The Ice Is Set

Posted on Sun Jan 27th, 2019 @ 3:22am by

1,213 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: The Emerald Road
Location: Ready Room
Timeline: En Route Back Home

Will was sipping his now luke warm Coffee as he looked through the window at the rear of the room that overlooked the aft sections of the ship. This mission had taken a toll, it had cost lives but lives spent in the line of duty and Vash, she was safe once again. As he stood there gazing at the streaking stars it was a bitter pill to swallow to accept that he did what he could, as he could and when to get her back. That he was not responsible for the horrors she went through, the pain, suffering, humiliation and degradation that was forced upon her, but he had in custody those that were.

Part of him wanted them to suffer, to make them hurt, really hurt but he knew that to do that would require him to give up some of those parts which put him above that. It was easy to surrender pieces of ones self to sate a need of the moment, seldom are they retrieved later on.

He wanted to go see Vash, to see how she was doing but she needed rest, to recover and with him around it would only distract. All he could do for her now was to keep her safe, give her time and space but be there when she called for him.

Home was different now. When Vash was missing Will distracted himself with her absence with the knowledge that he was doing everything within his training and power to get her back. Now however, with her rescue she feared nothing would be the same and as strong as he tried to be for her, it was a worry for himself too. He blamed the 'Mothers' for that, as much as he wanted to exact his own style of retribution he wouldn't stoop to such a level. He was better then that.

His computer chirped, breaking the otherwise silent companion that Will shared the moment with. He turned to his table and sat in the chair, rotating the tabletop display towards him he turned it on. The Starfleet logo appeared on screen to seconds later be replaced with the familiar face of his friend, Admiral Xuan.

"Xuan, been a while, what can I do for you?"

"Will, I wish I could say this was a social call but I'm afraid I can't." Xuan replied but the smile and body posture conveyed enough that it was good to see his friend again.

"Of course, duty first. What can I do for you Admiral?"

"I wanted to let you know as a result of the mission we have received several complaints from the Klingons and Orions about your conduct."

"Is that of any surprise?" Will replied, he expected some diplomatic backlash from this mission, everyone was eager to complain, seldom to help unless it benefited them in some way.

"The Klingons claim that you embarrassed one of their commanders, who was subsequently executed, and destroyed two of their ships and violated sovereign territory."

"And the Orions."

"Destruction of one of thier vessels, trespassing, murder, piracy, abduction. To name a few."

"Quiet the list." Will rubbed his brow. "Ok, lets start with the Klingons." Will accessed the sensor logs of the event, communications logs too and sent them to Xuan. He explained what lead them to the Klingons, his offer to help and the difficulty the Klingons presented when pressed for information. Said information proved vital in the retrieval of Vash. "As for the ships." Will then gave Xuan the logs for the encounter with the Corvette, the hail, the warning shot and the subsequent attack by the Klingons proving that they fired on the Indefatigable first.

"As you can see, when we arrived at the Corvettes location sensors didn't indicate anything to say that they had a pair of Klingon escorts." Will rounded up.

Will then linked the logs for the boarding action, after action reports and sensor logs to the Admiral. It would paint for a bloody and brutal picture but it explained exactly what happened especially the capture of two of the three responsible for setting all this in motion. "I have the two in my Brig as we speak."

"Have you interrogated them?"

"No, I felt it prudent that someone at Starfleet Security would be more interested in speaking to them since they did abduct Vash straight from the UP yards itself." That and Will felt they were not worth his time, they would be fed, looked after, but the bare essentials at most, nothing more.

"Agreed." Xuan spoke. "I'm sure you understand there will be a hearing about this, procedures have to be followed."

"Xaun, they abducted Vash from the UP yards, a secure military facility. We catch up with them, rescue her, detain those responcible and they cry foul about it? Are we really taking the complaint seriously?"

"We have to, Starfleet isn't in the business of picking and choosing what it can and can't ignore. They are accusing you of murder."

"Murder....thats a stretch and you know it. They are just complaining because they got caught, trying to throw up a smoke screen so that we look like the bad guys."

"I know, but what do you have to worry about? The logs will speak for themselves, you can answer any follow up questions and we can put this to bed." Xuan spoke trying to instil some confidence in his friend.

"What am I looking at here, best and worst?" Will asked.

"Best case, nothing will happen. We will present the records and findings, we plan to forward the logs to the Vulcans to act as intermediary. They will verify logs, reports, maybe interview you and some of the crew. At the end we can brush this aside." Then Xuan took a breath, leaned forward. "Worst case, full judicial hearing, before the Admiralty board. Probably a demotion to Captain and a permanant record marker."

"Will I still command?"

"I hope so, SFE have been working overtime putting the Dreadnought back together. You should have seen the UP Yard commander when the Dreadnought was towed into his yard. Almost had to pick his jaw up from the floor."

"Is it clear of what ever that thing was?" Will asked, refurring to that hostile blue organism.

"They screened it twice just to be sure. Starfleet Medical took some trace samples but its gone." Xuan smiled. "They are just applying the last armour panels now and running system checks." There was a pause. "How is Vash?"

"Recovering, but if you read the medical write up, don't do so while eating or just before." Will replied, hinting that it would make for a sickening read and a most unpleasant after feeling once done.

"I'll set up everything here, try not to worry about it, you and I can meet up when you arrive and discuss things." Xuan spoke nodding his head about Vash's medical report.

"I'll contact you when I get in system, I'll head straight to the yards. I'm sure they will be happy to get their test bed back."

"I'm sure, Xuan out."

Then the link closed leaving Will somewhat mixed in feeling as he pondered what his future held and what would remain of his career afterwards.

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