STAR TREK:
THE NO-WIN SCENARIO
By Darrin Colbourne
The response to Pike's message was more swift and substantial than he'd expected. It arrived three hours after his transmission in the form of Combined Task Force 177, consisting of the tactical spacecraft carrier USS Margaret Thatcher, the two Pathfinder-class cruisers, two Nelson-class destroyers and five Oppenheimer-class frigates of Cruiser-Destroyer Group Seven, the Lander-transporting surface warfare carrier USS John Wayne, and two Miramar-class cloak ships. As soon as the task force re-entered normal space, Thatcher began launching STOVL interceptors and attack ships to conduct wide-ranging anti-air and anti-ship patrolling, three of the frigates were set up in a cordon around Enterprise, and the sleek, black, single-engine cloak ships dove into the Mutara Nebula to use their hyper-attuned sensors to search for any Klingon ships Enterprise might have missed. The crews of the frigates guarding her marveled at the amount of punishment the Constitution-class starship had taken. One watch officer remarked that the front hemisphere of her command section looked like it had been in the oven too long, and only the oldest veterans were prepared for the sight of a starship with a missing nacelle that wasn't already in spacedock.
Once CTF 177 was fully deployed, Captain Pike made his report via radio to the task force commander, Rear Admiral Robert April. Most of the irradiated spaces in Enterprise were fully decontaminated and cooled, allowing for greater freedom of movement for the crew. Repairs were underway to the most critically damaged areas of the ship's structure, as well as to the power distribution system, high gain antennae and starboard Warp engine. Most importantly, while there were several injuries caused by the pounding the ship took, there were no life-threatening injuries and no casualties. The ship was still maneuverable at sub-light and still had functioning sensors and weapon systems, so it was Pike's assessment that if repairs to the Warp engine were successful Enterprise could return to Earth under her own power, albeit after several mid-ranged jumps. April accepted the assessment and promised that Enterprise's current escorts would see her all the way home.
Meanwhile, anyone aboard Enterprise not directly involved in the repair work or tending to wounded personnel was considered off-duty until it was time to get underway. With flight operations also cancelled for the duration, that left Brigid Silas with nothing to do but paperwork, which she hated. Still, she went at it with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, knowing that it would eventually help her relax, and relaxation was the purpose of standing down non-essential personnel.
Since Pilots' Quarters were among the more shot-up areas of the ship, Silas had taken a datapad with her to the more intact Hangar Deck, where she settled into the pilot's seat of her Cavalier to get the work done. She expected to get interrupted almost as soon as she got settled in, but the deck crews were good enough to leave her alone, so it was a good twenty minutes before she was disturbed, and the culprit turned out to be Christopher Pike. "Captain!" Silas said as she started to stand.
"Keep your seat," Pike said. He waited for her to settle back in before holding up his own 'pad. "Ready for this?"
Silas smiled. "Ah, my command evaluation. Let me guess: I failed miserably."
Pike raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think that?"
"Well, I kind of got lured into a Klingon ambush and almost got the ship destroyed."
"'Almost' being the operative word. You only fail if you lose the ship. You saved it."
"Right…by running like a scared little girl…"
Pike shrugged. "Perfectly valid combat tactic. They build these things the way they do because they know pilots will be running them, so they can do on a larger scale anything you're used to doing in your tactical craft. In this case, since you're not as adept with the ship's offensive capabilities as you could be, you did the smart thing and hauled ass." He handed her his 'pad. "There are some things you still need to learn, but if you decide you want a starship of your own some day you'll have plenty of opportunities to work them out."
Silas took the 'pad and skimmed down the evaluation form until she got to the "Recommendation" section. She saw that Pike had selected "Further Command Training" before signing the form. It would have come across as lukewarm praise to the layman, but Silas knew better. This evaluation coming from a unit commander meant that she was officially on her way to a unit command of her own. "Thank you, Sir," she said with a smile. Pike smiled back and nodded, and Silas turned her attention to the "Comments" section of the form. Her smile faded as she read. "'Needs to remember "Battle Stations"?' What does that mean?"
"As soon as Sensors reported the inbounds the first two words out of your mouth should have been 'Battle Stations.' Things just happen more automatically that way. For instance, you wouldn't have had to order Countermeasures to start launching drones. At Battle Stations he'd have the launch tubes open and would be punching out drones as soon as the missiles were in range. Also, you'd have a couple of torpedoes in the tubes and the tubes open and ready to shoot back in case the enemy showed himself."
Silas glanced at him, then looked back at the 'pad. "You're right," she said. "How could I forget that?"
"Common malady among pilots in The Chair for the first time. See, normally you don't think about sounding Battle Stations because by the time you're doing your job someone else has already said it. You get so used to reacting automatically to someone else setting things in motion that when it comes time for you to do it, you get vapor lock and try to do everything manually, the way you fly your tactical craft. See what I'm saying?"
