Welcome to the Party
| Star Traks: Boldly Gone | |
| Episode name | |
|---|---|
| Season | 10 |
| Episode number | 3 |
| Writer(s) | Alan Decker, Anthony Butler |
| Year | 2503 |
| Stardate | 178802 |
| Chronology | |
| Previous in series | Primary Sources [BG] |
| Next in series | Consequences You Otherwise Avoid [BG] |
| Previous in timeline | Primary Sources [BG] |
| Next in timeline | Consequences You Otherwise Avoid [BG] |
Answering a never-ending barrage of questions about everything that happened in the last story is not Captain Reginald Bain’s idea of a party, but when the Dillion Consortium crashes the festivities, things quickly go from deadly-dull to just plain deadly.
Summary
After the loss of the Pliggeri homeworld, Ambassador Rorshak contacts Admiral Kristen Larkin on behalf of the Romulan government requesting a meeting about the incident which is to include representatives from the Empire and Starfleet as well as Captain Reginald Bain and Commander Vioxx. Larkin agrees, and Rorshak then asks for a personal favor concerning his daughter, Commander Prosak, who has taken a leave of absence from her duties aboard the USS Anomaly. Rorshak asks Larkin to make sure that Prosak is not rushed back to duty but also not left to wallow in her own misery following Snotch’s abrupt ending of their burgeoning relationship.
The Anomaly, meanwhile, is at the Deneria Ship Yards on the equivalent of crowd control duty as hundreds of ships swarm around the facility to get a look at the USS Enterprise-J, the new look of which is being revealed after a refit at the ship yards. Just as the Enterprise-J emerges from the facility showing off…not much as far as Bain can tell (Maybe the nacelles are different.), Larkin comms to inform them of the meeting with the Romulan representatives on Alkor Six in three days and to ask him to check in on Prosak. Following her comm, Captain Barnum Dax comms to ask Bain what he thinks of the new look of the Enterprise-J. Bain says that he missed the reveal because of Larkin’s comm and that the Anomaly has to dash off on a mission, much to Dax’s disappointment.
Dillon Consortium CEO Tori Burke gets word of the meeting on Alkor Six and starts making arrangements.
Back on the Anomaly, Bain goes to see Prosak, but she will not open the doors of her quarters. She says she’s fine, though, and Bain is distracted by Lieutenant Commander Tovar, who tells him they have received word from Starfleet that the meeting is being moved to Nelephron. Bain tells Tovar to contact Admiral Larkin to let her know that the change of venue has been received and acknowledged. Still feeling unsettled about Prosak, Bain asks Vioxx to check in on her, which Vioxx promises he will do…much later.
When the Anomaly arrives at Nelephon a couple of days later, Bain prepares to beam down with Vioxx, Centurion Nortal, and Lieutenant Shelly Marsden, leaving Tovar in command. He asks Vioxx how things are with Prosak, who then quickly passes the check-in duty off to Sub-Commander Remax. On his way to her quarters, Remax sees Dr. Fred Nooney. He has an idea and is quickly able to convince Nooney to go see Prosak instead. She won’t open her doors for Nooney either, so he uses his authority as Chief Medical Officer to override her locks and get inside. There he finds Prosak sitting on the floor in the middle of her living area, surrounded by dirty dishes and smelling like she hasn’t bathed in days. He asks her if this is all about her breakup with Snotch. She says it’s not the breakup, but that Snotch told her she was too emotional, at which point she breaks down sobbing.
Bain and his team arrive at Days of Fryer Past, the restaurant that has been chosen as the site for the meeting. They are the first to arrive in the empty establishment, so they sit down at the long table that has been laid out for the event and request menus.
Nooney consoles Prosak, who is trying to come to grips with whether or not she can just stop being a RommaVulc and start over. Nooney assures her that she can be whatever she wants to be and realizes what he needs to show her. He drags her to the Anomaly’s seldom-used holodeck (since most people just use the holopods in their quarters) and into a simulation of a cruise ship on Pacifica. They are on the deck of the Wave of Relaxation, and a Klingon carrying a shuffleboard cue stick approached. It is Chynok.
