor wanted to have his abilities. What was the precedence in this matter? Would he have to punish Sollik for simply being Suliban? Would he even tell Starfleet? Would it lead to a court-martial? Perhaps not for the abilities themselves, but for Sollik’s misleading of Starfleet and for his silence?
“How have you kept this quiet for so long?,” he asked him.
“The genetic markers for the abilities are dormant, Captain. Before you ask, I haven’t drafted any Starfleet doctors into a conspiracy here.”
“Well,” Ewan muttered to himself,” at least, that’s something.”
ACT TWO
When the shuttlecraft Honor landed on the shuttlebay deck of the USS Fortitude, several hours later, Valerie Archer immediately spotted the scorch marks on the usually pristine hull plating and knew that something had gone wrong. Stepping towards the main hatch, anticipating an explanation, she was shocked to see the state that the Captain and Sollik had returned to the ship in.
“What happened?,” she asked with her mouth agape.
“We were attacked by unknown aliens,” Llewellyn told her, happy to see Valerie again, though he was tired and sore from his mistreatment. “Sollik and I barely escaped with our lives. I want you to plot a course that avoids the nearby binary system.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Archer nodded, walking with them across the shuttlebay and towards the nearby turbolift. Before stepping inside, she paused. “You should head right to Sickbay. I can handle the Bridge.”
“Thanks,” Ewan smiled weakly.
As Sollik silently entered the turbolift, his demeanor was like that of a school child after being reprimanded. The First Officer took stock of the atmosphere hanging in the air and she shot Llewellyn an arched eyebrow of inquiry.
“So your plan of spending some time to get to know your chief engineer a little better,” she asked Ewan,” didn’t work out, I presume?”
If it hadn’t been rude to do it in Sollik’s presence, he would have laughed.
“On the contrary, Valerie…,” he simply stated flatly.
He disappeared behind the turbolift doors. Confused by the cryptic response and left alone in the shuttlebay, Commander Archer shrugged her shoulders and hoped that it wasn’t anything too serious. They were alive and that was what mattered. Turning, she left the Honor behind and headed for the Bridge to implement her orders. As soon as the door closed after her departure, it was safe for them to move.
There were two of them.
They had stowed away aboard the shuttlecraft, knowing that it would return to its mothership.
Two of the alien creatures, their faces a complex maze of crimson facial ridges.
They were aboard.
* * * *
It was hardly boring for Katherine Pulaski.
After her experience with the Eastlean people, the estranged Starfleet doctor had been looking for something a little quieter, and a little more sedate. Starbase 499 had provided that, albeit briefly, but it had only served to remind her what she signed up to Starfleet and why she had studied medicine. She was a healer first and foremost, a frontline physician and she thanked Captain Llewellyn for reminding her of that.
Seeing him walk into the Fortitude Sickbay alongside Sollik made her leap into action. They were battered, bruised, and obviously needed to be seen to, despite walking themselves here. That was always a good sign.
“Anything major that I should know about?,” she asked them as she scanned them.
“No, nothing. Do we get a clean bill?,” Ewan asked her.
“Aside from a few scratches, you’ll both be fine. Wait here. I’ll fetch a dermal regenerator and be right back. Then I’m prescribing showers, sleep, and soup.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Sollik nodded as she left.
Llewellyn turned towards his Suliban colleague, his mind still ablaze with questions concerning the latest revelations unearthed by their escape attempt. He didn’t want to appear to be too forward or offensive, although he still hadn't decided what his decision should be with regards to the genetic abilities. Well, no, perhaps not the abilities themselves, but the silence was damning.
“So… what exactly can you do?”
Sollik seemed to have been taken aback for a second before he answered. “I’ve adapted my uniform into a biomimetic garment capable of copying my genetic camouflage which makes me practically invisible to the humanoid eye. You’ve already seen how agile I can be. My shapeshifting is limited. I won’t be turning into a Tiberian bat anytime soon but I can alter the molecular density of my tissue to quite radical degrees. And… oh, yes, I can survive in the vacuum of space.”
“What the…?”
“Only for a short period. Two minutes at the most.”
“Have you ever tested these abilities?,” Ewan had to ask, leaning forward.
“They only became apparent during my adolescence,” Sollik admitted slowly, thinking back to his Academy days and the first time that he had seen through his own arm in a moment of heightened anxiety. “Some of the training courses afforded me the chance to quietly sample the full range of the powers at my disposal.”
Ewan let out a short whistle, his eyes open wide. “That must have been a big leap of faith…”
“You have no idea, Captain.”
Pulaski returned at that point, halting their conversation while she tended to the most major of cuts and bruises with a wave of her dermal regenerator. When all was healed, she sent them packing from Sickbay with orders to return to their quarters, get cleaned up, and take in a good deal of rest.
