From: neale@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Neale Davidson)
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: STMOW 6/20
Date: 29 Jul 92 01:30:19 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center


 
  - STAR TREK     ----------------------------------------------------
  - MORALS OF WAR ----------------------------------------------------
 
  Part Six of Twenty
  (Not Including the Prelude)
 
  Disclaimer : This is fan-zine material, which means that it's
  neither cannon nor seeking to be. I'm doing this for fun.
 
  --------------------------------------------------------------------
 
  CHAPTER SIX
 
     Intelligence Officer's Log : Supplemental
     Commander Thomas William Riley
     Executive Officer, USS ENTERPRISE, NCC 1701-B
 
     It appears that my initial concerns about sabotague have
     become reality. This ship is on direct course for Genesis
     sector, and I've got my suspicions as to what is awaiting
     us.
 
     I am growing increasingly frustrated with the situation on 
     ENTERPRISE. The crew is in disarray, the ship is falling 
     apart, and I am hampered by the neccessity of my position. 
     If something does not change soon, I am likely to take 
     things into my own hand.
 
        "Damage control reports that major systems malfunctions
  are occuring throughout the ship," Tiber quickly summarized as
  Saavik and Riley nearly simultaneously entered the bridge.
        The Red Alert systems had activated, and the air was
  filled with dozens of malfunction calls and systems failure
  reports. Riley quickly analyzed the systems display. Only Life
  Support and the Warp Drive work working normally. "Riley to
  Grissom, I want a manual evaluation of every system this ship
  has got," he barked to his insignia. "Put everyone on it,
  including the janitorial crew."
        Saavik looked through her bridge. Every system was down.
  There was no question now, someone had sabotauged the ship.
  "Lieutenant Tiber, I want that report of every malfunction that
  the ship has suffered."
        "It's in the computers," Tiber quickly replied before
  realizing that that meant that the report was as good as lost.
  "I can try to get a written report from all decks," he added,
  looking over to Riley who nodded agreement. Riley had already 
  recieved Tiber's written report a few moments before.
        Saavik finally took her center seat. "Do we have
  communications capacity?" she queried, wondering wether or not
  she really wanted to know the answer.
        "Negative, sir, all systems are scrambled," Monroe
  responded out of fear. "I'm trying to get past the system
  garbage."
        Riley uncharacteristically flinched at Monroe's answer.
  His eyes narrowed for a moment, concentrating on Monroe's form.
  Monroe? Riley considered for a moment. There was something 
  wrong with his being here, Riley concluded. He was out of 
  place. Granted, fleet hadn't yet assigned a navigator to the 
  ENTERPRISE when Riley had been reading personnel, but something 
  was amiss.
        Campbell rushed onto the bridge, holding a but of 
  computer core in he hand. "Sirs, there's been phaser fire in 
  the main computer core." She indicated the burn mark through 
  the center of the core. "There's so much damage, I don't think 
  we can fix it without drydocking."
        Saavik kept in a growl, looking unemotional even in the 
  chaos which surrounded her. "The food replicators, the ones 
  which work," she saw fit to add given the current situation. 
  "They can be used to replicate the working sections of the 
  computer core. Can they not?"
        Campbell looked confused for a moment, then lit up with 
  realization. "You mean we can replicate the working computer 
  banks and use the replications to replace the damaged ones," 
  she replied, eager to commit herself to the assignment.
        "Is that not what I said, Miss Campbell?" Saavik cooly 
  replied, signaling to the young woman to continue her duties. 
  "Get the computer on-line as soon as possible, too many other 
  systems depend on it."
        Riley was about to add something to that, but let the 
  thought go. There are safer places to discuss such things than 
  he, he thought to himself. "Captain, if this is a trap, then I 
  would suggest that the sheilding and weapons systems be placed 
  on priority."  
        "Our priority is to not allow ourselves to fall into 
  the trap," Saavik evenly responded. "We will abort the takeover 
  of the ship's navigational systems and return to space dock for 
  major repairs."
        It was a logical argument. But it wasn't the correct one. 
  The people responsible for the trap had to be caught, otherwise 
  they would make a new, deadlier, trap. Riley kept his opinion 
  to himself, not wanting to show disrespect to his captain. "Of 
  course, but would it not be logical to place sheilds on 
  priority, as a contingency?" he decided to say instead.
        "Logical," Saavik responded, then motioned to a crewman 
  to carry the order below. Riley regarded his captain for the 
  first time in her role. She was indeed capable, and fairly 
  impressive. She handled crisis fairly well.
        But, there was more. Riley had genuinely been upset when 
  ordered to circumvent her authority in this mission. She could 
  never know it, but the two of them had much more in common than 
  the ENTEPRISE. He sympathized with her inner torments, noticing 
  things that no one else would. Her slight emotional slips, and 
  her nervousuness at command, though only very slight, must 
  trouble her deeply. Riley knew the Vulcan way only too well.
        Riley again turned his attention to the bridge, and it 
  was Saavik's turn to study him. Riley was quite imposing, 
  possessing a commanding aura. His dark brown eyes and worn face 
  seemed to demand loyalty. From his records, she knew him to be 
  intelligent and capable. From his words, she knew him to be 
  saavy. And from him, she found him attractive and amicable. He, 
  quite simply, intimidated the hell out of her.
        Saavik noted Riley's studying of the bridge, taking in 
  every detail that he could, escpecially when studying Ensign 
  Monroe. The Riley didn't say anything about it, it was plainly 
  obvious that Riley had some reservations about the navigator.
        "Captain," Commander Riley suddenly piped. "Permission to
  leave the bridge. I would like to be of help below." Saavik
  questioned that, but there certainly couldn't be much more harm
  done by his leaving. Before she could answer, Riley had
  already left.
        Tiber rushed over to aid Campbell, mainly by placing his
  arm around her. The couple rushed to the science-station, and 
  began pulling the covering from it.
        Tiber, though not very knowledgable in the ways of 
  engineering, began pulling every console and core sample that 
  Campbell indicated. They kept as busy as everyone else about 
  them.
        Even with work crews busy repairing the massive interal 
  damage, and even with the smoothness she had given her 
  commands, Saavik was not relaxed. She felt helpless as her 
  people did the work. Even Riley seemed to be doing more than 
  she felt she needed to. Of course, Riley seemed to do that 
  often, Saavik grimly muttered.
        Though she had been handling things quite well, Saavik 
  felt as if she were watching her command starting to 
  disintegrate around her.
 
