Legend of the Bain

Star Traks: Boldly Gone
Episode name
Season	10
Episode number	1
Writer(s)	Alan Decker, Anthony Butler
Year	2503
Stardate	178561
Chronology
Previous in series	Contractual Obligations [BG]
Next in series	Primary Sources [BG]
Previous in timeline	Contractual Obligations [BG]
Next in timeline	Primary Sources [BG]

While the USS Anomaly is docked at Waystation Prime for repairs, nefarious forces have set their sites on destroying the man, the myth, the legend that is Captain Reginald Bain. We hope they’ve paid their life insurance premiums.

Summary

Jackson Loomis, the CEO of the Dillon Consortium is displeased but not surprised with his android assistant, Gregory, informs him that Starfleet Command will not be punishing Captain Reginald Bain for the actions he took against the Consortium in the previous story. Loomis decides that the best way to deal with Bain is to destroy the legend that has grown up around the man. Gregory summons Tori Burke, who was on the USS Anomaly for a short time, and suggests that she take Bain to court. She says that there are no grounds. Loomis tells Burke to cultivate any relationships she made among Bain’s crew and that he will be working on other ways to deal with Bain.

The Anomaly is docked at Waystation Prime for repairs following their unexpected visit to the Multek Enclave and subsequent fight with the Consortium fleet. After Bain checks in on the ship’s status with Lieutenant Shelly Marsden, Dr. Natalia Kasyov, and Cabral, he encourages them not to spend all of their time working. They decide to go out that evening on a double date along with Marsden’s new husband, Lieutenant Commander Tovar.

Burke finds Commander Vioxx in New Starfleet Square Mall on the station and thanks him for rescuing her from the stasis tube on Edgeworld. Vioxx invites her to dinner the following evening, which she accepts, since she is supposed to get close to Bain’s crew.

Commander Prosak, meanwhile, is eating in one of the mall food courts when she is approached by a Vulcan who asks if she is a fellow Vulcan. She says that she is Romulan, and he realizes that she must be Prosak. Prosak is thrilled that she’s famous among Vulcans but tries to hide it. The Vulcan introduces himself as Snotch and asks if he can join her. Prosak agrees.

That evening Tovar and Cabral (through his hovercam) are waiting at the Anomaly’s gangplank for Marsden and Kasyov when a Federation Express courier arrives with a package for Bain. Tovar accepts the package just as Marsden and Kasyov arrive, ready for their double date. Marsden assumes it’s a part for the Anomaly and opens the package, revealing a genetically-encoded explosive. Before Tovar can examine it, Bain approached, activating the device. Marsden, Kasyov, and Cabral drag Bain away as Tovar deactivates the docking sheath connecting the Anomaly to Waystation Prime and tosses the explosive into the vastness of the docking saucer, where it detonates harmlessly. The group decides to delay their date to the following evening.

The next morning Tovar gathers the command crew except for Bain and Rosalyn Bain (who is away visiting her daughter and joins over a commline) and informs them of the attempt on Bain’s life. He has concluded that the Dillon Consortium is most likely behind it. Upon finding out that Vioxx has a date with Burke that night, Tovar says that he should keep it and attempt to gather information. After the meeting, Tovar, Marsden, and Rosalyn decide to ask the station commander, Commodore Theodore Ritter to spend the evening with Bain, so Bain doesn’t go after the Consortium alone.

Prosak sees Snotch again in the food court and asks if he would like to have dinner, since she has no other plans besides possibly watching Sub-Commander Remax and Centurion Nortal spend their winnings from the robot formed from the Dillon Consortium CasinoWorld. Snotch says that there is a purveyor of unique items on board at the moment, which might interest Remax and Nortal and that he will contact Prosak later to arrange their dinner plans.

After Vioxx tells Burke about the attempt on Bain’s life, she angrily comms Loomis about it, demanding to know why she had to get close to his crew if Loomis was just going to blow Bain up. Loomis says that it’s good to have a back up plan. Burke then tells him about her dinner plan with Vioxx that night, and Loomis says to pass along anything she learns.

That evening, Vioxx decides that he can’t be alone with Burke, just in case she is out to get Bain or him, and, after seeing off Remax and Prosak, who are on their way to meet with the vendor Snotch told Prosak about, and Prosak, who is on her way to her date with Snotch, he asks Tovar, Marsden, Kasyov, and Cabral if they can make it a triple-date. The group agrees, since it may make gathering information easier, and go to get Burke from her quarters on the station. Ritter, meanwhile, arrives on the Anomaly and requests a tour of the ship from Bain.

After deciding where to have dinner, the triple-date group takes a turbolift to the location but end up on the wrong deck. Instead, they find themselves in a narrow deserted hallway lined with wood paneling, gold trim, and golden fixtures. Tovar realizes it’s a trap just before several armed Dillon Consortium guards arrive and escort them to an empty room, well empty except for Prosak, Remax, Nortal, and Snotch. They are all locked inside, and as soon as the doors close, Cabral’s hovercam drops to deck, since his connection to it has been cut off.

