mucho better. If anything, it has become a bit too much.
Just no pleasin' some folks. Kiddin' of course. To know the inspirator of the character (in R/L, one Benjamin Thomas Reed) one might actually find it unbelievable that the character didn't go ahead and start killing some Klinks. Never mind it'd get him killed. By that point, he might not care so much.
Anywho, how bout a fresh chapter?
CH. 11
Lieutenant Commander Davenport moved through the officer’s lounge at a slow, deliberate pace, aiming for his usual place near the corner windows. In his tired hands rested a tray with a plate of meat loaf and a huge mug of black coffee. The captain had enforced the shift rotation despite the tense situation on the planet surface. This allowed his main department heads time to get some needed rest. Ron felt a twinge of regret that he had not been able to coax the skipper to take the same liberty himself. Ford could be a very stubborn commander, and Ron would not go too far out of his way to argue with him. He just didn’t have the heart to.
The ops officer looked up to his normal table, and noted the unfamiliar shape present at it. Most people preferred the center of main window seats. Usually he had this spot all to himself. But today he seemed to have an uninvited guest. Lieutenant Smith. The young LT was idly munching after a sandwich and staring out at the little dirt ball they were orbiting. He had not noticed the commander’s approach.
For a moment, Ron entertained the notion of turning away and picking out another seat. But, damn it, if he let the kid have his table now, he’d be there every damn time Ron came down here. No, he decided, best to hike his leg on this particular tree and let the new pup know whose territory he was in.
Ron circled the table and halted beside his customary seat, back to the fore bulkhead and facing out toward the port side. He had a clear view of the main doors, the synthesizer banks and the windows from that vantage. With a clatter a little noisier than his norm, Ron deposited his tray to the tabletop and took his seat with a long, tired sigh.
“Commander Dave—“ The lad nearly dropped his sandwich as he shot to attention. Ron waved him down before he could stand.
“At ease, Lieutenant. We’re off duty. Just taking my usual seat.”
“If this is your table, I’ll move on!” Noah grabbed up the edges of his tray, already beginning to rise. The sight of it softened the older officer. He smiled back at the kid.
“Oh…don’t worry, Mister Smith. I’m not gonna run you off. Sit and eat your sandwich.”
Noah returned the smile with exuberance. He picked his meal back up and began to once more show it who was boss. Ron picked at his own selection with a fork. “Think I should have stuck with a sandwich, myself.” He commented. “You never know what synthetic meatloaf is going to taste like.”
Smith nodded, swallowing. “I try to avoid it myself. Back at the Academy we had a cook who really knew her way around an Italian meatloaf.”
Ron nodded, finally chancing a bite of his meal. Not bad. Needed more ketchup and less grease. He chewed it with slightly more glee than he gave field rations. “Could be better.” He eyed the youth. This young man had been out of the Academy for less than a year and was already into the thick of things. He’d been in the fleet for less than five years all together, and nearly all of that was training time. He suddenly found himself wondering what all this must feel like to such a fresh member of Starfleet.
“So…what do you think of all this, Lieutenant? The mission, that is?”
Noah seemed taken aback some. He’d not likely had such interest taken in his observations since coming aboard. He took his time in answering. “Well, the captain certainly has his own way of doing things.”
Davenport could think of no truer statement.
“That he does. Captain Ford isn’t like most ship commanders.”
“He doesn’t follow standard protocol, at least not my understanding of it. He locked weapons on those alien ships in the plasma field before their intent was known. And we certainly weren’t taught to negotiate like him at school. Captain Ford blatantly bullies the people who don’t agree with him. He uses over whelming force when dealing with people I’d think he might try to be nicer to.”
“Like the Warden fellow down there?”
Noah stared back at the seasoned officer. The kid knew his ears were so green they dripped. But he held his ground. Davenport seemed much more approachable than any of the other higher-ups. The ops commander took a long pull of his coffee and gazed back expectantly.
“Well, yeah. The Xenocultural professor back home would have advised being as non-confrontational as possible to prompt the Warden to be more cooperative—“
“That professor would probably be chained up down there by now, mining bacinite with the rest of the landing party, Lieutenant. Did those same professors ever delve into the inner workings of criminal organizations?”
Smith nodded, rising to the defense of his instructors.
