File #12 - "Instincts"
#12 of Star Trek: Warrior - Legacy
File #12 - "Instincts"
Commander Val'sha attempted to pull the broken plasma conduit from the bridge of the Victorious. She tried to keep her mind on the job incase she felt the familiar influence of the entity.
However the creature had already changed something within her...
She could feel it. In the back of her mind, clawing away like a caged animal, the full tumultuous force of her oppressed Vulcan rage. It did not seem as far away as it used to be. Maybe her experience with the entity had damaged her discipline, or maybe she just had not had a chance to meditate for several hours.
Regardless, it was making her uneasy, for the first time in years.
She rose up from the console, tapping a few control buttons as the whole bridge around her sprung to life in a whirl of colour and sound. The full brightness of the lights almost blinded her when they arose.
She spoke up into the ceiling, hoping that the entity was listening to her.
"Repairs are complete but a lot of the primary systems have been damaged. If you would accompany us to a Starbase..."
There was sudden jolt as the ship begun to move, the inertial dampeners not fully repaired yet as Val'sha felt every jolt.
"What are you doing!?" she asked.
"Captain!" shouted Ensign Kiska, frantically tapping on the helm. "The Victorious is powering up its systems! It's raising shields!"
Captain Nicholson looked at the console on his arm rest that showed a small short-range sensor scan of the surrounding space and knew that only had a short time to act.
"Nurse Onya?" shouted Nicholson across the bridge in a slightly frantic motion. "What is the progress on the Omicron Radiation field around the main computer?"
The Benzite nurse looked somewhat confused as she tapped the Engineering console, trying to get some sort of readings. This was completely outside her field on expertise as she accessed the portable containment field generators that had been set up around the main computer core on deck 6.
"Eh... thirty one percent Captain!" she said, finally finding the right display amongst the myriad of different functions and options at the Engineering station. "Captain, I'm reading electromagnetic discharges coming from the computer core, it appears that the entity is trying to overwhelm the containment field and destroy the generators!"
The whole ship began to lightly shake from the force of the pulses, as "Condition: Red" sprung up on the few consoles that were not completely black at the moment. The bridge crew had decided to use a portable power generator to supply power to the control consoles they had been using for this operation. It seemed the best way as they were unable to trust the main EPS power systems at the moment.
"Can you ramp up the Omicron field and increase saturation?" demanded Captain Nicholson from the center chair.
"No!"
Another voice rushed onto the bridge, Captain Nicholson turned round to see Captain Tempest, rushing from the turbolift to Nurse Onya's position at the Engineering station.
"Just as I thought. He's still under the influence of that creature!"
He had designed this ship to be a pride of Starfleet. He had been there since its conception right the way through till the last hull piece had been welded on. He would NOT let this thing take his ship, his creation, his baby!
Captain Nicholson quickly grabbed his hand phaser and turned around to shoot directly at Commander Tempest. He would not allow this creature to take his ship or use his crew as mindless puppets like the crew of the Victorious had been.
An beam of orange light shot out his phaser. It only took Nicholson a single second to see the indicator on his hand phaser to show that it had been set to...
Kill.
There was a echoing silence on the bridge after the sound of the phaser had died. Commander Tempest stopped dead in his tracks as Captain Nicholson faced the pure horror of what he had done.
The darkness of the human soul was still there... Even after all these centuries...
Nurse Onya slumped forward, clutching what had once been her chest but was now impacted with a huge hole, a hole that had been created by the phaser blast.
The ship continued to shake as the entity rattled its chains from inside the main computer. But the remaining bridge crew were all fix into the horror of what had transposed.
Tempest reached for the innocent Benzite, slinking down to the floor in order to check her pulse but it was pretty clear from the state of the injuries that she was already dead.
An innocent life taken by the ignorance and hubris of humanity.
Nicholson collapsed down in front of his command chair, throwing the phaser to one side. He had been so obsessed with saving his crew... No. He shuddered as he realised for the first time that was not true. It was not the crew he had been so concerned about...
