March Fiction Writing Contest

At the heart of every good Star Trek episode lies an exceptional story. The Stonewall Fleet community is brimming with many talented folk who have the ability to craft amazing adventures set in the Star Trek universe. Especially with the Foundry launching soon on Holodeck, encouraging these writers to generate and share their work is perhaps even more important now than it has ever been. As such, we'd like to give our Fleet's collective talent a public forum in which to share their work with the community at large and potentially walk away with some valuable rewards for doing so.

Kicking off this month, Stonewall Fleet is once again hosting a Star Trek Fiction Writing Contest to do just that. From March 1 through March 22, this thread will be open for entry submission. Simply cut and paste your story into a reply on this thread. This initial post contains all of the official rules as well as an involved breakdown of how submissions will be ranked by our panel of judges. Brandon (Bfelczer), Zepari, Solari, DoogieGood and I have all volunteered our time to review the entries and narrow down a winner.

After all submissions have been received, our judges will be poring over them from March 23-30 and rating them on originality, imagery usage, character development, story flow, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. On March 31, official results will be posted and winners will be announced on the forums. Prizes including a full Aegis set, rare tribbles and more will be awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners and their stories will be featured in an upcoming edition of the Stonewall Times.

We look forward to reading all of your creative entries and cannot wait to award some awesome prizes. The rating system breakdown has been included for your information below. Good luck to everyone! :)

- Brad (@Sturnack)

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Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation (30 Points):

On a point scale of 1-10 EACH, your story will be rated on how well it made use of proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Good usage of these elements can greatly enhance the reading experience of your story by preventing roadblocks like run-on sentences.

Originality (10 points):

On a point scale of 1-10, your story will be rated on how original it is. While borrowing elements from the Star Trek universe is in itself derivative, this category rates how well you made use of those elements and created your own story around them.

Imagery Usage (10 points):

On a point scale of 1-10, your story will be rated on how well it was able to conjure up accompanying mental images. For instance, there's a big difference between "The ship approached the nebula" and "The ship slowly glided towards the blossoming cloud of fiery nebular gases." Both technically get the basic idea across but the latter brings shape, color, and movement details to mind and makes for a more enjoyable reading experience.

Character Development (10 points):

On a point scale of 1-10, your story will be rated on how well it established the characters involved and fleshed out their emotions and motivations. Knowing why characters make the choices they do and what feelings are involved creates emotional touchstones that deeply engage the reader.

Story Flow (10 points):

On a point scale of 1-10, your story will be rated on how well it keeps the plot moving forward at all times. Stories that become bogged down with too much exposition or needless detail begin to lose the reader's interest. A well paced story is one that includes all of the elements above while also getting from points A to B to C and so on without extreme delay.

FINAL TALLIES:

With seven categories worth up to 10 points each, your story can earn up to 70 points from each of our judges. Point totals from each judge will be added together to create your final score. This means that your story has the potential of earning 350 points if it ranks a 10 in all categories. Once all point totals have been tallied, the stories that come closest to 350 points will win 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes respectively.

Final point totals will be available to the writer by request once the contest has concluded on March 31st.

Do submissions need to be Star Trek themed?

Good question. Yes they do. I'll bold that passage in the contest description so that it's a little more clear. Thanks! :)

That's an idea though. While we are a Star Trek/STO fleet, maybe it would be cool to have a contest where it's completely open in terms of theme and world. I'm not saying we change this month's theme (and I REALLY appreciate you taking charge of running this, Sturnack), but I think it would be a nice change of pace one month.

Since "Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation" count, I'm gonna have to dock you a few points for

Quote by Sturnack

After all submissions have been received, our judges will be pouring over them

I think you meant "poring over them."

;)

Thanks for catching the typo. :) Since you've proven you have a knack for fine attention to detail and proper spelling, when do we get to see your entry into the contest? :)

Here ya go. This entry is NOT guaranteed to be free of spelling and grammatical errors. (It's always harder to proofread your own work, isn't it?) I wrote it pretty quickly the other day, after seeing the contest announcement. If you need a title, it's called "Mind Games." Hope you enjoy!

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The captain sat on the comfortable sofa as if sitting there was some kind of punishment, hands clasped firmly together in his lap, back straight. The tension in his body was palpable. And contagious.

“Would you like to lie down,” the ship's counselor asked, fighting her own subconscious response to his nervousness. The question had become a ritual for them. He replied, as always, with an abrupt shake of his head. The red dot of light projected from his eyepiece--the last visible remnant of his time with the Borg Collective--zipped from side-to-side across the bluish-gray bulkhead opposite him.

Counselor Jun Felnar brushed a stray strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her traditional earring. She examined the PADD in her lap, not because she needed to review her notes from their last session, but because it gave her another moment to relax her own body and mind. Her years—decades, she mentally corrected herself—of counseling on Star Fleet ships had taught her that if she couldn't relax, her patients couldn't, either. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a second, and allowed her mind to drift back to the birth of her son. Her body immediately responded to the memory, and a wave of relaxation flowed through her.

