Rising to the Occasion: Chapter 14
Whom Gods Destroy Redux, Part 1
"Welcome!" Governor Cory, lead administrator and head neuroscientist on Elba 2, stepped out from behind the Transporter console and up to greet them. The console was in the middle of a control room, and Dr. Marcus's mind started to catalog what each station could control.
Transporters, shields, tractor beams, ground-to-space defensive weapons, security monitoring, life support... this is too much going on in one place she thought to herself.
"Governor Cory, thank you for your hospitality," she replied for the group as Palmer, Martine, and Cyani stepped off the transporter pads and spread out in the small space. Cory walked around them, circling the consoles without looking at them, his eyes on the wall panel that controlled the force shield.
"Ladies, you don't know what a treat this is for me. It's been too long since I've had some company. The force field's back in place now and that means you four are trapped here." He smiled and added, "And I'm not accepting any excuses for you not dining with me."
After the Specialist on the Beirut, Marcus thought she would be more sensitive to a male officer making such a statement, but he genuinely sounded relaxed and not at all like the Beirut's comm's officer.
He didn't sound like he was trying to get under their skirts.
"I wish that we could. I'm afraid we are pressed for time." Carol smiled the smile she used at diplomatic events alongside her father. Nothing against the Governor, but they needed to get back to Ardana and just the trip was going to take them 8 hours. They were already almost in hour four, and lucky to be making such good time.
"I'm here, Governor, because I think we are in a position to help you." She stepped forward and continued, "I'm told you have 15 inmates, surely a large number for such a specialized facility. As one of the only inhabitants on Elba 2, I'm sure being responsible for all of them is a challenge."
"Oh yes. The only other people here are a few orderlies and a nurse. And these are the truly incurable. No amount of medicine or therapy is going to send them anywhere. The most I can do is make it clear that it is impossible for them to leave."
At that, there was a glint in his eye that took Marcus by surprise. An older man of Euro-Asian descent, the Governor's background was in psychotherapy and neuropharmacology, and his title was more reflective of his role as the decision-maker on the colony than it was any political title.
"I can only imagine..." she said, trying to keep the uncertainty out of her voice.
Something about this whole situation was off. Looking up, she caught Cyani's eye and the Security Specialist shook their head.
"Thank you for holding your newest Orion inmate for us. I know that your position relative to the Orion Syndicate makes maintaining good relations especially important to you, so I appreciate you allowing us to confirm her identity."
"Of course! Business first. This way," Cory led the way into a web of long, narrow corridors.
"Doctor, a word?" It was Cyani, who had come up to her and was speaking softly. She nodded to the Specialist to continue.
"His body language is way off. He's supposed to be a reclusive neuroscientist working with a small team in the middle of nowhere, but his manners are refined and he is completely comfortable surrounded by four brand new people."
Marcus nodded. They made a turn into a hall with inmate quarters on each side. One wall of each set of quarters was just a force field, and inmates were starting to get up and look over at them.
"I take it this isn't a sight they get to see every day," Martine said, making Cory laugh.
"Indeed not. Doctor," the Governor motioned to one of the first cells, "is this your Orion?"
Dr. Marcus had never met Ensign Gaila, but studied holos and spoke with Lt. Uhura about her in preparation for this mission. The woman in the cell was Gaila, though what she had been through was apparent. Her hair was short, chopped out of necessity and not all that carefully. She was thinner and starting to shiver-meaning she was not able to take in enough calories to jack up her metabolism and heat herself. And the air filtration indicator light was on, which meant she was working hard to blast the whole room with pheremones.
She thinks she is going to have to attempt an escape Carol thought, and her shoulder rolled, popping her neck and relieving the tension she hadn't even known was there.
"Ensign Gaila." Marcus addressed her with a sure tone, and the response was immediate. The Orion jumped off her bunk and gave her and her away team an efficient once-over.
"Are you here for me?" Gaila asked.
"Yes," the Doctor said, keeping her tone light and sure. They'd found the missing Engineer, but something told her it wasn't time to celebrate yet. "We are here under Captain Kirk's orders, executed by Lt. Uhura."
