Topic: [ST:C]Omens: 01. Midnight on the Firing Line

[S'Tasik]

Star Trek: Civilizations -- Omens

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Episode One:  Midnight on the Firing Line

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USS Kidd, NCC-3207
On Patrol, System Intaria, Neutral Zone
December 24th, 2290

    Pregnant silence greeted Captain Christine Markus as she strode down the corridors of her ship, attired in the dress uniform she had cleaned and pressed especially for the night’s planned festivities.  Her appreciative eye roamed ahead of her, taking in the sumptuous decorations that had sprung up all over the Kidd -- a sprig of mistletoe here, a bough of holly there, and various other exotic florae produced by the ship’s hydroponics lab in the weeks preceding -- pausing only to peer closer at a flower or vine the likes of which she’d never seen before.  “That crazy Bolian’s really gone and done it this time,” she muttered, making a mental note to commend her science officer for a job well planned and executed.  “I didn’t know he had the time to get all these plants to grow...”

    “They’re nice, aren’t they?” boomed a deep voice behind her, sending a little jolt through the captain’s body even as she spun to face the alien in question.  Arlo’s broad lips twisted into an affectionate and positively hideous smile while he jabbed a finger at a wreath of flowers he’d just finished tacking onto the wall.  A thin mist of pollen drifted up from their petals, tickling her nose with their delightful scent.   “I picked up all the seeds the last time we were docked without telling you.  I figured you would have wanted me working on some esoteric problem instead of decorating the boat for your human holiday.”

    Grinning, the captain pushed back a stray strand of red hair as she paused to admire Arlo’s handiwork.  “Those are Risan orchids,” she observed, breathing deeply to make the most of this unexpected bounty.  “I didn’t pay much attention in Horticulture 101, but I do know it takes quite a bit of time to make sure those things actually sprout.  No wonder I haven’t seen you around after our shift.”

    “Good catch.  Rivo’s been pestering me to leave my lab for the last three weeks -- something about him not having anybody to sit down with to a board of chess.  I’m the only person who loses to him anymore, or so he tells me.”  The Bolian’s sonorous laughter echoed merrily in the hallway.  “Poor guy.  I’m told even his girl won’t play against him anymore, though I’m sure she makes up for it in other ways.”  The relationship between the chief engineer and his pretty associate was the subject of much discussion among the rank and file.

    “They’re going to be at the party tonight,” said Markus with a wink.  “I wouldn’t be surprised if they leave early, though -- can’t spend much quality time together if everybody’s watching, can they?”

    “Don’t be surprised if they try -- they’d do it in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it.  I’d tell them to go easy on the eggnog before somebody snaps a picture and sends it home to their folks.”  The Bolian’s Academy days had left him with a truly baffling assortment of hackneyed human idioms.

    “For somebody who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, you’re certainly getting into the spirit of the thing.”

    “As far as I’m concerned, it’s an excuse to sit down and eat.  And that,” Arlo declared, patting his not insignificant paunch with a bright blue hand, “that’s the great thing about your human holidays.  If you think it’s important, you throw the biggest party you can think of, eat a lot, and -- how’s that again? -- take two aspirin and tell your friends to wake you in the morning.”

    Markus snorted in disdain. “Like you don’t take advantage of the occasion either.  Besides, I figure the crew’s been wound up too much for the past six months, trolling around this sorry excuse for a star system making sure the Klingons don’t come steal it.  Not that I’d mind if they tried, you know, as then we’d actually have something to do.  But not even the Klingons are that dumb.”

    “Nobody wants to be blamed for starting a war,” Arlo pronounced, scratching the top of his bald head as if deep in thought.  “I figure that if we stay here and they stay there and nobody moves, we’ll be right safe until some big-balled idiot starts playing chicken with a Bird of Prey.” 

    “Balls, eh?  That’s an appropriate choice of words,” said Markus with a straight face, though her glittering green eyes revealed she was more amused than her dignity allowed.  “But speaking of balls, you’d best get down to the mess.  My XO tells me he wants some help hanging up the ornaments and the banquet starts in less than thirty minutes.”

    “I’m on it.  But I tell you, if the galley doesn’t work twice as hard on dinner as I did on decorations, I swear there’s going to be hell to pay.”  With that, the affable Bolian shuffled off into the lift, his heavy footsteps accompanied by the hiss of closing doors.

    "You’re a good man," the captain called out after him, before taking a closer look at the blue blossoms gleaming in the light.  And only then did she notice the red -- hypnotic rivulets of dark, pulsing red that coursed through those delicate, translucent leaves.


Bridge
2230 Hours
 
    Lieutenant Vogel was bored out of his wits, and he knew exactly what to blame -- his terrible, horrible, absolutely deplorable luck.

    Never mind the fact that he’d been told ever since graduation that the night shift was the dead shift; never mind the fact that he’d volunteered for the night shift anyway when he came aboard.  To the fresh-faced officer a little less than halfway through his second cruise, some hostile celestial power had bent its omnipotent will to his relentless persecution, fixed itself upon him like some malevolent Fury to a Sophoclean hero.  Fate had it in for him, the acting captain often mused, and there was not a single damn thing he could do about it.

    The others on watch were similarly disgruntled, even as they busied themselves with their routine tasks in an effort to distract themselves from thoughts of the celebration in full swing below them.  But every so often, seven pairs of eyes would invariably drift back to the chronometers on their consoles, waiting for the interminable clock to release them from their torture and free them to go enjoy the fruits of the season.

    “Diagnostic on the environmental systems complete,” reported the science officer, glowering at the lines of output filing neatly down his screen.  “Carbon dioxide levels holding at one point five, oxygen normal, pressure normal.  Nothing’s changed from the last time we ran the test.  As predicted.  Bet they’re enjoying all the clean air down there, aren’t they?”

    “Can the commentary, Baker,” Vogel snapped.  He really wasn’t in the mood to hear his prolix compatriot complain about what couldn’t be helped.  “Our shift’s over an hour and a half from now, and I really don’t think the captain would be heartless enough to leave us with black coffee and watered-down gruel.”

    “I would be wary of putting it past her,” a wiry Deltan piped up -- the navigation officer, her head polished to an unnatural shine.  “Do not underestimate the persuasive capacities of a hundred hungry humanoids when presented with surplus rations.”

    The surly ensign nodded in agreement while he prodded his screen with a bony finger, powering up the Kidd’s high-frequency sensors for yet another one of the routine deep scans that protocol required him to conduct.  The bridge’s lights flickered and dimmed as power was routed from nonessential electrical systems to the sensor arrays nestled in the stern of the ship.  “Seven of us and a hundred of them.  Our odds don’t look so hot, do they?”

    “Watch yourself or odds are you’ll be locked in the brig,” Vogel warned.  A harsh note crept into his reedy tenor, lending it a grating edge that played sharp counterpoint to the humming of the Kidd’s scanners.  “Just do your job.  The more you whine, the less work gets done.”

    Chagrined but by no means mollified, Baker bent back over the luminous displays packed into his station, across which were flashing veritable reams of data like so many ants scurrying down a tree.  “Sectors one through four are clear.  There’s a big rock in sector five -- that’s the planet, nobody get excited -- and a small rock passing through sector six -- that’s the moon.  The Klink ship’s still at the very edge of our range.  They haven’t done a thing in three hours -- probably getting -- ”

    “Speculation on what the Klingons are doing is unnecessary.”  The lieutenant sighed, leaning back in his seat while fantasizing about the various painful punishments that Federation law prevented him from inflicting on his hapless subordinate.  One particularly pleasing scenario involved the cat-o’-nine-tails and a voluminous canister of table salt, a prospect that made Vogel shiver with a certain morbid satisfaction.  Aloud:  “Tell us what your computer says and leave it at that.”

    “ -- and in case you were wondering, sir, the sun’s still fusing hydrogen like there’s no tomorrow.”  The ensign hadn’t stopped reading out the results of the scan during Vogel’s little rant, having grown acclimated to the man’s authoritarian tendencies during the course of his tour.  “No subspace anomalies to report, no unanticipated commchatter, a lot of fuzz -- got to fix the detectors one of these days -- and -- whoa.”  His fingers danced over the console, freezing the datastream in place.  “Something just went nutty in sixteen.”

    “Nutty,” Vogel repeated.  His eyebrows drew together as he gripped the edge of his seat like a vice.  “An interesting choice of words.  Care to elaborate?”

    Baker frowned and fell into a reflective silence.  Then, after a few seconds spent deep in thought, he spoke up once more.  “Just nutty -- there’s really no other way to explain it.”

    “Explain what?”

    “You want it the simple way or the hard way?”

    “How about the quick way?”

    The science officer shrugged philosophically, though he obviously relished the role of teacher.  “Well, the computer says that the sun disappeared for two point two four picoseconds during the tail end of the scan.” 

    Vogel blinked.  "Come again."

    “Well, it didn’t disappear per se, since as far as I know it’s physically impossible to make so much matter wink out of existence.  The only explanation I can think of is that something generated so much electromagnetic radiation in such a short amount of time that it caused our sensors to malfunction and give us a whale.”

    “A whale.”  Vogel’s eyes narrowed as he processed the barrage of information.  “You’d better clarify, Baker, because I don’t think anybody here knows what you’re talking about.”

     “Sorry, sir.”  Scientific zeal had rapidly replaced bitterness in the young ensign’s voice once he had been confronted with the strangeness of the situation.  “It’s jargon -- a holdover from humanity's old navy days.  You know those old clunky things that we used to drive in the twentieth century, those underwater boats?  They ran into problems like this when they tried to use their sonar before holographic imaging was developed.  Their software was initially designed to identify oceanographic phenomena, so every time it encountered something it didn’t know how to deal with, it would tell the people using it that blue whales were mating or something along those lines.”

    “So that translates into -- ”

    “Our computer returning a completely nonsensical result when it runs into something it can't possibly process.  In this case, the scanners found a source of energy so powerful somewhere in sector sixteen that it defaulted to a null value -- which also means we're not dealing with an unknown energy signature, as Federation programmers made provisions for that early in development.  The computer does recognize it, but there's enough deviation from baseline readings so it can't give an accurate result."

    "Yeah, yeah, I get the point."  The lieutenant shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his knuckles whitening as he contemplated the gravity of the situation.  Thoughts of Christmas dinner had become little more than a passing fancy flitting around in his head.  On one hand, he could ignore the whole thing, dismissing the irregular results of the scan as an abnormality in the system -- a completely logical decision, he reflected, given the situation.  All I'd really have to do is pretend like we never noticed anything and continue on patrol, and if it happens again we'd know something was wrong and take action.  But weighing against that was the possibility of breaking free from interminable routine, of proactively engaging in the process of discovery that was the key to new worlds, new ideas, new jobs...  "Baker, is the Bird of Prey still at its charted position?"

    "As far as I can tell.  Their engine signature is holding at -- no, wait, wait, it seems like they've picked up the same thing we did.  They're approximately ten klicks away from their original position and accelerating.  Weapons are still offline, but that's probably because they're diverting every iota of power to their shields that they can."

    "Show me, Sil," Vogel ordered, an ominous shadow leaping across his face with every flicker of the ship's dimmed lights.

    At the navigator’s command, the viewscreen switched to a bird's-eye view of the surround, a vast expanse of emptiness punctuated only by a sun and its attendant planet.  Holographic gridlines spun out from its sides to run down and across the entire array, through which was speeding a single red arrow.

    "What's his ETA to sector sixteen?"

    "Seven minutes at current speed," replied the Deltan.  "Less, if he goes faster."

    "Well, that makes our decision rather easy, doesn't it?  Comm, notify the captain and tell her we're readying the ship in accordance with Starfleet Directive 5066A, justified by interference from an unknown source independent of enemy forces.  Weapons, sink as much power into electronic countermeasures as we can afford.  If this comes to blows, I don't want to have to eat any more disruptor fire than we have to.  Helm, plot an intercept course, maximum impulse.  We're heading in."

    The Kidd's powerful engines came to life with an explosion of ionized gas as it arrowed towards the white incandescence of System Intaria's star.

[S'Tasik]

* * *

    When the doors to the bridge burst open less than a minute later and Captain Markus stumbled through, she found herself confronted by a taut sense of disquiet that brought her and her trailing pack of officers to a crashing halt.  She recognized it, of course, having served in Starfleet during the entirety of the General War and seen her fair share of combat.  It, for lack of any other definition, was the indescribable feeling that something earth-shatteringly significant was about to happen and nothing could be done to stop it -- and it, like always, made her incredibly wary of the situation at hand.

    "At ease," she found herself saying, even though nobody on the current shift had so much as turned around to greet her.  "Lieutenant Vogel, status."

    "We're holding an intercept course for the Bird of Prey, Captain."  The lieutenant started and swiveled around in his chair to face his commanding officer, his thin lips pursed in intense concentration.  "Would you -- "

    "You have the conn," Markus interrupted.  "Don't do anything foolish and we should be fine.  The Klingons are probably trying to see how far they can toe the line before we react."

    "You’re supposed to reassure him," whispered Arlo into the captain's ear, even as the lieutenant gulped and returned his attention to the confrontation brewing before him.

    Markus leaned back against the lift.  "We've all got to start taking responsibility sometime.  Besides, if anything goes wrong, I'll be here."  That last was spoken a little too loudly for Vogel's high-strung sensibilities.

    "Comm, try hailing the Klingons again," he directed, deciding that it would be in his best interests to disregard the presence of his captain and work according to the book.

    "There won't be anything but static, Lieutenant."  Arlo spoke up before he could be stifled by the captain's piercing glare.  "You're far too close to the sun -- though our bands work fine, the solar radiation will play havoc with theirs, since they haven't figured out how to compensate for that sort of interference."   Almost as if on cue, the communications officer nodded to confirm the Bolian's assessment.

    "How clever of them," said Vogel with some amount of effort, as inwardly he was cursing his own stupidity.  The inferiority of Klingon technology was a well-known fact of life, and it figured that the Klingon commander would seize upon it as an excuse by which he could ignore the insistent Federation demands for a meet and confer.  "Baker, are you picking up anything new?"

    "I'm trying, but the radiation's getting in the way."  The ensign, who'd been poring over his data during the entire conversation, looked up with frustration evident in his face.  "I'm getting a reading on an interstellar object around two klicks out from the sun, but every time I try to get a lock on it the coronal refraction throws it off.  All I can say for sure is that whatever caused that energy spike is still out there, and who knows when it'll activate again."

    "We're a lot closer now," Vogel pointed out.  "Want to venture a guess as to what that thing will do to our systems if it turns on right now?"

    "I don't think the Klingons are waiting to find out."  Urgency lent an unfamiliar sharpness to Sil's sibilant voice.  "They've changed course to one-five-two and increased their speed to maximum.  At this rate, they'll fly right past us -- "

    "And directly into the sun."  Vogel didn't even need to glance at the holographic display in front of him to realize the implications of that, as evinced by the blood that had suddenly deserted his face.  "They're going to try and tow it out..."  Suddenly indecisive, he felt himself grasping blindly at straws, lost in a rapidly snowballing situation over which he had little control.  An oppressive silence descended over the bridge.

    Then -- finally -- somebody spoke.  Captain Markus stepped down from the lift onto the command deck proper, still dressed in the immaculate uniform she'd prepared for a totally different occasion.  "Follow them."

    The helmsman's hand hovered unsteadily over the controls.  "Into the sun, sir?"

    "You heard me.  When I give the signal, I want max tractors locked on this strange little object of ours.  We're not going to just sit back and hand this to the Klingons on a silver platter."

    Baker blanched.  "But sir, you know as well as I do that the shear from opposed five-factor tractors would tear apart a small ship."

    "Better that than letting the Klingons have it to themselves, wouldn't you say?"  The captain smiled tightly, resting her elbows on the railing beside the conn.  "If what you're telling me is true, letting our enemies get a jamming system that can play havoc with our sensors would be one of the biggest blunders we could make.  Transfer power to forward shields and keep the scan going.  Should anything unusual happen, I want to know immediately."

    Wordlessly, the helm officer pressed his index finger against his console's yielding permaglass, which rippled as it processed his command.  "Ship is steady on heading one-five-two," he read off his screen.  "Distance to Intaria sun, fifteen klicks and closing.  Estimated time before shield degeneration T minus three point nine seconds.  Three seconds.  Two.  One."  The viewscreen sparkled with the light of trillions of exploding pixels as solar radiation pounded the particle-buffers projected by the Kidd's advanced screens.  Even the captain winced as a subtle vibration shook the ship's duranium hull.  "T.  T plus one.  Shields holding at thirty-seven percent but we can expect further degradation as we get closer to that star."

    "Baker, how close to the unidentifiable object?  Can we get a visual?"  Markus forced herself to adopt an air of professional calm -- after all, wasn't she the one who was supposed to have done this before?

    "Entering tractor range.  The Klingon's already locked on, so I'll have to do a couple of fancy tricks before I -- wait a minute, Captain, I think something nutty's going on again -- the computer's reading a familiar energy signature coming from the -- "

    "On screen!" snapped Markus, a premonition of sudden disaster playing in her head.  The viewfinder spun and crackled before it focused on the sleek lines of a Bird of Prey, tied to a massive metallic something that shone so brightly that the captain almost missed the balls of spinning orange matter closing on the doomed Klingon ship --

    "Plasma launch!" shouted Baker, and instantly the bridge dissolved into a flurry of panic -- "Two -- no, four, four torpedoes -- there's no way the Klink's going to survive this -- "

    "Red alert!  Helm, high energy turn one-eighty degrees, now!" 

