I don't own Star Trek Deep Space.
Star Trek Deep Space Nine holds so many interesting episodes, and I liked 'Valiant' for its nod to Paradise Lost and the hubris of people who didn't see the consequences of their decisions.
Please let me know what you think.
"We're Red Squad, and we can do anything!"
Jake Sisko was both impressed by the professional way the crew of cadets - Dorian could tell him they were Red Squad if she liked, Nog could pray to them at an alter for all eternity, to Jake the crew were cadets - handled the Valiant but at the same time he was still reeling from the lashing he had gotten from Farris and Watters. Granted, Watters had let Farris handle the worst of it, but something about the way Watters had treated him had rubbed him the wrong way.
Another thing Jake could not grasp was why Nog was letting a bunch of non-commissioned officers run around like they had been commissioned. Jake might not be a Starfleet officer after making his decision about his future so long ago, but he had been the son of one long enough to pick up a few things. As he stood in the mess hall of the Valiant, Jake wondered what Watters was going to tell them.
Jake took a moment to look around the array of faces. Human, Vulcan, Trill. All of them were just so young, they were his age and Nog's. He had heard from Dorian after the young woman had come to him, upset and despondent she had gotten him into trouble, Valiant had gotten into more than a few firefights over the last 8 months and a few cadets had died.
How many people were there on this ship today?
Jake didn't know. He hadn't asked. Dorian's attitude had been fairly closed with sorrow. It was also during the same conversation that Dorian had admitted to him about one of Watter's darkest secrets. Jake stiffened when he noticed in the doorway Watters and Farris were standing there. He idly wondered how long it would be before somebody noticed their presence.
"Attention on deck!" Someone called, and the entire crew jumped to attention.
3 seconds. Watters stood in the doorway for a moment, his expression neutral but Jake had the impression the display pleased him. That made sense; the longer he was near Watters, the more Jake became convinced the guy was stroking his ego every time someone called him 'Captain.
"Stand at ease," Watters ordered while Jake stood with his arms folded, silent and listening while the other man walked into the mess hall. "It's been a long eight months. A lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifice."
Yeah, but I wonder who sacrificed what? Jake asked himself darkly, remembering everything Dorian had told him about Watters to her displeasure. Her admittance he was a junkie was worrying, and now the journalist wondered just what Watters had given up.
"Now we've accomplished our mission. We found the battleship and obtained a complete scan without being detected, and we're free to go home," Watters said, and some of the crew looked at one another with smiles on their faces, but Jake wasn't one of them. He knew Watters would not be leading everyone on with a nice little speech if he had been taking that mixture of drugs Dorian had told him about.
People who took those kinds of drugs never, ever thought rationally.
"But that ship out there is a direct threat to every Federation outpost and colony within fifty light-years."
Jake knew he was right there, despite his disdain for Watters, Farris, Red Squad and the hold they had on Nog, but he knew Watters was right. But he was also incredibly wrong. They had gathered vital and valuable intelligence on the Jem'Hadar battleship and if and when it got back to the Federation it could save millions of lives. If they were lucky then they would probably find another weakness to use against the Dominion. Jake knew after the first few encounters with the Federation, Starfleet had gleaned a vast amount of knowledge of Dominion weapons and strategies and now all ships were capable of taking direct hits from Jem'Hadar weapons following the destruction of the Odyssey in the Gamma Quadrant. But clearly, Watters wasn't likely to think of the bigger picture.
Junkies rarely did.
"That ship must be destroyed. It can be destroyed. Commander?" Watters turned to Farris, further worrying Jake even more. Farris stepped forward without knowing that Jake was thinking these officers were just kids and they had done more than was asked for them and they'd done their bit now they had to return home and give their findings to Starfleet and allow them to study what they'd discovered to save many more lives in the war, her uniform and blonde hair as immaculate as always while she tried to become a dead ringer for Admiral Nechayev. Jake had heard from his father about the admiral for a long time, how frigid and sharp she was. It seemed she had an illegitimate daughter or a fan. "We've found a flaw in the design of their antimatter storage system. The primary support braces are made of viterium."
Jake frowned. He didn't recognise the material, but he had no doubt they were going to be enlightened about what it was. In a tone reminiscent of Keiko O'Brien tone when she'd been his and Nog's teacher so long ago before the whole mess with the Dominion started, except in a slightly different manner that Jake could not work out, Watters explained the significance of the alloy. "It's a very strong, very resilient metal alloy which just happens to become extremely unstable when exposed to delta radiation."
