Note: If you're anything like me, you haven't been getting any alerts for some time (I checked, mine stopped January 2021). There's nothing I can do about it, unfortunately. I do post updates to my tumblr (well, laugh) at glenarvonscribbles. You could also use the "Subscription" option of Archive of Our Own. New chapters go up at the same time. If you've got any other ideas, let me know.
If you're confused by this chapter, maybe you've missed the previous one! Otherwise, there's the recap.
RECAP of Chapter 12:
Lorca finishes the fight, Zralisss goes down, Culber muses on sex with the captain.
Tyler continues to be out of Lorca's favour despite having done nothing of note for several chapters. Kriger is suspected to be part of the conspiracy, but is given enough rope to hopefully hang everyone else alongside him. The mess of the trap they walked into is discussed and everyone goes home unhappy.
Lorca reveals he wants to take his entire crew with him to his universe, provided they're actually up for that. He plots his next step, which is to finally get some spores for the magic mushroom drive.
Chapter 13: Triumvirate
Roused from sleep and ordered to the bridge, Lieutenant Spock of the ISS Enterprise didn't let his irritation show.
He had taken an entire minute before leaving his quarters to compose himself before he'd stepped out into the nearly empty corridors of the ship. It would be enough, he knew, pacing himself, not too eager, not too casual. As the highest-ranking alien on the ship — on the entire fleet — he knew how to walk the narrow lines.
His father had taught him how to control his thoughts when his father was still there and Spock was so young he could barely talk properly. His mother had taught him how to control everything else. She was a dangerous woman to anyone who would stand in her way or the way of anything she valued. She had failed to protect her husband and so, in her revenge, she had made an entire Empire accept her half-breed son into its ranks not as some low-ranking semi-slave, but as an officer. All that fell to Spock was make the Empire love him for it.
The bridge was in tense silence, the view-screen showing a diagram of what Spock immediately recognised as a portion of the Charon exclusion zone, marked where a vessel had breached the sensor grid.
Captain April was absent, an entirely predictable state of things. Commander Pike lounged in the Captain's chair, head propped up on his hand, thinking, his gaze cast down at the readouts in the armrest rather than the larger display up above.
By right, Pike should have been captain long since. For months now, April had been plagued by a debilitating illness, more often than not confined to his quarters. And when he left them, he was barely fit for duty. Whispers on the ship, some louder than others, told of how his illness was nothing but an addiction to various drugs. The ship was run by those April had thought to exploit. His collection of golden boys, junior officers all, invariably handsome, invariably ambitious beyond their skills — other than the skills April valued in the privacy of his quarters, of course.
Pike was one of them, or at least in his less than glorious beginnings. Unlike most of the others, he had true grit underneath the glitter. Personally, Spock thought Pike kept April around only to exploit him, use him as a shield against rivals and a convenient scapegoat should he need either of those.
"Analysis, Mr Spock," Pike said before Spock had even arrived at his post.
The data was, admittedly, quite fascinating. A few hours ago, an unknown vessel had breached the perimeter of the exclusion zone of the wreck of the Charon. Enterprise had been closest when the alarms were raised and was currently the only ship perched at the edge of the zone.
The sensors sweeps in the area were fraught with errors, the exotic radiation from the wreck making it difficult to get a clear image, but the data transferred from buoys along the zone were less ambiguous.
"The unknown vessel is the ISS Defiant," Spock said.
"Wasn't she just spotted in Arc?" Pike asked.
"Yes, an attempt to retake the ship failed with heavy losses, the Defiant's location afterwards was unknown, but it could reasonably make the journey here and have enough time for repairs."
"Is she still damaged?" Pike asked.
"I can't detect any obvious damage, but our sensors are not functioning to their full capacity due to interference from the wreck."
Pike said nothing for long enough that Spock looked briefly away from the data. Pike had changed his position, sat up straight and focused on the screen.
"What are they doing?"
"They have released cube-drones to form a containment field."
"What for?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know," Pike repeated and Spock already knew what to expect. "I called you to the bridge because you are a competent science officer. Is that really the best you can do?"
Calmly, Spock met Pike's gaze. "All data regarding the Charon is highly classified. If I were able to tell you what the Defiant is doing, I would be guilty of treason, sir."
He paused for a moment, "And, with due respect, Commander, so would you."
