#... WHAT IF LORCA'S TRIBBLE WAS AN ATTACK TRIBBLE???

[ssaalexblake]

With the genetically modified attack tribbles come questions. 

A) Did starfleet forget the origin story of the humble tribble, Or did their hubris interfere and allow them to, once again, meddle with their genetic code for their own gain?? (it’s a short trek. watch it. I was howling.) Imagine a tribble infestation but the tribbles are carnivores? That’s a made for syfy movie if i ever saw one. 

B) Are regular bog-standard tribbles Not round as assumed, but in fact a hedgehog like creature that curls into a ball at rest that just has fuzz instead of spines? Are tribbles Actually pancakes with mouths and strange possibly leg like apendages? 

C) do regular ones have those big old teeth to chew with, or is that part of the modification???

I need like, a stat book on tribbles immediately. And frankly, there have been Far weirder Trek books published so that’s no excuse not to do it, so I think they should actually do it. Just for me. 

[musicin68]

Totally Disco, Issue #4

Episode 4: The Butcher's Knife Cares Not For The Lamb's Cry

"Make sure you stay out of the tardigrade fields. They're cute but they'll eat you. " - Janet Van Dyne, Ant Man and the Wasp

One of the things I love about Star Trek is how small they make space feel. It's ridiculous, awful, awful science. Space is big. As Douglas Adams so elegantly wrote, "vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big". On any given day in Starfleet they encounter cosmic storms, nebulae, quantum filaments, spatial rifts, tachyon fields, wormholes, dark matter, rogue comets, and today specifically, the gravity well of an O-type star. And it never fails to make me laugh. Hell, a flagship might run into all of these at once. You know where a ship using a faster than light drive that fell out of a "jump" would most realistically end up? Nowhere. As in "the middle of". Because space is horrifically big! Seriously, as a concept, it is nightmare fuel. Of course, that ship would immediately be attacked by Cylons. But that's a given. They look like us now.

Spoilers...

Oooh! Guest staring Michelle Yeoh! Maybe...oh, it's a recording.

Oh god. They ate her. I am not generally sentimental about death. A body is a body. When a person dies the person part is gone, but I'm still so unhappy they killed her at all it just...ugh thank you ever so much for that image, writers.

And then you go and say something like rage glands. Classic Trek ridiculous. Ripper? Eh, I’m sticking with Alice. The tardigrade is definitely a girl. Aaand, oh look, I don't have to learn Security Chef's name. Glad we're back to knocking off crew members. It was getting crowded in here. 

Pippin, lighter of torches, must give up everything! What does that mean? What is everything to a Klingon? TNG taught me that as a Klingon, if you don't have honor you don't have anything. So definitely going to have to give up that. House Mókai (yup, that name I remember, diacritic and all) are deceivers (sounds like spies to me) according to L'Rell. Lying is pretty dishonorable, but I imagine she would call it practical. She prefers to work from behind the scenes. I bet she likes keeping her head attached to her neck and getting shit done. My kind of girl.

Sorry, I zoned out there for a moment. Where was I? Right, he's going to have to give up everything... oh. Oh! Why did T'Kuvma start this in the first place? To "Remain Klingon". That’s what they all keep yelling. If that's "everything" to him...Pippin doesn't get to remain Klingon. The spies are going to make him something else and change his face like in Trouble with - Holy shit! Lorca has a tribble. It's on his desk. It's been making cute noises, that now sound strangely like Chekov's gun, for the last two episodes! That is awesome!

Wait. Is this why they redesigned the Klingons? And made me read subtitles? (I know. I don't speak Klingon. What kind of Trekkie am I?!) So I wouldn't recognize the spies when they show up on Discovery's crew manifest? I mean Worf and B'Elanna look different, but are recognizable out of full Klingon TNG/VOG makeup. Romulan Troi and Yar still looked like themselves. Ugh. No! It is, isn't it. That is just...insulting. I'm not even sure I can explain why... If your plot twist is that dependant on shock valve to be enjoyable, it's just...I am hesitant to say "bad", but I'm not watching Momento here. I don't know. I was very excited a paragraph ago and now I am disappointed by the presumed execution of a plot point I am guessing at. Okay, Discovery. Please, prove me wrong. Also, if we're talking about makeup, is L’Rell’s name just a play on L'Oreal?

There are some interesting comparisons set up for us between Michael and Pippin. They both once held positions of respect and leadership in their respective cultures and are now outcasts. Their mentors were both people of conviction and principle and are now dead (in the same conflict no less). They have both been offered a way to regain something they’ve lost. I look forward to seeing how they contrast as the story moves forward.

Parting shots: → 1.There are an awful lot of people telling me that Captain Creepy is a bad man and a questionable leader, at best. Chef tells Michael that Lorca’s only interested in what she can do for him, and by extension everyone around him. Saru says that Michael will fit right in with Lorca when she manipulates him to find out Alice isn't threatening. One more time: THESE ARE NOT GOOD QUALITIES. Give me Georgiou or give me...right you already gave me death. Fuck you, writers. → 2. Role call! Burnham, Saru, Tilly, Stamets, Alice, Lorca, Chef, Georgiou, T'Curse-you-for-killing-her, L'Rell - Bridger of Houses, Kol - Stealer of Ships, Admiral Cornwell (Another woman in charge!), Pippin (only figuratively dead, but I wanna cross off more names). There's a doctor too. Are we all here yet? → 3. I'm just going to hook this thing I don't know what it does or how it works to my engines. That seems like a good idea, right? Then I'm going to beam a creature in with it, turn it on, and see what happens. Even after our sister ship had a horrible accident, killing everyone aboard, while doing something similar - we are undoubtably certain this is the best course of action. God I love Star Trek. → 4. Even hologram Georgiou is a better captain than Lorca.

[theladyfangs]

Reflections/The Other Part 13

Green Eyes  

Merkin in her arms.

Three lifts, down into the lower decks of the ship until she comes to a place she hasn’t been in months - Gabriel’s lab.

The doors open and she steps through. Everything is as he left it, save for the dead and dissected creatures that someone has removed. The weapons and other specimens remain pristine in their cases, the metal tables shine like new.

Nothing has been touched.

But some things are missing.

The man himself.

Once again, she finds herself thinking of Gabriel as she settles onto a chair, Merkin’s gentle purring just enough to take a piece of the edge off her sorrow.

A touch of a smile, as she remembers his reaction when she told him about the tardigrade. Two eyebrows raised, arms crossed.

“Well, as long as there’s a plan B in place,” is what he finally said when he spoke, surprising her with the gentleness of it.

“Don’t worry, Michael,” Gabriel told her. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste. And yours is priceless. That was decent of you. It was a good call.”

Now, she looks at the space where the tardigrade was. The creature she set free.

Maybe it’s what Lorca needs, too…she thinks.

This must have been what Gabriel felt when he learned of her and Ash.

She hears the doors open behind her but doesn’t turn. Hears his heavy footsteps, the swish of the uniform, but doesn’t move.

Not even when she feels the heat of him behind her does she glance up. Just stays still.

It’s quiet between them, the only sound is the cooing of Merkin, asleep in her arms, the plump body expanding and contracting with every breath it takes.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

Merkin wakes, and gives a small mewl, wriggling in her hands. She places him on the table in front of her, and he begins to inch his way toward the edge as if anticipating. Waiting.

“Michael? Talk to me? Look at me?”

But she shakes her head and wipes at her face.

Lorca’s brows furrow, lips curl into a frown.

This won’t do. So, he takes a step back and comes around the table to see her, since she won’t look at him.

Only then does he get to see her face. Eyes downcast. Hands in lap. A trace of a tear on a soft cheek.  Crying?

