Anabasis

[Pablo Sanchez]

Basically this is another famous "Pablo doesn't update for shit" problem. The story is outlined and just has to be written. Since at least one person still remembers it I guess I at least owe it to Falkenhorst to update. I'll see if I can bang out a chapter or two tomorrow and Wednesday (I have a bit of time).

[Prozac the Robert]

Who'd a thunk it. I'd almost forgotten this story existed. That said, a quick re-read of the last chapter has refreshed my memory of what's going on, and I'm now in the mood for a new chapter.

[Falkenhorst]

I think this is one of the best fanfics of this year and I'm sure there's others who think the same but didn't say anything. We the readers appreciate when you write at your best.

[Trogdor]

Funnily enough, I was just thinking a few days ago that this was the dead fic I most wanted to see resurrected on SDN. Please, continue, Pablo.

[Elessar]

Funnily enough, I was just thinking a few days ago that this was the dead fic I most wanted to see resurrected on SDN. Please, continue, Pablo.

You're not the only one. I couldn't even remember the name of the story, just pieces of the plot that I had really enjoyed.

Please continue!

[Pablo Sanchez]

Anabasis
Chapter Nine
Meeting of the Minds


Captain Bergman looked at the Federation shuttle resting on the USS Rochester's shuttle deck. He turned to the officer next to him and said, "I think I'd much prefer to take one of our own shuttles down."

"Indeed so," Captain Howard replied, "but we have little alternative but to follow the requests of our hosts."

Captain Howard was the commanding officer of the HMS Cumberland, representing the heaviest vessel in Bergman's force, after the Rochester herself. Both of them were finally going down to the Earth's surface to meet with dignitaries of some kind, although the story was a little hazy to Bergman. They were no doubt important and famous in their own place and time, but of course Bergman had never heard of them, nor their exploits, nor did he even know very much about the organizations to which they belonged. He felt a little lost, and he would have preferred to have Commander Vaughn down with him, but it wasn't good practice to take both the captain and the executive officer off of a ship on the same errand. Michael had nevertheless decided that the British ought to have a representative along, and Captain Howard was the most senior officer in their part of the fleet.

He was even more senior than Bergman, in fact. He was a man of long service and experience, and if the command structure of the combined American-British fleets had been better defined, he probably would have been in charge. But since more of the ships that had survived Neues München were USN, a USN officer took command. Captain Howard was far too stiff and conventional to voice any complaint about it, but Bergman had to admit that he was a little intimidated by the other captain. His stoic bearing, hard face, and calm detachment seemed designed to emulate to the stereotype of the cold British officer. Michael decided to stop trying to make conversation and just wait.

The ramp of the Federation shuttle descended, and Commander Monaghan trotted down in his red and black uniform. "Permission to come aboard, Captain?"

"Granted," Bergman said with a nod.

Captain Howard took a step forward and extended a hand to the Federation officer. "I am Captain James Howard, Viscount Andover, and it is my pleasure to be serve in the Royal Interstellar Navy of the United Kingdom."

Monaghan took the other man's hand and shook it. "Commander Silas Monaghan, United Federation of Planets."

"Charmed, I'm sure," Howard said stiffly, releasing Monaghan's hand.

Monaghan stood uncomfortably in silence for a moment after this encounter, finally turning to Bergman. "Are both of you ready to depart for the surface?"

"We are," Bergman answered.

Monaghan nodded and strode back up the ramp into the passenger compartment of the shuttle and the two captains followed him. Bergman watched Howard bent his neck slightly to look at the carpet--carpet!--that covered the floor of the Federation shuttle, but the man voiced none of his thoughts and simply followed Monaghan to the bank of seats along one wall. Michael discovered that, Whatever the decor of the reentry vehicle, it was at least comfortable. They strapped in.

Commander Monaghan didn't seat himself yet, instead walking to the cockpit door and opening it to confer with the pilot. After a moment he returned and took his seat next to Bergman. He said, "We'll be able to make our landing at Paris in about ten minutes."

"Paris?" Michael asked. "It'll be good to get off the ships for a bit and stretch our legs, especially if we're going to do it in Paris."

Howard turned his stony face toward Bergman. "I take it you've never been."

"Eh?" the captain started. "No, I haven't. Why do you say that, though?"

"People are always more impressed by Paris before they arrive then after they've left," the Briton replied, "I must say that it's a fine city and rather more pleasant than London, for example, but little more exceptional than Barcelona. I should say that it would be a much finer city if it weren't for all the French in it."

Bergman froze for a second, because he couldn't tell if Howard was joking. Finally he settled for a thin, brittle smile and a nod, which seemed to be an appropriate response whether the man was serious or not.

"Well," Monaghan replied, "Paris is the capital of the United Federation of Planets, so its really become very cosmopolitan. They'll be plenty of people who aren't French--plenty who aren't even human, for that matter."

"I can't imagine the French are very happy about /that/," Howard said with the same thin-lipped smile that Bergman had adopted.

"If you're trying to suggest that there's some kind of prejudice in the character of the French people, I must apologize but I find that a tad hypocritical," Silas said.

"Perhaps so," Howard said, "but in my experience the French have been anything but cosmopolitan. I suppose that, perhaps, this being an entirely different universe, there is a great possibility that their national character might have changed."

Bergman realized that he probably ought to intervene in the argument, but found himself as confused as ever by the inscrutable Englishman. He tried anyway. "Now, gentlemen, let's not get into it over something so irrelevant, here. We've got more important things to deal with."

Howard glanced at his wristwatch. "True. Perhaps Commander Monaghan should inform us as to what sort of meeting we're headed for?"

"Not as much a meeting as a sort of state dinner," Monaghan explained, "you'll be sitting down with some people--Admiral Janeway, Minister Deodhar--" Silas began.

"Minister of what?" Howard asked.

"The Interior for Earth," Monaghan replied, "--also a number of other people will be there."

"Less important people, I suppose, who don't bear even the most basic description?" Howard asked.

Monaghan gave a short laugh of surprise. "Well... yes."

Bergman turned to Howard. "As far as Monaghan has told /me/ it's a number of civilian and military authorities. So far we've only had contact with their naval command out of San Francisco, and meanwhile the fleet is clearly visible to anybody with a telescope. People are asking questions, and they think we'd be better equipped to answer them."

