Finding Mitty.

Chapter 5: Major Tom

One week before Mallorca:

The day before everything ended, or, maybe started.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Melhoff. Its mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go, where no man has gone before.

"Captain's Log, stardate 2237. I'm here on Planet 763DC of the York system in the neutral zone with what's left of starship Melhoff and my crew. Its an abandoned dark planet, probably used as a secret Klingon fertilization ground. We were caught by surprise and attacked by unknown warships, which seemed to be using our cloaking technology. We barely made it alive landing - correction, crashing - on this planet. Wait, I see some ships landing."

I got up from the captain's seat and looked the screen running diagnostics. Yup, Klingon warships. But how'd they get the cloaking technology? Only the federation has it.

"We are receiving a message from the Klingons Captain Mitty. Its the Klingon royalty and their head of defence, they want you to come out to negotiate the terms of our surrender." The translator informed. Surrender, which in Klingon meant the death of all of us.

Sweat ran down my face as I calculated all possibilities that went through my half Vulcan mind, but my human side kept interfering, telling me to trust my instinct. It told me I could do good math but I couldn't predict the future and I definitely couldn't decide my crew's fate, let alone mine, based on probability. Who was I to do so anyway? All I could do is my best to save everyone, or die trying.

"How soon can you have the ship ready to fly again Scotty?" I spoke into the receiver.

"15 minutes sir!" The voice from the other end, mixed with the buzzing of machines.

"You have 10." I commanded and told my first officer, "I'm going out there to talk to him, as soon as we're able to, I need you to get into the stratosphere, beam me up and go into warp."

"But Captain, what about the warships? They'll blow us to pieces before we can make it to stratosphere." He replied nervously.

"I'll take care of that. I know this doesn't seem like a very logical decision, I don't know what the most logical decision is, but I have a plan, and I need you to trust me. And you're captain now." I reassured him and started marching.

I stepped my feet on the dark blue sandy soil, and looked straight ahead at the figures coming out of the 3 warships. They were about a 100 metres away. I slowly started walking towards them, giving as much time as I could to Scotty. As I reached near, I could make out a small figure standing in the centre of the platoon of the giant sized Klingons. It almost looked.....human. As I neared them, I could see all the guns pointing at me, their laser scopes moving all over my uniform. I stopped and put my hands in the air.

The small figure approached forward out of the darkness and it indeed was a human, one I knew very well. Admiral Ted Hendricks. That sonava...

"Captain Mitty, how are we today? Or is it tonight? I really can't tell the difference here." He spoke in a soft, shrewd voice.

"What the hell are you doing Ted?!" I snapped at him.

"What does it look like pointy? I'm working with them. How do you think these dumbasses got the cloaking technology?" He said pointing to the big guys at his sides. Too bad they couldn't understand our language.

"How could you?! You betrayed the federation, your friends, your whole species! I didn't know you could slip that low, you traitor!!"

"Oh grow up Walter! You've known me for so long! We were in the academy together. We started out the same, but I made Admiral while you still stayed Captain. And now, I've got an even better deal. There's a war coming, and I'm on the winning side now, while you're still bickering about, desperately trying to keep your crew alive. You know why I'm better than you? Because I'm not a moralized idiot! You can't do what's necessary, what's better for you, or even what you want to do if it goes against your stupid ideals! Well, guess what, They. Don't. Matter! Its what makes you weak and predictable. Even now, you were gonna let these fools take you prisoner in exchange for codes to the defences of federation planets weren't you? In exchange for letting your crew go, and as soon as they're up, make them beam you back and warp to the nearest federation system for backup, instead of just using the nuclear reactor of your warp core to blow this planet to pieces and ending the Klingon monarchy once and for all. But you don't have the courage to do that do you?" He said laughing incessantly in my face.