To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

[OneirosTheWriter]

Captain's Log, USS Miracht, Stardate 24355.5 - Captain Langa Mbeki

We are off to Gaen to represent the Federation at a technology and shipbuilding summit. We have on board the esteemed Captain Huth blasch Cheg of Starfleet's Office of Naval Architecture.

Apparently the Gaen are about to put to tender bids for a "Tech-Explorer", to be built in their new shipyard berth. Apparently someone back at HQ would like to see the Gaeni design something that does not pose a clear and present danger to the fabric of space-time.

-

Captain's Log, USS Sarek, Stardate 24358.2 - Captain Straak

We are mapping regions near Lecarre space to try to ascertain the extent of their claimed territory, which is still as yet unclear. My initial investigations lead me to conclude that they are thankfully still restricted to the single planet. I anticipate that this is due to being only new to warp technology. While investigating, however, we have encountered a very interesting geological formation in the Corvo system, between Risan and Lecarre space. Having completed our mapping assignment, I am returning to investigate the anomaly.

-


Transcript, Subspace Communication, Captain Langa Mbeki to Commodore Michel Thuir

[Thuir] - Ah, Langa! Good to see you again, how is the old girl treating you?

[Mbeki] - Very well so far, Commodore. A damn sight roomier than the old Challorn was. Still, perhaps she lacks a little of the Challorn's charm?

[Thuir] - Always thought that myself, but she's still an incredible ship. So, tell me, Langa, what can I do for you today?

[Mbeki] - I'm headed off to meet the Gaeni. I understand that you have had some dealings with them?

[Thuir] - *37 seconds of laughter*

-

Captain's Log, USS Miracht, Stardate 24359.4

We have arrived at Gaen and entered orbit. According to my science officer, we've undergone more active sensor scans in the past half-hour than in the past year. Clearly, they are very interested in Starfleet's explorers.

I will be giving rotating shore-leave to the crew, and head down to meet some of the chief executive officers of a number of Gaeni Institutes, in particular Attu-Kelb of Harbind Attu and Abat-Coan of Pallas Abat, the two largest Institutes.

-

Captain's Log, USS Sarek, Stardate 24359.6

We have arrived back in the Corvo system and have relocated the anomalous readings. One of the fifteen moons is highly volcanic, and operates on an elliptical orbit that takes it from deep within the EM protection of the gas giant, to its outer reaches. This elliptical orbit gives the volcanic atmosphere of the planet regular bathings in radiation from its unusually close proximity to the system's primary, which converts much of the gas into substances that can be condensed into plasma coolant.

[Gain Mining Colony Option, Corvo System, +5 (10) sr/yr]

-

Station Commander's Log, Starbase 8, Vega System, Stardate 24359.9

The SS Olympus Star, Earth-flagged cargo ship, civilian registry number 457, is now six days overdue for arrival in the Vega system. As of now, we fear the worst. Although the Shanghai successfully saw off a Sydraxian Hasque, there was another possible contact that at the time couldn't be traced. The Nairobi is currently tracing back along the Olympus Star's expected route to see if they can pick up the warp signature of either the cargo ship or the assailant.

[1 United Earth Cargo Ship destroyed]

-

[Chief of Staff Note: This was forwarded on to us by Illuminated Technocracy representatives]
Inspector's Preliminary Report, Gaen Continent 1 Non-Vocational Regulatory Body, 0330 hours

Deceased: Cheg, Huth blacsh, Captain, Starfleet [Non-Gaen - Please Forward Report to Diplomatic Assets], Abat-Narkoa Larkaim, Senior Researcher, Pallas Abat Institute - Believed Instigator of Scientific Misadventure [Also deceased]
Cause of Death: Scientific Misadventure
Locality: North-5 Avenue Alcoholic Petty-Institute, Argaen City, Continent 1

Report:
After attending the scene and overseeing the mopping of the last components of Larkaim and Blasch from the overhead vents, this Inspector began to review Petty-Institute surveillance footage and was able to determine the course of events. Things were seemingly quick amicable between Captain Cheg and Senior Researcher Larkaim. Although we do not know exactly what led to the impromptu experiment, beyond the assertion from Captain Blasch that something was impossible, which was heard by a number of survivors, immediately thereafter Senior Researcher Larkaim passed the Captain his alcoholic beverage and produced a small magnetically stabilised capsule that apparently contained a sub-nanogram quantity of antimatter that was then dropped into the beverage glass.

[Chief of Staff Note: I will have Starfleet Operations send out another reminder of the dangers of shore leave on planets that do not commonly use synthehol]

-

Captain's Log, USS Miracht, Stardate 24360.2

They say that nothing good happens after 2am, and from my time running nightwatches as a Lieutenant, I have long vouched for that. Captain Cheg was a brilliant designer, carrying on a storied Tellarite tradition of talented shipwrights. He will be missed. This does, however, leave me having to take over the duties at the institute, along with Lieutenant-Commander Fordham, my Chief Engineer. We will do our best under the circumstances.

-

Captain's Log, USS Miracht, Stardate 24362.8

Our reinforcements from the diplomatic service are here to take over the role of the late Captain Cheg. Lieutenant Commander Fordham and I have managed to keep things moving while they were en route, being ferried at high speed on the Selaya. Just as well, too, as I was starting to get worried that I would slip up at some stage and miss a proposal from the Institutes like the one that would have seen us undergo a heavy thaloron scan, with the crew still aboard!

[Gain +5 rp, +25 relations with Gaeni]

-

 

[AKuz]

One Down. Completed 90% on Phone

Click to shrink...

Passing the Torch - I



USS Enterprsie, Stardate 24014.9

Nash Ka'Sharren leans up against the Transporter room wall, a half smile on her lips, arms crossed. Her stomach is uneasy: a churning mixture of anticipation, excitement, anxiety. And deep down. A smidgen of fear.

The Andorian woman tries to distract herself. Eyes flicking back and forth as she watches her transporter chief work his panel, hands steady and confident, much as he has for the last six years. Nash remembers him as an awkward fresh enlisted and also remembers giving him the little silver hexagon that he now wears.

As the Petty Officer finishes his work Nash turns her eyes back around to a swirling cylinder of blue light on the Transporter pad as it resolves into a familiar face, "Sam!" Ka'Sharren says, gently pushing herself off the wall, "It's good to see you again" Nash reaches out to shake an extended and fuzzy hand before pulling her former XO and long time friend into a hug, "Punctual as always, Captain Mrr'shan." She says as they begin to pull apart.

"It's good to see you too, Nash" says Mrr'shan as the two part, "I always felt bad about making Harriman wait. So I made sure to be here on time."

Nash moves her shoulders in a miniature shrug as inside her gut anxiety suddenly spikes, "Take it from me, he probably appreciated the extra time with his ship."

The Caitian looks away for a moment, wondering if she made a mistake by being here now, then turns back smiling, "Anyway. It's good to be back on Enterprise again."

"Oh, I don't blame you. Enterprise is lovely, but I'm certain you'll miss Lightning before too long." Nash says with a half smile as the two Captains move out of the Transporter room into the corridor, the doors parting with a cheerful whoosh, "So, I guess congratulations are in order. For Enterprise, I mean." Nash reaches out with her left hand to lightly run her fingertips along the smooth metal, "I'm willing to bet that you didn't really expect that when we stepped off that shuttle ten years ago."

The Caitian gives a shrug that is half lazy stretch, "I was just happy to be your tactical officer." Her ears flick briefly, "I am quite pleased though"

Ka'Sharren smiles as her fingers continue to slide gently along the Enterprise's walls, "I'm glad that you're taking command Sam. Someone that I can trust to understand how important Enterprise and her crew are."

Mrr'Shan tilts her head slightly, briefly catching her old CO blinking away some moistness, "I'm sorry, Nash."

"Hm? Pardon?" The Andorian is briefly distracted tapping a communications panel affectionately, "Sorry for what?"

The Caitian's ears settle back slightly, "For taking Enterprise from you."

The corners of Ka'Sharren's mouth tick down briefly before she chuckles slightly, "No worries Sam." She smiles, "No need to feel bad. It was going to happen eventually. Like I said. I'm glad it was you and not some other officer. One that didn't understand what we've got here."

There is a long moment of silence as the two Captains walk along Enterprise's decks without a destination; a heavy silence speaking loudly between them.

Ka'Sharren, starting to resent the sudden gap between her and her friend, settles her stomach and takes a small breath, "So. Sam. Got a senior staff picked out yet?"

Samhaya, relieved, nods, "I will be keeping a number of our existing officers on staff. Mr. Stol and Mr. Bazeck, for instance."

Ka'Sharren chuckles, "Can't pull them apart until they get that shuttle finished, now can we?"

"Yes ma'am."

The Andorian snorts in amusement, "You don't need to 'ma'am' me just yet Sam. I don't get to pin that Commodore's badge on my uniform until I get a permanent assignment," she reaches up and taps her Captain's bars, "'Commodore in charge of packing Nash Ka'Sharren's things' isn't a thing apparently. Turns out It's actually only a Captain's billet." She stares past a bulkhead for a moment, "Anyway, go on."

"Well, Commander Leaniss will remain first officer."

Ka'Sharren nods, "Makes sense."

"Acheson stays security chief." Samhaya ticks off officers on her fingers, "Doctor T'les is being confirmed for CMO."

