YES - Close to the Edge: Star Beagle Adventures episodes 12 - 19

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 12: Close to the Edge Part I - The Solid Time of Change
Scene 15: My Boy


Now that it’s all over and done…
Now that you find, now that you’re whole…

12.15
My Boy​

“So that’s my boy… I want to get a look at him. And I want a chat. On my terms.”


Captain Rhonda Carter was seated in the command chair of the U.S.S. Escort. For the first time since entering the Jar Galaxy, she was relaxed, her thin arms draped over the chair’s control panels, head leaned back, looking up at her wraparound screen.


“Computer, on my monitor, show me our follower. Best image, from whichever source. John, prepare a probe. I want a dogfish on it. When ready, we will drop it and leave it dark. I want it programmed to pursue our follower and beam the dogfish onto whatever it is that’s following us. Then I want images. Program the probe to take readings in passive mode, and to transmit them to us compressed at the same time it beams the dogfish over. I suspect both will be destroyed in short order, so we need to get as much as possible in a single burst.”

“Aye Captain,” the young vulcan replied from the “eyes” station. He had been entering commands into the panel from the moment she had started instructing him.

A few minutes later: “It is ready.”


“Drop it.”


Carter thumbed a control on the arm of the command chair. “Roman, I’m going to need a burst of speed for two minutes. How much can you give me without burning out our repairs to the nacelles?”

The voice of Chief Flight Engineer Roman Hess came back through the comm system. “I wouldn’t risk anything over warp 6. We’re doing well at warp 5. When you drop back, I would recommend warp 4 for an hour before taking it back up.”

“What if we stop?” the captain asked.

Hess’s voice came back over the comm, but Carter was reading his words on her screen. “I wouldn’t recommend that unless you’re prepared to not go again for some time. If we drop below warp 2, we have to stop for repairs, which will take a few hours.”

Carter thought for a moment, then: “Get ready to make those repairs Roman. And understand that you may have to do them in the middle of a fight.”

“Aye, Captain.”


The bridge remained largely silent. Carter noted General Krank entering the bridge and finding his favorite corner from which to observe.

It was well over an hour later when the young vulcan at the “eyes” station reported, “Our follower has just passed our probe. Probe activated.”


“All right, Bill,” said Carter. “Take us to warp 6. Let’s see what our tail-chaser does.”

“Now responding to warp 6,” the chief of the boat replied from the helm.

Ensign John Sevork reported from the “eyes” station, “Your boy is matching our velocity, staying exactly at the edge of our sensor range.”

Master Chief Bill Waller began counting from the helm. “15 seconds.” It seemed an eternity before he said, “30 seconds…” The bridge was silent except for his counting: “1 minute, 15 seconds…”

When he got to 1 minute, 45 seconds, he began counting every 5 seconds. At 1 minute, 55 seconds, Carter ordered: “All stop.”

“”Getting a compressed data stream from the probe and readings from the dogfish,” Sevork reported, then: “And the probe has gone silent.”

“Let’s see it, John,” Carter said.


The image of a thorn made of rock appeared on the screen. Except on the nearly flat top of this thorn, something was standing, gripping the rock.


“It’s a giant lepreshroom inside a land thorn,” Master Chief Waller observed, quite unnecessarily.


“Yeah,” Ensign Sevork replied. “But what’s that thing standing on it? Looks kind of like a cross between a stag and a giant tiger shrimp.”

“That would be my boy,” Carter replied.


“Captain,” Sevork started, “New information is riding in on Commodore Yui’s beacon. It’s telling us the way into this galaxy is not the way out of it.”

“What have I been telling you all this time?” Carter said.

“And our friend is coming to meet us,” Sevork continued. “Warp 6.”


Carter looked down for the first time to the main viewscreen. Her translucent, wraparound screen lowered to remain in her field of vision. “Turn us around to greet him, Bill.”


She thumbed a switch on the arm of her command chair, linking her to every speaker ship wide:


“All hands… Battle stations…”

Close to the Edge Part I - The Solid Time of Change


​

This is the final scene for Episode 12.

The adventure will continue in Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain
Scene 1: My ...Girl?


My eyes convinced, eclipsed with the younger moon attained with love…

13.1
My ...Girl?​

“Time to contact?”