“When we left off last time,” she spoke softly but distinctly, “you were telling me about your dreams.” She looked at the captain again, her gaze intent but not aggressive. Her eyes swept over his face in a practiced pattern, from right eye to left eye—or in his case, right eye to left eyepiece—to mouth. Her eye movements were orchestrated to convey interest without judgment.

The captain nodded slightly; the red dot on the wall bounced up and down. Jun restrained herself from saying anything to fill the silence. Eventually he would speak. Silence was another tool in her repertoire.

“There's not much more to tell,” he said, after a long pause. “Dreams are dreams. They don't mean anything.”

“You never dreamed when you were part of the Collective.” She watched for a reaction.

A flicker of pain appeared on his face, but only for a fraction of a second. A less-trained eye would have missed it, but Jun wrote her dissertation on micro-expressions. Very little escaped her notice.

“They don't . . .” he started, then paused, his face a twist of confusion. “They don't make any sense,” he concluded with exasperation, as if his dreams were a personal affront to him. He looked at her for some indication that she understood. She nodded and tilted her head slightly to one side. “I mean, why would my brain show me things that never happened—that never could happen? What possible survival application could there be for dreaming?”

After a suitable pause, to make sure he was done talking, she answered. “Not everything serves a purpose.” His human eye darted to her face, checking for any indication that she was joking. She consulted her PADD again. “You dreamed that you were walking in space, among starships. You dreamed you were a starship, flying through the corridors of Earth Space Dock. You dreamed of gigantic, room-sized tribbles.” She looked at him again. “What do you think these mean?”

He held her gaze for a moment, then looked out the window at the passing streaks of stars. It made him uncomfortable, giving control to her. This was his ship. He had earned it, serving Star Fleet well since that fateful day when the damaged Borg attacked. He knew from the start that his crew mates had been watching him for any sign of reverting to the Collective. Their scrutiny did not offend him. Not exactly. He would not have trusted himself, either. But their scrutiny did keep him on edge. A part of him wondered if he would ever be able to prove his loyalty to the Federation.

“I think they mean I've been getting too much sleep,” he ventured, allowing himself a slight grin. Jun raised a questioning eyebrow, but smiled at his joke. “Aren't you supposed to tell me what they mean?” he said, more seriously.

“I'll let you in on a little secret,” she replied, leaning forward and lowering her voice. “We don't really know, either,” her eye gave a practiced twinkle. He smiled at her candor. She mentally ticked the box next to “use revelations to build trust.”

“Well,” she said, putting on her professional demeanor again, “the dreams aren't why we started having these sessions.”

A storm cloud rolled over the captain's face. “No,” he replied, looking uncomfortable again.

“Are you still having those . . . episodes?”

He nodded. The red dot moved up and down on the wall. Jun internally chastised herself for being distracted by it.

“When was the last time?”

He took a breath. “Just before coming here.” Jun watched him and waited. “On our last away mission. Rescuing Lieutenant-Commander Paris from the Klingons.”

Before she could ask for more, he continued. “And before that, when our fleet confronted the planet-eater.” His words came quickly now. “I could hear them, even though I was on my own bridge. Even though there was nothing coming through the comm channels. The voices would say to do something, and then it would happen.” He paused to watch for any change in her expression, but she kept her face completely neutral. His voice became more desperate as he spoke. “And the other captains—I think they could hear the voices, too. Because sometimes a voice would say something like, 'Watch out, it's going to attack!' and the other ships would move away. And then the blast would come.” He shook his head at the memory. They had barely escaped with their lives.

Jun discreetly double-checked his test results on her PADD. No measurable psychic ability. “What else do the voices say?”

He looked confused as he searched his memory. It was fuzzy, like trying to recall a dream. “Everything. Nothing. I don't know.” He turned his head away, exasperated. Then he tried again. “They talk about music, sometimes. And they tease each other and make jokes.”

Talking about the voices, putting his thoughts into words, seemed to help him remember. “There's one voice, someone called 'Zep,' who seems to be a revered elder. And one called 'Brandon,' and 'Veeb.' And their leader is named 'Nick.' But there are different voices every time.” As he spoke, Jun quietly entered the names into a personnel query. The computer found no links. “And sometimes they say words that don't make sense, like 'put an ex in chat for peeveepee,' or 'anyone for the cure?'”

Jun felt her neutral facade slip for a moment, but she recovered quickly. She glanced at his face, but he did not appear to notice. “And what do you think they mean?” she asked calmly.

“I don't know,” he said, clearly frustrated. He met her gaze defiantly. “And before you ask, it's nothing like the Collective. These voices are disjointed. Unorganized. Chaotic, even.” He paused to consider. “But at the same time, they can be very driven. Like they are working together to accomplish . . . something.”

“And what do you think that is?”

He glared at her for a split-second, taking care not to shine his beam directly into her eyes. Then he shrugged, and for the first time in her memory, his whole body sagged, exhausted from carrying the weight of the universe. “I don't know.”

