Bold Faced Lies
| Star Traks: Boldly Gone | |
| Episode name | Bold Faced Lies |
|---|---|
| Season | |
| Episode number | |
| Writer(s) | Alan Decker, Anthony Butler |
| Year | 2502 |
| Stardate | 177620 |
| Chronology | |
| Previous in series | Good Fences Make Good Neighbors - Part Two [BG] |
| Next in series | The Future Of Starfleet [BG] |
| Previous in timeline | Good Fences Make Good Neighbors - Part Two [BG] |
| Next in timeline | The Future Of Starfleet [BG] |
https://www.star-traks.com//assets/img/bg/lies.jpg
Once upon a time, a crew of Romulans exiled to the farthest reaches of known space had an encounter. It was a BAD encounter. Soon Captain Reginald Bain and the crew of the USS Anomaly were sent to rescue those Romulans, and they lived happily ever after. Yeah right. Like things ever go that smoothly.
Summary
The Romulan scout ship Tyvek encounters small orb of energy while on assignment deep in the Delta Quadrant. When the ship alters course, the orb follows. Commander Vioxx attempts to warn the orb away, then, when it continues toward them, orders his tactical officer, Centurion Nortal to open fire. Vioxx’s science officer, Sub-Commander Remax determines that the weapon impacts only made the orb larger. Vioxx has his helm officer, Sub-Lieutenant Zantak, attempt to evade the incoming orb, but it latches onto the Tyvek. A voice suddenly booms “YOU ARE NOT OF THE ONE!” from all around them. Nortal attempts to dislodge the orb but only ends up overloading the ship’s power.
Beings made entirely of energy appear throughout the Tyvek and begin draining power from the ship’s systems. After one appears on the bridge and smacks Zantak away from the helm, hurting her severely, Vioxx is able to destroy it with a sustained disrupter blast that almost uses all of the power in his side arm. Another being instantly forms. The ship is being overrun, so Vioxx’s engineer, Lieutenant Selex, beams himself, Vioxx, and the rest of the bridge crew into a shuttle. They send a distress signal and head to a habitable world as the orb drains the Tyvek and kills the rest of the crew. The shuttle is hit by an energy blast from the orb, sending it crashing toward the planet.
Once the orb finishes draining the Tyvek, it resumes its previous course which will take it through Romulan and Federation space toward the One.
Romulan officials receive the transmission from the Tyvek and determine that the orb will be too large for them to deal with if it continues to grow as it heads toward the empire. It needs to be dealt with quickly. They decide that the best option is to send the USS Anomaly, since, by rights, it should partially belong to the Empire due to the technology used in its anti-singularity drive.
They contact Ambassador Rorshak on Earth and tell him to ask Admiral Kristen Larkin to send the Anomaly to rescue the Tyvek’s officers. He is not, however, to tell Starfleet about the orb. That is a Romulan problem that should be dealt with by Romulans. Rorshak is unhappy with this order, particularly since his daughter, Commander Prosak, serves on the Anomaly, but he does his duty and goes to Larkin. She agrees to send the Anomaly to rescue the Tyvek’s officers in the spirit of joint cooperation.
On the USS Anomaly, Ensign Hector Arroyo and Lieutenant Shelly Marsden are heading to breakfast before their shifts. Arroyo is sullen after a bad date the night before. They find that the holomess looks unappetizing, so Marsden heads to engineering. Arroyo is joined by Prosak for a quick trip to grab food from the replimat on Deck Two before going to the bridge, where they find it in utter chaos. Arroyo quickly takes the helm as the Anomaly careens through dimensions. Cabral has lost control of the anti-sing drive, and Marsden quickly determines that control has been routed to a Jefferies tube junction where Lieutenant Polnuc likes to spend his time. She heads off to that junction to see what is happening. Prosak also sends Lieutenant Commander Tovar to investigate.
Marsden finds Polnuc in the junction, surrounded by equipment that he has scavenged and very agitated. He explains to Marsden that he has built a system to allow the anti-singularity drive to work without needing Cabral. He just needs to figure out how to deal the dimensional breach the Anomaly has fallen into. Marsden tries to stop him, but he knocks her to the floor of the junction then throws a ball at her that ensnares her in sticky webbing. Tovar arrives, but Polnuc activates several phasers cannons he has hidden in the junction, forcing Tovar to dodge before he is stunned. He ends up falling onto Marsden and getting stuck as well, leading to a bit of flirting between the two. With that issue dealt with, Polnuc goes back to trying to fix the real problem. After getting no word from Tovar, Prosak goes to the junction. She narrowly avoids being zapped by Polnuc’s cannons but gets her pants leg stuck to Tovar and Marsden.
