Repulse: The Carlinian Mission

Chapter 2

They sat in stunned silence, staring at the captain of the Zafir. Cordelia dropped to her knees, a stunned look of disbelief flooding her face and a low moan escaping her lips. Aethan covered his eyes and grabbed the back of the nearest console to steady himself, trying to wrap his mind around Octavian not coming home and unable to do so. Dorel climbed from the captains chair and dropped down on the floor next to his wife, holding her as they tried in vain to absorb the news.

While the family members staggered under the weight of the report, Fic pulled up a schematic of the ship and tabbed through its stores and armaments. Checking the status and running a few quick mental calculations, he turned to face the stunned group.

“Dorel, we should go after them.” Fic stated.

Dorel looked up at Fic as if in a dream, his expression lost.

“Go after them with what? A wing and a prayer?” Cordelia muttered.

“This ship. We'll repair her on the way. She probably has more firepower in one torpedo than a fleet of raiders, and shields to boot. I say we go find the bastards,” Fic growled. “An initial assessment shows even in her damaged current condition, Repulse has stronger shields than any ship in our fleet at full power. Most repairs we can manage without a space dock.”

“Is that possible? That scale of repair work?” Dorel asked.

“Sure, if we get enough help. People have to know what they're getting into, but I expect more than a few people will come with us. Arti can manage a lot of the systems, but until he sprouts arms and legs people need to fix things.” Fic replied. “There were enough people that had friends on those ships, or who have lost others to previous raids. We should get plenty of volunteers.”

Dorel turned back to the view screen, addressing the captain of the Zafir.

“Old friend, please get word to the other crews about what has happened. I need every person on board to repair this ship. We'll go to the Caltrandia's last known co-ordinates and see what we find. I want all hands working on repairs till then. At that point I can't ask anyone to continue on, they can depart aboard the Silver Star.” Dorel's voice gained strength as a plan formed.

The Zafir's captain nodded and promised to report back in one hour. The bridge came alive as they began repairing the various stations, needing the busy work to hold their fear of what they might find at Caltrandia's last known co-ordinates. Arti chimed in with directions for each of them, and Fic continued to curse at the disembodied voice.

Crewmen from Zafir and Intrase showed up first, having witnessed Cotrigus's final moments; they had all lost friends aboard her. Other ships crews began reporting and four hours later they had two hundred and seven crew aboard.

Dorel and Fic busily assigned them to various departments and sent the ship captains along with them to supervise. The captain of the Zafir supplied the last position they had seen Caltrandia, at and departed to supervise a cleanup crew for the living quarters. Laurian fed the co-ordinates into the ship's computer.

“How long will it take?” Dorel asked.

“Depends on how fast we can go. At warp five, ten hours.” Laurian replied.

“Arti, what's our maximum speed at the moment?” Dorel asked.

“Warp five is the recommended limit, Captain. Until more of the structural damage is repaired hull integrity is at risk.” Arti replied.

“He sounds so human,” Laurian muttered.

“His speech patterns were modeled after the scientists who developed him,” Aethan remarked.

“I'm really impressed,” Laurian smiled at him, “Scientists usually don't speak like humans at all, just techno-babble a regular person can't understand.”

“Oh here we go, the scientist jokes start,” Aethan rolled his eyes.

“Captain, we require more raw materials.” Arti piped up.

“What do you mean?” Dorel sighed.

“The replicators use raw materials to construct replacement parts and food items among other things. Items are broken down into their sub atomic particles and reformed into useful supplies. We have completed several repairs and stockpiles of raw materials are low.” Arti informed him.

“Where do we get these raw materials?” Dorel asked in frustration.

“Any will do. A scan of nearby astral bodies shows a moon a few hours away that has many raw materials that can be transported.”

“Do we have to do this now?”

“The material is required for necessary repairs as outlined by your ships engineer.”

Dorel covered his face, a delay was the last thing he needed. “Set a course, Arti.”

“Course laid in.” Arti responded.

“Laurian? Take us out.”

She nodded, “Release...oh, right, no docking clamps. Using the maneuvering thrusters to bring us about. Engaging the...lets see, they don't call them orbital drives. Here we go, engaging impulse engines at one quarter.”

The ship drifted, a wounded leviathan among the smaller ships sharing the same space lanes with her. Repulse even dwarfed the space dock the salvage ships used that weren't designed to make planetfall. At last the great ship was facing as instructed and her engines fired off, moving her on a lumbering course for replenishment and repair.