She watched him for a moment, waiting. It occurred to her that he was not much older than her own son. She fought back a welling maternal instinct, promising herself to process that emotion at a more convenient time. She could not afford clouded judgment. Not with so much at stake.

After a respectful pause, she spoke again. “I get the feeling there's more. Something you aren't telling me.” He looked at her sharply, and from his reaction she knew she was right. When he did not speak, she decided to push him. It was dangerous, but she had to find out. According to her contact, they were running out of time.

“Captain,” she said, her voice becoming official, “I don't have to remind you that
Admiral Quinn requested these sessions, and specifically ordered you to cooperate.” The young captain sat up straight again, his body automatically coming to attention at the sound of authority.

“Lately, I've been getting this sense . . .” he trailed off, grasping for the correct words. Then he started over. “You know how we go on missions? And sometimes we go to a star base or back to Earth?” Jun watched him as impassively as she could while holding her breath. Noticing her shoulders had tensed up, she forced herself to drop them a fraction of an inch into a more relaxed posture.

“Well, sometimes, between missions, I feel like,” he paused, uncertain of his ability to vocalize the thought, “like we don't even exist.”

Jun leaned forward. “What do you mean, exactly?” she said, hoping he didn't notice the crack in her voice.

He shook his head. “I can't describe it any other way. It's like, when we're doing missions, we exist. And for brief periods, like now, when we're on our way to a mission, or to star base. But then, when we finally get a moment to catch our breath, there's just,” he paused, searching for the right word, “nothing.” He shook his head and shrugged.

It took the counselor's last ounce of self control to prevent her from displaying any emotion. Part of her wanted to scream and bolt from her office. Instead she remained sitting, expressionless, watching the man she had served under for several months, and realizing he had become the most alien being she had ever encountered. Her PADD emitted a gentle beep.

“That's all the time we have,” she said, standing. Usually she waited for her patient to stand first, but she needed—desperately needed—him to leave. He stood, gave her a nod of acknowledgment, and departed. As the doors whooshed shut behind him, she stumbled over to her desk and collapsed into the chair, her whole body trembling.

The console on her desk beeped. Glowing purple text appeared on its screen.

DStahl: How much does he know?

“Enough,” she spat. Her words appeared on the screen as she spoke them. “He has all the pieces. He just hasn't put them together. Yet.”

DStahl: We're working on a patch.

Her eyes grew wide as she read the words. After a short pause, she spoke in a whisper. “Will I . . . remember?”

There was a moment before the reply appeared.

DStahl: No.

“Good,” she breathed. The connection closed; the screen went black. She was alone in her office. The office she had decorated (hadn't she?) to help her patients feel at home. Her eyes darted around the room, from the rug (her mother's) to the wall hangings (her son silk-screened them for her) to the ambient lighting system she designed to project warmth and security. For Jun Felnar, this was the most familiar place in the universe.

A shiver ran down her spine. She whipped her head quickly toward the door, then to the window, looking for some sign of . . . she didn't know what. Her eyes and mind raced, trying to catch the world in a lie.

She looked up at the ceiling. It seemed real enough. Was the light getting dimmer? Something caught her eye outside the window. Didn't we already pass that star cluster? She wrapped her arms around her own shoulders, hugging herself against the chill in her heart. And she waited, not knowing if the next moment would bring another mission, or . . . nothing at all.

I'm so exite! I'd submit something even it weren't a contest. One quick question--is the a target word count or general length limit governing submissions?

@Propecius: Thanks for submitting your entry! :) Congratulations on being the first person to throw their story into the ring. Good luck!

@JBrenden: Glad to hear that you're excited! So are we. :) To answer your GREAT question, there is no current word limit. That said, I would urge writers to keep their entries to a reasonable length. Our judges only have one week at the end of the month to read and rate all of the entries, so be kind on their time. :) That said, no entry will be discounted for length itself.

Bumping the thread, and reminding people to post their fiction. We all want to read what you've created!

After several days of edit and redraft, here is my entry; "Connor." Hope you all enjoy. :laugh:

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Connor slowly forced his eyes open, ignoring the combination of grogginess and searing pain that made him wish he were still unconscious. As he continued to struggle, stars replaced the blackness that had clouded his vision. The young man panicked for a moment, instinctively holding in his breath as he waited for the rapid decompression to boil his blood and burst his capillaries.

It was a moment or two before the realization that the vacuum wasn’t pulling him apart took hold. With a moment to relax, Connor became aware of the low frequency hum of the force field that patched the breach in the hull like a whispy, warm, blue membrane. He looked around, slowly, at the rest of the compartment—deck seven, section twenty-two gamma. This area of the ship was an engineering section, just aft of main engineering and mostly a junction for various electro-plasma power system conduits supplying power to the secondary computer core.

The entire section was in shambles. No lighting except for the occasional shower of sparks and a few small fires. Many of the power conduits had been severed, causing the occasional bright flashing pop as a surge of power attempted to complete its circuit and instead grounded out through either one of the ships structural members or the various metallic plating intended to house the conduits in the first place. The air burned Connor’s eyes and lungs, a combination of smoke and oxidized durainium from the arcing power conduits. Debris littered the floor—shards from destroyed computer access terminals, panels from the walls and ceiling, and even a structural member that had collapsed into the compartment.