"That depends on the questions, I suppose," Howard said. "Although it would explain why we're headed to the capital of the civilian government rather than the headquarters of your Starfleet."

Commander Monaghan nodded. A few moments passed, then the light over the cockpit door lit up yellow. Silas looked back at it and turned to the two captains, "That's the warning light for landing. It'll be just another minute."

The three men sat in silence, until finally the shuttle settled onto its landing pad and the ramp slid open. They unstrapped their restraints and walked out into the open air; it was just approaching sunset over Paris, and Bergman looked around. The shuttle had landed on the room of some building.

"We're atop the Hotel Crillon, aren't we?" Howard asked, taking a look across Paris towards the south.

Monaghan nodded, "Yes, how did you know?"

"As I said, I've been to Paris before. A great part of this city is very different from what I remember, but it's hard to miss the Place de la Concorde, even without the Obelisk of Luxor. Might I inquire where it has gone?" Howard asked.

"Huh?" Monaghan thought for a minute. "Oh, that went back to Egypt centuries ago! It was stolen unjustly from the Egyptians, after all, it was only right to return such an important part of their culture to them."

Howard raised one eyebrow. "Ah. Quite."

"Shall we?" Monaghan gestured to the lift across from the landing pad.

The three men entered the turbolift car and Silas commanded, "Meeting floor."

"Is it standard for the Crillon to be used for this kind of thing?" James asked.

"Pretty much," the commander replied, "the Crillon is owned by the UFP government and serves mainly as a place to house VIPs visiting Paris from whereever."

Bergman felt a little lost; Howard was definitely running the conversation, but perhaps it was for the better. Michael had never been much of a politician and had very little head for diplomacy, but he knew that Captain Howard was a member of the House of Lords and knew how to play the game. Bergman let himself move into the background. The lift hit the selected floor in just a few seconds, and they all stepped out. Bergman led them down a hallway and into a small dining room; the table was set for ten, seven of whom were already there though the food had yet to arrive.

The seven people stood; there were three in Starfleet uniform, while the other four wore spartan civilian clothing. Bergman realized that these people would actually be the first civilians he had seen since entering this universe. All of them appeared to be human, even though Michael had been told that many alien races held considerable influence in the Federation.

Monaghan began to introduce everyone, "May I present Captain Michael Bergman, United States Navy, and Captain James Howard, Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. Gentlemen, your hosts are--"

Howard interrupted, "Viscount Andover. My title may have little significance here but it is important to me."

"Uh, yes," Commander Monaghan replied, his rhythm broken. "But, as I was saying, your hosts are Vice Admiral Janeway, Commodore Church, and Commander Rich from Starfleet Headquarters. Paris has sent Minister Deodhar and his assistant, Mayor Delacroux, Councillor Hedden."

Each of them nodded in their turn. Vice Admiral Janeway was, too Bergman's very mild surprise, a woman; the highest ranking woman in any space navy he knew of was Captain Janet Hill of the US Navy--there'd been female presidents and generals, but naval command had tended to remain the preserve of men. Things were apparently very different in this universe. Deodhar's apparent assistant was female as well, though that wouldn't have been at all unusual in Bergman's experience, anyway. They were all Caucasian except for Deodhar, who was clearly Indian.

Janeway spoke now, in a low and somewhat gravelly voice. "Why don't we sit down?"

Michael nodded and took one of the vacant seats, Howard and Monaghan flanking him.

"Now, I think we've all been briefed on the technical qualities of your ships and the basics of the situation," the vice admiral continued, "so this meeting is more of an attempt to get to know you as people and try to understand your universe."

"I see," Bergman said guardedly.

Janeway seemed to detect his attitude. "It's important that we're able to trust each other. You have enough firepower floating over Taiwan to destroy every city on the planet in a few hours, after all."

Howard shook his head, "Of course we've no intention at all of using it."

"Of course," Minister Deodhar interjected, "but that lack of aggression is only a starting point. You are foreign to this universe, as we are foreign to you. We must find common ground."

"Fair enough," Bergman said, waving a hand, "ask away."

Monaghan interjected, "Wait, before we start, do either of you need any refreshments?"

Bergman shook his head, but Captain Howard smiled. "Cognac, if you please."

Monaghan signalled to a waiter standing against one wall, who left to retrieve the drink.

"A moment ago," Deodhar began, "you said that you had a title, Viscount Andover. What does this mean?"

Howard sat back in his chair. "I can only assume that noble titles have been eliminated, then."

"On Earth, at least," Deodhar replied, "they still exist on some of the member planets of the Federation."

"As hereditary viscount of Andover, I have certain rights and priviliges, the best--or least, depending on your perspective--of which is the opportunity to serve in the upper house of Parliament, the House of Lords," Howard explained.

"So it is held over from feudal times," Deodhar said, a little shortly.

"One could put it that way," Howard replied in the same tone.

Deodhar frowned. "I have been informed that, in your home reality, that India is still directly ruled by Britain. Is this true?"

"It is," James answered. "His Britannic Majesty King William the Sixth has the pleasure of being Emperor of India. India has the same limited self-government which is extended to Scotland and Wales, in that they elect their own parliament to decide purely internal matters--but decisions of foreign policy and so on are decided in London."

"How is this just, for a small island to rule so many as colonial subjects for five-hundred years? In our own history we have known the oppression of the Indians by the British, can your history of paternalism have been much different from ours?" Deodhar attacked.

Mayor Delacroux broke in in his accented English, "Come now, we should not argue so right at the beginning."

Howard raised a hand, "No, thank you, I think I shall defend the honor of my country. Britain's rule over India may not have always been just, but it has always been better than the alternative and remains so. When, in your history, did Britain abandon India?"

"India became independent from Britain in 1947," Deodhar replied.

"Had we released ourselves of the obligation of defending India in 1947, it would have been overrun by the Japanese in 1948. In your world there has perhaps been opportunity for nations to find their own way, but in ours there has been a great deal of war and suffering. Whatever the sins of our rule over India, we have at least /tried/ to be just, which cannot be said the same for the Japanese. The right of the Indians to self-determination would have meant nothing at all with a Japanese army of ten million men ready to charge out of Yunnan."

