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brideofedoras · 4 years

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God Can’t Help You Now

A little one shot I wrote a while back based on an edited image created by cptn-jtk and the ideas people were reblogging.

My OC Eleanor happens to see a message sent to an ensign and confronts her brother.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or the characters, only my OC. GIF found on Google.

Warnings: mentions of naughty photos, some dirty words

Word Count: 1000+

Enjoy!

Eleanor’s eyes widened when she saw the message flash onto Ensign McAllister’s PADD. “Who sent that to you?”

The young man jerked and nearly dropped the device as he whipped around to stare at Elle. “The captain, ma’am.”

Elle reached out and took the PADD from him, shaking her head. The manipulated photo was of Leonard, taken on the bridge a few weeks back when the CMO had snarled at Jim’s enthusiasm for their five-year mission. A photo she had taken because the expression on his face was priceless.

How Jim had gotten ahold of it was beyond her.

God can’t help you now had been added to the image. The message accompanying the photo was short, to the point, and if she weren’t so upset with her brother for this little stunt she would have snorted.

“It has come to my attention that you have missed a medical evaluation with Dr. McCoy and/or his medical staff despite pre-programmed reminders on both your PADD and your communicator. Please report to the MedBay in a timely manner before our Chief Medical Officer sees fit to track you down. Thank you. –Captain James T. Kirk.”

She handed the PADD back to the ensign. “Thomas, would you mind forwarding that message to me?”

“Wh-why?” McAllister stuttered before flinching. “I’m not being insubordinate, I promise!”

She fought to not roll her eyes. The ensign was a complete idiot, and she wanted him out of her labs. “I know, Thomas,” she sighed. She stopped herself before she could reach up to pinch the bridge of her nose, something so Leonard-like it scared her. “How Captain Kirk got his hands on that photo, and why he decided to use a photo of Dr. McCoy is beyond me…” She looked up to meet the ensign’s scared brown eyes. “We’re two weeks into the mission, it’s been hectic getting the labs set up and ready for the first exploratory excursion. Our chief medical officer is more understanding than our captain claims.”

“Doctor Kirk…” McAllister started to say something but trailed off slowly. Then his eyes widened. “Are-are you related to the captain?”

This time she snorted. “Yeah,” she nodded. “Captain Kirk is my twin brother.” She pointed to the PADD. “I took that photograph of Dr. McCoy when we warped off at the beginning of the mission. He’s my boyfriend.” She smiled when the ensign let out a strangled I’m so fucked. “Forward that message to me, please.”

McAllister nearly dropped his PADD as he scrambled to do as he was told.

Once her PADD pinged with a notification she excused herself and headed to the Turbolift down the corridor. “Bridge,” she instructed the computer. Seconds later she requested permission to enter the bridge, her eyes locked on her brother.

“Permission granted,” he turned to smile at her.

Movement to his right drew her attention.

Elle froze. Fuck me, she internally cringed but managed a smile for Leonard. “Captain, may I request a moment with you? Alone?” Her smile turned apologetic for the doctor, who nodded. She flicked her eyes back to Jim just in time to catch him masking the slight panic in his eyes.

Jim nodded. “Mr. Sulu, you have the con,” he stated before motioning for his sister to head to the ready room.

Once inside with the door shut behind them, Eleanor pulled up the message on her PADD. She held it out to Jim. “How the hell did you get this picture?”

“I borrowed your PADD, remember?” He grinned. “Looked through the pictures and found this, thankfully before I found the vacation pictures you guys took. Really, Sis?”

Her eyes widened when she realized what he was talking about. “You went through my personal PADD?” She screeched. “You looked through my personal photos?”

“Never making that mistake again,” he groaned. “Seriously, Ellie? I’ve seen Bones naked more times than I care to remember, but my own sister?”

“What Leonard and I do in our private time is just that, Jimmy,” she growled at him. “It’s not like you haven’t done it yourself.” She leveled a look on him despite the hot blush consuming her. She couldn’t believe he’d looked through the risqué boudoir photos she and Leonard had done when they had gone to the mountains in Georgia for a romantic getaway before they had to report back to Starfleet. “Why the hell did you send out that photo to Ensign McAllister?”

