Chapter 3: To Carthage then I Came

The Discovery slowly cruised through space. Tilly was up on the bridge, learning stuff. The war seemed to have died down for a bit. Burnham suspected the Klingons were up to something, and she was right. We'll find out about that in due course. Lorca showed up.

"Captain on the bridge," said Rhys, a typical formality that Lorca decided to take personally that day just for the hell of it.

"Where else would I be?" He snapped. "I get about five hours of sleep a day trying to keep you nincompoops from getting blown up."

Burnham shot a look at Saru. He shook his head. Lorca noticed Tilly.

"God help us," he said.

Tilly was one of the few people for whom he didn't have a charming and/or offensive nickname. He typically referred to her as, "Oh, it's you." Tilly tried not to talk to him but she had a form for him to sign about the number of hours she'd completed as part of bridge training. She approached him with the electronic form and started to ramble on about how she needed it for the Command Training Program. She knew she was digging herself a hole but she just couldn't stop talking.

"So then my application got rejected the second time," she said, "and I was really upset but everybody told me not to give up. Except my mom, she said I should go home. But I won't listen to my mom because she's just a scared, negative person who doesn't believe in me. So now I have to repeat all these hours because they don't transfer over to the next application, which I guess is how they determine that you're really, uh, determined."

The bridge personnel expected Lorca to crucify her but he just signed the form. Tilly went back to Airiam's station, feeling like she'd dodged a bullet. But then Lorca called her back.

"Tilly, do you know how one becomes captain?" He asked.

"Hard work, grit, passion, and empathy?" She said.

"By sucking up to admirals for a very long time or doing other favors for them."

"Captain! How could you?" Said Burnham, while Tilly looked devastated.

Lorca went over to the front window, ignoring Burnham's protests, and said, "Hey look, isn't that a gormaganger? Aren't we supposed to rehabilitate those things? Detmer, bring us closer to that space whale."

"You cannot make those sorts of jokes around cadets!" Continued Burnham. "That was completely unprofessional. These cadets are the future of Starfleet and you just trample all over our mission and values!"

"Oh, bollocks to mission and values," said Lorca. "Aren't I upholding our values now, trying to save this space whale from a lonely death?"

Burnham went closer to the window and said, "It's flying quite erratically. I think it may be hurt, or sees us as a threat. We should get out of the way."

"We don't want that smeared all over our windshield!" Said Lorca. "Detmer, evasive maneuver Epsilon Ten!"

The ship jolted suddenly and some people lost their footing. The gormaganger[1] almost smacked into the ship's saucer section.

"What the hell was that, Mad Eye Moody?" Said Lorca. "Was that fake eye of yours looking in the opposite direction, because that wasn't any maneuver I recognize!"

Keyla Detmer ran off the bridge. She was sensitive about her augmentation, especially when it came to her flying abilities. Burnham and Owosekun followed her. Everybody else just looked at the floor.

"Anybody else going to run off crying at some constructive criticism?" Asked Lorca.

"Um…I think I will," said Tilly, who still hadn't gotten over his earlier comment about how to treat admirals and now felt things had really gone to crap.

She went down to the cafeteria, where Burnham and Owosekun comforted Detmer. Lorenza looked on in a bored manner and asked Tilly to tell her what happened.

"So did we hit the space whale?" She asked.

"No, I think it's fine. Lorenza, that's not really how one becomes captain, right?"

"By screwing admirals or sucking up to them? The way this administration is going, I wouldn't be surprised if that's how many people become captain. But he forgot one more strategy; nepotism!"

"Oh no! I'm too annoying to suck up to people properly and I wouldn't know how to go about the other thing!"

Burnham slammed the table in front of her and said, "Lorenza, really? Really? Tilly is upset, why don't you save your rant about the administration for some other day and try to comfort her?"

"I think you've got it covered," said Lorenza. "I'll go see if we've transported that space whale inside."

She went to the loading bay. She regretted this decision because the gormaganger threw up on her, Stamets, and several other people. Stamets laughed as if it was the funniest thing ever.

"I'm rich!" He yelled. "I can open a perfume store! Please throw up on me again, my good whale!"

"I could chuck you into its mouth, if you want," said Lorenza, who did understand his joke but was a lot less thrilled by the mess.