Deodhar didn't reply, he only rocked back in his chair. Howard calmly maintained eye contact with the minister, not even breaking it as he recieved his snifter of cognac and began to sip it.

"I think it might be wise to change the subject," Vice Admiral Janeway said, finally. "Let's talk about what happened to the other nations in the Alpha and Beta quadrants."

"There isn't so much to tell," Bergman said, taking over. "The Romulans and Klingons were absorbed by the Japanese in the 22nd century. The Reich pretty much smashed the Tzenkethi and Breen, and set them up with puppet governments. For our part, we haven't done much grabbing. Places like Andoria, Betazed, and so on... they're all independent. We trade with them and maintain defensive alliances. The Cardassian Union had some economic problems about about 60 years ago, that they tried to fix by conquering planets--we put a stop to it, liberated a lot of places, and occupied Cardassia Prime and put their democratically elected government back in control."

"I assume that you won these victories by virtue of technological superiority," Janeway said. "Even in our wildest dreams we'd never be able to do so much, and you're splitting humanity three ways and not really including the other Alpha Quadrant peoples that make up the Federation."

"I suppose so," Bergman said.

"How does the Japanese Empire maintain control of such a large subject population?" Commodore Church asked.

"You could say they have some experience; historically they were a minority in their own Empire starting in the nineteenth century. Part of it is compound interest. Since the Japanese have always been expanding there hasn't been much pressure to reduce population growth, and although other factors make birth rates lower, advances in technology reduce infant mortality and increase life expectancy," Bergman said, "this is all basic economics, of course. The upshot of this is that while ethnically Japanese people are allowed to establish new colonies at will to relieve population pressures, subject populations are limited, so that their best option is to reduce births to merely match the replacement rate. The final result is that you've got about a billion Japanese people living on Earth, three-hundred million of them in the home islands alone."

Mayor Delacroux interjected, "That's quite a lot more than I would expect. It is our current expectation that the Japanese islands can't support much more than a hundred million people."

"The Japanese build a lot of arcologies," Howard explained, "if you take the city vertical instead of spreading out, you can put a really vast number of people in a small space; with modern agricultural production techniques you can get more than enough food to them as well. While real meats and so on are still popular, it's cheaper and more efficient to grow basic food stocks that can be packed at high densities and placed in stasis, then you use synthesizers to rearrange them at a molecular level into a facsimile of whatever you want--the taste is nearly the same."

"We do that as well," the mayor said, "we call them replicators, though."

"Right. Foodstuffs and other goods are also cheap and safe to bring down from colonies, thanks to space elevators." Bergman said. "To continue with what I was saying, there's a billion ethnic Japanese on Earth, plus about three billion non-Japanese citizens--Chinese, Korean, Malay, Filippino, what have you. That's just on Earth, though."

Deodhar asked, "What is the total population of Earth?"

Bergman replied, "About ten billion altogether. The majority of humans live off-world, though. Taking the Japanese back up, we estimate there to be about nineteen billion Japanese living in something like two hundred significant off-world colonies plus a lot of outposts, with only another five billion non-Japanese humans, because of the limits on their colonial emigration. The galaxy-wide population of humans is hard to estimate but probably around sixty billion; twenty-eight billion in the Japanese Empire, twenty-two billion in the British Empire and United States with all colonies counted, and something like ten billion in the Reich. Japanese humans are easily the single largest ethnic grouping. So, in answer to the original question, the Japanese can maintain control partly because they're still at least a plurality--maybe even a majority since we don't know how many Klingons and Romulans there are--in their empire thanks to manipulating population growth over the centuries."

"Also, during the period when they were a minority, they learned how to play subjects off of one another and manipulate their affairs. Our knowledge of affairs inside the Japanese Empire is pretty hazy, but we know that they've been playing the Romulans and Remans off each other for centuries, as well as exploiting divisions between the Klingon clans," Bergman said.

The Federation VIPs sat in silence, digesting this for a while. Janeway finally spoke, "The population growth of humanity has been very near the replacement rate for a long time. We haven't got anywhere near those numbers. I think it speaks to a... a difference in priorities."

"How do you mean?" Howard asked.

"It seems as though the primary objective of your humanity has been expansion. In the 21st century we committed ourselves to harmony within humanity, and to spreading that philosophy peacefully throughout the Alpha Quadrant. We've been explorers, peacekeepers, and scientists--but the difference in military technology and power potential is almost indescribable," Janeway admitted. "It reminds me more of the Borg or the Dominion."

"Eh? We know all about the Dominion, but what are the Borg?" Bergman asked. "They sound Swedish."

Janeway and the other Starfleet officers exchanged surprised looks, but before they could say anything Monaghan interjected. "I was told by headquarters to keep the discussion off of certain current events, so we'll have to move on."

Bergman and Howard glanced curiously at Monaghan but let it go. They were in his house, after all.


----


The discussion continued for about an hour, ranging over a variety of topics from history to popular culture. Finally Monaghan called for a recess, and he and a few others excused themselves to use the restroom. Captain stood and walked over to a window, staring out at the streets of Paris, lit by streetlamps and starlight. The Eiffel tower was lit up in the distance like a shining bridge into space itself. After a minute he felt someone stop behind him and turned. It was Admiral Janeway, looking past him at the city.

"Ma'am," he said, acknowledging her.

"I sympathize with your situation, Captain Bergman," she said. "A few years ago, my ship was transported to the other side of the galaxy, the Delta quadrant. My only objective was to get my crew home, however long it took."

Bergman raised an eyebrow. "How /did/ you get home? Just in the way of advice for me."

Janeway chuckled ruefully. "It's... complicated. The short version is that after seven years I managed to get my hands on some technology that allowed us to come back. Then they gave me a promotion. I think it was as much a way to stick me behind a desk as it was a reward."

"Is that why they sent you for this," Michael asked, "because you had a similar experience?"

"Maybe." Janeway said, then pursed her lips. "I'm telling you this because of that sympathy: something is going on here, with Monaghan and Starfleet command, that isn't on the up-and-up. I think they're trying to use you."

Bergman thought about it carefully. "How do you mean?"

