The Wayward Son Returns - Part II

Posted on Mon Apr 27, 2020 @ 1:33pm by Civilian Jason Haines & Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caleb Ryan
Edited on on Mon Apr 27, 2020 @ 7:08pm

3,655 words; about a 18 minute read

Mission: Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: Deep Space 5 - Command Deck
Timeline: MD 2 - 0800

Previously…

“Life support failing, collision alert!”

Jason felt very disoriented as the shuttle’s inertial dampeners and artificial gravity systems had failed. He was lucky to be strapped in as the runabout was spinning out of control. Trying to look out the runabout’s cracking viewport, smoke blinding him to an extent, and the disorientation making it hard to focus, Jason saw what looked to be either a ship or perhaps a base approaching rather rapidly. He thought about sending a distress call, but then everything about Daniels came to the forefront of his mind. If he sent a general distress call, it would get registered in Starfleet databases. If it were registered, anyone could find it, including Daniels, which would be bad for him, especially where he had the Captain’s stolen runabout. And the last time he checked, most captains’ reports were believed over most ensigns’. All he could hope for now was that someone was paying attention.

…Now the continuation

Deep Space 5, Command Deck

The morning was an ocean of calm compared to the previous day. Ops was mostly powered. In Flight Control there had only been twenty-five emergencies awaiting the alpha shift. Compared to yesterday, it qualified as quiet. Then the station’s proximity alarm went off and an alert for temporal and dimensional displacements as well.

An Operations officer called out, “Captain, a subspace rift just appeared. We have a runabout approaching, out of control, collision imminent, all systems failing. One lifeform. Human.”

Maritza looked up from where she was poring over the map of the crystalline contamination. They'd managed to clear all the essential systems, but there were still significant problems, like most of the shuttle bay doors were still stuck shut.

"Why now?" she muttered. "Have we got tractors up yet?" Maybe they could catch it. "Transporters?"

The duty Ops Officer shook their head. "No, ma'am! Neither!"

Damn. "Alright, Traffic Control? Call any capital ships in the pattern, get them to intercept. Do we know who it is yet?"

"No, Captain", the Ops Officer said. "I am not getting any system readings from the runabout, but it is at its breaking point."

Caleb walked out of his office at the alert. “Shields,” he ordered. “Do we have any work drones out?” he asked. If they could get some between the station and the runabout, it might slow the impact. It would likely be fatal to the runabout, but the station wouldn’t sustain as much damage, and possible casualties. “Start evacuating any sections in the vicinity of the projected impact zone.” He looked over at Soran. “Do we have weapons? We might need to…” He left it unsaid.

A little off cue in response to the Operations officer, on screen the runabout did indeed just fall apart into pieces. There was no explosion, no warp core breach, it just fell apart like a jigsaw puzzle being pushed off a table. Five long minutes passed before communications came to life.

"Deep Space Five, this is Captain Anderson of the Lexington," the voice said. "We have the pilot of the runabout. He says his name is Jason Haines Wells and that he needs to speak with you personally. He won't say anything else. Do you wish us to beam him over?"

She didn't know what was making her arch her eyebrow more, that it was Jason, or that he was defining himself as Haines-Wells, and turned for her office at a clip. "Straight to my office. Lock onto my signal."

Seconds later, there was the familiar sound of a transporter.

“You have Ops. You know where we’ll be,” Caleb told the Operations officer, turning to follow Captain Soran into her office.

Jason re-appeared and was a rather sorry site standing in his boxers and tank top. His hair was unkempt, there was a few days’ growth of stubble, he had definitely lost weight, and there was a definite odor in the room that wasn't there a few moments ago.

"Ensign Jason Haines, requesting permission to board and a pair of pants, Command-- errr Captain," Jason said, noticing the new pip at the last moment.

Caleb gave Jason a look and shook his head. He tapped his comm and ordered Operations to bring up a pair of sweatpants from the locker room.

"Computer, secure this room." Soran waited for the computer to acknowledge. The fact of his arrival might not be controllable, but everything past that point was. No need to make things easy for Daniels.

"Alright," she said when the computer reported maximum security enabled. "Tell us everything, and don't leave anything out."

Jason coughed a little from the smoke in the cabin. As he did, he thought, 'Hello Mr. Haines, are you okay, or should we get right to the debrief?'