New. Something he’s unsure of whether she’s done before. Likely not. Probably not—since she was a child, at least.

“I can’t fix what you won’t tell me I broke,” he tries again. Years of experience has taught him more than a few lessons about women and emotions.

At that, there’s a flicker of something.

“Is Admiral Cornwell…well?”

Oh.

She’s still not looking at him, but she doesn’t have too. She’s told him all he needs to know.

Lorca scoops Merkin up in an arm.

“Computer,” he says “beam two to room 2-1-1-2.”

.

.

They materialize in his quarters, and he sets Merkin down on the desk before coming behind Michael and wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her close, and nuzzling her neck.

“It’s called jealousy,” he tells her, mildly amused now that he knows what’s wrong. But for her sake, he won’t smile. And she can’t see the tiny hint of a smirk that’s playing on the right side of his mouth.

She starts to protest.

“I am not…it’s not…,” but she can’t quite formulate the denial. He’s put a name on what she was feeling. It’s…new.

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” his lips graze the side of her neck, gently.

He loves Katrina. Always will. But what he hopes to make Michael understand is that there is a difference between loving, and being in love.

The explanation is long. It’s careful too.

“She wanted to know if I loved you,” He says, resting his hands on her body, speaking softly. “I do.”

The tickle of his breath on the back of her neck, makes the tiny hairs stand. He feels so good. So right, so everything.

Love.

Beside them, Merkin lets out a small squeak, interrupting the moment. Michael looks to the creature, now clinging over the edge of the desk, having somehow slipped off. Its haunches wriggle, body stretched out as it tries to pull itself up, making Michael laugh at the sight.

Lorca sees the critter’s struggle and lets her go, and they both reach for Merkin. Hands touch as they pick him up together.  

“Merkin loves you too,” Lorca says, holding the tribble up to her and giving her eyes.

At the expression on his face, she laughs again, the uncertainty falling away, replaced by something once again solid. Michael takes him into her arms, and buries her face in the soft fur, as the animal trembles, having been frightened by its mishap.

“Sh… it’s okay,” she whispers to it, stroking its soft fur and walking toward the bedroom, to settle on the bed. Lorca sits beside her, and they whisper to their pet, calming it. He thinks Michael would be a wonderful mother.

It’s a stray thought and Lorca blinks a bit and dismisses it.

That night, Merkin sleeps between them both, purring contentedly alongside its adoptive parents.

.

.

Battle Cries

With Katrina’s tacit acknowledgement, Discovery presses on.

Most of the previously Klingon-occupied Federation territory has now been regained.

Most. But not all.

The two sides are drawing closer to a bitter, bloody stalemate.

Klingon incursions and attacks deeper into their territory have slowed, but not ended. And he can see from the battle maps, that the ones still happening are growing riskier—a sign that one side may be growing more desperate than the other. It can be either fortuitous or dangerous, he knows. A desperate enemy is a deadly enemy.

“Captain Lorca to the bridge.”

Saru’s voice floats over the comm, reaches him down in the bowls of the ship, in Gabriel’s lab. The holographic map floating around him disappears as he logs out of the system.

“Acknowledged. On the way.”

When he arrives, Saru turns.

“Incoming distress message from the U.S.S. Cole,” the first officer says.

“On screen.”

Before them, a blurry, glitching image. The bridge of the Cole[AR1] —its commanding officers voice fading in and out, as sparks fly.

“Under attack…critical….help.”

The screen goes blank.

“Saru, do you have their location?” Lorca asks.

“Aye, sir.”

“Specialist,” Lorca turns to Michael. She nods and begins to make her way down to engineering.

“Black alert,” he tells the remaining crew.

The siren sounds and crew members begin to break from their present tasks and quickly report to their battle stations.

The air in Discovery has changed. Electrified.

No one would ever admit it. War is supposed to be couched in tragedy. But these are the moments they all live for.

“Engineering to bridge, set to go,” Burnham’s voice comes through, and Lorca feels the familiar tingle of excitement in his hands.

“Lieutenant Detmer,” he commands, “let’s go get our friends. Lieutenants Owosekun and Rhys,” he calls to them, eyes focused straight ahead, “Proceed to fire at will as soon as we drop in.”

The Lieutenants grin at each other.

“Aye, sir!”

.

.

Discovery emerges in a blaze of fire.

Her captain stands in front of the viewer, quickly taking assessment of the battle scene in front of him. Two Klingon cruisers advancing on a crippled, listing U.S.S. Cole. One of its thrusters has been blown off. Scorch marks on its sides and belly. Gaping holes in various places allowing them to see clear through. A debris field surrounds it. Bodies floating too.

He pushes that off to the side for the moment and raises his arms in front of him, squinting and using his fingers to form two, interlocking circles—marking targets. Trajectory.

He gives the coordinates for the first of several shots.

“Fire!”

The first cruiser explodes. Discovery doesn’t take on prisoners of war.

The second cruiser turns toward them, preparing to charge.

A new position. One eye squinted shut as he moves his arms just slightly, getting a lock.

“Fire.”

Voice hard. Set.

It blows up in front of them, to a cheer.

But Lorca doesn’t.

“Mr. Saru, assessment. Can you reach the Cole?”

The crew go silent, as Saru works on hailing the battered Antares-class vessel.

It’s audio-only. A static hiss.

Lorca feels his stomach clench. Were they too late?

“Discovery to Cole, respond,” Saru tires again.

Still nothing.

“Are there any life signs?” The captain asks.

“Scanning now, sir.”

They wait. The silence agonizing.

“D..D…Discovery…you there?”

It comes across faintly over the comm, couched in static, barely audible. But it IS there.

Lorca hits the comm quickly.

“Name and position,” he barks.

“Ensign Liu…bridge…”

All he needs.

“We’ve got life signs,” Saru says. Redundant. All Lorca needs is one.

The doors to the bridge open and Michael walks in.

“Saru, Specialist --” he tells them. “Assemble a rescue team. “Ready sickbay. We’ve got injured.”

Injured, but alive.

.

.

Later, after breaking down the initial battle report, he beams over to the Cole to join Michael.

The ship’s Sick Bay is largely intact but full of wounded. The doctors are working frantically, and Discovery is aiding with overflow on his ship as well. The two vessels are now anchored together, side-by-side, with Discovery’s crews working with what’s left of the able-bodied on the U.S.S. Cole to make patch repairs until other help arrives to help the ship back to safer space.

Lorca’s personal assessment of the situation is grim. The interior damage far outstrips that on the outside of the ship. Collapsed bulkheads in several areas, temporary containment fields in others — the only line between death by suffocation and the artificial life supports sustaining the ship.

The bridge has been completely destroyed and the backup area, deeper in the body of the Cole isn’t in much better shape, but at least it’s functional—sort of. The vessel had a crew complement of 187…now down to 96. And its Captain and first officer are both dead, leaving a young Lieutenant Commander Liu, the voice on the comm, now acting-Captain.

These are the casualties of war, Lorca thinks grimly. So many of these people…just children…barely adults. Still so young…

Sickbay is full of aching and moaning, soft sobs. He hates this—seeing so much pain, but it is his duty to offer comfort when he can. First, here on the Cole and then to those on Discovery, where the more dire situations are being addressed.

It takes 19 hours for the closest Starfleet ships to reach them, providing relief for the exhausted and beleaguered crews of the U.S.S. Cole and U.S.S. Discovery.

 Like You’ll Never See Me Again

The longer it goes, the more he becomes convinced there’s only one way for it to end.

“Tell me, again,” he asks, as Michael rolls over beside him, eyes bleary.

