Close Encounters

Posted on Oct 18, 2017 @ 1:17am by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane

Mission: Fear Itself

"CLOSE ENCOUNTERS"

(Continued from "Toga! Toga! Toga!")
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Location: USS Phoenix, docked at Starbase 56, edge of the Neutral Zone
Stardate: [2.17]1017.2115
Scene: The Vulgar Tribble - deck 10, saucer section


Michael Turlogh Kane took a sip of the mulled wine, looking around the Vulgar Tribble while Admiral Andrea Stiles perused his report on the PADD. The two of them were standing alone near one of the room's viewports, and everyone else was scattered around the place, chatting and laughing. The crews of the Phoenix and the Starbase were mixing well, enjoying the ancient Roman theme, and Kane was glad to see it - the senior staff of the Phoenix deserved this night off to blow off some steam. At the back of his mind he wondered what Admiral Stiles next had in store for them, but he decided not to worry about that for the moment. This evening he could relax and enjoy some new company. This evening, nobody expected anything of him, nobody wanted anything from him. His time was his own.

Admiral Stiles deactivated the PADD and looked at him sidelong with a half-smile on her face. "Congratulations, Captain Kane. Starfleet Intelligence are going to tear this report apart like a pack of ravenous targ. It's the first concrete intelligence on the Romulans we've had in half a century. Best of all, you seem to have won the peace."

Kane nodded. "I have a hell of a crew, Admiral. What will you do now?"

The black woman shrugged. "Re-establish the Neutral Zone fleet. We've been hard at it in the four months you were inside the Empire. New listening posts online, new picket squadrons delegated to patrol routes - we're shoring up the border as fast as we can. By year's end, it'll be as strong as ever."

"That's good to hear." Kane glanced out the viewport - the stars of the Romulan Star Empire twinkled in the distance, white specks on a vast curtain of black. The vast bulk of Starbase 56 hung nearby. "Has there been any progress on appointing an ambassador to negotiate a new treaty?"

Stiles shook her head. "I think the Council was waiting for the results of your mission. Now that it has been a success, they'll move forward with a new diplomatic appointment and formal peace talks. It's going to take months at a minimum, and I don't envy whoever gets the job - the new Praetor seems quite Machiavellian."

"Par for the course for a Romulan politician, Admiral. For what it's worth, Delora Radaik also struck me as level-headed and pragmatic."

Stiles smiled, and held up the PADD. "Duty calls for me, Captain, but I think my officers are having a good time here. Enjoy the night off. You and your people deserve it."

"Admiral." Kane watched her move away through the crowd, knowing she was right. The future was not set, but at least the schemes of the war hawks had been averted. Peace was a reality, at least for now, the Phoenix's technology had been preserved, and all was well.

As Kane watched Admiral Stiles disappear into the crowd, he caught the eye of a young woman standing nearby who was looking right at him, and when he did, he caught his breath in surprise.

She was beautiful.

She was medium-height, slim build, and wearing an elegant blue one-piece outfit that was stretched across her chest and waist at just the right tension. She was Asian, but with skin like porcelain. From here, he could see that she had deep brown eyes and dark hair cut into a bob, ruby red lipstick, and a body that he would have murdered the Romulan Praetor for.

And she was looking back at him, and smiling, and then Kane was smiling too, and they were smiling at each other across this crowded room.

He got a surge of courage, and held up a hand, beckoning for her to come over and join him, but she shook her head and repeated the gesture, beckoning for *him* to join *her*.

Kane looked around the room again. Several of his senior officers were mingling in the crowd - from here, he could see Jake and Kass, as well as the toga-clad Iphie Bonviva and her two Bynars - and he realised that if he could see them, they could likely see him. He thought about whether or not it would be appropriate for them to see the ship's captain fraternising with someone, but he also thought about how he wanted to meet this Asian woman that was standing on her own and smiling at him.

He stopped thinking with his head-brain and took a step forward, then another, and then he was by her side, standing as close as he dared, feeling his heart hammering in his chest. "Hello," he said stupidly. "I'm - "

"Captain Kane," she said in a voice like honey. "The dreadnought's commander. Everyone here knows who you and your crew are. I saw you talking with the admiral and hoped you might see me."

Kane lowered his voice. There was a certain headiness to the encounter already - the way her red mouth moved around the words she said, how her tongue pressed against her teeth when she spoke. Embers he thought long dead began to smoulder again. "You're hard to miss, and I don't think you're one of my crew. What's your name?"