    Sil punched codes into her console in obedience -- and then gasped in horror as she realized what she'd done.  The Kidd groaned under the strain and snapped, tearing itself apart along its seams; alarms began to blare across the bridge as the disturbingly calm computer began to rattle off ship-wide system failures and hull breaches and a host of things that even when taken separately would have been fatal.  "We had a full-power tractor lock engaged a millisecond before the turn, Captain, which with the sun's gravitational pull was more than enough to act as a counterweight -- "  But before she could finish her sentence, she was flung from her seat as her station sent a jolt of hyperpowered current coursing through her body, obliterating her internal organs in less than a heartbeat's time.  Smoke rose from her charred skin -- vaporized water.

    "Phasers!"  Markus forced herself to look away from the blackened form of the Deltan just in time to see the equally sickening explosions racking the Bird of Prey that was disintegrating under the attack.  "Arlo, figure out a way to get us out of here, warp if you have to.”

    "The dilithium is already destabilizing, thanks to the radiation -- we've just lost all shields."  The Bolian had shoved Baker aside even before the captain's orders and now shouted his response with abject hopelessness.  "Capacitors are down, backups are down -- if you want power, you’ll have to give up engines -- ”

    Markus swore under her breath.  "Arlo, give me a channel to the unidentified ship if you can.  Broadcast mayday calls on all open frequencies, Starfleet or no -- USS Kidd is under attack by unknown vessel -- "

    "No dice.  They're jamming us and dear god, they're charging plasma."

    "Status on the engines!"

    "Losing power fast, Captain.  At this rate, we'll be lucky to go one klick before the sun's gravity stops us -- plasmas fifty percent charged -- they're enveloping the tubes -- "

    "I don't care if we lose all goddamn power on this ship, Arlo, as we're all going to die if we don't do something."

    "Dilithium crystal decomposition at ninety-eight percent," sang the computer.

    "Plasmas at eighty-five percent charge and increasing!" the navigator bellowed.

    "Shoot the ship's log and give me warp at my mark -- three -- "

    "Done -- ninety-five percent and increasing -- "

    "Two -- "

    "Launch detected, ETA to impact one point four seconds -- "

    "One -- "

    "Too close, Captain, too close!  We’ll have impact -- "

    "Now!"  The warp drive roared to life, and for one bright dazzling moment the captain thought she felt the inertial dampers kick in to take her out of this accursed system and to safety -- and then she heard too late the whine of engines trying to draw power from crystals in which none existed and she knew and felt a beautiful sort of tranquility washing over her as her command was torn apart piece by piece and the viewscreen flickered and ignited and --

    For one infinitesimal moment, Captain Christine Markus thought she saw an image emblazoned on the hardened hull of the ship before her.  It was a hand -- a human hand -- graven into the skin of the beast with thick, heavy lines, around which burned a crimson fire glittering with golds and oranges and hungry, ravenous yellows.

    "Merry Christmas," she gasped.

    And then she lost herself in that purging flame and all was quiet at last.

[S'Tasik]

Hey all.  Remember me?  =)  Those of you who do will undoubtedly know that I have a habit of dropping in and out of existence, but it's long past time for me to return to the place where I first began to post my fiction.  I'm glad to be back, and with luck, this time I'll be here for good.

At any rate, I was going through my old files the other day and stumbled across this unfinished project, a collaboration with Kieran that we had outlined in significant detail but never actually completed.  The story had lost none of its appeal even though I had some issues with the way I wrote it; thus, I asked Kieran if he wouldn't mind kick-starting this thing once more.  The result is what you see here:  we've deleted the old thread, and in the next few days we'll begin by posting revisions of our original story -- as a prelude, of course, to actually finishing this up and launching what will hopefully be a long and entertaining series.

Kieran and I would just like to thank all of you guys in advance for putting up with us.  We hope you enjoy this blast from the past!


S

[Grim Reaper]

Dude S' I knew your writing from the old taldren board ages ago! Been following since. Great to have you back!

[KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.]

And finally, it begins anew!
-----------------------------------------
Hyperion.

The ancient Greeks tell us that he was the first of the Titans, sired by Earth and Sky, creator of sun, moon, and dawn. Now, he has lent his name to the Federation's newest heavy cruiser - and as of December seventh, twenty-two ninety, to my newest command.

She's a far cry from my first.  Hyperion possesses a different kind of magnificence:  she plays wolfhound to Cyane's tenacious bulldog, as swift as she is sleek.  Half of Starfleet had lined up to take her helm, captains with far more experience and pedigree than I, and the fact that Starfleet Command saw fit to give me her reins is quite the feather in my cap.  Holger would say something about my considerable ego and how the admirals need to quit stroking it before I develop a god complex.

Holger talks entirely too much.

Of course, there have been times when I've longed for the relative simplicity of the past.  One of the cons of such a high-profile assignment is the constant attention it draws - brass, bureaucrats, media, all of them shining a spotlight on your every move, badgering you about inconsequential trivialities night and day.  The bridge was a circus during the commissioning ceremony - I don't think I've ever seen more annoying reporters gathered in one place in eighteen years of active duty.  It was then that I first realized that I'm on a different stage now.

We've just arrived at our permanent station on the Federation-Klingon Neutral Zone. We're supposed to be the patrol command ship for this sector, which just means we'll be under somebody else's magnifying glass. I'm familiar with Admiral Selye only by reputation - he commanded a frigate squadron during the Taal Tan Offensive seven years ago, and scored several of our few early successes against the Klingon onslaught.

Dealing with him should be a refreshing change indeed.


-------------------------
USS Hyperion, NCC-1791
Star Station Inflexible, Docking Ring A
1530 hours, December 29, 2290

"You know, Kieran, I had no idea you had such a vivid vocabulary."

Captain Forester's vox recorder beeped in protest as it hit the edge of his desk, shutting off automatically to protect its precious contents.  Its owner stood up abruptly, paying it no heed; instead, he turned towards the feminine voice coming from inside his quarters, his head snapping up in surprise.  "Caitlin!"

The woman leaning against his door nodded, her fair features lit by an insouciant smile that seemed out of place in the dimness of his room.  "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were one of the characters from those romantic holovids my sister can't stop watching."

"That was a private log entry, Doctor Denning, for my satisfaction alone, and I'd appreciate it if you kept your sister out of this."  Kieran glared at her from the shadows, resting both palms against the edge of his desk to bring his full height to bear.  "Also, it's usually considered courteous to knock before invading someone's personal space."

"Oh, come off your high horse.  The door buzzers are offline, and I told Boris I'd tell you."  Taking his words as the invitation they weren't, the Hyperion's chief medical officer stepped inside, sniffing experimentally as if testing the air.  Her green eyes gleamed impishly as she sauntered over to his desk, matching him stare for stare despite the fact that he towered above her by more than a head and a half.  "And you, oh captain, my captain, ought to read the manual that came with your newest toy.  The one that tells you how to set a lock code to protect your vaunted privacy?"

Kieran grunted and sat back down, picking up his recorder and placing it inside a drawer for safekeeping.  Only then did he turn his attention back to the doctor, making sure to furrow his brow and purse his lips to affect the maximum amount of annoyance he could.  Five fingers beat a dull rhythm against the cold plasteel of his desk.  "Get to your point, Doctor.  I assume you didn't come here just to hack my door and pay a social visit."  He leaned back in the chair, his expression expectant.

"Perceptive as always, Kieran."  Still smiling that damnably insufferable smile, she pushed off from his desk and made her way to the window, turning her back to her commanding officer.  "I'm actually here on a medical matter."

"Which would be?"  The captain's heavy Sheffield accent took on a razor edge - patience had never been one of his strengths.

"You do realize we've already been docked for over an hour."

"Believe it or not, Caitlin, I know how to tell time.  My parents taught me when I was two and a half years old.  Is that all?"

Arms akimbo, the doctor stared out the window at the docking bay beyond; almost as if she had planned it that way, two tiny tugs immediately began a game of hide-and-seek amidst a forest of girders and starships.  "And how are you holding up?"

The captain couldn't help but snort in exasperation.  "Better than you'd expect.  Sixteen problems have sprung up in the last fifteen minutes and that's just in one department.  To give you an idea, somebody on the production line forgot to remove the safe on one of our phaser batteries and it blew the moment we fed it power.  I'd send a repair crew down there to fix it if not for the fact that they're all in the galley - the ceiling lights stopped working.  They're a full twenty-five feet off the ground and we have one ladder for the lot.  And -- "

"And I'm doing just fine, Kieran - you're so considerate for asking.  Are you sleeping well?"

"In the name of all that's sacred, Caitlin -- "

"Are you?"

"No.  I've gotten four hours of sleep over the past two days.  It doesn't matter - the ship needs me, and besides, I've survived worse."

"In some godforsaken prison, no doubt."  Rolling her eyes, Denning stepped back from the viewer and strode up to the captain.  One manicured fingernail jabbed into his chest, catching on burgundy threads.  "My point, Captain, is that you've done exactly two things since we left Utopia Planitia - give orders from the bridge and fill paperwork from your room.  It is my professional opinion that you need to get out of here before your head implodes.  I'm told the Inflexible has amenities that put Spacedock to shame - go get yourself a drink or five and take a load off."

He scowled in protest, clinging stubbornly to his desk.  "I don't have the luxury of enjoying myself, Doctor.  My men need me here to coordinate the transition - "

"Computer, maximum illumination."  Without asking for permission, Denning pushed the captain's rolling chair to a mirror on the wall, pointing at his reflection with an accusatory finger.  "Look at you.  You haven't changed in two days, your eyes are bloodshot, and your badge is on the wrong side of your uniform.  The only thing you're capable of coordinating is a one-way ticket to Sickbay, and I'm sure you don't want that."

"Caitlin, you're pushing it.  Commander Tretiak -- "

Her aggrieved sigh cut him off.  "Don't even get me started on Boris.  He's even more of a work-crazed zombie than you are; besides, it's his job to martyr himself on the altar of repairs.  As your doctor, I'm relieving you of duty and ordering you to go relax.  Don't make me have to check up on you."

"I don't doubt that you would."  Like all successful captains, Kieran knew how to pick his battles, and he knew that this was one he could not win.  "Remind me why I recommended you for CMO, again?"

Though he didn't think it was possible, her smile grew even wider.  "You love it when I crack my whip."  Then, sweet honey hardened into daggers and ice.  "You have thirty seconds before I commit you to Nurse Daumier for those mandatory physicals I let you skip two weeks ago."

"All right already!  I'm going, I'm going."  The captain grimaced in surrender and pushed himself upright once again, wincing as his muscles warped and pulled.  He threw his arms out to his sides as he tried to regain his balance.  "Happy now?"

Denning stretched languorously like a sated cat.  "I just ordered my captain around inside his own quarters.  How do you think I feel?"

Kieran shook his head as he strode out of the room, making sure to pin his badge on the correct side of his uniform before he suffered another embarrassing encounter.  "What a woman," he muttered to himself, a half-smile softening the hard planes of his face.
 
“You're going to thank me for this later," she yelled from his office.
 
Insufferable hag.

[S'Tasik]

--------------------------------
Rolliver's: An Independent Establishment
Star Station Inflexible, Upper Promenade
1600 Hours, December 29th, 2290

    A Vulcan walked into a bar.

    All things considered, it was the logical thing to do.  For one, he was off duty, a fortuitous turn of events considering how tightly his schedule was packed; for another, he was thirsty, an expedient excuse his body provided to justify his desire to take a break from routine.  Crowning this model of logical reasoning was the fact that he had been conveniently passing by -- and it certainly wouldn't have been metabolically efficient to walk all the way to the mess hall when there was a perfectly good establishment a couple of meters away.  And so it was that Lieutenant S'Tasik of the United Federation of Planets found himself nursing a bottle of beer at one of the pub's many booths, a contemplative expression tempering the angular lines of his face.

   Rolliver’s was without a doubt the Inflexible’s most popular retreat, something made quite clear by the hordes of men, women, and assorted asexual beings packing its stylishly darkened interior.  Hundreds of polished mahogany tables imported from Earth were filled near bursting with patrons of every color, shape, size, and color, all of whom were enjoying the comfort of leather seats stained a warm brown umber and set up underneath Art Nouveau lamps.  On the walls hung archaic black-and-white daguerreotypes replicated from Starfleet's extensive archives -- a throwback to the nineteenth century, though most of the pub's patrons paid little attention to the décor and quite a bit more to the contents of its bars.

    Its name was rather misleading:  Rolliver's was most definitely not an "independent" establishment.  It had been founded as such more than fifty years ago, but Admiral Selye had recently made it perfectly clear that he didn't want any commercial encroachment onto his station.  And so Rolliver's had become a fully volunteer operation, staffed by hundreds of able officers and crewmen willing to sacrifice their leave for the benefit of their compatriots.  But even their best efforts couldn't convince the adamant old veteran to uncork bottles of bona fide liquor.

    And so, thanks to such an unfortunate concordance of events, S'Tasik was forced to reconcile himself to Starfleet-issue alcohol, a beastly concoction made from synthesized hydroxyls that didn’t have any long-term effects.  When compounded with his Vulcan resistance to mind-altering drugs, this made for a very unpleasant drinking experience indeed.

    One finger rapped against the brown glass of his bottle (around which was glued a slip of paper emblazoned with "Starfleet's Best" in blue and silver) as the Vulcan wondered whether he wanted another.  Two tables away, a group of excited young crewmembers were engaged in an enthusiastic discussion of their most recent assignment; though his booth's noise dampener was working overtime to filter out background chatter, S'Tasik could hear bits and pieces of their conversation.  What little he heard -- "Odin," "Academy," "new," and "famous captain," among other such gems -- made his mind up for him.  With renewed purpose, he flagged down a slight Andorian arrayed in a burgundy uniform that clashed horridly with her deep blue skin.  "I’ll have another one, please."

    The waitress paused mid-stride, her antennae jerking in acknowledgement and then puzzlement as she noticed her customer’s pointed ears.  Being an Andorian, her studied attempt to keep a straight face failed miserably.  "What?"

    "Another bottle."  A hint of annoyance crept into the Vulcan's voice even as he felt a stab of satisfaction at the effect his actions were having.  "Please.”

    Yellow eyes blinked in slow unison.  Then, as if suddenly realizing it was impolite to stare, she snapped to attention, though more than a trace of amazement was evident in her expression.  "Right away," she said, smiling as she’d been trained to do before springing away to fulfill her charge.

    S’Tasik allowed himself a faint chuckle before turning back to his beer.  He really couldn’t fault her -- after all, the sight of a Vulcan trying to drink himself under the table couldn’t have been very common even here in this melting pot of cultures and civilizations -- and indeed, he’d grown accustomed to the mental disconnect that seemed to occur every time somebody tried to explain his behavior with his appearance.  Shocking people isn’t that hard when the rest of your ilk runs around with bowl cuts and poker faces, he mused, running a fingernail down his bottle’s frosted glass.  The light of an overhanging lamp spilled onto its surface and lent it a rich golden glow.

    Doubtlessly he was going to have to deal with much the same reactions when he reported for his new command.  There, he wouldn’t have the welcome anonymity of a crowded pub to use as cover.  No -- on board the USS Odin, he’d be acting executive officer and second-in-command, to be addressed as “sir” or “lieutenant” when he was listening and to be an object of incessant gossip when he wasn’t.  Crewmen not too much younger than he was would gather conspiratorially while his back was turned and whisper about his long black queue or his surprisingly expressive features.  “That bastard’s got a couple of spanners loose in his head,” they’d say, and they’d grin at the ridiculousness of the notion.

    His hand tightened around the neck of his drink at the thought; then, with a burst of resolve, he levered himself upright and pushed himself out of his comfortable seat.  Frittering away time bemoaning his situation wouldn’t do anything to change it, and besides, he had a meeting scheduled with his commanding officer for which he needed to be adequately prepared.  Let the men say anything they wanted to say -- just as long as they followed his orders, S’Tasik was ready to compromise on little things like appearances.  Without further ado, he stalked out into the open air of the Inflexible’s upper promenade and towards the lift that would take him to his quarters.

    “That bastard’s got a couple of spanners loose up there,” the pretty waitress muttered, when she discovered her eccentric customer had left without even a tip for her trouble.  “Damn stingy officers.”

[KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.]

*    *    *

Commander Holger Raske turned in his chair, searching for the young Andorian who had brought him his drink. He found her standing by another table, shaking her head as she watched the Vulcan leave.  The man cleared his throat and gestured, calling her attention back to her present customers. She obligingly returned to the table and gave him an expectant look.

"Another of the same, please."  Then, perhaps realizing that he'd lost her, he clarified his order.  "Alvanian brandy.  This time, let me have it with alcohol."  The Andorian smiled as she walked away, her bright white teeth contrasting with her cerulean skin, and the sinking feeling in Holger's gut told him that she probably wouldn't grant his request.

"Well, well, Raske. Have you finally started drinking something that befits your sex?" came a voice from behind him. He looked over, trying to find its source -- there! a figure walking towards him, a black haired woman wearing commander's bars.

"Heather!"  His face lit up with a grin of recognition, though he couldn't quite disguise the surprise that kept him staring until he remembered his manners.  Awkwardly, he gestured to the seat across from him.  "Please, have a seat!"