Captain Rhonda Carter was sitting up on the edge of her command chair. There was a familiar ferocious intensity to the blue-haired captain that her crew had not seen in quite some time. She was no longer a farm girl sitting in a chair too big for her. A predator was sitting in that chair now.



An apex predator.



“3 minutes, 48 seconds,” reported Ensign John Sevork from the “eyes” station.

“Let’s use them,” said Carter. “Overview of what’s coming our way. What’s different about this lepreshroom from the ones we got rid of back in that trinary system?”

“Aside from your boy riding on it,” Sevork started, “It appears the interior atmosphere generated by the fungus extends above the top and is maintained within the warp shell. Also, there appears to be a considerable amount of interior space. Even though it is easily 12 times the size of the largest specimen we observed in the, um, Landthorn system, there is the same amount of fungal matter, concentrated primarily just inside the rock.”

The young vulcan brought up images on the main screen as he was speaking that provided outlines, diagrams, cross-sections, and a lot of written information. Like most command-level Star Fleet officers, Rhonda Carter had trained herself to register and absorb such information at speed. And like Master Chief Bill Waller at the helm, Carter had long experience with this display schematic, making it easy for her to consume this information.

“No artificial gravity,” Carter observed. “The creature on top is held in place by its legs projecting through the rock and anchoring in the fungus. Feeding on it, possibly.”

“Space shrimp,” Waller offered.

“So you’re not giving me a name,” Carter said, rather incongruously. “I’m going to call you Steve. Steve the space shrimp…”

“Contact in 1 minute, 8 seconds,” reported Ensign Sevork.

“Your count is off, John,” Carter observed.

“Captain?” Sevork asked.

“Shields Captain?” Waller prompted.

“Standby weapons, but do not target,” Carter ordered.

“Shields?” Waller asked again.

“Useless,” Carter replied. “Steve can walk through our shields as if they weren’t even there. All power to weapons.”

“Contact now,” Sevork reported. “On screen.”



“No,” Carter said, a faraway look in her eyes.



“Captain?” Sevork asked again.

“Contact 1 minute, 19 seconds ago,” Carter whispered. Then: “No. Not Steve…”



Carter seemed to be looking into the middle distance, her voice distant, musing.



“...Stephanie…”

13.1​

 

[Will The Serious]

Approach by an unknown entity is not, in itself, a threatening act. The hard part is, a true hostile act may end up being the last act one might ever witness. How to know when there is not trustworthy communication, that your potential adversary is really a friend? The stakes are high and the rewards unknown.

-Will

 

[Bynar0110]

I been slowly catching up on the chapters. Planning to do a reread of the whole series to refresh my memory.

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Approach by an unknown entity is not, in itself, a threatening act. The hard part is, a true hostile act may end up being the last act one might ever witness. How to know when there is not trustworthy communication, that your potential adversary is really a friend? The stakes are high and the rewards unknown.

-Will

And that dynamic will carry forward in really strange ways... I have readers over at Ad Astra who are up to date with this story and were surprised at every turn by the results of this contact... Hang in there... gets weird from here...

I been slowly catching up on the chapters. Planning to do a reread of the whole series to refresh my memory.

Always happy when people re-read. I try to write with sufficient detail that readers will see an entirely new series on re-reading. Especially knowing where things are going, you can see some of the foreshadowing that gets you there.

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain
Scene 2: Within My Hand


I crucified my hate and held the word within my hand…

13.2
Within My Hand​

“Your allies survive only because of your protection.”


The fires of hate flared up instantly in General Krank’s heart at the sight of a jem’hadar first, but the calmness of its voice and the odd incongruity of a flagon in its hand forestalled him from arming himself. He had dispatched dozens of these creatures in hand to hand combat. Very few warriors could make such a claim.


The jem’hadar’s voice was odd, calm, cultured. Almost as if the fearsome creature were animated and voiced by a vorta. He gestured with his flagon. “Come, sit and drink with me, General. Let us parley.”

It had been half a lifetime and more since Krank had seen the great meeting hall that straddled the Qam-Chee River on Qo’noS. The storied meeting hall was never vacant, except for this moment. Which was fortunate as any jem’hadar who set foot in this hallowed meeting place would be slaughtered out of hand.

The jem’hadar first sat down at a table, turning his back on the ancient general. Krank walked across the room, obtained a flagon of bloodwine, then walked up behind the bitterly hated enemy of his people, the very warriors who had slain his entire family. Representative of two of the species that murdered his family, as the jem’hadar had attacked on the orders of a vorta.

