Star Trek Hunter Episode 24: A Trillian Problem

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Continued from Episode 23: JAG Wars

I am submitting this episode for the May/June 2023 Writing Challenge: REBEL SCUM.

Star Trek Hunter
Episode 24: A Trillian Problem

Episode 24 – A Trillian Problem​

“The trill seemed unique among intelligent species encountered by the Federation. Almost alone among such species, they had gotten through their pre-space and pre-FTL travel industrial revolutions while doing almost no discernable damage to their biosphere. The trill also espoused an unusually enlightened sense of ethics. So much so that Star Fleet Academy’s Xenoanthropology Department started making noises about the trill enlightenment being too good to be true. They had no idea how right they were…

“By accident of geography, trills of a particular appearance were more commonly joined with symbionts*. As the population disparity between humanoid trills and symbionts grew dramatically, commonly became exclusively, helping to enshrine a special status for one group of trills based on racial characteristics. This shameful secret was swept so far under the rug it was nearly a century before most Federation anthropologists were aware that trills who varied from the preferred characteristics were actually racial variants and not semi-unique mutants…

“Nothing better explains the trillian antipathy toward trill/human hybrids or hybridization with other intelligent species. Officially, the Symbiont Sanctuary Priesthood worries about not having enough trills with the appropriate genetics to support the very small number of symbionts. In actuality, they are terrified that a hybrid might be able to successfully join with a symbiont…”

Dr. Kenny Dolphin - The Morality of Hybridizing Intelligent Species.


*Symbiont - an intelligent parasite capable of infesting the dermal pouch of either a male or female trill and bonding to the secondary umbilis used by trill joeys** from birth through first emergence, thereby providing the symbiont access to the host/parent trill’s neural network.

**For more on the evolutionary, biochemical and social mechanisms that make it possible for trill joeys, once born, to crawl into the dermal pouch of either male or female trill, see Stages of Development of the Mamsupials of Trillus Prime by Dr. Carolyn Kirk Saavik.

Crew of the U.S.S. Hunter: (Ship's Interactive Holographic Avatar - Hunter)​

Captain Kenneth Dolphin.
Chief Executive Officer – Lieutenant Commander Napoleon Boles.
Chief Operations Officer - Lieutenant Commander Gaia Gamor.
.
Medical Director – Lieutenant Jazz Sam Sinder.

Assistant Medical Director – 2nd Lieutenant Gabriella Griff.

Ensign Sif.

Forensic Specialist - Midshipman Kunto Wekesa (nickname Kit).
Forensic Specialist – Midshipman Raaven.
Emergency Medical Hologram - Dr. Raj.
Tactical Medical Hologram - Dr. Kim.​

.
Director of Flight Operations – (Vacant).

Assistant Flight Director - 2nd Lieutenant Leonarda Marks.

Navigator Johanna Imex.
Navigator Auqa’rh’lth.​

Ensign Chelna Zusa.

Chief Flight Specialist Thyssi zh’Qaoleq (last name rhymes with Chocolate).
Flight Specialist Dih Terri.
Flight Specialist Winnifreid Salazaar.
Flight Specialist Jennifer Hopper.​

.
Director of Ground Operations - Lieutenant T’Lon.

Assistant Ground Ops Director - 2nd Lieutenant Tolon Reeves.

Chief Tactical Specialist Rumi Grace.
Tactical Specialist Dasare Eba (rhymes with Cabaret Nina).
Tactical Specialist Veri Geki.
Tactical Specialist Ranni Neivi.​

Ensign Eykirros Jones (nickname is Ike Jones).

Investigator Buttans Ngumbo.
Special Agent Anana Lynarr, Trantor Police Intelligence Division (temporary assignment).​

.
Director of Engineering - Lieutenant Moon Sun Salek.

Assistant Engineering Director - 2nd Lieutenant Sun Ho Hui.

Midshipman Carlos Datsun.

Transporter Engineer Dragomut.​

Ensign Geoffrey Horatio Alstars.

Chief Flight Engineer Yolanda Thomas.
Flight Engineer Thomas Hobbs.
Flight Engineer Tomos.
Flight Engineer Kerry Gibbon.​

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter
Episode 24: A Trillian Problem
Scene 1: The Arduous Work of Heroes

24.1
The Arduous Work of Heroes​

Captain Kenneth Dolphin had been busy. He had never thought about just how much work his predecessor, Justice Minerva Irons, was doing while holed up in her office. He had envisioned that captaining a starship involved sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge issuing orders, but the reality was that he rarely sat there. That duty was usually divided among his half-bolian first officer, Lt. Cmdr. Napoleon Boles, his long trusted 2nd officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gaia Gamor and her new Assistant Director of Flight Operations, 2nd Lt. Leonarda Marks – a twitchy, nervous woman with an encyclopedic knowledge of strategic and tactical space combat. The victory at Weythan was largely thanks to Lt. Marks’ brilliant and meticulous planning.

