ST-OM Episode 62 - Free Fallin'

Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile
Episode 62: Free Fallin'
By
Jay P. Hailey
and
The ST-OM Players

Stardate 52689.5

Kahless the Second Sat in the Command chair of the Negh'Var, a monstrous Klingon Battleship and shouted at us from a thousand light years away.

"Qo'noS Falls, but as long as there are still Klingons fighting, As long as there is any hope at all, the Empire lives! I call now on anyone with Klingon blood or a Klingon heart! All discommodation, all dishonors are set aside. Come take up arms and fight, fight like Klingons!!"

There were fires. The bridge of the Negh'Var was smoky. We were receiving a data channel and although at that distance it was pretty badly degraded, we could see two things.

First, we could see that the Negh'Var was crippled. He'd taken several horrifying wounds that would have splattered a lesser ship long before. Still The Klingon battleship reached out swatted Kliges'chee ships with single blows. We could see that the Negh'Var had an honor guard bound for Sto-vo-kor with weapons blazing and a howl unheard of in galactic history as I knew it. In and among them we could even see a Federation Defiant class gun boat. Somehow. Fighting like mad in a hopeless defense.

Secondly we could see that the fight was indeed hopeless. There were still 250 Kliges'chee ships that the Negh'Var could see and less than 15 Klingons units fighting. The big Klingon Starbases and defense installations were scrap. There was a solid haze of plasma and metallic debris in Qo'noS orbit. We could see Qo'onoS burning. Every so often one of the huge ground based defense cannons would reach out and claim a victim. Then several Kliges'chee would gang up and destroy it with alpha strikes from their axial guns. They weren't being careful about it. The shock waves reached for kilometers across the surface of the planet and fire storms raged in their wakes.

"A week ago, Sir." Lucas McCoy told me. "They must have had their whole comm-net tied together to punch a signal this far."

Gowron in the back ground of the Negh'Var's bridge yelled something I found unintelligible.

Kahless turned back to us. "Never forget! Never surrender! Never give up hope! While one Klingon stays true and continues the fight, We are still KLINGONS!!!"

Kahless began to sing the Klingon battle anthem. He had more enthusiasm than talent. He made it a couple of verses in before the scans switched to an exterior view of the Negh'Var brewing up and exploding.

"About two billion." Kamaline answered quietly "According to our most recent records."

For twenty minutes the Klingons kept the scanners on and the system broadcasting loudly enough for the Discovery to see the final ships fall, and the last of the ground defenses overwhelmed, and casualties in the hundreds of millions. The signal grew progressively weaker during the assault finally degrading to the point of static. The Kliges'chee assault never slowed down.

I sat there and watched the screen in horror for a long, long time. All the history. All the people. The Hall of Heroes. The Klingon Space flight museum. All the Klingon Operas that I honestly couldn't tell apart. Unbidden the thought came to me that there was no such thing any more as raw Gahk, anymore. I murdered it in its crib.

We had just seen two billion people murdered in the coldest blood. I tried to wrap my head around it.

That was how we discovered that the Kliges'chee war was on and that we were in a fight with the Kliges'chee.

Lieutenant Zuma shook his head at me. "We could do some minor damage commerce raiding but the Discovery simply isn't in condition to evade a concentrated Kliges'chee pursuit for long."

A map was up on the big display screen. It was our estimation of the Kliges'chee frontier. We'd been exploring it, hoping to be able to bring back some harder data about just how far the Kliges'chee extended and what they had. Now we were discussion our opinions for taking the fight to the Kliges'chee and our options didn't look good.

Zuma looked at the deck. "I'm sorry, Captain. I'd like to dish out some pay back to the bastards myself, but the math is solid. If we go on the attack we'll be committing slow, complex but inexorable suicide."

I turned to Mishimi Miatsu, My chief engineer. "Mr. Miatsu, we find ourselves in the position due to our engines. Report."

Mishimi Miatsu obviously felt bad, but he was direct. "We have lost the leading edge of Federation technology. Because of the cumulative damage to our systems and the necessity to repair them from alien technology bases, I have had to relax the acceptable standards of performance to more resemble a ship of our class of ten years ago than what the Discovery should be capable of. Because of the loss of our Bio-mimetic gel-packs and a lack of suitable repair parts I can offer no better performance from the Discovery until we reach a Federation Starbase. I am sorry."

I grimaced. I hated the idea of the Klingons and the Federation under attack and being helpless and powerless to do anything about it. I was in command of a Galaxy class starship. The most powerful expression of Federation technology and might so far. It was difficult to accept that we were limited to sneaking around like mice and praying not to be noticed.

"So we sneak until something breaks our way. If I see a target, I am not turning it down." I said.

In front of me was a standard Starfleet type 15 Photon Torpedo launcher. It could charge and load two type 8 photon torpedoes each in two tandem mounted launchers. The torpedoes had a maximum range of 3.5 million kilometers and struck with a force of 125 isotons. It drew power directly from the ship's main plasma power transfer grid, and in good condition could recharge and fire torpedoes every thirty seconds or so, four at a time until they were gone.

This model still had some recognizable Zantree Alliance writing on it. We were standing in an unfinished Kliges'chee ship.

Prindal smiled at me. He was a normal enough looking fellow, with an interesting bony, skin covered colored plate over his forehead. He was a native to a Class M Environment just like myself and the crew of the Discovery. The Kliges'chee ship currently had a pleasantly shirt sleeve environment. Prindal explained happily "Yes. It's called a Photon Torpedo Launcher. A powerful weapon. Some race further to spinward used them against our patrons, the Kliges'chee."

Prindal said the name of the Kliges'chee with the same reverence as always. Like they were angels.

"The Kliges'chee are masters of imitation and adaptation. Once they were able to obtain examples of this weapon it was simplicity itself for them to duplicate it." Prindal said with pride.

