Taking The Stand

Posted on Aug 22, 2014 @ 12:15pm by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane
Edited on on Aug 22, 2014 @ 12:15pm

Mission: Absolute Power

"TAKING THE STAND"

(Continued from "Anti-Climax")

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

"There is a higher court than courts of justice, and that is the court of conscience."
- Mahatma Gandhi

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

Location: Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco
Stardate: [2.14] 0813.1830
Scene: Lobby


They had changed the layout since he had last been here, but Starfleet Headquarters was still what it was. The outside grounds were still impeccably manicured and landscaped with ornate water features and marble paths through shady groves that gave the lie to the kind of building that lay ahead through the trees. Rebuilt and modernised since the Breen attack on Earth fifty years ago, the lobby was designed as a large flowing Starfleet delta, with various counters, administrative desks and meeting areas. Corridors and turbolifts led away from the lobby to all the various departments that had offices here - Security, Medical, Fleet Supply, Engineering, and even one part of the Academy annexe - and the place was absolutely thronged. There must have been a thousand sentients in the arrival lobby alone, meeting and greeting, making their way onward into the complex, taking guided tours or simply admiring the long gentle curve of the walls.

Michael Turlogh Kane paused in the crowd and looked around him for a chronometer. When he found one, he realised that there was a little over an hour until the convening of the Board of Inquiry that he was here for. There would be no time to visit the Academy then, he thought. Better instead to find out what room the Board was assigned and turn up early.

"Captain Kane?"

A young male Benzite ensign in command red approached him from the left. The Benzite's gray-blue skin clashed garishly with his red uniform. In the early years of Benzite expansion off their homeworld, they had to wear a respirator device mounted on their chests to help them breathe an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, but that requirement had long since been cured by medical technology. Now, slow-release implants ensured that the Benzite lungs got the correct mix of gases necessary to sustain them outside of their own atmosphere. Benzar itself had been conquered by the Jem'Hadar during the Dominion War and been liberated by the Romulans. Despite fears that the Romulans would not give up their new prize easily, sheer logistical distance made it unfeasible for the Romulans to consider an occupation, and Benzar was readmitted to the Federation with much rejoicing.

Kane looked at him. "Yes."

The young Benzite stood to attention. "Ensign Moob, sir. Adjutant of the Judge-Advocate General's office. I'm here to take you to the Board, sir."

"Understood," nodded Kane. "Lead on, Ensign."

"Yes, sir." The Benzite turned and began moving in the direction of one of the myriad corridors that led away from the lobby. "Do you need me to brief you on the function of the Board, sir?"

"I'm mostly familiar, but anything you can add would be welcome."

"Yes, sir. Well, let me think for a moment, sir." They passed out of the lobby into a wide white-walled corridor. Nearby, three smarming Ferengi ambassadors were sliming over a seemingly-unperturbed Vulcan diplomat. "First off, sir, this isn't a trial. You're not a criminal, sir, and neither are your shipmates, no matter what the subspace talk radio channels say."

"That's good to hear," said Kane laconically.

"People are such idiots. They listen to right-wing fear-mongers scaring them into thinking that there are enemy aliens everywhere bringing disease and stealing their jobs, forgetting that the Federation itself is made up of aliens. I mean, here I am, a Benzite on Terra! I'm not bothering anyone, am I, sir? You don't want to kick me off your homeworld, do you, sir?" The Benzite stopped.

Kane gestured ahead. "The Board, Ensign."

"Of course, sir! It's just that this whole Neo-Essentialist thing is scaring people so much. They say the Neo-Essentialists are back, that they're trying to take over, that they were responsible for the loss of the Discovery - "

"The Board, Ensign."

"Oh. Yes, sir, This way, sir." The Benzite gestured to a turbolift, and they stepped inside. "The Board is meeting on the twenty-sixth floor."

The doors hissed closed, and Kane dried to drown out the noise.