Aethan grew frustrated on the bridge. His concentration lapsed as his mind wandered, worrying about Octavian; in darker moments he even wondered if he still lived. He held onto the hope, the silly hope, that if Octavian was no longer that he would have felt it; that he would instinctively know. His mental malaise translating into physical exhaustion, he made his way from the bridge to the crew quarters. The Captain of the Zafir pointed him to a doorway that the teams had not yet cleared, but that would be assigned to Aethan for the duration.

He entered the stateroom, which was in a disarray. A small table and accompanying chairs were overturned and scattered. He replaced them next to the viewing port in the bulkhead, assuming that they had been there before. He conjured himself and Octavian breakfasting there, perhaps as the previous occupants had. He walked around the room and took all the broken remnants of someone else's life and placed them into the replicator, which broke it all down into it's component parts for later use. All someone's accumulated possessions, the leftovers of their life after they fled the ship, if they managed to flee the ship, when she had been crippled.

At last the room was more or less cleaned up and Aethan was exhausted. Physically and mentally, he was wiped out. Small chimes through the overhead heralded the use of the ships comm system, and Dorel's uncertain voice entered his room.

“Now? They can hear me? Okay. Everyone, this is Dorel. Are you sure they can hear me? Yes? All right. This is Dorel, everyone. Arti has begun beaming raw materials in and we are going to get underway once that is complete. We have arranged the work in shifts, see your captain for assignments. We should depart in about three hours and transit time will be about fourteen hours, please do as much as you safely can. Thank you.”

Aethan peeled off his clothes and, out of the habit he'd acquired cleaning the room, gave the replicator his clothes. He groaned as he saw them disappear. He supposed he'd get new ones when he woke.

“Arti.” He spoke to the room.

“Greetings, Aethan.”

“Please wake me two hours before arrival.”

“Acknowledged. Is this your domicile for the journey?” Arti asked.

“I guess,” Aethan responded as he tumbled into the bed. He was so tired he never heard Arti reply.

Cordelia was fuming, “Arti, at the very least absorb the weapons systems so you can tell if there is anything wrong with them. Last thing we need is to try and shoot a torpedo only to find out it's going to blow up inside the ship!”

Cordelia had been arguing with Arti for the past half an hour to integrate the weapons systems at Dorel's insistence. She had to agree, knowing was a good idea, plus there was also the fact that they might have to blow a raider or two up. She certainly hoped so.

“Weapons systems integration in thirty two minutes. Weapons console on the bridge is damaged and will require repair to be manually operated,” Arti finally responded.

“Thank you!” Cordelia replied, no small amount of relief in her voice. Stubborn AI! She sat at the science station and closed her eyes, seeing Octavian and Olivia as she last had, arguing. They always argued, had since they were children. They called each other the worst names imaginable, but never allowed anyone else to. It was such a strange thing to see, siblings. They had both grown tall, like their father, and Octavian had taken after his father in his trading as well. Olivia was much more analytical, like her mother. She silently wished her babies were here with her now.

“Cordie, lets go get a few hours of rest,” Dorel shook her shoulder. She was bone tired, but the last thing she wanted to do was sleep. Somehow it seemed disrespectful to sleep, knowing her children were in danger. Reasonably, she knew there was nothing she could do now, and if she wanted to have her wits about her she'd need some sleep, but it was hard to be reasonable right now. She nodded at her husband and they left the bridge and went to the captains quarters.

“Aethan.”

“What Arti,” Aethan asked. He'd dozed on and off, fitfully, and didn't feel rested at all.

“Arrival is estimated at one and a half hours.” Arti informed him.

“Why didn't you wake me a half an hour ago?” Aethan asked as he groggily sat up in bed.

“I did,” came Arti's tart reply.

Aethan stretched and walked to the sonic shower and just stood in it, trying to wake up. His pale skin had indentations from the sheets where he'd laid on his side and his black hair was tousled. He got a shaver from the replicator and trimmed his face clean. He looked into his brown eyes in the mirror and imagined he could see every second of sleep he hadn't gotten last night etched onto his face. Today was to have been his wedding day, he realized.

Octavian had been the confident one in their relationship. Aethan wasn't exactly shy or ashamed of his body, but Octavian was the one that shamelessly pursued him, made him feel that he was incredibly desirable. Octavian's passion when they were together was nearly inexhaustible, and he would frequently tell him how attractive he was to him.