“Yeah. They taught us the command hierarchy of the Orion cartels and the Syndicate organization. They—“
Davenport shrugged, holding up a halting hand.
“Sorry to keep interrupting you, but the cartels and the Syndicate are almost governments to themselves. They’re more civilized than what you find out here in the middle of nowhere. Sure, these guys run a big racket out in this neck of the woods, but they haven’t gotten so big as to knock down all their competition. So they do things in a more bloodthirsty way. These guys would blast us out of orbit if they thought they could and if they weren’t gaining by letting us have the rebel Klingons. Any armchair negotiation professor can work a deal with people who play by some kind of rules. But those guys down there don’t. They make their own rules.
“The captain served in the lower enlisted ranks and as an officer. He served on border patrol frigates near the Klingon border before there was a neutral zone. He dealt with these medium-sized crime operators before and had to learn from trial and error. And what you don’t do, is back down from these guys. So don’t judge Ford too badly till you learn more yourself.”
Smith seemed to wonder if he’d just been chewed out. He averted his eyes a bit.
“I don’t mean to down his command methods. I’m just saying they’re different.”
“Well, as the Vulcans say, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.” Ron leaned back, now more concerned with the warm mug in his hand than with his forgotten meal. He looked the kid over searchingly. He wasn’t a bad sort. “Trust me, though. The captain does what he does to keep his ship and crew safe. Another starship commander would’ve let those pirates yesterday get a lot closer before readying their defenses. They would have operated from the idea of not showing unnecessary force to an unknown species. And we would have taken direct damage to the ship. Not enough to lose against those guys, but we would’ve lost lives. This morning, the captain took down enough men for a show of force, and to watch your backs while you arranged the deal.”
Noah looked up from his empty tray, fingering the rim of his glass of cola.
“But we did lose lives today. We had fatalities from the Curry.”
Ron nodded his agreement. He’d known each of the men lost today.
“Indeed we did, Lieutenant. But ask yourself…did the captain’s decisions lead to that?”
“No, he was trying to help the Klingons.”
“Right. Not every victim knows what help looks like when it arrives. And that’s what happened today.” Ron’s brows raised an inch as he slid a grin on his face. “Actually, we got off kinda easy considering we’re dealing with Klingons. They only downed the one shuttle, not both.”
“How’s that easy?”
“It showed us that Dath’mar was curious and not dead convinced we were his enemy. He wanted to question the commander of the mission and therefor captured the two highest ranking… Had he just believed we were the enemy, he’d have shot down both craft, then hid himself better.”
Smith rocked back a bit, chewing on those ideas. He hadn’t counted on such a conversation when he’d chosen this spot for a seat. Neither, though, had the commander. But both had learned a little something. Smith realized that not everything was a textbook example and something to be approached from a set parameter. There were many ways of dealing with situations. And some ways that he’d been taught might not work at all.
Davenport learned that despite the sterile environments of the classrooms at the Academy, there still abounded smart kids who could learn how things worked out here. Both men felt a bit more confident as they delved into more mundane small talk.
***
Captain Ford settled into the synthetic leather of his favorite office chair and set the arm control to medium power. Vibrating coils began to massage away the tension of a day full of bridge duty and he closed his brown eyes. Ford could not bury or forget his fears for the two men trapped amid the Klingons. Nor could he suspend the misgivings he had about the Toq’hiGH not responding to his hails. Despite his guess that Ron’jar was indeed on his way, he had no proof that allayed the thoughts that he might actually not be coming. And if the Klingon warship didn’t show in the next four hours… Thomas and Bronstien would be out of time.
Ford wouldn’t wait quite that long. If he saw that his men were in imminent danger, he would order his security force to intervene. Even if it meant blasting the prison transporter shields and beaming teams directly into the caverns. Ford opened his dry, burning eyes and focussed on the pile of PADDs on his desktop. The ship may still be at Condition Two, but yeomen still carried those damn things from deck to deck to acquire their collection of thumbprints and okays. The PADDs could wait, though. He’d allow them to build up a few more reinforcements just so they could put up a better fight tomorrow…
The captain turned his massaging chair aft to gaze out the office’s main porthole. From here he could see a grand array of his ship’s hull, the slope of saucer and the stretch of the impulse deck. The grand length of the starboard nacelle. The brilliant formation lights blinked on and off, slicing away the shadows that collected into the nooks and crannies of the hull’s design. Ford allowed his mind to empty of its stress, a task that while relieving could only be maintained for mere seconds. There was too much at stake down on the planet for his mind to rest for long.