“What?”

“Again. Walk me through what you were thinking. The mutiny.”

He keeps asking about this. The questions began a few nights ago, following the Cole Incident, and haven’t let up since.

Michael sits up, bringing the sheet around her chest. He’s looking at her with a certain kind of intensity that…

“Tell me. I need to hear it again.”

She does.

.

.

He’s spending more and more time now down in Gabriel’s lab, studying battle maps. Well, it’s more like Lorca’s lab now.

Here, he ruminates over what’s known of the Klingon Empire. Q’onos, the home planet. The data is outdated, but the war has helped fill in some of the gaps. And there are the historical records of the Vulcan encounter as well.

The more Lorca studies it, the more certain he becomes--there really is just one way to bring this to a close.

Michael was correct in the beginning. And as he considers and analyzes, Lorca knows exactly what he and he alone must do.

.

.

“You’re out of your fucking mind and I won’t allow it!”

Katrina looks incensed, eyes wide as she stares at him through the viewer.

But he knows she’s not angry. She’s afraid.

“Gabriel…it’s a suicide mission,” she whispers when he pushes past her protests and finishes explaining.

“It’s the only way this stops,” he tells her. “You know that. I know Michael know it, too. We missed our chance at the beginning to prevent this war. We have to shut them down.”

“And you? WHY must it be you?”

“You know why, Trina.”

Because he was presumed dead months ago. And he’s not supposed to be here, anyway.

She sinks into her chair and lowers her head, arms on her knees, quiet for a long moment as she absorbs his plan.

It’s crazy.

Like a fox.

But she also knows he’s right. The Klingons won’t respect any other type of assertion. They have to show force. If they don’t, there may be a short truce until the Klingon forces regroup—and then the war will rage again. To bring about a permanent, lasting peace, the must be decisive. Strike with precision. And it must be deadly.

“Gabriel…”

“Trina, please let me do this.”

He’s asking. Intellectually…she knows she has too. Emotionally though…

“Are you going to tell Michael?”

Lorca looks at her and then down.

“No. In order for this to have a shot at working…”

She nods.

“I understand.”

They move on.

Begin to map it out among themselves. And when they’ve finished, they go quiet.

“I love you ‘Trina.”

A tired, wan smile.

“I love you too, you crotchety bastard.”

He laughs then grows sombre. “I know I shouldn’t ask…”

“Then don’t. I’ll take care of her, Gabriel.”

.

.

Every bit of her is screaming that something is wrong.

But he keeps saying everything is fine.

“You’re lying to me.”

She sees through it a mile away and he doesn’t try to counter it. Instead, he just slips his arms around her and pulls her body close to his.

“Let’s just stay here, like this, okay?”

They’re in his bed. In his quarters. The hour is late.

Beside them on a nightstand Merkin sleeps, making the usual quiet rumble.

“But we can’t just stay here,” she protests, trying to turn to face him. He squeezes her tighter, to keep her from getting up.

“I’m leaving tomorrow for a meeting,” Lorca tells her, finally, knowing she won’t take his silence.

“How long will you be gone? Where?”

“Where. How long.”

“Starbase 49. Just a few days. I’ll be back. Just taking a shuttle.”

A partial lie. He does have a …meeting. And he will be taking a shuttle.

Michael’s eyes search his face. He meets hers with a quiet gaze of his own. They watch each other silently, until, she speaks. “You’re still lying. You’re a worse liar than he was.”

This makes him chuckle, and he rolls them together until she straddles his lap, the covers falling away, allowing him to take her in. Instinctively, Michael’s arms come up to cover her bare breasts. Lorca  catches her hands and pulls them back down, looking up at her.

“I want to see you.”

“You’ve seen me.”

“Still so shy. I love looking at you.”

He’s focused now, taking in all of her. Every curly strand of hair, the delicately arched eyebrows, the wide-set eyes, her heart-shaped face and delicate chin. Her mouth.

Calloused hands trace each curve, each crest and she stays still as he does, the touch almost plaintive, worshipful. Like she’s fragile and he’s afraid to break her.

In a single, fluid motion, Lorca sits up, hands lower, lifting her and settling her back down. She wraps her arms around his shoulders as he lays his head against her chest.

“You never said it back,” he tells her quietly, lips on the space between her breasts.  “I know you don’t really know what it is. But maybe one day you will. And you’ll be able to love that person too.”

Tears come unbidden to the corners of her eyes, and she blinks rapidly as he begins to blur in front of her face.

“I…don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.” It’s shaky. Uneven, matching the flutter of her heart. He can hear it all. He can feel the quaking of her hands on the back of his neck. In his hair.

“It’s okay, Michael.” The voice is muffled. His breath warm against her chest. “It’ll be okay.”

“I don’t believe you,” she whispers a tear betraying her, escaping right before he lifts her again and sets her down on his erection, thrusting up, and into her. She gasps at the entry, eyes closing, the feel of him inside, expanding her walls, makes her shudder, her hips beginning to move against him, the desire of closeness, of need, taking over. She wants what he willingly gives.

And, she loves it. Loves him. But she can’t say that.

The words just won’t come, even as she rides on his lap, the stretch, the friction, the sensation of his fingers stroking her clit, make her body sing with pleasure.

He whispers to her that this is what making love feels like. It’s the first time Michael thinks she wants to die.

Here.

Now.

With him.

They’ve done this before but it feels different this time.

Something is wrong.

This feels like goodbye.

Like she’ll never see him again.

Please don’t leave me….

[blindedbyburan]

@time-traveling-pitchforks

When the war stars, the Buran is on the other side of the quadrant.  They’re far removed from the war, but Starfleet Command updates them anyways.  hey never really expect to run into Klingons- they’re a small research vessel, ill equipped for battle and often deep inside spacial anomalies.  

Never the less, Captain Lorca prepared a plan should they ever encounter Klingons.  It involved nearly everyone abandoning ship while a skeleton crew would remain on board to draw fire away from the escape pods.  Lorca himself had always planned on going down with his ship.  Without his knowledge, his senior staff, headed by Commander Hewell, devised another plan to ensure their Captain would be among the survivors.

Captain Lorca and much of the Buran’s senior staff was in the Captian’s ready room when they were attacked and red alert went up.  And in those final moments, that same senior staff committed mutiny- they sedated their Captain and ensured that he made it into the remaining escape pods (while the Buran was equipped with 200 escape pods- nearly 70 more then were necessary, but over 100 had been destroyed in the initial volley by the Klingons).  All in all, the Buran lasted ten minutes in combat with the Klingons.  Only seven escape pods were launched and only two would survive the Klingons and the explosion of the Buran.  Lorca’s, by pure luck, was one of them. 

He woke from his sedation just in time to see his beloved ship explode, permanently damaging his eyes - and then he floated in space four days before Starfleet found him.  In the other pod was Ensign Lakta, the ship’s cat, and Lt. Shelas.  Both were recovered by Starfleet, but unfortunately their injuries were too severed and they perished.  The black box of the Buran was unrecoverable and the only living person who knew what went down was Captain Lorca.  

When Starfleet Command asked what happened- Lorca lied.  He refused to have the last actions of his crew be remembered as mutiny.  Instead, it was his plan- and most of the crew volunteered to stay behind when Lorca ordered an evacuation.  When the Buran was boarded, Lorca activated the remote self-destruct, despite the fact not all the remaining escape pods had been launched.  There was some deliberation over if he’d done the right thing,most people, knowing the horrors of Klingon torture (or a least believing themselves to) thought he spared his crew a horrific fate. His refusal to get his eyes treated landed him in mandatory psych evaluations, but they didn’t have the foresight to give him Kat, so he passed with flying colors.

