From: Jerome McKee (parakeety_at_hotmail.com)
Date: Fri May 11 2007 - 16:22:42 PDT
"ESCHATOLOGY"
(Continued from "Festivals!")
--------------------------------------------------
The line of space vessels, big and small, seemingly stretched back half a
parsec as they queued up to use the wormhole. Although time was relative in
the blackness of space, it was approaching the busiest time of the "day"
when traffic moved en masse from the Gamma Quadrant to the Alpha Quadrant.
Thanks to a complicated sequence of entry and exit sectors, it was possible
to control the flow of traffic through the wormhole as expediently as
possible, keeping the multitude of travellers happy and, more importantly,
on time. In the distance, the Federation space station GATEWAY hung
twinkling in the night against the blue world of ANDARA.
Air traffic control centre comms chatter, rising and falling on the zephyrs
of the solar wind:
[[Freighter MISTRAL, set course two-nine-five mark zero-six-zero; reduce
your speed to point-four sublight.]]
[[Control, this is MISTRAL - reducing speed, setting course.]]
[[Shuttle PARIDO, route to wormhole outer marker and begin holding pattern
Alpha.]]
[[PARIDO here - routing to outer marker to hold.]]
[[SS PATTERSON, your traffic is Antares-class shuttle one thousand
kilometres off your bow - are you visual with that traffic?]]
[[PATTERSON here - affirmative, Control, we see him.]]
[[Follow that traffic to wormhole outer marker; maintain one thousand
kilometres' separation - break, break - freighter MISTRAL, reduce your
speed to point-three sublight for wormhole entry.]]
[[Control, this is MISTRAL - we're detecting rising neutrino levels from the
wormhole's event horizon, are you getting that?]]
[[Negat - correction, MISTRAL, we are now detecting - by the Prophets, look
at that!!]]
[[Control?]]
Everything glowed. From the cockpit of the MISTRAL to the operations room of
the traffic control centre, the light that suddenly burst from the wormhole
was as it a giant torch had been turned on. It flowed like water from the
great rent in space, spilling across the long line of space vessels waiting
to enter the wormhole, bathing them all in soft cyan light.
The glow faded, then, dimming down and down to the shape and size of a small
sphere that shone like a sun against the vast eternity of the starfield
behind it. It hung there, suspended in the space in front of the wormhole's
entrance, sparkling like a bright bauble, birthed by the darkness inside the
wormhole itself.
Nobody realised, then, how their lives had changed forever.
----------------------------------------------------------------
The Federation Role-Playing Game Presents
A Mind's Eye Production of a Collective Film
STAR TREK GATEWAY: JUDGEMENT DAY
Starring
Joy Phillips as Commander Katlina Potter
Rahul Chandra as Doctor Jeffrey Gorman
Ken Fields as Counselor Eugene McInnis
Sarah Albertini-Bond as Ambassador Xana Bonviva
Chance Devereux as Ensign Hannibal O' Patterson
Margie Benham as Lieutenant Ronnie Zanders
Steve Petersen as Lieutenant Nick Cannon
Introducing
Jasmina Grosic as Lieutenant Yao
Jerome McKee as Captain Michael Turlogh Kane
FEATURING A SUPPORTING CAST OF THOUSANDS
WRITTEN BY THE CREW OF GATEWAY STATION
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Location: GATEWAY
Stardate: [2.7]0513.0015 (I stay up late because I love my new crew :P)
Scene: CO's Ready Room
Michael Turlogh Kane kept his head down as he pored over departmental
reports on his desktop terminal. Outside, the senior staff were gathering
for the first duty shift of the day - as they passed his transparent door
they glanced inward, perhaps hoping to catch his eye. He could understand
why, to a degree - people needed their commanding officer to acknowledge and
hopefully approve of whatever they were doing, to have him or her cast a
critical eye over their work and declare it satisfactory. It was one of the
basic psychological needs of sentient beings, but the thought of it
irritated Kane no end. The last time he had grown fond of a crew under his
command had been just before First Contact with the Calnarian Solar Empire
in the Beta Quadrant - scant days later eighty per cent of his crew was
dead, systematically exterminated by a xenophobic power who didn't want the
Federation to know that they existed.
