Title: Fate's Wrath
Summary: A tale of the Starship Phoenix, its captain Marco, and how there was a spot of trouble in transiting in the Londinium system or how Sherlock Holmes finally made it home from his hiatus.
Parings: Implied Sherlock Holmes & John Watson (slash goggles optional, don't blink or you'll miss it.)
Disclaimer: Created solely for the amusement of myself and any readers who might happen upon it. I own no rights to the underlying works and characters mentioned. I make no profit.
Fate's Wrath
"One of these days I'm going to kill him!" Lex exclaimed as she tromped up the ladder onto the bridge of the starship Phoenix.
Marco could tell from her posture and step that she was nowhere near as annoyed as her tone of voice indicated. They had not ten ticks before set navigation detail to start jump preparations so whatever it was their erstwhile passenger, Sherlock Holmes, had done it hadn't delayed her more than five ticks on her habitual walk around whenever they changed ship status or watches.
"So what did he do this time, eh?" Marco inquired.
"Refused to stop working on his evidence wall in the wardroom and secure to nav-station."
"So you convinced him to leave off?" Marco was curious as to just what Lex had managed to do to get Holmes to stop working.
Lex smiled, "He decided to ignore me so I jumped him and frog-marched him down to the brig. With what he has on him I figure it will take him till at least till we get back to normal ops to disassemble the wall and spring himself."
Marco smiled inwardly but asked, "And who's going to fix the cell afterword eh?"
Lex's smile became a bit more predatory. "Oh I have a couple of crew that owe me a bit of discipline detail. Fixing the cell will do nicely."
Marco turned his attention back to the jump preparations. "Well I'll have him out of your hair in a few stan-days if everything goes as I expect."
"Good riddance," Lex grumped once again with her body language belying her tone as she took her place.
"You are just lucky he likes you," Yevette, Marco's first officer, commented as she finished up her pre-jump check.
"What?"
Marco had a good look at Alexia's face. She was clearly startled.
Yeve grinned at her, "You mean you haven't noticed?"
"Noticed what?"
"Well he doesn't throw you out of the wardroom when he's working on that evidence wall of his; when he'd doing analysis he doesn't complain you are thinking too loudly; he doesn't deduce all your activities including what you've eaten since the last time he saw you, and he tends to show up in the gym whenever you need a sparring partner." Yeve ticked her points off on her fingers. "Yep, he likes you alright."
Lex grimaced and muttered, "Wonderful," under her breath just loud enough so Marco could hear.
Marco couldn't resist teasing Lex a little more, "Eh, I've got to agree with Yeve on this one Lex. He actually listens to you and does what you say on occasion."
"Yeah. Sure," Lex grumbled as she started down her own pre-jump checklist.
Marco turned his attention back to the job at hand overseeing the jump preparations, "What's our timing like?"
"Seven ticks and two small burns before we are in position," the pilot named Trev responded.
Alejandro reported, "Jump coordinates calculated and set," from the astrogator's position
"Sails retracted and jump drive is spooling up," Yeve commented.
Lex chimed in with "All departments reporting normal."
"Carry on," Marco acknowledged the reports and everyone on the bridge settled down to wait. The time spent maneuvering right before a jump, Marco thought to himself, was simultaneously way too short and took forever.
Objectively it was still only seven ticks later when Trev piped up, "We are in position Captain."
"Are we ready?"
"Coordinates locked in, sails furled, and jump drive is on line; we are ready to go Captain," Alejandro responded.
"Department status normal, all hands prepared for jump," Lex added, "we are ready to go twice Captain."
"Ships boards are all green, we are ready to go thrice Captain," Yeve followed up completing the formula.
Marco took a breath. Even though jumping was reasonably safe there was always something special about the act of ordering his ship and crew to bend space and squirt through a hole ending up light-years away hopefully exactly where they expected to be.
"Let's fly," he said and they did.
/Po8/Po8/Po8/Po8/
For the majority of the human race jumping through warp space was essentially a non-event; a slight feeling of movement sensed by the inner ear as the body registered that it had somehow been suddenly relocated. Marco, however, inevitably came out of a jump feeling not quite settled in his human skin. More often than not he got a bit of time dilation along with a slightly upset stomach and flashes of colored flamelets in his peripheral vision for an hour or so afterward. He wondered if the side effects would be worse or better in his other form but he didn't think it would be a good idea to try. A flaming phoenix on the bridge of a starship during jump was not a good idea at all.