She held out her hand, and when he took it, it was as soft as a velvet glove. "Ele'ele Kalani. It means 'woman chief of the sky'. You can call me Ellie."

"Kalani? Is that Pacific Islander?"

"Right," she smiled. "My mother is Korean, my father's from Fiji, but I was born on Gault."

"Gault?" Kane frowned. His mind's eye fantasy of grass skirts, flowers in hair, canoes scudding over the ocean, and topless Ellie came to a sudden stop. "There aren't any oceans on Gault."

She raised her perfect eyebrows. "No, but there are millions of square miles of crops, and my mother is a soil microbiologist. My father designs automated quintrotriticale harvesters. You can't do either of those things on the ocean."

"I suppose not. You work on the Starbase?"

"Mmhmm." She was drinking the mulled wine, but her glass had a little white straw with red umbrella on it. Kane watched as she put her lips around the straw and took a sip, and he swallowed hard as his imagination went into overdrive. "I'm on the maintenance staff. I'm the station's chief power systems engineer."

"I imagine that keeps you busy."

"I hold the rank of lieutenant commander, am obliged to attend every senior engineering department day or night, am responsible for the work duties of one-hundred-and-twelve network engineers, and report to both the station's chief engineer and the admiral on a daily basis. Yes, I'm kept busy."

A surge of adrenaline gave Kane courage. "Are you busy tonight?"

She smiled, and pressed her lips against the straw. "No."

It seemed, for a moment, that he was somewhere else, watching himself do and say these things he would never have countenanced under normal conditions. There was a certain loneliness to being a ship's captain, Kane knew - you were the one that everyone blamed if something went wrong, the one that ended up in front of a court-martial for turning everyone left when you should have gone right. You might have to give an order that got someone killed. You might give an order that got a hell of a lot of people killed. He knew that there were some ship captains who cultivated an informal air in their inter-personal dealings, but Kane had never been one for that kind of thing. He didn't have it in himself to swagger up to the bridge crew, flash a grin, clap them on the back and be all, "Hi, guys, I'm Mike! They made me captain but I want you to know that we're all one big happy friendly crew! I'm not the captain, I'm like your best mate!"

Feck that shite.

It also meant that he had to keep all his relationships professional. There were a few fine-looking women aboard the Phoenix, to be sure, and he wouldn't be Human if he didn't notice them, but all he could do was notice them and wonder what might have been. There was no specific regulation prohibiting personal relationships developing between Starfleet officers, but Kane also knew how horrible it would be to have to give orders to someone to you were in love with, or to find out that a command you gave resulted in their injury or death. For all those reasons, he kept his distance from the crew.

But this woman - this beautiful woman - she wasn't part of his crew. The way they were looking at each other seemed to promise something more raw and primitive than mere friendship. "I want to be alone with you, Ellie," he said. "Do you think we could get out of here?"

"Why don't you take me to your quarters?" she said coyly.

"Too public," Kane said. "Why don't you take me to yours?"

"Captain Kane," she said with mock admonishment, "all your officers are going to see you leaving the room with a strange woman. Aren't you afraid of being talked about?"

Kane ran his eyes down the curves of her body. "Not at the minute."

She put her drink down. "Then let's go."

Kane let her take the lead, following at her shoulder as they made their way though the crowd and out of the Vulgar Tribble, careful to keep his eyes front and focused, avoiding looking anyone in the eye. They made it out into the corridor, and when the door closed behind him and the hubbub died away, there was nothing left to do except anticipate everything that would happen.

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Location: Starbase 56 hospital complex
Scene: Autopsy Room


Admiral Andrea Stiles stood at the back of the room, watching Doctor Stell and his assistant prepare for the post-mortem examination on the corpse that was recovered from the civilian freighter several hours ago. Normally, she wouldn't have bothered with this sort of thing, but her ExO was still back aboard the Phoenix, and anyway, she wasn't the type to let her hair down too often. She had enough to do with reconstituting the Neutral Zone fleet to observe every examination on every dead person that passed through her Starbase's hospital - it was always work lately, and there were enough questions surrounding the mysterious death of the sole occupant of the King Midas that she felt inclined to be here.

The body was lying on a biobed, hidden under a light sheet. No part of it was visible, which made the whole situation a little creepy. Stil would have preferred to see what she was dealing with right off the bat.