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

Scene: 26th Floor office


Rear Admiral Richard Edgerton had spent the morning poring over policies and procedures pertaining to Starfleet Boards of Inquiry. There were many of them, spread out over the two-hundred-and-sixty-eight years of the Federation's existence, amended and deleted and added to as necessary. Happily, they could be broken down into a series of bullet points on a PADD by a competent secretary - yet another reason to award Leonard a pay raise when that time of year came around again.

Martine and Halle were already in the building. They had arrived a short time ago and made their way to their own offices. Even now they were no doubt going over their own notes pertaining to this case.

Kane and his officers were also here by now. All the pieces were in place. But how much did they know? There was no way to be sure. If the Century had not decloaked in such public view, there might have been something he could have done to prevent this hearing from going ahead, but no with Starfleet Command involved his hands were tied. Edgerton bristled at the thought - did Kane do it deliberately? Him and Crichton and Thytos and BaShen? Did they all know too much? Were they all in it together?

"Admiral?" Leonard's musical voice, pulling him from his reverie.

"Yes?" Edgerton looked up. He would have to play this one cautiously, watch for a mistake while being careful not to make one himself. He turned off his PADD, confident that all the information he needed was on it.

Leonard smiled reassuringly at him. "It's time, sir."

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

Scene: Turbolift -> Corridor


The turbolift doors hissed open again, and the Benzite ensign was still nattering on. "... no lawyers, no formalities, sir. Ostensibly the whole thing is just to find something to put on the record regarding the loss of the Discovery. The admirals will ask questions of you and your senior officers until they are satisfied that the truth has come out. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it sir?"

Kane made a non-committal noise. "No last minute changes to the presiding board?"

"No, sir. Still Admirals Halle and Edgerton, and Secretary Martine. They'll be in there right now waiting on you. Speaking of your senior officers, there they are."

Kane looked ahead. Seated together with another JAG adjutant outside the doors of the courtroom were Jake Crichton, Kassandra Thytos and Russ BaShen. "Where are the rest of them?"

The Benzite ensign frowned. "I don't think they'll be calling anyone else, sir. These officers are all graduates of the Academy's Advanced Command Training programme, are they not? I think their testimony should suffice."

"I see." As Kane passed the group, he caught the eye of each of them. All of them looked ready. This was it. The show was about to start.

The Benzite opened the doors to the courtroom. "Your officers will be seated to the rear until they are called, sir. You're under the eye of the bench straight from the start, though. This is where you sit." He indicated the seat next to the witness stand.

Kane looked around. The courtroom was almost Spartan in its simplicity. There was the bench, with three seats behind it. There was the witness stand - a podium that one stood in to give testimony. There were several seats arranged in rows to the rear of the room, with an aisle from the doorway leading up to the bench, but they were all unoccupied. In this proceeding, there were no adversarial lawyers arguing back and forth and calling witnesses. In this Board of Inquiry, convened to learn about the loss of a starship, the officers giving evidence would be asked to make an oath that they were going to tell the truth, then be asked a series of questions by their superiors. If all went by the numbers, the Board would be satisfied with their explanations and the fate of the unlucky ship would be put on the record.

The Benzite led Kane forward and motioned him to sit. When he did so, the Benzite stood to attention for a moment. "Good luck, Captain Kane."

"Thank you, Ensign." Kane watched him march smartly back into the corridor, and saw his senior officers through the crack in the doorway before it was closed. For a moment, he was alone in the empty room.

A side door he had not seen opened, and a young woman in a red Junior Grade Lieutenant's uniform with golden hair sat down at a small table with a recording device upon it. She activated the device and he watched while it booted up. The young woman looked at him. "All rise!" she said, getting to her feet.

Kane did the same, and the door behind the bench opened.