Walking through the corridors to the turbolift, Llewellyn turned his attention over to the courses of actions that were available to him. Sollik seemed to be in tune with his thinking, worried about his future aboard Fortitude.
“Captain, if you’re wondering what to do…”
“Unfortunately, I am,” he confessed, awkwardly.
“I don’t want all of this to become public knowledge, sir. I mean, the ship may find out and I could perhaps accept that, but… a court-martial and Starfleet Command broadcasting this as news… I don’t think, with all due respect, that I would be comfortable with being the brunt of widespread prejudice.”
“What are you saying?”
“Allow me to resign my commission quietly.”
Ewan suppressed a knowing smile. He had always pegged Sollik as the honorable type. How he hadn’t predicted this response from him so far amazed him, but shaking his head slowly, he addressed another point that had been brought up.
“The thing that gets me… all this time,” he noted,” is that you’ve had this secret, afraid of what prejudice might strike at you, and you’ve harbored your own prejudice towards Jason Armstrong and his relationship with Jim Morgan.”
“Yes, Captain,” nodded the Chief Engineer. “I can see the degree of irony.”
“The degree?!”
There wasn’t any more time to protest that point any further. Shipwide lights switched to red, joined by the screech of a familiar klaxon.
“Intruder alert! All hands to stations! Intruder Alert!”
ACT THREE
The Bridge was awash with activity.
Standing over the command chairs, Valerie Archer snapped her gaze from station to station, receiving bits and pieces of information from everybody. She had one more person to look at. Still wearing his ripped and dirty uniform, Captain Llewellyn burst out from the turbolift doors and asked for a report.
“Two alien lifeforms,” Jason Armstrong reported from Operations,” on Deck Eleven.”
“Engineering…,” Arden Vuro mused from the helm.
“Where are they exactly?,” Ewan asked, turning towards Gabriel Brodie at Tactical.
“Deck Eleven, Section Ten,” the black man answered a moment later,” in an EPS transfer substation on the portside hull. It looks like they’re trying to tap into the energy grid, Captain. I don't know why.”
“Can you box them in?,” Valerie asked him.
“Negative, Commander. Emergency force fields are not responding.”
“Bridge to Engineering,” barked Llewellyn.
Silence replied.
“The comms system is down,” Jason confirmed from behind his blonde fringe. “They’re slowly taking our systems out, one by one!”
“Mister Brodie,” the Captain ordered immediately,” take a security team.”
“I thought you’d never ask, sir.”
* * * *
Like Captain Llewellyn, Sollik had ignored Pulaski’s orders to return to his quarters upon hearing the intruder alert. Heading for his post in Engineering, he paused slightly as he noticed an open hatch leading into a Jefferies Tube, just around Deck Eleven, Section Ten. Frowning, the chief engineer instantly knew what was down there. He also knew that the hatch wouldn’t normally be open, and he instantly recognized the echo of voices from inside. His mind flashed back to the nightmarish moonbase that he and the Captain had been detained upon, only several hours before.
Damn, how did they get aboard?
No matter. They were here now.
The lights around him dimmed. They were here now and messing with his ship, and his systems that he carefully maintained, day in and day out as it was his duty. They were messing with his ship!
He had to take action.
Crawling inside, he soon found them. Two hideous creatures, red-faced and cunning, were inserting their clawed fingers into Fortitude’s systems, going about their wicked business… Two of them. Any other man would be blamed for looking at a two-against-one scenario and turning around but Sollik wasn’t any other man. Focusing on his abilities, he felt himself blend in, becoming entirely invisible.
The next moment, he was dropping down on them from the ceiling.
Surprise, you fools…
* * * *
“Captain, I’m reading another biosign along with the intruders!”
Turning and walking up the Bridge to Jason Armstrong’s Ops console, Ewan adopted a concerned expression as he leaned over and read the display for himself. When he saw it, he instantly felt his stomach do a barrel roll.
“Suliban,” he breathed. “Damn it, Sollik!”
What was he doing? Was this some kind of penance? Was he trying to make up for the fact that he had kept secrets from the crew by saving them in some insane attack on the intruders? Or had he taken complete leave of his senses altogether? Or was it a suicide attack to avoid the court-martial that could possibly hang over his head?
Llewellyn barely had the time to think about all of these possibilities before, once again, the lights fluctuated and the Intrepid-class starship around him let out a defeatist whine.
“Whatever he’s doing down there,” Vuro observed with worry for his friend,” it isn’t enough. The intruders are still causing damage, Captain!”