“Bones was bitching about how several crew members missed their intake evaluations,” he sighed heavily. “Figured I’d have a little fun with sending out a warning.”

“Yeah, and McAllister damn near cried when he finally realized his supervisor is related to the ship’s captain. He damn near wet himself when I told him the chief medical officer is my boyfriend.” Elle huffed out a heavy sigh. “I need to talk with Spock about having him transferred to another department, he’s not cut out for my labs.”

Jim snorted. “He really nearly pissed himself?”

“Yeah, and you’re going to die once I show this to Leonard,” she held up her PADD.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he lunged forward but she sidestepped.

“What makes you think I’m going to let you get your hands on my PADD again, Jimmy? There’s more naughty pictures on here.”

He recoiled. “I don’t want to see any more photos of Bones with his hands covering your… your boobs,” he whined.

“His hands covered more than just my boobs,” she smiled before heading toward the door. Damn but she really missed that cabin in the mountains.

“NO!”

“Computer, please page Dr. McCoy to the ready room,” she called out.

The door slid open immediately. “What the hell is going on?” Leonard demanded as he strode into the room. “I heard screeching and yelling!”

“He went through the pictures a couple of weeks back,” she braced herself for Leonard’s reaction.

“That explains the damned death glares,” the doctor grumbled. “Is that why you dragged him in here?”

She shook her head. “No, but this is,” she held her PADD out to Leonard.

“Ellie, no!” Jim cried, but slumped when he realized he was well and truly fucked.

“What the hell is this?!?!?!” Leonard exploded, anger darkening his hazel eyes as he glared at the captain. “Dammit, Jim!”

“I thought it would be good motivation to get people to the MedBay!” The captain defended himself, warily eyeing the vein throbbing in Bones' temple. “I mean, it’s true!”

“For you, yes, for them?” Leonard snorted. “I can’t have the new crew thinking I’m a tyrant, Kid!”

“I could always leak some of those… photos,” Jim shuddered and shrank back when Leonard took a menacing step forward.

Elle bodily blocked Leonard. “You’ll do no such thing, Jimmy,” she warned her brother. “Because do you really want for everyone on this ship to see your baby sister naked?”

“No! Eww, God no!” He made a gagging sound and yelped when Leonard growled and tried to move around Eleanor.

“Oh, no, you don’t, Leonard,” she braced her hands on his chest and pushed him back. “Come with me.”

Surprisingly McCoy allowed her to push him toward the door. Once they stepped back onto the bridge she turned him toward the Turbolift.

“You just gonna let him insult you like that, Eleanor?” Leonard demanded once they were in the lift and on their way to the deck their quarters were located on.

“He wasn’t insulting me, Leonard, he was repulsed at the thought of me naked,” she touched her left hand to his chest. “And terrified at the thought of every crew member getting an eyeful. Or terrified at the thought of the murder spree you would go on if anyone else saw me naked.”

The growl that vibrated through his chest and reverberated through the Turbolift was primal. “Don’t want anyone else gettin’ the pleasure of seein’ what only I have the pleasure of seeing, Sugar,” he moved suddenly, pinning her to the back wall of the lift and kissing her soundly.

She gasped and pushed on his shoulders when he stooped to pick her up. “Oh, no, Leonard,” she whimpered when he nipped at her neck. “Cam-“ her protest was swallowed in another kiss before Leonard reluctantly set her back on her feet.

McCoy glared over his shoulder at the camera she tried to point out to him. “Damn nosy bastards.”

#star trek #leonard bones mccoy #james t kirk #captain shenanigans #angry bones #i love that grumpy chin

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jedwashere · 5 years

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A Billion Years Away - Chapter Seven

This Is How It’s Gonna Be

***

This is how it’s gonna be.

This is what you’ll think of me.

It’s going down like I told you.

This is how it’s gonna be.

***

U.S.S. Enterprise.

Lorca.

Michael! Michael!

We would have helped you …

We… could… have…

Lorca’s eyes opened, his head throbbing. He brought a hand up to his forehead, and it came away covered in blood.

Shit, he thought, scowling. He blinked, trying to get a sense of what had happened on the bridge.