"Ah, good, she'll be pleased to know that she can take the 'Acting' off of her paperwork" Ka'Sharren stops in front of a turbolift door, "Who is your Science officer?"

"Lieutenant Commander Sapok off of Cheron." Mrr'Shan sighs, "It's going to be odd having someone new in that chair."

"Mr. Zaardmani was a fresh-faced Lieutenant Commander once upon a time too." Ka'Sharren's mouth turns up at one corner, "He's teaching now. At the Academy. Imagine that."

"Oohhh…" Samhaya sucks in a breath, "Those poor cadets."

"Ah, he's not so bad anymore," Nash chuckles lightly, "plus anyone that he trains will know a sensor panel backwards, forwards, inside and out. An entire generation of science officers will come out of his classes, enshrining his legacy in Starfleet for a century at least." Ka'Sharren laughs using her hand to wave grandiosely, "Or at least that's way he put it when I last talked to him. I think he's enjoying himself."

"Speaking of which..." Samaya says without a wink, "How is Doctor Asurva?"

Ka'Sharren looks up at her friend from the floor where she's busy kneeling down and inspecting a Jefferies tube hatch, "Oh, Pri's doing fine." she sighs, "Well, she says she is, but I can tell watching Orion Space implode is hurting her. But at least she's there lending a hand. I think it would hurt her more if she wasn't doing anything to help"

Ka'Sharren turns around and sits with her back against the familiar and welcome texture of Enterprise's metal, "Can you believe everything that's happened over the last ten years? Everything that we've done since we first skidded onto Enterprise at the last second before her departure?"

Mrr'Shan leans back against the opposite wall, drumming her fingers against the wall, nails clicking against the metal, "I suppose that I have to. Everything that happened… happened."

Nash moves a hand over the carpet, absentmindedly feeling the texture, "I mean, I got married, married to someone we just made first contact with!" She smiles and looks down the hall, "How many First contacts did we make Sam? Four? Five?"

"Six." Sam tilts her head to the side for a moment, "Well, seven if you count the Kadeshi."

Nash pushes on, "We fought the Biophage at the side of the Romulans. We hosted Romulans aboard this ship in friendship. Not even Jim Kirk got to do that."

"We certainly did a lot." Sam smiles and relaxes her head back to rest against a strut, "You've got nothing to worry about. In terms of being compared to Captain Kirk, I mean."

"Phffft," Ka'Sharren waves a hand airily, "Never was. My time with this beauty," she pats the deck affectionately, "speaks for itself."

"Good." Mrr'Shan folds her arms, frowning slightly, as she chuffs a foot across the floor, "I guess it's just me that has to worry about being the dull successor, like poor Harriman."

"Sam." Ka'Sharren looks up, "Sam. Don't worry about comparing yourself to any other Captain. Just... " She shrugs, "You're a great officer, just worry about the mission and keeping your crew intact. That's all that's important. Never do it for the glory. Do it for the mission."

"Maybe I should take up a correspondence with Harriman?" The Caitian flares her nostrils, "How to step into the shoes of a giant?"

"At least give yourself a chance to sit in the chair for a bit. Do your own thing." Ka'Sharren stares past her old old XO, "I actually kind of wish…" she purses her lips, "I was thinking about what I would say to Jim Kirk if he came strolling back out of that Deflector Control room." she nods at a point fifty meters away through four bulkheads, "I've been thinking about what I would ask him."

"Any conclusions?" asks Sam, ears flicking forward towards Nash Ka'Sharren.

"Well, aside from 'Where have you been!?!' and 'Seriously. What happened?'" Nash grins upwards.

"Yes, aside from those ma'am," Mrr'Shan smiles slightly. She's missed this woman.

"How do you stop being Captain of the Enterprise?" Ka'Sharren looks down and rubs the carpet again, "How do you… do it?"

The Caitian tilts her head inquisitively.

"I've been Enterprise's Captain for ten years Sam!" Nash's voice is insistent, "Ten years where I've known deep down in my soul. In every part of me that this is my ship. That I am her Captain."

Mrr'Shan yawns expressively, "You fell in love." she smiles while uncrossing her arms, "I saw it in your eyes when you first took command. Your face lit up and you couldn't look away from her. Not even for a moment."

Nash sighs, setting her head against the hatch, rubbing her forehead, "That doesn't make it easier. How do I get past love then? This is what I've done. Who I have been. I think Jim Kirk would understand, If I could ask one that question it would be that one."

Mrr'Shan looks at her friend, then down the corridor, tail slowly whipping from side to side, "Honestly. I don't think even he ever found out. Look at all the times that Kirk found a way to get back to his Enterprise." she tilts her head and looks down at Ka'Sharren, "It's actually kind of tragic. He never got past his Enterprise… I think it was almost a blessing he died when he did. I think he would have faded away in misery if he'd had to retire."

Ka'Sharren slowly gets to her feet, stretching out and up against the wall, supported by Enterprise, "Who says he died?" she raises an eyebrow and her mouth quirks mischievously, "I know the plaque in Deflector Control says he died… But everyone knows he's just waiting to come back when Starfleet needs him." she pushes herself off the wall, "Even the PADD pushers know. He is only listed as missing in action after all!"

"True," Sam steps away from the wall as well.

"I hope that you don't mind Sam, but I'm still clearing out your new room." She sighs, heading back over to the turbolift, hitting the call button, "I didn't realise how much stuff I had"

The Caitian follows her friend into the turbolift, "I don't remember you bringing anything over from Lion."

Nash waves her hands dramatically, "Yeah! Exactly, I didn't bring a thing over from Lion and here I've got a box like this" she makes a half meter by half meter square in the air with her hands, "Full of booze people have given me. And I'm never going to drink any of it!" Nash throws her hands up as she steps out of the turbolift onto the deck leading towards her quarters.

Sam flicks an ear, "Has it gone bad?"

"No. That's the problem." Nash waves her hands around, "It's all really fancy stuff. I've got a bottle of Romulan Ale from the Senate itself. Some sort of really fancy Amarki stuff, this Apiata Sweetwine, and…" she hits the panel to access her room, "It's all too valuable to ever drink unless I meet God." she steps over the threshold, "And not the one Jim Kirk killed either."

Sam takes a long look around the room which is scheduled to soon become hers as she follows Ka'Sharren inside. The floor is almost entirely covered in boxes, and thankfully, mostly everything is packed away save some shelving on the far wall, "Oh," she says, having expected more mess, "You're almost finished."

"It's not like I was procrastinating" Nash says while frowning across the room at award from the Red Shirt society placed on the shelving, "I just had waayyy more stuff than I thought I did."

Sam inspects a citation from the Amarki guild of Adventurers. "The evidence of a life well lived, Ma'am."

"Ten whole years of it Sam." Nash sweeps an armful of framed pictures and awards into an empty and waiting box, "I have no idea where I'm going to put this." She plops down on a box, "In my office I suppose. Wherever they stick me."

Sam pulls herself onto the tallest box in the room, pulling her feet up cross legged, she gives Nash a sympathetic smile, "There must be something that you're looking forward to."

"Well," Nash stands up and crosses the room. Picking her way around boxes and checking labels, "I do have a dinner scheduled with Commander Leaniss on the fourth." She bobs her head in mild embarrassment, "Just the two of us"

Sam smiles, "I hope I don't have to worry about my new XO taking leave soon?" Her tail swishes from side to side behind her.

"Oh no." Nash pops open the box her breath turning to fog overtop it, "She's dedicated to her Starfleet career." She shrugs, "We just decided to see what happens. No plans."

"I distinctly remember you not meaning to marry Senator Leaniss in the first place," Sam says with a hint of a grin.

"I remember." Nash chuckles, "I remember the look on Maryam's face as she realised what was going on."

Ka'Sharren pulls a bottle of something blue out of the cooler and reseals it, "Okay," she sets it atop her small kitchenette, "Now I said that I had a box of fancy drinks too nice to actually use."

Sam's eyes widen.

"This is not one of those" the Andorian fishes around for glasses, "You uhhh… remember that Romulan commander after the battle of Kadesh?" she digs in a box, "Ve- something. Not Velim, a different one, the one that thanked us for saving her ship and crew?"

Mrr'Shann closes her eyes trying, to picture the woman again, tail swishing, "I think I do."

"She sent over a crate of this stuff." Nash sets a pair of glasses next to the bottle, "She said that it was for drinking." The Captain pours, "The note said… ah! "For Drinking to Remember or for Drinking to forget."

Nash Ka'Sharren hands a glass of Romulan Ale to her successor, "To Remember!"

"To Remember."

Most of a bottle of Romulan Ale later Captain Samhaya Mrr'Shan erupts into laughter while carefully perched atop a box in her friend's quarters. A furred grip keeps a steady hand on a glass of something bright blue as she titters in amusement. "I remember that" she chuckles, "I was so drunk, when I woke up the next morning, I thought that I imagined that whole thing!"

Captain Nash ka'Sharren waves her hands hands around, holding them widely apart, Romulan Ale sloshing around dangerously in a tenuously held glass, "I almost didn't believe myself that Leaniss stunned those Orions... " she takes a indelicate sip of her alcoholic beverage, "And I was stone sober!"

The two Starfleet officers laugh together in amused familiarity.