Pike didn't immediately answer. Being told off like this by a subordinate — and a vulcan — might scratch his reputation slightly, but people on the ship and especially the bridge knew him well enough not to test such fleeting vulnerabilities.
"Who has that clearance?" Pike asked.
Spock held his gaze. "That, too, is classified information."
"Well, that's bullshit," Pike decided. "Alright, fine. Your best guess, then. Would the Captain have clearance?"
Pike was playing again, he knew as much as Spock about the topic, and quite possibly more. Ever since the exclusion zone had been established, ship captains had been faced with a barrage of contradicting, standing orders. They were expected to respond immediately if a breach occurred, they were expected to destroy any trespasser on sight. At the same time, they were strictly forbidden from entering the exclusion zone themselves. In a few of the orders, the specific wording made it clear that they were even forbidden to know about the exclusion zone in the first place.
Most proper captains would have long since found ways to get their fingers on at least part of the information, but April wouldn't have the presence of mind to even attempt it.
"If I were given to guesses," Spock said, just a little testily. "I would guess that Captain April does not have access to the required data."
Pike, quite clearly, suppressed a sigh and said nothing as he weighed his option. He tapped the tip of his tongue to his teeth. A slow smile manifested on his face.
"Give me a quick rundown of what to expect from the Defiant," he said. "Or is that classified, too?"
"The ISS Defiant under Captain Maddox was captured in orbit of Tarsus IV on Stardate 1350.8. Before this, the ISS Khumaro and ISS Tarleton had been destroyed executing an attack on a rebel base, presumed to be under the command of former Fleet Captain Lorca's followers. Lorca's ship, the Buran, was also destroyed in the fight. In the aftermath of the fight, the planet Tarsus suffered…"
"I asked about the Defiant, I don't care about Tarsus," Pike interrupted.
Spock didn't miss a beat. "The ISS Defiant is a Constitution-class heavy cruiser. In fact, it is the first Constitution starship. Originally the flagship of Empress Sato…"
"Not a history lesson, either," Pike said.
"The Defiant's offensive and defensive capabilities are comparable to our own. As for possible modifications since her capture, our scanners do not provide enough detail to extrapolate."
"Finally a concise answer, Mr Spock," Pike said with only thin sarcasm. "Don't give me the runaround next time, it's wasting mine and everyone else's time."
Lack of time was, Spock surmised, the primary reason Pike let his objections go with such a mild reprimand. His attention was clearly on a bigger prize right then.
"What about Lorca?"
"It is presumed former fleet captain Lorca is in command of the Defiant. While his involvement during the Tarsus incident is unproven, his presence on the ship has been confirmed during further incidents in the Yemuro system and, most recently, around Arc."
Pike frowned across at Spock.
"In conclusion," Spock continued, bringing the focus back to the original question of what to expect of the Defiant. "In any direct conflict, the Defiant and the Enterprise are evenly matched. Any advantage will come down to…"
"Tactical superiority," Pike interjected.
"… luck," Spock finished without giving any indication of having been interrupted.
"Are you doubting my abilities? Or have the vulcans just discovered the concept of luck?" Pike challenged. He made it sound like innocent banter when in fact, it put Spock in the centre of a minefield.
Spock wasn't rattled, "Assuming Lorca is in command, it would be unwise to disregard his tactical abilities and all else being equal, sir, luck is the appropriate term to apply to probabilities too minute to properly calculate."
Pike said nothing for a moment, perhaps considering if Spock had been complimenting his tactical skills by making them equal to someone of Lorca's repute, or insulted them. It was the true beauty of the statement, though Spock doubted Pike had the mind to appreciate it.
"Very well," Pike said, eyes narrowed, but unwilling to pursue this minor issue, "Hail them."
For a millisecond, the impression of utter silence. The comm officer hovered her hand over the controls, "Sir?" she asked.
The strands of patience for Pike had been running thin for a while. Spock needling him about his lack of authority, the unnecessary long-winded answer, the pressure that he should be asking Captain April to the bridge, the perfect awareness that this was a moment that could make or break a career, it was slowly leaking through. Pike was too smart to let it out on Spock in much more than snide remarks, he knew he needed Spock's mind on his side. The comm officer had no such protection.
"Lieutenant," Pike said, tilting his head her way. "Is there an issue?""