Krank walked around the table and sat down across from his enemy, who saluted the elderly klingon with his flagon. “You are worthy adversaries. It is fitting to salute you,” came the oddly cultured voice from the Dominion soldier.

General Krank observed the scaly warrior across from him, then, after a long pause for a long think: “The warrior is defined by the battles and enemies he chooses to fight. A warrior does not despise his enemy…” Krank saluted with his flagon of bloodwine. “He rejoices in his enemy.”

“This meeting hall was built by Qey’liS,” the first said. “Tell me about it.”

“The Qam-Chee river was a national boundary. Qey’liS was born in Qam. He conquered the east, expanding the eastern frontiers to the sea, then came to this river on the western border of Qam and laid the foundation stones on the eastern shore. He crossed the river and conquered the west and laid the foundations of this hall on the western shore. But he did not unite the nations.” Krank took a drink of bloodwine.

“This was a place for enemies to meet, not in peace, but in parley. They could drink together and negotiate peace or war. It became the place where our people united to throw off the Orion yoke and take their ships.”

“Without frontiers, the warrior spirit dies,” said the first.

“To be replaced by the spirit of the brigand, who preys, without honor, on his own people,” Krank responded. “What would the jem’hadar understand about honor?”

“We fight for our gods,” the first replied. “And you fight for the humans.”

“We fight alongside them,” Krank rejoined. “The enemy of my enemy is not, therefore, my friend. But an honorable enemy can become a valued ally.”

“We are rich with quoting the wisdom of Qey’liS,” said the first.

“An appropriate place to do so.”


“So when your human…” the first paused for emphasis, “…allies have turned every battlefield into farmland and beaten every sword into a plough, where will the klingon people turn? Will your warrior hearts sink into brigandry and turn against your own when every frontier has been conquered?”

“That is a long time off,” said Krank. “Every empire falls.”

The first pressed the issue relentlessly. “Where is your new frontier when the human empire encompasses your entire galaxy?”

The meeting hall had dissolved into open space and unfamiliar stars. But Krank was able to recognize a pattern, a constellation and a star system he had seen recently. “The Jar Galaxy. That is the purpose of this place?”

“The wormhole that brought us to you gave you a gift that your people desperately needed,” said the first. “Us.” He spread his arms and gestured broadly to the starry sky above their table. “This… this is not a galaxy. This is a bridge and a meeting hall.” The first had smoothly transitioned into the form of a very strange alien. One that a terrestrial vulcan had described as appearing like a cross between a stag and a giant tiger shrimp. “This place is a gift.”

Krank had little idea what tiger shrimp looked like, but he could think of features of a few animals from his homeworld that bore some resemblance to this creature.


His eyes widened with epiphany. His voice was hushed with awe:


“Endless frontiers…”

13.2​

 

[Will The Serious]

“Endless frontiers…”

And a good read, every one.

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain
Scene 3: Reasons We Don’t Understand


There’s you, the time, the logic or the reasons we don’t understand…

13.3
Reasons We Don’t Understand​

Warrant Officer Seprek Harrison had been allowed to design his own dojo at Star Fleet Academy. He was a master of both Suus Mahna and Krav Maga, the epitome of vulcan and human martial arts, each voraciously mining every other art form to improve itself. 50 years ago, Harrison had added four new degrees to the krav maga black belt by adding techniques specifically designed to allow a human to defeat a cardassian master of Anbo, a klingon master of Mok’bara, a romulan master of Kormerek… and even a vulcan master of Suss Mahna.

And Captain Rhonda Carter, with no training at all and the worst form and stance he had ever seen, could defeat any one of them.

Harrison had become such a formidable and respected master that Star Fleet had recruited him and brought him in as a warrant officer to serve as a master trainer at Star Fleet Academy. He had trained two generations of trainers. He had travelled on the Odyssey in part to evaluate the dangers that the Gamma Quadrant might pose.

He was also there to study the legendary Rhonda Carter. Most people discounted the legends, but Harrison had seen some ship security recordings from the Cardassian war. What other people described as insane luck was, to his eye, clearly something more. At least one of the cardassian soldiers she had killed was clearly a master of Anbo, easily twice her size. His stance was perfect. His form flawless.