The captain was grateful that Gamor could generally handle the crew and keep the ship running efficiently. Boles – who was very far from a people person – was managing to keep up with the people side of the U.S.S. Hunter’s daily operations and was only now learning just how much the late David Pepper had relied on Hunter for insights into the personalities of the crew. Boles spent more time talking with the ship’s elderly-appearing holographic avatar than to anyone else on the ship – even his captain.


While his subordinates were seeing not only to the Hunter, but also coordinating his small task force of Prowler class ships, Dolphin had been in contact with the chief legal counsels for the Daystrom Institute and the Avradaga Satellite Defense Research Institute, developing a combined strategy for the Trillus mission - a plan that kept evolving as the Emergency Powers resolution had given him new options. It meant delaying the mission by several days, but reports from local sources indicated that a wing of Bajoran Defense Force pilots were buying him that time. Hopefully enough time to avoid a bloodbath and a legal nightmare. It required a lot of reading… And an andorian freighter…


Captain Dolphin leaned back in the chair in his office, closed his eyes and indulged in a rare moment of nostalgia – thinking back to a time when he had walked among mythic creatures. Once, long ago, when the universe was young, Dolphin had been nothing more than a man who could fly – the leader of a wing of pilots, serving in the command of an ancient goddess, a heroic giant and a lovely, mysterious vampire whom he had occasionally fed with his own blood. But the lovely vampire had mysteriously vanished, the heroic giant was slain and the goddess of wisdom fallen into darkness.



The universe had grown old. Its magical youth was spent.


The time for ancient gods and giants and mythic creatures had passed.


And the arduous work of heroes had landed heavily upon the shoulders of mere mortals.

24.1 (of 19)


​

 

[Bynar0110]

Excellent start to this episode.

 

[Will The Serious]

Excellent start to this episode.

Agreed, what a setup. The staging is rich and captivating. I want to enter this shop and spend some hours poking around, it looks so promising through the window.

Love the History/Mythology analogy.

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Excellent start to this episode.

Agreed, what a setup. The staging is rich and captivating... Love the History/Mythology analogy...

Thanks for the kind words! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter
Episode 24: A Trillian Problem
Scene 2: The Dream Team

24.2
The Dream Team​

Captain Dolphin wasn’t certain when his reverie had merged into lucid dreaming, but suddenly he was back with Governor Emory Ivonovic in the recording studio for Subspace Radio Ivonovic. Only it wasn’t Governor Ivonovic – a man with far more weight on his shoulders sat in the chair to Dolphin’s right – Federation President-Elect Emory Ivonovic. Another chair had been added to the far right – in which sat the Trantor Police Department Intelligence Division’s Deputy Director for Offworld Activities, Johnny Canada.


“I’m sorry to call you together this way,” Johnny said. “I am far from certain this is a secure channel, but it is the only mechanism the three of us have to communicate real-time across the distances that separate us. I am currently very far from Earth at an undisclosed location on an undisclosed assignment…”

“I asked for this meeting, Kenny,” said Ivonovic. “I know you are only a few hours out from dealing with the disaster at Trillus Prime, but I need your advice both as a strategist and an ethicist. Yours too, Johnny. Maria and I are at loggerheads about how to respond to the Venus Incident and considering that I’ve heard rumors that our most powerful ally, the andorian emperor, has been quietly beheading a large number of andorian prisoners behind the scenes, there really aren’t a lot of people I can turn to for advice right now.”

“Wait,” said Dolphin, “Okay… let me catch up here… this is not a dream? This is real?”

“It is a dream, Kenny,” Johnny replied. “But yes, it’s real. Dreamcomm technology. Please try to keep up.”

“How…” Dolphin started.

“Oh please, even if I could explain it…” Johnny retorted, rolling his eyes.

“Stay focused, please,” said Ivonovic. “Venus?”

“First Minerva, now Venus,” Dolphin groused. “All the gods are falling. Better keep an eye on Jupiter and Mars.”

“What?” Ivonovic asked.