On the bridge, Arroyo suggests that Cabral use his hovercam to try to tie back into the system that Polnuc rerouted, which will hopefully give Cabral back control of the anti-sing drive. Captain Reginald Bain arrives on the bridge demanding to know what is happening. Once Arroyo fills him in, Bain compliments Arroyo’s flying but otherwise lets the man work.
Realizing that only her pants are stuck, Prosak slides off her boots and pants, sneaks up the ladder to the platform where Polnuc is working, and yanks him off of it. Cabral regains control of anti-sing and returns the Anomaly to normal space. Polnuc is taken into custody.
Larkin contacts the Anomaly and informs Bain of the rescue mission. She is also sending along orders from the Romulan High Command that are to be given to the Tyvek’s commanding officer.
Back in the Delta Quadrant, the Tyvek’s officers survive the shuttle crash and set off to find shelter. The are soon surrounded by four massive creatures, each the size of a house. Vioxx shoots one to little effect just before the universal translator kicks in and the creature demands to know why Vioxx shot it.
Back on the Anomaly, Marsden asks Tovar if he is free for dinner, but he already has plans with Jamie Torgerson, who told Tovar that she wanted to talk, something he does not take as a good sign. The first part of dinner is quiet, and Tovar finds his mind drifting to Marsden and even Prosak. Torgerson sadly asks if Tovar thinks she is boring, since his mind always seems to be a million miles away from her. Tovar insists that he wants to be with her and will focus on her when they are together.
Vioxx introduces himself and his officers to the creatures. The creatures are a family. Prefftle and Boolit are the parents, Groop is their daughter, and Kudool is their son. Kudool invites the Romulans to dinner and says they live near a cave that would be suitable shelter for the humanoids. Vioxx agrees, and the group goes to the small clearing below a cliff face where Prefftle and his family live. The Romulans are offered fruit, which they gladly take, then scramble up to the cave entrance, which it about 8 feet above the ground. Prefftle and his family all agree that the Romulans are nice and set about deciding which one they’re going to eat first.
Prosak receives a comm from Rorshak. He says that he just wanted to see her for a moment and wishes her luck on the mission, adding that the unknown is everywhere and can be very dangerous. Prosak senses there is more to his comm than she is getting.
Arroyo and Marsden play minigolf in their holopods. Marsden is less than thrilled since she prefers actual golf. Marsden asks Arroyo what he thinks of Tovar. Arroyo is surprised and doesn’t like the idea at all. He reminds Marsden that Tovar has a girlfriend. Marsden assures him that she won’t go near Tovar while he’s dating Torgerson, and she’s not sure if he’s interested in her anyway.
The Anomaly arrives at the Tyvek’s last known coordinates and locates the world where the shuttle crashed. The Romulans told Starfleet that the Tyvek itself was destroyed by a storm, but Dr. Natalia Kasyov finds the ship powerless and adrift. They head to the planet to get answers from the Tyvek’s officers.
After a rough night of sleeping on the cave floor and a breakfast of fruit, Vioxx wants to talk to their hosts about finding a source of fresh water. Remax goes out to ask. He returns three minutes later minus his left arm and screaming a whole hell of a lot.
Prosak and Tovar beam down to the site of the shuttle crash while Vioxx gives Remax pain killers from their medkit and bandages up the patch where his arm used to be. Prefftle tries to get the Romulans to come out of the cave, which they refuse to do.
Kasyov detects four large creature intently focused on a cave that she cannot scan into, and Bain deduces that they have the Romulans trapped in there. He decides to beam down himself and join Prosak and Tovar.
Vioxx takes their one disrupter and slips quietly to the front of the cave. Prefftle and his family are nowhere in site, but a clawed arm suddenly grabs Vioxx and pulls him outside. Bain and the others are entering the clearing at this moment, and, seeing Vioxx in danger, incinerate Prefftle’s head with their phaser rifles. Boolit sends her children after the Starfleet officers. Bain orders Prosak and Tovar to get to the Romulans while he deals with the creatures heading their way. Tovar tries to chase down Boolit, but she knocks the rifle from his hands then stomps on it, crushing the weapon. Prosak is able to chase her away and pull Tovar to safety. They go over to where Vioxx was dropped by Prefftle. Vioxx explains that the family seemed so nice at first, since they gave Vioxx and his officers shelter and food. Prosak realizes that the situation is more complicated than it first appeared and asks for Vioxx’s translator.
Before Prosak can talk to Boolit, Bain sets his rifle to overload and catches Groop and Kudool in the subsequent blast, killing them both. As Boolit charges Bain, Prosak informs him that the creatures are sentient. Bain rushes over to Vioxx and the others and uses the Romulan translator to try to talk Boolit down. She is not willing to listen, so Bain has Tovar bring her down with several heavy stun blasts. The Starfleet officers and Romulans beam up to the Anomaly. Boolit awakens an hour later to find another member of her species staring down at her. They decide to go off together and mate.
