A day like any other, Matthew Phillips thought to himself.  Except for the ongoing issues across the station regarding the reactor upgrades.  He had been charged with working with engineering to check on the various and growing list of power issues that were cropping up.  His shift had started at 0600, and he’d been moving from deck to deck checking various EPS conduits and sending the information down the line.  He’d felt different after stepping off the USS Erigone and coming to Bravo…but he wasn’t sure if it was a good different or a bad different.

He’d read the mission reports from the Edinburgh.  He’d been just as shocked at the loss of life and the heartbreak it wrecked on the crew.  He felt a sadness, a muted heartache as he’d processed through it all.  Loss and sacrifice had been something he’d been quietly afraid of through the academy.  The Erigone had been his breaking point.  Phillips had struggled with the idea of his cowardice in the time since he’d left the Raven class ship, and while in his head he knew he had made the right call for himself, his heart was arguing point after point.

He walked the corridors and did his work step by step.  His work wasn’t suffering, but his mind was still trying to decide what he would make of himself on this massive Starbase.  How would he separate himself from the rest?  How would he prove himself worthy of wearing the uniform?  That last thought brought him pause as he turned a corner and slowed his feet to a halt.  He was worthy of the uniform – they wouldn’t have given it to him out of the academy if he wasn’t ready.  They had talked about trauma in his classes and how if you didn’t deal with it, it could come back with the wrath of a thousand emotions.  He resolved to take the time needed to grapple with this sudden discovery.  For now, he kept walking, scanning, checking, transmitting, and repeating it all over again as the day continued on.

‘I understand your concerns -’

‘With all due respect, you don’t have a damned idea what it’s like out here, Captain.’ Every wrinkle of the colonial liaison’s grimace was rendered in perfect detail in the holographic projection hovering above Captain Reyes’s desk. But it meant the lines of exhaustion were as clear as the ones of anger, which was enough to soften the XO’s frustration.

But it had been some time since anyone had pulled a with all due respect on him, so Reyes still needed to draw a slow, tense breath, and couldn’t stop himself from saying, ‘The resettlement of Fortair IV happened faster than recommended, Mr Brennos. The atmospheric disruption from the Century Storm hadn’t dissipated when you returned six months ago. These were hardly ideal conditions to rebuild a colony.’

The projection of Brennos rolled its eyes. ‘Minor storms -’

‘Which, if I’m reading properly, have impacted your agricultural yields.’ Reyes waved a PADD indicatively.

‘So you would have preferred we wait on Starbase Bravo while your meteorologists stared at sensor readings and we ate your supplies, lived in your emergency shelters?’ Brennos countered.

‘We would have happily -’

‘We want to get back to our lives, Captain. Not live in a converted cargo bay for a year. We would have been more of a burden on you if we hadn’t gone back. Now we’re asking for a little more help. Some more supplies. Some soil enhancements for our fields.’ Brennos paused, and Reyes tried to not scowl as he knew what final blow was coming. ‘Or would you rather we starve?’

‘Of course not -’

‘Or abandon the colony and return to your starbase’s shelters?’

Reyes ran his tongue over his teeth. His pride was not the most important thing in this situation, not more important than the conditions for the colonists. It didn’t make it hurt that much less to have been complained at for an hour by a liaison, and then be accused of not caring. ‘Send me the full assessment of your needs, Mr Brennos, and I will have a shipment out as soon as possible.’

‘Good –’

‘And we will be sending specialists to assess your farmland and make recommendations on how to improve your future yields.’ Reyes leaned forward, expression going stern. ‘I expect their advice to be listened to, considering the close relationship between Fortair IV and Starbase Bravo.’

Brennos paused at that, and Reyes knew what he was thinking. The more independently-minded farmers would not enjoy being told how to do their jobs by Starfleet researchers. It seemed nobody’s pride was going to come out of this completely intact. But because Brennos was no more of a fool than Reyes was, he nodded. ‘I look forward to their help, Captain. Thank you. Fortair IV out.’

The image disappeared, taking away not just Brennos and his complaints, but the faint, background whine of the holographic projectors in action. Reyes slumped back in his chair and rubbed his temples, closing his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them, his desk had little more peace. Brennos was gone, but the PADDs weren’t, each of them shining with the details of a different pocket of chaos in the Paulson Nebula. A year on from the Century Storm, and the region wasn’t about to be ripped apart by ion storms or subspace rifts. But its effects could still be felt. Colonies like Fortair IV struggled to fully recover, and communicating and travelling deeper into the nebula’s reaches was the hardest it had been for centuries.

Reyes reached for his desk systems and hit a button. ‘Computer, schedule a meeting between me and all division heads. Subject: expanding operations in the Paulson Nebula.’ 

Cynndle stood with his back against the corridor’s bulkhead outside one of the large commercial hangers that were dotted around Sector India-Navy of Starbase Bravo. His orders, as usual, he found since he became a Deck Officer, were a bit vague. He was to oversee the unloading of a food shipment bound for the various restaurants onboard the station but that was it. As it was a civilian vessel the crew and dock workers would make short work of it and he was there to make sure nothing untoward happened.

His combadge chimed and he tapped it without thinking. “Go for Lieutenant Oin’sun.”

His CO’s office came over the coms, “Cynndle, slight change, we have assigned a cadet to work with you today. Show them the ropes.”

Cynndle sighed, “No problem, sir. Just waiting for the transport to dock. ETA 5 minutes.”

“Glad to hear it,” his CO said then cut the line.

“Company will make this go faster,” he muttered to himself as he turned and checked the computer panel beside the door confirming the ship was still a couple of minutes away from docking.

Darion was running through one of the myriad of training simulations he’d been assigned to complete during his tour of duty on Starbase Bravo, He’d been making a point to keep ahead of schedule by putting in an extra hour a day on the holodeck training suite to ensure that any other tasks that arose wouldn’t set him back. Whilst he wasn’t the only Cadet to do so only a handful of this years intake took a similar approach and Darion was sure they’d soon regret not taking the initiative to exceed expectations soon rather than later.

As if almost on queue his comm badge chirped pulling him from his line of thought and back into the present, rather than recalculating the shots in the computer Darion kept the ships phaser on the same setting and instead lead the target a little holding over roughly where the shots had trailed a moment before. He fired and was awarded with the satisfying implosion of a warp nacelle crippling the enemy ship without destroying it.

