Surefoot 53: Deep Six

"And what's the current temperature out there?"

"Minus twelve degrees Celsius."

He shivered at the thought; that was worse than back home in the dead of winter. "I'll forgo a quick dip, then."

"Not that you couldn't use the exercise," Sasha murmured.

Hrelle looked to T'Varik. "Are you going to allow this disrespect to go unchallenged?"

T'Varik turned to look behind her. "Lieutenant Hrelle, your former position as Second Officer on the Ajax may have allowed you to speak in an irreverent manner about your commanding officer, but the Surefoot is a much more disciplined vessel, and your present Captain is an unforgiving martinet who does not appreciate puerile humour-" Then she stopped and looked back at Hrelle. "Forgive me, Sir, I cannot sustain the schmegegge."

Hrelle raised an eyebrow. "Schmegegge?"

She nodded. "It is the Yiddish term for 'nonsense', 'malarkey'-"

"I know what it means!" He glanced around. "Is it time to go yet?"

"That'll depend on our pursuers," C'Rash grunted, but then checked her station displays. "Maybe we should send a tactical probe to the surface, run some passive scans?"

"The kelbonite in the surrounding water will interfere with the telemetry," T'Varik reminded her.

"Not if you program it to return to us. Closer up, the kelbonite shouldn't interfere with main spectrum frequencies."

T'Varik raised an eyebrow, looking to Hrelle again. "It is a feasible suggestion."

Hrelle nodded. "Marriage to you must be having a positive effect on her."

"Undoubtedly."

C'Rash hissed at them both.

*

Deck 6 Mid -- Morgue:

The room was never an inviting place; now, bereft of bodies, letting bootsteps echo, somehow its forbidding feel accentuated.

Kami had stood still, explaining as best she could with the limited information she had, while Zirangi paced the room, looking at the empty tables and alcoves, peering in, as if somehow expecting it to all be some horrible joke. Occasionally she looked over at the Counselor, her emotions raw and visible on her face.

Then there was silence. Zanagi stopped and shook her head slightly. "This- This is like some sort of nightmare out of Charles Dickens. How- How could Hrelle do that?"

"Commander-"

"Has he no sense of decency? Does he know what it's like to lose a partner? Someone you love with all your heart?"

Kami fought to control her own reactions, her growing wellspring of emotion. "Yes. Yes, he does. We both do. We've lost spouses, and we weren't able to be there to say goodbye to them. It... It took two months to have my first husband's body brought back to me from where he was killed. It took seven years for Esek to be able to finally stand at his first wife's grave and say goodbye."

Zirangi paced again, hands balled into fists. "Then he has no excuse! No excuse at all! My husband died protecting others! He was a hero! They were all heroes! They weren't props for your husband-"

Kami roared.

She knew it had been building up in her, building up since the attack in the Science Lab. And she had been fighting to keep it under control, to continue to do her job. She had to employ a lifetime of training, of self-discipline and self-control and she just had to focus and keep centred and help everyone else.

But all of that vanished now. Now there was nothing but a raw, primal eruption of anguish and anger. She dropped to her knees, her fists pounding on the bulkhead repeatedly, sending waves of pain through her arms that never reached the rest of her, her mane falling down around her head as she screeched at everything and nothing, until she was in danger of hyperventilating and passing out.

Distantly she looked up to see Zirangi staring at her with open confusion, concern and not a little fear. "Counselor, what-"

"MY SON!" she cried out, tears flowing down either side of her muzzle. "MY SON ALMOST DIED TODAY!" She gasped, choking before catching her breath again. "I- I- I told him to get updeck, to get away with his sister! I- I was r-ready to die- die, knowing they were safe- but he came back- came back to protect me- he could- he could have died- He's only five years old! What- What the fuck am I doing out here, risking his life, my daughter's life?" He covered her face. "What- What kind of mother am I?"

She felt the other woman kneel before her and hold her. And Kami shamelessly accepted the comfort, even as she sobbed, "I'm- I'm sorry- you've lost your husband today- I- I haven't- haven't lost anyone- I- I should be helping you- I've no- no right to- to-"

"Hush," Zirangi assured her, hugging her, her own emotions emerging.

*

Hrelle watched the ice grow and thicken, based not on sensor data but what the computer could extrapolate from passive visual scans. The tremors were increasing. "How long until the probe returns?"

