Collect Call

Star Traks: Waystation
Episode name	Collect Call
Season	Stardate 55---
Episode number	6
Writer(s)	Alan Decker
Year	2378
Stardate	55876
Chronology
Previous in series	Disintegration
Next in series	Neighborly Advice
Previous in timeline	Change Of Plans - Part Two [VEX]
Next in timeline	On Your Marks [VEX]

It's time to take the battle to the enemy as Captain Lisa Beck sets out on a mission to track down the Collectors.

Summary

This story picks up at the end of Disintegration.

The day after the battle with the Collectors, Captain Lisa Beck is surveying the damage to Waystation and learns that Yeoman Tina Jones did not evacuate with the other non-essential personnel as ordered. Ih'mad praises Jones fighting prowess, though. She goes to find Yeoman Jones, who is in the Deck 26 conference center preparing a system to deal with the return of Waystation's residents in an orderly fashion. Beck tells her that when things calm down they need to have a chat about getting her into Security, where she would thrive.

Becks holds a staff meeting and gets the complete rundown on the station's condition. At the end of it, President Bradley Dillon arrives, congratulates the crew on their efforts, then remains after the others have gone to speak to Beck. She is worried about how little they know about the Collectors. Bradley tells her to follow the money. The Collectors collect. Why? She will never be able to deal with the Collectors until she understands their motives. Beck orders Lieutenant Commander Craig Porter to gather any information he can about the location of the Collectors' home system and to get the USS Wayward back up to 100% operational.

Three weeks later, the Wayward is approaching the Collectors' home world with Beck, Porter, Stephanie Hodges, and the Chief Assessor from their captured Vault-Ship aboard. They find several massive, box-like structures floating around what was probably at one time a planet. Now it is a barren hulk, its once spherical shape marred by jagged gaping tears and rips thousands of miles across, carving deep valleys into its surface. A Vault-Ship is connected to one of the large boxes by a series of umbilicals. The Chief Assessor unwillingly helps them gets past two patrol fighters. The patrol is impressed by the Wayward and tells the Chief Assessor that Grenana will love it.

Detecting a small habitable region under the surface of the ravaged planet, Beck, Porter, and the Chief Assessor beam down while Hodges keeps the Wayward ready to flee. They find themselves inside a long wallpapered hallway leading up to a bright, white door adorned from top to bottom with intricate inlaid carvings. Inside the door they meet Grenana, a tiny woman in a blue, floral-print muumuu, hunched over with age. She lives in a small, cluttered apartment and is not happy with her lot in life. She explains the Collectors to them. She was the queen of this now barren planet, and, starting as a child, she collected figurines. As she grew up and had her own kids, they would compete to see who could get her the best figurine on her birthday. And then it escalated. They were arguing and pitting the provinces they ruled against each other. The gifts went from figurines to whatever their best artisans could devise. Grenana's birthday became more about one-upmanship than anything else. Her children constructed huge warehouses around her palace to hold their gifts to her. Then the arguing became actual fighting, which was passed down to her grandchildren. By this time that happened, Grenana was looking forward to her death, but then her planet's scientists developed a stasis technology that allowed her to be awake and aware but not age as long as she was inside the stasis field. Her grandchildren built the bunker in which she now lives for her and locked her inside while they continued fighting to give her the best additions to her collection. She just wanted it to stop, but her grandchildren wouldn't listen. Gifts for Nana became gifts for Great Nana and so on until they just started calling her Grenana. The ones in charge of the Collectors currently don't even know what the name means.

Generations of continued fighting went by, and the Collectors reached out into space. About twenty years ago, the leaders of the factions, which by then numbered just over one hundred, met and devised a new plan. They called a truce and stopped the fighting before there was no planet left to fight on. Instead, each faction got a ship, a massive ship able to hold tons and tons of their 'acquisitions.' They planned to use these Vault-Ships to strip other planets, ones without the technological might to resist them, clean and then bring their stolen goods back to gigantic orbital warehouses, one for each faction. The only problem they had was that decades upon decades of war had reduced their planet's population to almost nothing. That's when the mind-control helmets were invented. They started raiding other worlds and taking their people away, fitting them with helmets, and using them to build the fleet of Vault-Ships. Then, when the ships were done, they kept the stolen people to use as Collectors when they swarmed across a new planet. One hundred and nine ships were launched five years earlier, and gradually they were picked off one by one. Most often it was because the Chief Assessor, the head of the faction and the Vault-Ship, underestimated the ability of a species to fight back. Now there are only thirteen remaining.

Beck offers to take Grenana away to a place where she could live out the rest of her life in peace. Grenana jumps at the chance and orders the Chief Assessor to tell the other Collectors that she has died. With no one to collect for, the Chief Assessor wonders what he will do now. Opening a pastry shop sounds good. Beck takes Grenana to the Betelgeuse Acres Retirement Community, where she quickly and eagerly settles in.

With that crisis resolved, Beck turns her attention to their other big problem: the Multeks. She has Commander Walter Morales fly the Vault-Ship to Multos, so that they can return the items the Collectors took before they were drawn to Waystation. Dr. Amedon Nelson gets to see Frequoq Wuddle's homeworld for the first time. Beck speaks to the true power in the Multek Enclave, the Council of Elder Wizards, telling them that they cannot hide from the rest of the galaxy anymore. Their people now know the truth, and, if they want assistance, the Federation is willing to help.

Late that night, President Dillon visits Beck in the quarters she is using on the Vault-Ship and gives her the news that the Council of Elder Wizards has decided to take her advice and open diplomatic ties with the Federation. He also thanks her for making him realize that there comes a time when you have to take action if you ever hope to accomplish what's really important to you. He continues, saying "...the pieces are quickly falling into place. Soon it will be time. Time indeed." Beck has no idea what he's talking about, and Bradley doesn't explain. He bids her goodnight and leaves, finally allowing Beck to get some decent sleep.

Featuring

• Captain Lisa Beck
• Commander Walter Morales
• Lieutenant Commander Craig Porter
• Lieutenant Commander Sean Russell
• Dr. Amedon Nelson
• Yeoman Tina Jones
• Bradley Dillon

Also Featuring

• Stephanie Hodges
• Ih'mad
• Wuddle

Links

Collect Call (text)

The Star Traks: Waystation web page