Hello readers. Thank you for your readership and I hope you had a nice week.

Fanfic-Reader-88: There are going to be a number of political ramifications from this incident that is already going to start causing it to diverge from the 'Prime' timeline. Freddie made the gods blink. It may cause more trouble between the two great powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants or it might actually reduced tensions, who knows.

Invader Johnny: He certainly surprised many, but it wasn't luck. This is TOS Starfleet where they remember they are actually the Federation's military and prepare for such between deep space exploration and scientific research.

Chapter 5

Sickbay
USS Tori (NCC-1725)
In route to Neural

Freddie sat sideways on an examination table while Jade sat in a seat in front of him and held his hand in her palm and doctored his right hand with the other from the nicks and scraps from pounding on the Klingon's face and broken teeth. She had ran several scans over his hand to make sure he hadn't broken any bones or damage any of the few artificial/cybernetic parts of his hand that had replaced some bone after an accident he had when he was a teenager. She squirted a spray onto his hand to prevent infection and accelerate healing of the skin.

There was an awkward silence between them as she attended his hand and the rest of the medical staff was aware enough to find something to occupy their time and steer away from their presence.

The captain was the first to break it by commenting, "You shouldn't have disobeyed my order to go back to the ship."

Jade glanced up from his knuckles and replied, "I wasn't going to leave you there by yourself to face… gods."

"What? So you were going to get smited—smote too?"

She sat up straight in her seat and gave him a penetrating gaze. "You weren't going to leave me to die on that station alone; did you think I would leave you there to die alone?"

Freddie took a deep breath, not appreciating his actions being thrown back. He slumped his shoulders then softly muttered, "I didn't want you to die."

"I didn't want you to die either," the dark brunette doctor answered with a gently smile, their eyes remaining locked with one another trying to convey things they simply couldn't put into words.

The captain finally uttered in a defeated tone, "We can't martyr ourselves for each other."

"Who's being a martyr? I was just making sure you got back," Jade retorted with a smart grin that showed she'd get the last word.

He snorted out, not knowing how to push the conversation forward. He had already buried his wife and didn't want to bury his former sister-in-law. He could have gone the more extreme route as regulations demanded he put her at least on report, maybe open a board of inquiry at her disobeying a direct order. However, he simply didn't have the heart to do any such thing even if it showed his bias in discipline. He was momentarily saved from the decision with a whistle came from one of the speaker panels on a wall followed by Cat's voice on the other end, "Captain Benson?"

Freddie got up from his seat and walked to the panel. He tapped the white stud and answered, "Yes Lieutenant?"

"Message from Third Fleet Headquarters. It's Rear Admiral Shay."

He slightly grinned, but it wasn't a happy one and glanced over to Jade. "I'll take it in my quarters."

"'kay, 'kay."

He looked to Jade and bashfully explained, "Duty calls…"

Jade smirked and instructed him, "Rest the hand."

"Yes ma'am. I'll see you for dinner."

"Later."

He walked back to the bed and leaned past her, sharing another look with her and picked up his field jacket off the bed and headed out of sickbay.

Captain's Quarters
USS Tori
In Route to Neural

Freddie took a seat behind his desk and threw his jacket over on end of the table. He pressed a button below the monitor and Admiral Shay's face appeared on the screen. He politely smiled while answering, "Admiral Shay."

"Captain Benson… are you okay? Your crew?"

"We're okay. Ship and crew one hundred percent operational."

The veteran Star Fleet officer cracked a smile as he replied, "I'm glad to hear… you made quite the impression Freddie."

"I did? The Federation Council just watched me threaten to incinerate the Organians, potentially start the war up with the Klingons and beat the chizz out of one of their officers for all to see. I don't think that many people would be happy to see that. I mean… is my career over?"