Connor slowly rolled to his side, attempting to get to his feet. The pain was excruciating, each movement knocking the breath out of him for a moment. Warm, sticky blood flowed from a gash above his left eye and down the side of his face and partially obscuring his vision. His black and gold uniform as tattered and burned where shrapnel had torn through and imbedded itself in various places all along the left side of his body. As he continued to lift himself up, grappling with the remains to the bulkhead beside him, he was becoming more convinced that he had fractured at least a few ribs. Masked under all the pain, he was also becoming increasingly aware of a peculiar tingling sensation throughout his body, like when he had consumed too much coffee.

He couldn’t immediately remember what had happened. Why had he come to this part of the ship? How had it become so damaged?

The young technician looked around to see if there were any other survivors with him. The lighting was poor and all the clutter made it difficult to discern any humanoid forms, but he thought he could just make out a foot or boot near a massive collapsed beam that obstructed the corridor. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard voices coming from that direction the eeriness of it set the hair on his arms and neck on end.

“Is the anyone else in here?” Connor called out, his voice dry and scratchy from the harsh air. He coughed a little, a hint of copper on his tongue.

Connor had grown up in central Montana, the middle child of three. His parents were ranchers tending buffalo on the Canyon Creek Nature Preserve along the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Connor had never loved ranching or the rural lifestyle, even if it was the earth twenty-fifth century. Death was a regular cycle of life on the ranch, and he had seen his fair share, but every time he would help his father or older brother dispose of a dead animal he felt uncomfortable. During his enlisted technical training, he was squeamish around the holographic corpses used in the disaster response exercises. It didn’t really matter that they weren’t real. The thought of now seeing the lifeless body of a friend or peer was already beginning to knot up his stomach.

Timidly, he crept closer to the motionless foot.

As he reached the beam, the dancing form of the nearby fires cast a faint and ghostly radiance across the unmoving body that was still mostly attached to the foot. The realization of the sight struck Connor with an almost physical impact—he would have screamed if he weren’t immediately throwing up his breakfast instead.

After the coughing and spitting subsided, the young human stared down through teary eyes at the lifeless form of a Borg drone. Most of the drone had been smashed by the collapsing beam, but its pale and leathery looking skin infused with various black metallic components was impossible to mistake. None of the components showed any sign of power or activity, which allowed Connor a moment of relief even if the sight of its circuits and entrails across what remained of the deck plating simultaneously nauseated him. The odd tingling sensation Connor had noticed before ran down his spine and intensified his anxiety as he stood over the deactivated drone.

Seventeen months ago Connor had turned eighteen years old and immediately enlisted in Starfleet. As a child, he had visited the Cochrane Memorial near Bozeman dozens of times and dreamed of breaking away from Earth and the placid, country existence of his family. Though he had never been particularly passionate about machines or warp drive, being an engineering technician had seemed interesting enough—within the first few weeks of technical school he already was playing with his first injector assembly. Besides, he had no desire to spend four years in school studying science and whatever else Starfleet made its officers learn. Worse, now that the Federation was at war with the Klingons he didn’t want to end up in a foxhole on some obscure planet in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a phaser rifle and his wits.

The U.S.S. Valefor had been his first posting out of tech school. She wasn’t a very spectacular ship, just a run of the mill Nova-class science vessel. But Connor loved it. She was a small ship with a small crew—a small family. Everybody knew everybody on board and, for better or worse, everyone’s business. It was impossible to keep secrets on a ship like the Valefor. Connor liked it that way; it reminded him of the small towns near where he grew up. As much as he had spent his youth dreaming of escaping home, sometimes he would catch himself missing it.

Connor had never actually seen a real Borg drone before. Six weeks ago, the Valefor had been reassigned to Starfleet Battle Group Omega—a contingent of starships tasked with fending off the Borg advance in the Gamma Orionis Sector Block. The move had made everyone on the ship nervous, even the officers. Connor had grown up to tales of the horrible things the Borg were capable of and the atrocities they had committed. Seeing this one, squashed on the deck like an oversize insect, somehow gave him a sense of disappointment.

Though his head still felt foggy and he did not recall an encounter with any Borg ships, Connor was beginning to piece together a scenario. The Valefor must have encountered a Borg vessel during a standard reconnaissance patrol. Maybe they had been attacked and he had entered this section to repair something—Connor was a warp engine technician and this section was near to the magnetic-constrictor assembly on the anti-matter side of the warp reactor.

Suddenly he became aware of how bad off the ship must actually be. There was no lighting to speak of, none of the computer terminals along the wall were online, and the fire suppression system was not activating. Even the placid and melancholy voice of the computer was silent; he’d not heard it utter a single warning yet. His training began to take over and he began running through what he could remember of the trouble-shooting tree for damage control. First thing first, he was going to need to find a functioning computer terminal.

