[FFML] Ashen Trek Episode II

[John Biles]

I could not let the FFML die without making one last post of a story to
it.  I need to find a new archive for my own stuff with the keep having
finally died after 20 years of service.  (The machine it was on was nearly
old enough to buy alcohol)

This is my Ashen Stars / Star Trek fuson.  Without any further ado...

***************


Preview Ad:

Blurb:  “Mr. Spock understands being an alien among humans isn’t easy, so
he takes witness Charlie X, one of the Vas Mal, under his wing when the
Enteprise escorts Charlie from Alphax IV to Iphgenia II, where he can
testify against the notorious Kch-thk crimelord, Rt-Rchk.  But everyone
knows that Rt-Rchk has sworn to watch someone else eat Charlie’s spleen.
Not an easy escort mission at all.”


**********************************

Kirk was relieved that the jail in Rylax City on Alphax IV had its own
shuttleport.  This meant that they could land the Leningrad at the jail,
pick up the witness, and get off the planet without having to deal with
people trying to steal the shuttle, rob them, kill them, or worse.  Alphax
IV had serious crime problems, in part because its trade had collapsed
during the war and afterwards and now it had turned into a place where you
could do dirty business and more people turned to crime to survive.

The warden wanted to talk to him, so he was riding down with Sulu flying
the shuttle, with Rand for muscle and Uhura because she was the most versed
in Vas Mal culture, such as it was; the Vas Mal, turned from ‘gods’ into
flesh beings somehow, had yet to develop a real culture of their own,
latching onto other cultures and copying them.  Badly.

This could be really hilarious but Kirk wasn’t here to laugh and he didn’t
want to give needless offense to someone who was going to be risking his
life to testify against a crime lord, Rt-Rchk, who might well eat Charlie
if he got hold of the Vas Mal, who had once been his accountant.

Uhura could talk to almost anyone and get on their good side easily,
gracefully; he admired and envied that.  He was no longer the bookworm of
his youth, but he’d met few with better social skills than her.  She’d have
made a good diplomat, he’d thought, but only the War had brought her into
Starfleet at all.

And friendship had kept her with them, though he knew she kept talking of
launching a singing career.  But Kirk understood; wanting incompatible
things and having to choose was part of life.  He’d been there and done
that.

Chekov was busy humming a happy tune as he read something on his tablet.
 “Is that Kalinka-Malinka?” Uhura asked him.

“It is,” he said, smiling.  “My mother used to sing it to me, when I was
little.”

Now Uhura began to sing it and Chekov smiled brightly, waving a finger and
humming to match her.

Kirk glanced over at Sulu, who was piloting.  He nodded, so Kirk didn’t
stop them.  Never distract the pilot, that was one of the top five rules of
all space travel.

Kirk went over the briefing again.  Charlie X had offered to turn states’
evidence against the notorious Kch-thk crimelord, Rt-Rchk, who he had once
worked for as an accountant.  He claimed his conscience had awakened after
watching a vid, but Kirk suspected something more there.  The trial would
be held on Iphgenia II, where the Combine government was stronger and could
guarantee no bribing of judges.  Whether it could actually be enforced on
Alphax IV was another question; Kirk’s inner cynic suspected this would end
up being an empty conviction.  But this would help the process along.

You did what you could, here in the Bleed.

**************

Ashen Trek S1E2:  “Charlie X”

An Ashen Stars/Star Trek Fusion

By John Biles

**************

Pak Baek Hyon was the Warden of Silver Elm Prison.  Tall and broad, he sat
behind his desk as Kirk and Uhura sat down in the two brown chairs facing
it; Sulu was still on the shuttle and Chekov had gone with an officer to
get Charlie from protective custody.

“Charlie has had all charges against him dropped in return for his
testimony.  So you just need to keep him safe until you get him to the
Combine Court and then your job is done.  Once you do that, the Combine
will pay you.  If he dies, you won’t get paid,” the Warden said.  “That
being said, probably if he dies, it will be because you died too.  I have
to say that upfront.  I would estimate it as ninety-percent likely that
Rt-Rchk already knows you exist and what you’re going to do and will send a
ship after you.  The good news is that he’s probably too stingy to hire a
really big ship or a swarm of smaller ones.  So you do face a risk of being
blown up.  Which is why the reward for this is so high.  I am telling you
this because I engage only in honest dealings, unlike most of this planet.
If you want to back out, I’ll release you and seek another crew.  You can
keep the advance.”

Kirk’s eyes widened a little.  He wasn’t used to such blunt honesty from
clients.  It was refreshing, really.

“Thank you, sir,” Uhura said, then glanced at Kirk.

“We will do it.  We’re not Starfleet any more but we want to uphold the
law, and we’re used to danger,” Kirk said.  And having already spent the
advance on needed repairs and restocking, he felt obligated to go through
with it.  They still had no Durugh Sneakthieves; they would only be able to
get more of those once they got the main payment.  “But thank you for being
honest.”

The warden relaxed, letting out a sigh.  “Good.  Your reviews on the Feed
give you a very high rating and Rigel Research told me you went above and
beyond the call of duty to rescue their technicians, who were being held
hostage.”

Uhura smiled very brightly.  “I don’t suppose you have any use for
defoliant missiles?”  They still had a dozen of them.

“Not really,” the Warden said.  “How does that even work?”

“I tell Scotty to make magic happen and he makes it happen,” Kirk said and
he and the Warden both laughed.  The Warden’s desk shook when he laughed.
 “You can repurpose scramble-bots to do other work than stripping armor,
beyond that, it’s outside my area of expertise.”

“This planet could use some foliage-creating missiles,” the Warden said; he
had a potted plant in the corner, a bush with purple dagger shaped leaves.
Kirk had never seen this plant before.  But the Bleed and every other major
region of the Combine had a nigh-infinite array of plants, most of them
edible to sapients or to their animals.  Kirk suspected the Vas Mal, in
their energy being phase, had something to do with it.

“Is there anything off the record we need to know about Charlie X?” Uhura
asked.