As annoying as Marco's side effects were he knew full well that they could be much worse. Those with a gift for maneuvering a ship through warp space could have side effects that ranged from the benign but annoying to completely incapacitating. The only effect all pilots had in common with each other was time dilation. A true pilot would experience a jump, which by any objective measure only took a segment of a tick, as something more like a full stan or more. It was such a standard side effect that anyone mentioning how long a jump took was automatically tested for pilot aptitude. To make things even more interesting a pilot with a strong gift was able to sense where the ship was heading. If something was in the way of the exit from warp space he or she would be able to adjust allowing the ship to miss the hazard. No one had ever figured out exactly how they were able to do this. Legendary pilots it was said could change the destination of the warp squirting a ship out at the place of his or her choosing rather than at the place set by the navigator.
True pilots were rare and not all ships had them. Marco was grateful that the Phoenix counted Trev among the crew. Trev, Marco suspected, was somewhere just shy of legendary even though he wouldn't admit to having abilities that were anything more than I'll not run the ship into a planet level. Whatever his skill level the mere fact that he had the talent was enough to put up with Trev coming out of jump pale, shaking and seriously inebriated every single time. As with most ships carrying true pilots, they had learned to adapt.
"Welcome to Lon-din-ium," Trev slurred as he took his hands off the controls and let Alejandro take the helm.
"All ahead full, 30 degrees starboard yaw," Marco ordered.
"Aye, aye, 30 degrees starboard, all ahead full," Alejandro echoed as he implemented the maneuver.
"'member we's got to ride high ov'r the 'cliptic cause Lon-din-ium's got an f'ing thick 'stroid belt," Trevor commented from his slumped position in the pilots chair.
Even drunk off his ass Trev was one hell of a pilot. Marco suspected that if they ever dropped out of warp into a firefight that Trev would most likely refuse to relinquish the controls to anyone except Marco himself. This was due to the fact that while Trev was more adept in warp space, Marco was a hair better in normal space.
"Course set," Yeve announced as she smoothly took over the astrogator's duties.
"Locked on course, ready to implement," Alejandro replied.
"Let's get the sails up, engage the auto pilot, and then set normal watches," Marco ordered.
In a few ticks the sails were up and Lex was able to announce over the intercom, "Stand down from navigation stations, first section has the watch."
The bridge crew didn't move as Yeve asked, "So Captain, what's the plan?"
"Plan?" Marco cocked his head, "What plan?"
Lex sighed, "You recall we are not quite persona-non-grata in the eyes of the Commonwealth of New Britannia don't you?"
Marco grinned; there were days he loved teasing his crew. "Eh, and your point?"
"Captain," Lex growled.
Marco could tell she knew she was being teased and was not at all in the mood for it. He decided not to push it.
"We'll pick up the latest news from the outer beacon then swing inward toward the asteroid belt just as if we are transitioning to one of the other jump points. They can't object to us just passing through. When we get close to the belt we'll bounce a tight beam encrypted transmission to London and see if we can talk our way into port to offload our passenger."
"Aye, aye, Captain" came a chorus from around the bridge as well as from the top of the ladder where the rest of the first section bridge crew had gathered.
"I'll be in the cabin, Yeve you have the conn," Marco continued as he stood.
"I have the conn Captain," Yeve said as she moved toward the command chair.
"I'll ping you when we have the news and analysis," Lex added as Marco left the bridge.
/Po8/Po8/Po8/Po8/
Despite the time lag involved in inter-system communication it had taken less than half a stan-day from the time they connected with the inner beacon to get clearance to dock in London. Of course it hadn't hurt, Marco thought to himself, that Sherlock had coughed up a series of codes which had cut through the bureaucracy and put the communication directly to the attention of Mycroft Holmes, the legendary Ice Man himself.
Negotiating safe passage with Holmes the elder had been an interesting proposition to say the least. Marco had dealt with his agents but never before directly with the man himself. Knowing Mycroft's reputation in the intelligence community and having dealt with Sherlock for over a stan-week Marco had a relatively good idea going in about what he'd be up against. It had been challenging and intense but he felt he'd managed to wrangle himself a decent deal as well as a base for potential information exchanges in the future. No what had been really interesting was the contrast in the brothers' interaction styles. Sherlock was fencing with his repartee and sudden movement; Microft was more chess, contemplative and in it for the long game. Having watched the two brothers interact, however, Marco reminded himself that Sherlock was perfectly willing and able to play a long game underneath all the flash and posturing and that in no way should he underestimate Mycroft's propensity for sudden and decisive action.
