Disclaimer: I own nothing related to or part of Star Trek.
"A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends." ― Baltasar Gracian
"Never Hate your enemies, they teach you lessons." - Bharath Mamidoju
The Adventures of Augment Gothic
Chapter 23
Cloaked Section 31 Ship. Name: Classified. Outside Bajoran System.
As far as my girls and the Bajoran Resistance were concerned I was currently far away from Bajor on a much-needed supply run to accommodate the voracious needs of the Resistance's much greater numbers. I'd left them on Bajor with the Shakaar Resistance cell as that group was down a few members recently who had been reassigned to training the new recruits elsewhere on the planet.
The Shakaar had received some 'green as freshly mown grass' recruits and Shakaar needed all the help he could get until they finished training their new fighters up to a decent level. In other words, the level of 'not dying within the first few minutes of their first mission', or worse, getting the veteran Shakaar folks killed because of their sheer stupidity. There had already been some friendly fire incidents that were hilarious to hear about second hand only because the recruits in question had thankfully not been trusted to have their weapons set to a lethal setting. It reminded me of some the incidents from my own basic training, with fellow recruits who had never touched a gun in their lives before, much less shot one.
Kira, as a longtime veteran of the Resistance, turned out to be an excellent trainer for the new recruits, though she had jokingly (and privately) told me that her goal was to get them to the point where they were more dangerous to the Cardassians than they were to themselves or their fellow Resistance members. She would have made a hell of a drill instructor in my old world. In time, assuming they lived long enough, maybe she'd be able to get these recruits to that ideal balance of patriotic zeal and pragmatic caution that would see them live not only through their first mission, but many more after.
This was all great timing for me actually as Sloan had requested that I attend a meeting outside of the Bajoran system and had provided me with a set of coordinates and a time to rendezvous at. This meeting would also provide me with the opportunity to hand over a copy of the Collector database and other items that Section 31 had already paid me handsomely for. He'd be able to easily supply me with any weapons, materials, and replicators I would need to show that my 'supply run' for the Resistance had been successful (and genuine).
Multiple alarms sounded urgently in the cockpit of my ship when my ship was suddenly caught in a powerful tractor beam from what my sensors still said was empty space. The tractor beam had caused some minor distortions in the cloaking field so I could actually see that I was being inexorably pulled into a large shuttle bay. Color me unsurprised that Section 31 had a freaking cloaked starship. You've got to give them credit for being consistent, Section 31 just didn't give a fuck. I don't know why I thought for even a moment that the Treaty of Algeron was going to stop them from doing anything.
Generally speaking, the shuttle bay I had been pulled into looked like one you could find on pretty much any Federation designed ship, with all the standard designs and aesthetic choices you'd see on most Starfleet vessels. The ship's cloak had hidden the external hull design of the ship, but as my eyes scanned the room I was somehow reminded of the USS Voyager. Could this be an Intrepid-class? As far as I knew none of them had been completed yet, much less left their shipyards. If this was an Intrepid-class, how had Section 31 gotten their hands on a state-of-the-art starship like this? Did Section 31 have their own secret shipyards? Again, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did. The Federation was a big place and they'd need transport for their agents, preferably ships they controlled to minimize the need to hide the paper trail.
Like Sloan himself (most of the time), the shuttle bay I was in was dull and spartan looking with nothing to help me identify the ship class beyond memories made from a network TV show made in another time and dimension. My sensors weren't reporting anything else either, as Section 31 had a sensor dampening field active which isolated the shuttle bay from the rest of the ship. I'd call it paranoid if I didn't heartily approve of their caution and hadn't just scanned the shit out of a Collector ship I'd landed in just like this. Had I given them the inspiration to shield the rest of the ship from my sensors?
Thankfully, my sensors were fully functional within the confines of the shuttle bay itself, at least, so I knew that it was fully pressurized with a safe breathable atmosphere, so I got out of my ship and looked around for a bit, waiting for the welcoming party to show up.
"A cloaked ship, Sloan? Naughty, naughty, what would those sanctimonious Captains like Picard think of you for violating the Treaty of Algeron?" I asked with a smirk, before even greeting the man, once Sloan and a couple of his minions entered the shuttle bay, all of whom wearing those distinctive black leather-esque outfits. My eyes couldn't help but linger incredulously on their clothing, which should probably be better described as a uniform since they were all wearing the exact same outfit. They really needed to try to look less like Hitler-esque Gestapo secret police types.
I could see it my mind's eye now, some director for the show asking for something dark, severe, and hostile looking to dress the ruthless spies in and some costume designer thinking black leather was the way to go to make it as visually obvious as possible to the viewers that they were shady spy types. But this was real life, wasn't it? They were secret agents and spies, sure, but why not wear civilian suits or business attire or something else to blend in? Sloan normally went to such great lengths to blend in too. Maybe it was to create a shared identity onboard the ship where they didn't really need to hide their existence? Or was it because this was all a silly television show universe? He had appeared in the same outfit when he went to recruit Bashir, maybe meeting cliché expectations helped smooth the interaction with people who were being introduced to Section 31's unlikely existence?
It was silly shit like this that made me wonder for the 100th time if the writers of the television show had created this universe merely by writing it. How do you explain the clichés otherwise?!
The two black uniformed minions, or background characters without dialog, at least that was how I had uncharitably labeled them in my mind, went up the Temptress' open ramp to start unloading the Hur'q weapons that Section 31 had purchased, though I'd kept several for myself. The inventory I'd given to Sloan when we had made our deal had only included half of the weapons I'd taken, one of each type actually.
"I imagine Picard would feel quite betrayed and would try to arrest us, probably while notifying the Romulan government of the violation, but that's just fine. The Federation needs people like that, men of high-minded ideals, just like it needs people like us, men who are willing to do whatever it takes to preserve the Federation's very existence," Sloan answered me, with that blank face of his. "Now, I believe you have something for me?"
And I did. I handed Sloan the medium-sized silvery container that carried the 24th century version of an extremely high-capacity portable hard drive, one that had a copy of the partial Collector database we'd stolen. The container was hardened against all manner of threats and could tank several phaser shots set on kill with no damage to its contents.
To the man's credit he didn't immediately open it and scan it to verify that the data was present and matched what I had previously sent. Whether that signaled that I'd earned a bit of trust or there was no real need to be overly cautious as my ship was quite literally in the belly of the beast and I was quite literally at his mercy, I didn't know, but I strongly suspected it was the latter. Didn't matter to me, though, as I would always scrupulously meet the agreed upon parameters of our deals with no duplicity. It was too dangerous to do otherwise, and I had a feeling that as long as I was honest with them and met my agreed upon obligations, that they would do the same. Being viewed as an honest, reliable, and successful asset meant I'd be too valuable to sacrifice needlessly.
"As we agreed, a copy of several races' restricted replicator pattern database will be given to you before you depart. While you are here I have instructed our engineers to upgrade your ship with a military-grade sensor package and to outfit your ship with a launcher for our new long-range stealth probes we will be giving you," Sloan said. "I will have a military-grade tractor beam installed too, if we have time."
"Thank you," I answered simply, a little confused.
I had asked for some current Starfleet technology as part of our deal, but had not actually made a request yet. My plan had been to let Section 31 study the database and Collector technology for a while and realize its value before asking for anything, as giving me current technology was not without risk to the organization. They would not want technology like that falling into the wrong hands, nor would they want anyone looking hard into how I had acquired such advanced technology should I be caught with it, like some overzealous, yet bigoted Starfleet captain I might encounter. At the moment I had no reasonable way to explain it, so color me surprised that they offered me this technology without even a request for it first.
So why was Sloan giving me this seemingly for free? While Section 31 was pretty blasé about paying me what I asked for, they weren't in the business of being generous without purpose; they wanted and rewarded results. After a moment or two of thought, I had a feeling that many analysts in Section 31 had bemoaned that the sensor readings my ship had taken during my two encounters with the Collectors had been taken with civilian-grade sensors. Since I had been the source for their most substantial and useful data on the Collectors so far, now a priority 1-level threat, they probably viewed giving me state-of-the-art sensors as an investment, should I encounter them again.
New sensors and stealth probes would allow me to clandestinely get sensor readings from far flung locations without ever exposing my own ship to danger. The tractor beam was crazy useful too, especially a powerful one like would normally only be seen on Starfleet vessels. I'd be able to grab and hold entire ships, tow them at warp, grab and tow valuable asteroids for mining, etc. The myriad number of uses I could get out of a powerful tractor beam were many. In fact, many fans of the shows felt it had always been a terribly underutilized piece of technology.
I was then handed a Federation datapad.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Everything we currently have on the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor," Sloan explained. "Everything."
Quite confused, I quickly looked through only a fraction of the information on this Padd. It was all here! Everything from daily reports personally written by Dukat to his homeworld, to the arrival and departure times of every ship entering Bajoran space. Even the secret locations of work camps full of kidnapped Bajorans that weren't on Bajor was there, right along with the garrison strength assigned to each and all of their defenses. All that and more was right in my hand and I'd only quickly inspected a few of the listed files in the directory.
"How did you get this?" I wished to know.
With information like this the Resistance could do some serious damage to the Cardassians. Why hadn't I been provided this information earlier? It would have been incredibly useful for my mission. It also, admittedly, may have led to too many successes, too quickly, which would strain credulity that the Bajorans had been this successful on their own without outside help from a foreign power. So very precisely targeting the very supports and foundations that kept the Occupation standing and profitable would have been beyond the Resistance. No, they had to flail around hitting low priority or low importance targets that wouldn't terribly affect the Occupation's viability, maybe sometimes unwittingly hitting more valuable targets. Now, that, was believable.
Sloan gave me a slight smile. For some reason this smug little smile felt more genuine than most other expressions I'd seen from the man. It was pride, I guessed. For all his talk that his operatives didn't need to drink the Kool-Aid, I had a feeling that Sloan had definitely drunk deeply of it, but that was his choice (yet not one that he forced on others) and probably why he'd risen so high and obviously been so successful in the organization.
"We're Section 31," was all he said, but his pride was shining through now that I knew what to look for.
After I gave him a look that clearly conveyed that I did not appreciate smug and prideful nonsense answers, to his credit, he gave me a more detailed answer.
"You may not have heard out here," he said as we left the shuttle bay and entered a turbolift. His minions had been left behind to continue the unloading of their purchased prizes. "But the Klingon Civil war is over. The Romulans, who had been clandestinely supporting House Duras behind the scenes in their bid for power, have ended that operation altogether. Their support ended and their priorities changed, quite radically, when a Hur'q hive ship got into a firefight with a small fleet of Romulan warbirds. The hive ship they encountered was much smaller than the one you boarded," he clarified, glancing at me. "Very nearly the entire fleet that engaged them was destroyed in the battle, but the hive ship took significant damage and was nearing defeat, we're guessing, as rather than being captured the hive ship went on a suicide run at full speed into the surface of one of the Romulans' major colonies near the neutral zone. More than one hundred million Romulans were killed instantly. The very atmosphere of the planet caught fire. The planet will be uninhabitable for millennia to come without significant intervention. As you can imagine, the Romulans are enraged and want blood. House Duras, practically overnight, lost all their foreign support when the Romulan Senate ordered war preparations to be made and all available resources redirected to preparing for the conflict to come."