Tapping his badge he watched in distracted interest as power went offline on the enemy ship section by section “Cadet Hayes”

The Cadet duty manager voice echoed through the holodeck as it shut down in completion of the training. He’d receive his grading at the end of his shift. “Cadet, you are to report to Lieutenant Oin’sun in Sector India-Navy to assist and shadow for the rest of the shift”

Darion couldn’t help but wonder if the timing of the call coinciding with him completing his training exercise was a coincidence or not “Aye Sir, On my way” he replied

It took only 10 minutes to get from the holodecks to the commercial hangers he’d been assigned to, he was beginning to learn his way through the megastructure of a Starbase and each day he was learning new pathways and nooks that held interesting shops, stalls or offices. Spotting Cynndle using a computer near a door Darion smiled, Lieutenant Cynndle Oin’sun was the first person he’d spoken to when he’d arrived on the station. He was pleased to have been assigned to someone familiar today.

“Lieutenant, I’ve been sent to report to you and provide assistance,” he said announcing his presence

Cynndle turned and looked at Darion as he approached, “Cadet, it is good to see you again. Hope you have been settling in well?” He asked with a smile. 

“Yes, so far so good thanks” he replied smiling back “The adjustment has gone relatively smooth and you were correct about them being a good group”

“I am glad to hear that,” Cynndle responded as he double-checked the computer console. “Ah, looks like the transport has docked,” he said and looked back at Darion. “We have a fun-filled shift of overseeing the unloading of foodstuff for the various restaurants on the station. The civilian crew and dock workers will do most of the heavy lifting but it is always good practice to review what is coming on board and do conduct an inventory of the items as they arrive. The last thing we want is for one of the restaurant owners or chefs to blame us for lost goods and be banned from the restaurant.” Cynndle laughed knowing that was unlikely to happen and handed Darion a PADD; “This has the expected inventory but it may have changed a bit so keep your eyes open.” With that, he turned and walked into the hanger.

“Ah, I wonder if Ukleyr’s Gagh is finally in this shipment” he half asked and half muttered to himself as he took the PADD a slight smile cracked his face as he recalled the bartenders dismay at her delayed shipment. He skimmed through the list “Any items of interest we need to look out for” he asked. Recalling that some Starbases in the region were suffering smuggling of banned produce throughout the sector. There always seemed to be a black market of sorts. Mostly harmless but almost always present.

Cynndle let out a laugh at that, “The follow-on shipment maybe but Ukleyr got gagh not long after we were there. If she hadn’t I am not sure what would have happened to the station or the courier.” He pulled out his PADD and had a glance through the list again following Darion’s question, “Nothing on here seems to be problematic but we can never be too careful. Each item has an image of what it should look like attached to it on the inventory list from our records here so if you are unsure of something check there or give me a shout. That said if your instincts tell you that something isn’t right let me know and we can deal with it.”

As they walked into the hanger a mid-sized cargo hauler was sitting on the platform, its exterior bay doors opening releasing steam into the air around the aft section of the vessel. Cynndle looked over to the nearby deckhand, a young Tellorite man who looked visibly annoyed that the doors were taking so long to open. “Everything set for the unloading?” he asked. 

The Tellarite grumbled under his break and nodded, “Just need them to open up so we can get in, this ship always has something that slows us down so we have to move even faster to get it done on time.” 

“Interesting,” Cynndle responded and looked over at Darion with a quizzical look. “Thanks for letting me know.” Cynndle waited a minute as the deck hand turned and wandered towards the ship before turning to Darion.

“You catch that cadet?” Cynndle asked.

“The same ship always having issues” he stated tilting his head slightly “Either incompetence or a deliberate move to ensure the freight doesn’t undergo full checks in order to meet deadlines” he suggested “Potentially trying to slip something past customs, either in or off the ship” Darion tapped a way at the PADD he was handed earlier, scanning through the itinerary list. “Nothing listed would be worth the effort in small enough quantities to go unnoticed, so it would need to be something off the books” he noted, his Tactical training making the neurons in his brain fire linking possible coincidences and connections.

Cynndle smiled, “That is exactly what I was thinking Darion, good work.” He turned and looked back towards the ship as its cargo rams were still slowly being lowered and had only reached the halfway point after several minutes. “Fishy indeed,” he muttered under his breath.

He waved for Darion to follow him as he walked along the side of the bay to the control console. “Have a look around the ship, as we have a minute or two. I am going to go check the sensors here. Let me know if you see anything odd.” With that, he stepped up to the console and began to work.

Darion nodded staring at the painfully slow ramp descending and grew impatient. He took a few long strides forward and leapt up and hurdled himself over the ever descending ramp. Whilst it may of been a little brash Darion was keen to catch the ships occupants a little off guard if possible. Whatever they may be hiding was likely already well hidden and in place, but the longer he had to check the supplies the more chance there was of it actually being discovered.

Pulling out his tricorder that he’d been issued once he came aboard Darion set out scanning the closest cargo to the door. If it were his operation he’d have the goods around two thirds into the delivery. It would be around the time of this cargo being loaded that the deckhands would be under the most pressure to get a move on and the most likely part of the process that corners may of been cut in order to meet the deadlines.

What surprised Darion the most though was the lack of ship crew in the first cargo bay area, he’d been expecting both eagar crew to be disembarking for the station and the sorrowful few that would of been chosen to stay behind as the skeleton crew to oversee the exchange of cargo from the ships perspective. Unusually though there was not a soul to be seen yet. 

Another delaying tactic? he wondered to himself continuing his scans. Though he’d suspected that anything untoward would be further on in the bowls of the ship these items would be the first to leave and he wanted a head start on the vetting process.

Tapping his badge to establish a connection to Lieutenant Oin’sun “Sir, is it usual for there not to be a welcoming committee at the offloading?” he asked curiously, his suspicion was growing.

Cynndle looked up and stared in surprise as the young Cadet jumped over the descending ramp, “That’s one way to do it I guess…”  He quickly finished setting up a continuous scan of the bay that would notify him if any transport signals or any strange readings before reaching for him combadge when Darion’s voice came through.

Frowning Cynndle responded, “Yes and no; if they know their ramp is slow they may just be getting ready. Wait there until I can join you.” With that Cynndle walked towards the ramp, now most of the way down and stood beside several of the waiting deck crew. One of them turned to look up at him and chuckled, “Don’t see Starfleet do that too often, guess he really wanted to see the cargo?”

