Busted
| Star Traks: TOSsed | |
| Episode name | Busted |
|---|---|
| Season | 1 |
| Episode number | 3 |
| Writer(s) | Alan Decker |
| Year | 2268 |
| Stardate | Unknown |
| Chronology | |
| Previous in series | Antares or Bust [TOS] |
| Next in series | Looking Out for the Little Guy [TOS] |
| Previous in timeline | Antares or Bust [TOS] |
| Next in timeline | Looking Out for the Little Guy [TOS] |
Sending out an entire starship to deal with an overloaded freighter seems like overkill, but maybe there’s a bit more going on than the Starfleet equivalent of a traffic stop.
Summary
When we last left the SS Clydesdale, the ship was staring down the phaser banks of the USS Ventus. They still are. After Mike Harper basically begs the Ventus not to shoot, he is told that Starfleet will be coming aboard. He quickly checks with everyone to see if there's any contraband on board that he should known about. Duv admits that he is smuggling Tellarite antiquities to Antares.
Officers from the Ventus beam aboard and immediately take everyone except Noov, who breathes Fluorine, back to the Ventus where they are led to the ship's recreation room. Inside, they see that pretty much the entire ship's crew is there marching. Moments later, Ronnie Harper falls silent and joins them in marching. One of the Ventus' officers demands to know why the rest of the Clydesdale crew doesn't want to march. The officer goes and retrieves a Vulcan ensign who asks the same question. Confused by the Clydesdale crew's unwillingness to march, the Vulcan has everyone except Ronnie put in the ship's brig.
Ronnie comes to visit them in the brig and asks them why they will not march. Dr. Janet Corbair realizes that Ronnie has been taken over by another being. When asked, the being admits this is true and that it has jumped from the Vulcan ensign to Ronnie because her mind is "gooder" than the Vulcan's. Still confused as to why the Clydesdale crew doesn't want to march, the possessed Ronnie leaves. Mike and Corbair theorize that the reason the being has taken control of Ronnie and the Ventus' crew but not the Clydesdale crew is that it is attracted to the military mindset for some reason. Ronnie was Starfleet and did march a lot at the Academy.
Mike decides that they have to get out of the brig, grab Ronnie, and get out of there before another Starfleet ship comes along with a crew ripe for takeover. He has Smash smash his out of his cell then release Mike, Corbair, Wodak, and Pafal-Sris. Nuv and Bork opt to stay behind because Nuv is convinced that the whole thing is a Starfleet sting operation.
Mike and company make their way to the Ventus' auxiliary control room, then Mike has Smash, Wodak, and Paf beam back to the Clydesdale. In the brig, Duv lays into Bork for hurting his aunt until Bork finally reveals that Annar was the one who broke things off because she had no interest in being married. Duv realizes Bork is telling the truth just before Smash beams them both back to the Clydesdale.
While Corbair remains in auxiliary control and shuts off the gravity in the rec room, Mike goes in wearing a pair of magnetic boots and carrying a "fishing pole" he cobbled together from whatever he could find. He is able to snag Ronnie from amongst the helplessly-floating Ventus officers, then Smash beams him, Ronnie, and Corbair back to the Clydesdale, at which point they make a run for it.
Corbair has Ronnie put in restraints and won't let the being inside her, who says its name is Light, march. From accessing the Ventus' logs while she was in auxiliary control, Corbair has deduced that Light came from an archeological dig at the site of an ancient military academy on Ontekelon. It became enamored with the marching and uniforms and took the place over. Eventually, the place was destroyed and everyone inside it killed in order to stop the marching. Light was buried in the rubble until the archaeologists, who had come with officers from the Ventus, released it. Light then took over a Ventus officer, went back to the ship, and was soon in control.
After a few days of being restrained, Light is desperate to be free. Corbair convinces it to leave Ronnie in exchange for being able to watch videos of people marching. Light agrees and leaves Ronnie's body. Corbair does show light videos but then uses a series of force fields to push Light into an antimatter storage container, where it is trapped.
Upon arriving at Antares, Ronnie goes to deliver the necklace, and Duv leaves after saying goodbye to Bork. The Annar's Exports cargo is received by and Antaran woman, Eerdani, and unloaded in a cargo bay. That complete, they rush over to a different dock to unload the Gravit & Yurtz cargo only to find that they are delivering it to Eerdani as well. She also didn't want to run afoul of the rivalry between the two companies, so she set up completely separate cargo bays to receive their wares. She and Mike flirt a bit, and she tells him to contact her if he's interested in seeing her again. Which he does.
Later that evening, just as he is leaving the ship for his date with Eerdani, Mike is stopped by Captain Harry MacLaren of the USS Ventus. The Ventus crew was released from Light's control once the Clydesdale leapt into warp, and they were able to piece together what had happened. MacLaren tracked down Mike just to thank him for saving them all. Relieved that Starfleet isn't upset, Mike heads off to enjoy his date.
Dr. Corbair goes to see an older scientist, Dr. Banarek, and trades him Light for a working tricorder.
Featuring
Also Featuring
Author's Comments
While also following up on the various plot threads set up in Antares or Bust, this story was really about showing how the Clydesdale crew would handle a classic TOS problem, in this case an energy being that's taking people over, differently than a Starfleet crew.
Mike doesn't care why this is happening beyond what he needs to know to get the hell away from it. And his solutions tend to be less technobabble and more brute force or cobble something together. The mini-series doesn't end up getting into it, but Mike and Ronnie grew up on Earth, which is where Mike learned to fish. I had thought about doing a story about the Clydesdale going to Earth, which would have introduced their parents, but I never got past the basic concept. I did have a title, though: "Home Run."
As a side note, there's a big difference between a concept and a story. And sometimes I have a great title and can't come up with a story to go with it. Years and years ago, I had the idea of doing a Boldly Gone story called "Planet of the Crepes." I didn't get much past that and the idea that the planet was founded by French colonists from Earth. Bain is annoyed because they're French? Sure. Let's go with the British and French people don't like each other stereotype (Side note: on a trip to England, I did see a store in Stratford-Upon-Avon that had a sign in the window that read "No Unaccompanied French Girls Allowed." I still don't know what that was about.). But what was the story? What happens? And what happens next? And then? And then? I didn't have that. Admittedly, it was a concept that would have worked better if Boldly Gone was a TV show, so you could hear the people speaking in very thick French accents rather than me trying to write them.
Back to Busted, Dr. Corbair is the story's other lead, and she is able to help with the escape and dealing with Light while also working to achieve her own ends. When I was first developing TOSsed, Corbair and Ronnie were the first two characters I came up with, back when I thought it was going to be set on a Starfleet ship. One of the first bits of dialogue between the two of them that popped into my head (the exchange about Ronnie sleeping with Jim Kirk again and him not remembering her name again) survived into the current version. At that point, Corbair was running closer to the character Christa Miller plays on Cougar Town, which I had not seen at the time (Great show, by the way. Once they figure out what the show is a couple of episodes in, it's really a fun series about people in their 40s.). One of the reasons to switch to a freighter was the freedom is gave me with Corbair. She is not Starfleet and certainly doesn't have that moral code. She's just out of a rehabilitation colony, so she did something to get herself locked up. And she's willing to barter the life of an intelligent being to get what she needs to achieve her own ends.
I had a lot of fun picturing these characters running around a TOS Starfleet ship. Admittedly, it helps that I've done it myself a few times (not the running part) at the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour in Ticonderoga, NY. If you have any love for the original series, you absolutely have to go visit. It's fantastic. And they're working on building the TNG sets. I have no idea when that part will be open, but I'll be planning a trip to see them as soon as they are.