Disclaimer: Star Trek and all associated characters and situations are the property of CBS studios. Star Trek Online is the creation of Cryptic and Perfect World. Tomb Raider and the situations therein are the property of Square Enix. All are here used by myself for entertainment purposes only, without permission or intent to profit. Stardates were calculated with the help of the TNG Stardate Calculator available on TrekGuide .com and may be slightly out of sync with those used in the game's lore.
The Choice
USS Nautilus, Shuttle One Crew, Carlin Drel's Log, Supplemental:
Sam's gone... She sacrificed herself and surrendered to the Solarii so that they would let us live. ...But I can't let them kill her. I won't!
The note she found on the general talked about a soul trapped in a decaying body being the cause of the storms. He must have been talking about the last Sun Queen, but I don't understand what Himiko has to do with this. She was the first Sun Queen, Sam said so! Somehow Matan thinks she's connected and using Sam will let him free Himiko...and that can't be good.
Damn you, Doctor Mor! You never could resist a strip of latinum and a good story.
I know the answer is inside the Chamber of the Sun, but getting there won't be easy. The Oni are devoted to protecting it and the old monastery. The Solarii will be there, too, in force. I'll find a way. I know I have to...but I'm so scared of what I'm going to find in that chamber.
Carlin materialized beside Atria in the shuttle cabin, or what was left of it. The afternoon sun now shone in through the shattered canopy and several rents in the shuttle's hull, unhindered, and damaged panels and components lay scattered on the floor. Doctor Howard stood at the transporter controls while Ursan crouched warily in the front.
"Where are Sam and Doctor Mor?" asked Howard, concerned. "Carlin, what happened down there?"
"We were ambushed by Matan and Mor betrayed us," Carlin explained. "Sam...she gave herself up to them, so that we could escape."
"Well, we can't leave her with them," said Ensign McKensey, who was conscious again, lying on the floor next to a wounded-but-alive Crusoe. "We've got to rescue her! She saved my life."
"We're not rescuing anyone," said Atria, moving to the front of the cockpit. She brushed debris of her chair and began running through a pre-flight check. "We're getting out of here!"
"And going where?" Drel stormed over to the co-pilot's seat and spun it around, forcing the other woman to face her. "In case you hadn't noticed, Sam offered her life to save yours too! I don't know about Orions, but in most cultures, that means something. You owe it to her to help if you can!"
"But I can't!" said Atria. "Look at this shuttle! Look at this mess! We'll be beyond lucky if we ever get this thing flying again!"
Carlin's eyes roamed the wrecked cabin. "Well, you're certainly never taking it out of the atmosphere again—"
"Exactly!" said Atria.
But Carlin wasn't finished. "And since you can't leave the planet...you might as well make yourself useful and try to destroy the Sun Queen's power so that, when you eventually get the shuttle repaired or replaced, you'll be able to leave without getting shot down, right?"
"Yes...," Atria said slowly.
"And the only way to do that, is to save Sam!" said Carlin. "Sam knows where the source of the Sun Queen's power is, and the Solarii are bringing her to it. If we save her, she'll have a chance to destroy it. If we don't, she'll be its next victim, followed by us."
Atria narrowed her eyes. "So you're saying that I pretty much have to help you, whether from noble or selfish interests?"
"That's the gist of it."
The Orion woman sighed. "Fine." She glanced at Carlin's hand, which was still on the back of the chair, pinning it in place. "Do you mind? I'd like to see if we can get off the ground before the Solarii change their minds about letting us live." Carlin released the chair and Atria turned back around. Ursan assumed his place in the pilot's seat. "Pre-flight checks out...passably, though we'll have to keep it low and slow to make up for the open cabin, and I certainly wouldn't want to push the stabilizers too far. Let's get out of here!" She turned to Ursan, nodding for him to begin take-off, then looked back at Carlin. "Where are we going?"
"The monastery," said Carlin. "It's the center of Oni activity on this island and it's where the Chamber of the Sun and the Star of Yamatai are. If we can, we'll try to get there before the Solarii and head them off."
"And if not?"
"If not...then I'll be going in after Sam!"
USS Nautilus, Captain's Log, Stardate 81633.75:
Despite my reservations and those of my crew, Admiral Quinn of Starfleet Command has ordered the Nautilus to participate in an attack on the Dragon's Head Nebula entity, in hopes of rescuing our stranded away teams. We have been instructed to await the arrival of the Endurance and a shipment of tricobalt devices for use against the entity's central nexus on the planet's surface.
While we wait, I and my officers are preparing for our task as best we can, by readying to assist the Endurance when she arrives fresh from battle with the Klingons, and also by further studying the nebula, the planet, and the entity in hopes of finding an exploitable weakness.
A chime sounded in Captain Sokar's ready room aboard the Nautilus. "Enter," he said, looking up from the readiness reports Ensign Toban and Lieutenant T'Paie had given him earlier in the day. The door slid open and he was surprised to find T'Paie standing there yet again, this time accompanied by Ensign Mark Delaney. He raised an eyebrow in lieu of a question.
