Chapter Eleven
Project Daedalus – Salute to Self-Sacrifice
Captain Christopher Pike pursed his lips into a thin line of displeasure as he took his eyes away from the view screen in front of him. A stunned silence had settled over the bridge the moment Commander Airiam had been unceremoniously thrown out of the airlock. The bridge crew was fighting to keep their tears at bay, some of them succeeded, some did not.
Pike hated this, it never got any easier to lose people, if anything it seemed to get worse. Like every soul he'd lost under his command added weight to his broad shoulders, slowly adding to his burden, bringing him down on his knees. He envied the rest of them who was allowed to show their emotions, to display affection to a fallen comrade. As the captain he could not, he was not allowed to feel, not allowed to think what if, it was only logic and order that should occupy his mind at the moment. The needs of the many outweighing the need of the one. It never got pretty, it always took a toll on him, left him drained and lethargic and torn apart inside.
Ensign Tilly silently sobbed next to him, trying to be strong but failing miserably. Without a word she carefully hugged the pad in her arms, pressed it tightly against her chest and left the bridge.
He turned around to see that the Admiral had her eyes downcast, facing the deck plating, and that Saru was openly staring at the body floating in space.
"Switch screen, please," Pike managed. "Is the channel to Burnham and Nhan still open?"
"I'm sorry, sir," Michael's voice came over the line. "I don't know what to say."
"Are you both all right?" he asked softly with concern. He'd seen the beating Airiam had given both of them and he'd heard Nhan's strained breathing over the channel even though the signal had been lost.
"She ripped my implant-" Nhan began and struggled for a breath, "-away, sir."
"Make sure to beam them directly to sickbay," Pike ordered without preamble.
"Yes, sir," Owo said without hesitation. She seemed to be the one to deal best with the situation at hand, all things considered.
Pike nodded and opened a secure channel to sickbay. "Doctor Pollard, Commander Burnham and Commander Nhan will be brought to your care within moments, please stand by," he said seriously.
"Certainly, captain," came the quick reply.
OOOOOO
Chris took one last look around the bridge and decided to seek refuge in his ready room for a moment to gather his thoughts. His time of solitude, however, was brought short as the Admiral joined him only minutes after he'd shut the door behind himself. She said nothing as she entered, she just sat down opposite him and before he could ask about her intentions with this, somewhat informal meeting, the door opened again to reveal his current XO and his science officer. None of them said anything either for a long moment. Pike finally gave up and sighed. He got out of his chair and started to pace the room.
"So," he began as he looked from Cornwell to Saru and Spock and back again. "What are we going to do about Section 31's headquarters? Any suggestions?"
Saru decided to comment with a question of his own. "Sir, what are going to do with the bodies?" he said.
"We cannot retrieve them," Spock spoke up. "Section 31 is a highly classified branch of Starfleet. For outsiders the very existence of it is denied."
"Surely the Vulcan High Command and the Andorian Imperial Guard know," Saru stated as he glanced around the room.
Pike turned to Cornwell, waiting for her to explain further.
"I'm afraid it's not that simple, Commander Saru," she said in exasperation. "You see Admiral Patar died seven years ago in an accident over the Sahar dessert, a desolate place not many Vulcan's visit."
"The rest of them conveniently died as well?" Pike guessed with dismay.
Katrina nodded with a sigh. "Yes, all of them have been reported deceased in various accidents, all of them have been jettisoned to space at a proper funeral."
Pike nodded. "A coffin without a body," he deduced darkly.
"Yes," the Admiral admitted. "And the rest of us are sworn to secrecy. That way there will be no one to take responsibility for Section 31's actions. We've not sanctioned them at Starfleet Command-"
"I really don't like this," Pike cautioned darkly.
"It has been trying times, Chris," she replied coldly. "One does what one must do in order to survive."
"I can see the logic in that," Spock reasoned. "However, I fail to see where that leave us at the present."
"It means Leland is taking orders from control and control only," Pike filled in.
"It has to stop. It's the only way to save ourselves from the future you saw, Mr. Spock," Cornwell reasoned.
"If you'll excuse me for a moment," the captain said. "I need to make sure Burnham and Nhan are okay."
OOOOOO
Pike walked into sickbay one to find Tracy Pollard hovering over Commander Nhan and Culber standing close to Commander Burnham, giving her shoulder a soft squeeze.