Marco found himself heading for the wardroom. He was curious to see what Sherlock was up to given that they were a bit more than a stan-day and a half out of port. He found Mr. Holmes lying flat on his back on the table, one knee bent with the other ankle resting against it, hands steepled over his chest. From his breathing pattern one might assume the detective was asleep. Marco didn't believe it.
Marco decided to ignore the sleeping detective and instead moved to take a look at the construct on the wardroom wall. Sherlock Holmes was a seriously gifted analyst able to take a wide amount of disparate information and make a cohesive, comprehensible whole from it. Most of the time he did it in his head and occasionally he used a computer. However, for what Mr. Holmes called decently challenging work, what anyone else would call absolutely inscrutable, he said it helped to create a visual representation of the current connections.
The wardroom wall currently was covered in bits and pieces of paper, an occasional photograph and bits and pieces of what looked like nuts and bolts from the spare parts locker. Marco had seen something similar before but he couldn't remember just where or when. Given the feeling of the memory it was a remnant from a very old incarnation. Marco knew that he'd be not able to recall anything other than a sense of Déjà vu and the certainty that each item on the wall represented not only itself but also an entire line of reasoning. Each item was attached to the others by bits of colored string or tape. It looked like a rainbow spider had attempted to spin a web on the wall while high on something or another.
"Anything new off the beacon?" Sherlock asked from the table.
Marco turned his head to look. Sherlock hadn't moved from his previous position.
"Nothing much," Marco replied. "There's a copy of the latest news feeds in your in box if you want it."
"Hmmph," Sherlock grunted. "I'll get to it…"
He didn't complete his sentence because there was a sudden hissing sound like rain on a tin roof followed immediately thereafter by a fluctuation in gravity. It was only a segment later that the illumination dropped to emergency status. Given that it was no surprise to Marco that the general quarters alarm started to sound as soon as the gravity stabilized.
"Come," Marco snapped the order as he took off toward the bridge. It would be better to have Sherlock where he could see him rather than having him roaming the ship during an emergency. Marco could figure out what to do with him once he knew what had happened. Marco was counting on the fact that Sherlock would be highly curious as to what had just happened. The bridge was where the information was so of course Sherlock would want to be on the bridge.
Marco charged up the ladder noting the smell of fried electronics wafting out of the bridge with Sherlock right on his heels. He vaulted over the back of the command chair which Yeve had just vacated and settled in. "Sherlock, secondary com station; sit down, strap in and shut up," Marco ordered as he looked around. "Report," he barked at Yeve.
"We ran through a coronal mass ejection. It was a double one. First wave we weathered just fine. We lost a couple outside bow sensors to the debris wave that proceeded the second. Looks like with the exception of the secondary nav-station everything shut down just like it's supposed to when the second ion wave hit."
Marco noted the scorch mark on the ceiling above the indicated station. That must have been a spectacular show of lightning when it blew. The electronic overload had even been forceful enough to crack the monitor screen. Marco made a mental note to have someone check the surge circuit. The station shouldn't have failed like that for a simple ion storm caused surge.
Yeve continued, "Automatic reboots are in progress we'll have a decent idea where we are momentarily."
Trev didn't wait to be asked but started in, "I took manual control when the first wave hit and killed the drives and initiated emergency sail field shutdown. I think they were all the way down when the second one hit us."
Lex came running up the ladder at that point, "Crew's fine," she reported. "There's a couple of bumps and bruises from folks falling when the gravity fluctuated but nothing serious."
"Good. I see we have coms back on line, give me an open mike on my mark." Marco paused for a moment to think about what he needed to say. He glanced around the bridge and absently noted that Sherlock was all set to open the channel. "Mark," he said then over the intercom, "Ladies and Gentlemen we just had a spell of nasty weather, ion storm variety. We are going to sit tight for a bit and see if anything got overly jostled about. Perform a full damage assessment and report results to section leaders. Captain out." Marco made a cutting motion and Sherlock obediently shut down the channel.
The next few ticks were busy as the reports started coming in. Yeve's initial assessment was proving correct. All the automatic restarts with the exception of the fried nav-station went live without a hitch. The crew started the manual processes one by one in an orderly fashion and those came on line too. There were a few more sensors that had fried but nothing critical was affected and it would be a simple matter to swap them out especially since they should be safely docked in London in a stan-day and a half or so.