This was making the choices he had been thinking about a bit easier. Jason cast a sideways glance at Ryan, gave him a polite nod, and said, "Commander." He then looked back at Soran and said, "Officially, at this point in time, this is all speculation, as I do not have the evidence yet to back my claim against a higher ranking officer. This is not an official charge.

“So, we begin with me boarding the runabout with Daniels. I went with him because he was expressing way too much interest in me, and given the different loopholes he seemed to have you caught in, Captain, I went with him for the good of the station. While enroute to his ship, Daniels said he wanted my skills, as we were re-visiting battle sites with the Borg to check for temporal technology. Once on board his ship, I was escorted to the brig and incarcerated sans uniform, hence my current condition. Captain Daniels expressed a displeasure with my father and said that he was going to kill me at a particular location, as that is where his wife was killed in an altercation with my father's combat team. See, Daniels is, in layman's terms, a thief and a psycho. It seems he uses his position for personal gain. For example, the Borg technology he was looking for, he was going to sell. Most of his crew is on board with it."

Maritza nodded. This much they'd managed to put together from what scant knowledge Intel and Jason's father had put together. "Most? There are people there who aren't co-conspirators?" That she didn't believe. Daniels' methods required loyalty, and anything that was ideological alignment could be insured against, but never guaranteed.

"I say most because on the third day of my captivity I was approached by one of his crew," Jason continued. "She said there were some on board who were willing to testify against Daniels, assuming I could get off the ship and get members of their families into safety. Daniels has blackmail of some sort on all his crew, and uses it after they join up with him."

Martiza nodded again. This too had been alluded to. The set of spare clothes arrived, and they paused for Jason to dress. Maritza ordered some food and drink from her small replicator as well. "So how did you escape."

"So, two days later, my helper springs me out of the cell at least, but I had to get myself out, because to make it seem like she didn't help me I had to stun her and leave her behind," Jason said, taking a sip of the drink and nibble of food. He looked at the cup and smiled. "I make it to the shuttle bay, manage to steal a runabout. In order to get away from Daniels, I created a subspace corridor. Unfortunately, piloting and performing evasive maneuvers makes it a little difficult to perform all the math needed to make the corridor correctly. My calculations were off, and I skipped some time as well as distance. Only five days had passed for me when I made the calculation. And, well, I look at the chronometer and see I have missed quite a bit."

"Your gift for understatement hasn't suffered." Maritza looked at the bruises, what might have been a burn, and a couple of scabbed over lacerations that could have used a dermal regenerator. "I'm assuming Daniels is hunting you. And since we haven't smelt him or his associates here, I'm hoping they think you're dead. Would he do that?"

"I am going on the assumption that he is," Jason said. "Although it has been eight months current time since I escaped his ship, so whether he still is or isn't is up in the air. Like I said though, I am going to be safe and bet he still is looking for me. I can find out."

“Ah can have all new arrivals vetted and screened,” Caleb said. “Though Ah don’t know if the temporal displacement will have an effect on when they would arrive. Haines would have ta review security footage for anyone he recognizes from Daniels’ crew.” He looked back to Haines. “You said you stole a shuttle. Would the flight record hold details on Daniels’ current ship? Make, model, transponder, or even peccadillos like warp signature, or anything we can use to identify and track it? To know if he comes here?”

One of the first things Jason had done when getting on the runabout had been to yank the transponder isolinear chip. It would allow them to get to Daniels and vice-versa. It was one of two chips he had in his left hand. He raised it.

"Ahead of you, Commander," Jason said. "I pulled it when I escaped. Transponder codes which will give me the ability to ping his ship, and one way or the other meet up. I don't think anyone will have followed temporally speaking. I wasn't being followed by smaller ships, and the conduit was too small for capital ships, and in all honesty, what I pulled off was more likely to have killed me than to have worked. It was an untested theory of mine. I am lucky to be here. Having records to review won't do much good. I can only remember two faces, Daniels and the woman who helped me. I was kept in a cell all the rest of the time and had no interaction with anyone but the security guards who watched the detention center."

"He's nothing if not cautious," Maritza agreed. "We'll give that rod to Ms. Cross. See if she can make anything out of it. The immediate question is what to do with you. Making a song and dance out of your return may paint a target on your back."

