Chapter 44 - For the Honor of the Uniform
ISS Athena, Flag Ready Room, Klach D'Kel Brakt system
Fleet Admiral T'var, commanding officer of Second Fleet, sat behind her desk sifting through a pile of PADDs while also sometimes scrolling through extra information on her personal terminal. Unfortunately, the situation aboard the captured GU ships was as logic dictated it would be. All computer cores had been thoroughly wiped and overwritten, and pertinent tech items like the GU's internal damper and PPDs had been thoroughly slagged. She had considered adding a prohibition on acts of sabotage to her list of terms, but she knew that they wouldn't be followed. The GU was to well aware of its tech and information edge, and would be perfectly willing to make a hash of their databanks and useful pieces of technology even if they agreed not to. So rather than make unfulfillable demands that would be broken and cause her to kill POWs, she hadn't made the demands in the first place. She had more than enough blood on her hands and conscience as it was, she had no desire to add what would amount to murder to the mix.
Suddenly, her telepathic sense picked up the distinct flavor or her Section watchdog's mental defenses. He was just outside her ready room and. the door slipped aside without even the simple courtesy of waiting for her acknowledgement. Commissar Augustus was at his heart a petty bully, eager to push his weight around against those whom he could get away with it. From T'var's limited experience, most of those assigned to be Section's watchdogs over Starfleet were of similar mindset. They reveled in tormenting and instilling fear in those who dared not fight back.
Trailing behind the Commissar was her flagships CO. Captain Detrich Filser had succeeded Ulysses as commander of the Athena, and T'var wasn't all that satisfied with the trade. Detrich was a hard man, as were most Ekosians. Ekos had been a peaceful world that had been corrupted by a Section 31 Pre- contact Civilization Preparation Team headed by the infamous Section agent John Gill. Agent Gill was a vocal advocate of ideals virtually identical to those of Terra's Third Reich, and it showed in most of the worlds his team was responsible for preparing for Terran rule. By the time the selected worlds were introduced to Imperial Starfleet and the Terran Empire's envoys, they were firmly under the control of individuals the Nazi's would have called brother with open, welcoming arms. Coincidentally, they welcomed the TE with open arms themselves, hailing them as brothers and accepting their role in TE society easily.
Detrich came about as close to the Nazi's Slavic ideal as a being born hundreds of years after the fall of the Third Reich and of a totally different planet could. The way he looked in an Imperial uniform was downright scary, for he filled the uniform's blackness with a determined sense of dark foreboding. In order to advance to his present position in the Terran dominated Imperial Starfleet, he had to be an exceptional individual. And he was, T'var couldn't find any reason to complain about his competency even if his methods left much to be desired. He was a cold, calculating individual, and a downright fanatic concerning the TE's new emperor. Considering the suspicions T'var knew Section had about her, she wasn't all that surprised she had been saddled with such a true believer like Detrich for her new Flag Captain. He was another uncorruptable set of ears and eyes she would have to keep alert for, lest he find some scrap of information that Section could take action on.
"Admiral, what do you intend to do with the Klingon vessels?" T'var's keeper said, intruding into her silent perusal of the after action reports.
"Do Commissar?" T'var said, turning her chair towards Julius Augustus. "Considering that the latest orders from Emperor Jack Chambers in relation to the GA powers dictated a cease fire existed between us, I see no reason to do anything with the Klingon vessels." Julius' eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but T'var continued. "Until such time as either the GA breaks the cease fire or the Emperor gives orders different than those he has recently issued, I will abide by the terms laid out in the agreement."
"Admiral, we posses the power to crush the Klingons or at least demand their immediate and unconditional surrender. While their ships are admittedly few and light, there is at least a squadron of top of the line cruisers out there." He said, gesturing to the holodisplay where the crimson banded amber icons of the surviving Klingon ships hovered with neutered menace. "The loss of those vessels would be a potent blow against the Klingon scum that dared rise up against their rightful masters!"
