Dragon’s bridge crew heard him coming, and made sure their gazes were fixed forward to their consoles, for a gaze anywhere but your duties was dangerous on this ship. Crewmembers are the same the galaxy over, though, and over time they learned to pick up on Lord Kruge’s mood just by the sound of his footsteps. He was never any better than tolerant, they had learned, and that was rare enough. Normally he was intolerant, and today, from the sound of it, he had shot past that at orbital velocity.
Kruge dropped into the command chair, barely repressing a loud, vicious snarl. K’voch stepped next to him and simply folded his arms in silence. Both of them were thinking the same thing – what now? Changing their minds and calling the whole thing off was definitely not an option. After all, when an Empire is on the line, one simply does not back down simply because of an obstacle.
Ah, but what an obstacle it was, Kruge thought glumly. The Admiralty knew something was going on, but almost certainly did not know what. That of course would change soon enough when they started interrogating Kast, but the fact that they were still in orbit over Qo’noS and not under arrest – or worse – was encouraging, but not by much. He had also hoped to do this without a representative of the Secret Ones breathing down his neck, but –
-And Senior Lieutenant Karzz walked in – briskly, purposefully, and seemingly without a care in the world, taking his station behind and to Kruge’s left.
Kruge, slumped in the command seat, slowly turned to fix his most devastating gaze on his new security officer, but was rewarded only with a slight bow and faint smile from Karzz. K’voch waited for the explosion, but instead Kruge slowly turned back to face the main viewscreen and quietly growled, “…I
hate that man.”
“K’voch, take us out.”
K’voch was happy to, at least insofar as it kept him occupied doing something else. “Engines, come to two-thirds impulse power, steering, make your heading point four five oblique.” In StarFleet there would have been returned commands and confirmation, the constant murmur of stations and crew communicating with one another, but not here. Not on the
Dragon. A word of anything was met with immediate punishment, so the bridge crew quickly and utterly silently went about their work. The low hum of the engines went to a more pronounced rumble and
Dragon turned smoothly and nimbly to starboard, breaking Qo’noS’ gravity as effortlessly as if they were going for a stroll.
“Main screen, rear view.” Kruge’s voice startled K’voch somewhat, but he was careful not to show it. Before the echoes had vanished, the screen changed to show the gray/black ball of clouds that was their homeworld slide to the left side of the screen and slowly begin to diminish.
Miserable place, Kruge thought. Dark and cold and wet, and most of the animal life evolved to eat you if you didn’t eat it first. Torn and battered through most of its recorded history by clan warfare, conquest, and conspiracy enough to fill a thousand epics, and bravery, honor, and courage to bring the strongest warrior to tears…and none of that no one, no one in their right mind could ever possibly believe, because it was all far impossible to believe had you not come to manhood there. An awful, awful place.
That he was confident he would eventually rule.
There was a harsh buzz from the overhead, signaling that there was an incoming message. Kruge did his best to look as nonchalant as possible, but there was no mistaking his attitude as his gloved finger stabbed the comm stud so hard that a cracking sound came from the panel.
“This is
Dragon. SPEAK!”
“This is Departure Post Four. Stand by.” Departure Four. One of a dozen or so orbiting outposts that made sure whoever might be leaving Qo’noS was authorized to in fact do so…or to make sure that if there was any reason for them to stay, they did so. Alive if possible, reduced to their component atoms if need be.
Perhaps I spoke too soon, Kruge thought. “Affirmative,” he snarled.
There was a long pause, and then another buzz as the screen suddenly shifted to the sight of two more D7s approaching from behind. Fairly slowly – normal escape velocity, almost a nonchalant stroll – and definitely no unusual weapons or FCS emissions. The overhead speaker sounded again, saying,
“Dragon, these vessels will be joining you as escorts. Qapla'!”
