By Jon Peterson and Landry Steele
100703.1530
Immediately After Further Complications
-=Bridges of the USS Serendipity and USS Poseidon=-
100703.1530
Immediately After Further Complications
-=Bridges of the USS Serendipity and USS Poseidon=-
Struggling under his gaze and sinking in the violent undertow, Landry found that all the words she’d planned to say drained away and now pooled on the floor by her feet.
She looked at him so sadly and though he would never allow anyone else to see, she could clearly read that her very presence here was causing him pain. She could hardly bare to see it.
Her eyes instinctively fell from his but she forced them upward again. She needed to say this and to be able to gauge his reaction to know if she was getting through at all.
“I don’t expect you to say anything, Tucker. I know you’ve never cared for anyone’s expectations but your own and you certainly won’t care about mine now,” she said sadly, inhaling slowly to steady herself. She could see that when she mentioned expectations he was instantly thinking of all his expectations for her-- the ones she’d failed to fulfill when she refused to let him change her any more-- and as right as her decision may have been she still felt guilty for disappointing him now. “What I want is for you to stop what you’re doing.”
He offered her nothing but silence and a stare, knowing that his defiance would be the most difficult of all possible responses for her to bear.
Landry ached, certain that by this point she must surely be internally injured; drowning in her own boiling blood as her heart beat itself to death beneath her skin.
As much as it would have hurt to hear him yell it was nothing at all that showed her how very far apart they were. No reaction was the reaction you gave when you simply didn’t care anymore.
He was as still as a statue even as she could almost hear the beating of his own burning heart beneath cold stone. Her rational thinking abilities deserted her. For an instant she forgot that the living light of the screen was more than just a thin glass barrier between them. He felt so unnaturally far away and still, somehow she felt like her senses must surely be lying to her. He was here. He was so close. Yet the air she could taste was plain and the light in this room was so dull. He wasn’t here at all.
“Please,” she asked, her tone showing to them both that he was infinitely better than her at keeping his emotions in check.
Tucker almost paused. There had always been something in the way she’d said that word that could so easily threaten to overwhelm his resolve and did so, so much more than he’d ever risked letting her know. Now that she would use it here, so out of context from what they’d once had, made it feel more like an attack against any vulnerable part he may still have had. He needed to show her he had no such vulnerability to exploit.
“You made it perfectly clear that you didn’t want me,” he insisted with coldness in his words to freeze out any remnant of what he might really be feeling. “I have no reason to care what else you may or may not want right now.”
Landry knew him far better than to believe he was just a man out for himself. As much as he had hurt her, she knew their entire love had been created because he’d wanted to give her a treasured gift of his even though it would be poisonous to her own soul. He did care about other people, once about her especially, and what he did to the world as well.
“You don’t care what I want but I know you care about right from wrong.” she said quietly, almost as if it was a secret he wouldn’t want anyone else to overhear. “What you’re doing here is wrong. I know you don’t think that, but it is and…”
Finally she saw a true reaction in him.
“It’s one thing to try to sabotage what I’m doing but don’t you dare insult me,” he said, his commanding tone skipping right over warmth to convey burning rage. She hated that sound and even worse, though it sounded like an instruction, it felt more to her like a desperate request. She was the only one who had ever known him well enough for her insults to have any meaning and she knew just what this one meant. “Look around at what I’ve accomplished already. I’ve done so much more than most men would dream possible,” he insisted. “I know just what I’m doin’ and I know just why I’m doing it.
It was becoming exponentially more difficult by the second to continue looking at him. He could be terrifying when he was like this and with all she’d seen him do it seemed too easy for him to just break his way through this screen in an instant if it were only his will to ever be near her again.
“Do you? Do you really?” she asked, uncertainty and overwhelming emotion fairly strangling her words.
“Of course I do,” he snapped, though he could be the most patient man in the world when it suited him. “Why the hell wouldn’t I?”
“Because you’ve always had a blind spot for her,” Landry answered sadly as her mind went back over the time they’d spent together.
“This is not about her.”
Landry found herself shaking from the vehemence in his objection but she had to force herself not to shrink away from it.
“It’s always about her,” she insisted trying to steady herself, with shakes almost finding their way to her words. “For as long as I’ve known you you’ve been obsessed. I quickly came to accept that I’d always be the second woman in Tucker Brody’s life.” She almost found herself pleading. “Why can’t you just let her go?”
“You don’t understand,” he said with disdain, though not truly at her. “I explained it all to you but you never really listened.”
“Then explain it to me again,” she said, wishing in spite of all the rage within him that she could just hold him and try to help in some small way with the pain she herself was causing. Her eyes took on just the slightest glimmer, the merest suggestion of tears that only he could see. She was never supposed to be the one to cause him pain, she had only ever wanted to be his safe place to go when the world had all gone wrong.
For a moment she could see he was actually thinking of trying to tell her again. If not to convince her then to get out the building words that had been piling up in rants constricted to his own thoughts since they’d parted.