Connor began stumbling through the compartment, making his way deeper into the ship. He was starting to feel lightheaded and maybe even a little short of breath. Somehow he had the sensation that his blood felt thicker, like it was turning to jelly in his veins and his heart was having to work much harder to keep it all flowing. Was this part of the ship still venting atmosphere? Perhaps he had another, more serious, injury that adrenaline was hiding from him?

“Oh crap,” he gasped to himself, having finally reached the bulkhead.

At the compartment bulkhead was a doorway into the secondary computer core control room. The doors themselves were shifted diagonally ajar. Connor immediately realized that the only way that could happen is if the number six lateral member of the Valefor was twisted. The ship, quite literally, must have broken its back.

With the distortion to the door’s frame, Connor wasn’t sure he would be able to force the door open enough to gain access. He searched around through the rubble for a moment; finally settling on a tritanium cylinder used to route optical data conduits through the walls in this section. It wasn’t as long as he would have hoped and the ends were jagged and sharp, but he knew it would be strong enough to pry the door.

Connor wedged his new lever in the small separation in the door and gave it several strong pulls. The doors did not immediately budge at all, but suddenly broke loose sending the young man crashing to the floor in surprise. The tritanum conduit scattered off in its own direction accompanied by metallic clamor.

“Dammit!” Connor yelled, staring up at the ceiling.

Again, he climbed to his feet. His body still racked with throbbing pain.

The doorway had only opened up a small bit, but Connor was a small framed human and not very muscular. He managed to wiggle his way through the gap. Several times he thought he would pass out from the pain as the doors pressed against his various injuries.

Once inside the control room, Connor finally got a decent look at the secondary computer core itself. For the most part, the core seemed intact and operational. There were even a few terminals with fractured, but active, displays. Additional light flickered around the room from diminutive, dancing flames lining some of the conduits that supplied the core. Based on the damage pattern, Connor guessed that an overload had begun here and spread into the adjoining sections. Shielding around the core had protected its primary functions, but the rest of the conduits had not faired as well. From his new vantage point, he could vaguely make out the distorted form of the lateral member that ran right through this compartment and served as an anchor point for the core itself. The damage seemed awe inspiring in its extent.

Almost as if the fates were affirming his conclusion, the ship gave a creaking shudder that sent the already unstable technician tumbling forward from his tenuous footing. He managed to catch himself with his hands before his head collided with a protruding deck plate.

“What the…” he muttered as he stared at his own hands.

At first, the young crewman thought his eyes had begun to play tricks on him. Maybe he had lost enough blood that he was becoming delirious. Connor desperately hoped that was the case because already his mind was racing to another conclusion that terrified him far more than death. Sinister blemishes were visible on his skin. The thick veins that ran across the backs of his hands were dark and swollen. In the flickering light of the fires, he thought he could discern movement beneath the skin surface, like twitching muscle where none should be.

Despair and self-pity began to overwhelm him and take hold of Connor’s conscious thought.

“No. No…” he began to half burble and half sob.

“What’s wrong?”

Connor’s head snapped up, mid sob, searching for the source of the voice. It was familiar to him, but at the same time completely impossible. His voice echoed around the core, “Kelsi?”

He searched around, finally finding her seated at one of the consoles. Her clean appearance and pristine clothing were a stark contrast to the devastation around the rest of the ship.

“Don’t cry, Connor. You’re the brave one, remember?”

“What?” He stuttered. “But… how? Am I dead?”

Connor blinked his eyes a few times in confusion; sure that he must be imagining his fourteen-year-old sister trapped with him in this tomb on the far side of the galaxy. Still she sat perched on the stool and fussed with her auburn pigtails. She had always been a fidgety young girl.

“Tommy always bullies you, but you never cry.”

A sharp pain pierced through him and the young man doubled over in agony. He felt like his internal organs were being rearranged. In dismay he worried it might actually be the case. The nanoprobes were efficient little assimilators and he had no idea how long they had been at work.

“Be strong, Connor.” Her voice was soft and soothing.

Looking up at her, he fought back the pain. In a whimper, he replied, “I’m not stronger than this.”

“Yes, you are. You have to be.”

That was when he noticed it. The terminal beside his baby sister was not functioning as intended. Instead of the usual placid blues and ambers of standard issue Starfleet LCARS, the terminal was illuminated in a kaleidoscope of green and yellow circles.

“They’re going to find me, Connor.”

Her words carried with them a horrifying realization, sending a shiver down his spine that he knew wasn’t Borg nanoprobes commandeering his nervous system. Connor climbed awkwardly to his feet and stumbled forward into the terminal beside Kelsi. Resting on the remaining broken stool, he tapped clumsily at the panel and sifted through the fractured remains of the secondary processor. Buried within all the digital carnage was his worst nightmare.

The Valefor had indeed encountered a small Borg scout vessel near the edge of the B’Tran Cluster. It had been hidden among background radiation and the ship’s sensors hadn’t immediately noticed it. By the time they did, it was already too late. Some quick thinking by the Captain had managed to destroy the Borg aggressor, but not before massive damage had been caused and drones had swarmed every major area—main engineering, the bridge, the main computer core, deflector control; all were lost.