She hesitated, but the way her chin went up indicated that she wasn't willing to be so easily cowed. "I'm not sure we're allowed the hail them," she said. "Everything relating to the exclusion zone is classified."
"Yes, I know, I was in the room when Spock told me," Pike said. "Now, you will execute my order and when your shift is over, you'll report to the brig and receive your punishment."
Smart, Spock decided, once again. Replacing her now or even briefly incapacitating her with her agoniser would simply distract from the issues at hand. Besides, an hour or so in an Agony booth was a far more severe punishment for a comparably minor transgression. The comm officer could, theoretically, even refuse and demand a reevaluation if Pike was giving her treasonous orders. With enough grit, she could benefit greatly.
For now, she played along. "Of course, sir. I'm hailing them now."
Spock wasn't entirely convinced that Pike had found a loophole. The way the orders regarding the exclusion zone were worded were too imprecise and contradictory to be certain of anything. Certainly, there was no direct mention of making contact with a trespassing ship. And if that ship's captain then said something technically classified, well… what should they have done about it?
It didn't take long for the hail to be answered.
"On screen," Pike said.
Rumours as to former Fleet Captain Lorca's plans after his failed coup had been in abundance for months since the destruction of the Charon. In their gossipy, hearsay nature they had been of little interest to Spock, there was very little of substance for him to analyse and make sense of. Lorca had survived and the probability that his ambitions hadn't noticeably altered was great. It was all Spock bothered to contemplate regarding the man.
When his face appeared on screen, Spock noticed surprise in form of audible gasps from some corners of the bridge when Lorca was recognised, even though they should all have known it would be him.
Lorca was not on the bridge, but reclining away from the screen in his ready room. He looked like the perverted mockery of the decorated Starfleet captain he had once been, even more so when compared to Pike's gilded presence. Lorca visibly — and falsely — thought treachery and piracy suited him. The room was uncomfortably brightly lit, cutting across his handsome face in unkind angles, pale skin and feverishly bright eyes. He wore a jacket, trimmed with stringy black furs, hanging carelessly off one shoulder, the shirt beneath pulled askew over the edge of a collarbone. One hand, resting just at the edge of the screen, was encased in leather wraps. Sometimes, a finger would twitch in otherwise well-concealed agitation.
"This is Commander Pike of the ISS Enterprise," Pike raised his voice and smoothly slid to his feet to poise himself, the centre of the bridge. "You're trespassing. You will immediately surrender."
Lorca arched an unimpressed eyebrow. "Commander Pike?" he said. "I could've sworn you'd be a captain by now." He paused, though not long enough to give Pike the chance to respond. "The obvious answer to your childish little demand is make me. Because you can't, can you?"
Pike, at least outwardly, gave no sign of any of Lorca's insinuations connecting. Instead, Pike flashed him his best smile. "Come on, all I want is a tiny little surrender, you've given those to lesser people, or so your service record shows. Besides, what are you even doing there?"
Lorca laughed. "You wouldn't understand, and I'm sure you aren't allowed, either. Why don't you get Captain April? And we can discuss the situation like adults."
Pike's composure didn't falter, though it might have taken a little more effort to keep it in place. "Your times of ordering anyone around are over, Lorca," Pike gave a mannered shrug. "I can and I will make you, as you put it."
"What, right now? Don't make promises you can't keep, that's embarrassing," Lorca said. "Or are you just waiting for your reinforcements? That'll be a few days yet. Leave me to my work, Commander Pike, if you have nothing interesting to say."
He paused for a long moment and for some inexplicable reason, Pike and the entirety of his subordinates willingly gave him that space.
It would be some time, Spock thought, until Starfleet managed to shake off the shadows this man had cast over them and their careers and how they defined themselves. For someone like Spock, precariously balanced on the sidelines, it was a quite fascinating display.
"If," Lorca continued with a slight smile. "On the other hand, you do. You know where to find me. Make up your mind, Commander."
The connection was cut immediately, leaving Pike just a little flustered in having been handled so unceremoniously.
"Well," Pike sighed, the moment passing. "That's one for the logs. Lorca's as insufferable as ever."
Pike squared his shoulders and turned, pacing past the Captain's chair. "But he's said something interesting. Are other ships responding to the breach?"