Burnham stiffened as she saw him coming her way, Chris guessed she was expecting a reprimand. Her eyes were dark and sad, almost glazed, as he came to stand next to her.
She looked at him hollowly. "I-I'm sorry, sir. I couldn't let her go. I would have but-" she began with a stricken expression.
Hugh looked away at the display of torn emotions etched on the commander's face.
"Michael," Pike began softly. "I'm not here to reprimand you. I'm here to make sure you're going to be okay."
Doctor Culber looked up to face the captain, taken somewhat by surprise at the soft tone of voice and care the other man was showing.
Pike turned to the doctor with a frown. "She is going to be all right?" he asked carefully.
Culber finally found his voice. "Of course, captain," he assured him with a smile and made to leave the two of them alone.
"She just-," Michael said as if not really sure what had happened.
"She was infected by control," Pike replied sadly. "Like Airiam said, there was nothing you could have done to save her, nothing."
"Still I should have done more," she whispered dejectedly.
"Didn't you hear me?" he asked softly. "Nothing, it was absolutely nothing you could have done. We all heard her. She told you she would kill you and it tore her apart just as much as it tore you apart to kill a friend and a colleague."
Michael nodded.
"You and I both knew when we signed up that this situation might arise. I think I speak for both of us when I say I prayed it would never come to this but unfortunately we can't chose our future. However, we can make choices to rectify some of it," Pike reasoned sadly. "When Nhan spaced Airiam she chose life for you, for all of us and everyone else."
She inhaled deeply and then swallowed as she reached up with her hand to dab at her cheek and wipe away a tear that had sprung from her eye.
"It's not going to go away, Michael, it's going to leave a hole in your soul, create an emptiness that will leave scars for the rest of your life but you already know that," Chris said kindly. "If you ever want to talk about it then I'm here to listen."
Her lips twisted upwards in an effort to smile at his kind words. "Thank you, captain," she whispered.
He nodded. "Take your time and don't come back on duty until you're ready, okay?"
"Okay," she echoed.
Pike walked away from his science officer and moved over to his chief of security. Doctor Pollard had reattached the implant by now but the area looked tender and painful as a vivid bruise was spreading across her cheek.
"Nhan," he acknowledged with a ghost of a smile and nodded at Tracy who stood nearby.
"Sir," she replied tiredly, her eyes clouded with a pain that he was sure was both physical and psychological.
"Nhan, thank you for saving us," he said seriously. "I know it wasn't an easy decision."
She took a quivering breath, trying out the implant carefully. "Someone had to follow your order, captain," she replied. "If I hadn't we'd all been dead."
He nodded sadly at that.
"Discovery is not Enterprise," she deduced. "They've been through a lot together but so have we, sir. We've learned to survive the hard way, without backup, without anyone but you. I will never hesitate."
Pike turned modest at that and he forced a smile on his face. He briefly wondered if he'd failed to bring the crew of Discovery together. Recently he'd thought he'd had their respect but he figured some of them still had their own fears and doubts to deal with. He knew Burnham respected him, he could tell, but he could also see that she was fighting to come to terms with all the losses she'd endured during the war and all her personal losses during her life. In the end it had nothing to do with him and his command but with herself and her own emotional state.
"Discovery is good ship too, Nhan," he reassured her. "I have faith in these people as you should too."
Pike looked up to see Tracy Pollard smiling next to him. "Is she going to be all right now, doctor?" he asked carefully.
Tracy nodded. "Yes, captain. I will monitor her closely for a day just to make sure the implants is in working order. It's not very common to have such things laying around. I had to make adjustments and modifications to the old one to circumvent the damage Commander Airiam managed to inflict but I'm ninety-nine percent sure it will work."
Pike broke into a smile. "Good, thank you doctor," he said.
"What happens now?" Nhan asked seriously as she saw Admiral Cornwell and Saru walk into the crowded room.
Pike grimaced. "We need to send a team over to make sure we haven't missed anything," he replied. "I will-"
"Absolutely not," Cornwell chided as she came to stand in the middle of the room, next to the board displaying the injured officer's condition.
Culber stopped feeding new information to it at the sound of her sharp voice and the rest of the room fell silent.
Pike turned around in surprise. "Excuse me?" he said with a frown.