Very few internal systems were still functional. As far as Connor could tell, there weren’t more than a dozen or so life-signs left on the ship. Of those, he couldn’t be sure any weren’t drones. However, of greater concern, he could see that an invasive program was chewing its way through the secondary computer core desperately trying to gain access to what was left of the sub-space communications array. Already it had access to the navigation logs—including the position of the task force.

“Please, Connor, you have to hide me from them!” the girl pleaded.

Connor looked at Kelsi, remembering the day he hugged her for the last time right before departing for Earth Space Dock and the Valefor. A small tear welled up at the corner of his eye.

“No… I’m going to protect you.”

Turning his attention back to the panel, he did the only thing he knew for sure he could. The chief engineer, a boisterous Bolian who had an opinion for everything, thought he would make a great engineer someday—something Connor had taken a great deal of pride in. For right now though, he was still only a crewman second class that only really knew his way around magnetic constrictor coils. Hours on end were spent navigating the jefferies tubes of the lower bowels of the ship; Connor knew that system almost as well as the chief. His whole time aboard the Valefor had been spent keeping the coils functioning properly. Even a slight imbalance in the field geometry and the anti-matter would escape it confines and destroy the ship. All it takes is a faulty constrictor coil, a surge through an unshielded power conduit, or a corruption in the computer safety controls…

Connor felt strange undoing his own handiwork now.

The whispers of the Collective were slowly starting to grow in the back of his mind. None of the voices were distinguishable yet, but Connor felt like they were in the room with him now—hiding in the shadows like the monsters under his bed as a child. Connor stopped tapping the flickering panel, partly because he had done what he set out to and partly because he felt somehow compelled to stop. Resting against the console, he felt tired. He focused on his baby sister, wrapping himself in fond memories to fend of the approaching storm.

More than anything, he missed her smile.

“I love you, Sis…”

Very atmospheric! It gave me chills. Great job!

@JBrenden: Thank you for taking the time to submit your work. Good luck in the contest! :)

Hey Chem. Great suggestion! That is certainly something we can take a look at doing if this really takes off. :) I would love to see a monthly contest that evolves thematically in scope over time and potentially assist writers with finding new outlets for their skills. I won this contest a year ago and it compelled me to strike out writing professionally; its been an amazing (and scary, lol) adventure so far and it would be great to see others similarly inspired. :) Hopefully we can get a lot of interest and entries as we get things going!

I know we have TONS of creative people in this fleet. Better get your entries in soon. You don't want to miss out!

Only a few days left to get your entries in. So start writing! We would all love to read the Star Trek (or Star Trek Online) stories in your head.

This is an early chapter in the story of a Roleplay character that I have literally been developing and refining for years. Unlike many Star Trek characters, Jack Katoth is not officially affiliated with The Federation or Starfleet. He’s an archaeologist and entrepreneur, highly skilled in linguistics and history.

While there are certainly some missing bits of information (particularly backstory), I think this particular chapter in Jack's story gives a pretty good insight into his character, the primary plotline his story revolves around, and his official unofficial interaction with Starfleet.

I am still trying to figure out how to get him involved in STO, but the day will come when Jack Katoth makes his debut in-game.

Mysterious Ways

"The invasion of Starbase 27 lead by the pirate Sklar became a turning point for our relationship with Starfleet. Only time would tell if that relationship would be for good or ill." - Jack Katoth, a retrospective.

“Hope you haven't started looking for a new partner just yet, Rock,” Jack called to Racquel over the comm as he made his way to the brig, “although it was a close call, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Racquel's momentary pause was enough for Jack to know that she detected the unusual momentary seriousness in his voice. After nearly ten years together running Twin Star Conservators, Rock knew him better than anyone else. The subtlety, however, would be lost on the other two personnel in the cockpit of the the Whitestar: Jack’s “security,” Robert “Rob” Marshalapexo; and the ship’s technical whiz-kid, Tom McGuire. Both of them assumed he was being as melodramatic as ever.

“Sorry, Jack.” Racquel offered quietly and sincerely. Jack could tell by her tone that their delay in retrieving him before the ion storm hit Starbase 27 was not without it's own serious nature, but that was a discussion for another time.

Returning to his normal jovial demeanor, Jack replied, “Tom, my boy, tell me you recorded that apology! That's historic!” Jack could picture Racquel spinning the pilot's seat around to glare at the young man seated behind her.

“S- sorry, Doc. There was freak power surge in the archiving system just now.” Tom answered, playing to Jack's humor. “It’ll simply be myth that gets passed down from generation to generation.”

Jack feigned a gasp, “That's like accidentally dropping the Gutenberg Bible into a blackhole!”

“A what?” Tom asked, oblivious as usual, to one of Jack’s many historical references.

“Nevermind, get clearance to land and get down here. We're going to set new company policy about abandoning your boss during a horrific space storm. Jack out.” With the comm deactivated, Jack stepped through the doorway into the brig.