“Sorry, I’m still catching up here,” Dolphin apologized. “Dream lag. Yes, I saw the Venus First ultimatum. What does President Rodriguez want to do?”

“She’s terrified of another river filled with dead children,” said Ivonovic. “She wants to give them Venus and be done with it.”

“Can’t do that,” said Dolphin at almost the same moment that Johnny said, “Not good.”

“I want to tell them that as soon as they’re settled in nice and cozy there on Venus, we’re going to obliterate the planet and let them see how the Venusians felt.” Ivonovic was nearly shaking with rage. He calmed himself deliberately. “But that’s probably a little over the top…”

“Can’t do that either,” said Dolphin. “Ethically, Venus is a grave. It is sacred ground. It must not be defiled by the murderers of its previous inhabitants. Better that Venus be left barren and dead. At least for now. Venus should be off limits to all for at least double the lifetime of the longest lived human child born today. Considering that child may be part vulcan with a potential lifetime of 200 years, make that a 400-year moratorium.”

Johnny Canada raised his eyebrows. “I would recommend a different strategic approach, but I’m curious, Doctor Dolphin… What is the reasoning behind your approach?”


“This is the greatest crime in the history of the Federation,” said Dolphin. “In all of recorded history to my knowledge. The deliberate slaughter not of a species, but of an entire unique biosphere teaming with lifeforms beyond imagination. Genocide is not a sufficient word. Ecocide – the destruction of an entire living, thriving environment.” He took a deep breath. “After the horrors of the 2nd and 3rd World Wars, humanity was faced with ethical questions arising from the systematic torture and genocide of humans and other animals in medical experiments. If the results of those experiments could save millions of lives, were we not duty bound to accept those results into science for the betterment of mankind?”

“The consequentialist answer to that question is that no one in living memory of those events could profit from these unspeakable crimes,” Dolphin continued. “And so the science was preserved, but a moratorium was placed on the research so that the criminals and their descendants could not profit from their atrocities. By the time the moratorium was lifted, the answers to those questions had been found in other ways and in many cases it was revealed that the answers produced by the criminal activity were the fruit of the poison tree – the answers were misleading and would not have been of the benefit that many imagined. They would have set medicine and other sciences back rather than advancing them.”

“With the Venusian Massacre – ecocide is just too pleasant a word – the same consequentialist principle applies. The criminals and their heirs cannot be allowed to profit from their crime. Not even the vicarious profit of having opened a new environment for their own species even if that new soil is sewn and reaped by their enemies. Venus must remain a dead world,” Dolphin concluded. “But it is only up to us to speak for our generation and the next, not for all of humankind for all time.”


“And my people occasionally wonder why I make it a point that we correspond at least weekly,” said Ivonovic. He laughed. “You have lightened my heart, Kenny. I’ve been carrying Venus around like a stone and it feels as though you just lifted it off of my shoulders. Johnny, what was your answer?”


“A crass, covert operations answer,” Johnny Canada replied. “And a strategy I think you can still use even while officially taking the high road with Kenny’s moratorium…”

“How do you compromise a moratorium with a covert operation?” Ivonovic asked.

“Well, the only stroke of luck in all of this is that it happened in January,” Johnny started.

“It’s September, Johnny,” Ivonovic retorted.

“Figuratively speaking, it’s January and you and Maria Rodriguez are Janus – the god with two faces. So take the opportunity to speak out of both of them… First, you can buy yourselves some time by putting out a statement that due to the extraordinary nature and implications of the Venus Incident, you are carefully weighing your response. Then you make an official statement about the moratorium while at the same time Maria’s office quietly lets out that Star Fleet will not be patrolling Venus. You will say nothing to contradict this.”

“This strategy should allow two things to happen,” Johnny continued. “It should draw Venus First into the open, making them a good target for infiltration. Pass laws against landing and settling on Venus, but mumble when it comes to talk of how to enforce those laws. If they think the Federation is deliberately turning a blind eye they may hold off on their terrorist threats while they try to settle Venus. We can then use that to drive a wedge between Venus First and Earth First – there is no way all those millions of Earth Firsters would have agreed to give up on a human-only Earth. Or the rest of the colonies. Start rumors that Venus Firsters are turning Earth Firsters in, make a bunch of high profile arrests and set the two organizations at each other’s throats.”

“Once we have agents in position, they can play on that internecine warfare to convince each group to reach out to the Federation to help roll the other group up,” Canada concluded.


“Okay, that is starting to sound something like a plan,” Ivonovic mused. “Kenny, can you draft a Venus Moratorium address?”

