Bring It On

Posted on Mar 03, 2016 @ 7:11pm by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane

Mission: Promethean

"BRING IT ON"

(Continued from "Reckoning")

********************************
********************************

Location: Secret medical facility, Earth
Stardate: [2.15] 0303.2315
Scene: Operating theatre


Richard Edgerton paused a moment before entering the room, straightening up his black sleeves and brushing dust from his shoulders with his spindly hands. It had been a long time since he had worn the Starfleet uniform - like all costumes, it had outlived its usefulness many months ago, and now it lay consigned to the dustbin of history. Now he daily wore a black suit decorated with a Neo-Essentialist armband around his left bicep - with martial law in effect and tens of thousands of armed Starfleet personnel manning the streets of Earth's major cities, there was no long any real need for a pretence of normalcy.

There were rumours swirling, and his intelligence network had confirmed they were true - the Neo-Essentialist gambit at Elandipole had failed, and now a united loyalist Starfleet was on its way to Earth to overthrow him. It was a trying time, to be sure, but all precautions had been taken. Unlike his predecessor, Richard Edgerton was no over-confident fool who thought purity of purpose would be enough to ensure success. People needed to be led toward the future of Humanity First, and if they would not be led, then they would be pushed forward from behind.

It was baby steps, a plan decades in the making. First, recruit in secret. Place comrades in important positions of authority, both civilian and military. Begin to disseminate a mild form of your philosophy through civilian politics - hey friends, don't you think that Earth does an awful lot of work keeping the Federation together? The burden of leadership is on Humanity. Some races don't pull their weight, do they? Maybe we should think about effecting change, real change, so that Humans can take their rightful place as leaders, not servants.

That's where it mushroomed from. Edgerton recalled provoking the Romulans into their offensive against Bolarus and Cait last year, remembered the panicked politicians of the Federation Council falling over themselves to suspend the Federation Charter and bring in martial law. He had wasted no time in appointing Human Neo-Essentialist governors for the Federation's capital worlds, changing its structure from representative democracy to quasi-feudal autocracy. Finally, the Neo-Essentialist movement was triumphant. Once this revolt was quashed and things settled down, he could begin the next phase of the ultimate plan of the Neo-Essentialists - the Final Solution to the Alien Question.

He touched the control and the door slid open. Richard Edgerton, Master of the Federation, stepped into the operating theatre where his wife lay trussed up in her life support rig.

A woman's voice, all cracked and shaking, rose from the bulbous mass of flesh ahead. "By the pricking of my skin, something wicked has come in."

The smell hit him first. Her own excrement had collected down her thighs and pooled on the floor under her biobed. Her enormous distended belly, pierced and hooked up to a myriad of medical tubing, quivered like a nest of spiders' eggs as the creature inside her kicked and pushed against the boundaries of its amniotic prison. Her veins stood out against her pale white skin, vermiculate threads of poison that carried the drugs through her ravaged body.

The doctor - Holden, his name was, a tall thin black man dedicated to the ideals of the movement and utterly trustworthy - stepped forward out of the shadows. Holden had not left this complex in almost two years, not since Edgerton's wife had been brought here. Edgerton acknowledged Holden with a nod and leaned over the mass of wires and the mound of his wife's naked body.

Her eyes were open and she was awake, but there was barely any sanity left in them. Edgerton supposed it was a natural progression of her condition. Alanna Edgerton, nee O' Sullivan, had been a young, dedicated Neo-Essentialist when she had volunteered, in the spirit of the purity of her species, for a medical experiment that would be of such importance to the movement that it warranted a marriage to Edgerton himself. The ceremony had been brief and secret, but it had never been about love. When Edgerton impregnated her in one laboured and somewhat embarrassing copulation, it had been to ensure the passing of his genetic material to her in the safest, most natural way possible. The nearly-three years of genetic experimentation on the foetus had been intended to create a perfect clone of Edgerton, tinkering with his own genome while inside the womb of a genetically-suitable female to host it. With the perfection of Project Promethean, Richard Edgerton would have ready access to another body already gestated inside a living Human uterus, a Messiah-child that his own consciousness could be transplanted into using the Promethean Device.

He glanced at Doctor Holden. "Her condition?"

Holden stepped forward and indicated several numbers on the bio-bed's readout. "Continued mental degradation, but otherwise physically healthy. However, the long-term effects of sedative narcotics upon the foetus are likely to negatively affect its health. May I enquire as to when we can expect delivery of the Device?"