Cynndle suppressed a chuckle himself, “Something like that.” But before he could finish speaking there was a load clang and the ramp hit the ground. The deck crew cheered and the foreman shouted, “Let’s get it to unload now, double time we are behind schedule!”

Cynndle stepped onto the ship and up to Darion, “Still no crew, eh?”

“None so far” Darion replied closing his eyes “I’m feeling a lot of anxiety and anticipation emanating from the ship but I can’t tell if it’s the crew or the deckhands that are running behind schedule” Darion opened and narrowed his eyes a little “It’s definitely both” he almost whispered “Maybe an exchange, which means one or more of the deckhands could be involved”

Darion off-lined his tricorder and looked to the lieutenant “None of the cargo in this section has anything suspicious, cargo matches the itinerary and mass, volume and molecular structure match the goods.”

Frowning Cynndle looked around, and waved at the foreman, “Does the crew usually come out and help?”

The man shrugged, “First time with this ship but Jacib has,” he said and pointed towards the Tellerite Cynndle had spoken too early. “Jacib. get over here.” A moment later Jacib came over, “What? We got work to do?”

“Does the crew usually stay inside when the unloading takes place?” Cynndle asked.

“Mostly, never pay attention to that really. Pretty sure I have seen one or two each time though. Figure they are just lazy and cannot be assed to help.” Jacib said with a shrug. “Can I go now?” Both the Cynndle and the foreman nodded and Jacib turned and left.

Cynndle turned to Darion, “Mine as well go and say hi. Inspections are part of this.”

Darion nodded “Sounds like a plan”

Walking on over to the main hatch separating the aft cargo ramp from the rest of the ship, an old design using physical hatches and bulkheads over force fields, designed to prevent decompression in the rest of the ship should something in the loading bay malfunction Darion tried the door controller. It took a number of seconds before the display shone red and chimed an error tone

Darion sideways glanced to Cynndle and back at the door control unit “More delay tactics?”

“Who knows?” Cynndle said as she tapped his combadge and connected to the ship’s coms. “This is Lieutenant Oin’sun, we are here for an inspection of the cargo and ship while. Please release the hatch locks.”

Darion stared at Cynndle’s comm badge waiting expectantly for a response, he was disappointed when there was no response, Darion looked over to the same deckhand who was called over before and noticed a laser tool on his belt “Can I borrow that?” he asked, gesturing with his hand.

“Whatever” The deckhand replied thrusting it into Darion’s hands “But I want it back” he walked back to the cargo pallet he was working on grumbling to himself. With a bemused grin Darion turned back to the door controller

“Well malfunctioning comms, a stuck door, dodgy ramp and so far no proof of crew I’d say this provides enough concern for a well-being check” he announced recalling the legislation he’d had to study for his Tactical role. 

Darion used the laser on the side of the Door Control Panel, prising off the outer case and exposed the wiring. he began to mutter to himself as he worked “This is and outer security door so it would be set up as a fail secure system, meaning the lock will need to have power supplied to it” he said straining the last syllable as he shorted the lock power and watching the door click open “The system will be in alarm as a valid request to exit signal wouldn’t of been received but the door is open and we have access” 

“Solid work, cadet,” Cynndle said with a smile. He turned and peered into the hatch before calling out. “This is Lieutenant Oin’sun, we are here for an inspection of the cargo and ship while. We are coming aboard.”

Darion looked down the corridor, noticing that many of the lighting panels were in various states of disrepair and functionality, the rooms that had viewing windows weren’t much better, the ship was in a very poor state “This just gets weirder and weirder” he muttered under his breath. Moving further into the ship the sound of muffled raucous laughter could be heard from within the ship What was going on? he asked himself silently. The anxiousness he’d been feeling earlier was subsiding so it must of been emanating from one or some of the deckhands. Now he was getting the overwhelming feeling of carefree abandon tinged with continuously shifting but muted emotions.

Cynndle looked around and sighed, “What a piece of junk. Amazes me people let their ships get to this state.” As they progressed further into the ship he called out again, “Hello? Anyone there? We are here to inspect the ship.”

After a moment or two, he thought he heard a grunting response just before they reached a doorway at the hall. As they stepped up to it there was an overwhelming smell of alcohol and vomit. Looking in the room he could see 5 individuals sprawled over a table with bottles of various types of alcohol spread around them and on the floor.

“Well, I think I know why they didn’t answer…” Cynndle said but was interrupted as a Nausicaan stumbled into the doorway on the other side of the room. He paused and looked at Cynndle and Darion with a puzzled looked.

“Whoo ou?” He said in heavily slurred speech.

“I am Lieutenant Odin’sun, Starfleet. We are here to inspect the vessel following the delivery. Though I can see this may not be the best time for you or your crew.” Cynndle said.  The Nausicaan just looked at him and shrugged before dropping into the nearest chair and promptly passed out.

Cynndle snorted a laugh and looked at Darion, “Crew of six, guess that explains things. We should put the ship on lockdown until an engineering team can give it an all-clear and speak to the crew when they wake up.”

Darion shook his head incredulously “We’ll I wont lie” he said looking around the room with his hands on his hips in equal parts amusement, disappointment and disdain “Kind of disappointing that this was the cause of a majority of the anomalies” he turned back to Cynndle “Somewhat of a deflated conclusion of a series of interesting events”

Darion used his PADD to inform the deck chief and Security Chief to start lockdown procedures on the Nausicaan ship and to perform an investigation of their own. “I guess I best get back to that panel and put it back into place”

“A good idea I would think,” Cynndle said. Moments later Cynndle lead Darion back out of the ship and couldn’t help but smile. He remembered feeling the same way as Darion when he was a cadet. “I can understand those feelings Darion. But all in all, this was the best way it could have gone down. But as you say it is good to be cautious and lock down the ship.” He glanced over at the workers and the rest of the large bay. “We need to wrap this up and submit the clearances for the shipment.” He passed for a moment before continuing. “How about you submit it? I will co-sign it clearance but you did a good job. Let us get that positive work record started.”

“Aye” Darion replied follow up with quick but earnest “thank you sir” and left the lieutenant too it while he dealt with returning the door panel back to its original setting

The tiny redhead, lithe but surprisingly strong, was parked, legs crossed over each other at a console, propped up by some books. Brown eyes scanned the screen in front of her, and data spit out at her at rapid speed. Her sharp mind picked it up as quickly as the machine spit it out at her, though, and after a moment, she’d climbed from her perch and set off to relay the bad news. Both ops AND off-site teams were going to be upset with her. But she was only the person in charge of relaying atmospheric conditions, she didn’t control them. She was small enough to duck UNDER people, and around them, instead of needing to speak to them to get them out of her way. She headed for the Ops office; for now, the off-base teams operated under them, and that’s whom she reported to hourly when she was on duty. 

