Bitter Victory - Commodore Tam Otlan

Bitter Victory by Cmdr Tam Otlan

© 2005 by Federation Space and the author pen named Tam Otlan

Tam had spent hours walking. Since returning to Starbase Bravo with the Titan, he had had trouble sleeping at night and often found himself wandering around any Class-M planet within shuttlecraft range. This was the fifth he had visited so far and like all the ones before, there was little here to grab his attention.

The battle between the Titan and the Nightslayer continued to come to the forefront of his mind, no matter how hard he tried to dismiss it. What could he have done differently? What if he had been a little faster in issuing orders for the Titan to withdraw? What if they had launched escape pods and set the Titan on a collision course with the Nightslayer? His logical mind told him that such musings were useless and he had acted in the best interest of his crew and ship at the time with what information he had possessed.

The less logical, more emotional and more vicious part of his mind called him a murderer. A failure. A Commanding Officer who sacrificed half his crew to retrieve a single Intelligence Officer who may or may not have anything useful to contribute to Star Fleet and the Federation.

Grinding his teeth, he rammed his fists into his pockets and began walking faster. Tam was no longer paying any attention to where he was going and had lost track of which streets he had turned up. When he realized the minimal lighting the streets offered was all but gone, he looked up from the pavement he was been staring at and realized he was completely lost.

Great. Now I can either wander around here looking for my way back, or I can call and ask for transport to the docking station like a lost tourist.

Sighing loudly, he turned to try and retrace his steps and found that the street he had entered was now blocked by three men. It was too dark to tell who they were, or even what species they were, but he really didn't care. He was only interested in getting off this rock and back to SB-B where he could go to his quarters and have a drink.

Marching back the way he came, he stopped when he realized the three men weren't moving aside. Tam was now standing only three meters from the group and for all the movement they displayed, they could have been hastily constructed statues. Though judging by the stench that rolled off them in waves, they would have been sculptures cast in sewage.

"Excuse me, I would like to pass."

"Would you now? Perhaps we require a...compensation to allow you to pass."

The voice was as unattractive as the odor coming from them. It bespoke of a life of drink and likely smoke of some sort that turned the voice into a phlegmy gurgle.

"I'm in no mood for this nonsense. Stand aside. Now."

Tam's voice never changed in volume or inflection. As a Star Fleet Officer, he was assured that a simple tap of his combadge would remove him from this area with little harm. As a Brikar, he knew he could likely tear the three apart limb from limb without breaking a sweat.

Rather than answer, two of the men began to flank him, while the third stepped forward and thrust his hand forward with serpent-like quickness.

Tam felt the knife connect with his midsection and immediately snap as the dulled point tried to dig into his thick hide. The swampy gurgle of surprise at meeting something considerably more resistant than the normal humanoid abdomen was followed by Tam's huge fist connecting with the man's face and sending him flying backward more than eight feet.

The two men who had flanked Tam paused for roughly a second before turning, and charging full speed down the street and around the closest corner.

Making his way to the fallen would-be mugger, Tam noticed a slight rise and fall of the man's stomach and decided he would probably live. Considering his combadge for a second more, he dismissed the idea of calling for medical attention and left it to the local fates to decide the man's fortune.

Continuing on his way, he stuck a single finger into the tear in his tunic and felt the slight break in his skin that the knife had made. Had it been something stronger and sharper, like a Klingon Bat'leth, or a Simiiaan Blood-drinker knife, he might have actually been injured.

Picking a direction, seemingly at random, he moved away from the mugger's limp form and began walking briskly, hoping to stumble onto civilization.

Twenty minutes of fast walking and several turns later, Tam found himself standing before a rather lively sign proclaiming an establishment named 'The Captain's Table'. Deciding that it was as good an omen as he could hope for, he opened the door and entered. If nothing else, he might be able to buy someone enough drinks to lubricate them into telling him how to find the docking port he needed.

What he had expected would be a small local watering hole for the socially questionable, turned out to be a rather lively bar with a considerable number of patrons. Almost all of which were wearing some form of uniform, including several which he recognized as Star Fleet, both current and seemingly decades and centuries past. One fellow was wearing what he identified as a Star Fleet Captain's uniform back when they wore yellow tunics with sleeve rank insignia and calf-high boots and flared trousers.