Edgerton reached out and touched Alanna's face gently. Once the pregnancy had been confirmed, he had sent her back to her native Ireland, put her in an isolated house by the ocean, and waited for the time for the foetus to become viable. However, Xana Bonviva - the former Secretary of Starfleet, now likely a corpse amongst the rubble of Bolarus - had managed to find Alanna, and although Bonviva had thought Edgerton's marriage to be legitimate, he had realised that Alanna could not be left alone any longer. Confinement was the only option to protect the flesh of his own flesh growing inside her. That had been almost two years ago.

Alanna's face jerked under his touch. Her skin was cold and clammy, but her wild eyes fixated on him. "My... leader..." she whispered, her words coming in breathless gasps.

Edgerton smoothed her hair away from her face. Her stench was indescribable, but he kept the smile on his face. "My dear Alanna," he said quietly, smiling benevolently. "You will be the Eve for the new Human race. Thank you for everything you are doing."

"You... said... you... said... I'd be a ... queen..." she gasped, her eyes fluttering, pupils dilating as another dose of sedative automatically triggered from the biobed to keep her from getting excited. Edgerton watched the yellow line of the drug slide its way through the web of tubing and into one of her gnarled blue veins. "Our baby... is a... monster. Haven't I.... done... enough... for the... cause?" The last word was a cracked gargle.

Edgerton straightened up and looked at Holden with resignation on his face. "Doctor Conniston has not transmitted the daily update for several days now. I have dispatched a starship to the Lavenza system to investigate but they will not arrive for several weeks. According to the security procedures pertaining to the facility on Lavenza, we must now assume that the base has been destroyed or compromised in some way as to render it non-functional." He shrugged. "Conniston's last report was that he had enlisted the aid of some mercenaries in raiding the rebel fleet. It seems that his gambit has backfired. In short, Doctor Holden, the Device is a lost cause. Project Promethean is at an end."

Holden inclined his head. "I understand, leader." He hesitated, and glanced at the half-mad form on the biobed. "If we will no longer be needing a vessel for you, shall we...?" He let his sentence hang in the air.

"Terminate your program, Doctor," said Edgerton quietly. "Keep your data if you feel so inclined, but I want this facility liquidated by this time tomorrow." He strode toward the door, conscious of his upcoming meeting.

"Sir?" said Holden again.

Edgerton stopped in his tracks and turned back. "Yes?"

Holden looked at the bloated, naked form of Alanna O' Sullivan hanging suspended from the web of medical tubing. He spoke hesitantly. "What shall we do with the patient?"

Edgerton looked at him evenly. "I have no more use for her."

Holden inclined his head again. "I understand, leader." He picked up a hypospray, filled it with a potassium chloride solution, and approached the biobed, avoiding looking at Alanna's flickering eyes.

Richard Edgerton turned on his heel and left the facility behind forever.

******************************************

Location: San Francisco, Earth
Scene: Edgerton's office


After leaving Holden and his facility behind, Edgerton had returned to his office and had a light lunch with Leonard. The latest reports from the various listening posts and planets between Earth and Elandipole were not good. Something had happened at Elandipole - not only were Thoris P'Trell and Ronald Heydrich prisoners of the enemy, but Admiral Dexter Marxx was now leading a newly-united rebel fleet to Earth.

From a position of strength, the Neo-Essentialist cause had taken a heavy fall. Now, seemingly, the tables had turned decisively in favour of the rebels. The exclusively-Human governors of the Federation's capital worlds were reporting increasingly strident civil disturbances from their alien populaces as calls for the reinstatement of the Federation Charter gathered strength. Non-Human Neo-Essentialists were suspiciously debating the true purpose of the organisation they had pledged allegiance to, and in a movement that relied on the obfuscation and misdirection of its true objectives to outsiders, it was looking more and more likely that Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, and everyone else mighty try to pull the plug on what had been achieved thus far.

There were not enough starships in range to come to the defence of Earth. There were only a half-dozen in orbit right now, nothing bigger than a destroyer, and although there was a million-strong Starfleet and Marine ground force deployed in critical population centres around the planet, only a fraction of that number, mainly officers, were Neo-Essentialists. No matter the provocation, it was going to be difficult for those Neo-Essentialist officers to persuade their men and women to fire on other people wearing the Starfleet uniform once the ground invasion began. No, once the rebel fleet launched ground operations, Richard Edgerton's cause was doomed.