Aethan knew he was fit, but he had always felt he was too pale. He'd often wished he had lighter colored eyes to stand out more from his pale skin, and to balance against the shock of dark hair on his head. All of this only fueled Octavian, however. Any flaw Aethan found, Octavian would turn on it's head. Octavian said he loved Aethan's soft brown eyes, that they complimented his face rather than distracting from it with a bright, lighter color.

“If you had blue or green eyes like you wanted, who would look at your pretty face, Aethan? All they'd ever see was your pretty eyes. I like your brown eyes, I think they're hot. They make me hot.” Then he'd leaned in and whispered in Aethan's ear, “They make me hot for you.”

Aethan shuddered at the memory. Octavian was all about passion, whether it was fighting with his sister or falling in love with Aethan, he did it with gusto. Aethan struggled not to cry. He would have to find the strength to get through this day, and each that came after in order to reach that wedding day. After the wave of emotion had crashed across his conscious mind, he regrouped and asked Arti for clothes.

“The replicator has some stored patterns, but nothing of Carlinian styles. Shall I issue standard ships uniform for a science officer?” Arti asked. Aethan agreed and the folded uniform appeared on the replicator tray. Once he'd removed it the replicator flashed again and a cup and saucer appeared along with a small plate and a grouping of fruit.

“Arti, sometimes I love you,” Aethan smiled as he took the breakfast from the replicator. An hour later he was on the bridge and Cordelia glanced at him.

“Made the mistake of giving the clothes to the replicator I see.” She smiled wanly, she and Dorel were dressed similarly.

“I did it on purpose, I like this,” Laurian said from the navigation console. “Besides, if we actually come into contact with a raider, it might work to our benefit if they think we're Starfleet.”

A few minutes later Arti informed them they had reached their destination.

“Now what?” Aethan asked.

“Arti,” Dorel said, “Scan for debris, any indicators of recent combat, anything out of the ordinary.”

“Working,” Arti replied. Moments later he chimed again with a report. “Drifting debris of a freighter, consistent with Ligurian design, was destroyed here approximately two days ago.” Arti reported. “Streaming data to Science Console.” Aethan sat down at the Science station and began to analyze the information.

“Cotrigus,” Dorel whispered.

“There are no indications of other debris.” Arti intoned.

Relief swept the bridge. “Anything else?” Dorel asked.

“Specify.” Arti replied.

“Arti,” Cordelia stepped in, “Can you tell if a ship departed here approximately the same time as the other ship was destroyed? We want to track whoever the attacker was.”

“Working,” Arti responded. They waited on pins and needles. “Cross referencing with Starfleet records. Working.” Arti updated them.

“There is an ionized particle trail that matches the approximate time frame of the other vessel's wreckage,” Arti replied. “According to Starfleet records the engine would belong to a small Orion raider. Starfleet records indicate that Orion pirates have been seen in this area infrequently, several merchant ships have been lost in a large portion of space in this approximate area.”

“So that means if there is a trail, we can track it?” Dorel asked.

“Yes.” Arti replied.

“Arti, you said it was small. How small?” Aethan asked.

“According to Starfleet records, raiders of this class typically disable merchant ships and board them or tow them if their cargo or the ship is valuable enough. They typically would have a crew of ten or fewer people, but are heavily armed with small arms for boarding parties.”

“What did Caltrandia have on board?” Cordelia asked Dorel.

“Harvester parts. I found a good deal for Mordrell for them.”

“Are they worth anything to anyone else?”

“I don't think so,” Dorel shook his head.

“We're missing something,” Aethan said. After a few moments of silence he slowly asked Arti another question, “Arti if this raider is supposed to board or tow something, does that mean it has a short flight range?”

“That is correct.”

“How long would it take to reach the farthest distance along the direction this ionized trail leads before we reach the limit of that raiders capability?” Aethan asked.

“Twenty seven hours at warp factor five.”

“Are we still limited to warp five?” Dorel asked.

“Best possible speed currently is warp six point eight. Recalculating transit time to sixteen hours.”

“I say we head there, have the Silver Star depart when we're almost there, sooner they get into warp the better off they are.” Dorel said aloud.

“Course laid in,” Laurian reported from the helm.

“All right then, get underway, best speed. Lets get the captains assembled somewhere and fill them in.”

Dorel strode from the bridge to gather his captains and explain where they were going and arrange for those that wanted to leave. Cordelia turned to the weapons console.

“Arti, what is the status of the weapons systems?”

