STO Unofficial Literary Challenge #39: Prompt #2: A shipboard romance goes wrong. Seriously wrong, and now you have two important, even critical, members of your staff ready to kill each other, even to the point of risking the ship. You can't get back to starbase, and you can't let this nonsense continue. How do you deal with it when Love turns to Hate?
"Even Roses Smell Like..."
The Birok-class I.K.S. Dragunov blew two orbital defense satellites to pieces, over the small colony city of Hokan which was domed on a rogue asteroid in space.
"Ha! We have effectively forced our hand upon these weaklings," celebrated Captain Kronen, a Ferasan and the Klingon Defense Force commanding officer of the ship, on the Bridge. "As is the way of our kind."
Linng, the Tactical Officer and a female Ferasan, nodded. "Conquering people is much easier than negotiating peace. I simply do not understand what the Federation's obsession is with first contact dinner parties?"
"They get to make Data-like small talk," offered Norren, the Chief Engineer and another male Ferasan. "It was cute at first, but now it's borderline Android-appropriation."
Kronen immediately took notice of the two and sat up at them. "Whoa, whoa! You know we don't have very many of our kind in this Klingon/Gorn-infested fleet, let alone this ship, so why don't the two of you go out on a date together? Huh?"
"Captain," interrupted Red, a Klingon and the First Officer. "You can't influence the personal lives of your subordinates? It's unprofessional."
Waving it away, Kronen replied, "Oh, please. Just by being on a ship that could be infested with slime-quenching Bluegill at any moment is a secession of life-based personal legacy to begin with."
"We don't mind, Captain," said Linng, in support.
Norren agreed. "Anything to give the continuation of our species a chance, as well as maintaining a well-oiled command-obey structure on the ship feeds into our obsessive compulsive disorders."
"You could also click a pen a hundred times!" Red called out to them by way of suggestion as the two Ferasans were already walking off the Bridge together.
Kronen looked at Red. "Hope you like loud cat noises above your quarters."
---
The next day, Kronen and Red were aboard the domed colony of Hokan, shooting down stray Kentari rebels with disruptor rifles.
"Ah; just took out two civilians with one blow," Kronen said. "Curious. Are we having too much fun? Is that a thing?"
Red rolled his eyes. "The only 'too much' of anything we've got going on here is your forced-influence on your crew."
"You mean Linng and Norren? Oh, they're having the time of their lives, at the expense of my match-making abilities, which akins one to a god if you think about it."
Just then, both officers in question beamed in, right as expected for the mission, and began assisting in taking over the dome. Only, this time, they appeared to be vexed with each other. "Hope you like your blood all over the carpets, Captain," Linng said, aggressively channeling a separate discourse with Norren, as she began shooting her pistol at Kentari.
"Whoa, whoa? I thought you two were a couple now? I even had the wedding cake toppers dipped in Armus oil and Tribble fur?" Kronen asked, visibly saddened.
Norren engineered an explosive device and set it to go off upon enemy triggering. "That was before I learned Linng hates water. I mean, water? Aquatic-Xindi used to mate in that."
"Well, at least I don't get confused about my own tail!" countered Linng, holding her aim at the sudden appearance of a Lukari. Turning back to Norren, she continued, "It's a part of your body and not a Caitian plotting its revenge against our race for that time we kicked them off our homeworld."
The Engineer pointed at her. "You don't know that!"
"Wait. Were Lukari and Kentari living together in peace here?" Red asked, confused.
Kronen pushed him aside. "No time for irrelevant non-canon, Commander. It's clear these two Ferasans require more intervention from their aggressive-feline Captain: me." He then addressed the star-crossed-haters. "When Bashir and Ezri were trapped on that archaic Deep Space 9 lift, they realized they loved each other and were trading Human saliva with Trill Symbiont protoplasm upon immediate reach of main floor Operations-place. Hense, if we leave you two here, on this random hijacked asteroid, in isolation, you'll attain similarly liquid-trading reciprocation for the benefit of all! Whichever liquids you choose."
"Are you equating them to the romantic-Typhoid-Mary of T'Pol and Charles Tucker the Third?" Red asked, reclaiming a new standing location. "And, should we not cease the conquering of this rock considering the implications of these two races being here at once?"
The Captain clenched his cat-like claws. "They're more than the forced-failure of those pre-Federation Human/Vulcan gawkers! I'd equate them to closer to the likes of Kirk and Edith Keeler, but without the Human traffic faux pas."
"We get it, sir," offered Norren as he retracted his pointing finger, redirecting it to his remote control device after a Lukari tampered with his explosive. "You're saying that our plight supersedes the threat of an uncompleted predestination paradox."
Linng shot a Kentari attempting to save the Lukari about to be blown up. "Yeah, if conforming to your orders will make me forget this hairball-a-thon Engineer, then I do so willingly and with related hacking coughs."
"Then it is settled!" declared Kronen. "Captain to Dragunov, two to beam up, and don't spare the weird molecule phasing effect or any Klingon versions of those quasi-energy microbes."
---
Later, Linng and Norren beamed back to the ship, each side accompanied by a group of Hokan rebels: Linng with the Lukari and Norren with Kentari, both entering the Bridge from opposite sides.
"Sir, we've reignited the old division between these two peoples, as well as devoted our Ferasan lives to killing the other lover," Linng said, pointing a disruptor at Norren, with a renewed sense of discourse. "I refuse to put up with an apologist."
The Chief Engineer nodded, reciprocating and holding up his control device, ready to execute it. "Same. I do not like how she looks like a female version of me."
"Sorry, Captain," Linng shrugged. "But I guess any high-road Chakotay/Seven-of-Nine-level romance isn't enough to mask the festering, putrid wreckage that is Ferasan. Maybe our species doesn't deserve procreation?"
Norren snarled. "You literally just apologized!"
"What??" replied Kronen. "But I commanded you, twice? Well, this certainly cannot be a result of my tampering as a way to feed my ego. Perhaps, from now on, there should be only no-same-species match-ups on this ship? It's 'alien' or you spend the night alone!"
Red did a double-take. "Sir, that's an even worse form of meddling. We might as well tell the crew what to think and say from now on?"
"I like your initiative!" Kronen said, impressed as he stood up. "I want some kind of 'how to live' bible on my desk in four hours." He then addressed the rest of his Bridge crew in reference to the two warring groups. "Oh, and everyone, please commence your battle at any time. Far be it from me to stand in the way of indiscriminate combat!" And then he left the room.
Both previously fierce alien groups now looked at each other, confused and indifferent.