Many of the families of the Buran purposefully uninvited him to the funerals of their wives, husbands, children, or parents (or in Lex’s case- grandparents).To this day, Lorca has no idea where Elizabeth’s mothers buried the empty coffin for his Commander.  Instead he leaves tiger lilies and peonies at the memorial for the Klingon War.  But try as they might, the families couldn’t stop the wills.  Among other things, Lorca received his Chief Science Officer Evan Hawking’s sterilized tribble Merkin and a book of hard candy recipes from Dr. Acorta.

Then Starfleet Command gave him the Discovery and asked him to lead once again.  The only reason he agreed was so he could get his revenge- it never occurred to him that he might like the Discovery’s crew.

[ragnell]

The Great Ash Tyler Identity Discourse and Surprise Reveals About Established Characters

Previously on "Fan Theories I Hate", we discussed the irritating theory that the new cast member on Star Trek Discovery is actually one of the main villains in disguise, why it is a terrible idea, and why it would not make for a coherent story. However, I keep seeing people argue that the writers would be doing all this to fool the audience. If they are, that's bad writing. A good reveal makes the previous events make sense. So to argue this, I looked around for good examples of surprise reveals.

Then it hit me.

This episode (Star Trek Discovery S01E05, "Choose Your Pain") had two surprise reveals for the audience. Since these two were done by the same set of writers, let's take a look at them.

1.) Lt. Stamets and Dr. Culber are together. We knew from interviews that Stamets was in a committed relationship with a male partner, and was not closeted but nothing was stated onscreen initially. In the third ep he's introduced talking warmly to a man, his science partner, and that person is always referred to as a friend. And he's shown getting his nose fixed by Dr Culber, who is bantering with him about leaving it broken. (Some sharp fans keyed in here, but nothing was confirmed.) In the fifth ep, there's a couple other mentions of Stamets and Culber have a familiar teasing relationship that could either be two people who have known each other a long time and have great affection, or two people who find the other genuinely irritating. Then the confrontation with Saru about using the tartigrade shows they are actually close. And in the end scene, we see them brushing teeth together and making couples talk and all of the previous interaction has context, makes sense and seems warmer now.

Stamets and Culber being together was a surprise for the audience. It was something we could speculate about based on extra-narrative knowledge but prior to the fifth ep there wasn't really anything to hang it on. Still, this reveal does not create plotholes, but adds context and another dimension to all of the two's previous interactions.

2.) Capt. Lorca's previous ship was ambushed by the Klingons, causing him to kill his own crew. This was the BIG reveal this episode. Really, the main storyline of this episode was we finally get a look into how Captain Lorca works. Up until now he's been a pretty mysterious and unsympathetic character. Unlike every other series, he's a Captain we see mainly through the eyes of the crew. He's not a viewpoint character like Michael, so trying to figure out his motives has been strange and most of what we've seen has had a sinister tinge to it.

We knew he studies methods of warfare. He takes the war seriously. He wants to stop it and has commandeered Stamets' reesearch to do so, not by making a weapon but by making a new stardrive. He's focused on appearing anywhere in the galaxy without warning, dropping out of subspace to stop attacks. Now that he has the drive, he's only used it for defending Federation citizens and resources and hasn't used it to attack Klingon assets yet.

Most of the characters we've met do not like him. He drills them mercilessly, yells at them, plays recordings of distress calls over the loudspeaker, asserts his authority harshly, recruits mutineers and captures dangerous wildlife and goes beyond the usual Captain distance to outright making himself the bad guy for his crew.

He also, however, has a tribble on his desk and hasn't weaponized it. Hasn't used that stardrive to push the offensive. Gave the live tartigrade to Burnham to work out in her way rather than just ordering a dissection. Chose the cautious Saru as his first officer. Is surrounded with people who contradict and challenge him, and still decides to bring in the one person in Starfleet who would actually ATTACK him if she felt he was doing the wrong thing.

This ep, we learn Lorca is new to the Discovery and the crew. He lost his own ship a month into the war, he destroyed it with all hands aboard because the Klingons ambushed them and tried to capture the crew. He's the sole survivor, and he justifies the decision as a mercy killing to spare them from captivity.

Which explains EXACTLY why he drills his crew so hardhly, why he wanted a drive that let him drop into a battle without warning and why so far he's used it for defense. Why he studies weapons and why he surrounds himself with people who will tell him "No" (which includes Ash, who insisted on giving him the food within the first two minutes of knowing him) and have the lateral thinking skills to come up with something better than killing everyone to avoid capture.

After that reveal, all of the good/bad contradictions in Lorca make sense. He was probably once a good captain, because Starfleet is good at weeding out bad officers. He did something we've seen both Kirk and Picard come near (Picard actually had the self-destruct countdown going in the FIRST SEASON for much the same reasons) but he crossed that line and through circumstances we'll see later he lived to look back on this decision.

The reveal with Lorca explained why he's a fanatic. You look back on everything he's done, and you understand why he's like this. It adds contexts to all of Lorca's previous scenes, and clarifies his motives. The reveal about Lorca does not leave plotholes, but instead makes a character who was previously very unpredictable, who veers between good and evil, consistent and more predictable. The reveal makes Lorca make sense

If we were to find out Ash was Voq, we would look back on everything he's done and it would make LESS sense. And this actual writing team has done ao much better with surprise reveals in this very episode that I find it hard to believe they'd botch such a big one later.

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.63

“A Laughing Rain”

A/N: This chapter covers the events of episode 5, "Choose Your Pain."

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << Part 62 - A Matter of Record Part 64 - Where the Wild Things Are >>

The salvation of Corvan II was only the first of many miracles. In the ensuing weeks, Discovery broke the Klingon supply lines at Benzar and routed an attack in the Ophiuchus system. In the eyes of Starfleet Command, the spore drive was now a proven technology, and one they needed in all their ships.

They summoned him to the forward command station for a strategy meeting and demanded the technology be rolled out for more starships, but the problem was not their ability to duplicate the drive technology. The real limiting factor was the tardigrade. They only had the one, and without Ripper, the spore drive was unreliable at best and dangerously unstable at worst.

Lorca stood there as Cornwell, apparently failing to appreciate the fact Discovery had only obtained its tardigrade by accident, insisted he somehow do more to make the drive available to everyone else while simultaneously berating him for putting their only fully-operational spore drive at risk by actually using it.

Worse, she seemed entirely oblivious to her own hypocrisy.

He tried to object to her, rank be damned, because this was as unfortunate a tactical failing on her part as could occur, and she responded to this breach of respect by doubling down firmly in front of the other admirals and captains assembled:

"We believe the enemy may have identified Discovery as our secret weapon. You are hereby ordered to reign in your use of the spore drive unless authorized by Starfleet."

How, he wondered as he stood there listening to Cornwell denigrate his achievements, could they possible call it a secret weapon if they did not deploy it?

There was also the issue that every jump seemed to drain the tardigrade, but this meeting was going badly enough without him giving Cornwell an actual problem to castigate him about, so he kept that fact to himself.

When the meeting concluded, he hung back in the conference room and considered everything that had just gone down, quietly condemning the entire assembly of blowhards and fools who had decided to sideline their best weapon when they needed it most.

He was there long enough that the medicine in his eyes began to wear off. He dimmed the lights and began to reapply it. He had only dosed one of his eyes when the lights went suddenly to full and he let out a strangled cry of pain and shouted, "Turn it down!"