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

Scene: Board's chambers


Richard Edgerton smiled and nodded, kept smiling and nodding while Arto Halle and Marie-Claire Martine made a round of pleasantries. The atmosphere in the room was blandly businesslike - all three of them had received a briefing on the alleged loss of the Discovery and the subsequent return of the Century. There had been a brief discussion, mostly led by Halle, on how to question the officers in question - Jacob Crichton, Kassandra Thytos, and Russ BaShen.

Halle seemed to be alternating between pleasure and pain at the idea of the return of the Century and the loss of the Discovery, but he couldn't put his finger on what Martine was thinking. The woman was keeping him at arm's length, he could tell that much. The handshake between them was momentary, the off-topic conversation clipped, and the language formal. She wasn't being rude, but there was definitely something. In the space of a few minutes, Edgerton had been forced to re-evaluate Marie-Claire Martine. It seemed that the Secretary of Starfleet's office had been filled by someone just as formidable as Xana Bonviva.

"So we'll query the disparity of testimony from the lower ranks, as well as getting each of them to tell us in their own words what happened," said Halle. "Agreed?"

"Do we need to query their own characters?" Edgerton said with an air of concern. "With the exception of Commander Crichton, each of them seems to have a muddy past. In the specific case of Captain Kane, we could ask him to talk about his previous history with the Calnarians."

"Nobody is on trial here," said Martine firmly. "Their pasts don't come into it. Let's just focus on what happened in system K-60 and commit the Discovery to memory."

"Agreed," said Halle.

Edgerton felt a flash of anger. "Of course," he said smoothly. "Are we ready?"

Marie-Claire Marine nodded to the court recorder to open the door. "Let's get started."

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

Scene: Main Courtroom


Kane got to his feet as the three admirals entered the courtroom. Halle and Edgerton he recognised immediately; the latter eliciting a churning of rage in his stomach that he struggled to keep at bay. Rear Admiral Richard Edgerton, Starfleet Chief of Staff, was really the new leader of the Neo-Essentialist movement, a xenophobic domestic terrorist organisation that espoused military overthrow of the Federation's civilian government. They wanted to take advantage of the Federation's current military ascendancy to launch pre-emptive strikes against neighbouring galactic powers.

In secret classified files that Kane had seen with his fleet clearance, there existed an alternate universe next to this one, a universe where Humans were violent xenophobes and had conquered all around them in an evil Terran Empire. As far as he could see, the Neo-Essentialists represented something similar in the here and now - if they ever managed to overthrow civilian authority, they would be capable of anything.

"This Board of Inquiry is now in session," said the court recorder. "Her Excellency Marie-Claire Martine presiding. The matter before the Board is the loss of NCC-12001, the Investigator-class starship USS Discovery."

Kane watched Martine carefully. It was the first time he had seen her in the flesh. She looked to be somewhere in her early fifties, of average height with a slender build. She was dressed in a sombre business suit that accentuated her black-and-silver bob haircut. Her eyes were bright blue, and her face was set in steely determination. She did not look especially kind, and for a moment Kane feared he would buckle under her gaze, that he would not be able to do what he came here to do.

The three Board members sat down. Edgerton was regarding him in the same way a cat regards a mouse, while Halle was fidgeting with his PADD.

It was Martine who broke the silence. "The Board calls Captain Michael Turlogh Kane."

Kane stepped up into the witness stand. He steeled himself, became resolute. Mirroring the court recorder, he held up his right hand.

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" asked the court recorder.

The lie came easily. "Yes, I swear it." For a fleeting moment, Kane that he'd never have gotten away with this if they were using a lie detector. Socialist utopias have their flaws, he thought to himself, and this is one of them.

"Captain Kane, you were in command of the Discovery when it was destroyed in the Beta Quadrant system K-60?" asked Arto Halle.

"Yes, Admiral."

"Can you please tell how the ship was lost?"

Kane took a breath. "Her hull was compromised by gravitic turbulence while orbiting the planetary body designated as K-60-Alpha-Twelve."

"I see," said Halle. The other two watched. "Please elaborate."