The Orion beamed, and even with the air filters on Marcus felt lighter. Then the green woman's eyes narrowed.
"They came here for me," she said, addressing Cory, "They are not a part of your plan. Don't hurt them."
"Why would he hurt us?" Cyani asked.
"Because he isn't the Governor at all. He's an inmate, and you don't want to know which one."
It hit her right then. The way he spoke to her, with a tone that was more fatherly than sleezy. How he was so narrowly focused on getting to the force shield and raising it, so unlike how she would expect someone who navigated that control room every day to act. The complete lack of a fight when she told him they were in a rush.
"Captain Garth?" She turned and addressed Cory directly, hoping she wasn't right.
"Yes... that's him... he's changed his shape to look... like me..." the voice, tired and very familiar, came from the end of the hall. Looking, she saw Cory in a cell, bent over and looking exhausted.
"I must say, dearest Carol," Cory said, hitting a device on his belt and turning himself into Garth of Izar, the former Captain of the U.S.S. Armstrong, "I was a bit disappointed that you didn't ask to see me."
Captain Garth of the U.S.S. Armstrong was a Starfleet legend. He used to brag about being in the Academy's history books for his tactics at the Battle of Axanar. All of that changed when he was hurt at Antos 3 and transported down to a medical complex on Antos 4 for treatment.
There his injuries drove him mad. He faked a recovery and got past even his Chief Medical Officer. His crew mutinied on the Bridge when he ordered them to fire on the planet.
Her father and the Captain had both been Captains at the same time. They were friends. Garth spent many nights after diplomatic receptions or long days at Starfleet Headquarters in her father's quarters playing 3d chess.
Carol watched in horror as he let all of the inmates out, Gaila included, and their party was quickly surrounded by the most notorious, insane criminals in the Federation.
"Marta, my dear," he called, and the other Orion prisoner danced over to him. Unlike Gaila she was at her peak physically, and had been here for long enough to look well-rested and well-fed.
"Yes, my Lord Garth?" she purred.
"Watch her," he pointed at Gaila, "and make sure none of her perfume gets on our male crew."
Marta tilted her head to one side, canted her hips to the other, and pouted.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"You called her," she pouted at Dr. Marcus, "your dearest." She then made a childish face at Carol.
"My dear," he said again, this time patiently, as if he were talking to a child, "Dr. Marcus here is the daughter of an old, dear friend. Even now, I couldn't have feelings for her. I knew her when she was a baby."
"Oh," Marta replied lightly.
"Now gentlemen," Garth said, addressing the bulky Andorian Bysahr Th'thelnehr and the Tellurite Tragrarg Praall, both dangerous criminals on their own worlds and throughout the Federation, "escort our guests to the banquet hall." Then he turned to Marcus.
"I told you I wouldn't accept any excuses."
"Steady as she goes Sir," Sulu said from the helm.
Uhura didn't favor him with a response and, when he looked up, she absolutely did not smile at him.
They were fighting right now.
Per Starfleet regulations, Sulu was the only officer currently on the Bridge with completed Command training . That meant that he should be sitting at the Conn, using the controls from the Captain's chair, and issuing orders.
Instead he was at the Helm (citing that it was the Captain's prerogative to chose which station he wanted to work at any given moment) and giving her status updates. And calling her "Sir" because he knew she would never let him call her anything inappropriate.
Every time he said "Sir", it came out like "Captain".
Since Hannity was already backing her up on comms and Uhura wasn't about to take the Conn formally, she stood next to the Captain's chair.
"Any activity Hannity?" she asked, turning her head.
"No, Sir," Hannity replied, confirming her traitor status. Uhura clenched her jaw to keep from smiling, but knew Hannity was a good enough Communications officer to see through her efforts.
"Since the asylum raised its force shield, which was 13 minutes ago, there's been no discernible activity down there."
"Thank you Lieutenant."
She looked around at the Bridge, and was surprised at how small it felt. Every station was occupied, and that meant the wall consoles were lined with people. Every seat was taken.