"Five ships have responded," the ops officer answered. "The closest, the ISS Nimravid, will arrive in approximately fifty-seven hours."
"Broadcast to all of them that we claim command of the situation, but they are welcome to aid us, provided they're willing to take our orders." Under his breath, he added, "Could always use the cannon fodder."
He stopped walking, glanced at Spock, considering something he was quite clearly not willing to share.
"Mr Spock, with me."
He marched off to the ready room and Spock, mildly puzzled by the commander's somewhat inappropriate behaviour, followed him.
The doors of the ready room had barely closed when Pike pivoted on the heels of his feet and came to stand right in front of Spock.
"I want to talk to him," Pike said.
"Captain Lorca?" Spock asked.
"Yes, without the bridge knowing and preferably without any log entries, can you do that?"
Spock hesitated and allowed himself to show a slight frown. "Of course, I can do that. But I will need to know why first."
Pike looked like arguing, but then abruptly decided not to. He took a step out of Spock's personal space, a sign of respect if nothing else. He knew his order had the scent of treason to it and knew if he wanted Spock's help he would have to deliver first.
"He said to talk to him," Pike said. "There's something here, I know it."
He pointed an accusatory finger at Spock. "You told me I can't even know about the exclusion zone. Can we fly in there and get him out?"
"I suppose the orders would have to be interpreted. And they will be interpreted according to how successful we were."
"You said I can't beat him."
"I said it would depend on luck, sir."
"Exactly," Pike nodded, more to himself. "You said I can't beat him. This means, according to you, we need a better solution to our problem. He's offered to talk, haven't you heard?"
"I'm not certain it was an actual offer."
"I don't care, I want to talk to him. Now. Unobserved. Make that happen."
Spock held himself still. Many things could be said about this. He could argue Pike was committing treason, but it might just as easily be viewed as Pike being creative and crafty against his opponents. It would only be treason if his plot failed.
"Very well," Spock said and stepped to the control console next to the door. This would be easier to do from the bridge, but if he tied his fate to Pike's, he was going to be party to every aspect of it. Pike made no comment about it.
"Connection established," Spock announced when the Defiant responded. Lorca's words might have been a throwaway remark, but the Defiant had clearly been waiting for their signal.
Pike stepped behind the desk, the screen faced away from Spock, so Spock opened a small display window on the console. Lorca hadn't moved from his position, though his expression was different now.
"That was quick," Lorca said and Spock, at least, detected no mockery. "I like a man who looks for solutions."
"If you have something interesting to say," Pike said with affected disdain, echoing Lorca's words back at him. "Now's the time."
Lorca gave a chuckle, sinisterly. "If you enter the exclusion zone, I will eat you. If you don't enter the exclusion zone, your empress will. But… it doesn't have to be you, now, does it? Just looking at you I can tell Captain April's tastes haven't changed much. No shame in that, commander, we all do what we need to do. Still, Captain April's occasional lapses in judgement are well known across the Empire. If he were to give questionable orders, only to then fail, who do you think will take that fall?"
Unsubtle, Spock thought to himself, but quite to the point. It shouldn't be surprising that Lorca had managed to keep his fingers buried in the ugly entrails of the Empire to the point of knowing the current state of April's captaincy. Either that, of course, or he still had sympathisers and agents smattered everywhere.
Lorca leaned forward, eyes bright and teeth bared, wisps of black fur caressed his cheek. "And who, do you think, will take his place?" He smiled like an incubus. "We both win. Interesting enough for you?"
Pike glanced at Spock, but only until he realised the moment hadn't escaped him. Pike took a breath, seemed to think better of saying anything and shook his head slowly. "You speak treason."
Lorca chuckled, leaned back from the screen and settled himself comfortably back, smugly sure of himself and chafing Pike's pride.
"You want me to make a better case?" Lorca asked. He briefly looked away, somewhere off-screen, then nodded, before fixing back at Pike. "A demonstration."
Lorca raised his hand, waited for obviously dramatic effect and snipped.
Without any warning, light flooded the room, so blinding Spock felt the tuck of his inner eyelids, staining to protect him. In the perpetual gloom of terran warships, the organs might as well have become vestigial.
The flash vanished immediately, leaving behind white spots in his vision and the room filling with Pike's cursing.
