Chapter 17: Cold Comfort

Feeling like shit, Lorca eventually went to get lunch, avoiding the crowds. He didn't eat much and then sat in a lounge, gloomily contemplating the stars out the window. The appearance of the much-debated hallucination did not cheer him up. Lorca50 proudly held up a book. Lorca looked closely at the cover, which boasted the entwined figures of a man and woman on the bridge of a starship, engrossed in rapturous delight. The woman's uniform was shorter than even those of the Enterprise. The title of this work? To Boldly Go Where No Man has Gone Before. Lorca50 raised his eyebrows up and down while smiling suggestively.

"So how about it?" He asked. "Doesn't this just make you think of us?"

"What? Have you lost your mind? There is no us. You're not real. Our relationship is purely spiritual, though I wish it wasn't anything at all."

"It certainly isn't that pure on my part."

Lorca rolled his eyes and said, "And when I said read a book, I meant something more along the lines of Crime and Punishment."

"Hey, this is a classic by now. It's from 2008."

Lorca ignored him, still thinking about Landry. Lorca50 made the book vanish and put on a serious expression.

"So, you finally opened the box, I see. Must have been hard for you. Well, I was there, so I could see it was hard for you."

Lorca snorted, rather disgusted that Lorca50 had watched him earlier. But Lorca50 wasn't really Lorca50, just a figment of his imagination that was always with him, right?

"What do you want?" He asked.

"I want to support you, just like Landry did!" Said Lorca50. "We both died for you, except she became a space whale and I'm a ghost."

"Landry didn't die for me. She died for her crew in general."

"Oh, do you really believe that's what she was thinking when she left you in that escape pod? No, she died for you and so did I."

"It still baffles me why you did it," said Lorca. "I've spent hours, maybe days, racking my brain over your indecipherable actions in the palace. First you tried to kill me, then you died for me. You had one moment to choose: me or you. Why would a Terran perform a selfless deed?"

"First of all, mon cher, I only wanted to kill you for five seconds. The moment we started fighting, I knew I couldn't do it, otherwise you'd never have been able to kick me onto that throne. I'm a much better fighter than you. We both know that. Second of all…second of all…look, I spent decades plotting to become Emperor. I was moments away from my goal. And you know what? All those stupid things you said, while they didn't convince me of anything, they did make me realize becoming Emperor is also a dumb idea. Instead I could have you. You, my pretty little dear, are a loftier goal."

"What goal?" Asked Lorca.

"Oh, just to make you happy," said Lorca50. "But of course I'd never manage it because I'm depraved and prone to random bouts of aggression. So our relationship was doomed. Except Georgiou threw a dagger at us, ending our relationship before its inevitable damnation. And why did I pick you? Because, you lovely thing, the feelings I had for you were so much nicer than anything I ever felt before and I knew it was only downhill from there. So I decided that this…my…my love for you, should be the last thing I feel."

"I suppose that's as good an explanation as any," said Lorca.

Lorca50 looked at him somewhat expectantly.

"So everything I said about the Federation and its values meant nothing to you?" Asked Lorca. "And you haven't learned anything since then, hovering around in this bed of pain? You still think life is just a stupid game, you've just changed the objective from becoming Emperor to being my guardian angel?"

He said guardian angel in such a biting, mocking tone that Lorca50 looked alarmed.

"Of course I have learned something!" He said. "I've learned lots of things about you. I like being around you even though I can't touch you. I really do love you, Gabriel."

"How can you love me when you don't believe any of the stupid things I say?"

"Well, you're like a child. You don't see the truth. One can love a child and not care about its toys or foolish prattle."

"So you view me as a child and yet if you had a physical form, you'd want to…"

"It's not a direct comparison!"

Lorca shook his head and looked around. Lorca50 clasped and unclasped his hands, fidgeted, looked down, and finally asked, "Aren't you going to say it back?"

Lorca chuckled and asked, "If I were replaced with one of our other counterparts from a different universe, would you fall in love with him too?"

Lorca50 paused a bit too long. Lorca laughed unpleasantly.

"No, no, it's definitely you!" Said Lorca50.

"I don't care if you have an orgy with them that lasts for a thousand years!" Yelled Lorca. "Go screw the others in hell! I'm so glad you're nothing but a figment of my imagination, you lousy, worthless murderer. If you were really a ghost, that would mean some part of your repulsive consciousness still existed and I'd shoot myself to get away from you!"

