240011.01

Cairo Briefing Room

 “Sir, we have made preparations with the three ships that we will be escorting. The routes and time schedules have been laid out and agreed on. Just to make sure that everyone is aware of where we are going, the three ships are heading to an area of the Gradin belt known as the Subspace Sandbar, talking to the ships’ captains their benefactors believe that this area should be, theoretically speaking, a prime location for new fields of blood dilithium. : Lt. Shrybass returned to his seat around the conference table.

Lt. Talibah puts her PADD down. “The captains have been warned and briefed on the issues with that area, not only will they have to deal with the subspace sandbar and the pitcher plant but that area also borders the Devore Imperium and Borg space. They have stated that their benefactors are aware and they have made all possible preparations on their ships.”

Lt. Darame stood and enabled the holoprojector on the conference table, and a map of the Gradin Belt appeared. “Sir, this is the route that we will be following as you can see we will have three stops along the way. These will allow for the convoy to regroup and reassess the next leg.” three green dots appear on the map each connected by a red dashed line.”

Kr’antren looked from his PADD to the laid-out route in front of him. “ What is the agreed upon warp?”

“That is the rough part sir, due to the age of the three ships and the experience of the crews on them we will have to all travel at the rate of the slowest one. Warp 5, the oldest of the ships, could push warp 6 if the need arose but they would need to stop for considerable repairs after about 12 hours at that speed.”

Kr’antren looked over at his number one “Guess this will be a long escort mission.”

“Yes, sir”

Lt. Tazzeth then stood. “Captain, the next phase of our mission is a recent addition. We have been tasked to go to the outer markers of the pitcher plant area and run some scans. Bravo fleet wants to make sure that the plant is not “growing”. Some fear that the Blood dilithium’s nature could affect the plant’s growth or possibly its abilities. I believe no more than three to four hours at the outer markers should give us the time to get the data they have asked for.”

“I have read the brief, Darame I do not want to get any closer to that plant than we have to, even being at those outer markers that the Voyager put down is worrisome.”

“Yes, sir”

“Sir, it is my recommendation that during the approach and while we are in the area of the markers all telepaths report to the sick bay for observation.”

“Agreed”

Lt. Talibah picked up her PADD and adjusted the holo map. “The next part of our orders patrolling the area around the sandbar and between the Devore Imperium and the Malon cooperative assisting as we can in the area.”

“Thank you for the briefing everyone. Good work. As you all are aware we have roughly 24 hours till the wormhole is due to open. It will be a mad dash to get through.” he gestures out of the panels where several Task Force 47 starships and a few commercial starships were visible. “Lt. Talibah and I have a reception with the Task Force command staff and the other Task Force captains at 1900 hours. I believe counselor Sia will be attending a “working dinner” with the other Task Force counselors.”

“ Yes sir. Scheduled to start at roughly 1800.”

“Doc, that means you will have the conn.” He smiles as he said this and we hear an audible groan come from the doc.

“ ok, ladies and gentlemen, you have your assignments. Time to get those last-minute preparations completed. You are dismissed.”

240011.2.0800

“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get a go/no go for travel to the Delta Quadrant.” Kr’Antren sat back in his captain’s chair.

Lt. Talibah swings her console over in front of her position. “Engineering?”

“Go”

“Operations?”

“Operations is a Go, communications is reporting that the three ships we will be escorting are also reporting green across the board.”

“Science?”

“ We are a Go, ma’am”

“Tactical and security?”

“ Go and Go, what are we waiting for? Let’s do this.”

A chuckle is heard around the bridge

“Medical?”

“ We are a Go, number one.”

“Counsellor?”

“I am as ready as everyone else is; we have received the latest updates on the diplomatic front as of sixty minutes ago.”

“Helm?”

“ Helm is a Go. We have received our entry order from DEI, we will be Bravo group, sir. The course for the first leg has been laid in and we will go to warp as soon as we are through the wormhole and have received the all-clear from our three escortees, estimate 24 hours at warp 5 for the first leg.”

“Sir, all departments report as green to go. All systems are reporting green and all crew is accounted for.” Lt. Talibah slides the console back to the side of her seat.

“ Very well, Chief Kaha. Send a message to Task Force command and the DEI that the Osiris is mission ready. Then open a ship-wide channel.”

“ Message sent and acknowledged sir and you have the channel captain.”

“Crew of the Osiris, in the next couple hours we will embark on a mission to the Delta quadrant. A new region of space for all of us. Be that as it may, as I said last night trust in your family, trust in your leadership, and trust the Osiris. We are the light that guides, we are the tip of the spear that cuts the path, and we lead so that others can follow. See you all on the other side ” a slight chuckle from the captain “Osiris prepare for code blue operations till we are through the wormhole, all stations prepare for arrival in the Delta quadrant.”

Skagath starts to chuckle upon the channel closing. “ Nice speech their lad, practise it much in front of the mirror.”

“Nope, I made it up on the fly. How did it sound?”

The rest of the bridge staff chuckles at that. “That part stays on the bridge.” As he raised an eyebrow and looked toward Lt. Skagath.

“Ohhh alright sir, my lips are sealed that you made up that fine speech.”

“Counselor put the word out. If any of our telepaths start feeling or hearing anything out of normal I want to know about it immediately.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sending the message out as we speak.”

“Chief Kaha that goes for you also, our resident telepath on the bridge. I’ll be counting on  you to let us know if you feel anything out of your normal.”

“Understood sir, if I may?”

“Go ahead, chief”

“Sir, I want to make it known that I want to stay at my post as long as I can if we run into any issues. Any warning, any information that I could give to you may be what saves the crew, the ship, or the countless number of lives. I’m ready to make that sacrifice if need be sir.”

“Understood and noted in bridge logs, chief. However, I will add my part to that. If at any time the Chief Medical Officer deems you to be a safety risk or if number one or myself orders it you will comply and report to sickbay. No questions No complaints. Understood?”

Chief Kaha turned and faced the two of them. “Understood, captain”  she let out a visible breath as if she had been holding it in to get the courage to make the request.

240011.01.0915

The view screen of the bridge shows a blinding light, which the computer filters down to a non-blinding tone, as the Barzan wormhole opens for November.

“Sir, DEI is reporting that the wormhole has locked itself on both sides, they are starting the process of moving everyone through.”

Assorted ships, both federation, and civilian started to move through on the view screen.

“DEI messages that Bravo group is cleared to enter in 10 minutes.” chief Kaha said from the communications console. “Lots of traffic coming and going sir on all channels.”

“I would think so chief, lots of information being passed I would expect. Let the convoy group know that we are about to enter and will meet up with them at point alpha three to clear the wormhole on the delta side. Darame take us through when we have the green light. Let’s keep it at ¾ impulse as we approach.” 

“Bravo group, you are cleared to proceed. Good luck with your missions. See you all in 30 days.” Came over the comms channel that Chief Kaha had opened for all to hear on the bridge.

“Helm, ¾ impulse, watch the traffic, and don’t scratch the paint.”

“DEI flight control, this is the Osiris thank you for the hospitality make sure you keep the lights on and the door unlocked. See you in 30 days.” Kr’Antren said as the Osiris entered the wormhole horizon. 

Most everyone on the bridge and probably around the ship held their breath, stiffened their stance, or gripped something tight, not knowing what to expect or what was exactly on the other side.

Five minutes later

Almost as one, the staff on the bridge let out a sigh as they crossed the horizon of the wormhole and found themselves in the delta quadrant for the first time.

“Chief send a message to DEI and Task force 17 on Markonian Outpost. Let them know that Osiris has arrived in the Delta Quadrant. After that send a message to our three friends and make sure they all arrived safe and sound.”

“Message sent and acknowledged sir.”

“Helm, take us to point Alpha three, full impulse.”

“On our way”

“LT. Tazzeth, let’s get our eyes out. I want long-range scans as far out as possible, give them some extra power. I want an analysis of the data sent to us prior and what we see now. If it is different I want to know sooner rather than later.”

“Sir, all scans are currently reading what we expected to see coming out of the wormhole, currently the Markonian Outpost is two hours away at the warp we have agreed on with our three friends. Picking up lots of traffic as expected, and a lot going on around the outpost also. Starting to log the various warp and engine signatures of all ships in the area.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.

“Number one, any thoughts?”

“Besides, So this is the delta quadrant? Not right now captain. Waiting to see what is out there.” lifting her chin to point at the viewscreen and what is beyond.

“Agreed on both of those thoughts.” Kr’antren scooted forward in his chair, “not much different from what we are used to seeing, is it? It’s what is out there that will be the unknown.”

“Sir, we have arrived at point alpha three.”

“Scans are showing that our three friends are 10-20 minutes out sir, guess the chief has been tweaking those impulse engines more to his liking.”

“Not going to complain, Lieutenant. Any advantage we can get may be what saves us all.”

“Skagath and helm, make sure you add whatever the chief did to tweak those impulse engines into your tactical maneuvers.”

“Sir, the Risian Sapphire, the Abok & Igemp mining corporation – AIC 562, and the Delta Hammer are all reporting that they are all ready for going to rendezvous Alpha.”

“Send them the go-ahead message”

“Helm, take us to rendezvous point alpha warp five.”

“Coordinates are plotted and locked in sir, arriving in15 hours at warp 5.”

They watched on the view screen as the three ships that they are escorting entered warp and disappeared.

“Let’s roll, Lt. Darame” 

240011.02.1400

“Sir, We have arrived at the rendezvous point charlie. From here our three friends are on their own to get to their destination.”

“Captain, I’m only seeing two ships on our scans. The Delta Hammer has not arrived. Checking long-range scans.” Lt. Tazzeth reported from the science station. “Nothing, captain.”

Kr’antren raised an eyebrow at his number one. 

Chief Kaha slaps her console. “Sorry sir, we just got a message from the Hammer. They were waiting for us to come out of warp before they sent a message. They are saying that they had some power relays act up shortly after they entered warp. They are making their way back to the Markonian Outpost to see if they can get it fixed.”

“Roger, Tell them to keep their eyes out as they will be an inviting target by themselves and folks may not realize that they have just arrived and their cargo sections are empty. Let them know we will be in the area if they get back out this way.”

“Message passed sir”

“Chief, open a channel voice and video with the Risian Sapphire, the Abok & Igemp Mining Corporation – AIMC 562. Put them on the main view screen, please.”

A human middle-aged male sitting behind a desk of some sort filled one half of the view screen while the other half showed a pair of Ferengi males sitting on either side of what seemed to be a triangular table.

“Gentlemen, Captain Kr’antren of the federation vessel USS Osiris. We have arrived at rendezvous point charlie. As I’m sure you have noticed by now the Hammer ran into some engine trouble and is making its way towards the Markonian Outpost.”

“Are we sure about the engine trouble Captain, something seemed off about that ship and its crew. I’m not saying anything but they just gave off a vibe if you will.”

“Understood Captain, I’ll take it under advisement and will look into it.” as he looked over at Skagath off-screen.

“Hmmmmm, brother that tall one in the back, she could tickle my lobes.” as one of the brothers’ eyes locked onto Lt. Talibah.

Kr’Antren held back a chuckle as he turned and looked over at his Number one as she groaned.

“Rule 53 captain Kr’Antren , yes rule 53 fits.”

“So does rule 219, brother.”

“Shut up, you know nothing.” as he slapped his brother across the table.

Again Kr’antren looked over at Skagath.

“Gentleman, just a couple minutes more and you can go on your way. As I was about to say this is where we go our separate paths. Just a couple of warnings though, we are getting close to the Devore Imperium controlled area. Watch out for them; they will not hesitate to impound your ship or take any telepaths you may have on board or both. Hiorgen hunting parties are also reported to be in the area. You have the subspace Sandbar and the Pitcher Plant marked on your maps so be careful in those areas. We haven’t heard of or received any reports of Borg activity along their border, however, I wouldn’t stray too close to their borders if it can be helped. We will relay any information we get through our channels if needed, We will be patrolling and doing some investigating/researching as per our assigned mission in the area highlighted in yellow on your maps. If you need help or assistance send us a message and another star fleet vessel or we will be there as soon as we can. Remember the wormhole opens on 1 Dec. That’s all I have, gentlemen.” 

The two sections of the screen return to their normal state as the other captains sign off. 

“Wow, Number one. Wouldn’t have figured you for the Ferengi type.” Skagath quickly ducked below his console in case something came flying his way.

Lt’Talibah looked over at the counselor and gave her a wink. “Better than being a Tellarite type. Am I right, counselor?”

“Oh, most definitely ma’am.” As she looked at Skagath.

“aaaiiieeee, be still my wounded heart, how could they?”

As the bridge broke out in chuckles.

“Ok back to business, what did you make of those comments, captain?”

Lt. Talibah stood and walked over to the science console. “Tazzeth, did we scan their cargo holds?”

“Yes ma’am, I did that during their conversation with the Captain. Looks like at least one of their cargo holds has a good deal of Gold Pressed Latnium bars in it.”

“Guess we know they won’t just be mining for it, hope they are careful on who they deal with out here.”

Kr’Antren shook his head as he watched the view screen and the departing ships.”Ferengi will be Ferengi, I guess.”

“Anything on long-range scans?”

“No sir, not at this time.”

“Helm, pull up the map or the area, let’s see where the closest known Blood Dilithium field is.” The view screen becomes a zoomed-out map of the area with the Osiris centrally located on it.

Lt.Talibah and the captain walked up and stood near the helm and ops consoles.

“Captain, it looks like the closest one would be the one located at the seven o’clock position if we used our location as the clock center.” It began to pulse blue. “We would be there in about three hours at warp eight,” Darame said from his seat just to the right of where the captain stood.

“Captain, if I may. This field here might be a bit more interesting for us to look into. According to the updates we received when we arrived through the wormhole, this area was the home of a rather relatively decent-sized subspace rift, within a trinary system, about seven days ago. It was noted by various survey ships that the rift was open for approximately 72 to 96 hours, and could have affected the entire system in that time frame.” Another point begins to pulse between green and blue as Tazzeth worked on various screens on his crescent-shaped console in front of him. “ I’m pulling up the information on the system now, sir.” as a third of the view screen started to show the pertinent information on the system.”

Lt. Talibah walked over to the scrolling list and read off what she was seeing. “ Looks like we have seven planets – one class H, two class J, two class L, one class M, and a class Y. Seeing quite a few moons most are class D, though I do see 2 class K moons around the class M planet. Oh, that’s interesting, don’t see many of those in a trinary system. It looks like we have a class R planet that orbits around the third sun in the system, making it around the middle three planets in an elliptical orbit, it’s habitable but just barely. There is also a decent-sized asteroid belt formed between the two class L planets, which must have been a moon or maybe another planet that did not form. Looks like there are several larger asteroids that could be considered class K.”

“Sir, previous scans of the system show that the class M planet is inhabited, but no mention of a species is made in the logs. According to the survey vessel that made the initial finding when the subspace rift was detected. It was below the orbital paths of the main group of planets. It was roughly 2 million kilometers long rather jagged and approximately 500,000 at its widest point.” A red line appeared on the view screen map in the reported location of the Rift.

“Lt. Tazzeth any ideas on why this rift opened here? Are we close to any known Interstellar phenomenon?” Kr’antren turned towards the Science officer as he listened to his number one. 

“No sir, nothing reported in the area, this is rather close to the borg controlled space but other than that no sir.” One of the science crew walked up from behind the Lieutenant and handed him a PADD. “Thank you, ensign, well that’s interesting. Look at this sir.” As white lines began to connect known areas on the map.”Looks like if you drew a line from the Pitcher Plant  to this location and then a line from this rift on the edge of the Subspace Sandbar they would intersect over this system.”

Kr’antren looked back towards his science officer then back at the view screen then at his number one who was still reading the information that was scrolling.” Well, that just jumped this system over that other one, I would think.”

“Captain, from what we got from the escort requests,  I believe that the two Ferengi are heading towards that Rift and the area it affected.” Lt. Shrybass added to the conversation.

“Chief, send a message asking them if they could send us any scan or sensor reports that they conduct. Tell them that Lt.Talibah asks for it.” As he looked over at his number one and gave her a wink and a smile. “Sometimes you gotta use a little honey to catch a fly, number one.”

She groaned and held her head in her hands for a few seconds. “I’m not going to hear the end of this one, am I.” 

“What do you think number one, does it check off all the boxes?”

“Looks like it, sir. A longer than usual rift opening, plenty of places for the dilithium to appear, an inhabited world, not to mention what the ensign brought to our attention of it lining up with two known phenomena. I think Starfleet would be interested in the data we can collect from the system. It may lead to them sending in a better-equipped survey vessel or maybe an explorer.”

Kr’antren took a second look over the entire map, mentally noting a few areas, then took a few steps back to his central chair. “Ops, I want the runabout prepped for scientific scans and survey work. Get with Lt.Darame and select a good helmsman for her. Science, select two of your folks for the crew. One should be well versed in the information we have so far on the dilithium. Number one you’ll be in command of the runabout. Oh, I shouldn’t have to say this but no telepaths.” 

LT. Talibah returned to her seat. “Orders sir?”

“Conduct a preliminary research flight into and around the system. Focus on the asteroid belt and those two class L planets.”

“Yes sir.”

“The Osiris will try to make contact via comms with the inhabitants of the planet if it is possible. We will also take a closer look at the area where that Rift was located, and see what we can pick up.”

“Any questions?”

Kr’antren looked around the bridge. “ No, ok then. You all have your orders. Let’s get to work”

Lt.Tazzeth looked up from his console. “Sir, it may be a good idea to look at that rogue planet also, see if the dilithium is growing on it.”

Kr’antren looked over at Tazzeth, as he ran his fingers through his beard. “ Your right Lieutenant, we will put that on the to-do list. Good idea.”

“Helm, take us to the system, Warp eight. Let’s enter it into the system as Osiris – 1A for now, Do not enter the system. Let’s keep the Osiris far enough out so that we are safe from the Dilithium effects, till we get a better idea on what the system has in store for us.” Kr’Antren sat forward in his chair and used his chair’s arm console, with its small screen, to pull up information. He looked for anything he could find from the Voyager logs that would help them prepare for meeting the inhabitants of the system, Though he could find no logs entered on the system.

“Sir, the course has been plotted and laid in. Estimated travel time at warp eight is 24 hours.”

“Ok, then. Chief, inform Task Force 17 of our intended destination. Helm, light the fires, and kick the tires. At least I think that’s how that old earth saying goes.”

240011.03.1300

USS Nile Oasis (Runabout)

Lt.Talibah entered the rather large shuttle bay for a ship the size of the Osiris, seeing the Nile Oasis was the Runabout being prepped she made her way over to it. Flicking through her PADD, with a coffee cup in her hand, barely lifting her eyes. She was able to make her way around various stacks of supplies and crew that were moving around the shuttle bay.

“Ma’am, this might be one area where watching where you walk and paying attention to your surroundings may do some good don’t want you tripping over a crate of dinnerware or being run over by some crewman in a rush to get their pallets stacked before they can go to lunch.”

“What? Oh ummmmmm.” she looked around herself seeing what she just walked through “Sorry guys, hope I did not cause anyone to drop something.” she stopped and looked up at who had spoken to her, seeing a young-ish looking Vulcan standing the Nile’s hatchway.

“Thank you, Ensign?”

“Naes, Ma’am. Welcome to the Nile’s Oasis. I have been assigned as your helmsman.”

“Okay, so how’s our girl looking?”

“The Nile Oasis is cleared for the mission, Ma’am. I double-checked that the proper systems have been added “ he points to the mission pod on the roof “and I just started running diagnostics on the main flight control systems when I saw you walking up.”

“Has our science crew reported on board yet?”

“No ma’am, I expect them in the next 15 – 20 minutes, I understand that they are going through the data from the survey vessel that passed near the system two weeks ago.”

Looking down into her cup, she let out a shallow breath. “Please tell me the replicator has a good coffee menu.”

Ensign Naes slightly tilted his head and looked over his shoulder. “Not sure ma’am, I haven’t checked.”

“Ensign, Ensign, Ensign” she clucked her tongue as she stepped up into the Nile Oasis. “Word of advice, always check the replicator menu. Especially if the Captain or XO is part of the crew.”

“ Yes, ma’am”

“Ok then, let’s get this bird ready to fly once the captain gives us the green light. Go ahead and finish up your diagnostics on the flight control and run one on the main systems. I’ll start running checks on the sensors and other systems to include the mission pod.”

The blue head of an Andorian pokes through the hatchway. “Ma’am, do you have room for one more? The Captain said he wanted someone with knowledge of Dilithium and I thought of a classmate of mine that is in engineering.”

The XO turned and looked around the ship. “We should, did he get the ok from Lt. Mathison?”

“Yes ma’am. The LT said he would send the Captain and you a message.”

“Ok then. Send them on over. You know the Captain said, “No telepaths on this one.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I  came down with your two science crew to make sure they had everything they needed.” an arm was visibly waving someone over to the runabout.

“Ok Teak, out of the way. We have work to do.” A human female wearing the pips of an ensign in a blue science tunic entered the runabout followed by a male Klingon in yellow engineering also wearing the pips of an ensign. Last but not least was a human male probably in his mid-thirties in science blue with Chief rank on his tunic.

“Ma’am” As the chief entered.

Lt.Talibah stood and faced the group in front of her. “Ok, I’m sure you got the mission brief from your department heads, so I won’t bore you by going over it again. Let’s run scans and get all the data we can for theStarfleet, No unscheduled side trips or stops on this ride folks. We will check in with the Osiris before we return to see if they have anything new for us. Any questions?

240011.03.1300

“Ok, folks. One hour till we arrive at our destination. Updates?”

“Sir, Lt.Talibah is reporting that her crew has all arrived on the Nile Oasis and is ready to go whenever you give them the green light.”

“We are not getting anything new or different from the scans, sir”

“Captain, I’ve been doing some reading on these wee bastards, the Devore Imperium, these guys are sneaky as hell and quite pushy. One thing I have noticed is that they have some sort of system that makes it hard for our sensors to detect, not quite a cloaking device just one of their systems runs differently. Maybe a good time for us to test out that, what did you call it? Echolocation, maybe that was it, upgrade.”

Kr’antren gave a slight smirk towards tactical. “ You mean the Sonar upgrade we had the chief add to the sensor arrays? Could that work Tazzeth?”

“Theoretically, yes it should. Though I would be hesitant to use it as a continuous thing, sir. May make more sense to use it situationally.”

“Yaaaa don’t want any of them bugger’s figuring out how we found them if it works out here. Give them a bit of a shock when we knock on their door asking if we could borrow a cup of sugar.” 

“I’ll take that under advisement you two, Helm/ OPS anything new informatio-wise?”

“ Sir, we just received an update from Task Force 17 on the maps. Looks like most of them were still using the old Voyager logs to create the borders for the territories. Sir, you may want to take a look at this.” The view screen changes to the original map that they were using earlier, it then morphed into the new map showing the most up-to-date information being shared by friendly planets, allies, and other Starfleet vessels. 

Kr’antren got up from his chair and walked over beside the helm console, Skagath also walked over and stood beside the captain and let out a low whistle.

“Looks like the Devore Imperium has been busy the last few years.”

“It does look that way, doesn’t it? Chief Kaha, send this updated map to the Risian Sapphire, and the Abok & Igemp Mining Corporation – AIMC 562. Make sure they understand that the Imperium has expanded its territory. Let the Risian Sapphire know that according to this map their claim may be inside the Imperium borders now.”

“Message sent, captain”

“Looks like the Imperium has ballooned out on their western end.”

“ Aye, smart basterds. Staying clear of the Pitcher plant and the Borg on the southern and eastern sides. Enveloping the Subspace Sandbar on the western half sends a message on what they are after.’

“ It does, doesn’t it? Wonder how fast they moved into those areas after the initial pulse and the correlation between subspace rifts/anomalies and the growth of new dilithium fields were made.” he took one more look and then made his way back to his chair.

“That’s going to change our patrol area, sir, I’ll start working on those changes on my end with the helm. Lad, I would suggest we go to a yellow alert from here on out. With them imperium folks expanding like that who knows where they may turn up.”

“I’m glad we both agree on that lieutenant, take us to yellow alert Lieutenant. Let the alarm ring for one minute then silence it. No, need to keep that going.”

“ Yes, sir”

Kr’antren tapped his ship-wide channel button. “Osiris, I have made the preemptive decision to take us to yellow alert due to information we just received. We will more than likely be operating under a yellow alert for the foreseeable future. Do not get complacent in your duties under the alert as time goes on. Stay vigilant and report anything out of the norm to your department heads or section leaders. All telepaths, unless your department head has cleared it through me that you are mission essential during a yellow alert, report to sick bay.”

“Sir, 10 minutes out from arrival.”

“Helm, drop us out of warp. Let’s take our time and approach the system with our eyes and ears open.”

“Dropping us out of warp in 3, 2…1” the view screen went from seeing the warp tunnel effect to looking at a  trinary system in the distance. “ At full impulse sir, we are roughly two hours out from our original arrival point.”

“Good to know, Science and Comms lets get our eyes and ears open. Let’s see what is around, shall we? Chief Kaha, try to make contact with the inhabited planet, see if they are friendly or not, and if they are willing to assist with any information they may have.”

“Sir, I can confirm that they probably know we are here. I’m seeing what looks like four combination sensor and communications arrays, well that’s interesting sir, these look like Ferengi models with a few adaptations that are unfamiliar to me.”

Kr’antren leaned forward in his chair. “Well it was a Ferengi survey vessel that first reported the rift, I’d bet that the Markonian Outpost and star fleet were not the first people they called.”

A chuckle was heard from several members of the bridge staff. 

“Though I doubt that they are the sole inhabitants of that planet. Whoever else lives there I hope they know what they have gotten themselves into dealing with a Ferengi.”

Counsellor Sia walked in from the briefing room. “ I overheard the conversation, sir, truth be told it has been known that the Ferengi have been using the Barzan Wormhole for their business ventures for a while now. Still not long enough to set up a full-blown colony though a decent-sized mining colony would be possible with what Starfleet guesses they could have had in the area when this all started. ”

“True, counselor.”

 “Captain, we have received a reply from the planet, they are asking for video and comms.”

Kr’antren held up a finger, asking for a moment. He then tapped on a comm channel button.

“Number one, going to hold on to the green light for a bit. I’ll fill you in once we have some more information.”

He then pointed at the chief “Your turn, chief” As he stood and walked forward between the ops and helm consoles.

The screen was divided into 4 vertical section, three species that he could not identify off the top of his head and a male Ferengi.