"Ha! What you really mean is a destabilized and weakened Klingon Empire on their border was no longer in the Empire's best interests, especially since they might need the Klingons to fight the Collectors," I explained with a small grin, feeling very amused at just how absurd life could be at times. In canon TNG Picard had exposed and thus stopped the Romulan involvement in the Klingon Civil War, leading to the Duras' defeat as they were left to fend for themselves by their former Romulan allies. That had earned him a lot of goodwill and influence with the Klingons, God knows what kind of butterflies the loss of that goodwill was going to cause.
"Just so," Sloan confirmed, with a small smile of his own.
I had to chuckle at that. The Romulans went from promoting and supporting a Klingon civil war only to stop when they realized that they might actually need a strong Klingon Empire to help them fight the Hur'q, the Klingons' ancient enemy. What strange times we lived in.
Still, none of that was surprising to me. As much as the Klingons and Romulans hated each other, the Hur'q were a threat to everyone and so alien in their thinking that it was far easier to understand each other, their long-time enemies, than those aliens.
"The Duras started floundering immediately without their foreign assistance, many of their supporters defecting with the information once they realized the threat to the greater Empire. When the Klingons learned about the Romulan support and the return of the Hur'q the noble houses set aside their difference and gave Gowron their complete support, ending the civil war. The Duras are on the run, fleeing for their lives, the entire Empire gunning for them now that their duplicity has become known. The return of their most hated enemy, the same race who conquered their people so long ago, has united them in purpose in a way we've never seen before," Sloan explained, looking thoughtful.
Well, that was interesting, and somewhat different than in the show. Understandable, though, considering the return of their most hated enemy would give them an enemy to unite against and fight. Internal division would have no place in the Empire with their ancient enemy back. If the Collector threat grew, it could unite the alpha quadrant in ways that had never occurred before. External existential threats had a curious way of doing that.
"Deck four," Sloan instructed the turbolift computer before addressing me again. "Now that the Klingons have stopped trying to kill each other we were able to focus more of our resources and assets back on the Cardassians, hence the updated intelligence we have for you. With this information the Occupation should end even sooner than our projections initially suggested and it was already significantly expedited with the many successes your assistance has given the Resistance. Of course, we still need to figure out a way to deal with these new, enhanced Hur'q. They are a much greater threat than the Cardassians could ever be."
I'm not sure I fully believed that newly available 'resources and assets' meant they had new information that they were now willing to share with me, but whatever, it made no difference in the end. Even I recognized that hiding Federation involvement on Bajor was vital and that meant letting the wins the Resistance was helped to achieve appeared both reasonable and believable.
The Collector's incursion into Romulan space handily explained why they'd brought this meeting to me, all the way out here near a backwater system in the middle of nowhere, rather than call me back to a Federation core world. Bajor had zero strategic importance to the Federation (or anyone else, to be honest, besides the Cardassians themselves) beyond how the Cardassians profited from its exploitation to fuel their war machine. Once the wormhole was discovered, of course, that would quickly change, but right now Bajor was in the ass end of nowhere. They wanted my stolen data and the Collector technology I'd acquired as quickly as possible. They probably also wanted to get my thoughts on the Collectors too as other than T'Maz, and perhaps some folks on the Tikuma, I had successfully engaged the Collectors and even boarded one of their ships and lived to tell the tale.
'Damn,' I thought, I should have charged more! How was I supposed to know the Collectors were going to fuck up the Romulans so bad?
"What are your plans for after the Occupation?" Sloan asked me out of the blue as we walked down a grey metal walled corridor. Even the décor on their ship was ruthless secret spy agency chic instead of the cheerful colors you'd normally find on a Starfleet vessel.
I saw no reason to hide my plans. In fact, it might even be prudent to inform them as early as possible beforehand. Surprising Section 31 too much was potentially bad for my health, after all.
"My plan is to stay permanently on Bajor and build a life there," I informed the spy, turning to take in his reaction. Sloan's gob smacked expression of shock was delicious! I had to fight the near irresistible urge to laugh in his face.
Sloan stopped walking and looked to be considering my words after he had schooled his expression back to his default of pleasant and unassuming, obviously not having expected an answer like that. Their psychological profile on me was damn good, I'd long ago concluded, so I was happy that I could still surprise them from time-to-time.
Unfortunately, the only reason I had been successful was because I possessed knowledge of the future that they couldn't possibly account for in their predictive models. This was a double-edged sword. Being predictable to them was a safe place to be, for the most part. They'd be comfortable and less likely to view me as an unpredictable threat that needed to be removed. On the other hand, throwing doubt on the validity of their profile of me could make them more averse to betraying me, and perhaps less successful in any future attempts at manipulating me, as they now had some false data in their model.
"That…that is unexpected," Sloan responded slowly and precisely, before he looked intently into my eyes. "May I ask what prompted this?"
It was time to weave an answer composed of a mix of truth, lies, and semi-truthful bullshit.
"I like the planet and I like the people and they like me, and that didn't change even after I shared with them that I was an Augment. They simply didn't care," I answered. "My options on Bajor are also not going to be limited, like they would be in the Federation, in fact my victories with the Resistance will open a lot of doors that would otherwise not be available to me. Besides, the next few years should prove to be an exciting time, and it promises to be quite an adventure for the Bajorans to get back on their feet after the Occupation ends. I want to be a part of that adventure and help them succeed. You can't spend years fighting for their freedom side-by-side with them, shedding blood together, and not come to care for them."
"I see. You have obviously given this some thought," Sloan responded. "May I ask what you view as likely to happen in the years after the Occupation ends?"
A very interesting question from Sloan. I took a few moments to gather my thoughts, though I obviously knew quite a bit on this topic from the show.
"I suspect that once the Cardassians leave that the Bajoran people will form a transitional government of some sort, likely based on some political model that they're familiar with from before the Occupation, but perhaps with a more centralized authority then they've had previously. That'll be important in crafting and executing on a recovery plan that requires coordination and cooperation across different groups and regions on the planet," I answered. "Fearing the Cardassians could change their mind and return, they will likely invite the Federation in to help, though what form that will take I don't know. This will ensure that they get some help rebuilding from the Federation as well as secure additional protection against the Cardassians returning."
"Interesting," Sloan responded. "Our models suggest much the same. It is good to hear you confirm our conclusions. Will they create their own military?"
"Almost certainly," I confirmed. "Whatever pacificism that they might have had in the past has long been burned out of their cultural DNA. Fifty years of oppression, murder, and exploitation, will do that. Whatever military forces they create will probably be made up entirely of experienced fighters from the various Resistance cells scattered across the planet, at least at the beginning.
"Do you believe they will ask you to join their military forces, even though you are human?" Sloan asked.
"I think so. They've already promised a large amount of land and citizenship to me for my service during the Occupation. Given how closely I've been working with the rebels, the critical resources I've provided, and the many successes that are credited to me and the cell I lead, I hope to earn a high rank within their new military forces. That way I can help oversee the rebuilding as well as help defend the planet. I'd be able to build a life for myself that just wouldn't be allowed to me in the Federation."
"I cannot say I am not disappointed, Gothic. Section 31 has been very pleased with the work you have done on Bajor and your encounters with the Collectors have given us an incredible amount of actionable intelligence on what may very well be an existential threat to the Federation and the alpha quadrant itself. We planned on offering you your pick of assignments after Bajor."
I turned towards him again, speaking clearly and strongly, "I know Bajor is practically irrelevant in the broader galactic context, but feel like I can do good work on Bajor."
Seeing how serious I was, Sloan just nodded.
"Our best analytical models and projections predict that the Cardassians will withdraw from Bajor within the next nine months to a year. You will find all the supporting information in the PADD I have given you, including classified reports on the status of the ongoing peace talks," he said. "A rough framework for a peace treaty acceptable to both sides has already been agreed to in principle. The diplomats from both sides are simply hammering out the details and working with the various stakeholders who will be affected by the concessions each side will be required to make. The Cardassians will be net winners from the peace treaty, though, as it will grant them enough valuable new worlds to expand the influence and growth of their empire. They will be forced to immediately reallocate resources to fortify and start making use of their new holdings though."
He hesitated then, obviously having more to say.
"Seems a waste of your considerable talents to be stuck out here during the rebuilding," Sloan said. "Are you sure you don't want to lead a tactical team working on the Hur'q problem?"
That was a little tempting. 31 was even offering me, a freelance agent, the lead of a team of operatives. I must have seriously impressed some people with my successes! The Collectors certainly needed dealing with, and it would be a good use of my enhanced skills, but realistically, how much could I really do, especially since the Collectors were entirely outside the scope of my foreknowledge? I was only one man, no matter how personally powerful.
No, my course was set, because I knew something that Section 31 didn't. The Bajoran wormhole was the key to the future, for good or bad. Once it was discovered everyone in the quadrant would know of Bajor and the future of the quadrant would be decided there. And, it was within the scope of my foreknowledge.
Plus, I'd already seen myself on DS9 so I had to go or the future could be all kinds of messed up. And wasn't that a bunch of weird pre-destination paradox bullshit.
"Bajor will join the Federation, eventually," I told Sloan. "It may take ten years before it does, but it will and a stronger Bajor means a stronger Federation in the end. I can help Bajor recover from the inside. Besides, I will still have my own ship. If I'm really needed elsewhere by Section 31 I'll find an excuse to leave."
Sloan nodded his head, though I could tell that he was dubious about Bajor really contributing much to the Federation or ever becoming anything more than a backwater planet in the middle of nowhere. Maybe in a century's time that would change, but certainly not now. That said, I could tell that he was giving my words a lot more weight than even I would under the circumstances. I just had no idea why; it was like he too knew more than he should.
"Well, you've always been classified as a freelance agent, so we can't order you to go anywhere else or take on a different assignment," he said. "And having an operative, even a freelance one, on the border of the Federation and the Cardassian Union could prove useful in the future."
He had no idea just how true that would be in the years to come. Before more could be said we entered a briefing room and the meeting began.
XXXXX
Cloaked Section 31 Ship. Name: Classified. Outside the Bajoran System.
"Is something bothering you?" T'Maz inquired as we worked through some of the data my team and I had stolen from the Hur'q ship. "You seem distracted."