“How soon do you need it?” Dolphin asked.

“Five hours.”

“That gives me less than three hours to write the most momentous public address in the past 200 years – since it will take almost two hours for you to receive the transmission,” Dolphin objected.

“Nothing fancy, Kenny,” said Ivonovic. “Just write down what you said a few minutes ago and you’re pretty much already there.”

“Johnny, does this dream-tech communicator auto-transcribe?” asked Dolphin.

“It might,” Canada replied. “But I have no idea how to operate it…”

“I’ll draft it for you, Emory,” Dolphin said. “I won’t promise that it will be the most eloquent thing ever, but I have a fair idea what needs to be said.”

“The more plain-spoken, the better,” Ivonovic responded. “I’ll definitely owe you for this…”

Dolphin nodded his head emphatically: “Yes. You will.”

24.2 (of 19)​

 

[Bynar0110]

Excellent chapter.

Does currency exist in the Hunterverse?

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Does currency exist in the Hunterverse?

I can't imagine an advanced society that does not have some form of currency. As much as the franchise writers tried to meet Roddenberry's vision of a cashless society, they occasionally mentioned "credits" as a form of currency. The Federation (and particularly United Earth colonies and Earth itself) are post-scarcity economies, meaning that no one has to work for a living. If they want to just bum around, they will still receive a minimum level of housing, food, medicine and other basic needs, as well as free education simply for being alive.

In such an economy, people work for self-improvement. If they want fancier clothing, nicer housing, the ability to patronize restaurants, they work for the means to obtain those luxuries. This would cause the majority of people to work. Such an economy is only possible if individual and corporate wealth are capped and the laws of the commons observed (the commons being those things that are the birthright of every human - clean air, clean water, a natural environment and sufficient wildlife to more than guarantee environmental stability.)

I think that is more believable and more accomplishable than the strictest interpretation of Roddenberry's vision. STH also challenges Roddenberry's simplistic utilitarian ethics - as stated by the vulcans: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. That is the philosophy that produces Section 31. Human ethics (at least in western culture) has already evolved far beyond that - into consequentialism.

I'm linking in a few of my essays on ethics. Kenny Dolphin is not my avatar, but when it comes to ethics, he is very much my mouthpiece.

The Philosophy of Dr. Kenny Dolphin

WHY?

Gay Pride and Consequential Ethics

Bad Idea

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Bynar0110]

Those essays were some enlightening reading.

 

[Will The Serious]

I can't imagine an advanced society that does not have some form of currency.

I know a fellow who works for a think tank who's purpose is to study the economic effects of a fully automated workforce.

What would it be like if workers were not necessary to gather resources from our environment, refine them, craft them into useful materials, manufacture, and distribute essentials for everyone?

If people did not need to work to grow food, process, warehouse, and distribute it to all; if we were able to obtain building materials, plan and construct housing, transportation, and public service and utilities for all, without the use of human labor; what would the economy look like? How would we limit consumption? How would we protect our resources? How would we manage energy and waste? Most important, how would we measure power and wealth over others? Don't laugh, that is a very serious consideration.

If full automation meant that those who currently control production and benefit from the relative wealth and power over others that it provides them, what motivation is there to advance to complete automation?

One of the answers to these questions may mean a shift to an artist/crafts/ entertainment/sports/competition economy, that and drugs. Another answer may involve wealth credits based on some sort of virtual investment and returns game to earn rewards beyond subsistence living. You know, the stock market, mining for bit coins, selling self- help, religious devotion, scare tactic Doomsday warnings, and financial independence schemes, art.

A theoretical problem with such a world would be the possible growth of ever larger gaps between those who win such advantages and those who are content to live in economic entropy. At some point, those who are unable or unwilling to work for more, that is, strive to contribute as entertainers, artists, self-help gurus, or scientists working to advance human understanding, and therefore, the efficient use of resources for developing greater technologies that can improve humanity's liveable universe, will invariably look up at some point and ask, "why should they have more than I have?" Society will revolve and civil conflict will spark, leading to a tearing down of the high and mighty. Or, it will split into two separate and distinct classes that may lead us to another genetic division like early Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon may have been different from each other, but living at the same time.

If high performance athletes predominantly have offspring with each other, and likewise do the economically motivated mostly have offspring with other similarly motivated humans, leaving those content to do nothing but consume to have children with others who are equally lacking in motivation; Evolution, dictates the strengthening of these traits and therefore, the widening of the physiological/genetic gap between them.

