550:Judge, Jury, and Executioner

by Rada Dengar and Gem Lassiter
81003.1330
Following The Welcome Wagon

-=Main Bridge, USS Serendipity=-


Rada was still in shock after the encounter with the Admiral who it appeared intended to take over the ship. Granted not long ago it had been his most sincere desire that a superior officer would arrive on the bridge and take over but an Admiral was overkill. That’s like going to sleep wishing for a puppy and ending up with a full grown Klingon in your bed in the morning; sure they’re nice and warm but if they decide they want to chew up your slippers then you’d better let them.

What made things worse was the fact that he was stuck in limbo here; this strange woman had declared that she wanted to speak with him shortly and he had no idea when that was. If he returned to the command chair and she had to come out to get him then it would look like he’d completely forgotten about her or worse; that he’d chosen to ignore her.

Completely ignoring a commanding officer was the highest level of insubordination. The worst thing about being charged with ignoring a senior officer is that you’re never going to meet a judge who doesn’t think it’s that big a deal. These are the type of people that need an announcement before they enter a room and that can have you locked in the brig for contempt if you don’t stand when they want you to, it’s like life’s a game of extreme Simon Says and they’re always It.

They expect to be addressed by these ridiculous titles, some even going so far as to be called ‘Your Worship’, even most of those beings who actually are worshiped would still find the title a bit much. Then on top of it all they’re given a large wooden hammer to bang in case people aren’t paying enough attention. These are not the type of people who feel that being ignored is just a normal thing that happens to everyone everyday and may view it as good cause to bring back hanging.

He considered the alternative of just going to the Captain’s ready room and pointing out to the Admiral that she wanted to see him, but that could potentially look very much like he was trying to make her work to his schedule. This was essentially like he was trying to assert that she had no real authority over him but was just not enough for him to be sent to trial. Imagine an Admiral spending all of their time plotting just how to put that arrogant little Angosian in his place.

It would become an obsession that eventually consumed them until nothing but the highest level of revenge would do and they would have to have him sent on a suicide mission to feel like they were in control. He went where the ship went and so his suicide mission was their suicide mission. If he rang that door chime now then he could potentially get them all killed, he couldn’t risk it.

Still he couldn’t just stand here, imagine as the minutes dragged on and on with him just standing here looking at her door. It'd look like he’d been frozen there in front of the entire bridge and he’d be sent for examination. He started to consider just all the potentially horrendous tests they could do on him to find out why when the Admiral poked her head around the door and yelled.

“Dengar. Now."

He was quite terrified now that he’d spent so long considering the consequences of his actions while waiting for her to call that he forgot to be adequately afraid of one thing; when she called.

He slowly exhaled in an attempt to relax and to keep himself as composed as possible as he hurriedly approached the door. He plastered the most sincere smile on his face that he could and stepped through.

“Sit down,” the Admiral said indicating the chair across from her position. Her position was of course the Captain’s chair.

Rada took the seat and began to open his mouth but it was clear from her demeanour that he was to speak only when spoken to.

She examined a PADD in her hand pausing briefly to feign a glance at Rada before looking back down at it.

“You are the Chief Engineer on the Serendipity?” she asked looking up at him with a raised eye brow.

“Yes, Sir,” Rada replied promptly, hoping very much that he wasn’t here to have that changed.

“Then you are aware on the incident which took place on Stardate 80905,” she added looking back down to the PADD, she knew this and wasn’t asking for conformation “Our sensors picked up a minute temporal disturbance at the Alchemy’s location.”

Rada began to open his mouth again before she cut him off “I’ve read the reports so don’t bother telling me about them.”

Rada closed his mouth but then when she looked back up at him he began to feel uncomfortable like she was expecting an answer she wasn’t getting from him.

“If you have questions regarding the experimental technology on the Alchemy then I’d recommend you talk to our Director of Research and Development, Commander Lair,” he said, shifting uneasily in his seat.

“I’m talking to you,” the Admiral replied, putting the PADD down on the desk and looking directly at him now “What is your opinion on what happened?”

Rada hated the answer that he had to give “I don’t…know what you mean.” He honestly didn’t know what she wanted; he thought that he’d covered everything in his report.

"Did the Alchemy actually achieve time travel? Even in the slightest amount, in either direction forward or backward?"

"I believe it did, Sir."

"And do you believe that this was an outcome intended by Salvek and Lair based on the designs that they implemented before it occurred?"

"No, Sir. In truth, they seemed rather surprised by it."

"What was their intention then?"

"To double the efficiency of the Alchemy's transwarp drive."

"Wonderful. That's all I needed to know. Now I can make the proper arrangements." She tapped at the keyboard of Zanh's computer, manually inputting some sort of code that Rada was certain spelled his doom.

There were few worse omens than when an Admiral chose to type something. She could rob him of his rank, separate him from friends and family and transfer him to a remote planet on the other side of the quadrant where they kill Engineers on sight all by saying the word. It seemed that none of these things would be sufficient though and that she needed more than just her own authority to do what she planned to do to Rada. To exceed her own authority meant that this code she was entering must somehow allow her access to the authority of other Admirals as well. One Admiral was relatively harmless but when they start working together in swarms then they could strip a man to the bone in a matter of seconds.

Worst of all, he had rights under Starfleet regulations but the regulations and their interpretations were all decisions for Admirals. If they were working together then it must be so that they could go beyond what the current regulations allow; torture, beatings and forcing him to watch hour after hour of Klingon opera were all within their power. They could do all of this with just the touch of a few keys on a keyboard, it disgusted Rada that a supposedly peaceful organisation kept weapons as powerful as keyboards in almost every room. He had to know what she was going to do to him.

"Arrangements, Sir?" he asked.

"Yes. When we get back to Earth, Temporal Investigations will take the Alchemy into its possession."

"To what end?" Rada asked. Still in shock that her attack wasn’t directed at him personally; he felt emboldened at the thought that their 'baby', the ship they had all put their blood, sweat, and tears into, was about to be kidnapped right out of the cradle.

"To figure out exactly what happened, why...and how to repeat it."

"And...how are you going to achieve that, Sir?" Rada asked nervously, dreading her likely response.

"We're going to rip it apart."


Lt. SG Rada Dengar
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012

and

Admiral Gem Lassiter
Director
The Alchemy Project