“He’s obsessed with the late twentieth and early twenty-first century on
Earth; he claims to have been the Earth’s ‘official Vadrek’, whatever that
means,” Warden Pak said, shaking his head.  “Just pretend you understand
his constant references to old culture and you’ll do fine.  And he loves
games.”

“If he is good at three-dimensional chess, Spock will be pleased,” Kirk
said.

“I believe that the Vadrek had the job of watching the still embodied
races, so if any of them came close to ascending, the Vas Mal would be
ready,” Uhura said hesitantly.

“And he loves to make bets.  But he’s basically good-natured.  Anyway, he’s
your problem now.”  The warden slid the tablet on his desk across it to
them.  “Sign here.”

Kirk read the form quickly and signed off with Uhura signing as well.

“Okay, let’s see about getting Charlie to your ship.”

**************

“Yo yo yo!,” Charlie said excitedly to Chekov.  They’d converted an office
into a bedroom for him, instead of putting him in a cell, Chekov noticed;
he wasn’t sure if that was normal or not, as he had little training in law
enforcement.  Being the Weapons and Security Officers had some overlap but
he’d never been in charge of an actual ‘prison’.  Charlie would have to
sleep in the convertible hold, but he wasn’t a prisoner, he was a
responsibility and one Chekov took seriously.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” he said to Charlie; like most Vas Mal,
Charlie looked like someone made a human out of grey clay, but wasn’t very
good at it.  Charlie had particularly human eyes which looked lost among
his otherwise distorted features.  He wore a bright buttoned shirt covered
with images of leaves, and over that, an old analog clock on a gold chain,
battery powered, Chekov assumed.  His pants… were on backwards… and he wore
navy blue sneakers with a kind of flechette logo Chekov didn’t recognize.
He also had a baseball cap, bright red and white, which he also wore
backwards.  Americans had invented baseball, a variant of the Russian sport
called cricket, he knew.  Though both were inferior to hockey, the true
Russian sport.

I haven’t played hockey in years, Chekov realized and suddenly wished he
could.

Charlie had a backpack and a suitcase.  “I’m ready to go, homey,” he said
to Chekov, who now realized Charlie must originally be from a Synthculture,
even if he didn’t recognize this one.  People raised in such a place often
came off as ludicrous to outsiders, as Chekov had found out with some
frustrating experiences.

“I’m ready to take you; I expect we’ll encounter the rest of our landing
party on the way,” Chekov said.  But he knew the way to the office just in
case.

“I have… best that wait for when we’re in the shuttle and can sit down,”
Charlie said in a more normal tone of voice.  He’d sounded like he was
trying to affect an accent before.  “Lead me… wait, are you related to the
playwright?” he asked eagerly.

“I hope so,” Chekov said to him, smiling.  “Father said we were, but the
Eugenics Wars wiped out the records which would have confirmed whether or
not we actually are related to him.”

“What’s it like to have ancestors?” Charlie asked him as they walked along
with two officers of the jail.

Chekov stumbled and the officer behind them crashed into him.  “Sorry,
officer Wang,” Chekov said.  “That was my fault.”

“No harm done, just watch where you’re stepping; this carpet can come loose
sometimes,” Officer Wang said.

“What do you mean…,” Officer Phang began, then paused.  “So your kind
didn’t reproduce in the old days?”

“We evolved beyond the need for flesh or reproduction long ago; I was of
the last generation of meat-people before ascension, we all are.  And we’ve
forgotten all that.  I can’t even remember what our kind looked like beyond
gray,” Charlie said somberly.  “It’s why we came out like this, like a
piece of amateur art.”  He stared at his hands, frowning.

Chekov didn’t know what to say to cheer him up.  So the Vas Mal know they
look a mess, Chekov thought, feeling bad for him.

“It’s why I chose heroes who didn’t care what other people looked like, who
could accept people of any appearance,” Charlie said. “And it’s why I
realized I had to take the risk of testifying; I wasn’t living up to them.”

Chekov wished Uhura was here, she would know what to say, she *always*
knew.  “To have ancestors is to be part of a chain.  To know that there is
a line from you into the distant past, that all these people lived so you
could live and that one day, you’ll be part of that chain.  Piotr
Mikhailovich Chekov and his wife Vadlena are my earliest known ancestors.
Piotr was killed in the Eugenics Wars and Vadlena fled with their infant
son Andrei Piotrevich to Romania until things settled down, then returned
to Russia and raised Andrei.  Anything before that is lost.  We don’t even
know Vadlena’s last name.”

“I can trace my ancestry to a king from three thousand or so years ago,”
Officer Wang said proudly.

Officer Phang offered no comment but looked slightly embarrassed.

“I think I am somewhere in the order of a million years old now, but I’m
not sure,” Charlie confessed.  “I was sent to monitor the Earth a few
centuries ago; it made a huge impression on me, so lively and full of
different things.  Of course, that was the point with humans.”  His tone of
voice was odd, as if he was talking quietly to himself… loudly.

“The point?” Chekov asked.

“Of course, even monitoring was controversial; it made meddling so hard to
resist and many slipped and fell,” Charlie rambled on.  “We must have done
something to meddle and that’s how this happened.  But I don’t know what.”

“Whatever ended the Mohilar War,” Officer Wang said firmly, as if he’d
given the order. “What else could have done it?”

“That’s our theory.  The thing about touching lower planes is that you get
tangled up with them if you’re not careful and they pull you down instead
of you pulling them up.”  Charlie paused.  “But that’s our problem, not
yours.”

Chekov had to ask. “So what did you think of Mother Russia?”

“Was that those children’s stories from Earth?  The magical goose woman
they thought told stories to children?” Officer Phang asked.

Chekov stared at him in confusion.

And then the Warden, Uhura, and Kirk arrived.  Charlie stared at Uhura and
his breath caught.  “What a honey,” he said in awe.

Well, this is going to be a disaster, Chekov thought.  It wasn’t that Uhura
had no interest in romance, but Chekov couldn’t imagine romancing a Vas
Mal.  He wouldn’t say anything because it would be rude and not his
business anyway, but he hoped this wouldn’t lead to trouble.