Sam'haya leans back one arm tucked away, the other swilling her drink around, as she regards her Andorian friend with half lidded eyes, "Sooo, speaking of Commander Leaniss…" a sly smile fixes itself on the Caitian's feline face. "She's not going to be under your command any more…" an eyebrow raises itself above a golden and slit-pupiled eye.

Nash tosses back the remaining third of her drink, "Well…. Let's just say if she tries to marry me again…" she reaches for a nearly empty bottle with a label covered in blocky Romulan symbols, "I'm not going to try nearly as hard for a divorce this time around"

Sam flicks an ear in amusement, "Go on…"

"Well hypothetically speaking; I've got an open invitation to dinner for her whenever she's in Sol. The good Commander seems somewhat receptive." Nash winks, "Expect your new XO to let you know she'll be taking leave next weekend. " The blue woman tops up her glass, "Don't worry. I'll try to make sure that your XO comes back intact and well rested"

A feline head tilts inquisitively, eyes sparkling in amusement, "...You'll try?"

Nash winks again, "No guarantees."

Sam shrugs while looking into the ripples of her drink, "I try not to pry into the lives of my crew." she takes a big gulp of her drink, "Nash?"

"Yesh?" the Andorian laughs as she hefts an almost empty bottle, "Whoops, drank a bit too mush. Much." she pauses for a moment, "Anyway. Go ahead."

Mrr'shan takes a deep breath, holding a confused expression for what feels like a full minute as Nash shifts uncomfortably, then deflates, "I actually forgot." she points at the bottle energetically enough that she threatens to bat it from Nash's hands. "This is terrible stuff. The best."

Nash empties the last of the Ale into "I know right?" a hand rises up to stifle a giggle, "Those Romulans. Not. All. Bad. There are a lot of good reasons to be open with them." she winks again, the motion more exaggerated as the Ale really starts hitting her system, "Lotta good reasons."

Sam shakes her head in mock disappointment, "To go where no Andorian Zhen has gone before?"

"I didn't do anyone." Nash fails to look innocent, "And I'll never do it again" she laughs, "As many good memories as bad there. Even including Admiral Khev."

"Those speeches though!" Sam sits up tall in her spot, feet slipping slightly as she pushes herself straight holding her glass high in the air, "Another Glorious Romulan Victory. All thanks to the Indomitable Romulan will! And Implacable Romulan disruptors. And Indefatigable Green Romulan hull paint. And maybe a little to Starfleet. But just a little. Mostly it was the Indefatigable green paint"

Nash giggles raising her own glass and clinking it against Sam's, leaning dangerously forward on her own seat, "True! True! Vauthil Rihannsu!"

The Caitian takes a sip of her blue drink, "Actually he wrote all those in English. No translation."

"Really?" Nash raises an eyebrow as her antennae come around to regard her friend, "I never, uh, noticed."

"You were too busy looking at Commander Velim. But I was watching him. It was the most finely tuned friendly insult that I've ever seen." Mrr'Shan relaxes from her ramrod posture. "I talked it over with Mr Wolfe. No one on our senior staff spoke English as a mother tongue. The "standard" Human language. Not even the Humans." She snorts and looks up at the ceiling as she pushes aside some mental haze and goes back a half decade in her memories. "Khev wanted us to know that he was smart enough to fluently speak the most "important" Human language, but that he was too superior to us to actually care about our own individual mother tongues." she shrugs, "There was some other stuff in there about reminding us of our Human subservience, showing appropriate levels of respect, face and some other stuff."

Nash shakes her head, "Romulans!"

"Apparently at his level there is a lot of politics involved in every word spoken." Sam flicks an ear, "Seems like it would be a lot easier to say what you mean," the Caitain's tales swishes behind her, "or say nothing if you can't say it nice."

"Sadly, that short of double speaking is pretty mush a requirement of the job." Ka'Sharren shrugs.

Mrr'Shan bursts into bright yips of laughter, struggling to catch her breath, pointing at Nash, "You've never done that once! Not Once!"

Nash furrows a brow, "Seven times act-tually. Difficult work." she smiles.

"Such a shame. I bet it made you wish that Harriman had told you to run!"

"Run from Enterprise? Never!" Nash pauses, tilting her head to one side, as the name of the Enterprise captain before her trickles into her brain, "I…. Oh!" her eyes fly wide open and she dives across the room to her uniform coat swearing in a number of different languages, "HARRIMAN!"

Samhaya hunches over slightly to track Ka'Sharren, her tail whipping from side to side in fascination. "What's this about Harriman?"

The Enterprise Captain -the Andorian one- rips something from the internal lining of her jacket, "Harriman gave me this!" she holds it out in front of the Enterprise Captain -the Caitian one.

Golden yellow eyes study the worn and faded piece of material, tracing the lines of an ancient NX-class of starship, and the words around the edge that read 'Enterprise' and 'NX-01' the feline eyes widen, "That's… old. Very old"

Nash nods slowly, in great solemnity, "This was Archer's. He gave it to April on the day the Enterprise nil launched. Pike gave it to April, April gave it to Jim Kirk, and Jim Kirk gave it to Harriman on his first day." Nash Ka'Sharren takes a very deep breath, shuddering slightly, as she gently pushes it towards Mrr'Shan, "And now. I'm giving it to you. From Captain to Captain to... Captain."

Nash settles back onto her seat, tears in her eyes, as Samhaya Mrr'Shan gingerly takes the patch, "There. Now you are truly part of the tradition Sam. Part of the fraternity… sorority? Of Enterprise Captains." Nash smiles at her old friend and former XO, "Take good care of her Sam."

 

[Briefvoice]

Vice Admirals III – Admiral to the Future

This takes place around Q4 2310... sort of.

"I fear we may be unable to meet again next year," says Vice Admiral Valentina Sousa. With one hand she holds a piece of cloth to staunch the bleeding from her scalp.

Vice Admiral Rinias ch'Vohlet reaches across the cramped confines of the runabout and claps a hand on her shoulder. "I thought I was the pessimist here. We'll pull through."

Head buried deep in the half-disassembled console that houses the ship's subspace communicator, Vice Admiral Heidi Eriksson sticks out a hand to give a thumbs-up.

Sousa blinks, then half-smiles. "Oh, not what I meant at all. I was actually thinking of the proposals sitting on Admiral Kahurangi's desk to open up another vice admiral slot. It's been hard enough finding a common time for all four of us to get together. With five it will be positively undoable. Look at what we had to resort to this year."

Ch'Vohlet doesn't quite roll his eyes, as that would be undignified for someone of his high rank. He does however look up at the ceiling of the runabout's small cabin. In a carefully neutral tone he comments, "Forget scheduling. After this disaster we'll likely all be forbidden from being in the same place at the same time."

Eriksson backs out of the console, and begins closing it up. She says, "It seems unlikely that many people will hear about it, Rinias. We'll have to slap an eyes-only classification on it since it's a temporal event. Still, we'll have to think of something to tell Vitalia when she asks why exactly her four vice admirals got trapped 800 years in the past and then had their runabout nearly destroyed by an early Yrillian explorer."

Vice Admiral Hikaru Sulu's warm chuckle floats out of the runabout's cockpit where he sits at the helm. "We'll just tell her we wanted to keep our hand in. Can't let the Explorers have all the fun."

4 HOURS EARLIER / 800 YEARS IN THE FUTURE (time travel is confusing)

It was perfect logic that even a Vulcan couldn't dispute.

Sousa had realized that this year their usual busy schedules simply wouldn't allow all four Vice Admirals to be free on the same night in the same city. She did, however, notice one opportunity in their schedule. All four of them would be traveling to Mars at about the same time, though they would swiftly split off in different directions upon arrival. Given traffic regulations and the position of Mars, there would be nearly two hours of transit time. Enough for a very short get-together.

But of course, the sanctity of the vice-admiral meeting would be disrupted if they had any outsiders present. A quick round of communications later and they all agreed to leave their aides on other transports and take the runabout Usain to Mars together. Who was to know that temporal shenanigans would intervene?

An excerpt from Vice Admiral Heidi Eriksson's report on the Usain Incident.

Only 15 minutes into our projected path to Mars, the runabout shuddered violently and a blinding flash of light filled the cabin. Vice Admiral ch'Vohlet later claimed he saw an inordinate amount of clocks running backwards in those few seconds, but I note he only came forward with this claim after we had determined the Usain and ourselves had been flung approximately 800 years into the past. I include it only for the sake of completeness.

Working together and checking the runabout's sensor logs, it took us a little over an hour to develop a working theory of what had happened. Our orbital path had intercepted a boosted subspace transmission tightbeam. Ordinarily this would have caused no particular problems other than some mild fluctuations in our impulse engine efficiency, but it appears that we had also intercepted a hithero unsuspected space-time fracture likely left by another incident of time traveling that has occurred or will occur in the same spacial coordinates relative to Sol. The fracture, the output from our impulse engines, and the subspace tightbeam combined to force us through a temporal rift into the past.

An excerpt from Vice Admiral Rinias ch'Vohlet's report on the Usain Incident.