Hannity told her on the way to the Bridge that the word had gotten out about their rescue mission. When people learned that they might recover Ensign Gaila, Alpha shift crew started trying to hold onto their stations through the Beta shift. This meant that there were nearly two shifts worth of people working at once, making the ship less of a long network of offices and more of a bustling city in space.
A city she was responsible for, in action if not truly by regulation.
"Call coming in from Elba 2, Sir."
"On screen."
Dr. Marcus stood in front of her in the control room on Elba 2. She could see the transporter pad in the background of the transmission.
"Report." Uhura was short with her, scared of what she might say if she gave herself more freedom. This was the moment when she would learn whether months of work and then days of rescue planning were for nothing.
"We have confirmed the identity of the prisoner. She is Ensign Gaila."
The whole Bridge erupted in cheering and applause. No one was more thankful for that than Nyota. The cheering masked her own reaction, a mix of ecstatic joy and draining relief, and after a few moments caught up in it she felt a shock of self-consciousness. She was Captaining a starship, and no matter what she had to stay in control of herself. Looking around, she quickly came to the conclusion that the only person who'd seen her lose her composure was Marcus.
"Excellent work Doctor. Are you ready for beam out?"
"Yes. The others are coming along behind me."
That wasn't what she had hoped the other woman would say, but she took it in stride.
"And on the next installment of The Enterprise Chronicles..." Uhura began.
"We don't have time for this. Beam me aboard." Doctor Marcus insisted.
She kept her face still, but inside red alerts were going off. She forced herself not to look at Marcus's facial markers. She stopped herself from going back through their conversation to look at the Doctor's body language.
"I'm just sticking to the protocol you insisted on for penal colony beam ups."
"Truly, the sooner I get up the sooner the rest of the party can return with Ensign Gaila." Now the Doctor was starting to get frustrated.
Now she knows how much I care about Gaila personally. When she first told me it didn't seem like she knew she thought.
"We included it in the away mission briefing, so I cannot disregard it now," Uhura reminded her. "Just tell me what you think will happen next and I'll authorize your beam up."
"Just testing you Lieutenant," Dr. Marcus said crisply, her back straightening. "Marcus out."
Walking forward, she stared in shock at the screen. It was now just a star field.
Something is happening down there...
The Enterprise away team was seated at a long black table in the "banquet hall". Really, it was a small Rec room with black lacquer medical bay tables and replicated paper decorations, converted into some bizarre parody of a dinner party. On one end sat Marcus, placed there by Garth and under Marta's constant glare. On the other side was Gaila, blasting her pheremones in an effort to keep the focus of the other inmates on her and away from the other Enterprise staff.
Cyani sat in the middle, scanning the crowd and looking for any possible escape. First, they watched everyone in relation to Gaila and Marta, taking roll on who was susceptible to their pheremones and who was not.
All of the men except Tragrarg were beside themselves with lust. And all of the women except Martine were hostile and irritated.
Martine is susceptible to masculine and feminine wiles Cyani noted, tucking that information back for later.
Cyani was, of course, affected too. They caught their mind wandering again and firmly put their thoughts back on the mission at hand.
When they were first beamed aboard, Cyani saw how Marcus looked over the control room. She knows what each panel controls, or has a good idea. So does Palmer they thought. Both officers could work on getting comms and transporters up if they could all get to the control room.
"I do apologize for the inhospitable introduction, Carol." Garth continued. Apparently he and Admiral Marcus had been friends. So far, he had catered to the Doctor and was currently trying to convince her to join him.
"Garth, please don't do this. We are expected back at the rendezvous in less than four hours. We are already being missed." The Doctor's words were pleading, but her tone was calm. This was not the first time Cyani saw the signs that Marcus had intelligence training.
"Your concern for me is touching dearest," he continued, "which is why I've decided to extend an invitation to you and your fellows to join my crew. An olive branch of friendship..."
The Andorian Bysahr and the Tellurite Tragrarg were doing some weird tricks for them that reminded Cyani of old Earth circuses. Tragrarg was walking on his hands while Bysahr held his feet, steering him around the room as if the Tellurite were a wheelbarrow.