Uhura looked at Charlie, then sighed.  The Warden said, “Please don’t cause
them any trouble, Charlie.  She’s working and you don’t hit on working
women.  We went over that.”

Chekov blinked.  Certainly Charlie’s file didn’t mention… well, I suppose
‘romantic incompetent’ wouldn’t go in someone’s file.  If he hits on
Janice, I hope she doesn’t shoot him, Chekov thought.

“Your eyes do not deceive you, Charlie, but we are all in this together,”
he said, clasping Charlie’s shoulder.  “Back in Russia, you learn to fish
outside the boat.”

Kirk looked slightly amused.  “Thank you, Warden.  We’ll be on our way.
Thank you for hiring us.”

“Charlie, this is our leader, Captain Kirk,” Chekov said to Charlie.

“I was the Captain but we all are equals now,” Kirk said firmly.  “I am the
Strategic Coordinator, but that means I lead during battle.  Our other
decisions, we make together.”

“Democracy,” Charlie said. “It was interesting seeing how the meaning of
that word changed on Earth over time.”  He was suddenly much more serious
than before to Chekov’s surprise.  “There were still many slaves in
democracies when I arrived and by the time I was relieved of Vadrek duty
and sent to ensure the… words do not exist in this language… Anyway, I
think it was roughly from 1850 BCE… I mean CE to 2050 BD… AD… The one thing
I could never track was how you kept changing the year acronym.  After I
dealt with the anomaly, they decided I was good at that and spent the rest
of the time until our fall being sent around dealing with anomalies.”

Chekov saw Kirk’s eyes light up.  “So the Vas Mal used to try and fix the
stellar and other anomalies our galaxy is dotted with?”

“Only if *absolutely* necessary.   My post-Vadrek job was to determine if
sufficiently large scale catastrophe would ensue if it was left alone,”
Charlie said, turning to him. “If you would like to hear some stories
during our trip of things I encountered, I would be happy to share them.
Unlike much of what I observed as Vadrek, I do not feel bound by Marda.”

“Marda is the law of silence; the Vas Mal have forgotten much of what they
saw, but some of what they remember cannot be discussed,” Uhura said
quickly.

Charlie made a soft noise and smiled at Uhura.  “So you have studied what
is left of our culture.”

“Yes,” Uhura said.  “I am Nyota Uhura, Comm Officer and Cultural Officer
for the Enterprise II.  These jobs, of course, overlap.”  She looked more
relaxed.

“So you are from Eastern Africa?” Charlie asked curiously.

“Yes.  My home is destroyed now but my family evacuated in time, when I was
ten.  This was during the Mohilar War,” Uhura said.

“We should get going,” Kirk said.  “But I would like to talk to you later,
Mr. X.”

“I would love to,” Charlie said, smiling.

They got moving and Uhura asked, “How did you know it was *Eastern* Africa?”

“Your name is from Swahili,” Charlie X said. “Which is primarily found in
Eastern Africa, one of the few accurate things my predecessor passed on to
me.”  He sighed. “He was kept on station for seven hundred years and I
think he mainly was interested in Australia and let his knowledge of
everything else decay.  His reports led me to study five dead languages,
along with the useful ones.  Oh, and eight which were only spoken by small
groups of the native Australians.  Four of which died out while I was
Vadrek.”  He shook his head.  “I am glad humans have become more peaceful
since then.”

“You think humans are peaceful now?” Chekov said, surprised, given the
circumstances of their meeting.

“Compared to when I became Vadrek of Earth?  Oh yes.  I saw many wonders
but also many horrors on Earth during my two centuries of observation,”
Charlie said.  “I spent the first half of the twentieth century usually
looking like ‘The Scream’, if you know that painting.”

Uhura laughed softly.  “I know it,” she said.  “And I know enough history
to see why you would think that.”  She shook her head.  “My ancestors
suffered under Colonial rule but we were fortunate compared to some
Africans or other peoples.”

“I know, I had to watch it all go down,” Charlie said.

They discussed East African history the rest of the way to the ship and
Chekov decided this might not be too bad.  Charlie seemed to learn quickly
to adjust his behavior, so hopefully they’d all get along.

******************

“You’re clean,” McCoy said.  “No sign of poisons, nanoparasites, and the
like.  And you have no surprise implants.”

Charlie nodded as he laid on the bench in the sickbay.
One end of it was partitioned off to form McCoy’s bedroom.  If necessary,
it could be expanded into part of the cargo hold.  The ship relied a lot on
reconfigurable walls.

“I didn’t think so, in part because Rt-Rchk prefers direct violence,”
Charlie said.  “But it’s best to be sure.”

“Only your fashion sense is defective,” McCoy said.  “You do realize you
look ridiculous, I hope.”  It was for the boy’s own good to tell him this.

Charlie frowned.  “I dress to honor my heroes,” he said.  “Just as your
profession uses the cadaceucus.”

“I don’t dress myself entirely in snakes, though,” McCoy said.  “And what
kind of heroes dress like this?”  He would regret arguing about this later,
but now his dander was up.

“Well, it was hard to combine Charlie Bucket and Malcom X’s garb, but I did
the best I could,” Charlie said, sitting up.  “It’s lively and memorable
and defiant, like them.”

McCoy had no idea who Charlie Bucket was and only a vague awareness of
Malcom X, but he was pretty sure…  “I know the only picture I’ve seen of
Malcom X, he was in a suit.”

“My memories are clear!” Charlie said angrily and stormed out.  “I’m not
like the people who mash centuries together!”  And then he was gone.

McCoy went to his computer station and sat down. “Computer, show me Malcom
X and Charlie Bucket.”

Several images of a black man in glasses and a standard work suit from the
late twentieth century now appeared, the kind of outfit you saw a lot of
men wearing in historical vids.  Next to him were a half-dozen different
people, though they were all young white boys in slightly different cheap
clothing.  One was drawn, another was like a comic story and the other four
were snapshots of real humans.  Or possibly high quality CGI.

