Past Prologue, Part 15

Posted on Fri May 10, 2019 @ 7:03am by Commander Caleb Ryan

1,447 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Things Past
Location: USS Winchester/Federation Space near the Klingon Border
Timeline: FLASHBACK: 2375/Toward the End of the Dominion War

Sensation came back slowly to Artemis, his body awakening to a dull, throbbing ache. He recognized the distant ache of post-surgery and the fuzzy confusion of pain medication. His eyes struggled to open, and closed immediately against the bright lights. His mouth moved, seeming full of cotton. He heard the steady beep of monitors nearby.

Sickbay? Artemis thought with confusion. How…

He remembered the blood. God, so much blood! And three little monsters converging on him. The soft kiss to his forehead. The sharp knife against his heart. The moment of desperate panic as he struggled for something…anything…

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” came a familiar voice. “How do you feel?”

Artemis moved his mouth, but only managed to get out a choking sound.

“Just a second, Captain,” the voice said, and he felt movement at his side and then something pressed to his lips. “Drink.”

Pierce sucked gratefully at the straw and cool, refreshing water soothed his dry throat. He drank too greedily and some went down the wrong pipe, sending him into a coughing fit that sent pain lancing through his chest.

“Easy, easy…too much.” Soft hands helped him sit up and then the lights turned down a bit and he could finally get his eyes opened.

Artemis looked up into the pretty face of his chief medical officer. Dr. Zoe Desatu had smooth, chocolate skin and large, inviting dark eyes that held the wisdom of age despite her youthful appearance. Her black hair hung straight over her lab coat worn over her duty uniform. Long, tapering, delicate fingers smoothed back his hair and she eased him back to the bed.

“Don’t try to move too much,” Dr. Desatu said. “How do you feel?” she asked again.

“Hurts,” Artemis said. “But…means I’m…alive.”

“You are lucky, Captain,” Zoe said. “You had a knife in your chest that nicked your pericardium and some neuralytic trauma from close proximity to a stun grenade.”

A stunner. Well, that explained how he was still alive. “The…the…”

Zoe offered him the straw again and Artemis drank more carefully this time.

“The girls you rescued were just fine, Captain,” Zoe said. “They recovered remarkably quickly. I was quite surprised.”

Pierce’s eyes opened wide. “No!” he choked out. “Monsters…where…”

Zoe frowned at the captain’s distress, her firm hands holding him down as he weakly struggled to get up. “Stop! Captain…Artemis, you’re in no position to get up yet,” Zoe scolded. “They’re fine. They were given quarters. Don’t make me sedate you.”

“No…” Artemis murmured, shaking his head.

Zoe tapped her comm. “Sickbay to Bridge. Commander, the captain is conscious again,” she said.

Thank you, Doctor. I will be down shortly, Commander th’Ordoro replied.

Artemis lay back, regathering his strength. The monsters were loose on his ship. His crew was in danger. He had to…

Artemis realized he must have drifted off as he heard voices speaking quietly nearby, Dr. Desatu giving Lodoric an update on his condition. The conversation stopped when they noticed he was awake.

“Sir.” The relief was evident on his Andorian first officer’s face.

“Status?” Artemis asked.

“Don’t worry yourself about that, Captain,” Dr. Desatu said. “You’re on medical leave for the time being.”

Artemis ignored the El-Aurian and looked at the Andorian expectantly.

“We are about ten light years back on our side of the border,” Lodoric said.

“What happened?” Artemis asked.

“When we lost communications with the away team I grew concerned, sir,” Lodoric said. “I put together a second away team and beamed them down.” His antennae twitched uneasily. “What we found…words cannot describe, Captain…”

Artemis nodded. “I know,” he said, sipping some more water to cover the choke in his voice. “I was there…”

Lodoric nodded. “You…you were the only one even barely alive, sir,” he said. “You and the girls you rescued. I don’t know what happened. We beamed you directly to sickbay. The doctor can tell you the rest,” he said, nodding to Zoe.

“She has,” Artemis said. “The facility?”