T'var held back the reply to such a comment cold logic dictated needed to be said. The loss of a mere five ships, even ones as potent as the KDF's Vampire's, would be a mere pinprick when their total number of hulls was in the hundreds of thousands. Julius continued. "We can destroy every ship and installation the Klingons have here, then glass their colony! We could arrange it to appear that the Galactic Unity was the culprit. And there would be no witnesses left to say different and just that many fewer. vermin. infesting our galaxy!"
There was a certain intensity in his voice, almost a sub-vocal snarl, as he spoke of intelligent beings who had the poor fortune to be born non-Terran in a Terran dominated galaxy. This wasn't his act anymore, no longer the persona of carefully constructed feigned ignorance and simple mindedness. No, this was his true self showing through, the passion was too raw, the flame in his eyes to evident for it to be anything else. T'var picked her words carefully, wanting to diffuse the situation as quickly and as safely as possible.
"Commissar, until I receive orders to the contrary from the Emperor, or the Klingons attack Second Fleet, I will NOT break the cease fire agreement." T'var stressed the word not with emotion but with emphasis. That decision is the Emperors to make, not yours or mine. To do as you suggest is both illogical and treasonous." Like a fleeting shadow, naked hatred flashed on Julius' face as his mask slipped when confronted with T'var's defiance. He was definitely a bully, hating those that didn't bow immediately to his commands. And apparently a bully blinded by his petty prejudices, for T'var's dropping of treason into the conversation caused his hate to evaporate into fear almost as fast as it showed its vile head in the first place.
Captain Filser inserted himself into the conversation. "I believe the point Commissar Augustus is trying to make is that we can bend the rules the Emperor laid out for us if we are thorough enough. I am sure the Emperor will be pleased if we remove the Klingon scourge from the Davion system, cease fire treaty or not. However, I do feel that it is best to do as you say and err on the side of caution rather than attempt to guess how the Emperor is likely to react." It still amazed T'var, even after being forced to work closely with him for months, that he could be so smooth in diffusing potentially dangerous situations. She could almost be grateful for that, save for the fact that it was hard to be grateful for the deadly snake in the grass that is just waiting for a chance to strike at you yet kept the rodent population under control in the mean time. T'var decided not to press the point any further, for there was nothing to be gained pressing her Commissar further on this point.
"Finish securing our prisoners and complete the engineering evaluation on the GU vessels, then recall our away teams and prepare to depart. We will destroy all GU vessels as we withdraw from the system." Her tone of voice indicated that this uninvited meeting was finished as far as she was concerned.
As alien as the vessels were, part of her wished she could send them back to TE held space under prize crews. But the cost of refitting them to Imperial spec was prohibitive. About the only thing that would be left of their original workings at the end would be the shell of the ship, her outer hull and internal divisions with virtually everything else ripped out and replaced with Imperial systems to simplify resupply and repair. Considering that the basic hull structures were among both the cheapest and easiest piece of a modern starship to manufacture, this generally limited the true utility of captured enemy units in modern warfare. The GA powers got around this significant hurdle in using alien hardware by starting out using stock Imperial specs for all components in their hidden fleets to begin with. What better way to use your enemy's ships when they used the same parts as your own did for virtually everything? The downside was that enemy raiding parties could use captured ships and supply convoys easily for his own forces as easily as your own could, but T'var could easily see why the Grand Alliance powers had done what they did when they set about building up their secret fleets.
"As you command Admiral." Captain Filser replied in an even tone. Saluting with snap and panache that would have eased even the DI's at Starfleet Academy's first form middie training's dour stares, he turned on the heel of his mirror like polished obsidian leather boots, saluted Commissar Augustus, then strode out her.
Augustus was back to his slightly vacant looking self, although T'var's learned and experienced eye could still detect the faint traces of hate and genuine fear lurking behind his practiced mask. She could also just make out his discomfort with both emotions. The former because it was rendered impotent, the latter because like any bully, he detested being fearful of anything. Without even the courtesy of a nod goodbye, he spun on his heel and strode out of her office.
