Funeral

Posted on Sun Apr 27th, 2025 @ 11:05pm by Lieutenant Marques Hunt
Edited on on Mon Apr 28th, 2025 @ 4:08am

1,141 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Tales of the Twenty-Third Century
Location: San Francisco, Earth
Timeline: 2285

Marques Hunt stood among a crowd of Starfleet officers and enlisted personnel of various ranks, including civilian personnel. The crew of the USS Grissom had been killed in an unprovoked attack by a Klingon Bird of Prey. Including his cousin John Flessner who had been part of the civilian science team on board. This was followed self-destruct of the USS Enterprise and the hijacking of that same Bird of Prey by the crew of the Enterprise. The Empire was crying victim and talking about war as if their people didn't start this.

After the funeral the USS Houston where he had been posted for the last two months would be joining a Task Force assigned to the Klingon border in case hostilities were to take place. In front of him in the front row was his cousin Maurice Flessner who was the son of John. He was six older than himself, just like his father John was a few years older than his own father Malcom Hunt. It was a sad day for their entire family.

Maurice held his mother's hand as she sat next to him. Alinaen a Hallian had been married to his father for over two decades. His parents were peaceful and never went looking for a fight or ever really engaging in one. He consoled his mother who struggled to maintain control of her emotions. Maurice on the other was held it in the best he could, but the angry was on his face as his eyes were red and slightly wet from the tears he wouldn't allow to pour out of his face.

Newly promoted Commodore Malcom Hunt listened to the speaker address the crew. Next to him was his wife Kimberly and younger son Othello. He remained with a straight face. The loss of his cousin hurt badly, but years of losing people under his command had taught him to keep up appearances. The Klingons directly responsible for the death of the Grisson crew had already been dealt with. So, revenge was the last thing on his mind. But he was waiting on orders on where he would be leading his own Task Force. Over the last couple of months, Klingons had been crossing into Federation space. Their government claimed those were simply Commander's acting on their own accord. But he had been part of the Task Force responsible for dealing with these so-called lone wolves. With these cloaking devices, catching Klingons crossing into their space was becoming more difficult.

After the funeral, most of the crowd had begun to leave while a few others stayed behind and spoke among each other. Marques had said his goodbyes to his father, mother and younger brother who had left. The USS Houston was scheduled to department in the morning and was expected to return back to the ship within the next two hours. Looking over he could see his cousin sitting a chair alone staring at one of the holo images of his father on the screen. Walking over, Marques took a seat next to Maurice.

Maurice looked over at his cousin with tears in his eyes. "Promise me that you're going to kill as many of those bastards that you can."

"Honestly I don't decide where the ship goes," Marques replied. "I only drive the thing. But I promise to make as many pay that thinks they can get away with something like this ever again."

The older cousin simply smirked while wiping the tears from his face. "That's why I changed my mind about rejoining Starfleet. Even while being attacked on a constant basis. They would rather play defense and keeping peace. As if war hasn't already been declared on us."

The Ensign looked for the words to encourage him and convince him otherwise. But Maurice was right. The Federation was playing around with this talking and sending out a Task Force to somehow scare the Klingon Empire into think twice about sending ships across our borders. There needed to be a serious retaliation to make the Klingons realize that there were consequences to messing with them. "And what are you proposing?"

"Taking this to the Klingons outside of Starfleet," Flessner suggested. "Get attack fighters go across that border, cause a lot of damage and kill as many of them as we can."

"You do realize a small guerilla force will not defeat an enemy as big as the Klingon Empire?"

Nodding his head somewhat in agreement, he held up a finger. "But we handled it right, we can disrupt them. Hell how many others out there would jump at the opportunity to advantage of the Klingons dealing with us? The Orions might take advantage, even the Gorn would be interested in striking the Klingons in order to gain some worlds. If we discussed the plan with them."

Marques raised a curious eyebrow. The plan wasn't bad, but it would ultimately lead to war. "If you did that and actually managed to succeed you would be destabilizing the Beta Quadrant."

The damn thing should be destabilized," said Maurice as he raised his voice and stood from his seat. "When people show up and start killing you. You don't talk to them or attempt to scare them. The course of action is to actually start to kill them first. And trust me, while the politicians are talking. People like yourself will be sitting at the border getting shot and killed. And your course of action will simply be defending yourself."

"Perhaps you are right," Hunt conceded a bit. "But there is a process. Starfleet would be sent to stop anyone who would do such a thing that could possibly lead to a war."

"And that would be completely sad and backwards cousin. The Federation would be willing to kill me in order to protect and keep things going with the Empire. Who keeps killing. But in anyways all of this is just talk and wishful thinking. Officers like yourself and cousin Malcom will keep us safe using the current Federation strategies. Watch your back out there."

Marques wondered if this was all just the talk of grieving sole or would he actually do something crazy. Was Maurice even capable of such violence? During his short time in Starfleet, he a was a science officer. "Thank you, Maurice. I'm going to check back in with you in a week or so."

Standing up, he and Maurice embraced with a hug before he proceeded to leave. Hopefully the Task Force was able to successfully resolve this issue and perhaps that could bring his cousin some sort of peace. The next few weeks was going to speak volumes on the direction and current hostile relationship between the Federation and Klingon Empire.

=================
Ensign Marques Hunt
Flight Control Officer
USS Houston

Commodore Malcom Hunt
Commanding Officer
USS Cartagena

Maurice Flessner
Civilian

 

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