I did my best not to throw up. The type 15 Photorp Launcher was the starship Harrier's main strike weapon. Several years ago I gave the stats of it to the Zantree Alliance, hoping to enable them to withstand the Kliges'chee invasion.

It hadn't hit home to me emotionally up until that moment that Poong and all my friends in the Zantree Alliance were probably dead. I blinked and kept stepping.

"Oh, yes," Prindal gushed. "When necessary the Kliges'chee Comptrollers can reconceptualize their ships to better adapt to hostile conditions and better fight new enemies. This model contains no fewer than 250,000 significant changes from the old Type B Kliges'chee cruiser. We expect it to fare much better in combat for our Patrons."

He was right. The old Kliges'chee cruisers had to appear in groups to be dangerous to Federation starships. The fact that they outnumbered us as badly as they did didn't help, but the pure inferiority of their ships offered some hope.

The ship I was standing in essentially was the death of that hope. It had better safety equipment and so would not tend to do itself in if you shot its engineering deck. Its warp drives were somewhat better than the old models, still no comparison to Starfleet drives, but comparable in many ways to Klingon standard drive units. This was no coincidence. Their shields were also based on Klingon equipment and were much tougher than the old Kliges'chee models.

This new cruiser still had the huge disruptor cannon axially mounted. However the pod slung auxiliary disruptors were now much more serious war fighting equipment. They were heavier, better executed and altered to allow much better firing arcs. The sensor equipment was directly copied from the Klingon technology. It had a full cloaking device as opposed to the generally inferior stealth suite. Add the photon torpedo launcher and the new generation of Kliges'chee cruiser was nothing to take lightly.

Incredibly, Mr. Prindal and his people seemed never to have been introduced to the concept of operational security. That was why I was being given a guided tour of the latest word in cold Kliges'chee death machines.

The Prindal system was an industrial power house. It matched Earth or Tellar for full on technical production might. They had 300 dry dock cages in orbit around their star and most of them had the new generation of Kliges'chee warships under construction in them.

In many ways, the Kliges'chee ship was alien to me in its execution. I could understand the technical execution, but what they were trying to accomplish was very strange.

A lot of the instrumentation was hard wired and controlled with exotic analog computer circuits. The effect would be equipment that was very capable across a narrow range. There was no way for a user of the Kliges'chee equipment to alter or adapt it's function in a broader way. Computer memory was almost non-existent on the Kliges'chee ship. You could get extremely accurate readings from any given control station but there was no way to recall them later. There was also very little interconnectivity between devices. What little there was far below what I would have considered the minimum level.

"How does the sensor operator compare readings from previous sensor passes with the current ones?" I asked.

"Oh." I said. It was utterly impossible. You might just as well not have sensors at all and save the weight. "How does the weapons officer know where to fire the weapons?"

Prindal smiled but continued to look at me funny "He doesn't. He fires them where the Commander of the Ship directs."

"It doesn't." Prindal said slowly. "It is sufficient that the crew sees the information, this is all that's necessary."

Prindal looked at me again for few moments. I didn't especially like his look. It was like he was beginning to buy a clue.

"As you wish." I said. We'd already scored an intelligence coup the likes of which was unknown in my experience. As we walked back towards the shuttlecraft docked to the Kliges'chee vessel, Prindal looked at my tricorder thoughtfully.

We settled ourselves in the shuttle and Prindal himself undocked and flew the shuttle away from the Kliges'chee ship and it's dry-dock cage.

The interior of the Prindal shuttle looked alien in many ways itself. The control panel was too simple. The exterior sensors very accurate at short range were useless beyond about 50 kilometers. There was an inertial compass and accelerometer. With adequate external feedback and control it might be acceptable as a long range shuttle. I saw none of that. Prindal blithely flew the shuttle through interplanetary space by the seat of his pants, as blind as a bat for all I knew.

When our trajectory was set Prindal turned to me. "Captain Jay P. Hailey, May I ask what that device you're holding is?"

"It's my tricorder." I said "It's a memory aid." quickly I called up the basic engineering manual, locked the file access and function controls, and then I handed it to him. "We use arrays of digital circuits as storage for knowledge and references."

Prindal took my device and turned it around in his hands. It seemed as alien to him as his shuttle's controls seemed to be to me.

"Don't you have some one who's job it is to recall things like this for you?" Prindal asked.

Prindal sighed and looked thoughtful for a few moments. "Captain Jay P. Hailey, I enjoy the rare chances I get to meet new sorts of people, I truly do. However I feel I must ask you a potentially offensive question, I hope you won't mind."

"Ummm... In the sense that the Kliges'chee use the term to mean individuals of free will, yes." I said.

He looked me in the eye. "No, Captain, although my people used to be. The Kliges'chee saved us. They used their great machine to alter me into being truly sentient being like themselves, for which I am eternally grateful. I am Prindal. All of it. The world, the culture, the enterprise, all is essentially one being. Me, Prindal."

"Ah." I said "The Kliges'chee we have met have reacted somewhat harshly to the concept of Rihannsu people."

"I don't doubt that. You see, they hate you. I am not sure I understand why, but it is quite unmistakable." Prindal said.

"Mr. Prindal." I said. "The Federation is truly an organization of peace and coexistence. We seek no harm for you or the Kliges'chee. I'd like to think that some how we could be friends in spite of our differences."

Prindal nodded "I don't see why not. However, right now we have a more direct problem. A Kliges'chee freighter is visible on my sensors and will be here in only a short time. I fear the Kliges'chee's reaction once they discover your presence. Therefore I will attempt to hide you, if you feel cooperative."

"Certainly." I nodded briskly. If one Kliges'chee ship saw us then it would tantamount to the whole Kliges'chee fleet sighting us.

Prindal thought about it. "Once we are aboard your ship I can use your display devices to describe a dry-dock cage. Enter it with alacrity and then power down. With luck the Kliges'chee ship will move directly past you and not think to examine you carefully."