She pushed open the door, imposing as it was, and spoke to the person behind the desk, her voice as small as she was. “’Allo, Dr Fee Maccafferty from Astrometrics. I am here to deliver some bad news. You can’t send a team out, at least not for the next five hours. We’ve got some weather coming in from the South West. Going to be a NASTY storm.” She could only see the top of the counter, even though she stood on her tip-toes. 

Luke was hoping for a relatively smooth duty shift when we woke up this morning. There was still a backlog of work orders to be completed and database backups to complete. That all changed when his ears perked up. Someone was in the Ops office? Since arriving on the station visitor numbers to the Ops office were holding steady at…..infrequent, unless something was about to go wrong, was in the process of going wrong, or had gone wrong and couldn’t be righted.

Adding his final notes to the report in front of him, Luke set the padd aside and got to his feet looking around for the visitor, confusion dissipating as soon has noticed his guest. “Doctor Maccafferty was it? Ensign Luke Daniels.” Luke quickly introduced himself to the tiny woman. “How nasty are we anticipating?” Luke continued before his mind took him to the start of the Doctor’s sentence. “Wait, did you say five hours?”

This was not the news Luke was wanting. There were several shuttles getting ready to head planetside with a transport vessel due to depart the planet within the next two hours.

She moved to the left-hand side of the large desk, so he could see her, and she-him. She relaxed the muscles in her calves as she dropped to flat feet from tip-toe. “Aye. Five hours, at least. Both a solar storm and rain. The rainstorms here aren’t like they are back on my planet. Nor yours.” She paused a beat. “Rain, lightning, thunder. The solar part will mess up communications. Which is actually my next course of action.” She was dreading that-those guys were always loud, big, and intimidating. “And cold, to boot.” Actually, some tea sounded lovely. “I’ve already alerted engineering. They’re not happy.” Another small shrug to make her flame-colored braid bounce. “Can’t be helped. When will these people learn that I only SHARE and predict the weather, I don’t control it?! Also, here’s a requisition for a balloon.” She needed one for atmospherics. She handed him the three-page piece of paper, signed by herself and the CSO. 

Casting an eye over the requisition request, Luke fed the information into his terminal for any available stockpiles. Supplies were running low and additional units would need to be fabricated soon “Localised weather events can’t be helped I guess. Is this storm outside normal weather patterns?”

Running a hand through his hair, Luke leant back slightly in his chair as his thoughts caught up with him. “I will inform all ships to remain grounded planet side for now. How is the intensity looking for our solar event and do we anticipate any damage to the station or ships in the immediate area?” Luke asked, already warming up the doctor. In 21st century slang, Luke definitely knew she ‘passed the vibe check.’ 

He could already imagine how well it would go down if Docking Control was forced to recall the ships in its immediate vicinity or instruct them to seek shelter inside the stations shielding. Adding his signature to the requisition form after retaining a copy for the station records, Luke handed the paperwork back. “Where would you like us to arrange the balloon to be delivered?” 

She shrugged. “Astrometrics, I suppose. I am under the Chief Science Officer, so his office, as well, is a choice. I don’t much care.” She would find it; most of the time, people couldn’t figure out what the heck it was, and would ask. “Yes, the storm is an anomaly. Normally the atmosphere in this part of the Quadrant is mild.” It was why she’d accepted the posting-too much weather wasn’t up the young woman’s alley. 

“And done.” Luke finished tapping the drop off point. “Delivery is to be expected in the next few hours, unless you need this expedited?”

Sitting back he started formulating. “I will inform docking control to recall all small vessels as a precaution. Larger vessels should be able to withstand the incoming radiation. The communication arrays and relays are my next primary concern. Should probably follow up with Engineering too.”

Almost forgetting about Fee. He quickly sat upright again. “I am so sorry Doctor, my mind appeared to have wandered off for a moment.”

Fee just nodded. “That’s ok, I do that on occasion myself.” Regularly, really. “If you need me to send the data to your PADD, I can do that. Shall I inform Engineering myself, or will you?” She sighed. She really preferred to not do it herself unless she could do it via PADD or somesuch; the young scientist didn’t do well with personal confrontation, and the thought of annoying them made her blood cold. “Also, I should go see the Chief of Science soon. He won’t be happy.” She let out another sigh. 

“That would be appreciated.” Luke nodded slightly. “Transmit the data to my PADD and I will notify Engineering.” Luke already knew how that conversation would go down, but he would rather the Operations department be the focus of their annoyance rather than a member of the civilian crew.

“Thank you for bringing this to our attention.” Luke smiled. “If there’s nothing else, I believe you said the Chief of Science needed to be seen?” 

She smiled. “That’s all. Thank you!” With that, she turned, and hurried out of the Ops office, back towards her lab. 

With a blip, Joshua’s console came to life. He stopped drumming his fingers on the table and turned to the monitor. “‘From the desk of the Deputy Science Officer’-, wow this is official and everything,” Joshua chuckled as he skimmed the order, “‘Enter into the Paulson Nebula and provide agriculture analysis and relief to the following colonies.’ Huh, I guess I’ll be busy.” The order indicated rendezvous with Ensign Dawa Lôi-Vlček in the shuttle bay on Sector Golf-One-Cyan. “Correction, we’ll be busy.” He downloaded information on the colonies, along with relevant information about the Paulson Nebula, to his PADD and shut down the console. He eyed his Aurous carnivorous plant, which was recovering nicely, and stroked one of its leaves. “Stay strong buddy, I’ll be back in a bit.”

After a quick ride on the turbo lift, he arrived at the shuttle bay. Joshua approached a member of the grounds crew. “I’m looking for,” he checked his PADD, “Ensign Lôi-Vlček.” The man pointed to a woman staring over a console. “I understand you’re my ride,” Joshua said with a chuckle.