Bain takes Vioxx to his Captain’s Lounge, so that Vioxx can see the orders sent by Romulan High Command in private. In sickbay, Remax looks over options for a synthetic arm while Dr. Fred Nooney examines Zantak and determines that she suffered a total disruption of her body’s electrical impulses. Before Nooney can press her to find out what happened, the Romulan officers are summoned to the lounge to hear their orders. Vioxx tells them that they will have the Anomaly follow the course of the orb that attacked the Tyvek but not about the orb itself in hopes that once they encounter it, the Anomaly crew will figure out how to deal with it without ever knowing that the Romulans were already aware of the threat. Before that, though, they have the Anomaly use its tractor beam to push the powerless Tyvek toward Romulan space. Vioxx gives Bain the course to follow, saying that they will be rendezvousing with a warhawk.
Some time later, Kasyov picks up a large spike in energy readings ahead of the Anomaly. Bain is suspicious that the source of the massive readings just happens to be moving toward Romulan space on their exact course and asks Vioxx about it. Vioxx dodges the question. Bain orders Arroyo to give the orb, which is now 100 kilometers in diameter, a wide berth. Kasyov continues scanning and determines that the orb is growing and that it’s heading straight toward Earth. Bain decides that it must be an energy entity of some kind. Arroyo, who has been growing more and more nervous, wants to know why Bain thinks that. Bain says it’s due to precedent and names several other entities that were heading to Earth looking for a particular person or thing. Bain says they are going to nip this one in the bud and has Arroyo move to intercept the orb.
Kasyov figures out that the orb must have drained the Tyvek’s singularity, which means that the Romulans have been lying. She tells Bain just as the ship is hit by an arc of energy from the orb that traps the ship. Bain opens a channel to the entity, which says “SOME OF YOU ARE OF THE ONE. I WILL HAVE THE ONE.”
Arroyo flees the bridge. Prosak chases after him as the entity announces that it will cleanse the Anomaly and then feed on it. Prosak catches up with Arroyo just outside of the shuttlebay. He rushes past her and straight into a raceabout. She storms after him into the raceabout, demanding to know what he is doing. He replies that he has to do this and takes off.
The orb moves to follow the raceabout but not before sending several energy beings onto the Anomaly that start draining the ship’s systems.
Arroyo tells Prosak that the entity won’t let them get away and sets the raceabout’s warp core to breach. He apologizes to Prosak for getting her caught up in this. The orb overtakes the raceabout just as it explodes.
Marsden informs Bain that the energy beings have attached themselves to the warp core and quantum singularity. Kasyov detects the raceabout explosion. The entity is no longer moving. Bain orders Tovar to open fire on it.
Arroyo awakens with Prosak in a pale violet nothingness. Prosak wraps her arms around his neck and asks if he thought she was going to let him slip away again that easily.
FOUR YEARS EARLIER
While working for Starfleet Research & Development, Arroyo is testing a ship with an experimental wormhole drive. The ship creates its own wormhole, using an emitter mounted on its bow, which it then enters. Arroyo is able to do this successfully, but once in the wormhole, the ship stops moving. Before he can investigate, something overwhelms his whole body with waves of pleasure until he loses consciousness. Once he awakens, a voice asks him if he is well. It is an energy being, whom Arroyo dubs Lucinda, that has never encountered anything other than itself before. It tried to make contact with Arroyo which is what caused the sensation he felt.
Lucinda refuses to allow Arroyo to leave and spends the next several days learning about him and where he came from, probing his mind and joining with him so it can experience tastes and other aspects of having a corporeal form. Lucinda begins to call Arroyo “My One” and asks to join with him while he sleeps and while it activates his pleasure centers.
As more days pass, they exist as The One, a single being and eventually decide to go experience Arroyo’s homeworld. They allow the ship to move again, exiting the wormhole back into normal space. When they do, though, Arroyo and Lucinda are violently ripped apart. Arroyo is back to himself, but he can still hear Lucinda calling to him. He detects an energy signature, a small orb no more than ten centimeters in diameter, floating in front of the test ship. It touches the ship and likes the taste of the energy within. It’s also suddenly three centimeters larger. Lucinda declares that it will rejoin with Arroyo and feed off of everything in normal space. Arroyo says that he can’t let Lucinda do that. He activates the ship’s shields and the wormhole generator in an effort to send Lucinda back where it came from. He uses the shields to push Lucinda into the wormhole then shuts the generator down. Arroyo returns to Starfleet R&D but feels empty.