A less logical and more emotional being would have erupted into gleeful laughter at the sight. But T'var refused to give into her emotions, keeping them on a very short leash deep inside a prison of steely control. Instead, she merely raised a lone eyebrow very high as the door to her ready room swooshed shut, then went back to her small lake of electronic paperwork.
IKV Bortas, Klach D'Kel Brakt system
Luza had watched the ease with which the Terran's elite Second Fleet units had cut down the foolish Galactic Unity vessels that refused to accede to their demands. The incomprehensible energies released in that brief moment of terrible, rending fury had virtually atomized the offending units, turing them into expanding clouds of energetic plasma that sleeted against the shields of their more fortunate comrades.
But the huntress in Luza couldn't help but admire the precision of the kills, even if it was Terrans executing it. No shot went wide. No shot blew through its indented target and accidentally hit another combatant. It was the stopping power of a bat'leth combined with the finesse of a d'k tahg, and even if it was an enemy wielding it, Luza's warrior spirit rallied in awe at the assault.
All communication attempts with Second Fleet had been rebuffed with terse commands to remain in place with engines, weapons and defensive systems offline. Not wanting to die for no return, Luza and the other members of the Imperial Klingon Defense Force could do nothing more than do just that and pray that the spirits of their ancestors in Sto-Vo-Kor held the Terrans to their end of the cease fire agreement.
And wonder of wonders, the Terrans actually [b]HAD[/b] kept up their end of the cease fire. While standard observational sensors were constantly trained on Luza and her fellow Klingons, the distinctive spikes of fire control sensor hits remained in abeyance. Bortas' sensors showed her the motes that swarmed out of the Terran lines, thousands of small craft of all shapes and sizes that descended upon the GU vessels. Most were Viper assault shuttles with Cobra's riding shotgun, but there were also the blocky, bulky shapes of Forager cargo shuttles sent along to bring choice bits of Galactic Unity machinery back to Second Fleet.
GU crews, after having been picked over for select personnel, were transported down to the surface of Klach D'Kel Brakt B-4. The small Class L world, orbiting the distant Class O and F pair of Klach D'Kel Brakt's quartet of stars, was only marginally habitable. But with a low powered food replicator provided from the ISS Athena's prodigious stores it would suffice for the few thousand GU survivors not chosen for TE internment until the Klingon High Command decided what to do with them.
Then all the small craft returned to their motherships and Luza was treated to another massive wave of destruction. Terran slicers and xenolinguists had breached the GU vessels security measures and induced them to self destruct. Systematically, boils of to-bright light marked the funeral pyres of once proud warships as their scuttling systems activated, helping along the AM charges Terran engineers had added to ensure complete destruction.
"Athena Battlegroup is closing, now entering visual range."
"Show me." Luza replied to her gunnery officer. The main viewer shifted to show the approaching Terran ships. Out of the maelstrom of released energy, the Athena and a lone wing of Wraiths. Next to the Bastion, the mighty Terran SD's looking like Glob Flies buzzing around a Targ. They flew ever closer to Luza's command, looming large, covering the stars themselves.
When they got within a virtually unheard of kilometer of each other, the Athena and her consorts angled parallel to the Bortas and his brother ships. The Terran vessels running lights flashed twice in salute, then the Athena and the rest of Second Fleet simultaneously stretched and went translucent as they entered the blue vortexes of slipstream before disappearing altogether.
Luza let out a breath. Much as she might have detested the cease fire agreement between the Grand Alliance and the Terran Empire, she understood why it was brokered and agreed upon. All powers in the Alpha and Beta quadrants were in a fight for their very survival with an opponent more powerful than all of them together. To have any chance at all of surviving, they had to take every edge they could get. If that meant setting aside collecting of debts until after the threat to all was eliminated, so be it. She knew well the old Terran saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. While she wouldn't go that far when it came to the Terrans, and she doubted she ever would, it did exemplify the current arrangement far more eloquently than most other descriptions. For today at least, the tenuous ceasefire between the powers of the Grand Alliance and the Terran Empire had held and as a result, Luza and her fellow Klingons had survived to fight another day. That was what truly mattered after all.