The Anomaly receives a distress call from a mining ship in a nearby asteroid field. Tovar informs Bain, who tells him to go take care of it and to be careful. Bain goes back to perusing the menu, but then they are interrupted by the arrival of Tori Burke, dressed in the blue CEO suit, which has now been tailored to fit her, and four armed Dillon Consortium goons. Bain stand to confront her, but Burke tells him to relax because she’s just there to say hello to her new employee, Shelly Marsden. Marsden says that Burke is nuts she thinks Marsden would ever work for her. Burke says that they have ways of changing her mind but that it hardly matters, since by the end of the meal, the Anomaly will be hers.
Speaking of the ship, the Anomaly enters a clearing in the asteroid field where the damaged mining ship is supposed to be, but there’s no sign of it. The Anomaly suddenly starts to shutter, and Dr. Natalia Kasyov comms the bridge to say that something is wrong with Cabral. They detect five ships at the edge of sensor range heading their way, then, after the ship’s disembodied brain lets out an agonized wail, the Anomaly shuts down entirely, sending the crew into darkness and floating off of the deck.
Burke explains that the Anomaly’s crew will be killed and some convincing debris left for Starfleet to find. Marsden, meanwhile, will have her mind altered such that she helps the Dillon Consortium reverse engineer the Anomaly’s anti-singularity drive and whatever finds the Consortium Acquisition Fleet currently on its way to the Pliggeri homeworld comes back with. Bain and the others start laughing. The give the news to Burke that the planet is gone, and Burke breaks into an odd argument with herself that ends with her assuring herself that it’s all fine because she will still have the Anomaly.
Tovar concludes that they are in a Dillon Consortium trap shortly before Engineering contacts him directly through his commpip to let him know that the ship shutdown because Cabral did not disconnect himself properly before whatever happened to him happened. They restore power, but they find that they still cannot use their polaron engines, warp drive, shields, phasers, and several other systems. Also, Cabral is still in agony.
The shutdown also affected the holodeck, much to Nooney’s dismay. Once power is restored, Nooney and Prosak return to the simulation and Chynok, who introduces herself as the Wave of Relaxation’s Ambassador from the Planet of Fun and Relaxation. Prosak turns on Nooney and demands to know why he brought her there to taunt her with how good Chynok’s life is now.
As Burke argues with herself about what to order, twitching all the while, Vioxx grows more and more confused, since this does not seem like the Burke he knew at all. He subtly signals to scan her, which she secretly pulls out her quadcorder to do.
Remax discovers that there are multiple fake asteroids in the field surrounding the Anomaly, each of which contains a sensor-masked device that is firing a sustained beam at a key system, including Cabral, to interfere with the functioning of that system. After walking through several possibilities to deal with the situation, Tovar asks Remax if he can duplicate the sensor masking because he wants to set a trap of his own.
Nooney tells Prosak that he struck up a friendship with Chynok while she was imprisoned by the Romulans. She was lost like Prosak and didn’t know what being a Klingon even meant anymore. In prison, she realized that she didn’t want constant combat anymore. Battle hurts. She wanted to have fun. Nooney contacted Prosak’s father, Rorshak, and got Chynok released. From there, she got a job on the Wave of Relaxation where she can be who she really is while also serving others to try to make up for some of what she has done. Nooney thinks that Prosak also needs to reconsider what she really wants, just like Chynok did, and what better place to do it than on a luxury ship full of “hotties” on one of the most gorgeous planets in the quadrant? There are no consequences on the holodeck, so she should have fun. Prosak takes “no consequences” to hear, snatches the shuffleboard cue stick from Chynok, and jams it into Chynok’s eyes, much to Nooney’s horror.