“What is this?” he asked, circling the boys.

//Charlie Bucket is a fictional character, these are from the six most
popular representations of his story visually,// the computer replied.
 //He is the lead in the novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the
novel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.  I can list later novels, not
by the original author, Ronald Dahl, if you like.//

“Give me a two page description of each,” McCoy said.  He hated computers
but as a doctor, it was his duty to help his patients.

Not look like idiots in this case.

********************

“A pleasure to meet you,” Spock said to Charlie, shaking his hand.

“I am sorry about your planet.  Your people were a peaceful folk and many
of our kind expected them to ascend within a few millennia.  Now, we are
not sure if anyone will ever ascend again.”  Charlie sighed and his eyes
seemed to stare off into the past.  “The last Vadrek died with Vulcan.  We
think he tried to save it and failed.  I am sorry.”

“Your people were wisely sworn to non-interference,” Spock said to him.
 “We take no offense.  I have prepared a bedroom for you.  I can make some
changes, but I am not familiar with the Vas Mal beyond the basics and we
have limited capacity to adjust a room.”

The room, in fact, held a bed for one, a wall poster of the Milky Way
Galaxy and a photo of a black hole which Kirk himself had taken in his
younger days, and a tiny table and chair.  “Your luggage will need to go
under the bed and table, or they can be stowed in the hold.”  The bedroom,
in fact, had been carved out of the hold, which could be reconfigured in
various ways.

“It’s fine,” Charlie said.  “This should be a short trip.  We all eat
together in the kitchen, I assume?”

“Yes,” Spock told him.  “Please sit, I will explain the routine.”  He sat
at the desk and Charlie sat on the bed.  He explained everything.  “Any
questions?”

“Do I look ridiculous to you?” Charlie asked softly.

“Vulcans do not care about fashions, it is illogical.  However, many other
species have distinct ideas about fashion and it can be necessary to
accommodate that.  The jury is unlikely to take you seriously in that
outfit, important as it is to you.  Upon our arrival at our destination, I
can guide you to find something you can wear at the trial,” Spock said.  “I
am hoping your testimony succeeds.”

“Thanks,” Charlie said.  “A lot of people think we are strange.”

“Every intelligent species appears to be strange to each other,” Spock said
seriously.  “But my people believe in IDIC.  Infinite Diversity in Infinite
Combinations.  Each species should be free to develop its own culture, from
food to clothing to style, and the sharing of that enriches us all.  I know
we look strange to your people as well.  I try to accept every kind of life
that does not try to eat me on sight.”  For a moment, he was silent,
looking at distant memories.  Then he said, “And even then, I would try to
leave it alive if I could.  Some creatures are predators and it is their
nature to eat others, including me, though it is not my duty to be eaten.”

“I still haven’t figured out what kinds of food I like most; many of us had
only the vaguest ideas of how to make food when we descended into flesh,”
Charlie said.

“Uhura and McCoy do most of the cooking, though Sulu and Scotty also
contribute and Chekov… attempts it.  The rest of us know better than to
try.  In the old days, there were professional cooks on Combine ships but
these days, we have to do everything ourselves,” Spock told him.

“I am going to nap until dinner.  Thanks a lot, Mr. Spock,” Charlie said,
shaking his hand.

“Live long and prosper, Charlie X,” Spock said, rising.  “I will have you
paged at dinner time.”

“Thanks,” he said.

*******************

Charlie quietly watched Scotty work, though the job seemed pretty simple;
he had a panel open and was shoved into a space with a bunch of tubes.
Scotty had a box of Vas Mal Improbability Rockets and was busy loading them
into the tubes.

Charlie had questions but kept his mouth shut for fear he’d somehow cause
Scotty to set one of them off; Charlie had never been this close to such
rockets before but he knew they’d take out him and most of the room,
detonated inside a ship.

Scotty finished, closed the tubes, pulled out, and then blinked in surprise
at Charlie.  “Hey there.  Is something wrong?”

“I have nothing to do until we get there, so I was watching you.  Those are
some of my people’s rockets, right?”

“Yeah.  I had to turn the last set into defoliant missiles on our last
job,” Scotty said.

“You should register that on the Patent List,” Charlie said.  “There’s a
lot of good uses for that, I think.  How did you turn explosives into
defoliant?”

“Took out the explosives, reprogrammed our scramble bots to produce
defoliant instead of magnetism, then turned the explosive loads into hand
grenades and one bigger bomb,” Scotty said.  “We were running pretty short
on weapons until we picked you up.”

He now stood up and put the missile box into the room’s recycler.  “All we
had left was punchbeams and phasers.  Once I fix the Neutronic Fusillade,
we’ll have everything except scramble bots, and I expect whatever Rt-Rchk
throws at us would have Chronoplate, anyway.”

Charlie knew Chronoplate; it was his people’s favored armor – when about to
be hit, it jumped through time so you blew up empty space, then came back
nearly instantly once the force dissipated.  It was most effective against
Scramble Bots by giving them nothing to latch onto.  If they did latch on,
their unshielded time travel would wreck them.  It was most vulnerable to
Balla Neutronic Fusillades, which lasted long enough for it to jump back
and get wrecked.  “Do you have Chronoplate?” he asked curiously.

“We have a full array of defenses,” Scotty said.  “It makes us really hard
to fight in single combat.”

“But in multiple combat, you don’t have enough power to run them all at the
same time?” Charlie said.

Scotty sighed.  “The Tavak make mighty fine engines, but this is just a
Runner.  The Enterprise, she had enough power to run everything at once,
but she was a capital ship and this is basically a sloop.”  Scotty paused.
 “A sloop is…”

“I know,” Charlie said.  “I watched the Battle of Trafalgar and many
others.  I remember when Britannia ruled the waves.  And now…”  He slumped.
 “It’s all laid waste.”

“I know, lad,” Scotty said, despite knowing Charlie was thousands upon
thousands of years older than him.  “But we’ll fix it.  Humanity makes huge
messes, then cleans then up.  That’s our way.”