After the briefing, Sloan had requested (he didn't really give orders), that we agents work in separate teams of two to do some brainstorming about the Hur'q. The separation likely being an attempt to keep the groups coming up with different ideas not influenced or shut down by the other groups. It was a best practice for this kind of thing. Since T'Maz and I were already very familiar with each other, we had been placed together.
Our goal was to come up with tactics the Federation could employ to counter the bug-like aliens in battle, both on the ground as well as in space. We were also encouraged to do some worst-case scenario planning by developing contingency plans to eliminate or drive away an occupation force should the Collectors succeed in conquering the Federation. My recent experience as a Resistance fighter, fighting against a superior occupying force, was proving very useful in our planning. The Federation had little to no experience with the mindset required for such planning in the modern day.
"The Genesis torpedoes," I mused, thinking out loud after being told of their existence in this planning session. "The perfect weapon against a Collector world ship, but if ever used openly, maybe as big an existential threat to the Federation as the Collectors themselves."
Anyone who'd seen the older Trek movies, like I had, would know all about the Genesis device, but Section 31 had decided to read me in on the device officially as it was one of the few strategic weapons the Federation possessed that they believed could destroy a Collector 'World Ship' in one shot. Of course, any Federation ship could destroy at least the surface of a large planet with their photon or quantum torpedoes given enough time, even crack it in half if they got creative, but having that time was the catch. It was also unlikely that destroying the surface of one of these World Ships would even be enough to stop it. Penetrating it to its very core was viewed as the safter option, hence the only weapon the Federation had that was capable of such a thing had been shared with me. The situation was serious, even dire given the incident with the Romulans, but I still found myself surprised that they shared this weapon's existence with me.
Prophets! I hope my acting had been enough. It certainly helped that the visible shock had been real, if not for the exact reason that they thought.
The Genesis Device, put simply, was life from lifelessness. It was a sophisticated technological innovation, capable of performing a veritable miracle of terraforming, originally designed with the purpose of alleviating sociological problems such as overpopulation and limited food supplies. Its development was completed by a team of scientists led by Carol Marcus and her son, David Marcus, in 2285 on the Spacelab Regula I in the Mutara sector.
The device was capable of initiating a process of rapid terraforming at the subatomic level, by which previously uninhabitable planets could be turned into Class-M worlds ready for colonization. This was accomplished by launching the Genesis Device, a torpedo-shaped projectile, into a lifeless planet. Upon impact, the device caused a massive explosion, reducing the entire area to subatomic particles. A preprogrammed matrix then reassembled these subatomic particles into the desired configuration, creating an atmosphere and environment habitable for humanoids within a matter of hours, regardless of the test area's original composition…hence the danger.
Subatomic particle reconfiguration… Could that be the basis for particle synthesis holography seen in Voyager? Or the more advanced replication technology that some of the older, more technologically advanced races used? Something to consider.
Development and testing of the Genesis Device took place during a year-long period on a space station orbiting Regula, a class-D lifeless planetoid. Tests were carried out by Dr. Carol Marcus and her team in three stages, the first of which involved experiments conducted in a laboratory on the space station. In the second stage, the device was deployed within a lifeless underground cavern deep inside the Regula planetoid. The intention of the third stage of testing was to introduce the device to a lifeless space body, such as a moon or barren planet.
Unfortunately, while the intent behind creating such a device was to create life where there had previously been none, a truly noble goal, if the device was detonated where life already existed, it could prove to be a very powerful weapon of mass destruction, destroying all life in favor of its new matrix. Although acknowledged by David Marcus, this possibility seemed to not have occurred to its creators, and they were unprepared for the consequences when the augment, Khan Noonien Singh, stole the device and detonated it aboard the USS Reliant in the middle of the Mutara Nebula. The resulting cataclysmic explosion reorganized the matter that constituted the nebula (and possibly the ship itself) and formed a new planet, Genesis. The USS Enterprise was almost destroyed by the shock wave that resulted from the explosion before Spock sacrificed himself to repair its power system and the ship was able to go to high warp just before the Reliant exploded.
Section 31 had refined the device in the century and change since, taking it from a potent tool of terraforming which could inadvertently be a weapon, into a true 24th century weapon of mass destruction. They could, with a single warp-capable, cloaked torpedo, wipe out an entire world, or if used in space, whole fleets. If the Collectors came in their World Ships, these Genesis torpedoes could be used to destroy them, as a last resort. In fact, they were the only weapon in the Federation's strategic arsenal that realistically could. That was all well and good, as long as no one knew who was behind the deed or how it was actually done. Unfortunately, the Klingons had learned just enough to recognize its effects. With the number of times the Duras had worked with the Romulans, they probably knew too by now. The consequences for using such a weapon, even on an existential threat like the Collectors, were all too clear, even if it might be forgiven in the short-term.
No, if the other Alpha Quadrant powers found out that a secret branch of the Federation had the means to easily wipe out whole worlds and fleets in moments… Well, they'd either start making their own WMDs, a horrifying thought on its own given how quickly that could spiral out of control and actually be used, or they might ally together against the Federation, as a common enemy, thinking to destroy it first before their worlds were destroyed and their people conquered. Section 31 might then be forced to make those fears a reality and use the Genesis weapons on them, rather than in just their nightmares.
Both were frightening and all too likely possibilities, though I did note, at least internally, that Section 31 had never deployed them during the Dominion War in the shows. Maybe things hadn't yet gotten bad enough to use them? Or they had faith in the disease they'd infected the Founders with? Or perhaps they were only to be deployed if the Dominion began its campaign to conquer the core worlds of the Federation and it had never quite reached that point?
There were many possibilities, but my instincts were telling me they were probably waiting till the Dominion did something truly terrible, like wiping out a Federation world like Earth before doing the same to Cardassia Prime, or the Breen homeworld.
These torpedoes, in many ways, were just as dangerous as subspace weapons, which were a class of directed energy weapons that directly affected subspace. The weapons could produce actual tears in subspace, and were extremely unpredictable in their effects, both short and long-term. These weapons were banned under the second Khitomer Accords, and for very good reasons considering significant enough damage to subspace would make warp travel impossible. Without warp, galactic civilization would grind to a halt. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised, not even a little bit, if Section 31 had a stockpile of the forbidden weapons hidden away somewhere for a rainy day. They were paranoid fuckers who had little to no scruples and a ruthless streak a galaxy wide. However, I also had a feeling that they were the only reason the Federation was still around.
"Section 31 has had access to Genesis torpedoes for more than a hundred years and only the prototype was ever used," T'Maz informed me. "More accurately, a heavily modified and scaled down prototype was what destroyed the Klingon moon of Praxis."
Say what now?!
Talk about turning history on its head. Even with all my knowledge from the shows I had no idea that that was the real story. That had never come out in the shows or had even been hinted at, but part of me felt like it made sense. I knew from a time travel episode of TNG that the Federation had been on the brink of defeat in their war with the Klingons, had it played out for decades. It had always struck me as incredibly convenient that Praxis had exploded crippling the Klingons' ability to wage war and putting their homeworld in danger. If the Klingons ever found out… war was inevitable. It wouldn't matter to them that it had happened so long ago.
Praxis was the sole natural and inhabited moon of Qo'NoS, the Klingon homeworld. More importantly, though, Praxis was used as the Klingon Empire's key energy-production facility in the 23rd century.
In 2293, Praxis was destroyed in a large explosion caused by over-mining and insufficient safety precautions. At least that's what every historical account said happened, though T'Maz had just now told me otherwise.
The explosion of Praxis caused a powerful subspace shockwave and deadly pollution of Qo'noS' ozone, threatening the depletion of the oxygen in that planet's atmosphere within approximately fifty Earth years.
Returning from a mission in the Beta Quadrant, the USS Excelsior experienced the shockwave and determined that Praxis had exploded. They offered assistance, but were denied.
Praxis' decimation resulted in significant political change and changed the future of the quadrant forever, as the Empire had to divert resources from their vast military budget to address the environmental change. Chancellor Gorkon quickly realized that the Empire could not survive the destruction of Praxis and afford continued hostilities with the United Federation of Planets at the same time. As a result, he approached the Federation with an overture of peace. This set into motion a series of events, eventually resulting in a lasting peace between the Federation and the Empire through the Khitomer Accords. In the end it brought about incredible prosperity for both the Federation and the Klingon Empire and arguably the alliance between these two super powers kept the Alpha quadrant relatively stable for more than a century, keeping aggressive expansionist empires like the Cardassians, the Romulans, the Tholians, the Breen and others mostly in check.
It also, arguably, had led to the Federation losing their proverbial edge. That's what I believed, at least. Section 31 had likely had to step up more and more in the century since to keep the Federation from being destroyed by its enemies as a result, as it slowly went soft. The irony was hard to ignore.
"Why did they do that?" I wondered.
T'Maz explained that it had to do with the moon being used to supply the Klingon war machine with the materials it would need to support an invasion of the Federation, which the war hawks like General Chang and others were advocating for. Unfortunately, it was a war and invasion that every projection Section 31 conducted said we wouldn't/couldn't win and every indication was present that the Organians would be unlikely to intervene yet again to stop a war between the Federation and the Klingons.
It troubled me that Section 31 could do something like that, and even after all this time no one seemed to know about it, however I still wasn't truly shocked by its use. In the show, Deep Space 9, they'd attempted to wipe out the Founders with a disease, which would have been the genocide of an entire race. I had a very distinct feeling in that instance that Section 31's projections had also said war was inevitable and that we wouldn't/couldn't win against the Dominion. The scary thing was that with all my knowledge of the Dominion war, from start to finish, I'm almost certain the Federation would not have won without Section 31's actions. Rail against the horrors of genocide, how evil it was, the moral outrage, etc., but it definitely put things into perspective, didn't it? Especially when the alternative was being conquered.
"I have heard that you will be remaining on Bajor for the foreseeable future," the Vulcan woman said out of the blue.
Now that was an interesting change in topic. Given our romantic history I wondered where this was going. I nodded in confirmation and put down the PADD I'd been working on. My suggestions for fighting the Hur'q were mostly along the lines of changing our standard way of waging war, throwing out the traditional alpha quadrant playbook, in order to specifically adapt to the Hur'q and their alien way of waging war. Some ideas were very simple and in the vein of better small unit tactics, rather than big picture planning, but I think I had some game changer ideas.
The Federation needed to be realistic and acknowledge that this wasn't going to be a war like any they'd fought before. They also needed to acknowledge the many ways that the Hur'q/Collectors were vastly superior to us, so I strongly advised doing everything in our power to stop the Hur'q long before it came to ground combat, because as it was, the Federation was at a severe disadvantage there in terms of their baseline capabilities and the ability for the Hur'q to replenish their numbers quickly. We'd also have to do everything in our power to prevent new technologies from falling into Hur'q hands as they'd shown a worrying capability to reverse engineer and use these new technologies.