Marco was a bit surprised that Sherlock had been extremely cooperative reigning in his penchant for snarky comments and generally being helpful when asked. He did seem to be copying bits and pieces of data and stashing them in a personal file but Marco didn't worry about it. The ships data was completely and physically separate from the Whitebeard intelligence databases. There was nothing at all sensitive in the ship systems even the special modifications needed to link up to form the Moby Dick were not stored in the general information needed to run the ship during normal operations. If they had been in attack configuration it would have been a different matter entirely but Marco trusted his ship, his people and his systems to keep the secrets secret.
By the end of the stan everything had been checked and double checked and they were ready to raise the solar sails and get underway again. Marco was rather happy that they hadn't been inside the asteroid belt when the storm hit. Drifting in a field of orbiting rocks with the only steerage provided by the maneuvering thrusters was not his idea of a good time. Luckily they didn't have to deal with that.
"We're ready," Yeve commented, "Shall we revert to nav-detail?"
Marco thought for a moment, was downgrading from emergency status a good idea? "Make the announcement," he said.
It only took a tick or two for the crew to get settled. Nav-detail wasn't that far off emergency ops in crew location.
"All departments reporting secure," Lex noted.
"Raise sail," Marco ordered. "Let's make haste for London town," he added earning himself a strange look from Sherlock as the rest of the bridge acknowledged the order.
"Sails up," Trev spoke from the nav-station "Correcting course for London, all ahead…"
The ship suddenly bucked and lurched to starboard. The only reason the bridge crew was not thrown about was that they were still strapped in from emergency operations. It felt to Marco like they'd been hit by something like a phase torpedo. He reached out and toggled the biometric switch on the command console shifting the entire ship into combat configuration. Even if they weren't under attack he figured the additional sensor and ship systems capacity would help them determine what was wrong.
Each bridge station shifted over to combat mode doubling, and in some cases tripling the information shown. The head's up display lit up with the pertinent information from the stations echoed on the walls of the bridge. The ship navigational controls opened up in the command chair so that Marco could take control of the Phoenix directly if necessary. The bridge crew adjusted almost instantaneously to the increased flow of information with the exception of Sherlock on the secondary coms station. Marco wasn't' too surprised however when he managed get himself adjusted in a tick or so after muttering it's always something under his breath.
"Port side sail generator lost power suddenly," Lex reported. "Chief Fredricks is on the way to see if he can figure out the problem."
Trev asked "Shall I use the maneuvering thrusters to cancel the spin captain?"
Marco thought for a couple segments before responding, "Not just yet. Aljendro calculate our general trajectory. It may be more efficient to bring up the kicker's and use those to get back on course."
"Aye, Aye Captain," Trev and Aljendro chorused.
It was only a few ticks later when Yeve commented "All systems normal other than the sail generator."
"Anything on that yet?"
"Fredricks will ping us if and when he gets something," Lex replied.
No sooner had she finished speaking when the Phoenix shuddered and lurched again. Marco felt as well as saw the explosion of the port kicker engine on the displays. In addition he felt a fire ignite in the engine bay. Without hesitation Macro closed his eyes and reached with his powers for the fire. It fought him but he grabbed it mentally and held on; keeping it isolated from anything else flammable in the area. It took a good deal of his concentration but he could still hear the rest of the bridge crew as they dealt with the new catastrophe.
"Perkins has a manual override on the fire suppression system," Yeve reported. "They are evacuating the compartment. Fredricks was hit by debris and is out and it looks like we have another crew member down in there."
Lex added, "Three crew members excluding Fredricks haven't reported in."
"Life boat away," Sherlock chimed in.
"What?!" exclaimed Lex. "Those shouldn't be able to release without command authority."
"It's not that hard to override if you know what you are doing," Sherlock responded. "Let me see if I can get a read on who or what's in it."
"I'll see if I can hail someone and have 'em grab it," Lex replied.
Marco could hear the typing of keys then Yeve's voice, "Ok, the compartment is clear. Perkins is activating the fire suppressors."
He felt the fire loose its strength as inert gas was pumped into the compartment. It was only a segment or two and he was able to release the fire to its ultimate demise. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.
Lex was swearing under her breath as she worked the coms. "Someone's jammed our outgoing coms."
"Most likely the person who took the life boat and one of your two missing crew members," Sherlock said. "There's only one living body on that craft."
"Shit, shit, shit" Lex was on a roll, "It's not computerized, that means it's a physical jammer somewhere between system's main and the transmitter."
"The missing crew was all from engineering so I suspect its out near the transmitter in a place accessible from the maintenance corridors," Sherlock opined.
