Editing Marcius Flavius (section)

==Story 3==

“Sister Apothecary.”

The great, booming voice shook a dozen small implements off the shelf by the door. Doctor Crusher sighed, and met the speaker where he stood, while an attendant cleaned up the mess.

“What seems to be the problem, Commander?” the Doctor asked, tricorder in hand.

The gigantic Marine squeezed through the doorway, bringing his enormous arms from behind him and setting a bloodied ensign on the nearest medical bed. Crusher immediately scanned him, frantically ordering everyone around to help her stabilize the patient. “What the hell happened to him?” she shouted at the Marine, carefully examining the poor man.

Flavius came to attention. “I was training in your holodeck when this man entered, improperly prepared for the simulation within. I disengaged the safeties and increased the power to eight hundred percent to provide myself with a challenge. The blast wave from an exploding tank shell threw him into the wall before I could pause the simulation.” The Marine looked at the man with an expression of pity, though no one could tell because of his helmet. “I am truly sorry. I will remember to lock the door next time.”

By this time Crusher was very busy trying to make sure the ensign would survive the next few minutes. “Yes! Make sure you do! Now leave, please. We have this under control.”

The Commander saluted and departed the infirmary, stooping as he walked out, scraping his pauldrons noisily on the wall. No longer in the mood for the holodeck's version of “battle”, he stopped by long enough to turn off the simulation and return the power levels to normal, then headed off to engineering, leaving deep footprints in the carpet.

LaForge looked up from his work, typed something into his PADD, grimaced, and glanced to the side, only to jump backwards as he found himself face-to-face with the towering hulk of metal that had replaced Commander Riker and his beard. Geordi adjusted his visor and set the PADD down.

“I thought you were still off-duty, Commander,” he said quietly, making a mental note to repair the doors Flavius had come through.

“I am, Brother Tech-Priest. I have found myself with considerable free time since my arrival. Your Federation work schedules are...” he paused, searching for the word, “Quaint. I have not been so underworked since boyhood.”

Geordi glanced around the room, noticing that all of his staff had mysteriously disappeared, probably behind secure blast doors.

Flavius straightened his posture. “Brother Tech-Priest, I have a personal request to make.”

“And what might that be?”

“I desire access to your main computer's design software,” he said matter-of factly.

The Chief Engineer resisted the urge to rub his useless eyes in exasperation. “...why?” he said finally, picking up his PADD again.

“The crew aboard this ship lack personal protection, Brother. You wear only flimsy fabric garments and minute technological items. I have personally injured a great many of you simply by colliding with you in hallways.”

LaForge winced.

“I wish to fashion armor for you, Brother. I will need your assistance, as I do not share your... expertise in such matters. I am fully prepared to submit a complex and detailed proposal to the Brother-Captain and any crew members who need be informed as well as-”

“Fine,” the Chief Engineer said, “That's fine. I'll have you set up by 0800 tomorrow.”

Flavius saluted. “Thank you, Brother Tech-Priest. I will arrive promptly. Excuse me, please.”

The immense Marine exited the room, scratching the paint off the door as he squeezed out into the hallway. Engineers began to emerge from a small storage closet off to the side.

“...is he gone?” one asked. LaForge let his head sink into his hands. What had he gotten himself into this time?

Ensign Danny's surgery was completed in an hour. Though he was confined to medical for several days, and the ringing in his ears never quite went away, he was no worse for wear after a close encounter with the computer's best approximation of a Leman Russ's main gun. When he first awoke after Crusher finished re-solidifying his rib cage, he found a rather large vase filled with an array of flowers beside his bed, with a note crudely attached to the outside.

“I hope you are well, Brother. Please allow me to express my profound gratitude that you live to fight again. At your next opportunity, please meet me in Ten-Forward.”

Ensign Danny was the first to join Flavius's armor project. Over the next few months, his injuries would become legendary.

“No. You must stand like this,” Flavius said, hunching over and putting his arms out in front of him. The timid young man in front of him tried to imitate his posture.

“Like this?” the ensign said, finding it hard to move in his bulky metal suit.

“Arms up. Brace your legs. Yes, that will do,” Flavius replied, standing and walking back over to the holodeck's arch. “Now prepare yourself.”

The ensign braced himself as best he could, and nodded. The Marine pressed a small, inconspicuous button.

A multi-ton tank roared out of the wall as the simulation re-engaged, filling the small room with the roar of a massive engine. The tank struck Ensign Danny squarely, plowing directly into his waiting arms. The poor man skidded over a hundred meters in his immensely heavy suit, straining against the tank as it continued to charge forward. Then, with a mighty yell, the crewman raised his arms, the suit's powerful, crushing hands biting through the tank's forward armor. The vehicle lifted off the ground and swung up, sailing over the ensign and crashing to the ground, tumbling into a low hill and exploding, pelting the heavy suit with shrapnel.