After she helped clean up, Lorenza went to her room to finally call back her sister, who'd been contacting her all day but there was no reception in the turboshaft. They discussed some family matters. The folks wanted Lorenza to come back home, but they'd been asking in vain for three years. Her sister didn't bother asking for that anymore, but she hoped Lorenza was getting along well with this crew.

"I wish you wouldn't swing between your two favorite personas of 'mysterious stranger that nobody will ever get to know,' and, 'anti-government asshole.' You don't know nearly enough about politics to justify any of your statements."

"Neither do most people," said Lorenza.

"If you could just let people in a little and share your experience, I'm sure everybody will see what a wonderful person you are."

"I'm closer to 50 than I am to 15, Lucia, I think it's a bit too late for conversations about fitting in at school."

"It's never too late to make new friends! I mean, Lupe, it's been three years…don't you think it's time…"

"Here we go," said Lorenza, and changed the subject, then claimed she was busy.

Meanwhile, Burnham spent an hour writing up a detailed report about why Lorca should be demoted. She re-read it and did not like the way it flowed, so she left it for the time being.

Tilly worked on her latest application to the Command Training Program. She glanced frequently at her communicator. Her friend from another ship hadn't contacted her in several days and it worried her, but she didn't message the friend. She didn't want to seem clingy. She'd lost a few friends by being clingy, organizing surprise parties, and creating matching T-shirts with their photographs.

"What are the attributes of the perfect captain?" Asked the application. Tilly decided to leave that one for another day and went to find Yana for battle practice on the holodeck. She found Yana on a windowsill, absorbed in the Harry Potter series.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Said Tilly. "I know those books are fun but you've got to do real stuff sometimes. Your aim really hasn't improved since you started."

They went to the holodeck. Detmer was already there, flying a shuttle and shooting at anything that moved. Tilly got a great idea that instead of phasers, they could use wands to practice aiming. The holodeck had a plethora of Harry Potter scenes to choose from. Yana was up to the fourth book so Tilly picked a dragon scene, making sure the safety was set to its highest because Yana could act like a baby if she got so much as a papercut. They ran around an arena for an hour, shooting "spells" at a dragon that "killed" them pretty frequently. Tilly thought this was great fun, if not the best substitute for real target practice. Yana wasn't in such good shape and didn't find it so fun. Tilly decided it was time to stop after the holograph dragon got Yana's head in its mouth.

Detmer followed Tilly and Yana to the cafeteria to get something to drink. Burnham joined them with a message for Yana from Sarek, which the Vulcan couldn't even be bothered to deliver personally.

"He says he no longer wants to teach you because you are a foolish and illogical person with no sense of responsibility," said Burnham.

"Am I supposed to be upset about that?" Asked Yana.

"Vulcans tend to consider most humans foolish and illogical, but I think you could ponder the implications of his message," said Burnham.

"Ugh," said Yana.

"Keyla, how are you feeling?" Asked Burnham.

"I'm fine. I just needed some time alone," said Detmer. "I shouldn't have run off the bridge like that; it was unprofessional."

"You're not the one who started it," said Burnham.

"No, but this isn't about him," said Detmer. "It's about me. I made a mistake. My mistakes can cost lives. I've been suffering over my augmentation for months, doubting myself, thinking I should quit and go home before I hurt someone. But it's not my augmentation that's keeping me back, it's just me."

"Oh, Keyla," said Burnham. "I hope you know we're all behind you."

"Thank you, I know you all support me. Even the captain."

"That I kind of doubt," muttered Burnham.

Tilly's communicator beeped. It had to be her friend! She felt such a surge of happiness that her friend hadn't abandoned her. She looked at the message. The happiness drained away.

"Burnham, take a look at this!" She said.

The message read, "We've been captured by the Klingons and taken deep into their territory. Help!" A set of coordinates followed. Tilly's friend was on a ship called the Carthage and they'd been patrolling close to the Klingon border. Burnham didn't immediately trust the message. How did Tilly's communicator even receive it? Shouldn't somebody else have gotten the distress call? Burnham and the others went to Engineering. They could have gone to the bridge to use the scanners there but Burnham didn't feel like talking to the captain if this turned out to be some joke. Tilly explained on the way that she and her friend (young tech geniuses that they were) had created a walkie-talkie for staying in touch that operated at longer distances than the usual communicators.