"As I don't know any Ms. Cross, I'll leave it with you," Jason replied. "But we can't put it on a live system yet. I have to secure the witnesses' families before they will talk. If the chip is live and reaches out to his ship and Daniels notices, that could cause issues. As far as what to do with me, that is simple."

He smiled.

"I just need a guest officer room for a couple of days so I can sort out my future plans," Jason replied. "Between hypocrites and psychopaths in command positions, I'm considering retiring from Starfleet. Even if I don't retire from Starfleet, it would take a lot to convince me to stay on this station. With all due respect, neither of you want me here, so there is no reason not to request a position elsewhere."

Caleb couldn’t say the man was wrong, at least on Caleb’s part. But he had done good work with this, at least. “Ah won’t stand in yer way,” he said, taking the transponder chip from Haines and calling Security for an evidence bag to be brought. “Ah’m gonna have Security put someone on ya too, until this is wrapped up,” he told Haines. “It’s that, or we chip ya, in case this Daniels does get hold of you again.”

"I'll try to go slow for them," Jason replied with a nod, as he wasn't going to allow them to chip him. "I won't give them a run though, as I am just going to try and get my thoughts together and lay low."

Maritza was quiet for a moment, thinking of conversations she'd had with JAG and Intel, of the things that she had been told when first hunting for Jason. There was an opportunity here. A dangerous one. One that ran counter to her instinct to protect those under her command at all costs.

"I think we should consider the...opportunity...your reappearance offers."

Jason looked at Soran skeptically, almost choking on the little bit of cheese he was eating. He coughed a little, wondering what she was concocting in her mind.

"What opportunity are you referring to, Captain?", Jason asked.

Caleb looked over at Soran. “You want Daniels,” he said pointedly. “Ya go tanglin’ with an hombre like that, yer puttin’ a target on yer back,” he felt he had to point out.

"To put in terms familiar to you, this wouldn't be my first rodeo." Soran gave him a smile, "I've torn down one conspiracy in Starfleet, Commander." She had expected it to cost her her career. It almost had. But her life had never really been imperiled. She knew that Daniels had a different playbook though. "And if I was afraid of standing up to bullies and criminals, I wouldn't be here now." She looked back to Jason. "But I wouldn't be the only one taking a risk."

Jason looked at Ryan, then to Soran, and then, slowly at first, a smile crept across his face. He then laughed.

"Whether you give me permission to, I am talking freely. This opportunity thing is rich," Jason said, as he stifled his laugh. At this point he didn't care what Soran did to him. "It might not be your first rodeo, but you fell off the bull in the last few months, didn't you, Captain, or Daniels would be taken care of? So, let me get this all sorted out. Now, please remember, only a couple of weeks have passed since the events on the alternate Risa for me. So I remember a lot of these details pretty clearly."

He paused a moment.

"Before my Captain's Shaft, we spoke once, and you said, "If it were just me, I'd be off the station on the next shuttle," Jason said. "Then I encountered you and Daniels, where you had apparently told him I was an unreliable officer. Then I left with him, because as unreliable as I was, I still knew he would continue to mess with you and the station if I didn't. And in the months that have passed that you have been in the rodeo, so to speak, you haven't been able to do anything. Yet, now I come back and you talk as if this is some historic opportunity. The fact of the matter is you already know I am going to go after Daniels, with or without Starfleet. You want some involvement because he caught you with your pants and undies down around your ankles. Why else put your faith in an officer you wanted off the station and think is unreliable? So, this is indeed an opportunity for you. But you make it sound like it is an opportunity for me as well. So, Captain, so what is this great opportunity you think you present to me?"

She let him puff for a few moments in silence, letting him finish venting, and get his tantrum out the way. Then she calmly reached forward and typed something into her console. The huge window behind her blacked out. "I'm going to show you something. Then we'll happily send you on your way."

In the center of the window, Daniels’ names appeared. "You've been gone for eight months. In that time I've been working with Intelligence and Security. We've very carefully mapped and traced all his associates and relationships." Lines began to spread out from Daniels’ name to other names that were slowly appearing, some in red, some yellow, some blue. More lines branched from those names, to new names, or connecting up, dozens of names, scores of names, in a complex web that was as tall and wide as Jason himself.