And Carter had ripped out his throat with a shard of an EPS conduit she had scooped up from the debris in the corridor only a second before.

Harrison had watched this recording over and over. There was no way it had happened by luck. It was so fast he almost couldn’t see it. Flipping through frame by frame didn’t help. It had taken weeks of review before he spotted it. Not even a split second of distraction on the cardassian weapons-master’s part, but Carter had seen it and taken advantage of it. At mind-bending speed. It was all the opening she had needed.

When Carter had gone through basic training she had earned the nickname “Teacup Tiger” because of her combination of ferocity and small size. To Harrison’s mind, her fighting style more closely resembled that of a wolverine.

Having seen her fight, hand to hand, with a phaser, at the helm of a starship, Harrison had become increasingly convinced that Rhonda Carter could see her opponent’s moment of weakness before it occurred.

And after nearly six years serving with her, he still had no idea how she did it. It was as if she could see just a few seconds into the future and place herself just where she needed to be to take advantage of her opponent’s moment of weakness.


This was the first time Seprek Harrison had returned to this dojo since meeting Carter in person.

She had steadfastly refused to spar with him. She never sparred with anyone. And had never told him why.


And here she was, in his dojo. In a fighting ghee, a costume that she would never don. She was not a trained fighter.

“Will you spar with me now?” the vulcan master asked.

“Never,” Carter replied. “Not with you. Not with anyone.”


“Why?”


“I will not train myself to pull my punches. You have seen what I do. I will not do that to you.”


“You think you could defeat me?”


“No. Only kill you.”

13.3​

 

[Will The Serious]

I like the way Carter thinks.

I hadn't thought about it, but Vulcans have a rudimentary psychic ability. My character, S'Talla, as a trained monk since childhood, has more than the basic Vulcan ability to touch minds. Applying that to her advanced fighting skills only makes sense. I am inspired.

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

I like the way Carter thinks.

I hadn't thought about it, but Vulcans have a rudimentary psychic ability. My character, S'Talla, as a trained monk since childhood, has more than the basic Vulcan ability to touch minds. Applying that to her advanced fighting skills only makes sense. I am inspired...

Of course, that's not actually Carter in that scene - but Stephanie knows Carter very well, having spent a lot of time in telepathic contact with her up to this point (which is what all that bedwetting was about.) In the next waking-dream segment, she appears as Krank...

Glad to see you back! Be sure to let me know when you start publishing more Vulcan stories. I've had a lot of life events going on and I don't peruse the BBS as thoroughly as I would like.

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain
Scene 4: Sad Courage


Sad courage claimed the victims, standing still for all to see…

13.4
Sad Courage​

Eva Mendez’s jaw ached. That was nothing new. Her jaw had ached ever since Medical Chief Kara Garrity had used a bone knitter to stitch the tiny bones of her shattered jaw together. Garrity had done as good a job as any field surgeon could do.

A trained surgeon in a fully equipped Star Fleet medical center could remove the shattered bones and replace her jaw with a prosthetic, but the U.S.S. Escort had neither. As a result, the ship’s chief medical technician had been making subtle, ongoing adjustments, primarily to make sure Mendez’s jaw didn’t grow back wrong or become infected.


“It’s time for your adjustment.”


Mendez was horrified. She tried to protest, but her jaw was wired shut and all she could make was a horrified squeak.

It wasn’t Kara Garrity’s voice. Nor her broad, pale, Slavic face.

The face and voice were those of the elderly klingon general who had, less than two weeks ago, stepped off the transporter pad, reached over the transporter control console, and with a solid right hook, shattered her jaw.

“Now don’t move,” Krank said. It wasn’t a Star Fleet issue bone knitter he was holding. It looked like some sort of klingon technology. It looked more like a torture device than any sort of medical tool… Although some part of her brain registered that there really wasn’t that much difference between the two.

But she couldn’t move. Only sit, horrified, frozen in terror as the warrior who had shattered her jaw gently ran a finger along her jaw, followed by the torture device. He made a series of “hmmm" noises as he studied the readings on the device. It was a nasty looking klingon sort of thing with prongs and spikes that didn’t seem to have any purpose.

“Hmmmmm,” Krank said again. With feeling.


“Doctor Krank?” Mendez asked.


The room was dark, dank and the light reddish, the masonry on the walls rough. It looked far less like a surgery than some sort of torture chamber.