Stamets scanned for the Carthage and didn't find it anywhere in Federation space. He found some likely candidates in Klingon space, right near the coordinates from Tilly's message. Burnham sighed because this meant she did have to go talk to the captain. Tilly got seriously freaked out for her friend.

"Do you think we'll be able to go after them?" She asked. "We have to, right? It's an entire ship full of people!"

"It's not just any ship either," said Stamets. "Lieutenant Joshua Brandon is on it."

"Damn it, this has to be real," said Burnham. "The Klingons must have found out who he really is. I didn't expect them to kidnap an entire ship, though."

Joshua Brandon was a Klingon raised since early childhood in the Federation. He felt no connection to Klingons and had reconstructive surgery to look more human. He was a dedicated Starfleet officer but a traitor to the Klingons. It had seemed like they didn't know about him but perhaps he was the reason for the Carthage's capture.

Burnham told Tilly, Detmer, and Yana to remain here and went up to the bridge with Stamets. She told Lorca about the situation. He pondered it for a while. They had orders to lay low and not use the spore drive until they fully understood its effects on Stamets. Admiral Cornwell basically said she'd excoriate Lorca if he disobeyed. If he told Cornwell about the Carthage, she was certain to forbid them to go. It would be like delivering the Federation's secret weapon right into the enemy's hands!

"Sherlock, Twinkletoes, any ideas?" Asked Lorca.

"On the one hand, captain, Admiral Cornwell is right," said Saru. "On the other hand, Discovery stands the greatest chance of penetrating Klingon space and returning unharmed."

"There's a remote-controlled minefield around the area where they're holding the Carthage," said Burnham. "Any other Federation vessel will be torn apart."

"The moment I tell Cornwell about this problem, she will forbid us to go," said Lorca. "Once she does that, we all risk treason charges if we disobey. If we go without telling her, we still risk treason charges because of our current orders."

"But we're going to go, right?" Asked Tilly, who couldn't help it and snuck up to the bridge. "This isn't about us, it's about all those people who are probably being tortured and killed by the Klingons!"

"They are certainly our first priority, but it would be good to have a cover," said Lorca. "Saru, what is the protocol for urgent situations when a starship can't contact Command?"

"The captain makes the decision," said Saru. "But sir, we just spoke to Command twenty minutes ago. There's nothing wrong with communications."

Lorca sat back in his chair and groaned. Then he said, "Burnham, your wish may well come true. If we don't all die on this mission, I'm certain to get fired. So, don't we have a gormaganger on board?"

"I'm not sure I follow…," said Burnham.

"The gormaganger can create an electromagnetic disturbance to disrupt our communications!" Said Tilly.

"Why would it do that?" Asked Burnham. "They're not violent creatures. I don't want to hurt it to make it enraged. I don't believe they fight using electromagnetic energy, anyway."

"No, they don't, but they do communicate with it," said Stamets. "The reason we took it in is to bring it to a mate because they're nearly extinct. We could mimic the sounds and signals gormagangers make from a shuttle outside, letting the whale think a mate is close by. If it gets excited enough, it really may knock out our communications."

"Are you talking about some kind of 1990s phone sex for space whales?" Asked Lorca.

Ignoring him, Stamets said, "Even if it doesn't get that excited, we could just knock out the comms ourselves and say the whale did it."

Lorca cracked open his communicator and said, "Hey there, lumpy, what are you wearing? Nothing? Me neither! You know, the other night I got so drunk on alpha radiation that I humped a starship! If you were with me now…"

Burnham made a mental note to add "faked whale phone sex on the bridge" to her report and swiped the communicator from his hand.

"Your call got dropped," she said. "So, should we do it?"

"Let's give this whale the ride of its life!" Said Lorca.

Stamets and Tilly ran down to set up the audio equipment to "excite" the gormaganger. Burnham sent out a message to the crew saying they'd detected another gormaganger far off from the ship and the two space whales were likely to communicate, perhaps causing some electronic disturbances. They couldn't have all 130 people of the crew knowing about the ruse. If they didn't know, they wouldn't have to lie. They'd just think the gormaganger really did knock out comms. Burnham then went to the cafeteria to get something to eat. She met Lorenza and Yana there and told them the true situation.

"Something eating at you?" Asked Lorenza in a bored tone, but she had decided to try and take her sister's advice, for once.