I did too see the clocks, and I stand by that report. In any case, we had hardly begun to take stock of our situation when we found ourselves unexpectedly hailed. It was a Yrillian explorer. Sousa told us that it was suspected they had explored as far as Sol that far back, but she was the only one pleased by the confirmation. Historians! Temporal regulations being what they are the last thing we wanted to do was talk to the Yrillians or interact with them in any way, but they wanted to interact with us. Seems they mistook us for an Orion shuttle, and they started demanding that we pull to and surrender, as well as identify where our mothership was. Apparently Orion/Yrillian relations were none too warm in that era.

Sousa got on the comms and talked to them in some very passable ancient Orion, trying to bluff them off while the rest of us came up with a plan. I recognized some weaknesses in Yrillian design that they haven't corrected in 800 years. A powerful enough burst of ionizing radiation from our impulse drive could fry half their systems if set off at extreme close range. I guessed it would take them a day to safely boot everything up again, but not actually cause any permanent damage and risk altering the timestream. I also want to state for the record that we discussed other options and couldn't find any likely to cause less harm to the timestream. Runabouts aren't equipped with self-destructs, or at least nothing we could rig in the time before they would have rolled us up. So Vice Admiral Sulu turned our ship about, evaded their weapons fire, and set us on a ramming course.

An excerpt from Vice Admiral Hikaru Sulu's report on the Usian Incident.

Evading the Yrillian fire wasn't that difficult, though they did graze us badly enough that Valentina took a knock to the head when the runabout shook from the impact. Whatever passed for their weapons officer must have gotten a case of the nerves when he realized we were about to ram them. Of course, that wasn't actually our intention. Vice Admiral Eriksson got ready to overclock our runabout's own small subspace transmitter. Just after we got close enough to ionize their systems but before impact, a good three second window, she set off a burst that agitated the chronoton particles we were irradiated with and jumped the Usain a few minutes into the future. Worked like a charm. From their perspective we approached, their ship mysteriously suffered massive systems failures, and then we disappeared like a ghost. I hope that's how they wrote us up in their logs. Another mystery of the spaceways.

That only left how to go home. Fortunately, I have some experience in piloting temporal warps in the Sol system. I was able to duplicate and reverse the headings from that previous incident from memory, assuming that the time travel would have left its own space-time fracture. With that space time fracture and Heidi's readiness to cause another subspace burst we had all the tools we needed to effect further time travel… if not necessarily to be sure exactly when we would come out the other side.

An excerpt from Vice Admiral Valentina Sousa's report on the Usain Incident.

The vessel identified itself only as a temporal patrol ship. I have suspicions and deductions beyond that, but in the interests of respecting the integrity of the time stream I decline to include any of them in this report. In any case, the ship departed without leaving a trace and 'towed' us exactly back to the time-space coordinates from which our harrowing journey had begun. In that order, and no I'm still uncertain how that worked, and I was there. In time travel, cause before effect is the first structural support member of reality to be broken.

What the Vice Admirals have to say on the remainder of their journey to Mars.

No one feels like having their usual debates about the great issues facing the Federation. Not after what they have just been through. Still, the silence stretches uncomfortably.

"I didn't think I'd ever experience that level of personal... excitement again," says Sulu out loud. "I believed the Battle of Kadesh was the last time I… well, the last time."

"Hah! You and me both, Hikaru," says ch'Vohlet. He cracks his knuckles, a release of tension.

"It was a reminder of what Starfleet is all about," says Eriksson in a quiet voice. "Not every day, of course, not even for the Explorer Corp much less every ensign manning a spaceyard dock, but… some days, space can be wondrous and terrible."

"We are Starfleet's leaders. Our obligation to the fleet is to build a strong foundation from which those under our command can see the wonder and shelter from the terror," says Sousa.

"To anticipate and disarm threats before they can harm us," says ch'Vohlet.

"To find a use for every talent, and a talent for every need," says Eriksson.

"To do whatever it takes to bring them back home," says Sulu.

There's another silence.

"It was a fascinating confirmation that Yrillian explorers might actually be the giants recorded in certain Earth mythologies," says Sousa.

"That interaction between between subspace transmissions and space-time fractures was purely theoretical before now. We banked some solid data," says ch'Vohlet.

"If chronoton particles could reliably cause small temporal displacements, I could think of a dozen research applications," says Eriksson.

"Even just a look at that temporal patrol vessel's hull suggests implications at how you might design a vessel primarily meant for temporal warp," says Sulu.

The leadership of Starfleet is in good hands.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Star Trek: To Boldly Go
Five Years in Review, Part Three​

SEASON FOUR: THE SPATIAL COLD WAR

Season Four began with the happy resolution of the Enterprise's battle. In a plot reminiscent of a space-operatic Groundhog Day, Captain Ka'Sharren found herself repeatedly time-warped back to the beginning of the battle, improving her tactics through grim determination, trial, and error until she was finally able to triumph. The Enterprise command team was played masterfully throughout, under a variety of challenging circumstances, though Park joked that Zhang got more camera time as a dead body in Saves Nine than she usually did as a living one in a more normal episode.

Subsequent episodes made it clear that the many-times-repeated fight against the Cardassians had taken a grave psychological toll on Ka'Sharren, a fact which was explored in cooperation with the Betazoids. This telepathic species, well known from previous Star Trek series, was shown joining the Federation in Season Four thanks to the masterful diplomatic efforts of Captain Thuir, who saved a Betazoid ambassador from a horrible fate in the episode Now You See Me....

Shortly afterwards, however, Polaris signaled what would become the dominant plot arc of Season Four: the shift of Cardassian policy from one of open confrontation to a Cold War format in the wake of their failed battle with the Enterprise. A Federation ship sent to broker peace between the Caitians and the then-obscure Dawiar, who had not previously appeared since early in Season Two, found itself ambushed and destroyed by the Dawiar in an incident that escalated to war between the Dawiar and the Caitians.

Interspersed with the backbone of episodes involving the Caitian-Dawiar conflict were a steady stream of examples of "the continuing mission" in action, with the Explorer Corps continuing to do its duty. Most of these episodes were well received, even if a few exceptions such as The Isolationists' portrayal of the aloof, technologically advanced Tulpari left fans scratching their heads.

The middle of the fourth season saw the return of the character Saavik from the Star Trek movies of the 1980s, albeit with yet another recasting. Saavik's memorable flight from a surprisingly artful CGI dinosaur in No Win Scenario, her first role as a lead character, set the tone. The reintroduced captain faced the monster with dauntless courage, resourcefulness, and dry wit, forming the basis of Saavik's 21st- or is it 24th?- century persona.

The combined investigative efforts of the Explorer Corps allowed the Federation to gradually defuse the tensions between the two species, contacting the Dawiar by way of the sophisticated, mysterious Qloath and the snakelike Seyek. It was eventually revealed that the war had started over a major cultural misunderstanding on the part of the Dawiar.

Happily, a negotiated end to the conflict was still possible, the writers reaffirming Star Trek's optimistic vision of peace and diversity. Peace negotiations began under the capable direction of Ambassador Spock in Olive Branch, and culminating in Place At The Table. This pair of episodes marked Leonard Nimoy's second return to the series in more than a cameo role.

Unfortunately, Season Four lacked a finale as impressive as Requiem or A Stitch in Time. Place At The Table was an adequate episode, but many feel that the opportunity to put Nimoy aboard a new Enterprise and interact with its command team were used less fully than it might have been.* Some fans criticized the premise that the Dawiar expected a duel between their flagship and Enterprise as an attempt to reuse the plot of Warm Welcome. In mitigation, many critics gave a tentative thumbs-up to the creative team's effort to allowing the crude but effective Dawiar cruiser to put up a valiant (if unsuccessful) effort against the more advanced Starfleet ship and its elite crew.

SEASON FIVE: OLD FRIENDS, NEW ENEMIES

In the fifth season, focus has shifted from the external conflict with Cardassia, and the writers began building up the Orion Syndicate as an internal opponent for the growing Federation. Furthermore, it appears as if the writers have resolved to make up for the weak conclusion of Season Four with a significant increase in the dramatic tension of the show.

This began as early as the second episode, Curious Felines. The episode began with a decoy side-plot involving Caitian politics, and Maryam Ajam's USS Courageous on a secret mission in Syndicate space to investigate rumors of a Cardassian secret weapon project. While the Caitian plot was resolved quickly, Ajam's ship was attacked during its mission, and utterly crippled in what reviewers have listead as one of the top five gut-wrenching scenes depicting the loss of a Starfleet vessel.

By the time an Amarki battlecruiser arrived to rescue the embattled explorer Courageous, Captain Ajam and half of her ship's crew were dead or missing in action.

The Syndicate, previously portrayed as little more than mere criminals, had escalated to wrecking one of Starfleet's finest ships. This heralded a shift in focus, and five of the next nine episodes featured conflict with the Syndicate, or the aftermath of the attack on Courageous, as either the 'A' or 'B' plot. However, the writers then switched gears back to Cardassia with the widely praised two-part episode Kadak-Tor, which had many viewers on the edge of their seats.

A storm of speculation swept cyberspace as to whether there was a plan to bring the Federation into war with Cardassia, paralleling Deep Space Nine's conflict with the Dominion. The flames were fanned during the first half by subtle classic movie references, leaving viewers uncertain whether to compare the crisis to something out of Tom Clancy- or Stanley Kubrick.

