Star Trek: Wings of the Renaissance

A Star Trek fanfiction by Andrew Joshua Talon

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan-based work of prose. Star Trek is the property of CBS and Paramount. Please support the official release.


Neptune Orbit, Sector 001

2367


Acceleration at maximum burn in a Starfleet training ship was a rough experience, especially with the inertial dampeners at minimum. Yet fighting against the gee forces kept his heart pounding, a grin on his face. Andross pushed himself harder, pulling himself into a tight turn to try and keep his enemy in his sites. The opposing ship was pulling the gees just as hard, before abruptly turning and darting out of the targeting cursor's range. Andross pulled hard to follow along, starting to get the cursor back on the target again.

Sweat had been pouring down his face in his helmet for a while, but he kept blinking it away to keep his focus, keep pushing, keep going…!

The opposing ship pulled up, and hit the reverse thrusters hard. Andross slammed on the brakes himself, pulling to the right to keep the pip on the target. Then the target… Vanished, right into warp.

"What the-?!"

His sensors beeped loudly. He looked down at his console: He'd been hit by a simulated phaser blast from behind and above.

"Mauler to Echo 1: You're dead… Again,"

his instructor stated. Andross growled and slammed his hands against the console.

"Damnit!" He took a deep breath, calming himself as best he could. He hit the return communications button.

"Aye sir."

"I think three hours is enough," his trainer said. "Return to base."

"Aye sir," Andross managed, shifting to autopilot and changing course. He opened up his helmet, wiping the sweat from his face as best he could with the sleeve of his suit. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other ship fly upside down and slowly move up overhead. He leaned back, and saw the smiling face of his instructor.

"You're been getting a lot better," Mauler complimented him. Gottschalk grumbled.

"At dying, maybe," he replied. "I missed that trick, again."

The Cochrane Deceleration: One of the oldest tricks in starship combat. Yet Professor Chakotay was a master at it.

His instructor shook his head. "And you kept up longer."

"Are you my teacher or my girlfriend?" Andross snorted. His instructor laughed.

"You can't take a compliment, can you? Maybe you'll be less ornery with a few drinks under your belt."

"I doubt it," he muttered.

It took only a few hours to get back to Earth and to land back at Edwards Spacebase. A quick transport and they were back in San Francisco. And it didn't take long from there to get to the bar Earharts. It was bright and garish, and filled with happy Starfleet officers and personnel. Gottschalk sat at the bar, and his instructor, Chakotay, sat next to him.

"Antarian cider, two glasses," he told the bartender, who nodded his bulbous head and got to work. Chakotay looked over at Andross, whose eyes were studiously on a PADD. Chakotay shook his head again, and reached out to take the PADD from him.

"Sir, I-"

"Drop it," he stated. Andross stared in disbelief, and Chakotay sighed. "You're graduating in a few weeks, near the top of your class, and you're still picking at your performance?"

"I have to keep up," Andross pointed out. "I got here without any references or connections or even family. I only did it this way: With hard work!"

The Federation did everything it could for orphans, but Andross had always felt incomplete compared to the other kids. His foster parents were kind and generous, and he cared for them, but that missing piece of himself… It was always so glaring inside him, no matter how he rationalized it.

"I know," Chakotay said gently, "I understand. But you're going to learn that treating everything like another test to pass isn't going to cut it out there." He shook his head. "I've seen officers like that, Andross. Hell, I was one."

Andross frowned. Their drinks came, and he hesitantly took the glass. He sniffed it… And then sipped it. It was surprisingly good, and Chakotary threw back his own glass happily.

"So," Andross said cautiously, "what did you do?"

Chakotay chuckled. "Me? I thought I could handle everything, all on my own. Until I ran up against a problem that humbled me. I learned from it, and I came out better by realizing I needed to ask others for help, and loosen up." He tapped his glass, and the bartender poured some more. He took another drink, slower this time. Savoring it. Andross found himself copying the big Native American, and he had to admit it was better when you let it linger on your tongue.

"And… If I come against that?" Andross asked. Chakotay looked him dead in the eyes.

"If you do… You need to be able to take the blow and get back up," Chakotary said. "Staying stiff will do nothing but make you shatter."

Andross nodded. He looked back at his drink. "You know, you don't have to do all this for me," he explained. "I heard some of the other cadets talk about favoritism."

Chakotay smirked. "Maybe I just like flying against someone who knows how to fly."

They had a few more drinks, talked some more, and even tried karaoke. Andross was terrible at it drunk, but Chakotay was worse and they had a good laugh. And Andross had a new favorite drink.


The next few weeks passed in a blur. Graduation, and then assignment: The USS Monitor, a newer Nebula-class starship. He became a pilot of the shuttle complement and crosstrained as a tactical officer. He learned how to relax a little, meet his crewmates in the messhall and for drinks. For a year, everything seemed natural and easy. He got promoted to lieutenant, junior grade, and assigned as flight lead. He flew survey missions, relief, even a near encounter with a Romulan Warbird. Like something out of a recruitment vid.

Then came the mission to Maroa II. The planet's inhabitants, the Maroans, had alternated between being close to the Romulan Empire and being interested in Federation membership for almost a century. Their rough and tumble democracy swung one way, and then another-Until finally, an anti-Federation extremist party managed to win. They ordered all Federation citizens offworld in 27 hours, and were threatening to kill any suspected sympathizers or pro-Federation citizens.