"Besides the threat of an early death and the Klingons capturing this ship, learning the spore drive's technology, and wiping out the Federation?" Said Burnham.

"Eh, civilizations rise and fall," said Lorenza.

"I'm still bothered by what the captain said earlier to Detmer," said Burnham. "We're entrusting our lives to him and he just acts like a playground bully instead of a proper captain."

"You made the decision to go on this mission together. You have a unified vision, even if he talks crap about it all the time."

"He made fun of a person's disability."

"Well…," said Lorenza, inwardly cursing her sister for urging her to share her experience, because Lorenza did not have any experience with jackass captains. It was really so much easier to just sit back and make sardonic comments every now and then.

"Maybe you should try walking in his shoes," she finally said. "The man lost most of his former crew in one fell swoop, after all."

"Fine, I will give him another chance. For now. What about you Yana, he's been teaching you a lot of really useful life skills, hasn't he?"

Yana nearly choked on her sandwich. Lorenza laughed.

"They watch movies and hang out, talking about 21st century fiction," said Lorenza. "It's pretty cute."

"And inappropriate," said Burnham. "A captain should not be fraternizing with a young crew member as if they're friends in college."

"I don't see anybody of the same rank lining up to watch Lord of the Rings with him. Jeez, I tried, but I fell asleep."

Burnham went back to the bridge. Stamets and Tilly activated the gormaganger signals on a shuttle they sent outside. They played with the frequency until the gormaganger got agitated. It blasted the ship with EM radiation. It wasn't quite enough to knock out all the comms. Stamets played with the signal some more with a look of intense concentration on his face. Whatever it was he did, the gormaganger suddenly strained at its bindings and sent out a wave that put them completely in the dark. Lorenza, Yana, and the rest in maintenance ran to fix it.

Tilly looked at Stamets with a mixture of admiration and suspicion. "Are you actually understanding these signals?" She asked. "What did you say to it?"

"Oh, I just pretended it was Hugh."

"I'm sure he'd be flattered."

The gormaganger thrashed around farther than it had previously and a few officers moved things out of the way. The whale's back had some fins that had been lying listless since they brought it in. Now the fins were upright. One of the officers pointed this out to another and they chuckled, wondering if the "second gormaganger" just said something sexy. A third officer guessed the reason for their mirth.

"Get your minds out of the gutter," he said. "This whale is female."

Lorca sent a message to the entire ship explaining the drastic situation and how they had no other choice but to proceed without Command's authorization. Everybody got ready for a hostile situation. Detmer ran up to the bridge just as Lorca started to wonder where the hell his freaking helmsman had gotten to. Instead of proceeding to her station quietly, she saluted him and said, "Mad Eye Detmer, reporting for duty, sir!"

Lorca watched her go to her station without responding, then said, "Quite a few people have made it known to me that I should apologize."

"The universe does not apologize," said Detmer.

"Quite right, Mad Eye. So, do you think we will finally defeat He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named?"

"Why would you want to defeat him? You're on his side, Lucius Malfoy."

"Touché."

Burnham couldn't believe what she was hearing. Airiam wasn't certain either.

"You are talking about the 21st century fantasy franchise of Harry Potter, aren't you?" She asked.

"Yes, haven't you read or watched it?" Asked Detmer.

"I think I deleted it from my memory," said Airiam.[2]

"You what?" Said Lorca. "You just broke my heart."

"Duly noted, captain," said Airiam. "I didn't know you had one."

Lorca looked at the bridge personnel as if he was seeing them for the first time. Burnham was just as surprised.

"All right then, muggles," said Lorca. "Wands out! Let's see if we can squeeze some magic out of this flying tub. Black Alert!"

They teleported to Klingon space. They found the Carthage quickly. It was empty. Before they could wonder where the people had gone, two Klingon ships de-cloaked and locked onto them with tractor beams. And now I get to say four fun words:

It was a trap!

Two Klingon generals on one of the ships scanned the Discovery to count the people and see what sort weapons they had onboard.

"Why do you think they brought a gormaganger?" Asked one Klingon.

"Food?"

"Has to be, right? But I didn't think Federation folk ate space whale."

"War is a bitch. It drives people to do crazy things."

The Klingons tried to establish communications, but comms were still down on the Discovery so a landing party of Klingons beamed down to the bridge, enough to put a bat'leth to everyone's throat. The leader introduced herself as L'Rell.