"People have moved between parallel universes before, usually more by accident than by design. But they've gone there and gotten back," Janeway said. "Yet as far as I know Starfleet hasn't been looking into those incidents to help you. Other things that would be of interest to you, like our working models of transwarp drives, the Borg themselves--I think they want to keep you here, for the technology on your ships."

"I see," Bergman replied quietly. He'd entertained that thought before; it didn't benefit the Federation much at all to help him on his way home, at least not as much as keeping him around would. What he hadn't know was that the Federation was actually /capable/ of offering real assistance. Their own ships were primitive, true, but perhaps their overriding focus on exploration and theoretical science had left them somewhat more advanced in other arenas--like transit between universes. Working transwarp drives was another revelation he hadn't thought of; none of their ships mounted them. Why not? It was too soon to take it all in, and he needed to confer with Commander Vaughn in a more private setting.

"You've had fair warning, at least," Janeway finished.

"Thank you, Admiral," Bergman said, looking out at the city again.


----


Monaghan waited until everyone else had left the restroom before he approached Deodhar. He said in a low voice, "So?"

Deodhar looked at himself in the mirror and scratched his nose. "Miss Santor tells me they have little or no expectation of hostility from us, and such a low opinion of our capabilities that they wouldn't see us as any threat anyway. They have no knowledge of transporter technology, either. The situation is ripe indeed. The main problems will be technical."

Monaghan spared a glance at Santor, Deodhar's assistent. She wore blue lenses over her black irises to hide her status as a Betazoid, and she had spent the meeting covertly scanning the two officers from the parellel universe. Perhaps she was even scanning Monaghan now. He asked Deodhar, "What do you mean?"

"They've allowed us to do one or two active scans of their ships, and what we've found is both good and bad. Their ships run very clean with respect to radiation, and although the thickness of their armor and bulkheads will prevent transporter access to a few areas like engineering, we can get into and out of their command decks. The bad part is that their ships seem to be as crew intensive than our own, which means difficulty in controlling them once our men are aboard," the minister replied.

"Since we'd be on their bridge, we could use their own security systems against them," Monaghan said.

Deodhar looked at him like he was an idiot. "Of course we've thought of that. The Section just prefers to consider all the angles. Like what if something goes wrong in the execution?"

"Hostages," Monaghan said.

"Naturally. We've got San Francisco in line behind the plan, so it won't take much for Paris to kowtow. The only other concern is the problems around the neutral zone. What's the news?"

"We haven't lost another subspace relay or scanning outpost for a couple of weeks, but it's left a fair-sized blind spot around the Alameda IV supply base. I think we can pretty much right that place off," Silas replied. "The Klingons are still scared stiff of the Japanese and the Romulans aren't making any moves until they figure out what's going on, so the situation is stable until Yamashita decides where he's going to go from Alameda."

"You're sure it's him and not the Romulans?" Deodhar asked pointedly.

"As sure as I can be with every listening post in that sector knocked out. If it was the Romulans they'd have followed up with more attacks, one isolated sneak attack and then nothing isn't their MO. Starfleet is sure, too. Standing orders are to stay well away from the Alameda system--if the entire Klingon home fleet got eaten for breakfast by these guys, we wouldn't stand a chance either."

"We'll see about that," Deodhar said, smirking.

[Pax Britannia]

Great stuff. Nice to see the British Empire is still kicking about.

[darthdavid]

YES!!!

[Singular Quartet]

All praise Pablo Sanchez. Or we will beat you with pointy sticks.

[Falkenhorst]

Excellent!

[Prozac the Robert]

Cool.

I don't generally like the evil federation, but I can see why S31 would want to get hold of those ships pretty badly, especially with the Japanese running around. On the other hand, you'd think the Japanese fleet would want to get home as well, so figuring out a way of doing it might be the safest bet anyway. And once you have seen something can be done, it's not often not impossibly hard to copy it anyway. And the allied fleet might have given them some hints before leaving since they probably have no prime directive type issues.

I quite like Jainway's warning here as well. Holding up the classic Starfleet ideal of ethics before pragmatism. It's something that only annoys me when the writers come up with stupid situations where it's not really a choice as presented such as the caretaker array business.

[Singular Quartet]

True, but what if the Japanese find a way back home? What's to stop the Japanese from coming back with their expansionist tendencies?

[phongn]

Huzzah!

[brianeyci]

Was hoping to read another ten chapters of this but only a couple more...

...you still have fans. I want to see the transporter attack fail miserably: guys getting beamed into bulkheads, slaughtered by automatic defense turrets, trying to hack computers and throwing their hands up, and of course a Sean Connery punching a redshirt in the face, maybe with a Judi Dench too!

It's also good to see Janeway in character. A lot of people write Janeway as a batshit insane woman, but she isn't half as bad.

[phongn]

Did you really have to bump the thread, Brian?

[brianeyci]

Hm guess not.

Should have contacted him with pm, my apologies. I don't know him so I didn't know if it was proper to use pm or do it in public though.

EDIT: Wondering if I can delete my posts then it will be unbumped if you want I can do that.

EDIT2: If a mod wants to come and delete my posts to unbump go ahead... I just realized that some people could have this on their watch list and I could have caused a stampede of people hoping for new stuff and disappointed to shit .

[Pablo Sanchez]

Anabasis
Chapter Ten
Tell it to the Marines


"Your coffee, sir," the ensign said, extending the plastic bulb to Commander Vaughn. Vaughn took it and sipped through the straw. He didn't want to think about the taste or the vessel it had to come in, but at least it was hot. He shut his eyes. US Navy coffee. Ersatz. Bullshit. He preferred coffee to tea, but this brackish stuff wasn't either of those fluids. He liked to think that the Royal Navy stuff was better, but it probably wasn't.

Captains Bergman and Howard were still on their goodwill tour of Paris or whatever that mess was supposed to be, the lucky bastards. Vaughn hadn't seen good clean soil beneath his feet nor a real sky in months. There'd been longer tours of duty without leave, obviously, but never with dirtside so tauntingly close.

"Thank you, ensign," Vaughn said finally. He was awful with names, especially when they were attached to an American accent. Stephen was sure he'd only been assigned as an exchange officer because he was Welsh and hadn't gone to a smart public school--the bastards. As it was, he was good at being a naval officer but frankly awful at building bridges between Anglophones. It was just a bone they threw Britain's way, anyway. These days the British Empire was really not much more than a subsidiary of the Yanks.