The Monitor couldn't beam people up fast enough, so they'd launched runabouts to start ferrying people up from the Federation embassy in the capital, Rorsha'vek'ii. Around the walled compound of the embassy, thousands of desperate Maroans, their green skin tinged in purple flushes of fear and anger, desperately tried to get over the walls or through the gates. The ambassador at the embassy kept letting in small groups of people, evacuating his staff a piece at a time with them, but kept having to drive the crowds back with warning shots from phasers.

Andross kept his cool. He told jokes to the passengers, giving them reassuring smiles and gestures he'd learned quickly from the Maroan guides aboard. He flew them up fast and hard, getting around the sensor nets to deliver refugees to the Monitor or any of the other starships gathered in high orbit. He brought the Maroan equivalent of candy and handed it out to children as they boarded, and the kids waiting for their next runabout.

It was frenetic, but Andross kept his cool and he kept his smile.

Then, anti-Federation forces got into the mix. They started firing into the crowds outside the embassy, scattering them and causing panic and even more fighting. The press to get into the embassy became a riot. The staff had to evacuate up to the roof of the embassy, and still more people kept coming through.

Still Andross kept flying. Still he kept his smile.

Then that moment… He could never forget. He was flying in for another pick up-A desperate one. The crowd on the rooftop was massive, desperate people reaching out to him. He tried calling over the speakers to get them to back off, to wait. They couldn't. So Andross improvised: He got in just close enough to open the rear hatch, and hovered in close enough to people to jump in. The mob swarmed in, stuffing the ship right into the cockpit. Still Andross held it steady, even with confused and frightened aliens muttering and breathing almost down his neck.

They got a lot of people off, but still too many were on the roof. He had to leave… Yet he saw a mother with two children hanging on for dear life to the outer hatch. He grimaced: They couldn't get to space, to safety, like that. He tried to tell them to let go, that he would be back.

He had almost gotten them to let go, to be pulled back… When the missile lock alarm went off. He checked the screens: A Maraon personal anti-starship missile was locked on. It launched, all the interference being generated by the Maraon government to jam their sensors made it hard to spot. Andross swung around on instinct, pulling the runabout out of the way of the missile.

Realization hit him all too slowly-His maneuver tossed the desperate Maraons back into the crowd, sending so many of them over the edges of the roof and to the ground below. Andross watched every one of them fall, their screaming faces burning into his memory. Then.. The missile hit. Not the runabout: He'd evaded it.

It hit the embassy roof.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't forget the sound of… Debris raining down onto the hull of the runabout. The sights, the sounds…

The rest of that time, he was numb. Nothing seemed real, Nothing felt real.

He was brought before a hearing convened by the captain and the local JAG, to examine his actions during the incident. Not a court martial, no, but to determine whether to go ahead with it. Witnesses came forth: A few of the Maraons whose life he saved, some of the other officers he'd flown with. It all seemed to run together into a dull, gray hum.

Finally, he was called to the stand. Andross vaguely remembered words coming out of his mouth, describing what happened. Answering the questions asked.

He could remember the opposing officer asking if he felt he still deserved to be in Starfleet… And Andross couldn't answer. Not for a while. Long enough she asked if he was able to answer.

"I don't know," he said honestly. She nodded, sympathy almost in her eyes. He was dismissed, and sent to his quarters for recess. There, he sat in darkness. Silent, save for his memories.

The beep of his console startled him. He almost considered ignoring it, going to bed to stare at the ceiling for a while longer. Ultimately, he saw the caller ID, and hit the receive button.

Chakotay was looking back at him, concern on his face.

"I heard about what happened," he said. "Your ship's counselor said you refused to speak with him. So he called me up."

"What happened was," Andross tried, but stopped. He took a deep breath. "What happened was… You were right. I got… I took a hit. I fell."

"... And now?" Chakotay asked softly, his forehead deeply wrinkled. Andross took another breath, as though being conscious of every part of his body. Like it belonged to someone else.

"Maybe I'm not cut out for this," he admitted. "Maybe… Maybe I should just resign."

"You could do that," Chakotay agreed. "So why haven't you?"

Andross grimaced tightly. "I… I don't know. Those people-"

"You lost people. It happens. The universe isn't fair, and it will never be," Chakotay said earnestly. "It doesn't mean it's your fault."

"They told me that! But if I didn't move, I would have-I could have-" Andross tried, but Chakotay silenced him with a glare.

"If you didn't move, a lot more people would have died," he stated firmly. "And so would you. Right now, you're thinking 'if I had died, maybe that would make up for them dying.' But it wouldn't. You're still alive, and they died. But you dying wouldn't change that. You didn't choose to fire that missile-Someone else did. The fact it's tearing you up inside means you're a good man, Gottschalk. But that won't bring them back. All it will do is end your life. The life you're living, and the good you can still do." He took a deep breath. "A Starfleet officer isn't perfect. This is the biggest myth created ever since the idea of making a perfect man arose. A Starfleet officer just does the best he can, for those he can."

"And if my best isn't good enough?" Andross asked, almost a growl. "What then?"

"Then you pick yourself back up, and try again," Chakotay said, not intimidated in the least. "So… What are you going to do, Lieutenant Andross Gottschalk? Are you going to lie there? Or are you going to pick yourself back up?"

Andross stared back. He took another deep breath, and he felt a little more alive. A little less numb.

"... I think… I'm going to pick myself back up."

Chakotay smiled.

"Good answer."

So he went to the board. He said he had made a mistake, but he was willing to stay in the service. The captain agreed, but suggested a less stressful assignment. Which is how he had come to Outpost 444. Which demonstrated the captain's idea of less stressful: Being on the Border with the Carassians in a system just beginning to recover from decades of their rule.

Yet Andross hadn't regretted this assignment… Until now.


More to come.