Welcome to the Circus

Posted on Fri May 23rd, 2025 @ 4:51pm by Lieutenant Commander Riavria & Commodore Wilkan Targaryen & Lieutenant Commander Ash Randall & Lieutenant Stacey Moore

2,212 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: InQuiry
Location: Main Bridge, Columbia NX-02
Timeline: 2155-07-25, 09:00

In a bright flash of light Commodore Wilkan Targaryen found himself whisked away from the Enterprise and aboard another starship. The room itself was reminiscent of any other Starfleet Bridge that the Commodore had seen and featured all the standards one could expect. The Captain's Chair sat in the center of the circular-shaped room, surrounded by the duty stations built into the railing separating the command deck from the bulkhead walls. The helmsman sat in front, below a large viewscreen. To the aft of the Bridge was a situation room, closely monitoring the ship and its mission, with large power transfer conduits separating the room from the rest of the Bridge. The problem was this wasn't a modern era Bridge, in fact it looked ancient compared to what they were all used to.

Turning around the room, the Commodore saw that he wasn't alone inside the Bridge of the mystery ship. Several familiar faces appeared near to him, but not enough to manage the vessel. Recognizing the crewmembers, he quickly identified his Chief Engineer, Doctor, and Pilot as being with him. How they got here could be assumed, but he wondered if maybe they knew more about what was going on.

"Sound off," the Commodore ordered.

"Lieutenant Commander Riavria," the Romulan answered first, "Chief Medical Officer of the Starship Enterprise and wondering what the Hell we've gotten ourselves into this time!"

"Randall here, Commodore." The Chief Engineer responded as she looked around the bridge. "It appears Q has opted for a, controlled, study of why we do, what we do." She added, noting the bridge looked like it might be, state of the art, in the 22nd century. "My fault, I think. I may have made a statement he wishes to put to the test?" She observed, quietly.

Wilkan shook his head, "I wouldn't worry too much about it, Commander. Q was probably always going to try to test us. This just gave him an excuse to do it."

The nodded in agreement. "Most likely." She noted, in agreement, closed her eyes for a couple seconds and opened them again, and shook her head. "Weird." She observed, quietly. "There is only now."

Walking around the vacant Bridge, the Commodore looked at the empty stations and sat down in the Captain's Chair. Despite its look, it was surprisingly uncomfortable knowing how much time someone would be sitting in it. If he would have had to command this ship for any length of time it would've been the first thing to go.

Tugging on his uniform, Wilkan looked at the touchscreen on the arm rest. The responsibilities of each panel hadn't changed since the early Starfleet vessels, and this one was no different. On the panel he realized there was a pending recording. Tapping the control, the computer played the audio recording.

"Captain's Star Log July 25, 2155: Columbia is on a training mission to the Tezel-Oroko Star System, close to Klingon space. All systems functioning."

Looking at his group, Wilkan considered the message, "Why does this log entry seem so familiar?"

"Kobayashi Maru." Ash replied, quietly, as she checked out what would be the Operations/Engineering station, the two departments, basically, being one on an NX class. "I thought this bridge looked familiar." She added while checking the operational status of the ship and then eyed the helm, a question on her face. "Helm or Engineering?" She asked, almost to herself, but looked to the Commodore after she asked the question. While the engineer didn't man the helm on board Enterprise she was an excellent pilot with a tendency to push a vessel to its, theoretical, limits and beyond if the situation called for it.

Before the Commodore could answer, Q appeared to them, "An excellent question, Commander." He stood before them, now dressed in the Admiral's uniform of the 22nd Century Starfleet. The omnipotent alien smiled wickedly, "Welcome to the Starship Columbia, you are its command crew on what was one of your most historic of events that changed your Federation forever. Each of you steps into the shoes of one of the crewmembers of this vessel. You, Commodore," he pointed, "are Captain Erika Hernandez of the Columbia. The good Doctor here is Ensign Sidra Valerian, the Communications Officer, while Lieutenant Moore will be the Flight Controller, Lieutenant Reiko Akagi." Q looked at Ash, "Now, as Chief Engineer, you will become Lieutenant Karl Graylock."