"Thought you'd never ask, Commander," Heather replied, smiling at the man's off-balance reaction to her sudden appearance. She pulled the designated chair out and sat, just as the waitress returned with Holger's drink. She laid a napkin under the glass as she placed it on the old-fashioned mahogany table, then turned to regard the new arrival.

"And something for you, ma'am?"

"Ah... yes. Vodka martini on the rocks with a twist," Heather replied. Her gaze wandered, sweeping over the room to take in the establishment's furnishings, until Holger's voice caught her attention.

"So." The burly man studied the face of his old friend. She'd aged well over the years; her hair still had the lustrous sheen he remembered from their Academy days, and the loss of her youth had diminished her beauty not a whit.  "Are we still Heather and Holger, or is it 'Commander Lanier' now?"

She snorted. "Oh, don't be ridiculous. We've known each other for too long for that nonsense." The Andorian managed to place Heather's order on the table without attracting untoward notice.  "Lord, has it really been twenty years?"  Lanier shook her head in disbelief as she sipped from her glass, grimacing as she swallowed. "Damn. Who does a girl have to kill to get a real drink around here? This fake stuff isn't the same."

Holger raised an eyebrow. "I see your tastes have evolved.  Back in the Academy, you'd have nothing but Heisler and Xarantine ale. In rather copious quantities, too." He brushed a stray lock of his long, flaxen hair out of his face. "You were quite the party animal back in those days."

"All three of us were," she retorted. "I seem to remember you and Kieran having to go to the infirmary after a night where one of you had the bright idea of going halfsies on an entire bottle of Saurian brandy." The two shared a laugh as the memory resurfaced; the next morning, Cadets Forester and Raske had trudged into class with hangovers so bad they could barely keep their eyes open. "So, what are you doing out here, anyway? I didn't know the Cyane was in the sector."

"Actually, I'm not on the Cyane now. Several of us transferred to the Hyperion last time we put into port, back on Earth."

Heather's eyes widened in disbelief. "That lucky bastard. They actually gave him Hyperion? Christ, I know probably a dozen commodores and senior captains who were frothing at the mouth to get that ship. And who wins it but Kieran Forester." She shook her head. "The universe has one hell of a sense of humor, doesn't it?"  Her bemused chuckle trailed off, and her expression shifted to one of dread. Holger's eyebrows rose in confusion until he realized she was looking past him. His eyes tried to follow her gaze, searching for the cause of her dismay. "Speak of the devil," she muttered under her breath as Holger felt a new presence behind him.

As he saw who his executive officer was sitting with, shock flashed across Kieran's face-- and was quickly controlled, replaced by a look of cold, blank neutrality. "Commander." His acknowledgement seemed mostly directed at Holger, as he favored Heather with only an icy stare.

Heather tugged on her uniform collar. "Is it me, or did it just get awfully stuffy in here?" She rose -- no, leapt -- from her seat with panic born of haste. "I'm afraid I need to get out of here -- I almost forgot I was going to meet up with my fiance. Com me later, though, we'll have to get together again." She didn't add the when he's not around, but it was so painfully obvious to all three of them that it didn't need to be said. As she rose, her eyes finally met Kieran's, meeting his hard stare for a tense two seconds before she turned and left.  Kieran took her seat without skipping a beat.  If he didn't know his captain better, Holger might have called the look he saw in the man's eye one of guilt.

"What's the matter?"

"Did she say... fiance?" The word left a bad taste in Forester's mouth, and his already foul mood had evidently just gotten worse. "Since when is she engaged?"

"I don't know, I wasn't paying attention," Holger replied as innocently as he could.

"Neither was Adam when he first met Eve."  If looks could kill, Kieran's glare would have speared Raske to the wall on the opposite side of the room.  "Come on, I've got some better stuff left over in my room.  Boris probably drank stronger stuff from his mother's teat."

[S'Tasik]

--------------------------------
Room 0991, North Section, C-Deck
Star Station Inflexible, Officer's Quarters
1628 Hours, December 29th, 2290

    "Authorization invalid," purred a velvety feminine voice, obviously programmed to soothe even the angriest of men.  "Access to quarters denied."  A second later, the electronic latch beside the door launched a Federation-issue cardkey into Ryan Laskir's waiting palm.  For the hundredth time in ten minutes, the lieutenant (junior grade) found himself wishing for a blunt object with which to inflict upon the computer a world of pain.

    He'd arrived on board the Inflexible more than six hours ago, exhausted, drained, and lugging behind him two duffels crammed with an assortment of paraphernalia his father had deemed indispensable for his tour.  The day before his transport departed for the largest Federation outpost in the Neutral Zone, Laskir had spent upwards of an hour listening to Papa explain the specific purpose of each item he'd included.  There was a handheld razor in case his electronic one failed, a blank PADD for note-taking and the occasional calculation, and a pair of slippers in case he lost his socks; there was a portable holocamera to record unclassified ship-wide gatherings, a miniaturized music player to keep him entertained (but only off-duty, of course), and a canister of shoe polish to keep his boots in perfect condition should the replicators go offline.  All of his protestations had been dismissed with a snort of infinite disdain.

    "Bet the old man didn't anticipate this, did he?"  He shoved his cardkey back into its slot with a snarl of fury, feeling not a little like King Sisyphus with his rock.  "You've got to be prepared for everything, Ryan.  You've got to pack swimming trunks in case the ship floods.  You've got to bring cologne so you can hit on hot chicks.  You've got to take a goddamned pack of bottled water so you don't get poisoned if the hydroponics lab contaminates the drinking supply.  Jesus, I'm twenty-five, I'm a certified engineer, I'm -- "

    "Authorization invalid," interrupted the computer.  "Access to quarters -- "

    Laskir smashed a fist against the barrier keeping him from his well-deserved rest and sank to the ground, almost shaking with rage.  Briefly, he fantasized about tossing all of his "necessities" into the trash compactor, thereby ridding himself of an embarrassing inconvenience -- a thought immediately dispelled when the latch spat out his accursed cardkey in a lazy arc that happened to have his skull as its terminus.  "Rot that sh*t-for-brains Neanderthal who programmed this steaming piece of -- "  The rest of his words dissolved into a jumble of expletives that were garnished with a fair amount of spit.

    "Do we have a problem here, Lieutenant?"  A distinctly non-computerized voice brought Laskir's attention back from its sojourns, one originating from a stern and forbidding commander whose biceps seemed half again as wide as the engineer’s thigh.  His bulging muscles and bald forehead gave him an imposing presence that made his victim feel like a rabbit being accosted by a bear.

    Mortified, Laskir scrambled to his feet, a hand snapping up to his head in a hasty salute.  “Sorry sir, I was distracted -- the door wouldn’t open, see, and I’ve been trying to -- ”

    “Wake up everybody seven light-years away?”  The commander’s deep bass took on an irritated timbre that made the young officer wish he was still dealing with the door.  At least the door didn’t talk back.  “I should report you for this.  What’s your name?”

    “Ryan Laskir, sir,” he answered, with some trepidation.

    “Laskir?”  Two tremendous bushy eyebrows rose.  “Not somebody related to one Michael Laskir?”

    Here it comes, Ryan thought, biting back a panicky giggle as he prepared for the worst.  “Yes sir.  Captain Laskir is my father.”

    “You’re his son?”  An incredulous laugh echoed all-too-loudly in the hall and Laskir’s ears.  “You’re Mike Laskir’s son?  Now isn’t that something!  I served with him on the Repulse, back when both of us were greenhorns.  He’s told you a lot about that, hasn’t he?”

    “Yes sir,” Laskir replied, nonplussed.  “Many times, sir.”  His nervous hazel eyes flicked back and forth in obvious discomfort, no doubt searching for a way past his interlocutor’s tremendous bulk to freedom.

    “And how’s he holding up now?  Man!  I haven’t seen the guy in fifteen years, and right when I get back to base I meet his kid talking sh*t like he did -- has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like he did when he was your age?”

    “No sir.”  The blue-silver cardkey Laskir was holding cut a thin white line into his palm as he clenched it ever tighter in his fist.  “I don’t think anyone has, sir.”

    “Well, you do.  I say, you’re his spitting image, foul mouth and all, though I don’t seem to remember him being this respectful.  He’s raised you better than his mom raised him, bless her heart.  You even blush like he does -- did anybody ever tell you that?”

    Privately, the engineer cursed his pale skin for betraying his emotions so freely; aloud, he managed to stutter out a semi-coherent response.  “No, sir -- but if you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ve got to go -- my room code wasn’t encrypted correctly when I came on board, so I can’t get in.  Sorry if I bothered you -- ”

    “Bother?”  The commander managed to look simultaneously amused and affronted.  “It wasn’t me you bothered -- my room isn’t even on this deck.  I just heard you screaming and decided to come investigate.  God knows Mike and I would have done a whole hell of a lot more if we’d been given the chance.”

    “Right then, sir, right -- I’ll head to the quartermaster’s, then, right away, to fix the, uh, key.”

    “You do that, kid,” the commander boomed, stepping aside to clear a path.  “Keep your nose clean like your pappy says and you’ll be fine, hear?”

    “Yes sir,” said Laskir, who, having shoved the traitorous cardkey into the back of a bag, now took off down the corridor as quickly as he thought he could walk without losing all shreds of dignity.

    “And tell him next time you see him that Jimmy Thompson says hi!”  The man’s parting words were even louder than his greeting despite the fact that Laskir was already a ways away -- he’d surreptitiously picked up his pace to escape into a turbolift before further shame could be inflicted upon his person.   A shaky hand stabbed the call button; after seconds that stretched into years, the doors swished aside to admit him.

    “Just great,” he snapped, hurling his duffels to the ground.  “You did absolutely f*cking great.  Hey, at least you managed to get in the lift without making even more of a fool out of yourself.  Now wouldn’t the old man be proud?”


--------------------------------
USS Odin, NCC-1875
Star Station Inflexible, Docking Ring B
1700 Hours, December 29th, 2290

    Nobody had thought much of her when she arrived, an unheralded veteran who bore with patient pride wounds from countless a Klingon disruptor.  Critical eyes noted her battle-scarred hull, stripped of paint and polish to better facilitate repairs, and saw merely a metal husk that used to be a ship.  Disapproving tongues disparaged her inglorious entrance, her feeble running lights overshadowed even by the tug that delivered her into the stern embrace of the Inflexible's mooring beams.  She was a holdover from those simple days when enemies were enemies and friends were friends, and somehow, in the time it took for the galaxy to pack up and pass her by, she had become nothing more than a relic of a bygone age.  But to the white-haired captain in charge of her restoration, she was more than just a curiosity -- for in his eyes, she was the most wonderful ship in the universe, and when he made such judgments Alexander Richard Pergemon was seldom proven wrong.

    "This is not a dead ship," he had told the skeptical repair team their first day on the job.  "She was commissioned in 2259 and she’s served proudly ever since.  It took three Klingon heavies to break her, and they couldn’t do it in a fair fight:  they staged an ambush three weeks before the armistice of '83 and chased her all the way back to base.  Even then, they didn’t manage to kill a single crewman during the entire ten-hour pursuit.  There were only thirty-five wounded, gentlemen, out of a crew of two hundred and twenty."  A pause for emphasis.  Then:  "There's a warrior somewhere in here, fellows, and it's your job to bring her back."

    The word on the street was that he'd been first in line for a promotion to commodore but turned it down for a position at the Academy, where he lectured about his encounters with the wily Romulans to the delight of cadets and faculty alike.  He had no less than five decorations in his official file, each earned on a separate tour of duty, and at least two more designed "Eyes-Only," the details of which were still murky.  It was rumored that he had survived an assassination attempt by a Tal Shi'ar operative near the end of his combat career, though inquiries into the matter were met with an enigmatic smile and a quick change of subject.  In short, Captain Pergemon was nothing short of a war hero, an honest-to-god champion of the Federation whose record was beyond reproach.

    He could have had any command he wanted:  a dreadnaught, perhaps, one of the behemoths Starfleet relied upon to project its power in the farthest reaches of the galaxy, or maybe one of those new heavy cruisers, fast and sleek and capable of outgunning anything of comparable size.  He even could have settled for a comfortable desk job safe from the depredations of the Klingons or the Romulans or any other hostile alien race, where the pay was solid and the respect substantial -- but he hadn’t.  Instead, he had chosen the Odin, the broken valkyrie who had won his heart, and over the past year he had devoted his considerable will to the task of her reconstruction.

    And how, the captain marveled, his six-foot frame resting in the chair that would become his second home.  From his high perch he had an unblocked view of the entire refurbished bridge -- the officers' consoles, the wide viewscreen, the glossy flooring, all of which gleamed as if they’d been installed the second after they came out of the production line.  And how.

    His new crew -- No, her crew -- was already arriving.  Hand-picked from a list of recent Academy graduates and approved with the unanimous consent of Starfleet Command, they'd been trickling onto the Inflexible in ones and twos and tens, coming by shuttle, transporter, or whatever other means Starfleet used to get them to where they needed to go.  And tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred, he'd see them all for the first time, and he'd line them up in the airy confines of the renovated shuttlebay and say what he'd said one long year earlier:

    "This is not a dead ship."  His whispers laid bare the Odin's encroaching silence.  “There’s a warrior somewhere in here, fellows, and it’s your job to bring her back.”  Piercing eyes came to rest on the newly-minted dedication plaque welded to the railing in front of him, its solid bronze transmuted to gold by the weighty darkness of the dimly lit bridge.

    "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, and an exultant smile drifted across his face: "Welcome to the USS Valiant."

[Commander La'ra]

Allll right.  Finally Tasky and Kieran are back on the ball.  Haven't reread much of this yet...tonight's liable to be a busy one...but I did refresh my impression of the intro.

My only quibble is that I have to echo Kadh's comments on the other thread;  I do sort of tire of the ole 'give us enough to make us like 'em then kill 'em off to make us feel bad' thing.  If you're trying to produce a mystery, it's not necessary...you can do a lot better with us honestly having no idea what happened to the Kidd.  If you wanna make us dislike the 'bad people', then do it through interactions with said bad people by your real protagonists.

That said, it's as well written as I'd expect from you guys and, of course, I have only started to scratch the surface, so please take the above comments for what they're meant to be: constructive criticiism.

[KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.]

--------------------------------------

Command Complex
Star Station Inflexible, Lower Spire
0500 hours, December 30th, 2290

The lanky captain's shoulders squared instinctively as the doors closed behind him. After all, he was entering the office of the most powerful man in the sector; there were appearances to maintain. He took a breath and flashed his best smile as he approached the young secretary at the reception desk. "Captain Forester to see the admiral." A veneer of hauteur slipped into his voice. "I believe I'm expected."

The pretty lieutenant on the other side of the console, for her part, seemed unimpressed. Forester obviously wasn't the first hotshot captain to walk through those doors. Far from it; she'd seen all kinds, from the young prodigies to the aging veterans. She liked his type the least -- the brash, winsome types who breezed in and thought they could charm her off her feet with a smile and a name drop. He wasn't bad looking by any stretch of the imagination -- although his jaw was a bit angular and there was an odd intensity in his cobalt eyes she found slightly unnerving, he certainly cut an impressive figure, and his features were well sculpted -- but he was no holovid model. "I'm sorry, sir, Admiral Selye is currently in a meeting," she replied, showing no reaction to his attempt at dashing charm. "You'll have to wait. You can have a seat over there." She nodded to a pair of chairs in the corner, adjacent to the office door. "The admiral will see you shortly."

Forester grunted obligingly, sinking into the proffered chair with a barely audible sigh. He yawned as his eyes began to wander around the room. Selye had spared no expense in decorating his personal space, and the yielding foam of these ergonomic chairs was only the first of many amenities the admiral had installed.  A small washroom stood on the other side of Selye's office door, and his walls were adorned with elaborate paintings of various starships as well as one of Inflexible itself. Several plants -- real ones, not synthetic fakes, much to the captain's surprise -- were dispersed about the room, adding a bit of color to the sterile monotones prevalent in Starfleet construction. Forester's own quarters looked like a bare cadet's cubicle in comparison.

He looked forward with a start as he heard a muffled exchange emanating from the admiral's office itself. As he leaned in, he could make out two distinct voices-- a guttural, angry baritone punctuated by a measured low tenor. After a moment of what sounded like a heated argument, at least on one side, the exchange ended as abruptly as it began. The door dilated, and five figures strode out, two Starfleet security officers followed by three --

Klingons.

There were three of them:  an older male in ambassador's garb, followed by lackeys in warrior's armor.  Forester’s right hand moved instinctively for his belt, towards a phaser that wasn't there -- but the aged Klingon ignored him as he followed his escorts to the exit, though one of the warriors shot him a baleful, bushy-browed glare. Forester returned it with a scowl of his own before looking to Selye's secretary, eyebrows raised.

"The admiral will see you now," she said by way of explanation, and returned her attention to rearranging the PADDs on her desk.

*    *    *

Forester's nostrils flared as he entered Admiral Selye's sanctum. His pulse quickened as he detected a familiar musky odor; his lip curled as the smell of Klingon only stoked his emotions even further. "Captain," Selye greeted him brusquely. "Sit, sit." Still visibly unnerved, the younger man sat rigidly in a chair facing the admiral's desk.

"I've been studying your file, Captain."  A note of outward contempt crept into his voice as he fixed upon Forester his searching gaze.  "For a man serving in an era of galactic peace, you seem to have compiled an exceedingly long combat record."

Hyperion's captain shifted silently in his seat, unsure of Selye's meaning but not daring to ask.