“I know,” Charlie said.  “I’m sorry to bother you.  I’m just bored and
restless and worried.”

“You’re an accountant, right?” Scotty said.  “Chekov could probably use
your services; he handles our finances.”

Charlie clapped his hands.  “Sounds great.”  He now ran off excitedly.

It’s like there’s a tired old man and a kid living in the same body, Scotty
thought.

He grabbed his tool box.  The weapons were all good now.  Time to see what
else on the Leningrad he could fix before they got the payoff for this
job.  And what would wait.

**************

“Now, this rescue pushed you over the threshold to qualify for a Search and
Rescue Grant from the Bleed’s Combine Office of Health and Human Services,”
Charlie said.  “The base is 90 bigcreds and you might be able to argue them
up to as many as 120, but I don’t think you have rescued enough people in
the last year.”

That’s about 1.5 normal jobs worth of bigcreds, Chekov thought. An average
job paid around 60 bigcreds (a bigcred = 1 million credits).  The Charlie X
run was *90*, but they expected to take heavy damage which would eat up a
lot of that.  “I didn’t think the Combine still did that kind of thing in
the Bleed.”

“That grant would have been 900 bigcreds before the Mohilar War,” Charlie
said.  “90 bigcreds is nothing to sneeze at but you could blow that in a
month in New Vegas just on body oils.”

Chekov rubbed his temples.  “Seriously?”

“Well, to be fair, most people would spend less than one bigcred on oils,
but the boss… the old boss… insisted on blowing huge amounts of money on
authentic chitin wax from his homeworld.  I’m not even sure what made it
‘authentic’.  But he would blow through about 800 bigcreds a year on it.”

Chekov felt every muscle in his body clench at the thought.

“You can spend bigcreds like water if you have them to burn,” Charlie told
Chekov.  “When I realized I was more worked up over his food bill than the
people he’d killed, I had to get out before I lost my way completely.”
 Charlie stared at the corner.  “I’m good with numbers.  I never really
realized that in the old days, even though I could do things like
memorizing the entire 1897 Russian census.”

Chekov stared in shock.  “All the data?”

“Yes.  I have forgotten most of it, though odd bits surface sometimes.
This one man had wives in *three* cities and I don’t think any of them
knew,” Charlie mused.

Chekov felt as if he stood at the edge of a great abyss of time.  “But you
could until your race fell,” he said softly.  “So why does everyone use
phasers as hand weapons?”

Chekov blinked, trying to follow the line of thought and failing.  “Most
species invented something like the Phaser as a personal weapon because it
could be scaled down to a hand-held and still work.  Neutronic Fusillades
are too messy at the personal scale, and the Balla prefer to use a neuronic
whip if they have to go into hand-to-hand combat.  A Tavak Punchbeam is
just a spread out phaser shot.  The Kch-Thk prefer slugthrowers.  The
Durugh just use Phasers.  The Vas Mal use whatever fits their persona.”

Charlie nodded.  “I can’t comment on *quality*, but the Van Dorn Armnaments
Company has a deal for the next three months – if you buy phaser banks from
them, they will take your old banks and give you a discount.  The bo… old
boss had a deal with Korgor Arms to buy Sneakthieves, but you might not be
able to buy at a sufficient scale,” Charlie said.  “OH!  That plant monster
place was Mohilar, right?  You might be able to get a 30 Bigcred grant from
the Mohilar Vengeance Foundation.”

The next four hours were very informative to Chekov and if *everything*
panned out, they might have an extra 630 bigcreds to play with within the
next three months.

***************

“Charlie is like a god of accounting,” Chekov said.  “We may finally have
the money for all the things we want and can only dream of right now if
this all pans out.”

“You should expect about half of it will.  Some of those are stretching but
there may not be many who know to apply,” Charlie said.

They were having trout soup; they took turns cooking and Scotty, as usual,
made a fish soup.

“I’ve sent your measurements; we’ll have a suit for you when we arrive,”
McCoy told him.  “It’ll help your testimony.”

Charlie sighed, but nodded.

“I would like a greenhouse,” Sulu said.

“That’s a *space* issue,” Kirk told him.  “It would be cheap but we’d have
to permanently convert part of the hold.”

“We could grow fresh food,” Sulu said.  “No offense, Scotty, but your soups
would be better with fresh veggies instead of powdered veggie mush.”

“None taken, as I know it’s true,” Scotty said.  “That’s why my victory
soups are the best soups.  Especially if I catch me some fresh fish.”
 Victory soups were made in port, where he could get fresh food; they had
some ability to refrigerate, but they had to rely a lot on powdered veggies
and fruit.

“So you can kill them just before you cook them and they don’t get fishy,”
Charlie said.  “I remember that.  I used to know how you made fugu but it’s
all a blur now.”  He sighed and ate soup quietly.

“If some of these grants pay off, we could get a Bigfridge,” Chekov said.
 “That would let us carry enough fresh food for a typical trip.”

“It would eat a sixth of the hold,” McCoy said.  “We’re probably better off
with the flexibility.”

“I would like a Fairyduster,” Rand said, looking up from her food.  “Five
bigcreds and it would be a big help in my ECM work.”

“What does that do?” Kirk asked.

“Lets me use one of our radio projectors to hack the enemy attack sensors
so they shift energy to spurious assaults,” Rand said.

“That sounds very useful and not too expensive,” Kirk said.  “How much
space does it take?”

“It’s just a program and a radio upgrade,” Rand said.

The rest of dinner turned into a wishlist of everything people would like
to add to the Enterprise II.

***************

A perpetual problem for the Enterprise II was that it was impossible to run
a proper watch system when your crew was all of eight people.  Most of the
‘day’, everyone was up, and then all but two would sleep at night,
switching off every two hours.

McCoy and Rand were up on watch, Rand in the piloting chair, plugged into
the controls and McCoy at the sensor array, reading medical journals and
keeping an eye for trouble.  Their watches usually passed in silence as
Rand was no longer very chatty and McCoy had mostly given up on this.