Burke finally decides on her order and lays out what she has planned for the Anomaly personnel gathered there. Marsden will work for Consortium R&D, Bain will be forced to watch while his ship and crew are taken from him, and Nortal will suffer for the number of times she stunned Burke back on Edgeworld. Vioxx demands to know what will happen to him, and Burke replies that he’s not important. He presses her, wanting to know if that was true, why was she willing to go out with him? She softens and says she’s sorry that he’s there right now before abruptly changing demeanor and announcing that they are all going to Dillonia to face their fates. As far as Starfleet will know, they were all killed when the restaurant burned down due to an exploding fryer and the Anomaly was lost in the asteroid field. It will be quite the tragedy. Bain is looking for an opportunity to take action, when Nortal takes the decision out of his hands and dives at Burke.
The five Dillon Consortium ships move into the clearing in the asteroid expecting to find the Anomaly waiting there helplessly. While their sensors insist that is indeed the case, in actuality, the Anomaly’s support craft have positioned themselves between the fake asteroids and the Anomaly, blocking the interference beams. As soon as the Consortium ships come into view, Tovar orders the support ships to destroy the fake asteroids as the Anomaly zooms forward to attack the Consortium ships.
On the holodeck, ignoring Nooney’s protests, Prosak has the computer reshape the shuffleboard cue into more of a weapon and restore Chynok to full health, so that Prosak can attack her again. She kills the holographic Chynok, and, after deciding that it was only somewhat satisfying, moves on to take out other simulated passengers.
As Nortal and Burke fall to the ground struggling with each other, Bain extends his wrist phaser. Burke throws off Nortal with surprising strength and demands to know why Bain came armed to an official meeting. Bain says he knew it was a trap. Nortal wildly opens fire, sending the Consortium goons diving for cover. While Bain and Nortal keep the guards pinned down, Marsden tells Vioxx that she is reading small power sources all throughout Burke’s suit as well as a positronic matrix. Vioxx goes to talk to Burke, who is taking cover in a booth, while Marsden uses his disrupter to lay down more cover fire. In the chaos, Nortal stuns one of the Consortium guards.
Vioxx approaches Burke, who lets out a horrifying screech and chases him back to the long table where everyone had been sitting. He flings a couple of glasses of water at the suit, to no effect. She leaps on Vioxx and begins strangling him. Bain, Nortal, and Marsden stun the other three Consortium guards. Vioxx croaks, “Tori” as he struggles to maintain consciousness. This is enough to get through to her, and she tells him that she can’t force herself to stop choking him and to strip her. He’s not sure that he heard that right, then realizes that she’s talking about the suit. He manages to get the pants and suitcoat off of her just before Bain rushes over demanding to know what he is doing. Burke, now herself again, explains that the suit contains the minds of all of the former CEOs of the Dillon Consortium and that, while she agreed with them most of the time, sometimes they forcefully did their own thing, such as making her attempt to kill Vioxx.
Marsden goes over to scan the suit more thorough. It suddenly kicks out a pant leg, catching her in the head and knocking her unconscious. The pants float up into the air with the suitcoat taking up a position just above them, and they advance on Bain.
The Anomaly disables a couple of Consortium ships but is still taking a beating. Remax suggests using the tractor beam to throw asteroids at the ships, but they will need all of the power they can get. Tovar says to do it, and Remax pulls from all systems, including from the holodeck.
In the holodeck, Nooney catches Prosak before she slaughters the participants of a bingo game. He says that she was supposed to bond with Chynok, enjoy the sun and open sea, relax, and mingle with the passengers. She replies that those sound like things Nooney wants to do. He agrees that she has a point then asks if slaughtering holographic innocents is really what she wants to do. She says no, but her feelings must come out. She is angry. She’s not a Vulcan, but she doesn’t want to be like other Romulans either. She’s superfluous aboard the Anomaly, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing there, since she’s realized that she doesn’t want to command a starship. She doesn’t know what she wants anymore, so she is going to kill everyone on the Wave of Relaxation until she figures it out. She pushes past Nooney and is about to stab her first bingo victim when the holodeck shuts down. Nooney tells her that she will have to work through things another way.