"We can do that." I said. Stephanie was looking at me with wide eyes. Lt. Commander Miatsu had a very odd look on his face. Kamaline's eyes twinkled and she just grinned at me. She thought this whole visit was a lovely joke.

When we docked with the Discovery, Mr. Prindal came aboard and pointed to a prosaic drydock cage fairly near our parking orbit on the main bridge display. "That one. Go quickly and then make yourself as inconspicuous as possible."

"Mr. Spaat, get us into that Dry dock cage with all due dispatch. A Kliges'chee supply ship is on its way and it mustn't notice us."

"In this mess? If we're quiet we may get away with it." I said. It sounded optimistic to me as I said it.

I handed my tricorder to Kamaline. "Get all these readings into the main computer. These could give Starfleet a real advantage when these monsters enter service."

"Captain?" Mendez asked. "They really gave you a tour of the latest Kliges'chee warship?"

"We have the scans to prove it, Carlos. It's not good. They have the Harrier's Photon Torpedo Launchers and lots of stuff. It's a good deal nastier than the old Kliges'chee cruisers." I said. I hated that. Not only were the Kliges'chee just all around nastier but they were even worse because of me.

"Mister Miatsu, please get down to the Engine room and rig for silent running. Take the warp core off line by keep it on stand by. Draw down the Impulse reactors once we get docked. I want to look like just another construction job."

We had a couple of very tense hours of waiting. I sat on the bridge and fumed. I thought furiously. Maybe I could design a run of hostile nanites? That might get this ship yard but any others would escape unscathed. A release delayed hostile nanite? Could I hack their computer systems and introduce a worm to eliminate all Federation technology? I didn't know if they even *had* computers in that mode.

The Kliges'chee appeared on our passive lateral sensors. The ship looked like an extremely pregnant, large walnut with two outriders the same size, shape and readings as those of a Kliges'chee scout. It was carrying a load of Palladium. There must have been several asteroids worth of it in that one ship.

As it got closer to us I could feel the tension on the bridge rise. It would be making a close pass.

We waited. It's sensor beams passed us, casually. The Kliges'chee ship was scanning routinely.

"Red alert." I said. I was heart sick. The jig was all the way up. Alarms started to whoop. The impulse engine out put began to climb slowly.

The Discovery's phasers reached out and touched the Transport. It's shields flared and there was some minor damage to its hull.

Stephanie drained more power to the weapons. The bridge lights dimmed as every spare erg was thrown into the phasers. The strike this time was more satisfactory. The transport was severely damaged.

"Aye sir." Now the Impulse reactors were far enough back to power another half strength attack. Now the Transport was losing plasma.

Another attack. A stronger one. The transport was wrecked. Stephanie fired once more into it for good measure. Its engines weren't powerful but it made a bright light when it finally let go.

I took a deep breath and discovered that I was covered in stale sweat. I felt disgusting.

Prindal appeared on the screen. He was livid. "People of the Discovery! That was completely uncalled for!"

"I apologize Mr. Prindal. I didn't intend to abuse your hospitality. I felt it necessary to defend my ship and crew." I said.

"The Kliges'chee knew it was you the moment he sighted you! You hid nothing from him! Your act was completely inappropriate! Your ship was in no danger! You killed those Kliges'chee for no good reason!" Prindal snarled. "I think you'd better leave! I want you to leave and not to come back! If that's the way you and your Federation act, then I want nothing more to do with you!" The screen went blank.

"Carlos, You have the bridge." I said. I went to my ready room. A potential route for peace, and nice Mr. Prindal, all gone beyond recall. I had to get away from the bridge before anyone else noticed the tears of frustration. Before I managed to screw anything else up.

We were cruising towards a nearby nebula. I wanted an escape route in case the Kliges'chee response sighted us.

I was in the lounge staring at space passing by. I wanted to be home. I wanted the responsibility of the Discovery off my shoulders. I wanted the war to go away and all the dead people to be right back the way they were.

Failing any of that, I would have enjoyed the feeling of having contributed positively and noticeably to the war effort against the Kliges'chee. The new Kliges'chee ship just gnawed at my mind, especially its type 15 Photorp launcher.

The Discovery went to yellow alert. I was on my feet and moving when the call came. "Captain Hailey to the Bridge."

"They are, Sir. It's a wide area coverage, mutually supporting fleet maneuver." Zuma pointed out the search screen.

Zuma quirked his mouth and nodded. "They did have a lot of ships in the area very quickly."

The Kliges'chee fleet scanned the Discovery about thirty minutes before we reached the nebula boundary.

The nebula was an old planetary nebula. It was just a touch larger than the Solar System. We were safe when inside, the ionized gasses prevented most sensors from penetrating.

I was unhappy though. The last time we'd tried nebula diving as a defensive maneuver, it wound up surrendering initiative to the Tonagi, who had plenty of initiative of their own.

The nebula was done in shades of blue and green. It looked wispy and sort of cool. Like a quiet day in a glade. I was sitting in the Discovery's lounge

Mishimi Miatsu was flogging himself trying to find more speed for the Discovery's engines.

The Discovery went to red alert. I could feel the deck thrum with energy as I leapt up and ran to see what it was.

Stephanie Anderson answered. "No, Captain. The nebula damages them as they travel farther. We can't fire at any more than close range and not expect to loose the torpedo."

"Head for the center of the nebula. We'll try to loose them in the neighborhood of the stellar corpse." I said.

"Report." I said. Ahead of us a dim red spark glowed against the blue/green background.

"It's a red dwarf star." Kamaline said. "Apparently a companion to the star that formed this nebula."

"Keep scanning. I'd hate to get caught by anything hiding near it. Where does out course take us?"

Lucas McCoy looked at his scanners. "I'd put us at about two tenths of an AU away from the star at our closest pass, Captain."

"Let's loosen that up a bit. I wouldn't want to bring the ship back with a scorched paint job." I said.

The Discovery couldn't make any more than 1/2 impulse speed inside the nebula. The ionized gas of the nebula was hazard enough, but it could also hide rocks and debris large enough to cripple or destroy the Discovery if we ran into them.