“Can I get you to look at something?” McCoy asked her.

“Yes,” she said to his surprise, so he brought his tablet.  “This is the
suit I picked out for him.”  Thanks to the ‘wonders’ of computers, you
could see Charlie in the suit.

“He looks like you would if you put on an ape suit,” Rand said.  “That is
not him.”

McCoy winced at that.  “The court won’t take him seriously in his usual
outfit.”

“He’s an adult who can make his own decisions,” Rand said.  She frowned.
 “Let him be himself.”

“I don’t want to see him crash and burn,” McCoy said.

“He’s not a kid, he is older than any of us, even you,” Rand said.  “His
fashion sense baffles me but he has lost so much, more than you could ever
imagine.”  Her voice sounded haunted.

McCoy sighed and went back to his post.

“Thinking about Joanna?” Rand said softly and McCoy froze in his seat.

“She wouldn’t listen either,” McCoy grumbled.

“The Kherens are good, honorable people who do what you do,” Rand told him.

“The Kherens are a bunch of pie-in-the-sky reincarnationists who believe in
a load of mystical nonsense,” McCoy said angrily.  “They filled her head
with a bunch of hoohah and sent her off to get high and waste her life.”

“We both know energy beings are real.  Kheren Jaans was a real person who
really saved an entire planet by fusing with one of the Vas Mal before
their fall.  I can’t blame anyone for wanting to ascend.”  She rubbed two
of her gloved fingers together; she had cyberhands now, he knew.  “And the
Kherens are probably the most helpful Nufaith in the Bleed.”

There were four major NuFaiths.  McCoy hated the term.  The Blood Redeemers
were too militaristic, the Fibrous Sacrament had delusions of grandeur from
their cyberware, and the Mondat worshipped computers, which McCoy found to
be the dumbest possible idea.

He was an old fashioned Baptist, even though most people in the Bleed
probably didn’t know what a Baptist even was.  But Joanna had left that
behind to go join a bunch of space hippies.

I’m probably the only person in ten lightyears to know what a hippy was,
McCoy thought.  Maybe Uhura… and Charlie.

McCoy, defeated, sat and grumped at his journals.

****************

Before their watch ended, the sensor grid fired.  A direct warp corridor
linked Alphax IV to Iphgenia II, but the disadvantage was that you came out
around Iphgenia XI, in Iphgenia’s equivalent of the Kuiper belt.  The good
news was that the belt was, at the scale of a Runner, basically empty.  You
could only run into an asteroid, moon, dwarf planet, or comet if you were a
complete idiot.  The warp corridor’s exit itself bent orbits around a large
area, allowing safe ingress and exit.

The bad news was that it was a great place for ambushes.

So McCoy reluctantly ruined everyone’s sleep and made them wake up.  It was
worst for Sulu and Uhura, who had the previous watch and were deep in
sleep.  Uhura still had her pajamas on and Sulu was shirtless and they both
had to run back and change.

Everyone was chugging coffee and staring at monitors when the trouble
came.  The Crossbow came out of hiding behind a dwarf planet and its
weapons were charging up.  It was a Hammer-class ship.

Hammers were warships; they had more and better weapons and armor and
hardening against ECM.  They had  a bridge with advanced holo displays and
other tactical gear.  However, they did not so much turn as kind of vaguely
wallow in a new direction slowly and because the weaponry was concentrated
in the front of the ship, they needed to come at you head on.  Their
defenses, however, were strong all over.

“Sulu, evasive manuevers,” Kirk said.  “If we can get behind them, it’s
ideal; just don’t let them get their front at us.  Uhura, notify the
authorities even if there’s no way they can get here in time.  McCoy,
standby, hopefully you won’t even have to do anything.  Spock, scan the
Crossbow, see if you can find anything useful.  Scotty, you’re also on
standby for field repairs.  Rand, scramble them as best you can.  Chekov,
on my mark, you will release a barrage of Improbability rockets, then
follow it with a Punchbeam.”

The old one-two, Chekov thought.  The enemy would shift power to his Force
Shifters to stop the rockets, and then be wide open to the Punchbeam.

Unless the Defense officer… and the Hammer would have a separate one for
offense and defense…. Was nimble enough to react, anyway.

But the old one-two made a good test of your foe’s ability to defend.

As the Enterprise II dove portward, Chekov launched a flight of missiles;
this triggered the macro to fire the Punchbeam.  However, he now faced
Scramblebots coming in; Chekov routed power to the Chronoplate, but he
could now see a Balla Neutronic Fusillade coming his way.  Damnation, he
thought.

The good news was that it only gently clipped the rear of the Enterprise
II, which had mostly moved out of the shot, despite how wide an attack the
fusillade was.

The Hammer began to turn, slowly, clumsily, as the Enterprise came up
around its rear starboard corner.  Chekov pumped Phaser fire into it, but
the Crossbow’s Conductors dispersed the energy to where it just left tiny
black marks.  So Chekov fired off Scramblebots, which wouldn’t be
dispersed, but the continued manuevers of the Enterprise II meant that he
just clipped the rear gently.

Tit-for-tat, Chekov thought, but they would never beat a Hammer in
tit-for-tat.

**************

Rand had full spectrum vision, an advantage in ECM.  She saw the enemy as a
set of electrical fields and emissions.  Hammers were hard to hit in
electronic combat, but no better at hitting a foe than a Runner was.

Was their foe another cybe like her?  Cybes made the best ECM fighters, but
were also more vulnerable to ECM attacks than any fully-meat person.  She
launched several probing attacks, trying to break into their sensor suite,
but she was repulsed.

“Anything we can do to help you, Rand?” Kirk asked.  He meant himself
specifically; as the coordinator, he gave orders but he could also give
backup on specific tasks.

“Hammers have full ECM coverage, yes?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, yes.  Unlike their physical weapons,” Kirk said.

An idea hit Rand.  “Uhura, comm Charlie and ask him what he knows about the
crew on this thing if anything.”