Doctor Stell was a superb physician, getting on in years now but intellectually supreme. The Vulcan had always been a careful, meticulous sort of man, and Stiles was not surprised to see him take his time, slowly going over his instruments and making sure everything was in its place before he began. His assistant, a young Human doctor who Stiles didn't know the name of, seemed sensible enough to watch and learn like a good apprentice. Stell had been in Starfleet for almost a century - you couldn't buy that kind of experience.

Given the identity of the corpse, it hadn't taken long for 'polite' enquiries on behalf of the Earth administrative government to start filtering through the Starfleet bureaucracy. Bodo Pumbular was an immensely rich Human, a clever merchant who made his fortune running cargo through the Bajoran wormhole to the Federation colonies in the Gamma Quadrant, using Gateway Station as his base of operations. There were rumours that he was dirty, but the evidence against him had only ever been circumstantial. Still, it was true that two of his main shipping rivals had died under mysterious circumstances, and he had even managed to keep the Orions from muscling in on his markets. Now, eight years later he was dead, the solo occupant of his luxurious freighter, having apparently clawed out his own eyes.

Doctor Stell straightened up, apparently satisfied that his preparations were complete. He was thin, with long arms and legs, and his black hair was fading into steel-grey, but his dark eyes were quick. He nodded to his assistant, and turned to Stiles. "I am ready, Admiral. May I proceed?"

Stiles nodded, and Stell got to work. He pulled the sheet away from the corpse, and Budo Pumbular's dead, naked body lay there is all its pathetic glory. Budo looked like he was fast asleep, but there was a ring of crusted red blood around his eyes, matched by his blood-spattered fingertips. He was bald and seemingly hairless - nothing on his head, his chest, or between his legs. He was immensely fat, too - his pectorals had morphed into breasts, and his navel was only visible as a slit between two folds of skin along his gut, which hung down over his groin and spared Andrea Stiles a view she didn't want to see.

Stell reached up to the biobed's lid, pulling the sensor cluster down over the trunk of the corpse and locking into place. "Activate sterile field."

His assistant keyed the instructions into the control panel on the sensor unit. A forcefield flashed into existence for a split second before disappearing.

Stell activated his medical tricorder. "Initiate external scan."

The sensor unit lights sparkled and a series of scans ran up and down the cadaver, drawing strange lines over Budo Pumbular's dead body. Stell began narrating the results. "Post mortem examination of subject began at twenty-one-thirty hours, this stardate. Subject is a Human male, five feet nine inches tall, weighing four hundred and sixty-three pounds. No body hair. Eyes have been removed. No visible distinguishing marks. Subject is heavily obese."

Stiles watched as Stell, using his thumb and forefinger, carefully opened Budo Pumbular's eyes. His assistant activated a pen-light and shone it into each cavity as the Vulcan continued with his examination. "Visual inspection of ocular orbits indicate severe tissue trauma. Retina is exposed. Tricorder indicates trace remnants of aqueous humour, ocular fibres, and blood present in cavities. Initial theory - subject's eyes have been forcefully torn from their sockets."

Neither Stell nor his assistant seemed quite perturbed by that last statement, but Andrea Stiles felt a wave of revulsion wash over her.

Stell moved down to examine each of Budo's hands. He ran his tricorder over each one. "Tricorder analysis of subject's distal phalanges indicates mix of tissue underneath subject's fingernails - blood, ocular collagen, ocular humour. Genetic analysis of phalange tissue indicates one hundred per cent match with ocular cavity sample."

Stiles nodded silently. There it was, then - Budo Pumbular had clawed out his own eyes. My God, she wondered, why would the man have done that? What had possessed him?

Stell stood up straight and moved to look at the biobed's readout. "Visual inspection of subject's eyes complete. Initial theory confirmed. Proceeding with internal examination."

The Vulcan keyed the controls. On the biobed screen, a layered picture of the cadaver's internal organs appeared, superimposed with nervous, lymphatic, and blood systems. In the past, the pathologist or medical examiner conducting the autopsy would have had to physically view the internal organs of the corpse, by making a long incision down the trunk, then using a shear to snap the sternum and spread open the ribs. Thanks to advances in medical sensor technology, there was no longer any need for an invasive procedure like that - the highly-focused sensor palette of the biobed gave clear readings to the display screen.

Stell's attention was straightaway drawn to something. "Internal scan immediately indicates necrotic cardiac tissue. All four chambers dilated, aorta atherosclerotic. Initial indication - myocardial infarction. Proceeding with secondary scan."

Stiles was frowning. If Budo Pumbular died of a heart attack, why did he claw his own eyes out?