The bridge was covered in smoke from blown-out consoles, and the lights were so dim that Lorca could barely see. He could see a body lying near him, and a brief examination showed it was Thenn, one of his antennae severed. Lorca felt for a pulse, and let out a brief sigh of relief when he found one, weak and thready as it was. He looked over from Thenn to see Jallistra slumped by the Ops station.

“Someone call a medic!” he called out into the gloom.

“Aye, sir!” came Reddin’s voice.

Lorca took a breath. Aye, sir. Two little words, holding in them a host of meanings that, for a while, he had almost forgotten he missed.

Take what you can get, he thought. There was no hesitation in his mind. Be a Captain.

He clawed his way to his feet, advancing to the Ops station. The woman - Maria something, he remembered - was there. There was a gash over one of her eyes, and it was leaking… a clear fluid?

Prick her, she bleeds, it doesn’t matter what damn colour it is, Lorca chastised himself.

“Report!” he barked.

“We were hit by s-some sort of unknown t-t-torpedo,” Maria said, her voice stammering and ringing with an odd, yet familiar, timbre. “There’s a ship on sensors. They’re hailing.”

“Shields?” Lorca asked Reddin, who was frantically checking her console.

As she did so, he went to Jallistra, turning her over. She had a nasty gash along her forehead, the dense network of spot-capillaries making the bleeding worse than it would otherwise have been. She was out cold.

“Shields holding at forty three percent, but whatever they fired caused damage multiple decks,” Reddin reported after a moment.

“Weapons?” Lorca asked.

“Phaser controls non-operative,” Reddin replied, grimacing in frustration. “And main torpedo launch system is down.”

“Work on it,” Lorca said. He looked around the bridge, the smoke cleared enough that he could see the uncertain faces of the crew. “I’m taking command of the Enterprise in lieu of there being a superior officer around.” He looked at Maria. “I assume regulation 19, section C is still operative?”

Maria paused for a moment. “It is, sir.”

“Right then,” Lorca said, striding to the front of the bridge. “They still hailing?”

“Aye, sir,” Maria said.

“Alright,” Lorca said. “Put ‘em through.”

The screen fizzled for a moment, and then the image of a thickset, scarred man in a Starfleet uniform appeared. Lorca’s eyes were drawn almost immediately to an all-too-familiar symbol on his chest.

“This is Captain Thaddeus Lovikov of the Terran Warship I.S.S. Novalis,” the man said in a thick Russian accent. “Stand down and prepare to be -” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “You are not Jallistra.”

“What was your first clue?” Lorca asked scathingly. Right away he realised that he had an advantage: this man had been expecting Jallistra, not him. Now he only needed to decide how best to use it. First things first, however. “I’m Captain Daniel Romero, in command of the starship Enterprise. You have violated Federation space. I’m willing to overlook that and let you go with a stern warning if you agree to turn around and go back to the Empire now.”

Lovikov paused for a moment, before laughing aloud.

“You’re joking, Captain,” he said scathingly. “Your warp drive is down, your weapons are crippled, and you’ve multiple breaches. I have the advantage.”

“You’re welcome to keep believing that,” Lorca said, smirking. “But in the interests of showing mercy, I’m leaving that offer of retreat open for the next… ooh, two minutes?” He let his smirk become a calculated, predatory smile. “After that… well, you’re gonna be shit out of luck. Screen off.”

Maria tapped her console and the transmission cut out, replaced by the image of a large, ugly looking ship: it had Starfleet lines, that much was certain, but it was a bastardised , exaggerated version.

“He won’t go for it,” Reddin said at once. “He’s a canny bastard - nearly destroyed the Enterprise twice before.”

“How’d Jallistra stop him then?” Lorca asked.

“The situations are not comparable enough to repeat the tactics,” Maria cut in. “This time he has a clear advantage. His ship is a Taurus-class battlecruiser, larger, heavier armed and more deadly than our own ship.” She arched an eyebrow. “And he knows the capabilities of his ship better than you do ours.”

The blunt tone reminded Lorca of the various Vulcans he’d met - not to mention Michael at her best (stop thinking about her, Gabe) - but he appreciated it. This was a time for honesty if ever there was one.

“He’ll buy it for the two minutes,” he said, confident in that at least. “So we’ve got one minute to come up with an option.”