"Karl Graylock...lovely." Ash commented while she eyed Q in a bit more critical manner than she had before.

"We aren't going to play this game, Q," Commodore Targaryen protested. "We aren't going to change history."

"Who ever said anything about changing history?" The Q questioned. "We're merely reliving your history, from a new perspective, like you do on your holodeck."

The Commodore shook his head, "I'm sorry, Q, but we're not playing. Return us to our ship."

Q sighed, "Alright then, how about this. Since you're so attached to the continuity of time, I will personally guarantee you that nothing any of you do here will have an impact on what you call history. The only thing at stake here is your life."

"Really?" The Chief Engineer asked, shook her head and looked to the Commodore.

"Really," the Q mocked harshly.

The Commodore stepped in, "We won't do it, Q. Every moment that we indulge your foolishness is time that the Cheluans don't have to waste. Now, return us to our ship and leave us to our mission."

The Q looked at the Enterprise's Commanding Officer with disdain, "The Commodore is displeased. What do we do about that?" He paced a moment around the cramped bridge before turning back to the Commodore, still appraising him condescendingly as he engaged. "I know exactly what you would want. You do my tests, you pass them, and I will release the Cheluans from their attackers and they will continue on as if it never happened. You lose and, well, I'll return you all to your ship, but with a penance of my choosing."

Ash watched Q pace the bridge in contemplation, the theatrics of it not lost on her, rolled her eyes as he stated his proposition. He was, likely, the cause of the attack on the Cheluans (if there actually was one at all) to prompt the Enterprise to intervene on their behalf, and was now offering to 'make it go away' if they ran his maze and found the 'cheese' in a satisfactory time. The Engineer kept her thoughts to herself and waited for the Commodore to accept or reject his, latest, offer.

Q didn't give him time to respond. Instead, he vanished in a flash of light, revealing open space ahead of them on the small viewscreen. Wilkan sighed, turning around in his newly appointed 22nd Century Starfleet uniform. Rubbing his forehead, the Commodore realized that they now weren't alone. The entire room was filled with various members of the Columbia's crew. While he still saw his crew as their true selves, he could tell that there were some differences as he looked at the viewscreen in his own reflection. While he sat in the Captain's Chair, Captain Erika Hernandez's reflection looked back at him.

"Leaving Section Fourteen for Section Fifteen," Lieutenant Commander Kalil el-Rashad reported from the Science Station to the left of the Captain's Chair.

"Captain, as a reminder we're not far from the Klingon border. If we enter their territory," Chief Armory Officer Lieutenant Kiona Thayer interrupted from the Weapons station.

Wilkan nodded, "Noted, Lieutenant. Helm, Project parabolic course to avoid entering the Neutral Zone."

Thayer looked surprised, "Neutral Zone?"

"Klingon territory," Targaryen countered, knowing this may not be as easy as they thought.

An alarm rang on the Communications station. At the console, Doctor Riavria looked relatively bored as she scrolled through messages on the station. The alarm continued, but she seemed to be ignoring it.

"Ensign?" the XO questioned, but she didn't budge. "Ensign!"

The Doctor turned, looking around the Bridge before realizing that she was being questioned, "What?"

"The message, Ensign?" Commander Veronica Fletcher asked while standing at the back of the Bridge.

"Give me a minute! This panel is hard to read," the Romulan explained as she searched the workstation. "Alright, fine, looks like we're getting something on the distress channel. It's a minimal signal, but I'll try to amplify it."

Ash took up position at the Engineering/Operations station and Began a quick assessment of systems status. It looked like she was to be Lt. Graylock whether she wanted to be, or not.

"It is a distress call, Captain!"