ISS Athena, Flag Ready Room, Klach D'Kel Brakt system
Fleet Admiral T'var, commanding officer of Second Fleet, sat behind her desk sifting through a pile of PADDs while also sometimes scrolling through extra information on her personal terminal. Unfortunately, the situation aboard the captured GU ships was as logic dictated it would be. All computer cores had been thoroughly wiped and overwritten, and pertinent tech items like the GU's internal damper and PPDs had been thoroughly slagged. She had considered adding a prohibition on acts of sabotage to her list of terms, but she knew that they wouldn't be followed. The GU was to well aware of its tech and information edge, and would be perfectly willing to make a hash of their databanks and useful pieces of technology even if they agreed not to. So rather than make unfulfillable demands that would be broken and cause her to kill POWs, she hadn't made the demands in the first place. She had more than enough blood on her hands and conscience as it was, she had no desire to add what would amount to murder to the mix.
Suddenly, her telepathic sense picked up the distinct flavor or her Section watchdog's mental defenses. He was just outside her ready room and. the door slipped aside without even the simple courtesy of waiting for her acknowledgement. Commissar Augustus was at his heart a petty bully, eager to push his weight around against those whom he could get away with it. From T'var's limited experience, most of those assigned to be Section's watchdogs over Starfleet were of similar mindset. They reveled in tormenting and instilling fear in those who dared not fight back.
Trailing behind the Commissar was her flagships CO. Captain Detrich Filser had succeeded Ulysses as commander of the Athena, and T'var wasn't all that satisfied with the trade. Detrich was a hard man, as were most Ekosians. Ekos had been a peaceful world that had been corrupted by a Section 31 Pre- contact Civilization Preparation Team headed by the infamous Section agent John Gill. Agent Gill was a vocal advocate of ideals virtually identical to those of Terra's Third Reich, and it showed in most of the worlds his team was responsible for preparing for Terran rule. By the time the selected worlds were introduced to Imperial Starfleet and the Terran Empire's envoys, they were firmly under the control of individuals the Nazi's would have called brother with open, welcoming arms. Coincidentally, they welcomed the TE with open arms themselves, hailing them as brothers and accepting their role in TE society easily.
Detrich came about as close to the Nazi's Slavic ideal as a being born hundreds of years after the fall of the Third Reich and of a totally different planet could. The way he looked in an Imperial uniform was downright scary, for he filled the uniform's blackness with a determined sense of dark foreboding. In order to advance to his present position in the Terran dominated Imperial Starfleet, he had to be an exceptional individual. And he was, T'var couldn't find any reason to complain about his competency even if his methods left much to be desired. He was a cold, calculating individual, and a downright fanatic concerning the TE's new emperor. Considering the suspicions T'var knew Section had about her, she wasn't all that surprised she had been saddled with such a true believer like Detrich for her new Flag Captain. He was another uncorruptable set of ears and eyes she would have to keep alert for, lest he find some scrap of information that Section could take action on.
"Admiral, what do you intend to do with the Klingon vessels?" T'var's keeper said, intruding into her silent perusal of the after action reports.
"Do Commissar?" T'var said, turning her chair towards Julius Augustus. "Considering that the latest orders from Emperor Jack Chambers in relation to the GA powers dictated a cease fire existed between us, I see no reason to do anything with the Klingon vessels." Julius' eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but T'var continued. "Until such time as either the GA breaks the cease fire or the Emperor gives orders different than those he has recently issued, I will abide by the terms laid out in the agreement."
"Admiral, we posses the power to crush the Klingons or at least demand their immediate and unconditional surrender. While their ships are admittedly few and light, there is at least a squadron of top of the line cruisers out there." He said, gesturing to the holodisplay where the crimson banded amber icons of the surviving Klingon ships hovered with neutered menace. "The loss of those vessels would be a potent blow against the Klingon scum that dared rise up against their rightful masters!"