“Excellent!” Flavius called out, pausing the sim. “This is the most effective combination yet.” He rushed over to the sobbing ensign, pulling a specially-made, ridiculously rugged tricorder from his belt. “Are you alright, Brother?”

“My... arms...” Danny managed to say, before falling backwards into the dirt.

The Marine scanned him thoroughly, sighed, and hefted the ensign, suit and all, to his shoulder. “Tensile strength is still insufficient. I will have the computer address this.” With that, he carried his charge to the infirmary for the eight time that week, muttering litanies.

Crusher was livid. “You can't keep doing this!” she shouted, laying the unconscious patient on the familiar bed, calling for assistance. “There's a limit to how much we can repair, Commander!”

Flavius stood at attention. “Better here than on the battlefield, Sister Apothecary.”

“What battlefield?” the redhead replied angrily, running one of her instruments over the ensign's shattered arms, “What the hell do you think you're going to need this for? Why do you need to half-kill one of my people every hour just to test it?”

The Marine shook his head. “Sister Apothecary, I must be vigilant. The enemies of the Emperor persist even here. I cannot afford to let my Brothers seek them unprotected.”

The Doctor said nothing for a moment, consuming herself in her work. She didn't want to think about what the ensign was putting himself through, and, for the life of her, she didn't know why he did it.

“Commander,” she said finally, “Please return to your duties.”

Flavius bowed and departed, easily fitting through the enlarged and reinforced door. He made his way to the nearest turbolift, a new and improved heavy-duty model suited to his size and mass, and told the computer to take him to the bridge.

The Marine stomped out of the small, tubular craft as soon as it arrived, nodding to Worf, the almost-redeemable xeno, as he passed. Since the Brother-Captain was nowhere in sight, Flavius surmised that he must be inside his chapel, attending to the many less-glamorous facets of running a starship. He pressed the small button beside the door, noticing that it, too, had been reinforced, and barely deformed at all under the gentle pressure of his gauntlet.

“Enter,” said a voice from within. Flavius obeyed as the door opened, coming to stand at Picard's desk, upon which sat a steaming cup of his favorite tea.

“Ah, what can I do for you, Commander?” the balding man greeted the Marine, taking a sip of tea as he thanked the powers that be for keeping Flavius occupied and relatively out of trouble for the past few days.

“Brother-Captain, I have concerns about your crew,” the armored Marine stated simply, lamenting the lack of skulls in the small, conservative chapel.

“What sort of concerns?” Picard responded.

Flavius chose his words carefully, wary of speaking to one so glorious and exalted as the Brother-Captain about the failings of his mortal servants. “Brother-Captain, your crew are very poorly suited for the rigors of intense combat. They are physically weak and lack any sort of enhancement that would allow them to survive even the most mundane of inhospitable environments. A single deck being exposed to vacuum would kill over a hundred, for example.”

“And?” Picard said, urging the Commander to continue.

“Sir, I formally request permission to augment choice members of your crew.”

“Request denied.”

Flavius tilted his head to one side. “May I request an explanation, sir?”

Picard bit down an immediate retort, memories of his brief time with the Borg welling up like a tide of blades in the back of his mind. “Commander, I will not subject my people to such... modifications in the absence of a coherent justification for it. To date, you have presented no such justification.”

The Marine nodded, and saluted. “My apologies, Brother-Captain. I will make every attempt to ensure that those modifications will not be necessary.”

“See that you do,” said Picard, gesturing to the door. “Dismissed.”

A minute after Flavius had left, Picard began to wonder about the ramifications of the Marine's presence aboard his ship, and, for the first time in his life, actually considered allowing himself to prefer the presence of Q. He managed to cut that impulse off at the knees, and ordered another cup of tea from the replicator.

Meanwhile, Commander Riker was undergoing yet another round of training aboard the ship run by Flavius's Chapter, the Imperial Fists.

“FASTER! FASTER, BATTLE-BROTHER! YOU MUST RUN FASTER!” Shouted the Chapter Master, taking potshots at the Carapace-Armored human with a Heavy Bolter. For the past several months, he had taken it upon himself to train the man personally, and had noted a considerable and increasing improvement in his combat skills. But it still wasn't enough.

Riker's beard caught the wind as he bounded through the training course, doing his best to dodge the incoming fire. Never again would he complain about Captain Picard's insistence on playing opera in the background during those long, boring briefings. Never again.