Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Fri, 05 Mar 2004 17:05:28 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: Moderator on Duty Title: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile Author: Jay P Hailey (JayPHailey@hotmail.com) Series: MISC - TNG OCs Codes: None Part: 36/342(?) Rating:[PG] Archive: Fine with me, just tell me where. Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Star Trek. I claim Original Characters and Situations for me. Webpage HTTP://jayphailey.8m.com The Trudge: Episode 36 by Jay P. Hailey And Dennnis Washburn The Limrin Revolution of 2343 was an interesting event to me. The planet Limrin had been a totalitarian colony from the bad old days on Earth. By the time it had been rediscovered by the Federation, they had built a sizable and stable society, Although it was not a fun one from the inside. Earth was required to take responsibility for it since it was a colony from Earth. Taking over the colony by force was out of the question. The Romulans in the hope making the thorn in the Federation?s side more permanent had armed Limrin. So it was carefully regulated in terms of interstellar traffic. Some humanitarian aid was allowed in, to try to ease the suffering of the oppressed populace. Twenty five years ago the oppressed populace had thrown an open rebellion against the powers that ruled the planet. The rebels were out manned and out gunned, but skillful interference from intelligence agents on the ground, as well as an unknown number of free lance adventurers and mercenaries had thrown the issue open to random factors. In the end, the rebels won and petitioned for Federation aid and alliances while rebuilding. The intelligence agents and random other adventurers were declared "Heroes of the Revolution". They were honored on Limrin, along with their native born freedom fighters. -*- Varupuchu rolled his eyes and snorted derisively. "I assure you it was not as romantic as popular accounts have made it seem, Captain." "That's all right. I haven't ever really been able to talk to anyone who was on the ground there." "You would honestly do better to find someone who was on the Federation ships in orbit. They saw much more than we ever did. With out their interference from orbit, we would have been killed early on." "I have spoken with certain crew members from one or two of the starships in orbit, there, but never anyone on the ground. Please tell me." He sighed, "All right Captain, but I warn you, it's not a pretty story." I noticed Tillean was silent and watching both of us with great interest. "I had gotten an apprentice spaceman's post on an Andorian Merchant vessel. I was seventeen and my antennae were still moist. The Xumec was Andorian in name, mostly. The crew were a haphazard collection of vagabonds, drifters and outsiders. We just pushed the ship from port to port, and most of the profit went to the corporate owners on Andor. It wasn't glamorous, but I learned a lot." "We took a humanitarian aid contract from the Federation State Department. We ran in and out of Limrin a couple of times, but the contracts didn't pay especially well. The plasma injectors on the old boat were worn out. They needed to be replaced, but the corporate owners dragged their feet. They wanted one more trip on their ledgers before taking the Xumec off line for repairs." "So we loaded up and took one more run to Limrin. We landed and unloaded all of our humanitarian aid. I know some of it was weapons from Starfleet Intelligence." "How did you find that out?" Tillean asked. "Our Chief Purser was Pang, a Golden Orion man. He discovered the illicit arms and diverted some of them. He had planned to resell them later for his own personal profit. This proved impossible, because the plasma injectors melted down as we powered up for take off. The Xumec was helpless until new plasma injectors could be sent from Andor." "We sat there on the pad for a few days, until it became clear that something was up. The space port was under guard, and there were heavy troop movements. The news was even less informative than we were accustomed to. Our Chief Engineer was a Cygnian woman, who hacked into the government's secure data nets just for fun. If we had known she was doing this, we would have stopped her. Her activities counted as espionage and the penalty for that was harsh. However, you couldn't talk to Esha. She didn't care. She only wanted to see what was in there that they didn't want her to see. The first thing I knew, Captain Macenzie and Pang were handing out phaser rifles and telling us that Limrin Security were coming to take us hostage. They had some idea of using us for humanoid shields. Esha had read the orders as they were sent." "We got lucky in that an Limrin Security transport truck was servicing one of the Limrin patrol boats near us. We abandoned the Xumec and hid in the truck, hoping to be driven through the cordon around the spaceport." "We were driven out, all right, and straight into the palace of Wagner, the Autarch. We waited until night fall and slipped out of the truck. We didn't realize at first where we were, so we just entered the building, and sought cover. We encountered a few guards, but Macenzie gave them a story that we were mercenaries hired by internal security, because the guards were felt to be compromised. You would be surprised at how the guards jumped to prove their loyalty to