T'var held back the reply to such a comment cold logic dictated needed to be said. The loss of a mere five ships, even ones as potent as the KDF's Vampire's, would be a mere pinprick when their total number of hulls was in the hundreds of thousands. Julius continued. "We can destroy every ship and installation the Klingons have here, then glass their colony! We could arrange it to appear that the Galactic Unity was the culprit. And there would be no witnesses left to say different and just that many fewer. vermin. infesting our galaxy!"
There was a certain intensity in his voice, almost a sub-vocal snarl, as he spoke of intelligent beings who had the poor fortune to be born non-Terran in a Terran dominated galaxy. This wasn't his act anymore, no longer the persona of carefully constructed feigned ignorance and simple mindedness. No, this was his true self showing through, the passion was too raw, the flame in his eyes to evident for it to be anything else. T'var picked her words carefully, wanting to diffuse the situation as quickly and as safely as possible.
"Commissar, until I receive orders to the contrary from the Emperor, or the Klingons attack Second Fleet, I will NOT break the cease fire agreement." T'var stressed the word not with emotion but with emphasis. That decision is the Emperors to make, not yours or mine. To do as you suggest is both illogical and treasonous." Like a fleeting shadow, naked hatred flashed on Julius' face as his mask slipped when confronted with T'var's defiance. He was definitely a bully, hating those that didn't bow immediately to his commands. And apparently a bully blinded by his petty prejudices, for T'var's dropping of treason into the conversation caused his hate to evaporate into fear almost as fast as it showed its vile head in the first place.
Captain Filser inserted himself into the conversation. "I believe the point Commissar Augustus is trying to make is that we can bend the rules the Emperor laid out for us if we are thorough enough. I am sure the Emperor will be pleased if we remove the Klingon scourge from the Davion system, cease fire treaty or not. However, I do feel that it is best to do as you say and err on the side of caution rather than attempt to guess how the Emperor is likely to react." It still amazed T'var, even after being forced to work closely with him for months, that he could be so smooth in diffusing potentially dangerous situations. She could almost be grateful for that, save for the fact that it was hard to be grateful for the deadly snake in the grass that is just waiting for a chance to strike at you yet kept the rodent population under control in the mean time. T'var decided not to press the point any further, for there was nothing to be gained pressing her Commissar further on this point.
"Finish securing our prisoners and complete the engineering evaluation on the GU vessels, then recall our away teams and prepare to depart. We will destroy all GU vessels as we withdraw from the system." Her tone of voice indicated that this uninvited meeting was finished as far as she was concerned.
As alien as the vessels were, part of her wished she could send them back to TE held space under prize crews. But the cost of refitting them to Imperial spec was prohibitive. About the only thing that would be left of their original workings at the end would be the shell of the ship, her outer hull and internal divisions with virtually everything else ripped out and replaced with Imperial systems to simplify resupply and repair. Considering that the basic hull structures were among both the cheapest and easiest piece of a modern starship to manufacture, this generally limited the true utility of captured enemy units in modern warfare. The GA powers got around this significant hurdle in using alien hardware by starting out using stock Imperial specs for all components in their hidden fleets to begin with. What better way to use your enemy's ships when they used the same parts as your own did for virtually everything? The downside was that enemy raiding parties could use captured ships and supply convoys easily for his own forces as easily as your own could, but T'var could easily see why the Grand Alliance powers had done what they did when they set about building up their secret fleets.
"As you command Admiral." Captain Filser replied in an even tone. Saluting with snap and panache that would have eased even the DI's at Starfleet Academy's first form middie training's dour stares, he turned on the heel of his mirror like polished obsidian leather boots, saluted Commissar Augustus, then strode out her.
Augustus was back to his slightly vacant looking self, although T'var's learned and experienced eye could still detect the faint traces of hate and genuine fear lurking behind his practiced mask. She could also just make out his discomfort with both emotions. The former because it was rendered impotent, the latter because like any bully, he detested being fearful of anything. Without even the courtesy of a nod goodbye, he spun on his heel and strode out of her office.