The security officer, looking bored to tears, appeared relieved to have some company that didn't include weapon-stealing-incarcerated-sociopathic-space-pirates. “Good afternoon, Doctor. Let me guess…”

“I'm here to see our new visitors.” Jack confirmed. “Particularly one fellow named ‘Sklar.'”

“He's in cell-“

Jack held up a hand, recognizing his once-captor almost immediately. “I never forget a face,” he told the security officer. Sklar was yelling and gesticulating madly, the sound dampeners sparing them the verbal assault. “Our friend looks a little stressed.” Jack said with a wink and a grin.

The security officer chuckled in spite of himself. “He's been at it since they beamed him in here twenty minutes ago. If you wait another half an hour, maybe he'll lose his voice and you can talk to him, without the yelling.”

“Oh, no. I want him to talk.” The momentary flash of anger in Jack's eyes seemed a completely natural reaction to the security officer. Afterall, Sklar recently had an energy pistol pressed into Jack's skull, threatening to kill his hostage. Anyone who actually knew Jack, however, would have been startled, and quite possibly frightened, to see the look of genuine anger. Jack was not one to lose his cool in even the most stressful of circumstances.

Jack pulled a nearby chair over to the Sklar's cell. In one motion, he danced the chair around 180 degrees, swung his leg over the seat, straddled the back, and calmly crossed his arms over the backrest. He watched Sklar continue his violent protestations in silence for several minutes before Sklar finally calmed down and resorted to pacing back and forth in his cell like a caged animal.

For a brief moment Jack felt an unusual electricity in the air, it felt as if he expected a static discharge at any moment. Assuming it was just being so close to the energy radiating from the forcefield, Jack nodded to the security officer who then turned off the sound dampeners. “So, ‘Sklar,'” Jack began, slow and deliberate.”Do you greet all new acquaintances by pointing a gun to their head, or just special people, like me?”

Sklar's face contorted with rage as he spat out a curse in an alien dialect. Jack's skill with languages allowed him to overcome language barriers better than a universal translator, but as with the universal translator, colloquial words such as curses, historical events, places, and names, were unique to each culture and frequently carried no recognizable translation. The intent behind them, however, was universally unmistakable.

Jack, however, recognized this particular curse. “Easy darling,” he said, a large humorless smile on his face. Just short of chuckling, he continued. “Usually you need wine and dine me before I'll do anything like that.”

Sklar lunged violently at Jack, apparently having forgotten about the forcefield between them. Sklar jerked back violently from the shock of the forcefield. A glint from beneath Sklar's vest caught Jack's attention. That glimpse was all he needed to know what it was that Sklar wore. The energy Jack felt wasn't from the forcefield afterall.

“So, there's more to you than meets the eye, my friend.” Jack said. Jack's humorless smile only fading slightly. In hushed tones so the security officer couldn't hear him, Jack asked rhetorically, “Something tells me you didn't find that on a academic excavation. No, you probably happened upon it accidentally, or stole it?”

Sklar stopped pacing and studied Jack with a quizzical look. He realized Jack was referring to the alien artifact Sklar wore under his vest. Before Sklar could respond Jack held up his index finger in front of his lips.

Lieutenant Commander Jenna Harris entered the brig, apparently finished with her duties from the Captain. Jack waved to her, offering her a more sincere smile than he was giving Sklar. She waved back, but began to discuss the prisoners with the security officer. They both turned away from Jack to review a monitor.

Taking advantage of their inattention, Jack stood up, gripped his medallion in his left hand tightly, then pressed his right hand against the cell’s forcefield controls. It only took a moment before the system overloaded and the forcefield went down. Before Sklar could react, Jack had already violently pushed him down onto the bench inside the cell.

Still holding onto the medallion, Jack pressed his right hand against the alien artifact beneath Sklar's jacket. Sklar tried to fight back but was barely able to move. Quietly, and in an unnatural sounding voice, Jack calmly informed him, “You are now feeling the pressure of four standard gravities. Ten will rupture the heart of most humanoid species.”

----------

“You're cleared for docking bay 3, Whitestar. Ops out.” Ensign Karen Peters had just finished punching in the docking sequence commands when a warning began to flash. She sighed heavily and began to wonder why the bugs in the system always cropped up on her shift.

Peters queried the warning message and her eyes widened. Hoping the captain wasn't in a “shoot the messenger” mood, she activated her communication badge. “Ensign Peters to Captain Rexan.”

“Go ahead, Ensign.” Captain Alexander Rexan replied.

“Sir, there's been a power failure in the brig, cell 4-A. Forcefield, security cameras, and control systems are all out. External sensors indicate the artificial gravity system is generating a 500% increase in magnitude and there is a growing energy buildup.”

“Get a repair team down there, Ensign. I'll contact security.” Rexan ordered.

“Aye, Captain. Contacting engineering. Peters out.”

----------

Sklar's eyes widened in fear as Jack continued to speak in an unnatural voice, “Where did you get that artifact?!”