Shay fought a grin then answered, "It's spreading like wildfire across the Federation of what you did. The Organians were foolish enough to project the meeting inside the Federation Council Chambers and apparently Klingon High Command, which of course for us is a live feed to the Federation. You stood up to the Klingons and the Organians and avoided going to war with them. Whatever peace fractions there are that may be calling for your head for being so… 'aggressive' with the Klingons, they're being drowned out by the Federalists, Conservatives and whatever Unionists are backing Kannal—which the scuttlebutt I've heard is that she's happy that you checked the Klingons without it escalating. It reminded them and our allies that we're not just going to roll over… and I don't think it goes over too well if we're letting the Klingons help people in our own territory literally kidnapping and raping women. You've gotten the attention of a lot of people… for good and bad."

Freddie let out a deep sighed, not sure if he was happy with the new attention. It would probably complicate his life just as much as potentially help him in the future. "Well… I'll deal with it when the time comes."

"Do you think it was worth it over her?"

The starship captain straightened up in his seat, understanding exactly what the Admiral meant by the comment and answered, "She's a member of Star Fleet and my crew, so yes."

"Because of your loyalty to a fellow member of the service… or you didn't want them to have one of their agents back?"

The starship captain squared his jaw and replied, "Commander Shapiro has no evidence to show that Commander Vega had any duplicity in activating the system. I've seen nothing to suggest that she's a spy… well, at least for the Klingons."

Shay snorted a breath from his nose, smirking a bit to the allusion that she might actually work for Star Fleet Intelligence then asked, "So are you going to go to bat for her? Because it being revealed to the public at large that we have a Klingon in Star Fleet has caused a stir in of itself. People are starting to ask questions."

"Then I guess our high ideals are going to have to be put to the test that we accept everybody that wants to be a member of our community regardless of their species?"

"I guess we are…" he trailed off for a few moments that just leaves one other thing, the most important question: "How you prevented the Organians from disabling your ship?"

The starship captain smiled, but coyly answered, "This channel may be encrypted, but I'm not willing to give that information over subspace. If the Klingons found out… we just might have that war on our hands."

"Understandable… I'll meet up with you at K-Seven after you finish repairing the damage on Neural. Command is going to want to know how you did it."

"Understood. I'll have my report as soon as we're done on Neural."

"I look forward to reading it. Shay out."

The Admiral's image was replaced with the seal of the Federation.

Freddie flicked the monitor off just as the chime to his door went off. He sighed then looked to the door and called out, "Enter."

The doors parted and Tori stepped inside, wearing her blue mini-dress uniform and a bashful smile.

Freddie got up from his seat, brushing his hands down his thighs to brush out any wrinkles in his uniform pants then politely greeted, "Hello Commander."

"Captain… I hope I'm not disturbing you sir?"

He shook his head and answered, "No, I just finished up." He motioned to the seat on the other side of his desk and offered, "Please, have a seat."

"Thank you sir," she answered with a nod of her head and took the seat.

The Captain retook his seat and asked, "What brings you by Commander?"

She turned a sweet smile towards him, one that could easily captivate him if he had allowed it. "I just wanted to say thank you for what you did. I know… you and the crew risked everything for me after I screwed up and… I don't think I can ever really thank you for it."

"I don't know how you 'screwed up'. I have to read your report to determine that," he answered with a laugh. "You don't have to thank me. You're a member of my crew and you're my responsibility…" His smile grew and his voice dropped to reply, "And I think Trina would have killed me if anything happened to you."

Tori shared a soft laugh with him then her smile faded to speak on a more serious note. "But you were going to fire the first shot on a Klingons ship and going against the Organians… I don't think anyone would have expected that you would have done that for me… just one crewmember."

"They would if they think you're a spy for the Klingons and I was just preventing them from getting you back."

Tori knotted her brow then asked, "Excuse?"

Freddie followed up without missing a beat, "Are you a spy?"

She forgot about proper respect and stood up, shouting down at him, "How could you ask me such a thing? After everything we just went through?"