The surprise reappearance of widely liked character Maryam Ajam, thought to have been killed by the Syndicate, brought an unexpected and heartwarming end to the mid-season two-parter. Furthermore, Kadak-Tor's aftermath showed the Cardassian Union pulling in its horns. With this event, To Boldly Go appears to have concluded the "Borderland arc" that spanned the third and fourth seasons.

This was followed by a string of episodes fully establishing the sinister Orion Syndicate as antagonists, with cyberpunk elements and a focus on infiltration and terror tactics, features seldom seen before in Star Trek. The producers neither confirmed nor denied speculation that the recent emphasis on the Syndicate is a commentary on the War on Terror, encouraging fans to draw their own conclusions.

They made similar comments regarding the fanbase-splitting character of Scott Linderley, played by Zachary Quinto. The zealous, secretive head of Starfleet Intelligence made his controversial debut in the fifth season's third episode, The Buck Stops Here, in the aftermath of Ajam's presumed death. Fans seem torn about the character. Some see him as an antagonist within Starfleet, while others view him as a determined figure prepared to do what is necessary to protect the Federation he loves.

FORWARD THE FEDERATION

While UPN's upcoming closure in September is a given, The CW, a joint CBS-Warner Brothers Entertainment venture, has picked up the show for a sixth season. The success of the rotating-cast paradigm, combined with a select number of fan favorites as anchors of the ensemble, has served admirably to keep the show's formula from growing stale over time. Viewers can seldom predict from week to week what sort of Star Trek they will be seeing, but ratings and popular interest remain overall high, even in the face of anticipated shakeups to the show's cast.

There is considerable ambiguity about whether Maryam Ajam will feature in the sixth season. And alarmed fans concerned that Captain ka'Sharren's promotion off the bridge of the Enterprise heralds her disappearance from the show were further disturbed by a trio of April 1 Myspace postings by Megan Gale, though she has since maintained that these were a practical joke.

On a more positive note, To Boldly Go has been able to bring in a growing number of appearances by members of the original Star Trek cast. Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, and George Takei have all appeared on several occasions, along with a recent appearance by Walter Koenig. Nimoy plays a diplomat rather than a science officer, and Uhura and Takei have left the captain's chair behind in their roles as admirals, but all four old fan favorites manage to steal the show whenever they appear.

Sadly, Nimoy has declared that while he is open to future guest appearances as the famous Spock, he will not be returning to the show as a regular.

By contrast, rumors abound that despite his advanced age, Takei has agreed to take on a frequent role as the head of Starfleet Command in the sixth season. If so, we look forward to seeing him fill Admiral Kahurangi's shoes. Furthermore, Ms. Nichols has confirmed in a recent interview that the warm, wise, and tough-minded Admiral Uhura will play a pivotal role in Starfleet's struggle with the Syndicate.

We expect Uhura's command team to be a tough combination for the high-tech criminals of the Syndicate to resist. Jolene Blalock's tenacious and resourceful Commodore T'Lorel, whose appearances in the fourth and fifth seasons had been greatly reduced, will now be taking on a surprising transition to groundside duty against Orion terrorists. And Emma Thompson has confirmed that with her recent film project concluded, she will be returning to To Boldly Go as the formidable Victoria Eaton, helping Uhura fight battles against the Syndicate in deep space.

Other questions revolve around how much of the series will continue to deal with matters other than the Syndicate. Will we see more activity from the Q Continuum, one of the Q having appeared early in the fifth season aboard Thuir's Miracht to caution the Federation against excessive violence? Will the warlike Sydraxians, longtime thorns in the Federation's side, make themselves into a more dangerous threat? Will the Cardassians take advantage of the Federation's preoccupation with the Syndicate?

What is certain is that To Boldly Go, despite its controversies and quirks, is very far from being done pleasing viewers- and surprising them.

---

*Author's Note: I know that in-game we had Sarek to handle these negotiations. But Mark Lenard died in 1996. Rather than recast Sarek, they plotted the episodes for the son, rather than the father. Incidentally, this is part of why the episodes Olive Branch and Place At The Table wound up getting bad reviews. They were originally written for Sarek by someone who'd expected them to recast Sarek.

Then someone had what could have been the brilliant idea to cast Spock instead. Nimoy agreed, but the episodes weren't replotted heavily enough to take advantage of having Spock present on the Enterprise-B. So it wound up disappointing the fans somewhat.

 

[Simon_Jester]

DREAMS, Ch. 2​

[Recommended Listening: Fighting Lady]

Sickbay, USS Enterprise
Galaar System, Romulan Neutral Zone
Stardate 21469.0
[Sixteen Hours Before First Kadesh]

Commander Asurva looked up from her desk. "Making the rounds, captain?" She was only thirty-two; she'd never served on one of the old Connies. Older Starfleet doctors liked to grouse about the accomodations, though. On most ships, the Chief Medical Officer didn't have an office of her own- just a nook. But with nine tons of hull for every four of a Constitution's, the Excelsiors were less cramped, and Asurva had some space to herself.

Loudly, brightly, Nash called out "Just checking up, commander. And don't worry, I'm sure you won't be too busy tomorrow. Either we're all fine and healthy..." A green hand flicked a switch on the desk, and the hiss of the shutting door drowned out Nash saying, "or FOOMP!"

"Nash, that was the worst piece of gallows humor I've ever heard."

"Nonsense. You just don't know how to tell a joke right. Keeps the crew going in hard times, it does." The captain's antennae wriggled slightly, and she put on a devilish grin.

Pritya sighed. "Nash, have you been getting enough sleep lately?" She already knew the honest answer. Not that she could blame the captain. Everyone had had nightmares, and Nash was the one who'd had to push the button on General Order 24 over Dunwich. She could hardly bear to imagine what it must be like, under that kind of pressure.

But at least she could do her best to take care of Nash. Even if she was trying to tear herself apart. She's probably going to trot out another tired old saw...

Nash rallied, right on cue. "Plenty of time to sleep when you're dead!"

"We're going to need you sharp tomorrow, ma'am."

"And I'll be fine, Pritya. Trust me."

"You've been up for twenty-three hours."

"I'm usually fine for twenty-two, and it's an emergency!"

"That's on the Old Andorian clock. Which nobody, including you, has used since our grandmothers were toddlers, and you know it. It's been twenty-three Starfleet standard hours. You're starting to lose the plot."

"Stop oppressing my cultural heritage!"

"Nash, you're a wonderful captain." Pritya smiled, and stood, and patted the Andorian on the shoulder.

The maneuver was one she'd learned from a lanky Vulcan who assured her, in a deadpan, that he had it from a Bolian, who had it from the legendary McCoy himself. Privately she thought of it as the CMO Nerve Pinch, and imagined the old Earthling must have invented it at a time exactly like this...

The carefully palmed hypo hissed in Pritya's hand.

Nash jumped. "What was that!?"

"That was the Crazy Captain Special, for wild child Andorian tactical geniuses who won't take their medicine. A little hypnotic cocktail of mine. Now go get some sleep. Doctor's orders." Pritya kept up a sweet smile that even reached the eyes. "Now, Maryam has the bridge and she's got everything under control. You have about ten minutes before you're too woozy to stand up straight. Can you make it back to quarters in time, or should I send a nurse to help you back?"

---

Captain's Quarters, USS Enterprise
Stardate 21469.1

Ka'Sharren opens her mouth to ask what is going on, but closes it when a voice comes through the viewscreen, "...we live... " there is another long pause, and Ka'sharren can hear the room slowly breathe, each word is a breath in itself, each word is felt as much as it is heard, and each word feels as if it comes from a thousand throats...

Click to shrink...

Nash sat up. She could hear the duranium of the aft bulkhead crinkling as it was invaded, pervaded, corrupted by devouring biomachinery. Blotches of vile, raw-meat crimson, more visible than they had any right to be in the dim light leaking under the door, appearing in the center of the blot.

<Federation selves futile... self hunger... Dunwich self gone... many selves gone... MANY... more selves remain... self eternal... Romulan selves futile... satiate selves... ka'Sharren self futile... satiate Enterprise self...>

The door hissed open, letting the painfully intense blue-white light of the corridor in.

"LIAR! OUT! MINE!" cried a furious soprano Nash had heard only once before in her life, and never like that.

Quick as thought, the textured thermoplast of an emergency hull patch unfurled across the scarlet blot. Then a 'FOOMP!' of expanding plasma sounded, sterilizing the infliction with fire that burned so hot electrons couldn't bear to cling to atoms in the face of it.

The ultra-refractory patch bellied inward, blackening- and that was that.

Nash ka'Sharren sat up, gasping and shuddering. She'd had a lot of experiences to her name in thirty-four years of life. She'd mastered more than her share of the most difficult arts known to a hundred species. Lucid dreaming wasn't one of them. She had no frame of reference for the altered state she now occupied.

She was pretty sure that she'd just woken up out of one dream, into another one.

Nash still wasn't sure the 'spirit of Enterprise' she'd dreamt of two and a half years ago was anything but her imagination. The little Vulcan she sometimes fancifully imagined on her right shoulder whispering into her ear said "no." But there she was, and then again, the little Amarki on her left shoulder had always whispered "yes," very, very loud. And she'd always liked blue better than green, anyway.

"...Thanks."