Stell stopped what he was doing. He raised an eyebrow in that famous Vulcan manner, and beckoned his assistant to look at the sensor readout. When she had looked, he murmured something to her, and she nodded in agreement.

"What is it?" asked Stiles.

Stell paused for a moment, as if looking for the right words. "Electrochemical sensors detect abnormally high levels of noradrenaline, adrenaline, and dopamine in the subject's lymphatic system. These are important neurotransmitters - the Human body uses them to disseminate chemical signals from the brain. The levels of these chemicals in the subject's body indicates a level over four hundred per cent above the normal level."

Stiles stepped forward. "Is that what caused his heart attack?"

Stell inclined his head - the closest the Vulcan came to a nod. "Yes, Admiral. Whatever the subject was exposed to in his final minutes of life, his body responded by releasing enormous amounts of hormones - a natural reaction to an extreme flight-or-fight situation."

"Wait, Doctor." Stiles tried to put it in layman's terms. "Are you telling me that something terrified him so much that his body just shut down?"

"I am saying," stated Stell carefully, "that the subject was exposed to something so traumatic that his body's natural efforts to cope with the situation overwhelmed his heart and caused his death."

"And the eyes?"

Stell looked uncomfortable. "Possibly a reaction to whatever external trauma was responsible for his death." He glanced at his assistant. "Do you concur?" She nodded.

"Good God," breathed Stiles. "What a horrible way to die." She shivered involuntarily. "Doctor, make sure you copy this autopsy report to the Phoenix's chief medical officer. They're sending a team aboard the freighter to assist our search, and they might want to know your findings."

"Understood, Admiral."

Stiles turned around and walked to the turbolift, mind filled up with horrors.

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Scene: Ellie's Quarters, several decks below


They had escaped to the Starbase, and she had led him through the winding streets and alleys of the residential decks. He had pulled open his collar and torn off his rank pips, and she had smiled at him and teased him for being so self-conscious. And he had promised her that he wouldn't be so when they got to her quarters.

The journey was a whirl of shadows and shapes. Faces loomed out of the darkness as Kane followed Ellie through the Starbase corridors, the way back becoming more and more blurred with each step he took. He felt drunk on desire, powerful and vulnerable at the same time, and any time he felt it was overwhelming him, she would turn and touch him on the hand, or coyly run a finger along his jawline, and he would feel reinvigorated again.

She stepped through a grating metal door, and he followed, and the kaleidoscope began to slow down. Shapes and colours solidified, and he stopped for breath. They were in her quarters. Slightly more spacious than those on a starship, they nevertheless followed a familiar two-room layout - a living area, and a bedroom with en-suite bathroom.

Ellie's quarters were decorated in a style Kane wasn't used to. It had been so long since he'd been inside someone else's personal space other than his own, that he'd forgotten how a place could become personalised. In the living area, he saw a potter's wheel and a palette of paints with pastel colours, a small penny-whistle tossed onto the standard-issue couch, a half-drunk cup of cold coffee, and her gold-banded black uniform. Little windows, small clues.

She stood in the doorway to the bedroom, and Kane advanced on her. Behind the bed was an impressively-sized viewing port, through which the starfield glowed.

She held up a hand. "Wait."

He stopped. "What?"

She took him by the hand. Hers was soft and warm, and her touch detonated fireworks. "There's a reason you're feeling the way you are right now," she said slowly. "I need to be honest with you."

Kane could barely think straight. He realised he was breathing heavily. "Ellie - "

"I saw you before," she said quickly. "When the Phoenix was docked here four months ago. You had a meeting with Admiral Stiles in her office, and I was in the Ops centre. I saw you then. I hoped you would notice me, but you didn't."

"Sorry. Ellie, I want you. Right now."

"That's the other thing. You need to know something else." Ellie squeezed his hand. "My Korean mother? She was one-half Deltan, I'm one-quarter. You feel the way you do because you can't feel any other way."

He stopped. "Bullshit."

"I'm serious. My mother's mother was from Seyann, one of Delta's moons. She met my grandfather when she served at Starfleet Medical." Ellie was very close to him now and gave him a teasing smile. "It's your hormones, Captain."

"I thought you were beautiful the moment I saw you. That's the truth."

"I believe you."

Kane leaned down and kissed her on the lips, and the world dissolved again. Tearing at one another's clothes, he pushed her on to the bed. Together they made love in the glow of starlights.

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NRPG: The captain is unavailable to take your calls for the evening. Enjoy the party!


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

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