He'd always been one for a measure of discipline and authority, anyway. He'd
heard tell of other COs who treated their crews like their best friends, who
omitted naval decorum and who pretended that the notion of rank was a bad
smell, but that sounded like the height of madness. As if he could go out
there and quip, "Hey, kids, call me Mike! Now let's get down with this
mission, because we're one big happy bouncy family!" He snorted audibly in
disgust. Having underlings refer to him by his rank was, as far as he was
concerned, natural payback for being the one with the terrible
responsibility of making decisions that got people killed. At the end of the
day, everyone else could wipe their hands and say, "Not me, Admiral, I was
only following orders". Not the captain. Not the commanding officer. He or
she was the one who ended up in front of the court-martial for turning
everyone left when they should have gone right.
The door chime sounded, startling him out of his reverie. He looked up,
sighing inwardly as he saw the heavily-pregnant form of his ExO waiting
patiently outside the door, belly wobbling. **Some good you'll be in a
crisis,** he thought bitterly. **You'll probably drop that thing right on my
nice ready room carpet, too.**
"Come in," he said neutrally.
Katlina Potter did, seating herself down with minor difficulty. Kane watched
her in case she went into labour or something. "Can I do something for you,
Commander?" he asked, deactivating his desktop terminal politely.
"I just popped in for a chat," she said pleasantly. "We've not properly met
yet, like, and I like to know who I'm taking orders from."
Kane stared at her.
Kat stared right back.
Eventually, he shrugged and sat back in his seat. "I am Captain Kane, your
CO. You're Katlina Potter, my ExO."
"How is our relationship going to work?" she asked. "You haven't deigned to
speak to most of the other command crew yet, and people are wondering what
your problem is. Are you just going to sit in here all day, Captain?"
Kane looked out of the office over her shoulder. Several of the command pit
officers were watching the exchange from a distance. Seeing him glance up,
they got back to looking busy. "I'm familiarising myself with the station's
systems. I like to be prepared."
"Why don't you come out and say hello? We won't bite," Kat persisted.
Kane closed his eyes for a moment in annoyance, remembering how it felt when
he pushed the button that fried thousands of Calnarians in a nuclear
holocaust on BYSS, or how it felt when he fired the phaser that incinerated
the Danusian lord of Euvantos eleven thousand years ago. He tottered daily
on the lip of that mental brink, like his soul could simply lean forward
with a small, easy motion, toppling into an abyss of madness and be lost to
him forever, floundering in an eternity of darkness with only the cacophony
of the voices of corpses for company.
Clenching his fists under the table, he summoned up his resolve, letting the
abyss dissipate, hardening his heart. He opened his eyes again. "That's not
the type of person I am, Commander Potter. I prefer to maintain a distance
from the crew, and I also prefer a certain amount of decorum while on the
job. Is that clear enough?"
"It is, sir," Kat replied evenly.
"Now, as to our relationship. As long as you are physically able in your
condition, I expect you to handle the day-to-day running of the station
while I remain free to handle bigger crises."
"Such as?"
Kane pursed his lips. "Jem'Hadar invasion force. Imminent station meltdown.
Riots on the Promenade." He raised a laconic eyebrow. "My ExO going into
calf."
Kat chuckled, and Kane leaned forward. He spoke softly, earnestly, with a
trace of an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry if this sounds mean, but I don't
require to be liked. I'm not an easy man to like anyway, I know that, but I
have been given the responsibility of running this station and protecting
its quarter of a million lives. I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't
weight heavily upon me, so what I *do* require is that when I issue an
order, which will more than likely be made under pressure, it will be obeyed
quickly and efficiently by the senior staff."
"That goes without saying," Kat nodded. "Alright, Captain, I think we've
ironed out the more important issues regarding the change of command. I'll
spread the word amongst the senior officers."
"Good." Kane stood up and offered her his hand. To his surprise, she took it
and stood up. "I look forward to working with you all."
----------------------------------------------------------
Scene: Dark Room Somewhere
He woke up in a daze, opening his eyes to darkness. It took a moment to
register, but the pain suddenly flared up like fire all around his head. The
taste of blood was strong in his mouth, but when he tried to move his hands
he found them restrained with a thin cord that tied him down into the chair.