        Engineering fared worst on the ship. While there were 
  fortunately no fatalities, three men had already been minorly 
  injured when alum-glass and metal flared from exploding panels 
  and safeties.
        Grissom was quite busy shoveling all of her sweat off of
  her brow as she tried to repair system after system. "Damn it,
  Ravis, I thought you were the best man for the job," she
  barked.
        Ravis activated more switches, trying to undo the damage 
  the ship had undertaken. Nothing seemed to work. "The main warp 
  control circuitry has been severed, backup systems may be 
  operational, but the computer refuses to link with them."
        "That's because," Deuce shouted from across the room, 
  "there is no main computer." Deuce pulled a couple of panels of 
  his own, revealing several power couplings.
        Grissom growled. Some man had ruined her engines, before 
  she had even gotten a chance to tinker with them. "Ensign 
  Deuce, did you get ship communications and subspace working?"
        "Subspace is very rough, but it's up," Deuce replied as 
  he pulled open the covering to a coupling. "Ship communications 
  are functional, but not reliable."
        Grissom finished at her station, "I've got helm control 
  back. I can't fix the navigation system without the computer, 
  so we'll have to hit that as soon as the power grid's done," 
  she cooly ordered. "Ravis, what are you working on?"
        Ravis began shaking, the strain was getting to him. Deuce 
  looked over, forcing down the instinct to console his partner. 
  "I'm trying to get the warp control working," Ravis quaked, 
  "but there's been some severe damage. I'm trying to patch it 
  up, but I don't expect miracles."
        Then the sound of hell filled the room.
        Ravis's face went to stone as Deuce sudennly screamed. 
  His panel weent ablaze and fire raced up his arm. Ravis rushed 
  over, ignoring the warp control panel he had been working on.  
  Grissom grabbed the manual extinguisher and sprayed away, 
  flooding the bay with fire retardant.
        "I'm sorry, Deuce," Ravis cried as the two were covered
  with retardant foam. Deuce couldn't answer, instead accepting
  the sweet bliss of unconsciousness. Ravis held him in his arms, 
  holding tight, hoping to hold the life within his lover.
        "Grissom to sick bay," Grissom commanded to her chest
  insignia, "emergency teams to secondary engineering." She
  quickly tuned her attention to the panel itself, battling the
  fire raging from it. "Fire and damage control teams to
  engineering."
 