It didn’t help that she was strapped onto some sort of cross that was not vertical, but at some sort of incline.

“Hmmmm?” Krank responded.

“What is it?”

“Not good,” the elderly general mused. “Not good at all.” Krank plugged the torture device, apparently some sort of exceptionally ugly medical scanner, into a rather ugly computer and a quite unappealing image of Eva’s jaw was displayed in ugly colors on a quite repulsively designed monitor.

“This looks ugly,” Krank stated.

The tiny, El Salvadoran transporter chief wasn’t certain what the general was referring to. “What looks ugly?”

With a blindingly fast movement, the elderly klingon unsheathed the dk’tahg from his belt and, with the press of a catch under the hilt, deployed the side blades.

Mendez blinked and squeezed her eyes shut in fear.


“This,” said Krank.


Eva Mendez opened her eyes to see that Krank was using his dagger as a pointer.

“And these,” he continued, tapping a number of other points on the monitor. “The repair was only intended to be temporary until we could get you to a proper facility and prepare a prosthetic. These discolored spaces are an infection. One that can lead to hearing loss if it spreads to the small bones of your ear.”

“What can we do to stop it?” Mendez asked, the terror rising in her throat as Krank began laying out a variety of knives and axes on a table next to the cross she was strapped to.

“There is no way to treat an infection of this sort. Transporter technology won’t work because the spores exist partly in subspace. I’m afraid there is only one solution.” He studied the bladed weapons and implements laid out before him.

“Doctor?” Mendez prompted.

Krank selected a large weapon that looked like the unholy child of some sort of axe and sword that should never have been mated, had not their parents forced them into it. Mendez recognized it as a mek’leth.

Doctor Krank hefted it appreciatively.


“There is no other option. I must amputate…”


Eva Mendez screamed.

13.4​

 

[Will The Serious]

Well... at least, Krank doesn't appear as an enemy in Eva's dreams. He is trying to help, just not in the most pleasant of ways. It is interesting that he appears as an actual doctor, and not some muscle-headed intern or civilian.

Yeah, since I'm about to go to sleep, I'm hoping this "light" reading doesn't get heavier in my own dreams.

Good scene.

-Will

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

Well... at least, Krank doesn't appear as an enemy in Eva's dreams. He is trying to help, just not in the most pleasant of ways. It is interesting that he appears as an actual doctor, and not some muscle-headed intern or civilian.

Yeah, since I'm about to go to sleep, I'm hoping this "light" reading doesn't get heavier in my own dreams.

Good scene...

Glad you liked this one. My first short stories were clearly in the horror genre - which I don't particularly enjoy reading, but seem to enjoy writing. This episode, mostly waking dreams, is kind of an exercise in horror...

Thanks!! rbs

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain
Scene 5: Sea People


As armored movers took, approached to overlook the sea…

13.5
Sea People​

The U.S.S. Escort, and its growing cadre of sister ships, were much safer and easier to land than most deep space vessels. Given their compact size and heavy construction, these ships were capable of in-atmosphere combat - a very rare capability for any deep space vessel.


Chief Flight Engineer Roman Hess clambered out the back of the starboard nacelle, having completed the repairs to it and glad that the ship had landed. This had made the repair work so much more pleasant.

With the Bussard collector swung out on its hinges and the rear exhaust port open, the ocean air could blow through. The air used to compress these compartments for repairs while in space tended to be heavily recycled and simply unsatisfying for breathing. It didn’t handle moisture well, making working inside the nacelles while in space, very sweaty, dank, and uncomfortable work.


Despite his given name, Roman did not look Italian in any way. He was of average size, about 5’8”, with a short brush of light blonde hair and eyes that sometimes looked blue or green.

“Eyes of the ocean.” That’s what his mother had called them.

Chief Hess walked down to the sea shore and joined his boss, the tiny and usually reticent roylan, Lt. Ki Kresid. She had replicated a recliner for him and had beamed it here. She needed no such luxury for herself: she relaxed squatted down to her haunches. She could rest like that for hours on end. If Roman tried it for more than a few minutes, his legs would start to cramp.

Kresid was holding a small, square glass with her favorite drink, tika tika nectar. She kept a tika tika root growing in the quarters she shared with Roman and ten other crew members.

