Tell Me Your Secrets (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 16 Jun 2017 @ 9:56am by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius & Vice Admiral Colin McDermott

1,965 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 15 - Emanation
Location: Earth - San Francisco, Starfleet Headquarters
Timeline: MD 02, 0900 hrs

[ON]

"CWO3 Darius:" the message that had arrived in Darius's email had begun.

"The Board of Inquiry into the loss of USS Galileo requires your presence for an interview in Room E-1201 of Starfleet Headquarters at 0900 local time. Report to the board in your Class B duty uniform, unarmed. You will be depositing your PADD outside, and may be subject to search for surveillance devices.

"For the Board,
Commander James Aronson
Starfleet Personnel Command"

The room itself was standard, annoyingly so. There were no windows. The brightly lit room had a table, behind which Vice Admiral McDermott sat, flanked by two other officers, as well as a lone chair for the interviewee. Security personnel stood outside the door.

It was to this that Lamar Darius was summoned.

PADD in hand with a freshly-replicated and pressed red-collared uniform adorning his body, Darius made his way through the long hallways of one of Starfleet HQ's auxiliary buildings. He'd received his summons on his PADD no more than 24 hours prior, and as a result, it'd been a stressful morning for him. It wasn't necessarily the interview he was fearing, or having to present himself to Starfleet's highest authorities -- instead, he felt anxious for his fellow Galileo crew members who had been through the darkness with him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he worried that if he revealed the entirety of their recent events, that someone would be held accountable and disciplined. They'd all done their best to survive and improvise in a difficult situation, and if anyone was reprimanded for any of it, that was something he didn't want to be responsible for.

Room E-1201 came into sight near the end of the hallway. The former Marine stopped in front of the door before entering in order to adjust his belt and take a deep breath. Hesitantly, he looked at the two security officers on either side of the entrance then pressed the chime button on the door's keypad.

"Enter!" came the call from within.

The door hissed open and in stepped Darius. He only took a few paces into the small windowless chamber before he came to halt and noticed the bright lighting that was illuminating table and three officers in the room. He spread his legs to shoulder-width and clasped his hands behind his back at attention.

"Sirs," he acknowledged, his eyes front and center staring at the wall behind them. "Chief Warrant Officer Darius, reporting as ordered."

"At ease, Warrant Officer. One moment while I finish setting everything up," McDermott replied. "Computer, begin secure recording and transcription of Galileo Interview One, subject Darius, encrypted at SEABASS protocol under authorization McDermott Tango Omicron Five."

The computer beeped and replied, "Recording and transcription begun."

With that, a human female (in a uniform with command red trim, wearing the pips of a Commander) who was sitting at the table spoke. "Warrant Officer, before you sit. Please state your rank, name, service number, and last position of assignment for the record."

Lamar shifted his feet back under him to a more comfortable position and brought his hands to his side. Subject Darius... he repeated in his head, already feeling apprehensive less than thirty seconds into the interview.

"Chief Warrant Officer 3, Lamar Darius, SS-267-8444 assigned to USS Galileo as her chief support craft pilot," he answered. "Former COB aboard Galileo," he continued, "and former platoon sergeant of the 88th Orbital Drop Battalion in 2375."

"We only needed your immediate last position, Warrant Officer," the Commander replied, sounding unimpressed. "Computer: Verify claimed identity of present interview subject," she commanded.

The Computer beeped, then, and responded: "Identity verified. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lamar Darius, Sierra Sierra Two Six Seven Eight Four Four Four."

At that, the Commander nodded. "Warrant Officer, please raise your right hand. Do you swear that the evidence you shall give in the matter now under investigation shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"

Shifting his feet yet again, Darius tried to swallow away the dryness in his mouth but to no avail. There was no turning back at this point. Doing as he was instructed, he raised his hand and repeated the pledge. "I do. Sir."

"The witness has now been sworn in. Warrant Officer, you may sit. Admiral, you may begin," the Commander intoned.

"Thank you, Commander. Warrant Officer, starting from the departure of USS Galileo from Celes III on 13 December 2390, please tell us what you recall of the events leading up to the destruction of USS Galileo," McDermott began.

It seemed like an eternity ago that Galileo was destroyed. Darius worked his brain to try and recall the circumstances as best he could, regardless of how hazy some of them had become. As ordered, he sat in the sole chair available and noted how cold and uncomfortable it was.

"I remember we left Celes III after helping out the colony ship with their initial deployment," he began. "Then...we were en-route to resupply and get some leave at SB-234 when we picked up a distress call that wasn't too far away. The capn' changed course because we were the first to respond, and then we entered that damn nebula..." his voice trailed off has his eyes darted across the table in front of him.