Freddie calmly answered, "Because of your unique life circumstances, I would assume that Star Fleet Intelligence would have recruited you very early on in your career, maybe even during your college years."

Tori opened her mouth then quickly closed it. She took a seat and looked at the desk, clearly trying to gather her thoughts.

"You thought I was asking you if you were a spy for the Klingons?"

"It's a reasonable assumption to think you were after telling me another reason for going that far."

"Yes it is."

Tori snapped her head up, meeting his sympathetic eyes.

He continued in a solemn tone, "I don't have to explain to you why. You're the one that kept quiet all your life about your species because of the Federation's history with the Klingons… you made the assumption people would treat you differently… even to your friends in high school… even me, though we really didn't know each other then… maybe the Federation doesn't live up to her ideals as much as we'd like to tell ourselves, but hiding it makes one suspicious…"

He let his words hang for a few minutes to understand his reference to Jade and the look in her eyes back at him showed she got the message.

"…it's the same reasons we had to double check what happened on the station was really inadvertent or that you did it on purpose to get rid of them and let the Klingons have it."

She took a deep breath then curtly asked, "You thought I murdered them?"

"It was a possibility that couldn't be ignored. Star Fleet Command was going to need an explanation, especially since the only survivor was a Klingon."

Tori's stomach sank and she felt the sensation of being isolated. She licked her lips and reluctantly asked, "So Star Fleet… thought I could have been responsible for my team's death? That I murdered my friends… I was just a spy for the Klingons?"

Freddie slightly relaxed in his seat, giving her a sympathetic smile and asked, "You don't take a second look at every Vulcan now that it's been revealed that the Romulans are a subspecies of them and they may have infiltrated us for the last century?"

"Of course I…" She trailed off and closed her mouth, feeling a bit embarrassed as she realized she was doing the same thing she was getting upset about them doing towards her. She glanced down at the desk and asked, "Am I going to have to constantly prove my loyalty?"

"In your future assignments, I don't know… but here you won't."

Tori was about to reply with righteous indignation that she wouldn't have to prove anything, but caught herself when she processed what he had actually spoke, "Wait, here?"

"Commander Shapiro is willing to work you into his department and with your unique skill set, you could float back and forth from science and operations departments… I don't know if you'd want Commander Van Cleef as your department head and I'm not sure the ship could handle two Vegas in red…"

Tori cracked a smile feeling a sense of levity, but asked to make sure she had heard him right, "I can stay here?"

"If you want it. If not, I'll try my best to get you a good shore assignment… you know Jade's stepfather is an Admiral… with a lot of other admirals as friends."

"I met him once or twice when we were in high school…" She bit her tongue at remembering seeing him at Carly's funeral. "…he seems like a really kind man, but I'm not sure what favors he'd want to do because of Jade… we're not exactly on the friendliest terms right now… haven't been this bad since we first met in high school."

"It's not my business until it affects the performance of carrying out the ship's duty… but as Jade's friend, I would say the underlining assumption of why you were never honest with her and the rest of your friends in high school has deeply offended her. You were afraid of how people would see you, treat you… based on your species… you assumed since meeting Jade in tenth-grade up to the point that we stepped foot on the station that she would look at you differently if she ever found out."

Tori slumped her shoulders and slightly glanced to his desk. Her eyes traveled over to some of the pictures on his desk, seeing a picture of Jade and Carly posing for a picture as teenagers, drawing several different emotions from the well of her soul: regret, sadness, compassion. She pulled her eyes away from the picture and looked to Freddie's sympathetic gaze. "I never really thought about having a deep space assignment, but… I'd like to stay… and I'll talk with Jade."

Freddie smiled in relief and answered, "I know Trina will be happy and things will workout between you and Jade."

"Is that going to be a problem though? Having sisters on the same post?"

"Maybe, but… Jade is my…" His expression faded as he trailed off, but rallied his confidence to finish, "…was my sister-in-law… and that just caused a problem down there didn't it?"