It was Cornwell. "Sorry. Didn't know you were still in here," she said, too casual for it to be an honest apology, because it wasn't. She was still displeased about his attempt to counter her orders during the meeting and clearly failed to appreciate the fact his insubordination had been partly an attempt to save her from her own tactical shortcomings. To her, it was simply the latest in a recent string of insubordinations stemming from her failure to keep a tighter rein on him over the years. The only thing worse than a subordinate's misbehavior was the realization that you had bred it into existence yourself.

Lorca also suspected she had entirely known he was in still in the room and turned the lights up on purpose, because she immediately launched into a lecture about the unfortunate nature of his decision to interpret a captain's wartime powers as permission to enlist convicted criminal Michael Burnham into his crew.

He was supposed to have the latitude to fight this war as he saw fit but at every turn Cornwell seemed to be denying him this crucial autonomy. The one person in Starfleet Command he thought would have his back and all she wanted was to hold him back.

It was jealousy, he decided. "Are you uncomfortable with the power I've been given, admiral?"

"I'm your friend," she said, immediately seeing through the accusation for what it was.

"Mm-hm," he replied, sounding about as convinced of that as he was of the wisdom of their decision to suspend Discovery's involvement in the war. He stood up from the conference table. "It's my ship. My way."

He left her there, walked out, because it was the only thing he could do to keep from erupting into an exchange of words they would both regret.

He was still thinking over the meeting's events as he sat in the shuttle on the way back to Discovery. What if they never found another tardigrade? Then sidelining Discovery would have been for nothing. How could Cornwell not see that? It also hardly mattered if Discovery survived the war or not, at least where the drive technology was concerned. Starfleet had the schematics and information needed to make it work if they could locate another tardigrade. And if the technology fell into hands of the Klingons without access to a tardigrade, well, that would probably cause the Klingons to do more harm to themselves than anything else.

The only point he could think of in Cornwell's favor was if—and it was a big if—both the drive and Ripper fell into the Klingons' hands, it would be game over.

He'd blow up the ship before letting that happen. Certainly he'd proven his willingness to do as much already.

Alarms began going off in the shuttle.

"Warning. Incoming warp signature detected."

The Klingons were on top of them like butter on toast, the green light of a tractor beam shimmering through the shuttle windows. Lorca grabbed the phaser rifles by the door, tossed one to the pilot, and took up a position to the side of the door, but the pilot was not a savvy tactician and stood in the middle of the shuttle absent any cover. The Klingons were upon him almost as soon as the doors were open.

Lorca never got the chance to fire his rifle. The Klingons had anticipated his position and wrenched it from his hands, forcing him to resort to throwing punches against opponents who were stronger, better armed, and outnumbered him. A Klingon female clad entirely in white grabbed him and pushed him up against the wall. There was no winning this situation, but as the shuttle pilot slid to the floor, dead from a pair of stabs to the chest, Lorca realized that if the Klingons wanted him dead they would have done so.

He held up his hands in surrender. He heard the Klingon woman say his name.

This was no mere happenstance. He had been targeted.

The Klingon woman pushed him into the cruiser's corridors, driving him like a sheep through dark, angular hallways.

"A little rougher back there and I might think you were coming on to me," quipped Lorca. The Klingon jabbed her fist into his back, pushing him to his knees, and he smiled to himself as he got back up. "Now we're talking."

The next time she hit him, the lights went out.

The news of Lorca's capture rippled across Discovery. Saru found himself suddenly acting captain under circumstances he would never had asked for in a million years. The idea of attaining captaincy by such means was not only unfortunate, it was deeply unsettling.

He did not feel ready.

Cornwell's orders were clear. Recover Lorca before the Klingons could pry the secrets of the spore drive from him. It was a deceptively simple task, but Saru promised it could be done, even if he was not certain it could be. With Cornwell's words echoing in his ears, Saru questioned whether he was the correct person to carry these orders out.

And then Burnham came to tell him she thought they should stop using the tardigrade, the one thing that potentially offered them an edge when it came to rescuing Lorca, because the creature was reaching its limit. They discussed it in Lorca's ready room, which was unfortunately available.

"I mentioned this to the captain and he said we would discuss it when he came back," Burnham said.

"The captain is not coming back unless we can rescue him," said Saru. "And for that we will need the tardigrade."

Burnham remained intent on having Saru come around to her perspective. "I'm concerned that we are negatively impacting the tardigrade with each jump we make..." Her argument was fervent and sound, but Saru had been pushed around by Michael Burnham enough in his life. He denied Burnham's request and declared no further discussion of the subject until after the captain was back.

As Burnham left, Saru felt in some way that he was already failing Lorca. He requested data from the computer on Starfleet's most decorated captains and saw Georgiou's name on the list, but the information did not help him. It was too abstract.

There was one person who knew Lorca better than anyone. He sought her out.

Lalana's response to the news of Lorca's kidnap was to press her hands so tightly together it seemed as if they might break. Her fur writhed faintly. "I very much wish to know what you believe Captain Lorca would do in this situation," said Saru.

Lalana did not reply immediately. When she finally spoke, she said this:

"You must do absolutely everything and anything you can to return the captain to Discovery. If you do not get Gabriel back, then everything on this ship will collapse. You must not let this happen, Saru. If you do anything and everything, then you will succeed, so that is what you must do. Do not let anyone stop you or stand in your way. Discovery is not Discovery without Captain Lorca. And as for myself, I am not done with his face."

Saru stared. "Surely that is an exaggeration."

"Is it? This ship is like an ecosystem. Gabriel's will brought it together and has been tending it since. He has protected everyone, he has created this ambitious project into which we have all been swept. He is what humans call 'a true visionary.' I think you are most interesting, Mr. Saru, but are you possessed of vision such as your captain has? Get him back, Saru. For all of our sakes.”

As Saru passed back through the lab on his way out, he saw Mischkelovitz cradling Lorca's tribble and whispering to it. "Shh. Don't worry, Gabe's coming back." Saru did not think she intended the words for the tribble so much as herself.

Lorca awoke in a Klingon cell in the company of three other human prisoners.

The first was Harcourt Fenton Mudd, a bearded civilian who loftily announced his presence to be the result of a failure to pay off creditors for the purchase of a moon. Tossed to the Klingons in lieu of a debtor's prison. He had a pet with him, a sort of space tarantula he called Stuart.

The second was a human whose name Lorca never got, because the Klingons came in and made short work of the man as a demonstration of their cruelty for Lorca's benefit. Lorca reacted viscerally to the sight of the man's beating, closing his eyes and wincing as the crunch of the man's head under the Klingon's boot suggested he had outlived his usefulness to the Klingons. The Klingons dragged the man's corpse away by the leg for disposal.

"You're gonna want to stick with me," said Mudd in the silence that followed the Klingons' departure. "I'm a survivor, just like you." The notion disgusted Lorca.

The third prisoner Lorca only discovered after Mudd had fallen asleep. A Starfleet lieutenant, his uniform caked with untold weeks of filth, hiding behind some conduits, had slept through the entire exchange with the Klingon guards. The fact that he had slept through such a horrible event said a lot about the state of things in this prison ship, as well as how long the lieutenant had been here. The man's brain had adjusted to such commotion as background noise and found it no reason to wake up.

Lorca sat down on the floor. The light burned his eyes. His ocular spray had been lost in the dust-up with the Klingons. Screams echoed down the hallways. His head was still pulsing faintly from the whack the white-clad woman had knocked him out with.

Despite the situation, despite all of the terror and despair and sheer hopelessness of it all, the lieutenant offered Lorca some food he had ferreted away, a piece of stale cracker. Lorca refused. The young man clearly needed it more than Lorca did. The lieutenant insisted: "I already lost one captain, I don't want to lose another."