"I thought that we were friends," Marcus continued, holding Garth's attention, "but after my father's death I heard nothing from you."
"Oh, how I wanted to reach out! But by then I was imprisoned here. And when I told them I needed to contact Starfleet Headquarters they laughed at me! Oh, but who's laughing now..."
Behind them the other Orion, Marta, was looming and seething. Garth's explanation earlier only temporarily soothed her, and she was taking this back-and-forth between Garth and Marcus as if it were a personal attack.
The Andorian and Tellurite stood and bowed, and everyone clapped.
As they cleared the center of the room, Marta strode onto it with the grace of a ballerina.
"Now I will do an oral recitation of one of my newest poems-" Marta began, only to be cut off by Gaila.
"Oh come on now! They don't want to hear you do Godot or Shakespeare or whoever else it was you were about to plagiarize."
Cyani scanned around the room. All the male inmates were captivated. The crew were annoyed-save for Martine, who looked confused and vaguely concerned for Gaila.
Garth was loving it. Like any narcissistic sociopath, he assumed they were fighting over him and loved being fought over.
Cyani caught Gaila's eye for just a moment. As she continued to taunt Marta she walked slowly towards the Security Specialist.
"No one asked you anything." Marta spat her words back at Gaila, turning from a sensual ballerina into a deadly cobra as she too started to circle.
"I Know! If they'd asked me you would still be in a cell." Gaila accentuated every last word and Marta looked for all the world like she were about to strike.
"LADies Ladies!" Garth stood, arms out as he called them together like a true circus conductor. "Let us not allow this moment to turn into a petty brawl. We are here to enjoy ourselves! If you must clash with one another, perhaps you could compete in some way that would amuse the rest of us."
The male inmates immediately started throwing out lewd suggestions. This situation was going from bad to worse, and Cyani prepared to rise.
"Now now!" Garth reined the others in with just two words. "Ladies, what are your talents?"
"My Lord," Marta began, "I'm beautiful! And I'm intelligent too. I write poetry, and I paint marvelous pictures. And I am a wonderful dancer."
Gaila laughed. She started to number off with her fingers.
"One: Your beauty is debatable. I've been on a shuttle, a colony planet, a starship, and a penal colony this week and my curls might be short, but at least they aren't flat! Two: I'm a starship engineer, so brilliant that my old ship dispatched a team of badass bitches to come get me, whereAS you're not even smart enough to realize there are no paints or brushes here-"
As she counted off, the inmates noise level rose as they booed and cheered each time she dissed Marta.
"-Three: We've already covered how no one wants to hear you read old dead Humans' verse. Skipping Four because I still don't see your canvas and Five, now that I'm here these boys aren't going to want to watch your jerky dancing anymore."
"Ah! A dance contest is a wonderful idea!" Garth declared, waving his hands. In moments the inmates had cued up some music.
Marta began, working her arms up and down her body as she undulated herself around the room. She was in a blue and green garment that tied on at the neck and covered very little. Her arms and legs were adorned with bells and her movements were accompanied by the light, magical sounding tinkling of bells. She captured the attention of each inmate in turn and then turned to Cyani.
The Specialist held their breath as Marta was in their space and all-but on them. It was as if they were getting a lap dance without the dancer actually sitting on their lap. Then Marta hissed as Gaila took the floor.
All of the shivering and frailness from before was shaken off and Gaila worked the room like a Queen. She made a beeline for Garth himself, prancing across the room, and danced back and forth suggestively between Marcus and Garth.
Marta was off them in a heartbeat, pushing her way up to reclaim Garth and chasing Gaila off. Gaila moved down the table with the away team, dancing briefly on each one in turn.
Cyani watched as she soothed Martine, spoke softly to Palmer, and then slid against their back.
"Marcus wants to take advantage of the next distraction to escape," Gaila whispered in their ear.
"Good idea, but we have no idea how Garth broke out. The last thing we want is for him to escape to the Enterprise."
"I'll find out how," she shot back, continuing her lap dance. Marta had moved on to the human inmates and looked for all the world like she was echoing Gaila and claiming her "team".