Tori thought it best not to comment. Jade had directly disobeyed the captain's order to return to the ship with them. She didn't know how that was going to play out.

Captain Benson saved her from having to say anything else, "Well, if you're going to stay officially, we're work out a duty roster for you, but in the meantime, you should rest up and eat. We should reach Neural in about a day and we still have a lot of clean-up to do when we get there."

"I'm not sure what use I'm going to be with knowing I'm not from the Klingon Empire."

"One side knows you and you can keep an eye on Krell. We can't put the genie back in the bottle with them knowing how to make flintlocks, but we can certainly try to minimize the damage and try to get something like the status quo so they can progress back on their pace, not us artificially accelerating it."

Tori nodded her head then stand up, smiling at her official captain. "Thank you for the chance Captain… Freddie."

"You're welcome Tori… and welcome aboard the Tori," he added with a smirk.

She snorted out a laugh then headed out of his quarters, pausing only long enough to look over her left shoulder to look at him again with a grateful smile then exited the quarters.

Freddie let out a sigh then relaxed in his seat, passing a glance over to the picture of his late-wife and former sister-in-law. He suddenly felt very tired and wanting a nap. He wondered if he'd dream about her…

Council of Elders
Organia

Ayelborne relaxed back in his seat, but his outward expression showed that he was quite distraught over the events that had transpired between Captain Benson and Commander Krell. He muttered to the others, "This is bad, very bad."

A white haired man that was balding at the top, Claymare, muttered, "Despite what the leaders of the Federation and Klingon Empire said, they could try to use this as an excuse to start the war again. The Klingons did interfere with one of the planets in their territory."

"Yes and there would be nothing we could do to stop the Federation. I don't understand how it was possible not to disable their ship."

Another one of the elders, Trefayne commented with a hopeful voice to remind his compatriots, "But it seemed that the Klingons were willing to drop it. The Emperor seemed quite embarrassed over the matter."

"That is a light of hope I supposed, but…"

"But it must be quite annoying with the humans won't do as they are told?" a mocking voice called out throughout the room.

The simple torches that lined around the room to give it light started to fade then flare up into roaring fires then fade again before the double doors opened wide and the gathering of non-corporal lifeforms looked to their uninvited guest. Dustin, the gunnery sergeant that was stationed on the bridge of the Tori, stood just outside the room for a moment then started casually strolling inside the room and towards them. He was wearing a green Henley shirt the same shade as a marine uniform shirt, a pair of blue jeans from centuries past and a pair of sneakers that were just as much a throwback to the same time on Earth, but kept on his marine field jacket with matching green stripes over the shoulders. The only difference in the jacket from the previous wearing it on the Tori was that the gunnery sergeant insignia was replace with silver eagles, indicating the rank of Colonel in the Federation Marine Corps.

The elder Organian called out with a hint of surprise yet a feeling that he shouldn't have been surprised by the apparent young man's appearance, "Dusty."

The apparent marine stopped just in front of the table and snapped his fingers, making a chair appear into existence on his side of the table. He took a seat then leaned back and threw up his feet to rest on the edge of the table. He rested his laced fingers hands on his stomach and gave them all a smart grin and politely greeted the gathered beings, "Hello Ayelborne… how are we doing on this fine afternoon?"

The elder looking man breathed out a sigh and stated rather than questioned, "You're the one that stopped us from disabling Captain Benson's vessel."

Dusty chuckled and rocked a little back in his chair. "Oh no, I just reminded him of what you are and what safeguards there are to protect themselves from beings like you. If you wish to 'blame' someone, blame God…" His voice dropped an octane with a menacing tone that laced his voice, "…and see how far that gets you."

The elders of incorporeal beings exchanged worried to annoyed expressions. Ayelborne turned his frustrated expression to Dusty and asked, "Do you realize what you have done?"