Jake had a good idea where this was going, and he did not like it. "A single torpedo rigged with a radiogenic warhead could reduce those braces to the consistency of wet pasta," Farris allowed herself to smile smugly. Watters took over the rest of the briefing from that point. "And as a result, the entire antimatter storage system would tear itself apart. Commander Nog, you don't seem convinced," Watters added, his gaze picking up on Nog, and Jake glanced down at Nog. The Ferengi was fidgeting worriedly and he did not look happy. It was no wonder Watters had picked up on it.
For a moment Jake wondered if Nog was going to exercise his authority as a commissioned officer and stop Watters from what he planned to do. The crew had done their bit, surely now Nog had seen more than enough to make him get them to stop while they still could.
But what Nog said surprised him and he realised he had nobody willing to talk out against Watters. "Well, sir, in order to rig a torpedo to yield a delta radiation burst I'll have to remove most of the guidance systems. We'll have to target it manually."
Jake could not believe what his friend had just said. He remembered during that coup Admiral Leyton had tried to push onto the Federation when the Dominion threat was in its infancy, and he remembered how desperate Nog was to be accepted into the Academy and how joining Red Squad would help him get ahead.
But that had been a while ago, and Nog had changed and matured since then. He was a commissioned Starfleet officer. He didn't owe Red Squad anything, and yet here he was, helping them. What the hell was he playing at. "We've trained for that possibility," Farris said. "It shouldn't be a problem."
Jake narrowed his eyes at the young woman's arrogance. Somehow he had a feeling whatever Nog was going to say was going to be bad. Nog, indeed, was far from finished. "We'll also have to get very close to the target."
"How close?" Watters asked with a slight trace of uncertainty since it was clear he hadn't known about this. But Jake could see nothing was going to change his mind.
Nog was silent for a moment - whether he was working out the exact calculation in his head or if he knew it and wanted everyone to know what the answer would be, Jake had no idea but he knew he wasn't going to like it; he had known Nog long enough to know the Ferengi's expression to know nobody would like the reply. "Within three hundred metres."
Three hundred metres? Jake realised now just how close they'd have to get, and around the mess hall everyone talked and whispered to themselves as the news sank in, but before anyone could come up with any logical objection - come to think about it, Jake had seen two Vulcans in the room, but they didn't seem to find anything wrong with what was going on - but Watters spoke over the crowd in that manner of his that everyone just went along with.
"It's dangerous, there's no disputing that. And no one would think any less of us if we just turn around and go home. But that means that some other ship with some other crew would be asked to finish the job that we started. I think we can do it. I think we should do it."
When everyone began murmuring agreements and nodding their heads, Jake couldn't help himself; he shuddered lightly, horrified by what Watters was planning.
The journalist could understand and see where Watters and the rest of Red Squad were coming from, but he didn't like these visible signs of Watter's drug habit making itself known. He had heard of Starfleet officers placed in the command chair who liked to think of themselves as invincible and all mighty, but none of them used stimulants to keep themselves going, but this took it to an extent Jake had never imagined or heard of.
Farris should, as Watter's first officer, be taking command but she seemed to worship the ground Watters walked on and she seemed locked in her own little world too. Jake stuck his hand up, feeling like a student trying to get a teacher's attention. In a way, it was appropriate, given how the people in front of him were cadets. "Can I say something?"
"You are not a member of this crew," Farris spat.
"Let him speak," Watters said while he eyed Jake with intrigue which meant he was curious about what Jake had to say; the pair were reminding Jake more and more of a double act, the good cop-bad cop routine, but to be frank he was glad Watters was more reasonable than Farris even if he agreed with her, but at the same time he was relieved since Jake could effortlessly slap the bitch down where she belonged. Jake took a deep breath to gather his thoughts and to calm his mind - he knew what he was going to say was going to be ignored by Watters anyway, but if he could go on and persuade more members of the crew of the stupidity of what they were going to do, then maybe he might get enough support to get Watters to turn Valiant around and go back to the Federation.
"You all probably know who my father is. Benjamin Sisko. So you know I'm not exaggerating when I say that he's considered to be one of the best combat officers in the fleet. And I'm telling you right now that even with the entire crew of the Defiant with him, my father would never try to pull off something like this. And if he can't do it, it can't be done."