We crawled up to the star and began to edge around it. Then Kamaline called out "Planet to Starboard side. Range... Ten million kilometers."

"No, Captain. Our current course takes us well clear of it. We may want to look at it carefully just in case. A Kliges'chee could use it as cover for an ambush."

Kamaline managed to get a probe off, to scout the planet a little bit. It was a heavily populated Kliges'chee world. As the probe approached, we could scan millions of Kliges'chee, at various stages in their life cycles, huge cities and some escorting ships in orbit. Among the Kliges'chee ships in orbit was a monster. It was constructed of four globes. One twice the size of the Discovery and three half the size. It had lots of space inside and was evidently some sort of tender for the Kliges'chee warships. From the energy readings and weapons scans it was more heavily armed than an entire Kliges'chee fleet. As soon as the probe was close enough for them to see, a wall of beam fire eliminated the probe.

On the bridge watching this I could feel my skin crawling. "Spaat, get us the hell out of here." I whispered.

Wordlessly Spaat made the course corrections and we began to leave the Kliges'chee planet behind.

"We're reading numerous ships around that world. They're powering up. I can't tell you how many there are."

I turned and looked. Stephanie was as pale and looked about ready to faint. "Can you give me a guess?"

I turned "Mr. Spaat, take us away from the plane of the ecliptic. Keep our velocity steady." I didn't want us stampeded into running blind. That would be inviting debris to do the Kliges'chee's job for them.

Spaat nodded "Aye, Sir." The Discovery dove away from the logical approaches to the Kliges'chee world.

"The phaser bank on our port strut is damaged and power is fluctuating in that region." Mishimi Miatsu said "I will have it locked down within 15 minutes."

"Good, please continue." I did my best to keep calm reassurance in my voice. I was sweaty and very tired. The Kliges'chee were doing their best to nickel and dime us to death. They spread out all their ships and when one encountered us, it attacked fearlessly.

The hull thrummed as three Photon Torpedoes and a pair of carefully calculated phaser beams reached out. The Kliges'chee ship buckled and died with a flash.

"Helm, Evasive." I said. Spaat randomized the Discovery's heading and away we went. Fortunately, even with an estimated 70 ships in the nebula the sensor obscuring nature of the phenomenon allowed us to escape reprisals. We stood a chance of damaging the Kliges'chee fleet, as long as we didn't run into that monster flagship of theirs.

We were in the darkened briefing room, with the blue and green shimmering lights of the nebula making patterns on the wall. It looked almost like the light deep under the ocean.

Kamaline added her contribution. "There is intelligence data from the Free Kliges'chee that the Kliges'chee have nursery worlds. These are carefully hidden worlds where young are raised and trained until they fall under the influence of a Comptroller. From the accounts it seems as though the Free Kliges'chee started on a world similar to this."

Mendez shook his head. "If I understand the Free Kliges'chee records it would seem unlikely if Zuma is right, and that is a comptroller's flagship around that world, then my guess is that he has it firmly in his grasp."

Zuma shook his head. "I'm sorry, Sir. I don't see any way for the Discovery to get into attack range of that planet and not draw the weight of the fleet down on us. The flagship would be bad enough, but if you toss in a minimal escort and the planetary defenses, we're dead meat every time."

I gripped the bridge of my nose. "We standing off one of the richest, juiciest Kliges'chee targets that we could possibly find, and yet we don't dare touch it."

Zuma looked glum. Mendez looked grim. Kamaline looked fiercely determined, which was about as close as you'd expect a Vicharrian to get to a realistic appraisal of our situation.

"I don't even know how we're going to get out of this nebula in one piece, Jay." Mendez said.

"Could we load up a stealth probe with an anti-matter charge and sneak it past their defenses?" I asked.

"The military value of that sort of attack wouldn't be too good, Captain." Zuma said. "We'd be lucky to put a dent in the war fighting capability of this world."

"Could we devise a chemical weapon? A bio-weapon?" I asked "A really nasty note, something?"

Kamaline looked a little ill "Nothing I can think of off the top of my head would stay gaseous at those temperatures, Captain. We'd be handing them scientifically interesting rocks."

"I want a workable plan people." I said. "Give me something." And I stomped out of the briefing room.

It had been several days since we encountered a Kliges'chee cruiser. But we knew where most of them were. Out side the nebula blanketing it with scans.

Many of the rest were at the Kliges'chee Nursery world, daring us to come do our worst.

I began to loose weight. I couldn't sleep well. A couple of the ships outside of the nebulae were the new type C cruisers. Adding those to the Kliges'chee fleet really changed things for the worse, from our point of view.

I had managed to get to bed, and was dozing. Every so often my cat would come over to see if I were feeling or smelling better. She didn't know what do with me crying into her fur and didn't seem especially ready for that level of intimacy. She wanted everything back to its calm normal routine. So did I.

The intercom called out. "Captain to the Bridge. Captain Hailey to the bridge, please."

I got myself vertical to find I had been more asleep than I thought. My feet and eyes hurt and my body longed to be horizontal again. I didn't listen. I began to struggle into my uniform. Somehow it conducted evasive maneuvers.

The object sat on the deck of the number two shuttle bay. It was oblong, and from the looks of it, it seemed to be a stealth probe.

As we got closer I could see that it wasn't intact any more. The front edge was worn away and some of the electronic guts were visible. I didn't recognize any of the specifics but from the damage I guessed it was disabled.

Kamaline was scanning with her tricorder. "Duranium. An interesting tripartite alloy in the hull. Subpace coils." She held up the tricorder "Look at that."

I looked. The engines of the probe had a peculiar twist to them. "I'll be damned. It's the Milo Twist."

"An Engineer at the Advanced Design Bureau came up with it. It's a modification to Warp coils. It seems to work. The problem is that we don't know what exactly it does to the warp drive yet." I said.

