Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 18:56:07 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: "Jay P Hailey" Title: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile Author: Jay P Hailey (JayPHailey@hotmail.com) Series: MISC - TNG OCs Codes: None Part: 39/342(?) 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 Kliges'chee by Jay P. Hailey And Dennnis Washburn (Stardate 45988) We found out why the Murachi seemed to be in such a hurry. They were deeply afraid that if the Harrier was discovered in orbit around their planet by the Kliges'chee that it would be taken as evidence of resistance. The Kliges'chee promised that they would then eliminate all life on Murachi in that case. So we quickly taught the Murachi about the basics of subspace theory and left them with some technical data. This was about what they might get if they captured a Kliges'chee ship, with manuals and basic educational books. Again I had violated the Prime Directive. In this instance I didn't think that the Prime Directive was directly applicable. If a natural or self-made disaster was about to eliminate a planet full of sentients we would try to help, out of sight of the natives. However, if we couldn't do anything without revealing ourselves or the existence of life in outer space, then we were obligated to let them die. However, the Murachi had already been informed of life in space and many of the ways of doing things that were considered advanced like subspace scanners, and transporters. This was not the usual interpretation of this rule. Fifty years ago the Cardassian Union had occupied Bajor, a planet with an old and advanced humanoid race. They had space travel for thousands of years. Starfleet and the Federation had spent a couple of years dithering and then decided that it was an "internal" matter and backed off. Bajor was now a downtrodden and wasted planet oppressed and stripped by the Cardassians. But the Federation had postponed a bitter and expensive war with the Cardassians for another thirty years. Therefore, the guiding principle behind interference with an outside invader was actually a matter of expense and convenience for the Federation. The Murachi were certainly an inconvenient case, but I made a point of not committing the Federation to any further aid. Instead I invited the Murachi to send a group of delegates with us to the Federation Council. This was a gesture, I knew what the Federation Council's answer would be. I also knew that it would be years before the Murachi left behind knew, if ever. They would have hope. The Murachi decided to send Nook, the Defense Minister, Suarin, the Politician, and Crelose the Minister of Culture. Crelose was actually fun to have. He was a Murachi historian and sociologist. He couldn't wait to see the different races and cultures aboard the Harrier close up. Suarin immediately began to lobby the crew for support of an alliance. He adapted reasonably well to the Harrier also. The odd man out was Nook. The only people he understood at all were the Marines. Away from them his social integration was minimal. The longest part of our mission was taking complete copies of all the Murachi archives. Crelose had been collecting the works of Murachi civilization and culture and squirreling backups away in case they were needed. We got copies for the Federation Archives, just in case everything went wrong. We left Murachi two weeks later, never having spotted a Kliges'chee ship. Once we had gotten away from the planet, I let the delegates in on the whole story. They were disturbed to find that we were lost and had no idea what might lay between us and home. -*- I was in the lounge of the Harrier, eating lunch when Crelose came to me and said "Captain, may I have a word with you?" "Certainly, Crelose. May I order you something?" Crelose was very good at sociology, especially socialization within groups. Most of us were on a first name basis with him already. "I have heard, what do you call it? Scuttlebutt? Yes? Well, I have heard scuttlebutt that says you think that you are near the edge of Kliges'chee space?" "This has been our assumption." "This is not so. We are currently well within the Kliges'chee sphere of influence." "How do you know this?" I couldn't imagine where he might come up with that information. "Our military intelligence analyzes the ships that stop at Murachi diligently. They estimate that Murachi is located near a routine Kliges'chee patrol route and that the route takes nearly one year to complete." "Oh." If I believed what Crelose was telling me, then the Harrier had stumbled much deeper into Kliges'chee space than I had thought. If we continued to stumble along with the same luck, we might make it out of Kliges'chee territory. If we were unlucky we might stumble into a fleet. "There might be an alternative," Crelose said. "What's that?" "According to our most ancient legends, a race of gods named the Harmon live near the largest blue star that rises in our night sky. We were going to send a scouting mission there before the Kliges'chee conquered us." "The