There was a heavy strain of loyalty in those words. That was something Lorca appreciated in an officer. "What's your name, soldier?"

"Lieutenant Ash Tyler."

Tyler had been on the Yeager, a ship disabled at the Battle of the Binaries seven months ago. Seven months in Klingon prison. When Lorca pointed this out, Tyler gave a small laugh. The reaction struck Lorca as wrong. "Nobody survives Klingon torture for seven months."

Apparently they did when the Klingon captain in charge of the torture took a liking to them. The white-clad Klingon woman.

Lorca could see the pain on the Tyler's face admitting this. He focused Tyler on the facts: the crew complement, the layout, the information they needed to escape. Lorca just needed to find his way to an active comm relay to signal Discovery.

"We're deep within enemy territory," said Tyler. He had long since learned the futility of hope in this place. "There's no way a Federation ship can make it out this far undetected."

"Oh, my ship can," promised Lorca with a smile. "It's like a ghost." Then Mudd's little spider made off with the cracker, purloining the sole source of sustenance in the room for its obnoxious master.

The Klingons came for Lorca not long after. They grabbed him by the neck and dragged him away to the feet of their white-clad captain, depositing him first onto the floor and then yanking him up to his feet and strapping him into an immobilizing chair.

"Have you ever been tortured before, captain?"

He answered her questions with non sequiturs. She asked about torture, he complimented her English. She listed off his victories the past three weeks, beginning with Corvan, as a sort of taunt. There must have been another Klingon ship cloaked at Corvan that had brought back news of Discovery. Damn that cloaking technology. He was going to have Mischkelovitz redirect more time to cracking it when he got back. The mycelial map was not more important than stopping the Klingons.

Then she called his ship a ghost, the exact words he had spoken to Tyler. Her English was good, but not so good she could have plucked that word out of nowhere.

There was a spy in that prison cell.

She knew, too, about his photosensitivity. When she mentioned it, Lorca taunted her for sleeping with Tyler. She slammed her hand across his face and said, "How strange space must look to you now, through those damaged eyes. A cosmos full of agonizing light."

She may have known some facts about him, but he knew right then and there she would never understand him fully, even if she was right on some counts. As she fixed his eyelids open and blasted his eyes with light that turned his voice into a rising scream of agony, he took comfort in the fact she did not grasp the magnitude of his will, the truths of his desires, or the strength of his endurance.

"Tell me your secret!" she demanded, switching off the lights so he could provide an answer that was not a wordless scream. "Tell me what it is that makes Discovery do what other ships cannot!"

"The secret," he said, "is to use an extra stick of butter. Salted. Make those cookies fluff right up."

The lights came back on. His eyes watered desperately, unable to blink away the burn of air on the surface of his eyeballs and equally powerless to staunch the flood of light. His scream formed words. "Stop! Turn it off!"

The lights remained on. "Tell me and it will stop!"

He screamed, and screamed, and then it turned into a laugh. The Klingon captain stared at Lorca in faint amazement. She was certain by the readouts of the medical monitors on the walls that he was in excruciating pain, and yet he was laughing. What kind of monster was this Federation captain?

Culber administered a set of mild performance enhancers to several key members of Discovery. Unfortunately, Lorca had been taken in late afternoon, three-quarters of the way through most of the day shifts, and they needed their best and brightest on hand if they were going to get him back quickly. With any luck, they would find Lorca before these modest enhancements wore off and the best minds of the crew fell asleep.

He mentioned this to Stamets as he injected the neurostimulator in one of the private rooms off of the main sickbay area.

"Do we have to save him?" asked Stamets, face twisting with desperation.

Culber shook his head at Stamets, smiling faintly. "I know you don't mean that," Culber said.

Stamets pressed a hand to his face. "You're right, I don't, but some part of me..." He sighed. "I hate who he's turning me into! Not to mention what he’s doing to my research."

It broke Culber's heart faintly to see Stamets like this and he enveloped his husband into a hug, running his hand across Stamets' back. "He's not making you into anything, you are too strong to be undone by the likes of that man."

"You think?" said Stamets with a hopeful frown, feeling the stubble of Culber's beard on his cheek. It was a comfortingly familiar sensation.

Culber withdrew to arm's length and brushed a hand across Stamets' hair. "I don't think, I know. I know you, Paul Stamets, and you every bit now the man you were when I married you."

"And when you met me?"

That made Culber's lips press into a mischievous smile. "Give me some credit, our meeting made you a much better person." Stamets hummed in satisfaction at that and slid right back towards Culber, kissing him in loving gratitude.

After a moment, Stamets said, "You know what would really help me work?" Culber could scarcely believe what he was hearing. "You said yourself, there's no better way to de-stress and help me focus! In your professional medical opinion—"

Culber shut Stamets up with a kiss that turned into the exact bit of medicine Stamets was requesting. "If the captain finds out we delayed rescuing him for this," said Stamets, then decided Lorca was the last person he wanted to think about for the next few minutes.

When eventually the conversation resumed, Culber went straight back to the subject of the captain. "Now you have to go find him."

Stamets tilted his head. "I’m beginning to think you actually want Lorca back." It was not an accusation, more a confused observation.

Culber considered that. "I don't like Captain Lorca any more than you do, but there are some people on this ship who do like him. And he's not nice to us, but..." Even if Lorca had been a little rough with Mischkelovitz, he had also given her the tribble off his desk to comfort her when she was scared, and Mischkelovitz seemed to adore him, as disturbing as that was.

"I'm sorry, he was nice to someone?" Even the crew who did like Lorca rarely described him as nice. Funny, smart, and good-looking were the most commonly-used positives, usually couched by negatives that seemed to tip the balance more against the captain than for.

Culber shrugged, not sure what to make of it himself. "I'm just saying the man doesn't deserve whatever the Klingons will do to him."

It was a sobering thought. "No, he doesn't," said Stamets. Nobody deserved that.

Lorca's last words to the Klingon captain were, "Same time tomorrow?" as she retreated from the torture chamber, momentarily defeated by his resolve. The guards escorted Lorca back to his cell, but as dire as circumstances were, this was a resounding victory. He had made it back to Mudd and Tyler on his own two feet, having revealed nothing more damaging than his grandmother's cookie recipe.

Which did not excuse the mole in their midst. The door closed behind him and Lorca charged Mudd, plucked the listening device from Mudd's little "pet," and crushed it under the heel of his boot. "You've been feeding intel on every prisoner that passed through here," Lorca concluded, and threw Mudd's spider against the wall with every ounce of strength he had. Mudd went tearing after the spider, frantic with what seemed to be actual affection.

Tyler followed and pushed Mudd against the wall. "You're finished," he said to Mudd, and then released him, because they were Starfleet, and they did not do the Klingons' dirty work for them, even to Federation traitors like Mudd.

Mudd stroked his spider as he moved away from the wall. "Captain, are you really gonna let this young man humiliate himself by siding with you, hm?"

And then Mudd let Tyler know exactly what kind of captain Lorca was: the kind of captain who abandoned his ship. Mudd knew, as everyone did, the terrible fate of the Buran. His case to Tyler was simple. Lorca was not a captain who deserved Tyler's loyalty, because he had shown none to his own crew.

Lorca stood there and listened to this condemnation, unable and unwilling to deny his actions, guilt etched into his features as surely as anything had ever been. He had to look away. His head hung a moment as he thought of the loss of life at his own hands.

"Apparently, the honorable captain was too good to go down with his ship," said Mudd.

Lorca looked over at Tyler, saw the hurt in Tyler's eyes, and he could not let Mudd's slight go unchallenged. "That's only half-right. We were ambushed and I did... escape. But I didn't let my crew die. I blew them up."