I shrugged. "The guy's some sort of savant. He said it came to him in a dream one night. He fabricated a test article. It seemed to work just fine, but we don't know exactly what the changes do to the warp field. The article said the test article was at the Vulcan Science academy. The Vulcans estimate that they'll know something concrete in a few years."

"From the interview, it sounded like Milo considered that sort of knowledge boring. He likes the idea of a new toy to explore." I said looking at the probe.

"Well we know they work for someone, I guess." Kamaline said gesturing at the probe.

Kamaline sighed. "Getting damaged. Hmm." She scanned it again. "And it's been here about 50 years at a guess."

I swayed a little bit. It was really late for me. "Tell you what. Put a crew on figuring it out and give me a preliminary report tomorrow. I'm going back to bed."

It was a long night, and a longer morning. Coffee sat heavily in my stomach and thought carefully about turning into fierce acid. A Danish worked carefully to stay away from the whole process.

I idly considered wandering down to shuttle bay 2 and joining in the dissection of the probe, but I was having trouble concentrating. Fatigue and cumulative stress were getting to me.

When the Discovery went to yellow alert, I had to dig deep to get the energy to hustle to the turbo lift and to the bridge. "Another day, Another Kliges'chee." I thought to myself.

I walked out onto the Discovery's bridge with a feeling not unlike dread. "Report."

Lucas McCoy was in the center seat. I was struck by how much better he looked there than I did. "A Kliges'chee type A Scout, Captain. He's trying t' shadow us."

I hissed. The scout was smaller and lighter than we were by a significant margin. The slow speed game of blind man's bluff was in his favor. All he had to do was keep in contact until he could lead a battle group to us. My head started to pound with a particularly sharp headache as I did the math. It didn't look good. We couldn't evade him. He could easily out maneuver us. We couldn't chase him for the same reason.

Suddenly an idea occurred to me. I turned it over in my head. It was dangerous, but I didn't care. I was tired of being on the defensive. They way my luck was running lately, a big gamble seemed especially stupid. This thought simply leveraged my frustration.

I grimaced as I looked up because my head really hurt. "Sensors. Stand by on the main deflector for a subspace pulse. Tune it to his sensor frequency. I want him seeing spots. Helm, as soon as we flash him, I want ten minutes at full impulse on an intercept course."

"Captain-" McCoy said. His tone let me know he didn't think this was my best idea.

I grit my teeth. I didn't have any more best ideas left, and the energy to discuss it hurt. "Do it!" I snarled.

McCoy stood up and moved to the Ops station. "Aye, Sir." He began to set up the maneuver.

"Weapons!" It was an effort not to yell. "If we're lucky enough to get within range, hit him with full phasers. Fire when you think best. Don't wait for me."

"Aye, Aye, Sir." Whoever that was at tactical said. I forcefully unsquinted and looked. It was Zuma.

I sat down heavily and gripped the sides of my seat. I had the Bridge spins, briefly. "Let's go."

The Discovery thrummed and started to move. Usually I found the sound comforting and pleasant. Today it seemed to hunt until it found the exact frequency to leverage my headache. I could hear that people were saying things, but I couldn't make them out.

The sound of the phasers through the hull didn't make me hurt worse but I seemed to be separated from reality slightly, and my guts started to counter rotate.

I had to turn away from the screen as the Kliges'chee scout brewed up. The sharp white light hurt badly.

I had to shout then, but my voice came out reedy. "Lucas, you have the bridge, get us out of here." I got enough of my vision together to see McCoy look at me with a very concerned expression. I realized he was sort of tilted. I converted the slump into rolling forward off my chair and onto my feet. "Go ahead." I whispered at McCoy

I managed to make my ready room, one step at a time. Once I was up and mobile the nauseous feeling decreased considerably. Inside the door I saw something I'd never seen before. My couch, formerly a generic beige piece of office furniture, in no way special or distinctive was now the most comfortable looking place in the universe.

I flopped onto it and was briefly surprised at how comfortable it was before I was gone.

When I woke up, my mouth tasted really bad. I was sweaty, rumpled and my depilant had started to wear off, so I was scruffy, too. However, my head didn't hurt and that was in my favor. I got up and got some water and that helped my mouth, a little.

I batted at my uniform briefly trying to make it behave. Then I stepped out on the bridge of the Discovery.

Mendez looked at me carefully. "Well, they aren't risking any more scouts on us, yet, Captain."

Mendez looked at me carefully for a few moments. "Yes. No injuries were reported in our engagement. Nor was there any damage to the Discovery. Kamaline has the preliminary report on the probe, Whenever you're ready."

I blinked at him and then it hit me. Crashing and burning on my couch was the most sleep I'd gotten in a long time. I felt better than usual, if a touch disoriented. "Yeah. Actually, taking a nap did me some real good. Thank you."

I smiled at her out of politeness and habit more than anything else. "Hello. Can I get you anything, Doctor?"

"I had a splitting headache on the bridge earlier today. I took a nap in my ready room and it's gone." I said.

Burlington heaved a deep sigh at me. "You're suffering from several symptoms of high stress. You're seeing some of the effects now. You need to carefully and thoroughly relax, or you might hurt yourself."

I smiled ruefully. "It's difficult to relax when we're in this position Doctor."

Burlington nodded. "I want to smack Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo around. He should have been here. You need him. You can't go on like this."

I eyed Burlington. She wasn't especially fond of me, especially after Agricorp and Colacorp. I spent a few moments marveling at my ability to antagonize Chief Medical Officers. "I don't really see lots of choices, here."

She sighed. "My problem here is that there is a very specific set of regulations and procedures for removing Starship Captain from command for medical reasons. After that's resolved you don't get to get treatment or a vacation and then back and at 'em."