Lex met his gaze. Marco could see that she wanted to blow the traitor who had jumped ship into smithereens. While he could sympathize it was more important to deal with the potential corpse of his vessel than to get revenge. Besides Marco knew from long experience revenge could wait as it was a dish best served cold. He made a negative sign with his hand at her. She grimaced slightly but ducked her head in agreement. Good.
"Where did that last bit send us course wise?" Marco asked the room at large.
Trev and Alejandro appeared furiously calculating but Trev responded, "Well there's good news and bad news Captain."
"Shoot."
"The good news is that we are not heading back into the asteroid belt; the bad news is we are on a ballistic trajectory with a comet."
"How close will we come?"
Alejandro stopped for a moment, "If we don't change course we are going to hit the main body head on."
"Lovely. How much time do we have?"
"Rough calculations, couple of stans," Alejandro replied. "I'm running the actuals now."
Marco was thinking fast. The traitor had belonged to engineering and had jumped ship. Gods only knew what he had left behind other than the com jammer. He wouldn't want to use the thrusters until someone had gone over them with a fine tooth comb just in case there was another bomb. They might be able to call for help if they could find the jammer but space was large and the odds of someone being close enough were slim to none. He raised his head to take another look at the tactical read outs. He noticed that Yeve had commandeered most of the sensor arrays and was doing what looked like an intensive scan of the entire ship.
Yeve looked up and noticed his interest. "I've not found any hint of any additional explosives so far," she said, "and I'm working on a second pass. I do suggest that we initiate the Escaped Monkey Protocol and search the entire ship."
"Good. Start the protocol and have the engineering teams check the thruster's first. Save berthing for last. Lex, have someone get everything we have on those three crew members; Johnson, Evanford and Bertram and ping it to Sherlock's tablet."
"Initiated as ordered," Yeve acknowledged.
"In progress," said Lex who then added, "Just in case one of 'em is still on board and alive I sent Fred and George to run security in Environmental while the protocol is running. You want me to go look for the jammer?"
"Negative on that," Marco ordered, "If there's anyone close it's likely they are allied with our lifeboat thief. We are better off playing dead for now. No, you need to go with Sherlock."
Lex cocked her head somewhat confused.
Sherlock released his tie downs and stood, "I assume you wish to know which of your crew is the traitor and if there are any more on board."
"Yep," Marco replied. "Go do your thing as quickly as possible. Lex will get you access to whatever you need."
"I understand the deadline," Sherlock deadpanned as he turned and headed off the bridge with Lex right at his heels.
Marco winced at the bad pun. Although when he thought about it that was a better reaction than most people would have had upon being informed that the ship they were on was in danger of becoming a smear on the front of a comet. While he hadn't expected hysterics if Marco had been given the option he'd have bet on icy calm rather than black humor from Sherlock Holmes.
/Po8/Po8/Po8/Po8/
Half a stan or so later Marco found himself considering a variety of schemes, each crazier and more improbable than the last, to save the Phoenix as the litany of good news/bad news continued to roll in. They'd found the jammer rather quickly but there was no one within sensor range who would be able to get to them in time. Marco had ordered the jammer to be removed anyway. If worse came to worse they could tight beam the logs and the ships roster to Londinium so Commonwealth could deal with the aftermath. The starboard kicker engine had also been sabotaged but the explosive had not functioned correctly so it had only damaged a few internal components. Unfortunately the components which were damaged would take up to a full stan-day to replace. The thrusters were fine but even using them at maximum would only change their trajectory enough so they would go through the comet's tail rather than smashing into its head. Trev and Alejandro were currently milking every last erg of thrust from the engines to attempt to hit the tail as far away from the head as possible. Meanwhile Yevette had been scanning the comet's tail looking for the best spot to impact. A spot where they might have a chance of punching through before the shields collapsed. Judging from her muttering she wasn't having much luck.
Marco vaguely remembered hearing someone lamenting about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. It was just superstition but sequences of events like this tended to make the most scientifically minded person wonder about whether fate was personified and what the heck they had done to incur her wrath. Marco dismissed that line of thought and went back to trying to find a way out of this mess. It was too bad, Marco thought, that they happened to be in a space ship as opposed to a terrestrial ocean going vessel. If they had been planet side on an ocean and run into something like an ice storm Marco could have shifted and flown in front of the ship vaporizing the danger with his fire. Unfortunately even a legendary shifter like himself was not immune to hard vacuum.