“Good morning gentleman and lady, I am Captain Kr’Antren of the federation vessel USS Osiris. We are here as part of the star fleet task force that has been brought into the Delta quadrant to help figure out the cause of this new dilithium that has been appearing throughout the Gradin Belt. Who do I have the privilege of speaking to? This is our first encounter with people from the Delta Quadrant so if you could tell us who your people are it would be much appreciated.”

Counsellor Sia walked up and stood beside Shrybass and the operations console.

“What do you want, federation? We are here running a legal business venture and helping the fine folks of this system build themselves into a trading hub and possible relaxation destination for any that come through.”

“ Yes, I’m sure all of your paperwork would check out Mr.? “

“Rharpax, I’m the owner and CEO of Rharpax Mining and Trading,”

“Thank you Mr. Rharpax. We are not here to interfere in any business ventures you may have with these gentlemen and ladies. We are here to  look into the dilithium and offer any assistance that we can.”

“Ahem Captain, I am Governor Zcarva, I represent the Entharan colony which currently is housed in what we call the City of Five Hills. The other gentleman and I make up what we have named the Governor’s council. We are the respective leaders of our colonies and so when we meet we speak on behalf of them.”

“Nice to meet you Governor Zcarva”

“Captain, I am called Krilhik. I am the governor of the Jye colony. Our city lies in an area along our coast. If you have a chance we would gladly receive you at Silver Dawn. Named after the beautiful sunrises here.”

“Governor Krilhik” Kr’antren nodded his head in greeting.” If we ever get a chance for some shore leave, I’m sure members of my crew would be most honored to visit your city.”

“Captain, Governor Buoln’Drit. I represent the Nuu’Bari colony, we pride ourselves as the first founders on this planet. Our city lies amongst a great open plan which we have cultivated for agricultural use. Our great city is known as Chaerunt E’blaier

“ As I said earlier, I am Rharpax. Governor of the Rharpax Trade city.”

“Of course, Governor Rharpax.”

“ Governor Rharpax, I’m sure you are aware of the report made by the Ferengi Survey vessel a week ago.”

“Yes, yes… I signed off on it.”

“Ahh very well then. I guess I don’t need to go into what the report said.”

Governors, as I said in my introduction. We are here to research the Subspace anomalies and rifts that seem to be opening around the Gradin Belt and why after these rifts open does this new strain of Dilithium begin to grow on any surface it can. We would like your assistance in these regards as your star system was a recent area for one of these rifts.”

“Let me first start by asking if there is anything you need from us in the way of assistance, be it medical or otherwise. We have a very good doctor onboard if needed, and we do have some supplies that we have brought from the alpha quadrant.”

All of the governors start talking at once. Kr’Antren holds up a hand. “Governors please one at a time. I believe we should move this conversation to our ships briefing room so that I am better able to notate what we discuss. Please give me a few minutes to talk to my crew and Counselor Sia and myself will join you there.”

“Very well Captain”

The view screen goes back to the normal view as Counsellor Sia walked over to and entered the Cairo briefing room on the operations console side.

“Skagath you have the Conn,stay at yellow alert for now.”

“Helm, all stop at this location.”

“Chief you ok?”

“ Yes sir, no effects from this distance as far as I can tell. Sir I can tell you though what I felt through that channel was not as pleasant. Was starting to develop one hell of a migraine and lots of very low whispers. Not strong enough to affect me mentaly but it was there. One if not more of those governors has a lot of the Dilithium near them. And I don’t think it was the Ferengi.”

He looked at her for a few moments as he ran one of his hands through his beard, the crew knew that this meant he was thinking and considering his options. “Ok, though at the first chance you get I want you to go get checked out by Doc, if she says you’re good then we’re all good and you can come back for your next shift.”

He then went back to his chair and hit the comms button “Number one, we are going to hold on your mission. We have opened communications with the inhabitants of the planet, to include a Ferengi contingent of miners and traders. I’m about to go back to the meeting with them. Mission is not scrubbed but we may change it. I’ll let you know, for now sit back and relax.”

He then took his PADD from the seat and entered the Cairo Briefing room.

60 or so minutes later

The Captain and counsellor walk back onto the bridge.

“Nothing new on the scans sir, though I have started to make adjustments for picking up any of the signals from the rift.”

“That’s a start for now, lieutenant. The governors have agreed to send us data from the various sensor platforms along with their observations from the time while the rift was open. Once you have it, start running a full analysis on it. They also have ongoing recordings of the after effects which they will give us access to.”

“Chief Kaha, send a message for Lt.Talibah to come up to the bridge as soon as possible. We have some interesting things to discuss that the governors brought to our attention.”

The chief tapped her combadge and relayed the message. “she is on her way, captain”

“chief you were right, both the Entharan and Nuu’Bari cities have extremely profuse growths of blood dilithium. To add to that neither one of those species are telepathic but they do have other species in their colonies that are. Let me stop there, better call the Doc in on this.”

He tapped his combadge “ Doctor M’Gok, Captain Kr’Antren please report to the bridge as soon as possible.”

“ I’m already here sir, I heard that the chief had a reaction during a communications “meeting” and I came up to check on her as soon as I could.” 

Counselor Sia nodded her head at the captain.

“We will wait a couple minutes for number one to join us; so I don’t have to go through everything multiple times.”

Several minutes later the turbolift doors opened as Lt.Talibah entered and took her seat.

“ ok, everyone is here.” He spent the next few minutes catching everyone up to the point he was at.

“As I was telling the chief. There are telepathic people on the planet. Doc’ they are sending you a case file on most of the cases. They did say that some of the cases were treated for mild headaches and a state of unease and sent home to rest. That’s not the worst of it though. Part of their medical plans is to take all of the telepaths and move them to a place of safety that is currently not near any of the blood dilithium deposits by several thousand kilometres. From what I understand the area they are moving them to is near Silver Dawn City which from what  they told us was on the far side of the planet from where the rift was. So it has very low quantities of the Dilithium growths. However the security and construction teams swear that when they are working to set up the temporary hospital and shelters for the telepaths they sometimes see small groups of people wearing black in the forests around the area that will be used. They also report finding small fragments of blood dilithium secreted into places around the site.”

Both Skagath and the Doc look at each other, the Doc nods as she is still checking over the chief. “Captain, that sounds to me like someone maybe paying a bit too much attention to the telepaths. If what those security folks and the construction crews is telling their people is true, hiding small pieces of this Blood Dilithium amongst the housing and hospital could be a way to test its long term effects on telepaths. It may have the same effect of feeding small doses of poison to someone so that they just think they are getting sick and till they start to feel worse and worse as they get more and more of the bloody stuff into their bodies. It is a common way that assassins work in many cultures that use that type of stuff for their dirty work.”

Kr’Antren looked at his PADD “That’s what i noted down also.” He then held up his PADD to both Skagath and the DOC. “ You can see what my next thought was.” written in big letters in an angry looking large and bolt note was the word “WEAPONIZATION”

“ Doc, would it be possible” 

Doctor M’gok sat back onto the step she was barely on and let out a long breath with a shudder “ Not only would it be possible but I think it would be highly likely. One option would be to turn it into some sort of weapon or device that could be used to deliver it to an area. Another idea would be to see if you could figure out a way to administer it without the intended target even knowing.” 

The captain stood and walked to look at the view screen. “Let’s say in a hospital or a refugee camp or maybe even a city.”

“Yes, sir”

“Ok, we stay here for now. Doc I want a full report on possible effects of a weaponized Blood dilithium. Skagath, I want a report on how it could be weaponized and used. Number one, consider your mission scrubbed for the time being. Helm plot a course that makes a loop around the system warp 2, plan for interment stops say every thirty to sixty minutes where we will run scans and sensor sweeps. When we come out of warp , continue at impulse. Mix them up so it doesn’t create a pattern. I want those reports by 1000 hours tomorrow morning. We have work to do ladies and gentlemen, Dismissed.”

Several minutes later

 Kr’Antren is seated in his chair watching the bridge staff work around him.

“ Sir, I have plotted the route. Also added an axis change turning each rotation so that we can cover the system and surrounding area from different angles, this will also give us a chance to get some reading from the area near where the rift was located.”

“Good idea Lieutenant, smart thinking on your part. Ok then, take us to warp 2. Let’s roll.”

240011.04.1000

Kr’Antren sat in his chair reading something on his PADD, a look of concern deepened as he read. He looked to his left at the Doc sitting in her customary seat when she was on the bridge. 

“I know sir, its bad. That’s just from the research that we have on the effects of Blood Dilithium so far. The more we learn the worse it will get. What I find interesting is that whoever it is, is looking at the effects of small doses on telepaths, not just what happens if exposed to a large dose.”

“Speaking hypothetically Doc, can you think of a reason? If you were on a research team assigned to weaponize Blood Dilithium, which way would you lean?”

Doc M’Gok let out a long sigh as she looked at the view screen. “I’ve been wondering about that myself. I guess it would depend on the agenda, does it say outright kill those we do not understand or hate or does it say to sow fear amongst the populace?”

Kr’Antren sat back in his chair, running a hand through his beard. “I don’t think we need to say “who” when discussing that part. I’m pretty sure we are all thinking the same thing. Now we just have to prove it. why here? Why not on the systems they control or worse on the prisoners they have taken?”

He looked back at his PADD. “If you think your report was all doom and gloom try reading Skagaths. He not only knows his stuff from the tactical and strategic side but the old man has a thing for history also. Putting the two of your reports together doesn’t paint a pretty picture if that’s what they are trying to do.”

“Captain, we have an incoming transmission from one of the governors.”

“Which one?” 

He looked at his number one “I hope it’s not the Ferengi, that man is only concerned about one thing.”

She chuckles “Well he is a Ferengi, sir”

“It’s Governor Buoln’Drit, Captain.”

“Put it in the main screen chief.” as the video connection was made and the center of the bridge’s view screen showed the connection. 

“Hello Governor, let me introduce my executive officer. This is Lieutenant Talibah. How may we help you, sir?”

“Hello Captain and Lieutenant Talibah. It has come to my attention through a couple of our mining corporations that we have lost contact with several of our sites on a couple of the planets and one of the asteroids.”

Kr’Anyren and his number one both look at each other, then back at the governed. “Tell us more, governor?”

“Well you see my people specialise in creating and maintaining a holographic workforce, it is what we are known for. The corporations have set up various mining and manufacturing sites in pressurised domes where needed. These sites run on their own as the programming inherent in the holograms will keep them working. The problem is that we have lost communications with several sites. Without the communications we can’t schedule the pick up of materials or drop off the supplies that the manufacturing sites need to continue production.” 

“I could see how that would cause some concerns. So how can we help you?”

“Captain, please realise that we wouldn’t ask this if it wasn’t starting to affect things here within our great city or in our trade with the other cities and with Rharpaz, of course.” 

Number one looked at Kr’Antren. “5 points to you captain, you said you bet that Rharpaz would have a part in this.”

The Governor chuckled at this. “Ahhh you know Rharpaz then?”

Kr’Antren looked at the governor  “Well not Rharpaz, per se. But we have dealt with a few Ferengi in the past.”

“Ahhh yes, I understand they are a rather big business corporation on the other side of the wormhole.”

Kr’Antren and Talibah look at each and try to hold back the laughter. “You could say that.”

“We’ll captain. I would like to ask for your assistance in investigating this matter.”

“Could the corporations not handle this themselves?”

The governor looked around and then leaned closer to his console. “We could, but then it would let others know that we are having technical issues which they would offer to look into. But that always has a price, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes governor, we understand. It so happens that the Lieutenant and I were just discussing a mission for one of our shuttle craft. We can add your request into the plan for the mission. We plan on launching the shuttle craft later on tonight so that their arrival at some of the locations we want to research is during the Alpha shift on the Osiris so that we can have the most folks analysing the data as possible. Will this work for you? It’s probably the earliest we could look into your situation, right now.”

The governor looks at a console on his desk entered  something then waits a few minutes. “ Yes, yes that will work, captain. According to the corporations they still have 36 to 48 before they would need to resupply those stations or production would be halted.”

“Ok then. We will let you know tomorrow what we find.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

The transmission ended and the view screen went back to normal.

“Well number one, looks like you have a mission to plan for. Let’s go with the original mission plan from yesterday and add the governor’s request to it. Alert your crew.”

“Yes, sir.” She stood and made her way to the turbo lift making calls to the crew on her combadge.

240011.05.0300

“Ma’am all systems are a go,” the LTJG turned and looked around the crew compartment of the runabout. “All crew are accounted for. We are ready for launch.”

Lt. Talibah looked around the runabout and nodded. “Alright then, Ensign Vr’oshek your my Engineering Officer. So light her up.”

“Yes ma’am”

She then tapped on her console beside her. “Osiris flight control this the the Nile Oasis, we are mission ready.”

“Roger Nile Oasis,” a klaxon could be heard in the shuttle bay along with a pulsing green light. “Dropping the Field, you are go for launch. Have a nice ride Nile Oasis”

“Thank you flight control, please tell Lt. Shrybaas to keep the lights on while we are gone.”

A chuckle is heard over the channel. “Will do Ma’am”

The shuttle lifts from its pad and slowly makes its way out of the Osiris’s port side shuttle bay, once clear of the ship it made a hard turn to starboard and went warp.

“Just a short jump ma’am. Then we can start with the first mission objective, Reconnaissance of a safe route for the Osiris from outside of the system to the planet.”

“Normally it wouldn’t be an issue Lieutenant for the Osiris, but the deposits of blood dilithium that have grown in this system could make things a bit tricky.”

“Yes ma’am. I fully understand. It is logical for the route to be planned in order to keep the crew safe.”

“Which reminds me, Lieutenant. Did you visit sickbay as directed last night?”

“Yes ma’am. The doc gave me the suppressant and outfitted me with the monitor.” He pointed to the small device at the base of his skull. “She said that you would also be able to monitor it on your console.”

“Very well, we should keep an eye on that.”

“Ma’am” ensign Vr’oshek quietly said, well as quiet as a Klingon can be, “The doc also asked me to wear one, even though I am not a telepath. Something about creating a baseline for each of the species that make up the crew. She said it could help in figuring out why or how it affects telepaths only and to see if it actually affects everyone on a level that most of us wouldn’t show any of the effects.”

“Yes, she explained it to me that way also.” She lifted her hair from the nape of her neck. “I volunteered to be the human test subject and I believe the Captain also volunteered.”

“Honour and loyalty, ma’am. Signs of a good leader”

 “That and and we both live by the old rule that a leader should never ask anyone to do something that they themselves are not willing to do or have not already done themselves.”

“Ma’am, dropping out of warp in 3, 2,..1. We have arrived at the outermost planet of the system. According to the information that we received we should be clear of Dilithium here.”

“Sensor’s show a class J planet ma’am. Quite dense and compact. I am reading an ice core. The moons are both ice and rock.”

“Well I think this would make a good spot for the Osiris to enter the system and park in an orbit around the planet. She could than launch the other runabout and her shuttles to conduct sensor scans and research amongst the outer limits of the system.”

“Chief, send a message to the Osiris with our recommendation.”

“Yes ma’am”

“LT. Naes, let’s take her to a 50,000 kilometer geostationary orbit of the 5th planet’s southern pole. According to the data that we have been able to analyse, the 5th planet was over the rift’s central area when it orbited over it. We should be safe at that distance from any effects of any Blood Dilithium on the planet at the location.”

“Yes ma’am.. coordinates locked in, going to warp.”

30 minutes later

“Ma’am we are coming out of warp at our destination.”

The view screen goes from the warp tunnel to a view of a planet filling their screen.

“Take us in Lieutenant, 50k above as we had planned. Let me know if you feel anything or do I need to monitor your data?”

Lt. Naes turns in his chair to face the XO “It is only logical that I tell you if I feel anything ma’am to do otherwise would possibly put the crew, ship and the mission in danger which is highly illogical, is it not?”

“It is, however, many would try to cover it up to stay on mission and not be in sickbay or some other location being watched over by a bunch of nurses and medical crew.”

“Ensign Rockhold, let’s run the scans in three phases shall we. Run a planetary surface scan, a geologic and an Ico-spectrogram. That should give the Osiris some good data to start with.”

“Starting scans now, ma’am. If I may suggest adding a Spectrographic analysis to those other three. We may pick up something that others have missed. When we get the data to the Osiris they can complete a more thorough analysis of it.”

“Good idea Ensign.”

Over the next couple hours the Nile Oasis and her crew worked to complete the scans over the southernmost land mass on the planet. 

“Ensign Ngin, how is the preliminary analysis of the date from the spectrographic scans showing us anything out of the norm?”

“Ma’am. I’m not sure about the others but you can use my first name, T’shimtisho. So far the scan is giving us what we expected as far as the Dilithium, though the surface that it has attached to is another matter. The data I’m seeing shows that most of the ice is frozen carbon dioxide and it’s located mainly in a very large caldera that encompasses about a third of the land mass. The land mass itself is quite large, roughly 6,632,501 square kilometres. From what I can see on the scans so far it seems like the lithium spreads out from the caldera in ripples, I’m counting fifteen ripples/waves.”

“Well that’s interesting, any ideas on why?”

“Maybe the rift was pulsing ma’am and each time the planet went over it was hit with the pulsed energy from the rift which washed down from the caldera and out. I am seeing the heaviest concentrations of the Blood Dilithium on the walls of the caldera.”

“Add that to your report T’shimtisho and send it and all of the data to the Osiris. “

“Yes ma’am, sending it now.”

“Next stop the asteroid field, Lt. Nars let us use the same precautionary distance for the field. After we run some preliminary scans of the entire field we will focus on the two asteroids that the governor asked us to look into.”

“Yes ma’am, the destination is locked in and the course is set. Entering warp now, looking at 35 mins until we arrive at the destination.”

240011.5.0900

“Captain, first reports from the Nile Oasis have come in. Looks like they found us a good spot to park the Osiris within the system till they get the initial scans and investigations complete.” Chief Kaha said from her post. 

“Send the coordinates to the helm, chief”

“I got them, sir, plotting the course now. Should be there in about ninety minutes at warp eight.”

“Let’s roll, Darame.”

Kr’Antren sits back in the central chair with a cup of coffee in one hand and his PADD in the other. “Tazzeth, what do you make of Ensign Rockhold’s initial thoughts on her findings from the fifth planet.”

Tazzeth finished talking to one of the other two science personnel manning the science side of the bridge. “So far with a preliminary reading of the data, we would have to agree with her initial findings. Though I think that what she called a caldera is looking like it is actually an impact crater, a large one from the looks of it. Interesting finding frozen carbon dioxide in that one location on the land mass so far. Some further research on that location should be conducted in the future, that much dry ice in one location explains why the scans show nothing living on that land mass.”

Kr’Antren looked at the information on his PADD “Probably explains why Rharpaz hasn’t started on those fields yet, Though I would think it would be a perfect place for the Chaerunt E’blaier mining corporations, with their holographic workforce, to conduct operations.”

Counsellor Sia looked up from her PADD and sat forward in her seat as she faced the captain. “Unless there is something else going on behind closed doors. Pruzax and I was just discussing the addition of Rharpaz to the governor’s council, seems odd that he’s only been on the planet for what? Maybe two weeks and he’s already got a seat on the council.”

“Now that you mention it, counsellor. 

 “It does seem a bit fast even for a Ferengi. That, of course, is if we assume that he wasn’t already set up here. Which would beg the question: why would a Ferengi choose this location, this system to set up shop in?” he turned and looked towards his tactical/security chief “Skagath?”

“On it, lad. May take some time.”

The turbo lift doors swooshed open as the Doc took the XO’s chair. “Well captain, I’m starting to receive reports from around the fleet that it looks like the Imperium are testing out option two from our discussion yesterday. Which now makes me wonder why, if they are the ones behind the issues that they are seeing with the telepath safety site, this location is looking at option one.”

Skagath walked down into the lowered central section and stood against the front of his console.”Could we be looking at a split in the imperiums leadership and how they want to handle things? Or is one side looking into developing a weapon, using Blood Dilithium, that could be used offensively and the other is looking into how to use the Blood Dilithium as a way to deal with their other issue.”

Kr’Antren looked at the Doc and Skagath contemplating what they had just both said. “Looking at the big picture, and reading the reports coming in from around the fleet. I think Lieutenant Skagath may be onto something.”

“We need to get some answers, not only for Starfleet or us but for the people of the planet. “ he looked at the view screen, then at the three officers that were in the current conversation. “Ok, I think it’s time we make a leap of faith, as they used to say. Here’s the plan”

Over the next thirty to forty five minutes the four of them along with LT. Tazzeth discussed a new course of action for the Osiris and its crew.

Kr’Anyten looked at the chrono on his chair’s small console screen. “ Ok, thirty-five minutes till we reach the coordinates sent to us by number one and her team. I want to leave an hour after our arrival. Tazzeth, as we have discussed, will use that time to analyse the data from our scans of the 7th planet. Skagath will work with the Doc to set up a security and medical investigation team that will be offered to the governors to look into the issue around their telepathy site, they will also offer any help we can give them to help in its completion. We will have the Nile Oasis continue their mission to investigate the governor’s Dilithium mine situation.”

Chief Kaha turned from her console to face the group of the senior bridge crew that were around the captain’s chair. “Captain, we have the latest from the Nile Oasis. They report that the fifth planet has a large field of the Blood Dilithium on the land mass where the planet’s southern pole is located.”

Lt. Tazzeth looked up from his console. “This is the actual report of the data I was analyzing an hour ago sir. Hmmmm the idea of the pulsing energy coming from the rift is interesting, maybe something we could look into on some of the other planets, moons and asteroids. Could also explain how the formation of the Dilithium field on that land mass was formed, especially if we got some samples to look at, and see if there are definite layers within the structure of the Dilithium crystals.  I would concur with the Ensign’s initial recommendation of further investigation into this field.”

“I’ll take it under advisement. But our first objective will be looking into what is going on with the telepath site.”

“I concur, captain. Figuring that out and the lives it could save, if someone is using it as an experiment to look into weaponizing this Dilithium is more important. We could send our report to Task Force 17 and ask if they could send a ship more suited for scientific research to this system.”

Kr’Antren looked over at his science chief “Hold off on sending it for now, let’s see what the Doc and Skagath find first.”

“Yes, sir. I’m going to have a team start analysing the data. While the Dilithium is the focus for many, I for one am interested in why is it forming after these subspace rifts/anomalies open up. Figure that out and we may figure out why it is having the effect it is on telepathy.”

Kr’Antren nodded at this

240011.5.1030

USS Nile Oasis

“Ma’am, we have arrived at the asteroid belt. Holding at 50,000 kilometers above the belt.”

“Scans are showing most of the asteroids have a deposit of some sort of the Blood Dilithium. I’m also seeing readings for Tritanium, Latinum and various other minerals that hold some value. Lots of mining going on ma’am warp trails crossing all over the place both coming and going.”

The Chief started to pull up and look over several of the screens on his console. “Most of the ships that are going back and forth between the planet and the belt are not carrying the Dilithium. I’m showing holds filled with Tritanium, Baskonite, Benomite, and a few other minerals in lesser quantities.”

Lieutenant Talibah looked over at the chief. “Where’s the Dilithium going then?”

The view screen located above the chief console switched from showing the view outside of the ship to one showing a large ship, more accurately it looked like three ships that had been joined together. “There ma’am, Ferengi in origin from what I’m seeing on the scans. Looks like they have converted three cargo haulers into a Dilithium processing plant.” as they watched two smaller ships approached and were guided in via tractor beams to what looked like a converted cargo hold where they dumped their cargo. On the other end of the “ship” a larger transport was being loaded with cargo containers while it was also having, presumably empty, containers off loaded onto a conveyor-type system.

“Looks like a pretty ingenious setup there. Drop the raw ore off on one end, it get processed and the bad unwanted stuff is processed out while the Blood Dilithium ore is loaded into a transport ship on the other end.” 

Lt. Talibah stood and walked over to stand beside the chief watching the process. “I bet Rharpaz has all sorts of fees built into his contracts with the different mining businesses.” 

Ensign Ngin walked over and stood on the other side of the chief. “Typical Ferengi probably has a guidance fee, container movement fee, loading and off loading fee, disposal fee and who knows what else he could come up with to charge them.”

“Chief, send this feed to the Osiris along with your report and analysis of what is going on.”

“Ma’am, if Rharpaz has the typical Ferengi contract with these businesses, we may know why the governor is worried about those sites. Wouldn’t doubt if he had a missed drop off clause in there and a clause if they do not meet a quota of raw ore.”

“Damn it, I believe you’re right. I’m.going to send a separate report to the captain with our thoughts on the issue.Looks like we need to figure out what is going on with those three sites. Ensign Naes, plot a course for the nearest of the asteroid sites. Make sure we stay well out of the danger zone for the effects from the Blood Dilithium.”

“Yes, ma’am. Course plotted. Should be there in about 15 minutes.”

240011.05.1100

USS Nile Oasis

“Arriving at the asteroid ma’am. Holding position at 20,000 kilometers above the asteroid belt centered around the target.” he reached up and rubbed his temples “odd, the safety zone is 10,000 kilometers but I feel a very slight buzzing going on at this distance. I’m going to take us 30,000 kilometers away, ma’am.” as he tapped on the controls and the view from the main panel started to show them backing away from the field.

The Lieutenant looked at her console screen that she was using to monitor the Ensigns device. “That’s interesting Ensign, I’m recording the readings for the Doc to look over. As far as I know, you’re the first Vulcan to feel something. So either you have a higher level of your Vulcan abilities than most or we are looking at one hell of a chunk of this Dilithium.”

Ensign Rockhold turned to face the Lieutenant. “According to these scans ma’am, I think it’s the second option of the two. It seems like we may be over the epicenter of the belts’ fields. Reading higher than normal concentrations of Blood Dilithium in the area.”

Chief Mason looked at his console then at the main view screen, shook his head, then looked at his console again. “T’shimtisho, can you come to look at this..sir” Ensign Ngin stood and walked over from his console to the chiefs.

“What’s up, chief?” he stood beside the chief with one hand on the back of his chair and the other on the edge of the console.

“This” as he pulls up what his scans are showing on the view screen above his console. Ensign Ngin looked up at the screen and let out a low whistle. “Well, that could explain it. Ma’am, I think we have figured out why they lost communications with their site.” he used his chin to point at the view screen.

Lieutenant Talibah stood from her position and walked over to the chief, taking a spot on the other side from the Ensign. “What are we looking at chief?” she studied the picture on the view screen for a minute then looked at the readings from the scans on the Chief’s console. “Damn, that’s going to be an issue for them.” She reached over and opened a communications channel with the Osiris.