“We could confuse his sensors with a spread of multi-frequency torpedoes,” Reddin said at once, “and try to escape.”

“Warp’s out, he’d outrun us,” the helm officer, a blonde-haired man whose name Lorca didn’t know, said.

“What do we have?” Lorca asked, folding his arms.

“I think I can get weapons online again,” Reddin said, turning to her console. “You’d just need to distract him for a few minutes.”

“We don’t have that kind of time!” the helmsman said.

Lorca frowned, something dawning on him as he looked out at Lovikov’s ship. “Do we know if their regulations have stayed the same since the 23rd century?”

There was a pause. Reddin and the helm officer exchanged a look, while Maria looked thoughtful.

“Unclear,” she said after a moment. “There is a discontinuity in the Terran Starfleet, but they may have retained their existing protocols.”

“I see,” Lorca said, still frowning. He looked out at the other ship. “Time?”

“One minute, mark,” Maria said.

“Alright,” Lorca said, “here’s what we’re gonna do. Reddin, get the weapon’s back up. Maria, help her, and see about adding shields to that list. Helm -”

“Lieutenant West, sir,” the helmsman said.

Nice to know, Lorca thought. “West, I want you to pull the evasive manoeuvre you’ve used the least out of the files, and get ready to execute it on my command. I don’t care which one it is.”

“The one I’ve used the least?” West repeated, frowning. “I don’t -”

“You say this guy’s fought the Enterprise crew before?” Lorca said. West nodded. “Then you need to do something you don’t normally do. Confuse the bastard. Unpredictability - that is how you win a battle. If it comes to a battle, anyway.”

West nodded, turning to his station. As he did so, medical officers arrived on the bridge. One immediately went to Thenn, pressing a hypo to his neck. The other went to Jallistra.

“How are they?” Lorca asked. The officer gave him a questioning look. “I’ve taken command. How are they?”

“Thenn will be fine,” the officer by the Andorian said, sighing. “Though he’ll be pissed about his antenna.”

“Twenty six seconds,” Maria said.

“The Captain’s fine, too, just concussed,” the medic by her said, looking at his colleague. “Should I bring her out of it?”

Lorca hesitated only momentarily. “Do it.”

He turned to the screen, resisting the urge to scowl.

“Report?” he asked.

“Shields at fifty seven,” Maria said.

“We’ve partial phaser’s back, though photon controls are still down,” Reddin added.

“Time,” Maria said quietly.

Lorca nodded. “Alright then.” He took a breath. “Open a channel.”

“Channel open,” Reddin said. A moment later, Lovikov’s face appeared on the screen.

“Captain Romero,” he said to Lorca, scowling. “I hope you realise that your ploy to buy time will not -”

“Captain Lovikov,” Lorca interrupted, “I am invoking Regulation 31 Alpha under the Archer protocol, and assuming command of your mission, effective immediately. Acknowledge confirmation or be declared traitor to the Empire.”

Lovikov’s expression dropped immediately. In fact, if Lorca had to make any comparisons, the thickset man looked like a fish with his mouth hanging open.

“You… how… what…” he said, his voice strained. “You do not have authority to take any action, Federation.”

“You have ten seconds to comply, or I will invoke Archer Protocol and have you… removed,” Lorca said, not backing down. “I’m guessing your crew can hear this, too.” Sure enough, there were officers somewhere behind Lovikov who seemed to be listening intently, and Lorca smiled. “Your ten seconds starts now.”

“Alright!” Lovikov shouted, scowling. “I will contact Command to confirm this -”

“I am Command here, Lovikov,” Lorca snapped. “As of right now, I have complete operational authority. You will transmit full details of your orders immediately for review.”

“I will do no such thing!” Lovikov retorted. “Regulations or not, you’re on an enemy ship -”

“Do I need to have you removed?” Lorca cut him off again. “Because you’re starting to sound insubordinate to me, Captain. Unless, of course, your transmission is just coming through garbled.”

Lovikov swallowed, and Lorca could see the warring impulses on his face: the desire to rebel, to call Lorca out, to prove his worth as an officer of the Terran Starfleet, versus the desire to fall in line, keep his post, and avoid the risk of some upstart standing right behind him taking his place and following the order instead.