Marco was jolted out of his musings by a series of whistles and clicks from Yevette. He absently noted that it was a rough approximation of a fishman curse. Translated it was something about the difficulties of copulating on a black beach in the hot sun using a variety of unconventional sexual aids. Yeve was definitely frustrated since she rarely cursed and when she did she inevitably used an obscure language. Marco knew things were serious when she cursed and deadly serious if she started to curse in standard.
"Bloody hell!" Yeve hissed at her console. "What are the odds that we'd get the one comet in creation with an evenly distributed tail!" She looked up at Marco then, "No matter where we hit this thing we'll only get about half way through before the shields buckle even if we are in combat mode with all the power diverted front. Fuck!"
Marco looked at Yeve and wondered what he could say to convince her that their impending demise was not the fault of her being unable to analyze a way out of the predicament. As he thought his eyes were drawn to the tattoo on her face; the swirls of blue that indicated not only her water affinity but also that she could psionically bend it to her will. Marco suddenly had a crazy idea that just might work if...
"Heya Yeve, what's the composition of the comets tail?"
"Normal comet; basically a dirty snowball. The part we'll intersect is close to 90% H2O mostly in the form of ice crystals. The rest is dust and bits of rock," Yeve answered looking curious.
Something must have been showing on his face or in his posture for her to go from despairing and guilty to curious Marco realized.
"And what's your range to play with water?"
Yeve's eyes got wide, "About 3-4 klicks planet side depending upon visibility. I can work through windows but I've never tried it through a ship hull." She stopped for a moment considering. "I don't know if I've got enough strength though. I have to convert the ice to water before I can manipulate it and that takes a lot of energy."
"What if it's already liquid? How fast can you shuttle it aside?" Marco asked.
"I could run it down the…but it would freeze again…but I could…" Yevette trailed off eyes vacant as she mentally ran through scenarios. She looked up at Marco again, "So how are you going to make it liquid?"
Marco just smiled and reached for his power. He summoned a little blue flame in the palm of his hand then pursed his lips and blew it toward the bridge window. The flame obedient to his will drifted across the bridge, winked out as it impacted the window then reappeared on the other side.
"Cool," breathed Trev as the flame danced a little then disappeared.
"How much area can you cover with that and for how long?" Yeve asked fingers poised to start calculating.
"I don't know," Marco admitted, "but the smaller the area the longer I'll be able to hold it."
"I'm assuming fire first then I deflect the water and the shields take on the rest. I've got to run some sims," Yeve muttered and started typing furiously.
Marco spent the next 30 ticks meditating and marshalling his strength. He had no idea how much he would need to melt comet ice so that Yeve could psionically push it out of the path of the ship. What Marco was most worried about however was using up all his resources to the point of death. Normally a phoenix such as himself would, at the point of physical death, use its powers to immolate the body then rise later from the ashes. Just what would happen if the power was all used up was anyone's guess. It could be anything ranging from an explosion to a fizzle and would probably result in his permanent demise. Marco decided that if the worst happened he would at least attempt to place the explosion outside the hull in the direction of travel. That would give the crew a fighting chance to make it through the comet. Just as Marco came to that decision he heard Lex and Sherlock coming back up the ladder toward the bridge.
"So Escaped Monkey Protocol is a systematic and detailed search of the ship but I can't deduce why you'd call it that since you are not equipped to handle exotic animals," Sherlock was saying.
Lex chuckled, "We had a stowaway problem once. I'll tell you about it when we get to Londinium."
Marco smiled to himself. There was no way in heck that Sherlock would be able to figure out that the stowaway problem had not been an actual simian but one Monkey D. Luffy leader of the Straw Hat Pirates.
"So," he said as soon as Lex and Sherlock got onto the bridge.
"Evanford is our traitor and life boat occupant, Johnson was the accomplice and Bertram was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Lex reported.
"Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead," Sherlock added. "Bertram was in the portside engine room and interrupted Evanford or Johnson when they were setting the charges. He got hit with a spanner. The other conspirator was setting the starboard side charges at the same time. I suspect it was Johnson on the starboard side because he was the less experienced of the two and the explosives did not go off correctly not to mention the fact he was left handed."
"Was?" Marco asked although he knew the answer.
"Found his body wedged in a lifeboat airlock. The one next door to the one Evanford absconded with. He'd been knifed and bled out." Lex said succinctly.
"Ok, that's all I need for now. If we live I'll want a full report from both of you."
Marco eyed Sherlock who surprisingly nodded in acquiescence.