Bain’s fires his wrist phaser at the oncoming empty suit, but it has no effect. The suit gets into a fighting stance, which is fine by Bain. Conventional fisticuffs don’t work, so Bain grabs the suitcoat and pants and flings them in opposite directions. Nortal leaps on the pants, wielding a fork in each hand, and shreds them. Bain and the suitcoat circle each other a bit, then Bain floats an offer: he will become the Consortium CEO. The coat slides itself onto his arms, but gets stuck because it has been altered to fit Burke. Bain keeps pushing, forcing himself into the coat and stretching it across his back until the entire garment gives way and rips in half. Bain shakes the remnants of the now-ruined coat off onto the floor and declares that he wasn’t a good fit for the position.
The Anomaly uses an asteroid to disable one of the two Consortium ships that remain functional then renders the other powerless with a focused attack. Tovar recalls all support craft and orders the Anomaly out of the asteroid field. They detect 30 more ships heading their way from one direction and 15 more from another. Tovar says to stay on course then orders all stop after they clear the asteroid field, just as 30 Consortium ships drop out of warp. Tovar hails the Consortium fleet and demands their surrender. The Consortium counter with an order that the Anomaly surrender. Tovar says that they will be declining the offer unless the Consortium wants to take on an entire Starfleet battle group. Just then the other 15 ships, which are the aforementioned battle group, arrive. The Consortium ships consider battling the Starfleet ships, but then 10 Romulan warhawks decloak on the other side of the Consortium fleet. Surrounded and outgunned, the Consortium ships surrender.
With the Consortium dealt with, the Anomaly resumes course for Alkor Six, where Bain and Vioxx attend the previously-scheduled meeting with the Starfleet and Romulan representatives. It ends up being fairly anti-climactic with everyone agreeing that the destruction of the Pliggeri homeworld was a big loss but that there wasn’t much that could have been done about it. The Anomaly then goes to hand their Consortium prisoners off to another Starfleet ship.
Bain meets with the Anomaly command crew, minus Prosak, and explains that he and Tovar, under Bain’s orders, have been keeping the others in the dark about their plans against the Dillon Consortium. Once they confirmed that Snotch was a Consortium spy, they fed him the name Pliggeri on purpose, knowing that he’d report it to Burke. Then also had Admiral Larkin leak the location of the meeting on Alkor Six. Once they received a communique purporting to be from Starfleet moving the meeting, they knew they had a chance to draw the Consortium out and possibly dismantle them. With the concurrence of both the Federation and Romulan governments, Bain took the Anomaly to Nelephron, putting all of their lives at risk, but now the CEO suit has been destroyed and the Consortium is in disarray with the vice presidents vying for power. Tovar assumed all along that the asteroid field was a trap, but the Consortium put things into action earlier than Tovar was expecting. So as to not top the Consortium off that they suspected something, he had to take the Anomaly in and hope they could handle anything that waited for them until the Starfleet and Romulan ships arrived. Bain says that, while he trusts all of his officers with his life, he had to play this close to the vest to prevent anything from slipping out. He understands if they are angry, but he did what he felt had to be done. The officers all say that they are ok, but Tovar can tell Marsden is upset. Once the meeting is over, they talk, and Marsden says that it’s no one’s fault but that their professional roles and their personal connections make things messy sometimes.
Vioxx goes to see Burke in the Anomaly’s brig. She assumes she will be spending the rest of life in a Federation rehabilitation colony and thanks Vioxx for coming to talk to her. He says that he will visit her more in the future and wonders if he will be allowed to visit her at a rehabilitation colony.