“Lieutenant Tazzeth, Lieutenant Talibah. I believe we have figured out why the mining corporation lost contact with their site on the asteroid. Chief Mason is sending you data from our scans over the asteroid.” 

“Roger ma’am, I’m getting the data as we speak. Hmmmm yaaaa,  that would explain things. I’ll pass the report to the Captain.”

“Thank you Tazzeth.  I’ll send another report as we look around the asteroid belt some more. We are seeing some data that is raising some more questions about Blood Dilithium.”

“Ensign Rockhold, have we seen anything on the growth of Blood Dilithium after an anomaly? Because I’m pretty sure that they did not build their dome out of Blood Dilithium. So how or what caused the Dilithium to grow?”

“Ma’am, according to the reports this field was about two to three square kilometers in size, most of which was underground. Above ground, the crystal structures were located above those cracks and fissures.”

Lt. Talibah walked over and looked over Ensign Rockhold’s shoulder. “As far as we know, it only grows after an event.”

“Such as a subspace anomaly, yes ma’am. Though this rift closed two to three days before the dome was built and mining operation started.”

The chief turned towards them in his chair. “The report also stated that this was the smallest of the three fields. Each one of the fields belongs to a different company, and those companies are the three smallest of the Chaerunt E’blaier cities mining organizations.”

“Hold that thought Chief, let’s compile what we are thinking and send it and the data back to the Osiris. We have two more sites to look at and maybe just maybe we can find some answers at them or worst case we end up with more questions.”

“Ensign Naes, take us back to the fifth planet. We have a site there to look at I do believe. Then the third planet. Make sure we stay a safe distance out.”

“Yes ma’am. Location is locked in and the course is  plotted.”

240011.05.1300

USS Osiris

Kr’Antren sat behind the desk in his ready room, he looked over the reports from Lieutenant Talibah and her team. He tapped his combadge as he looked out the panel behind him.

“Lieutenants Tazzeth and Shrybaas, join me in my ready room, please.”

“On my way, sir”

“Roger, sir”

A minute later the door chimes as the two officers arrived. “Enter”

As they entered. “Gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable. Have you two had a chance to look over the latest report from the Nile Oasis? Seems like they have found an oddity with the Blood Dilithium. However, I’m also interested in your thoughts on Rharpaz and his business. From what I have read so far it would not be too far out of character for a Ferengi to try and diversify the businesses.”

“From an operational standpoint, I can’t see much difference in what I would do if I was in his shoes. It’s the other side of things that make Ferengi operations different.”

Kr’Antren got up from his chair and walked over to the replicator. “Coffee, black, honey, large” after taking the cup from the replicator he went back and took his seat behind his desk. 

“Tazzeth, have we seen or heard anything about Blood Dilithium growing after an anomaly had closed, better yet almost a week after in this case.”

“No, sir. Nothing in any reports that I have seen. I have sent a copy of the Nile’s report to Task Force 17’s deployed headquarters, to see if anything has been reported that we did not get or get reported in the future.”

“Makes me wonder what else we will turn up when those other two sites are looked at”

“That’s the question of the day, sir. Though if they find the same thing at the other two sites then we may have a problem. Though I doubt they will.”

Kr’Antren picked up his PADD read something, put it down, and then sat back in his chair. “Not trying to change the subject, however, I think I’m starting to see how Rharpaz got himself on the governor’s council. I’m willing to bet that the asteroid site is the outlier, I’m betting the other two sites will have similarities in their issues.”

Lt. Shrybaas sat back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Makes sense sir, make it so companies can not fulfill their contracts. Then he swoops in and takes over typical Ferengi tactic.”

Kr’Antren knocked on his desk. “Guess this one will have to wait till we have more information from the Nile Oasis.”

The two lieutenants looked at each other and nodded. 

“Ok then, till we have more information let’s keep our eyes on the Blood Dilithium mysteries.” The captain’s combadge beeped, he reached up and tapped it. 

“Sir, thought you would like to know that we have arrived at the destination.”

“Thank you Lt. Darame. On our way.”

“Gentleman, as you heard we have arrived at our destination. Shall we go see what this planet has to show us?” He stood,  straightened his tunic, and made his way to the bridge. The two lieutenants followed after him.

“Captains on the bridge”

“I have the conn. Darame, keep us at a safe distance. Chief, let me know if you start to feel anything.”

He took his seat and looked at the looming planet that technically sat above them but looked like they were facing. “Science, she’s all yours. Let’s see what you can find, shall we.”

“Yes, sir. Starting scans now.”

Kr’Antren tapped the comms button on his seat arm. “Doc, can you join Skagath and me in the Cairo briefing room? I want to see where we are on getting everything set up for helping the telepath site.”

“I’m just finishing up with a patient, I’ll be up in about five minutes sir. “

“That’ll work doc, see you in five minutes.”

“Skagath, the doc is on her way up. Meet us in the briefing room in five minutes. Let’s put the offer of assistance together so we can send it to the governor’s council. Time for us to see what is going on that planet.”

“Five minutes, briefing room. Got it, sir. I’m just going through my team recommendations as we speak.”

“Tazzeth you have the don’t while we are discussing the plan.”

Cairo Briefing Room.

Skagath and Kr’Antren are already seated when Doc M’Gok enters the briefing room. “Afternoon Lieutenant Skagath, Captain. Sir,  I believe Skagath and myself have put together a good plan to help the governors finish setting up the sir.”

I was just reading through the plan, Doc. I think it will help them get the site up and running sooner than they had thought. I see you discussed engineering teams to help in the construction and seup, have you asked Chief Mathison?”

“Yes, sir. He just sent me a message that he can have two teams ready to go whenever we need them.”

“Good, good… I’m sure the governors will be happy to have the help. So let’s discuss how we handle the second part of this plan, finding out who these people in the forest are, what are they doing there? And most importantly how the hell do we stop them? “

“Sir, if ok with you I think the first thing we have to do is make sure the security team are not “security teams”” Skagath used the air quotes signal as he said that part “We need this to look like a pure medical and engineering group sent to help the planet set this site up. We font want to scare them off if anything we want them to feel like this gives them a chance to do whatever they are doing sooner.”

“I agree with Skagath sir, the only way this works is if they think they are getting away with it and that all is going as they hoped. By now they know how it’s handled by the folks already there so we can’t change that, gotta make it look like we are just there to help. That’s why you’ll see we rotated the hours and folks working. Make it look like we are just sending teams down randomly as we can to help out.”

“Ayee, my guys will keep track of the information passed to them or overheard. We need to find one of these groups and follow them or sit and watch, figure out where they are coming from. Then we can plan how to react after that.”

Kr’Antren puts his PADD and looked at his LCARS on the briefing table. “Reading the plan I can see that you two have been thinking on this for a bit and worked well together to compile everything into this report.”

“Thank You sir”  is heard from both sides of the table. 

“I’m going to add Number one to this mission when she returns from her current one. Nothing against Skagath and his security teams but she does have experience in this sort of thing. Maybe she’ll see something that others miss or look into something that others did not think of.”

“Yes sir, the more help we have the better.”

“Agreed, and I’m ok with the security teams wearing other hats, so to speak, so figure out how you two want to split them up and make sure they know something about their new field. Don’t want them sticking out, now do we?”

“No, no we don’t sir.” Skagath pulls up something on his LCARS and starts reading through it.

“Ok then, I’m going to read through the report one more time, add some thoughts from my perspective as the captain and then send it to the governor’s council. So be ready for us to have a meeting with them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kr’Antren runs a hand through his beard and then knocks on the table. “Ok then, lets get back to it then.”

240011.08.1200

Cairo briefing room

“Governors, I hope you have had time to look over the plan that my team has come up with in order to help with the telepath site. As you can see we are willing and able to  lend as much support as possible with this site. Lieutenant Talibah, my executive officer, will be in charge of the Osiris’s teams and all correspondence can go through her. We also hope to help figure out who is sabotaging the site, Lieutenant Talibah has experience in matters such as this.”

The screen showed the four governors looking at consoles off screen, a couple of them  nodded as they read and listened to what Kr’antren said.

Lt. Talibah stood and walked over to the replicator and put an empty cup on the replicator’s padd and watched it dissolve, she then turned and faced the governors on the screen. “ governors, as the captain and myself have mentioned over the last few days, we are here to help and we are asking for nothing in return. Rharpaz,” she noticed him starting to shake his head and ball up his fists on his desk. “As we have discussed with you in particular. You will not try to add this site into your previous contracts nor will you try to forge new contracts in regards to this site. The only thing we have asked is that this site does not turn down any telepaths now or in the future that may seek help there.”

“This is not the Ferengi way, there is no profit to be made in this. Federation, you will be the end of us. Always getting involved in where you are not wanted. Bahhhhh.” He throws up his hands and his feed cuts off.

Talibah looked at Kr’Antren with a raised eyebrow, he nodded in reply and tapped his combadge. “Chief, make sure that the channel from Rharpaz is truly shut down.”

“It is sir, we lost all connection from him.”

“Thank you, chief” He looked over at his number one and nodded again.

“Governors, I have just finished investigating some issues with a few mining sites, this was asked of us by one of your fellow governors. What we found on two of the sites has raised some questions that we feel obligated to look into. But before we can start that process we need to ask something from each of you. Have any of your various companies within your cities had issues of late? Especially ones that deal with mining, transportation of goods, manufacturing. You do not have to tell us now, you can send us a message or we can discuss it one on one if you want.”

She noticed that the other two governors, as one has already had discussion with the captain and her, sit back. One steepled  their hands in front of them and let out a deep breath the other took a minute then leaned forward in their seat again. “I will be contacting you Lieutenant, we have had some mysterious things being reported from our organisations as well.”

Talibah nodded at this.”Thank you, governor.”

“Back to our original reason for this meeting. While our teams are there, they will also be watching for and investigating the figures that have reportedly been seen watching the site and looking into the sabotaging of  the infrastructure. We will figure this all out together and if someone is up to no good we will make sure it is ended.”

“Captain, does that mean you will deal with whoever it is? Even if it is the Devore Imperium.”

Kr’antren stood and leaned on the table. “Yes, we will deal with whoever it is. Imperium or otherwise they will be dealt with. We will help all and in so doing we will make sure you and your people are protected. If Blood Dilithium is made into a weapon it will affect not only this system but the Gradin Belt, the Delta Quadrant and and the other Quadrants as well and Starfleet cannot let that happen.”

The Governors nodded at this. “Captain. We have all agreed to this plan. Even Rharpaz has signed the agreement. Though that signature might have taken some arm pulling and threats from the rest of us in order to happen but nonetheless he signed it. We will prepare for your arrival.”

Kr’antren and talibah sit back down, look at each other then back at the governors on the screen. We have a few things to finish up with our research here on the fifth planet then we will be on our way. We should be there within the next fourteen hours if not sooner.“

“We will see you in fourteen hours then, captain.”

Each section of the screen goes to black as each of the governors sign off the communications channel.

“Looks like we have a mission to get ready for, number one.” As Kr’antren stood and made his way towards the bridge, followed by Lt. Talibah.

“Tazzeth, Have we received any more requests for data from Task Force 17?”

“We have, captain. They have asked us to conduct a few sub surface scans, they have asked us to focus on the crater and the area immediately around it. We should have those done in the next two to three hours.”

Kr’Antren nodded as he took a seat in his chair.”

“Lieutenant Darame, plan a route to the main planet. Let’s take a geostationary orbit over the telepath site area. That should give us good coverage of that area for scans and to help out if needed.” The Captain looked down at his seat arm console and some notes he had made over the last couple days.”Lieutenant, add a stop over the asteroid field. I want to get a better look at the asteroid we were asked to look into.”

“Tazzeth, let number one or myself know when those scans are completed and you have the needed data.”

“As soon as we have the information, I’ll let you know sir.”

“Skagath, start putting your teams together. Send the roster to number one when you have it ready. Have them ready to go when we reach the planet.” He tapped the comms button on his armrest and sends the same message to the Doc.

2400.11.09.1400

“Captain, We have entered into a geostationary orbit above the location. “

“Thankyou Lieutenant. Tazzeth, anything out of the ordinary on the sensors?”

Nosir, not at this time. Though we can see some faint warp trails of unknown origin, they are roughly three days to a week old and extremely faint. Possibly from a small craft like a shuttle or possibly something of Runabout size.”

Skagath looked up from his console. “Hmmmm, small enough for an observation team. Would be how I would deploy one. No need to draw attention by flying a big ol honkin ship if all you need to do is get a few folks to the surface for a few days.”

“Indeed, I was just thinking the same thing, Skagath.”

“Sir, let me try something here.” Tazzeth works on his consoles for a few moments and then puts an updated scan on the main view screen, it appears as an overlay over the normal screen showing the planet.  I was able to tweak the scans a bit, as you can see captain it is one small craft coming in and leaving. Looks like it stays on the surface for a few hours then departs. By the rate of decay in the warp trails I would say it looks like they come every three days or so.”

Kr’Antren stood and walked towards the ops/helm console. “Plenty of enough time to resupply and switch teams. Don’t think they would only stay on the ground for a few hours.”

“Sneaky bastards” Skagath uses his old riding crop to point out a few things to the captain. “See here they warp to various destinations then join in the various comings and goings of the mining businesses, trying to hide amongst the crowds, cover their tracks.”

Kr’antren turned his head toward his science officer. “Is it the same ship each time?”

“Affirmative”

Kr’antren looked over at his number one sitting in her usual seat then over at his tactical officer.” Means that they are more than likely operating out of another starship or some sort of small base.“

Ly. Talibah sits forward in her seat. “ A small starship would make the most sense, a base would be harder to hide with the sensor arrays that the Ferengi has sold to the governments on the planet. Unless, sir you don’t think that Rharpaz would…?”

Kr’antren and Skagath looked at each other then back at Lt.Talibah, both started to chuckle. “Well, he is a Ferengi afterall. Tazzeth, check those scans again then cross check against the information from the planets sensors arrays and the platform based arrays.”

“Chief, while we are doing this, please inform the governor’s council that we have arrived and are in orbit above the planet. Let them know that the first teams will be heading towards the site in the next forty five minutes.”

“Number one, inform your team that they have 30 minutes till they depart.” He looked back up at the screen and then over at Skagath and her. “No, let us see if we can stir anything up. Inform your team that you will depart as soon as possible.”

Lt.Talibah hit her comms channel button and console and said something. She then turned back to the captain. “Sir, I will be going with the first team. I want to get eyes on the situation so I will know what else we can do to help besides what they asked for. I believe Doc M’Gok also expressed to me that she would join the first team so she can meet with the hospital staff and give the hospital a look over.”

“Very well, keep me informed. I’m sure the next thing we will hear from the governors will be an invite to a dinner or some such event so be ready to join me there.”

“Yes, sir.”

She stood and made her way to the turbo lift.

“Captain, preliminary scans do show an oddity or two. We have several small craft that show up on the scans much as we had surmised. However three of these craft are not what they appear. Looking closer” Sensor readings of the three ships appeared on the main viewscreen” You can see that while they are showing all signs of being Ferengi transport shuttles according to the transponder data.” The images zoom in. “ They are not in fact Ferengi shuttles.”

Kr’Antren stood and approached his usual standing spot when looking closer at the main view screen.”Well, the plot thickens.”

“Captain, checking the sensor data against the information we have. Those shuttles are Devore Imperium.”

Kr’Antren looked over at Skagath. “Skagath, I want you on number ones shuttle. Inform her and only her of what we are finding. Be yourself, sniff around and see what you can find out. Take no actions for the time being. Report back to me when the Lieutenant comes back up or I come down.”

“Yes, sir. Be good to get some fresh air and stretch these old legs for a bit.”

“Oh and Skagath do not make a move on Rharpaz, let’s do some digging first. Now get a move on it old man, I don’t think she will wait for long.”

Skagath leaves his console in the hands of his deputy and makes his way to the turbo lift.

“Tazzeth, do you have enough data on those shuttles that if they came back we could track them?”

“Possibly, sir. I could tweak the sensor arrays a bit so that it would be easier to find those particular signatures.”

“Do it, I want to be able to track those ships if and when they come back.”

“Yes, sir”

240011.09.1445

USS Desert Sands 

Skagath looked over at the XO. “Ma’am, The captain wanted me to pass some information to you. He said for now it was meant for your ears only.“He started in what he thought was a whisper, but in reality coming from a tellarite it was more like a slightly lower tone from his normal one.

“I was wondering why you came running up at the last minute. Lucky for you we had just got the message from flight control to wait for you. 30 seconds later and you would have been watching us leave, but I guess we would have had to turn around and come pick you up.” she chuckles as she imagined the scene in her head of him standing there watching them leave. “So what’s the news?”

“Well ma’am it looks like we have some Devore Imperium shuttles masquerading as Ferengi transport shuttles.” He then proceeded to give her the rundown of what they had figured out on the bridge.

Talibah slams a fist onto the console in front of her. “Damn Rharpaz, Ferengi and their stupid rules. I’ll throttle him when I see him.”

“Ma’am, the captain asked that we don’t. Believe me I had the same reaction. He said that he wants to investigate deeper to figure out what he is getting out of the deal and what the Devore’s end game is. Hence, why I am now tagging along. Besides the fact that I needed to stretch my legs and breathe some fresh air.’

Number one looked out the side view panel to look over at the Nile Oasis as they both flew through the planet’s atmosphere making their way to their final destination.

“So where do we start? “

“Well ma’am I believe that the best course of action would be for us to act as normal as possible. Keep our eyes and ears open. Once we get situated on the ground I’ll start with some light questions with the native crews and you could do the same with the governors. That should give us a base to start building off of.”

She nodded at this as she clenched and unclenched one of her hands.

“Sounds like a plan. Had almost forgotten you had done security work in the past.”

“Not as much as you ma’am, but some.”

She nodded again.

They both looked out of the side view panels as the two runabouts made a graceful descending turn towards starboard. Below them they could see an open field in the center of a forest valley; a river was located about 4 kilometers from the site towards the north. As they descended they could see the progress being made on both the hospital compound and the village area that surrounded the centrally located hospital.

“Looks like they picked a good site ma’am. No visible dilithium in the area, pretty secluded in that valley.”

“Looks like it, Looks like three avenues of travel besides shuttles. Easy to control access to the area. I can see why they choose this site.”

The shuttles levelled off and head towards the east from the site

“Ma’am, flight control gave us the coordinates to the landing zone for the site, it’s about a kilometer to the east, should be there in the next few minutes.”

“Thank you, ensign”

“Another safety and security precaution? Makes sense to me.”

“I would guess the same thing ma’am. Makes me wonder though.” Skagath taps his commbadge. “ Tazzeth, Skagath. Can you run a scan for me?see how many open areas you could find within oh lets say 10 kilometers of the site, big enough to land a shuttle.”

“Will do.”

Skagath looked over at Lt.Talibah. “Gotta start somewhere, and that’s as good of an idea as anything else.”

She nodded at this as she was looking at her PADD reading over her notes from what Skagath could see as he looked over her shoulder.

“Lieutenant, I was just thinking of something as we looked over the site. If you were out here running an observation team, how would you handle communications? I would think that the frequencies would be watched over somehow and anything odd would stand out and cause flags to be raised.”

“True, though you could piggyback on someone else’s channel or “ Skagath snapped his fingers “ Hide it in plane site, encode it in something else that nobody else would bother to look at.”

The lieutenant looked over at Skagath. “Like in a cargo manifest or a requisition form of some sort?”

“Yes, that would work.”

“Which leads us back to a particular Ferengi.”

“Or any one of a number of other businesses” Skagath interjected as he watched the shuttles make their final approach for landing.

“True.” Lt. Talibah stood and made her way to the hatch so that she could be the first person off of the Runabout.

“Ma’am, we will be staying here. The Nile Oasis will be returning to the Osiris in case she is needed for anything.”

Lt. Talibah nodded and let out a deep breath. “Always did hate doing introductions for the first time. Got to set the right perception for everyone.” As the hatch opened, she exited the Desert Sands.

240011.09.1600

“Sir, Incoming transmission from TAsk Force 17 and the USS Discovery.”

“Very well, send it to my ready room. Lieutenant Shrybaas you have the conn.” Kr’Antren stood and made his way to his ready room.

“Aye sir, I have the conn” he made his way to the captain’s chair and took a seat.

A few minutes later.

“Chief, I want all available department heads in the Cairo briefing room in thirty minutes. Looks like we have had a breakthrough concerning Blood dilithium.”

“Yes captain.”

240011.09.1700

Cairo briefing room

“Gentlemen, I just received news from Task Force 17 and the USS Discovery. If I am reading this correctly somehow the science staff on the Discovery came up with an idea that if Blood Dilithium was affecting telepaths as it does that maybe we could communicate with it.” He played the recording of the first test of communicating with Blood Dilithium, and holds up a hand stopping the recording right before the science officer ends the communication. “ That gentleman is a subspace trumpet, which we also received schematics and plans for.” He passes a PADD over to his chief Engineer.``Lt.Mathison, start working on putting one of those together for us.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get a team right on it.” He turns and hands the PADD to an ensign that was sitting behind him along the wall.” Ensign, put a team together and get started on this, priority alpha one.”

“Yes, chief.”

“Oh and Ensign, have Ensign Ngin join us here.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll pass the message.”

“However, that is not the most interesting thing that came out of that test on Discovery.” He restarted the tape. He looked around the table as several mouths dropped open and noticed Doc M’Gok and the counsellor start reading the report on their PADDS.

The Doc raised her hand, “Did I hear that correctly Sir, did he say it is the Brenari?”

Kr’antren ran a hand through his beard. “Yes, you heard correctly. It seems like the power behind or in the blood dilithium is the collective consciousness of the the Brenari prisoners that the Devore Imperium has been using as slave labor.”

Counselor Sia drops her PADD upon hearing this.”That explains a lot of why those that have had experiences with Blood Dilithium explain that it feels like pain, sorrow, fear, hate.”

“It does.”

Lt. Tazzeth looked up from his PADD.”But it doesn’t explain the Dilithium growth in conjunction with the subspace anomalies?”

“That is true, how are they connected though?” Lt. Mathison said as he read through the report and rewatched the video on his PADD.

“That is the next question I’m sure the Discovery and Task Force 17 will be trying to answer.”

The doc slams her fist on the table. “ Sir, there has to be something we are missing. Well actually quite a few things. Sir with your permission i would like to take the counsellor and go down to the site planetside. We were supposed to be on the first shuttles that went down but I had an emergency come up in the sick bay that I had to attend to, so I sent my head nurse down in my sted til I could get down there.”

“Permission granted, though I want you both back up here as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir”

Both the Doc and the counsellor stood, picked up their PADDS and made their way out of the briefing room.

“Oh Doc, one thing. Find out if there are any Brenari amongst the telepaths? Maybe they could help us figure out what is going on or how they are doing it.”

“Was already thinking of that. Sir” As she stepped out of the room.

As they were exiting the room a young Klingon ensign makes his way into the room. “Got here as fast as I could chief.” Lt. Mathison handed the ensign his PADD and pointed at one of the chairs along the wall. The ensign nodded, sat down and started to read what was on the PADD.

After several minutes “Damn, could it be? Possibly.” The ensign looked up from the PADD. “oh, sorry sirs.” and goes back to reading.

“What was that about, Ensign?”

“Well, sir” He looked nervously over at the chief engineer, who nodded as a confirmation to continue.” If I may?”

Kr’antren nodded. “Go ahead, ensign”

“Ensign Ngin, sir”

Another Nod from Kr’antren.

Ensign Ngin stood and approached the view screen in the briefing room. “Computer can you bring up the scans and visual data of asteroid Osiris - AB243.” The view screen showed the visual recording of what the Nile Oasis saw when they were investigating the asteroid.

“Sir I was part of the Exec’s team on the Nile Osiris when we conducted the planetary scans and route recon a couple days ago. As you are aware sir, part of that mission was to look into the request by governor Buoln’Drit. While doing so we found that the Governors site on the asteroid was covered by a dome of Blood Dilithium. Pretty sure it wasn’t when they built the site as I believe that they were using that site prior to the blood dilithium situation and no report was made by the company that it was an issue before the last day or two before we took a look.”

Several of the other officers along with the captain started to look through the report on their PADDS as they listened to Ensign Ngin.

“Ever since then sir it's been bothering me on how this happened. But after reading this” he holds up the PADD.” I think I know how, This subspace trumpet uses a subspace signal much like the ones created by the anomalies that cause the Blood dilithium to grow. What if they were in the early stages of developing their own version of this? What would happen if the signal got away from them or they were not able to control it the way that the folks on the Discovery have been able to do.” He looked around the table “Sir,What if we are not the only ones looking into trying to communicate with the Blood dilithium, I would think that we could not be the only ones to have reached the same conclusion about the possibility that this new Dilithium could house some sort of new species.”

“Tazzeth??”

“Sir, Ensign Ngin makes sense. Theoretically what he has deduced is quite possible and fits this situation.”

“Ensign Ngin, write a report of what you just told us. Back it up with whatever information you can. Send it to Lt. Mathisson, get him to sign off on it and then send it to me. I will forward it with my thoughts to Task Force 17 and the Discovery for action. If what you are thinking is correct this may open up another can of worms for Starfleet to look into.”

“Sir, if I may add something. I believe that we need to see what happened inside that dome. I don’t think what happened there happened from the outside. I’m willing to bet that whatever it is that they were working on was inside that dome.”

Both Tazzeth and Lt. Mathison looked at Kr’antren. “It would make sense sir. Though I doubt we will find anyone alive there now.” Tazzeth stated “Sir, I could send a small team to the location and see if we could find a place in the dome where maybe the dilithium is not as thick, maybe find an airlock. See if we can get inside.” Lt. Mathison added.

Kr’Antren looked at the view screen and then turned to look out the view panel. “We could at least offer the governor that much. However if by doing this we find what the ensign theories than the governor may have a lot more to answer for. Ensign Ngin, when you looked at the other two sites it was guessed that they had lost power and or communications on those sites, is this correct?”

“Yes, Sir”

“Could those other sites have been test sites for this device also?”

“It’s possible sir, maybe not enough power at the site or a failure on the devices side.”

Kr’Antren looked at the view screen again. “ So it's possible that we may not be only looking into an Imperium operation in this system but into a possibility of another group, maybe even Imperium, looking into what makes Blood Dilithium act the way it does.”

Kr’Antren looked at the chrono on his LCARS on the table top. “ Gentlemen, I have a dinner to attend with the Governor's Council.  In roughly 90 minutes, just enough  for a sonic shower, a fresh uniform and to make my way down. So, unless there is anything else you all are dismissed.”