Jake had planned on saying they had gathered the information of the Dominion battleship and if they took it back then people would recognise the Valiant crew for their service, but Watters, who'd been silent during his speech glared at him angrily and raised his arm up with his fist clenched.
"We're Red Squad and we can do anything!" Watters shouted (something of that posture reminded Jake uncomfortably of the historical pictures of fascists like Adolf Hitler or Mussolini from the mid-20th century; he knew that that kind of belief was centuries behind modern times and that the Federation had opened humanity's eyes to a kind of thinking that would have been impossible with the view of fascism, but that passionate statement about Red Squad made Jake see persuading Waters was a waste of time. He was too fanatical).
The room cheered with their leader. All of them began to chant. "Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad! Red Squad!Red Squad!"
Jake rolled his eyes in disgust as the room took up the chant, he noted one or two of the cadets who picked it up hesitantly before they began cheering and chanting with the same enthusiasm as the others. But when he heard Nog chanting along with the painfully young ensign who was about Jake's age, he looked down in angry disappointment with his friend, amazed by how stupid Nog was. Was he truly this desperate for a chance to fit in with the so-called 'best of the best' who'd sabotaged Earth's power grid as part of Leyton's coup that he forgot he had surpassed them already? Idly Jake noticed Watter's smug and superior expression.
X
Later in the engine room during the night shift, Jake was trying to make Nog see sense while his friend was working on the torpedoes which would miraculously destroy the Dominion battleship. But he wasn't having much luck. "This is suicide," Jake tried, for about the thousandth time. He had tried this argument with an entire room full of cadets, and it had gotten him nowhere. But if he could just get through to Nog.…
Nog didn't even look up from his work. "No, it's not."
Jake had to close his eyes and fight the urge to snatch the tool out of the Ferengi's hands and smack him on the head with it; that kind of reaction would do no good and besides, it would just make Nog clam up even more. "Nog, listen to me. We're in way over our heads here. Now someone told me that ship out there is twice the size of a Galaxy-class starship and three times as strong."
Again, Nog didn't look up from his work. The habit was truly beginning to grate on Jake's nerves and his temper. "That's accurate."
For a moment, Jake could not believe what Nog had just said, and he gazed at the Ferengi on the other side of the torpedo in disbelief. They had been there, Nog and he, when the Odyssey was destroyed. They had seen it. They had seen it in the passenger lounge with the Vorta, Eris, and Quark. They had watched as the heavily damaged Galaxy-class ship was rammed by one of the three Jem'Hadar fighters during the mess of a first contact with the Dominion.
Starfleet might have upgraded Federation shields and weapons to help them defeat Dominion ships, but still, some Galaxy-class ships had been destroyed like the Odyssey. At the time it was almost impossible to believe such a mighty class was that vulnerable, and now Nog and this band of idiots thought going up against a ship twice the size of the Odyssey and much stronger was a good idea.
Was something wrong with the air quality on board that only affected Starfleet officers? No, if someone like his father was on board the ship, or Worf, Dax, or even legendary officers like Christopher Pike, Owen Paris, James T. Kirk, Spock, or Jean Luc Picard (his thoughts towards the Enterprise captain were…mixed considering Picard's role in Wolf 359, but there was no doubt they would never allow this).
So why was Nog?
Had Watters done something to his friend's brain? "And you really think we can go up against a ship like that?" Jake had to fight to keep his voice even although he let some of his disbelief sink in.
"I think that Captain Watters knows what he's doing."
Jake couldn't help it, he chuckled despite his annoyance by how Nog emphasised Watter's rank as he walked around the torpedo. "Oh, really? Well, did you know that Watters has been taking cordafin stimulants for the past two months?" He said as he leaned on the bow of the torpedo. For the first time, Nog lifted his head and gazed at him with disbelief, but Jake was certain Nog thought it to be a lie. "Where did you hear that?"
Hoping he didn't drop Dorian in it, but right now not really caring because he was too angry with the whole Red Squad thing to really worry about it since they seemed happy to sign their lives away and being too stupid enough to see it. "Dorian told me."
Nog's expression turned angry. "You were ordered to stay away from her!"
Jake began to lose his temper himself. "Will you forget about obeying orders for just a minute!"