Gaila tossed her hair, danced down the center of the room, and sidled up to Bysahr.
Cyani forced themselves to look away from the dance and saw that Marcus and Garth were distracted too.
"Honestly, I don't understand, Lord Garth," Dr. Marcus said the title slowly, as if willing to say it but still judging him for using it, "why you expected your crew to fire on the homeworld of the Antosians. They are a peaceful people-"
"-who helped to heal me when I was dying and beyond my ship's medical abilities. And I was going to return the favor and make them first in our brave new universe. They should have welcomed me."
"In so doing you betrayed the Federation you vowed to serve and the principles you swore to uphold. What made you do that?" Cyani felt a burn in their chest and realized that Marcus earnestly wanted to know, and not just because Garth was her father's friend.
She wanted to know why Garth chose the same path as her own father.
"Cory thinks it was because of the injury but it was not. Truth is, the injury just helped me reach my full potential. All Captains reach the point where they understand their power. And while we are learning all that the universe has to offer, Starfleet would have us content to grub away like some ants on a somewhat larger than usual anthill. Command is a heady drug, my dear. I'm sure you know that, if you are out there on a ship with all these new Captains. If one of them hasn't taken a taste yet, you can be sure they will eventually."
Cyani took a deep breath and then there was a green goddess in their lap.
"He can change his shape!" Gaila whispered in their ear. "He changed himself to look like Cory, and when he was let out overpowered the guards."
She was up just as quickly, and the music rose as the two Orions circled each other in the center of the room. They slowly worked around each other, for all the world like they were lovers instead of enemies, and ended the song in a sensual embrace.
The room erupted in applause, though the Enterprise crew only politely clapped.
"Lovely!" Garth declared. "Oh, that we could indulge forever in pleasantries." Then he turned and motioned to the doorway, where two humanoid inmates wheeled in a giant chair and medical console.
Locked in the chair was the real Governor Cory.
"Garth-" Marcus was cut off by the former Captain.
"-now now, you've made it very clear you won't betray the Federation and join me willingly, a loyalty I will be glad to win for myself, I assure you. But since you have to fight, I will give you an honorable excuse to surrender." He looked at one of the humans and nodded.
The inmate turned the machine on, and a circular pad near Cory's head started to light up and swirl.
The Governor's face contorted in pain and he twisted around, struggling to break free and move his head away from the coiling light. Martine gasped.
"This was a chair used for therapeutic purposes," Garth explained, "but I improved on the original design. It didn't cause pain at all before."
"Garth no!" Dr. Marcus was out of her chair now, obviously distressed. "Stop this!"
He motioned to one of the inmates and they hit a control, temporarily stopping the pain.
"Tell me what is going to happen next on The Enterprise Chronicles!"
The question was so out of place that everyone seemed confused for a moment. And then Cyani realized what he was asking.
They must have set a beam up code they thought something you couldn't just give away. Something you would have to explain, or to know well, to answer.
The Enterprise Chronicles was a play put on by the ship's amateur theater company. They did holiday plays, experimental pieces, but were known best for their ongoing soap opera The Enterprise Chronicles.
And if the password was just a fact about the play, or a piece of trivia about the players, then it could be tortured out of someone.
But if it were something that relied on a body of knowledge, like predicting what could happen next, that wasn't something you could pressure someone to reveal. It required a knowledge of characters and back story. And whatever was revealed under duress would be useless because there would be no way to figure out if it was actually a plausible prediction, or just a message he was passing on to the ship.
"You tried to beam aboard the Enterprise without us." Marcus accused him, trying to delay him starting up the chair again.
"And I will again. You are clearly not ready to join me." He nodded and Cory began twisting and groaning again.
"And next time on The Enterprise Chronicles..." he began.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
And don't worry, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy will return momentarily. While their mission mirrors The Cloud Minders, Dr. Marcus and company are on Elba 2, the Federation's asylum from Whom Gods Destroy. If you want to see Garth ranting and Marta dancing from Spock Prime's POV, check the episode out.