I also advised changing the rules of engagement immediately by adapting our standard tactics and weaponry to specifically account for the Hur'q's abilities. First strike was the best strike, so they needed to blow them all up with explosives long before the Hur'q even realized a battle was happening given their shitty onboard security, or clandestinely drilling deep into hive ship asteroids enough to plant tricobalt devices that would have a chance at destroying their moon sized ships.
I also recommended abandoning the Federation's traditional energy weapons during any conflict with the Collectors, unless they came up with something better, as they had been shown to have limited effectiveness against their advanced armor. I advised transitioning to advanced projectile weaponry based on rail guns using electromagnetic propulsion, the projectiles being specifically designed to both overcome their bio armor's protection and do as much damage to their unique physiology as possible.
Thinking of Minos and how the weapons there had eradicated their entire race, I also advised developing force multiplier weapons in the form of automated aerial drone weaponry, maybe even cloak capable ones, that could be cheaply replicated by the millions to overcome the Hur'q's numerical advantage. This suggestion was accompanied by a strong warning to include robust protections against hacking or for the weapons to be made too smart.
The list was extensive and would require quite a change in Federation thinking and logistics, though I acknowledged how difficult a fundamental change like this would be for people to accept. I also acknowledged the logistical obstacles to effect such large-scale changes and strongly encouraged any new weapons to be fully replicable, with as much aversion in the design process to using non-replicable components as was possible. We needed to supply every man, woman, and child on a planet with weapons that would be effective against the Collectors if the fighting came to ground combat.
I had worried that my suggestions would not be well received given how unorthodox they were in this day and age, but my Section 31 colleagues were visibly excited at them, already thinking of possible designs adapted from various race's historical databases. The Federation had forgotten so much of this basic warfare stuff, or perhaps more fundamentally, how to adapt their weapons and tactics to deal with an enemy superior to them in many ways and who fought with a very different playbook.
Ironically, given my recent thoughts on the events of the Dominion War, I'd also suggested a bioweapon be developed, specifically targeted to kill those of the Hur'q race that could be deployed on an occupied planet or on their planet ships. Clearing a Hur'q vessel of life would give us a lot of their technology to study and reverse engineer once all the Hur'q onboard were dead. T'Maz definitely perked up at the idea of capturing a ship intact, not even balking at the need to develop and use a bioweapon to do it. We had quite a bit of data from my scans and the study of the corpses we'd left behind on that new colony site, so it may be possible to develop something viable, but live subjects would be required to know for sure. The possibility that I had put the idea of a bioweapon in the minds of Section 31 and that would eventually lead to them targeting the Founders with such a thing had occurred to me; I just didn't care.
Unfortunately, some of my suggestions/methods only worked for someone like me, someone whose physical capabilities had been genetically enhanced and wasn't afraid to use extreme violence when threatened. If a full-scale invasion of the Alpha quadrant occurred, most of the people who would be forced into fighting the Hur'q would be civilians, normal people, normal people with no additional training or experience with combat. It was unlikely in the extreme that such normal folks would be able to kill a Hur'q with a sword and survive to tell the tale. They just didn't have that killer and ruthless mindset needed, much less the raw strength and speed, though the survivors would get there in time.
The Federation just wasn't in the right mindset yet. Stealthily planting a bomb on a Hur'q ship before battle even happened? Yeah, right. Using a bio weapon? Bitch, please. The Starfleet types didn't think like I did, and rarely did they ever even set their weapons to kill. Section 31 agents would easily run with my more ruthless and bloody suggestions, but still, I didn't think it would matter much on the whole. When the war got desperate enough, bloody enough, when so many planets and millions of people were killed or eaten by the Hur'q, then the 'normals' in the Federation would finally be ready to do whatever it took to survive. By then, it might be too late. Let's just hope that the Federation's insane luck would hold once again and save them from the abyss.
"I don't think I can help much more here," I admitted to my fellow agent. "Think I'll go try some of those holo-training programs you mentioned."
That would be a better use of my time.
"If you will allow it, I will join you. I would like to show you something," T'Maz said.
Well, color me intrigued.
XXXXX
Holodeck 2. Cloaked Section 31 Ship. Name: Classified. Outside the Bajoran System.
Further lending credence to my guess that this was an Intrepid-class ship was the familiarity I had with the holodeck design that T'Maz had led me to. Unlike the holodecks on the Enterprise, which were giant black rooms with flat walls and a square grid pattern of bright yellow orange lines on every surface, only the floor and ceiling had that familiar (and famous) grid pattern. The walls, on the other hand, were the same as I'd seen in Star Trek: Voyager with a lattice work of silver gray holo-emitters. The Enterprise was an older ship compared to Voyager, so the difference in technology made some sense and probably explained why the holodeck was smaller on Voyager. The more advanced holo-emitters were able to accomplish the same immersive environment in a smaller space.
"What did you want to show me, T'Maz?" I asked the beautiful Vulcan woman who stood by my side, my eyes continuing to scan the room before coming to rest on her.
"Section 31 has recovered the internal security sensor records from the USS Tikuma. Much of their external sensor records were corrupted or missing due to battle damage or stolen components, but the internal sensor records fared much better," she explained. "Using the sensor records and first-hand reports from several survivors, I have created a holoprogram showing the incursion. We would welcome your thoughts on potential countermeasures should these Collector tactics be used again in the future."
"Interesting. I'd be happy to help," was all I said in response.
And I really was. I had been very curious to know what had happened on the Tikuma and how the crew of the ship had fared, as it could prove to be a telling indicator of how well the rest of Starfleet would fare if it came to war. My hopes weren't exactly high, but the Tikuma was a galaxy-class starship, so she was likely crewed by some of the very best Starfleet had to offer. You didn't get a posting on a galaxy-class ship without being the best of the best in Starfleet.
Turning away from me, T'Maz spoke aloud in the large room, "Computer, run simulation 'T'Maz Program 6B-2, Collector Boarding Incursion, USS Tikuma'. Objective mode."
I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at the overly pedantic program name. The preciseness of Vulcans… Perhaps I should be thankful that she hadn't included the stardate to make it even more specific.
Immediately responding to the command, the near silent and calm atmosphere of the holodeck was filled with the chaos of a starship in the midst of an emergency. The red alert claxons were blaring, the lights dimmed and flickered randomly as the ship was struck by energy weapons. I could practically taste the acrid smoke in the air caused by electrical shorts and damaged components. The ship itself felt like it was shaking apart and I found myself bending my knees to stay on my feet as the extreme evasive maneuvers strained the limits of the ship's inertial dampers. A few holographic crewmen had been knocked to the ground by a few sharp impacts that they had been unprepared for and others were giving the injured aid.
The room we were in was the main shuttle bay, if I wasn't mistaken. As the Tikuma was a galaxy-class starship it was indistinguishable from the Enterprise, beyond a few different markings here and there. The space was cavernous, multiple decks high, and I was struck again by how inadequate the shows had been in depicting the sheer immensity of this space due to budgetary concerns, I'm sure. There were a dozen or more shuttles in view in their various berths, cargo transporter pads on some walls, storage areas, repair stations with spare part storage and tools, photon torpedo racks, an observation lounge and large elevated transparent aluminum clad control booths to supervise operations in this space. There were multiple entrances, and ladders and stairs to the upper levels. It was fucking huge. This was definitely the main shuttle bay on a Galaxy-class starship.
"I'm assuming the incursion begins here in the main shuttle bay?" I asked T'Maz, as we had been 'placed' in a corner of the large shuttle bay, probably because the space we now occupied was free from any action that was about to take place and T'Maz had asked for objective mode.
"Yes."
Moments later the main shuttle bay doors, massive doors that accordioned up to allow shuttles to exit the ship were struck several times with energy weapons and blown up, breaking up into pieces. As the atmospheric containment forcefield had not been activated prior to the doors 'opening', the room began to explosively depressurize, and anything not nailed down was sucked out into space, including all of the crew members that had been in the room and too close to the door. 'Luckily' some of them had been struck and killed by flying debris so they hadn't died as a result of exposure to the vacuum of space, which was a truly terrible way to go. It was a small comfort, but it was still a comfort. As we were in objective mode, we had not been affected by all this and thus sucked out into space, thankfully.
The magnetic containment field activated seconds later, arresting the movement of unsecured items being sucked out into space, but the damage had been done.
Just as it had been designed to do, meaning allowing matter to pass through yet keeping the atmosphere inside, three Collector ships of a type I had never seen before passed through the blue hued containment field and landed on the deck.
"Computer, pause," I commanded, instantly bringing this chaos to a halt as everything froze, even the visible movement of smoke in the air. Trippy. "Do we know how they managed to breach the ship's shields to board here?"
"No. Unfortunately, the data is inconclusive. However, we believe that the Collectors targeted the portion of the shields around the main shuttle bay resulting in a partial shield failure. Possibly through coordinated weapon's fire on that portion of the shield grid, or potentially through suicide ramming attacks by their fighters. We suspect the former," T'Maz answered.
"Hmm…" I responded thinking on her answer. That would certainly fit the tactics I'd seen personally, though they had used those suicide tactics to destroy the Klingon ship in question, not to board it. "I agree with your assessment. When we witnessed them using that suicide ramming attack that was with the intention of destroying that Klingon ship; I don't think that's what happened here exactly. The chances for causing damage severe enough as to make boarding the Tikuma impossible is just too high with that tactic. They were a lot more careful here as they didn't want to destroy the ship, they wanted to loot and pillage from it, which is probably why the ship survived as long as it did against such a giant Collector ship."
Moving away from our corner, I approached one of the three Collector ships that had yet to disgorge the Collector warriors that were almost certainly inside waiting to be let loose in the ship, and ran my eyes and hands over the sharp pointed bow of the ship.
"I've never seen this design of Collector ship before; there certainly wasn't one like this on our mission, T'Maz, or one like this that I saw on that hive ship my team boarded," I pointed out to T'Maz who had come over to examine the ship too. "This bow design is interesting, isn't it? I can tell its reinforced beyond the norm, meant to withstand extreme forces without crumpling or breaking. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some shield disruption technology built into it; that's what I would do. My best guess, is that these ships were purpose designed for boarding actions, to pierce either a ship's shields and enter via a location like this, a shuttle bay, or if that failed, to pierce the hull of a ship somewhere less protected, like a knife to a soft belly to create their own entrance to board from."
T'Maz looked thoughtful at my words.
"Your observations are sound and merit closer study," she answered, before pulling a PADD from somewhere and began furiously entering data into it. "Do you have any suggestions for countering such a tactic?"
I sighed, carefully walking around the Collector ship to examine it from more angles.