The woman had already been wearing a relaxed smile as she completed her work at the console, but the jovial tone of voice made her grin expand as she glanced up at her passenger. “Petty Officer Bryant? Then yep, that’s me! Though more literally your ride will be the USS Susquehanna.” Her smile grew wider still. “I convinced the hangar ops chief that our two-person outfit would be worth a runabout by suggesting we’d be out of his hair that much sooner if we didn’t have to limp along to the nebula at warp 2, though I don’t think I used the phrase ‘out of his hair’ specifically.” She leaned forward and gave an exaggerated aside behind her hand. “He’s a Bolian.” And winked.

Joshua chuckled, “Yeah, that would be a sight to see. No need for formalities, you can call me Joshua. From what I’ve read about the nebula, a runabout would fare better than a fighter.”

“‘Joshua’ hmm? Well, I do appreciate being trusted with a given name. You can call me Dawa!” She logged out of the console and motioned for him to follow her toward the craft. “All the items you requisitioned have already been loaded if you want to give them a once-over before we go, make sure you’re not missing anything.”

“Yes, that’d be great,” he replied. “Once we get out there, it’s every man for themselves.”He smiled. Joshua followed Dawa to the Susquehanna and into its cargo hold. His equipment fit into two small crates, but every bit of it was important. Joshua looked over the contents and confirmed it with his PADD. “It… looks like it’s all here,” He said, closing the crates and securing them. 

He made his way to the cockpit and sat down at the science console. Joshua jokingly made a salute, “Science reporting ready for departure!”

Dawa returned the salute, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a small plastic whale attached to a carabiner. Lacking anything to clip it to in the immediate area, she merely set it down on the far end of her console and gave it a quick pat before engaging in a series of keystrokes. “Now that our full crew complement is here…”

The door of the runabout hissed shut, the impulse and warp engines thrummed, and they began hovering off the deck as Dawa announced departure clearance from operations. Within seconds they were out of the hangar, the starbase quickly disappearing behind them. “It won’t take long to reach the nebula, but it’ll be a few hours before we reach our destination proper. Autopilot will do most of the work, but once we’re inside the sensors get a bit wiggy so I’ll be busy with manual scans to make sure we don’t cross paths with any solid objects. Still, that leaves us with about… 42 minutes for conversatin’!”

“Yeah, conversation is good…” Joshua said absentmindedly as he watched the station disappear from view. Within seconds the ship entered orbit, smooth as always. He pulled up the colony’s information on the console. “So what made you want to become a pilot?” The console beeped, partially drawing his attention, “Oh wow, this is worse than Starfleet thought.”

“Worse than Starfleet’s estimates? Well, that can’t be good.” She frowned, sidestepping his first question and trying to word her statements in such a way that she could hide the fact that she’d only skimmed the morning report past ‘destination’ and ‘equipment requisitioned’. “What’s wrong?”

Joshua ran his fingers through his hair in frustration, “The initial reports on the agriculture status of the colonies stated they were 5-10 years away from being Famine status. Tertiary analyses are now putting that number closer to 3. It’s going to conservatively take a year and a half to implement the same measures used on Cygnia Minor.” He chuckled wryly, “If they don’t have to be modified.” He frowned, “Starfleet may have bit off more than they can chew with this.”

“Oh,” said Dawa, because that was all that immediately came to mind that didn’t sound trite. “I don’t know much about agriculture, but that does seem like a painfully tight timeframe.” 

She sighed and glanced back at her control panel, but the silence felt too heavy, so she tugged gently at the first conversation thread. “I became a pilot because I was tired of being an engineer… You see, my family works at the Sol VI Shipyards, and I did too, for a while. But I wanted to get off that damn moon, and there’s few who get to see as much of the galaxy as a Starfleet Officer, so I joined the Academy. If I’d been a little braver I’d have gone into the sciences division, but research and biology felt too far out of my comfort zone at the time.

“What about you?” She offered Joshua a small smile. “Have you always been interested in botany?”

“I know the feeling. I felt like there was too much to explore beyond Cygnia Minor. I guess that’s always been human nature, to constantly reach beyond our front door.” He pushed a few buttons to call up more colony information. “Anyway, my mother is a botanist on Cygnia Minor, so she was more than happy to see me follow in her footsteps.” Joshua said, dividing his attention between the console and Dawa, “My father was more of a botany geneticist. He was a part of the team that created the nutrients necessary to revitalize plant life at the colony.” He turned to the console, “Which is what I’m hoping to replicate here. But it looks like it’s less of an arid climate and more of a tropical one.” Joshua paused, “Or, at least it was.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, you don’t have to be brave to make a difference.” He chuckled, “Look at us, we’re both just following a path laid out before we were born.”

Dawa laughed, clear and genuine. “I guess so! Sounds like you’ve got plants in your blood as much as I’ve got spaceships in mine!” She made a mental note to read up on the history of Cygnia Minor later, as well as perhaps some other Federation colonies. Was famine such a common thing? “I certainly took for granted living in a colony so close to Earth,” she said, mostly to herself.

“If I had plants in my blood, they’d bloom and I’d die,” he laughed at his lame joke. “But I guess your blood cells are kind of like spaceships,” Joshua pondered this a moment and continued to laugh at the thought of mini starships warping around the bloodstream. “Most of my contact with Earth was through my sister. She’s a captain of a small freighter. She would bring me things, mostly plants, from the far reaches of the galaxy.” He continued to read through the reports, “Have you thought about going back into engineering? Or has being a pilot stolen you away from it?”

Dawa shook her head to rid her mind of the horror movie imagery of plants bursting out of someone’s capillaries, and answered very quickly, “No! Oh no, don’t want to go back into engineering. I much prefer being a pilot. But if I ever did change specialties, what I’d really love is to go into something like zoology. I’m just fascinated by animals. Although plants are pretty great too!” She cast a glance at Joshua. “Were you able to bring any of your plants with you when you came here?”

“I brought a few with me when I arrived at the station. Now that I have a more permanent assignment, I can send for the rest. The problem is you have to judge if they’re hardy enough to make the trip through space. Putting them in stasis usually helps, but some are more temperamental. I have an Aurous carnivorous, that nearly died in transit. It’s uh-” he cleared his throat, “It has a lot of sentimental value. It’s doing better, but I’m working on a protein mixture that will strengthen its cellular structure.” He chuckled and smiled, “Sorry, I went a little deep in the nerd pool there. I’d love to show it to you some time.”

“Ha! Are you kidding? I love swimming in the nerd pool!” Autopilot would be carrying them forward for some time yet, so she swiveled in her seat to face her passenger. “I’ve never seen a carnivorous plant before, so you’d better keep it alive for me to visit the next time our off-duty hours line up. We can compare hours later once this mission is over. Sound good to you?”