"We have the crew of the Carthage up on our ships," she said. "We knew you would come to their rescue."

"What have you done to them?" Asked Burnham.

"We've kept most of them alive, except for some amusement that soldiers desperately need in times of battle. Now that we have your ship, you are all expendable. But first, Michael Burnham, you must pay for the death of T'Kuvma. He was our Lightbearer and you murdered him through treachery. We Klingons have more honor than that. You will fight me and after you are slain, we will drench the entire galaxy in Federation blood."

"I will not let one of my crewmembers be taken off to a gladiator ring!" Said Lorca. He received a solid punch to the stomach for his effort.

"Fine, I will fight you," said Burnham. "But I demand…"

"We're not making a deal!" Said L'Rell. "Battling me honorably, one on one, instead of a simple execution is already more than you deserve."

She indicated for two Klingons to grab Burnham and for the rest to stay on the bridge. She ordered Saru to bring up a view screen of her vessel so they could watch Burnham die.

"Our external communications are still down," said Saru.

"Why did you come here with broken communications?" Asked L'Rell.

"We were rescuing a gormaganger and it sent out a wave of electromagnetic radiation when it heard the call of a mate," said Saru calmly.

"I shouldn't have asked!" Said L'Rell. "You Federation idiots are always playing with food instead of just eating it. Fix the screens! Watch him, T'Grath, make sure he doesn't send any messages for help."

She beamed away with Burnham and two Klingons. Saru and Lorca exchanged a glance and looked at Tilly. She nodded imperceptibly. She looked so harmless that none of the Klingons stood next to her. The bridge personnel attacked the Klingons, going straight for their communicators first so they couldn't call for backup. Tilly used her special communicator to reach out to Stamets and tell him the situation. He sent help within minutes and they got the Klingons subdued, though Airiam alone took out two and was ready for more.

Saru fixed the screen quickly but didn't bring up the image. They couldn't have a dual screen or L'Rell would see that they'd beaten her warriors. Tilly suggested propping them up with chairs behind the consoles and taping their eyes open. There wasn't time to rig up any sophisticated mind control devices so they did the best they could with duct tape.

"What are our options?" Asked Lorca.

"Our weapons are disabled by the dual tractor beams," said Saru. "Even if we could break them free long enough to fire, we risk harming the crew of the Carthage on those Klingon vessels. Engineering has worked out a frequency to disable one tractor beam for an instant, long enough for us to use the spore drive, but there are two tractor beams."

"We could beam someone into their transporter room and take out the tractor beam," suggested Detmer.

"Too risky," said Lorca. "The room is bound to be packed with Klingons. Anybody we send will be dead immediately."

"We have to turn the screen on before L'Rell gets suspicious," said Saru.

They did (but with low resolution on their side) and looked out on an area in the center of the Klingon ship. Burnham and L'Rell were just about to start. L'Rell looked at the screen and snapped, "T'Grath, what is wrong with your face?"

Saru was pretty good at mimicking voices so he said, "There was a minor scuffle. I took a punch but we beat them down."

Lorca had not found anything to wipe a bloody nose and looked a lot worse than he really was. He realized they needed a significant distraction to keep L'Rell from wondering why her Klingon guards were motionless. He stumbled over his chair, gasping and grabbing at his throat.

"Michael, I think this is it for me," he said. "I'm sorry for everything I said. I would make it up to you if I could. You are like the daughter I never had. Don't be scared. We'll all be together again someday, I'm certain of it!"

L'Rell didn't know Lorca had never said a sentimental thing to Burnham in his life, so she just thought he was being a typical overemotional Federation moron. Burnham, of course, understood his real message. But Lorca wasn't done. He wanted to get off the bridge and make plans with Stamets. He fell over his chair and cried out, "Burnham, I never got the chance to tell you about your mother!"

Burnham cursed him thoroughly in her mind and stepped toward the screen, trying to look devastated and desperate. A couple of Klingons barred her way.

"What? What was it?" She asked.

"She…she wanted me to tell you that it was not your fault," said Lorca.

He went limp and fell to the floor, off screen. He indicated for Saru to come over. Saru had not expected the day to require any improv and approached haltingly. Lorca motioned for him to bend over and hissed, "Cry as if you've just lost someone you actually care about!"