As the son of a fisherman, I call it, the crab bucket mentality. Fill the bottom of a bucket with crabs and notice that when one crab manages to climb high enough on the backs of its fellow crabs and make the rim, all the other crabs will see this and reach up and grab the escaping crab and pull it back down. No one gets more unless we all get more, even if it means we all get less trying to stop others from getting more.

Money, of course, is just a word for credits of trade. It is a standardization for barter when you may not have something of value to barter with someone who has something you want to barter for. Money or credit, allows you to barter with someone else who may want what you have, so you can get a standard note of trade to offer to someone else. It's actually a very reasonable system.

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Or, it will split into two separate and distinct classes that may lead us to another genetic division like early Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon may have been different from each other, but living at the same time.

You should definitely be blogging.

Dr. Noah Yuval Harari has expressed a related concern. In a post-scarcity economy, the common man has lost his power over the economic system - the power to bring the system to account by withholding his labor. He has a lot more to say than that, but you can find him easily on YouTube.

Star Trek Hunter actually explores quite a bit of this territory, including the crab bucket mentality mentioned above... In fact, that's a big part of this episode...

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter
Episode 24: A Trillian Problem
Scene 3: Rumor

24.3
Rumor​

Elaine Norman had been working on the communicators for hours, hooking them together, bridging their transmitters, changing the frequency to a narrow band, building a command into the new contraption that was never anticipated in the designs of the equipment she was cannibalizing. There was nothing else to do. She had always taken to inventing small electronic devices to bring the storm of violent emotions under control. She and her lover and best friend were trapped in an escape pod that was far too damaged to survive re-entry to the atmosphere of Trillus Prime.

There was almost no air left, but she was damned if she was going to let it end this way. Rumor had stilled his breathing to almost nothing several hours ago. Rage that most people would never know burned in Elaine’s heart. Half vulcan and half romulan, abandoned by her parents and raised by a human con-man who had made use of and refined her tremendous mental abilities, Elaine felt she had been barely holding onto a howling rage all her life without the tools vulcans needed to suppress and redirect all that emotional energy or the military structure romulans relied on to focus it.

Her hands were the best place to work this rage out. Elaine had finally found a little bit of happiness with the Vulcan Science Academy and this weather control assignment. Then the trills had to go and start a civil war. The ship that had rescued her had lingered longer than allowed by the Trillian Master Force, trying to rescue more refugees. Rumor had been in that last batch to be beamed up. The ship was defenseless against an assault by a half-dozen trillian destroyers and had quickly been blown to pieces, killing nearly everyone on board. Elaine was only fortunate that her escape pod had been badly damaged enough to be ignored as just more debris.

Most people would have lost consciousness long ago with as little oxygen as she was using. Elaine’s vision had narrowed to only the tiny switches she was altering to transmit just the right code on just the right frequency. On the eighth trial, it finally worked.


After all the silence in the escape pod, the whine of the transporter beam from the main weather control satellite was almost deafening. The moment Elaine and Rumor were deposited on the transporter pad in the weather satellite, Elaine took a huge breath. It took only a few seconds, but seemed like an eternity for her brain and body to come back to life. She took another huge breath and began CPR on Rumor. His heart was still beating – very slowly. What he desperately needed was oxygen, which he wasn’t strong enough to breathe in quickly enough. She did that for him until he began breathing more deeply on his own. They were lucky no one was in the transporter room of the satellite, but other areas of this station were almost certainly occupied by Trillian Master Forces.

With her strength nearly fully returned, Elaine effortlessly lifted Rumor and concealed him as best she could under the transporter control panel. At least he would not be seen from the door. She took several more deep breaths, stoking her anger like a blacksmith heating a forge. These soldiers would be armed. All she had to face them with was a lifetime of howling, native, unsatiated rage. Her all-too-human father had taught her that there was a time to let go of all control and just let the rage take over. This was one of those times.


Elaine took a last moment of sanity to whisper to her lover, who was just beginning to awaken, “Stay here until I am finished.”





Rumor Boel could barely move. He had been brought back from the brink of death. His hands and feet were numb. His brain was numb. A trill, he had nowhere near the strength and stamina of his half vulcan / half romulan lover. He could see the red flash of phaser fire reflected in the ceiling of the transporter room. Weather control satellites were not large and this room had several other functions – cargo bay, waste reclamation (bathroom), sonic shower, oxygen reprocessing. A large number of tropical plants in this room were helpful to the satellite’s lungs.