240011.10.0600

Lt.Talibah walked out of the bunkhouse, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a pastry in the other, that the teams from the Osiris had been given as a place to use as both quarters and office. “Well I give you that, nothing beats waking up and smelling the crisp morning air of a planet.”

“ That’s the truth, ma’am. The area reminded me so much of home that I decided to grab a couple blankets and my pillow and sleep out here on this porch.” A sleepy eyed human said from the floor of the porch and slightly behind her against the wall.

“Oh, good morning..”

“Chief Samples ma’am, engineering”

“Ah, yes. Well good morning chief.“ She uses the hand holding the coffee cup and points at the surrounding area. “ Reminds you of home, you said? Where is that?”

“Alaska ma’am. Mom and pops run a hunting and fishing guide business so we were always out and about. The family owns a few cabins not much different in their use than this bunk house. Only think missing ma’am is a fire to warm your feet and the sounds. Nothing like the sounds of the Alaska wilderness to put you right to sleep.”

“Hmmm yes, so I’ve heard. You know if you want we could ask if they would allow us to build a fire pit area. I remember reading that were often used for communal activities, Singing and storytelling were two popular ones if I recall.”

“Yes, ma’am. We always did that at night as a way to pass the night and bring an end to the night before everyone hit the sack. I’ll have to ask the folks I’m working with sometime, guess it can’t hurt to ask.”

“Nope, it never hurts to ask.” She said while taking a bite of the pastry and drinking from the cup.”

“Anymore of that ma’am” As he ran a hand through his hair.

“Well the coffee is from the replicator so always plenty of that, the pastries were left on the table inside, I’m guessing they must be setting up some sort of a communal eating facility here. They seem to be a cross between a doughnut and a croissant, they’re actually quite good. May have to ask them for the recipe.”

“ Ugh, replicator coffee. We will have to do something about that. Cant have the scenery ruined by that.” he started to get up and then realised he was in nothing but his boxers.“Oh, ummmm sorry ma’am should have warned you.”

Her eyes went wide for a second as she hid a smile behind her coffee cup.” Nothing to be sorry about, chief. I disturbed you, remember.” she chuckled as he tried to wrap himself in the blanket and make his way inside, couldn’t help but to turn and look as he made his way inside. Hiding another smile.

“ Oh, ma’am. Lt. Mathison said we should inform you if we see anything peculiar,” the chief said from inside. “Well, last night I could have sworn I heard some movement in the woods towards the right of the bunkhouse’s porch. When I looked that way I saw some shadows a little ways in the woods. I don’t think it was the local wildlife, it didn’t sound right. Spend enough time in the woods and you know when something sounds or looks out of place.”

Lt.Talibah looked in that direction. “Hmmmmmm. Do you think you could show Lt. Skagath, where you think you saw them?”

“Yes ma’am” he said as he walked back towards the bunkhouse entrance, now wearing his uniform pants and boots with a pastry in one hand.

“Ok’ I’ll have him get with you later today. Don’t say anything about this to anyone just yet.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She walked back inside, grabbed another pastry and went to the smaller round table that she had claimed as her work desk and started to read her PADD.

“How long have you been up, Lieutenant?” 

“Since around six this morning, I’ve just been reading through the morning reports.”

She looked up to see the Doc putting a plate with a pastry on the table and sitting down with a cup of coffee, or was it a raktajino. “ ahhh anything new from the Osiris and the team they have putting together one of these subspace trumpets?”

“Yes there is an update, i had just finished it and was going to look for you when i had finished the whole morning report. Looks like they will be ready to test it tomorrow and they wanted to know if both the counsellor and yourself would be available? What should I tell them?”

“Tell them that if they try to turn that machine on with me being there and I’ll make sure that the next time they need medical attention I’ll find the newest member of my medical staff to draw their blood.”

“Oooohh ok, so i’ll just put you down as available and ready when they are.” she chuckled.

“ So I’m scheduled to do a walk through of the hospital compound with my counterparts who have been standing it up, would you care to join me Number one.”

“Sure, I would be glad to. That was on my list of things to do.”

The Doc took a long sip from her cup.”Ok, I’m supposed to meet with them at 0800 at the arched entrance to the compound.”

“Ok” she took another sip of her coffee and then looked at the chrono on her PADD.” gives me enough time to shower.”

“I was just thinking the same thing as soon as I finished this pastry and Raktajino. I’ll walk with you ma’am unless you have other things to do before then.”

“Nope, nothing else on the agenda this morning. Was just going to tag along with the engineers.” As she stood and walked into the bunk room.

Cousellor Sia walked into the main room, made her way towards the replicator, ordered a double espresso and grabbed two of the pastries.

“Told you trying to outdrink that Ferengi was not a good idea.”

“Pruzax, I don’t need you starting on me this morning”

“Hmpf, you’re not the only one in here you know.”

“I’m aware. But hey we had to be diplomatic and he did say that  Starfleet officers were weak and pathetic. I had to prove him wrong, didn’t I.” GRRRppla GRRRP. “ oh, crap. Excuse me” She bolted out the door and barely made it to the edge of the porch.”

“That’ll teach you. That wasn’t synthol, you know.”

“I’m aware.” as she made her way back to the table, sat down and started to eat the pastries and drink her espresso.

“I didn’t make any other mistakes last night did I?”

“Ummmmm, well you did try to drunkenly flirt with that guy who was trying to sleep on the patio. Not one of your best attempts if i may say so myself”

“Uggghhhhhh.”

The Doc walked over and gave her a hypospray without even asking. “Not for you counsellor, more to save Pruzax from having to go through the day living with the effects of the stunt you tried to pull last night. If it was up to me I’d tell you it was your own actions not mine so you get to live with the consequences.”

“Doc, has anyone ever told you that your bedside manner sucks.”

“All the time, I just remind them that I’m half Klingon and to live with it.” 

“I told you I like her, typical Klingon straight and to the point no BS.”

The counsellor chuckled at this. “Doc, you have a fan.” she pointed at her head

She chuckled “Thank you, Pruzax”

240011.10.1800

USS Osiris – Captain’s Ready Room

“As you can see from the report sir, Skagath and Chief Samples were able to find boot prints in the area that the Chief believed he saw the movement. From what they could figure out through their observations it was three humanoids going in a northwesterly direction.”

Kr’Antren looked up from his PADD and pulled up a map of the site on his LCARS. “I find it just as interesting though that while they were, how did he put it ah yes, looking for possible locations for recreational activities. They found another set of tracks heading in the opposite direction on the other side of the site and that these tracks were also three humanoids, two different from the first set, the third being the same. What does that say to you?”

Lt. Talibah pulls up the map on her LCARS and highlights the two sets of tracks. “ Looks to me like we have a local acting as a guide, maybe two, people who know the area, know where to walk and where not to, people who know where and when folks will be in the area. Which means they would have to be part of the sites construction teams.”

Kr’Antren balls up one of his hands and lightly bangs it on his desk. “Exactly, lets see what science can find on the scans, next we need to figure out who and why?”

“Yes, sir. What about the Ferengi side?”

He relaxed his hand and then sat  back and steepled his hands in front of him resting his head on them. “We need to catch them somehow, we can’t just make accusations against them with nothing to back it up.” He pulls up a crew roster on his PADD. “Ahhhh there we go, Lt. Zenzo the transporter chief and deputy operations officer. He handed  the PADD to his number one. “Could Skagath and you work with that?”

She read through his file and started to chuckle. “Yes, I do believe we could. Just have to figure out how to get him in. Hmmmm know anyone with a spare ship laying around?”

“Not sure if hand, but I heard a rumour that the Vondem Rose was seen at the wormhole.”

“I’ve heard stories, sir.”

“Haven’t we all”

“However, they would be a final answer. Let’s see what we can come up with on our own first.”

“Yes, sir”

“Next on the agenda, the asteroid issue.”

“Yes, sir”

“If you’re ok on the surface, I’m going to take the Osiris and go have a look. See what we can find. That ensign has a good idea, one that I think will work.”

“I believe so, I’ve looked over his work. Smart, extremely good at what he does, liked by his peers, has a thing for older ships.”

“I’ll send down a few more crew, including a couple more security with investigative experience and the Desert Sands.

“I can work with that”

“The doc and counsellor will go with us, I’m being told the team we put on the subspace trumpet should have one ready to go by the time we get to the asteroid site. I want them there to monitor that device and be there for what we may find if we get in that dome.”

“I can make that work, Skagath?”

“He can stay on your team, till we need him. Use him number one. He may be a crotchety ol’tellarite but he knows his job and other then you he probably has the most experience looking in places that no one else would think to look.”

She chuckled at this. “I don’t think he would let us do anything else.”

“That’s true.”

Kr’Antren knocked his knuckles on the table, it’s becoming a new habit he guessed. “Ok than number one, I believe we are finished here. We will leave for the asteroid site at 0800 tomorrow morning. Get whatever supplies and personnel you need and start moving them to the surface.”

“Yes, sir”

240011.11.1100

Kr’antren walked up to the Nile Oasis, gave the runabout a once over, and entered the crew area. “Ensign Ngin this is your first away team command so don’t screw it up,” he said with a smile “not that I think you will. As you have been briefed there are no telepaths as part of your crew so you should be okay in that department. Do as the doc ordered though and make sure that everyone is wearing the neurotransmitters at all times, Nurse V’laali with me monitoring at all times. She has been told that if she sees anything, anything at all out of the norm, she is to immediately notify me.”

“Yes, sir”

“Keep the comms channels open at all times. Other than that, have a good flight and mission. We’ll be watching at all times, If we see something we will let you know.”

“Yes, Sir”

Kr’Antren patted the young ensign on the shoulder and made his way off of the Nile Oasis.

240011.11.1200

“Ensign we have conducted the scans as prescribed by the science and engineering officers on the Osiris, they have both agreed with us that there looks like a thinner volume of the Blood Dilithium over the northwest airlock.”

“Ok then chief, let us make our way over to that side. Look for a site relatively close, remember we have to haul the mining equipment to the dome.”

“Yes, sir. Thank goodness that’s not my job.” the chief sitting in the flight control officer’s seat said with a chuckle.”

“We can always add it to your list, chief” ensign Ngin responded as he stood behind the chief watching the dome come closer, and then the shuttle flew over it as it headed towards the landing site chosen by the chief.

“Close enough?” as he spun the aft hatchway towards the dome.

“It’ll do just fine.”

Ensign Ngin turned and spoke towards the rest of the team on board.” Ok, ladies and gentlemen, Let’s get those EVA suites on and go see if we can open her up.”

The two engineers nodded in reply.

“Ensign Holmes, follow behind us and collect the samples that your teams on the Osiris asked for.” The ensign in Starfleet science blue nodded in reply as she was finishing up with her scans of the dome and its surrounding area.

The ensign looked around the runabout as his team started to don their EVA suites and make ready. “Captain, we are preparing to leave the Nile Oasis, I’ll let you know once we have started trying to get into the dome.”

“Keep us in the loop ensign. Nurse V’laali is reporting that the team looks good with the neurotransmitters, you all are not showing any spikes or fluctuations in anyone’s signals.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Captain, we have cleared the airlock of the Blood Dilithium. We cleared about two feet of space around the airlock. We went slower than we originally planned as we wanted to make sure that we got some good samples for Ensign Holmes off of the dome itself. She was also able to conduct several coring sets and extracted samples from around the base of the dome.”

“We have been watching, ensign. Looking good so far. We are sending you the entry code for that door now.” He turned slightly in his chair. “Chief Kaha, send the ensign the codes we just received from the governor.” 

“On their way. Sir”

“Got them, captain. I’m entering the command code now for the outside airlock door.” A hand was shown on the view screen on the Osiris as it punched in the command code. A set of lights over the keypad went from blinking red to blue as the code was entered and then to green when it was accepted. “Looks like we are good so far”

“Ensign Ngin this is Nurse V’laali, I would recommend one person at a time through the airlock. I would also recommend that till I give you the ok that you stay helmeted when you enter the dome.”  The nurse looked over at the Captain from the left-hand chair.’ Rather be safe than sorry sir”

“Agreed” He turned back to the view screen to watch as the ensign entered the airlock and shut the door behind him.

The lights in the airlock blinked on, a little dimmer than expected. In front of the ensign was another door with a blinking blue light bar, the light bar turned green after roughly a hundred and twenty seconds. There was an audible “click” as the inner door was unlocked and the seal was released.

“I’m entering the inner dome area now, I would recommend one of the other engineers be next till we can figure out the systems.”

“Roger that ensign, I’ll be right behind you.”

As Ensign Ngin stepped into the dome he entered what looked like a short hallway with window panels on each side that looked into separate rooms. It was hard to tell what the rooms were, as the rooms were black with no power, and his EVA suit lights were reflected on the glass panels.  “Entered into a hallway, looks like the walls are viewing panels into rooms on either side. No power so far.” As he took another step into the hallway very dim lights located in between the floor and walls powered up in blinking flashes. “Looks like we have emergency power.” He turned as he heard the airlock door open and close behind him. “Welcome to the dome chief.”

“Thank you, sir”

“Well, shall we see what’s on the other side of that door?”

“Sounds good to me, plus this hallway is going to get crowded before too long.”

“True, ok then let’s see what is behind door number one shall we.”

They opened the door to the next area and they heard the airlock door open and close behind them. “Osiris, This looks like the central area of the dome.” He looked to the side and heard the audible thump of someone falling and noticed that the chief was on the ground next to a body. ”oh geez, Are you getting this Osiris? Looks like we have a deceased Ferengi near the hallway entrance.”

“We are seeing it, ensign.”

“Ensign, can you look over the body for any signs of what might have killed them.” The EVA suits camera feed passed over the Ferengi’s body. 

“Well captain, I can confirm that it is a female Ferengi. However, till we get the body back on the Osiris I can not confirm the cause of death.”

“Ensign, over here. We have two more.”

“Ensign, Can you come over here, please? We have another body but it ain’t Ferengi.”

“Ok team do not move the bodies, for now, record and notate what you find.”

The ensign made his way over to the third person of the team joining them in the central area. “Hello Nurse Monfiete, what do you have?”

“Not sure sir, they are slumped over this workbench, waiting for you to flip them over.”

“Nurse Monfiete, Nurse V’laali here. Don’t flip them over, just roll them onto their side so we can identify them, then put them back till we can scan, record, and notate.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Ok Monfiete on three, shall we.1..2..3”

They roll the body on its side and show the face on the live feed. They then roll him back to his original position.

“Um sir, is he ..Devore?”

“I see it to ensign, and yes he is  Devore Imperium.”

Kr’antren holds a finger to his lips, a signal for chief Kaha to silence the comms. “What the hell is going on down there? Ferengi and now a Devorian. Lieutenant Tazzeth put together another team to join them. I’ll have the Nile Oasis return to pick you up.” He then nodded toward chief Kaha.

“Ensign, I’m having Lieutenant Tazzeth form another team to join you. I want to know what is going on down there. I’m having the Nile Oasis return to the Osiris to pick them up.”

“Yes sir. You may want to have them bring along some battery packs or a portable energy generator so we can plug it into the main system for the dome. Whatever happened here knocked out the main power supply from the looks of it.”

“Ok ensign, I’ll inform Lieutenant Tazzeth to add it to the equipment list.”

“Ngin, you may want to come over here to  see this.” Ensign Ngin looked up to see Ensign Holmes walking in a circle around what looked like a table approximately in the center of the dome with her tricorder out, he made his way over. “Ngin, from what I can tell something happened here. The readings are off the charts for both Blood Dilithium and..subspace particle signatures.”

“Isn’t that what you would expect from….”

“A failure of a subspace trumpet? Yes, yes it is.”

“Captain, did you hear that? Looks like we are not the only ones who are looking into the Subspace Trumpet device.”

“I heard, ensign.”

Kr’antren looked around the bridge of the Osiris. “ Ok what the hell is going on here, Dead Ferengi and Devore Imperium and now the trace signature of a failed subspace trumpet?”

Chief Mathison turned in his chair from the engineering console. “Sir, it would have to be from an earlier plan, wouldn’t it? This dome is what a week old by now give or take a few days and we just got the plans 72 hours ago from the discovery and Task Force 17.”

“You have a point there Chief. The question is who got their hands on the plans, the Ferengi or the Devore Imperium?”

“My money would be on the Ferengi, sir. As crazy as things are around the Markonian Outpost it probably wouldn’t be hard to get your hands on some information or paperwork if you grease the right hands. And we all know the Ferengi are not against greasing hands to make a profit.”

Kr’Antren turned toward chief Kaha “Chief, send a report to Task force 17 and the Discovery. Let them know that we are no longer the only ones with Subspace Trumpet technology and/or devices, add the video that we have so far and add Ensign Tholmes’s tricorder data. Inform them that we will continue to investigate the scene and will file another report once we have more information for them.”

240011.11.1600

Captain’s Ready Room

Lt.Tazzeth grabbed his banana and strawberry smoothie from the replicator and took a seat on the couch as ensign Ngin followed him and ordered a Raktajino and took a seat on the couch.

“Well sir, as you can see it is a mess down there. We have counted six Ferengi and three Devore. Oddly, four out of the six Ferengi are female. Though we can say that the Blood Dilithium was not the original reason for the dome, it looks like that asteroid and maybe some of the others have pockets of Latinum in them. So there’s that.” Tazzeth reported as he took his seat.

“Do we have a cause of death yet?” Kr’antren asked from one of the two chairs in the room as he was reading over the report.

“Not yet, will probably have to wait on Doc to look at them before we can say for certain. Though Nurse Monfiete thinks that, according to her preliminary scans, the four female Ferengi are showing signs of takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Basically, they were scared to death”

Kr’antren looked up and then ran his hands through his beard. “What? How is that possible? Ferengi are not telepathic.”

“That is the mystery, sir.” 

“And the others?”

“I’m going to guess that they died as a result of the device’s burnout. From what I can tell, I believe Ensign Ngin will confirm this, that the device did not explode, more or less it burned out.”

The young Klingon put down his cup of Raktajino and straightened his tunic “Yes sir, That’s what I believe happened from the evidence at the scene and the data from the tricorder readings. The device just simply melted from the inside out. I believe it was probably quite quick. We will have to wait on more information to confirm if the other four died due to the effects of the device burning out.”

“Very well. Anything else of note from the dome.”

“No sir, it looks like there are offices and labs located by the airlocks. Most of these seemed to be used for the production of gold-pressed latinum. We did find some PADDS that we are trying to decipher now. One of those may be of interest as it was located on a table a few feet behind the presumed location of the device. It may have been used to take notes of what they were doing.”

Kr’Antren nodded at this. “Send a copy to Task Force 17, they should have people and access to systems that we don’t that could help.”

“Will do, captain.”

“I think we have all we are going to get from this location, have the teams conduct a final sweep and return to the ship.” 

Tazzeth tapped on his comm badge and relayed the message. “Done, captain. Estimated two hours to complete the searches and have everyone back on board.”

“Next question, where the hell are the Devore hiding? They have to be out there somewhere.” He spun in his chair and swept his arms across the viewing panels.

***************************

Undisclosed Location

Planetside

“You told me that the device was fully operational!”

“It is, according to my sources the federation scum have successfully tested theirs and have sent the plans to all of their ships in the region. It must have been an operational error or your engineers didn’t follow that schematic.”

“Watch what you say next, Ferengi; or The next words out of your mouth may be you’re last.” As the Officer in black pulled out a disruptor pistol and placed it on the table in front of him. “Those engineers were among the best in the imperium and because of your faulty schematics two of them are now dead. How am I supposed to explain that?”

The Ferengi at the other end of the table shrugged his shoulders. “Not my problem. I find that blaming it on them works, sometimes.”

“I will not blame it on my engineers!” The officer slammed his fist on the table.

“Fine, fine, don’t blame them then.” The Ferengi leans forward on the table. “But did it work?”

The officer sat back in his chair. “Yes, after two failed attempts we were able to dial it in. The results were quite something to watch. No matter how much that wretched telepath tried he could not breach the mind of our engineer. You said there are other species in the Alpha and Beta quadrants besides your own that telepaths can not work their evilness on?”

“Hmmmm yes, but it will be much easier to supply you with females of mine. They offer nothing to us besides bearing young.” the Ferengi flipped his hand over his shoulder, “ Worthless”

“We will require more of your females, we need to dial in the devices and conduct some more tests on other telepath species before we can call the program a success.” he looked down at his PADD. “Hmmm, my team reports that they have figured out what went wrong in the first experiment and have fixed the problem. We will require some more females, Ferengi.”

“Yes, Yes.. standard contract. I will attach an addendum to our last one for the same amount if that works for you commander.”

Picked up his PADD and looked it over. “Yes, that will work. The same price as before, however, this time we will require two groups of varying ages. This time we will handle the implant surgery, your surgeon made it very hard for us to cover up his work in the last group.”

“No problem, I will add that part right here. Price will still be the same though.” typed something on his PADD and slid it across the table.

The officer shrugs his shoulders, “Not my money.” Read through what was on the PADD and then held his thumb to it. “There you go.” slid the PADD back across the table.

The Ferengi picked it up, looked it over, and nodded. “I’ll send a copy to your account, same as last time.”

The officer picked up his PADD and looked at something. “Ok, good. Looks like the Osiris made it to the asteroid and have been there for the last few hours and made their way into the dome.”

The Ferengi looked up from his PADD. “Did it go as we had planned?”

“Looks like it, all they will find are the bodies of the five females of your race and the three engineers from my team that sacrificed themselves in the end. Granted the failure of the device was not planned but “ he held up a hand “In the end, it worked for us.”

“And the other evviiddeennccee.” 

“It was planted just as we had discussed, once they break the cipher. Which they should do in the next few hours from the information that we have on their systems. They should find information that leads them back to your brother.”

A big smile crossed over the Ferengi’s face. “Finally I will show my father who deserves to be in charge of the operations here in the Gradin belt and maybe over the entire Delta Quadrant.”

The Officer stood and picked up his PADD “I should be on my way before the Osiris makes her way back through this area. Don’t want her finding out about our partnership before we are ready for them too.”

“Your right commander, that would do us both no good. I will have the cargo delivered to you as per the instructions from last time.”

“That will work, good night.” The officer turned and left the room.

“Good night, commander” As the door closed, he hit a button on the table and a curtain unveiled a view screen on the wall behind him. “ Yes brother, keep thinking you’re the smart one in the family. One day soon father and you will learn the truth and he will hand me the business operations as it should be.” The view screen showed Rharpaz sitting at his desk, as he watched his brother the picture zoomed in to see what his brother was reading on his PADD. 

240011.12.0800

USS Osiris Bridge

“Captain, we have arrived at the planet and entered orbit above the site.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Kr’antren turned slightly in his chair. “Chief, inform Lieutenant Talibah that we are back.”

Sir, she acknowledged and would like to request that Lieutenant Mathison and yourself join them planetside. She says they have found some interesting information that they would like to show you.”

“Let her know we will be down shortly. Let the lieutenant know that we will be heading planetside in one hour.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tazzeth looked up from his console with a quizzical look on his face.” sir, we broke the cipher on the device that was found on the asteroid, but something on it doesn’t add up with what we know.” He looked back at his console and then turned to talk to his deputy science officer on the bridge.

“Bring it to my ready room Lieutenant and call down to engineering and ask that Ensign Ngin join us if the chief can let him go for a few.”

Kr’antren stood “Lieutenant Darame, you have the conn.”

“Aye sir” he stood and stretched his three legs out to their full height and made his way to the captain’s chair. “ I have the conn.” he then tapped on his commbadge “Lieutenant T’ming, report to the bridge to assume helm duties.”

“On my way, Lieutenant.”

Darame nodded and sat back in the Captain’s chair. “ahhhh, I could get used to this.” the rest of the bridge staff chuckled.

Captain’s Ready Room

Lieutenant Tazzeth and the Captain were already sitting around and behind the captain’s desk when Ensign Ngin entered the captain’s ready room. “I heard through the team that we broke the cipher. Took us a bit longer than I thought it would.”

Tazzeth nodded at this. “ Yes, it was based on a strange dialect of the Ferengi language. Luckily for us, the deputy quartermaster was able to help. She was the one that first pointed out the inconsistencies within the information on the PADD.” Tazzeth stood and walked over to the Captain’s view screen on the wall. “ If I may, captain.”

Kr’antren nodded.

“Captain, as you can see on the report, as highlighted by Ensign Girapia. The report I s full of errors that someone familiar with the Ferengi language  would not make.” Tazzeth points out several issues on the view screen to highlight what he is talking about.

“I see what she means, especially with the direct translation that she was able to get the computer to give us. What else is on the PADD?”

“That sir is where things get interesting. According to the data on the PADD, they were running some sort of tests with a stolen schematic of an earlier version of the subspace trumpet.” He pulled up the two schematics side by side. 

Ensign Ngin stood and walked over to the screen to take a closer look. “Yes sir, they’re close but as you can see here and here, the folks on the discovery made some changes to these two parts and added this one. Explains why the device they had built burned out the way it did.”

The ensign returned to his seat.

“Ensign, do you think they could figure out what caused the failure and make the appropriate corrections to the device?”

“Yes, sir. That schematic was from a couple of days before Discovery tested the device. So yeah they could figure out what went wrong using the data they got. They won’t have the added piece but they could fix the other two.”

“So it would be safe to say that whoever they are would have a fully functioning subspace trumpet by now.”

“Yes sir. I would think so.” 

Kr’antren nodded. “I’ll add that to my report.”

Tazzeth retook his seat. “ Captain, that’s not all though. As we have already figured out, it looks like someone in the Ferengi operation has sold the Devore Imperium several small craft identification transmitters.”

“They knew sooner or later we would come knocking on the door, so to speak. As we know Ferengi have no issue with playing both sides if it means them making more profit. I’m surprised we haven’t gotten more reports on this type of thing happening around the belt.”

“That is odd, sir.” Ensign Ngin said from behind his PADD.

“However, that is not what I wanted to bring to your attention, captain. What I find most disturbing is what they are trying to do. Looking at the data on the PADD, though I am suspicious about some of what they claim, it looks like the Imperium may be trying to figure out a way to form some sort of telepathic shield using Ferengi.”

Kr’antren dropped his PADD on the desk. “ hold on, run that by me again. I want to make sure I heard you correctly.”

“You heard correctly, sir. The imperium is testing some sort of device that if it works, which they say it did in the report, would shield their minds from telepathic evilness. Their words, not mine.”

“How would that even work? I mean would it even be possible?”