“All I was saying,” Lovikov said after a moment, “is that since you are on an enemy ship, we will need to send the information with a secure encryption packet.” He sniffed. “Sir.”

“Then do that, Captain,” Lorca said, letting another smirk onto his face. “And make it snappy.”

“Yes, sir,” Lovikov said. The transmission cut out.

“That,” Lorca said after a moment, “will buy us about three minutes at best, while they check their files for ‘Captain Daniel Romero’. We need to be ready by then.”

“What’s happening?” came a familiar voice from behind him. Lorca turned, to see Jallistra frowning at him. She looked a little shaky, but otherwise alright. The wound on her head had been closed, though her forehead was still covered in blood. Thenn was up as well, being escorted off the bridge by the medical officers, blood still streaming down his face.

“Your ship got attacked by a Terran warship commanded by a guy named Lovikov,” Lorca replied. Jallistra frowned at the name as Lorca continued. “I took command and bluffed us a reprieve.” Her eyes widened in shock, and Lorca paused. He took a deep breath, and saying words that almost hurt him. “But, since you’re up: I relinquish command to you, Captain Jallistra.”

Jallistra paused, looking around the bridge, before looking at Lorca. She was clearly uncertain - uncertain about him, maybe, about what he had done? Or what he could do, if given the chance?

I wouldn’t trust me in her place, either, Lorca thought, giving her a wry smile.

“Your ship,” he said, motioning to the Captain’s chair.

“You’re right about that,” Jallistra replied, her voice a little shaky. She took a breath. “Please sit in the XO chair, I may need your insight given what’s been happening.”

Lorca let out a sigh. Better than being marched to the brig, I suppose.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said simply, sitting in the chair near her. He brought up the console, and paused, trying to work out the exact controls.

“Captain,” Reddin said. Lorca looked up on instinct, but Reddin was looking at Jallistra. “We’re receiving a data packet from the Terran ship.”

Jallistra frowned, looking at Lorca.

“I used an old Terran regulation,” he replied. “Since your regs are still largely the same, I gambled theirs would be too.”

“Clever,” Jallistra complemented. “Maria, go over the packet, make sure there’s no booby traps.”

“Already in progress, ma’am,” Maria said.

“Ma’am,” Reddin said, “Lovikov is hailing. For Captain Romero.”

Jallistra raised an eyebrow, and looked at Lorca. He shrugged.

“I couldn’t exactly use my real name,” he said. “I… think they’d probably remember me.”

Jallistra nodded, taking his point. “Alright, ‘Captain Romero’. Take centre stage.” She stood, moving to the side. “I’ll keep out of sight.”

“Good call,” Lorca said, smirking reflexively. He dropped it immediately at Jallistra’s dubious expression, and sighed, moving to the centre of the bridge as she stepped aside, out of the viewscreen’s way. “Reddin, put it on screen.”

“Aye, sir,” Reddin said, inputting a command. At once, Lovikov’s face popped up.

“We’ve transferred our orders to you, Captain,” the man said, looking irritated. “I await further instructions.”

Lorca took a deep breath. ‘Further instructions’, huh? “Stand by, Captain Lovikov.”

He motioned to Reddin to cut transmission, before meeting Jallistra’s gaze. She raised both eyebrows.

“What kind of instructions can you give?” she asked.

“Depends on the orders,” he replied, frowning. “I can’t just tell ‘em to ‘go away’ if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“It wasn’t, though that would have been really nice,” Jallistra said with a chuckle. Her mirth faded quickly. “So what?”

Lorca ran a hand through his hair, trying to thinking of a decent plan, and then something occurred to him.

“D’you have any objection to a devious and downright dirty trick?” he asked Jallistra.

The Captain frowned, folding her arms. “What sort of downright dirty trick were you thinking?”

“The sort that makes this guy no longer anyone’s problem,” Lorca said darkly.

Jallistra was still frowning. She looked at Reddin and Maria.

“Status of shields and weapons?” she asked.

“Shields are at seventy five percent, we have partial phasers, photon launchers still non-responsive,” Reddin said quietly.

“No match for the Novalis,” Maria added unnecessarily.

“We do have warp drive back, Captain,” West put in from the helm station.