Cabral contacts Bain, who is having drinks with Ritter, and informs him what just happened. Ritter contacts Waystation Prime Ops, but they can’t find Tovar and company. Ritter heads to Ops and tells Bain to stay on the Anomaly and let the Waystation Prime crew handle it. Once Ritter leaves, Bain realizes where his officers likely are. Since the Consortium was founded on Waystation as Dillon Enterprises over a century earlier, there’s a museum dedicated to it over in its original saucer. The museum takes up two of the decks, but there’s a deck right above those two that has been listed as under construction for a future exhibit for as far back as Bain is able to check in the Waystation Prime computer. Before that, though, it was a third deck of Dillon Enterprises. Bain decides that he is going in alone.

Loomis informs the captured Anomaly crew that they will all have their brains altered so that they turn against Bain, tell the universe what a monster he is, then leave Starfleet and join the Consortium. He intends to take care of Burke and Snotch as well, so that there are no loose ends.

Ritter has his crew watch Bain and finds out that he has already left the Anomaly. Bain takes a turbolift to the deck that is supposed to be under construction, and it indeed looks like it is with bare metal decking and nothing but support pillars in view with the turbolift doors open. Bain isn’t buying it and leaps forward, passing through the hologram into a wood-paneled corridor. He quickly drops several surprised guards with his wrist phaser and moves off to find his people.

Bain disappears from Waystation Prime’s sensors, and Ritter quickly pieces together the same thing Bain did. He and a security team head to the location while Bain blasts his way until Loomis’ conference room where he confronts the Consortium CEO. Loomis orders Gregory to attack Bain, and the android quickly smashes Bain’s wrist phaser.

Ritter and his security officers rescue Tovar and the rest of the group. Burke storms off to find Loomis while the others are evacuated to safety, except for Tovar who remains behind to help find Bain.

Bain wrenches Gregory’s head off of his body, shutting down the android, then turns on Loomis, who flees with Bain in pursuit. He chases Loomis into a special projects lab and takes down the CEO with several solid punches. Bain tells Loomis he’s under arrest, and while they wait for the authorities, Loomis grabs a large mass of wires, circuits, and metal and goes to hit Bain with it. Instead, the unfinished device electrocutes Loomis, dropping him to the deck. Bain goes to get help and runs into Burke. Bain continues on, calling for a medic, while Burke goes into the lab where Loomis is dying. She demands to know if Loomis was going to brainwash her too. He says that it doesn’t matter and that it has to be her. He then tells her to put on his suit, and she will be the new CEO. Burke removes the old and very out of style blue suit that Loomis is wearing and puts it on. Suddenly, she understands.

Three weeks later, Bain and Rosalyn have dinner with Ritter, who informs them that the Dillon Consortium has been evicted from Waystation Prime. He tells Bain to be careful, since they may come after him again.

Vioxx has spent the three weeks unsuccessfully trying to get a hold of Burke. She finally comms him, wearing an ill-fitting blue suit, and tells him that she is leaving that night and that he won’t see her again.

Before she leaves for Dillonia, Burke contacts Snotch and tells him that he will need to remain in contact with Prosak and continue to send her information about the Anomaly. He reluctantly agrees and ends the comm. The many voices inside the suit that now speak directly into Burke’s mind scream Bain’s name in fury.

Featuring

• Captain Reginald Bain
• Commander Prosak
• Commander Vioxx
• Lieutenant Commander Tovar
• Lieutenant Shelly Marsden
• Sub-Commander Remax
• Dr. Natalia Kasyov
• Centurion Nortal
• Sub-Lieutenant Zantak
• Cabral
• Rosalyn Bain
• Tori Burke
• Snotch

Author's Comments

Before I talk about the story itself, I should say a little bit about the delay in posting Series Ten…if 13 years even qualifies as a delay. It’s more of a gaping chasm of lost time. Anthony and I definitely didn’t plan on it taking this long (Of course we said that about the 5 year gap between Series Eight and Series Nine as well), and we actually had most of this run written years ago. More on that later.

So what happened? Most of it was the vagaries of real life. When we posted Series Nine back in 2010, I was a married man with two young kids and a full time job where I was taking on more and more responsibilities, so I was already writing a lot less than I used to. But then my marriage ended, and I found myself raising my kids basically by myself. I won’t go into everything else that happened during that time, but I was busy and writing Traks just fell way down the list of things that I had to do.

I’m not complaining, though. My kids are grown and doing well, and I’m married again to a wonderful woman. Things are good.

On to the story…

As I said earlier, Anthony and I had gotten a lot of work done on Series Ten over the years. The problem was that that a lot of what we’d written wasn’t quite working, and with everything else going on in our lives, we didn’t have the time or the focus to really dig into the issue until more recently.

“Legend of the Bain,” however, remained pretty much the same as it was written…whenever that was. Really, it’s a pretty direct follow-up to where things were left at the end of Series Nine and gives the crew a chance for some downtime, which they didn’t really get in any of the previous run. I would say that it was nice to be writing about Waystation again, but for whatever reason Waystation Prime looks and feels completely different to me in my head. That said, I was able to use a bit of the final Waystation story to help resolve things with the Dillon Consortium, and I had a lot of fun giving Craig Porter a brief cameo.

As this was the start of the run, a lot of what happens in the story is setting things up for what comes later. I’m guessing that was pretty obvious. I think it also stands pretty well as its own story. I’m happy with a lot of the character interactions in it, and it’s always fun to let Bain loose.

Links

Legend of the Bain