"We found his allies and his victims, isolating the former and protecting the latter, where we can without showing our hand." Names were boxed or circled, some had stars by their names. "We've found the roots that have wormed into Starfleet and various other Federation agencies, pulled out what we could, and monitored what was left." Some names winked out.

"That leaves approximately one hundred fifty men, women, and children who can't be safely removed without letting him know. But we're ready to rescue them now. We're ready to close the net on him. Is’ just waiting for the right opportunity when we'll know where he'll be without him expecting a set up. Somewhere we can lock down him, his ship and his crew, and prevent him from triggering his revenge and minimise casualties. You are probably the one person he might come out of his hole for."

"Wow, Captain," Jason said. "That's twice in three weeks, my time of course, that you have laid the guilt card on the table with me. Not very original."

He looked at the screen and then said, "I will help them and the others I have a data chip to read on, but do understand, I'm not helping you. After Daniels is taken care of, we're done. I'll need an alias account, guest quarters, and my access rights back for the time being."

“Ah’m sure Intel and Security can handle the new data,” Caleb said. Jason had made it abundantly clear he had no good will toward them. Caleb wasn’t much willing to hand him the rope he could hang them all with, should they give him his previous security clearance, especially given the situation with Aleczandra and the Trill Symbiosis Commission.

"Commander," Jason said, "with all respect, if I am supposed to dangle my backside out as live bait for Daniels, I am going to have a say in the planning. I'm the one Daniels wanted to murder. I am the one who nearly blew himself up to get this data back here. I'll be damned if I am going to sit on the sidelines with the only purpose of being a piece of meat. If that is all you want, then get medical to give someone in Intel or Security a makeover to look like me. I'm sure they can handle that too. But they aren't quite as expendable as I am, are they?"

Jason paused, sighed, and put the chip on the table.

"Nah, I'm not going to keep doing this. Life is too short," Jason said. "You get in touch when you want me to blow kisses to Daniels to get his attention, but you might want to hurry your planning up, because I am going to Personnel to fill out my resignation paperwork. I'd give you my pip, but Daniels has it."

"Very well." Soran wasn't going to stand in his way. "I can provide the alias and a guest provision, but as you're resigning, I can't give you the clearance you've asked for. As for planning, I will contact the leader of the task force on this and arrange something as soon as possible. Would you want to be beamed directly to your quarters, or are you happy with the promenade?"

"To quarters would probably be best," Jason said. "If there is anyone on the station working for Daniels, I would prefer to have showered and had some food before dealing with them. Although my stink might give me the advantage. Well, let's get this done before Daniels can screw with anybody else."

Caleb picked up the data chip. “Ah’ll get this ta Intel,” he told Soran. “We’re really gonna poke the bear?” He looked to Soran.

Although Jason knew Ryan was speaking to the captain, he chimed in anyways. "I don't see why not. We've done equally questionable things for people who weren't even of our universe," Jason remarked. "This guy poses a real threat to those in our universe and has a crew more than willing to carry out his dirty work. I've had a chance to look the man in the eyes when he told me he was going to murder me. He needs to go down."

"Daniels isn't a bear," Martiza said. "He's a boil. A corrupt, poison filled growth on the body of an institution that we've dedicated our lives to. And boils get lanced."

“Fair enough,” Caleb said. “Just thinkin’ we might want some help, backup. Just in case.”

"We've got a dedicated taskforce who've been waiting for this. And if Daniels wants to play dirty, I'm sure you can find a surprise or too of our own." His friend with the Nemesis came to mind. It felt like stooping to Daniel's level, but the man had already shown that with him, overkill was a totally proportionate response.

Caleb smirked. “Ah have a few aces in mah sleeve,” he allowed. He would bet dollars to donuts that Pierce had a file on Daniels, if only because they were in the same business of coloring outside the lines, though Pierce hewed closer to the line than Daniels.

"Then let's reconvene tomorrow. Mr. Haines, I'll have you beamed straight to your accommodation. I can arrange a guard from the Klingons if you do not trust Starfleet."

"Lieutenant Tessaro's team will be just fine, Captain," Jason replied. "Thank you for the quarters."

[OFF]

Captain Maritza Soran
Commanding Officer

Jason Haines
Live Bait

Commander Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer

 

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