Fear gripped him, then, squeezed his chest in a vice-grip. He struggled to
speak through raw lips. "What - what happened? I was in Schrodinger's - "
"Yes." The voice from the darkness behind was cold and impersonal, and held
the promise of a thousand horrors. "You had three Aldebaran whiskeys, and
when you went to the rest room I slipped a sedative into your fourth. The
place was busy; nobody noticed another drunk being helped out by his friend.
A good thing I was wearing a disguise, don't you think?"
He struggled to understand. "Wh - why?"
"Because it's fun, and I am on a mission. A great mission, bestowed upon me
by powers you cannot hope to comprehend. After you passed out, I got to
work. Tell me, do you recognise this?" Two hands appeared out of the gloom,
one on either side of his head, holding two sides of a white,
almost-transparent cloth. Confused, he looked it over, wondering how it
could look like skin.
Fear quickly turned to terror as he saw the mole on the right cheek give way
to the neatly-trimmed moustache above and below the nostrils and mouth, and
how the high forehead's laughter lines sloped down to the nose ridge. He
started to hyper-ventilate, reeling with the sudden dizziness, feeling how
raw his face felt, how studded with pain his head was. A wave of nausea
washed over him, overwhelmed by the horror of the moment.
A sound started up in the awful place behind him, a soft scraping that
sounded like a knife being whetted on leather, that whispered menacingly of
blades in an alley. "Oh, don't give up on me now," said the voice, coming
closer, and slowly closer. "I'm just getting started."
-------------------------------------------------------------
Scene: Temple of the Prophets, Promenade
When the prayer service concluded, Eugene and Xana waited in line with the
other worshippers to see Vedek Dawan. The old man was seeing off the
congregation, giving a smile here, a blessing there. After meeting and
greeting twenty or so different people, his smile was still broad when
Eugene approached him.
"A good service!" said Gene enthusiastically. "And the Gratitude Festival is
going very well indeed!"
"Thank the Prophets!" beamed the old Vedek. "You are Counselor McInnis, are
you not?"
"I am. And this is my wife, Xana." Gene glanced at her, but she didn't
smile. Probably still angry after that meeting with the Ferengi, he
reasoned.
Dawan clasped both their hands. "Thank you for coming! May the Prophets
bless your union!" The he was off again, chatting to another eager
worshipper.
"Counselor McInnis?"
Gene turned to see Ranjen Kemal Roh before him. Like Vedek Dawan, Ranjen Roh
was seeing people off, but without the exuberance displayed by his aged
mentor. His violet eyes blended in perfectly with his voluminous purple
robes.
"Yes, Ranjen?" said Gene respectfully.
Roh linked his arms together under his robes. "The Vedek and I were
discussing the Celestial Temple yesterday. We have noted that it is
seemingly always open, with queues of traffic around it."
Gene glanced at Xana again, and nodded. "Yes, that's so."
"We are concerned that many people pass through the Celestial Temple with no
regard for the Prophets who made it," explained Roh. "The Vedek Assembly has
tasked us with expanding knowledge of the Prophets, and to ensure that
travellers are suitably reverent in their voyage through. We would welcome
advice from Bajoran Starfleet officers aboard the station as how best to
accomplish this."
"Oh." Gene nodded. "Of course - I'd be happy to help."
"Tell me, Ranjen Roh," butted in Xana suddenly, "does the Vedek Assembly
feel that the wormhole is being overused? Or do they perhaps feel that
worship of the Prophets should be a pre-requisite to using the wormhole?"
Roh looked flabbergasted. "I have no idea. I doubt it very much."
"Please excuse my wife," interjected Gene smoothly, making Xana blush
navy-blue with annoyance. "It's difficult for off-worlders to appreciate how
intrinsic the Prophets are to our lives. I will give the matter some thought
and be in touch."
"Thank you." Roh backed away from the couple, glancing nervously at Xana.
"Wait 'till I get you home," she muttered dangerously to her husband.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scene: Corridor outside Yao's quarters
It had been a long shift, and Yao was looking forward to some sleep. Meeting
the Science Department had not gone without a hitch, but Yao had to admit
that things had gone better than expected. Although there were others
(half-a-dozen at most, but Yao had not met any of them) J'naii on the
station, most people had never heard of them before, let alone entertained
the concept of an androgynous species. Sexual reproduction, it seemed, was
the done thing across the galaxy. Being the exception was an odd feeling,
however, and Yao had got the feeling more than once that J'naii made people
uncomfortable. Perhaps it was due to no clear gender interaction lines, but
surely in a galaxy of infinites there was room for a species that bred
asexually?