"Think on it," Lorca said, his voice filling the space the flash had carved. "I'll still be here in an hour."
Squinting to keep everything in focus, Spock saw the channel to the Deviant close, taking any traces of it ever existing with it.
"What. Was. That?" Pike snarled, rubbing his eyes, half-hidden behind the screen.
"It would seem Lorca has some level of access to a non-essential subsystem," Spock said. "The lights were briefly turned up to their highest setting in the Captain's Ready Room, and only there."
"How?"
"I don't know, sir."
Pike slammed his hands on the table and levered himself to his feet, ready to lash out at Spock, because Lorca was out of his reach while Spock just watched him calmly from across a very small room.
Pike snarled, pressed the knuckles of one hand into his forehead to alleviate the lingering effects of Lorca's demonstration.
"Are our computers compromised?" Pike asked. "Or is the crew?"
"It will be impossible to determine at this point," Spock said.
"What?" Pike snapped.
"There are no logs. The events in this room in the past few minutes haven't happened according to the computer. There is nothing to analyse. However, the lighting is, as I've said, a non-essential subsystem. This might well be the extent of what he's able to do, it would be comparably easy to accomplish, even without direct access." He paused for a moment. "He might be bluffing. But we'll not know until we call him out."
Pike tightened his mouth in displeasure. None of his options were good ones. The smartest thing might just be to wait for the other ships, let them traipse into the exclusion zone to do what damage they could, clean up the carnage afterwards and pick off whoever was left to speak ill of the Enterprise's performance.
"Fucking Lorca," Pike muttered to himself. "What's he even doing out there?"
"It's classif…"
"I wasn't talking to you."
Spock waited in stoic silence for Pike to compose himself and make up his mind. Even if he backed out now, Spock could do something with the knowledge he had gleaned from the encounter, a tiny pressure point he could apply on Pike when the going got rough.
"We'll need Captain April on the bridge, won't we?"
When Spock didn't answer, Pike frowned at him, realised what was going on and slipped to his feet again. This time, his advance was tensely controlled in calculated menace.
"Mr Spock," Pike said. "I am talking to you."
Spock clasped his hands behind his back and looked back at Pike. "It is common practice that in a moment of crisis the captain has command of the ship."
Pike didn't answer, paced back to behind the desk, stopped then returned towards Spock. "You wanted in on this, now you're in."
Sarcastically, he added, "Welcome, morituri te salutant."
Spock held his silence for another moment. It wouldn't do to be seen to budge, though he experienced a slight tingle at the back of his throat, some emotion his mother had never bothered to teach him about. He couldn't determine if it was anxiety or anticipation.
Pike said, "We'll need one more card. Let's add a joker to the poker deck and bring in Jim, too."
He thought for a moment then added, "Like April, Lorca's time has come and gone and we'll teach him that lesson."
Lieutenant James Kirk was the other golden crutch propping up April's continued captaincy. Younger, prettier, more aggressive and more ambitious than even Pike, the two men had formed an alliance of convenience. True puppet masters, parading their captain about what should be his ship for everyone to see, yet for no one in their right minds to remark upon. Eventually, they would tire of April and discard him, only then to find each other's throat, a contest promising to take out anyone foolish enough to stand too close.
Spock was not so foolish, but for now, there was no particular danger.
Like Spock, Kirk had been off-duty when Pike called him, but the amused drawl across the comms channel made it clear he was awake and always ready for mischief. To Kirk, everything was nothing but a game, one he excelled at and took great pleasure in making everyone around him know it.
Despite his flagging physical and mental capabilities, April didn't look immediately like a joke when the turbolift door opened. He walked straight-backed, still athletic in his uniform, elegantly aged with grey shot through his dark hair. Behind him, Kirk and his personal guard, Ensign Kyle, filed onto the bridge. Kyle took his position by the turbolift door, but Kirk paused to survey the room.
"Captain on the bridge," Kyle announced. The bridge crew stood to attention, saluted and held their position respectfully.
Pike slipped elegantly out of the captain's chair to salute but met Kirk's gaze over the captain's shoulder.
"Kirk, you're on ops," Pike said and Kirk nodded. Young he might be, Kirk had a talent for command and an instinctive understanding of battle.
"Yes," April said, to mask the fact the order hadn't come from him. "What have we got?"