"It's overdue," Sasha responded. "By twelve minutes."

"The currents," Giles suggested. "They could be too strong for it to fight."

"Or the Cardassians are just above us," C'Rash responded. "And blew it up while they wait for us to emerge so they can do the same."

There was a rumble, a steady one now, that reached Hrelle's bones and made him stand up and peer at the blackness ahead. "What's that?"

All eyes focused on a shifting of the ocean floor, kicking up silt and pushing it ahead, towards the Surefoot. Kit checked his readings. "Respected Sir, there is a massive iceberg forming, its ventral side is dragging along the bottom!"

He could see it now: the bottom half of an iceberg the size of a mountain.

Coming towards them. "Red Alert! Giles, lift us out of this crevice! NOW!"

The young helmsman moved quickly, and the ship rose and banked hard to port, against massive, chaotic currents, into waters that were quickly filling up with millions of chunks of ice of varying sizes, bouncing off the hull in ever increasing numbers.

Hrelle imagined he felt his ears popping as they ascended in a steep incline. "Find an opening in the ice above us!"

"There's none!" T'Varik called back over the klaxon. "And icebergs are closing in around us!"

Hrelle's hands balled into fists. "Arm forward phasers! C'Rash, Wide Sweep, Fire!"

He watched as the orange beams shot out, burning through the icy waters, fragmenting ice fragments along the way, and striking the ice covering the surface of the water, moving in a zig-zag pattern. He knew that C'Rash's suggestion could be right, and that the Cardassians could be hovering in orbit around the moon, and now the Surefoot had just given itself away.

But choosing a slim chance of survival over none, he'll take the slim. And ignore the inevitable teasing about him and anything slim.

They crashed through the shattered ice surface. "Tactical! Passive scans only! Any sign of them?"

Precious seconds passed as they continued upwards into space.

Then C'Rash finally replied, "Residual warp signatures, Cardassian wavelengths, about an hour ago." She looked up, her tail swishing behind her. "Heading away."

Hrelle felt his heart slow down... but only a little. "Stand down from Red Alert, but keep us at Silent Running. Giles, plot a course that won't attract attention, and take us out, but keep us at one-quarter impulse until we leave the system."

"That's gonna add a day or two to our trip home," Sasha pointed out.

"A delay would be preferable to being rediscovered," T'Varik countered, looking to Hrelle. "It will require a reassessment of our existing resources-"

An alert on C'Rash's Security console drew the black-furred female's attention. "Captain, there's an alert from the Shuttlebay; there's some sort of disturbance among the evacuees. I don't want to divert Neraxis and her team away from the Brig with its current occupants."

Hrelle nodded. "Come on. Commander, you have the centre seat."

*

The Caitians heard the commotion from the corridor as they entered the Shuttlebay, stepping around the line of Security personnel keeping back the large group of evacuees. Ensign Atiaro Thykrill led the team, literally standing there while Captain Price was practically in her face. "Listen, Missy, if you don't want to jeopardise your career in Starfleet, you'd better-"

"You'd better not finish that sentence, Captain," Hrelle intervened, literally stepping between Price and Thyrkill, turning to the latter. "What's going on here?"

The Andorian woman straightened up. "Sir, we advised them that we had to restrict their visiting the Morgue until further notice, due to the ongoing emergency."

"Captain Hrelle," Price cut in, "As much as we're grateful to you and your crew for rescuing us, we are not your prisoners!"

Now he turned to Price. "No one has said or implied that you were... but that doesn't mean you have free rein to go where you like, when you like, especially during a Security Alert. And I would strongly recommend you not threaten any of my people again for just following orders."

The human calmed down, a little. "Yes, perhaps. But as it appears your Red Alert, whatever it was, is over, we have hungry people who need to be fed, tired people who need to sleep, grieving people who wish to say goodbye to the friends and family they lost-"

Hrelle's gut twisted. Seven Hells... He considered taking Price aside, breaking the news to him confidentially, and then having some pre-prepared statement made to the rest of them. But that would most likely cause even more hostile feeling, the longer he dragged this out. He cleared his throat and raised his voice. "The eating and sleeping schedules for the evacuees will resume. But there's been a... change of circumstances involving viewing those who have died."

"A change?" Price echoed. "What's happened? Does it involve the Cardassians?"

