Ensign Roy Bancroft - This Is Not the Cole I Ordered
Carter Schimpff
(( Commercial Sector, Boraxian Cityship ))
Bancroft: =/\= Bancroft to Cole, our team’s been rerouted to the Golden Spire. What’s your status? =/\=
Silence was the answer. No reply. Not even static.
Bergmen: Luirett? It’s possible due to the protests, your people are jamming the comms?
Luirett: Response
Jovenan: Luirétt, may I ask, what happened, from your perspective, in the streets just now? Why were the people protesting? What were you trying to accomplish, and why did they behave like that when they saw you?
Bancroft: That wasn’t just civil unrest. That was – ritualistic. Pack behavior. The kind of thing you see in people under chemical influence. Or withdrawal… or both. That wasn’t a protest… it was a breakdown.
Bergmen: Is that why Yurum walked away? Abandon Boraxians?
Luirett: Response
Jovenan: What’s happened here?
Bancroft: I can’t be sure, but the frown brigade waiting for us on that balcony doesn’t exactly scream ‘welcome back, we made cake.’
Bergmen: Commander, are you armed, in case things go sideways? I’m not.
Jovenan/Luirett: Response
Bancroft tapped his commbadge again.
Bancroft: =/\= Bancroft to Cole… do you read me? =/\=
Comms were still dead.
Bancroft: ::sotto voice:: Commander, I believe we’re off the grid. Comms are down.
Bergmen: If it looks like a trap, sounds like a trap, smells like a trap… I guess we can voice how this looks, right?
Jovenan/Luirett: Response
The skycraft gradually slowed and gently pressed against the balcony with an unexpected elegance.
Two Boraxians were waiting for them. Neither of them carried weapons, but both had a look of barely masked fear on their eyes.
Boraxian Representative #1: ::measured:: Starfleet… Luirétt. You are… expected. Please come inside.
Boraxian Representative #2: ::glancing over shoulder:: Quickly, if you would.
Bancroft took in their tremor-stiff fingers, their shallow breaths. What he was seeing was either genuine terror… or an excellent dress rehearsal.
Bancroft: Comms down… jittery hosts… whatever’s gone on here, I think we can all agree this isn’t a polite invitation for afternoon tea.
Bergmen smiled welcomingly.
Bergmen: So, it would be great if you could take us to our colleagues, who are negotiating with the Great Mother of yours.
Jovenan/Luirett: Response
The Boraxians exchanged a glance – quick, guilty, the kind of look you see when someone’s rehearsed a story but forgot who tells which part.
Boraxian Representative #1: That would be a little problematic at the moment, because… (pause) Negotiations are still ongoing! If you just follow us and…
The second Boraxian opened her mouth, but quickly shut it again when she caught a glance from her partner. Bergmen’s smile stayed, but his tone hardened like rapidly cooling metal.
Bergmen: I truly apologize and hope you won't view this as an insult, but I'm afraid we'll have to insist that you take us to our colleagues.
Roy stepped shoulder-to-shoulder with Bergmen – not a threat, but a quiet alignment.
A show of solidarity.
Bancroft: Immediately, if you please.
Jovenan/Luirett: Response
The second Boraxian suddenly leaped forward and threw her arms out.
Boraxian Representative #2: It's not our fault. We have nothing to do with it, trust us! They...they... gone crazy! They were armed and captured your colleagues… and we couldn't do anything, just run! They took them all away! Do you have weapons? Can you contact your ship to help us? Please?
Her partner’s expression said the rest. Bergmen’s smile vanished, leaving something pale beneath.
Bergmen: Ehm… WoW. (beat) I didn’t expect… (beat) Oh my… wow.
The Boraxian’s words arrived not like lighting – but like an earthquake. Quiet at first – and then a violent shift.
They took them all away.
No preamble. No gentle slope. Just the sheer cliff-edge of it.
