The Golden Towers

Posted on Fri Jan 6th, 2023 @ 4:36pm by Lieutenant Callan Armidale & Lieutenant JG Evelyn Stewart
Edited on on Mon Jan 9th, 2023 @ 1:06am

1,228 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Mission One: Goodwill Tour [Part One]
Location: Golden Towers: Docks
Timeline: MD5: 1100 hours

Lieutenant Callan Armidale had transported to Golden Towers along with some of the other Starfleet personnel. He was dockside when the gleaming white tower bobbed in on the ocean currents.

Recognizing his bridge mate, Evelyn Stewart, the Chief Helm and Navigation Officer, he made his way through the crowd that had gathered around the captain and the Romulan Senator. Callan had had enough of the meeting of minds.

“Excuse me! Excuse me, Lieutenant Stewart?” he asked as he got closer and closer.

Stewart was in a foul mood. As she suspected, the docking procedure for the base was nearly automated with her just calling out the distance as the docking clamps moved into position. She spent the entire time at sea practically running holes into the base’s carpets from her pacing. Her only consolation was that Golden Towers surely had a bar fully stocked with Romulan ale.

Evelyn could faintly hear a voice calling her name over her inner rant and she slowed and turned back the way she came to see the Ops officer, Armidale approaching. With a quiet sigh, she reigned in her temper to spare the man. “Lieutenant. What can I do for you?” she asked with as much an even tone as she could muster.

“I’ve just arrived on the transport. I was hoping you could tell me a little more about the seabase,” Callan said, noting that she seemed standoffish. “I’ve only seen it in simulations.”

Evelyn forced herself to give a polite smile. She wasn’t in the mood to give a tour but nodded. She slowly turned and began walking back towards the base. That drink could wait. “Of course. I may not be the best suited, but what did you want to know?”, she asked to be polite.

“I’ve been in simulations where there’s a lot to be done and many more that seem like an average day. On average days, do you find work slow…monotonous?” he wondered without trying to sound eager to work under those conditions.

Evelyn set her jaw to bite back on her frustration. She reminded herself it was not the man’s fault what the circumstances were. She chose her words carefully, being as diplomatic as possible. “Lieutenant, the base navigates by the natural currents of the water and is automated to compensate as needed. While it maybe a dream assignment for the scientists and the marine biologists, for the rest of us….” She couldn’t find the correct way to put the drudgery that is a shift rotation so let the implication hang there and speak for itself.

Cal smiled. “It’s okay,” he responded. “I spent many years as a desk clerk in Starfleet Intelligence. Talk about monotony…I think I took the right position now that you’ve confirmed the lack of,” Cal paused as he tried to find the right word. “excitement.”

Lieutenant Stewart wouldn’t know Callan’s husband was sent to Starfleet Max, better known as StAX. The maximum security prison had been abandoned by Starfleet but the prisoners were left to fend for themselves. If anyone could survive those circumstances, it would be Jonah. His husband of three years, though that was now erased from all databases.

Stewart gave Callan a curious look. “Why would an intelligence officer be assigned to Ops?”, she asked him. “Typically Ops come either straight from the Academy on assignment or from the Engineering Corps at Headquarters.”

“I moved from Intelligence on the suggestion of an ex. He had several bad experiences while he worked operations for them. As a low level paper pusher, it didn’t take much to move into a different position. I’m not here as an Intelligence Officer, if that’s your worry. In all honesty, I’m looking for my ex…our break up was amicable and he was rumored to be around this area last,” Callan suddenly blurred out.

Evelyn was surprised by the man’s candor. She considered what he said regarding his lover disappearing in the region. “What do you mean he disappeared?” She asked, surprised to hear this. She looked around the dock and the amount of officers moving ashore for some leave.

Stewart quickly steered the man towards the Golden Towers and away from the crowds. “I think it’s best you start from the beginning,” she said firmly, but not critical.

Callan shook his head. “It’s hard to explain, but I can only say he was falsely charged with treason. He was arrested and jailed quickly after. My guess is, he was given a job by intelligence that required him to appear beaten by Starfleet and ready to make illegal alliances. I…don’t know anything. There’s no information from Intelligence or the prison system.”

Cal paused and shut his mouth. “I’ve never spoken a word of this in the last three years. Why am I telling you?” he wondered.

Evelyn shook her head at his question. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she commented, though the similarities to his story and that of what happened to her brother eight years ago wasn’t lost on her.

“I was just thinking that, if the duty shifts are slow, maybe I can spend some of that time trying to find J, you know…” Callan paused as he considered his next words. “What do you know about StAX? The Starfleet Maximum Security Prison?”

Stewart shrugged as she remembered. “It’s exactly what you said, the most maximum security prison in the Federation. The prisoners sent there are sent for life for the worst crimes against the Federation. The Maquis responsible for the most hideous acts of terrorism were sent there. The people who couldn’t be rehabilitated back into society by working in a penal colony.” The death penalty was pretty much abolished in practice throughout the Federation and Starfleet except in the most rare of circumstances. StAX was the alternative.

“That’s the last place Jonah was known to be,” Cal said quietly. “He didn’t deserve to be there. He was set up. And they,” Cal stopped and pointed at the red striped leading to the Starfleet delta on Triton Seabase, “left him there to die when Hobus went nova.

“Except like here, the nova never reached StAX, and Starfleet knew they would never regain control.”

Evelyn could see the grief and despair rolling off of Callan. “Lieutenant, I’m sorry for what you are going through, but without proof, there isn’t much you can do,” she said sympathetically to the young man. “The Federation does not take sentencing someone to StAX lightly. And in any event, no one really knows where the prison is. It’s classified to the highest level for security reasons.”

“I’ve got it narrowed down to one place. What do you think about that?” Cal asked, knowing he might be the last Starfleet officer to know where StAX could be.

Stewart looked at the Lieutenant surprised. “I’d say I’d need to see proof of that before I believed you,” she said honestly to the young man, calling his bluff.

Callan looked around and scowled. “Certainly not in current company,” he responded almost as if he was offended. “Meet me on the base later. “I’ll have something for you then.”

 

RSS Feed