Vestigial Sorrow

A Star Trek Story by pleasantlybad

The foreign ship glimmered in the distance, framed by the wavering red orb of Hades. Few stars blinked around it, their light dimmed by the fiery sun. The USS Sorrow sat at the edge of the marked solar system, not half an astronomical unit away from the unknown vessel. On the bridge of the Sorrow, the crew were silent, watching.

First officer Erich Kiani shot a glance at the Captain. His face was blank, eyebrows furrowed slightly, conveying no emotion. His dark eyes shone with the distant light of Hades. Erich chewed his lip. He hated that he couldn't read Captain Triggs as he could read other people.

"Romulans?" he asked, hoping to spark some reaction.

Triggs shook his head slightly, not taking his eyes off the window. "No, not Romulans."

Erich returned his gaze to the other ship as well. "D'you think they're going to Mauta?"

"Doubt it. They wouldn't be able to land. Unless they have some sort of apparatus for landing on a gas-based planet." Triggs pushed his hair out of his eyes. "Sharpey?"

Their communications officer swung around in her seat. "Still nothing, sir. They're either not receiving our signals or they're ignoring them."

Triggs inhaled deeply. "Open up a channel for me, I'll try," he breathed on the exhale.

"Okay, sir."

Eyes still trained on the other ship, Triggs leaned forward slightly. His hand twitched out and pressed a button on the arm of the chair. "This is the USS Sorrow. I am Captain Jonas Triggs. Are you receiving our signals?"

Silence.

"This is a Federation ship, operating through Starfleet. Are you in need of any help?"

The foreign ship hung suspended in space, Hades a halo around it. Triggs lifted his finger from the button and finally looked away from the ship and toward Erich. "What d'you think?"

"Could be a trap, Captain," Erich suggested.

Triggs shrugged. His emotionless eyes twinkled. Erich clamped his teeth over his bottom lip, raking his eyes over Trigg's body, trying to search for a sign of what he was thinking, anything to help him work out what was going on in his captain's mind. Frustration flickered in his gut.

"Aaaaand what if they need our help?"

"You sound like you're deciding which flavour of ice cream to get," Erich said, crossing his arms disapprovingly. Triggs' lips twitched. His finger slid over the panel on the arm of his chair, pressing another button.

"Six security personnel, equipped with phasers, to the transporter room. Doctor Machesky as well." He pushed himself off his chair with some effort, lightly stepping towards the door. He paused before the elevator, tilting his head back slightly - every move he made was graceful and smooth. "I want you too, Kiani."

"Of course, Captain." Erich hurriedly made his way around the bridge and joined Triggs in the elevator.

"Transporter room," Triggs commanded in his soft voice. The elevator slid downward. Erich kept his eyes on the strange man's blank face. His eyes twinkled and his lips twitched up in a small, secretive smile, but Erich couldn't find any portal into his thoughts.

Triggs turned his head to Erich, giving him a small, knowing wink before stepping forward, out of the elevator. Erich stared after him in amazement, shaking himself and following him. Their footsteps echoed down the empty corridor, the captain's uniformed back blaring at Erich as they made their way to the transporter room.

Doctor Lynna Machesky and a row of six redshirts were waiting for them. Machesky nodded to Triggs and shot a large grin in Erich's direction. Erich scowled at her. The doctor had a blithe indifference to social norms and rules, and wore her emotions plastered over her body for everyone to see. It drove Erich crazy. He liked to delve into someone's mind to read their emotions, not be able to peel them right off of their face. Machesky was too bubbly and excitable for her own good.

"So, what's up this time?" she smiled, prancing onto a transporter pad. Erich could have sworn she accentuated the sways of her hips toward him. He looked away.

"Mauta is silent. There's a foreign ship in front of Hades, not responding to our attempts at communication. We're beaming on board the ship to see if we can speak to them."

"Is it just me, or does that seem like a really bad plan?" Machesky frowned. Erich sighed.

"I tried to tell him," he shrugged. Triggs flicked his arm.

"Oh shut up, you barely said anything. We're beaming aboard and that's that. We have six redshirt with phasers, a doctor and you, Kiani, can easily look into their mind or whatever you do and I dunno, use that against them. And I'm perfectly capable of defending myself. We don't even know if there's anyone on the ship, it could be empty for all we know. If anything goes wrong, I'll just get Kyle to beam us back and we can warp the heck out of here."