The line had been delivered with such naked terror that it nearly felt rehearsed. Her eyes were rimmed with the glossy red of someone either freshly weeping or freshly afraid.
It was difficult to tell the difference here.
Bancroft: Repeat that, please.
But repetition brought only fragments. Confession softened into chaos. No new clarity emerged – just pieces, tumbling out of their mouths like gravel down a slope: we don’t know… they didn’t tell us… we weren’t part of it.
Roy studied them with the gaze of a physician assessing symptoms: hands exposed, pupils dilated, posture collapsing inward. Every visible signal whispered sincerity.
Which, of course, made him trust them less.
He turned slightly – shoulder half-angling toward Jovenan, his voice lowered so that the two Boraxians couldn’t overhear him.
Bancroft: Forgive the obvious, but this doesn’t track. If someone stormed the chambers and abducted a diplomatic envoy, why send a frightened pair of junior functionaries to collect us? Why not security? Or someone higher up the food chain?
Jovenan/Bergmen/Luirétt: Responses
Roy tried to ignore the chill seeping into his chest. This could still be nothing – a miscommunication. A tragic breakdown in protocol.
But a large part of him didn’t buy that. Not for a second.
He turned back to the two Boraxians, his tone shifting from clinical to one that was more coaxing.
Bancroft: You said they were taken. How do you know that? Did you see it happen? Were you there? Or is this something someone told you to say?
Boraxian Representative #2: ::haltingly:: We… we were there. As part of Advocate Chavrainne’s entourage. ::hiccup:: When… when it happened… we ran. The ones who did it…
The Boraxian broke down into heavy sobs as she failed to finish her sentence. Her compatriot wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulder, then looked up at the assembled group of three Starfleet officers and one Yurum with a face that made Roy’s stomach turn: not just pity.
Guilt.
Boraxian Representative #1: We have surveillance footage of the kidnapping. Come. We will show you.
(( Golden Spire – Anteroom ))
The room they were led into was not another grand chamber. There were no brilliant fountains, no light filtering through gilded latticework. This was a proverbial diplomatic sub-basement: windowless, practical, and humming faintly with equipment. The walls curved inward slightly, like hands closing around a throat.
A single hexagonal screen dominated the back wall. In front of it, four control columns, spaced perfectly for a being with four arms to work comfortably. One of their Boraxian escorts moved toward it wordlessly, tapping glyphs with the stiffness of someone confessing a high sin.
The screen flickered.
A still image emerged: a polished stone table, ringed with figures. Captain Munro, Lieutenant K’Wara, Ensign Cole – and across the table, Advocate Chavrainne, her hands elegantly steepled.
Another glyph and the still became motion.
For a moment, it was rote diplomacy: awkward smiles, tea, K’Wara gagging on a piece of Boraxian fruit that clearly didn’t suit them.
Then–
The doors burst inward like the opening act of a holo-western.
Four armored figures. No insignia. Weapons drawn. Purpose absolute.
Gasps. Movement. No screams, no weapons fire – just the horrible smoothness of something that seemed to have been preordained.
A weapon was trained at Captain Munro. Roy watched her pause. Her shoulders rose once, as if with a breath – and then her hands moved behind her back.
She allowed it.
That didn’t sit well with him. He hadn’t known Munro for long, but the woman he’d met running on Deck 7 seemed made of tougher stuff than that.
But it was Cole who really seized him.
She stood – no hesitation, no fight – and placed her own arms behind her back, wrists together, offering them like an invitation to an executioner.
No.
The word didn’t reach his lips.
Not yet.
The Cole he knew would never have gone so quietly. She would have vaulted the table. Flipped it. Bit a hand. Or, at the very least, not willingly offer herself up. This?
This was choreography.
Bancroft: ::softly, so as not to be overheard by the two Boraxians:: Anyone else see what I’m seeing?
Jovenan/Bergmen/Luirétt: Responses
TAG/TBC!
===
Ensign Roy Bancroft
Medical Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240205RB1