“Theoretically, yes. Though in practice.” Tazzeth shrugged his shoulders. “According to the information on the PADD. The Devore with Ferengi’s help, again someone supplying them with expertise in the area, have figured out a way to implant a device into the part of the Ferengi brain structure that shields their minds from telepaths.”

Kr’Antren sat back in his chair. “ I’ll be damned, could you imagine what this would mean for the Delta Quadrant.”

“Sir, think bigger. What would it mean if the Ferengi could sell a telepathic shield in any quadrant?”

Kr’antren shot up to his feet. “Hold on, I’m guessing that would require Blood Dilithium in some capacity. Am I right?”

Ensign Ngin looked up from his PADD. “I was just looking at the data, captain. It would not take as much as you would think. If I am reading this correctly it is only needed to activate the connection between the shield and the person they’re trying to shield.”

Tazzeth stood and went to the viewscreen .”According to this sir, it is an integral part. However, exactly what part or how it works was left out of the data on the PADD. According to this.  The five deceased female Ferengi that we found were the test subjects for the first of such devices. The devices were already implanted before they were delivered to the dome. Of the five, two died immediately upon contact with a telepathic prisoner and the subspace trumpet they had built. The third subject was able to make a connection with a Devore engineer before falling into madness and having to be put down. The last two were tested after some adjustments to their implants were made, these two were able to make and hold a connection with an assigned Devore engineer.” He went over and grabbed his PADD. “ Here sir, this may explain things better. They recorded the next test.”

The view screen showed a camera angle from one of the upper corners of one of the labs or office spaces within the dome area. 

We see battered and beaten male humanoids in torn and dirty clothing handcuffed and legs changed together, barely able to stand in the middle of the room. A female Ferengi walked in followed by an officer in the typical imperium black uniform. Both the Devore officer and the Ferengi are wearing a sort of circlet device. 

“Sir, according to the report the telepath is a brenari who has been captive for about three years.”  

“Hmmmmm”

The video restarts. The female Ferengi left the room after a short discussion with the Devore officer. The officer and the Brenari prisoner go through a series of tests, common telepathic ability tests such as what color the card I’m looking at, and what I see on my card. The Ferengi and the Devore officer switch places and the tests are reruns. 

“That was obviously to set a baseline and to prove that the Brenari could read the mind of the Devore officer and that he could not read the mind of the Ferengi,” Tazzeth stated from his chair.

“I’m surprised that the Brenari could do anything in that state, especially with all the Blood Dilithium nearby..” Kr’Antren said as he continued to watch.

Ensign Ngin paused the video.” sir, that leads me to another question. Could it be possible to know what we do now that the Brenari are not affected by the Blood Dilithium? I mean that wouldn’t make much sense would it, to cause more pain to those that are still being held as prisoners.”

Both Kr’Antren and Tazzeth look at each other with weird looks on their face, like why hadn’t we thought of that? “Ensign you might have just may have brought up something that may completely change how the fleet proceeds. That will be on the top of my list of questions when I send in my report and I will make sure that you receive the recognition for the question.”

 Ensign Ngin restarted the video feed.

When those tests were complete the Ferengi left the room, and after a short period, the Devore and the Ferengi entered the room. The Devore officer sat down while the Ferengi stood to one side.

“Sir for the next couple hours they run through the same sort of tests as before, but you can see that the Brenari starts to get agitated as he knows he should be able to read the Devor’s mind and each time he gets it wrong the Devore officer reaches across the small table and slaps him across the face.”

They fast forward through the next hour or so till Tazzeth finds a certain time code that he had noted on his PADD.

“This is where things get interesting sir, as we watch the next 30 minutes or so watch the Ferengi. You will notice something starts to happen to her, while she still holds onto the shield you will notice that she starts to show signs of exhaustion, then her nose starts to bleed, Then she starts becoming agitated and finally argumentative with both the Devore officer and the prisoner.”

They watch the scene unfold much as Lieutenant Tazzeth described.

“As this continues for a bit sir, I’ll give you the notes. They continue the testing but now the officer is paying as close attention to the Ferengi as he is to the prisoner. Once she nearly faints and then tries to rip off the device the video feed ends. The second video is much the same as this one, with a different officer and Ferengi. The tests start pretty much the same though she does last longer than the first Ferengi. They also start testing how far she can be from the officer before the shield loses its strength. ”

“I don’t think we need to watch the second one, Lieutenant. I believe I get the point of what was going on in the dome. Any ideas on why the second Ferengi lasts longer?”

“After watching the video feeds sir, I can only theorize. But I think it may have to do with her age as she visibly looks younger than the first Ferengi. If I was to put an age to the two of them I would guess that Ferengi number one was maybe, earth equivalent, to be in her thirties while the second one is maybe in her early twenties.”

“Put a shot of the three of them in the room from the two tests on the screen, please.”

   Kr’Antren stood and approached the view screen frozen on a picture of the two tests, studying the scene and the people on the screen. “The two female Ferengi are part of the group that we brought on board for autopsies?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any signs of these devices?”

“No, sir. Nor did the tricorders pick up anything in the brain cavity. Though with the after-effects of the device burning out I’m not sure what we would be looking for. Hopefully, Doc can find something when she performs the autopsies.”

“I’ll have her return with the shuttle when I go down, speaking of which. Gentlemen, I’m running late. I will make sure that number one, Skagath, Doc, and the Counsellor get copies of this report and the videos along with the questions and ideas that we raised while going over the data.  I’ll have them forward their thoughts to you two.”

“Sir, you may want to talk to them to make sure that no one is around when they watch those videos,” Tazzeth said as he got up from his seat and took his cup to the replicator to be recycled.

“Noted, lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Tazzeth and Ensign Ngin made their way out of the captain’s ready room as the Kr’antren went to the cabinets under the shelving unit and pulled out a small rucksack, opened it to make sure it was packed with what he would need in case he had to stay overnight or spend a couple of days on the surface. Satisfied he went back to his desk, grabbed his PADD, and made his way to the bridge and then to the turbo-lift.

240011.12.1100

Kr’Antren stepped off of the Desert Sands and looked around the landing area. “Not bad, I could almost think I was on an island on earth in the Caribbean if it wasn’t for the three suns in the sky.” As he looked around he saw Doc and his number one walking toward him. “Morning ladies, Doc here is your copy of the report and the preliminary scans of the deceased. We need to know anything you can tell us, especially if you find any signs of the implants.”

“I’ll read this on my way up captain. I’ll get you the information as soon as I can. May take a bit with that many bodies to look at.”

“Take all the time you need Doc, would rather have good information than miss something. Pay special attention to the two Ferengi mentioned in the report as having made the connection with the Devore and the two Devore officers they reportedly connected with. The video feeds of the tests are also included on your PADD.”

“Number one, here is your copy of the report. I would suggest making sure you are alone when you watch the video feeds.” He hands his XO her PADD.

“So what do we have planned for the rest of the day, number one?” They both watched as the Doc climbed aboard the Desert Sands and closed the hatch.

“Some sightseeing around the compound for starters, then a briefing from Lieutenant Skagath and myself on what we have found so far. I believe Counsellor Sia would like to talk to you about what she is seeing amongst the populace.” She looked around to see who was around them and lowered her voice. “ I believe that Lieutenant Skagath mentioned a nighttime expedition to see the local wildlife, sir.”

Kr’antren raised his eyebrows at this.” if I would have known that we were going to do that, I would have packed my camera.”

She chuckled at this. “I believe we can cover you for tonight, sir.”

“Oh. that would be wonderful.” He chuckled in response.

“So have you found the wildlife to be more active at night then?”

“Oh most definitely captain, but I’ll let the Lieutenant and his new wildlife expert brief you on that. Can’t take away all of their fun, now can i.”

“Nope, guess you shouldn’t do that.”

As they approached the compound Kr’antren couldn’t help but notice the marked changes to the area from when they first arrived. There were arched entrances to the compound where before it was just there. He could see several rows of new bunkhouses in various stages of being built with several other buildings being planned and construction starting.

“Coming along quite nicely, when do they expect the first group to move in?”

“They already have, captain. The first group of a hundred finished their incoming briefings yesterday and have joined the workforce today. The plan is for the people who move in to help with running the compound.”

“And the hospital?”

“They are at about fifty percent staffed with more checking in every day, they expect to be fully operational by the end of the week.”

“The crew have made some suggestions on some things and ideas on making things more comfortable and workable and the administration staff have been more than happy to listen to the ideas and in many cases make them part of their plans for the compound.”

“That’s good. So how is our crew doing? Any issues or anything else I need to know about?”Kr’Antren asked as they took a path around a central pond and park area.

“Nothing the doc or I couldn’t handle, captain. Mostly it was sore backs and blisters at the start. A few small disputes at the beginning about how things should be done, but some compromises were made and everything is proceeding as planned now. And here we are sir, this bunkhouse and the one next door are the two that we have been using as both accommodations and our offices.”

“Is this what everyone is living in?”

“Not quite everyone sir, that was one of our first suggestions. Single men and women live in bunkhouses much like this one. Small families share a building with another family it is the same building split in half by a wall with a small family dwelling set up on each side. Larger families have an entire bunkhouse. There are two communal kitchens built and operational with a third planned, everyone can eat in the communal kitchen, or for those  living in the  family housing they can use their cooking area.”

Kr’antren followed Talibah into the bunkhouse on the right, found an empty bed, and put his rucksack down on top of it. “Will this one be ok?”

“Yes sir, no one uses this one as Skagath is next to it and we have all found out he snores quite loudly when he is tired.”

Kr’Antren chuckled at this. “ Yes, he does, doesn’t he? I had forgotten about that. Well, won’t be the first time I’ve dealt with it.”

Lieutenant Talibah looks at the PADD that he had given her when he arrived and then back at the captain. “Sir, should we go over this and you can fill me in as I read.”

Kr’Antren nodded and headed back into the communal area located in the front part of the bunkhouse and found the table that she had been using as her makeshift work area. For the next hour, they sit and go through the information on the PADD and discuss the questions and ideas that had been noted during his meeting with Lieutenant Tazzeth and Ensign Ngin.

Lieutenant Talibah put the PADD down and sat back in her chair. “Well sir, from a Ferengi’s perspective it would make sense, they have no qualms about selling their mother if it meant they would make a profit. Though I shudder to think about what this would mean in the long run.”

“We had the same thoughts number one, we need to put an end to this before the wormhole opens as this would be the first time they could get this idea and the devices into the Alpha and Beta quadrants and beyond.” Kr’Antren stood and went to the replicator and ordered an iced Raktijino and then returned to his seat as he sipped on it.

“Agreed, and I think this may tie into the working theory that we have on what is going on here. But I’ll wait on the rest of the staff to fill you in on that.”

She then hand’s him a PADD. 

“What’s this?”

“A couple of award recommendations, an enlisted promotion order that needs your signature, and a few other things that need your blessing.”

He starts looking through the paperwork on the PADD, while sipping on his iced Raktajino. “No problem with these awards. The promotion is a bit early, are we sure they deserve it?”

“Yes, sir. It is a bit early but it falls within the acceptable window if the captain signs off on it. They deserve it, they have taken leadership of their small work crew of mixed local and Osiris crew and have completed their assignments ahead of schedule. If you notice sir I’m not the only one who thinks they deserve it.”

“Yes, I see that. I’m reading through those recommendations right now.”

“Ok, then. Everything looks to be in order on these,” he added his thumbprint to the various orders for both the awards and the promotion.

Lieutenant Skagath entered at about this time carrying an axe and a shovel over one shoulder, work gloves folded into his pants, and a good amount of dirt and what looked like wood chips in his hair and beard. “Well, well, well look what the cat dragged in. Come to get your hands dirty, lad? “

“About time you did some work, old man. Was going to say something about  looking a little soft around the middle.”

“Hey, I’ve put in my time and I’ve earned this.” As he patted his stomach area. “Well number one, we can put a red line through the fire pit area, it is now completed and stocked with a good amount of wood.”

She nodded and went to a board on the wall behind her and drew a line through a list that was written on it.

“What’s this?” Kr’antren pointed at the board.

“Oh, sorry sir for not explaining earlier. This is a list of the projects that we are either leading or working on as part of the project. We have Counsellor Sia working on the schoolhouse with a mixed crew. The crewmen that we were just discussing are leading a group working on the orphanage, which should be completed today or tomorrow.”

Kr’Antren looked at her. “An orphanage?”

“Yes sir, the number of families that have been separated and children left behind has been worse than we initially thought. We have been told through the administration team that there could be up to a couple of hundred children that have been orphaned by the imperium or by the blood dilithium.”

“Hmmmm, I wasn’t expecting that.” Kr’antren ran a hand through his beard. 

“Sir, Ma’am let me get a shower and a change out of this uniform, and then we can brief you, lad.” Skagath went and put the tools into a locker in the corner of the room and then headed towards the back.

“Sir, we are also receiving news that word of this compound is spreading in the surrounding systems and some may head here from them. The governors have opened their arms to help those that need it, though they had to fight it out with Rharpaz; Being a typical Ferengi he wanted to try to make money off of the deal. So they have made plans to copy this compound on the other side of the hospital if needed.” She turned from the board and returned to her seat.

Kr’Antren took one last look at the board and then got another iced Raktajino and retook his seat. “So tomorrow, assign me to one of the groups. Doesn’t matter which one, time for the captain to get his hands dirty.”

“No problem sir, we can do that.”

After another thirty minutes of small talk between the captain and his number one, they are joined by Lieutenant Skagath.

“Have you briefed him yet, ma’am”

Lieutenant Talibah shook her head.” Nope, was waiting on you. This is the chiefs and your work.”

“Ok then. Well, lad here we go. As you have read in the reports we found signs of movement around the compound after our first night on the ground.”

Kr’Antren nodded and grabbed his PADD to take notes.

“We saw the same types of movement over the next couple of nights, small teams. Usually three to four humanoids. We have found evidence of at least one of the groups staying throughout the day and observing the compound, that was on day three.”

Kr’Antren nodded.

Skagath looked over at the XO and she nodded in reply.”Sir, we believe that someone from the inside is guiding them. The routes they take and the hiding place they used, which was in a tree,  seem to follow the workflow. No, that’s not right. It seems to follow where we are not working. Meaning someone has to know the schedule so they know where to walk or not walk to not cause the trail to be noticed. The only ones who know the schedule are the members of the teams.”

“Makes sense, if you were going to spy on someone you would want someone on the inside.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what we were thinking. So the chief started paying attention a bit more to the tracks that were left. He has theorized that the “guide” is someone of smaller stature. Well, this made us look and watch over the past day and only two categories fit that bill. Either it’s a child or it’s a Ferengi. We do have a few Ferengi on the crews, I think it’s Rharpaz’s way of trying to make nice with his fellow governors and us. We do not have any children on the work crews but there are enough of them around, one or two could be up to no good.” Lieutenant Talibah looked at the captain. “We have also thought that if it is a child that they could be being threatened that if they don’t cooperate something will happen to their family or them.”

Kr’Antren put his PADD down and Looked at the two of them. “So what’s the plan?”

Skagath looked around the room real quick. “Well sir, let’s just say the crews will be told some wrong information this evening about the schedule for the next couple of days and tonight a select few crew including you and I will make our way out of camp. We have set up some stories about why and where we are heading and made those known.”

“Hmmmm, I think I see where this is going. No need to fill me in now.” he circled a finger in the air.

Skagath nodded.

“So Number One, where to next?”

“Well sir, we can go visit the different sites that are being worked on, then introduce you to the administration team and then the hospital.”

“Kr’Antren stood “Add the school and orphanage on that list.”

“Yes, sir. Stopping by the school would give Counsellor Sia a chance to fill you in on what she is seeing around the compound.”  she stood and picked up her PADD. “but first, lunch.”

“Lead the way, Number one.’

240011.12.2100

“Ok sir, so we have divided it into three teams, one team will watch near the compound, one team will watch near where we think they are hiding and one team will stay in the trees here.” Skagath points to a mark on the map he has placed on the table. “They will be our backup in case we run into trouble that we can not handle.”

“I see, is there a particular place the compound team is watching?”

“We have been dropping hints that this row of houses will be expecting occupants shortly and we also stated today, after going through your reports from the asteroid, that the orphanage will be expecting its first occupants soon also.”

“I’m not exactly sure that was a wise idea Lieutenant. I will not condone putting those kids at risk.”

Skagath pats the captain on the back. “Neither will I lad, neither will I.” He leaned toward the Captain. “We didn’t have a chance to get to our working theory, so I might as well give it to younow.”

Kr’Antren nodded. “Go ahead.”

“After looking at the notes from the past findings when they discovered Blood Dilithium around the compound and reading through the reports from the asteroid Number One, the Doc, Counsellor Sia, and I came up with an idea that kind of fits into your findings from the asteroid. What if the Imperium is trying to play psychological games with not only the people of this planet but with the Delta Quadrant as a whole.”

Kr’antren raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I think I see where you are going.”

“You were always quick to pick up things, anyways. Knowing what they were working on, on the asteroid, makes this idea seem more possible and probably more likely. What if they are testing how much Blood Dilithium it would take to start affecting telepaths? Then once you have that figured out you could theoretically start making it look like telepaths are going mad. And if telepaths have gone mad then there is no telling what they can or would do. Then here comes the Ferengi to sell them the answer to the problem. May not be able to stop the telepaths but there is a way to protect yourself. On top of that, the Devore then start to work their regular brand of anti-telepath rhetoric.”

Kr’antren started to run a hand through his beard. “That’s something to think about for sure, and quite worrisome if you’re right.”

Skagath nodded, then rolled up the map and placed it in a tube sat on one side of the table, and then placed the tube into the rucksack on the floor beside him. “So are we ready to go, captain? Our team will be the ones watching the supposed hiding spot and the trails going into it. We have about an hour’s hike to get to our spot in the trees. We believe that they wait till the moons are at their highest to make their way in the forest.”

Kr’Antren picked up his smaller rucksack and swings it over his head and onto his back, then makes adjustments to it so it sits right across his shoulders. He then picked up the phaser rifle that was leaning against his chair, double-checked the readings and settings on it, and attached it to the front of his vest. “Ready when you are Lieutenant, you’re in charge.”

Skagath noticed the Captain double-checking his rifle and nodded. “Good, Good, I see you remembered  what I taught you.”

“Yep, never trust that a weapon is armed and safe. Always check it for yourself and that the best safety is the one attached to you.” He held up his trigger finger. “Never put your finger on the trigger unless you plan on using it.”

Skagath nodded again. “Good, Good. I wish some of the other folks on the Osiris would remember those rules as well as you did, so many folks want to be heroes these days.”

“Well Lieutenant, if that’s the case you know what is needed and I will back you up on it.”

Skagath nodded again, picked up, put on, and adjusted his rucksack. He then performed the same checks on the phaser rifle that he carried. “Alrighty then, the other two should be outside waiting on us. Oh ya, you might need this.” he handed the captain a device that looked like a small video camera  that had a monocled eyepiece.”You might need that if we are stopped by anyone.”

“What’s this?” Kr’Antren held up the device.

Skagath chuckled. “ That sir. Is one Starfleet-issued photographic device with a night vision ad-on. Remember lad, we are going to look at the planet’s nighttime wildlife along the river. If anyone asks, the rifles are in case the wildlife gets a bit too close and a bit too wild as some reported predators use the river banks as hunting grounds.”

“Damn, I knew I should have brought my camera. Well maybe I can clean up any pictures I get with this thing when we get back onboard.” Kr’Antren looked the camera over, wincing as he did so. “Ugh, so out of date.”

Skagath continued to chuckle as he shrugged his shoulders and started to head out the door.

Kr’Antren shook his head and followed the Lieutenant out of the door.

Roughly ninety minutes later they find an area with some tall trees and a good view of both river banks and across the river Skagath pointed out that the other side of the river has a set of cliffs and hills that start to lower in height and blend into the forest floor and river bank. He poked the captain on the shoulder and pointed toward the far bank at about the two o’clock position from them.

 “Well lad, there is a waterfall of sorts over there, empties into a small pool then it joins into the main river, from what we have been told the river is extremely low right through that area only about a foot or so deep which is allows folks to make their way across the river easily. The locals also tell us that there is a rather deep cave behind that waterfall. It used to be a mine shaft used to dig out a gemstone of some sort, nobody knows what gem was mined there as it’s been shut down for decades. Anyways that’s another story, for our purpose we believe that is where they are operating out of.”

Skagath pointed up into the tree, we need to get up there so we are less noticeable by anyone or anything out here. He then proceeded to climb the tree to a group of small platforms located in the tree’s branches.

Kr’Antren followed him up and joined him on one of the platforms.

“These are used by the locals as hunting platforms, so most folks would not think it would be out of the ordinary for folks to be up here as it is one of the hunting seasons for a couple of different animal groups. Quite well camouflaged too, we checked.”

Kr’Antren carefully got the rucksack off and placed it behind him like a seat back, then he took out the camera from a side pocket and puts on the monocle heapiece.” well let’s see what we can see, might as well get some pictures while we are here in case anyone asks.“

One of the other members of the team came down from a slightly higher perch. “Lieutenant, I’m going to go post up in that tree we discussed that overlooks the shallows.” He looked up at the sky. ”I would say we have about an hour before the moons are at their highest.”

Skagath looked up also, “Maybe less, be careful and quiet. No need to alarm them before we are ready. Remember, one flash when you see them, two when they go past, three when it is clear for us to move and set up.”

“Roger, sir.” He stealthily climbed down the tree and made his way into the surrounding forest and disappeared.

“He’s good, where did you find him?” he pointed with his head towards the security crewmen.

“If I told you, I’d have to kill ya.” Skagath chuckled, “Let’s just say he and a few others have some special skills and experience in places they can not talk about.”

Kr’Antren chuckled, “Got it.”

He went back to look through the camera. “So what was the rest of that about?”

“Well, if everything goes as planned tonight and they decide to make an appearance. We have a little surprise planned for them either at the compound or here.”

“Hmmmmm, are we expecting guests for breakfast?”

“That’s the plan, sir”

Skagath looked through his monocle and taking pictures with his camera noticed a red dot in the upper corner. “Ok then, so it begins. There on the move, Captain.”

Kr’Antren tapped a finger on Skagaths leg.

Both Kr’Antren and Skagath shift their cameras slowly toward the shallows. 

“Got’em, I count four,” Kr’Antren whispered.

“Agreed,” Skagath whispered

A few minutes later the woods went back to their normal nighttime sounds and Skagath saw the two dots in his monocle, he placed a hand on Kr’Antrens shoulder and squeezed twice.

Kr’Antren tapped on Skagaths knee in acknowledgment.

Another few minutes passed and Skagath saw the three dots, he squeezed the captain’s shoulder twice again and then reached down to the platform and knocked once.

A shift in the platform announced another person was on it as they then brushed past and continued down. Skagath then slowly got up on his knees. “Ok Captain, phase two. Here we go.” As they both made their way down the tree and followed the security crewmen slowly into the forest.

Over the next forty-five minutes, they made their way to a pair of trees, roughly thirty feet down the trail and off to one side slightly from where the first crewmen were located. “Lt, this one is yours. I’m going to join Chief Ukogh. I’ll plant four stun devices on this side of the trail by a few feet, as we had planned. Looks like we should have enough time to rest a bit and let nature return. I’ll double-check for any trail signs we left and make sure they are no longer visible.”

Skagath looked up at the sky and grunted. ”Set them to go off using the proximity sensor on the fourth one, let’s say five feet.”

“Sounds good, Daisy chained down the line from the fourth one. No delay. That would be my suggestion.”

Skagath looked at the trail and the distance between the two points. “Works for me, you guys are the experts in this area.”

The chief looked back at the trail and moved towards the other tree.

“Up we go lad, should be a platform up in the tree a bit higher than the last ones but way more camouflaged due to the closeness to the game trail they are using.”

Kr’Antren nodded and started to climb the tree, followed by Skagath.

As the sky started to turn the blueish purple of the coming morning the group perched high up in trees and heard a wild commotion coming down the trail. It did not sound like a group trying to sneak through the forest but one that was in a rush to get somewhere fast.

Skagath leaned into Kr’Antrens ear. “Guess the compound team didn’t get them all. Remember lad,   close your eyes when they pass under us or else you’ll end up like them for a few seconds.”

Kr’Antren nodded.

A few seconds later three figures ran under them along the trail. “Close them” Skagath hissed.

As four blinding lights flashed through closed eyelids followed by concussive waves of a low deep sound. As Kr’antren opened his eyes he could see two flashes of phaser fire hit two of the individuals while the third was already on all fours trying to shake the effects. The other two were laying on the trail breathing heavily and unable to move after being hit by phaser rifles set on stun.

Skagath stood and shouldered his rifle, Kr’Antren could see that he was covering the advancement of the two chiefs as they approached the downed threesome.

Kr’Antren patted Skagath on the shoulder. “Nice work, I’m going to go down and join the chiefs. I want to see who we are inviting to breakfast before I offer them the invite.”

Skagath chuckled, “Yaaa we don’t want to waste any of our good coffee on folks that don’t deserve it, now do we.”

Kr’antren made his way down the tree and trained his rifle on the three individuals on the ground as he approached from behind them.

“Well, sir, not our best work if we must say. Almost a waste of good stun devices.” One of the chiefs stated as they came to the first individual laying on the ground.

“Well, looky here sir. Looks like we got ourselves a Ferengi. We were worried for a second that the stun devices wouldn’t work if they were part of the group.” as he knelt down beside the temporarily stunned Ferengi and placed handcuffs on his wrists. “Now be a good lad and don’t try to run, if you do the Tellarite in that tree over there would have to shoot you, and he is probably a bit grumpy from having to be out here all night and there are no guarantees that he forgot to set his rifle on stun.” 

Kr’Antren looked down at the kneeling Klingon security chief. “Chief Ukogh, if I may ask? Can you explain why, about the Ferengi?”

“Well sir. “ as he started to pat down the Ferengi and remove anything he found on them. “It has to do with their physiology. Sometimes the stun devices are not as effective against Ferengi, usually, if we know we are working against then we have to change the settings on the devices.”

Kr’Antren nodded as he watched Chief Ngaizav handcuff and start to search the other two. “I can understand that chief. Well, shall we flip them over and see who we have.”

Chief Ukogh nodded and reached over and flipped the Ferengi onto his back. “Ahhh sir, I know this one. This is Hogo. He’s been on the construction crews working on the schoolhouse for the last couple of days.”

Kr’Antren shouldered his rifle and knelt beside Hogo. “Hogo is it? I’m Lieutenant Commander Kr’Antren, Captain of the USS Osiris. So what have you been up to? Things will go much easier for you if you talk now versus later.” He stood and approached the other two figures.