        When Riley entered his room, he let his controlled form 
  relax. There was work to be done on the ship, but there would 
  only be more malfunctions if he didn't do his work here first.
        Riley composed himself, fighting the slight depression 
  which had begun to work on him. He had again lied to Saavik, 
  something neccessary though disturbing. Lying to a superior 
  officer, though ordered to do so by another superior, was 
  wrong.
        He collapsed into his work chair, only having been away 
  from it for a couple of minutes. There was work to be done, he 
  decided, for better or worse. Morality would have to wait.
        "Computer," Riley began, "cross-reference list of
  ENTERPRISE malfunctions with the ship's crew. Look for any
  correlation between that list, and crewmembers present at
  malfunction sites."
        Riley hadn't expected to be using his own personal
  computer for ship's business, but the ship's computer had been
  seriously damaged, and it was likely that remaining files had
  been tampered with. His personal computer, his link to the
  Federation intelligence network, was the only secure machine in
  the ship.
        "There are no single correlations found," the computer
  finally repeated. Riley had somewhat expected this, it would
  not be logical for a single operative to hit the hip with so
  many malfunctions. His trail would be too easy to mark.
        "Repeat search, include all multiple instances of
  crewmembers and malfunction sites," Riley cooly replied. This
  time, there would be a variety of answers, he thought to
  himself.
        "Crewmembers as follows. Riley, Commander Thomas William,
  present at docking ring failure, present at navigation command
  failure. Saavik, Captain, present at docking ring failure,
  present at food station seven failure, present at navigation
  command failure." The list was indeed quite long, but it did
  leave Riley wondering why his name appeared above Saavik's.
        "Computer," Riley interrupted with a hint of impatience,
  "Eliminate occurances of less than six." The computer complied
  with a small beep sequence. "Repeat list with new parameters."
        "Crewmembers as follows," the computer began. Riley
  straightened his back, dreading the names he was about to hear.
  "Cheif Engineer Lieutenant Grissom, Maintenance Officer Ensign
  Joshua Matthew Ravis, Navigation Officer James Micheal Monroe.
  List ends."
        Riley took several seconds before recording the list and
  shutting the power from his computer. He let a controlled sigh
  of dispair slip from him as he stood to consider his next
  course of action.
        There were now three suspects. But before continuing on 
  this premise, Riley concluded, it was neccessary to review the 
  three of them and their records.
        Grissom wasn't around on the ship for the majority of the
  malfunctions, and, despite her attitude, there was nothing
  about her record which could indicate enemy sympathies.
        Riley decided that he didn't know too much about Ravis. 
  Ravis was well known to be homosexual, though until now that 
  was the only thing known about him. As an ensign, his record 
  was, at best, brief. He was a likely candidate, mainly because 
  an ensign on a new ship was both an easy and convincing 
  disguise.
        Then there was Monroe. Riley had reviewed every 
  crewmember's record, and could find no trace of Monroe's 
  transfer to the ENTERPRISE nor his record previous. He was an 
  obvious plant, probably intended to hide Ravis.
        "Computer, crewman status report, please," Riley 
  commanded to his machine with a bit of hesitation.
        "Identify subject," it gleefully responded.
        Riley stroked his chin for a moment, pondering on wether 
  he was doing the right thing. Perhaps he should talk to Saavik 
  before continuing, and quit playing the spy. But there was no 
  denying his role in these matters.
        "Ensign James Micheal Monroe," he finally, slowly, 
  responded to the computer. "Assigned aboard USS ENTERPRISE as 
  a navigational officer."
        "No record on file," the machine called back. It was all 
  the confirmation neccessary. Monroe's record had been added 
  aboard ENTERPRISE by someone, but Star Fleet's records didn't 
  recognize him.
        "Riley to bridge," he called, silently hoping that the 
  intra-ship communications were still working.
        He was greatly relieved when Saavik's voice came across. 
  "Captain here. What may I do for you, Commander?" she politely 
  replied, though the strain in her voice was obvious.
        "Patch me through to Headquarters," Riley cooly replied, 
  somewhat apologetic that he had to give orders to his superior 
  officer. "I want to talk to Star Fleet Command."
 
 


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