However Tucker Brody had never been a man to risk forgetting his circumstance for long and he was suddenly very aware that all eyes on two bridges were upon them.
Some things were private, and it’d hurt far too much when he’d shared them with one other person and been told that they were wrong; some things were so private you kept them only to yourself.
"You can't possibly have become this spiteful, Tuck. I know you too well."
"Don't you dare-"
"Listen to me!" She plead. All watching the scene unfold before them were transfixed, except for TC Blane, who had become vaguely aware that a proximity alarm light was flashing on the panel before him.
He quickly dropped his gaze down then raised his eyes upward again. The time was coming to make a move- the question was just who was going to win the game.
"You know what she cost me!" Brody's voice plummeted, lower, lower, until it was barely more than a thinly disguised growl of pure hatred. "She cost me everything I ever loved. She cost me my career, my reputation, she cost me-"
"I know what you think Zanh Liis has done to you, Tucker, but believe me, I've done the research. I've been here, on her ship, for months. I've had the chance to observe her, to see how she commands her crew. She's a good woman, Tucker, a decent Bajoran who just wants-"
"She took everything and I've had to fight every damned day of this life to get it back!" Tucker shouted, his control finally slipping.
"That wasn’t her."
"Yes, it was,” he growled. “For Christ's sake, Landry, you know it was everything she is and everything she’s done. She was stopped in this timeline but she would have made the exact same choices here.”
“But she didn’t.”
“That doesn’t matter! You know, there are always, always more the one set of historical records when you're talking about TI.” He ran a hand back through his hair a moment. "From the day we sign up we carry the weight for all possible paths we could have taken. You know that they have the need, the determination and the ability to make a man suffer for mistakes he hasn't even made in this timeline yet." He scoffed, now intentionally lashing out. “Just because you couldn’t live up to your alternate self doesn’t change that fact.”
Landry was hurt but far more than that she was frightened.
"Tucker- we need to talk in person." Landry was afraid now that he was close to breaking- he was saying more, in a much more public arena, than she ever imagined that he would. Clearly his strength was at a breaking point, and she would not be the thing that pushed him over the edge into madness. "Please, beam me over there. We need to-"
"No," he said, shaking his head and now finally diverting his gaze from hers. "I have to finish this. I have to finish this, and I have to break her." He looked up at her again, eyes turning to steel within his stonework countenance. I have paid for what she did, what she would have done, for too bloody long. Now it’s her turn.”
“This can’t change what happened to you,” she objected, with the tears now truly biting at her.
“Nothing can change what’s happened,” he said bitterly. “I will never be that gentle man I was supposed to be. I’ll never be the man you wanted me to be. She broke him because he let her and I could not allow myself that weakness. Now she must pay.”
“Please…” Landry started again but it was now far too late to argue as suddenly Denise’s voice broke through into their world.
[A vessel’s just appeared off port aft. It’s a TI configuration.]
Brody’s eyes never once left Landry, only narrowing on her with something close to hate filling them now. [You knew about this all along. You’ve been stalling me.]
“No, please…” she objected but before she even had half the words out the screen before her cut out to reveal only the empty stars of infinite space before her. She was left there simply standing thinking of what his last thoughts of her would have been.
“Damn it,” Peterson swore, taking his chair now that Brody was gone as Landry just stood transfixed at the screen. “Why didn’t we see this coming?”
“Oh, yeah, here it is.” TC announced, feigning that he’d only just discovered this information. Peterson clearly didn’t believe this act and he really wasn’t meant to but there was nothing much he could do about it now. “It looks like they’re charging weapons.”
“What the hell are they doing? Put it on the screen.” Peterson growled and the image of the Poseidon and a ship almost twice their size hovering over them appeared. A blue energy wave was building at the front of weapon’s grid.
“No.” Landry said softly as the energy shot off like a bullet straight into the Poseidon side.
You could almost see the antiquated ship crying out in pain as it was struck, though it managed to get through intact.
“They’ve only taken minor damage. That was just a warning shot,” came a voice from the front of the bridge.
“We’ve got to do something,” Peterson decided, suddenly feeling very lost about exactly what that something was.
“Well, whatever the hell you’re going to do you should call a red alert and raise shields.” TC instructed. Peterson didn’t argue, simply nodding to a member of his staff that it should be done, so suddenly the klaxons started to wail.
Though still deadly enemies with its crew, TC was entirely aware that his Captain and several members of their crew were over on the Poseidon and would likely be killed in any resulting battle. He was also aware that the crew here could be killed if the Sera were deemed too much of a risk. If there was a time when whatever plan was in the works should be enacted it was either now or very soon.
Evidently Josiah Barlow agreed as with all eyes turning to the readings on the TI ship his hand slid quickly however to hover over a button that would broadcast a signal. The timing however would have to be perfect.
“The Poseidon is being hailed.”
“On screen,” said Peterson and soon the face of Paul Andrews, TI’s lean and muscular head of security, appeared.