"Ideally, after capturing a version of this ship, I'd examine the bow closely and determine what the Collectors have done to this ship. If there is shield disruption technology, figure out how it works and how the shields on Federation vessels can be modified to combat it. Examine whatever sensor records that exist and see if there are any clues there," I suggested. "Of course, we don't have a captured Collector ship to examine, so let's assume entering from the shuttle bay is a tactic that they prefer when trying to capture people and technology. Study the handheld weapons that I provided to you, their shipboard weapons probably share some foundational similarities, even if scaled up to a huge degree. The shuttle bay doors could be replaced or reinforced with something that would better withstand being shot at with Collector style weapons. The doors surviving a little longer, even a few seconds, could prevent boarding from this location."
"Sound suggestions," T'Maz responded, not even looking up as she continued to write on her PADD. "Should we resume the simulation?"
"Yes, let's see what happens next," I said before returning to our 'safe' corner in the shuttle bay. "Computer, resume."
Large doors opened and a ramp extended from the rear of the Collector ships disgorging exactly 15 Collector warriors per ship. Yes, I counted. They appeared to be a Collector warrior type, 7 feet tall, two claws and a thumb on each hand, spikes in various places, including two downward facing claw-like protrusions on each forearm. They each had four eyes, two glowing yellow eyes on each side of its face, forward facing, angled on a 45-degree angle towards the 'nose.' These were aliens built for war and would be exceedingly deadly in close quarters combat. They were more than a match for most races given their other enhancements.
Keeping my eyes on the Collectors in front of me, I turned slightly to the right to address T'Maz, who had stopped tapping on her PADD for the moment.
"This must be a troop carrier variant for the warrior class, designed for boarding actions or surface warfare. Notice how they exited from the rear of the ship with a ramp, and how the ship's weapons are oriented forward? The ship was designed with expectations of resistance coming from the front. The ship itself is capable of firing forward on attackers and serving as a protective shield for the warriors to exit and disperse, protected from fire."
The furious tapping on her PADD began again.
"Note how the ship has side exits too? If the Collectors breached a ship somewhere where they couldn't land, like a knife to the belly with the hilt left outside the body, side exits would be required to let troops out and keep atmosphere in. They'd be less protected from fire, but you've got to do what you've got to do; the Collectors still need to breathe."
The Collectors had fanned out from the ship and were moving in a loose formation to doors that would lead them into the rest of the ship.
"Computer, pause. Did you notice how exactly 15 warriors came out of each ship? It's very regimented, precise, methodical. Implanted memories of strategy and tactics, maybe? Also note how these ships could easily hold a lot more bodies. Why aren't they full? I would guess they need the extra space for captured prisoners and technology. Computer, resume."
Before the Collectors reached the exits to the shuttle bay, the Tikuma's security teams entered at a run, three teams of five, mostly composed of humans, of course, but there were a few non-humans in the group. They were only outnumbered 3 to 1. To their credit, the Starfleet security teams opened fire immediately, which suggested that they had some sense in their heads given the extremely disadvantageous situation they found themselves in, rather than wasting time calling for the Collectors to surrender or drop their weapons or some such nonsense. It was still unclear if we even could communicate with them at this point.
I had to sigh at the fact that they were only carrying hand phasers though. Perhaps I was being unfair here. The security teams had arrived relatively quickly after the incursion, to their credit, and it was not standard procedure to carry heavier weapons like phaser rifles onboard Starfleet vessels, so perhaps they hadn't had time to stop by the armory and equip themselves with more powerful weapons.
The firefight was predictable in many ways, given the circumstances and the standard training Starfleet gave its people. After the first few members of the security team went down, the rest hid behind cover, taking shots at the Collectors. The Collector warriors didn't have a lot of cover to hide behind, having left the vicinity of their ships, but it didn't really matter as their armor easily tanked the phaser bolts the panicked and scared security teams were actually hitting them with. Accuracy had much to be desired, no surprise there.
"Stun has no effect!" one of the smarter security officers yelled. "Set phasers to kill!"
I rolled my eyes and sighed, causing T'Maz to look over at me quizzically.
"I know standard Starfleet procedure is to keep weapons set to stun, but it took far too long to realize that their weapons' fire was having no effect and to adapt their tactics," I complained. "If I had been on this security team, seeing how much of numerical disadvantage there was, I'd have boarded one of these shuttles and used its weapons on maximum to fire on them or run them over. Good luck shrugging that off. I recommend that Starfleet issue standard orders when dealing with the Collectors to have weapons set on maximum from the start and that phaser rifles be used, rather than hand phasers."
"Agreed," T'Maz said, tapping on her PADD, after glancing at the many shuttles in the room that could have been powered up and their onboard weapons used on the boarders, at least the ones that had any. The majority of Starfleet shuttles weren't armed, to my chagrin and non-surprised disappointment. "Perhaps security teams could board these shuttles as a counter boarding tactic when engaging the Collectors."
"A very good idea, but did you notice that the Collector ships themselves did not fire their weapons, even when they could have? They wanted live prisoners, but they won't stay idle if the shuttles start firing on their teams. The Collector ships need to be fired on first."
In the time we had spoken, the firefight was over. None of the Collector warriors had been felled and every one of the ship's security that had been dispatched to fight this incursion was on the ground. Several were very obviously dead, having holes burnt through their bodies that you could see through, most were stunned however. With efficiency, T'Maz and I watched as stunned bodies were dragged by a foot into the Collector ships. Some of these bodies left an unbroken trail of blood from some injury they'd suffered when they'd fallen to the ground stunned. The Collectors didn't appear to be all that picky when choosing to take either living or dead crew onto their ship.
One such crew was a stunning blonde haired human woman, who in my time would have been one of those Norwegian blonde-haired blue-eyed models that Americans like me found so sexy. I grimaced when I recognized her. The last time I had seen her was in the gunsight of my rifle onboard that Collector hive ship, her screams of terror being horrifically cut off as the Collector 'Queen' had bit her head off, drank the liquids from her body, then swallowed her whole.
"I recognize that woman," I pointed out quietly, pointing at the woman being dragged into the ship.
With an enviable lack of emotion, T'Maz nodded in recognition, "Lieutenant Inger Johanson; with your video footage we were able to identify her. She was a security officer posted to the Tikuma and had served with distinction in that position for three years. Her husband and two children on Earth have been notified of her death," she informed me stoically, though I wish she hadn't given me even more information to personalize her. "Do you have any suggestions for improvements?"
Turning my eyes away from the now identified Lt. Johansen, and my thoughts away from the gruesome fate that had befallen the woman, I ordered my thoughts. The Collectors had finished their work, taking out new teams as they ran into the shuttle bay before dispersing into the rest of the ship, one team of five Collectors staying with each ship, six teams going into the depths of the Starfleet vessel.
"Let's start with the shuttle bay itself. I don't know the full capabilities of the Collector armor these warriors were wearing. Does their armor provide them with air and pressure in vacuum? Does their physiology allow them to live in or withstand vacuum for long? I'm going to assume the worst, and that they can. If this was a race like the Klingons or the Romulans, I'd have dropped the magnetic containment field keeping this bay pressurized," I advised, gesturing to the blue hued magnetic containment field keeping the room protected from the vacuum of space. "It's a lot more difficult to board a ship in vacuum, assuming they aren't sucked out into space."
"I will task the research teams examining the armor in our possession with answering those questions."
"Ask them if the armor has magnetic boots or some equivalent too," I suggested. "Even if you can't space them, the security teams on the Tikuma could have turned off the gravity in the shuttle bay. As they float in the air, unless their physiology allows them to adapt quicker or they have training for fighting in a zero-g environment, they'll be relatively easy targets, at least for a little while; a ship's security team could snipe them from the entrances."
"An intriguing idea."
"Alternately, turn up the gravity in the room to crush them to the plating."
"There are multiple built-in safeguards on Starfleet vessels to prevent a lethal increase in gravity like you are envisioning," T'Maz reasonably pointed out.
"Then build in overrides!" I responded vehemently.
"I do not state this as a condemnation of your suggestion, merely a practical obstacle at the present time," T'Maz responded.
I nodded. She was right.
"Even a lower, non-lethal increase in gravity to hamper their movements would be useful and would somewhat level the physical disparity between Collector warriors and most Federation races if selectively applied. I'd lower and raise the gravity to create as much confusion and chaos as possible."
"Impressive," she said. "I do not believe the Federation has ever used such a tactic before."
"Federation forces need armor. I know armor designs have been used in the past, it's time to dust them off, upgrade them, and modify them to work well against Collector weapons. I'd also look into adding automated weapon turrets in all points of entry and corridors near vital areas, as well as lethal forcefields. Task your scientists with researching what energy level is required to overcome their armor to stun or kill them."
"I will add these research subjects to the priority list. With regard to the automated weapons and lethal force fields, most Section 31 facilities and ships already have such defenses in place. Unfortunately, Starfleet is unlikely to agree to measures that they would view as extreme at the present time," T'Maz reasonably pointed out something that I already knew in my heart.
"No argument here, I know it'll take a lot of pain and suffering before they wise up and get serious."
The fighting had long since ended in the shuttle bay, with only unconscious bodies and technology being dragged to the doorway. The teams left inside would then drag the bodies or tech into the waiting ships.
"Let's move into the corridors, I'm curious to see how things went there, but I suspect I already know," I said.
"Computer, move us to a Collector team," T'Maz ordered and our perspective immediately changed. We were placed in a large open doorway slightly out of the way, while crisscrossing beams of different colored energy were being exchanged between the ship's crew and the Collectors.
The Collectors moved through the corridors like a scythe through grass, barely slowing down as they shot any resistance. The fighters weren't even ship security forces anymore, they were rank and file officers from various scientific departments, as well as civilians, even some children as young as ten years old had been armed and were trying to fight back. And wasn't that something; perhaps it was a sign of things to come. The thick beams of orange red energy and the higher pitched frequency of the discharge from the Federation people's weapons told me that these weapons had been set to kill. Good for them.
"Computer, move us down the corridor to the cross section," I ordered, the world changing around us so that it appeared as if we had moved, when in fact we actually hadn't moved at all.
"Concentrate your fire on a single target, or shoot for their weapons, not the body, their armor is too strong!" I heard a Vulcan science officer calmy advise in a whisper.
It looked like this cross section was to be the site of an impromptu ambush of the Collector team; I approved. As the Collectors stepped into the 'kill zone' multiple Tikuma crew and residents fired from each side. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough, the Collectors using their fellows as shields to soak up fire, eventually threw the dead body of their team member into a group of people and moved into melee range, killing at will, sometimes with their weapon, but also with their claws. Only two of the team of five Collectors had been killed by the ambush, against a group double their size.
Only a ten-year-old human boy remained alive, sitting on the floor frozen in terror with a phaser in hand, as if hiding from the monsters all around him, tears streaming down his face. One of the Collectors made a sound like a laugh, then knelt down to gently wrest the phaser away from the two hands of the little boy who was gripping it so tightly. I just assumed he'd be taken back to the ships, but instead, in a move that was lightning fast, the Collector's clawed hand struck out and severed the boy's head from his shoulders in a fountain of blood and gore.