Rumor could hear the screaming. The trill soldiers’ screams were high pitched and short lived. Elaine’s scream was more primal – a non-stop throaty howl growing more distant as she moved through the satellite toward the control center. He could tell that she was wounded and needed his help, but he could not stand up – the room was spinning far too viciously for that.


So he crawled.


Rumor crawled out of the transporter room into the hallway. A dead Trillian Master Force soldier, his head nearly twisted off, was lying in a pool of his own blood. Trill blood. Red. But there was a trail of green blood as well. Far too much of it.

He still could not stand, and there was no way to crawl around the pooling blood or the nearly decapitated corpse, so he had to crawl over it and through the blood. He wasn’t certain when he had begun vomiting, but there was too much of it in this hallway to all be his. Some of it had to be Elaine’s. He could hear her now, howling in pain. No one else was making any noise.

Rumor stopped several times to wipe his hands on the walls, his clothes, the clothing of another trill who had been nearly cut in half by a phaser, but there was no way Rumor could get his hands clean. His hands were too slick for him to crawl very quickly – even if his stomach would allow that. It took forever for him to crawl 20 meters from the transporter/cargo bay and up four steps into the control room.

Three trill soldiers were dead in this room from extensive phaser burns. Elaine had suffered extensive burns and was laying against the wall, a phaser dropped from her hands. She was bleeding profusely from several wounds. Rumor crawled to her, astonished she had managed to survive being wounded so extensively. He brought her into his arms, trying to keep her warm. He looked into her eyes and whispered, “Don’t go. Stay here with me,” as he felt the life ebbing from her. Her mouth moved as if to say something. Her eyes became unfocused and the tension drained from her body.

24.3 (of 19)​

 

[Will The Serious]

All the best emotions a story can bring out are here: love, anger, heroism, desperation, and devotion, and... loss.

An incredibly moving scene, rbs.

Thanks.

-Will

 

[Bynar0110]

Excellent Chapter RBS.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

All the best emotions a story can bring out are here: love, anger, heroism, desperation, and devotion, and... loss...An incredibly moving scene...

Excellent Chapter RBS.

Thanks for the kind words! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter
Episode 24: A Trillian Problem
Scene 4: The Pool of the Symbionts

24.4
The Pool of the Symbionts​

At first the passage through the rear tunnel into the sanctuary was so dark that Jeene Boel and her children could not see at all and were relying entirely on Lt. Grorher. They could not see him, but they could hear him grumbling and grousing – a low-pitched rumble. Grorher had provided a length of rough twine. He had fastened one end to his belt. Jet Boel, walking immediately behind the broad, furry pilot, was holding onto this twine as was her brother, Car, immediately behind her, and her twin sisters, Tana and Illa. Their mother, Jeene, was holding the other end of the twine at the back of the line.

Jet gasped as some sparks made their way in little tongues of miniature lightning along Grorher’s hair, sparking back against his uniform against the back of his thigh. His hair was bushing out. Jet let out a slight giggle.

“Don’t laugh too hard, princess,” Grorher muttered softly. “You’re next.”

Within moments all the Boel family hair was just as bushy and electrified as Grorher’s – though this static was no doubt far more uncomfortable for the pilot as his body fur was also engaged and static lightning could be seen under his uniform. The air itself seemed to be producing light as they came to the end of the corridor. A thin stream of water was running along one of the walls.

Before them lay a broad, glowing lake of thick, milky, light blue water topped by a glowing, bluish-white fog. This underground lake was bifurcated by a series of stepping stones, each no more than a foot in diameter and set about two feet apart. The water was bubbling with electricity.

“No wonder we haven’t encountered guards,” said Grorher. “The symbionts are gathered in this end of the lake for safe keeping and to commune better. You don’t want to accidentally step into that water. Go ahead and let go of the twine – that’s not going to do us any more good at the moment.” Grorher rolled up the twine and popped it into a pocket in his uniform. There was so much static electricity in his hair that it floated around him like a large, fine blonde cloud.

“What happens if we step in the water?” asked Jet.

“You will be overwhelmed with telepathic communication from hundreds of symbionts all at once,” Grorher replied. “The water connects them like a giant brain.”

“Where do you come from?” Jeene asked. “And how is it you know so much about trill symbionts?”

“My people were one of the first intelligent species created by the Founders,” the furry pilot responded. “They built us up from a small nocturnal hunting animal called a yarrow on a planet in the Gamma Quadrant. They still use us on occasion as hunters and trackers. We were their first soldiers before they created the jem’hadar.”