I blinked at her. It was disturbing that she was considering relieving me. What was worse is that as I looked at the idea it didn't seem as unthinkable as it might have six months ago. I thought I might like being a dead header and part time Engineer. Nevertheless, the responsibility was mine. I realized I had to get the ship home, and then I could think about what I did next. Assuming that I didn't get along vacation in New Zealand because of the Photorp Launchers. Even so, I didn't think being locked up in New Zealand for any given amount of time sounded all that bad.

I laughed and shook my head. It was funny. About the only way to get rid of the stress was not to give a damn, and I was getting there pretty quick, myself. I didn't want to know what was going to go wrong next. I recalled a book I'd read once. One of the characters said he was going recreationally mad, saving his sanity for when it would be appropriate. It sounded good to me, and totally out of reach.

She looked at me closely and seemed to want to say something. "Good luck," was all she could manage

"Yeah, you too." I smiled mirthlessly. The best we could hope for reasonably at that point was to put up a big enough stink for the Kliges'chee to go ahead and blow us up, instead of eating us.

Kamaline came into the lounge with a couple of PADDS. I waved her over. "Here's a little piece of what we're out here for Doctor. An unknown artifact and we almost bumped into it hiding from the Kliges'chee."

Dr. Burlington smiled distantly. "I'll need to take a rain check. We do have some injuries that need looking after."

"So we can't really recover anything from the guidance package." Kamaline was saying "This thing was carefully sterilized before it was used. Whoever it was wanted it to be as deniable as possible."

"The punch line is this substance, here." Kamaline said. "It's a bio-weapon along the same lines at the Kliges'chee claustrophobia weapon or the Agricorp/Colacorp one."

I winced and could feel my blood pressure start to rise. "Are we in any danger?"

Kamaline shook her head solemnly. "I don't know everything about it. That will take some time. I can tell you two things. It's utterly inert at normal temperatures and it's designed to effect the Kliges'chee."

I blinked. The incipient headache seemed to fade. "It's for the Kliges'chee, not us?"

"Hey," I said "At least we're not spacing ourselves. It could be worse. Can you give me a better analysis in a couple of days?"

The noise was utterly deafening. The holodeck safeties were set too low and I was damaging my hearing. My head hurt, but in a different way. This just leveraged the adrenaline.

Behind me on the holodeck a band called the Ramones were committing an act I can only describe as aggravated assault with three chords, And I was leading the charge.

They're forming in straight line
They're going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

This is what the teleprompter at the edge of the stage was saying while I could see it. I was doing something that wound up being a form of combat karaoke. My adrenaline was in the sky. I was high on it. I was soaked on sweat and all ready to get down in the "mosh pit" and have a go with some of the simulated punks fans in the holographic audience.

Beer bottles flew and so did bodies. It was a synergy of energy, noise and emotion.

The song was a minute and thirty seconds long because it was difficult to shout/sing like that for any more at a stretch. I took a deep breath and bellowed -

They're piling in the back seat
They're generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop

The beat was somewhere in the vicinity of 90 beats per minute. If I had a heart problem I'd have been dead by now.

Hey ho, let's go
Shoot 'em in the back now
What they want, I don't know
They're all revved up and ready to go

If I'd been thinking I might have thought of the strange parallel between fighting the Kliges'chee and nihilistic punk music. I might have thought of the strange cultural pathology that gave rise to punk music.

I wasn't there to think or analyze. I was there to be part of a sonic wall, An almost physical force of sound.

Almost like running off a cliff the song simply came to an end. It was a full run to a dead stop in nothing flat. I wasn't having any of that.

Well just today I was forced to say I'm going on a permanent holiday
I'll drop what I'm doing, it's okay, I'm going on a permanent holiday

Well I left a note saying I'll be gone for a long time, yeah a long, long time
It's gonna take a lot to bring me back now
I won't spend another day in this heart-attack city
It's messed up here and everything's money
Those well-heeled boys that think they're so funny
I left a note saying I'll be gone

I brought the song up from my toes, as if by force of will and sound energy instead of warp drives I could propel myself back to Earth

Well just today I was forced to say I'm going on a permanent holiday
I'll drop what I'm doing, it's okay, I'm going on a permanent holiday

I pictured throwing a note on Necheyev's Desk. "I Quit!" How hard could it be?

Well I told them all I wasn't coming back for a long time, yeah a long, long time
Well everything's fad and as for the fame well everything's got its 15 minutes
I've no idea where it all went bad
But I guess you can't tell until you get down in it
I told them all I wasn't coming back

Another song to sing/shout at the top of your lungs, at full energy out put. One of the Punkers got up on the stage with me and made to slam dance into me. I met him with my shoulder, and then I half picked him up off the stage and hucked him back into the Mosh Pit.

Well maybe I'll go to France or maybe Spain
'Cause the work that they do here is the kind that numbs my brain
I need to get away and I'm never coming back 'cause my mind just turned off and my body's out of whack
Va - Ca - Tion!

Well just today I was forced to say I'm going on a permanent holiday
I'll drop what I'm doing, it's okay, I'm going on a permanent holiday

Just today I was forced to say I'm going on a permanent holiday
I'll drop what I'm doing, it's okay, I'm going on a permanent holiday
Well I left a note saying I'll be gone for a long time

The next morning I was hoarse, and I had to move slow. It felt like every muscle I had was about half way ripped. They probably all were. The Lower rear part of my head felt sort of crunchy and bruised. Like I'd been in a fight.

I ate a slow breakfast and drank lots of juice. And I thought. We needed to do something to unbalance the situation. Something to break the box. And we had just the thing.

Afterwards I ground slowly to my feet and shuffled off like an old man to go find Kamaline. The punk rock beat was thundering through my head. I nodded very slightly with it. My neck muscles complained anyway. Screw 'em.

The science labs of the Discovery were mysterious to me. I knew some of the scientific methodology of Starfleet and with basic enough manuals, I could have found my way around most of the equipment. Generally though, I left the Science to the Science officers. Kamaline probably forgot more about science than I'd ever know.

The decor had been redone to a cool greenish blue, with indirect lighting except right over the work stations where it was bright white.