"We've got about 40 ticks before we hit the comet tail. I want every last item on board stowed, everything locked down and everyone strapped in by that time."
"Aye Aye sir," Lex said moving to her console.
"Sherlock," Marco didn't see any alternative but to use the man whether he trusted him or not. "I need you to take all the analysis that you have done and the contents of these three directories and tight beam them to the address I'll give you in a moment. When the program requests a code setting use Rite of Spring. Add anything from your investigation that you think might be useful. Second take all of our physical data from the ion storm and send it to Orbital control with my compliments. I'll have a secondary data package for you to send to the first address by the time you get that done."
Marco was again surprised when all Sherlock said was, "Yes Captain," and moved to the secondary com station.
It only took 10 ticks or so for Marco to write what might just be his last captains log entry. He shuttled it to Sherlock to add to the cache. He idly wondered if Sherlock had managed to send the cache address and access code off to his brother yet. Marco fully expected him to do so. Sherlock had no loyalty to the Whitebeards in general or the Phoenix in specific. If they survived Marco wondered what the heck the Iceman would make out of parts of his last entry. He'd probably assume it was code rather than what it actually was; an expression of sentiments that he'd not had time or the guts to say.
"Packages sent," Sherlock's voice jarred Marco out of his musings. "I also put the location and code into a delayed message. If I don't countermand the action in twelve stans it will send that information to The Government."
Marco hadn't expected that courtesy and smiled. "That solves my backup problem then, eh?"
Sherlock made a choked off snort in reply. Oh yes, Marco thought, Sherlock might have had the reputation of being a colossal insensitive prat but it was little actions like this that showed most of the anti-social behaviors were just a front.
"Give me ship wide com please," he asked Sherlock.
Sherlock punched a few buttons and said, "You're live."
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Marco started in, "by now you all probably have an idea of what's going on due to ship-rumor-net. Regardless of all the other bits and pieces what you really need to know is that in 20 to 30 ticks or so we are going to attempt to punch through the tail of a comet. It's going to be a rough ride so batten down the hatches and strap down in combat mode. You all are one of the best crews I've ever had and I wanted to let you all know that. So whatever happens in the next stan or so I'll see you all on the other side; Captain out."
The next 20 ticks were spent memorizing the shape of the fire he'd need to create to help protect the ship. Yeve was meditating and the rest of the bridge crew, Sherlock included, was busily making sure that nothing would come loose regardless of how bumpy things got. Finally everything that could be done was done and all they could do was wait.
They were about a tick out when Marco gave the order, "Shift all the excess power to the front shields."
"All shields forward Aye," Alejandro repeated as he did so.
"Guns hot?"
Lex replied, "Gunners in position, guns hot."
Marco toggled the com to the gunnery unit, "Fire at will when we hit. Vaporize anything bigger than a human head."
There was a chorus of Aye sir before he toggled the com off.
"Ready Yeve?"
"Right behind you sir," she replied.
"Trev you have the helm and Lex you have the conn; let's do this people."
With that Marco gathered his power and reached out to create a shield shaped fire in front of the ship. He felt Yeve's power form behind his ready to shuttle the resulting water out of the path of the ship. He had just enough time to wonder what the heck they'd look like from Londinium orbital before they hit the edge of the comet's tail.
Marco struggled to hold his fiery shield. The Phoenix shuddered as if it had hit a wall. The entire ship moaned like some sort of ancient harbinger of doom. He could vaguely hear and feel the gunners taking out the larger chunks of ice and crud before they even got to his shield. There was something that sounded like a wave of water hitting the hull. Suddenly the noise cut off, the guns went silent and they were through.
Marco dismissed the shield then opened his eyes and looked around the bridge. Trev and Alejendro were giving each other a high five. Sherlock and Lex were both trying not to giggle and failing. Yeve was slumped back in her chair a silly grin on her face.
"All right?" he asked her.
"Yeah," she replied. "I just feel like I diverted a tidal wave tho."
"You probably did my dear."
"Oh," Lex said having recovered from her attack of the giggles, "I didn't get a chance to tell you but the engineering crew managed to get the port sail generator running just before we went into combat mode. Some of the control lines had been cut so it was a relatively simple fix. Replace the lines and we are good to go."
"Well that's a piece of good news. Let's do a quick once over then revert to nav-stations and raise sail," Marco ordered. "Sherlock, get on the line to Londinium Control and tell 'em we'll be coming in under sail only."