The Escort had originally been designed with very tiny individual quarters for the officers, and small double rooms for the ensigns and the rest of the crew. Kresid was the reason those rooms had been sacrificed so that, other than the captain and first and second officers, the crew rotated through a small number of berths that slept four to a shift.


There had been some complaining at first, but the complaining had subsided after the first battle. The space that had been, in Kresid’s opinion, wasted on quarters, had now been repurposed to support two industrial replicators, additional damage control resources such as emergency shielding and structural integrity field generators, a large number of powerful batteries to power these items during battle, and an innovation that Hess himself had suggested, atmospheric planes: short, stubby wings that could be extended below the nacelles and were programmed to enhance and stabilize the ship during in-atmosphere maneuvers.

These four wings had proven essential in enabling the Escort to first evade, and then hunt and destroy three jem’hadar scarab-destroyers after diving into the atmosphere of a gas giant. The industrial replicators, along with their dedicated batteries, had helped Escort accomplish repairs to armor, weapons, and the engines in the heat of battle.


Kresid had thoughtfully provided a tall glass of ale for her strong right arm. Hess drank the ale slowly, appreciatively. It was slightly warm. Just the right temperature for ale. Kresid sat next to him, her long, thin tongue flicking down into the tiny glass of the purple fluid that was her preferred beverage.

They sat in comfortable silence. As they had many times before. Engineers tended not to be the talkative sort. At least, not the really good ones. Thoughtful and observant, that’s what made a good engineer.


“Your people are sea people,” Kresid said. “So are mine.”

Only the first part of that statement made sense. Hess was descended from the Saxons who had lived along the southwestern coast of Denmark and had sailed back and forth first to raid, then to colonize the east coast of Great Britain.

But the roylans were forest creatures, a primitive society, still largely arboreal. The majority of roylans currently alive had been bred in captivity by the Orion Syndicate as slaves. And the orions had discovered that the tiny roylans made superior engineers. Tiny, quick, agile, and surprisingly clever and strong.

“Sea people, Ki?” Hess asked. He turned to look at the giant, oddly shrimp-like alien next to him. It was several times his size.

“My ancestors patrolled the shallow waters of our homeworld. A planet billions of light years from here. As your homeworld is also more than a billion lightyears away. Except for the doorway.”

“Why?” Hess asked. “Why do you want to come to us?”

“You are a marvel. So tiny. So frail. So short-lived. And yet you have accomplished so much,” the giant stag/tiger shrimp responded. “We will join you. To study. To learn.”

“To conquer?” Hess asked. “That’s what my ancestors did. The Saxons.”


“They came and established farms. They joined the native people and became the native people. And then fought off new waves of invaders. And more invaders came and joined them, and they became the native people. I’m not coming for your homeworld, Roman. I come bearing gifts that will take your people generations to understand.


“Just as it took the Britons generations to understand the great gifts the Saxons brought them.”

13.5​

 

[Will The Serious]

Glad you liked this one. My first short stories were clearly in the horror genre - which I don't particularly enjoy reading, but seem to enjoy writing. This episode, mostly waking dreams, is kind of an exercise in horror...

Thanks!! rbs

I do like dream sequences. My Mind in a Vat story didn't have nearly the detail or time spent on the concept as a whole. Trying to limit my stories here to something akin to a one hour TV show.

I particularly love your allusions to Carter having psychic abilities. I haven't really gotten into it much in my own stories, but I think I would like to build on that just a little more. With twenty crew to cover, it is impossible to give each their fair share of time in every story. S'Talla is a trained Vulcan psychic, Cialoa can affect male and female emotions with her pheromones, etc.

-Will

Oh yeah, we have a flight booked for Friday. It'll be good to get home.

 

[Will The Serious]

“They came and established farms. They joined the native people and became the native people. And then fought off new waves of invaders. And more invaders came and joined them, and they became the native people. I’m not coming for your homeworld, Roman. I come bearing gifts that will take your people generations to understand.

Love the philosophy of civilization/nationality building. Very few people on earth today are not from somewhere else originally. Migration, conquering hords, fleeing exodus, transplanted labor, most people of any region today are alien to the land they're born on originally. There is no "rightful" people of here or there. That's just a construct made up by people trying to justify defending their exclusivity or clamoring to take back.