Joshua was taken aback by her enthusiasm, “Yeah, it’s a date.” He paused, “I mean, I’ll put it on the calendar.” Dawa’s console began to beep urgently, saving him from further awkwardness. “I think we’re reaching the wiggy part.”

Bryan stood and gazed out the windows at the setting sun in the distance. He hadn’t slept a full night in weeks. Doctor Harrison was waiting for him to respond to his last question. Having to come here twice a week and go through all this with someone. Bryan wanted to be anywhere else.

“Yes, I had another of those dreams.” He turned and walked back to the chair that was across from the doctor and sat back down. He looked down and then back up meeting his gaze. “What do you want me to say? That I keep having vivid dreams and hallucinations so real that I’m starting to lose myself?” Bryan leaned forward and inhaled. He didn’t know what else to say. For close to six months now he had been having moments of, something. He would be fine going about his life then suddenly everything would warp and the entire world would be different. People would be different the world was somehow dirtier and colder nobody acted how they normally would. Himself included.

The first time it happened he was in the cockpit of a fighter and then he just wasn’t. He remembered some sort of dirty ship at least six other people and then he shook it off alarms were screaming at him and his fighter was tumbling end over end into the atmosphere of the earth.

“What happened this time? Anything you can remember?” The doctor asked while taking notes on a PADD. He was always listening as closely as before, but Bryan was starting to doubt everyone.

“It’s not much but earth looked different.” Bryan rubbed his hands together remembering how horrible it was. The seas looked green and the land was browner than any other color. He explained this much to the doctor but left out the craters he saw everywhere and how hopeless everything had seemed to him. The planet had looked better in the images he had seen from around world war three and the atomic horror.

The doctor nodded and made more notes on his PADD. He looked up and smiled warmly and placed his PADD on the table next to him. “I’d like to prescribe a medication that I think might help at least somewhat remedy what’s happening to you.” He tapped the side of his head and continued. “Your scans and workup have shown some irregularities in your neural activity almost like it’s being mirrored…..So I’d just like to get you on this and monit…..”

Bryan let his mind drift as the Doctor continued to talk. Somewhere in the distance, he thought he could hear voices. He tried to tune it out to not fall into it again. He knew it was Futile……

The shuttle shook slightly as it transitioned through the space doors and into the cavernous interior of the shuttle bay of Starbase Bravo. He could see the older Lieutenant was staring at him now.

“I’m sorry what was it you asked again?” Bryan said with his usual cocky smile trying to cover the fact he was minutes away from screaming. He looked straight ahead as the shuttle settled to the deck and the crewman directing it signaled for engines to power down.

“I was wondering how you found old man Thompkins during your flight certification at the academy?” He offered again while going through the shutdown sequence and began to finish his job. Bryan stood and walked to the back of the shuttle and grabbed his duffle and his helmet.

“Oh, I suppose the same as everyone else he was a hard ass. Up until it came to graduation and then he was first in line to shake hands and pat backs.” Bryan gripped his helmet tight and blinked his eyes several times as the world started to try and slip away again. It was getting easier to stop but it did give him an enormous headache. The rest of the conversation continued and Bryan managed to get through it and the next half hour of briefings and duty and room assignments. He walked into his quarters and dropped his duffle and his helmet to the deck. He grabbed the sides of his head and groaned.

“Computer lower ambient lighting by forty-five percent.” Walking to the nearest chair he sat and stared at the far wall that contained the replicator. He had another day to himself before he was due to report for duty. He was going to use it to find the nearest bottle of real liquor and drink it. Standing he removed his uniform top and tossed it into the chair he had been sitting in. He grabbed his duffle from the floor and turned to walk into the sleeping area. He tossed it onto the bed and unzipped it. He pulled out his favorite shirt and pants.

Standing in front of the mirror he looked himself up and down. He missed wearing his holster and sidearm. He doubted station security would be as forgiving as the captain and CAG on his cadet cruise. With a sigh, he pulled his suspenders over his shoulders and let them fall with a snap! He looked into his bag and pulled out his brown duster and smiled. A gift from his mother and dropped it back into the bag and turned to walk back out into his quarters living area. He glanced around the simple spartan room. His belongings would be along in a few days aboard the Wanderer along with his fighter and a bunch of other cargo. His helmet lay where he originally dropped it on the deck. Walking to pick it up he turned it into the light so his callsign could be seen stenciled in bright reddish brown letters. He placed it on the chair with his uniform top.

“Well Cowboy, lets go find a saloon.”

Bryan stood outside the bar he found and looked up at the sign. It said Aces High and looked less than reputable considering where he was. He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and walked forward through the swinging doors. He paused and scanned the area with his eyes. It wasn’t much more than a room with a long wooden bar on the far end and a small assemblage of tables. He walked slowly inside past a rough-looking group sitting at a table to his right. He knew they were watching him. One of them was Ferengi and Bryan knew he could hear the soft jingle of latinum in his pocket as he passed. At least two of them had blunt weapons and the Ferengi had a small knife in the small of his back. He approached the bar and sat on a stool that had a ripped padded seat.

“Whiskey” Bryan ordered from the Bolian bartender while reaching into his pocket. The bartender proceeded to turn around and grab a bottle and glass from the mirrored shelf. He set the glass down and poured two fingers and poured one more when he looked at Bryan. “Leave the bottle,” Bryan said while dropping a small pile of latinum strips onto the bartop. He grabbed the glass and downed the whiskey in one gulp and set the glass down and poured himself another. It burned and was not worth that latinum but it would do its job just fine. He set the bottle down and raised his glass to his lips again. He paused when a woman appeared next to him. She had a slight accent when she spoke to him.

“Hey cowboy fancy buying a girl a drink?” she said with as she looked at him in the mirror behind the bar. Bryan froze his blood running cold as he sat the drink back down again. Did she sound Irish? Scottish maybe? He couldn’t tell. He recognized her, that much he knew. “Why are you all doing this to me?” He said as he stopped his left hand from shaking. The girl turned her head and looked at Bryan directly.

“Nobody’s doing anything to you. You just need to stop taking that medication and let what’s going to happen, Happen.” She reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder which caused him to shudder slightly. The group that had watched Bryan come inside was watching him have a one-sided conversation with himself. The Ferengi leaned over to the Large Orion sitting next to him and muttered. “What is that hew-mon doing?” He said watching the man talk to seemingly no one.