This was a detail Mudd had not known and he looked shocked to hear it.

Lorca told them the sort of fate that awaited Federation crews on Qo'noS, the torture, the parade of death. And when he spoke the words, there was determination despite the anguish of it: "Not my crew. Not on my watch."

He fixed his gaze on Tyler, hoping the young man could understand.

After seven months in a Klingon prison, Tyler seemed to understand all too well.

Though Saru and Lalana were largely indifferent to the plight of the tardigrade in light of Lorca's circumstances, Stamets listened to Burnham's concerns with sympathy for the creature. The astromycologist felt a kinship towards Ripper. They were both of them connected to the mycelial network: Stamets by his years of research, Ripper by the natural horizontal transfer of DNA.

Stamets shut down the spore drive and began working with Tilly and Burnham to find an alternative to Ripper, some species with a DNA sequence compatible to the tardigrade's that could accept a horizontal transfer of mycelium DNA and replace the tardigrade entirely.

Saru arrived in the engineering lab and was entirely displeased to find the spore drive offline. Despite his explicit instructions to continue with the tardigrade as their supercomputer until Lorca was safely back on the ship, Burnham had yet again ignored his orders and undermined his command. Her lack of respect for him was infuriating, but he kept his calm and listened as she proposed the use of a human host in the tardigrade's place. Performing a horizontal genetic transfer to a human.

After her concern about chemical and biological weapons on Discovery, there had to be some cosmic irony in her proposing a eugenics solution to their problem.

He forbade it and ordered the use of the tardigrade. Rather than comply, in front of Stamets and in front of Tilly, Burnham declared that Saru was upset and implied it was some failing in him as a Kelpien, some natural deficiency of his species.

Saru hit her right back where it hurt and said, "Saving this tardigrade will neither bring back nor change the fact that this is exactly the kind of behavior that killed Captain Georgiou."

He was steel in that moment, but he cut himself as deeply as he did her with those words. Only an interruption from Lieutenant Rhys on the bridge announcing they had located Captain Lorca saved them both from anything worse. Saru ordered the tardigrade into the spore chamber for a jump and confined Burnham to her quarters.

They readied for the jump. "Black alert," said Saru, and then intoned the same word Lorca always did: "Go."

In the engineering lab, the tardigrade screamed, and as the jump completed, it collapsed.

Stamets and Tilly rushed to its side. Neither feared the monstrous creature in that moment, or worried that it would rend them as it had Landry. They saw only a pitiful, suffering thing that shrank down into a protective ball.

Extreme cryptobiosis, Culber announced. The tardigrade, just as its microscopic cousins did, had shed all the water from its body and shrunk down to a hard-shelled husk to weather the crisis. It was not a problem they could fix without risking killing a creature that Culber now believed might be sentient based on recent neurological scans.

"As it is our only way to get out of Klingon space, it is a risk we must take," said Saru. "I do not enjoy being in this position, but I have one hundred and thirty-four souls to protect today."

"I will not be party to murder," said Culber.

"Doctor, I was not talking to you," said Saru, and turned to Stamets and ordered his compliance.

As Culber looked on with a mixture of shock and horror, Stamets said, "Yes, sir," and felt himself die a little as he said it.

Two Klingon guards arrived to deliver their own personal disbursement of torture to the cell and it was Tyler who took the beating, volunteering for it, to Mudd's immense relief. Lorca's face contorted with conflict at this this turn of events and he turned away and did not watch as the one guard tossed Tyler around the cell while the other stood with his rifle trained on Lorca. Lorca edged away from the carnage, wincing visibly, looking to the guard with the rifle with a confused plea on his face.

After a moment, Tyler did not get up. The guard administering the beating seemed to strut in momentary pride, then whirled about for one last stomp, the sort that had done away with their departed initial cellmate.

Tyler was prepared for it, jumping to his feet as the guard stomped down, taking advantage of the guard's momentum and surprise to turn the attack back towards the Klingon.

Lorca, too, was ready. His overwrought display of anguish had taken him within arm's reach of the rifle. He grabbed it from the other guard, elbowing the Klingon in the face and wrenching the rifle away, then using it as a cudgel to beat the Klingon before managing to get it around the Klingon's neck as leverage to snap the spine. He turned to assist Tyler, the rifle in hand, only to discover Tyler had managed to drop his opponent all on his own.

Tricking the Klingon guard had not been hard because Lorca's distress at watching these Klingon monsters beat Tyler was entirely genuine. As Lorca well knew, the most effective way to fake something was not to fake it. Something tugged at his memory, something Lalana had said back in San Francisco, but he could not remember the exact words. There had been an awful lot of sedatives in his system when she said it.

Lorca tossed Tyler the guard's phaser and held on to the rifle for himself. They stood on bother sides the door, checking if there were any other guards on the other side before they made their escape.

Mudd tried to leave with them. "You sold us out," Lorca said to Mudd, turning the rifle on him. "You stay."

"You can't be serious," said Mudd.

"Oh, but I can," said Lorca, and cracked the rifle across Mudd's deplorable face. Mudd's pleas followed them out into the hallway as Lorca shut the door on him, locking him in there to his fate at the hands of the Klingons.

The pleas turned to promises of vengeance as Mudd realized they would not come back. "You can't walk away from me, Lorca! I'm coming for you, you hear! You haven't seen the last of Harcourt Fenton Mudd!"

Their escape was not without complications. Lorca and Tyler strode down the halls, vaporizing guards, fending off assaults, but a guard managed to surprise Tyler and further wound the lieutenant to the point where he could barely walk. Lorca pulled Tyler's arm around his shoulder, but it did not last. Tyler slid off onto the ground.

"I'm slowing you down, sir, go."

Lorca did go, but only so far as around the corner. The Klingons in pursuit of them filtered into the hall and Lorca reappeared, firing off a shot towards the white-clad captain that hit the wall of the corridor and blasted the side of her face rather than vaporizing her completely. She lay in the middle of the corridor, screaming in agony as Lorca helped Tyler to his feet and they made their way to the docking bay.

The Klingon ship was not loaded with transport shuttles but with raiders, small assault craft designed to frustrate larger ships. Tyler was surprised to find Lorca seemed to know how to operate the controls. "Redirect all auxiliary power to shields. Blue panel on the right."

There were five raiders in pursuit of them. Lorca manned the guns while Tyler piloted. A good shot picked off one of the five and Lorca winced at the glare of the explosion.

"Your eyes," said Tyler. "That happened when you destroyed the Buran, didn't it?"

"We choose our own pain," said Lorca. "Mine helps me remember."

Ahead of them they saw Discovery. Against the odds, Lorca's ship had found them, but then, that was Discovery through and through. Nothing but miracles aboard.

There were going to need one more miracle, because Discovery had no idea they were coming, and in a Klingon raider, no less. And then the voice came. "Federation starship Discovery to Klingon raider. Identify yourself."

There was the miracle. Lorca grinned and ordered a beam-out. It was good to issue an order to his crew again. The lights of the transporter enveloped them. A moment later, they were on Discovery, and Tyler collapsed onto the transporter pad next to Lorca. Lorca rushed to his side, waving away the guards in attendance. The last thing Tyler needed was to be inundated with unfamiliar faces. "Captain to bridge! You got us! Jump! Jump now!"

They jumped. Tyler did not know what to make of the odd sensation of mycelial travel, but Lorca kept a hand on his shoulder in reassurance. "Thank you, captain," said Tyler.

"For what?" replied Lorca, a mischievous grin appearing on his face. "Dragging you back into the war on a ship with a target on its back."