“Lieutenant Commander Brodie reports that he’s two decks away,” Archer asked, tapping at the controls on the central console between the two command chairs. “I don’t think he’s going to make it before the intruders manage to cut off main power completely or worse, life-support to the Bridge and other vital areas.”
Ewan had heard enough. Calculating the variables, he was no longer the tactically shy commanding officer that he had been, over two years ago. His naturally ballsy demeanor had applied nicely to those situations that required fighting against an enemy or making sacrifices for the greater good. He only hoped that Sollik hadn’t been lying to him, earlier in Sickbay.
Heading for the tactical console, he relieved the ensign on duty.
“Captain,” Valerie asked him,” what are you doing?”
“That EPS transfer substation has an outer hatch. I’m depressurizing it.”
Valerie, Jason, and Arden all turned to look at the Captain.
He felt their eyes lock upon him but he had no time for explanations. For all that they knew, he was committing the murder of their Chief Engineer in order to save Fortitude from a larger threat and consigning him to be sucked out into the cold depths of the Beta Quadrant. For all of their shock, they could perhaps understand the action, even if nobody present agreed with it or considered it to be viable. What they head next just confused them.
“Bridge to Sickbay,” Llewellyn shouted. “Doctor Pulaski, in a moment, I’ll be transporting Sollik directly to Sickbay. Be prepared, just in case, but he should be fine.”
“Understood, Captain,” the Chief Medical Officer replied. “I’ll be ready.”
“Captain, he won’t be fine,” Valerie tried to interject. “He’ll be dead.”
Ewan looked up at her with one of his trademark grins just breaking the surface. “I trust Sollik… So trust me!”
* * * *
Down in Section Ten of Deck Eleven, Sollik was becoming frustrated. No matter how many strikes that he managed to land on the creatures, one of them kept an arm inside the open access panel, screwing with the ship’s systems. Whenever he tried to stop it, sliding through the grip of muscles or running up the walls, the other one would always appear and attack, drawing his attention away.
Suddenly, there was a brief flash of a blue warning light above them. The alien creatures were oblivious to it but he knew what it meant.
It meant that the Captain had believed him.
The outer hatch hissed open, revealing the unprotected vacuum of space. The two hostile aliens were lifted from the deck plating, flailing helplessly as they were dispatched for their crimes against Fortitude. Joining them as they shot out into the stars beyond, Sollik felt a little odd but otherwise fine.
Space was cold, but it was a cold that didn’t bother him.
His lungs constricted, preserving what oxygen that they already had inside of them.
His blood flow increased, insulating him against the fatal conditions.
His brain was stimulated by billions of neuroelectrical pulses, being kept alive.
Between his feet, Fortitude grew even smaller.
Then the familiar tingle of a transporter beam enveloped him, taking him away from the company of two spinning corpses and placing him in the safe, warm environment of Sickbay. Pulaski was on him in seconds, scanning away with her medical tricorder as per the Captain’s orders, double-checking that he was, as Ewan had predicted, absolutely fine… and he was.
“And just where have you been?,” she asked him.
Sollik kept quiet.
The answer would require explaining and he had done enough explaining for one day.
EPILOGUE
“There won’t be a court-martial.”
Sollik couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Standing at attention in the Captain’s Ready Room, he listened to the reason why. He had predicted some disciplinary action, despite his early views on Ewan Llewellyn being less than exemplary when it came to enforcing the regulations. Apparently, it was going to be swept under the carpet and the Suliban Chief Engineer couldn’t believe it.
“It’s not your fault that you were born with these abilities,” Ewan was saying from behind his desk, a cup of coffee in his hand, cleaned up in his neat uniform. “The only thing that you’re guilty of is hiding them. I find myself realizing that it’s not my place and it shouldn’t be the place of Starfleet to know everything about everyone. If Jason Armstrong hadn’t been in a relationship with another man, I wouldn’t have known about his homosexuality but I wouldn’t have cared. He wouldn’t have been obliged to tell me. I can’t expect all of my crew to come to me and dump all of their personal baggage at my feet.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Sollik said, nodding.
Even the mention of homosexuality hadn’t thrown him. While it still remained that Suliban culture was deeply intolerant of that aspect of life, Sollik’s time aboard Fortitude had opened his eyes. The Captain’s reaction to his genetic abilities had hammered home the point that he was scared of prejudice. Perhaps harboring his own prejudice was hypocritical. It was something that he would endeavor to change.
“Besides,” Ewan added, a knowing smile on his face,” you might come in handy.”
“Captain?”
Ewan’s expression said it all, and for the first time ever, Sollik had to laugh.
“Rest assured,” concluded the Welshman,” you remain no different in my eyes.”
The End.