"Once we got there -- to the distress beacon -- we found it wasn't really a distress call. More like a trap," he continued. "A couple Klingons were on the bridge of the freighter we thought we were rescuing, the Recluse, and they ordered us to surrender. The capn' tried to evade them and get the hell outta dodge, but there were too many of them. Birds-of-Preys decloaking all around us, firing on our ship.... We took a critical hit and had to eject the warp core before it vaped us. Then she gave the order to abandon ship, so I managed to get into an escape pod and eject. A few minutes later, I watched the Gal explode through the viewport. But not 'cause it was still being fired on...the explosions came from within...from the auto-destruct."

"Do you know if anyone remained behind to ensure the auto-destruct went off, or did the entire living crew make it to the escape pods?" McDermott asked.

"At first I didn't know. I saw the silent countdown alerts on one of the terminals when I was running to an escape pod," Darius began to answer. "It wasn't till we were captured and brought on to the Klingon ship that the rumors starting floating around -- that the capn' and one of her officers stayed behind to sacrifice themselves to see the job through." There was a short moment of pause while Lamar looked down at his hands and began to fiddle with one of his short fingernails. "I think we all took that pretty hard at the time... so it was a shock when we all saw her alive again on Kreanus a couple weeks later. Don't know how it happened, but she somehow got off the Gal just in time."

"A shock, yes. I imagine that it would be," McDermott replied. "Warrant Officer, that provides a good segue point. So you all make it to escape pods. What happens then, once the pods launch?"

"Well...we were captured," the support craft pilot said rather simply with a shrug. "Beamed right out of our pods and to the transporter room of some Klingon battlecruiser. I think an old K't'inga-class. Then they dragged us to their brigs and threw us in, and took us to their 'homeworld' or whatever they called it."

"They took you to Qo'noS?" McDermott attempted to clarify. The Federation had an embassy there, how come they had had no clue?

The chief warrant officer shook his head. "Not Qo'noS. Another planet deeper inside the nebula that they called Kreanus," Darius revealed. "I guess this is gonna be hard to explain..." he added before pausing to take a deep breath and collect his thoughts. "It turned out that this planet sort of had a rogue classification or something. No sun near it but it was still habitable under all the ice on the surface. And they were Klingons with Klingon ships, but they weren't part of the Klingon Empire. At least that's the info that was floating around. They were more like renegades and exiles from their government who had a secret world here in our territory that no one knew about."

"Wait. A secret world full of, well, pirates...inside Federation space." McDermott looked like the very thought made him uneasy at best. "Tell me more, if you can."

"Not pirates," Darius corrected but with a bit of uncertainty in his voice. "I've seen pirate bases before when we raided them in the Corps. This was different. I mean, there were over a half-million of them there, all living underground, organized, and from different species -- Humans and former-Starfleet people as well. And they had kids there, lots of women and civilians. Someone told me they were their own nation, or government. Or something like that."

"And we didn't even know they existed. In our own territory." McDermott somehow sounds unsurprised by that thought, just annoyed at it.

"Anyway," he continued, "Let's keep going. So they throw you all in the brigs - how many people survived, total, by the way? I know how many came back, but I'm looking for how many were lost along the way - and take you to Kreanus. Do they interrogate you?"

Doing a mental count, Lamar tried to think of those who he knew had perished in the initial battle and those who'd died later on. "I think at first, most of us made it out. The capn' was presumed dead, and there was another officer named Alexander. An Ops ensign who didn't make it. But I think everyone else made it to Kreanus alive. Not sure though," he answered.

Thinking about the interrogations was a bit more painful to recall for some reason. "They didn't interrogate me," Darius continued after a short pause, "But they did it to a few others when we were on the Klingon ship. We could hear it, too. The screams from the torture chambers on that same deck where our brig was. They gave it to some of us pretty good," he solemnly explained.

"You weren't interrogated. Who was, do you know?" McDermott asked.

"..Uhh.." Lamar glanced up at the ceiling lights while he tried to recall the old events. "Derani, my sup. The one with the pink hair. And Mitchell, one of our sec guys. And then one of our docs, Lieutenant Voutilainen. And then there was the CSO, Lieutenant Tyton -- that guy was crazy; he challenged the Klingon general to a duel for the freedom of our crew right in front of us."

"I see from my records that Lieutenant Tyton is no longer among the living." It's not a question, no. "Was Admiral Saalm tortured? Was Commander Ban?"

So many questions, all back-to-back. Lamar shook his head with more uncertainty. "Not that I know of, sir. But most of us didn't even see the capn' or Commander Ban until we were about to leave Kreanus. The commander wasn't one of us, he was from another ship that was lured into the nebula and attacked like we were. He'd been on the colony since before we arrived. I don't really know what happened to them."

"OK. What more can you tell me about Kreanus and its inhabitants?" McDermott asked.

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

VADM Colin McDermott
Chief of Starfleet Personnel
Starfleet Command

CWO3 Lamar Darius
Support Craft Pilot
[PNPC Saalm]

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