-Will

 

[Bynar0110]

Excellent Update

 

[Robert Bruce Scott]

The Star Beagle Adventures
Episode 13: Close to the Edge Part II - Total Mass Retain
Scene 6: Understanding


There since the cord, the license or reasons we understood will be…

13.6
Understanding​

Princess L’Ruut ran her hand over the purple mohawk and smiled her studied, carefully crafted, sultry, sexy smile. She was a logical oddity and, at the same time, a logical necessity among terrestrial vulcans. A tradition brought over from the home planet.

L’Ruut was a sex worker. Her role was to couple with vulcans who had either lost or never had a betrothed. During Pon Farr. It was an honorable calling that, for various reasons, because it violated so many ancient vulcan and human taboos, caused those called to this work to live somewhat apart, not quite accepted in either human or vulcan communities. Especially because, like L’Ruut, the majority of “substitutes,” as they had come to be called, were vulcan/human hybrids.


“It suits you,” L’Ruut said. Even her voice was voluptuous. The overt sexiness wasn’t really needed, nor even wanted. L’Ruut’s choice to lean into it was a sort of rebellion on her part against the unspoken and understated discrimination she and others of her profession faced, even though it was necessary and (officially) honorable.

The few women and even fewer men who found themselves providing this service were almost always those who had themselves been bereft of betrothal for any number of reasons. Their small number and the increasing need for their services, especially with the privations of two recent wars, meant that they were constantly busy, which only enhanced the stigma associated with their calling.

Ensign John Sevork didn’t mind. He had made a deep connection with L’Ruut during his Pon Farr. He had chosen her services instead of betrothal because he was in Star Fleet and did not want to leave a family behind. There would be time for family later. He was only in his 20’s, quite young for a vulcan. Even for a hybrid.

“My captain suggested I update my hairstyle. She has recently changed her hair color to blue, so I looked up human hairstyles in that idiom and this one appealed to me.”

L’Ruut stroked his purple goatee. “I’m sure your parents will not approve.”

“They are fairly open minded. They approved of my choice to spend time with you instead of starting a family.” Sevork settled onto a couch, patted the seat next to him.

L’Ruut settled next to him. She looked vulcan, but her human ancestry had given an unusual reddish tint to her hair. It was long and voluminous. She wasn’t particularly beautiful, but very fit - somewhat more athletic than was the norm for vulcans. She leaned against John, then snuggled in tightly, comfortably.

“I love visiting with my clients. It’s really the only time I feel comfortable and accepted among my own kind.”

“We know you,” Sevork responded. “You share much more than your body. You share your whole being.”

“Week in and week out,” L’Ruut said softly, distantly. “Sometimes as many as two clients in a week. I barely get to recover from being melded intimately with one mind and another is reaching out to me in need. I almost never get to visit.”


“I love you,” Sevork said, simply.


“All my clients say that,” L’Ruut replied.

“And every one of us is speaking the truth,” Sevork responded. “It does not mean we will never love another. But you cannot touch that kind of compassion and not be moved.”

“I get lost sometimes. So many minds intruding on mine. In such desperate need. There are days, sometimes weeks, when I am just trying to figure out who I am.”

“You need a vacation,” said Sevork.

“I need to retire,” L’Ruut replied. “I’m nearly 100 years old. I have shared mind and body with more than a thousand. I carry the seed of hundreds of men stored inside me. Yours among them. Some day I want to have your child.”


John Sevork cuddled comfortably against the giant alien that he had described as a cross between a stag and a tiger shrimp.

“As long as I get to meet him. Her. Them.”

“Oh, have no doubt, John. You will. You absolutely will.”

13.6​

 

[BountyTrek]

I’m still catching up with all of this, but I’ll reply here rather than necro-bumping the previous thread. Really enjoying how this mystery is evolving. Especially like (maybe ‘like’ is the wrong word!) the way that Krank/Carter’s solution to the hypnotic(?) song has had such lasting consequences for numerous characters. Not like TV Trek where the CMO can just magic up a cure for death/blindness/paralysis/assimilation/turning into a salamander in five seconds to get the crew back to normal for next week’s episode. It was the right thing to do to save the crew, but at what cost?

And I really like Carter’s solution. The power of a stiff drink.

 

[Will The Serious]

I really like this concept of a Vulcan sex worker. Your description and justification makes for perfect logic. And, Vulcans would have that... prejudice, embarrassment? Their lack of emotions and logical culture seems to be filled with similar contradictions.

-Will