Talk about being "prone to random bouts of aggression." Lorca50 clearly forgot Lorca was quite similar to him. The Terran captain watched helplessly as "his beloved" stormed off.

Lorca went back to Ginfas, feeling like he needed to yell some more and the psychiatrist always said he could be vented at freely. But Ginfas looked kind of ticked off for the first time since Lorca had met him.

"There you are, I was going to go look for you," said the shrink. "I'm sorry, I know I just presented you with something that distressed you, but an issue has come up and I can't ignore it. The Federation Counterintelligence Department just contacted me and said that somebody from my space station tried to access the medical records of Admiral Timur. Do you know anything about this?"

"I have no idea," said Lorca convincingly, from years of practice lying to his Vulcan bosses.

Ginfas sighed long and hard and said, "I hoped you might confess. I know you asked Anderson to hack Timur's files because Osgood told me about your Klingon conspiracy theories weeks ago. I expected something like this. It's only natural for you to harbor an irrational grudge against the person who took over your ship. I gave you time to get over this by yourself. But it has gone too far. You can't hack a Starfleet officer's files because of a fantasy! They almost opened an investigation about it, and I just don't have time to deal with that. We'll talk about this some more later, just try and stay out of trouble."

Ginfas snapped open his communicator and called someone while walking away. Lorca went back to his room. He knew he should find some other place to cool down but he wasn't really up to making rational decisions. He found Osgood highlighting stuff in his own book, planning a second edition.

"You told Ginfas my theories about Admiral Timur?" Asked Lorca. "Because of you, she knows I'm onto her!"

"Well, of course, I had to…," began Osgood.

"I'm going to give you to the count of three to start running," said Lorca.

Osgood didn't take him seriously.

Lorca woke up as if with a bad hangover. He couldn't figure out where he was. There were medical instruments around his bed. Was he sick? Ginfas sat by his bed, typing something on a tablet. Osgood sat farther back. Lorca dimly started to remember giving Osgood a thorough beating with the geologist's own textbook before medical staff sedated him.

Clearly, the beating wasn't thorough enough, for Osgood was already patched up.

"Disgraceful behavior," said Ginfas. "I didn't expect this from somebody in your condition. Danvers, certainly, but not you. You are a trickster, Captain Lorca. You dissemble. I shall have to be a lot more careful with you from now on."

"He betrayed my trust!" Snapped Lorca. "He has no understanding of real danger, not even after what the Klingons did to his ship. I told him those things in confidence!"

"If you had read the welcome packet," said Osgood, "you'd know that we can't keep secrets here. I have to tell Ginfas anything odd you say, it's the rule. It's for your own good."

"The rule?" Yelled Lorca. "The rule? You're an idiot, Osgood! This is about more than just rules. People's lives are at stake! You're a coward. You're not an owl but a fucking sheep!"

He finally managed to pierce Osgood's armor of good cheer, if only for a moment.

"You'll be moved into the isolation ward," said the geologist. "I don't feel safe around you anymore."

Osgood left. Lorca fell back onto his pillow. He started to feel ashamed.

"Are you really disappointed in me?" He asked.

"I just want you to get better," said Ginfas. "Oh look, it's your friend. Don't get too comfortable with him; this isn't a private room."

The psychiatrist left as Anderson came in.

"Are you sick? Are you hurt?" He asked.

Lorca said he was fine and told Anderson what happened. Anderson had been in the Federation long enough to understand that beating up a guy for any reason was frowned upon.

"I'll never be captain again," said Lorca.

"Why not?" Asked Anderson.

"I'm a psychopath."

"That isn't an impediment to being captain in the Terran Universe."

Lorca took in a deep breath and released a long, drawn-out groan. Anderson thought he was sick and tried to call a nurse but Lorca told him to buzz off. Lorca turned away from the scientist and stared numbly at a monitor.

Anderson continued to sit there, realizing that for once his usual tactics would not work to cheer up Lorca. Anderson had frequently seen relatives or hospital staff taking a patient's hand and saying, "It's all right, I'm here for you." Anderson figured he could mimic this approach but the words caught in his throat. He realized that he meant it. This Lorca, who never once hit him, was his friend. Anderson enjoyed spending time with him, not just in bed but in the lab, teaching him to pipette and run samples ("We'll make a scientist of you yet!) and hanging out with the POWs. Anderson suddenly panicked as he realized that this soft and weak civilization had somehow gotten under his skin. But if it was so soft and weak, why was it so hard for him to say a simple thing like "I'm here for you?"