Machesky snorted. Triggs grabbed Erich's wrist and pulled him into the transporter. The familiar tingling started in his gut as he was immersed in gold, and Erich closed his eyes as they beamed down.

The honey light dripped away, and solid floor materialised under their feet. Erich exhaled, opening his eyes.

He was standing in the centre of a dimly lit spacious warehouse. In the distance, he could hear a train beating the rails. A breeze sent discarded beer cans dancing over the concrete floor in a song of scraping rattles. In front of him, an abused oak desk lay on its side. Erich's heart pounded in confusion.

"This isn't a ship," Machesky noted from somewhere behind him. Erich looked around - they were all standing in the same formation they'd beamed away in.

"Really? I would have never guessed," he grumbled. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Hey, break it up,' Triggs intervened. He stepped past Erich and crouched in front of the desk, running his finger along it. "I think we are on the ship."

"Okay, you've gotta be kidding me. There is no way this is a ship, unless they just so happen to have a whole warehouse and a train on board."

Triggs ignored the woman. "Kiani, what do you make of this?"

Erich knelt beside him, watching as he ran his finger over the surface of the desk again. The wood wavered and glitched under his skin. Erich frowned.

"Simulated? So this whole warehouse is a simulation?"

"We just happened to beam into some sort of simulation chamber is what I think," Triggs mumbled. "Which means there has to be an exit or something to turn off the simulation."

"So we look around the whole warehouse for a switch or a door?" one of the redshirts chimed in. Triggs nodded, his face still blank.

The redshirts dispersed behind them. Erich rose to his feet, casting his eyes around the simulated room. He took a step forward. His footstep echoed, the sound bouncing around the metal roof beams and returning to him. Sunlight winked through a broken window high up one of the corrugated iron walls and he shakily walked toward it. Broken glass crunched under his shoes. The window was too high to reach.

He could hear the others spread out around the room, searching as well. A can was kicked over the floor. Someone started talking with someone else, the sound a wash of voices. He turned, taking in the rest of the warehouse. Above a large sign covered in bird shit that read 'Hangar 75' was another window that glitched and glimmered.

A scrunched ball of paper lay at his feet. Erich bent and unfolded it, squinting at the small typed letters.

Resistance is futile.

A shiver went down his spine, and he dropped the note as if it had burned him. As soon as it touched the dirty cement ground, its form wavered and it disappeared.

"Hey," someone murmured, and Erich started. He looked around - Captain Triggs blinked at him. "You okay?"

"I.. I found a note," Erich started. "It disappeared."

"Yet another clue pointing towards the simulation theory. What did it say?"

"'Resistance is futile'," Erich relayed. Triggs raised his eyebrows.

"Well. Maybe the ship isn't empty after all."

"You don't seem worried."

"I don't need to be."

"We're stuck in a simulation."

"We won't be."

Erich peered at his captain's face. "I can never read you, not like I read other people."

Triggs dropped his eyes to the ground, shrugging a little. He didn't speak.

"You're the complete opposite of Doctor Machesky," Erich went on. Trigg's face split into a rare grin.

"She likes you, Kiani."

"Likes me? She hates my guts! She's always trying to piss me off!"

"Because she likes you. Like likes you."

Erich felt his face burning. "Well, the feeling's not mutual."

Triggs chuckled. "Thought so."

There was a shout from a redshirt across the room. "Hey! I found something!"

Triggs patted Erich's shoulder. "Talk to you later, when we're not breaking out of a simulation on a foreign ship," he nodded, and jogged toward the redshirt. Erich inhaled, held it in a suspended breath, then let the air whoosh from his lungs. He too jogged toward the opposite side of the warehouse.

The 'thing' that had been found was a very faint outline of an old-style door. "Looks like something from the twentieth or twenty-first century," Erich noted. Triggs nodded slowly. He reached out and touched the handle, gingerly wrapping his fingers around it and opening.

A grey hallway reached away in front of them, shiny walls punctuated by doors similar to to the one Triggs had just opened. Erich stepped after the rest of the group into the corridor, glancing back at the room they had come from.

Dull grey walls stared back at him. The warehouse was gone.

There was a sign over the door - a jumble of strange symbols. Erich fumbled for his Isolinear Translation Device, scanning the symbols. 'Hanger 75'.

"Erich? You coming?" Machesky asked from somewhere down the corridor, and he hurried after the group.