"Commendation for coolheadedness during a standoff with a Klingon warship while tactical officer on the Daran. Led the away team that rescued several dozen Starfleet prisoners during the Khatora Incident. Served with distinction on USS Menahga during the early days of the Taal Tan Offensive. Defeated three Klingon warships while commanding the Cyane during Operation Distant Hammer." Forester looked on woodenly as Selye continued; by the time he finished, it seemed as if he'd covered every instance the captain had ever faced a Klingon in anger. "Also..." The grey-haired admiral paused, his thin eyebrows rising. "You're a widower. Lieutenant Katrin Forester, nee Heidrich, killed seven years ago in the Klingon raid on Starbase 29. Leaving you a single father of twins."

Forester's eyes smoldered. "Permission to speak freely, Admiral?" He leaned forward, the blood draining from his fingers as his hands clasped down on the armrests.

"Granted."  His expression inscrutable, Selye's eyes never left Kieran's face.

His lip quivered with carefully controlled anger. "Your dismissal of my service record is one thing, sir, but this -- intrusion -- into my personal affairs is out of line. In the future, sir, I'd appreciate being spoken to with the respect accorded to my rank, regardless of what you think of me personally." His face flushed angrily, fists clenched, and he rose as if to storm out.

As he made for the door, fully intending to end the conversation then and there, Selye chuckled softly behind him. "At ease, Captain," the admiral said, leaning back in his seat. His face broke into the first hint of a smile, as if he had just learned something incredibly important and was now savoring his victory. Forester froze in his tracks. "You'll have to forgive me for bringing it up, Kieran -- may I call you Kieran?"

Turning back to face the desk, Kieran nodded curtly, rage ebbing into uncertainty. His hands relaxed, and impatience began to flash across his features -- if the older man had a point, it had so far escaped him. There was a pause; Selye studied him for a moment, as if considering his next words.

"In my opinion, Captain -- Kieran -- it's good to see that some in Starfleet still have the backbone to answer force with force." He didn't say it outright, but his double meaning was clear. "And you're quite right: my comments were out of line. Dealing with that arrogant Klingon windbag this early in the morning has taken its toll on my sense of decorum, I'm afraid."

"And my sense of smell." Forester rejoined, lowering his guard just a bit.  "What did they want?"

"That, actually, has to do with why I wanted to see you," Selye answered. "The frigate Kidd was assigned to patrol in the Neutral Zone. She hasn't reported in since Christmas, and Starfleet is officially considering her lost until proven otherwise. Zan Kurik -- " the Klingon honorific dripped with sarcasm on Selye's tongue " -- claims that his people lost contact with a patrol ship of their own in the same area, at the same time. Now he's demanding that no Federation vessels enter the area until a joint investigation can be arranged."

"And you think he's lying." Forester's response was not a question.

"I think he's stalling.  The Klingons, honor-bound as they are, wouldn't lie about losing a ship, not when they have the opportunity to blame it all on us."  Selye's tone spoke differently.  "But the way things are playing out, we'll have no choice but to play into their little game.  They've just submitted a formal demand that Starfleet participate in a joint mission to the Intaria system in order to avoid ... embarrassment."

"Never mind that Intaria is well on our side of the Zone," the captain muttered, rolling his eyes. "Any delay serves them more than it does us. This useless bickering just gives them more time to prepare their game plan, while we sit on our hands doing nothing."

Selye grimaced. "My thoughts precisely." His eyes took on a conspiratorial glint. "And I'm not enthusiastic about just sitting around while the brass lets the Klingons dictate Starfleet policy.  While the disappearance of the Kidd goes uninvestigated."

Kieran nodded, leaning forward as he replied. "I assume this is where Hyperion comes in, Admiral?"

"Officially, the Hyperion is being dispatched to the Archanis system. The colony administrator there has requested Starfleet assistance with some technical difficulties they're having." Selye waved his hand dismissively.  “Whatever the problem is, your crew I’m sure is more than capable of handling it."

"And... unofficially?" asked Forester, when Selye didn't continue.

"Captain!" Selye's smile lost none of its unctuousness, though Kieran didn't miss the sharp rebuke in his tone. "You can't honestly believe I'm about to sanction some kind of black operation here, do you? That would certainly be improper, not to mention the damage it would cause to the Federation's attempt at a diplomatic solution." The admiral paused to clear his throat, coughing delicately into his palm. "However, it's come to my attention that your ship has been experiencing some -- ah, problems, shall we say? -- with your navigational computer."

All of a sudden, he had Forester's complete attention.  "Problems that might lead to ... a calculation error attributable only to photons and circuitry, no doubt, and certainly not to any individual among my exceedingly well-trained crew."

"I would certainly keep an eye on that were I you, Captain. It might prove -- inconvenient -- were you to suffer a navigational mishap and be seen somewhere you shouldn't be. Should you deviate from your original course, however, I'd make sure you keep your sensors fully powered and active so our engineers might remain fully cognizant of the problem."

Bureaucratic doubletalk was not Forester's strength but the admiral's message came through nonetheless.  "Sir, if I may. I realize the importance of finding what really happened to the Kidd, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with putting my ship in that sort of danger. We have no way of knowing just how the current regime will react if we're discovered."

Selye sighed heavily and turned away to face the stars twinkling outside his office viewscreen. "You have to understand, Kieran, that every morning Intel marches through those doors to paint a very clear picture of the state of the border.  The last few months, their reports have not exactly been encouraging.  Twenty years ago the Third Fleet had enough combat vessels to keep the border secure and then some. Now I have ships pulling double duty along regular patrol routes and we're still coming up short. It doesn't help that Starfleet is drawing down my forces because they expect this ... ceasefire -- "  The admiral spat out the word.  " -- to last.  Six of my heavy cruisers have already been fitted for exploration and reassigned to discovery patrol. If the disappearance of the Kidd is a prelude to renewed Klingon aggression, I need to know, and the only way I can know is if I have captains who know firsthand what the Klingons capable of, who see them for what they are."  Fingers steepled, head bowed, Selye leaned back in his chair and spun back towards his subordinate.  "Are you that kind of captain, Kieran Forester?"

Forester didn't answer for seconds that stretched into years -- and then, slowly and reluctantly, he stood.  "Now that you mention it, sir, Lieutenant Christopher did mention something about a problem with our navigational array.  I'll schedule a repair crew to fix it -- sometime next week."  He broke into a grim smile devoid of warmth.  "Thank you, sir, for bringing the problem to my attention.  Do you require anything else?"

"One last thing.  Should someone happen to detect you somewhere other than Archanis, the ramifications would be ... severe.  Needless to say, it would make things much easier on the both of us if you came up with the ready answers we need."

A stiff nod and salute was Forester's only response.

[S'Tasik]

 --------------------------------
Shuttlecraft Boarding Hub
Star Station Inflexible, Docking Ring B
0515 Hours, December 30th, 2290

            It began, as usual, with light -- with strobes, glowbars, and crackling bulbs that plunged Inflexible’s corridors into throbbing crimson darkness.  Half a second later, klaxons roared to life all throughout the station, interrupted only by the shrieking of alarms and the modulated voice of the station computer:  “Priority alert, all hands scramble -- priority alert, all hands -- ”  Room doors swished open as officers and crew flooded out of their quarters in various states of dress.  Clambering into jackets, smoothing out skirts, pinning on badges, even slipping on pants, they made their way helter-skelter to their docking ring trying desperately to shake off the last torpid remnants of sleep.

            They arrived at the boarding hub in streams of twenty and thirty to find a fleet of shuttles awaiting them, ion engines humming as they hovered above the duranium deck. Four security officers walked up and down the lines, shouting orders and directions as fleet personnel flooded into the bay:  “Engineering crew to port-side transports, bridge crew to starboard -- ”  Pinwheeling arms swung from left to right, metronomes in a sea of activity.

            Ryan Laskir ducked behind an unusually large Tellarite to slip out of their line of sight and then sped up to keep pace with his Vulcan companion.  “What the hell is going on?” he hissed, his normally pale face flushed with fury.  One hand gripped the railing as an orbital shuttle took off, the blowback from its engines sending a minor shockwave across the deck.  “I just went to bed two and a half hours ago -- ”

            “Must you whine every morning?”  S’Tasik was barely audible over the cacophony surrounding him, though his annoyance showed plainly on his face.  “Cold-start drill, courtesy of Captain Pergemon -- he even activated the station alarm to make it as real as possible.”  Abruptly, he stopped short and fell into line with a group of officers arrayed all in red.  Two shuttles slipped through the forcefield separating the hub from space, spinning a hundred and eighty degrees before stopping a foot from the ground.

             “I know what it is,” Laskir snapped.  “But what I don’t know is why you didn’t keep an eye out for me and let me know what’s going down.  You’re my friend, you know how nervous I get, and you don’t even bother to tell we’re going to be drilled so I can prep?”

            “Your father wasn’t that generous.  If memory serves me right, he made sure to work us good and tired the night before and sounded general quarters thirty minutes after we completed over our shift.  Tamerlane never came so close to destruction as she did that morning.”  The line jumped forward; S’Tasik followed, edging closer to the boarding ladders and freedom.

            “So now you’re accusing me of something that happened three years ago, is that it?”

             “No, Ryan.”  S’Tasik rolled his eyes in exasperation, praying that the legendary Laskir fury wouldn’t boil over before the shuttles came.  The forcefield sparked and crackled as his plea was answered -- three more had returned to the hub and were now angling towards the right.  He’d be on the next one for sure; in the meantime, he had more important things to deal with.  “I’m saying you should wake yourself up so you don’t try to eject the warp core out aft.  I don’t imagine that would look good on anybody’s service record, even one as … glowing … as yours.”

            “Look, man, you know all about this and you know that the debriefers even said that it wasn’t my fault.  That was Specialist Janssen who didn’t lock in the couplings like she was supposed to, I was following procedure to the letter -- ”  Laskir had grown increasingly breathless and increasingly red.  By now, they were starting to attract attention despite the fact that the substance of their conversation was drowned out by the roar of engines powering up for flight.

            “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”  S’Tasik watched in satisfaction as he saw his sarcasm hit home -- and, having assured himself that he’d won this particular battle, he finally raised his palms in a gesture of conciliation.  “Come on, Ryan, you know I’m implying nothing of the sort.  Now please stop feeling sorry for yourself and get to your duty station so we can have someone competent in Engineering.”

            But the spiky-haired human would not be placated.  “Don’t try to sweet-talk me, pretending like you know what I’m feeling.  You, of all people!”

            “Careful now.  There is a line, Ryan, and you don’t want to cross it.”

            “And how the flying f*ck could you know what I want?  You can pretend all you want but you’re still a f*cking Vulcan inside -- ”

            “Have done, Lieutenant!”  Fury of his own lent a sharp edge to S’Tasik’s gravelly voice even as the Vulcan jabbed a hand in the air, intent upon attracting the attention of a security officer on duty.  “You may know me better than anybody else, Mr. Laskir, but I will not permit insubordination on board this ship, whether from strangers or from you.  You will act professionally if I have to sew your mouth closed.  Don’t force me to make than an order.”

            “And now you’re pulling rank on me.”  Ryan’s fists clenched and his knuckles whitened.  “Why, you half-breed son of a -- ”

            “You!”  A scaly hand dug into Laskir’s shoulder and interrupted him just in time; salvation, in the form of a growling brown-skinned Saurian, had arrived.  “Are you being stupid on purpose or were you born that way?  Engineering personnel to port, not starboard -- that’s on your left, in case your brain broke and you forgot to fix it.  Move, sir, or I’ll move you.”

             Laskir was impetuous, not irrational.  With one last baleful look at his companion, he allowed himself to be led away, disappearing into a crowd of enlisted crewmen trimmed in engineering gold.  A few curious heads turned surreptitiously to watch him go, though they quickly snapped back into position after the Vulcan met them with a scowl totally foreign to his appearance.

           Inwardly, S’Tasik cursed himself for allowing the confrontation to escalate as quickly as it did.  Having served with Ryan in one capacity or another since his Academy days, he was acutely aware of the man’s extraordinary talent as well as his chronic insecurity.  By now, everybody on the station probably knew that Ryan was the son of Captain Michael Laskir, avowed bachelor and commander of one of the most decorated destroyers in the fleet; small wonder, then, that his friend’s fuse was shorter than usual.  For one brief moment, S’Tasik felt a pang of guilt at tweaking Laskir’s buttons -- until he remembered the parting shot.

            The Vulcan -- half-Vulcan -- had spent nearly two years trying to untangle the Gordian knot that was his family tree, a maddening endeavor that had provided him with little in the way of knowledge and much in the way of hatred for red tape.  Despite his best efforts, S’Tasik could find out nothing about his father save the fact that he was Vulcan, and he could almost have said the same about his mother if not for Federation policy:  everybody who wanted to transfer a child into Federation care had to register in a logbook and give a few shreds of personal information in anticipation of this very eventuality.

            Thanks to that particular piece of legislation, he’d learned that his biological mother was a human temp at a secluded Federation embassy who was thirty-seven at the time of his birth.  Unable or unwilling to shoulder the responsibilities of mothering a half-Vulcan son, she had bid him what he hoped was a fond farewell and delivered him into the nurturing arms of the Federation Social Services Corps.  Her name had been blacked out in order to maintain the veil of privacy that shrouded all such transactions, and at any rate it would have proven only marginally useful.  Any record of her presence at an official Federation institution would have been long since purged from archival documentation, and after several wasted months he finally decided to stop looking.

            We know each other too well, he mused.  Both of us can get under each other’s skins without even trying anymore.

            “Lieutenant!”  The Saurian had returned, and this time the full focus of his ire fell on his erstwhile ally.  “Do you plan on getting on yourself or should I call for a litter?”  One gnarled finger pointed up at the orbital shuttle bobbing impatiently in the air, the rest of its complement already on board and waiting for their last passenger.

            “Do you treat all of your officers like this, Chief?”

             The toothy alien smiled a truly horrifying smile and the smell of rotted meat caused S’Tasik’s stomach to turn.  “Only the ones who cooperate,” he snarled in a voice reminiscent of crunching bone.  “I’ve been known to do far worse.”

            With a rueful chuckle, the Vulcan nodded and scrambled up the ladder, buckling himself into his seat in preparation for the drive.  Vivaldi lurched forward as her pilot engaged her burners, leaving both boarding hub and Laskir behind as she sped towards her destination.  “What I wouldn’t give to be back in bed,” moaned a bald ensign cradling his head in his arms.

            “I couldn’t agree more,” S’Tasik agreed darkly.  This is going to be a long day.


--------------------------------------
USS Valiant, NCC-1875
Star Station Inflexible, Docking Ring B
0523 Hours, December 30th, 2290

During the course of her training, Ensign Yukiko Hanagawa had faced her fair share of difficult situations.  She had airdropped into the middle of a forest with nothing except a phaser and a tricorder and found her way to safety without any outside aid.  She had taken command of a understaffed system of bunkers and repelled a simulated Klingon assault.  She had led a team of rookies on a live-fire exercise to recover a hostage held captive in a network of underground caves.  She had even managed to defeat a Vulcan in an unofficial arm-wrestling contest, which, given her almost fragile build and the fact that she stood five-foot-six, was quite an accomplishment indeed.  However, despite her impressive list of accomplishments, the Valiant's new chief of security found herself stymied by her newest assignment:  making sure that each and every member of the heavy frigate's crew got where they needed to go.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.  Hanagawa and the rest of her security detachment had come on board on the first wave of shuttles, escorting a group of engineers who were charged with ensuring that all life-support systems were in working order.  Decked out in EV gear as a precaution against a hull breach or something equally unfortunate, the techheads had fanned out across the Valiant's eleven decks to check atmospheric pressure and the oxygen content of the air.  With the exception of abnormally high levels of radon in the armory -- a fairly routine problem that the filtration array had taken care of posthaste -- they had found nothing worth reporting.  And so it was that Hanagawa ended up securing from patrol formation a full forty minutes before she had expected.  Instead of shepherding compliant engineers for the duration of the drill, she found herself stationed in Shuttlebay Two to complete her secondary objective, one even less glamorous than the first.

"Ensign!"  Hanagawa spun to face a harried Andorian storming out of the turbolifts behind her, his antennae quivering in anger.  "You are in command of the security division, no?"

"That would be me, petty officer."  The ensign forced herself to smile, though annoyance lent a hard cast to her clear brown eyes.  It was in times like these that she cursed the gods for stunting her growth at the tender age of fifteen, for the Andorian towered over her like a very large and very blue tree.  "Whatever you want, you'll have to wait: the Brahms just docked and I need to direct her crew."  In an attempt to keep control of the situation, she returned her attention to the crewmen lined up behind the perimeter established by her men.  One by one, they began to identify themselves for the retina scan that would allow them aboard the ship.

 "I will not wait," the Andorian snapped, having long since abandoned any pretense of decorum.  "I needed to get the auxiliary fusion reactors online fifteen minutes ago.  Your man told our team that they were on deck five aft, but when we got there we found not reactors but the main energizers -- "

 Hanagawa gritted her teeth, trying her damnedest to look concerned.  "I apologize for my man's mistake," she said, nodding as Fagles, Lindsay Z. passed through the cordon and dashed off to main engineering.  Inwardly, the ensign wondered what that "Z" might stand for.  "As you can imagine, he's as new to the Avenger-class as you are, and -- "

"I did not come here to hear your insignificant excuses, Ensign.  I came here to file a formal protest against Mister Jaral for incompetence, and I demand that he be removed from duty so more essential personnel do not receive the wrong instructions."