“Both forward and aft torpedo launchers are online and showing no signs of damage. Forward and rear phasers are online. Dorsal phaser is damaged. Port and starboard phasers are online. Phaser banks were tested and are able to be charged at will.” Arti reported.

“Thank you,” She replied and then sat heavily in the science station chair.

“Can't believe you got Arti to take over weapons,” Aethan said as he took as seat at the communications station.

“It was a battle, but he still won't use them. I told him we needed to know if there were any problems before we got into a fight in case we manually used them.” She replied with a tired giggle, “I can't believe after all this I had to convince Arti to take weapons.”

“Well, I have some ideas about defense if Arti won't fire a shot. I'm not sure how well any of us will do either.”

“Well, it will keep you busy,” Cordelia waved her hand, “It's more than I can say for myself.”

“I could use your help, and Fic too,” Aethan smiled at her, “Arti, how many shuttles does Repulse have on board?”

In the end several of the crewmen wanted to go home. It was only natural, they hadn't signed on for combat and many of them had families of their own to look after. Repulse dropped out of warp and the Silver Star departed her shuttle bay, and made the jump into warp for home.

“Arti, long range sensor sweep, what do you see?” Dorel asked.

“The ionized trail ends at a small celestial object three hundred and forty meters ahead. I am also reading two other ships, both powered down. Merchant ships, according to Starfleet records.”

“Approach on orbital...”Dorel chided himself, “Impulse power, one third ahead.”

“One third ahead aye,” Laurian responded.

“Several ships of the raider class have appeared, they have powered their engines and they are leaving the system on multiple warp vectors,” Arti announced.

“Get us in there!” Dorel cried out.

“Increasing speed to full impulse.” Laurina replied calmly.

“The ship with the ionized trail is leaving the docking facility, Captain.” Arti announced.

“Get a tractor beam on it! Now!” Dorel yelled.

“In range in three, two...tractor beam engaged. The ship is bringing it's warp engines online.” Arti continued to update. “Its warp drive is engaged. Estimate core overload in...core overload achieved, raider is destroyed. Shields engaged. Impact from warp core failure in six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Impact.”

Repulse absorbed the raiders warp core breach with not even a bump to show for it, her inertial dampeners kicking in. The bridge was silent, the people stunned as the little ship had destroyed itself rather than be taken; and with it may have lost their best lead on Olivia and Octavian.

“What do we do now?” Cordelia muttered over and over, rubbing her hands together.

“Arti, you said there were a few ships down there. Is one of them Caltrandia?” Aethan asked. His voice sounded hollow in his ears.

“Affirmative. Scans show systems are powered off, there are no life signs.”

“Lets tractor beam her in and get any information we can from her sensors. Also this was a base of operations, lets get some details from their computer.”

“Tractor beam engaged. Caltrandia will be located in shuttle bay three in approximately thirteen minutes. Attempting to negotiate with the base system.”

“I'm going to head down to check Caltrandia's log, maybe there's something that will help. Arti contact Fic and ask him to meet me in shuttle bay three” Aethan said before heading into the turbolift.

“My babies,” Cordelia muttered from her station. Dorel held her, but she didn't feel it, shock was setting in.

Silence ruled the bridge.

Fic was waiting in the shuttlebay when Aethan arrived. He was by the manual control system for the shuttle bay doors, but his gaze was on the large expanse of black that was the open end of the bay. All that kept the atmosphere in, and them as well, was the stabilizing field that stretched across the entire opening. Caltrandia slowly came into view, a sort of box with rounded sides and a single warp nacelle. It approached the bay doors and a blue light marked the hull as it passed through the shields and into the belly of Repulse. Arti lowered the ship via the in-bay tractor beams until the freighter sat on the deck.

“Doesn't look like they shot her up,” Fic remarked as they approached one of the ships airlocks.

“Octa,” Aethan's voice broke and he cleared it a few times and swallowed a moment to settle his throat before speaking again in a stronger voice. “Octavian had mentioned some kind of technical trouble that had the engines offline in his last transmission, so there would have been no need for the raiders to disable them.”

“I'm guessing they just made a poor shot on Cotrigus, no value in destroying the ship unless there really was something of value on Caltrandia and they knew that.”

“I'm going to call up the ships logs and cameras on the bridge, would you check the, ah, cargo hold? We should determine if they did take anything.” Aethan nodded to Fic and headed towards the bridge. He had a horrible vision of the cargo hold having the dead bodies of the crew, and he was ashamed that if this dark dream were true, he couldn't walk in to see it.