Uhura activated the intercom.  “Charlie, do you know anything about the
crew of this ship, the Crossbow?”

“They’re all Kch-thk, except for the Tavak engineer and the Cybe ECM
officer.  They have an Attack and a Defense officer instead of a Weapons
officer and they have four marines and no Science officer.  The marines can
take over weapons or ECM if they have to but they’re better at shooting,”
Charlie said.  “They only get paid half as much as the rest of the crew
because they mostly sit around and eat twice as much.  The ship has an
Asphyxiator and a Burner.”

An Asphyxiator helped you damage your foe’s life support, but a Burner…
“Burner?” Rand said.

“A Burner emits a field which damages the metal of your foe.  But you have
to basically get in close and run the length of the ship to make it work
and that is pretty risky,” Kirk said, frowning.  “Be advised, Sulu.”

Scotty winced at the mention of Burners.  The nemesis of engineers.

“Yes, sir,” Sulu said, altering his mental plans.  “Going to try and loop
around so we can hit their engines.”

“Also, he cheaped out on the restraints in the brig; it saved some money
but they can only actually hold a Vas Mal, a Human, a Vulcan, or a Balla.
Anyone else’s wrists are too big,” Charlie said.

“The emergency air masks are in the galleys,” Uhura said.  “You’d best get
one now, Charlie.”

They could hear him running.

A cybe.  What Rand wanted to hear.  So she unlocked sealed memory in her
brain and downloaded the code into her console, then tried to infiltrate it
into the enemy ship.

It went in, but now she had to see if it would trigger.

****************

Sulu did his best to keep out of the guns of their foe, but as he came
around, it managed to lurch enough to take a set of shots.  A wide-angled
Punchbeam; the Enterprise’s Inertia misters dispersed anti-energy into its
path, which cancelled it out in a flashy explosion.  An explosion which hid
the Sneakthieves, who bypassed the pockets through warpspace; Chekov had
anticipated that and shifted energy to the Crystalloid grid, which dumped
semi-organic chaff into space; the Sneakthieves mistook it for the
Enterprise II and blew it up short of the ship… which hid the incoming
barrage of Vas Mal Improbability Rockets that now crashed into the
Enterprise in the side; Life Support now crashed, though the air wouldn’t
go bad *immediately*.

Sulu got them out of the gunsights and Chekov fired a single phaser, then a
barrage of Scramble Bots; the phaser was easily blocked by the Crossbow’s
Conductor grid but said grid was useless against Scramble Bots and now one
side of the enemy had a warped hull.

“We are not being paid to fight,” Kirk said.  “Let’s run for it, force them
to chase us.  Slingshot around the dwarf planet.”

Sulu did so and Rand now detonated her attack; it would hit the *Cybe*, who
had weaker defense than his ship, which he was almost certainly jacked into
it.  His link would go bonkers right as they vanished around the planet.
 “I bought us maybe a minute of no sensors for them,” she said.

“Mr. Scott,” Kirk said.  “Get the Life Support up, then I want you to turn
those left-over explosives into programmable mines.”

“Yes, sir,” he said and got to work.

***************

They had enough of a lead on the Crossbow to be out of range as they
approached the gas giant Iphgenia VI.  It had a pretty ring system and
Spock took some pictures for his personal files.  The destruction of Vulcan
had made him more sensitive to the need to preserve records of things now
for future times.  Ring systems had a built-in time limit.

“We’re going to dive through the rings, leave the mines there, and use the
planet to slingshot again,” Kirk said.  “They will have to follow us and
I’m hoping the ring will keep them from realizing the mines are waiting for
them.”

Chekov powered up the Zeroizer array, which surrounded the ship with a
cloud of microsingularities; this would keep fast-moving but small
particles from piercing the hull.  Standard practice if crossing a ring.

So the enemy wouldn’t suspect anything odd.

The Enterprise II had a mine-layer but it hadn’t been used in six months
since the last set of mines ran out.  But it worked at Scotty’s command.

Then they headed down to begin the run and the Crossbow hit the mines;
unfortunately, its own defenses fended off most of the damage.  But every
little bit helped.

However, as they came around the planet, *a second Hammer* was waiting for
them.  Mjolner, run by crazed human mercenaries but apparently willing to
make a deal with Rt-Rchk.

“Sir, I have to abort the run or risk them broadsiding us,” Sulu said.

“It’s not worth it!  Don’t get yourself killed for me.  I already lived a
million years, I can die if I have to,” Charlie said miserably over the
intercom, which they now realized was still on.

“It’s going to be okay, Charlie.  We’ll make it,” Uhura said.  “You should
sit and mediate.”

They could hear him trying to meditate and mostly freaking out, but she now
cut down the feed volume for everyone but her, in case he needed to say
something.

They drew closer to the enemy firing arc as Kirk tried to think of a
solution.

Spock frowned at his monitor.  “Sir, I am getting unusually high levels of
solar wind.  We are probably about to be hit by the effects of a solar
flare, though it will be much weaker here than elsewhere.”

Kirk frowned for a few seconds.  “Send the data to Sulu’s council.  Sulu,
we will do a partial slingshot, aim us right into the on-coming
transmission.”

“Sir, it will utterly scramble sensors; we’ll be flying blind,” Spock said.

“And so will they,” Kirk said.  He smiled.

Their changed course sent them OVER Mjolner; it tried to turn but couldn’t
turn fast enough and Chekov gave them some phaser shots to remember them
by.

Then they FELT the change as the solar energies rushed over everything and
now they were cruising blind.  Time for Scotty to get to work with Spock
helping him.

And for McCoy to feel his blood pressure throbbing.  But this was not a
time for self-medicating.

*****************

Spock reached out with his mind; Charlie’s agitation was like a storm
blocking his mental senses, so he gave up again and worked on helping
Scotty.  “Spock, there’s a flying snake in my room and it is gibbering in
something the Univeral Translator doesn’t know,” Charlie said urgently over
the intercom; Uhura had passed the link to Spock.

“There’s probably still damage to your life support, causing a
hallucination,” Spock said.  “It sounds like you are wearing your mask,
however.”