"That's not the way we do things in Starfleet," Nog's voice was so condescending, for a moment Jake wondered if this was how his friend really saw him and his civilian status.
Suddenly he snapped.
"Yeah, well, as that bitch Farris likes to remind me, I am not a Starfleet officer. Everyone has rights, Nog, and if you think speaking like that is a good move, then you shouldn't be wearing that uniform. What the hell is wrong with you, you are a commissioned officer? You owe Red Squad nothing! I remember you being fixated upon it, remember, during that coup Leyton tried to force on the Federation! I can't believe you're buying everything that Watters is selling."
"He's not selling anything," Nog stressed each word as he lifted his gaze again and glared at Jake. "He's reminding us of our duty."
Jake closed his eyes for a moment and held a hand to his head as he shouted, "I feel like I'm having a conversation with one of the bulkheads."
Nog put down the tool clasped in his hands in disgust as he glared at Jake - at last, a reaction; but it was hardly encouraging. "You don't understand because you've never put on one of these uniforms. You don't know anything about sacrifice or honour or duty or any of the things that make up a soldier's life. I'm part of something larger than myself. All you care about is you." His voice had risen into a shout, but the last sentence was nothing but a whisper dripping in contempt and disgust. Jake was too angry to deny that his so-called friend was right, but at the same time, he was laughing inwardly.
Larger than myself?
Yeah, right.
Watters was going to get everyone killed, and the fool in front of him was going to do nothing to stop it.
"That's right. All I care about is Jake Sisko and whether or not he's going to be killed by a bunch of delusional fanatics looking for martyrdom."
"Get out," Nog shook his head in disgust as he gave the order.
Jake reared back a little, stunned by what was coming out of his friend's mouth. "I don't even know who you are anymore."
"I'm the Chief Engineer of the starship Valiant," Nog declared with the kind of arrogant pride that Jake had come to expect from the Valiant crew.
Inwardly he was yelling inside his mind so loudly he was amazed Nog couldn't hear it, "NO! YOU ARE ENSIGN NOG, A COMMISSIONED STARFLEET OFFICER WHO SHOULD BE SMACKING WATTERS AND THE REST OF THIS BUNCH OF FANATICS BACK DOWN UNTIL THEY'RE MENTALLY THINKING OF THEMSELVES AS FIRST-YEAR CADETS! BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU'RE GOING ALONG WITH THEM!"
Finally Jake had had enough; he was sick of it, this damn fucking ship, Nog, Watters, Farris, the whole of Red Squad. He wished he could just transport himself away and let them kill themselves. After all, apparently, he only cared about himself, why should he care about them? "I'll have them put that on your tombstone," Jake whispered in disgust as he walked out of the engine room, shaking his head and lifting his eyes to the ceiling which was only a couple of inches above his head. He was going to the cabin that he'd been assigned, and he would sleep, thankful that he had somewhere to be where he would not be disturbed by the morons around him.
If Nog wanted to die, then he'd let him, but he was ashamed of himself for thinking about that, but the Ferengi just refused to see reason and Jake had no idea how to get to his friend before it was too late...
Well, if there was, then he didn't know about it and Jake was too tired to march back in and make Nog see reason.
Jake was so locked in his thoughts he didn't hear the footsteps behind him until one of the cadets - he refused to call them officers, not anymore - said loudly, "Mister Sisko," he said in a nasal voice with an inherent arrogance that instantly made Jake dislike him, to say nothing of how he felt about having two phasers jammed in his face. "I'm afraid you'll have to miss all the fun. You're going to spend the rest of this mission in the brig."
Jake went with them. He didn't offer any kind of excuse, any plea. He knew they wouldn't listen in the first place. He seethed angrily as they led him to the corridor he knew the brig was located, his mind racing as he wondered why Watters had ordered this; Farris could have done it, but somehow he had a feeling it was Watters, not the frigid blonde. Somehow he doubted she had the imagination for something like this.
As he walked into the holding cell and they activated the forcefield, Jake decided it made no difference and he settled down on the bunk, gazing at the two smug faces and he sneered back.
He was onboard a ship that was going to attack a ship much stronger than their own. Their captain was a junkie and a drug addict. His best friend had been taken in by a spell by these people whom he owed nothing.
And they were all going to die. And they refused to listen to him.
