“Rising Action”
written by David Moody
Captain Lenti Utex

Lenti Utex strode into the scene, several of the Bridge crew following him. As he made his way down the starboard side of the room, he nodded to the Cadet, and told her, “On screen.”

The Bridge crew filtered into their positions following the conference they had been in with the Captain.

Driel Galah entered the room from the aft turbolift of the bridge, and moved toward the OPS console, but merely stood beside the fixture, as there were presently three crewmembers working on removing the console.

“We have prepared the intravessel warping procudrue for implementation anytime you would like to use it, Captain,” her voice lilted at him assuredly. She folded her hands behind her back and turned back toward the viewscreen, watching it calmly.

Utex, having reached the center section of the bridge, looked at the S’rulien. “Driel,” he suggested, carefully rolling the ‘dr’ of the word, the way he knew the S’rulien name was intended. His voice quickly garnering her attention, he held out a hand toward Commander Kennit’s normal postion.

The S’rulien woman glanced back at him, then double took, her eyes widening a bit. “Thank you Lenti,” she told the Captain. “I don’t think I could,” she explained. “It might feel . . . inappropriate,” she concluded, turning back to the viewscreen.

The screen shimmered free from an angle presenting strangely open space oddly bereft of stars . . .

Utex looked the S’rulien up and down, not quite certain why the woman would have preferred to stand, then moved to sit in his comfortable command chair.

A moment later, Counselor Torme was on the viewscreen, her face smudged with grime, her hair out of place, her normally bright eyes dull as if with an internal ache. Her mouth was moving, but her own voice was not coming out the voice of the Gerxathi, the one that curdled the blood of one Cadet Keda Tal.

The woman stared forward into the viewscreen, her eyes focused on the Captain.

“Counselor,” Utex said, attempting to appear as comfortable as possible so as not to allow whatever influence was inhabiting the Counselor know that he was disturbed to no end by this mistreatment of one of his own. “You look like hell,” he told her, crossing his legs.

The gravel stirred itself in the Betazoid’s throat. “You feel,” the woman’s neck twisted upward at an odd angle, the sound of bone crunching against bone rushing across the bridge. Her face screwed up harshly, and her mouth flew open, a rush of air, a sigh, apparently, flowing forth. “Worried,” the deepened, seemingly sythesized voice told him.

Utex felt as if perhaps all bets were off, that his poker face would not protect him anymore. “About?” he prompted.

Torme’s face twisted and her head fell forward. Her voice stuttered as the top of her heads faced the viewscreen, and her shoulders fell. They seemed to hitch a bit, and she raised her face, which was suddenly nearly normal. Grimy, to be sure, unkempt certainly, but the odd puffiness that Utex had not even noticed previously, was gone. “Captain,” Torme asked, her voice returned to its normal timbre.

Utex stood rapidly, and moved to stand between the helm console and the three crewman roemving the ops console. “Counselor,” he said. “Are what’s happening over there? I’m not certain I understand - - “

Torme’s words rushed forth, “We’re cloaked somewhere. I can see you out of the windows when they think they have me subdued – they’re keeping me in a stone cell, so we could be anywhere, planetside, perhaps . . .”

A gloved hand stretched in from the edge of the image, striking Torme down where she stood, and a dark, hulking figure entered the visual. “Krannik,” Utex said.

“Rstln akj quonmvigbn dfs asju&^dsj,” the Vaiul told him angrily.

Revos whispered from behind Utex, “Outgoing audio off; Captain. We’ve got a vessel coming in from the vicinty of the portal we came through sir,” the Betazoid told him. “Wait, no,” he corrected, consulting his console. “One Starfleet, two Bith fighters,” he said.

Utex said calmly, “End communication,” he ordered. “Looks like the cavalry decided to find us,” the Captain smiled.



The defiant-classed USS LaGrange slid silently through the spacious void, flanked by two small Bith fighters. The peregrin class fighters shot forward and around to the far side of the USS Victory as the LaGrange came to a stop near the prometheus class vessel.

The fighters emitted wide beams of purple at each other, and sped through the void.

The Bith woman moved toward the viewscreen of the tiny, single-hulled vessel. “Get the Victory on screen,” she said calmly. “Captain Ty N’Desp, of the KGPO,” the woman told the man on the viewer. The man looked surprised as he turned toward her, his markings giving him away as Trill. With a quick glance toward one of her crew, Ty confirmed she was addressing the ship’s Captain. “I have two of my shuttles laying down a web pattern which should reveal the cloaked vessel that has been addressing you. They are currently heading to the coordinates that the Vaiul signal was emanating from.”

Waiting for Utex to respond, she cocked her head to one side. “You were in contact with Admiral Dowi of Starbase 416, correct?”

Ty saw the Trill’s head dip, then rise, shuddering slightly. “Thanks for coming,” he told her.

From somewhere offscreen, a voice was heard to say, “They found them.”

Ty nodded at the Trill and cut the communication.



Moments later, two peregrin class fighters, a defiant class escort, and a prometheus class multitasking vessel surrounded an empty space crisscrossed by bands of purple that revealed the general shape of a dark, smooth oblong mass. Four blue tractor beams lanced across the visible surface of the vessel, three from the USS Victory, one from the USS LaGrange.



Torme shot midair across the room, slammed into the far wall, and sank to the floor. She watched as a moment later, the door opened and a sliver of light fell across the room, glowing into a wide slice of brightness. The light was interrupted by the form of Rhea Kennit, who was summarily shoved into the room, stumbled and went down.

Kennit righted herself and unzipped her duty jacket, removing it. She rummaged across the interior surface of the garment, tearing large swaths of it away, gathering small pieces of tritanium, plasticene and metal together. “You’re going to love this,” she told the Counselor, peering at her as she began to assemble the object that had been carefully concealed with her uniform.