"I think these are all simulation chambers, sir," Erich suggested to the captain. He raised the ITD to the sign above another door - 'Olxen windfield'. He scanned another. 'Ruins of Hele City'.

"Hele City - that's on Angon II," one of the redshirts said. "My aunt lives there."

"What's the point of simulating them?" Machesky asked.

"Exercise," Triggs said. "For the mind. To make it more interesting on board. We should leave. I'll get Kyle to beam us back on board the Sorrow."

"Leave?!" burst Machesky. "We haven't even achieved what we initially came here for! We can't just leave!"

Triggs was silent. Erich strained to read his face as they marched on toward the end of the corridor. He could have sworn he saw a flicker of fear in those deep eyes. It was gone as soon as it appeared.

He might have been mistaken.

Triggs took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay. You guys go on, I'm going to check out some of these other rooms."

Machesky, being the blunt unobservant soul she was, took this answer happily, and beckoned to the redshirts to follow her down the corridor. Erich wasn't so convinced. He waited until the hollow thuds of the footsteps died to a low ambient pulse, peering into Triggs' blank face.

There was nothing. No hint of the small flicker of fear Erich saw, no vestigial emotions lurking on the man's features. Triggs tilted his head up and evenly met Erich's gaze. His dark eyes reached into the other man's vibrant green ones in a swirl of confusion. His lips parted slightly, exhaling gently.

"You can really feel the heat of Hades from here, can't you?" he smiled softly, their locked eyes never breaking away from each other. Erich strained every bit of his ability as he rooted in Triggs' abyssal irises.

"We must be pretty close," he agreed, taking a small step forward, his eyes never leaving his captain's.

"Can you read me now?" Jonas Triggs asked.

"No," admitted Erich. Triggs chuckled.

"You shouldn't be so surprised, Kiani. You're built for reading emotions, I'm built for keeping people like you out. It's why- nevermind."

Erich narrowed his eyes. "Why what?"

Triggs chewed his lip slightly, finally breaking the bond between them by glancing down the corridor. Erich stepped back, his head reeling. He felt like he'd just taken a breath after swimming the entire length of a swimming pool underwater.

"Erich? Just... just remember that whatever happens on this ship today, I'll always be your captain. I'm not like the others."

"What? What oth-"

Erich was interrupted by a yell of, "ERICH YOU BETTER COME LOOK AT THIS," from down the corridor. He shot a look at the last door, hanging slightly ajar, then back to Triggs.

His face was still blank.

"ERICH KIANI, GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!"

Erich tore his eyes from Triggs and pelted down the corridor, questions swirling in his mind. He tripped through the door and ran into a redshirt, both of them stumbling back. Erich muttered an apology, taking in the room around him. Row upon row of metal coffin-like boxes stoop upright against the walls, lining the room.

"Cryogenic chambers," Erich murmured to himself. Machesky touched his shoulder, making him jump.

"Look in one," she said. Erich frowned at the request, stepping toward the closet chamber and wiping away the foggy condensation from the small window in the top.

Captain Triggs lay before him, his face peaceful, eyes closed in everlasting frozen sleep. Erich felt his breath catch in his throat. He leapt forward to the next one, wiping away the fog.

Captain Triggs, once again.

Erich uncovered five more chambers. Triggs lay in each of them, face slack and sleeping. Erich hadn't ever seen his captain asleep before, which unnerved him even more.

He was standing in a room full of his captain, locked up in sub-zero slumber. Erich took a step back, his mind racing. He glanced at Machesky. Her lips were set in a thin line, eyes grave. She gestured to the redshirts. Quietly, she asked them to find Triggs. Erich barely registered the sound of voice through the layers of shock built up around him.

What was going on?

"Are you alright?" Machesky asked, her fingers curling around his arm. Erich didn't shake her off, nodding gently.

"I-... I just... w-... what is this?" was all that came from his lips. Machesky leant her head against his shoulder.

"I always knew there was something wrong with him. He's so secretive. I don't think I know anything about his past, what he was doing before he came to Starfleet."

"I can't read him," Erich mumbled. "I can't see his emotions."

Machesky's answer was hidden by a gunshot. Erich leapt forward, pulling his arm free of the doctor's grip. He peered around the door, jumping as another gunshot rang out, followed in rapid succession by two more. Erich sucked a breath in, kicking the door closed and stepped back.