Although it was more than a little fun to command a ship full of foreigners, and when one stood out as the handsome fellow with a slick accent in a crowd of American sailors, getting American girls into bed--or ladies' bathroom--was easy. But there were no ladies here, and really nothing at all worthy of holding his attention. Somebody had to be on the bridge, standing around and looking officerly, but Vaughn wished it didn't have to be him.

"What's on, then, Leftenant?" Vaughn asked the officer manning the ship's combat information center. Virtually all the significant the information about the ship went through there, and usually it was manned by three officers monitoring different things, but at the Rochester's present reduced level of readiness, one man was enough.

Lieutenant Kirsch, the officer then at the station, looked up. He said, "Nothing substantive, sir. Engineering reports a minor electrical problem that's shorted out some lighting and caused a minor casualty, but the secondary lights are up and the injury is being treated in the infirmary."

"I'd better go down and check, then," Vaughn said.

"Engineering reports that it's under control, sir," Kirsch said.

Vaughn said a trifle more firmly, "Oh, but you know those engineering types. Always minimizing. I'd better have a look. Get Leftenant Commander Rogers up here to relieve me, so I can go down."

"He's on his sleep shift, Commander," the Lieutenant reported.

Vaughn sighed, "Wake him up."

In under a minute, Rogers reported to the bridge, shaking sleep out of his head. "What's the emergency, Commander?"

"Rogers," Vaughn explained, "there is an emergency situation down in engineering that I must attend to personally. You have the con."

Vaughn started to walk towards the door, but Rogers stopped him with a cough. "Er, I believe there's actually a procedure that goes into me relieving you, Commander Vaughn. Could we..."

"No time, no time," Vaughn replied. "Kirsch will fill you in."

In another second Stephen Vaughn had disappeared out the bridge door and was headed down to the lift. Lieutenant Commander Rogers turned to Kirsch expectantly. "Your report, Kirsch?"

Kirsch looked back to his station so that his superior couldn't see him rolling his eyes. "Limey wanted to get off the bridge, so he's going down to engineering to watch them fiddle with light fixtures." He added after a moment, "Sir."

"Dashed unprofessional of him!" Rogers said in a mock accent. "He woke me up and I'm all but knackered!"

Kirsch chuckled quietly, but still noticed the red lights that appeared on his console. He became serious very quickly. "Sir, I'm reading active targeting from the surface."

"What? They didn't schedule any scan for today," Lieutenant Commander Rogers said, coming around to look at the readings himself.

A new warning lit up on the holographic display. "There's an energy buildup of a type I haven't seen bef--"

The words died in Kirsch's throat as he saw the bridge disappear behind a bright blue glow, and when the color faded, his chair was gone and he fell hard on his ass. He scrambled to his feet, and tried to figure out what the hell had happened. The bridge had been replaced by what appeared to be a massive warehouse and he was surrounded by hundreds of other naval personnel all looking about as surprised as he was. Lieutenant Commander Rogers was standing just to his left. They exchanged a long, confused look.

"What the Christ?" said Rogers.


----


See the galaxy.

Learn valuable skills.

Get money for college.

Meet alien chicks with three breasts and then nail them.

USMC recruiters were full of shit.

Lance Corporal T.R. Pratt sat in his chair on the Marine Corps side of blastdoor six. This blastdoor divided the compartment that the USMC company aboard the USS Rochester had for their living space from the rest of the ship, and it was a sacred institution to protect that compartment from encroachment by squids. The compartment was quite near main engineering, near the center of the ship. Pratt and his immediate subordinate, Private Hoyt, had drawn this night's shift, and they took the job about as seriously as possible.

Pratt flipped to the next page in the dog-eared Playboy. He and all his mates had already looked at every dirty picture, Andorian and otherwise, multiple times, and they weren't doing much for him anymore.

"I'm on it after you," said Private Hoyt, sitting next to him and trying to sneak a peak.

Pratt elbowed Hoyt away from him. "Don't read over my shoulder, ass."

"Who's reading?"

"Shut up. When you look at the pictures the same time I'm looking, it makes it feel like a fucking three-way, and that good a friend you are not," Pratt spat out.

Hoyt leaned in the opposite direction now. "Well, at least let us run a train all up on that dirty picture book. I'll have it when you've finished."

"Fuck you, I'm reading this article about holoprojectors. Motorola has a new box out that uses forcefields and shit to make everything feel like it's real."

"Shit," Hoyt snorted, "it's cheaper and easier just to get a jack installed" he tapped at his skull just behind his left ear "and cut out the middle man. Forcefields my ass. My cousin got a jack, he--"

"You told me already. Your cousin's a fucking wirehead. Junkies make me sick."

Hoyt was about to reply when two men in sleek suits which were black but for the top quarters of the shirts, which were gray, came running round the corner. Both of them were carrying sleek gray rifles.

"The fuck?" Hoyt asked, rising from his chair.

"Don't move! Hands in the air!" one of the men shouted, leveling his weapon.

"Fuck that!" Pratt said, throwing the switch on the wall next to his chair and then diving to the floor. Alarm klaxons immediately began to shriek throughout the compartment. Hoyt was just as well trained but not as clever; he threw himself across the corridor toward the controls that would shut and seal the blast door, cutting the compartment off from the rest of the ship.

"Hoyt! No!" LCpl Pratt shouted. If the ship was being boarded, the marines were the only hope of the Rochester's holding out. The squids certainly weren't going to push back the invaders.

Hearing the order, Hoyt paused for a split second in mid-stride, silhouetted in the doorway, and an orange beam of light intersected his chest and burned a ragged hole clean through him. He crumpled to the deck. The clanking footsteps of the men were getting closer to Pratt as he drew his sidearm. He sighted down the hallway and fired from the prone position, hitting the man who fired low in the abdomen with both shots of the double-tap. The other ducked into a side corridor before Pratt could tag him.

"--the Holy Hell is going on?" the bud in Pratt's left ear growled at him with a Southern accent that could never be described as anything as lackadaisical a drawl.

The marine rose to a crouch and slid behind the frame of the blastdoor, firing two more shots into the corner where the man had sheltered. The other returned in kind, with an unaimed beam round the corner that charred the floor well short of the post.