Skagath stood as he finished searching the pockets and other areas of the one he was beside. “Well sir, looks like we have two Imperium members. Not much on them besides rations, a small map of the compound and its surrounding area, and a couple of these.“ He held up what looked like a belt with small loops sewn on it, much like an old-fashioned pistol belt where the ammo was stored on the belt, most of the loops were empty but a few still held little metal tubes/vials with a flip top on one end.

“I’d be careful opening that, lad. Almost had a face full of it when I did.”

Kr’antren looked at him and then down at Devore laying on the ground. He then held the vial away from him a bit and carefully flipped the lid open, inside was ground Blood dilithium about the consistency of sand.

Skagath held up another belt similar to the first but meant to be worn across the chest. “The vials on this one hold small crystals about the size of a human’s pinky finger.”

Kr’antren turned and looked at the three individuals on the ground. “Where’s the fourth?”

Skagath looked back towards the compound. ”I’m figuring that the other team’s trap was either set off earlier or they were not all within range of the devices they had. These three high-tailed it out of there when they realized what was happening.” 

Kr’Antren nodded. “Well let’s round up our gear and take these three back to the compound and see what we can get out of them.”

Skagath chuckled. “Ahhhh hot coffee and breakfast followed by a round of interrogations. What a way to start a day! Ok, you heard the Captain, let’s get moving.”

240011.13.0500

After a return trek of roughly ninety minutes, the group of four and their three prisoners made it back to the compound and went to the crew’s assigned bunhouses. As they walked through the compound they noticed a dissipating faint plume of smoke from where the schoolhouse was located. 

Seeing this the two Devore officers gave each other a smirk and a nod.

Skagath looked over in that direction and shook his head. “Well, that’s going to delay Sia’s plans.” He looked at the two Devore. “Luckily we figured that something like that may have been planned so we put things in place to quickly rebuild it. Guess he didn’t know about that, did he?” He pointed at the Ferengi. “Something we worked out when we realized that a Ferengi or two might be involved.”

“We’re glad it burned, now they can’t be taught how to spread their evilness and lies.”

Skagath looked at the one who spoke. “Ahhh so you can speak, that’s good to know. But I guess you don’t listen well though. I just said that we already planned for something like this and a new one is already being prepped.”

The Devore officers became silent again as they made their way to the crew’s bunkhouses.

Upon arriving they found a group of the crew sitting on the patio eating breakfast.

Chief Samples stood from amongst the group. “Lieutenant Skagath, I see you got the rest of them, we were beginning to wonder.”

“Aye, we did. Caught them trying to cross the river.”

The chief pointed over his shoulder. “The XO has the one we caught in there, I believe she was waiting to hear from you. I was just getting ready to go back in and join them.”

Kr’Antren stepped forward. “Have they talked yet chief?”

“Oh, sorry captain. I didn’t realize you were still with us. No, sir. That one is as tight-lipped as one of my pappy’s old bear traps.”

Kr’Antren nodded. “It’s ok chief, I think these two.” he pointed at Skagath, and inside, meaning his executive officer, were trying to keep it quiet that I was still here. “Seems pretty tight to me, what do you say we grease them up a little and see if their mouths open? Isn’t that how they loosen those old traps, at least I thought I read about it somewhere being the case.”

“Yes sir, greasing them up usually loosens them old traps right up.”

Kr’antren started to walk up the few steps to the porch and the rest of his group followed him as he walked into the bunhouse. Dropping his rucksack on the floor next to his number one work table/desk. “So number one, what do we have here?” as he walked over to stand beside her.

The other three prisoners were walked into the room and made to sit in three other seats around the table. 

“Ahhh you got the Ferengi, we thought he might have gotten away as we didn’t see him run off.” She walked over and looked at the Ferengi and then back at Skagath.”I’ve seen you before, you  were on the construction crews around the compound.” She went to her desk and grabbed her PADD and started going through the personnel files on the construction crews. “Ahhh yes, there you are. Hogo, Ferengi, a construction engineer.”

She looked up from her PADD and over at Chief Samples. “Chief, I’m sending you the list of the other Ferengi crew members. I see two of them joined us at the same time as Hogo here. I want them all rounded up and brought here when the crews sign in this morning.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll take a few of the normal folks with me to not raise any suspicion.”

Talibah nodded. “Take phasers with you, if they try to run, guess we know where they stand.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He called for a couple of the folks on the patio to join him inside.

She looked over at the Captain. “So where should we start?”

Kr’antren looked at the group arrayed in front of him. “Well, the chief and I were just talking about using a little grease to loosen the springs, so to speak.” He looked around the bunhouse. “Where’s Counsellor Sia?”

“I believe she went to the schoolhouse to see if anything could be saved.” Talibah looked at Kr’Antren and noticed the slight ear twitch.

“Chief Ngaizav,” Kr’Antren called out.

“Yes, sir.” The tall Orion security chief replied.

“Go find Counsellor Sia, she should be over at the old school house. Let her know we will need her here.” 

“Yes, sir.” He quickly left to go find the counselor.

“Lieutenant Skagath, send a couple of folks to go get some breakfast for the four of us from our team and for the four prisoners.”

“Yes, sir.” He pointed out a couple of the crewmen. “You two, go see if we can get eight breakfast platters brought to the bunk house here, along with some coffee or whatever hot beverage they are serving this morning.”

“Yes, sir.” one of them replied as they both jumped off the patio and made their way toward one of the communal kitchens.

Kr’Antren turned back towards the four prisoners, pulled out a chair, and propped one of his feet up on it.” Now gentlemen, as you can see we are not the evil monsters many try to portray us as. Matter of fact compared to most we treat our prisoners quite well. So as you heard we will have breakfast here in a bit, and to prove we are not trying to drug you or other such nonsense we will mix up the meals and my team will eat the same thing you will be offered.” He looked them all over then he looked at his number one. “Lieutenant Talibah here is my executive officer and has been on the surface a bit longer than I have, so I’ll let her start the conversation. Lieutenant, the floor is yours.”

“Thank you, sir.” As she sat down at the table. ”Gentlemen, let’s start this off on the right foot, shall we? My name is Lieutenant Talibah I’m the Executive Officer on the USS Osiris and this” she points up at Kr’Antren “Is Lieutenant commander Kr’Antren Captain of the USS Osiris. Currently, you are prisoners of the Federation, but that could change depending on how our little talk goes. So let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Names? Besides Hogo over here, we know who he is.” she nodded toward the Ferengi.

“You know nothing Lieutenant, federation always going around sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong. Just go away and let us live our own lives.” Hogo leaned back in his chair and with a smirk.

Talibah looked over at him and then turned toward the three Devore Imperium officers.”Ok, so who is going to go first?”

“You will pay for this, do you not think that the Imperium will not come looking for us? You will all die and we will still take all of the telepaths and show them their ugly truths are false.”

Kr’Antren leaned forward on his knee, making the chair squeak a bit on the floor. “So there is an Imperium ship in the system? Mind telling us where or at least the ship’s name so we can introduce ourselves.”

The Devore officer chuckled and smirked a bit. “I never said they were in this system Lieutenant Commander, nice try though.” The other two devore looked at him and smirked and nodded. “But since you asked I’m Lieutenant Rujiso, next to me is Ensign Mojer and the other one is crewmen 2nd class Sojim.”

Lieutenant Talibah made notes on her PADD and looked back at the group in front of her.” See gentlemen, that wasn’t very hard. A lot better than being called a prisoner or some other term. Lieutenant Skagath, which one was carrying the belts with the vials?”

Skagath walked over holding two cups of coffee and handed one to the Captain. “The ensign was the one whom we removed the belts from, he also had a tricorder-type device on him. Captain, it’s real coffee looks like a certain chief has a considerable sized stash in his quarters.”

Kr’Antren took a sip.”Nice, remind me later to thank the chief.”

“Will do, sir” As Skagath took a seat next to the XO.

Kr’antren took another sip.” Oh, excuse me for being rude. Can someone grab four cups of coffee and bring them in for our guests.“

“On it , sir.” a Crew member replies and makes their way to the other table and pours four cups of coffee, grabs a small another cup, and filled it with what looks like coffee creamer and a small bowl with little cubes of white,  she brings them over and placed one in front of each of the “guests” and placed the bowl and another cup in the center of them.

“Thank you petty officer.” as Kr’antren put his foot down and also took a seat.

“It’s what we call coffee gentlemen, customarily drunk in the morning though some of us prefer to drink it throughout the day.” 

Lieutenant Talibah puts her PADD down on the table in front of her. “Ok gentlemen, so as you might guess we have a few questions to ask you, nothing too hard I don’t think. Let’s start at the end shall we and work our way backward? How many of those vials did you plant around the compound? And where are they at? You see I would rather we find them before the folks that are living here start having issues when they wake up.”

“Let them, it will just prove our point.” The Lieutenant said as he took the coffee in front of him and took a small sip and then nodded.”Not bad.”

Hogo moved quickly, dumped quite a bit of the creamer into his cup, and then took a small handful of the sugar cubes and dumped them in.”Real coffee you say, not that crap from your federation replicators? Never understood why grandfather wouldn’t get into the market, lots of profit to be made off of this stuff especially when it comes to you federation types.”

Talibah looked over at him. “Your grandfather, you say? Who might that be?”

Hogo looked up after taking a long sip from his cup. “That is none of your business, lieutenant.”

“Does he know you’re out here in the Delta Quadrant?” she started to type on the PADD in front of her as she held her cup of coffee.

“Of course he does, who do you think sent us? Stupid human.”

She looked up at the Captain and continued. “So your father is Rharpaz then?”

Hogo caught himself from spitting out his coffee as he finished the sip and started to laugh. “Uncle Rharpaz couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag without father. Good head on his shoulders for business but is stupid when it comes to grabbing at new opportunities. He can’t think out of the box, doesn’t see the profit to be made sitting right in front of his nose.”

Kr’Antren leaned forward. “But isn’t Rharpaz in charge?”

Hogo looked down at his cup and shrugged. “Not if father has anything to do with it, grandfather will realize that soon and put him in charge as he should have done a long time ago. 

Kr’Antren looked at Lieutenant’s Talibah and Skagath. “Well, I think that answers that question.”

Hogo looked at the three of them. “What do you mean by that? You know nothing.”

Kr’antren looked at Hogo. “I would say otherwise, as I just returned from the asteroid.”

“What? When? How? Father will hear about this and he will come and save me, you do not understand what you are messing with.” Hogo started to stammer and then looked back into his coffee cup and sighed.

“Number one, you got all that? Correct?

“Yes, sir.” she tapped lightly on the PADD.

Kr’Antren tapped on his commbadge. “Chief Kaha, Captain Kr’Antren. Send a message to Governor Rhazpaz asking him, nicely, to join us at the compound. And to come alone.”

“Yes, sir”

 Kr’Antren nodded and then looked at Hogo. “I have a feeling he is not going to be too happy when he gets here.”

Hogo started to look around, as one of the security crew walked up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you.”

Counsellor Sia walked into the bunkhouse and got a cup of coffee and went to stand beside the captain’s chair, she was followed by the two crew who went to go get breakfast.

“Sorry sir, they were just opening and they had the usual assortment of breakfast pastries so we grabbed a few boxes.” They placed one of the boxes on the table and opened it and then placed three more boxes on the table next to the coffee. “We got a few extra in case anyone else is hungry or if you want more.’

“Thank you, guys. Grab a few for yourselves and have a seat.” Kr’Antren said as he reached for one of the pastries, as did Lieutenants Talibah and Skagath.

Hogo, quite slowly, reached out and took one of the pastries.

Lieutenant Talibah looked from Hogo to the other three. “Well, we know his story.” She motioned toward Hogo with the hand holding a pastry. “So what about you guys? Like I said before, we just want an understanding of what you are doing here. We know what the Imperium is doing throughout the Gradin Belt, but what is your mission here on this planet? Let me ask you this, then, is there anyone else in that cave? I mean we could send a team over there and just have them go look. But the captain here likes to not put his people at risk if he doesn’t have to, so we would both like to know if anyone else is in there and how many.” She took a bite from her pastry and followed it with a sip from her cup. “I mean we are going to send a team there either way. So holding back that simple information is not going to stop us, though it may save some lives if we have to go in there not knowing what is there.”

The ensign grabbed a pastry and tried a bite and then looked at the Captain. “They will gladly die to stop those that have been brainwashed by the telepaths. Go ahead, go to the cave. I can guarantee that Imperium Officers will not be the only ones whose blood will darken the river.”

Kr’antren looked at Skagath with a raised eyebrow. “What do you think, Lieutenant?”

“Hmmmmm, sounds like we have some work to do. I’ll take the Chief’s Ngaizav and Ukogh and four or five more of the security crew trained in close-quarters combat.”

“Do it, bring back anything you find.”

“Including the Blood dilithium?”

“No, not that stuff. Matter of fact leave a few of the tubes here and take the rest with you. When you’re done, let me know and we will figure out something with the Blood Dilithium. We don’t need it anywhere close to this compound.” 

Skagath nodded. “Well do” He got up and started calling for team members.

“Well gentlemen, I hope whoever is there value their lives more than you think they do.”

Lieutenant Rujiso took his cup of coffee and held it in his hands, then slammed it down on the table, crushing it. This of course brought several more crew into the room, several armed with phasers. “They will do what they know they have to do, they will die with honor. Take as many of your telepathic controlled crew with them as they can.”

Kr’Antren sat back in his chair as he put his cup on the table, and waved off the extra crew. “As you could see just now, I would be careful with your actions here. As the Lieutenant said we are just asking some questions and trying to figure out some things. You see, I have a question now. Why would you choose a system so far from your own borders to conduct testing such as you have been here? I’m sure there are systems within your own borders that would give you the answers that you are looking for.”

Lieutenant  Rujiso rubs his hands. “I let my anger and passion get away from me, sometimes it is hard to control when you are around those that are controlled by the lies spread by the telepaths. I am sure you wouldn’t understand what I’m talking about being one as controlled as you are. As towards our mission here.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m just a lieutenant and I’m only told what I need to be told, when my commander says go here and do this then that is what I do. So I do not believe my two subordinates will be able to give you the answers you are looking for.”

Kr’antren stood, grabbed his cup, and went to the table that held the coffee containers and the extra cups, filled his, and took another filling it also. He then returned and placed the other cup in front of the lieutenant. “That may be true, but I have a feeling you know more than you are telling us.” He looked over at his number one. “Don’t you agree, number one?”

“I do, captain. ” She then did the same thing that Kr’antren just did, going and refilling her cup and returning. “However, I think we are asking the wrong person the questions. I think this one “ she pointed with her cup at the ensign “knows more about what they are doing here than the lieutenant over there, after all, he’s the one that carried the vials/tubes holding the Blood Dilithium. I’m willing to bet he has been placing it around the compound these last few weeks also.“ She looked at the two officers. “Captain, I’m willing to bet the ensign here is the one really in charge, I would say he is some type of science officer or medical officer who probably is part of the team conducting these tests.”

Ensign Mojer starts to fidget a little in his seat, takes a sip of coffee, and then holds onto the cup on the table trying to control himself as his eyes dart from the Lieutenant beside him to the two officers in front of him and then around the room.

Lieutenant Talibah sat up straight and started typing on her PADD. “Sir, I believe I might have hit on something there. Look at him now. I’ve done enough of these interviews to be able to read when I have started on the right path of figuring out the clues. He definitely knows more than the other two.”

Counsellor Sia, who has been quietly watching the conversation from beside the Captain, leaned forward in her seat. “I believe you’re right, Lieutenant, the body language is quite easy to read. That one over there “ she pointed at the crewmen. “knows nothing, probably some sort of security personnel. This one “ she pointed at the Lieutenant “ was telling the truth when he was talking to the Captain, he is just following orders and is more than likely here to make sure that the other one does his job. He has the rank which makes him the leader of the group but the true leader is the ensign. I would bet he is a science officer, he doesn’t have the look of a medical officer.”

The Lieutenant looks between the three of them and then looks directly at the Captain. “ You would dare bring a telepath here, to read our minds. You shall pay for this and I hope I am the one that gets the honor of throwing you into a cell.”

Hogo looked up from his coffee cup and over at the counselor. “Ugh. She is no telepath, Lieutenant. She is a Trill, and by the dots, on her, I would say a joined one. They are not telepaths, they are human life form that has joined with another creature, some sort of worm that burrows into their body and has had several lives. She may seem like a telepath but she is not.”

The lieutenant looked between the Captain and the counselor. “Is this true? what Hogo says.”

Counsellor Sia looked over at Hogo and locked eyes with him and then back at the lieutenant. “My symbiont is named Pruzax, I am his fifth host. So yes what he said is true.”

The Lieutenant looked at her then at the Ensign then back at the Captain. “Interesting. Though it doesn’t change anything Captain, you all will either be killed or taken as prisoners and your ship impounded. “

Kr’Antren looked at his number one and then at his coffee cup. “ Hmmmmm, you can think that if you wish. But I’m quite sure they are not expecting the Osiris and we are expecting them. So they will not find things so easily. Plus we are nowhere near the Imperiums borders so they would have no legal foot to stand on to conduct such an act. So they will need to ask themselves if this system is worth having the federation be a constant thorn in their side or would it be better to move on, preferably back into their borders.” 

“The Federation has no power here either, there are more here in the Delta Quadrant that you have not yet met and many who do not like the idea of another power-hungry organization trying to acquire more territory.”

Lieutenant Talibah put her PADD done and took a sip from her fresh cup of coffee. “Wow, you do have the wrong idea of what the federation is. I wonder who you get your information from, hmmmmmm.” As she looked over at Hogo.

Hogo looked up from his cup with a pastry halfway to his mouth dripping coffee from one end. “Don’t look at me, Lieutenant. It wasn’t me. Well at least not fully, I may have said a few things but nothing that nobody doesn’t know. Always sticking your noses where they are not wanted, disrupting perfectly legal profit-making businesses.”

Sia leaned into Kr’antrens ear and whispered something to him while watching the three Imperium members from the corner of her eye.

Kr’antren nodded. “Good point counselor.” He then leaned into number one‘s ear and whispered something to her, and she nodded and replied.

The three Devore started to look at each other and then back at the Osiris officers. “ What? What are you saying to each other?” the Lieutenant asked.

Lieutenant Talibah looked back at him. “ Oh, just that you and the crewman are useless to us. The one we want to talk to is the ensign here.” as she points to him with her coffee cup. “if it comes to it and the local government wants to do whatever they do with criminals here that we will happily give them you two as long as we get to take the Ensign here with us. I’m sure there would be some others who would love to talk to him.”

Kr’antren took a sip from his cup and motioned toward Hogo. “The real question is what do we do with you? You see technically as the Ferengi are members of the Federation you would fall under our jurisdiction to arrest and take them back to the alpha quadrant to face criminal charges and all that follows that. However, I’m sure your uncle when he gets here and we play back the recording of this interview is going to have some questions for you and your father. So do we turn you over to him and let him do with you as he pleases or do we ask him to let us take you with us? I’m starting to think it may be easier to just leave you here.” 

“What is this about, Captain? Why was I summoned here so early in the morning? I haven’t even had breakfast yet nor a chance to check on my overnight business reports.” An older-looking Ferengi dressed in a ferengi’ized version of the local clothing came into the bunkhouse followed by two of the Osiris security team that was sent to escort him to the bunkhouse.

Kr’antren stood and went to meet the governor as he entered. “Governor Rhazpaz, nice to finally meet you face to face. Captain Kr’antren of the Osiris. We have coffee and pastries here if that will do for your breakfast or I can ask one of my crew to go to the communal kitchen to see if they can get something else prepared for you.”

“Did you say coffee, captain? Is it real coffee or that replicator stuff you serve on your ships?”  

Kr’Antren chuckled. “ It’s the real stuff, governor.”

“Yes, yes, that will do just fine. Been awhile since I had real coffee” he started to look around the room and saw his nephew sitting at the table.” What is he doing here? And why is he in handcuffs? Do you know who that is?” as he walked over to the table and glared at everyone sitting there. “and who are they?” he pointed to the three Devore officers.

Lieutenant Talibah stood and grabbed a chair from another table. “Governor, it seems we have ourselves a predicament here that we hope you can help us with. Here please take my seat and I’ll explain. First, let me introduce myself, I’m Lieutenant Talibah the Executive Officer of the Osiris, we also have counselor Sia of the Osiris with us as well.”

Governor Rhazpaz glared at his nephew as he took the offered seat, Kr’antren placed a cup of coffee in front of the Governor along with a plate with a few pastries on it. “What has he done?”

“Governor, are you aware of the issues they have been having here at the compound with the Blood Dilithium being found around the site? Along with the reports that some have filed that they thought someone was in the forest watching the compound?” Lieutenant Talibah asked as she took a seat in the chair she had just pulled over and also slid her PADD and coffee to be in front of her.

“Yes, Yes, Despicable stuff. Why anyone would want to harm hard-working people is beyond me.” He said as he put cream and sugar into his cup and took a sip. “But what does that have to do with my nephew here.” pointing at him with the coffee cup as he took another sip.

Kr’antren took his seat and turned slightly to face the governor. “ Well governor, some more information has come to light after a recent visit and investigation of an asteroid that was brought to our attention by Governor Buoln’Drit.”

Rhazpaz took another sip of coffee. “ yes I’m aware he was having issues with his deliveries. It has put him considerably behind on his quota as per his contract. I may have to take a look into that myself, see if I need to take further actions against him for breach of contract.”

“Well governor, Once you read our report and hear what we have to say I don’t think you will be doing that. There are some outside variables “ he looked over at the three Devore sitting at the table “ that you are not aware of that had a hand in the problem. That’s why I decided to visit the compound and we decided to take action last night”

The governor looked at Kr’antren.”Please continue, as I’m sure there is more to it.”

“There is, governor. Let me ask a question first though, if I may?”

“Go ahead. I have nothing to hide, my business is all above board and perfectly legal.”

Kr’Antren raised an eyebrow at that and continued. “Have you had any reports over the last week give or take a few days of missing Ferengi from your workforce?”

The governor took another sip of coffee and a couple of bites from a pastry that he had chosen from the plate, as he thought about the answer to the question. “Yes, I do believe we have had reports of several staff members not reporting for their shifts.” he took another sip of coffee “ beneath my position to deal with matters such as this, being the governor and the head of a very profitable business enterprise makes me a very busy man. I’m sure as a captain of a starship you can understand.”

Kr’antren nodded. “ I do. Who did you give the task of investigating these missing individuals to?”

The governor took another sip of his coffee. “That’s easy I gave it to his father, as befitting his position.” he pointed at Hogo with the cup.

Kr’antren nodded at this information. “Let me guess you haven’t received anything back from him about it, have you?”

The governor put down his cup and sat back in the chair for a second before picking up the cup again. “ Now that you mention it, No I haven’t. Though it could be on my desk.”

“For some odd reason Governor, I doubt you will find anything about your missing people on your desk.” Kr’antren took a sip from his cup.

“So what does this all have to do with having me woke up at this ungodly hour and brought out here?”

Lieutenant Talibah placed her PADD in front of the governor. “I believe this may answer some of that question for you, governor.” she hit play on her PADD of the recorded conversation from earlier in the morning.

He listened to the recording and looked at Hogo with burning anger in his eyes. “Play it again Lieutenant, please.”

She hit play on the saved timestamp.

Halfway through the recording, he launched the coffee cup that was in his hand at Hogo hitting him square in the chest. “What have you done? you little shit. You have no idea what problems you and your father have caused.” 

Kr’antren put a hand on the governor, stopping him from launching himself over the table.

“We did what all Ferengi should do, followed the rules of acquisition, rule 34 to be exact. you are weak and do not have the business mind that father does and grandfather will hear about the profits we will bring to the family, and you will no longer be in charge of the business nor will you matter anymore as I’m sure grandfather will make sure you disappear.” Hogo replied as he sat straighter in the chair as a smirk crossed his face.

“You and your father know nothing you blubbering idiot, there are more rules than just that one. You have ruined months of negotiations and planning that I have been conducting to become the hub of trade for the entire sector.”

He looked over at Kr’Antren. “Do with him as you see fit, I do not want to see his face any longer. And you have my permission to enter my facility and arrest his backstabbing father. Do it before I return or he may not be alive for you to question.”

Kr’Antren looked over at the two security crewmen that escorted the Governor into the bunkhouse. “You two grab four to five more crew to take with you, preferably security and do as the Governor stated. Take the Oasis. Grab anything in his office that you think could have information on it concerning this issue. Take him to the Osiris and put him in the brig. We will deal with him when we return.”

The governor pulled out a PADD from his belt and typed something onto it. “Captain, this will give them the access they will require to do what needs to be done.” he handed the PADD to Kr’Antren.

Kr’Antren took the PADD and handed it to one of the security crew.

“Yes, sir.” the two security crew start to exit the room and call out for specific people to join them.

Lieutenant Talibah slid her PADD back in front of her and motioned to the security officer standing behind Hogo.” Petty Officer, you heard the governor. Please take Hogo here to the brig on the Osiris, make sure his father and he are in separate cells, and make sure that they can not talk to each other through the fields.”

The security officer helped Hogo stand up and reattached the handcuffs placing his arms behind him, he then tapped on his commbadge and said something as held onto one of Hogo’s arms. The two of them were enveloped in a white light several seconds later and transported back to the Osiris.

Kr’antren stood and went to get another cup of coffee for the Governor, placing it in front of him when he returned.

The governor thanked Kr’Antren and then looked at the Lieutenant. “The captain mentioned the asteroid, may I ask what was found?”

Lieutenant Talibah looked up at Kr’antren, who nodded in reply.“Well, governor quite a bit, and none of it was good. I have the report here if you would like to read it.” she typed something on her PADD and slid it over towards the Governor.

Governor looked down at it and then picked it up. “I’m guessing it has something to do with these three.” he pointed at the three Devore sitting at the table.

“Well maybe not them exactly, well maybe the one in the middle there,  but definitely with the Imperium. Looks like your brother was trying to set up some sort of business with them. I hope you have a strong stomach, Governor, some of that is not pretty.” As she picked up her coffee cup and pointed at the PADD.

The governor started to read the report, anger and disgust started to show on his face as he read. “Has anyone else seen this yet?” as he continued to read.

“No, governor. Just the command staff of the Osiris and of course those that were part of the team who went to the asteroid.”