"No, captain!" Wailed Saru. "He's gone! He's dead! What am I going to do without you? I loved you so much!"

"You monster!" Screamed Burnham. She was kind of getting into it. "You killed my father! You must pay for this!"

She lunged at L'Rell, who nodded at the guards to hold her back and asked some of her generals a few questions. Because she still suspected them of foul play, one of those questions was, "Do they really have a gormaganger on that ship?" Satisfied with the answers, L'Rell picked a weapon and motioned for the guards to release Burnham.

"You've lost another captain in this war, Michael Burnham, but you won't have time to grieve for this one," said L'Rell. "Instead, you will join them."

They attacked each other. Burnham's phaser had been taken away but she knew how to use a bat'leth well enough. Two Klingons who'd earlier been in the transporter room watched the battle, thinking snacks would have made it better.

"I read up on Michael Burnham," said one of them. "The woman has a lot of fathers if she considered this captain to be one too. I don't get that. One was more than enough for me."

Meanwhile, Lorca crawled over to Tilly, who was behind the screen, and she called Stamets to beam him down to Engineering. Lorenza and Yana were ready to disrupt one of the tractor beams, but they needed a plan for the second one. At first there didn't seem to be any options except to send a large group of people into the Klingon's transporter room and hope somebody managed to turn off the beam. Chaos was certain to begin. The second Klingon vessel was bound to be notified of the breach immediately, they'd send warriors onto Discovery, and ship-wide battles would ensue. Lorca was already choosing whom to beam up when Stamets brought up another option.

"I didn't tell this to anybody, but Toto re-hydrated himself a few days ago. He's in there."

Stamets opened the door to the large chamber where they grew fungus for the spore drive. Toto rooted around in the middle, back to his giant, bug-like, armored form.

"And?" Said Lorca, without taking his eye off the tablet that showed Burnham and L'Rell's battle. Burnham was holding her own, for now, but L'Rell knew she was stalling.

"We could send Toto into the Klingon's transporter room," said Stamets. "He's nearly indestructible. I don't think he can press a button but he can just tear up the entire tractor beam console. I'll tell him which one."

"You've lost your mind and you're wasting our time," said Lorca.

"No, seriously, Toto and I understand each other. Don't you want to get out of this without losing half of our crew?"

Lorca looked at Stamets in such an unfriendly way that Lorenza wondered if Stamets was about to get his head smashed against his spore drive.

"I know it's a leap of faith," she said, "but I've seen him leading that tardigrade around like a tame lion. We've seen incredible things happen because of some damp, sticky mold spores. I believe this can be done."

L'Rell chased Burnham around the ring, yelling Klingon obscenities. Burnham grabbed onto a beam overhead, swung and kicked L'Rell to the ground, but the Klingon got up immediately.

"Prove that you can communicate with the beast," said Lorca.

Stamets ran into the fungus room and knelt by Toto. He touched his forehead to the tardigrade's face and his eyes clouded over for an instant.

"That's not creepy at all," said Lorenza.

Toto followed Stamets out of the fungus room and they went to the transporter room. Stamets hugged the tardigrade. Then he entered the coordinates. Toto obediently went to stand on the transporter platform.

"Wait," said Lorca. "We only get one chance at this. If that six-legged cow of yours doesn't do what it's supposed to…"

He stared at the tardigrade on the transporter platform, seeing something else entirely, a scene of destruction, and dropped the tablet. It was showing Burnham and L'Rell fighting at close quarters. Burnham was injured and tiring out. L'Rell punched her on the face just before the tablet hit the ground and snapped in half.

"Toto, do the thing!" Said Stamets. "Do the thing like I showed you!"

The tardigrade cumbersomely lifted its upper body off the ground and pointed one of its claws at them. It was the Vulcan salute, or something close to it.

"May I, captain?" Asked Stamets.

"Yes, do it," said Lorca.

Toto performed perfectly. He appeared in the transporter room of the Klingons like a demon from Hell and tore through everything that moved before slashing the tractor beam console. Stamets, Lorenza and Yana beamed themselves back to Engineering. The captain beamed himself to the bridge. Lorenza turned on the device they'd rigged to halt the second transporter beam and Stamets navigated the ship out of there. But there wasn't time to rejoice. Saru, Airiam, Lorca, and Detmer quickly planned a course of jumps all around the Klingon vessels to take out their weapons with neat, directed bursts. They developed further parts of their strategy while starting this. Saru realized the Carthage was nearly unharmed. The Klingons decided an extra ship could be useful and just left it hanging around. Saru and a group of people beamed over to the Carthage during a spare moment and started beaming humans off of the Klingon vessels.