“Without knowing what had…massacred our people, I had their bodies beamed to the morgue. Then I basically just beamed out the entire central computer,” he said wryly. “Not the most…elegant solution. Engineering is now patching it up and Science is going through the raw data we’ve pulled. I didn’t send anyone deeper into the facility. There were still about a hundred or so life signs inside when I ordered photon torpedoes to take it out,” he said with a frown.

Artemis gave a sigh of relief. “You made the right call, Commander,” he murmured. “Those monsters couldn’t be allowed to survive…”

The Andorian’s antennae flicked. “Sir?”

Artemis rubbed his eyes, waving off the query. “The girls…where are they?”

“Guest quarters, sir, or what passes for them on a ship this size.”

“I want those quarters secured. Locked tight. I want armed security on the doors around the clock.” Pierce’s voice was hard.

“Sir?” Lodoric said with confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“Do it!”

Lodoric stepped away and gave his instructions to security.

“Doctor, I assume you took medical scans of the girls?”

“Yes, sir,” Zoe nodded.

“Good. Computer, pull up file Soong, Arik-Gamma, authorization Pierce-Zulu-813-Whiskey.”

The biobed computer panel beeped and Artemis turned it to let Zoe and Lodoric read the file.

“Wait, these bioscans are similar to the girls,” Zoe said. “I knew something was up when they were genetically identical, but…”

Lodoric looked up at Artemis sharply. “What were they doing down there?”

“Cloning,” Artemis said. “There were a hundred clones of an Augment down there.”

“How in the icy hells did they get Augment DNA?” Lodoric asked with shock. “All the Augment embryos were destroyed after Arik Soong’s attempt to reclaim them in the twenty-second century.”

“Apparently not all,” Zoe said. “The girls’ genetic profile matches one of those that was supposedly destroyed at Cold Station 12.”

“Supposedly?”

“Obviously it wasn’t,” Artemis said. “I wonder how long Section 31 had this? Or how many more?”

“Well, the fact that they cloned only one seems to suggest their primary subjects might have been limited,” Dr. Desatu mused.

“Limited, perhaps, but singular?” Lodoric asked.

Zoe shrugged.

“What do you want me to do, Captain? Airlock them?” Lodoric asked.

“What!” Zoe exclaimed, looking aghast at the Andorian.

“You didn’t see what they did down there, Doctor,” Lodoric said coolly.

“Nor do you know the destruction Khan Noonien Singh and his Augments wrought upon Earth,” Artemis said, “or how close they came to starting a war with the Klingons before the Federation was even formed.”

“They are three nine-year-old girls,” Zoe snapped. “All that was hundreds of years ago.”

“You don’t understand how much Humans fear genetic enhancement and manipulation,” Lodoric explained to Zoe. “It is questionable whether these girls even have rights under Federation law, especially since they are clones. And frankly, a short spacewalk would be far preferable to being locked up in a deep dark hole to be poked and prodded by scientists,” the Andorian said sympathetically.

“They wouldn’t…would they?” Zoe eyed her superiors with a mix of skepticism and horror. “But we’re the only ones who know about them. If we don’t tell anyone…”

“And then what?” Artemis asked. “Augments are aggressive, arrogant, vicious. They could never adapt to Federation society. Eventually they would be arrested and put in prison, and then their secret would be discovered.”

“And we aren’t the only ones who know,” Lodoric added.

Pierce looked to his XO.

“Lieutenant Ivanova has already made her report…”

Artemis scowled. “What?”

“I didn’t authorize it, but she sent it with the last batch of communications about an hour ago.”

Section 31, Artemis thought with a scowl.

“So what do you wish to do, Captain?” Lodoric asked.

Artemis considered. He knew he should take his XO’s suggestion seriously and end the threat. He had seen what these three little girls were capable of, yet the thought of murdering three children was abhorrent to him.

But then he was in charge of Operation Proteus because he could do those abhorrent things that needed to be done.

“Keep them confined for now,” Artemis said. “I need to think on this.” He gave Dr. Desatu a look that said he didn’t want to hear her argue.

FIN

Captain Artemis Pierce
Commanding Officer
USS Winchester

Lieutenant Doctor Zoe Desatu
Chief Medical Officer
USS Winchester

Commander Lodoric th’Ordoro
Executive Officer
USS Winchester

 

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