Begun, the Omake Wars have...
Ship of Fools
It was more a token effort than anything, at least at the start.
The Chrystovians were too far away, and the Cardassian invasion too imminent. Even Starfleet wouldn't likely be able to get there before the invasion was well underway. With typical civilian drives... It wasn't going to happen.
The quickly thrown together set of NGO and activist group representatives working out the details of a possible aid convoy would likely have had to give up, or satisfy themselves with a handful of ships arriving many months after they were needed. Perhaps a medical ship from the venerable Doctors Without Borders or the even older Vulcan Sophantarian Medical Society, a couple Carryalls from the Volunteer Spacelift Coordination Collective and a handful of whatever ships could be scrounged elsewhere carrying aid supplies, observers and volunteers. Not nothing, but probably too late to matter. No one liked it, but there didn't seem to be any other options besides trying to attach themselves to a hypothetical Federation force, something that would compromise their independence more than some found acceptable.
Another option came from the least likely direction imaginable.
The Doddar Kodath Research Institute had a fast ship for them.
The Doak-Neat had begun life as an old-model Gaeni passenger ship. It had been acquired at end-of life, gutted, and rebuilt as a testbed for a prototype transwarp drive. The drive was quite successful compared to most Gaeni transwarp drive prototypes: though the advanced warp field design it was intended to test proved dangerously unstable, the ship survived the tests with only minor damage and ended up capable of maintaining excellent speed with a more conventional field configuration. Since then, the Doak-Neat had been outfitted to support research expeditions and incidentally used to test any number of minor modifications, devices and experiments, continuing its remarkable survival record despite the odds.
Now, the frequently ignored and disrespected department of applied social sciences had managed to call in enough favors to acquire a full six months of time on it, pre-empting a less time sensitive request from exobiology.
The Cardassian declaration of war had informed them of an opportunity they had hardly even dared to imagine: a chance to learn the results of hundreds of experiments the ethics board wouldn't approve. The only problem was getting in and out without being vaporized.
The proposal was met with stunned silence, perhaps augmented by the subspace lag from those calling in from farther away.
Emilio Rodriguez from Amnesty Interplanetary was the first to respond. "You want us to what?!"
"It's simple. We provide the ship, you get us past the Cardassians. They aren't going to shoot a sophantarian aid ship, are they? Then we get the data and rescue a few of the best researchers if we can, you distribute your aid and report on the situation, and when it becomes untenable, we go home."
Haedis had her doubts about whether the Cardassians would really hold their fire, but she wouldn't let it stop her. As a Knight of the Order of the Quill, she was fully prepared to lay down her life to expose Cardassian atrocities to the galaxy. The truth would get out, one way or another.
That wasn't the part Raima Dal of the Anti-Imperialist Action League objected to. "That data, if it even exists, is the result of unethical, illegal research carried out at the cost of incalculable suffering."
"Exactly! This way, we don't have to do it ourselves!"
Raima looked unamused, but T'Dak from the Spuvek Institute for Non-Violence responded first. "Illogical. Proper research requires replication to confirm results."
Haedis looked at her in horror. This might be the worst time for that piece of advice in all of history.
The fast and loose Gaeni approach to science saved them today. "Unfortunately, the ethics committee said we'll have to make do."
It had been a fairly contentious debate, with several organizations nearly withdrawing in disgust, but in the end, pragmatism won out: the Doak-Neat would be leaving immediately at best speed for Chrystovian space, picking up a hand-picked set of volunteers and aid supplies along the way. Along with the high-value medical supplies, doctors, Amnesty Interplanetary observers and the like, there would be a team of Order of the Quill conflict-journalists.
Haedis was going to ask to lead them: the truth needed to get out, and she wasn't going to send others to their deaths and stay at home like a coward. It wasn't the Amarki way.