“Wait… you’re wearing a Star Fleet uniform…” Jeene interjected.

“We’re not easily controlled,” Grorher said. “That’s why the Founders replaced us with the jem’hadar. But we have always been better soldiers precisely because we’re so independent. They brought me and a few others here to help fight their little war with Star Fleet. Then they abandoned us here. Two of my brothers and I joined Star Fleet. As for knowing about the symbionts, that’s a matter of professionalism. Before I take on any assignment, I study. When I was told last week I would be helping protect the symbionts, I interviewed a couple of joined trill who also serve in Star Fleet. They gave me a reading list.”


Grorher pivoted suddenly and caught Jet’s arm, which helped her regain her balance. She had almost fallen into the water when one of the stepping stones tilted slightly.

“You will want to be very careful, young one. There are some ancient trill symbionts back in this area who have not joined with one of your kind in hundreds of years. They are very nearly wild. Stop for a moment and feel them. There is so much moisture and electricity in the air you should be able to feel them thinking.”

Jet and her siblings fell silent. They stopped, perched on their stepping stones. The mist condensed on their faces and clothing. Their hair had stopped bushing out and now hung in damp tresses. The cavern was nearly silent except for the lapping of the thick, glowing, milky-looking water at their feet and the sibilant hiss of electricity in the mist all about them. There was also a murmur – not something they could hear but the feeling of thoughts passed among many minds – flashes of words – echoes of visions…


“How did you know where to get us?” Car asked.

“MMMmmmMMM???” Lt. Grorher rumbled.

“You saved us. How did you know we were going to be there?”

“I didn’t,” Grorher replied. “I had found a nice, warm nook to curl up for a few hours. Those filthy sporthogs woke me up and I didn’t realize they were on the hunt until I smelled you. You weren’t part of my mission. So I modified my mission. Now you are.” He sniffed the air. “Smell that?”

Jeene Boel and her children just looked at the big, hairy pilot.

“They’ve noticed us,” said Grorher. “I don’t know what they’re thinking about us, but I don’t like the smell of it. We’d better be moving…”


With a sudden splash, a large, slimy, nearly translucent slug-like animal rocketed out of the water and hit Jet squarely in the chest, carrying her a few feet away before she fell and vanished into the water. Even Grorher’s lightning reactions were not enough to keep her from being carried away. She popped up again already nearly a hundred meters away in the murky water, then was pulled down again.


“STOP!!!” Grorher’s voice was enough to keep the children from jumping into the water. But not their mother. Jeene Boel jumped into the water only to immediately be subjected to powerful electric shock. She crawled back onto the rock she had jumped from, her skin and hair sparking with electricity. She stood up slowly, shivering and curled up a little.

“They have her,” said Grorher. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“What are they going to do with her?” asked Illa.

“I don’t know, baby,” Jeene replied. “But Lieutenant Grorher is correct. They have her. They’re keeping her. They told me. The trills and the symbionts have taken care of each other for all of recorded history and longer. We came here seeking their protection. We need to trust them. They won’t hurt her.” Jeene wished she was as sure of that as she tried to sound. These symbionts were quite clearly wild. She couldn’t imagine sharing her consciousness with one.


Lt. Grorher grunted, then said, “Let’s keep moving before they get any other strange ideas. We will tell the priests what happened.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” said Jeene. “We’re part bajoran. The priests do not want the symbionts to be in direct contact with a hybrid.”

“You decide how you want to handle it,” said Grorher. “But we need to move now.” He started moving among the stepping stones. The remainder of the Boel family followed reluctantly.

24.4 (of 19)​

 

[Will The Serious]

Jeene Boel jumped into the water only to be immediately subjected to powerful electric shock.

Just love this scene. The visual impact is fantastic and a little info about the trill, jem’hadar, and Lt. Grorher, helps fill out the world.

-Will

 

[Bynar0110]

A shocking experience for Jeene Boel.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

...The visual impact is fantastic and a little info about the trill, jem’hadar, and Lt. Grorher, helps fill out the world...

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying the world building!

A shocking experience for Jeene Boel.

And Jet got slugged...

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Star Trek Hunter
Episode 24: A Trillian Problem
Scene 5: The War of Fog

24.5
The War of Fog​

Rumor Boel had a lover to avenge and a wife and children to protect. He had no idea where Jeene and the children were. But Elaine Norman was lying in a pool of her own blood only a few meters behind him. Rumor was a climatologist and as such had taken a position with the Vulcan Science Academy.