I was shocked.
Was I surprised? I didn't know. I probably shouldn't be. The Collectors had been extremely brutal to the Vulcans, after all, but that was when they were trying to retrieve that rift device.
"T'Maz, I need to blow off some steam. Perhaps you'd like to observe? You may learn a few things."
She only nodded.
'Let's show them how a real killer operates,' I thought, a wicked smile on my lips. 'Let the hunt begin.'
XXXXX
I checked my holographic weaponry, which I had to describe to the computer in serious detail in order to reproduce a reasonable facsimile in this program. Most of my equipment was of a non-standard design, after all.
I had my armor on with attached portable shield, my 23rd century upgraded phaser, a plasma pulse rifle, a bandolier of grenades, and my trusty sword.
"Computer, reload the simulation, participant mode for me, objective mode for T'Maz. Begin simulation 1 minute prior to Collector incursion into the main shuttle bay. My role will be security chief, USS Tikuma. No, belay that," I corrected immediately. What was the value in making myself a part of the crew? I didn't want to restrict myself just for realism's sake; that ship had sailed already. "Place me in the shuttle bay's main control room."
"Understood, program ready," the computer dutifully responded.
"Begin," I ordered.
Instantly I was 'moved' from the ship's corridors back to the main shuttle bay and was placed in front of the ship's shuttle bay control station. The ship was still in combat, still suffering the effects of battle, but there were no Collector ships in the bay and no one had yet been sucked out into space.
I had exactly one minute before the bay doors were breached by Collector weapons fire.
Pulling up the Tikuma's inventory of shuttles, I found the shuttle bay contained the standard complement of shuttles for a galaxy-class ship that I had been expecting after having once read The Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual in another time and dimension.
The standard complement for this class of ship included ten standard personnel shuttles, ten cargo shuttles, and five special purpose craft. The Tikuma also carried twelve two-person shuttlepods for extravehicular and short-range use.
Operating rules required that at least eleven shuttle vehicles be maintained at operational status at all times. Cruise Mode operating rules required one standard shuttlecraft and one shuttlepod to be at urgent standby at all times, available for launch at five minutes' notice. Four additional shuttlecraft are always available on immediate standby (thirty minutes to launch), and an additional six vehicles are maintained for launch with twelve hours' notice. Red Alert Mode operating rules require two additional shuttles to be brought to urgent standby, and all nine remaining operational vehicles to be maintained at immediate standby.
As we were most definitely at red alert, that meant I had 15 shuttles ready for use right now, a mix of type 5, 7, 15, and the Galileo-type shuttlecraft, and a few type 15 shuttlepods. Luckily none of them needed to do more than activate and power up and maybe hover and turn a bit, certainly not go to warp or navigate in open space.
Writing a program on the fly to remote control all fifteen ships and slave their operations to this console, I sent a command for an immediate powerup and to begin hovering as soon as I released the docking clamps holding them secure to the deck. The 5 shuttles that had twin type 4 phaser emitters installed were readied and powered up in record time. All across the bay, in their various berths, I saw the neon blue nacelles light up.
Looking over my shoulder at what I was doing, T'Maz couldn't help but offer comment, "Would the Tikuma's crew have had the time to carry out this action or the requisite technical skill to write such a program?"
"Sue me, T'Maz. I took some creative license here," I groused, not taking my eyes off the console in front of me as I started to write simple commands that could be executed when I chose. "I only gave myself a minute of lead time here. I am writing this program on the fly, so give me a break. Let's assume my recommendations are adopted on all Starfleet ships, even secretly, and what I'm doing has been streamlined and prepared beforehand for easy execution."
"That is reasonable. Five seconds to breach," T'Maz unnecessarily reported.
Talk about cutting it short, I thought, before the shuttle bay doors were once again destroyed and the bay depressurized before the containment fields reactivated automatically. I was protected in the control room, the airtight doors closed by the computer automatically when the breach was detected and the shuttle bay started to lose atmosphere.
The Collector ships landed once again and the warriors started to disembark, fanning out once normal atmosphere was reestablished.
I released the docking clamps of the 15 shuttles under my command. They quietly rose into the air a couple feet and rotated slightly to face the Collector ships. Of course, this did not go unnoticed and the Collectors immediately started firing on the shuttles. As powerful as their weapons were, they were still shooting at shields meant to tank shots from other ships, so damage was minimal.
With a smile on my face, I hit the bright red blinking button. From five of my slaved shuttles, the only ones with weapons installed, twin beams of phaser energy crossed the short distance and struck what I thought was the cockpit of the Collector ships, two per ship, except the last. Good luck firing the ship's weapons if the cockpit was destroyed and the pilots dead. Several shots took care of two of the ships. Seeing this, I turned several of my non-armed shuttles into ballistic weapons, gunning their engines right into the remaining operational ship, severely damaging it and pushing it out of the shuttle bay through the containment field.
Out of the 45 Collectors that had disembarked the ship, only 10 remained.
Stepping out of the control room, I put my pulse rifle to my shoulder and called out, "Computer, execute Gothic 1!"
Gravity immediately turned off everywhere except on the catwalk connected to the raised control booth. The Collectors in the bay began floating wildly into the air without the pull of gravity to keep them on the deck, the sudden loss of gravity confusing them.
Cackling maniacally, I started shooting the Collectors floating in the air, their flailing limbs and random uncontrolled shots that only occasionally came close to hitting me was delicious. Given the distance involved, I had plenty of time with my enhanced reflexes to lean to the side or sidestep a shot that came too close. Even better was the fact that their shots were serving as propulsion in the zero-gravity environment I'd caused in the shuttle bay, each shot causing them to fly into the ceilings and walls as I continued to kill them one after another. It was like shooting clay pigeons back in my old world, where I had had to lead targets a bit, though energy bolts traveled much faster than buckshot.
Deciding to have a little fun, I pulled one of my plasma grenades from my bandolier, twisted the ring dial for proximity detonation mode, anti-personnel, and tossed it towards the area where a few Collectors had bunched up. Without the influence of gravity there was no arc to the grenade's flight path, it simply went in a straight line towards the group and exploded when its proximity sensor detected bodies. It exploded in mid-air like a miniature sun, incinerating the group in a spherical plume of superheated plasma.
Noticing many of the remaining Collectors were high in the air, I again called out, "Computer, execute Gothic 2!"
Gravity immediately reasserted itself to two times earth normal, the maximum the current software would allow, and they fell hard to the deck of the shuttle bay, injuring themselves badly, hopefully killing some, though my luck had never been that good. I took no chances as continued to send streams of energy pulses unerringly into every Collector body I could see. I fired until my rifle went dry. I threw it to the side for now.
"Computer, resume normal gravity."
'It was time to do some knife work,' I thought, before jumping off the ledge and pulling my sword with my right hand, my left holding my upgraded phaser pistol.
XXXXX
T'Maz stoically watched as I cut off the 15th Collector head to make sure that they were really dead. If I had been paying closer attention, I might even have seen the look of approval in her eyes and perhaps a good helping of arousal. Two of the Collectors had had some life left in them but severing a humanoid's head from their body was a very reliable way to ensure that no one was faking being dead. It wasn't foolproof, but I didn't want to expend the energy necessary for vaporizing each body.
"Would you like to engage in simulated combat in the corridors?" T'Maz asked.
'Did I want that?' I thought for a few seconds before shaking my head.
"No, they broke up into small teams. The tight confines would be ideal for force field traps, gravity tricks, and grenades to wipe out groups. Where I didn't use grenades I'd try for ambushes, getting in melee range with my pistol and sword."
"I see," T'Maz responded. "Was this a realistic simulation, Gothic?"
"I'm not sure what you mean. Can you elaborate please?" I asked, teasing her a bit.
"I believe you are well aware of what I mean, Gothic," T'Maz said.
Was she giving me the stink eye?
Sighing, I gave her the answer she expected, "Perhaps it was unrealistic in some ways, I admit. I certainly wouldn't have known exactly what was going to happen or have had even a minute lead time to prepare for the incursion into the shuttle bay. The Starfleet crew tasked with repelling this incursion wouldn't have my weapons loadout. The Collectors may have responded better or worse, quicker or slower, or been able to adapt to my tactics better. The computer did have to make some extrapolations based on available data," I admitted.
"We are working on obtaining sensor data from the Romulans' recent battle with the Collectors. With additional data we can better anticipate Collector tactics, responses, and capabilities to increase this simulation's accuracy," T'Maz informed me.
I just nodded in response.
"And yes, I doubt more than a couple people on this entire ship would have had the technical capability to write such a complex program on the fly. That said, these are viable tactics to repel a future Collector shipboard incursion now that we know that this is one of their tactics. Starfleet can install some weapons turrets in the main shuttle bay or outfit their security teams with heavier weapons. Section 31 can also improve upon and distribute the program I used to remote control the shuttles and change the gravity, assuming you pay me a licensing fee for its use," I said with a wink. "If you can convince Starfleet, I'd have shipboard security, at a minimum, training with this holoprogram. Feel free to suggest the use of my tactics."
I swear, unless it was a trick of the light, T'Maz rolled her eyes at me.
"Your insistence on monetary renumeration is both illogical and anachronistic," T'Maz griped.
"Say that the next time you're onboard my badass ship and sipping tropical drinks on my private island, next to my luxurious mansion," I said, winking at her. I swear she rolled her eyes again!
"Agent Sloan has authorized me to pay you for your consultant services today, as I believe he called it, as offering us tactical advice was not part of the deal that was reached for Section 31 to purchase the Collector data and weapons. Would 100,000 bars of gold pressed latinum be sufficient renumeration for the tactical advice and use of the program you created?" she asked.
For some reason, I had actually never considered getting paid for today. It felt almost wrong to get paid for all this considering how much fun I'd had, but if they were offering, then hell yes I was going to take the money!
"150 thousand bars would be better."
"Agreed," she immediately responded, with no hint she had even considered haggling with me before tapping on the PADD she'd been using this whole time. "The agreed upon sum has been transferred to your personal account."
'Life was good!' I thought, before the image of that ten-year-old boy flashed through my mind and my mood plummeted.
Sigh…
XXXXX
Moon Base. Jeraddo. Bajoran System.
My mind was whirling with all the numbers and facts supplied to me by Section 31 about the Occupation and for once it was so very clear, like a veil had been pulled from my eyes and I could see its full bloody purpose. The historical notes and reports chronicling how the decision to invade Bajor was ultimately reached were irrelevant in the modern day, at least from a practical standpoint, but damn if it didn't put it all in perspective. With my neural control helmet on it was like I was swimming through a sea of data like a shark, connecting disparate datapoints to truly see what the purpose of it all had been.