BACK IN THE PRESENT
As the Anomaly crew battles the energy beings attacking the ship, Hector talks to the Lucinda-controlled Prosak. Lucinda explains that the wormhole didn’t send it back to its realm but instead to empty space. It survived on what energy it could gather from stray solar particles as it slowly made its way back to Arroyo. Lucinda says now that it controls Prosak, they can join together in the human way. Arroyo rejects this. He says that Lucinda’s form was never the problem. It was Lucinda’s threat to suck the universe dry. Lucinda says that Arroyo’s love for the people and places of his universe must be powerful if he is denying himself the pleasure of being part of The One; therefore, it would remove all of the things standing in the way.
The entity moves back toward the Anomaly and continues sending energy beings aboard. Arroyo tries to convince Lucinda to stop. It tells him that they needed each other, and he admits that the only time he ever felt truly fulfilled was while being part of The One. They kiss as the battle on the Anomaly continues.
On the Anomaly’s bridge, Remax looks at the sensor readings of one of the energy beings when it came it contact with a transporter beam and sees that it was momentarily destabilized. Bain calls a meeting over the comm, and Kasyov explains that, since the transporter affects matter at the sub-atomic level, dematerializing someone basically changes the structure of this universe in a very localized area. From that, Marsden realizes that Polnuc’s device could help them, but she cut the power to it. Bain sends her back into the Jefferies tube junction to get the device operating again and orders Tovar to accompany her to see to her safety.
In the junction, Marsden has Tovar help her with the repairs, putting them in very close proximity and they engage in a bit of flirtatious banter. Eventually, energy beings detect the power coming from the junction and arrive to drain it. Tovar holds them off with a phaser rifle as Marsden completes her repairs. With those done, she sends the Anomaly back into the dimensional rip.
Prosak’s body falls limply to ground then begins screaming.
The energy beings disappear from the Anomaly. Bain congratulates Marsden and Tovar and tells them that he will let them know when they can shut Polnuc’s device down and return the Anomaly to normal space. Left alone in the junction, they have nothing to do but wait. Ok. That’s not true. They find something else to do involving a lot of lip locking.
Arroyo begs Lucinda to transport them to the Anomaly, so he can talk to Bain and settle this peacefully. He promises not to leave her again and tells her that he trusts Bain. They appear on the Anomaly’s bridge, and Arroyo explains to Bain that Prosak is now controlled by Lucinda and that they have to get back to normal space or both Prosak and Lucinda will die. Bain comms Marsden to shut down the device (ignoring all of the wet smacking sounds he gets in response), and, with the Anomaly back in normal space, Arroyo tells the bridge crew about his history with Lucinda. He assures Bain that Lucinda will never be a danger again. They will leave, and no one will ever hear from them again. Bain agrees. Lucinda leaves Prosak and absorbs Arroyo. All that remains is the energy orb of The One, which departs the Anomaly. Prosak remembers nothing of what happened, and the Anomaly heads back to Earth.
Rorshak meets with Admiral Larkin and two other Starfleet admirals. The admirals are upset about being lied to about the rescue mission, but Rorshak does not admit wrong doing. Instead, he informs them that the Romulan Empire demands more of a role in the day-to-day operations of the Anomaly. Larkin tells Bain that the Romulans he rescued will be staying aboard and that Vioxx will be his new first officer. Bain insists that Prosak stay aboard as his executive officer. Bain gives the news to Prosak, who then receives a comm from her father. She is furious with him for letting the Anomaly be sent into a dangerous situation with no warning about what was waiting for them. He protests that due to his position, he couldn’t tell her. Prosak says she hopes the Praetor rewards him for doing his duty and cuts the channel.
Marsden and Tovar talk in the ship’s pub about Arroyo’s departure. Marsden can’t understand why Arroyo never told her about Lucinda. The conversation turns to what happened between them in the Jefferies tube junction. They admit their attraction to each other, but Tovar says that he wants to be with Torgerson. He wants to do the right thing, and decides that it’s best that he leave the pub.
Before heading off into the universe as part of The One, Arroyo visits his mother, Julia Arroyo to say goodbye. She asks if he’s just going to run out on his fiancée. Hector replies that they were never really engaged, then disappears, ignoring her demands for an explanation.
Featuring
- Captain Reginald Bain
- Commander Prosak
- Commander Vioxx
- Lieutenant Commander Tovar
- Lieutenant Shelly Marsden
- Sub-Commander Remax
- Dr. Natalia Kasyov
- Ensign Hector Arroyo
- Centurion Nortal
- Sub-Lieutenant Zantak
- Engineer Selex
- Cabral