I found Kamaline at a bench with samples of the alien probe play load carefully measured out and placed on different scanners and measurement devices. On screens scattered here and there, multifarious read outs blinked, whirled and flashed. That one seemed to be the diagram of the substance. The next one seemed to be a read out of its composition, and third one measured some curve. It rose sharply at first and then climbed inexorably towards the right hand side of the screen.

I walked up to her and ahemed slightly to get her attention. Kamaline looked up at me and smiled.

"Kamaline, what would happen if we stuck this stuff in a stealth probe and fired it into the nursery world?" I said, in a kind of a rush. I already had the stats for the stealth probe dancing through my head.

Kamaline looked at me for a moment and the then shook her head. "I don't know what it would do."

"Does that really matter? They wouldn't have sent it out if it didn't do anything." I said. As I said I looked at Kamaline, carefully. She was gray and raggedy. I realized she'd been really pushing to analyze the genetic stuff in the probe. She looked as tired as I felt yesterday.

Kamaline Blinked slowly. "A Bio-weapon isn't just fire and forget. It's not a bullet or a beam. If we use it, that's saying something about us, about who we are and our place in the galaxy."

Kamaline grimaced. "I Know. I don't either, but there's a lot I don't know about this stuff. It could have all sorts of unintended consequences."

"Listen, someone was desperate enough to try this to begin with. Let's not forget, either, that we're at war with these things. We saw them eradicate Qo'noS itself, and cause billions of casualties. Should we do nothing?"

Kamaline shook her head. "Not nothing. But we should know what we're doing when we do it."

I chuckled "If that were the case I'd have never set foot on this to begin with. You know this whole voyage has been an improvisational exercise since we left Mars."

Kamaline smiled weakly. "But you never lost sight of what you were doing out here. What are you doing here now?"

I didn't want to hear that. "Good question. I know one thing. I want to get out of this alive."

She nodded, "Me, too. Sometimes the price is very high, though. I think this might be too much."

"We have to do something." I emphasized. "If you have a better idea I am open to suggestion. You have a little bit."

Kamaline stood up and looked right into my face. "I want you to reconsider this."

Kamaline stepped back and nodded to herself. "Okay," She said, "do what you feel you have to do."

I gathered the payload material and replicated a plastic bucket to put it in. I left a good handful for Kamaline to study.

Lieutenant J.G. Zuma and I were in the probe bay laying out the details of the Probe. As it happened there was considerable science in getting the substance on target. It wasn't like a photon torpedo where close is usually good enough. We did several simulations watching the effect each time, to gauge the spread pattern and level of dispersion.

Time seemed to fly by. About 12 hours it looked like the best plan was to get the probe into the upper atmosphere of the nursery world and then blow it up with a concussion blast.

We had to replicate some chemical explosives to do the trick just right. Simply detonating the drives would fry most of our weapon before it got dispersed. Then we had a tense time designing the placement of the "plastic" explosive and setting it up to detonate at the right time.

"Certainly." I stood up and we went into a small office attached to the bay. The Chief of the Deck Crews used this office to do inventory control of the probes and components, as well as smoking cigars, taking a small nip of alcohol and looking at posters of scantily clad women, by the evidence.

The picture of a Vulcan girl in a bikini struck me. She looked nice. But I failed to understand the logic of posing for a calendar. The photo was a candid shot. She was surfing. I blinked. That had to be a false image. A Vulcan woman in a bikini, surfing. Yeah, right.

"Captain, Kamaline came and talked to me." Mendez said. He looked like a disappointed uncle.

"I think she's right. I think we lack the level of understanding necessary to use this weapon responsibly." Mendez said.

"We should focus our energy on escape. I think we can do it. I have been thinking, The Kliges'chee seem to adhere to the Galactic plane as much as we do. They may have left holes at the northern and southern poles of this nebula that we can sneak through." Mendez said

"If we go and look that'll give away what we're thinking." A Thought occured to me. "And you know what comes next?"

"Three scouts. We smeared one badly enough to get away in time. I don't think we could smear three no matter how recklessly we fly the ship. That's the beginning of the end." I said.

I leaned up against the desk. "We know the Kliges'chee fleet is pretty spread out. They may be waiting to bring up more scouts."

Mendez nodded. "So how does using a terror weapon on the Kliges'chee nursery world help us?"

"Even if that amounts to doing anything at all?" Mendez asked.

"I am open to a better idea if anyone has one." I said.

I looked him right in the eye. "If a grouping of scouts sights us, we're fucked. Not only is that the beginning of our death, but we'd never get a stealth probe passed them. So I can't give you much time."

When Zuma and I were finished setting up the Probe, we loaded it into launcher manually.

Two days later I was on the bridge. I felt like I was sitting on that probe and carrying it around in my pocket.

Spaat, Kamaline and Mendez were off the bridge working on coming up with plan B. I was hoping they'd succeed. I was considering firing the probe anyway if they came up with something. We had the ability to bloody the Kliges'chees' collective nose. If we successfully made the strike maybe the Kliges'chee would feel compelled to re-deploy their forces reward to guard against another such attack. This wouldn't be good for us, specifically, but it might take some of the pressure off known space.

Adkivornak shook his head "It looked like a couple of smaller Kliges'chee ships, but it will take some work enhancing the recordings to be sure."

I gritted my teeth. "Helm, set course to the following coordinates." I took the coordinates from the beginning in of the attack pattern Zuma and I created for the stealth probe.

"Carlos, I'd like you, Kamaline and Spaat to keep working on getting us out of this nebula. We have no guarantee that this will do anything for us."

When we reached the firing point, I called up the probe controls, activated the probe's programming and fired it myself. It was a relief. I was back in the game, I was a contributing player on my team's side.

The Discovery thrummed as we did another full impulse burn, and then leaned as we turned hard to try and loose the Kliges'chee Scouts. We'd lost one and two of them before, but one always kept us in sight, but stayed far enough away to avoid our phasers.