"There's no place I'd rather be," said Tyler.

That, Lorca thought, was as true a sentiment as could be expressed.

He accompanied Tyler as far as the sickbay doors, made sure he was in good hands, and then strode off down the hall.

Discovery. They were home.

There was one problem. When Saru called down to the engineering lab to congratulate Stamets on his success, there was no answer.

Stamets had sent the rest of his team out of the lab. Saru overrode Stamets' lockout on the door and they found Stamets collapsed in the middle of the spore chamber, the vial containing Burnham's genetic modification cocktail beside him on the ground. He had injected himself with the gene therapy to spare the tardigrade any further suffering.

"Did we make it?" asked Stamets.

Saru stared at him. "Yes."

Stamets began to laugh with a hysteria that did not at all reassure.

When Saru finally came face to face with Lorca, he found the captain in his ready room, bloodied by a gash on his lip but grinning infectiously. "Mr. Saru!" said Lorca, throwing his hands up as he turned away from the window. "I hear I have you to thank for spotting us in that raider."

It was true. Burnham might have suggested Saru's Kelpien heritage to be some sort of deficit, but it was that same heritage that had given Saru the clues needed to identify the one raider in the group that had been fleeing from the others. Without that insight, Discovery might have fired on Lorca.

"I owe you my life," said Lorca, "but I should warn you, there's a whole line of people that's true of." He laughed a short, barking laugh, then let out a little exclamation of happy pain and touched the cut on his lip.

"Perhaps you should go to sickbay," said Saru.

"Ah, this? Flesh wound at best," said Lorca, shrugging comically. It was satisfying in a weird way, to be able to choose his own pain.

"Still. You have been through an ordeal, captain, there may be injuries which adrenaline is preventing you from correctly assessing."

That was a very valid point. "You're right, number one. I just had to come here first." He turned and looked out the window again, his window, at his stars. He let out a small, happy sigh.

Saru considered Lorca. Technically, Lorca was not captain again until after he was cleared by a medical examination, and Lorca seemed so uncharacteristically happy if would be a shame to rain on that happiness by sharing the news of the tardigrade's loss and replacement by Stamets. Besides, a case could be made that the captain might not be in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate the information.

"If you will head to sickbay at your earliest convenience, I will resume my duties as first officer for the time being," said Saru. He waited a moment for Lorca to respond by dismissing him as usual, but Lorca seemed too entranced by the view.

Saru turned to leave.

"Saru?"

The Kelpien turned back to look at Lorca and saw an indescribable joy in the captain's face and a glistening in his eyes. Lorca's voice was almost breathless with relief.

"It's so good to be back on Discovery." It almost seemed like Lorca might cry. He did not, but for a moment it seemed that way. "Thank you for the rescue."

Saru jerkily inclined his head. "Of course, captain."

When Saru was gone, Lorca looked around the familiar surroundings of his ready room, grinning uncontrollably, and started laughing with a mixture of relief, joy, and anguish. He was confused by it himself. He managed to curtail the near-hysteria and said, "Computer, site to site transport. Lab 26."

Materializing outside the door was always an inconvenience, but more so right now as he forced himself to keep it together in front of Allan while he waited for the doors to cycle and permit entry.

Lalana was in the main lab area already. She had ascertained the fact of his return from her feed of the main viewscreen. Lorca practically dove towards her, scooping her up and hugging her more tightly than he should as he resumed his confusingly relieved laughter. He barely noticed Mischkelovitz and O'Malley's presences in the room.

O'Malley tugged on Mischkelovitz's arm. "Come on, love, let's give them some space," he said. Mischkelovitz rose and did one thing for Lorca before heading out with O'Malley: she picked up Merkin and put the tribble on the corner of the worktable nearest the captain.

Lorca stood there holding Lalana as the laughter quieted into steady breaths. After what seemed like an eternity, Lorca finally said, "I just want to stay here on Discovery forever. Forever."

"Oh, Gabriel, you do not live that long. Even lului do not live forever."

"Shut up and let me have this, will you?" he said softly, smiling and not least bit perturbed by her correction, because he was just as glad for her ridiculous pedanticism as he was everything else on this ship. His ship.

On the table, Merkin trilled.

Part 64

[weerd1]

Star Trek TOS Rewatch Log, Stardate 1711.26: Missions reviewed, "The Squire of Gothos," "Arena," and "Tomorrow is Yesterday."

"Squire" is an episode of which I have never been a big fan, but it worked better for me in this particular rewatch.  The Enterprise becomes the playthings of a being wielding god-like power, but with an obsession with Earth's Napoleonic age. Turns out that though he is an advanced being, he is also a child, and his parents come along to make him stop torturing his "pets."  It's a very Serling-like reveal, and does work as an allegory for the cruelty of someone who has the intellect of a child having great power at his fingertips.  Notably, Trelaine is played by William Campbell who will later play Klingon Kaptain Koloth in "The Trouble with Tribbles."  Also, this is the last time we hear "Space Command" as the Enterprise's organization.  Also, they remark that planet Gothos is 900 light years from Earth, and hence Trelaine's observations have him seeing Earth in the early 1800s (he even mentions the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton).  This would mean Star Trek takes place sometime in the 2700s, which of course will be proven false later.

In "Arena" we get a truly great episode, and the criminally underused Gorn.  (The Gorn do appear again in TAS and ENT, and DSC currently has a Gorn skeleton in Lorca's laboratory.  They are also mentioned on DS9 and in "Star Trek Into Darkness.")  The Gorn have wiped out a human colony, and while the Enterprise pursues, both are captured by the far superior Metrons who take Kirk and the Gorn captain and force them to fight to the death.  Kirk builds a bazooka (suck it Mythbusters, he can TOO do that!) but shows mercy by not killing the wounded reptile. This impresses the Metrons who send both on their way.  Something I really love about this episode is we find out the Gorn attacked the human colony because it had been settled in their space and they saw the humans as invaders.  It would have been easy to make the monstrous Gorn simple villains, but that reveal really elevates the story, and makes me really want to know what happens between the Federation and the Gorn next.  Naturally, we have not yet heard "Federation" mentioned, but for the first time here "Starfleet Command" is mentioned, and that will pretty well be the standard for the Enterprise's higher headquarters from here on out.

In "Tomorrow is Yesterday" a lot of big Trek concepts pop up.  The slingshot effect is created which will allow the Enterprise to return to the late 1960s in "Assignment: Earth" and of course Kirk and the gang will use the technique to save the whales in "The Voyage Home."  We see them messing around in Earth's past, which will become a staple of Trek.  And we get the first idea that a non-interference directive might apply to time travel.  We are still getting "UESPA" here rather than "Federation" and Kirk explains it means "United Earth Space Probe Agency."  Oddly, Kirk introduces Spock as a "Lieutenant Commander" even though Spock has been wearing full Commander stripes since he first put on the blue shirt (in "Where No Man Has Gone Before, the first pilot, he's in yellow).  In a well done detail however, when Air Force Captain Christopher is given a Starfleet uniform to wear he has a Lieutenant stripe, or O3, which is the correct equivalent to an Air Force Captain. Kirk mentions that waiting 200 years would be "about right" in the ever shifting TOS timeframe.   Oh, and SpUhura shippers take note that when the Enterprise crew is waking up from the accident that sends them to the past in the first place, Spock goes to Uhura to see if she is all right and help her to her chair. Also, please note that the Enterprise is in atmosphere and is not struggling because of the air, but rather because of the condition of the engines, meaning she would be perfectly capable of handling atmospheric entry if at full power.

NEXT VOYAGE: The past comes calling for James Kirk as he ends up in a "Court Martial"!