"Hoyt?" Pratt asked. No answer.

Pratt took his left hand off his pistol and grabbed the appropriate place on his chest webbing to trigger his collar radio, but kept his eyes down the hall. "This is Corporal Pratt, Major. We've been boarded."

"Boarded? How?" Captain (though aboard a navy vessel he was called a major) Geary came back.

"I don't know, two armed hostiles approached the checkpoint and fired on us. Hoyt is down but I got one of them. There have to be more."

"We're already scrambling, help'll be there in under a minute," Geary clicked off the line.

The enemy stuck his head out around the corner, and Pratt obliged by slapping another couple of rounds at him, though he didn't manage to hit anything fleshy. It was a little scary to think that an enemy force had somehow boarded the Rochester and gotten this deep without anybody the wiser, but in a few seconds they'd have a hundred and sixty United States Marines on their hands.


----


The klaxons in the engineering section cut off just long enough for a terse message to come over the speakers. "This is Major Geary. All hands to battle stations and stand by to repel boarders."

"The hell does he think he's doing?" Vaughn demanded of the Chief Engineer as the electric screaming resumed. "I'm in command. Get him on the horn!"

Chief Engineer Perkins grabbed a handset out of the slot on the wall, and clicked it over so that it was connected to the marines' compartment. It rang, and Perkins handed the set to the commander.

"We're busy, here," the voice on the other end growled.

"This is Lieutenant Commander Vaughn, in command of this ship, and I will have words with Major Geary!" Vaughn said.

The marine stuttered and suddenly sounded about 18 years old. "Uh, shit--I'll get him."

Vaughn turned the handset away from his face and spoke to Perkins again. "And turn off that bloody racket, anybody who hasn't heard it by now isn't ever going to hear it! I'm not shouting over that while I'm talking to this half-wit leatherneck!"

Perkins killed the klaxons just as Vaughn said 'half-wit leatherneck', so that Major Geary on the other end was able to hear it.

"The HELL you say, limey!" the marine officer roared.

/Bollocks,/ Vaughn thought, /that's all I need./

He said, "Major Geary--"

The Marine interrupted. "Where are you? We can't get word one out of the bridge, we assumed it had been overrun."

"I'm in engineering. Attending to a--an emergency. But I'm apprised of the situation now. You say the bridge is out of contact?"

"That's right. These guys just popped up out of nowhere, all over the ship. They must have taken the bridge."

Vaughn nodded to himself. "Right." He looked to the chief engineer. "Mister Perkins, could the enemy be listening in?"

Perkins shrugged. "The exchange is just a couple rooms over though the bridge can tap in--but they've only had a couple of minutes to figure out how."

"I want you to override the command deck completely and put everything through the secondary bridge. Is it possible for them to break the override?" Vaughn asked.

"I can just put all the relays up there into maintenance shut-down," Perkins said, "like we do when we're doing major electrical damage control after serious damage. That'll cut the relays, physically."

Vaughn waved an affirmative hand. Boarding actions were so rare--there hadn't been a defensive action to speak of in a hundred years or more of Royal Navy history--that there hadn't even been anything in the book. He was making it up as he went along. "That'll do. Also, I want every airlock and blast door on the ship shut and sealed. We'll keep communication with the marines, open a path for them as they ask for it, and take these buggers compartment by compartment. You get that, Major Geary?"

"On it, Commander. Engineering is safe, as are the habitation compartments, cargo, and magazine decks."

"Lock down everything else like it's a decompression drill," Vaughn told Perkins, "and raise shields. However they got on, we don't need any more getting aboard. And kill the artificial gravity."

"Sir?"

"Every officer, rating, and marine on this ship has had zero gee training. I doubt those twits can say the same," Vaughn explained. "Now, throw the switches and twist the knobs. And Major Geary, continue your show. Give the enemy some Yank gung ho and all that."

"I'm no damn Yankee, you English fruit," Geary said through the ship's phone.

"And I'm not English. Glad we understand each other," Vaughn said, and hung up the handset.

Perkins rousted the engineering crew and they scrambled to and fro, carrying out his orders with speed and efficiency. In under a minute everything was done except the artificial gravity, and then Perkins himself threw the switch. The klaxons belted out three quick yelps, and a computerized voice declared, "Artificial gravity is entering emergency shutdown. Repeat, artificial gravity is entering emergency shutdown."

Then Vaughn felt his stomach twist and his feet floated up off the deck. A few of the younger ratings in the engineering crew looked a little green around the gills and somewhat clumsy in the absence of gravity, but Vaughn was an old hand. He ably kicked off of the wall, automatically putting his feet and hands nowhere near anything they might damage, and zipped his way along towards the corridor that would take him to the secondary bridge. The yanks had merely lent him their ship, but he'd be damned if some lot of sneak thieves were going to take it away. He would make sure the same orders he'd given to the Rochester got repeated for the benefit of every other ship in the fleet. They were undoubtedly in similar situations.


----


LCpl Pratt had gone through zero gee training, heavy gee training, and low gee training. He had felt live rounds fired just over his head to acclimate him to the smell of ozone and the yawp of particle bolts. He had been yelled at and even beaten silly by several different flavors of drill instructor. Training didn't change the fact that most of those things, including floating in zero gee, felt wrong and uncomfortable.

The USMC shipboard boots had magnetic soles, but those were mainly for stability when firing. On the move a marine was trained to use zero gee to his advantage, utilizing all available surfaces to hit the enemy from surprising angles. Crouching on the ceiling while another marine used the floor, so both could take position at the same corner without fouling their lines of fire, also felt wrong and uncomfortable.

Around the corner was the Rochester's shuttle bay, probably the largest single room on the ship, and currently tightly held by the enemy. It was one of the sections nearest the exterior of the ship and a probable point of entry, although there was no telling how they had got on board without raising the alarm. The problem with taking the bay was that its size and open structure, compared to that of the corridor that led to it, made it a defilade against which the enemy could concentrate rifle fire, while the marines could only pass through one or two at a time.

Pratt nodded to his mate on the floor "below" him. Private Gillis pulled a stun grenade from his chest webbing as Pratt leaned his upper body around the corner behind his carbine. He spotted a couple of hostiles taking cover behind a shuttle and another floating fecklessly near the ceiling, although there were sure to be more in better concealment. He skewered the one out of cover with a burst and sprayed another few rounds at the ones behind the shuttle, and his mate tossed the grenade in after him, in the direction of the burst.