“I do not know. He must be insane.” The orion grunted and shook his head. The Ferengi picked up his drink and smiled. “All the better to relieve him of his latinum when he leaves. He swallowed his drink down and sat back and waited. The crazy hew-mon turned back to his own drink and picked it up. Swallowing it down again in one gulp and then immediately pouring another. He had stopped talking and now seemed to be well on his way to drinking an entire bottle of liquor. The music playing in the bar switched to a Vulcan composition and a sharp series of notes plucked on a lute made him wince.

Bryan stood at the exit to the bar and slowly exited on unsteady feet. He turned left and made his way back to the lonely corridor and the lift that would take him back to his quarters. He walked past a Bajoran restaurant, Hasperat sounded good to him but then the smell coming from a Klingon eatery changed his mind and he continued on trying not to retch. Wobbling slightly as he turned the corner to the corridor that led to his lift he spied three individuals following him reflected in the dark lcars panel he steadied himself against. It was the group from the bar. They must have decided they wanted his latinum.

“Rolling a guy who’s three sheets to the wind…” Bryan belched loudly and stopped swaying back and forth as he watched them approach in the dark panel. A Ferengi a Human and an Orion. Three on one not very fair. He felt a hand land on his shoulder and he smirked as it spun him around and the Ferengi was smiling at him like the cat that ate the canary.

“Hello, hew-mon. I am Zex and my associates and I would like to know if you need any help getting anywhere?” He looked to each of his companions who produced weapons and turning back he slid the knife from the small of his back that he had been hiding. He held it up and spun it slowly in his hand. “We would of course ask for a small donation for this service of course.”

Bryan nodded and took his hand off the wall panel. “Oh yes of course I’d be happy to pay.” Reaching into his pocket he grabbed the rest of the latinum strips and pulled them quickly out and threw them into Zex’s face. The Ferengi yelled out and Bryan shot his leg out and brought his foot down on the Ferengi’s knee. Zex collapsed in a screaming heap as Bryan ducked and narrowly missed getting slammed hard by the Orion club as he swung it wildly through the air. Rushing forward he grabbed the human’s midsection and slammed him hard into the far corridor wall. Grabbing the man’s head he pulled it down and kneed him hard in the face. He collapsed to the deck as Zek’s screamed at the Orion. “Beat his head into the deck!!!” Bryan turned as the Orion lunged forward and grabbed him in his arms and lifted him squeezing his ribcage.

“Agggh!” Was all Bryan could get out as the air left his lungs and his ribs began to compress. Pulling his head back as far as it could go he headbutted the Orion in the nose as hard as he could. The Orion dropped him to the deck as Bryan’s vision began to get spotty. Blinking hard and trying not to pass out Bryan stood and inhaled deeply as the Orion rolled on the deck grasping his nose. “Lousy bushwhacking bastards.” He kicked the Orion hard in the head knocking him unconscious. He was going to turn and deal with Zex when he felt the cold blade of the knife the Ferengi had been carrying plunge into his side.

“Filthy Hew-mon! ” Zex hissed as he pulled the knife out and stabbed Bryan again.

Bryan collapsed to his knees as he saw Zex walk over and pick up the latinum that was scattered all over the deck. He wavered and spoke once as the world started to grow dark. “Lousy Bushwhacking….”

He went to that other place when he was unconscious. He saw strange dark things and people he somehow knew. A Caitian call Egis? No that wasn’t it. There was a tough lil ship. Its name was something that his ma had sung to him when he was little and his pa was away on a mission with Starfleet. He could almost hear the song…A soft tender motherly voice begins to sing a nursery rhyme.

“I wish I may I wish I might…….” No, he refused to accept any of this! He wanted his life back! Bryan snapped his eyes open and he could hear the soft beeps of a biobed and the low talking of concerned voices. He blinked a few more times and turned his head. It was some sort of sick bay. What had happened? Then he inhaled and felt the twinge of pain in his side. He had been stabbed by that damn Ferengi. At least he had made the cowards earn the latinum they stole. He inhaled slowly and waited for someone to realize he was now awake.

Dawa’s face was illuminated in the flashing red light of her console, but her smile didn’t budge from her face. She calmly ran her fingers across the console to dismiss the alarm and let her hands continue the work as she glanced back at Joshua. “Not to worry, I set that alarm to go off when the dilithium hydroxyl concentration outside our subspace warp bubble reached 100 parts per cubic centimeter.”

“Oh, we certainly don’t want that… the dilithium… umm… concentration to get too high,” Joshua said, leaving the phrase more as a question than a statement. Dawa didn’t seem concerned, so he decided it wasn’t concerning.

Without looking, her left hand reached over and slid open a panel to reveal a series of tactile buttons and switches. “It means we’ve technically entered the nebula, so time to switch to manual sensors and slow to impulse.”

She cleared her throat and straightened her back. “We ask that all passengers remain seated for the remainder of the flight due to the increased likelihood of turbulence and/or giant rocks hurtling inexorably through space.”

Dawa chuckled at her joke and smiled at Joshua. “I can avoid those easily enough. It’s other ships we have to worry about, but I can think of few outside of Starfleet crazy enough to fly through here on purpose!”

Joshua chuckled and turned back to the science console. A standing objective was to get as many scans of the nebula as possible. He set the sensor’s grid to be as wide and precise as possible. A blip on the scans caught his eye. The subspace objects moved at variable speeds throughout the nebula, but this object was moving in conjunction with an asteroid. “Either it’s a conjoined asteroid or…” He said to himself, setting a secondary deeper scan of the object.

“I know you’re trying to keep us from being smashed into the side of an asteroid, which I’m incredibly grateful for, but I’ve picked up something on scanners.” He pushed a few buttons on his console to send the readings to hers. “I think there’s someone crazier than Starfleet in here.”

“Uck!” Dawa rolled her eyes and sounded downright disgusted. “Of all the nerve. Don’t they know some of us are trying to work in here?” she muttered as she flipped one of the switches and squinted at her console. “Mmm, with these scans I can’t determine anything further than ‘not Starfleet’, and in that case, I don’t want to get close enough for a visual.”

They felt the barest discernable movement through the inertial dampeners as the runabout changed direction. “I can’t alter course too much without risking getting us lost in this stellar soup, but I think we can sneak past their rear if we run quiet for the next few minutes. Switching to passive scans only.”