The trick, then, would be in denying them access to the ground, to keep the battle in space.

He and Leonard finished their lunch and entered a purpose-built turbolift that took them down, down through the many floors of the Starfleet Headquarters building, down through its subterranean levels, and deeper still to this new, purpose-built bunker equipped with shield generators, dozens of backup power generators, a host of communications hotspots, and computer access to the almost-functional Aegis Defence Network.

Combatting the rebel fleet with another fleet of starships was out of the question. However, two years was a long time. Thanks to the industrial power of the core worlds of the Federation, it was possible for a second option to be initiated, and that was why he was here, in this underground bunker beneath Starfleet Headquarters.

The bunker was manned by several dozen committed Human Neo-Essentialists of various ranks, and was commanded by Jim Truman, the former representative of the people of Earth to the Federation Council. Truman had been a Neo-Essentialist for many years now, playing the part of the smiling benevolent politician to the hilt. When the time came, Truman had been instrumental in helping Edgerton manoeuvre the Council into voting to declare martial law. Now, as the walls of Fortress Earth threatened to come tumbling down, there was nobody that Richard Edgerton trusted more to stand at his side in this new nerve-centre.

When the turbolift halted, Edgerton and Leonard walked down the entrance tunnel to where Jim Truman and some of his officers were waiting. Saluting was outmoded in both Starfleet and the Neo-Essentialist movement, but Truman and his people all bristled to attention when their leader's gaze fell upon them.

"They're afraid of you," said Leonard quietly.

Edgerton smiled sidelong at him. There was something poisonous in that smile. "I might look like the innocent flower, Leonard, but I promise you, I am the serpent under it. Mister Truman, I am here for your final update on the Aegis program."

"We're ready," nodded Truman. "If you'll follow me, sir?"

Truman led Edgerton and Leonard through the control room, and Edgerton was pleased to see that all systems were active and online. A dozen computer processors stood ready to transmit information as their operators stood up in respect as their leader passed among them.

In a briefing room off the main control centre, Edgerton sat at the conference table while Truman activated his holographic display. A flickering representation of the Earth appeared and hovered over the table.

"The Aegis Defence Network program, in the works for almost three years, is ready to launch," said Truman, his eyes running over the data stream on the PADD in his hand. "Would you like me to be succinct, leader?"

"No, give me everything," said Edgerton.

Truman touched a control on the holographic display. From the surface of the Earth, several capsules were launched from multiple sites on every continent. They rose higher into the atmosphere, and once at a designated height, they cracked open, revealing themselves to be a network of satellites orbiting the planet.

"The Aegis Defence Network has two objectives," read Truman from his PADD. "One - planetary defence of the Earth in the event of a space-born invasion. Two - to ensure obedience from the planetary population, under pain of annihilation."

He adjusted the controls again, and the view zoomed in on one of the orbiting satellites. Around its circular central core, the satellite had sprouted two projections, like butterfly wings, that blinked a rainbow of colours under a shield bubble.

"Once launched, the Aegis program initiates a tachyon link across each satellite in its network," said Truman. "Each satellite carries over two hundred megatons of trinitrotoluene-equivalent, and each satellite is positioned outside the blast radius of its neighbours. In the event of one satellite exploding, an area of the planet's surface some five thousand square kilometers beneath it will be permanently and irrevocably irradiated. Each satellite also carries five phaser banks and one hundred quantum torpedoes, plus a targetting computer system capable of acting independently or being manually controlled from this facility."

He manipulated the controls again, and the view zoomed out, focusing on several satellites together against the backdrop of the Earth, all connected by a glowing web of tachyon particles. "If a tachyon connection is remotely severed between any two satellites, both satellites will self-destruct within twenty seconds. If any satellite in the network is struck by a phased energy weapon, it will self-destruct inside ten seconds and the tachyon network will automatically reconfigure itself. The tachyon web acts as a transporter scattering field to prevent the enemy from beaming down to the surface, and no shuttlecraft currently in service has the shield capability to withstand the weapons firepower of an individual satellite. The network is smart enough to maintain the orbits of the satellites over major population centres at all times. If this control centre goes offline and fails to send update signals to the tachyon network, all satellites in the network will detonate within sixty seconds, completely irradiating the surface of the Earth and killing all thirty-five billion people on the planet." He looked up, his report concluded.