“HELP.”

Spock headed quickly to the room and… he could *feel* a presence but he
couldn’t see anything.

There was a mind; Charlie was pointing at empty air but something was
there.  It was broadcasting, babbling… in Vulcan!

It was basically reciting a set of passage from Volume III of Surak’s
meditations.  Spock slowly approached and tried to touch it, though he
could not see anything to touch.  For a moment, he got a connection.

“It’s attacking your arm!” Charlie said frantically.

Spock let it, felt it babbling over and over.  ‘I am Spock, son of Sarek,’
he said soothingly.

It took about twenty minutes to calm it but finally, it said, ‘I am
Kurakanes, son of Halak’.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Charlie said.

“It’s a Vulcan katra,” Spock said softly.  ‘Kurakanes, I will take you to
my room and try to see about having you sent to New Vulcan.’

Charlie made a noise, then said, “But… oh.”  He sagged.  “How did he get
all the way here?”

“He probably died here,” Spock said.  Something to figure out later.  “So
you can see him.”

“Yes, he looks kind of like a snake,” Charlie said.  “What is he?”

“A Vulcan’s soul, lost in space,” Spock said softly.  “I will ensure he
gets home.  Thank you, Charlie.”

“Thank you for protecting me,” he replied.  “I feel like I ought to be
helping.”

“We don’t need accountancy in battle.  You will do your part when you
testify to put Rt-Rchk in jail,” Spock said.

“I thought… I didn’t really understand.  I wanted to be a rebel, but he was
just a criminal,” Charlie said, now flopping out on his bed.  “There was no
heroism in it.”

“Vulcans do not value heroism,” Spock said.  “Unless you count advancing
knowledge or helping others as heroic.  I could not be a Kheren, but I
admire their discipline.”

“Discipline?”  Charlie said.  “They seem like wild goof-offs to me.”

“They put helping others ahead of everything else and many have died saving
others.  Sacrificing yourself to help others if it is the only way, is a
logical act,” Spock said.  “You risk yourself for little personal benefit
in doing this.”

“I will be able to live with myself and that’s a huge benefit,” Charlie
said.  “I chose my heroes because I wanted to help others.”

“You should teach others to use their money wisely, as you helped Chekov,”
Spock said.  “A logical use of your talents and many could use it.”

He left Charlie musing on the idea.

*****************

The AC now produced a hideous smell and Scotty was still doing battle with
it when two Hammers answering to Iphgenia II’s government showed up to
escort them.  The worst was over, though their pursuers escaped.

“You got lucky,” Officer Shamas told them from the Remington.  “We don’t
get many solar flares and none were predicted.”

Uhura wondered if it was luck or Charlie.  Many Vas Mal could sometimes
make weird things happen when they got agitated enough, a shadow of their
old powers.  A few learned to do it on command, doing things like
simulating dead minds, seeing dreams, or reading people’s health and
physical state.

This tended to wipe them out.

“We were lucky and we exploited the chance,” Kirk said.  “If you don’t take
the dice lady luck gives you, you might as well have no luck at all.”

The escort to the planet went smoothly.

***************

Charlie ended up in a suit from a holovid of Malcom X, but keeping his
signature clock and his hat.  McCoy decided to accept that as a win.  “What
is the clock measuring, anyway?” McCoy asked.

“The prime meridian time on Earth, where I served,” Charlie told him.
 “When I was the Vadrek,” he said.  “It is my link to the past.  Wearing a
clock like this was common during part of my time of service.”

McCoy was no expert but felt dubious about this.  But he would let it fly.
 “Don’t worry, the security here will take good care of you.”

Rand gave him a chip.  “Music from the era of your service,” she said.

“Thank you so much,” he said and shook her hand.  “You’ve all been kind to
me and I’m grateful.  I hope I didn’t cause much trouble.”

“No, you were a good guest,” Kirk said.

“Even with the battle damage, especially with what you showed me, we will
turn a profit,” Chekov said.  “Live long and prosper, and I can tell you
will prosper.”

Spock raised an eyebrow at that.

“The Vulcans, they stole that saying from us,” Chekov said, then laughed,
because he was joking.

“Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, an old Vulcan
saying,” Spock said and Uhura and Chekov both laughed.

“That’s a… oh, I see,” Charlie said and laughed so loudly that more
security came.

*******************

“A ghost,” Kirk said to Spock in his quarters, studying the small empty
crystal box; about two inches of sand now filled the bottom; there was a
single shell.

“This is the worst Katric Ark, but it is the best I can do with limited
resources,” Spock told Kirk.  “I will need to either get him to a Vulcan
consulate or to New Vulcan.  Until then, he will stay here.  Charlie saw
him.  He died forty years ago in a ship accident,” Spock said.  “Probably
none of you will even notice his presence.”

“Should we get him a tablet or something?” Kirk asked.

“He cannot operate it, though I appreciate your concern.  I suppose I could
set a reading program with automatic page turning.  He will need stimulus
to avoid turning in on himself again,” Spock said.  “His name is Kurakanes.”

“Like the King of Celephais?” Kirk asked.

“Undoubtably a coincidence,” Spock said.

“Okay.  I wish our new crewmember well.”

“Sir, sorry to interrupt,” Uhura said over the intercom.  “Listen.”

“… a new translight corridor!  As yet unexplored.  Everyone’s lining up to
be the first to find out,” the news announcer said.

“This could be a big opportunity,” Kirk said.

“I have never experienced a fresh corridor.  Ripe with scientific
opportunity,” Spock said.  “No rest for the wicked, as you would say.”

Kirk laughed.  “I do think you made a joke.”

“Only on your behalf, as logically predicted.

Kirk grinned at that.  A definite chance to make a name for themselves.

*****************

Next Week on Ashen Trek:  “When a new translight corridor opens up near
Iphgenia II, the Enterprise is hired by Cartier Shipping to find out where
it leads.  It’s time to go where no man has gone before!”
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/attachments/20210624/8c351f5b/attachment.html>