Silas nodded. "I think I do, yeah. So, 'common malady,' huh? I suppose that means you forgot 'Battle Stations' your first time too?"
Pike smiled. "First two times, actually. My CO aboard the George Bush made great sport of it."
"How about Number One?"
"She likes to pretend it never happened, but I have sources that tell me she blew the call a couple of times herself in her initial training." He leaned in and lowered his voice. "Just don't tell her I told you, or she'll kill us both to keep the secret."
Silas giggled as she handed back the 'pad. "My lips are sealed."
Pike turned serious as he took the 'pad back. "There's something else I wanted to talk to you about. I need you to do me a favor. Traditionally, a commander's not supposed to send someone on a mission he wouldn't undertake himself, but I've been down this particular street before, and I figured this time…"
Silas cut him off with a raised hand. "Where is she?"
A few minutes later Silas was standing in front of Isabel Montoya's quarters. The door was open, so she looked inside. The place was a wreck. Every surface of the bulkheads, deck and ceiling had been scorched, the furnishings had been burned to ash and the desk computer was a molten slag of polymers resting on what was left of the desk. There was no mystery what happened. Two massive burn-holes in the wall opposite the door announced that this was where two of the Klingons' particle shots had penetrated.
At first Silas was going to turn back, but instinct made her poke her head in and look around a little more. That's when she spotted Montoya leaning against the wall next to the door, staring at the burn-holes. "Hi, Brigid," she said without turning.
"Hi," Silas said, smiling. When that didn't snap Montoya out of it, Silas stepped all the way in and looked around. "This is nothing," she said, completely deadpan. "You should see my place."
"They completely destroyed everything," Montoya said. "Everything I brought with me on this ship was flash-fried."
"But you weren't," Silas said. "That's one of the perques of having a job in one of the best-protected spaces aboard."
It was as if Montoya hadn't heard. "All I wanted to do was lay in my bed and think," she said. "Number One sent me off-duty, and all I wanted to do was lay in my bed and think…" - she indicated a large pile of ash and melted alloy in the opposite corner - "…and that's my bed!"
Silas chuckled. "Okay, well, the repair crews will get around to crew quarters eventually, so pretty soon you'll have your bed back, and we're definitely going back to Earth, so you can get new stuff to put in here. In the meantime, there are plenty of quiet places aboard where you can just lay back and think."
"It will take days for us to get back to Earth on one Warp engine. Where do I sleep while we're underway?"
Silas shrugged. "You can sleep with me," she said. She immediately regretted it when Montoya turned to her with her eyebrow raised. "I mean, with me and the other pilots…" She winced. "I mean…!" She sighed. "Pilots' Quarters got trashed as thoroughly as yours, so the wing is going to camp out on the Flight Deck. You're welcome to join us."
Montoya smiled and took Silas's hand. "Thank you."
Silas smiled back, silently congratulating herself for cheering Montoya up. The good feeling didn't last long. Montoya's smile faded as she turned back to look at the room. Silas frowned, but took it as a good sign that Montoya was still holding her hand, so she ventured, "The room isn't really what's bothering you, is it?"
"Did you cheer?" Montoya blurted out.
"What do you mean?" Silas said.
Montoya turned to her. "When we destroyed that last ship, did you cheer?"
"Are you kidding? If I could have stood up in the cockpit I would have given that last hit a standing ovation! That kill was bad-ass!"
Montoya nodded and looked back into the room. "Everybody in the Control Room cheered when we destroyed the last ship. It was like we had won the World Series or something."
Silas nodded. "And that bothered you."
"No…well, yes, but…I was raised to revere life in all its forms. Life is a precious thing, and part of my job is to help preserve all of it, without distinguishing between friend and foe. Even if I have to kill something or someone in order to guarantee my own survival, it's my duty to mourn that death, not celebrate it. I believe that passionately, and yet when we finally finished slaughtering all those Klingons I came within a hairsbreadth of cheering along with everyone else." She turned to Silas. "That's what's bothering me. It's like everything I learned about life from my parents and my teachers and colleagues didn't mean a thing in that instant. I just knew those Klingons were dead, and I was glad of the fact."
"In other words, you had a normal Human reaction to the fact that a bunch of people that were trying to kill you ended up dead themselves."
"I know it's normal, but should it be? Can we really claim to have advanced as a species if elation is a normal reaction to death under any circumstances?"
"Well, if you put it that way, maybe not."
"Doesn't it bother you at all?"
"To be Human?" Silas smirked. "Never. I think it's the best thing in the universe to be. Come on, Smart Girl. We'll go down and sit in my ship and you can brood about it all you like while I get some work done."
Silas gently pulled Montoya out of the room and started off toward the turbolift. Montoya followed dutifully, but couldn't help looking back. "Why did they attack at all?" She wondered aloud. "What's so important about the Enterprise that the Klingons would risk restarting an interstellar war just to destroy it?"
Silas barely gave it a moment's thought. "Who knows why Klingons do anything they do?"
It was the last thing either of them would say on the subject.