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Craven

Thy Kingdom Come Part II: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness

Act strong...you have to act strong. Don't show weakness or they'll tear you apart.

 

These were the words Jack Craven told himself each time he had a briefing with any section of the science department. This morning, they rang especially true.

After a long night battling the stress-induced nausea brought on by his latest mission, Craven was walking at an unusually brisk pace towards one of the many conference rooms aboard the Excalibur. But today would be no ordinary briefing.

 

After a few weeks of construction, the "Merlin Subspace Delivery System" was nearing completion, but its subspace components had yet to be created and implemented. And the entire Science Team, including Tristan Xenatos was still in the dark about the true nature of the weapon.

 

Be cool, pretend you're fine with it. Don't make your concerns the issue...they'll have enough on their plate...

 

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Craven straightened his uniform and walked through the door into the conference room stopping immediately after he entered.

 

"Good morning," he greeted his weapon development team with a half smile.

 

"Mornin Chief." "Good Morning Lieutenant!" "How's the day going?"

 

Each bright eyed and bushy tailed response made him feel worse about what he was about to do.

 

Turning to the entrance, his expression turned serious, "Computer, activate security seal Craven Beta One, authorization Craven Alpha Zero Nine."

 

Suddenly the smiles dropped from the faces of his team and were replaced instead with bewildered looks.

He turned again and walked up to the wall panel display at the head of the conference room table.

Noting the looks of concern he explained, "Er, you'll understand that in a minute."

 

Clearing his throat he activated the wall panel, on which came a layout of the weapon schematics. At least, the weapon schematics he had given his team up to that point. The ones without the subspace components.

"For starters this isn't your normal briefing. Its informative only and unfortunately I won't have time for questions until later today, so listen up."

 

He took a deep breath and continued, "I don't need to tell you that all this information is classified. Other than yourselves, the only people who have clearance to this information are the Captain, the Admiral, myself, Lt. Marish, Ensign Xenatos and Captain Sorehl. You are to discuss this only while on duty and only while in your respective construction zones, be they the cargo bays or science labs. Under NO circumstances are you to discuss this with anyone while off duty, unless expressly addressed by myself or Captain Corizon."

 

He paused to let the information sink in before going on, "Now then. You are all...at least partially aware of our mission to construct a weapon to use against the Scorpiads. Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond my control you have been slightly deceived as to the true nature of this weapon."

 

He began to see looks of sudden realization materialize on the faces before him,

 

"I don't take any of you for fools. I assume by now you realize that the structural design of this weapon calls for a major missing component - the payload. And is my duty to inform you now that the payload...is an isolytic charge...It's a semi-subspace weapon."

 

As expected the crew in front of them looked like they were going to be sick.

 

"Before you ask, yes this weapon was made illegal under the Second Khitomer Accords. Yes these are official Starfleet Orders. Yes I understand the consequences this could spell for this ship, this crew and the entire Federation. I've sent a copy of the updated schematics to each of your workstations."

 

"Whatever moral issues you have on this subject need to be put on hold, because for now, this weapon is our only hope for regaining control of the wormhole, and keeping our foothold in this Quadrant."

 

At that moment, Jack Craven felt unfit to wear the uniform...he felt like the galaxy's greatest hypocrite. Here he was telling his crew to put their personal feelings aside when he himself couldn't stop thinking about his own personal issues with the project.

 

"The weapon will be guided by a positronic relay system, which will take it within one metre of the Scorpiad's energy barrier we saw during our last encounter. At that point, the Gravimetric Charges on the outer shell of the weapon will be activated, hopefully causing the same effect as last time and sending the ship into....hopefully....a subspace state of flux, as it did in our last encounter. Almost instantaneously, the isolytic charge will activate, propelling the torpedo in its own subspace field directly toward the target. When the weapon comes into direct contact with a solid mass in normal space, the payload will activate, and the quantum and subspace charges will go off, likely creating an explosion with the power of.......several million isotons"

 

His crew now turned from a pale white to a sickly green.

 

"This detonation power is of course achievable with conventional weapons, in theory. However, Starfleet has deemed it necessary to use a subspace weapon because of its unique theoretical ability to produce Subspace Compression. In all likelihood, the explosion will be coupled with a subspace field compression, a phenomenon that will act in conjuncture with the state of flux which the ship will already be in, and effectively rip anything in it's wake apart atom-by-atom...within a radius of about one hundred and fifty kilometres. The chances of anything surviving....if the weapon can break through the energy barrier.....is 3 trillion seven hundred million to one."

 

He saw now that his crew was on the verge of collapsing due to the magnitude of the situation.

 

"I'm afraid that's all I can tell you for now, I have to brief Ensign Xenatos later." and he began to walk towards the door."

 

Just before over-riding the security measures, he turned to his crew one last time.

 

"I know how you feel...I'm not to happy about this either. Unfortunately all I can do for you now, is tell you that your complaints will be noted in my log....and I'm sorry."

 

"I truly am sorry.

 

To all of you.

 

For all of this."

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