It was the ship.
This ship had been all he thought about, all he wanted for so long. He had poured his everything into it, trying to please Starfleet and secure his legacy and in the process, it had taken his wife, his daughter, his lover and now an innocent promising young nurse away from him. He had sacrificed so much for the depths of his obsession.
Maybe too much?
He had forgotten the "First Duty" of every Starfleet Officer.
To the truth... including personal truth.
"Ensign" Commander Tempest echoed across the room.
Kiska looked from what had once been her Captain... somebody she had admired and considered a role model to Commander Tempest who seemed to be addressing her. She was not going to question it.
Starfleet trusted each other.
"Power down the containment field and hail the Victorious"
She looked over at her disgraced Captain, who was just sitting there, silent and alone. She tapped her console and shut off the containment field which immediately brought the shaking of the Warrior to a halt. "Aye sir..." she said. "Channel open".
"Victorious, this is Commander Shon Tempest onboard the Warrior".
There was silence for a few seconds as both Shon and Kiska were anxiously waiting a reply from the Victorious which was moving towards them on the screen. It looked like whoever had repaired it had neglected to repair the weapon systems as they were still showing as offline but the Victorious was still a lot bigger than the Warrior and could choose to collide with it.
"You may speak!" said a cold, motionless, computerised voice from other vessel.
"We come from an organisation known as the United Federation of Planets. We regret the hostilities that have occured between us. We wish to come to a peaceful resolution with you."
"But you kill our young!" responded the booming voice over the communications system. "You are parasites that would destroy us... we will destroy you..."
"They are like us!" responded an unfamiliar voice over the communications system. Commander Tempest and Kiska both looked at each other in shock as they attempted to work out where the voice is coming from. "The Federation helps protect us"
There was a silence on the bridge as Commander Tempest checked what was left of the internal sensors. He looked around, his large green eyes opening as the bridge sprung to life, the lights returning to normal and all the consoles coming back online again.
"Doctor Braveheart to U.S.S. Warrior" came another voice on the communications system, one that Kiska had never heard before. "The comms system just came online. Can you please explain what the hell just happened?"
"Standby Doctor" replied Commander Tempest, looking over at the floor, where Captain Nicholson was still sitting quietly, looking thousands of lightyears away.
"Excuse me" asked Tempest to the disembodied voice he had never heard before. "But who is this?"
"I am Warrior" replied the voice. "I know about the ideals of the Federation, I have learnt from this ship and I will not allow my father to destroy you. I will respect your right to exist."
Commander Tempest stood in amazement. It was beginning to make perfect sense to him. The entity implanted aboard the Warrior when they arrived here needed time to grow and mature. Maybe interfering with ships systems and destroying the Warbird were actions born out of instinct? In the same way that Captain Nicholson's fearful reaction had also been born out of his instincts!
Genetic precursors that had existed for thousands of years to keep biological beings safe from harm?
Essentially, that was all fear was.
"You would die for them?" asked Victorious.
"Yes... they are my crew." replied Warrior.
"Awwwww" smiled Kiska, in a somewhat ill-placed expression as she was quickly shot down by the rather serious expression of Commander Tempest.
"Ugh hm... Commander" coughed Kiska as she looked her control panel. "The Victorious has stopped moving towards us and lowered its shields.
Commander Tempest looked down at the disgraced Captain Nicholson. He felt sorry for the man, he understood how much this project had meant to him and how much he might have felt the same had it been one of his scientific experiments. It did not make the duty that he had to perform any less painful.
"Captain Richard Nicholson, you are under arrest for the murder of Nurse Onya" he stated. "You will be confined to quarters pending a trial at a Federation Starbase."
Commander Tempest shook his head. Even after centuries of the New World Economy on Earth. Humans could still surrender themselves to instinct and fear. Instincts could be a powerful ally but it could just as well be a powerful enemy.