Bain goes to see Prosak but is intercepted in the corridor by Dr. Nooney before he gets to her quarters. Nooney informs Bain that he is resigning as Chief Medical Officer of the Anomaly to go be the Chief Medical Officer of the real Wave of Relaxation on Pacifica. Bain agrees that it sounds like a perfect place for Nooney. The captain continues on to Prosak’s quarters, and this time she answers the door and lets him inside. He apologizes for not warning her about Snotch and tells her that he was taken into custody shortly after they dealt with the Consortium. Prosak says that Nooney helped her realized that she liked the idea of Snotch, meaning a full Vulcan who appreciated her, more than Snotch himself. She still has a lot to figure out but returning to duty might be what she needs right now. Bain says he will see her on the bridge and leaves her quarters.
On Romulus, the Praetor and her advisors, including Rorshak, discuss the results of the meeting with Starfleet and the Anomaly’s continued status as the ship with the only working anti-singularity drive in the known universe. Starfleet has given up duplicating it, since all efforts have ended in failure. The Praetor dismisses Rorshak then asks her military advisors if they agree with Rorshak’s summation. They do, and the Praetor says they will continue to pursue other avenues. She dismisses her advisors, but Admiral Karwrek stays behind and tells her that he has a thought about those “other avenues.”
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
- Tori Burke
Author's Comments
Back in the comments for the first story of the run, I mentioned that Anthony and I had most of the stories finished before we decided that we weren't happy with the direction and decided to rework things. The issue was that the Dillion Consortium plot took up the entire run, and we didn't want to have our final six stories all be focused on a single storyline. There were still standalone stories to tell, and really the Consortium were never the big antagonist of the series anyway. Having them take over the entire last run felt unnecessary. And we'd already done big, run-consuming arcs with the Vulcans. I really didn't feel that we lost that much by compressing the Consortium plot into 3 stories instead (Or more if you include the last couple stories of Series Nine). We hit the points we wanted to hit without dragging things out.
Really I don't have a whole lot to say about the story itself. The A and B plots both involve falling into a Consortium trap and then finding a way out of it. On the Anomaly side, I enjoy getting to use the ship's support craft in creative ways. They're one of those things I think about in Star Trek episodes on a regular basis. The ship will be in some dire situation, and I'll come up with some way to help using a shuttle. Using the Anomaly's support ships to deal with the asteroid trap was fun to write and worked well to get them out of that scenario. Our assumption has always been that the Consortium captains are not Starfleet caliber but also overconfident to an unwarranted degree.
Tori Burke, or at least the suit controlling her, shares that overconfidence, which is how Bain is able to flip the trap she set for him into a trap for her and the Consortium. As for the location, there wasn't any real reason for it to be a restaurant centered on fried foods. It just made me chuckle and allowed me to make a really terrible X-Men reference. We really loved the empty suit gag. It's incredibly silly, but it's the kind of silly I love. And I think it wouldn't have had much room to breathe if it had happened in the original version of events. I didn't want Burke to be a victim in all of this. Yes the suit had control, but, as she says, she generally agreed with it. She's ambitious, a loyal Consortium employee, and struggling to make up for 20 years lost to being in stasis. She just isn't quite ready to kill Vioxx, since he's the one person who has tried to get close to her. I don't see a romance blooming there, but I do think he will follow through on visiting her at her rehabilitation colony.
As for Prosak, this run is pretty rough on her. We already had her RommaVulc beliefs challenged during the Vulcan war, but in the end, the architect of it all wasn't an actual Vulcan. Now she's having to face that she may never measure up to the expectations of these people she's emulated for years. So far, she's not handling it well, but after rock bottom (and a bit of holographic slaughter), there's nowhere to go but up, right?
While Prosak may be struggling to find a way forward, Dr. Nooney gained some clarity about his own future. Nooney has never been a main character in Boldly Gone and mainly has existed to provide to silly exuberance or overly-thorough exams. Having him decide that he'd rather be on a cruise ship just felt right. We're sure that he's going to be very happy there.