The marines averted their eyes from the stun grenade as it popped with a blinding flash and deafening bang, then leaned back out as the first two men on the assault team kicked out of the doorway and zipped into the bay, headed for cover behind a bank of fuel pumps. Pratt and Gillis obliged with heavy covering fire. The first man made it, but an enemy popped out of the doorway leading to the flight deck control room and nailed the second with a beam. A bright scarlet surge of energy enveloped his body and he had just enough time to scream in pain before he disappeared into a quite small sizzling cloud of ash.

"What the shit?" Pratt growled to himself. "Bastard!"

He loosed a long burst at the control room to force the man back behind cover, then threw one of his frag grenades at the doorway. It shot across the shuttle bay in a straight line, bounced off the wall, and into the room before it burst. Multiple energy beams scored the bulkhead near him in reply, but nothing much hit him. Pratt ducked back behind the corner.

"Frenchy is pinned down out there," Gillis said.

Pratt peeked out for a moment to get a look. Private Delacroix was behind the pump array, and the enemy was making sure he had nowhere to go by sending him regular beams and pulses of rifle fire from their various positions. The pumps were empty at the moment, which was good. Now that most of them were firing or at least fleetingly visible, Pratt had to estimate that there had to be a couple dozen enemies in the shuttle bay. Too many to clear out without casualties. He fired a burst to prevent them from moving to a better angle to fire on the marine out there.

He clicked his radio, tuned to the squad frequency. "Frenchy, sit tight. We'll get you out of there."

Delacroix replied, "Man, fuck you."

Pratt tuned his radio over to the platoon net. "Ell-Tee, I make 20 to 25 hostiles in the shuttle bays. They're dug in like ticks."

The lieutenant replied quickly. "They in vacuum gear?"

"No, sir."

There was a gap of some seconds. Pratt changed out his magazine and kept an eye out for any movement. They had twigged to the fact that they weren't going to dig Frenchy out from behind the pumps and were keeping their heads down.

"Right," the Lieutenant came back, "decompression drill. Hold that doorway, the rest of the platoon is pulling back and shutting the gate behind us. Radio when you are ready."

Pratt smirked and turned to Gillis. "You heard him."

Pratt covered Gillis while he put on his vacuum helmet and fixed all his seals, a procedure that took the trained marine about fifteen seconds. Then it was Pratt's turn, and they both covered Delacroix while he did it.

"Good to go," Pratt said on the platoon net.

A Christmas tree of warning lights blazed red all along the corridor and in the docking bay, and the klaxons blasted out a rapid stuttering wail. Then the only thing that could be heard was a roar that slowly dissipated to a whisper, and then was gone in less than a minute.

"Frenchy, check it."

"It's ugly is how it is," Delacroix reported.


----


Geary's low and gravelly voice came over the speaker in the secondary bridge. "The shuttle bay is under control, and we're pushing towards the command deck."

Vaughn asked, "Estimated time until the ship is secure?"

"Don't tie me down to a timetable, Commander," the marine officer replied, "I'll let you know when it's done."

The speaker crackled as the connection was killed at the other end.

/Arsehole,/ Vaughn thought.

He looked over the reports from the other ships in the fleet. Heavy Cruisers in the American and British navy carried a company of marines--USMC or RM--as a matter of policy, and light cruisers carried a platoon. The HMS Cumberland was already reporting that it was clear, as were several of the smaller vessels. The destroyers were more worrying. The Rochester had a crew of about 450 plus the 160 marines, but the destroyers only had a couple hundred and no dedicated infantry. The enemy surely would have sent fewer men to take those objectives, but their chances were still better. Moreover, it seemed as though the enemy had somehow managed to remove crew members from the compartments nearer the hull, but had been unable to do so to the interior of the ships. Destroyers, smaller, and less heavily armored, might have been more vulnerable.

Over half of the destroyers had reported that they were fighting the borders and winning, but he hadn't heard from five of them.

"If any of them start to move, I want to hear about it," Vaughn said, indicating the vessels that might have been captured.

The sensor operator, who had been on his sleep shift instead of on the bridge, nodded. There was really nothing to do but wait until the marines finished up. Vaughn called up a diagram of the ship on the tactical console, with enemy-held sections marked red. As the marines reported their progress the ship gradually turned green. In a little under an hour after the boarding engagement began, Major Geary came back on the comm.

"The Rochester is secure, Commander Vaughn. We have thirty-three prisoners assembled in the galley."

Commander Vaughn replied, "Excellent work, Major Geary. I want a casualty report from your company, and make preparations to send shuttle groups to regain control other ships in the group. And bring the highest ranking prisoner to the secondary bridge." He killed the connection and turned to the tactical officer. "I want a report on the losses--deaths as well as missing--among the navy personnel, and get all the damage controlmen to work. This ship needs to be at one-hundred percent right away."

The time it would take to transfer command back to the main bridge couldn't be spared, and anyway there was likely to be some battle damage. It was imperative that the situation with the ships that were still in danger be managed--if any of them came under hostile control and began to flee, they would have to be disabled. An even worse possibility was the chance that the boarding operation was only part of the plan. If the enemy came with warships in force, things could get very bad.

A few minutes later, two marines entered the secondary bridge with a uniformed Vulcan between them. He was tall and slim, and, unusually for a Vulcan, had black skin. His hands were bound behind him with the plastic zip-cuffs that the marines favored, although given Vulcan strength it was possible he could break free. It was good to have the marines on hand to deal with the possibility.

"Got anything to say for yourself?" Commander Vaughn asked, looking the Vulcan over.

The Starfleet officer shook his head. "Commander Tuvok, United Federation of Planets Starfleet."

Vaughn looked questioningly at the marines.

Lance Corporal Pratt shrugged apologetically. "We haven't had a peep out of them apart from that kind of noise."

The British officer set his jaw. "Where are the men who you disappeared from this ship? Why did you attack us without any provocation?"

The Vulcan didn't react.

"After our technology, I shouldn't doubt," Vaughn said, half to himself. "Lot of bloody space pirates is all you are. I ought to just kick you out the airlock."