Lorca looked up and noticed that Anderson was red in the face.

"Why do you look so flustered?" He asked. "Are you coming down with something? Get out of here, I don't need that shit!"

Anderson left, relieved and disappointed. Lorca got a bunch of messages over the next few hours. Saru sent him a freaking two page manifesto on how it was beneath Lorca's dignity to indulge in ridiculous fantasies about the great and wonderful admiral. Lorenza finally broke her vow of silence and wrote that she was very sorry she left Anderson with Lorca. She felt Anderson must have fueled the fire with his tales about Terran Timur. That was technically true. Lorca took one look at Burnham's message, in which she addressed him as "idiot," and didn't read the rest.

This is all such crap, he thought. But at least my Terran hallucination loves me! Some cold comfort that is!

Ash Tyler visited him around 10 PM, accompanied by a nurse. Tyler wasn't in the best condition. He thought Burnham was there.

"She's got that disapproving look on her face," he told Lorca.

"Your imaginary Burnham and my imaginary Lorca should get together."

"But what if they're not imaginary?"

"I don't give a damn! Neither of them can do jack shit to win this war. That's in the hands of the real Burnham."

"The real Burnham," said Tyler quietly and sadly.

The nurse gave Tyler some water and urged him to go back to his room to sleep. Tyler grabbed onto his chair and wouldn't go. Used to this sort of thing, Lorca gazed absently at a poster listing the common signs of depression. Suddenly, a loud noise interrupted their mundane mental hospital musings. Lorca hadn't heard it in a while and never expected to hear it here. Tyler somehow recognized it first.

"That's a red alert, Captain," he said.

They all went toward the main lobby. The starbase shook from a blow. Lorca ran to a large window and spotted a Klingon ship attacking them. He was completely startled at first. What, Klingons, here? This couldn't be happening!

"Order in the court!" Yelled Sully, approaching him from across the room.

"Where's Starfleet?" Asked Lorca.

She shrugged. Many other people congregated in the lobby, including Perkins, Danvers, Anderson, Ginfas, and Osgood. The hospital staff was too busy keeping patients from freaking out to help with the threat. Ginfas called the control center upstairs and found out that only six Starfleet officers of low rank were on duty that day. They had raised the shields, at least.

"They say the Klingons are jamming our communications equipment," said Ginfas.

Lorca checked his communicator but didn't see any signal. He exchanged glances with the other captains. They nodded.

"Here's what we're going to do," he said. "Osgood, you know the planet better than most people. Pick a team you can trust and take transporters across the surface until you reach a place where you can get a signal. Anderson and Tyler, go upstairs and pick the least stupid ensigns to pilot shuttles. You have to take the fire off this station. Ginfas…Ginfas!"

The psychiatrist always thought he would handle a crisis with a calm, steady hand. Indeed, he felt pretty calm, but he could barely get his thoughts together.

"Come on, Ginface, snap out of it!" Said Lorca.

"Don't call me that!" Said Ginfas. "I hate that nickname."

"You need to open communications with the Klingons," said Lorca.

"Talk to them? Why?"

"Are you scared of talking to them, you who talk for a living?"

"No, I…but what I am I supposed to say to them?"

"Psychoanalyze them! Or tell them about your bloody grandkids until they drop dead from boredom! Now what's the code for the weapons cabinet?"

Automatically, still not adjusting to the unexpected situation, Ginfas said, "You're not allowed access to weapons."

Lorca gave him a withering look and yelled, "So how are we supposed to fight them then, with a copy of the DSM-35 and our dicks in our hands?!"

Ginfas told him the code. Without further talk, they all split up. Anderson followed Tyler upstairs. It occurred to Anderson that Lorca had asked him to risk his life for the Federation without even asking if he was fine with this. He had just assumed Anderson would help. On the one hand, Anderson wanted to live a long time so excursions like this put his goal at risk. Wasn't he a Terran, only looking out for himself? On the other hand, earlier in the day Anderson had really wanted to tell Lorca he was there for him but couldn't say it.

Maybe actions speak louder than words, he thought and continued to follow Tyler.

Lorca and the other three captains ran to the transporter room, armed with phasers. Lorca waited for Ginfas to hail the Klingon vessel. It stopped moving and he set the coordinates to beam onboard, wondering if taking three mentally compromised POWs (not to mention his own crazy-ass self) onto an enemy ship was a good idea. But there was no one else. It was almost as if the Klingons knew when Starbase 5 would be least defended.