I could practically see the flow of latinum, processed ore of all kinds, and refined dilithium that made the Occupation of Bajor so worthwhile to the Cardassians, despite the many hardships the Resistance had caused the occupiers over the years. I could see all the sums in my mind, the bloody profit and loss statement. It was an accounting ledger written in a sea of Bajoran blood and misery, a ledger that justified the rape of a planet and the deaths of millions of Bajorans over the past half a century.
I also knew all about the shipments of valuable minerals from the strip mining of the planet, all being dutifully brought to Cardassia Prime by transports leaving from Terok Nor, as it was still known, the shipments picking up in frequency months before the Federation War had begun. I now knew the times the ships would depart, their registry numbers, their planned courses, their defenses and armaments, their crew manifests, everything. The Resistance would have a hard time failing to succeed with this information.
The source of all this information was Section 31 and was likely partly in recompense for all the information I'd recently given them on the Hur'q, but it likely had far more to do with that organization wanting this war with the Cardassians to be brought to a close as quickly as possible, so that the Federation (and Section 31) could focus its attention solely on a far more serious threat. There would be grave consequences to this information falling into Cardassian hands, of course, should I or my ship be captured, but I'd like to think I'd proven myself both a reliable and successful operative, one that could be trusted to keep this information safe and secure.
Section 31's information on the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor was deep and comprehensive. I now knew down to the slip of latinum just how much profit was being made from mining, year by year, going back over fifty years to the very beginning of the Occupation. I even knew how much was spent in salaries to pay Cardassian personnel in the Bajoran system, the cost of each piece of equipment and its maintenance, from warships to a simple spanner, how much it cost to train and replace Resistance-killed soldiers and destroyed equipment, pretty much the entire Bajoran occupation economy was known to me now in all its bloody detail. Costs were up 25% since I was deployed to Bajor, I noticed with pride.
This information packet, interestingly enough, also included planet-wide deep scan sensor surveys the Cardassians had conducted over the past 50 years identifying valuable mineral deposits to mine in the future and chronicling what had already been extracted. This information, in particular, would be incredibly valuable to me personally in selecting my reward in land after the Occupation was over. I'd be able to choose land that was both beautiful and rich, in terms of valuable minerals that could be mined in quantity. I took a few deep breathes and began mentally taking notes. I don't know how long I 'typed' in the end.
I was using my enhanced intelligence and memory to not only understand how the Occupation worked on a financial level, but also how to bring down the system in the simplest and most efficient way possible. In any complex system there were failure points that could be targeted and attacked, supports that needed to be weakened before it all came crashing down under its own weight.
After considerable analysis, I concluded that the best way, the cheapest and most efficient way, to make the Occupation too unprofitable to be worthwhile for the Cardassians, was not to blow things up on Bajor, or assassinate high level, but ultimately cheap to replace Cardassian officers, but instead to play pirate by attacking the ore freighters themselves. Those were the highest value targets in the system. The ships themselves were semi-valuable, of course, but it was the cargo itself that was truly rich.
Bajor was a source of raw materials and profit needed to fuel and pay for the Cardassian war machine, absolutely, but the Occupation itself didn't much profit the powerful figures in the Cardassian civilian government, as all the resources and profits ultimately realized went into the building of more warships (and the pockets of higher ups in the Central Command) and not to improving anything on Cardassia Prime. This was most likely why the Union non-military leadership would be the strongest proponents arguing for it to come to an end, rather than the military powers who liked things as they were and were getting fat and rich off the corruption in the process.
So, if I played pirate and captured a few freighters, ideally stealing entire ships and their cargoes for myself with my handy tractor beam, it would be a much bigger blow to the spoon heads' bottom line than endlessly killing their cheap and replaceable soldiers or blowing up the odd administrative building or factory. I even had a ship well suited to such attacks, in terms of speed, armament, and capability.
Considering this kind of mission was well beyond the Resistance's ability to carry out at the moment, I'm sure I could make a deal with them whereby they'd get something like 20% of the profits if I was allowed to keep both the ships and the cargo. Section 31 would likely even be willing to buy the Cardassian ships and ore off me for future operations, if I needed an easy buyer to unload them with. Any ships they didn't want I could probably sell on the black market or cannibalize to make improvements to my own ship. Alternately I could hold onto them for a little while and then sell or lease them to the Bajoran Provisional government once that came into existence.
It was unlikely that the attacks would be allowed to continue for too long, as the spoon heads would eventually reassign their warships to escort duty to protect their now endangered and extremely valuable freighters, but that would also benefit the Resistance I was allied with as those ships then wouldn't be free to do other things. The Cardassian military as a whole had the entire Union to police and protect, an unstable border with other powers, a still ongoing war with the Federation to fight, and like all totalitarian regimes, it had to devote significant resources to the task of suppressing its own citizens. The bottom line, though, was that whatever warships currently assigned to Bajor and the Occupation were all that they were going to get to protect those freighters. In other words, a warship reassigned to protect a freighter far from Bajoran space would no longer be available to fight the Resistance or restrict our movements on Bajor itself, or used in the Federation/Cardassian war.
Actually, destroying Terok Nor itself would be the easiest way to end the Occupation, as that would prevent any further ore processing, would kill most of the Occupation's top leaders in one fell swoop, and would really mess up the local chain of command for a long while. The problem was that I had no easy way of doing that, and I didn't want to do it anyway, as it would mess up the timeline in a big way that I couldn't predict. Plus, such an attack would represent such an escalation in hostilities that the Cardassians would have to respond in kind. It might be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back in terms of bringing down the full wrath of the spoon heads upon Bajor in retaliation. Say with orbital bombardment and a systematic extermination of the Bajoran people.
I was brought out of my very long train of thought by a polite feminine cough.
"Excuse me, Gothic," Kira said as she entered the cockpit of my ship. "Sorry to bother you, but… it's important."
I sighed, mentally clearing my screen and pulling off the neural interface helmet.
"You know, I wonder why I even bother to lock the door, given that anyone can just seem to override the mechanism," I complained good naturedly.
I really needed to look into getting a better lock. This was the problem with your ship being filled with crafty and devious terrorists. Maybe the Ferengi would have something good? They'd have to to deal with their greedy and devious population.
Since I'd been going over incredibly sensitive information given to me directly by Section 31, naturally I'd sealed myself in the cockpit of my ship. No one could find out about the organization I worked for, even the ladies in my life who I'd gotten very close to. And it wasn't strictly a matter of trust. I trusted them to keep my secrets, I trusted them to watch my back and keep me safe, but for their protection as well as my own it was just safer not to tell them. In the future I may ask Sloan for permission to tell them, but without his explicit permission I had no idea what Section 31 would do and wouldn't risk it. They'd probably not kill me, but who knows what they'd do to my girls…probably a lethal transporter accident or an engine malfunction or some such nonsense.
Kira looked very uncomfortable right now, and I didn't think it had anything to do with her entering this part of the ship when clearly, I had wanted some privacy. We'd been running missions non-stop for weeks on Bajor and this was the first opportunity in the weeks since I'd been given this information that I had time to actually sit down and study it. I figured she was going to ask me for something I may not be inclined to do. Plus, she was fully dressed and looking grumpy, so I knew that whatever it was she was going to request, it wouldn't be anything simple.
"So, what brings you here?" I asked, gesturing for her to take the co-pilot's seat next to me while I swiveled my chair to fully face her, showing her that I was giving her my complete attention.
Kira took a seat before saying anything.
"Shakaar recently came into possession of hard evidence that there is an important Bajoran prisoner of war in Cardassian hands," she informed me. "Have you heard of Li Nalas?"
My mind jumped to several episodes of DS9 as I recalled both the official history and what I'd seen on TV. As I recalled, Li Nalas was this poor guy, who, through sheer dumb luck, killed a Cardassian Gul who had been responsible for the massacre of half a dozen Bajoran villages, and who was elevated afterwards to become a famous resistance leader because of it. A role he very reluctantly accepted because to do otherwise would cause his own people to lose hope and ultimately set back their cause.
He was supposed to be rescued by Kira and Miles O'Brien during either season 1 or 2 of DS9, I couldn't recall which, though I knew it was at least a full year after the Occupation had ended. Only it seemed that events were now happening much earlier than expected. I had no idea why, but if I had to guess, when Section 31 was gathering intelligence on the Occupation, they may have discovered that Li Nalas was alive and where he was being held, and had sent that information/evidence in some likely roundabout and extremely convoluted way to the Bajoran Resistance, thus aiding them without getting too involved or it being capable of being traced back to them. They probably assumed having a famous Resistance leader back would galvanize the rebels to new heights. They were probably right too, given the fervor I had seen in the show when the man was rescued.
"If I recall correctly, he was one of the major Resistance leaders not that long ago," I said. "He was reported killed in action, though."
That was the official story anyway. Of course, I knew better.
"His body was never found and this proves otherwise," Kira informed me enthusiastically as she held out a Bajoran earring for me to take and examine. "Shakaar managed to get it scanned and a genetic analysis of residue found on it matched perfectly to Li's DNA records, it's only a couple months old! Shakaar gave it to me when we were last on Bajor."
I could already see where this was leading, though I was kind of surprised that the earring thing had shown up exactly like in the show. That didn't seem like Section 31's style, so maybe the Prophets were involved too and nudging things along here and there to keep the timeline in some semblance of order. I'd have to keep my eye on that to confirm the suspicion.
"You want our cell to go on a rescue mission, I'm assuming?" I asked, but it was more of a statement knowing Kira.
Even though he was senior in experience and had more respect from the Bajorans as a whole than I did, Shakaar couldn't exactly order me to take this mission on, only suggest and endorse it, as we were both leaders of our own independent Resistance cells. He'd almost certainly have taken this mission on himself if he could, I'm sure, but that was impossible for him as he didn't have a fancy ship to make the journey and deal with any resistance that would inevitably arise, hence handing it off to me and mine. I was the only member of the Resistance who even could leave the system for a mission like this, as my ship was probably the fastest and best armed ship in the system not under Cardassian control.
"Yes," Kira answered flatly. "Shakaar was strongly in favor of it, but he stressed that it was ultimately your decision and that he would support you either way."
'Thanks for your support, Shakaar,' I thought sarcastically. The manipulation here was pretty clear to see.
I spent some time considering the risk/reward ratio for this mission. It was very risky going that far into spoon head territory. We could be killed, or worse, captured, even with the stealth tech I had on my ship. My ship was hard to detect long-range, yes, but it didn't have a freaking cloaking device! At least not yet, I thought, my thoughts turning ruefully to the phase cloak that I had no current means to utilize. What a kick in the nuts that was.