The woman in the archaic command skirt stood exactly as she had before, in the open door of Nash's quarters. She was panting, blonde hair unbound and settling across her back, uncanny Cherenkov-blue eyes flaming. Her fists were clenched and face contorted in fury. "I hate boarding parties. Especially like this." She turned, facing Nash, stepping closer to the bed, the door sliding soundlessly shut behind her. "I hate boarding parties, I hate firing into our friends' ships, I hate burning worlds, and I hate the Biophage and AAAAIIIEEE!"

Wailing, the Starfleet dream curled up in a ball on the foot of the bed.

Nash had already shifted half out from under the covers. She finished the job, shuffled around on the bed, wrapping her arms around the woman who said she was Enterprise. The spirit was some centimeters taller than her, a few centimeters broader. To the touch, she thrummed with vitality, lithe and powerful and nearly invulnerable, and obviously barely holding together.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm scared... the same reason everyone is."

Nash paused, assuming for the sake of argument that this wasn't a relatively harmless stress-dream. Then she thought, for a moment, what the spirit of a ship taken over by the Biophage might experience... and suddenly the dream wasn't so harmless.

She patted possibly-Enterprise, with the closest she could manage to a soothing, wordless sound. "I won't let it have you, any more than you'd have let it have me just now."

"I... when they installed that damn button in your chair... I was grateful!" The spirit sobbed. "Do you know how wrong that feels, to have a suicide device in your brains and be glad!?"

"It'll be over soon. We'll beat the Biophage, and it'll all be normal again. We can undo the changes, and we can explore together. You watch." Nash nodded firmly. "Whatever it's done to a bunch of colonists and refugees, we're ready and we're loaded for bear. This thing can't handle us."

"I... I know. You're good. Very good. Bazeck takes as good care of me as I could ever ask for, and Stol... well." Some humor came back into the spirit's face. "I've been dropped on planets before. Dropped all the way onto planets, even. But never have I ever had a planet dropped on me until you came into my life."

The vision stuck out her tongue at Nash, who scowled.

"Hey, that was an accident! It's not like it's going to happen again!"

"Yeah. Sure. Anyway, we were both lucky to get out of that one, and we have Stol to thank for it. You know..." she mused. "I actually think he might be the best helmsman I've ever had." The woman in yellow giggled. Honest-to-ice giggled. "Don't tell anyone I said that, tomorrow. Not anyone, you hear me?"

Like she was going to tell anyone, on the day they rode to doom or salvation over Kadesh. Like anyone she met tomorrow would believe the soul of the Enterprise spoke to her in visions. Or anything, except that the captain of the Federation flagship had cracked up under the stress.

Maybe she had.

But Nash humored the dream of her love. If she was going to be crazy, she might as well be happy-crazy. And after all, hallucination or not, this might be the last friendly conversation, free of the chains of command, that she would ever have.

"Sure. Why?"

"I'm... I'm not sure. But I... in spite of everything, I think we're going to win, and I know it's important you don't tell anyone what I just said. That's all I know."

The Federation was, by and large, an atheist government. It tolerated a nearly infinite diversity of religious and spiritual traditions. But it didn't believe in encouraging them, except insofar as it would encourage a harmless, purely secular cultural organization.

Federation officers, as a rule, did not believe in spirits, or prayers, or supplications to same, or anything that even smelled of them. Nash was not, normally, an exception. She'd seen a lot of strange worlds and beings, but not enough to make her believe in just anything.

And yet. And yet. Right now, Starfleet, the Federation, the galaxy, not to mention one Captain Nash ka'Sharren personally, needed all the help the universe could offer. With everything on the line... She wasn't too proud to ask, even if maybe she was imagining the source of the help entirely.

And the cruel cosmos, the universe that could have something as horrible as the Biophage in it, would seem just that little bit less cruel and uncaring, if she weren't imagining this. Didn't she deserve a few happy hopes? So she looked squarely at the near-human in the command-gold skirt.

All the masks, the disarming jokes, the casual flirtation, the persona most people thought of as Captain Nash- for a moment, all of that stepped aside.

"Can you help us?"

Maybe-Enterprise closed her eyes for a moment. "...I'm not sure. I'm really not. I always try, but I can't tell if I'm doing anything you don't do for yourselves. How would I know?" Her lip quivered a little, then her face set in a determination that almost blazed. Her eyes flickered. "But if there's anything I can give you, anything at all, you'll have it tomorrow. I promise."

Nash took a moment, trying to take that in. She'd take whatever she could get. "Is there anything we can do to make it easier?"

"One thing."

"What's that?"

"Miracht. I've heard her screaming. More than once. Many times, now. Many." There were tears in the woman's eyes. "I- I can't hear the others. Romulans are quiet. But I can hear her. P- promise me we'll stop her, captain."

Mirroring the tall figure's words, Nash smiled, a few of the masks slipping back into place. "Anything we can give you, you'll have it tomorrow. I'll have a spacer write her name on a spread worth of torpedoes."

The vision's eyes shone with more than Cherenkov backlighting now. She smiled back. "Thank you, captain."

"Least I can do."

"Mm. Captain?"

"Yeah?"

"Maybe there's one more thing I can give you... You really need a maintenance cycle, you know that?"

"Can't sleep. Can't rest. The damn biophage dreams get into my brains."

Her love stretched out arms that logic said couldn't exist, cracking her knuckles regardless. "Not tonight, captain. Tonight, I'm singing to you."

Nash smiled wearily, sinking back to the pillow, daring to believe for one more night that her vision might actually exist. Her vision leaned in the dining nook, her voice filling the room, chasing away all the shadows the devouring plague could cast in Nash's soul.

And her song was peace.

 

[OneirosTheWriter]

The familiar twinkling motes of the transporter effect clear from the Commodor's eyes as she finds herself in a new transporter room, one rather sleeker and more efficient looking than the one she just left.

"Commodore Eaton," greets a Tellarite man with a Captain's rank pin, stepping forward from a number of people with white command division collars. "Welcome to the USS Zephyr."

Victoria takes a moment to glance over the transporter room of the newly refitted Centaur-A-class starship. To her surprise, it meets her exacting standards easily, a sign of a diligent crew, or the mother of all rush jobs in preparation for her arrival. "Captain Hegorch, glad to be aboard. Welcome to the Anti-Syndicate Task Force."

The Tellarite Captain is tall for his species, and a little on the thin and lanky side, but his bearing is impeccable. "I speak for my officers and crew when I say that we're grateful for the opportunity to help do what's right here. The Syndicate casts a pall over all the surrounding sectors, and has blighted far too many lives."

"Admirable, but do make sure you keep that in the front of mind in the days to come," says Victoria. "I will not lie to you. Thus far, it is a grim and grisly business."

Hegorach's face splits into a wide grin. "Well, Commodore, the next person I met who joined Starfleet because it was easy will be the first."

-

Amepa Planetary News

A wave of arrests of many public figures has shocked the populace of Amepa. SSD units, in conjunction with the Caitian Frontier Police and Rixx Scrutineers, have arrested corporate officers, Planetary Police commanders, civil servants, justices, and a variety of others on suspicion of being Syndicate sympathisers.

The commander of the Frontier Police Battalion issued a statement, saying, "Although there has been hard fighting and many moments of grief over the past few months, we have broken the back of Syndicate resistance on this world, and are preparing to roll up their network here. People of Amepa breath a freer air today."

[+4 Impact, Amepa corruption level reduces to Medium]


-

Anti-Slavery Task Force Progress Report

After the bloodletting of the last month, this month has been considerably calmer, if in large part because both the Union and Starfleet resources are preparing to mount major pushes. Commodores T'Lorel and Eaton have been cleared by Rear Admiral Uhura to include orbit-to-surface strikes if necessary to clear a number of suspected Syndicate strongholds on Bradia. Starfleet Signals Intelligence, however, suggests that a small number of Syndicate agents has slipped through the security cordon, prompting Uhura to declare the world to be under full blockage. This could cause complications, as T'Lorel is planning to begin her major push starting next month, using Frontier Police, Starfleet Security detachments, and support from Office 24 for hardened opposition, to conduct arrests and sweeps for illegal weaponry and materials. [+1 Impact, +1 Cost]

The planned assault will take place with Federation assets only so far. Although the ISSU has deployed a unit to Bradia, T'Lorel publicly is stating she wants to see how Starfleet units can perform against the Syndicate units first. Privately, she does not trust the discipline of Union forces after their showing on Duaba, and she wants to keep this as precise and clean as she can. Thankfully, T'Lorel's diplomatic nous allowed her to convey this without offending our Union allies. [Cost negated by Commodore T'Lorel High Diplomacy]

Which leads to the topic of Duaba. Things there have settled into sporadic sniping and skirmishing. The Planetary Police Units have been forced from the streets, which may be just as well given how riddled with corruption the Duaba Police are. The SSD is recovering from casualties received during the initial sweep, while the ISSU has deployed to the planet. In good news, however, the UCSS Investigators on the wold believe they have traced down part of the planetary leadership of the Syndicate, with Shodar Dorrad Te Molidant being suggested as the leader from prisoner interrogations and forensic work. The ISSU is preparing to capture the Shodar and roll up a significant part of the Syndicate presence on Duaba.

Federation Council and Starfleet Command is advised to do their best to massage public expectations over this coming month, as upcoming offensive may cause many casualties and much negative reporting. However, it is important that we keep the public up to date nonetheless. The Federation does not put stock in secrecy but in trusting the people of the Federation. This mission is the right thing to do, and as long as we make sure that the average Federation citizen is aware of this, and believes we are making progress, they will remain with us.