Harmon?" That was the name of the beings that had englobed the Kurr Association. If it was the same bunch I had to go and try to get them to reconsider the fate of the Kurr. The Kurr were a group of ninety seven allied worlds that were trapped inside a huge one hundred light year wide energy bubble. The were a nice bunch of people, with a lot in common with the Federation. If the Federation had been unluckier the Organians or the Q might have done the same to us. -*- It took just a few minutes for stellar cartography to narrow down the location specified in the Murachi legends. The big blue giant star the legends named was ninety light years away, almost directly perpendicular to our current course. Was this further into Kliges'chee space? None of the Murachi delegates knew. We set course for what I hoped was Harmon space that afternoon. -*- We had been lost in space for four hundred and fourteen days. My Chief Engineer Ruezre' Vengla was talking to me about this. "We need new phase inducers. The ones we have are just about done for." "Can you keep it together for a little while longer?" "I have jury-rigged and Mickey-Moused the warp core long past the design specs." Mickey-Moused is ancient engineering slang. I have no idea where the term originated, but it refers to improvised engineering techniques. "What happens if we lose them?" "Well, that depends. If I get enough warning then we lose main power. If I don't then blooie." "Blooie? Is that your official report?" She showed me the quote in her engineering report. I realized that Vengla must have been under a certain amount of pressure. She was becoming less diligent about proper Starfleet procedures. Hiding a smirk I handed the report back. "Is there any way to improvise around this?" "Maybe. I might be able to keep the main reactor up at forty to fifty percent of rated power after we lose the phase inducers." I whistled. That was bad. "Could we maintain warp six with fifty percent power?" "Maybe for a while." My head started to ache. "Anything else?" "Uh-huh. Remember that the shields were pretty badly derezzed by that Kliges'chee shield disruptor." Derezzed was more ancient slang. "Uh-huh." "The shield generators need to be totally rebuilt. I can't give you any more than seventy-five percent power on them." That was bad, too. "Anything else?" I didn't really want to know. "Yeah. There is a chronic shortage of basic parts. I can't fix any more replicators. Lots of little things have been put off until later. The only problem is that we don't know when later is going to be." "Okay. I'll see what I can do." Ruezre nodded. I could see a little of the strain disappear from her yellow, iridescent eyes. Now it was the old man's problem. I grinned as I showed her out of my office and tried to keep the headache I had grown from showing on my face. I had no idea what to do either. -*- Later that afternoon, we snuck around a Kliges'chee base. We sighted it on long range scanners, and then kept it at extreme range while we circled around it. We sighted four ships near the base. Three of them were slightly larger than the Harrier. One was like the ship we had encountered earlier. It was a little smaller than the Harrier. We called them "Type-A: Scout" and "Type-B: Cruiser." It was a good bet that one of the Type-B's was the equal in fire power to the Harrier if you left the shield disruptor out of the equation. The size of a starship isn't a good indicator of its relative firepower. The whole reaction that powered the Harrier took place in a space the size of my fist. The real indicator of what a starship was capable of was the temperature and pressure of the plasma it produced. Another factor was the efficiency of the ship in using the plasma it generated. Our measurements of the Kliges'chee ships showed that their plasma was weaker than ours, but that their equipment had more leverage when using it. They seemed like they were more carefully designed as warships. They also lacked a number of safety devices. We also noticed that only one of the Kliges'chee ships was powered up and under way. Fortunately we were able to sneak past the Kliges'chee base unnoticed. Two or three Kliges'chee ships might be able to run us down, and that would be the end for us. -*- We snuck along for the next thirty days. This is not quite accurate. Our "sneaking" entailed cruising along normally and preparing to evade any contacts. We saw several other ships, we think. But we didn't get too close. We studiously avoided them. The stress would have been unbearable except that we only had such contacts once or twice a week. As we gained confidence, I wasn't even woken up for the later contacts. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.611 / Virus Database: 391 - Release Date: 3/3/2004 -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Awards Tech Support http://www.trekiverse.us/ASCAwards/commenting/ No Tribbles were harmed in the running of these Awards ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek .creative or directly to the author. Yahoo! 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