A less logical and more emotional being would have erupted into gleeful laughter at the sight. But T'var refused to give into her emotions, keeping them on a very short leash deep inside a prison of steely control. Instead, she merely raised a lone eyebrow very high as the door to her ready room swooshed shut, then went back to her small lake of electronic paperwork.
IKV Bortas, Klach D'Kel Brakt system
Luza had watched the ease with which the Terran's elite Second Fleet units had cut down the foolish Galactic Unity vessels that refused to accede to their demands. The incomprehensible energies released in that brief moment of terrible, rending fury had virtually atomized the offending units, turing them into expanding clouds of energetic plasma that sleeted against the shields of their more fortunate comrades.
But the huntress in Luza couldn't help but admire the precision of the kills, even if it was Terrans executing it. No shot went wide. No shot blew through its indented target and accidentally hit another combatant. It was the stopping power of a bat'leth combined with the finesse of a d'k tahg, and even if it was an enemy wielding it, Luza's warrior spirit rallied in awe at the assault.
All communication attempts with Second Fleet had been rebuffed with terse commands to remain in place with engines, weapons and defensive systems offline. Not wanting to die for no return, Luza and the other members of the Imperial Klingon Defense Force could do nothing more than do just that and pray that the spirits of their ancestors in Sto-Vo-Kor held the Terrans to their end of the cease fire agreement.
And wonder of wonders, the Terrans actually [b]HAD[/b] kept up their end of the cease fire. While standard observational sensors were constantly trained on Luza and her fellow Klingons, the distinctive spikes of fire control sensor hits remained in abeyance. Bortas' sensors showed her the motes that swarmed out of the Terran lines, thousands of small craft of all shapes and sizes that descended upon the GU vessels. Most were Viper assault shuttles with Cobra's riding shotgun, but there were also the blocky, bulky shapes of Forager cargo shuttles sent along to bring choice bits of Galactic Unity machinery back to Second Fleet.
GU crews, after having been picked over for select personnel, were transported down to the surface of Klach D'Kel Brakt B-4. The small Class L world, orbiting the distant Class O and F pair of Klach D'Kel Brakt's quartet of stars, was only marginally habitable. But with a low powered food replicator provided from the ISS Athena's prodigious stores it would suffice for the few thousand GU survivors not chosen for TE internment until the Klingon High Command decided what to do with them.
Then all the small craft returned to their motherships and Luza was treated to another massive wave of destruction. Terran slicers and xenolinguists had breached the GU vessels security measures and induced them to self destruct. Systematically, boils of to-bright light marked the funeral pyres of once proud warships as their scuttling systems activated, helping along the AM charges Terran engineers had added to ensure complete destruction.
"Athena Battlegroup is closing, now entering visual range."
"Show me." Luza replied to her gunnery officer. The main viewer shifted to show the approaching Terran ships. Out of the maelstrom of released energy, the Athena and a lone wing of Wraiths. Next to the Bastion, the mighty Terran SD's looking like Glob Flies buzzing around a Targ. They flew ever closer to Luza's command, looming large, covering the stars themselves.
When they got within a virtually unheard of kilometer of each other, the Athena and her consorts angled parallel to the Bortas and his brother ships. The Terran vessels running lights flashed twice in salute, then the Athena and the rest of Second Fleet simultaneously stretched and went translucent as they entered the blue vortexes of slipstream before disappearing altogether.
Luza let out a breath. Much as she might have detested the cease fire agreement between the Grand Alliance and the Terran Empire, she understood why it was brokered and agreed upon. All powers in the Alpha and Beta quadrants were in a fight for their very survival with an opponent more powerful than all of them together. To have any chance at all of surviving, they had to take every edge they could get. If that meant setting aside collecting of debts until after the threat to all was eliminated, so be it. She knew well the old Terran saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. While she wouldn't go that far when it came to the Terrans, and she doubted she ever would, it did exemplify the current arrangement far more eloquently than most other descriptions. For today at least, the tenuous ceasefire between the powers of the Grand Alliance and the Terran Empire had held and as a result, Luza and her fellow Klingons had survived to fight another day. That was what truly mattered after all.