"Erich? What's happening?" Machesky sounded frightened. Erich's own heart was thumping loudly in his chest. He forced himself to take a deep breath, closing his eyes and exhaling through his nose.

"I don't know," he told her, "just stay away from the door."

The ship was silent. In the room full of frozen look-alikes, the doctor and Erich waited with bated breath. Erich's mind was crackling with confusion - he looked around at Machesky, feeling her fear coursing through her.

The door swung open, and Machesky screamed, clamping a hand over her mouth. Triggs stood in the doorway, gun dangling from a limp hand. Blood decorated his figure in a red spray, his hair sticking up from his head. His face was filled with remorse, and Erich's mind went reeling. He'd never seen so much emotion on his captain's face.

Could he even still call Triggs his captain?

Machesky sank to the ground, sobbing into her hand. One step brought Triggs up to her, grasping her wrist. She shrieked and struggled, trying to pull away from him. Erich could only watch in sick fascination as Triggs fastened a helmet-like device onto her head.

Machesky kicked out at him, falling to the ground as the device began to buzz. Triggs reeled backwards, momentarily stunned by the blow the doctor landed. Erich watched her eyes roll back in her head, her muscles relaxing. He took another step back.

Triggs shut the door gently, looking tired. So, so tired. He looked at Erich, but in his eyes was not violence or murder - he just looked tired. The gun slipped from his grip and fell to the floor with a clatter. "Kiani... I don't want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. I just want everything to go back. We should have never come aboard this ship."

"What did you do?" Erich found his voice, spitting out the question shakily. Triggs winced. He gestured to the helmet he'd put on Machesky.

"It's a memory device. Messes with the electromagnetic pulses that create memories. I can take this all out of your mind, and we can go back to before. I'll tell them back on the Sorrow that something attacked us."

"Do I have a choice?" Erich murmured, eyes trained on Triggs. The captain shook his head.

"Then tell me what's going on. I deserve answers," Erich demanded.

"You're just going to forget them all, anyway."

"Then why is it a bad thing if you tell me?"

Triggs sighed. He took a step toward Erich. "I don't see why I shouldn't. It's... complicated, and I don't know all of the story, so there might be bits missing."

"Tell me," Erich said again, glancing over Triggs' figure warily.

"I escaped from this ship more than seven years ago," Triggs began. "As far as I worked out, myself and my brothers (here he gestured around the room, at the silent chambers) were slaves to these... these things that controlled our minds. I don't know much about the Minds, as I came to call them, or what happened to the original Jonas Triggs, who we were all cloned from, but I know that I was never... born. I was created as an adult, with all my captaining skills and abilities to run a ship already programmed into my brain."

"So you're a clone?"

"Yes. As far as I know, Jonas Triggs was captured from a ship passing by the planet the Minds inhabited, and cloned to create thousands of slaves. At some point the Minds wanted to leave the planet, but I presume they could only do that by joyriding in the minds of the clones. So they created huge ships of these cryogenically frozen clones, each harbouring residue from a Mind."

"But how did you escape if you were frozen?"

"I wasn't frozen. They needed someone to run the ship, so for each ship they created one clone complete with captaining knowledge and the ability to run a ship. I was the only one awake on the ship, and tended to everything day after day after day as they controlled me."

"How did you break away?"

"I think their connection in my mind got weaker as we got further from the planet. One day I woke up and found I was able to actually think for myself. It was so strange at first, I was frightened and didn't know what to do. I worked out that I had been a slave. I managed to learn how to block them from my mind completely. I don't know if they knew I had broken away from them, or if they were in the minds of so many clones they didn't realise, but I was paranoid and scared and wanted to get as far away from anything to do with the Minds as possible.

"I wanted to free the other clones - they were my brothers, after all - and I seriously considered it. I thought it was so... so utterly wrong to just leave them like that, but I was panicking and I was scared that they'd be able to track us down if I freed all of them, so... I left them." Triggs' voice broke. A crystal tear trekked its way down his cheek.

"I wasn't able to let them all die, so I put the ship on autopilot and left through an escape pod," Triggs whispered. "I didn't think they'd make it. I thought the Minds would find them, or something would happen. I didn't think it was the same ship. I didn't know, and I just want everything to go back."

He was crying freely now. Erich took a slow step forward, scanning the man for weapons. Triggs' deep eyes caught Erich's again.