“Wha- what?!” Sklar gasped.

“Six…” Jack said, “Seven. I won't ask again.”

Sklar's breathing became more labored as his body pressed harder into the bench. “I f- f- found it… at…. our… base!”

A single warning klaxon blared from the control desk which was out of line of sight. Having gotten the report from Captain Rexan, Liuetenant Commander Harris could be heard cursing, “Oh hell!”

Jack continued, “Good man.” Using the interaction of his medallion with the artifact under Sklar’s vest, he continued to apply gravitation force onto Sklar. It only took a few moments for Sklar to pass out. Jack then palmed the alien artifact from behind Sklar's vest and quietly dropped to the ground a heartbeat before Harris and the security officer stepped into the doorway of the cell.

“Jack?!” Harris asked, seeing him on the floor. “You alright?”

Jack tentatively got to his feet, as if to be testing his ability to stand. He knew the station would have registered the gravitational change and the power surge. Unless he raised suspicion, the best the crew would be able to determine was that the systems shorted out causing a fluctuation in the gravitational system and power relays.

“Y- yeah.” Jack said, offering a broad smile, “I had a lot of practice falling to the ground during the ion storm.”

“What the hell happened?” Harris asked.

“I saw the forcefield short out.” Jack explained dusting himself off and slipping the stolen artifact into his leather jacket. “I jumped at our friend here before he could get out. Then things started getting real heavy… literally. I think the artificial gravity was affected.”

“With two trained Starfleet officers in the room, you decided to try and stop a hostile prisoner on your own?” Harris asked, a bit of incredulity in her voice. Apparently she attributed it to Jack's reputation for macho bravado, “For a man who supposedly has two doctorates, you aren't very bright, Dr. Katoth.”

“Guess I was still angry after our friend pressed his weapon into my head. Besides,” Jack chuckled, “he didn't looks so big without his gun.” Rexan appeared behind Harris and the security officer a few moments later. “Ahh, Captain, just missed the fun… again,” Jack offered with a wink.

“Funny, Jack.” Captain Rexan replied, humorless.

“I did learn something interesting while I was talking to Mr. Sklar, though.” Jack reported. “Our friend and his cronies have a base of operations. Perhaps we should check the logs of the ships you tractored in and see if we can pull up navigational data.”

“Nice work, Jack.” Rexan and turned to Harris, “Get a team on it.”

“Aye, Captain.” Harris replied.

The security officer moved the unconscious Sklar into a new cell, and Jack followed Rexan and Harris out of the brig and into the corridor. “Captain.”

“What is it, Jack?”

“I have a request. If you go after that base, I request permission to join you with the Whitestar. I owe these guys a little payback.”

Rexan stopped and studied Jack for a moment. In the months that he’d been working the archaeologist, Rexan had never seen this side of Jack before. He paused only a moment before answering, “Granted.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Jack said, a little surprised the Captain of Starbase 27 had granted his request.

“Jack, you have proven yourself a valuable asset to this station, and surprisingly resourceful in a tactical situation. If you're going to help us with an assault, we're going to have to give that hunk of junk of yours some teeth.” Rexan watched for Jack's reaction.

Jack was surprised at the Captain inferring he was going to arm the Whitestar. The ship was designed to carry weapons, but Jack had never had the resources to maintain weapons systems.

“Due to your service to this station and numerous other Federation vessels and outposts, Starfleet has granted my request to install and maintain a half-dozen phaser arrays on the Whitestar.” Rexan explained, then offered Jack a smile. “It's not much, but it's cheaper than repairing that thing over and over again.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Jack said sincerely. “I'm speechless.”

“Somebody call the Federation Council! This has to be history in the making.”

“I'll deny ever saying it, Captain.” Jack smiled.

“Get that heap into Docking Bay 2 and I'll get a team to work on it right away.”

“Aye, Captain!” Jack said offering a huge smile and a melodramatic salute.

----------

Stepping into the cargo bay of the Whitestar , Jack secured the airlock and opened one of the smuggling holds in the Starboard wall. The panel slid open, revealing what looked like a display case of wide variety of alien artifacts. While all different in shape, size, and color, they all appeared to be expertly crafted stone work, and all bared striking resemblance to the medallion Jack wore around his neck.

Pulling the stolen artifact out of his jacket pocket. Jack carefully placed it with the rest of his collection. “One more piece of the puzzle.” Jack said to himself. He grasped his medallion in his left hand and held his right hand out toward his collection. As he did so, he felt the different energy signatures reverberate within each of the artifacts, as if calling to be released.

@Mark: Thanks so much for your entry! Good luck in the contest. :)

Tomorrow marks the end of the submissions phase of our March Star Trek Fiction contest. If you haven't already, be sure to get your entry in by the end of tomorrow. :) Judging begins on Wednesday with results being announced on the 31st. Good luck everyone!

Entertaining story, MarkNine! Thanks for sharing this snippet.

Now I'm curious what's going to happen next. :)

I just have to say, you all did not make it easy. I'm ready to start reading the remaining parts of the stories.