The young man with a slight US Southern accent answered in an innocent tone, "I reminded them of the tools they have to stop you from dictating peace to them and with those tools, he stared the gods' right in the eyes for the galaxy to see… and you blinked. You should have never imposed a treaty on them in the first place."

"You know what would have happened if we didn't intervene: millions would have died."

"Probably hundreds of millions, but all you've done is allowed the Klingons to carry on with their schemes and posturing. They're going to continue to keep their people in shackles, conqueror other planets in their territory and harass their neighbors. You don't have the right to tell one side they can't defend themselves from an aggressor. You simply took the murderers' side and put off the inevitable."

"War is never inevitable," Ayelborne replied with a tired voice, looking at Dusty as he would a child.

"With evil, it's always inevitable… unless you surrender to the darkness."

"They're not evil and your insistence on such… simplistic notions that one side is good and one side is 'evil' will just perpetuate the animosity towards each other."

Dusty rolled his eyes and muttered, "There you go again with that moral equivalence nonsense. Freddie had to point that out to you." He took a quick glance over the beings and remarked, "For people so old and apparently wise, you've seemed to forget that good and evil exists in the universe and you just can't wish it away or talk your way out of it. You can't claim ignorance like the Excalbians about good and evil. Sometime you just have to punch it in the face."

Ayelborne frowned to him and replied, "And for someone so young, perhaps you should heed our wisdom?"

"If your wisdom tells you that both sides are equal in this conflict then you can keep it," Dusty spat back in disgust.

"You know they are destined to become fast friends and work together."

Dusty shook his head and pointed out, "The future isn't written and even in that one, the Klingons were never friends with the Federation; they simply couldn't be aggressive to their neighbors because they were trying to survive after their moon blew up. They turned on the Federation once their homeworld was safe and they rebuilt their strength. Peace with the Klingons, the peace you want will cripple the Federation and leave them open to the Cardassians, the Borg and the Dominion a century from now. I won't let you leave them toothless and defenseless."

Ayelborne asked in a worried tone, "What do you plan to do?"

Dusty pulled his feet away from the table then stood up. He directed a smart grin to them and answered, "I plan… to simply live my life and help where I can… and we'll see what the Klingons and the Federation do with this unexpected turn of events, but in the meantime… Captain Benson and his crew are off limits. If you bother them or try to have your surrogates interfere with them… I'll deal with you personally Ayelbrone, because remember…" His expression darkened as he finished, "…even the gods can die."

Ayelborne frowned as he met the younger man's face before Dusty turned away to walk out of the room, but before reaching the doors, he vanished in a blink of an eye with the soft sound of fluttering wings.

Capital District
Klingon Homeworld

In a fairly modern and highly upscale apartment with various pieces of highly made furniture and decorations imported from numerous worlds, something that only the most well-off Klingon could afford due to the lower standard of living for the ethnic Klingon compared to their interstellar neighbors, an older lady with white hair was comfortably sitting in her leather seat watching the trivideo. She was enjoying her cooking program of her favorite chief preparing a Klingon delicacy and lazily doing her knitting.

The sweet little old lady would be an incomplete appearance as over her shoulder to the wall behind her was various pictures, battle won trophies from defeated enemies and memorabilia clearly belonging to her that spanned at least thirty years of service.

The door to the apartment opened and a figure wearing a hood and robe quickly strolled inside.

The old warrior looked to the figure, not at all concern with the abrupt arrival. If it was family or a friend, she'd need not worry and if it was an enemy, she had long prepared herself to join the Black Fleet. However, she wouldn't go out without a fight as she always had a spare distruptor hidden in her seat.

The figure walked deeper into the living room to the old woman then pulled back her hood, revealing her lovely and identical looking face to Tori Vega. She was nearly overcome with joy as she announced, "Grandmother. She's alive. Victoria is alive."

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this story, despite how long it took me to finish. I actually have two follow-up stories in this universe and hopefully get one of them out in a reasonable amount of time. Thank you for your readership and all those that reviewed. Live long and prosper, OneHorseShay.