Venazzar, Ichar T. stepped over the threshold, following his gold-collared companion to the lift.  Hanagawa waved him through without so much as a glance at the verification confirmation displayed on her screen; instead, she rounded on the Andorian glaring at her from on high, resolved to make one last effort to placate the angry beast.  "Duly noted, petty officer.  I'll tell Mister Jaral that you're unhappy with his performance and discipline him if I see fit."  Yeah, by thanking him for tweaking you out.  Her smile grew even sweeter:  "Is that all?"

The Andorian shook his head violently, antennae flapping backwards and forwards with the force of his rage.  "That's insufficient for a mistake of this magnitude -- "

Hanagawa flinched, her delicate features flushed with red.  "You seriously expect me to punish Faolain because you don't know how to read the deck maps posted next to every turbolift?  Have you gotten the reactors online?"

"No, but -- "

"Deck six.  Aft.  Get there before somebody comes hunting for your head."

 "I will have you know, Ensign, that I am not an enemy you want to make."

 "Oh, for god's sake -- "  Her slender hand punched the communicator hanging at her side.  "Hanagawa to engineering.  Someone just told me that the fusions haven't come up yet and we're running fifteen minutes behind schedule.  Can you confirm?"

A clearly irritated voice buzzed back over the intercom.  "This is Lieutenant O'Riordan.  Petty Officer Tholon was supposed to take care of that.  Knowing him, he's probably mouthing off to somebody and -- "

Hanagawa toggled off vox and drew herself up to her full height -- which by the most generous estimation brought her up to the Andorian's neck.  Tholon stiffened, straightened, and fled, storming back towards the lift and nearly bowling over Gonzalez, Vienna P. in his haste.

For her part, the ensign smiled once more, and this time the sentiment was genuine.  Looking for all the world like an innocent schoolgirl who had found her way on board a starship by accident, she leaned forward to rest her elbows on the reinforced tritanium barrier her people had set up at the far end of the bay.  Her shoulder-length hair fell forward to cover one eye, lending her an insouciant look that had brought the coldest of men to heel.  "Next?" she asked, her voice veritably dripping with honey.

"Matrazzi, Christopher F., crewman second class."  The man blinked nervously and forced the scanner to void its first test and start another.  "I think I can make my way to my post myself, sir."

"Good, because I didn't enlist to be a tour guide," she said, even as her face fell at the sight of two more shuttles soaring through the docking bays with ladders extended.  "Though if Starfleet has anything to say about it, I'll be handing out maps and candy to little kids at HQ.  Carry on."

[AlienLXIX]

Oh puweese can I can have that candy and a map purdy lady?

Well done guys!  I will pimp this out to Ferret and see if I can't get him to post something from where he is stationed . . .   

[S'Tasik]

Bridge
0553 Hours

T’Vel stood out like a statue amidst the chaos on the bridge, a caryatid of Vulcan stock around which the world could not but revolve.  Wearing a severe uniform and her habitual frown both, the lieutenant had taken her position at the Valiant’s helm controls without even a hint of excitement or glee.  Now, even as the rest of the crew ran circles around her in anticipation, she focused on her task with the precision and the dedication of a computer programmed to do nothing else.

“Status, Ensign.”  Her voice was frostier than the ice floes of Ganymede.

The navigator, Anson Parl, answered without hesitation, though his voice wavered and broke as he began to appreciate the importance of his task.  “Moorings are secure and emergency stop shows green.  We’re ready to begin testing helm controls on your mark.”  One hand flicked a bead of sweat off the top of his bald head.

“Good.  Enable manual control of port-side maneuvering thrusters and route it to my station.”

“Done.  Begin test in -- wait, Lieutenant, one second.”  Parl glanced at the navigation panels arrayed before him and punched off the emergency warning light glowing in the corner.  “I need to upload new starcharts from Stellar Cartography onto my grid before I can release command to you.”

If T’Vel wasn’t a Vulcan, she would have rolled her eyes in annoyance.  Instead, as was her wont, she settled for a raised eyebrow and a disapproving glare.  “You might with to consider, Ensign Parl, rechecking your procedure before informing me that we are ‘ready to begin.’  There is no such thing as a minor mistake in space.”

From the way his brow knit together, it didn’t look like the navigator needed the warning, muttering some mantra under his breath as his pudgy hands commanded his console.  There was a definite quaver in his voice, now, one that made him sound even younger than his twenty-two years.  “Now I’m showing more errors -- it seems like thrusters aren’t drawing enough power across the board.  Somebody must not have brought the auxiliary fusions online properly.  I guess I could try rerouting from the mains, but -- ”

“You will ‘guess’ at nothing.”  T’Vel’s gloved hands clenched and relaxed, though her expression revealed no outward sign of impatience.  “I shall apprise the deck officer that we will restart our protocols to ensure no further mistakes are made.”

“He has been apprised.  Go ahead and do whatever it is you need to do.”  S’Tasik, who had been listening in on the conversation from the Valiant’s science station, didn’t bother to turn around and meet T’Vel’s eyes.  Instead, his attention was focused on the reports streaming in from the ship’s various departments, ticking items off his checklist as a stunning blonde stood by and watched.  “Ensign, my transporter officer tells me that the containment beams are still out of alignment.  Please say we have teams ready to go.”

Camilla Lindenfeld scrunched up her face in distaste, though her expression did nothing to detract from her radiance.  Her willowy figure made even Starfleet’s regulation top seem sleek and well-fitted, and she had opted for a knee-length skirt rather than pants.  S’Tasik was sure she had made that choice on purpose, not knowing that her first officer was half Vulcan.  While he had permitted himself thirty seconds of surreptitious ogling, his professionalism had taken over immediately after.  That, however, didn’t stop Lindenfeld from dropping a coquettish grin here or there when she was sure her boss was looking.  “Teams nine and ten just finished final checks on the Bussard collectors.  I’ve sent team nine to circuit breaker control but ten is free, sir.”

“That works.  Notify them of their new assignment and tell them to get to deck seven immediately, Mister … how was that, again?”  S’Tasik had read the service records of the bridge crew in detail but he hadn’t gotten around to matching names to faces.  I’d planned on waking up early this morning to do that, he mused, and chuckled to himself at the irony. 

T’Vel’s eyebrows rose further at this subtle display of emotion even as she began her trial, tilting the ship to port before righting her and concluding her test.  S’Tasik’s assistant, on the other hand, lit up.  “Camilla Lindenfeld, sir.  And with respect, sir -- ”

Oh, he groaned inwardly.  Her.  But aloud:  “Not now.  Say again, team four, you are requesting permission to safe the torpedoes because…?”

Static buzzed over the intercom as the repair team clicked twice in affirmation.  “We’ve got some interference up here we need to check out and to do that we need to engage maglocks so our people can -- ”

“Fine.  Do it and spare me the details.”  S’Tasik flicked his queue back over his shoulder as he shut off his communicator and sighed in exasperation.  “I’ve always hated these godforsaken drills.  What is it, Mister Lindenfeld?”

Camilla had been smiling her most winning smile, one that three thousand years ago might have launched a thousand ships.  “As you know, I graduated with high honors in Command at the Academy, sir, and I believe my skills would be best put to use if you permitted me to -- ”

The first officer didn’t let her finish, cutting her off with a jerk of his hand and an emphatic shake of his head.  “I expect to have this conversation once and only once, Ensign.  The answer is no.  You’ve been assigned to communications for the duration of this tour, and at communications you will stay until the captain instructs otherwise.  Have I made myself clear?”

Lindenfeld stiffened as if she had been struck, and her tone was noticeably cooler when she replied.  “Crystal clear, sir.”

“Good.”  As if he noticed nothing amiss, S’Tasik favored her with a smile and turned back to his checklist.  The PADD was far less pleasing to look at than the ensign, but a job was a job.

“All thrusters functional, Lieutenant,” said T’Vel from her console.  “This concludes our test of helm controls.  Our station is fully operational per regulations.”

“You truly are the model of Vulcan efficiency.”  S’Tasik grinned to exacerbate his helm officer’s discomfort -- her eyes had narrowed and her ears had turned a deep shade of green.  “We’re done up here.  Mister Lindenfeld, get me the feed from deck four -- I want to see what’s going on in main engineering.”

“You have it at the environmental station, sir.”

“Splendid.  Be a dear and keep me abreast of any developments that might require my attention?”

Clearly off balance, the ensign managed little more than a nod -- and that was perfectly fine as far as S’Tasik was concerned.  He rarely forgot anything he read, and Lindenfeld’s personnel file had set off sirens in the back of his head.  One of her evaluators had somewhat facetiously labeled her “Julius Caesar in the body of a swimsuit model,” and while the rest of her teachers hadn’t been quite so flippant, they had all noted that Camilla’s appearance paled when set against her ambition.   Better she learn early that good looks won’t get her everywhere in life, thought the Vulcan as he made his way to the other side of the bridge, nearly bowling over a technician and his toolkit in the process.

Lindenfeld had been true to her word -- she’d replaced a redundant readout with the stream from the ship’s recorders in little less than the time it took for him to get there.  S’Tasik watched curiously as the crew bustled about the warp core like reporters around a particularly infamous celebrity.  Ryan Laskir cut an especially impressive figure in his bulky white uniform, dashing from station to station as a man possessed.  Though there was no audio, the Vulcan was sure that Laskir’s exhortations did not conform to Starfleet codes of conduct.

The first officer peered closer at the screen even as visions of complaints and official protests danced in front of his eyes.  No doubt he’d have to take his friend to task for dropping obscenities like cluster bombs, and if the behavior persisted he’d have to place an official demerit in Laskir’s file.  “One more for the road,” he muttered under his breath, for indeed the engineer had managed to compile quite the collection of bureaucratic wrist-slaps during his term in the fleet.  It was a wonder that Pergemon chose him and not some other promising engine room junkie to serve on board the Valiant --

“Bridge to Engineering,” S’Tasik said, on a hunch.  “How are things looking?”

“I was about to call up and tell you that we’re ready to bring the warp core online.  All we need are your authorization codes.”  The chief engineer’s voice betrayed only excitement.  So caught up was he in the moment that he couldn’t nurse grudges for very long.

“Really, Mister Laskir.  You do realize that you’ve been in there for something like twenty minutes or so tops.”  S’Tasik beamed, earning him another disapproving look from T’Vel.  That’s why the captain picked him.

For somebody so unsure of himself, Laskir didn’t even manage to sound chagrined.  “I’ve got good people down here,” he said.  “f*ck, they know the procedures even better than I do, which isn’t saying a lot, but…”

“Language, Lieutenant.”  But S’Tasik couldn’t put heart in the rebuke.  “And you’re sure that we can turn on the core without problems?  I don’t want to blow the ship and Inflexible with her.”

Ensign Parl shuddered visibly at the Vulcan’s words and bent back over his console to find salvation in headings and bearings.  Lindenfeld shot the navigator a revolted look, mouthing something that looked suspiciously like “Pathetic.”  T’Vel merely flexed her hands experimentally, the humming of her prosthetic left arm nearly inaudible.

For Laskir’s part, his back was turned to the recorder but he looked as confident as he would ever be.  “You never know until you try, right?  Besides, we might get the station record if you hurry.”

“Very well.”  S’Tasik cleared his throat.  “Lieutenant -- ”

The Vulcan woman rose from her station in one sinuous motion. “Computer, this is Lieutenant T’Vel, helm and acting second officer of the USS Valiant.  Activate warp core, authorization code delta-three-three-five-four.” 

The shipboard computer confirmed her voiceprint with two melodic beeps.

“This is Lieutenant S’Tasik, acting first officer.  Activate warp core, authorization code beta-two-two-four-three.” 

The computer beeped twice more.  “Code confirmed.  Command authorization required for warp core activation.” 

And before anybody on the bridge had a chance to react, there came a deep bass voice from the direction of the turbolift doors as the final player arrived on the stage:  “This is Captain Alexander Richard Pergemon, commanding officer.  Activate warp core, authorization code alpha-one-one-three-two.”

As if on cue, the bridge crew snapped to attention, and even the computer managed to sound reverential:  “Verification procedures complete.  Standard warp core activation sequence initialized.  Stand by for transfer of shipboard functions from auxiliary to main power.”

The bridge fell suddenly silent as a deep, throbbing hum began in the bowels of the ship, sending shivers through her hull and deck plating alike.  S’Tasik watched his viewscreen dissolve into a mess of photons while Laskir and his crew recoiled as one.  “Here we go,” a gold-collared technician muttered aloud, his middle and index fingers crossed in that age-old invocation of Lady Luck.  With the possible exception of T’Vel, the first officer was sure that the man spoke for everybody on the bridge.

Pergemon’s appearance was not calculated to reassure.  Unlike the rest of his officers, he wore his uniform with the ease of somebody used to the trappings of authority, and despite the abnormally early hour he showed no sign of tiredness or fatigue.  His regal white hair set off his features with majestic assurance, and craggy hands were clasped behind his back as he bent over the science station to watch his ship awake from her slumber.  From personal experience, S’Tasik knew that very little escaped those keenly critical eyes, and all of a sudden the Vulcan felt like a fresh-faced cadet facing his very first examination.  Seconds stretched into months and years and then, finally --

“Transfer complete.  All systems functioning within normal parameters.”

With deliberate purpose, Captain Pergemon pushed a button by his station to toggle on intraship communications.  “Chief Engineer Laskir,” he began, stiff formality lending a touch of grimness to his wrinkled face.  His words echoed through the corridors of the ship like those of soothsayers of old.  “If you would, tell the crew the status of their ship.”

Laskir’s voice sounded even more boyish when amplified by the Valiant’s onboard speakers.  “Sir, all my chiefs say their systems are green-lighted.  We’ve got a couple of hiccups here and there but Starfleet standards say we’re ready to go.  Intermix ratio looks normal, dilithium matrices are stable, and our warp core is operating at ninety-three point seven percent power and climbing.”

“Interesting.”  The captain turned towards the bridge crew with studied indifference and leaned back against the bulkhead to regard each of them in turn.  Only T’Vel held his gaze, her Vulcan equanimity rendering her immune to the spirit of the moment.  “And do you have the time, Mister Laskir?”

S’Tasik could hear Ryan begin to wilt.  “No sir -- we didn’t turn on the chronometers when we began.  We just had too much stuff to do -- because some of the Avenger-class’ functions were a bit more -- dated -- than we, uh, expected -- ”

Pergemon’s gruff retort stopped Laskir in his tracks.  “Well, this old man still knows how to use a clock, as dated as they may be.”

There was a long, painful pause as the engineer digested the captain’s meaning.  Finally, when the silence had long since passed the awkwardness threshold, Laskir spoke up again.  “I -- I, uh, see, sir.  We’ll work double-time to better familiarize ourselves with our ship -- but I take full responsibility for our performance.” 

“Full responsibility, Lieutenant?”  Pergemon’s eyes twinkled as he levered himself upright.  “That’s gracious of you indeed.  But are you really willing to take that much credit for -- and there’s really no delicate way to say this -- full functionality in thirty-eight minutes?”

Hope -- thrilling hope -- “What was that time, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?”

For the first time, the captain’s craggy face broke into a smile.  “If I’m not mistaken, Admiral Selye will have to replace a plaque on his wall when I turn in my report.  Congratulations, Lieutenant.  And to the crew as well.”

The first officer was nearly bowled over by the cheers that exploded from all corners of the bridge, cheers so infectious that even the captain joined in, clapping graciously so as not to disturb his aristocratic mien.  “You have the conn, Mister S’Tasik.  Bring us to standby so we don’t have to go through this nonsense again.  We’ll do the formal ceremonies in Shuttlebay 1 at oh-eight-hundred sharp.”

“Of course, sir.”  Grinning from ear to pointed ear, S’Tasik turned back to his crew, most of whom were still too flush with triumph to care that their Vulcan first officer had just given the finger to centuries of his people’s teachings.  “Right -- secure from flight readiness and head to the shuttlebays for transport back to Inflexible when you’re finished.  We’ve got to look presentable for the ceremony, after all…”  His gaze lingered on Ensign Parl’s rumpled uniform for emphasis.

And in the midst of the bustle, Pergemon quietly slipped away, satisfaction writ plain on his face.

[S'Tasik]

USS Hyperion, NCC-1791
En Route to System Intaria
1734 Hours, December 30th, 2290

Despite the fact that over seventy other officers were serving aboard Hyperion, Susanna Krupskaya was eating alone, sitting at a corner table with the back turned to the door.  She had finished her shift earlier than anticipated:  as communications officer, her duties primarily consisted of hailing ships and relaying orders from Starfleet Command, but other ships and new orders were both in short supply. 

“Go take a look around,” Commander Raske had directed, when it became clear that she had finished all her assignments and was doing nothing except sitting in her chair.  “This is your first tour on board a starship, and things work differently here.”  And then, the first officer had actually winked.  “According to Commander Tretiak, the Russian food is particularly good.”

Dipping her spoon into a bowl of something that was supposed to be cabbage soup, however, the communications officer found it hard to agree.  Though nearly everything on board the heavy cruiser was new, food synthesizer technology hadn’t progressed much in the past thirty years.  Susanna made a mental note not to tell her mother when she next got the opportunity to write home:  if the old matron found out she wasn’t eating right, she’d probably send a furious letter to her commanding officer demanding better treatment for her precious little girl, with disastrous consequences for all parties involved.  Mutely, she brought the spoon to her lips and swallowed.  Maybe if she closed her eyes, she could almost stomach the taste --

“Not good?”

