this one takes a bit of setting up so bear with me. A number of years ago I ran a Star Trek RP and met this chick. We wrote together on many thing for a number months untill a did something increadbly stupid. While RL we drifted further appart IC our chrs got married and ended up haveing kids. This is a story that I did on my own as part of that site. I don't know how well it stands up on it's own given the fact that i did it 2 years ago and havn't touched it since.

Critisim is welcome. though be nice since it is realy old wink


“A Captain’s Guilt”
By; John Clark
11/2/05

Phage and Tenel were walking along a board walk in Key West. This was their first time to be alone since the Endeavour returned to dry-dock for repair after their last mission. Phage had rented a three room flat in one of the old hotels. One night while Tenel was asleep, Phage decided to go to one of the bars. He was walking towards Duval St. when one bar stood out above the rest. Its exterior was dirty and old. There was a small wooden sign hanging above the door on a wrought iron fixture. The sign was old and beat up. On it in old golden letters read ‘The Captain’s Table.’ What the heck. Phage thought to himself and went in.

...

The interior was a sharp contrast to the exterior. It was well lit and clean. There were many people in the room. As Phage looked around he discovered that he recognized some of the faces. But none of them should have been anywhere near Earth. Then there was one face that he knew better than any other, but he had left there back in the flat. Tenel was sitting next to a Vulcan captain, which he didn’t know, and Captain Picard of the USS Enterprise E. He walked over behind Tenel and placed a hand on her shoulder causing her to jump. She turned and her stone face expression softened when she saw his face. “Phage, how is your mission going?” She asked of him.

All Phage did was look at her slightly confused. “What mission and what are you doing here? I left you in our room asleep.” Phage asked puzzled.

“Oh, this is then!” Tenel replied with joy.

Phage had been on the verge of replying when Picard spoke. “Captain, I know that this must be confusing but accept it. Hey Cap, could you bring Captain Alang a drink?” Picard asked the big man behind the bar.

Cap came over carrying a tumbler filled with what looked like scotch. “Here you Captain. One scotch, neat.”

“How did you know that this is what I was going to ask for?”

Picard let out a laugh that surprised Phage. “Cap knows what we want before we even come in.” Picard saw Phage reaching for what money he carried. “Oh and we don’t pay in money here either.”

“Yes, here we pay for our drinks with a story.” Tenel chimed in.

“Well then there is only one thing for me to do now.”

“What would that be Captain?” Picard asked.

Phage smiled at that captain. “Call me Phage. And I think it is time for me to pay my tab.”

…

No this story takes place before the Endeavour was out of space dock for the first time since the final battle. I was still a commander even though I had been in command of her since the battle that had put her in dry-dock to began with. I was working on crew reports when I got a transmition from Starfleet intelligence. At first I turned them down but they told me that they were sending a representative. Of course I told them that it would make little difference.

Several days later my former first officer appeared. Jack had not changed much since I last saw him before my last assignment.

“Phage, Intel has a job for us.” He said with out preamble.

“Of course they do. What is this all important mission that will take me from my ship?” I asked.

“Well first off it is not really your ship, at least not yet. As for the mission, Intel wants us to infiltrate a pirate group running out of the Badlands and if possible, to shut them down.” Jack said.

“But why us? I am a regular line officer.”

“They want me for some of my more questionable contacts. They want you because they believe that only you can control me.” Jack replied with a sarcastic tone.

“Me? Control you? The must be crazier than I originally thought.” I shot back.

“Ok, true. But they were originally were going to send me in alone but I asked them to send you with me.” He replied some what chagrined. “Come on it will be like old times again.”

“Great. What the heck. Nothing to do around here but paper work anyway. How about I cook up some of my dad’s old chili?” I said.

I knew that he was going to accept it. He could never turn down my dad’s chili recipe. The next couple of days were spend planning the operation. Most of the details were insertion and moffball scenarios

…

“Hold on a second Captain,” Picard interrupted, “what do you mean former First Officer?”

Phage looked at the older captain for a second before replying. “I took him on as my first officer only a handful of weeks ago. About a month ago he died stopping a renegade changeling from taking over the ship.” He looked to Tenel and saw sympathy and her own memories of Jack flash through her eyes. She gave his hand a tight squeeze and her wedding band pinched his skin.

“I am sorry Captain. I had not heard.” Picard said with a sympathetic look in his eye. Phage knew that Picard had lost his own first officer not that long ago either.

“There is no need to apologize. Starfleet covered it up. His death as been labeled as in the line of duty.” Phage said. By this time an new captain had joined the circle. Phage saw that it was Kira Neryes of Deep Space Nine. He lifted his tumbler to his lips only to see that it was empty. Cap came over and refilled his tumbler.

“I guess I should return to the story.” Phage said with a sigh.

…

The incertion went according to plan for the most part. We had been droped off on a small moon near Bajor. There we managed to ‘join’ the group. I can’t tell you the bulk of the story, classified before we even got underway. The group was apparently running out of an old Maquis base. We spend the next couple of weeks doing odds and ends jobs to gain their trust. Jack was also able to convince a number of them to help us throught one reason or another. A few of them wanted out.