Burnham wasn't part of the first group. L'Rell went ballistic when she learned that Discovery broke free. Burnham ran for it, but there were tons of Klingons in the way. Luckily, the two who'd been talking about her earlier blocked an exit and they obviously weren't prime examples of Klingon might, so she managed to get by them. The prisoners onboard the Klingon vessels realized help was on the way and attacked their guards.

Discovery continued to appear and disappear around the two Klingon vessels until they had taken out all the weapons systems. Then they proceeded to collect prisoners along with Saru on the Carthage. It was harder with people running around, but the commanders of the Carthage's crew realized this and opened communications with the Federation vessels. They got people to barricade themselves in a room instead of trying to kill the Klingons that had tortured them for days and wait to be transported. Burnham finally got picked up. A bat'leth thrown by L'Rell hit the wall where her head had just been.

As the number of humans on the Klingon ships decreased, Lorenza, who'd beamed over to the Carthage, tried to keep Klingons out. A few still beamed over and fights started throughout the ship. Discovery blasted apart the Klingon vessels' transporter rooms to prevent any more from coming over, once they were sure no humans were in the vicinity of those areas. Toto vanished into the mycelial network.

A lieutenant rescued from the Klingon ships approached Lorenza with a suggestion. She relayed it to Saru and Lorca. They agreed it was a good idea. The lieutenant, in all the commotion, had managed to steal the algorithms controlling the minefield. The plan had originally been to beam everybody from the Carthage onto the Discovery and jump the hell away from there, but if they could control the minefield, it was a different matter. Lorenza took over that task and soon assured her superiors that the minefield was theirs. The last people were rescued from the Klingon vessels. Klingon reinforcements approached. Lorenza cleared a path through the minefield and Saru took the Carthage to Warp 6. The Discovery jumped away. When a regiment of Klingon ships arrived on the scene, thinking the minefield was safe as usual, everything went BOOM.

So in this universe, L'Rell did not make it to the end of the war, but her backup plan did.

Admiral Cornwell believed their story about horny gormagangers about as much as she believed that Klingons could do stand-up comedy, but the rescue of the Carthage, the destruction of a large Klingon regiment and subsequent expansion of Federation space, kept her from carrying out whatever it was she wanted to do to Lorca. Also Admiral Malek was well enough to intervene on the Discovery's behalf.

Joshua Brandon was alive, surprisingly, but only because the Klingons wanted to torture him as long as possible. After the Carthage was captured, they put Brandon in a ring with a member of his crew. He had the choice to kill the human, as any self-respecting Klingon would do, or the Klingons killed the crew member in front of him. If he killed the human, the procedure would not be repeated the next day. Brandon watched his captain, his ship's doctor, and the First Officer get cut down in front of him before he finally drove a bat'leth through another crew member. He went insane and spent the rest of his days in a psychiatric facility.

Stamets enjoyed unusual popularity. He got mobbed by Tilly and other cadets who wanted to know about his communication with Toto. Nobody thought he was crazy now. Culber wasn't thrilled to be proven wrong, but he would have been a lot less thrilled to be proven right. He hoped the attention wouldn't go to Stamets' head. In between dealing with the people from the Carthage, Lorca passed by Stamets and asked if the tardigrade would return.

"I think he might!" Said Stamets. "I sure hope so."

"In the meantime, I guess he's gone to experience the rains down in Africa," said Lorca.

"Oh, we should put on that song!" Said Stamets.

Lorca went on to sickbay where Burnham was trying to recover. Saru also went to her and reported on the status of the Carthage. Without captain or First Officer, and many people quite screwed up from the capture, the crew would be disbanded for now. Some would join other ships while some went home.

"If that situation was a trap, how did the Klingon's know about Tilly's communicator?" Asked Saru.

"They didn't," said Burnham. "They were planning to torture everybody for at least another week but Tilly's friend found a spot with reception." Then she sighed and said, "Poor Lieutenant Brandon. He's suffering so much. He thinks that if he'd just stayed on Earth, his crew mates would be alive now. What would any of us have done in such a situation? How are you supposed to choose to murder your friend to prevent other people from being killed?"

