[PLOT FINALE] Deus ex Machina, III of III
Posted on 26 Dec 2024 @ 8:14pm by Captain Easton Lawe
647 words; about a 3 minute read
Mission: Miranda
It would be impossible for anyone to ever know exactly what had happened, once it was all over.
There was too much chaos, and there were too many disparate pieces to the puzzles that were all moving on their own. People who would not speak, and people who could not speak. They could only find the bits that they were able to and try their best to understand what it all meant in the bigger picture.
By the end, the colonists had been chased out of their caves by a destructive computer problem. The three officers from the USS Odin were among them.
…three ships remained in orbit, and the pieces of the fourth lay in their own shallow graves around the planet and uncomfortably close to the camp.
…seven crew members from between the four ships’ worth on the ground were injured in the fall, including Captain Lawe, and one dead.
…the Valkyrie home of Ensign Walker was found, towed back to camp, and repairs were begun.
…the security officers from four ships came together to arrest the colonists.
…the colonists wouldn’t say anything to anyone at this point, but investigations figured out well enough that the trader who dropped the illness on their four ships had come from here. Biologically engineered to house the viral weapon and deliver it to the ships, so they would be forced toward the planet. It was a foolhardy plan, too many elements requiring chance, but it had worked.
…why had they done this? They wouldn’t answer that either, but those same investigations suggested that they needed new DNA and new technology to improve their planet and their highly crafted, honed, and enhanced persons. The only way they seemed to do this was by taking it, although four Federation vessels? This was the most brazen plan yet.
…the last thing that became known was that the Odin AI was gone. She had been gone for a while, but there were clues to suggest that she was still…somewhere, almost dormant, but not now. They could only surmise that the cessation of the colonists’ plans had been an act of the AI, but she had burned herself out into nothingness in the process. She’d left a good-bye message.
“Captain,” an ops officer said from the entryway to the medic tent, where he was laying on a cot with injuries to both legs and back that required more treatment than the equipment they had on the planet could offer. “We will be able to beam back up to the Odin in about a half-hour, sir,” they reported. “Teams are just making sure all three ships are safe for crew to return to.”
He nodded once, though he had enough medications in his system to make that a bit of a haggard gesture.
It was almost incomprehensible to him that it had all come to this. It had not been so very long, and yet it felt like a lifetime now since that first person had gotten sick. Who could possibly have guessed that it would all end up here?
“The commander of the fleet has also dispatched the Agimar to take over the prisoners,” the ops officer continued. “They’ve asked one ship to remain behind to watch them until that vessel arrives in five hours. The Hallr has not seen any casualties here on the planet, so command recommends them.”
He nodded again. “We can agree to that. We will return to the convoy while the Hallr awaits the Agimar and takes over the prisoners. Hopefully, they will have better luck getting more information out of them than we have.”
The other officer nodded. “Yes, sir. I hope so. It would be nice to…to understand why all of this happened.”
Easton sighed and leaned his head back, closing his eyes again. “Yes. Yes, it would.”
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