Kr’Antren looked at the three Devore sitting in front of them. “To tell the truth, governor, we have been on the fence about just who to realise that too, besides Starfleet. On one hand depending on how things happened last night and today it would have been a key piece of evidence for your trial. Guess it should still be, but for your brother. On the other hand you would be seeing it just like you are now.”

The Governor nodded, “I understand, I would agree this should be used in my brother’s trial.” He started to watch the videos, and then looked over at the Devore sitting on the other side of the table. “You all are monsters, this is absolutely vile.”

The lieutenant looked at the governor and smirked. “I cannot see, nor have I seen what you are watching. But it doesn’t matter, whatever it is, I can guarantee it was done to protect the imperium and prove how evil telepaths are.”

The governor puts the PADD at the table and turned towards the captain. “Are those? My people, the ones that are missing?”

Kr’Antren nodded “ We assume that would be the case. If you have anything such as personnel files or pictures we could send them to the Osiris, they may help doctor M’Gok be able to identify them as she performs the autopsies. But yes, that was why I asked the question earlier.”

The governor picked the PADD backup and continued to watch the video feeds.

240011.13.0800

The governor continued to watch the video feeds, often fast-forwarding and rewinding them. “I know these two,” he went back to the first video feed and zoomed in on the Ferengi’s face. “Her name is Sirarni, she is one of my brothers’ various departmental staff. I recognize her as she was often working as one of my brother’s secretaries.” He looked at the captain. “As you could probably guess, that meant several things to my brother.”

He then went to the second feed and went to a timestamp that he had noted. “Now this one, this one is a bit of an oddity. She is the daughter of one of my department leaders on the processing platform, her name is Zezenna. But I can tell you that her father was always trying to push her onto one of my sons as a potential wife.”

Kr’antren looked at the picture that Rhazpaz had zoomed in on. “Could it be that he moved on to your brother? if your sons were not willing.”

“That’s the thing we had just started discussing the bride price for her as my second oldest had fallen for her ”ways “.” He shook his head. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why would she partake in this vile and completely revolting act?”

Lieutenant Talibah looked between the governor and the captain. “Well, could it be that someone put her up to this, maybe someone trying to curry favor?”

Rhazpaz looked at the Lieutenant and then at the captain. “You don’t think… My son?”

Kr’Anren shrugged. “You know him better than we do, do you think this is something he would push on his future bride? Would he be the type to join your brother in his dealings with the Imperium? And even more, would he condone such acts as those on other Ferengi or other people?”

Rhazpaz looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “No, I don’t believe he would. Last I heard he was smitten with her. I mean he is aggressive when it comes to business, and takes after his grandfather in that regard, but he wouldn’t follow another. He would just bid his time and when it was time for us to expand here in the Delta Quadrant he would push me for his enterprise within the organization.”

“What about her father?” Lieutenant Talibah asked as she sipped from her cup.

“Now, that is another story. If he thought it would curry favor or move him up the pecking order he would do just about anything.” Rhazpaz pulled up the father’s file on his PADD and passed it to the lieutenant. “Here is his file if you want to read through it. If it wasn’t for his knowledge of ore processing, I wouldn’t have even brought him with me as part of this endeavor.”Dumb as a box of rocks, but somehow some way, he sure knows how to find the best rocks out of that box, if you know what I mean.” 

Kr’antren and his number one both nodded.

“So captain, what are your plans now?”

Kr’antren shrugged and looked at the table. “Not sure yet, lots of questions still to be answered. Plus I have a feeling that we may be getting a visit from the Imperium soon. I’m pretty sure, if these folks, “He waved at the empty chairs. “don’t check in soon that the Imperium will be paying a visit. It’ll be interesting to see what Lieutenant Skagath and his crew find in that cave. Plus you will need to get with your fellow governors to fill them in and decide what happens next for your various peoples.”

Rhazpaz let out a long sigh. There is a loud raucous outside as the team that was sent to round up the Ferengi workers as they reported for work this morning brought them into the bunk house.

Rhazpaz looked up from the PADD he was looking at. “What do we have here, captain?”

Kr’Antren stood and approached the group of Ferengi. “Did you get them all, petty officer?”

“Yes, sir. That’s what took us a bit, as these two.” He pointed to two of the group. “Decided it was a good idea to be late this morning.”

Kr’antren turned and looked at Rharpaz. “Well seeing as we knew one Ferengi was guiding the group last night, and we have had reports from our security personnel of there being possibly two or more guides we decided to round up the other Ferengi thinking that there might be a connection between them.”

Rhazpaz stood and joined the captain in front of the small group. “ Yes… I can understand your reasoning. Hmm, so who do we have here? “ As he walked back and forth in front of them, looking each of them over. After several minutes he pointed out three of them. “Not these three, Captain. These are the three that I originally sent to the compound to join the crews.” The three Ferengi he pointed out stepped back and formed a second little group to one side. “Though if you would like to question them I would have no issue with that especially if it helps answer some of those questions you have.”

Kr’antren nodded and looked at the petty officer. “Take these three into the other room and see what they know. Don’t release them till you check with me.” The petty officer nodded and pointed towards the back room as the small group made their way in that direction. 

Rhazpaz stopped in front of the two remaining Ferengi, he carefully looked them over with a sneer of disgust on his face. “Now these two are a different story, I’ve been wondering where they disappeared to.” He looked over at the captain. “Captain Kr’Antren meet Gok and Giss, these two usually follow my brother around like a couple of slobbering idiots. To tell the truth I’m surprised we haven’t had to surgically remove them from his rear end yet if you know what I mean. If he wanted something done these two are the ones he would call on, so ya It would make sense that they show up down here.”

Kr’antren chuckled.   

Rhazpaz looked over his shoulder at Lieutenant Talibah. “Lieutenant, if you had these two working on anything or building anything you may want to have someone double-check that it is still in one piece or standing. Not the brightest bulbs in the ol’ light socket. “ he pointed at his head. “If you know what I mean.”

Lieutenant Talibah started to chuckle and then looked over at some of the engineering crew. They nodded and left the room.

“Captain, you probably won’t get much out of them, but I would suspect that these two plus the one you already have in your brig would probably give you enough information to start understanding what was happening down here.”

Kr’Antren looked at the security crewmen that were standing behind the duo. “ Take them to the brig on the Osiris. The different cell than the one that the son is in.”

“Yes, sir” they each took an arm of one of the Ferengi, tapped their combadges, said something, and were transported away.

“Well captain, I think we have done just about all we can here this morning. I need to go see how much damage has been done by my brother to my business with all of these underhanded dealings that he was part of. Then I need to see how much it is going to cost me to fix everything.”

Kr’antren offered a hand to the governor, “Understood sir, Let us know if there is anything we can do to help before we leave. Also, would you like for us to return the bodies of the five Ferengi once the doctor is finished? That way their families can dispose of them as per your traditions.”

The governor took the offered hand. “Ahh yes, please have her send them to my medical staff, I will have them contact her with the information. I guess some sort of reparations should be made to the families, going to cost me a fortune to fix all of my brother’s errors. Captain, please make sure that you give the Imperium what they deserve and make sure that you let them know that the governor’s council will not be conducting any further business with the Devore Imperium, even if it does go against all of my instincts and the rules.”

“Rule 35, governor. It may hurt but it’s there for some reason, is it not.”

“It is Captain, it is. However, in the Delta Quadrant, Rule 34 is always in play.”

 The governor went and picked up his coffee cup, refilled it, and made his way out of the bunkhouse sipping on the coffee as he went.

240011.15.1000

Kr’antren exited his ready room and made his way to the center chair.“Morning everyone, let’s get a report by sections. Starting with engineering.”

“ We had some issues with the replicators on decks 5 and seven while you were on the surface, some blown fuses were the cause. Also conducted tests on the power couplings leading to the phaser arrays; everything tested fine.”

Kr’antren nodded and made a note on his PADD. “Ops”

“One slight issue in one of the holo suites, looks like one of the telepaths from science was trying to take a break and was overcome by the effects of the blood dilithium stored in their section. Did some damage to the suite and we had to subdue her to get her out of there before she did more damage. Medical has her now, they had to sedate her pretty heavily from what I heard.”

“And the holosuite?”

“Still going through some minor repairs, we should have it up this afternoon after we conduct some diagnostics on its systems.” Lieutenant Shrybass answered as he spun his chair back towards the main view screen.

“Helm?”

Lieutenant Darame turned in his chair. “Helm is green across the board, sir, made some minor adjustments to the orbital path to avoid some satellites and small space debris. Deflector dish would have handled it just fine, but since it was quiet I decided to alter the course as it was a quick alteration to our path.”

“That’s fine, keeps you on your toes,” Kr’antren said with a chuckle.

“Tactical and security?”

Lieutenant Skagath looked up from his console while holding some sort of beverage in one hand. “ What was that, captain? Was enjoying my hot chocolate.”

Kr’antren looked at Skagath and shook his head while trying to hide a chuckle. ”Report, old man.”

“I heard you the first time, but I was enjoying my hot chocolate. I have to thank the counselor later, she told me the secret of adding marshmallows to it. Damn, I didn’t think it could get any better than it was.”

The entire bridge crew broke out in laughter as he took another long and loud sip.”AHHHHHH!!”

“Ok, back to the business side of things now. Well, captain, our four guests are nice and comfy in their cells. That Devore one is constantly saying that we will all die for what we have done and that his friends will be coming to look for him. Told my guys to just ignore him, they wanted to tape his mouth shut. Can you believe that? Humans…Tactically we are green across the board, I have the sensors looking for any signs of the devore coming this way, but nothing yet. If they do, we will be ready for them. I took the liberty of readying a burst of quantum torpedoes followed by another of photon torpedoes if things get ugly. Should get their attention real quick. The governor was nice enough to send us the information on the systems that his brother provided in case they try that trick on us, not seeing those either. Though we can see the incoming and outgoing trails if you want to go see what we can find versus waiting for them to come to us.”

“Could you follow their trail?” He looked from Skagath to Lieutenant Tazzeth at the science console. 

“We could sir, not sure where they switched on those systems so when we hit that location it may take a few minutes for us to sort through the sensor data but I believe we could do it,” Tazzeth stated from his console.

“It’s a good idea, let’s wait for a few hours and see what happens. If nobody comes knocking then we can revisit the idea. Lieutenant Skagath gets with Lieutenant Darame, and start working on a course. Lieutenant Darame if it’s possible see if you could find us some places that we could observe their travel corridor from that would not make it outright obvious that we are searching for anyone or anything in particular.”

The lieutenants looked at each other and nodded.

“Science?”

“We are green across the board sir, Nothing new in the system as towards any subspace anomalies anything else. Though we are seeing something of interest that we are only able to pick up due to a suggestion the chief Kaha made as she was trying to boost her communication signals so she could see if we could hear anything farther out than our arrays normally allow.”

Kr’Antren’s ears perked up upon hearing this. “And what did we find?”

“Well sir, let me pull it up on the main view screen so it’s easier to see and explain.” Lieutenant Tazzeth typed a few commands into his console and then picked up his PADD as he made his way to the main view screen stopping next to Lieutenant Shrybass.

Kr’antren stood and made his way to his usual spot in between helm and ops. “So what are we looking at Lieutenant? I see the map of the area surrounding this system.”

“Yes, sir, that’s where we started once we figured out how to boost those Ferengi sensor/communication platforms they placed around the outer ring of the system, and we received permission from the governor to do so.”

“Need I ask how much that cost us?” Kr’antren looked at the Lieutenant and then down at Lieutenant Shrybass as he started to chuckle.

“Well sir, we haven’t told her yet. But the doc has a dinner date before we leave, it seems that the governor has a thing for Klingons.”

“Oh damn, You’re telling her I’m not touching that one with a ten-foot pole.” Kr’Antren shook his head as he tried to hold back a chuckle.” Ok, so what did we find after boosting the signal?”

“It was a two-fold process, sir, we had to boost the signal and scan the data using our systems as the Ferengi were not too worried about more than tracking incoming and outgoing ships with their cargo on them.”  an overlay appeared over the map. “Here we have the various trails of the Ferengi-provided identification systems, as you can see we can go a bit beyond the system but not by much, again Ferengi tech.” He shrugged his shoulders.  

“Ok, so it looks like we have three main corridors that ships use to come to this system. The one down towards the southwest, which is the one we used to arrive here, which I’m gathering leads towards the southern parts of the belt, the Markonian outpost, and the wormhole. One directly west, which I would guess is used to move cargo the rest of the Belt and beyond.” As he said each one Kr’Antren noticed that Lieutenant Tazzeth typed something on his PADD and that corridor information was removed from the screen. “Last but not least we have one going north, which doesn’t surprise me knowing what we do now about the brothers’ various deals with the Devore Imperium.” 

As that corridor was removed from the overlay, Lieutenant Shrybass looked at the Captain. “Sir, it took a bit for us to see them, but can you see the four remaining paths?”

“What, remaining paths? I don’t see anything.”

Lieutenant Tazzath typed a few commands on his PADD as the Map and overlay switched more to the eastern side and zoomed in a bit closer. “ How about now sir?”

“What the hell? The only thing that way is the border of the Borg-controlled region. Who would be that crazy?” His eyes went wide and his ears started to twitch, as the captain leaned towards the screen slightly.

Lieutenant Darame cleared his throat. “ We asked ourselves the same question, captain. Till we started to look at the area along the border.” again the map moved slightly to show the area that Lieutenant Darame was talking about, He stood and approached the screen and pointed to an area that was between the system they were in and the border. “Right here, sir” The map once again zoomed in to focus on the area that he pointed at, and he then returned to his seat. “ It took us a bit of investigative work to figure it out, we had to look at things from the flight control perspective and then Lieutenant Tazzeth helped us figure it out as he had his department start looking at anomalies in the area.”

Kr’Anren looked over at Lieutenant Tazzeth. “And what did we find, Lieutenant?”

“Well sir, we found a couple of thing. One that could be the answer to where the Imperium ships and/or team that is conducting the experiments are hiding and the second is one that we are still trying to figure out. The first one is the obvious one if you know what you are looking for and Lieutenant Darame was the first to notice it but he could not say for sure what it was till we looked into it.”

“Captain, I noticed reports from local ships and survey vessels stating to stay away from this area here. All of the reports said the same thing. A decent sized area emitting high levels of radiation along with waves of electrical force that knocked out all systems.”

“So the science team took a deeper look sir, we had to dig into old voyager data and data from the vessels that reported the warning, not much came from the Voyager data besides what we were already reading. It was when we started running the information through our systems that things started to click, as humans say.”

“Continue, Lieutenant” as the captain returned to his seat.

“Sir, we believe that the location holds a small very dense pulsar, we also believe looking at the data that it has a very strong gravitational pull close to the star but weaker further out. So if it  had any planets they would be closer to the star  than what we would consider habitable  distances or even safe to be near due to the radiation.”

“Knowing this was an unsafe location marked on maps plus its distance being decently close to Borg territory, it would make an opportune location to hide in,” Kr’Antren spoke aloud as he listened to the Lieutenant.

“Yes, sir. That’s what we were thinking. So what if someone was able to adequately shield a vessel of small to medium size and place it at the very edge of the gravitational pull.”

Kr’Antren let out a low whistle, “That would not be a spot that I would want to be in for very long.” Kr’Antren tapped on his console, opening a communications channel with sickbay.   

“Hey doc, have you been briefed on this idea that Lieutenants Tazzeth and Darame came up with?”

“Yes sir, I got the report earlier this morning. I have been looking through it as I was drinking a Raktajino and finishing up my notes from the autopsies.”

“Can you come up to the bridge so we can all hear your thoughts and discuss possible theories?”

“On my way sir, I’ll bring the autopsy reports with me so you can read through them also.”

Several minutes later Doctor M’Gok entered the bridge and made her way to her chair, she took a seat and handed a PADD to the captain. “Here you go, captain. These are the final autopsy reports for the individuals from the asteroid. We can transport them back to the planet when you give the word. They have been prepared  for transport and are in the medical cold storage.”

Kr’Antren nodded. “Thank you Doc, the Desert Sands is due back in a couple of hours, we will notify governor Rhazpaz and make arrangements to transport them on its next trip. So what did you find?” as he held up the PADD. 

She shrugged her shoulders as she looked at the view screen. “About what we expected, sir. The five Ferengi all died from a combination of Hemorrhagic strokes and what I  would probably call fear-induced stress cardiomyopathy, better known as being scared to death. I can tell you that the two deceased that were on the films of the experiments should signs of having small hemorrhagic strokes before they died, which would fit with the symptoms that they showed on the films.”

I’m guessing that for those two deaths it was not quick or painless.” Kr’antren looked back at the view screen.

“No. it was not. Now the other item of interest that you asked about, is those implants. First thing, whoever the hell put those in needs to have their medical license revoked if they even had one. They made a mess of things, till they reached the brain cavity. Anyways from what I found they seemed to be based on some sort of borg implant, possibly a communications implant. From what I found in all five of them the implant seemed to tie into several parts of the Ferengi’s third lobe. I could not see any differences in why the three failed and the other two succeeded. One point of interest is that the two in the videos were younger than the other three. “ she shrugged her shoulders with a slight shudder. “ Not sure why that would affect the implants,  but it is something I plan on looking into.”

Kr’Antren nodded. “And the Imperium Officers?”

“Murdered, captain. It would have been hard to see by most in the condition they were in but I found deep ligature marks and bruising. I would guess that they were strangled from behind probably with some sort of garrote-type weapon.”

Kr’antren looked at Doc M’gok with a raised eyebrow, ears twitching. “Murdered, now that makes things interesting. Maybe they didn’t have the chance to get everyone out? So they killed those that they deemed as expendable.”

“Possibly, sounds as good of a reason as any I could come up with. Our arrival into the area might have made them decide to cut bait and run,” she replied as she stood and approached the Helm officer’s console.

“Captain. Are you thinking they may be hiding in that?” she pointed at the zoomed-in image.

“It’s a theory, why?” He said as he stood and walked to his usual spot between the two consoles.

“Hmmmmm, that may explain something else I found when I was conducting the autopsies on the Devore officers.” She went and grabbed her PADD from her chair and returned. “Yes, here it is. Increased signs of X-ray radiation were found in skin and muscle tissues and slight amounts in some bones, such as the hands and feet. Captain, X-ray radiation isn’t deadly unless you’re exposed to large amounts over long perio, and the body has been known to “heal” after periods away from the source. What if that was the reason why they possibly rotated to the planet, they knew about the x-ray radiation, knew their shields can’t block it all so they rotated to the planet to let their bodies recover.”

Lieutenant Tazzeth turned back towards his console. “Captain, it is possible that the pulsar is sending out X-Ray radiation, theoretically the closer you are to the star the stronger the radiation would be. So they could be orbiting far enough out that they are not getting the worst of the radiation.”

Kr’Antren places a hand on Lieutenant Darame’s shoulder “Lieutenant, do you have the course laid in?”

Lieutenant Darame looked up at the Captain. “ Yes, sir. I programmed two routes, just in case. The one you asked for and another that would get us there quickly. I figured something may come up that required a different plan of action.”

“Nice thinking, Lieutenant.” As he went back to his chair. “Chief Kaha, send a message to Lieutenant Talibah. Let her know that we have a theory on where the Devore Imperium may be hiding and that we will be going to the location to investigate. Ask her if she needs anything further from us before we leave.”

“Lieutenant Darame as soon as we have the all clear from number one, take us to the location. Do not enter the area of effect, let’s see what looking through the proverbial window shows first. Oh, and I hope I don’t need to tell you this but stay away from the Borg territory border.”

“

Chief Samples entered his room dropping his engineering tool belt and placing it in its customary place beside the door. He walked over to the room’s replicator, ordered a cup of hot apple cider, and placed it on the small side table next to a chair. “Computer, dim the lights by seventy percent and play Samples Christmas mix.” 

The lights dimmed as the soothing sounds of Bing Crosby’s “white Christmas” started to play throughout the room.

“Gotta set the mood a bit more.” As he walked over to a very small, about two feet tall, Christmas tree placed on top of a simple-looking handmade wood table. Tapping his hand on the base caused brightly colored lights to come on, some blinking some not. Looking around he nodded to himself.

 “Oh ya, can’t forget the hat.” looking next to the tree he picked up the knitted sleeping cat with its green tassel hanging down by his ear. “Ok, that should do it.” 

He then went and sat in the comfortable-looking overstuffed recliners that sat, at the moment, facing towards the lit Christmas tree. Just below the tree, he could see a slightly lower table with a moderately sized view screen sitting on it. Reaching over he tapped on the reading light, bathing the area by the chair in a yellowish light, and then he picked up the worn leather-bound book that was also on the table.

“Incoming message from Beth, Laura, and Peter Samples.” 

“Put them through”

The view screen showed two young girls and a young boy. “Hey Uncle Charles, merryChristmas.”

“Well hello you three, are you ready for the story?” all three nodded with smiles on their faces.

He smiled and opened the book on his lap, “ahhh, here we go.” he reached down for his cup of cider, took a sip, and started to read.

“Twas the night beforeChristmas, when all through the house. Or in my case the USS Osiris. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” As he said this line a little holographic mouse wearing a hat much like his, slowly walked over from the arm of the chair onto one of his legs and curled up going to sleep. 

The three children giggled as they watched the mouse. As he looked down with a knowing little smile and continued to read the story.

Several minutes later he finished the story, closing the book and placing it back on the table.

“Merry Christmas you three, you better get to bed so Santa will come.”

 “Yes, Uncle Charles. Do you have your tree on so Santa can find you?” one of the girls asked him.

“Of course I do, Laura. See.” as he leaned forward and spun the camera around and tilted it up so they could see the tree. “Right by the window, as always.” he then turned the camera back around.

“Night, Uncle Charles. Please let the rest of the crew on the Osiris know that we said merryChristmas.”

“I sure will.” as the connection went dark.

Chief Samples went and got another cup of hot cider, returned to his seat, and reread the story. Sometimes as he was rereading the story he dozed off in the chair, must have been a busy day in engineering.

:: Bump, thump, thump, thump::

Chief Samples awoke to the noise, rubbing his eyes he could not believe what he saw.

:: Thump, thump” “ geeetmeminouufavheare”

Before him where before was a wall, was now a fireplace with all of the holiday trimmings.”What the..?”

As he rubbed and cleared his eyes, he could see a pair of boots and legs dangling from inside. “Ummmm, hold on a sec. I’m coming.”

He first goes and grabs his tricorder from his belt and approaches the fireplace scanning as he approaches. “Hmmmm, this can’t be right. This dang burn thing is saying that yes, there is a fireplace where there wasn’t one when I sat down.”He put the tricorder on the table on top of the book he was reading just a few hours ago. “Hold on.” He picked up the cup and sniffed. “Nope, nothing but cider.” He got down on a knee grabbed the legs just above the top of the boot and gave them a good hard yank. Falling back against the chair with a plume of dark ash and suet, an older gentleman wearing a red suit with a white beard now sat in front of him.

Charles, chief Samples, fumbles grabbing for the tricorder. “Ummm, you’re human or at least this says you are.”

“Of course, I am, Charles.” The man stood and brushed off his coat, straightened his hat, and ran a hand through his beard. Looking around “So this is a starship? Huh, first one I’ve been on. Wasn’t sure if the boys would make it out this far.”

Charles shakes his head. “Hold on, your your your,”

“Say it, boy… everyone always acts like it’s a surprise that I’m still kicking.”

“Your Santa Clause? You can’t be, he’s a.”

“Ya I know, a myth, a legend, an old wives tale, a made-up story, etc, etc, etc… I’ve heard it all before.”

“But how? Why? I must be still asleep and dreaming, right.. Ya that’s it. I was reading that story and I’m still asleep and this is all a dream.”

“Hmmmm,” he poked the chief in the chest.

“Hey, what was that for?” as Charles rubbed his chest

“Nope, not sleeping.” he chuckled “As for the first question. You sent out the signal, did you not?”

“What signal?”

Santa pointed at the small tree by the window. “That one. As for why it is Christmas Eve. Is it not?”

Chief stood and looked around the room. “Well, ya it is.”

Santa went and looked at the fireplace then knelt and reached up into it. “Damn bag, always gets stuck.” He gave something a hard yank. “There we go.” As another smaller plume followed the bag. He turned back around to face the Chief. “What? No cookies and milk? No carrots for the boys? It was a long trip out here you know.”

Charles quickly walked over to the replicator. “Is that what you want? Or would you like something a bit more..substantial?”

“I wouldn’t say no to a nice Hamburger and fries or a good ol’ pot roast meal.”

Charles places the order with the replicator and brings a plate or pot roast with all the fix’ns. 

Santa looked at him then at the food then over at the replicator. ”I’ve heard of those, but have never seen one, interesting gadget.”

Charles looked over his shoulder. “I guess they are.”

“Sooo, Santa. What’s next? I’m sure you’re aware that this ship has many species and many do not know who you are, even many of the humans these days do not still believe in the old traditions.”

“I’m aware. But that doesn’t mean I don’t exist or that I just stopped being who I am. As you can see.” He took a sip from the cup in front of him and then placed everything on the plate.” Let me ask you a question, Charles. Do you still believe?”

Charles stood by the table, hand behind his back. “Believe?”

“Yes, it’s a rather easy question with a rather difficult answer for some. Do you still believe in me, in traditions, in stories, and in myths? Do you still believe in Christmas?” as he stood and picked up the sack by the tightly closed top.

Charles looked around the room taking in the tree, the book, and several other family heirlooms spread around his room. “Yes, yes I do. Hard to say that in these times as many don’t but yes I still believe.”

Santa looked at him, smiled at him, and put the bag over his shoulder. “Sometimes Charles, that’s all it takes in one. One person to believe, one person who deep down still believes in the magic ofChristmas. That belief is a very powerful thing, don’t forget that, don’t ever forget that.” He heads towards the door.

“Uh, sir, where are you going?” 

He looked over his shoulder and said. “Why, to do what I am here for. To spread the joy and magic of Christmas. So Charles, are you going to show me around this starship of yours or should I just find my way around?” 

Chief Samples quickly grabbed his tunic, put it on, and followed Santa out of the door. 

For the next couple of hours, they made their way stem to stern, port to aft. Each time they came to a door of someone’s quarters, Santa would look at the nameplate, reach in his bag, and pull out a couple of gifts. One is usually about the size of a shoe box and one about the size of an awards box. 

The first couple of times he looked at Charles, placed a finger on the side of his nose and reached his hand through the door, and placed the gift. If more than one person living in the room then he would do the same for each one. The Mess halls were decorated with traditional Christmas trimmings including a large Christmas tree, not sure where he got it from but one moment it was there the next it wasn’t. As they made their way deck to deck, room to room Santa would leave little touches here and there, reminders of traditions long forgotten and times long past.