"We need an end to this war," said Saru. "Command has to let us back into battle after we avoided a trap like that."

"How are you feeling, Burnham?" Asked Lorca. "I hope you know if there had been any way for me to take your place, I would have done it."

"You're not the idiot who killed T'Kuvma, captain, but thank you," said Burnham.

She was surprised that he'd suddenly said something that actually sounded like the words of a proper captain. As if aware of this, he slowly raised his gaze to Saru. He put his hand over his heart and screwed up his face into a tender expression.

"Saru, what you said back there…I had no idea," he said. "I'm so touched."

Saru opened his mouth but didn't know what to say. He couldn't take it back, it would be rude, though true. He also couldn't quite bring himself to say, "I was thinking about Captain Georgiou." Lorca held the awkward moment for a bit longer, then cracked up and left. He checked on the Klingon prisoners who'd been duct-taped on the bridge earlier. He dealt with all manner of business until everything settled down and he started writing reports. Lorenza came to his ready room and handed him the tablet he'd dropped earlier, all fixed. He thanked her and thought she would say something about his momentary loss of composure back in the transporter room, but she just smiled.

"Lieutenant Lorenza," he said, "you believed I should trust Stamets on faith, and I did. But the situation could have gone terribly wrong. Was it madness to trust a man who'd injected himself with fungus and his magical animal friend?"

"Not a magical animal, captain," said Lorenza, deciding to keep heeding her sister's advice. "A species that we've never communicated with before. Our ancestors didn't set foot off their little blue planet for thousands of years but then suddenly, they encountered many new races. The process of discovery continues."

"While I do like a good pun, this isn't a scientific expedition. It's a war."

"It can be both. At least until we're all dead."

It turned out that the lieutenant who'd retrieved the minefield algorithm was not from the Carthage but an even earlier prisoner of war named Ash Tyler. He requested to stay on the Discovery. Burnham showed him around. She found it hard to believe that a person who'd been tortured by Klingons for months still wanted to stay in this war. Tyler claimed not to remember most of what he'd been through. Burnham found herself concerned about him, though if anybody needed medical help more, it was Stamets. He got ahold of the ship's intercom and broadcasted Toto's "Africa." Most people didn't mind the music, but Culber insisted on sticking Stamets back in for tests. After all, Stamets had done 17 jumps in rapid succession during the battle.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with Stamets," said Burnham to Tyler on their way to the bridge one day. "His intellect is secure, his reasoning sound, and his memory is perfect as always. He's just a bit hyper. I entirely blame the captain."

"I noticed an odd dynamic on this ship…" said Tyler.

"His own behavior is reprehensible and he encourages people to act out because he thinks it's funny or something. Anarchy is not far off."

They entered the bridge. Airiam soon followed them in. Lorca ignored Burnham and Tyler and warmly greeted Airiam, though not quite by her real name.

"Airiam 'The Matrix' Skynet, wonderful to see you! I swear, we could have released you on those Klingons instead of Toto to the same effect."

"Thank you, captain, but I'm not bat'leth proof," she said.

"At least he is complimenting people now," whispered Saru.

"A nickname that brings attention to her augmentation is a form of discrimination," whispered Burnham.

"Do you two have something to share with the class?" Asked Lorca.

"What are our orders from Command, sir?" Asked Burnham.

"We'll be allowed to participate in upcoming battles if and only if there's no other alternative. Meanwhile, we have a few targets for possible solutions to the Klingon cloaking technology issue."

As they set the coordinates for the locations of these targets, Lorca wandered down to the window and said, "Space, the final frontier. We've faced challenging situations over the past few months and we're certain to experience many more. There is a dark road ahead us. But I feel ever so confident and safe venturing out into the unknown because I know that Saru loves me!"

He shook with laughter while Saru tried to sink out of sight behind his console. Most of the bridge crew chuckled too.

"An odd dynamic indeed," muttered Ash Tyler.

Footnotes:

[1] Which, by the way, wasn't hiding anything more problematic inside its stomach than whale vomit. Also, see what happens when you Google whale vomit!

[2] Airiam was a cybernetically augmented human, not an android, though her memory was limited and she had to delete unwanted baggage such as Harry Potter.