Krupskaya almost choked on her soup, her eyes widening in surprise.  “Sorry, sir,” she stammered, shaking a lock of mousy brown hair out of her eyes.  “I didn’t expect anybody else to be here, off duty.”

“You can drop the ‘sir,’ Lieutenant.  I’m only an ensign.”  The man -- And what a man, came a thought unbidden -- shrugged and smiled disarmingly, his white teeth a sharp contrast with his ebony skin.  “The name’s Donovan Christopher.  Donnie for short.”  He waited expectantly for a reply but none was forthcoming.  “We work together.  You know?  On the bridge?”

“Oh.”  She shook a lock of mousy brown hair out of her eyes, acutely aware of the fact that she hadn’t bothered to clean herself up before reporting for duty.  I must look atrocious.  “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.  I was -- ”

Donovan’s smile widened, if that was at all possible.  “Don’t worry about it, okay?  I’m new to the ship too.  I heard Commander Raske dismiss you,” he explained, obviously sensing her confusion.

“Oh,” Krupskaya said, for the second time in a row.  Damn you, her brain raged -- You’re a communications officer, not some tongue-tied cadet!  Invite him to sit down.  “Would you like to -- ”  But before she could finish, the gregarious ensign had already pulled out a chair and dropped his tray in front of hers.  Her nose wrinkled at the smell that suddenly assaulted her nostrils:  sausage, chicken, seafood, and a mixture of spices even her mother probably couldn’t identify.

“I know.”  Donnie looked stricken.  “Makes you miss home cooking, doesn’t it?  Elmer was a hardass sometimes, but damn!  The man knew how to cook.”  He stabbed a small bit of fish with his fork and sniffed it experimentally before swallowing it in a single gulp.  The man grinned.  “Better than I expected.  Want a bite?”

“No!  I mean, no thanks.  I’m happy with what I ordered.”  Even with both of them sitting down, Krupskaya couldn’t help but be intimidated.  Ensign Christopher was tall and strapping for a man of his size, and his casual demeanor made the lieutenant feel even more self-conscious than usual.  Surreptitiously, she brushed her hair backwards, hoping he wouldn’t notice how scraggly it was.  Cut it shorter, Mama had said, before sitting her down and taking a pair of shears to her head.  I'll not have you looking like some tawdry girl for sale!  Not my precious daughter!

Donnie grunted and scarfed down another scoop of rice.  “Suit yourself.  What’s that you’re having?”

“It’s a traditional soup made from cabbages.”  Krupskaya found herself wishing she had ordered something a little more normal, like a hamburger or a steak.  “You -- you wouldn’t like it.”

“Smells tasty enough from this end.  I think I can manage.”

“Then try it with rye bread.  Dip it in, but don’t get it too soggy.”  Her forwardness surprised even herself.  Shivering slightly, she broke off a piece and handed it over, doing her best to avoid touching his hand -- another of her childhood habits she couldn’t bring herself to overcome.

The ensign dipped, and chewed, and paused, and chewed some more.  Then, very deliberately, he rummaged in his pockets for a handkerchief with which to wipe his mouth.  The number “3” was embroidered in blue thread at each corner, all curlicues and filigree.  “Could use a little more salt,” he said at last -- and then he burst out laughing as he saw the expression on Krupskaya’s face.  “Come on, I was just playing.  It’s good, really.  It is!  What did you say it was called, again?”

“I just call it cabbage soup, but my mother insists that it’s really shchi.”  Stonefaced, the communications officer watched Donnie tried to wrap his tongue around the unfamiliar word.  “I take it you’re not a linguist.”

“Not much of one, sadly.  Elmer tried to teach me some Creole when I was little.  Didn’t go so well.  He said it was like trying to teach a duck to walk up to the oven and cook itself.”  Donnie chuckled at the image, and this time, Krupskaya felt comfortable enough to join in.  “So what brings a lady like you to a ship like this?  ‘Cause it most definitely can’t be this stuff.”

“Well -- ”  She hesitated, before realizing that her mother was a couple hundred light-years away.  Time to live a little, eh?  “My dad’s a Starfleet officer,” Krupskaya confessed, pushing her tray away and leaning her elbows against the table.  “I never stayed in one place for more than three years at a time.  I guess you could call me a -- a ‘fleet brat,’ as they say.”

Donnie nodded in understanding.  “So all this must be old hat to you, you being a lieutenant and all.”

“Not really.  I’m just junior grade.”  Krupskaya looked down at the table, her face reddening.  “I was promoted before I was assigned to Hyperion.  All the other ensigns I knew stopped talking to me afterwards.”  All one other ensign, she didn’t say.  Most of the rest didn’t know I existed.

“Well, you know what they say, Lieutenant Junior Grade:  once you get that broken bar, you’re a Junior God.”  Christopher grinned at her discomfort.  “No worries.  You’re all right with me, for what it’s worth.”

Susanna, supremely gratified, looked up -- and accidentally met his eyes.  Blushing furiously, she forced herself to look away.  “What about you?” she asked impulsively.  “No offense, but you seem a little … mature … for an ensign.”

“You’re looking at a genuine graduate from Officer Candidate School, right here.  Twenty-seven years old and living the Federation Dream.”  Donnie puffed out his chest with pride.  “Back in the day, I was a specialist, second class on the Gagarin.  Apparently even a science ship needed somebody in charge their torpedo pod.  A fat lot of use I was.  Then they found out I was pretty good at making things explode and kicked me up the food chain.”

“You must have passed the Bridge Officer’s Test as well, to get a posting like this one.”

“There’s that, too.”  Christopher tried and failed to feign humility.  “At any rate, I got my commission three weeks ago, and they came with orders to report here.  What a billet, wouldn’t you say?”

“Mmm.”  The communications officer looked pensive.  “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t know.  As you probably heard from Commander Raske, I haven’t had much experience with starships outside of my cadet cruise.”

“You’re a baser?  Seriously?”

“Assistant operations officer on Seventeen,” she said, nodding.  “That’s the one in Sorok Te, by the Romulan NZ.  It’s not as impressive a title as you’d think,” she added hastily.  “I mostly handled maintenance requests and scheduled the occasional drill.”

“Not bad!”  Christopher, his dinner forgotten, looked genuinely interested.  “So how do you like it here?”

“The people are friendly enough, I guess, but I don’t know anybody on board.  You’re the first person who’s bothered to talk to me,” she continued, before she could think better of it -- and then, realizing what she’d said, she bit down on her tongue, hard.

Fortunately, Donnie was circumspect enough to know not to ask questions.  “Don’t worry about it,” he said instead.  “Tell you the truth, rumor says that Captain Forester doesn’t try very hard to roll out the red carpet, if you know what I mean.”

She didn’t, but she nodded anyway, hoping against hope that this man would still consider her interesting.

“See, most of the main-shift bridge crew transferred from Cyane, a couple of them from before.  They’re the old boys’ club of Starfleet, if there is one outside the Admiralty.  Or so says rumor.”  He chortled.  “Have you talked to the helm officer at all?  Starakis, I think she’s called -- Starakis, Anastasia.”

“Greek,” Krupskaya said automatically, her training kicking in.  “She’s a little shorter than I am.  Curly black hair?”

“Exotic Mediterranean features?  Figure to die for?  That’s the one.”  The ensign sighed, looking wistfully into the distance.  “You’d notice her a klick away.”

Krupskaya flinched.  In her adolescence, she had discovered she possessed a preternatural ability to blend into the background even when she was the only other person in a room.

Donnie snapped back to attention and had the good grace to look apologetic.  “My bad -- my year at OCS, the entire graduating class had just one girl.  Old habits die hard.”

You can say that again, the communications officer silently agreed, trying to make herself look as inoffensive as possible.

“Anyway, so I’m on the bridge, right?”  Christopher turned sideways so as to better illustrate his story.  “Sitting at my console just doing my job.  Starakis notices me at the navigation station.  ‘You’re the new navigator?  Nice to meet you.’  Then she starts asking me about my service record.  So I say what I said to you, and then she tells me she got accepted into the Academy at sixteen but deferred her admission to pursue a career in racing.  Won some junior titles, joined up two years later, and went straight to j.g. upon graduation.  I mean, I thought I was accomplished.”

“That’s incredible,” Krupskaya said, as the seeds of jealousy began to take root in her mind.  She had almost failed her final examination and barely eked out honors in her department.  Only her aptitude for running an orderly star station had kept her moving up through the ranks -- that and a recommendation from her commanding officer, on whom her father had leaned quite heavily.

“Turns out she drove the Cyane under Captain Forester.  ‘I can introduce you to him,’ she says.  ‘You seem like you know your stuff, and I think you’d get along famously.  He’d be glad to meet you.’  Like she’s some social coordinator or something.”

“So what did you say?” she asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

Donnie smiled slyly before pointing his thumb and index finger at his temple, jerking back at the impact of an imaginary phaser blast.  “Told her I had a holoconference with the President at seventeen thirty and to schedule it later, please thank you.”  He bent closer to Krupskaya, lowering his voice to a whisper.  “I, uh, don’t think she likes me very much.”

The two of them burst out laughing once more, his rich voice easily drowning out her shy giggles.

“At any rate, I’ve got to split.”  Groaning, Christopher pushed himself back from the table and stood, making sure to take his tray with him.  “The chief engineer wants me to double-check the navigational computer, says there might be a problem and to certify that nothing’s broken.  Told him I was off duty and that my replacement would be more than willing to help out.  He looks at me like I’m crazy and threatens to report me to the captain if I refuse a direct order again.”  The ensign sighed.  “Let me know if you’ve got more of that skee stuff, yeah?  It’s good to meet you.”  He extended a hand --

-- and Krupskaya took it.  “You did most of the talking,” she pointed out.  “But my name’s Susanna.”

“Charmed,” said Christopher, before dashing out the door.

And so was she.


Deck 7 Jeffries Tube Complex
1958 Hours

In the year 1980, the legendary goaltender Vladislav Tretiak was pulled in the first quarter of a hockey game against the United States of America.  His replacement -- one Vladimir Myshkin -- proceeded to allow four scores in the course of the match, denying the Soviet stalwart his chance at a third Olympic title.  To most of the sporting world, the game at Lake Placid would become known as the Miracle on Ice, symbolizing the triumph of the free world over the monolithic forces of totalitarianism.  As far as the Tretiak clan was concerned, however, a greater shame had never before been visited upon their name and honor.  From that moment on, the sad story would be told and embellished by generations of parents, and Boris Arkadevich Tretiak had long lost count of the number of times he’d heard it.

“Never trust the man in charge, my Borya,” he muttered to himself, skittering down a Jeffries tube without even touching the rungs.  His Russian accent was thicker than usual and accented by sharp, heavy breaths.  “You work and work and then they stick you in the back, like poor Vladislav Aleksandrovich.”  The engineer laughed bitterly as he pushed himself out of one tube and into another, making his way through the insides of Hyperion like an ant in Daedalus’ conch.  “Oh, I should have listened, Papa.  Why didn’t I listen? -- Gangway!  Are you two blind?”

Tretiak’s ominous whispers exploded into a furious scream that sent a pair of technicians diving for cover.  Though neither one had met their boss in person, it didn’t take much to connect the rumors with the man:  from his scraggly black hair to his squinting grey eyes, the Hyperion’s chief engineer was the very picture of a maestro of old, too swept up in his own music to hear the rest of the world pass by.  “Sorry, sir,” they said in turn, just in case he remembered their faces -- but judging from the way Tretiak plowed past them without so much as a glance in their direction, the man’s disfavor would not fall on their heads tonight.  Boris, after all, had much bigger fish to fry.

Hyperion had left Inflexible more than eleven hours ago, supplied with a shuttlebay’s worth of spare parts and enough photon torpedoes to destroy the ship five times over.  It had taken a heated argument and the personal intervention of Admiral Selye to convince the station quartermaster to bump her up to the top of the duty list.  To the crew, a lot of the hurry seemed unnecessary:  they were going to Archanis with a load of brand-new food synthesizers, or so the mission briefing had said.  If there was ever an easier mission, one senior chief proclaimed, he had never seen it.

Only the captain, his first officer and Boris knew better.

“I’m taking you both into my confidence,” Forester had told them after Hyperion went to warp, making sure the doors were good and locked.  Apparently, Doctor Denning had broken into his office just two days ago, which explained the priority red repair order still sitting in Tretiak’s complaint box.  “No one outside this room can know what I’m about to say.”

“Not even Caitlin?” Holger Raske had asked.  In Boris’ estimation, the burly German was ninety percent brawn and two percent brains, with the other eight percent having been discarded by God in disgust at the creation of such a buffoon.  Then again, the engineer felt that way about most other people.

“Especially not Caitlin.  If this thing blows up in my face, I want responsibility limited to as few people as possible.  We’re on a strictly need-to-know basis here, am I clear?”

At that moment, visions of Olympic silver and glory snatched away began dancing in Tretiak’s head.  Why must I need to know?

Whatever Raske had said, it must have satisfied the captain, because his next words were the real shocker:  “In short, we’re not going to Archanis.  We’re going to … get lost, shall we say … and end up at Intaria, where the Kidd disappeared.  Admiral Selye thinks the Klingons might be making some kind of play, and it’s our job to find out what.  Holger, I need you with me in case things turn ugly.  Expect the worst.  And you, Boris -- I need you to convince our navigational computer that Intaria is Archanis and Archanis is Intaria without anybody knowing.”

“Kieran, you do realize that tampering with the navcomp isn’t your run-of-the-mill violation of Starfleet protocol.”  Raske had even managed to look concerned, Tretiak remembered.  “Selye’s not going to risk his career for a lieutenant commander:  he’ll drag Boris in front of a tribunal and hang him out to dry.”

“This entire mission isn’t your run-of-the-mill violation of Starfleet protocol,” the captain had pointed out.  “Can you do it, Mister Tretiak?”  And when he put it like that, the engineer had no choice but to say yes.

Boris’ great-grandfather had a word for where traitors to the state ended up, one that fell into disuse after the Third World War but still remained fresh in the mind of his family:  gulag, where the man in charge would send notorious criminals to rot and die.  And now, standing in front of Auxiliary Control with a PADD full of corrupted starcharts in hand, the Tretiak was putting all his faith in one man:  a professional and veteran like he was, but a man nonetheless. 

Ensign Christopher -- brainless, disrespectful bastard -- had already certified the navigational computer free of defects, totally unaware of the deeper significance of his actions.  The rest was up to him.  “I should have listened, Papa,” he muttered one last time.  Then, clearing his throat, he turned the corner and strode up to the man guarding the nerve center of the ship.

“I’m Chief Engineer Tretiak.  There’s an energy drain coming from the power couplings inside,” said the Russian, without so much a friendly hello.  “I need to fix it.”

“Sir,” the pale-faced officer began, clearly out of his element, “this area is off-limits to unauthorized personnel, and I -- ”

“Unauthorized personnel?” the engineer growled.  He didn’t have to pretend he was offended.  “If you don’t let me in, we will be dead in space after fifty-seven point two minutes at present speed.  Then the captain will ask me why we are dead in space.  ‘Why, Boris, can we not move?’ he will say.  And then I will explain to the captain that I was going to go fix the problem, but apparently I was unauthorized.”

“I -- I will have to go through the proper channels, sir, before I can clear you to enter.”

Tretiak grunted.  “Give a man a phaser and he thinks he is the king of the world.  Okay, you go through your ‘channels.’  I will be in there.”  Without waiting for an answer, he barreled into the main control room over the guard’s feeble protestations --

To hell with the Myshkins in the wings.

[S'Tasik]

USS Valiant, NCC-1875
Khymar Asteroid Field
0835 Hours, December 31st, 2290

When the hull of the first Avenger-class frigate arrived at Utopia Planitia, or so the story goes, a shocked Starfleet contractor exclaimed that she looked like the “lunch bucket of the fleet.”  Indeed, no ship before her had sported what the schematics charitably labeled a “rollbar,” the centerpiece of the team’s revolutionary modular design and one of the more significant advances in starship design in the past two centuries.  But technicians would be technicians no matter the importance of their work, and it took little time before they noticed that the ungainly contraption bore more than passing resemblance to a handle.  The nickname stuck, and so it was that NCC-1860 and her sisters would forever be known as Flying Pails in the stories of crew chiefs present and past.

In S’Tasik’s mind, however, “Flying Pail” was far too toothless a name for the weapon of war on whose decks he was privileged to serve.  He’d said as much to Laskir when they were first given their assignment, and the conversation (as most conversations between them usually did) had degenerated into an argument.  Upon reflection, the Vulcan realized that impugning the judgment of all engineers had not been a particularly effective way to get Laskir to come around; nevertheless, the sight of a blustering, blushing Ryan had been more than worth a few nights alone in the officer’s mess.  And now, sitting in the Valiant’s command chair with her engines thrumming beneath him, S’Tasik knew he was in the right.

To him, even the stylized computer model being projected onto the viewscreen looked sleek and dangerous, its sinuous lines glowing green in a field of black.  Facing it was an expanse of metal and rock:  the remains of some shattered planet, no doubt, transformed by the computer into yellow spots scattered like paint flicked from a brush.  This was the Khymar Field, a collection of silicaceous asteroids that the brightest of Federation scientists had charted and studied before concluding that it was totally useless.  Today, Khymar would play host to visitors of a more martial disposition.  Today, S’Tasik thought grimly, we finally get to bite.