"Yes. We were being pursued, surrounded. We couldn't outrun them, or outfight them. Our only option at such short notice was to outwit them, by faking a starship crash on a planet, while we hid nearby."

His words ran through the crowd behind Price, who nodded as he took it in. "The shuttles you sent out... the debris you beamed away... all of that was part of your plan?"

Hrelle nodded soberly. "But we knew -- I knew -- that with all our efforts, they could still doubt what they see. They... needed to believe the fatal nature of the apparent crash-"

"My God," Price breathed, stepping back, looking appalled with the realisation. "You took the bodies, didn't you? Didn't you?"

His shock seemed to ripple out through the crowd behind him. Hrelle looked out at them, responding to all of them as much as Price, and feeling like seven shades of shit. "Yes." As the people behind him raised voices, he raised his own. "This was not an easy decision for me, far from it-"

"How dare you?" Price exclaimed. "You... stole the bodies of our shipmates? Our friends? Family members? And then dumped them somewhere, like they were so much garbage?"

"It wasn't like that, Captain! I have a duty, to do everything I can to protect you, all of you-"

But Price shoved an angry finger at Hrelle's snout. "You didn't even give us a chance to say goodbye to any of them!"

"A lot of people today didn't get a chance to say goodbye to people they lost!" C'Rash snapped, stepping forward.

Hrelle waved her back, facing Price once more, his heart racing from anger. And guilt. Mostly guilt. "There was no time to let people say goodbye. We act to act, and act quickly-"

"They were people we knew, people we lost-"

"They were our people as well!" Hrelle snapped back. "People we've known and worked with for years! But if I hadn't taken the action I did, we could have ended up dead too-"

"So you say," Price continued, his face red with outrage, turning around repeatedly to get the support of the people behind him. "Can you even understand what this means to us? What you've taken from us?"

"He does."

Hrelle turned, as did others, as Kami appeared, alongside Commander Zirangi. The Wakandan woman approached Hrelle, though she addressed Price and the rest of the protestors. "He knows. And no matter how many people might tell him that he did the right thing, it'll still eat at him."

Price started, clearly not expecting the reaction from the woman. "Commander, I don't know what your people's customs are like, but many of us have time-honoured traditions regarding our deceased!"

"So do mine, Captain."

"They had a right to be treated with dignity-"

"The dead have no rights." She turned to the crowd, raising her voice. "No rights, no needs, no thoughts. The dead don't care about being buried or burned or interred, or having memorials or wakes. Those are all things the living demand. They comfort us, reassure us. Whatever life inhabited the bodies we lived with has moved on."

The crowd's anger began to shift, and Price clearly sensed it, as he pressed on. "Commander irangi, you don't understand-"

"I lost my husband of twelve years today, Captain Price," the woman snapped back. "Don't try to tell me what I do or do not understand. My husband Mjowe was as much a part of me as my arm, my heart. And now he's gone, and I honestly don't know what I'll do, how I'll go on." She pointed at Hrelle. "But I do know that it wasn't this man who killed him. This man, who has the responsibility of getting all of us to safety, by any means necessary.

And all of you, who have lost family, friends and shipmates today, and who are now converting your grief into anger, and directing it at Captain Hrelle, ask yourselves: did they die saving others? Would they do it again? And would they think any perceived reverence for their bodies, bodies they no longer need, would be worth risking our lives? I know what Mjowe's response would be."

She turned back to Hrelle, her face tight with emotion as she drew up to him. "You had to take a very difficult course of action, Captain. I don't know many others who could have done the same. Speaking for my husband and myself: thank you."

She held out her hand.

Hrelle gratefully accepted it.

*

Price had moved away from Hrelle and the crowds, knowing he had lost the side of the crowd thanks to Zirangi's intervention. Well, he would still be filing a formal protest with Starfleet Command, and he certainly wasn't going to let any of his people help out-

"Captain Price?"

He turned, to see Captain Sakuth stride up to him. "May I speak with you privately, please?"

Price grunted, letting her lead him to a relatively secluded spot between rows of newly-replicated hygiene stations. "What do you want, Captain? Shouldn't you be kissing Hrelle's ass again?"

"Captain Price... I need your help."

He frowned. "Excuse me?"