Chief Samples bolted upright from his chair, shook his head, then sat back again. “Ok ok ok, No way that was real, was it?” as he looked around his room quarters. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the dim morning light. One of his preset items for his room was the lights were set to come on as if it was the first rays of morning sunshine coming through his bedroom window in his home in Alaska. He finally looked upon the Christmas tree in the corner noticing several things that he knew for a fact were not there last night when he went to bed, boxes wrapped in holiday paper, he shook his head once again and stood.

Looking around his room he noticed something odd, something that should not be here on a starship. Black footprints on the floor leading out the door of his quarters. Following these, he went to the hallway outside his room. 

Crewmates and friends started to come out of their rooms along the hallway, puzzled expressions on their faces as they looked at their neighbors, as many held wrapped boxes in their hands.

He backed into his room, the door closing behind him, as he noticed a card sitting on top of the book. He made his way back and picked up the card and made his way to the window and the little Christmas tree.

“Charles, 

Remember my boy. Remember to believe as believing in something is what gives it life. All it takes is for one person to believe, that belief lives and grows in the heart and that is what gives it the power to become reality. That is the magic behind the stories and traditions, it’s the believing in them. See you next year. Santa Claus. PS. Before I left I programmed Mrs. Clauses’ recipe for Hot chocolate and Christmas cookies into your replicator, yours needed some work.”

240011.15.1200

Kr’Antren turned and looked at Doc M’Gok in her chair. “Anything I should be concerned about as we approach the area.”

She looked up from the console she had swung in front of her seat. “Our shields, not to mention the layers of armor, should be more than adequate to block any of the radiation. I’m going to monitor the readings from here just to make sure though.”

Kr’antren nodded and adjusted himself in the seat. “Even with the seat modifications sometimes the tail has a mind of its own.” He said with a slight chuckle.

“ALL STOP” Tazzeth yells from his console. 

Darame quickly follows the often emergency level order bringing the Osiris to a complete stop.

Kr’antren quickly gets out of his seat and approaches the science chief. “Better be a good reason for that, Lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Tazzeth turned from the console and view screen behind him. “Yes, sir. There is. Looks like that pulsar sends out low-level Electromagnetic Pulses, Probably not strong enough at this distance to affect us. We had just seen the energy signature when I ordered al-stop, captain. I thought I would rather ask for forgiveness later, didn’t think you wanted us flying into something that may cause issues.”

Kr’antren slapped his hand on the science chief’s console. “Good call, Lieutenant. Damn, that’s going to make things a bit more interesting. Can you tell how often the pulses happen?”

Tazzeth looked at the screen behind him and then down at his console. “Not at this time, captain. The energy disperses pretty fast. Also can’t say without more data if the EMPs are stronger the more you go toward the star. I would recommend we launch a class 2 probe towards the star.”

Kr’Antren looked over his shoulder at the view screen and then back to the Lieutenant. “Do it. Keep me informed on what you find.” He turned and looked towards the engineering area. “Engineering?”

“Nothing major to report, sir. Looks like our shields were able to negate most of it. We are seeing some reports of minor system issues and a few reports of static that passed over some systems.” the Lieutenant sitting at the chief engineering console replied. “ Though till we know more, Lieutenant Mathison suggests holding here. He also said to let you know he is on his way up to the bridge.”

Kr’Antren returned to his chair. “Thank you, lieutenant. Helm, hold course, and position. Lieutenant Tazzeth, any sign of the Imperium ship? Chief Kaha, is anything on comms?

“We can faintly pick it up on long-range scans, sir. Though, the data seems rough. Possibly from the EMP’s that the pulsar sends out.”

“Nothing on any of the frequencies or normal channels, captain. Wouldn’t surprise me to find out that those pulses have interfered with their communications though.”

“Captain, getting the first bits of data from the probe.”

Kr’Antren stood and walked over to the console.

Lieutenant Tazzeth looked up from his console as the first streams of data started to be processed and analyzed by the Osiris’s computer core. “About what we expected, Captain. I’m sending the data on the radiation level’s to the doctor’s console now. The radiation levels get stronger the closer to the star you get. Hmmmm, it seems that the radiation is expelled in pulses also I wasn’t quite expecting that.” He looked back down at the data.

Kr’antren looked over his shoulder at the view screen and then back at his science chief. “Any information on the pulse timing, especially for the EMP pulses? The radiation we can deal with.” He looked over at the doc, who nodded to confirm.

“My best guess according to the data I would say every two to three hours, sir. Which means we have roughly an hour and fifty minutes to two hours and fifty minutes till the next one.”

Kr’antren turned and returned to his center chair. “Chief, how bad would it be if we received one of those pulses?”

Chief Mathison turned from the overlarge engineering viewscreen behind his back to his console. “We were just looking at that captain. I believe most of our systems would be ok, the only ones we have questions about are on the pod and the archway. Things just aren’t as thick up there captain. The torpedoes and those systems should be ok as they were built to take hits. The other systems.” He looked towards the captain and shrugged his shoulders.

Kr’antrens ears twitched as he ran a hand through his beard. “Ok then, Helm take us in. Let’s head towards the Devore ship. Lieutenant Skagath, take us to yellow alert.” The klaxon sounded as the lights dimmed and the alarm lights started to pulse yellow before going to a solid yellow.

“Lieutenant Skagath, bring the Devore prisoner up to the bridge. Let’s see what he knows about what we are facing.”

“He’s not a talkative one, that one. Just keeps going on about how we are all brainwashed minions of our telepathic masters and that we will all die. Had to make it so that sound wouldn’t go through the containment field. Was starting to get a bit, hmmmm how did my security detail put it,” looked around the bridge seeing the looks on his fellow bridge crew’s faces. “Ohhh, that’s not important now, is it? I’ll have them bring him up, captain.”

Several minutes later the Devore Officer is escorted onto the bridge with his hands cuffed behind his back and escorted by two security crew members with phasers holstered.

Kr’antren turns towards the Devore as they enter the bridge. “Welcome to the bridge ensign, as you can see we are approaching your ship. So how many crew are on it? and who is in command over there? I don’t want to have to go in guns hot if I don’t have to, just leads to issues and in the long run more paperwork for me to fill out.”

The Devore officer starts to chuckle. “You won’t stand a chance against us.”

Kr’antren shocked his head. “ Maybe, maybe not. You haven’t seen what the Osiris is capable of. Believe me, we are not an easy nut to crack.” He looked over at Skagath. “Lieutenant Skagath, aim the first burst for their engines. I want them dead in the water. Hold your fire till I say.” He looked back at the ensign. “So, what’s it going to be?”

“Sir, 5 minutes till the next EMP pulse,” Tazzeth stated from his console.

“Well ensign, you heard the Lieutenant. You have five minutes to give me an answer before we..”

“Sir, we are receiving a hail from the Devore ship.” Chief Kaha put a finger to her earpiece and turned toward the center chair.

“Put it on the main screen chief.” He turned the Devore ensign, who returned the look with a smirk. “Ok, then.”

Skagath looked up from his console. “Sir looks like they are powering up weapons.”

“Take us to red alert, Lieutenant.”

The main screen shows an officer sitting in a central chain on a bridge. “Ship approaching this is Captain Runsaith of the Devore imperium cruiser Black Talon. Who do I have the pleasure of discussing your terms of surrender with?”

Kr’antren leans forward in his chair. “ This is captain Kr’antren of the Federation starship USS Osiris. We won’t be discussing terms of surrender this morning Captain.”He turned towards the ensign. “You didn’t tell me he was quick to start fights, Ensign.” he then turned back towards the main view screen. “As you can see Captain, we found some of your crew on the planet. And we have a couple of bodies of deceased Imperium officers in our morgue.”

The Devore Captains’ hands tightened on the edges of his chair. “How dare you stop the mission of the imperium, You do not know who you are dealing with Captain. The federation has no power here.”

Kr’antren turned back towards the ensign. “Guess you were right Ensign, sorry I didn’t believe you. “He turned back towards the view screen. “You see, the ensign and I were discussing your crew, your ship, and yourself as we enjoyed breakfast this morning.”

“Where is Lieutenant Rujiso? I must speak with him, now!”

“You did hear me say we had several bodies of your crew in our morgue, did you not?”

“We know you were out at the asteroid, captain. Those are the bodies you have in your morgue.”

“Nope, we left them there. Seemed like a fitting place to leave them till the governor’s council decides what they want to do.” He looked at the small console on the arm of his chair. “Nope, last I checked we have the bodies of Lieutenant Rujiso and crewmen 2nd class Sojim. Isn’t that right, ensign? After all, you Identified them.”

The ensign looks madly between the two captains.

“Sir,” Skagath motions towards the screen with his head. 

Kr’Antren nodded. “One second Captain, looks like there’s something my crew needs me for.” The view screen goes mute as the capt looks over at Lieutenant Skagath with a raised eyebrow. “Lad, they are trying to slowly flank us to the port side.” Kr’Antren looked at the other Captain, “Helm, keep our forward section facing them. Two can play this game.” He looked back at Chief Kaha and nodded.

“Ok, so where were we? Oh, Captain, I wouldn’t try that If I were you. Not being very neighborly and trying to sneak up behind us.

“Captain Kr’antren, you are meddling in the affairs of the Devore Imperium and have unlawfully been helping those inciting rebellion against the imperium. You will lower your shields and prepare to be boarded for testing. If we find any telepaths amongst your crew they along with your remaining crew and yourself will be taken prisoner and your ship will be impounded.”

Kr’Antren looked around the bridge and shook his head. “ Captain, I hate to tell you this but that’s not going to happen. You see, the last we checked that system and this one are not part of the imperium and according to the ensign here you are out conducting some rather unsavory experiments only because of the deals being offered by some Ferengi. Oh, ya. We know about that also and have put an end to that piece. So now we just have you to deal with you. Let me ask you this, captain. Why would a ship that is part of the mighty Devore Imperium have to hide in a system marked on star maps as a hazard? If as you say this is part of the Imperium.”

The Imperium captain slams his hand on the arm of his chair and the screen goes back to normal view.

“Guess that answers that question, take him back to the brig.” Osiris rocks from side to side as she takes two hits.” Skagath now. Helm Zulu Alpha, get us behind and below them. Damage report.” as they feel the Osiris rock again, they watch as three quantum torpedoes streak towards the Devore ship. “Shields at eighty percent sir, looks like they are trying for the pod” They watch as two of the torpedoes explode above the ship’s engines hitting the shields of the ship while the last one explodes as it hits one of the engines.

“Hit on their port engine, captain. Showing their shields at fifty percent and holding.”

They watch as three torpedoes are streaking toward the Osiris. “Brace for impact.”

“Skagath, weapons free.” as they feel Osiris is rocked with three large explosions, several of the consoles on the bridge throw sparks as the crew stationed on the bridge are knocked off their feet. ”Doc!” 

She gets up from her chair and heads towards the crew laying on the floor, momentarily checking on them. “Medical beam out to the sickbay, now.” she and one of the crew disappear in a flash of light.”

“Sir, we took hits to Decks seven and eight. Starboard side. Also took one to the starboard nacelle. Engineering reports that it may be a few hours till we can enter warp but otherwise we are good all systems are holding. Shields are at 60 percent, routing auxiliary power to shields.”

He watches as the Devore ship is bathed in several lines of phaser fire. As they move into position, three more torpedoes head towards the underside of the ship as another torpedo heads towards them. “Hard port” Kr’Antren yells as the Osiris’s inertia stabilizers work hard to control as the ship violently turned to put their port side facing the incoming torpedo just as it impacts. “Shields at 40 percent captain, that one hit us hard, decks 13 and 14 are reporting several small hull breaches and system failures.”

“Sir we took out their port engine completely, their shields are at 10 percent. “ the Osiris rocks with several more phaser hits as they watch the underside of the Devore ship take several hits from their phaser fire.

“Chief, Hail them.” she nodded as the view screen showed a bridge with several small fires filled with the sounds of the wounded. “Captain, this only ends in one of two ways. Up to you which one, but I hope you pick the right one for your crew.”

Just then a scorching line of phaser fire lanced down the port side along the top as it made its way to the port side arch, leaving a blackened trail in its path. “That answers that.” more consoles erupt in fire and sparks, sending the crew onto the floor. “Skagath, aim for their engines and warp core. Fire a single three-burst spread of quantum torpedoes, now. Aim all phasers for their shield emitters and phaser banks. Helm back us off, now!”

They watched as the quantum torpedoes sunk into the Devore ship, the first one finishing off whatever shield power was left, as one dug into its port side engine deeply before exploding followed by the other into the starboard side engine. Phaser fire danced across the ship as they could see the damage dealt by the final torpedoes start to have secondary effects across the rear of the ship, ripping giant holes into the structure as their phaser fire continued to lance into the ship. Finally, one lone phaser lanced through the rear of the ship, hitting something vital as the ship erupted into a ball of fire from its center, and then it just started to break up into pieces. 

“All stop, damage report.” they watched the former devore cruiser continue to break up, small fires visible amongst its various pieces.

“Captain, minor hull breaches on decks thirteen and fourteen, bulkheads have been closed, and force fields are in place. The starboard nacelle took a hard hit from that Devore torpedo with some minor damage to the warp conduits. Conducting repairs as we speak, estimated four hours till it is complete so no warp till it has been checked and tested. They tried damn hard to hit the tactical pod, captain. I have crews going to check deck four along that strafing line, a few folks may have to find other accommodations till we check the structural damage.” 

Kr’antren nodded and looked around the bridge. “Get some teams up here too, chief.”

“Will do, captain”

“Lieutenant Skagath you have the conn, I’m going to sickbay to check on our people and get a report from Doc.” As he stood and stepped from his chair, then had to steady himself before heading towards the turbo-lift. 

240011.15.1322

Kr’Antren stepped into the main sick bay and was confronted with the aftermath of the encounter, the biobeds were all full and nurses were triaging the crew in the waiting area. Helping those they could and marking those that needed to be looked at by the medical officers. Kr’Antren felt a pinch in the back of his neck. on one side mainly, as he made his way on into sick bay.

“Take a seat Captain, We will be with you as soon as we can.” One of the nurses said as they were running a tricorder over a crewman. “Ok petty officer looks like some second and third-degree burns along your upper torso and neck area.”

“Nurse, I’m here to check on the crew and get a status report from the Chief medical officer that’s all.” Kr’Antren said as he looked around the main sick bay. 

“Well the Doc is in surgery right now, and” she reached towards the captain’s neck “you’re walking around trying to not move your neck from what I just witnessed when you came in. So, take a seat sir and we will get that looked at as soon as we can.”

“Nurse, I can’t just sit here. Can I at least go in and talk to my crewman? See how they are doing? Give them some encouragement. Let them know that the ship, their fellow crewmates and I are here for them and will help in any way we can.”

The nurse looked into the main sick bay and nodded. “Yaaa, You are the captain so I guess that would be the right thing to do.” She took a step closer and leaned in. “I would start with ward one, the first opening on the right after you go in. That is where we are putting the ones who are in critical condition. I’ll let the Doc know you are here when she comes out of surgery.”

“Thank you.” He nodded as he made his way into the main sickbay, stopped at the archway, took a deep breath, and entered.

A couple of hours later as he was talking to a young, fresh out of the academy, operations crewman he noticed doctor M’gok approach him from the corner of his eye. He finished his conversation and turned toward her.

“Still not able to turn your neck, Captain?”

“No, doc. But it’s not a bother, it’ll ease up on its own sooner or later.”

Doc M’gok shook her head. “Why?” she pointed at one of the empty biobeds.

Kr’Antren knew it was no use to try to argue with her so he went and took a seat on the bed.

The doc ran her tricorder over his upper torso, neck, and head. “Well, sir. You’ll be happy to hear that there is nothing broken, bleeding, or not where it isn’t supposed to be. What you do have is a pretty good case of what is commonly referred to as whiplash.” She walked over to a small table with several hypo sprays and a console on it and entered some information on the console.  

Kr’antren reached up with a hand and started to massage the area. “So, how much of a hit did we take doc?”

She turned towards him with her PADD in hand. “Could have been worse. The last count was twenty in situations much like your own, another five that will require a few days in here, seven serious enough that they will need to be kept in medical and will need to be moved either to a hospital ship or a starbase as soon as we find one.” she let out a deep breath. “And four dead. Mainly from the area that took those hull breaches.” The console beside her beeped as she absently mindedly reached down grabbed a hypospray and approached the captain. “Easy way or the hard way, sir.”

He looked up at the Doc and cracked a smile. “I’m not Skagath, give me the damn hypo. I have too much to do and not being able to move your neck sucks.”

She administers the hypo, “Smart choice. Now if you don’t mind I have patients to check on.” she grabbed her PADD and started to make her way towards the first room that he visited.

“So doc, have they told you yet?” as he continued to massage his neck feeling it ease up as the hypo started to take effect, making his way behind her and out of sickbay.

“Has who, told me what?” she turned to face him.  

“Oh, Ummm. Guess not. Never mind doc.” he holds his hands out in front of him.

“Ehhh ehhh sir, you don’t get to say something like that and then try to act like that. Out with it!”

He started to back out of the sick bay. “Doc, you have patients to look after and I have a ship. Besides I didn’t have anything to do with it, that I can guarantee.”

“This conversation is not over, sir. I’ll find out what you’re not telling me one way or another.” She turned back towards the room and entered it as Kr’antren made his way out of the sick bay.

He entered the bridge from the turbo lift slowly moving his head and neck. Making his way to the center chair he stood and looked around the bridge. “Lieutenant Darame, plot a course back to Coadunatio Prime. Lieutenant Tazzeth, plot the location of the ship’s remains so we can pass the information to the Markonian Outpost. Chief?”

“We have the nacelle and the warp conduits repaired and checked, diagnostic testing is currently being performed. Once we have that data back we can relook at warp, captain. Until then its impulse speed.”

Kr’antren nodded slowly.”Timeline?”

“Another hour till the tests are completed, then however long it takes for us to go through the data, so let’s say two hours give or take a few minutes.”

Kr’antren took a seat. “Don’t rush it chief, take the time you need to make sure we are good.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Oh, Lieutenants Tazzeth and Shrybass you may want to start thinking of your story for the Doc. I might have accidentally said something when I was in the sickbay, and I don’t think she is going to let it go till she finds out the information.”

Skagath breaks out in a loud deep laugh. “Oh, this is going to be good. My money’s on the doc.”

The two lieutenants look at each other and let out a groan. 

“Don’t look at me, you two did this.” as he hit the internal comms button on his armrest.

“Osiris, First let me say that today we helped those that needed help not just on Coadunatio Prime but throughout the Gradin belt and the Delta Expanse. Today we put a probable end to possible use for nefarious means of blood dilithium. We have also let the Devore Imperium know that the federation will not stand for such acts to be conducted.” he took a deep breath and let it out. “Now for the hard part, We lost four members of our family today. We will hold a memorial service for them in forty-eight hours. We will be making our way back to Coadunatio Prime. We will hold a moment of remembrance when this ends.”

Over the next couple of minutes, everything goes silent as a bell tolled one time roughly every thirty seconds.

“Chief Kaha, nice touch with the ship’s bell. Very fitting.”

“Lieutenant Shrybass, you have the conn. I have some letters to write, I’ll be in my room ready if anything comes up.”

Kr’Antren stood and made his way to his ready room as Lieutenant Shrybass made his way to the center chair. “I have the conn.”

“Sir, diagnostics have come back and the data has been reviewed. We are ready to warp by the numbers. I would suggest starting at warp two for a short stint, looking at the data then goto warp three, etc. Just to make sure that the warp bubble holds and make sure that no serious damage was done to the system.”

“Sounds like a plan to me, chief. On my way. Looks like this will be a long night for some of us.” As he stood from behind his desk, looked at the handwritten letters on his desk, and nodded to himself.

Kr’antren exited his ready room and entered the bridge. “Lieutenant Shrybass, I have the conn. “

“Captain, you have the conn.” As he stood from the center chair.

“Ok ladies and gentlemen, the Chief tells me we are ready for warp. We are going to take this slow and make sure everything is working like it is supposed to be. Lieutenant Darame, take us to warp two for thirty minutes.”

“Yes, sir. Taking us to warp two.”

Kr’antren looked over at Lieutenant Mathison and received a nod. “Ok, Lieutenant take us to warp eight, we will stay in warp till the chief says otherwise.”

240011.16.1100

“Captain, we have arrived at Coadunatio Prime. Flight control is giving us the green light to enter the orbit of our choosing.”

“Let’s keep to the standard orbit that we have been using so far, no reason to change it up at this time. Chief Kaha, inform Lieutenant Talibah that we have arrived and let Counselor Sia know that we are going to need her services onboard. Lieutenant Tazzeth, let’s keep our eyes open, we don’t need any unexpected guests. The same goes with comms Chief Kaha. Lieutenant Skagath, If we do get some unwelcome guests I don’t want them catching us with our pants down.”

“Aye lad, I’m ahead of you. Been talking with Darame on some maneuvers and tactics that we could try that may help shift things more in our favor.”

Kr’Antren nodded. 

The turbo-lift doors opened with their characteristic whoosh. “Where are they, where are those two good for nothing each qo’ Hoch Dochvam ‘e’ vIwIvlaHbe, how dare you? How dare you set me up? Sir, do you know what those two have done? “

Kr’Antren looked around the bridge. “ So I’m guessing you two did not talk to her.” shaking his head “yes, they told me. We” he motioned around the bridge. “Told them to tell you.” he sat back in his chair and started to laugh as did several others. “This is on you two don’t look at me.”

A furious Doc looked from the captain to the two Lieutenants in question, “Sir with your permission could I take this discussion to your ready room?”

He looked between the three of them. “Do I need to come and make sure that nothing happens that you may regret later?” 

“You may need to,” she said as she turned and purposely walked towards his ready room door as bridge officers quickly moved out of her way.

“Well, gentleman. Time to face the music.” he followed her into his ready room. 

240011.16.2120

“Enter,” Kr’Antren said from where he was relaxing with a good book, in his overstuffed recliner one of the few pieces that he had brought from home when he assumed command of the Osiris. 

As he looked up to see who was entering. He couldn’t help but notice how very different Doctor M’Gok looked in something other than her uniform or what she normally wore around the ship as her non-duty clothing. 

Raising an eyebrow. “Well I see no signs of blood and you’re not in restraints, so I’m guessing it went ok?”

“I need a stiff drink and not Synthol.”

“Second cupboard on the right, glasses are on the shelf above,” he said with a slight smile. “Was it that bad?”

She quickly grabs a glass, pours about a shot’s worth, and downs it. She then poured about half a glass worth and placed the bottle back in its place. “That was to wash out the rubbish I had to say to make the evening palatable for all involved. This, “ she raised the glass as she took a seat on the couch. “This is to keep me from going and finding those two pa’ jISaH and giving them another piece of my mind. To answer your other question, no it wasn’t that bad. Believe it or not, he was rather unferengi in the way he carried himself and talked during dinner.” 

“And?”

“And what captain? It was a very quaint dinner. As you said there are no signs of blood on my dress and I wasn’t brought here in restraints and I’m back on board at a rather decent hour. That should and my previous statement should tell you everything you need to know.”

“Indeed, it does.”

They spent the next hour making small talk and going over the plans for the memorial service scheduled for the next morning. 

240011.17.1000

The crew was formed and the “stage” was set as the ship’s whistle signaled that the service was about to begin. The engineering and operations crew had been busy all night turning the main mess hall into a place to hold the service. 

The command staff stood to the right of the four flag-covered torpedo housings at the front of the mess hall, while the governor’s council and several invited persons from Coadunatio Prime stood as a group to the right of them. Captain Kr’Antren stepped forward and then walked over to the podium placed on the left and slightly behind the four. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, crew and officers of the Osiris. Thank you for joining us this morning as we remember four members of our family. This morning we remember Master Chief Sean Paulson, Petty Officer Second Class Akiko Sugiyama, Petty Officer Third Class Sakkit, and Petty Officer Third Class Aidan Rosewood.” he paused for a few seconds as he said each name. “We will now hear letters of remembrance from those that have asked to remember their friends and crew mates.” He stepped back a step from the podium as four members of the crew stepped forward and read letters that they had written, one for each of them. 

After the letters were read, the captain stepped forward again. 

“Preparing for this service I was doing some reading, I found a poem that I would like to share as I feel that it fits this occasion. The poem is called A Hero’s Welcome by Robert Longley and dates from before the last great war on earth.” He begins to read.

“Time to come home dear brother and sister, your tour of duty through you’ve given as much as anyone could be expected to. Just a few steps further the smoke will start to clear. Others here will guide you, you have no need to fear. You have not failed your brothers and sisters, you clearly gave it all and through your selfless actions others will hear the call. So take your place of honor among those who have gone before and know you will be remembered for now and evermore.” He bows his head and waits about a minute.

He turned and looked up at the large holographic view screen that was installed on the wall, an overhead view is shown of the Osiris, particularly of the mission pod. From behind the row of four, a crew member started to play “amazing grace” on a set of bagpipes. As he did so, slowly marching through the crew as we see four torpedo housings slowly start their journey home, two forward and two aft, from the mission pod on top of the Osiris. 

As the crew started to make their way out of the mess hall they were each handed a small felt-covered box, if/when they opened it they would find a remembrance pin inside.

Epilogue

Over the next couple of weeks, the crew of the Osiris is kept busy. They help the people of Coadunatio Prime finish the refugee compound as well as helped several of the mining enterprises find and secure several new areas that hold minerals and other sources of industrial materials that they could not properly locate with the systems that they had available. 

When the Osiris received the report of the probe modifications, they started to build the needed parts and modify several of their available probes. After which they made their way around the region between Coadunatio Prime and the known borders of the Devore Imperium launching probes when they recognized the signals of subspace rifts either opening or that were currently open.

Arriving a couple of days before the wormhole opening they were able to hand over the Devore Imperium officer to the Task Force 17 security office. They also notified the Task force 17 central operations office that a subspace rift was not located close enough to Coadunatio Prime for a probe to be launched and that the area needed to have an eye kept on it till a rift either opened or another avenue was found to free the system of its Blood Dilithium. They also noted that they were able to convince the Governor’s Council to shut down Blood Dilithium mining operations.

The Osiris made its way back to the Alpha Quadrant upon the opening of the wormhole, from there they were to make their way to Starbase Bravo for needed repairs and to pick up a load of supplies for Deep Space Forty-Seven before returning to the Thomar Expanse to continue their previous mission.