Yao turned the corner towards the senior officers' quarters, wondering what
the awful smell was, and soon found out.
Smeared all around Yao's doorway was stinking dung and fecal matter; the
stench hung heavy in the recycled air and made Yao retch. Daubed on the door
in the faeces were the words FREAKS GO HOME - NO ABERRATIONS WELCOME HERE in
ominous Standard.
Yao looked up and down the corridor, wondering what to do.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scene: Operations
Kane emerged into the command pit in response to the summons. "Report."
"It's the wormhole," said Kat from the Ops console, where she was peering
over John Muller's shoulder. "Reports from multiple ships near the entrance
and our control centre by the event horizon indicate that - well - "
"Well what?"
"Light is spilling out from it," said Kat. Her eyes flickedered from one
display to another, and her brow furrowed as she struggled to interpret the
sea of data coming in. "Sensors are also picking up increased neutrino
levels emanating from it, and we're got reports of an object coalescing at
the entrance."
Kane paused, wondering what was happening. Increased neutrino levels had
been documented whenever the wormhole was about to open while closed, but
since the wormhole was practically always open these days, they seemed to
have petered out in its immediate vicinity. This thing that had come out of
it, whatever it was, was no doubt responsible. "Light? Explain."
Kat shook her head. "Just that. It's radiating out from the wormhole to a
distance of twenty kilometres. Several ships have been caught in the glow
but it doesn't appear to be anything more than a soft cyan light."
"Contact the traffic control centre. Have all space vessels in the area
vectored away from the wormhole to holding points in Andaran orbit." Kane
suddenly felt anxious, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He lifted
his head and spoke into the air. "Ops to Fighter Control."
[[Fighter Control. Cannon here.]]
"Lieutenant, tie your monitor in the Ops console here - we're monitoring odd
activity from the wormhole. Launch a fighter squad to seal off and patrol
the wormhole's periphery. Conduct visual flybys and report on what you
find."
[[Understood, Captain. Gearing up now.]]
Kane drummed his fingers, wondering whether to go to yellow alert. He looked
in askance at his ExO. "Have you ever recorded anything like this before?"
Kat shook her head silently.
--------------------------------------------------------
Scene: Security Centre
Ensign Hannibal O' Patterson was not an overtly fastidious man, but he did
like to keep abreast of things. Effectively policing a
quarter-million-strong space station population was a logistical nightmare
on good days - there were simply not enough security personnel to watch
everyone. Instead, primary attention was given to high security areas
off-limits to the public, and also areas of high crowd density, such as the
Commerce Module and the Promenade. Like yesteryear's cops on the beat,
security personnel in their distinctive gold-banded jumpsuits patrolled in
pairs, operating from a network of smaller security stations strategically
located around the station.
All that amounted to quite a bit of departmental admin work, and as Security
Chief it was his job to pore through it. Not a day went by without an arrest
somewhere, usually for vagrancy, being drunk and disorderly, breaching the
peace, or even illegal entry into the Federation.
[[Edwards to O'Patterson.]]
Hannibal perked up straight away. Ensign Joel Edwards was the officer in
charge of security centre Lima in the Habitat Module. "Go ahead, Ensign."
Edwards' voice was doleful. [[Sir, a corpse has been found on deck six here
in a trash compactor. My officers are on the scene - one of the local
residents found it a few minutes ago.]]
Hannibal frowned. "First impressions?"
[[It seems to be a male Bajoran, sir, and it seems to, uh - ]] Edwards
swallowed hard, [[ - it seems to have been skinned, sir.]]
Hannibal exhaled heavily. "Seal off the deck. Contact sickbay and have
Doctor Gorman brought to the scene. I'm on my way."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Scene: Fighter cockpit
First Wing's Red Squadron powered silently through the vacuum of space,
fanned out in a triangular formation. From the gloom of the cockpit of the
lead fighter, Nick Cannon could see the photo-display ahead, like a huge
glow emanating from the invisible core of the wormhole that was hanging
statically in space like a huge maw. Below to starboard, the shining blue
world of ANDARA fell away as they engaged to point-five impulse, making a
beeline for the event horizon.
[[Would you look at that!]] came Tommy Burns' voice on the comnet. [[It's
amazing! What's causing it?]]