Jallistra didn’t look happy, but she nodded, looking back at Lorca with a determined expression.

“Well, Captain Lorca,” she said, “under the circumstances, I don’t see that we have much choice.”

“Right then,” Lorca said, turning. “Open a channel.”

Maria input a command, and Lovikov’s face appeared back on the screen.

“Well?” Lovikov asked.

“Captain Lovikov, I’d like you and some of your senior staff to beam over here and join me for a briefing on our next few objectives,” Lorca said evenly. “In the meantime, you and your ship will set a course to accompany us.”

Lovikov frowned. “Over there? On a Federation Starfleet ship?”

“Well, since you’ve forced us to reveal our hand to you,” Lorca said scathingly, “there’s no point continuing to pretend this is a ‘Federation Starfleet ship’, is there? Since you’ve screwed up our cover this much, we need to touch base and figure out a course of action.”

Lovikov paused. “What are you saying? That you’re I.S.S. Enterprise?”

“Hallelujah, there’s a brain cell or two in there after all,” Lorca said derisively. “Now are you going to try rubbing the two of ‘em together and actually follow my orders, or are we going to sit here debating like a pair of real Federation officers all day?”

Lovikov scowled. “Let’s get one thing clear, Romero. I’m obligated to follow your orders. I’m not obligated to listen to you insult me!”

“You’re also not obligated to be an incompetent fool whose blunders have cost the Empire time and resources,” Lorca said impassively, folding his arms. “But here we are.”

Lovikov bristled for a moment. “Expect us shortly.”

With that, the communication cut off.

Lorca let out a whistle. “Well, someone’s easy to rile up today.”

“Once he’s onboard, we can take him prisoner, but what then?” Jallistra asked, frowning.

“I’ll transmit orders to his ship to withdraw and leave me to my ‘mission’,” Lorca said with a smile. “Unless the Terran Empire’s grown a conscience since my time, the crew on board will jump at the chance to replace Lovikov as CO.”

“That’s a risk,” Reddin said, frowning. “What if they decide to attack us?”

“What’s the status of our defensive systems?” Jallistra asked quietly.

Reddin checked her console. “We’re at eighty percent on shields, but we’ve still only got partial phasers.”

“Then eighty percent shields and partial phasers will have to do, won’t it?” Jallistra said, giving a wry smile. “But hopefully Captain Lorca’s plan works.”

Lorca snorted. “It’ll work, Captain. I know Terran attitudes very well.”

Jallistra raised an eyebrow. “You did, Captain, two hundred and fifty years ago. Now, things might be a little different.”

Her tone of voice was matter-of-fact, but Lorca still felt stricken.

Right. There’s that, of course. He took a deep breath. But we know them.

“Some things,” he said, keeping his voice as level as he could, “never change.”

“And some things do,” Jallistra retorted. “Let’s hope this is not one of those things, eh?”

Yeah, Lorca thought, nodding as he tried to keep his expression neutral. Let’s.

***

The wait in the transporter room was short: Lovikov was, if nothing else, a punctual officer. He beamed in with three officers - a Bajoran man, and two humans, a male and a female. Lorca noted dispassionately that the current Terran Starfleet uniform was similar in most respects to the one Jallistra and her officers wore, with the exception that the two male officers with Lovikov had no sleeves, and the woman’s uniform had a bare midriff. Only Lovikov himself had a ‘complete’ uniform on. Comparing these uniforms to the conservative, indeed downright austere uniforms the Terran ‘Fleet had worn in his day was almost amusing.

The bare belly’s back in fashion, huh? he thought, almost smiling. The sexually liberated attitudes that had been behind such… revealing uniforms had been repressed by the three Emperors before Georgiou, though she had been in favour of bringing that liberation back into fashion. Apparently, in that, at least, she had succeeded.

Lovikov stepped forward, taking in the room. Lorca had brought Reddin and another security officer in with him. He knew he’d have to be quick with this. Very quick.

“Captain Romero,” Lovikov said, his voice a low growl. “I hope we can make this quick.”

Lorca grinned. “Pretty quick. Reddin?”

Reddin raised her phaser, and before Lovikov could respond, she’d fired, her wide beam phaser stunning all four Terran officers in one shot. At once, Lorca stepped forward, bringing a tricorder out and scanning the four.