us after he said that." "We made the discovery that Wagner was a paranoid, when we found that the palace was riddled with bolt holes and secret passages. Between Macenzie's creative story telling, and Esha's walking all over their secure computer net, we managed to stay one step ahead of security for three weeks, while all hell let loose out side." "Later I learned that the starships Enterprise-C and Hood were in orbit. They jammed the planetary communications and sensor nets. Esha used the confusion that this generated to her advantage ruthlessly. She never took the whole situation seriously. She felt that Limrin Security deserved whatever she could do to them, because they were too stupid to prevent it." "We had to do interesting things like blow up the main combat information computer, when Esha tripped several security flags in it. On the other hand, Esha did get us forged requisition orders for the bombs we used to destroy it." "More than half the staff of Limrin Security knew that we were in the building, but thought that we belonged there and so never commented on it." "We diverted suspicion by framing high ranking officers and starting nasty rumors inside the palace itself." "The situation got worse as the war went badly for Wagner. We had to disappear in the bowels of the palace for days on end, trying to avoid the massive security sweeps and extreme measures he took to protect himself. We were lucky, in that he thought his bolt holes were secret and so never told his internal security to search them. If he did, he would have felt as though internal security could eliminate him inside his hidey hole" "Once we went to one of our favorite bolt holes, only to find Wagner already there. He felt that he was about to be assassinated by rivals for power, and so ditched his body guard and hid. We had to be careful to avoid him after that, inside the secret passages and bolt holes." "Once the fighting reached the Palace, we took over the main combat command center and took most of the highest ranking military officers hostage. We felt that at least we could get the Federation ships to evacuate us in exchange for the high ranking officers." "But, after about a day and a half, the Autarch surrendered and the revolution won. They found us in there, and named us Heroes of the Revolution. "Those poor people don't realize that we were just trying to get out of it alive. If we could have assured our own safety by turning over the leaders of the rebellion, or by turning over the Federation weapons, we would have. But Wagner had a tendency to promise whatever you wanted until he had you in his power, and then he'd torture you to death as a spy." "So we became Heroes of the Limrin Revolution, mainly by trying to save our own asses." He shook his head sadly. "There were a few of the so called heroes that retired to Limrin and sat back on their laurels. They let the population of Limrin lionize them for a living. The Limrin themselves feel that it's a worthwhile exchange, as long as these Heroes are content to avoid causing problems." He trailed off, quietly considering this ignoble fate. "Why did you join Starfleet?" Tillean asked Varupuchu, quietly. "Because I was tired of being part of an amateurish, aimless operation. The Limrin Revolution wasn't the first scrape I got into with the Xumec, nor was it the last. I had met one of the Humpback Whales of Earth during our travels. With her help, as well as old family contacts I got an appointment to Starfleet Academy." "Maybe these things sound romantic and adventurous twenty-five years later, but at the time there was a constant awareness of disaster waiting for the least misstep. We were never far from being stranded or losing the Xumec, or dying. Most of them were because we weren't professional enough, or didn't think things through. We were just pushing junk back and forth, and skipping lightly from one disaster to another." Varupuchu smiled "Give me Starfleet any day. At least what we're doing now matters in the long run." -*- Later, Tillean and I bid Varupuchu good night, and we walked towards our respective quarters. "Captain, didn't you serve on the Enterprise-C before she was destroyed at Narendra Three?" Tillean asked. "Yes. The Enterprise was my first assignment when I graduated from the Academy. I was a junior engineering tech aboard the Enterprise when we were at Limrin." -*- The USS Harrier warped through space a thousand light years from the United Federation of Planets. This was a large distance and it was going to take us about three more years to get home at this rate. ---- [reposted by the moderator after the net ate the original post - pardon any duplicates] -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Stories Only Forwarding In the Pattern Buffer at: http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/ ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek .creative or directly to the author. Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From ???@??? Fri Mar 05 23:28:58 2004 X-Persona: Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n8.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.92]) by robin (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1aZtqs55Z3NZFjX1 for ; Fri, 5 Mar 2004 20:28:36 -0800 (PST) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13279-1078547316-stephenbratliffasc=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yah