“Aethan, this is Fic. I'm in the cargo hold. I'll have to get a grav-sled, but the hold looks pretty full. Some of it shifted over the door, once I move it I can make a better judgment. I'm not going to waste time right now taking a complete inventory, just a scan.”

“Understood,” Aethan responded. He continued up the passageway until he reached the door to the bridge. He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes and exhaled. Answers may be here. That dark part of his mind reminded him that there could also be dead bodies on the bridge. He touched the door switch and stepped onto the bridge.

Caltrandias bridge was much more spartan than that of Repulse, to say the least. There were three chairs set in an arc and a small viewscreen mounted to the wall. The room was square, also unlike the bridge of Repulse which was horseshoe shaped. Aethan slowly walked to the worn chair where he'd seen Octavian on the screen just a few days previously. He placed his hand on the worn back and bit back a sob; he tried to banish the sudden overwhelming feeling that he would never see him again. He closed his eyes and took a moment to steel himself and then sat in the chair to access it's communications systems.

He tapped the badge on his uniform.

“Arti? Can you hear me?”

“I am detecting sound waves produced orally by you, yes.” Arti replied.

“A simple yes would suffice.”

“I do not hear in the sense that your question implies. I,” Arti was cut off by an exasperated Aethan.

“Arti! It doesn't matter!” He raged silently for what seemed like an eternity of wasted seconds. “are you having any success penetrating the base's computer system?”

“It is, I believe you would say, slow going. They use a variety of non-standard systems linked together and communications between each is difficult. I am continuing to access records as they become available.”

“Keep me informed.”

Aethan leaned over the comm console and began accessing Caltrandia's logs. He viewed their last drop off, and saw the harvester parts that were taken into inventory. He noted that they had dropped off passengers at that stop as well, which wasn't uncommon for freighters. Many times travelers would book a passage on a passing freighter to get them to a neighboring star system or planet to conduct business. Octavian had told him that merchants would sometimes travel with their shipments to assure safe arrival and no pilfering from the crew.

He noted that a large group was taken on at the last stop. According to sensor logs eighteen people had been brought aboard, which was an unusual number. He moved to the Captain's Log to see if Octavian or Olivia had made any notes about their passengers, and found it strange that they did not. Normally the log showed many small details about a transaction, if nothing else so that there was a record. He reached into his pocket and brought out a portable device that allowed Arti to physically mate with a system.

“Arti, I'm attaching the remote interface. Please access Caltrandia's logs and look for any hidden files, any clues about where the crew may be.”

“Affirmative.”

Aethan sighed and decided to head down to help Fic move some of the cargo that had shifted. There was nothing more he could do here. As he headed to the door Arti chimed.

“Embedded security file located, there are log entries and a video file.”

“Display the log entry,” Aethan walked back to the consoles and watched the screen come to life with text.

“Would you like me to begin video playback?” Arti inquired.

Aethan absorbed the tense situation the logs described. With engines down and slavers on board with their so called product, and somehow when Octavian and Olivia had called home, they had hidden all that tension? Were they being watched for any possibility of duplicity? It turned his stomach to think that someone had been just out of the view of the lens holding a weapon on them. They may have been in their grasp already at that point. They must have been, in fact, if Octavian had to tell them they must report in to avoid a military search and rescue operation, which the slavers wouldn't want. But why were slavers hitching a ride on a merchantman?

“Yes, Arti, begin playback.”

The view screen filled with an enlarged view of the bridge. 'Secure recording' appeared in the upper left hand corner. Aethan knew from previous discussion that if anything ever went seriously wrong the cameras on board could create a record and then store it in a secure file so that people seeking to destroy it couldn't locate it. The view showed Olivia against the wall, hands in the air and Octavian on the deck, unmoving. Their aggressor was an Orion, a muscular male with a deep green hue to his skin and a bald head. Behind him and clearly in charge was an Orion female, again with the typical green skin and otherwise looking like any other bloodthirsty pirate who happened to be female.

“The Orion Syndicate,” Aethan breathed and placed fingers to his suddenly throbbing temple. He watched the video, watched Octavian to see if he moved at all. He glanced at the floor behind him where the video showed Octavian laying and saw a small drop of blood, but nothing more. He watched the video two times, then a third. The nightmare was clear, but far from over.

“Fic,” he nearly whispered as he tapped on his comm badge, “There won't be any bodies in there. The Orion Syndicate has them all.”