We were running out the clock, essentially. We could go fast enough in the nebula to outrun the Kliges'chee cruisers, but the Scouts stuck to us like glue. Eventually the scouts would buffalo us into a group of cruisers and we'd be done.

Nevertheless, until they managed it, the fat lady wasn't singing and I wasn't ready to give up. The Discovery was living at yellow and red alert. We were all very tired. We all knew the end was not too far away now. It was a hateful way to live, but it did focus one's attentions, as the philosopher said.

All at once the Kliges'chee scouts stopped. They went to all stop and we left them behind.

I sat up straight in the captain's chair. "Let's not waste this, continue evasive!"

A few minutes later Kamaline called out. "Contact, Multiple contacts! It's the cruisers! They're at full impulse!"

We'd blundered into a cruiser group. I winced at the thought. However, they were acting strange.

They got to within sensor range. They should have seen us, but didn't seem to notice. They kept right on going past us.

That was actually good sign. "Set course for the edge of the nebula. Let's probe that screen they've set up again."

When we got to the edge of the nebula, there were no Kliges'chee ships out there. We waited a bit to be sure it wasn't a trap and then we ran.

Four months later we stopped running into Kliges'chee ships all together. We laid over at a nice, uninhabited class M world and give the ship as thorough a repair job as we could manage. No Kliges'chee bothered us.

"In the Harrier, we bumbled deeply into Kliges'chee territory without encountering many ships. The interior is not well patrolled or defended." I explained.

"Now imagine how many Kliges'chee ships it would take to fight through the Klingon fleet and get to Qo'noS." I said. "I'm not surprised that internal patrols are stripped to nothing."

I shrugged "Maybe it took all the Kliges'chee had to get that far. Insufficient data."

Two months after that, It was day shift and I was on the bridge. The memory of that terrible time in the nebula was a distant nightmare, one hopefully not to be repeated or brought to mind any time soon.

I blinked. The Kliges'chee didn't use transponders on their ships. They had to improvise communications channels through their sensors. The Kliges'chee ignored subspace communications pretty thoroughly.

"Helm, bring us out of warp and continue at one half impulse. Yellow alert. Step up scanning, Kamaline."

"That reminds me of a Zantree ship, Lucas. They used Kliges'chee ships too." I said.

"A non-Kliges'chee owned ship this far into Kliges'chee space?" Stephanie asked.

The Former Kliges'chee ship turned out to be very much warmer inside than if it had Kliges'chee running it. It also had some technology grafted on to it. They looked like after thoughts. This included Communications gear and more versatile sensors.

The screen cleared to show a crowded Kliges'chee bridge. It was crowded because new equipment had been grafted in. New boxes of different materials than the Kliges'chee used and bigger, more detailed displays were visible.

The people on the ship were not Kliges'chee at all. They seemed to be avian humanoids, The resembled large, longer and more heavily built Parrots. From the relative scale I guess they looked about four feet tall.

After some frequency and protocol hunting our universal translator synched up to their communications system.

"Greetings, new neighbors." The parrot in the fore ground said. "I am uppermost Prrrikichee of the Hawauk-Hwee."

I held still. Wasn't nodding a symbol of hostility among some birds? I grinned to myself. This was the kind of first contact I'd signed up for. "We're pleased to meet you, Uppermost. I am Captain Jay P. Hailey of the Starship Discovery. We're from the United Federation of Planets. We'd like to make peaceful contact with you, if you wouldn't mind."

Prrrikichee turned his head sideways and then back and forth a couple of times, looking me over carefully. "This would make us happy, Captain JayPeeHailey. We are a peace loving people who desire friendly contact with our neighbors and fellow survivors of Kliges'chee aggression." I noticed that his word for Klige'chee was quite shrill and urgent sounding "I am curious, though, How could you retain your own ship designs after Kliges'chee conquest?"

"Ah, we haven't been conquered by the Kliges'chee yet. We are from outside Kliges'chee space. You say your people are survivors of Kliges'chee aggression?" I asked.

Prrrikichee whistled sharply. "You must have flown a great distance through the airless sky. Surely your warp drives beat powerfully. Sadly we were but hatchlings in an interstellar sense when the Kliges'chee found us and relegated us to the role of prey and food animal. However recent reverses have decimated the Kliges'chee, and freedom is ripe on the vine for the picking."

"I couldn't help but notice that you were flying a ship of Kliges'chee design." I said.

"Yes. Not the best for us, but since the Kliges'chee have little use for it anymore, we took advantage of the finding. Soon we hope to have our ship yards operational and to start building ships which suit our physical needs better." Prrrikichee said. "Until then we have inherited an entire Kliges'chee battle fleet and stand ready should anyone seek to prey on us again." Prrrikichee looked at me sideways. Was the warning clear.

That didn't sound quite right. "The Kliges'chee suffered reverses but left an entire battle fleet for you? What sort of military defeat have they suffered?"

Prrrikichee fluffed up and the shook his head wildly. The tone that came out of the universal translator was happy. "Some race in the galaxy, with great cunning and intelligence inflicted a plague on the Kliges'chee. They die in entire flocks and grow badly confused in the weeks before they die. They are easy pickings for the survivors of their previous aggression. We and our neighbors have utterly exterminated the Kliges'chee in this region."

"As far as anyone can see even with the sharpest sensors and communications gear." Prrrikichee said happily "We are still working out the details of a communications network, but no one we have contact with has seen active Kliges'chee in weeks."

I looked at Mendez and then at Kamaline. Mendez was concentrating on Uppermost Prrrikichee. Kamaline just looked at me blankly for a few moments. I could feel the blood running out of my face, and a sense of unreality settled on me.

"Come, new friends, rejoice with us at the genocide of the Kliges'chee." Prrrikichee chirped, happily.

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.

"Blitzkrieg Bop" By the Ramones, 1976
"Permanent Holiday" By the Suicide Machines 2000

This story posted by permission of the author. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.