The reward would be a major morale boost for the Resistance and Bajor as a whole, not that they strictly needed it at the moment with the high of liberating Gallitep still fresh in people's minds, but having Li back certainly couldn't hurt. Being credited with the successful rescue of Li Nalas and building a relationship with the man as his rescuer, would be great for me personally, too, and would make me even more famous and loved by the Bajoran people, and thus more likely to be given that General position after the Occupation, the one I'd seen in that vision of the future. Maybe this is what did it, I wondered. On the other hand, sadly, the guy's legend had been exaggerated to an incredible degree and his great influence could impact my own in the future. He could even crack under the unwanted pressure of expectation, especially if he didn't die as quickly as he did in canon; he did try to leave after all. Was it really worth the risk?
"Gothic, the return of Li Nalas to Bajor would mean a lot to the Resistance and to the people. And to me," Kira said, the emotion thick in her voice. "Having a leader everyone trusts and respects will help unite the different cells in our common cause, and once the Cardassians are gone we'll need men like him to hold it all together and lead the rebuilding efforts. You've said it many times before when we've talked, that keeping the peace may be harder than winning the war and that the Bajorans needed to prepare for success, just as they do for failure."
Always nice to have my own words thrown back at me, I thought with a silent chuckle.
Hmm… Well, it would definitely help my reputation if I brought him home, and I'd have the gratitude of a major political figure with influence after the Occupation was over. Plus, if nothing else, Kira would be really grateful to me. Making her happy, made me happy too.
I guess I'd soon have a chance to try out my new stealth probes in the field.
XXXXX
Onboard The Flighty Temptress. Near Cardassia IV.
"Status?" I asked, as I waited for the results of the sensor scans on the Hutet Labor Camp on Cardassia IV.
We were in the fucking belly of the beast at the moment, in the Cardassian home system, and I couldn't help but worry that I'd made a mistake taking this mission on. Currently we were parked inside a huge asteroid, running on low power to make detection more difficult, not far from Cardassia IV, but still very much in the heart of Cardassian territory.
"These new stealth probes work like a dream," Ro said, in awe of their abilities. "So far, there is no indication that we've been detected; none of the patrol craft have changed course or directed any active sensor scans in our direction."
Section 31 made very good spy toys. Thankfully none of my girls appeared to be suspicious as to how I was able to acquire the technology. They just thought I'd bought the upgrades from some crooks, and who knew where they had gotten it from. The Resistance was not in the habit of caring about such things. Kira, not unreasonably given her participation in the last arms deals, thought I had purchased it from Gaila or one of his shady associates. I did nothing to dissuade her from thinking that.
"Yeah, so far," Neela said pessimistically, obviously wanting everyone to remain cautious and on high alert. Surprisingly, she had been the one to point out that it'd probably be better if we ate a phaser/disrupter bolt rather than be taken alive by the Cardassians if this failed.
The probe slowly began to make its way closer to the planet and into range of the Hutet Labor Camp.
"From my experience, Cardassians utilize a doublet system when it comes to sensor sweeps," Ro answered a technical question from Neela that I hadn't been paying any attention to.
"We need a scan of both the inside and outside of the camp, 5-kilometer radius from the center," Kira directed Ro who was operating the stealth probe, while I had the conn, ready to abort this mission and go to maximum warp at the first sign of detection. "That will lessen the likelihood of sensor blind spots or hidden defenses."
Ro nodded and changed the probe's scan parameters accordingly.
"Not much security," I commented as I studied the same continuous sensor output Ro was. "Just some patrolling guards and slave workers penned in with a single perimeter force field. I see no guard towers, no sensors on the perimeter, no minefields, laser fences, no gunships, no ships in orbit, no standard garrison on the planet either. They certainly don't appear to expect trouble, but then again who would be crazy enough to try anything in the Cardassian home system?"
I glanced at Kira meaningfully after saying that. She just blushed and pushed on.
"It's possible that they don't even know they have Li Nalas at this camp. If they did he'd be in a much more secure facility," Kira, ever the zealot, speculated.
I should be able to handle the guards by myself with one hand tied behind my back. These were not the front-line soldiers stationed on a dangerous planet that I was used to killing, a planet with a local population that wasn't afraid to fight back. No, these were more of the fat and lazy variety who got off on beating half-starved slave workers, glorying in their cruelty and power over another, but still ultimately just collecting a paycheck. Getting past the camp's force field without an alarm and request for help being sent out to nearby military forces would be the hardest part. An alarm would bring Cardassian forces down on us within a few short minutes, at most.
"Still, we do have to be careful," Kira said. "The last thing I want is for us to get Li Nalas killed because we didn't take this seriously enough."
Ro made a noise that indicated that she was happy. I'd heard it many times before, although normally not when she was fully dressed.
"You found something?" I asked.
She nodded.
"Nearly a hundred Bajoran life signs, " she said. "The sensor resolution on this technology is amazing! I can take pictures of each worker and do facial recognition scans, we can compare them to our records for Li Nalas."
The stealth probe took extremely high-quality sensor scans from its position in orbit, relaying its output to us a via a coded, but subtle intermittent subspace link designed to appear like random background noise. It had been designed to emit very low power emissions to avoid detection, which also hampered its function.
We cycled through a few dozen Bajorans before we soon had what appeared to be a live image of Li Nalas on screen, who seemed preoccupied with some task that involved being hunched over some containers. None of the Bajorans looked particularly healthy, some worse than others, but they were mostly all right, and he was in that category.
"Got him," Kira reported with a smile.
These new long-range stealth probes had already proven useful.
"Hold your excitement, Kira," I ordered. "Ro, run a facial recognition match. I want confirmation that it's him."
"The computer reports a 93% facial recognition match to Li Nalas," Ro reported after 15 or so seconds.
"It's him, all right," Kira confirmed, after looking more closely at several different angles. "He doesn't appear to be harmed or confined, at least no more than the rest."
"Ro, continue scanning the camp's prisoners. I want a visual record of every prisoner in the entire place. Try to identify all of them, if you can," I ordered.
Well, I guess it was time to get to work and since it had worked once before, why reinvent the wheel when I could just go with the plan that had worked in canon.
"Right then, let's land the ship somewhere close to the camp, but not too close," I explained. "Then we'll travel by foot to the edge of the camp. I'll pretend to be a pimp, you my prostitutes, and I'll offer to sell you girls for a night of amazing pleasure. I'll wax on and on about how Kira gives the best blowjobs in the quadrant, Ro the best anal, Neela the best stripteases," I waxed on, throwing a wink at my girls who appeared a mix of shocked and embarrassed at my words. Wonderful! "We wait for them to lower the forcefield and for the guards to come have a look at you. We kill the guards and grab their weapons to arm as many of the workers as we can before escap-."
Right in the middle of explaining my amazing plan ripped straight from the television show, with a good dose of humor to lower the tension of this mission, I was interrupted by Ro, who sounded a bit annoyed with me if I wasn't mistaken. I wonder why that was, her anal sex game really was magnificent.
"Or we could just beam him up and warp away before anyone down there even knows what's happening, master pimp," Ro suggested with a glare of annoyance. "The perimeter forcefield has been deactivated; looks like they lowered the shield for some reason."
Well now, that would definitely be easier.
"What about the other prisoners?" Neela asked solemnly, obviously recognizing that this plan, while much simpler and much more likely to succeed in rescuing Li Nalas, would mean we would have to leave almost all of the other Bajoran prisoners behind. "We can't just leave the rest there!"
Well, actually we could.
"This ship only has a two-pad transporter," Ro pointed out quietly. "We can only beam two people out at a time."
Ro's pragmatism had often been a welcome and valuable viewpoint since she'd joined our team. This was another reason why I valued her so much and was happy that I'd agreed to take her with us that day back on Earth. I'd never regretted that decision.
"If we decide to forego the ground assault, Li Nalas has to be in the first group we beam up. It won't be long after that that they realize what's happening and reactivate the forcefield. No one else will be retrievable that way once it is reactivated." Ro continued.
Kira spoke next.
"We have to get Li Nalas!" she strongly insisted. "He's our priority. If beaming him up now is the safer way and the option with the greatest probability of success, then we have to do it. I think I can speak for his fellow prisoners, they would want him to be saved, even if it meant that they would need to stay."
An interesting and quite a surprising bit of ruthless pragmatism from Kira, especially in this case when it meant leaving behind her fellow Bajorans. Maybe this was a sign of the fervor that would result when the people learn he's alive and well and back on Bajor. When their heated discussion ended a few minutes later, they turned to me and waited patiently and expectantly. I was the Captain of this ship and their leader. It was ultimately my decision and they all knew it.
"While I'd love to wait for a time when we could beam the whole camp up clandestinely, who knows how long the forcefield will remain down," I explained as I shared my thoughts. "It's down now though, and the reality is is that every additional moment we spend in this system increases the chance thar we'll be detected. I've set course for the planet at maximum impulse," I instructed as we were still pretty far from the planet the prison camp was on.
With my order they all set to work as we flew towards the planet. Neela wasn't happy, but she recognized that I had made my decision and now it was up to them to execute on it. Ro continued to monitor the camp taking visual records of every prisoner there as I had ordered.
"Ro, when we're in transporter range retrieve the probe first, then beam Li Nalas and another selected prisoner up. Give priority to those prisoners who look in the worst condition, who may not survive for much longer under these conditions. Kira, go down to the transporter, hustle them off the pads as quickly as possible. Be ready to calm them down and if needed provide medical treatment, they'll be confused and frightened. We'll continue beaming up prisoners until the very last moment and the forcefield is raised again." I ordered. "The moment the field goes back up, we warp out of here at Warp 8 on a randomized course. Let's get to it people!"
With my decision made and orders given, my girls jumped into action to obey my commands. Leaving the rest behind sat ill with me too, but I couldn't save everyone, nor should I even try. My first responsibility was to the safety of myself and my crew. Even the mission came second to that, and they all knew that and appreciated it.
XXXXX
In the end we saved 10 out of a 113, including Li Nalas. The mission was ultimately a success, but none of us felt like celebrating that fact.
XXXXX
Author's Note:
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Chapter 24: 22,437 words
Chapter 25: 23,232 words
2nd Author's Note Regarding AO3:
This story was, until recently, cross-posted on AO3. I received a message a few weeks back from an admin there saying that I had violated their rules by having content behind a pay wall and providing a link on their site, meaning to pat reon, and that my story would be deleted unless I removed the reference. I sat on this for a few weeks while I thought about it and in that time my story was deleted from AO3.
It's strikes me as hypocritical in the extreme that they monetize the content that I provide them freely, with advertising on the pages my story appeared, yet will take down stories that link to a pat reon or equivalent which provides authors vital support to continue their writing. It's ultimately their platform and they can do what they want, but it had put a very bad taste in my mouth from the whole experience. I am considering just posting the first chapter over there and link it back to FFN for more content. If that violates some rule, well, then so be it.