“Shit,” he swore.

“What is it?” Reddin asked, coming up behind him, frowning.

“I hoped he wouldn’t be smart enough to have insurance,” Lorca said, taking a small beeping device from Lovikov. “Unfortunately he was. We need to contact that ship, now.”

“I can hail them from here,” Reddin offered, heading to the transporter console. She input a series of commands. “Channel open.”

Lorca took a deep breath. “This is Captain Romero to the Novalis. Captain Lovikov has been placed under arrest for threatening an Imperial operation, as part of my authority under Regulation 31 Alpha. You are ordered to return to home territory and await further instructions.”

There was a pause. Reddin met Lorca’s gaze, her own expression massively unsure. Lorca smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, but the truth was he was no more certain about this than she was. He’d piled gambit on top of gambit in the most audacious way he could imagine: now he’d see whether it paid off.

“Understood Captain Romero,” a voice said. “This is Captain Jackson Laird, acknowledging report and wishing you success.” There was an underlying note of smug satisfaction, and Lorca found himself smiling: whoever Laird was, clearly he had been looking forward to this sort of opportunity. “Long live the Empire.”

“Long live the Empire,” Lorca repeated. The transmission cut out.

“Lorca, this is Jallistra,” Jallistra called from the bridge. “The Novalis is retreating. It’s opening a portal back to the Terran Empire.”

“Good to hear, Captain,” Lorca said, running a hand through his hair. “Now, d’you mind sending some help? I don’t think Reddin and I can carry this pile of assholes to your brig on our own.”

***

To say Lovikov was pissed off when he woke up was an understatement. Lorca had never seen a man hit a forcefield with his fist before. Judging from the nasty crack when Lovikov tried it, he probably wouldn’t see it again in his lifetime.

“You have made a mockery of me!” Lovikov hissed.

“You did that yourself, Captain Lovikov,” Lorca said with a grin. “I just took pictures.”

He walked away, Lovikov’s curses in his ear, and found Captain Jallistra waiting for him outside the brig.

“You saved my ship,” Jallistra said evenly, her arms folded.

“Well,” Lorca said, shrugging, “I was on your ship, so…”

“So, nothing,” Jallistra said, smirking at him. “Although I have to question just how much bullshitting you were doing.”

“Ah, you noticed that, huh?” Lorca chuckled. “Yeah, I have to admit: my style’s always been a little, uh…” He full on laughed. “Would ‘haphazard’ work?”

“It might,” Jallistra said, her smile fading. “Truth be told, Captain Lorca -”

“Gabriel, please,” Lorca said, holding up a hand. “I think standing on ceremony gets old after something like this.”

“Gabriel,” Jallistra tried, nodding. “Alright. I think, Gabriel, that you were reckless, that you could have gotten us all killed.” Lorca felt his spirits sink at that. “I also think that you could have just betrayed us all to the Terrans and tried to leave, escape to somewhere else.”

Lorca smirked at that. “Where would I go?”

“There’s a great many places a resourceful man might choose to go, to escape the threat of a prison cell,” Jallistra replied. “But you chose to stay, and try to help. And in the process you’ve given Starfleet valuable Terran prisoners.”

“Speaking as a less valuable Terran prisoner, I’m glad to be of service,” Lorca said, trying not to make his sarcasm too biting. “Now, Captain Jallistra -”

“Alyn,” Jallistra said, cutting him off. “My name’s Alyn.” She smiled. “Since we seem to be on first name terms.”

“Alyn,” Lorca repeated, smiling. “I should probably get back to my quarters. This hasn’t quite been the tour I was expecting, but it was certainly an exciting diversion.”

“Alright,” Jallistra said, inclining her head. “Mind if I join you for a drink? I can tell you all about our previous encounters with Captain Lovikov.”

There was something about the twinkle in her eyes that Lorca recognised, and he grinned. “I think I’d enjoy that, to start with.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Gabriel,” Jallistra said, her smile widening.

There wasn’t much more to say after that.

#star trek #a billion years away #fan fiction #star trek discovery #the plot bunnies have shotguns #captain lorca #gabriel lorca #gambit chain #so much gambit chain

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