“Lieutenant, long-range sensors show Durandal dropping out of warp near Khymar Prime.  And she’s not alone.”  Devondre Williams, one of the ship’s senior officers, had taken the science station for the exercise, and along with Captain Pergemon would serve a supervisory role for the duration of the fight.  The lieutenant commander took up more space at his seat than three S’Tasiks put together, and his copious accretions of flesh shifted like tectonic plates every time he moved.  His skin was a rich shade of cocoa and thick dreadlocks partially obscured a pudgy face that seemed perpetually on the verge of laughter.  S’Tasik found it difficult to believe that this was the same man as the spry young cadet whose picture still headed his file. 

Peacetime, the Vulcan reflected, stifling a wry grin for propriety’s sake.  But aloud:  “Not alone, Commander?”

Williams leaned against the back of his chair, which creaked under the strain.   “It looks like we’ve stumbled across the hornet’s nest.  Take a look at this.”  He spun the model on the viewscreen to present the bridge crew with a zoomed-out view of the sector.  Durandal -- a Federation light cruiser designated as adversary for the engagement -- was represented by a red-gold Klingon crest, and in her wake trailed fifteen more.

“That’s a Klingon battle wing,” moaned Ensign Parl.

S’Tasik, however, shook his head.  “It can’t be.  They wouldn’t show us their full strength, not now -- at most, we’d pick up a Bird of Prey or two, and see the fleet when we close to engage.”

“Unless, of course, this is a show of force,” said Captain Pergemon from behind the railing, looking for all the world like a good professor pointing something out to a student.

“It might be,” the Vulcan conceded.  “There’s no sure way to tell, but...”  Gears turned furiously in his head.  “Commander, show us the strength of those warp signatures.  See if they match anything in our database.”

“These are slippery ones, Lieutenant, and we can’t get a good fix on most of them.”  Williams’ musical voice betrayed just the slightest hint of a Caribbean accent.  “But the electro-plasma trails our scanners can pick up don’t look like Klingon Navy.  Scatter pattern’s too diffuse to be military-grade.”

“They could be transports of some sort, sir,” Lindenfeld suggested.  Having been given very little to do at the communications station, she had evidently decided that the best way to impress her superiors was to offer helpful advice at every turn.  The Vulcan had to admit that she looked quite ravishing, even after he had forced her to remove her makeup before going on duty. 

“Perhaps.”  The first officer furrowed his brow.  “We do know which one’s the Durandal, though, and … Commander Williams, can you give me a top-down view of their fleet?”

“Yes, but I don’t see how that’ll tell us anything we don’t already … know … ohhhhhh.”  Williams’ groan of understanding nearly burst the seams of his uniform.  The viewscreen zoomed up and out to show the Klingon vessels arrayed in a distinctive diamond four ships wide, with the Durandal bringing up the rear.  “Very clever, Lieutenant.  Not a hornet’s nest, after all:  this is a shepherd and his flock.”

“Precisely.  One of a few standard convoy formations the Klingons use.  Given what we’ve seen, I would say a reevaluation of our mission objectives is in order.  Captain?”  S’Tasik allowed himself a satisfied smile as he turned towards his commanding officer, waiting for the word.

“Well,” said Pergemon at length, “I can’t find anything to argue with there.  You are authorized to switch primary objective from the Durandal to the convoy.”  The captain’s mouth twitched as if he was preparing to say something more but thought better of it.  There was no mistaking, however, the telltale twinkle in his eye, one S’Tasik couldn’t quite read.

“So noted in the ship’s log,” said the first officer.  “Commander Williams, what is their ETA to our side of the Khymar field?”

“At present speed, thirty-eight minutes.”

S’Tasik bent forward in his chair, the beginnings of a plan taking shape in his head.  “And Durandal’s armaments?”

This time, it was T’Vel who answered, regurgitating the information with more certainty than had the briefing officer last night.  “As our intelligence states quite clearly, sir, she is kitted with eight disruptor mounts and at least two torpedo launchers.  She is also required to follow the standard adversary profile -- ”

“ -- which would have her range in front of the convoy when she gets to an uncharted asteroid field to determine whether or not the freighters are maneuverable enough to pass.”  S’Tasik finished her sentence for her, so inspired that he didn’t mind the subtle jab at his memory.  “But we’ve charted the field, haven’t we?  Mister Parl?”

“Pulling the data up now, sir.”  The navigator winced in anticipation of the request that was sure to come.  “Sir, I don’t mean any disrespect, but you can’t be suggesting that -- ”

“On the contrary, Ensign, that is exactly what I’m suggesting.”  The Vulcan activated manual control of the computer model with his left hand while he leaned forward into his right.  “Durandal will have to detach from the main convoy soon, and she’ll likely begin her survey here.”  A red box appeared directly in front of the incoming Klingons, blocking out the sparsest section of the field.  “We’ll loop around at flank speed through the field here -- ”  Tapping his fingers against the side of the command chair, S’Tasik traced a white box opposite the red one.  “That’ll put us right behind the convoy.  We’ll catch the sheep while their master is lost and away -- to use your analogy, Commander Williams.  A wolf in the fold.”

“If I may, Lieutenant, this is a most reckless course of action,” said T’Vel immediately, saving Parl from the indignity of objecting twice in a row.  “We will likely sustain damage from dust clouds and smaller asteroids in transit, and helming a ship as large as this one through a field so densely packed is tantamount to suicide.  This vessel is not yours to treat as you please.”

Williams let out a low whistle that threatened to send him tumbling from his seat.  Pergemon merely raised his eyebrows, looking from the helm station to the command chair and back again.

S’Tasik, for his part, met her gaze evenly.  “So what you’re saying, Lieutenant, is that you don’t have the skills necessary for a maneuver of such complexity.  Do I understand you correctly?”

The Vulcan helmsman’s grip on her controls tightened considerably, and the micromotors powering her prosthetic hand sped up to compensate.  Her voice, however, remained level, pitched as if she were speaking to a particularly dull child.  “No, sir.  I am simply pointing out that pursuing this particular tactic will likely lead to our defeat.  We should wait for them to traverse the asteroid field, at which point we would be able to ambush them as they emerge.”

“You forget, Lieutenant, that Durandal would then be able to bring her weapons to bear.  We’re not on a heavy cruiser, and we don’t have the guns to take on her and her convoy simultaneously.”

“Nevertheless, the risk of impacting an asteroid at high speeds is too grave to consider.  It would be irresponsible to -- ”

“I decide what is responsible,” S’Tasik snapped, his expression hardening.  “We can funnel more power to our navigational deflector to deal with the dust clouds, and Mister Laskir has assured me he’s capable of dumping that power back into our phaser capacitors at a moment’s notice.  Now, unless you’re incapable of safely maneuvering through a charted asteroid field, our course is decided.  That is, of course, if somebody else doesn’t have a better idea.”

T’Vel looked to Pergemon for confirmation, but the captain had suddenly discovered a pressing need to rearrange the buckles on his uniform.  With the briefest of nods, she turned back to her console, acknowledging her defeat.

And that, thought S’Tasik with a relieved smile he couldn’t let show, is our minor mutiny of the day.  “Ensign Parl, begin calculations to run our route for maximum impulse.  I have full confidence that you’ll make no mistakes, hear?”

“Yes sir,” Parl said, though beads of sweat had begun to appear on his egg-shaped head.  Clearly, he didn’t share the Vulcan’s confidence in his own abilities.  “I hear you, sir.”  The man took a deep breath that he didn’t let out.

The first officer, in the meantime, had already moved on.  “Engine room, this is the bridge.  Status?”

“One hundred percent across the board,” said Laskir’s voice, as if S’Tasik should have known better than to ask.  “We’re all clear down here.  Lieutenant.”  The title was appended as an afterthought.

“Good.  I’m going to need everything you can spare channeled to deflector control.”

“We going on a ride?”

S’Tasik grinned.  “You don’t know the half of it.  There’ll be asteroids -- ”

“Sir, Durandal has just broken off from the main formation,” Williams interrupted, shifting his weight to peer through the scope.  “She’s accelerating -- right into the field where you predicted.  No sign she’s detected us yet, else she would have stayed with the convoy.”

“Understood.  Mister Laskir, we’ll have to continue this later.  Be ready to divert that power back to phasers on my mark.”  All business now, S’Tasik clicked off the intercom and turned back to the screen, where the fifteen Klingon freighters were still displayed.  Two quick keystrokes and the program disappeared from the viewscreen, replaced by real stars and the blackness of space.  “Are we ready, Ensign Parl?”

The navigator nodded, wiping his perspiring head with his sleeve.  “As near as I can make it, sir, this is the fastest course possible.  I’ve synchronized Lieutenant T’Vel’s clock with mine so we’ll be able to make spot adjustments if and when the asteroids shift.  And … yeah.  That about covers it, sir.”

“I see, Ensign, but you haven’t answered my question.  Are we ready?”  S’Tasik’s brown eyes bored holes in the bald man’s skull.

Parl gulped, reaching for the sides of his seat to steady himself.  Lindenfeld scoffed just loud enough for Parl to hear, while Williams muttered something under his breath and planted himself securely in his chair.  But steeling himself for the inevitable, the ensign sighed deeply and nodded once more.  “Yes, sir.”

I can see it now, S’Tasik thought darkly.  Flying Pail picks up a bucket full of rocks, all hands lost.  What a way to go down in the books.  With a deep breath of his own, however, he leaned back against his seat’s ergonomic back, the weight of responsibility heavy on his shoulders.  “Helm, full impulse.”

“Full impulse, aye.”  T’Vel’s mechanical hand shifted as she brought the ship to life.  The crew jerked before the inertial dampers kicked in, compensating for the sudden increase in thrust.  “ETA to the gap, fifteen point seven seconds.”

With a short prayer to whatever deities happened to be listening, S’Tasik forced himself to smile. “Mister Parl, the ship is yours.”

“Understood,” said the navigator, though he didn’t stop shaking.  “Lieutenant T’Vel, continue present course for two seconds after we enter, then come left ninety degrees to two-seventy.  Next turn, T plus five point nine, right twenty-four degrees.  Then a clump of asteroids where the turns come way too fast for me to read it aloud -- I’ve transmitted your course to your screen, but you’re going to have to play it by ear -- ”  He let out a nervous titter.

“We are through the gap,” T’Vel reported, paying no heed to Parl’s ranting.  “First turn, now.”

Like a falcon from the mews, Valiant dove into the Khymar Field, her talons at last unsheathed.

[KOTH-KieranXC, Ret.]

Hey everybody,

I'll be out of town for the next two weeks with my reserve unit, so any updates from me will be on hold until then. S will be posting updates to both storylines during that time(thanks, man).

Don't know if I'll have recreational computer access, but I did pack good old fashioned pen and paper, so I hope to write or at least outline a chapter or two myself while I'm away.

Until then!

-K

[S'Tasik]

--------------------------------
USS Hyperion, NCC-1791
System Intaria, Neutral Zone
0841 Hours, December 31st, 2290

“We’ve arrived in the Archanis Sector,” reported the helmsman.  “The computer has dropped us out of warp one hundred klicks from the colony on Archanis IV.  I await your instructions, sir.”  Anastasia Starakis did her best to stifle a yawn, and she threw a dirty look at Captain Forester when she was sure he wasn’t looking.

The captain, apparently overcome by a fit of generosity in the middle of the night, had decided to give the night shift permission to stand down two hours earlier than usual.  That meant an earlier-than-usual wakeup call for Starakis and her compatriots now manning the ship, and some of them were adjusting to the change better than others.  Holger Raske still looked like he could compete in a pentathlon at a moment’s notice, and Soravek was as unruffled as usual.  The rest of Hyperion’s main shift, however, were decidedly the worse for wear, and even Forester looked a little haggard under the bright lights of the bridge.

“What was that?” he said, jerking up as if some invisible puppeteer had pulled on his strings.

“I said, we’re here.”  Starakis shook her head in disapproval, her curly hair flying dangerously close to Ensign Christopher’s face.

“Long night?” Raske murmured, out of the corner of his mouth.

Forester nodded.  “Very well.  Mister Krupskaya, open hailing frequencies to Governor Mallard.  Inform him we’ve arrived with the equipment he needs and request permission to beam it directly to his storage facilities.  Tell him my technicians are at his disposal in case he’s shorthanded.”

“Transmitting now, sir,” said the communications officer, punching the message through -- and she then muttered something under her breath.  “I’m sorry, sir.  Usually, I don’t input the frequency incorrectly.”

“Take your time, Lieutenant.”  The captain closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, breathing an imperceptible sigh of relief.  Bless you, Boris.  “These colonial comm systems break every other week.”

Krupskaya blinked.  “It’s not working,” she said, acutely embarrassed by the fact that she couldn’t perform this most simple of tasks.  “I can’t seem to get through, no matter what I try, sir.”

“What seems to be the problem?” asked Raske.  At a nod from Kieran, the first officer strode over to her station, all smiles and avuncular concern.

“This, sir.”  Krupskaya pointed to a list of channels scrolling down her screen.  “I pulled up the list of frequencies for all colonies and starbases in the area, and none of them are responding.  There isn’t any static and we’re not being jammed.  It’s like there’s nothing there.”

Raske patted her on the shoulder, his massive hand nearly causing her to buckle under the strain.  “Don’t worry about it, Lieutenant.  We’ll get this sorted out.  Soravek, what’s going on?”

The science officer had already begun his scan, and now he turned to the captain without any noticeable reaction on his Vulcan expression.  “Lieutenant Krupskaya is correct.  There is, in fact, ‘nothing there.’  Our sensors detect only the star.”

“That can’t be right.  Planets don’t just -- disappear,” said Holger, and Kieran felt a surge of pride as his friend played his part to the letter.  “You must be doing something wrong.  Try the scan again.”

Soravek raised an eyebrow.  “I have verified my results three times, Commander.  I can assure you, the problem does not lie -- how does the saying go? -- between the chair and the console, as you would say.  That was a joke,” he added blandly, noticing Raske’s disgusted expression.  “It was successful the last time I employed it.  Human personality does not vary so much that my attempt at humor should fail to elicit the same -- ”

“That’s enough.”  Forester rolled his eyes.  Thousands of Vulcans in Starfleet, and I serve with the only one doesn’t know when to shut up.  “Mister Christopher, could the problem be with our navigational systems?”

“Green-lighted them myself, sir, last night.”  The navigator, rather diplomatically, chose to ignore Starakis’ audible snort of disbelief.   “Everything looked fine.  I even double-checked our starcharts with the Third Fleet’s database.”

“Captain,” Soravek interrupted.  “If I may?”

“Indulge yourself,” said Forester, his voice laden with sarcasm.

Soravek, predictably, didn’t catch it, and plowed forward with his questioning.  “Ensign Christopher, when you laid in our course, did you do so manually or did you rely on the navigational computer?”

“On the computer, of course.”  The man looked indignant.  “The captain said he wanted the fastest route to Archanis, and only the computer can calculate so many possibilities that quickly.  I would have had to run through thousands of permutations before I -- ”

The Vulcan raised a hand to silence him, turning back to the captain.  “In that case, sir, I might have a solution to this dilemma.  If our navigational starcharts were corrupted while Hyperion was in transit -- ”

“Impossible!” Raske interrupted.  “The moment that happened, the computer would have dropped us out of warp.  Plus, in order to get anywhere close to that system, you’d have to sneak past the armed guards posted all over Deck Seven.  There’s no way this was deliberate, if it even happened in the first place.”

“Theoretically, you are correct.”  Soravek tipped his head in recognition of the man’s logic.  “However, knowledge of the ship’s access tunnels -- or sufficient rank -- would permit a potential saboteur to bypass the guards, and a competent engineer with access to the ship’s schematics could potentially devise a way to overcome the built-in safeguards.  Given the evidence at hand, Commander, there is an infinitesimally small probability that our navigational mishap was accidental.”

“Captain,” the first officer said, his expression incredulous, “this is patently -- ”

“Not now,” ordered Forester.  “Mister Christopher, check our charts again.  See if they match those in the Third Fleet database.”  He already knew the answer, of course, but the forms had to be followed.  Boris will get a commendation for this.  I’ll wring it from Selye’s dead hands if I have to.

“They don’t check out, sir,” said the navigator, in disbelief.  “But that’s not possible -- I turned in my report to the chief engineer at nineteen hundred hours -- ”

“Whatever happened is immaterial.”  Forester forced his face into a mask of harshness.  “We don’t have the luxury to pursue half-baked theories or go on some wild goose chase for shadows and ghosts.  I need to know where we are, and I need to know now.  If this … malfunction … was intentional, then we’re here for a reason, and we need to be prepared.”

“In light of recent events, Captain, I believe there is only one logical answer,” said Soravek.

“Which I’m sure you’re about to provide.”  The captain met the Vulcan’s stare and held it.  “Well?”

“There are,” the science officer began, “only a few individuals on board this ship who possess the expertise needed to bypass the failsafes and perform sabotage of this sort.  Most of those individuals can likely provide plausible alibis, from my cursory scan of the duty logs, but one in particular -- ”

“Watch yourself,” Raske growled.  “Nobody’s going to play detective until we get out of this.”  He gave Forester a meaningful look but the captain wasn’t watching.  Kieran’s attention was wholly focused on the Vulcan at the science station. 

“Your conclusion?” he asked, tapping his fingers against the command chair -- a habit the first officer recognized from their Academy days, fourteen years ago.