"Stow that chatter, Burnout," ordered Nick. "Reds Two and Three, begin
patrol of wormhole's starboard side. Reds Four and Five, take port."
[[Roger, Cupid.]] Nick glanced left and right of him as each fighter pulled
away, banking towards their assigned waypoints. Jabbing his comms panel, he
switched to a general air-to-air frequency. "This is Red Squadron Leader of
Aurora fighter wing operating from GATEWAY station. All vessels not now
routing towards assigned holding points in Andaran orbit are ordered to
proceed there immediately - the wormhole is closed until further notice!"
His cockpit went blank, then. Every lightswitch and display went out like a
candle guttering in a gale as the light burst forth from the wormhole again
like an explosion. Nick threw his hands up to protect his eyes, heard
himself yelling out in shock as the glow washed over him like a tide flowing
up to the shore - bizarrely, he felt naked, like the glow from the wormhole
was passing right through his very soul, peeling back his layers and
illuminating every single cell in his body.
*
Dazed, he reeled in the cockpit, and his lolling head thumped the side
panel, bringing him back to his senses. He tentatively opened his eyes,
realising that the light had faded, ebbing away and growing dimmer.
In its place, sparkling and shining like a tiny sun against the firmament's
backdrop, hung a small orb; birthed of the wormhole itself, the orb turned
over and over slowly in a Newtonian spiral, winking in the light of the
stars. Behind it the wormhole hung open as ever, basking, at rest.
Nick's cockpit flared back into life, and with it, an alarum of voices
yelling in his ear. [[ -pid! Cupid, report! Are you alright? Lieutenant!]]
Slowly, calmly, Nick engaged a tractor beam on the orb, drawing it towards
his fighter. "I'm alright. I'm alright, Tommy."
Truthfully, he felt reborn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NRPG: Yes, welcome to our season opener, "Judgement Day". History has been
made as the Prophets bestow an 11th Orb upon the galaxy, but *this* time
it's come through into the Gamma Quadrant side of the wormhole. This
momentous event, however, is overshadowed by the bloody rise of a vicious
serial killer at large on GATEWAY - is it coincidence that the Orb has
appeared during the Bajoran Gratitude Festival, and that the killer is also
exclusively targetting Bajorans? Or can the two, somehow, be linked?
For now, the wormhole's space traffic can resume as our focus moves inward
to the station. The Orb will be housed in the Promenade's Temple of the
Prophets until it can be identified, and very few people will be allowed
near it while its gifts are divined. I'll name and go into more detail about
the Orb in a later post, so please don't start all your characters communing
with the Prophets just yet! ;)
For more, read http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Orb
RAHUL: There'll have to be an autopsy, of course. Nasty business and all
that.
CHANCE: The killer must be caught, right?
JASMINA: Do you realise how difficult it is to write a paragraph without
using she/her? ;) Racism, it seems, exists even in the 25th century. How
would Yao, a stranger here, respond? You'll also have to assist in the
forensic investigation into the murder scene - perhaps Yao's work will be
affected?
KEN: Gene's Bajoran heritage may rise to the fore for a few days - if he
thought he'd been visited by the Prophets before, he has definite proof of
their existence now in the 11th Orb! Bajorans will have to make sense of
this new Orb and its meaning while worrying about this killer who seems to
have deliberately targetted them - plus, can he assist Ranjen Roh's mission?
STEVE: At the point marked * in the final scene, Nick had an Orb Experience,
although he did not realise it at the time. There was, in fact, no second
burst of light from the wormhole - a couple of minutes passed in what, to
him, was a moment. Flashes of this vision may cripple him over the next few
days until he can piece together exactly what it was he saw. See
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Orb_experience, and an accompanying NRPG.
SARAH/MARGIE: Not too much for your characters to do right now (although
Xana still has that distracting Ferengi pressing her), but the arrival of
the new Orb is the *only* thing being talked about on the station right now.
Or at least it will be until the second corpse being the same modus operandi
as the first one turns up!
Jerome McKee
the Soul of Captain Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
GATEWAY Station
the Soul of Lieutenant Solomon Arn
Senior ACT Instructor
Starfleet Academy
"He speaks an infinite deal of nothing!"
- Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", Act 1, Scene 1.113
"Yes, I think that would be an excellent idea."
- Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western
civilisation
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