Kruge sat silent and motionless as the tactical screen changed and the two cruisers fell into standard triangle formation with him. There were no greetings from the two ships – they knew who commanded
Dragon and they assumed that if he wanted to hear from them, he would tell them so. K’voch remained silent as well, almost as much out of fear as thought. It was probably no more than thirty heartbeats before Kruge slowly stood, his face an expressionless blank as he turned to leave the bridge, motioning for K’voch to follow him. K’voch gestured towards the navigator to have him take charge, and they walked down the passageway leading from the bridge to a corner where Kruge felt it was random enough that no sensors were waiting for them, nor could that
DaH QIch Karzz hear them.
Kruge looked at K’voch and said, more quietly than the first officer had ever heard his captain say before, “Speak.”
K’voch collected his thoughts, then plunged in. “I follow you and will fight at your side if it costs me my life. But there is no shame in stepping back –“
Kruge’s brows furrowed and he raised one corner of his upper lip in a growl –
“…No shame in stopping before we can reassess these new circumstances. We make our patrol, come back, and then when their guard is down, we strike.”
Kruge seemed to give that some honest consideration for a heartbeat or two, then shook his head. “Every day we wait brings the Federations that much closer to being confident enough that they can stop us. They cannot; but to give them any advantage is to risk ours. Our allies are here, the plan is a good one, we go.”
K’voch nodded briefly without hesitation. “As you command. But our newfound friends…” The first officer inclined his head to one side, indicating the two cruisers that sailed just a few kellikams away.
Kruge’s face darkened. “A shame,’ he said, and pivoted on one heel to return to the bridge.
It is axiomatic that a starship captain is never bored. They may be irate, they may be testy, they may be generous, they may be relaxed in matters of discipline or suffer from galactic-level cases of OCD. They may be friendly or they may be diffident, they may be excitable or they may be phlegmatic, but they are never, ever bored.
Except of course for the fact, however, that Jim Kirk was bored out of his mind.
Spock could meditate, and the ship’s science library was a place of joy for him – or at least it would be if he could admit to being joyful. Bones was perfectly happy relaxing for a change, and the nature of healers was such that he could walk into sickbay anytime and be welcome. Scotty was up to his ears in technical manuals and he had already introduced himself to Blue Ridge’s chief engineer, a bluff Kentauran who welcomed him like a long lost brother. The rest of the engineering crew treated Scotty like a superstar. That left him. No responsibilities – not yet, anyways, and on reflection, no one had yet explained to him what those responsibilities were going to be. They’d been out for – he shot a quick glance at the wall chrono – just about a day, and they still had three more to go.
Gonna be a long trip, Kirk thought.
That all depends on you, came the response from deep inside his brain. Right, then. Kirk sat up and tapped the comm panel on the desk. “Bridge, this is Captain Kirk.”
There was a pause, and Kirk thought to himself that right now the OOD had to be looking at the speaker like it had suddenly grown six heads. “Captain Kirk,” the reply finally came, “this is Lieutenant Tomaszewski, the OOD. What can I do for you, sir?”
“I was wondering if I might speak with Commander Marchal or Captain Dillon. I was hoping to get down to some planning for our mission.”
That pause again. The crew did have some vague idea what was going on, right?
“Captain Kirk, I’m afraid I’m a little out of the loop on that, but I’ll pass it on to the Captain ASAP. Is there anything else I can assist you with?”
“No, thank you, Lieutenant. Kirk out.”
Obviously going to need more than a phone call, Kirk thought.
The walk to Dillon’s quarters was quick, and the crew he encountered were grinning from ear to ear when they saw him, nods and “Good morning, sirs” all the way. One part of being a hero that one never quite got used to, Kirk thought. People think you’re something special. The same walk aboard
Enterprise would have been far, far different – nods, polite and respectful “Captain,”, and that would have been it. Even the most junior officer or able spacer realized pretty quickly that Kirk put his uniform on one leg at a time, just like they did. Well…like most of them put their uniforms on, anyway.
The captain’s cabin was in approximately the same place it was on
Enterprise, near the center of the primary hull a couple decks down, all the better to get to the bridge fast when things went south. A discreet but well-polished brass plate was to the right of the frame:
CAPTAIN DANIEL X. DILLON
FEDERATION STARFLEET
COMMANDING OFFICER
USS BLUE RIDGE
To Be Continued...