[+1 Impact, +1 Cost]

-

Spoiler: Details

[Amepa Corruption Reduced, now Medium]

-

[Total: +5 Impact, +1 Cost]

Caitian Frontier Police
End of Watch

Senior Constable Fari N'Piri - 9th Battalion - Killed by Disruptor Fire - 2385-2311

Constable Lanara Shrr'shrr - 9th Battalion - Accidental - 2287-2311

-

Starfleet Medical Command Report
Mortuary Report

Ensign Oleai Veralan, USS Yukikaze, Security, of Tales Har, Killed by Disruptor Fire, Bradia

-

 

[OneirosTheWriter]

Among the uncharted stars that litter the unclaimed space between the worlds of the Sydraxian Hierarchy and the Cardassian Union is a humble little system. It has a G-type star, a handful of rocky planets, and two big gas giants, resplendent in lush purples. It also has an automated way-station for the trade route between the two powers. The one way trip takes nearly five months at the Warp 5 cruising speed of the average cargo ship, and aid if far away if anything goes wrong. So a few way-stations with emergency supplies, and plotting courses that run between star systems, makes a certain sense. Of course, when there is someone out there will ill-intent, it can make you predictable.

However, lurking low in the corona of the star 23 Canard, dangerously so, is a Little Queenship of the Apiata. The course of the oncoming convoy has been well plotted on long-range sensors, the commercial-grade warp drives leaving large, clumsy subspace wakes to track, and as the Pollizazza swings around on one last orbit, a half dozen Cargo Ships, with a Takaaki and a Hasque riding shepherd.

Upon the bridge of the Pollizazza there is a loud, persistent buzzing sound. Sitting in the captain's chair at the core of the hexagonal chamber is a queen, eyes glinting dangerously as her antennae twitch. Red locks flow down over her black and gold uniform, a common colouring on this bridge. Ozziras, the non-queen officers, are bustling to and fro, calling out details, but their captain-queen remains still, saying nothing, simply buzzing with anger. With her are three fellow queens. There are only three dozen queens aboard the whole vessel, riding herd on hundreds of workers and a smattering of drones. The Grizzi and Fozarri, two sleek and modern Stingers nestled in close to the Pollizazza with graviton tethers, have only Ozziras and enlisted Apiatans.

The senior-most Ozzira aboard, the Bridge-Captain in Apiatan terms, turns from the sensor console to approach the command chair. Her antenna rise high respectfully. "Admiral Clozzidra," she says. "Everything is in position. We await your signal."

Clozzidra raises a hand almost lazily towards the viewscreen. "Commence. Unleash the swarm."

"Yes, my queen!"

Aboard the Grizzi and Fozarri the signal sparks a torrent of action, as their Bridge-Captains order tethers dropped, phaser pulsers powered and micro-torpedo burst launchers loaded. They leap ahead of the Pollizazza, leading the way out of the corona of 23 Canard. Coming straight out of the sun, with carefully re-tuned warp coils and a well chosen patch of plasma activity to burst out from, they engage warp drives and are among the cargo ships inside of a minute. The sensors on the convoy haven't picked them up out of the background emissions of the star, and they first become aware of the danger with swarms of micro-torpedoes launched from the two Stingers plow into them amidships, followed up quickly by blasts from the dual phaser pulsers. Then the Stingers have shot past, quickly beginning to come about again. But then the Pollizazza is unleashing as well.

Power goes out on the Hasque, and moments later the warp core of the Takaaki escort erupts in pure, scintillating energy. The cargo ships, caught unprepared, are trying to move free of the waystation, but their thin hulls are pierced straight through by the phasers of the Pollizazza. The last hope of the convoy dies as lifepods erupt from the surface of the Hasque, even as a bright flash and a blur announce the ejection of the warp core.

Half an hour later and the Apiatan task force retires from the system, leaving nothing but debris and vengeance in its wake.

=============

Captain's Log, USS S'harien, Stardate 24384.6 - Captain Saavik

As a part of our sweep of the Ferasan sector border space, we have been instructed by Commodore ka'Sharren to run the physical inspections of the listening posts and crews to ensure they have not been compromised. There are a total of twelve sites, scattered in a 4x4x1 block of sub-sectors, used to provide early warning and tracking, each with a small crew.

-

Captain's Log, USS S'harien, Stardate 24388.3

We are approaching Cedar VII listening post, the fourth in our tour. Unusually, they have not responded to the hail letting them know we are en route. As a precaution, I have taken the ship to yellow alert, and will raise shields when we arrive.

-

Captain's Log, USS Cheron, Stardate 24388.4

While passing through on patrol, we have conducted a successful outreach to the Orion Union colony on Nor'Orion. We contacted the colony administration seeing if they were having any difficulties, and took advantage of the situation to provide free repair work to failed agricultural equipment.

[+2 Impact, reduce Corruption value on Nor'Orion]

-

Captain's Log, USS S'harien, Stardate 24388.5

Our sensor sweeps have accounted for all crew members, alive and mostly unharmed. We are still unable to establish communications. As a result, my first officer will beam over with a security team to ascertain the situation.

-

Captain's Log, USS S'harien, Stardate 24389.2

What we have discovered is that a contagion made it's way aboard ship, driving the crew mad. Hallucinations and fevered thinking has split the crew into two forces, which were fighting a war with their phasers.

A great deal is owed to the fast thinking of one Amarkian officer who realised just before it was too late what was occurring, which caused him to forcibly lock all weapons aboard into stun setting only. With their faculties reduced, no combatant was able to figure out to switch back to lethal settings, and the potential for loss of life was averted. My chief medical officer is currently attempting to develop a cure, but in the interim, they are being sedated for their own safety.

[Gain +5pp, +5rp]

-

 

[OneirosTheWriter]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

Caitian Frontier Police R&D (Personal Tech/Comms)
Amash Hagan Research Office (Computing/Personal Tect)

2311.Q2

Starfleet Intelligence Command - Steering Committee

Admiral,


Overall, I believe that I can report that information integrity within Starfleet has never been higher. Although we will never be an opaque society to outsiders, I believe that our Class 1 secrets are being well-maintained. Forces like the Cardassians and Syndicate will have a far more difficult time attempting to pierce the protections around those areas where they could do legitimate damage to our interests.

Looking ahead, a great deal of Starfleet Intelligence's efforts are currently focused on next Quarter's ratification of Rigellian Membership. Our read on Sydraxian intentions is that they have no grievance with the Rigellians, and are unlikely to interfere. Thankfully, it is far enough from the traditional operating theatres of the Syndicate that I believe they will have a difficult time bringing influence to bear. However after the incident with the deep-cover Caitian asset, we cannot be too careful. We intend to carefully re-vet all crews and assets assigned to this ratification.

Could you please have Operations forward me the list of units to be assigned to the ratification?

Dutifully,
Rear Admiral Scott Linderley, Director

[ ][RIGEL] Select which Explorer Corps will have the lead role at Rigel.

==========================

(Pick One activity for the T'Mir)
[ ][TMIR] Get a report on Cardassian Fleet Distribution
[ ][TMIR] Get a report on Cardassian Infrastructure
[ ][TMIR] Get a report on Cardassian political in-fighting
[ ][TMIR] Get a report on Cardassian public sentiment and broadcasting
[ ][TMIR] Get a report on Cardassian diplomatic posture
[ ][TMIR] Shift to support Anti-Syndicate Task Force

(Pick One Cardassian Tactical Report)
[ ][CARD] Cardassian Ship Analysis Report - Write in
[ ][CARD] Cardassian Shipbuilding Report
[ ][CARD] Cardassian Tactics Report (Gain +5% combat vs Cardassian fleets for the next 12 months)

(Pick One Romlan Tactical Report)
[ ][ROM] Romulan Daljerra Cruiser Report
[ ][ROM] Romulan Ship Analysis Report - Write in
[ ][ROM] Romulan Shipbuilding Report
[ ][ROM] Romulan Shipyard Report

(PIck up to three General Intel Reports)
[ ][REPORT] What would you like to see reported on?
[ ][REPORT] Romulan Diplomatic Posture Report
[ ][REPORT] Klingon Diplomatic Posture Report
[ ][REPORT] Cardassian Diplomatic Posture Report
[ ][REPORT] <Any> Diplomatic Posture Report


[ ][REPORT] Klingon Fleet Strength Report
[ ][REPORT] <Any> Fleet Strength Report

[ ][REPORT] Ship Analysis Report: <Write in Ship to try to get profile>
[ ][REPORT] Shipyard Activity Report for: <Write in Power to get current build details and possibly resource levels>
NB: Not currently available for Klingons

[ ][REPORT] Write in other Question

 

[Leila Hann]

Excerpt from "Khitomer, Kadesh, and the Amarki Cascade" (part one)



While no major sustained conflicts were fought in the interim between the Romulan War and the Biophage Crisis, the twenty-third century is often mischaracterized as more "peaceful" than it was. The Federation's borders were constantly disputed by the Klingons, Romulans, and several minor powers. Perhaps more importantly, Starfleet's mission of exploration may have gotten off to a premature start; with the Vulcan, Human, Andorian, and Tellarite fleets not yet as fully integrated as their civilian governments, the policing of a constantly expanding frontier was made nearly impossible by organizational chaos. While brief periods of successful expansion under the likes of James Kirk and Abok began to leave their mark by the late 2200's, much of the political confidence they generated were undermined by the Genesis and Whale Probe incidents. Consequently, the longterm viability of the Federation as a galactic power was still in doubt by many foreign observers until at least the 2290's.