Nearly every planet in the Federation made use of vulcan weather control satellites. The vulcans weren’t the only ones who built such satellites – but theirs were by far the best. Ferengi weather control satellites tended to cause more fog and incessant rain than most environments called for. Cardassian weather control satellites were said to cause deserts. Romulan weather control satellites were reputedly as good as their vulcan counterparts, but almost no one in the Federation had ever seen one. The klingons had switched to vulcan weather control satellites centuries ago.

The infuriating thing about using vulcan weather control satellites was… they came with vulcan weather controllers. But the vulcans were willing to take on a certain number of local climatologists and Rumor was one of the lucky ones – which meant that he was one of the best Trillus Prime had to offer. His fingers danced over the master control panel.


He was brewing up a storm…



“What do you think you’re doing?” came a familiar voice from behind him.

Rumor whirled, his eyes widening with wonder. “Elaine???”

“You don’t think a half-dozen phaser burns is enough to put me down, do you?” Elaine asked. She had evidently found a first aid kit and had patched a few of her more egregious wounds. She found a chair near the master control panel and slumped into it.

“I… But… You…” Rumor stuttered.

“Answer my question, Rumor, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Building a tornado to take out General Mulaax’s main force,” Rumor replied.

“This system will let you design the perfect storm, but it will never enact it,” Elaine replied. “Vulcan Science Academy satellites cannot be weaponized.”

“Find me a way around the system lockout, then,” said Rumor. “You’re the systems security analyst…”

“I couldn’t even hard-wire one if I tried,” Elaine responded. “The system would self-destruct before allowing itself to be weaponized.”

Rumor slammed his fists on the arms of the control station chair. “There has to be something I can do…”

“There is,” said Elaine. “The fugitive’s best friend.” She sat at the security station, next to the command station and began entering commands.

Rumor smiled. “Sounds like you’re about to tell me another story about your father…”

Elaine smiled too. “My dad, Norman Baker, was a grifter. We had to make a lot of last minute escapes. He paid more attention to the weather schedule than a farmer. I could tell he was getting ready to make his move – after which we would have to run – when the humidity was rising and the temperature was dropping. Then we’d get the fugitive’s best friend – fog. It made it easier for us to escape. Especially since we had our escape routes well planned out.”

“Will this system allow us to make it foggy?” Rumor asked. “Or will it see fog as a weapon?”

“Vulcan climatologists think of severe storm events as evidence of weaponizing these systems,” Elaine replied. “But fog is beneficial for small animals, especially amphibians and also for ferns and other plants. More importantly, the Vulcan Science Academy approves the use of inversion fogs to help clean the lower atmosphere from certain types of chemical and radiation contamination.”

“Fog will make it really difficult for General Mulaax to run ground and air operations on VFR, but his sensory equipment should just see right through it” Rumor mused.

“This vulcan technology is really advanced," Elaine observed. "You should be able to set up a high level of ionization for clearing radiation from the atmosphere. The Trillian Master Force doesn't have anything that can see through that. It should ground his air support and give people on the run a better chance of escaping. All we have to do is trick the computer into believing a Level 4 radiation event has occurred… well… pretty much planet-wide.”

“As soon as Mulaax and his people figure out that the fog is being created by the satellites, they will come up here in force and re-take them,” said Rumor.

“Which is why it has to be a Level 4 event…” Elaine finished entering commands. “There, I think I have it believing it is reading a Level 4 radiation event. Now you should be able to model a recurring series of inversion and ground fogs. Once you start the program, if we can hold them off for two hours, the cycle will become self-stoking. I’m going to go do some nasty things to the transporter which should help keep them out of here for a while. Once you get the cycle up and running, you will need to authorize the self-destruct sequence for the entire satellite chain. I will be in the transporter room. Let me know when you initialize self-destruct and I’ll beam us down to the planet.”

“I don’t have the kind of clearance needed to authorize self-destruct,” Rumor objected.

“Hello… Systems Security Analyst Norman here…” Elaine teased. “You do have that authority. I just gave it to you…” She kissed him, then slowly made her way to the back of the room, then turned. “Where did you send your wife and children?”

“The Sanctuary of the Symbionts,” Rumor replied.

“I will program the system to set us down as close to the sanctuary as their shielding will allow…”

24.5 (of 19)

​

Author's Note: Norman Baker was my mother's great uncle - and he was a grifter. A terrible man, really - probably responsible for hundreds of premature deaths in misery...

You can find out more by just googling Norman Baker...​