“As you wish, Captain.  I have performed a simple analysis of our initial sensor readings.  Archanis’ sun is cool, while this sun is significantly hotter.  Archanis is orbited by four planets, while this sun is orbited by none.  Assuming that some extragalactic force has not overheated the sun and spirited these planets away, there is only one -- ”  Suddenly, Soravek snapped back to his console as something on the scopes caught his eye.  “My explanation, it seems, will have to wait,” he said, as if telling the captain the time.  “There is a slightly more pressing issue to which we must attend.”

“And what, pray tell, is that?”  Holger’s meaty fingers had balled up into fists at his side.

“A Klingon Bird of Prey just decloaked directly astern.”

Whatever calm there had been on the bridge shattered instantly as the crew exploded into action.  “Yellow alert!  Shields up!” ordered Forester, instantly regretting the time he had wasted indulging in a charade that, thanks to his own science officer, now threatened to undo his plans -- a specter of impending disaster loomed over his shoulder, one wearing an all too familiar face -- “Quiet!” he bellowed over the clamor, and immediately the bridge fell silent.  “What is it, Mister Krupskaya?”

“They are hailing us.”  Her voice was barely audible.  “Should we respond?”

Forester’s muscles tightened as he forced down the bile in his throat.  “Open a channel,” he said hoarsely.  “Put him on screen.”  And straightening his back, his expression unreadable, he steeled himself for whatever would come.

His adversary was young, Kieran saw immediately, and the alien’s upswept eyebrows and carefully trimmed goatee gave him a devilish look in the semi-darkness of the bridge.  “I am Commander Mor’Qa,” he snarled, “of the vessel that is called Vortok.  Identify yourself, Starfleet, and explain your presence in this sector, or we will open fire.”

“His weapons are hot,” whispered Raske, his voice pitched too low for the computer to pick up.  “Not an idle threat.”

“This is Captain Kieran Forester of the USS Hyperion.”  Like his expression, the captain’s tone was flat and devoid of feeling.  “We are on a mission of mercy to the Archanis system.  Our navigational computer malfunctioned, and we have -- ”

“Malfunction.”  Mor’Qa barked in guttural laughter, joined by the rest of his crew.  “Yes, Starfleet, you have malfunctioned.  And perhaps, after we destroy your ship, we will say we have malfunctioned as well.”

“Do not interrupt me again, Commander,” said Forester, his blue eyes glittering.  “And do not throw threats around idly.  You are outmatched and outgunned.  If one disruptor so much as scratches my shields, I will have no choice but to retaliate in kind.”  I would like nothing better, he didn’t add.

“So you will destroy us, then.”  The Klingon’s face was the very picture of rage only barely contained.  “Like your Kidd destroyed the K’Tong, here, in this very sector?  Then we will die like they died, in battle, and our blood shall burn in their honor.  We do not fear your threats.”

Soravek opened his mouth as if to say something but shut it at a dangerous look from the captain.  “Whether you believe me or not, our intentions are utterly peaceful, as were those of the Kidd,” said Kieran.  “We do not want any unnecessary bloodshed.”  His fingers moved imperceptibly against the side of his chair -- tap tap tap -- a familiar rhythm --

Morse! Raske realized, that archaic communications code they’d learned as a lark while still cadets at the Academy.

Scan star.  Wordlessly, the first officer moved to comply.

“Then tell me, Starfleet, what it is that you do want with the Intaria system.”  Mor’Qa scowled, displaying sharply pointed teeth.

“We did not intend to come here, Commander, but now that we are here I cannot leave in good conscience without discovering what really happened.  And I suspect that the evidence will show that it was your ship that fired first.”  Done? he tapped out, faster than usual.

“Federation lies!” snapped Mor’Qa.  “Your proclamations of peace are worth less than the words of a Romulan ha'DIbaH!  Did your hero, this qIrq, not steal a ship of the Empire?  Did he not murder Klingon warriors?  And now he walks free, unpunished!”

Wait, tapped the first officer.  Softly:  “Hurry, Soravek.”

“I am not responsible for the actions of Captain Kirk,” Forester replied levelly.  “I have no designs on your ship, Commander, or your … warriors.”

The Vulcan powered down his scanners and whispered into Raske’s ear:  “Sensors detect an intermittent signal eleven klicks away from the sun.  It may be just a ghost reading, but -- ”

Yes, Holger spelled.

“I can assure you,” Kieran continued, without missing a beat, “that my intentions extend only to scanning the sector, nothing more.”

“Your actions will say more than your words, Starfleet.”  Mor’Qa spun around, snapping orders in his native tongue too quickly for Kieran, with his limited knowledge, to comprehend.  “I will permit this scan under one condition:  you surrender everything you discover to us immediately.”

“Let me remind you, Commander, that this is neutral territory.  Your government has no jurisdiction here.”  Annoyance crept into Forester’s voice, a hint of pent-up fury.  “If we find something, however, we will share it with you gladly, per your request.  Lieutenant Krupskaya, end transmission.”

The communications officer nodded silently.

“No change in the Klingon’s profile,” Starakis said, once she was sure their adversary wasn’t listening.  “They’re not making an attack run.  Bugger.  Would have been fun.”

Raske pursed his lips and inhaled.  “Wise of him,” he noted.  “This Mor’Qa blusters, Kieran, but he’s not suicidal.  You don’t intend to give him anything, do you?”

“Tell our chiefs to make ready our transporters,” said the captain, without turning.  “Mister Starakis, search pattern gamma.  Take us in.”

[S'Tasik]

--------------------------------
USS Valiant, NCC-1875
Khymar Asteroid Field
0849 Hours, December 31st, 2290

“Forward shields, thirty-seven percent!” shouted Devondre Williams, hanging onto his station as if his life depended on it:  as, indeed, it did.  “We’re putting everything we have into the navigational deflector but it won’t hold for long.”

The Valiant rocked violently as T’Vel spun the ship forwards and down before bringing her level, all in the span of three seconds.

“Steady, Lieutenant!”  S’Tasik’s voice rang out over the collision alarms blaring on the bridge, strobes casting shadows on his face.  “Commander Williams, how much time?”

“Twenty-one seconds -- ”  Trying to catch his breath, the science officer leaned over his console, doing his best to hold in his breakfast.  “This is a starship,” he gasped, “not some fool thrill ride -- ”

“Collision imminent,” crooned the computer, oblivious to the world.

S’Tasik glared daggers at the alarms.  “Lindenfeld, turn that blasted thing off, already.”

“I’ve tried,” she said, looking especially lovely now that she was bathed in a soft red glow -- I should go to red alert more often, he thought, entranced -- “Can’t do it, sir -- ”

“Next turn, port eight degrees -- ”  Parl, this time, as he brushed sweat off his head with soggy sleeves.  “Now!  Next turn, port, thirty-one degrees -- ”

“Twenty seconds -- ”

“Bridge to Engineering,” said S’Tasik, thanking the stars he hadn’t been trained in the Vulcan tradition so he could enjoy the moment.  “Mister Laskir, stand by to power up our phasers.”

“We’ve got a couple of kinks I have to work out down here.”  The engineer sounded distinctly out of breath, as if he had just run a marathon or three.  “I don’t know what you’re doing, but the alarms are going crazy -- you f*cking idiot, Venazzar -- give me the hyper spanner, I’ll do it myself -- ”

“For the last time, Ryan, watch your language!” snapped the Vulcan, more than a little annoyed.  One more complaint to add to the lot.  “Can you give me that power or not?”

“Of course I can.”  Laskir sounded equally irritated.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I actually have a job to do -- no, not those, I said the port-side generators -- ”  Abruptly, the communications link shut down.

“I don’t know how I put up with him.”  S’Tasik shook his head in disbelief.  “Stand by weapons, Mister Parl.”

“That’s a big rock coming up, Devondre,” Captain Pergemon said, surprisingly unruffled given the danger his ship was in.  He had strolled down from his post behind the command chair to give the science officer a hand, a smile still on his face.  “You might want to look away.”

Without even a flourish for the crowd, however, T’Vel sent Valiant flying up and over the final obstacle before righting her in open space.  “We are exiting the field,” she announced, her face impassive.

“I’d congratulate you, T’Vel, if I didn’t know you don’t care much about what I think.”  S’Tasik grinned widely.

“I have no ego to stroke, Lieutenant,” the helmsman said by way of reply.  “Klingon convoy, dead ahead.”

“I’m putting them on screen.”  Williams, having not quite recovered his equilibrium, focused the viewscreen on the fifteen alien ships -- in actuality, Federation target drones equipped with crude holoemitters to simulate Klingon freighters.  “They’re raising shields and charging weapons.”

“And Durandal?” S’Tasik asked.

Williams smiled shakily.  “Caught in the field.  She’s accelerating away from us, taking the quickest route through those asteroids, but we’ve bought some time.”

“Excellent.  Match speed with the targets, Mister T’Vel.  Drop aft shields and reinforce our forward arcs.  Status on weapons?”

“We have power to phasers,” said the navigator.  “Torpedoes are in tubes and locked.”

“Open season,” the Vulcan murmured, savoring the moment.  So palpable was the excitement pulsing through the rest of his crew he could almost feel it in his bones -- and it didn’t matter anymore that the whole scenario was nothing more than an elaborate exercise cooked up as a test for him and his comrades.  Then, slowly and deliberately:  “You may fire at will, Mister Parl.”

“Yes, sir,” the ensign replied, his homely face wreathed in smiles.  “I can do that.  Weapons locked.”

Red death lanced from Valiant’s hardpoints and one by one, the freighters began to explode.

[S'Tasik]

--------------------------------
USS Hyperion, NCC-1791
System Intaria, Neutral Zone
0855 Hours, December 31st, 2290

“We’re approaching the sun now,” said Starakis, deftly engaging the cruiser’s maneuvering thrusters to bring Hyperion into low orbit.  “The radiation is beginning to mess with our shields.  I’d bring us down closer, but then we’d be charbroiled.”

“How much time?”  Forester stared intently at the surface of the star, squinting his eyes in an attempt to make out something -- anything -- man-made floating in front of it.  It was an exercise in futility, of course, as the viewscreen’s radiation filter significantly reduced the integrity of the image, but it was better than waiting around doing nothing.

Soravek closed his eyes briefly, and then looked up.  “A little under six minutes, Captain, by my estimate.”

“Showoff.”  Holger rolled his eyes.

“I am merely being efficient,” the Vulcan replied, unperturbed.  “I should also tell you, Captain, that this star is unstable.  I am detecting elevated heat fluctuations in the corona and chromosphere.  We should not linger here longer than necessary.”

“Your warning is noted,” said the captain, a little more harshly than he’d intended.  Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to relax.  “Can you pick up the signal again?  Whatever it is?”

“Yes.  I have filtered out the backwash from the sensors and directed a pinpoint scan at coordinates -- ”

“Soravek, you don’t need to give me a presentation with slides.  Are we in transporter range?”

“I am transmitting the location to Ensign Christopher’s console, along with our suggested course.”  If Kieran hadn’t known better, he would have sworn the Vulcan looked self-satisfied.

“I could have done that myself,” muttered Donovan.  “ETA thirty-seven seconds, Captain -- wait, hold up.”  His voice grew substantially louder as his broad shoulders tensed.  “This is crazy -- I just detected a power surge from the Klingon ship!  Torpedo launch!”

Starakis almost burst out laughing.  “Look at the energy signature, flyboy.  That’s no torpedo, it’s a probe they shot to make up for their crap sensors.  It’s not coming for us -- ”

“ -- it’s going into the sun,” finished Forester, as an orange and red something flashed past his eyes into the roiling plasma of the star.  His eyes narrowed as he watched it disintegrate just before it reached the sun’s hazy -- atmosphere -- the sun -- 

“My god,” he breathed.  “Helm, evasive maneuvers!  Now!”

For one critical second Starakis looked at her controls, trying to make sense of her captain’s latest order, and when at last she banked Hyperion hard to port a tongue of flame had already exploded from the star --

Like a sword unsheathed, a wave of superheated plasma slammed into the heavy cruiser’s shields at point-blank range.  Against so many heavy ions accelerated to two million kilometers per hour, Hyperion’s deflectors stood a snowflake’s chance in hell, collapsing instantly upon impact and exposing her to the full fury of the storm.  The solar flare tore through her starboard nacelle with devastating ease, overloading her warp coils with energy so concentrated that it almost sheared the pylon from the secondary hull altogether.  The force of the blast sent Hyperion careening away from the sun, her impulse engines sparking uselessly as she spiraled further and further into space --

The bridge was plunged into darkness as a surge of power rushed through the ship’s delicate internal circuitry, smashing through the consoles on the bridge and casting sparks every which way.  Krupskaya shrieked as she desperately tried to put out the fire that had caught on her sleeve; Christopher let out an agonized scream as he was flung backwards across the command well before being silenced when his head hit the steps.  Forester, thrown from his seat, felt something wet and sticky dripping from the sides of his face -- blood, he realized, as his hand slipped off the side of his command chair and left behind slick rivulets of red.  When the emergency lights blinked on at last, crimson like the charnel scent of death, a film of oil and smoke caught in his eyes.

“Stabilize us, Anastasia!” he shouted above the din of alarms and explosions, grasping the railing for support.  “Bridge to Sickbay, we need a team up here immediately!  What do we have left?  Anybody!”

Raske clambered up and raced over to the science station, ignoring his throbbing thigh.  Bone protruded from his left leg, chalky white dyed the color of fire.  “Soravek is down.  We’re barely holding on -- no weapons, no shields, minimal power -- ”  The man gritted his teeth and opened himself up to the pain, willing himself to stay awake.

At the helm, Starakis wrestled with her controls like some pixie against a bull, her dark hair matted with blood.  “No good -- she’s handling like a pig.  I have no thrusters -- nothing at all.”  Soot and sweat streaked down the sides of her face:  Andromache before the fall.

“How far away are we from Soravek’s signal?” Forester asked, staggering back to his chair.

“Ten klicks.”  Then -- “You can’t be serious!”  Raske, his handsome features contorted in anguish, still managed to sound shocked.  “You can’t take us back there, not like this!”

“Holger, five more klicks -- that’s all I need.”  The captain stared doggedly ahead at the viewscreen, where the sun twinkled merrily at his plight.  “Find a way to get it done.”

“That’s madness.  You’re going to get us all killed.”  The first officer bit back a scream of pain as he tried to move his leg.

“Now!” Forester ordered, his voice hoarse and grating.  “Mister Krupskaya, get me that Klink son of a bitch.  I’m going to stall him as long as I can.”

The communications officer nodded, clutching a miniature fire extinguisher to her chest.  Her uniform was torn and charred, and her exposed arm looked unnaturally white.  As she leaned against her console for support, the skin began to peel.  “There’s static,” she said, her voice coming in short, sharp breaths.  “All -- radiation -- but I’ll try, sir, I’ll -- there -- ”

Kieran pushed himself upwards in his seat as he confronted the Klingon’s mocking face, and never before had an alien looked uglier.  “Surrender now,” the captain said, brushing back his hair in an attempt to look professional.  “You have no chance of escaping.”

At that, Mor’Qa burst into a feral grin, his sharp teeth drawing blood from his lower lip.  “The commander of K’Tong was my brother, Starfleet, by right of R’uustai.  I swore a blood oath to avenge him.  Today, I have fulfilled my pledge and my people will sing my name in song.”

“This is your last warning,” snarled Kieran, animated by some animal rage.  “Withdraw from this sector now, or your people will be singing songs of a whole different sort.”

Mor’Qa allowed himself a supremely arrogant smirk.  “Do you think me a fool?  I have killed your people and I have crippled your ship.  Blood has been exacted for blood.  Transmit to my ship what my science officer tells me you have discovered, and I may yet grant you your life.”

“We have no data, Klingon.  And even if we did, we wouldn’t share it with barbaric murderers like you -- ”

“I am no murderer!” roared the alien commander, his brown eyes flashing.  “You are the pledge-breaker, not I.  Did I not tell you to send your data immediately?”

“You fired the first shot.  When history is written, all the destruction that comes of today will be on your hands.”  Forester managed, then, to smile.  “There will be war between us -- ”

“There will be no war,” said Mor’Qa.  “All your admirals will see is a starship captain who approached an unstable star, destroyed by his own arrogance.  You cannot prove -- ”  Suddenly, the Klingon turned to face a subordinate just outside Kieran’s vision, saying something he couldn’t quite make out.  When the commander looked back, there was a hard edge in his eyes.  “I have wasted enough time with you, Starfleet.  This is your last chance.  Give me the data or you will die.”

“QI'yaH,” spat Forester.

“Then it is decided.  Goodbye, Starfleet.”  Mor’Qa’s image dissolved into streaks of red and black before vanishing entirely.

“What was he told?” Kieran asked urgently, looking to Krupskaya -- and cursed, as she slumped to the ground.  With effort, he made his way to her body and lowered his lips to hers, desperately trying to remember the medical training they’d taught him at the Academy -- breathe, pound, breathe, pound --

The communications officer’s eyes flickered open, briefly.

“Look at me -- that’s it.  Can you tell me what he was told?” the captain asked again.  “Stay with me, dammit, what was he told?”

“I don’t think you need to ask,” Starakis interrupted.  “Klingon shuttle just launched.  I can’t get a good read on what’s in it, but it’s heading our way -- ”

“Tricobalt,” said Raske, and he smiled at some vision only he could see.  His eyes rolled up into the back of his head.  Then, he crumpled.

[AlienLXIX]

Wow.  Good stuff.  Give me more!

Have fun KK don't get sun burnt or blown up . . .