/Po8/Po8/Po8/Po8/
Marco sat in a café looking out onto one of the wider corridors of the Londinium L4 Orbital Outpost, often referred to as Londinium Orbital or London for short. He was enjoying a pot of tea; that beverage unique to the Commonwealth and almost impossible to find elsewhere. The particular variety he had ordered was infused with an oil of some sort giving it a distinctive aroma and flavor. For some strange reason this particular beverage had always evoked feelings of relaxation and comfort for Marco.
Gods only knew he needed the relaxation after having been stuck for a stan in a meeting with Mycroft Holmes. The fact that the man happened to be the de facto head of the bureaucracy was highly placed in the Commonwealth's intelligence service and could quite probably order Marco imprisoned and the Phoenix impounded hadn't been terribly intimidating. Marco had previously dealt with people with far more power and less ethics than Mycroft Holmes. No what made Mr. Holmes so difficult to deal with was the fact that one needed to keep every word, gesture and involuntary reaction under tight control so as to not inadvertently reveal anything more that you wanted to reveal. While Marco could play that game it generally made him tense and caused a low grade headache.
As the tea began to take effect Marco started paying less attention to his now waning headache and more to the traffic in the corridor. After several ticks he noticed a short, dark haired woman in a tight red dress heading toward the café. She entered and sauntered over to Marco's table.
"Buy a sailor a drink?" she asked softly so as not to be overheard.
"Go get your own drink Lex," Marco replied just as softly.
Marco watched as Alexia sashayed over to the counter. Her disguise was quite good. No one would associate the blond short-haired muscular security officer of the Phoenix with this dark haired petite beauty. She flirted with the counter staff and came back to the table with a tall caramel colored drink topped with what looked like whipped cream. She sat down and Marco could see condensation on the glass. She'd clearly obtained some sort of blended iced beverage. They sat in silence for a bit enjoying their drinks before Lex spoke.
"Well I think I understand partially now why our recent guest treated me the way he did."
"Oh?"
"Doctor Watson and I could have been separated at birth," Lex smiled and took another sip of her drink. "He's got the same build, hair and body type, just add a couple of inches."
"Interesting," Marco replied then when it became clear that Lex wasn't going to say anything else without prompting, "So how did the good Doctor react to finding out that demise of his cohort in crime solving had been exaggerated?"
"You'll enjoy this," Lex grinned. "Watson was out on a date at some swanky restaurant. Sherlock impersonated a waiter. When Watson caught on I learned a couple of new swears and that I really don't want to be on the receiving end of the Doctor's right hook."
"And that was it?" Marco asked.
"Oh no, they got tossed out of the swanky place and then two more places after that. It looked like every time Sherlock tried to explain Watson would listen a bit then get mad, spout a few more swears and attempt to punch him again."
"And how did the Doctor's date take all this?"
"She took it in stride surprisingly. Any normal fem would have dumped the two of them but she tagged right along. She's clearly in love with the Doctor and by the third restaurant I could tell she was really liking Sherlock. No accounting for type I guess." Lex shrugged then continued, "there's something strange about her. She cases new places like a seasoned intelligence agent; notes exits, windows, sight lines and the like. She also moves like someone with a lot of training trying to hide that they have training. I bet she passes it off as being a dancer or something similar. I think Sherlock picked up on it but I bet he'll ignore it because his Doctor seems to be really into her."
Marco had to smile, "We'll I'll bet if we keep an eye on the blogosphere we'll get the whole story from Watson's point of view. If not I have a standing invitation from our ex-passenger to drop by when we are in port and I'll get the story then."
"You'll just have to make sure and do that," Lex commented. "We are stuck here until the repairs on the ship are finished so what's next on the agenda?"
"I don't know about you," Marco replied, "but before I do anything else I'm going to finish my tea."
Author's Notes: This story was the result of "The Universe is Rarely So Lazy" mating with the Abney Park song "Wrath of Fate." The next thing I knew I had a cute plot bunny that insisted on eating all my free time. If you are interested in the song just search on Youtube for it or better yet buy it from I-tunes.
Many thanks are due to my alpha reader Guy who educated me on certain ship terminology. For those interested gangways go onto the ship, stairways get you to heaven but ladders go up or down a level or a deck. As always thanks to Kneoria ( )/Erif_of_Taloma (AO3) for keeping my one piece characters in line.
Once again as this story stands alone I'll sign off with apologies to the Bard:
If this writer has offended,
Think but this and all is mended,
That you have but tarried here,
Whilst each chapter did appear,
And these word upon this theme,
Are of no import, only my dream.
It has been an honor to share my dream with you.