"Ensign Delaney and I have been running high-resolution tetryon scans of the entity's nexus," T'Paie explained. "As the one who first conceived of the idea of attacking the entity, I thought it my responsibility to help determine the best and safest way of accomplishing this end."
"I see," said Sokar. "Well, as it is obvious we will not know the needs of the Endurance until she is en route and her status is relayed to us, you may proceed."
"Thank you, sir," said T'Paie, with a slight nod. "I thought you might be interested to see the preliminary results of our work."
"Our scans showed the nexus isn't as simple as we thought," said Mark, laying a PADD down in front of the Captain. "There's a deformation—a knot, if you will—that seems to be holding the whole thing together."
"If the deformation were targeted independently, it might be possible to delay the detonation of the polaric energy. It would eventually break free, but it would first spend several minutes building up inside the subspace domain occupied by the nexus," said T'Paie. "During that time, it would be possible to safely retrieve our away team and leave."
"We would have to go to warp inside the nebula in order to escape," Sokar pointed out. "That could prove extremely damaging, given the nebula's composition and ion storm patterns."
"With proper enhancements, the Endurance should be able to safely handle the strain," said T'Paie, then looked down at her PADD.
Sokar sensed something was being left out. "There is another problem, is there not?"
T'Paie looked back at him, her face expressionless. Mark's looked a little guilty. "Yes, sir," he said. "The problem is that the distortion's less than a meter wide. We won't be able to target it with a tricobalt device, or any other torpedo."
"Exactly how small is this distortion?" asked Sokar.
"It is 25.6 millimeters across in its largest dimension," T'Paie said flatly.
Sokar raised an eyebrow. Hitting a target that small would take skill even with a hand phaser. For any larger weapon it was virtually impossible. "How do you propose we disrupt this distortion?"
"That's what we wanted to ask you about," said Mark. "Lieutenant T'Paie believes that if we were to go down to the planet we could probably attack it with a hand phaser—hell, if this thing has a normal-space dimension to it we could probably break it with a sharp stick!"
"But doing so would necessitate taking a third shuttle and away team into the nebula, with very strong odds that they would not return," said Sokar.
"Exactly," said Mark.
"I'm afraid I cannot permit it," said the Captain. "Even if the risk of the shuttle and its crew were acceptable, we would still face the problem of having no safe way to retrieve that away team and the previous ones when the entity was destroyed."
T'Paie opened her mouth to object, but Sokar's combadge chirped. "Bridge to Captain!" said Toban's voice. "Sir, we have a Priority One transmission from Starfleet Command."
"Transfer it to my ready room," said Sokar. He turned to the viewer on his desk and activated it. The seal of the United Federation of Planets appeared for a moment, then was replaced by the broad, scarred face and square-jawed head of a massive human male wearing the insignia of a Fleet Admiral. Sokar had never seen him in person, but he recognized the man instantly. "Fleet Admiral Yanishev," he said, identifying the man behind the majority of Starfleet's offensives against the Klingon Empire.
"Captain Sokar," said Yanishev in a resounding bass colored by a thick ethic accent. "I heard about loss of your away teams. Terrible business."
"We have not yet exhausted all options in their rescue, sir," said Sokar. "Even as we speak, the Endurance—"
Yanishev cut him off before he could finish. "That is what I come to tell you. Endurance is not coming."
"Begging your pardon, sir, but...may I ask why?" said Sokar.
"You may," said the big human, frowning. "Reason is destruction. Ganalda IV was Klingon trap, cleverly baited, bravely executed. Operation Spearhead almost total loss. Nearly forty ships destroyed. Great tragedy, but is greater coming if we do not act!" he said warningly. "Defeat at Ganalda has opened hole in our lines. Klingons could push back, push us out of Archanis Sector and endanger Federation worlds. I am assembling task group to patrol the gap, make sure no Klingon ship gets through. I need every starship, yours included. You are to break off search and head for the Federation transwarp hub at Starbase 234 for transference to rendezvous point of Task Force Hippocrates at Starbase 343 by Stardate 81644. Understood?"
"Admiral, my people are still down there. I cannot abandon—"
"May I remind you this is war, Captain!" said Yanishev, raising his voice. "Billions of lives at stake. Cannot wait for seven Starfleet officers. Understand?"
"I...of course, Admiral," said Sokar, schooling his face to keep it free of any trace of emotion.
"We may require several hours to reconfigure our warp drive, due to exposure to the nebula," Lieutenant T'Paie put in.
The Admiral waved the concern away. "Of course, whatever you need to do. Your ship is not most strategic ship in fleet, but is necessary. Come quickly. Admiral Yanishev out." The viewer went back to the seal of the United Federation of Planets, then went dark.