"There is only one planet in system K-60," said Kane. "It is a gas giant designated as K-60-Alpha. This gas giant has thirteen natural satellites, and one of these, the twelfth, is a Minshara-class moon. There is also a planetary ring system along the gas giant's vertical axis."

Halle nodded. "Go on."

"Given its distance from its parent star, the gas giant exerts its own gravity well," explained Kane. "The clash of these two gravity wells - the star and the gas giant - created severe gravitic turbulence the closer we got to the Minshara-class moon, not to mention the inherent danger of a collision with one of the asteroids in the ring system."

"Why were you making for the moon?" asked Martine suddenly.

Kane turned to face her. "Our mission in the Beta Quadrant was to locate the source of a mysterious subspace signal recently detected by a listening post in the Suvin system. When we arrived at system K-60, we determined that the signal was emanating from a position equidistant between the moon and the gas giant, at the very apex of the competing gravity wells."

"This signal turned out to be the dormant USS Century, did it not?" asked Halle.

"It did, Admiral."

"Tell us what happened next," said Halle.

"After consulting with my senior officers, I made the decision to attempt to salvage the Century," said Kane as evenly as he could. "It was my judgement that, given her status as missing, Starfleet would be anxious to find out what had happened to her."

"You judged correctly," said Halle. "Continue."

"The Discovery entered the gravity well of the gas giant, and almost immediately became subject to the gravitic turbulence," said Kane. "It made our operations more difficult, and our problems were exacerbated when our upper port nacelle was struck by a small asteroid. We thought the damage superficial and resumed salvage operations."

"We'll come back to the asteroid strike in a few minutes," said Martine. "Tell us, if you will, the nature of your attempts to salvage the Century. Her engines were offline and the ship was inert, was she not?"

Kane wondered why Edgerton was being so quiet. So far, Halle and Martine had done all the talking while he simply watched. His features were typically inscrutable - Kane couldn't see what he was thinking. "Initially, we beamed engineering crews aboard the Century to attempt to reactivate her engines."

"These engineering teams were led by your Executive Officer, Commander Stonn?" asked Halle.

"Yes, Admiral. Despite initial success, our work crews were hampered by the gravitic turbulence and the fact that we had to remove the bodies of those who died aboard the Century."

Finally, Edgerton spoke. "Was there any indication as to how the crew of the Century died?"

Kane looked at him, kept his voice as neutral as he could. "Our analysis indicated that a computer malfunction caused the venting of their atmosphere into space, Admiral."

"A computer malfunction, you say?" Edgerton frowned.

"Yes, sir. We have no further data. The malfunction purged the Century's databanks. When we reactivated her systems, it was like dealing with a blank slate."

"I see." Edgerton seemed satisfied. "Continue, Captain Kane."

"On the second day after we began our salvage operations, there was an emergency on the Discovery. There were several sudden hull breaches in Engineering near where we had suffered the asteroid strike. Already operating at maximum power, our systems began to be overloaded and we were unable to repair the breaches. The hull was fatally compromised several minutes after the initial breach. By then, I had given the order to abandon ship and we had evacuated as many of the crew as we could to the Century."

"There were ninety-nine survivors out of a complement of two-hundred-and-forty-one," said Halle. "The majority of these were engineering and scientific staff. Your entire security department was lost. Why were these casualties not more generalised across the ship's departments?"

"I don't know, Admiral," said Kane evenly. "The last few minutes were somewhat chaotic. Multiple escape pods were released as well as all available shuttles. It is my supposition that those who did not survive were caught in the gravity well of the gas giant."

"How did Commander Stonn die?" asked Edgerton suddenly.

Kane thought furiously. His first instinct, the one he went with, was to play dumb. "Regretfully, Admiral, I don't know. He was co-ordinating the evacuation of the lower decks from auxiliary control. It is why I have listed all these people as missing, presumed dead."