Spock gave him the same summary he had earlier handed out to Pike, leaving out a handful of inconvenient details, like a covet conversation between Pike and Lorca and the possibility that their computer system might be compromised.
The latter was still nagging at the back of Spock's head. Some data might still be gleaned from an imperfectly scrubbed buffer, but Spock would need time to look into it, something he didn't have and wasn't likely to get in the immediate future.
"Sir," Pike said. "Do we want to breach the exclusion zone?"
April laughed. A faint sheen of sweat had settled on his face and he wiped over his forehead. "Do we want to? Do we want to tear Lorca apart? What a question, Chris. Of course, we want to. Full steam ahead!"
The navigator glanced quickly at Pike, who gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
"Aye, sir," the navigator said.
The Enterprise slid into motion, breached the exclusion zone as if it was nothing. The buoys gave a warning which Spock dismissed when it had barely registered. They had already filed their intentions with Starfleet Command and heard nothing back, so their course was clear. The sensor interference began climbing the closer they got to the centre of the zone, where the density of debris was greatest.
The Defiant had positioned herself off from the centre, possibly to avoid having its shields constantly battered by rogue pieces, but they were still close enough. This fight wouldn't go smoothly, but not for any of the reasons Spock — or Pike — had anticipated.
"Sir," Spock said. "Our sensor data is highly unreliable, I recommend real-life visuals to support computer data to compensate."
"Yeah," April said. " Let's do that. Add visual to the tactical view."
Spock fed his data to the ops console and glanced up to see the effect on the view-screen. The realistic backdrop of space augmented the tactical displays and even as Spock watched, Kirk took a hold of the new input and combined it with the data, flickering several corrections across it. It wouldn't be perfect, even the visuals would be distorted by the time they arrived at the screen, but it would still be more precise this way. Besides, Lorca would have the same issues, even if he might have had more time to look for a solution.
"Can we scan the Defiant now?" Pike asked. "What's the status, maybe it's damaged?"
"There are no obvious indications, sir," Spock replied. "Their shields and hull integrity are at full strength."
"Well, so are we," April said, unimpressed and seeming annoyed with the conversation. "Red alert! Mr Kirk, take her out!"
Essentially handing over all combat decisions to the ops officer and settling down to watch the show. A fleeting smile crossed Pike's face, arguably mirrored with Kirk, though no one would see it there.
Kirk took the Enterprise into a direct attack vector while the phasers charged up. Bot the Enterprise and the Defiant were large ships, their manoeuvrability hampered by their own momentum and inertia, neither of them was a Cardenas class warship. But Kirk knew what he was doing. He couldn't rely on quick movements, knew any computer or capable commander would work out his trajectories before they connected, so he didn't even bother to hide anything.
The Enterprise dipped low as she fired her phasers, punching hard into the shields at the interconnecting dorsal, then strafing down to the main sensor array. Kirk had meant to dive below the other ship, deliver the same folly along her entire length to put pressure on as many shield emitters as possible. The Defiant reversed away from them in a hard jump the crew would have felt like an avalanche. She fired all navigational thrusters and caught the Enterprise, facing off against each other for a moment, before two torpedoes released and headed for the bridge.
"Brace!" Pike shouted, knowing they would feel that.
The Enterprise shook and the Defiant fell away from them, scooted along the side and opened a full barrage along the saucer section as it passed. The Defiant gathered speed after that, looked almost like it would jump to warp, but then came around, reversing away rather than fleeing, as the Enterprise gave chase.
"Test bite done," Kirk said to himself.
"They've released a shuttle," Spock spoke up quickly. "I suspect it's to maintain the cube-drones' energy field. The Defiant is leading us away from there."
"I don't care about some shuttle," April said. "Keep the pressure on the Defiant."
Spock caught Pike nodding his confirmation.
"Keep an eye on that shuttle, will ya?" Kirk said. "I don't want any suicide runs from where I can't see them."
"Understood," Spock acknowledged.
With the fluctuating sensor data, it was difficult to determine what, if any, damage their first exchange had done. The Enterprise's damage reports were minor, shields were holding steady and their weapons were still at full strength.
Kirk flew a second attack, this time circling like a hawk from above, aiming for shield transmitters and the weak spots of the warp gondola. They got a volley of phaser fire into their keel for it.