As a test they sent us to DS9 to obtain a few ‘items’ from Quark. We got back to the base to find that the base of operations was going to be moved. This was one of the kinks in our plan. Since the buld of the base was of modular construction we had to hold off placing the charges until they had been rejoined.

A couple of days later Jack and I planted the charges. We had put them on a three day timer. Our extraction was supposed to be on day two. Well, just before we were supposed to leave several ships showed up careing the women and children of the pirates.

“Jack, we must disarm those charges.” I said.

“I know. I will handle the port compartments.”

We split up and headed for the charges. When I got to the first of my charges it went off with out a hitch. Same for charges two and three. Suddenly a panicked call came from Jack.

=/= Phage! I just tried to disable my third charge, but when I had entered the code, the timer stopped for a second only to start back up.=/= Jack said in a hushed panic.

“Calm down Jack. Have you tried entering the code again?”

“Yes, four times and every time it does not work!”

“Hold on I am at my fourth charge. I entered the code in the charge. Sure enough the timer stopped for a second before starting. I ran back to the previous timers to see that they had resumed their countdowns too.

“Jack! Get to a fighter! We need to get out of here!” I yelled to Jack over our comm.

I ran into the nearest hanger bay and saw a specter class fighter sitting on the launch pad. I saw the pilot climbing up the ladder into the cockpit. I ran up and pulled him down. I hit him a couple of times and knocked him out. I climbed up the ladder and started up the fighter. I looked at my chrono just long enough to see that I had just under a minute to clear the three click blast radius. I pushed the fighter’s engines to their max. Behind me the station exploded sending shock waves and debris towards me. I used my sensors and my instinct to avoid the bulk of the debris. From the edges of my vision I saw the fire storm created by the explosions starting to engulf my fighter. On my control panel I noticed that my shields were on the verge of failing. I took as much power as I dared from life-support and weapons and pumped it into my rear shields preying that they would hold.

…

Phage looked down at his drink and finds it empty. Just then Cap walked over with a steaming cup of Earl Grey for Phage.

“How many people were aboard those ships?” Picard asked

Phage looked down at his tea. “283 women and children died in that blast.”

“You did every thing you could have Captain.” Kira said

“No I didn’t. I could have warned them about the charges.” Phage replied.

“Love, If you had done that you would have been court marshaled.” Tenel said as she hugged him.

“I know, I suppose I should finish this.” Phage said

…

Right before the flames would have engulfed the fighter, I shot out of the debris cloud like a bat out of hell. I put out a call for Jack and found him just a little ways away in the same type of fighter. As we were making our way out of the Bad Lands we got an odd return on our sensors. When we got within visual range we saw that it was an old Daedalus Class starship that had been refitted. On the hull where the Federation symbols should have been was the seal of the pirate group we had just destroyed. With out a single word the ship opened fire. Our nimble fighters were able to move around her shots. Jack broke off to attack the engines. I flew low over her hull firing my phasers at any weapons port I could find. I pulled off my attack so that I could get a better angle. All of a sudden warning indicators started to flash. I glanced down at my panel to see that my main shields had failed. Apparently they had taken more damage in my flight from the station than I had originally thought.

“Jack, I’ve been hit! We need to kill this ship and get out of here!” I yelled over the comm.

=/= My…..is….damaged…..must….=/= the rest of Jack’s message was cut off in a flurry of static.

“Alright time to take you down!” I yelled at the ship. I flipped my fighter around and sent it straight to the underside of the ship. I knew that this style of ship’s warp core hatch was very thin and that it would not take much to breach the core. I brought up my pulse cannons and pored hell into the plate. The plate pealed back and my fire soon found the warp core. As if by magic the ship started to come apart in a brilliant explosion. I caught up with Jack and we were able to use a line of site laser to communicate. We limped back to DS9 where we spent the next two days being debriefed.

…

“Is this what you meant that night in the holodeck?” Tenel asked. Phage could tell, just by the tone of her voice, that his story had touched her.

Phage himself had not been left untouched by his story. “Yeah, this is what I meant then.” He replied.

“I know this may be of little help but you will, more than likely, have to make decisions like this again.” Picard said. His statement was accompanied by the nods and words of agreement from the other captains.

“Thanks but I should be getting back to Tenel.” With that Phage took one last sip of his tea before he rose to leave. “I hope to see you all again some time.” He turned and walked out more sober than when he had come in.

…

Cap watched Phage go, knowing that he had come to some sort of peace with his actions. He also knew that this captain was destined for something much greater than his peers.

…

Phage crept back into the flat several minutes later. As he crept across the old wooden floor a hand was placed on his shoulder.

“Where have you been?” His Tenel asked with a smile on her face.

“I went to a bar. On day I will tell you about it,” Phage grinned back at her, “but for now lets get some sleep. I have a surprise for you in the morning.” With that he fell into a dreamless sleep.


This is not the end of a tale but a beginning of another.