[Attention rogue agents. You are to immediately surrender possession of the stolen vessel and the Serendipity. If necessary, we will destroy you. You will not be allowed to alter the timeline]
Without a further word the message then terminated.
“He’d never surrender,” Landry realised, fear filling her eyes.
Indeed, she seemed to have be proven right as the Poseidon started to turn. Its weapons began to charge but before it could even get off a shot the larger vessel fired again, rocking the Poseidon and dissipating their weapons’ energy.
“We’ve got to do something,” Landry demanded, refusing to accept Brody would die now of all times.
“We don’t have any weapons.” Peterson answered uselessly.
“According to these readings weapons are back online, sir,” one of his agents announced and he almost slapped himself when he realised what had happened.
“Of course,” he said. “Prepare to fire full phaser and photon torpedoes on my mark.”
“Weapons were offline. We’ve had no reason to create a workaround to the Serendipity’s command codes. I can not override in the necessary time.”
“Then who could fire the weapons?”
“An active Serendipity officer, sir.”
Peterson immediately turned to TC.
“Do it.”
“Forget it.” TC answered. As difficult as it was knowing their own people were on the Poseidon, attacking the other ship would be turning their weapons on an ally and potentially setting Brody loose on time.
Peterson suddenly looked very lost but there was one person who knew exactly what she had to do as she watched the Poseidon be hit once again.
“I’ll do it.”
“Steele,” TC said simply her name as she took a position at the tactical station and quickly targeted the TI ship where their shields were weakest. A full barrage of torpedoes and phaser fire stabbed at the very heart of the enemy vessel with the deadly accuracy of someone who knew their design, and who knew they weren’t expecting them to fire.
“All their engines are offline, sir,” one man announced, thinking they’d joined the fight just in time. Barlow decided the timing was right also. “It’s worked.”
While most of them watched the Poseidon’s quick run from the TI ship’s weapons’ range, suddenly the agent at the front of the Sera’s bridge became alarmed.
“Antimatter containment field is failing!”
“Then back us away from them.”
‘
“No, sir, our antimatter containment field. Estimate total collapse in fifty six seconds.”
“That’s impossible,” Peterson objected. “We haven’t even been hit!”
“I know, sir.”
Peterson realised there wasn’t a whole lot of time to think about what was possible.
“Open a channel to the Poseidon.” He ordered and the channel was so opened. “We have a failure in antimatter containment. Request immediate beam out of all Temporal Investigations personnel.”
[Negative. Enemy ship is still armed and we’ve taken heavy damage,] Denise’s voice replied. [We can’t drop shields to allow beam out. I’m so sorry but this ship can’t be lost. We must retreat for repairs.]
Peterson didn’t understand, though it became much clearer as the Poseidon’s transwarp skimming drive began to activate with that same sphere of energy as before.
“They’re leaving,” the agent at the helm announced.
“What the hell? Why?”
“They’re not going to tow a ship with a core breach.” TC explained, as if it should be obvious, and now Peterson realised they were to be stuck here on this ship. Now he was worried.
“We have to stop it,” he announced but his people had already been to work on it.
“Nothing’s working, sir,” the agent at the helm said as diverting power to the core seemed to do nothing at all.
“Maybe my people will be able to…” TC started to suggest that with their expertise on this ship they might be able to help and suddenly Peterson’s eyes flew wide.
“You did this!”
“How the hell could I do that? I’ve been here the whole time,” TC barked back in a tone that seemed to ask exactly why it mattered now who’d caused this. “You have to either let us back in or jettison the core.”
“Twenty seconds, sir.”
“Forget it. I’m not giving you back control of the ship and if we eject the core we’ll be trapped here.”
“If you do nothing we’ll be destroyed.”
Peterson gulped, suddenly very uncomfortable in this position and almost wanting someone else to take over. The Poseidon, however, was gone.
“Alright,” he said shakily. “Do it.”
“We need the authorisation from a member of the Serendipity’s senior staff.” One of them realised as he attempted to activate the ejection system.
“Ten seconds.”
Peterson looked again to TC and this time TC didn’t object. He’d noticed something strange about these readings anyway.
“Computer. Recognise authorisation Blane gamma foxtrot seven nine,” he announced and the computer beeped that he was allowed access. “Eject the warp core.”
The computer followed his instructions. Then they could only watch the viewscreen as all warp power cut out throughout the ship and the core was fired like a bullet at the sky, barely reaching a safe distance before it detonated in a glorious disk of nuclear flame, with it evaporating any chance this ship had of moving back home under its own power.
All on the bridge fell silent as they watched the flame dying out and leaving no trace of the core that’d been, until finally it was once again dead darkness between them and the beast of a ship that they'd crippled.
Landry Steele
Temporal Investigations Agent
Aboard the USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Lieutenant Jon Peterson
Rogue Temporal Investigations Agent
Stuck about the USS Serendipity NCC-2012
Temporal Investigations Agent
Aboard the USS Serendipity NCC-2012
and
Lieutenant Jon Peterson
Rogue Temporal Investigations Agent
Stuck about the USS Serendipity NCC-2012