A quick boson’s whistle cut through the silence, startling the captain.
“Captain to the bridge!” It was Davenport’s voice, filled with urgency. Ford was on his feet immediately and through the security lobby outside his office in no time, emerging onto the bridge.
“Report.” He called toward the conn. Ron was standing up from the soft blue chair as Chevis descended the steps beside it.
“Cap’n, short range sensors picking up sporadic readings of gamma radiation, bearing 007 mark 028. Range twelve hundred km. Likely Klingon battlecruiser.”
Ronald made for his post at ops after passing a solid, assured look to his commanding officer. Ford eased into his chair and gazed at the forward screen. “Shields up, tactical. Open hailing frequencies.”
The washing sound of the shield generators powering up came through the bulkheads as Smith’s voice sounded: “You’re on, Captain.”
Ford made sure his voice was ready and spoke up sternly.
“Klingon vessel, this is Captain Ford of the Endeavour. Drop your cloak and state your intentions.”
The response was immediate. Likely the Klingons had decided to cut their stealth systems as soon as Endeavour’s shields had activated. A field of indeterminate shape and definition began to form in the upper field of the viewer. Ops centered the screen on the mirage as it began to waver and amalgamate into a solid image of a winged bird-ship. The massive green vessel grew more substantial as the seconds ticked by; its wings raising into their landing position above its beaked head and hunch backed body.
Ford recognized the red and black feather paint of the undersides of the wings. It was the Toq’hiGH. Ron’jar’s ship. The Governor must have pushed his engines quite hard to get here inside seven hours. This mission must have been equally as important to Ron’jar and his governments as it was to Starfleet. The captain felt a small tide of relief finally. He just hoped the situation grew better from her on, and not worse.
The viewer shifted to the image of the Klingon governor, crouched in his own command chair and already wearing his traveling cloak over his armor. His hooded eyes stared darkly at Ford.
“You have found Dath’mar’s men?” Ron’jar inquired. His tone and inflection stated that he’d expected nothing less.
“Indeed we have, Governor. You don’t sound surprised to hear that there were survivors…”
A shoulder raised on the Klingons broad frame, a deliberate shrug.
“They’re Klingon. Transmit the beam down coordinates.”
“The planet is protected by a transporter shield. You’ll have to use shuttle—“
“Silence!” The shout thundered across the starship’s bridge, stunning Ford. Ron’jar stood, letting the tail of his cloak fall where it may as he glowered at the human captain. “I have no time for banter. Coordinates!”
Biting down on an ineffectual rebuttal, Captain Ford grimaced and pointed a signaling finger at his science officer. Surall nodded her understanding and relayed the cavern’s position through the comm station. Ron’jar looked somewhere off screen and nodded. The image of the Klingon bridge faded, replaced by his battlecruiser.
“Klingons…” Ford muttered aloud, “Always so damn polite.”
“Captain,” Davenport spoke up again. “The Toq’hiGH is changing position. She’s angling for planetary descent.”
Ford studied the image of the huge bird on the fore screen. The ship was turning toward the planet and pointing her nose toward the atmosphere. Ron’jar was either going to land his ship, or he was going to drop below the beaming shield and transport men to the surface. Either way, he avoided the vulnerability of flying a shuttle over an unfriendly landscape. Ford got up and made for the aft lifts.
“Ron, you have the conn. Signal Bay Two to have my shuttle crewed up and ready.”
***************************
Not the action packed bit that CH. 9 might have been, but hopefully likable. I tried various combinations of the conversation between Davenport and Smith. Smith is green, with all the normal Trek ideals that were ingrained into him by the Academy. Ron, however, has been with the captain for a long while, and despite the small gap between their ranks, he has a hellova lot more experience than Noah. The two were meant to be representatives of the two schools of thought: Real Trek vs. Ford. Hopefully y'all didn't find the scene boring or unnecessary. I thought about nixing it a time or two.
See y'all later,
--thu guv!
Topic: A new Story? (Read 18497 times)