Sokar turned to his chief engineer. "I was unaware that the ship's warp drive had suffered damage," he said.
"It has not," said T'Paie.
The other Vulcan cocked his head. "A lie, Lieutenant?"
"A choice," she answered. "And you will find, I falsified nothing. It is possible that we may have required the time to reconfigure our warp drive if we had exposed it to the nebula. As it happens, we have not and do not, but the possibility still exists. I chose to make him aware of it. I am not responsible for his assumptions beyond what was said."
Sokar shifted, somewhat uncomfortable. Vulcans cannot lie, was an...artful exaggeration which his species took great pains to perpetuate. He had never before seen a Vulcan bend the truth so cunningly to preserve it, however. "May I assume you have a logical reason for your choice?"
"Indeed," said T'Paie, almost proudly. She looked to Mark.
Mark stepped forward, a little hesitant. "Sir, while we were running our subspace analysis, my brother did a passive visual scan of the main island. It's not much, but at least there's no interference. He saw this." Mark advanced the page on the PADD he'd set before Sokar. Now the display showed a view of the island seen from space, complete with several trails of dust, rising from the ground.
"What are these?" Sokar asked.
"Dust trails raised by the passage of ground vehicles," said T'Paie. "Their direction of travel indicates that they are headed for the structure which contains the nexus—an ancient fortress or monastery near the northern side of the island. We have also been tracking the progress of a small shuttle in low-altitude flight. Its course indicates a similar destination."
"Either one could be our away teams," said Mark. "If they've somehow figured out the same things we have..."
"Then they may be on their way to destroy the nexus themselves," said T'Paie. "While it is true we cannot take a the Nautilus or even a shuttle in to assist them without risking further personnel unnecessarily, we can still remain here to assist in extracting them from the nebula, when the time is right. If they are forced to go to warp inside the nebula with inadequate structural support to their vessel, they may require an emergency beam-out."
"I see," said Sokar, steepling his fingers. "We will remain and continue to observe the situation for as long as possible, but I will not risk the lives of Federation civilians to save my own officers. We leave in three hours. Dismissed."
Author's Note: Yes, I killed the Endurance, but hey, as soon as you heard the premise of this story (which is a crossover of Tomb Raider, where the Endurance is the ship that crashes), you were probably expecting it to die. If you're upset by the off-screen nature of it's death...well, it's war. Bad things happen. Also, to make it up to you, I'll be using the Battle of Ganalda IV as the premise for introducing a new character in another story.
As for the battle itself, a loss of nearly 40 ships is a big defeat, but not a crippling one for Starfleet at this time. The Battle of Wolf 359 saw Starfleet lose 39 ships, which set their fleet back a year at the time (TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II"). During the Dominion War, however, Starfleet was by itself able to launch a fleet of roughly 600 ships for Operation Return (DS9 "Favor the Bold"). This indicates a major buildup of ships between the two events and it's likely that many of those ships are still in active service in the early 25th Century.
Carlin's log is based on the second to last of Lara's journals from the Tomb Raider game.
25.6 mm is about 1 inch, and is the size of the Hope Diamond in its largest dimension. I'll save anyone speculating that the distortion may be the Star of Yamatai some time by saying that it is. An object that size would be, realistically, very difficult to hit, but the phaser range has characters shooting colored lights no bigger than that in TNG.
Admiral Yanishev is the admiral in charge of fleet actions in STO. Task Force Hippocrates is the name of a later mission in Star Trek Online, which consists of a series of seemingly random patrols and escort missions which subtly advance the plot. I won't be covering it here. Starbase 234 is in the Nimbus Sector, near the border of Romulan and Klingon space (TNG: "Redemption II" and "Unification I"). According to the warp calculator on Anycalculator . com, a journey there would take the Nautilus (which is restricted to a top speed of warp 5, per STO) a little over 4 days, allowing it to arrive about on time if it left immediately. In Star Trek Online's continuity, both the Federation and the Klingon Empire created transwarp networks based on scans of the Borg transwarp hub brought back by Voyager. This is used to explain away the perk the game gives players in allowing them to "transwarp" (instantly relocate) to their homeworld or other key locations from virtually anywhere in the game. The actual networks themselves are mentioned only once in all of STO's stories: the mission "Minefield" has Starfleet captains creating a minefield to protect a hub of the Federation transwarp network from possible Romulan incursion. I used it here because otherwise getting Nautilus anywhere near the Archanis Sector would take months: not exactly a timely response!
I'm not sure that any Vulcan has outright claimed on screen to be incapable of lying, but it's been heavily implied that they don't. At the same time, it's certainly something they do fairly often and with exceptional skill, mostly by employing round-about ways of saying things and half-truths. Valeris, the traitor Vulcan from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, when asked point-blank for the names of her co-conspirators flippantly said, "I do not remember" and when accused of lying instead called it "A choice." I felt a shout out to her was appropriate here. Perhaps later I will go into exactly why.