It was a bit hokey to see someone in this day and age wearing such a getup, but it somehow seemed genuine on the man wearing it.

Tam's eyes moved around the spacious room and landed on several people he knew. Why there were so many Star Fleet Captain's sitting around in a far off bar in a seedy neighborhood on a fairly unremarkable planet was a little more peculiar than he cared to consider, but he sure as hell didn't want to ask any of them for directions when it seemed as though he was the only one who was lost.

Instead, Tam headed for the bar.

As he approached he was surprised to see what looked like a well-reinforced chair that would be perfect for him, and it was empty. Pulling the chair out, he slid onto it and dropped his arms heavily onto the bar.

The bartender appeared like magic and set a drink in front of him that looked very much like a glass of steaming magma.

Having heard more rock jokes that he cared to consider, he glared at the bartender with a questioning look.

"Trust me, you'll like it and I'll not be making any off-color remarks about your appearance. Captain's honor."

Tam lifted the glass and was surprised to find that the drink was cool to the touch and equally as chill going down. It was also quite good.

"Thanks for the drink. What is this place?"

"The sign over the door says 'Captain's Table', I'm sure you saw it.

Tam could see the man's teasing expression and shook his head slightly. Downing the rest of the drink, he began reaching for the small PADD that he could use to pay for the drink. He was anxious to get out of here and make his way to his shuttlecraft. This place, like everything else on the planet, was beginning to annoy him.

"First drink is on the house Captain Otlan, however, the second one will cost you a story."

Tam's eyes widened slightly and he leaned forward in his chair.

"I know I didn't offer my name and I'm relatively certain I've never met you before, so would you care to explain how you know who I am?"

A slight shrug was the only answer at first, but the strange bartender didn't seem intimidated by Tam's rising anger.

"Let's just say I know a lot about Captains and I've heard of you. Now why don't you have another drink, find yourself a table and offer up a story? I promise that you'll find yourself amongst understanding and even helpful company. You see, everyone here is a Captain. That's one of the rules to coming here. You have to be a Captain. The other rule is that you must share a story."

"I'm not particularly talkative as a rule."

Another shrug and a gesture towards the many tables caused Tam to sigh again and stand from the stool. He picked up the strange glowing drink and moved through the bar until he found a solemn group with an empty seat. When he pulled the chair out, he was surprised to see that it too had been reinforced.

"Mind if I sit?"

One of the men, an older gent with a heavy coat and slacks and hair the color of fire, motioned him to sit down.

"Feel free laddie, we were jus' discussin' the finer, and not s'fine points of sailing a rusty sea bucket. Our good Cap'n Morgan here was telling us 'bout a Spanish force he routed once 'n pr'ceed'd to burn th' place to th' ground!

I'm not suh sure I b'lieve 'im about all he claims to 've done, but it was a good story. So, Cap'n, what brings such 'n odd look'n fella as yerself to the Captain's Table?"

Tam had no idea who the Spanish were, nor did he follow half of what the strange man was saying, but he understood the gist of what was being asked of him.

"I stumbled onto this place by accident."

"As did we all! HA!"

Ignoring the interruption, he continued to explain.

"I had a rather bad mission recently and it seems to keep nagging at me no matter how I try and put it aside."

"Aye, but is that th' story yer here t' tell lad? Or perhaps another?"

Tam didn't understand what the man was asking, but then it dawned on him. That wasn't the story he needed to tell. Not yet anyway.

"When I was younger, still living with my parents on my homeworld, I went to one of the better high schools. They had all the normal math, science, engineering, reading and chemistry classes that you'll find at any number of schools on almost every planet with sentient life. But we also had several advanced and specialty classes that helped to teach us which direction we wanted to go in life.

I knew from an early age that I wanted to join Star Fleet and I worked towards that goal. I also knew that I wanted to be in Security, so I took as many of the advanced courses as I could. I showed an aptitude for recon, weapons, infiltration, retrieval, hand-to-hand combat, any several other areas that all pointed to me being a better than average Security Cadet.

In my senior year of high school I was assigned as Captain for The Fifth Infantry in my class. I would lead our squad in war games against other squads in order to give us practical experience and teach us how to lead and defend against assault.