They beamed into the engine room of the Klingon ship and tried to find the power supply for the phaser arrays. They all had some experience with navigating Klingon ships but this one had a bunch of extra doors. They blasted some doors open and were greeted by bat'leth-carrying warriors. A fight ensued while on the audio from one of the rooms, they could just barely make out Ginfas psychoanalyzing the Klingons.

"I believe your aggression stems from an innate inability to understand yourselves and from a profound loneliness generated by the separation into Houses. What does it mean to be Klingon, you ask yourselves? Well, what does it mean to be human? Or Vulcan? Is it possible that we have more similarities than differences?"

"Being a Klingon means strength!" Responded the captain of the ship. "You're just stalling for time, puny human. You have nothing we want."

"Why do you seek to destroy this facility?" Asked Ginfas. "We are doctors. We have sworn to do no harm to our patients or even you."

"Orders from Silrek," said the captain. "Taking out a defenseless station should be a major blow to morale and will make these Federation worms crawl back into their holes!"

"But isn't it dishonorable to defeat such a weak enemy?" Asked Ginfas.

Lorca didn't hear how the captain refuted that claim, busy as he was trying not to get impaled. Danvers slipped over to his side like a whirlwind and rammed a bat'leth she'd acquired into his opponent's stomach. Sully and Perkins had also taken down a few warriors. The room was clear for a few minutes and they found the phaser array power supply, but it was locked and sealed with a material that didn't yield to phaser blasts quickly. They heard shouts and climbed up a shaft, deciding to take out the weapons control system from the bridge.

The ship tilted and they hung on tight. They heard firing and guessed Tyler, Anderson, and the Starfleet officers had attacked. This occupied the Klingons for a while and allowed the captains to get to the bridge, where fighting broke out in full force. Danvers and Lorca ran for the weapons control system. Sully and Perkins took on the handful of warriors around the room. They were outnumbered but a few Klingons had to keep the ship flying and try to shoot down the shuttles. Danvers jumped onto a console and from there to a Klingon's back. She yanked his bat'leth out of his hands and put it through his head. Lorca felt a little scared of her. He shot at the other Klingon defending the weapons console and avoided the guy's blows.

"Emilia!" Perkins suddenly yelled. He was cornered by a large Klingon. Sully phasered her opponent and turned to him, but not in time. Perkins reached for his phaser, which lay on the floor, but the Klingon smashed him into the wall.

"Emilia, I remember everything!" He yelled.

The Klingon snapped his neck. Sully phasered her dead and ran over to Perkins, but he was gone. The weapons console was destroyed. Lorca, Sully, and Danvers had no way of getting back to the starbase. They could use the Klingon transporter but it was back the way they'd come and there was no chance of making it there alive. They gathered together, prepared to fight to the end, but a Federation ship suddenly dropped out of warp. It grabbed the Klingon ship with a tractor beam and a group of Starfleet officers beamed over. They captured the Klingons and beamed the three captains back to the starbase.

Some general confusion followed. Osgood showed up, jubilant about his part in the operation. Then he heard about Perkins' death and fell silent. Tyler and Anderson returned from the shuttle. Two of the Starfleet officers were killed in the battle. The captain of the Federation ship that saved them turned out to be Duffield. He beamed down to the starbase and asked a bunch of questions. Ginfas tried to be helpful but he was still shell-shocked. The worst was still to come. Lorca and Sully stood on either side of Ginfas like a pair of hounds. Lorca heard a sound through all the commotion, a sound that made him feel as if time stood still.

A single phaser blast.

Lorca looked down and took his head in his hands as the cries and exclamations reached them. The others turned around but Lorca knew what it was without checking.

"I forgot to take the phaser back from Danvers," he said.

They walked over to the body of Captain Christine Danvers. Ginfas put his hand over his heart, utterly at a loss for words though he'd lost patients to suicide before. Duffield thought at first that somebody murdered her and looked around for a culprit. A nurse took him by the arm and led him away, explaining things. Some medical aides arrived with a gurney for the body.

Ginfas finally got his voice back and said, "It wasn't your fault."

"Of course it was," said Lorca. "I was in charge. I didn't have my shit together."

He looked around helplessly and started to sob for the second time in that long, awful day. Sully put her arms around him.

"I seem to be crying too much," said Lorca. "A captain isn't supposed to break down like this."

"And I haven't been crying enough," said Emilia Sully.