The diplomatic postures of the Rigellian Assembly and Ferrasan Republic are illustrative of the Federation's precarious state during that century. The Assembly was the first alien power to affiliate with the Federation immediately after its foundation in 2161, and at the time was offered membership. Rigellian spokesmen insisted that Federation membership would follow in the near future provided that the union appeared stable enough, and the matter was set to be put to popular referendum in 2173, and then again in 2185, 2197, and every electoral moot for the following hundred and fourteen standard years. According to 2247 census data, only 15% of the voting population were even bothering to cast their votes on the referendum by that time, making the electoral majority needed for ratification literally impossible. Within the demographic that did continue to vote on the referendum, results fluctuated wildly depending on the Federation's current status with the Klingon and Romulan empires, and on the time elapsed since the last frontier crisis. Within the powerful merchant class of the Assembly, the political consensus was that the Rigellians were already gleaning the benefits of Federation trade and exploration without putting themselves at the risk of Klingon or Romulan aggression that membership would create. Within the working class, nationalist sentiment ran strong enough to make ratification unpopular unless it came with significant improvements in security, economy, or overall quality of life, which affiliation had already improved to the point where there were no pressing deficiencies.

The Ferrasan Republic affiliated with the Federation in 2235, and remained an affiliate until joining the Federation as a full member nearly a century later in 2310. In addition to the concerns about security and skepticism about the utility of membership shared by the Rigellians, the Caitian affiliation took place at a time when historical inertia - or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, historical friction - was in effect. The Federation had, despite its charter being written with the intent of welcoming new species into the fold, failed to actually ratify a new member since its twenty-second century foundation. While Starfleet captains and admirals continued their endless struggle with the member fleets for resources and operational freedom, the political machinery of the Federation had begun to calcify in its four-member state. Official offers of membership to the Caitians were delivered with all the pomp and grandiosity worded in the Charter, but the sitting Caitian President Arisharith himself wrote of the apathy he sensed behind those offers. Meanwhile, the Rigellian Assembly - the Federation's largest and oldest affiliate - was there to serve as a role model for the Republic. If the Rigellians, a species whose spacefaring history and experience predated that of the Caitians by centuries, had seen no reason to ratify, why should the Caitians second guess them?

The events of the mid to late twenty-third century did little to make the Caitians or Rigellians rethink their position. Repeated skirmishes with Klingon and Romulan border forces - at least twice nearly escalating into full warfare in the 2260's alone - were always followed by dire predictions about who the likely victor would be in an all-out conflict, with many affiliates reasoning that divestment would afford them greater security in such a case than combined military force. In the case of the Rigellian Assembly, this thinking may have persisted even beyond the point where it would be logically applicable; by the mid 2200's, the Rigellian economy was so deeply intertwined with the Federation's and its population so widely dispersed through the coreward region of Federation space that rapid divestment would have been impossible, and likely would have been insufficient to deter hypothetical Klingon or Romulan invaders after nearly a century of close integration with the Federation's economic bloodstream. While some historians have clung to the explanation of fear - to the point of mischaracterizing the Rigellians of the time as irrational paranoiacs - it is more sensible to assume that these fears were only a minor factor after the mid 2200's, and that the real barrier to their ratification was a simple, prosaic lack of political will. This conclusion is supported by the aforementioned electoral census data; had fear been the primary obstacle, one would expect a majority of anti-ratification votes rather than abstinence.

This "affiliate stasis" continued as the Federation's successful expansion in the later mid-twenty-third century began to slow down again, with the Betazoid affiliation closing that era of exploration and seeming to provide the third data point in a pattern. The "United Federation of Planets," it appeared by the close of the twenty-third century, had abandoned its ideological foundation and would forever remain an empire of Vulcans, Humans, Andorians, and Tellarites, with other species remaining peripheral vassal states in all but name.

The Khitomer Accords would be the first crack in this uncomfortable paradigm. The Ulith III Biophage Crisis would be the last.

 

[Leila Hann]

Excerpt from "Khitomer, Kadesh, and the Amarki Cascade" (part two)



The Biophage Crisis made two important changes to the political landscape of the Federation sphere.

The first was that, like Camp Khitomer a decade earlier, it led to peaceful normalization with one of the Federation's oldest and most powerful enemies. While the Accords had removed the Klingon Empire as an active threat to the Federation, the role that the Romulan Star Empire played in the attempted Khitomer Conspiracy - and the breakdown of its relations with the other two great powers in the aftermath - meant that security was still no guarantee. Many both within and without the Federation pointed out the parallels between the post-Khitomer era and that of the early Coalition of Planets period in the 2100's, and feared that the Romulans would once again resort to drastic actions to prevent a powerful new alliance from threatening them. While the mutual defense clause of the Accords provided deterrence against a direct Romulan invasion of either the Klingon Empire or the Federation, the Rigellians, Caitians, and Betazoids had all experienced firsthand the Romulan aptitude for political sabotage and asymmetric warfare. Likewise, the traditionalist revolution on Qonos that followed the Praxis disaster ended an era of centralized authority in the Klingon Empire with a restoration of the fractious Great Houses to control of the High Council. Klingon honor being a poorly understood concept by aliens in that time, the Federation and its affiliates were unsure if future Klingon regimes would continue to honor the Khitomer Accords amidst the chaotic pressures of feudal politics. The scenario discussed in the 2299 Security Summit - the Romulan Star Empire launching an invasion of the Federation while the Klingons were distracted by a hypothetical dynastic war - was strong in the public consciousness of Ferrasa and Betazed. With diplomatic relations between the Federation and the Star Empire suddenly restored, and even improved far beyond their state in the 2280's, this lurking fear was finally exorcised. In the wake of Kadesh, the Romulans were revealed to be less militarily powerful than their carefully gardened reputation suggested. Furthermore, cooperative post-Biophage policing of the Neutral Zone led to a sense of comradery between Starfleet and the Romulan Imperial Navy that made war politically impractical.

The dissapearance of the Romulan threat coincided with the birth of another, very different, bugbear. The Ulith III Biophage was an enemy unlike anything the Federation or its affiliates had encountered before, and one to which none of the traditional rules of conflict applied. Unlike the Klingons or the Romulans, the Biophage could never be placated by nonaggression treaties or displays of political neutrality. While surrendering to Klingon or Romulan rule might have been unappealing worst-case scenarios, consumption by the Biophage was literally unthinkable. The Biophage was an example of an enemy that was strong enough to overwhelm a great power, could only be dealt with through force of arms, and to whom submission in any form was synonymous with extinction. While the Ulith III Biophage was destroyed in 2304, the possibility of similar life forms existing, perhaps already spreading and expanding outside of known space, forced governments and voters throughout the Alpha Quadrant to rethink their priorities. The only way to resist a future Biophage-like invader was to form a unified political, logistical, and military front.

It is uncertain how long - if ever - it would have taken these newfound fears to lead to Rigellian or Caitian ratification on their own. While mutual defense pacts and organizational transparency between affiliates were quickly strengthened, ratification talks did not take place in any official capacity until 2306, when this nearly-forgotten clause of the Federation Charter was invoked by a newcomer. As discussed in the previous chapter, rapid affiliation with the powerful Amarki Confederacy was already being touted as a great accomplishment for Admiral Kahurangi's reborn Explorer Corps, and one that restored faith in the ongoing Federation mission of discovery. Untouched by the political friction and calcification that had long ago set in among the Federation's historic affiliates, and roused by its critical role in resolving the Biophage Crisis, the Confederacy shocked the entire quadrant when it requested - without any solicitation by the Federation government - full membership.

Political conservatives within the federal government are believed to have been paralyzed with confusion. Ratification had never, in one hundred and fifty years of Federation history, been successfully passed. And yet, it remained an active clause of the charter, and the Amarki met every criterion of technological prowess, political unity, and social justice by a vast margin. The resurgent Expansionist Party, which had since the turn of the century been growing in popularity due to the successes of the Explorer Corps, was quick to rally the rest of the legislature in favor of ratification. President sh'Arrath, the pro-Expansionist Federation president at the time, famously called for an end to "the century of stagnation" amid the Amarki talks.

Cardassian and Orion Syndicate terrorism was insufficient to deter the Amarki, whose ratification inspired the Betazoids - a somewhat more recent and less calcified affiliate than the Caitians or Rigelians- to follow suit. Watching these perceived upstarts pass them by was taken by a large subset of the Caitian people as a humiliation, and one which they had only brought upon themselves with their century of reluctance. The Rigellians, seeing a change in the nature of the Federation they had long grown alongside with, underwent their largest democratic turnover in nearly two hundred standard years in their next moot, replacing 75% of their elected officials and voting overwhelmingly in favor of the Ratification Referandum, whose presence on the ballots had been the object of tired political satire for an entire generation.

The Amarki Cascade had begun.

.....


A/N: just my attempt to explain how the Federation still only had four members by 2300 in this timeline, and why that might have changed so quickly during the events of the quest.