For our final, we were going to be dropped into a training camp in order to defend it against another Infantry squad. It didn't matter who won, we were only supposed to do our best, use what we were taught and then afterward, we would be evaluated to show our strengths and weaknesses."

Tam took an absent drink from his glass and grimaced, though it had nothing to do with the taste of the beverage.

"I was good at planning the defenses and my squad was good at following my orders and getting them done. We had twelve hours to prepare for the invaders and in that time we turned the camp into a fortress. We set up primitive but effective traps that were meant to eliminate the invaders numbers. We built fake entrances into buildings where we placed explosives. Laced our covered pits with spikes to impale the enemies. Created intricate drop-systems that would bring a ton of rock and debris onto their heads when they entered an area we led them to. All the tricks you could design when you couldn't rely on phasers and photon grenades."

"This was a class project?"

The question came from Captain Morgan, who until that point hadn't spoken aloud. Tam's eyes cleared a little bit, having been lost in memory and shook his head once sharply.

"No, let me clarify. We didn't use stones or explosives or spikes. You simply dropped them into shallow, empty pits, or dropped empty nets on them, or placed a note with the word 'kaboom' on it. They would see it, and know that if it was a real trap, they would be dead. We're not Klingons after all."

The men all nodded in understanding, though he wasn't sure if they even knew what a Klingon was.

"Anyway, we set our traps and waited in darkness for them to come. And they did come, in force. We weren't facing one squad as we had been told we would, we were facing four squads. We were supposed to fail and were supposed to be easily overwhelmed by such a huge force without putting up much resistance. I later found out that the test is similar to what Star Fleet calls the Kobayashi Maru. It's a no-win scenario meant to test a Captain's meddle to see if he is fit for command."

Tam fell silent and took another long drink. In his mind's eye, he could see everything that had happened that night in shocking clarity and it had been over twenty years.

"I take it that it din't happ'n quite as planned, did it lad?"

"No. We waited for them to come against us, and even when we saw their numbers, my squad held their ground and waited as if we were facing a smaller enemy, not one four times our size. When the first set of traps sprang, the squads began dropping in groups. Each time they thought they had sprung the last trap, another would crash down on them. They were being obliterated by our surprises and I hadn't lost a single member of my squad.

Soon they were charging into the camp with little regard for their losses, intent to simply overwhelm us with what they had left and pat themselves on the back for their 'victory' over us.

They continued to step into our ambushes and it was finally down to one rough bastard named Zemek Detren and his squad. He and I had never really been friends, but we weren't enemies either. He was someone who everyone steered clear of because of his temper and his habit of solving problems with his fists.

He managed to stumble onto a pair of my men and instead of using their assigned phasers, which were all set at no discharge, only optics, he pulled a personal phaser and shot them both. The hot-headed swine hadn't bothered to even check the setting of his weapon and he mistakenly killed them both. Where he got the damned thing I don't know.

Right there in cold blood he murdered two of his fellow students. My men.

I saw the whole thing happen from my ambush point. When I saw what he had done, I charged in after him, heedless of my squad who was chasing after me, trying to keep me from being killed as the others had.

When I reached him, going through several of his surprised team, I tackled him to the ground and nearly beat him to death with my bare hands, even though he was considerably larger and stronger than I was then."

He fell silent, feeling the accusing looks that he had seen when he had gone before a local Magistrate so many years ago.

"I was exhonerated during the investigation and Zemek went away to a penal colony for a very long time.

The worst part, the part that haunts me even now, is that my Instructor congratulated me. He told me that he would write me a glowing reference for Star Fleet because of my success on the exercise.

I must have looked at him in shock because he put his hand on my shoulder and told me it was only because I had bested the invaders that Zemek became so outraged that he killed my men in anger.

I was so repulsed by his approval that I didn't want his letter of reference, though it would help me get into Star Fleet. I felt dirty. Greasy, for taking his help to get where I am today. Maybe that's what this has been all about. Maybe that's why my last mission feels like a failure to me even though Star Fleet called it 'successful'."

The table was quiet for several long minutes and Tam finished the remainder of his drink and stood. Without waiting for comment from any of the other Captains, he turned and left the bar, finding that it had been quite close to the docking port after all and a short while later, he was back at Starbase Bravo.