"Imperative! Imperative! This is the Kobayashi Maru, nineteen periods out of Altair Six. We have struck a gravitic mine and have lost all power... Our hull is," the message cut out before restarting a moment later, "and many casualties. Can you assist us?"

Before answering, Wilkan looked at the Tactical Officer, "Data on the Kobayashi Maru."

Lieutenant Thayer answered, "The Kobayashi Maru is third class neutronic fuel carrier with a crew of eighty-one and three hundred passengers, Captain."

"We know how this goes," the Captain reminded. "Helm, lay in an intercept course and engage. Tactical, standby for combat maneuvers."

"Captain," this time it was Doctor Riavria. "I'd advise against that. The Romulans of this time are using a device called the Arrenhe'hwiua to remotely take over the systems of an enemy starship. This could be their effort to capture our ship."

"How do you know about Romulan technology, Ensign?" Commander Fletcher asked.

The Ensign didn't answer the XO directly, "Let's just say I know a thing or two about the Romulans."

"Options?" Targaryen asked.

"For such a remote control device to work it would need to be able to gain access to systems. The easiest form of egress would be a broad band transmission to be received by the communications equipment of the target and take advantage of the signal processing of their communications suite to 'assemble' their trojan horse as part of interpreting the message that was received. If that is the case, we may already have been compromised when we received the signal from, what we think, was the Kobayashi Maru." Ash suggested, from her work station. "That is how I would do it." The engineer continued, quietly. "It might be counteracted, if its already happened, by manually resetting our primary systems while we have control to do so." She finished, knowing it would not be an option on the off chance that the distress call was for real and the Kobayashi Maru wasn't already destroyed and all hands lost.

The Doctor nodded, "That's how it works by taking over the ship's systems with propulsion, weapons and communications targeted first. Eventually, the telecapture system override the life support systems, allowing the Romulans to deactivate the environmental systems of the ship ti knock the crew out. If they use this ship to attack, the victims think it was us. As Ash said we could already be exposed."

"Start diagnostics and keep us on this side of the border now," Wilkan commanded. "Red... Tactical alert."

"Aye, Captain." The Ash, turned Graylock, Chief Engineer responded. "Already in progress. We're going to be deaf and dumb, for a time. Comm Systems are infected and are now isolated. Continuing diagnostics on other systems for possible spread." The felinoid, elaborated, oddly comfortable and familiar with the antiquated interface she was working on.

The Captain listened as his Chief Engineer told him the story. The Columbia's communications system had already been exposed to a virus, which meant that the entire ship could be at risk. Q had told them that whatever they did would not have galactic repercussions upon the timeline, but he also knew that they couldn't take that chance. If the Romulans had taken over an NX Class ship and turned it loose on the Coalition of Planets, especially before the Earth-Romulan War, it could irreparably damage the Federation before it even started.

Wilkan sighed, "Helm, bring us about 180 mark 0 and get us out of here, maximum warp."

Ash glanced the direction of the captain and then continued to work for several seconds. "Primary systems are clean, with the exception of comms. Secondary and tertiary systems are also clean." The Chief Engineer announced, quietly and then looked back to the captain as helm brought them about. "There is no right answer, captain." She stated, cryptically, and went back to work. By turning around the captain had shown he understood that Q could not be trusted to keep his word and that, the 'test' was little more than a formality to justify whatever the punishment would be, and was in fact, NOT the test, with the 'punishment' being the true test. Ash reflected, for a moment, on her words to the captain. They were what EVERY cadet was told after they endured the Kobayashi Maru simulation.

The Commodore, still in the guise of Erika Hernandez to everyone else, sighed before answering, "Sometimes, Commander, I wish that were true. Problem is there's always an answer, just not the one we always will like."

"There's always an answer, to be sure, Captain." Ash agreed.

As the Commodore watched the Columbia warp away from the distress call, he knew that this wasn't exactly the answer he'd been looking for.

 

RSS Feed