The Vulcan continued not reacting.

"Commander Vaughn," the communications officer said, "Major Geary reports that he has 150 men still prepared for action, with eight injured and six fatalities. The reports from the crew are still coming in, but it looks like the complement is down to 330."

Vaughn nodded. "Get the operations staff to the shuttle bay, I want Geary's men ready to board our other ships inside the half-hour. Tell the Cumberland to do the same with her marines." He wheeled on the Vulcan now, spitting the words out. "You heard it, you backstabbing trash. We're about to run a train on the rest of your lads, and I've yet to decide what I'll do when that's finished. So you better start talking."

"Perhaps," Tuvok said calmly.

"Where are the rest of our men?"

"I do not know. I was placed in charge of only this part of the operation," the Vulcan explained.

Vaughn balled his hands into fist. "Alright. Then just what the Hell is the meaning of this unprovoked assault, this rank piracy?"

"It was hardly unprovoked," Tuvok said, regarding Vaughn with the kind of placid equanimity that had always disgusted him about Vulcans. "Starfleet intelligence intercepted coded transmissions detailing your plans to invade Earth and take control of the Federation government."

"The Hell you say," Vaughn said, gyrating a little in place. He would have rocked back on his heels with surprise, but the gravity still wasn't on. "Conquer Earth with a handful of cruisers and a scratch battalion of marines? How perfectly ridiculous."

Tuvok kept mum.

"But you believe it," Vaughn said, looking the Vulcan over. "Christ. Bleeding hearts like your UFP are always ready to believe the worst about military types, even if you're one yourself."

The sensor operator said, "Commander Vaughn, I've been reviewing the sensor records and I may have found out what happened."

"Shoot," Vaughn ordered, not taking his eyes off of Tuvok.

The lieutenant bent over his console and started in. "At about the time the incident began the sensors logged a major surge in subspace radiation with multiple origins on the planetary surface as well as in the nearby starbases. The sensors aren't designed to point at the inside of the ship, but they did detect the energy coming in, and another wave of it manifesting on the surface near San Francisco. I believe they may have used a matter transporter system."

"A matter transporter?"

"I've read about them in Scientific American. The theoretical basis is sound but nobody's able to get around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Data loss during transmission makes them useless," the sensor operator said, "but they might have figured it out here. The lost crew members are probably on the surface."

"Right," Vaughn spat at Tuvok, "that's how you did it, and why. Now, I might not be conquering your planet but I can sure make your bosses uncomfortable until they send me my men back."

"My 'bosses' will no doubt be contacting you in person. You would do well to consider your situation carefully. Significant elements of Starfleet are standing by, and a large fraction of your personnel are hostage. You cannot succeed."

"Ah-ah-ah. You might be a berk but I'm not. If you thought your fleet could do any good you'd have sent it in already, during the confusion. But you're scared of our engagement range. The Rochester and Cumberland can blast your ships out of space from half a million kilometers out. You can't even get in our neighborhood," the Commander said with a cold smile.

"Nevertheless, the situation is far from favoring you," Tuvok said.

"Put him back with the others and lock them all in the brig. I don't want to hear from him again until I say so," Vaughn said.

The marines hauled the Vulcan away.

The tactical officer turned from his console. "Orders, sir? The marines are just about underway."

"For now we'll get this damn artificial gravity turned back on," the commander said, running a hand through his hair. "After that... one foot in front of the other."

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Excellent work! Very good chapter, and it's beautiful to see this story updated again, Pablo. Perhaps you'll overcome your nickname of Five Chapter Sanchez yet.

[phongn]

Holy shit, you updated! Fine chapter, Pablo.

[KlavoHunter]

Your sudden desire to update after a full year and a half is most pleasing.

[brianeyci]

Awesome.

They have superluminal weapons? When they killed the Klingon fleet in orbit I guessed they were hitting a stationary target. Maybe Vaughn is wrong and they were just too stupid to send ships in at the same time. They've got so many advantages already if you let them hit vessels at Warp 9 it's almost too evil.

Also if Vaughn is wrong and the ships are coming right now then there's another fight, always good. Another idea is the Admiral in charge of the operation isn't in charge of any starships at all, but only say Starfleet Security. I always liked the idea of dozens of Admirals, each vying for power. It's the only way I can imagine checks and balances in the UFP, the reason why UFP hasn't fallen into despotism or dictatorship yet. The only pitfall is the cliche of Federation Civil War, but that's easily avoided if Federation starships are loathe to fire on one another.

[Pablo Sanchez]

They have superluminal weapons?

Not exactly. What the Anabasis-verse ships are capable of is based in some approximation of an extremely militarized Star Trek universe technology. I didn't read their computer and mechanical systems as being capable of the extreme precision that would be necessary for accuracy at superluminal closing speeds with any amount of deflection.

The matter is actually gone into in a previous chapter (ch. 8). By Vaughn's understanding of tactics, enemy ships are likely to drop out of warp at long range and enter engagements slowly and carefully, instead of dropping out of warp directly on top of the enemy. Ships traveling at warp speeds emit a massive subspace signature and are themselves half blind, so the initial advantage lies with the fleet which is lying in wait. Federation ships don't use the passive stealth (as opposed to active stealth like cloaking devices) that Vaughn is familiar with, so they would be trivially easy to knock out at long range, if they approached as he would expect them to.

Of course, Star Trek practice is to drop out of warp at (comparatively) knife-fight range and engage from there. In such a case there would be a serious massacre as they came out of warp, with their fleet being decimated in the first seconds. Anabasis-verse naval combat has more in common with dreadnought-era "eggshells and hammers" fighting, or submarine tactics, than anything else.

[KlavoHunter]

On the other hand, in-close is where Star Trek weapons are effective, and I'll cry if you make ST ships be *completely* useless - it's safe to say that Jutland, not to mention the Klingon Fleet, was more or less sucker-punched by a full fleet with ships that were completely superior to their own, who had not just come from the losing end of a fight.

Not that I think the Federation will be dumb enough to actually attempt an attack on the ships of the United States and Britain.

[MKSheppard]

Yay it's back!

*kisses pablo*

[phongn]

Yay it's back!

*kisses pablo*

If that isn't siggable ...