"Well, I'm satisfied," said Edgerton. "Than you, Captain Kane. You've convinced me that you have done your duty according to the highest traditions and standards of Starfleet. I am prepared to fully endorse your report. The Discovery was lost due to a hull failure resulting from gravitic turbulence. On behalf of the Board, I'd like to thank - "

"We're not done yet, Admiral Edgerton." It was Martine who had firmly spoken. "I still have one question for Captain Kane."

Kane froze, scarcely able to believe what was going on. Edgerton was on his side. Edgerton was trying to get him out of the courtroom as quickly as possible. Why? What was going on? He tried to remain nonplussed. "Yes, Madam Secretary?"

"Captain, by now all ninety-nine survivors of the Discovery have been debriefed. I'm sorry to say that there are some discrepancies and puzzling claims being made by many other survivors. We have numerous reports that there was some sort of mutiny aboard the Discovery in her final hours, that there were people identifying themselves as Neo-Essentialists aboard the ship, that several of your crew were imprisoned by others, and that the Century herself was fired upon by the Discovery." Martine put down her PADD. "Have you anything to say regarding these matters, Captain Kane?"

Kane bit his tongue and looked at the three of them. Halle and Martine were watching him carefully, but Edgerton's eyes were flickering back and forth between Kane and the bench. He's nervous, Kane thought. Halle and Martine must be suspicious of something, and Edgerton is worried that they're getting too interested in what happened.

He thought for a moment more before answering.

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

Scene: Outside the courtroom


Kassandra Thytos, Russ BaShen, and Jake Crichton were fidgeting. Nervousness was palpable, and the invisible cloud that hung over them seemed to draw the attention of passers-by.

"Will you quit breathin' through yer nose?" snapped Kass at Russ.

Russ eyeballed her.

"He's been in there a while," said Jake for the third time. "I wonder what they're asking him. What they'll ask us."

"I wonder who's next," said Russ with the air of a doomed man.

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

Scene: Inside the courtroom


The three of them were looking at him in askance. Even though this was the question he had been dreading, and no matter how many times he had practiced the answer, there was still some hesitation. This was one of those divergent points in life. Whatever he said now would shape things to come for a long time.

"Madam Secretary," Kane said, "I know nothing of any alleged mutiny or Neo-Essentialist presence aboard the Discovery, nor do I know anything about any combat situation involving the Discovery. Perhaps during the evacuation, people became confused."

Martine fixed him with a intense stare. "Are you certain of that, Captain Kane?"

"Yes, Madam Secretary."

Marine and Halle glanced at each other. Martine looked at Edgerton, who was nodding in a significant manner. Halle shrugged, and entered something into his PADD.

Kane's mind was whirling. The lives of his senior officers were hanging by a thread. If Edgerton had an inkling that they knew what they knew - well, who's to say he couldn't try engineer something else? An accident here, a murder there. All potential witnesses removed. Until they found allies, surely the safest thing was to say nothing?

With a chill of fear, Kane realised that Earth was the least safe place in the galaxy for them right now.

Martine was speaking. "Thank you for your testimony, Captain Kane. We have no further questions for you. We remind you that the testimony you have given here is classified. Please step down from the witness stand and take a seat."

Kane stood stiffly to attention, and marched military-style to the general seating area.

Martine gestured to the guard at the door. "Please bring in the next witness."

Heart in his mouth, Kane turned around in his seat to see who it would be.

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

NRPG: Tags to Alix, Chris, and Shawn. We'll not move on until you've all been under the beady eye of Secretary Martine and Admirals Edgerton and Halle. Bear in mind that not all the 99 survivors of the Discovery have any clue about their potential danger, and have probably already blabbed to their debriefers (dirty, dirty word) about Neo-Essentialists everywhere, rounding up their colleagues etc. If you have a mind to, you'll probably need to address these rumours in your posts.


Jerome McKee
the Soul of Michael Turlogh Kane
A Captain in Starfleet


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

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