The Vulcan breathed in, her voice a whisper. "What I am about to reveal to you must be kept between us. Not even your senior officers can know, and if asked afterwards, I will deny telling you anything."

"Deny what?"

"My presence on this ship is no accident. I am on a classified mission from Admiral Ian Trenagen, Head of Starfleet intelligence; Captain Hrelle is under investigation, and has been for some time."

Price blinked, echoing, "Investigation?"

She nodded. "He has a history of erratic, maverick behaviour, and a distinct lack of respect for protocol. You have surely seen it yourself. Look at how he had his children present at an official briefing. How he treated both of us, fellow Captains, and how he allowed his senior officers, all of them either family members or former cadets he has groomed under his command, to behave towards us. And now this travesty with the desecration of the dead."

He grunted. "Commander Zirangi didn't think so."

"She had appeared alongside Hrelle's wife; clearly the Counselor employed emotional manipulation on a woman who was still grieving. It wouldn't be the first time he has escaped deserved censure."

Price took in the woman's words, finding it unnervingly convincing. But a part of him remained incredulous. "But- But he has a reputation as a tactical expert-"

"But who nevertheless has been assigned to command an ambulance ship instead of serving in a more important capacity with Starfleet Command."

He blinked. It made so much sense. "Are you- Are you certain about all this?"

A look of concern etched Sakuth's features. "Certain enough to reveal my mission to you. I am aware that the upper echelons look upon you as a redoubtable, dependable Commanding Officer." She paused, flushing a slight shade of green. "And, if I may be uncharacteristically forward, a not unattractive human... Nathaniel."

Price felt himself blush, his skin heat up and his pulse quicken, not accustomed to such compliments, such closeness; duty had never left him much time for personal relationships, and Sakuth wasn't unattractive either. "Um, thanks. But how can I help?"

"By cooperating fully with Hrelle's requests for personnel. If you can contrive to have as many of your crewmembers in place in key positions onboard the Surefoot, should it become necessary to assume command from him, it can be done with a minimum of conflict."

"Assume command?"

"Should it become necessary. Can Starfleet count on you? Certainly, when we return to the Thirteenth Fleet, your cooperation will be remembered when vessels are delivered to replace those lost at Khavak, and Captains are being selected for them."

Price swallowed, not having thought about that, having only just lost the Lynx. Of course there might be a fight for available commands, and there was no guarantee that he would be given another one, at least not right away, and here. "I'll, uh, I'll think about it."

She nodded. "That's all I ask."

He suddenly became aware of Sakuth's hand, her fingers, lightly touching his wrist, before releasing him. "What- What were you doing?"

She folded her hands behind her, formal once more. "What do you mean?"

"Why were you touching me like that?"

Her brow furrowed. "I was not touching you. Are you well, Captain?"

He blinked. No. No, she wasn't touching him. Why did he think that? He shook his head. "Never mind."

*

Deck 3 Fore -- Officer's Quarters:

Eydiir stood, arms folded challengingly. "I must insist you two take the bed."

Jonas and Neraxis glanced at each other, before he replied, "We can't do that, it's your room, your bed."

"You are married. You have conjugal rights. They are best employed in a bed."

Neraxis smirked. "We don't intend to exercise them in front of all you dirty bastards!"

Nearby, Kit and Giles were shifting aside furniture to make room for the newly-replicated sleeping bag rolls allocated to them and everyone else needing them, Kit looking up. "Respected Friends, if you wish us to leave the room for a period of time for you to have coitus-"

"No thank you!" the couple replied in unison.

"This is just like old times," Giles was noting. "Thanks for putting us up, Eydiir."

The Capellan grunted. "We are all required to accommodate as best we can under the circumstances. At least I am aware of all your individual nocturnal habits, and can pummel you for them without fear of censure." She paused and asked, "Have you confronted Captain Sakuth about her actions?"

Giles paused, feeling his face turn red. "Not yet. I want to have a word with Captain Hrelle or Commander T'Varik... maybe have one of them with me when I do so."

"She has not approached you yet, Best Friend Giles?" Kit asked.

He shook his head. "She's probably too busy."

"Or too ashamed?"

"She will have no shame." Eydiir looked up at the sound of the door chime. "Enter."

Sasha stepped inside, a sleeping bag roll under one arm and a package in her hand. "Is there a spot on the floor for one more?"