"You are not going anywhere, captain," she said sternly.
"And why not?" he challenged, suddenly annoyed at her intrusion.
Katrina crossed her arms over her chest and fixed him with a glare. "Did you not hear what I said earlier on the bridge?" she asked.
"I can't ask things of my crew that I can't do on my own," he said simply.
Cornwell's lips twitched upward in a cunning smile. "Clever, Chris," she said. "Technically you're not the highest ranking officer onboard and therefore there is no reason for you to stand down. Is that it?"
He smirked.
"Then maybe we should approach this another way?" she added. "If you injure yourself or worse, if you die over there, because there's always a risk involved in away missions. Then there will be two ships and two crews left without a captain."
At that he said nothing, he even had the good grace to look away for a moment.
"Is that what you want, Chris?" she asked in a softer voice. "Because I'm sure I speak for everyone else here when I say that's not what I want."
Pike raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Fine, you win Admiral," he said softly and turned on his heels to leave the room feeling everyone's eyes on his back.
Katrina sighed and reached up to rub her temples trying to evade the beginning of a headache.
"Thank you, Admiral," Saru finally spoke up after a moment of awkward silence. "I would never have managed that on my own."
"You speak for everyone," Michael said in a steady voice from her bed across the room.
"Chris can be a bit too eager to throw himself into danger. His crew always come first. He's stubborn that way," Cornwell let on. "That is what makes him a good captain."
Hugh walked up to her, a smile on his face. "Would you like to get rid of that headache of yours, Admiral?" he asked with a hypo on his hand. "It looks painful."
"You mean I should stop my own self-sacrificing act?" she asked amusedly. "Bring it on, doctor."
OOOOOO
Paul Stamets watched as Tilly gently walked up to the transporter pad and tried to close Airiam's eyes.
The augmentation kept defying her as it had become frozen in place in the cold space and the lids popped open only seconds after Tilly had tried to close them. Four attempts later the stricken ensign sat down next to the commander, placed a hand over her mouth and started to sob.
"Tilly, Tilly," Stamets said softly as he walked up to her. He knelt at her side and place a hand on her shoulder. "Come on now, you have to get yourself together, for Airiam. She would hate seeing you like this, it's not what she wanted. She wanted you to be happy."
"I'm sorry, Paul, but I just can't. I mean I can't be happy, look at her. She's dead," Sylvia whispered in a quivering voice. "It hurts, it hurts so much."
"Will you help me deliver her to Doctor Pollard?" Paul asked kindly. "I'm sure Airiam would have liked that."
Tilly nodded. She took one last look at her friend and smiled before she got up from the transporter pad. The augmentation that had once saved Airiam's life in the shuttle crash several years ago had now gotten her killed. Tilly could only hope that at least now she and her husband had finally come together again, somewhere in a much brighter and warmer place.
OOOOOO
Captain Christopher Pike drummed his fingers absentmindedly against the armrest of his chair as he stared at the dark station before him on the view screen.
"Nilsson to Discovery," a woman's voice carried loud and clear over the com channel.
"Go ahead," Pike said.
"We've tried everything we can think of, sir, but we still can't get into the core. It's like control has sealed itself in," she reported.
"Is there any sign of life or malware?" he asked carefully.
"Negative, sir," another officer spoke up. "There is nothing here. It's a ghostly place, gives me the creeps actually."
Pike nodded. "Stand by for transport, let's bring you back home," he said.
"Sounds good to us, sir," Nilsson replied brightly.
The captain turned slightly in his chair to face his XO.
"They're safely onboard," Saru reported.
"Good. Back us off Detmer," he commanded.
"With pleasure, sir," she said without hesitation.
"Owosekun, hit it with everything we've got. Let's blow that place to hell where it belongs," he ordered darkly.
"Anytime, sir, or I might get trigger-happy," she replied softly.
"Fire," Pike replied coldly.
The view screen lit up in various colors as Discovery's vicious attack tore the station apart. Pike watched with satisfaction as only debris remained. "Detmer, when you're ready, get us out of here."
"I can't be more ready," she replied seriously. "Where to?"
"Somewhere nearby, somewhere beautiful where we can give Commander Airiam the funeral she deserves," he said softly.
OOOOOO
To be continued
A/N: I'm so glad you like it. The feedback is really appreciated and warms my heart! Thank you.