Edgerton glanced at Leonard. His assistant's jaw was hanging open. "Leonard," he said, with a hint of admonishment in his voice, "why so shocked? You always knew it was us or them, yes?"

Leonard closed his mouth with a snap. "Yes, sir. I didn't realise how close to Doomsday this weapons network will bring us."

"Aegis is magnificent," said Edgerton, his eyes shining in the glow of the hologram. "When the enemy fleet arrives, they will be faced with the dilemma - how to penetrate our planetary defence network? Any attempt to breach the field will lead to the annihilation of the Earth through the satellites' self-destruction. The satellites themselves are heavily armed enough to obliterate any attempt to traverse the network by small craft. If a large starship attempts to breach the network, or tries using shipboard weapons on one of the satellites, they risk killing millions of people as that satellite detonates."

He stood up and faced them both. "There is no-one in the enemy fleet who will risk such a cataclysmic loss of life. Earth is more than one of the core worlds - it is the beating heart of the Federation itself. The only way our enemies will remove us from this world will be by cutting out their own heart. This planet is, and always will be, ours."

"Federation First," breathed Leonard.

"Humanity First," Edgerton corrected him. The dictator turned to Truman. "Waste no more time. The arrival of the enemy fleet is imminent. Suspend all civilian shipping to and from planet Earth. I hereby give you the order - launch and activate the Aegis Defence Network."

"Yes, sir." Truman signalled to one of his aides, who immediately left the briefing room and moved to the control room. "Do you wish to witness the launch?"

Edgerton nodded. "But not from here."

***********************************************

Scene: Balcony outside Edgerton's office, minutes later


Edgerton and Leonard stood on the balcony of his office. From a silo underneath the Golden Gate bridge, the satellite split the azure waters of the bay and rose into the sky with a tail of fire, climbing from blue into blue. All across the world the same thing was happening - from launch pads inside mountains or in isolated plains, the Aegis network finished its countdown and blasted a hundred weapons of ultimate destruction into the sky. The population of the Earth looked up into the sky and held their breath.

Leonard looked from the fiery tail of the satellite and back down at the waters of the bay that were already beginning to close back over the churning hole the launch had made. "So foul and fair a day I've never seen in my life," he murmured to himself.

Edgerton, one hand raised to shade his eyes from the sun, pointed the other at the sky. "Look, Leonard! Look!" He gave vent to a laugh. "It's victory, that's what it is! Let the Phoenix and Starfleet and Marxx come! What can they do to us now!"

Leonard looked and high up in the blue sky, seeing a golden tendril snake out from a point where the satellite much have achieved orbit. Then it was joined by another, and then another, until the whole sky was a mesh of golden wires.

Edgerton exulted. "Bring on the final battle!" he roared at the sky. "Bring it on! Bring it on!"

***********************************************
***********************************************

NRPG: An update as to what's been happening on Earth.

Alanna Edgerton was created by Sarah Albertini-Bond as Edgerton's pregnant wife, a sympathetic character to off-set his evil side. She made one appearance (in Sarah's post "Mama", which you can read under Absolute Power mission arc), when Xana Bonvivia went to visit her in her ocean-side home for a woman-to-woman talk. When I was developing Promethean I remembered the Alanna character, and this seemed a suitable way to tie everything together by inventing the 'real' reason why Alanna was in that house by the ocean that day.

Jim Truman made his only appearance so far in my post "From The Ashes", which was part of the Birth of an Empire arc. That post had the scene where the Federation Council votes in martial law in response to the Romulan attacks along the Neutral Zone. Truman cast the deciding vote that suspended the Federation Charter and made Edgerton master of Earth.

The orbital Aegis Defence Network is now operational around Earth. All civilian traffic to and from the planet has been suspended, stranding hundreds of civilian ships in orbit and countless more people who are travelling on or off-world. A basic layout of what the network is capable of is included in this post, but when the fleet arrives we'll be in a better position to analyse it and make a judgement on what to do next. Suffice it to say that any obvious errors or omissions I might have made above have been thought of by Edgerton's design team, who have included a way to counter-act it in its design and construction.

This is an aside post. What's happening on Lavenza II?


Jerome McKee
the Soul of Captain Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
USS PHOENIX


"He speaks an infinite deal of nothing!"
- Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", Act 1, Scene 1.117

*************************************************
*************************************************