"When I saw the ship again, in front of Hades, it seemed so surreal. I honestly thought it wasn't the same ship, because I didn't believe it could have survived that long. I took such a big risk beaming you all aboard. I only realised it was the same ship once we were out in the corridor, and by then it was too late. I-" he sighed. "I am so, so sorry for everything, Erich."

"The simulation chambers, the note I found. All these weapons and equipment you have. What's it for?"

"The simulation chambers were for the Minds. Just as a body needs exercise, so does a Mind. And as long as a body is conscious and being controlled by a Mind, it needs to keep life interesting for the Mind. The note you found was probably a random reminder to me, as the awake clone, that resisting the power of the minds was futile. Randomly generated, I presume. It was a coincidence you found one."

"The weapons?"

"I don't know. I just know that I knew where they were and what they did. I think the gun at least might have been a clone of the original gun Jonas Triggs may have brought down to the planet when he was captured. I'm not sure what the memory device is. I know that it was meant to be used for if a clone did happen to gain independent sentience, but I was obviously not going to use it on myself. I almost did. I was considering it when I first broke free."

"Why did you kill those redshirts?" Erich asked, still holding Triggs' gaze.

"I don't know. I think some of the Minds might still have faint hold over my brothers. I could feel them entering me again, and for a moment they were controlling me once more, making me shoot those redshirts. Don't worry, Erich, I've fought them off now. I'm not even sure it's a proper connection. Maybe residue left over."

Erich cast his eyes to the ground. "What happened after you escaped? What about why I can't read you usually?"

"I fainted in the escape pod. I wasn't used to being independent, and that combined with the stress and confusion - I blacked out and woke up days later. I must have been in that pod for at least a month. A Federation ship found me. I lied and said that I was the original Triggs, kept everything quiet. I was scared that they were in cahoots with the Minds, or controlled by them. After a while I realised this wasn't the case, but by then I had been pretending for too long.

"You can't read me because I don't want you to read me. I was - and still am - so paranoid about anyone finding out. The Minds were controlling me. That stuff never really leaves you. I'm still scared I'll be sent back into a life of slavery, that they'll be angry at me for leaving."

"Have you told me everything?" Erich asked.

"Everything I know," Triggs replied quietly.

"So you'll erase my memory, take me and Doctor Machesky back onto the ship and say that something attacked us and killed the redshirts?"

"You'll wake up and never know anything happened. Both of you," Triggs replied.

"How do I believe any of what you've just told me? Why should I?"

Triggs took a weary breath, wetting his lips with his tongue. "You don't have to. You're not going to remember it, anyway. It'll erase the last hour from your mind." He bent and lifted the helmet off Machesky's head, turning to rest his sorrowful eyes on his first officer.

Erich stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his captain in a firm hug. "I believe you," he whispered.

"I'll always be your captain, Erich," Triggs breathed.

Erich let Triggs slide the helmet onto his head, drinking in one last look at his captain's emotion-filled eyes before the helmet started to buzz.

He woke up in the medical ward, staring up at the bright white ceiling. His head hurt, a pulsing headache that thumped through his temples. When he turned his head he could see Machesky lying in a bed across from him, fast asleep.

Erich raised a shaking hand to press against his eyes, groaning a little. His whole head ached and pulsed uncomfortably, and the bright light didn't help. He blinked and tilted his head the other way, his eyes meeting dark pools. He frowned at Triggs, dropping his hands. "What happened? Why am I in the medical ward? What happened to Doctor Machesky?"

"Something attacked us. Do you remember beaming aboard the ship?"

"Ship? The one in front of Hades? But we didn't beam aboard...?"

"What do you remember?" Triggs asked gently.

"Everything. Up until... you trying to talk to the ship. But... then nothing. I don't know how I got down here. What the hell happened?"

"We beamed aboard the ship. Something attacked us, killed six redshirts and injured you and Machesky. I put it to rest."

Erich struggled into a sitting position, his head reeling with dizziness. Triggs caught his arm, helping him balance. "Do you want to get up?"

"Can I see out the window?" Erich asked. Without a word, Triggs slung an arm around his waist and lifted him out of the bed, setting his feet on the floor. Erich kept a firm grip on his captain's arm as he tottered to the window, peering out at the receding orb of Hades.

If he really strained his eyes, glimmering like an insect in front of the star was the smudge of a small, foreign ship.