"Sir," Spock said, brows drawing down as the data on his screen slowly began to make sense. "I think there was a coded message hidden in the last phaser burst."
"A what in the what?" April snapped, emotionally caught somewhere between annoyed and confused. "Bullshit!"
"Mr Kirk, disengage for a moment," Pike ordered and stepped to Spock's side, leaning over his shoulder as if he could actually make better sense of what he was looking at than Spock.
Kirk took the Enterprise back, gaining some space and played up their manoeuvring while only firing back at the Defiant to keep up appearances.
Spock's fingers flew over the controls, chasing nothing but a hunch — his father would sneer in that understated way of his — but he had seen something like this before. Or heard? It was familiar at any rate and feeding the computer with enough rough guesses yielded the result he had known was there.
"It's an old quantum entanglement signal using the phaser as a carrier. It used to be done to transmit covet messages, back in Empress Sato's time. It's fallen out of us. I've only seen historic research on it."
"From the Defiant?" Pike asked. "What are they transmitting?"
"A defunct deep cover agent identifier."
"Maybe not so defunct," Pike said. "If it's trustworthy, anyway. Is there anything else?"
"Yes, there…"
Spock was interrupted when two more impacts shook the Enterprise and Kirk began cursing colourfully. Pike grabbed the console next to Spock for support and snapped his attention back to the view-screen. The outline representing the Enterprise was dotted in red flares, like a rash and even without checking to make sure, their locations were all essential systems.
"Our phasers just shut down!" Kirk slammed his hands down on his console, then turned to look over his shoulder, anger distorting his feature.
"Torpedoes?" April asked. He was gripping the arms of his chair, hard enough to make his knuckles stand out white.
Kirk threw himself back around. "No, no. Fuck!"
"Retreat outside the exclusion zone," Pike said immediately.
Spock dismissed the hidden signal, for now, to focus on the status reports coming in from the ship. It was worse than expected on all fronts.
The Enterprise retreated slowly, too slowly
"Lorca wasn't bluffing after all," Spock said quietly, for Pike's ears only.
Pike exhaled audibly, as if he was going to say something, then decided against it. He might have acknowledged that they should have seen it coming. Fallen from grace he might be, but Lorca was still as dangerous as he had ever been.
"Spock!" April shouted, too loud to hide the uncertainty in his voice. "Explain!"
"Our weapons' systems are in maintenance mode, the warp drive suffered an emergency shutdown, we only have impulse and emergency power across the ship. I've diverted the available power to our shields, they are holding."
"Why aren't they finishing us off?" April asked.
"They want to see us run!" Kirk snarled, looking over his shoulder.
"Yes," Pike agreed. "But we're really just regrouping. Every engagement can go badly, Mr Kirk. It's not over till it's over."
He turned to Spock. "I'm guessing the warp drive didn't need to shut down?"
"No, it was a computer error," Spock said. "It was all a computer error."
"Like the lights," Pike said.
"Yes."
"But this time we have logs, right?"
"Yes."
"Chris," April interrupted. "You two look like you're scheming. What's wrong with my ship? I want us back in the fight right now!"
"We'll need approximately seven minutes until all systems are online again, except for the warp drive, which will take roughly an hour to ensure its integrity. And we'll need to purge the computers so this can't happen again."
Satisfied with the answer, April settled back in his seat and glowered at the view-screen, still showing their and the Defiant's respective positions. The Defiant allowed the Enterprise to retreat, though for what reason wasn't clear. The computer errors had incapacitated them thoroughly, unable to fight back, unable to escape to warp, with only emergency power for their shields. It would have been over within moments. April wouldn't even have to decline to evacuate, as he almost certainly would have. April still fancied himself a mighty captain, he would never abandon ship and he wouldn't allow anyone else to, either.
Pike settled against the console again, crossing his arms over his chest, watching the screen for a moment, then spoke.
"The hidden signal, is it any use?"
Spock took his time before he answered, switching back to the analysis he had started earlier. The message, by the very nature of its transmission, was short and contained no additional information to its origin. Someone other than Spock, he decided, would have needed far more time to decipher the meaning, provided they would have even noticed the message in the first place.
Luck, he thought with honest appreciation of the irony.
"Yes, I believe it is."
End of Chapter 13
Author's Addendum: Fluently.