Joshua watched as the science sensors blink out. He moved from the science station to the seat next to Dawa. “Where are you…” He said, switching his glance from the nebula’s dark expanse to the console.

She cast an irritated glance in the direction of the asteroid and made a rapid shoo-ing motion at it. “Hurry up and get out of here, you’re interrupting Joshua’s science!”

Joshua chuckled, “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but let’s worry about our friend out here. The science we can save for later.”

Dawa huffed. “I know, I’m trying to deflect with humor here.” She gave him a cheesy grin. “My combat training in Starfighters was much more substantial than in runabouts. I feel a little out-of-sorts in such a big target. Cross all your fingers that we don’t have to engage them at all.”

Joshua held up his hands, comically contorted into multiple crossed fingers. “I’ve got that base covered. I’d cross my toes, but I’d have to take off my boots and, well… who’d give up this much luck?” He said with a smile.

As they drifted silently through the swirling eddies of the nebula, Dawa stretched her arms and rolled her neck, trying her best to stay loose and responsive to any of the countless scenarios that might play out in the next few minutes. Having a nervous death grip on the console would only stifle her reflexes.

She centered her focus with deep breaths in-and-out and felt a weight lift off her shoulders as she glanced down at her readouts. “Ten more seconds and we should be out of their estimated sensor range.”

As she watched the counter fall from 10, 9, 8… something flashed red in the corner of her eye. PROXIMITY ALERT. And the barest second after the warning flashed they could both see it through the forward windows: an asteroid twice the size of the Susquehanna hurtling towards them nearly dead-on.

“Oh, sh– hang on!” They immediately dived, though it felt more like a drop as they plunged straight down the z-axis and missed the asteroid by meters.

9, 8… Joshua mentally counted in his mind before his stomach lurched with the Susquehanna’s sudden movement, partly from the view out the window and partly from the inertial dampener’s attempts to keep up with the dive.

He glanced over at the sensor read-out. “Uh… probably not the best time to mention,” Joshua said, his voice lurching with a bump. “I think our friends spotted us. About 1000 meters and closing fast. It looks like they’re taking advantage of our situation!”

There was a red flash on their starboard and the craft shuddered, but they remained true on their heading.

“Oh no no no no no, uuh uh,” Dawa muttered, bent low over her console. Her brow furrowed and her jaw clicked, and her next words seemed to be directed into the ether as her fingers flew across the buttons. “We pretend not to notice you, give you plenty of room to go on your merry way, and the second shit hits our fan you turn around and start throwing heat at us?? We’re the big dog in this fight! Joshua!”

She locked eyes with the man next to her. “I’m gonna bring us around on their six, and when we’re in position I need you to fire phasers at them. Only 50% full power because I’m feeling generous. Can you do that for me?”

Joshua felt the craft lurch again, the dampers still having a hard time keeping up. “Is this a bad time to bring up that I’m, uh, not bridge trained?” He yelled over the alarms. “But it’s fine, it’s like riding a bike right?.” He pulled up the tactical display, “A bike with 6 phaser strips, being chased by a spaceship… through an unpredictable nebula” he said to himself.

He turned his attention to the display. Lots of buttons. “Don’t worry about going to the Academy Josh, you’ll be much better off with an ETC…” he said to himself in a mocking tone. He pulled up the phaser gauge and set it to 50% power.

The Susquehanna moved around an asteroid, and the ship came into view. It was small, about half the size of the runabout. “Well, isn’t he a cute little fella? Kinda small for a smuggling ship though.” The console beeped, “It’s coming about! Its weapons… are hot!”

“Could be a fighter that got separated from a bigger ship, in which case we’d better hope we can keep clear of the pack leader too.” Dawa’s face was blank as she considered the possibility. Suddenly she turned to grin at Joshua and give him a thumbs-up as if all he had to do was make a penalty shot and not a directed energy weapon shot. “You got this, Josh! Just… hold onto the console.”

They sped towards the ship at full impulse as if setting the stage for a game of chicken. Their opponent fired off two shots. The Susquehanna rattled a bit, but shields held, and well before it could become a contest in earnest the other ship wisely veered off.

“Wait… we’re going to ram it?!” Joshua said with exasperation. He held on to the console as Dawa instructed.

Immediately Dawa killed the impulse engines and fired the starboard lateral thrusters, spinning them 180 degrees. One more hit on the thrusters had them staring down the ship’s aft. “Now, Josh!”

Joshua’s stomach dropped with the sudden stop and spin. He barely had time to process her words before pushing the firing button almost instinctually. A burst was unleashed from two of the phaser strips. “Direct hit to,” he checked the console’s results, “to, uh… a phaser bank and the hull.” Joshua took a breath and chuckled, “You sure know how to leave a guy breathless.” A beep turned his attention to the sensors. “It’s coming about for another pass.”

“Well, you did a pretty good job considering I just put you through the spin cycle!” Dawa smiled at him as she moved tactical controls to her station. “Now that we’re stationary I can focus on getting another shot in with a bit more juice this time.” She increased power to the phasers while muttering, “What’s it gonna take to convince this guy it’s not worth the trouble without us getting a face full of phaser or accidentally blowing him out of the sky?” It sounded like a genuine question, even if it was directed at no one in particular.

The shuttle shuddered as the Susquehanna took hits from the fighter. “Shields still holding at 73%.”  

“Good…” Dawa aimed and fired. The ship shuddered again. There was a flash of light and the smell of smoke. “Status?”

Joshua looked over the displays, “Direct hits to our warp nacelle and lower hull. Shields at… 42%?!” Joshua said incredulously. “Our friend has made some modifications to his ship; there’s no way he should be packing that much firepower.” Warning beep on the console, “He’s loading quantums. Dawa, we gotta get out of here.” The worry began to creep into his voice, “I don’t think we can take much more of this.”

“Damnit. Damnitdamnitdamnit…” Dawa pulled a PADD from below the console, cleared its screen, and started furiously scribbling illegible equations on the surface using her finger as a stylus. “We can’t just jet, we have to make sure we can get back on our original heading if we don’t want to become irretrievably lost in this stupid pink monster cloud.”

The console’s beeping became more rapid and urgent as their opponent entered firing range. With a swipe of her hand, Dawa synced the information on her PADD with her station. There was a hum and a slight jolt as she reactivated the impulse engines.

The console’s tone became shrill as the fighter fired its quantums, and in the same instant, the runabout bolted up, up out of the line of fire, back towards their original heading.

“You have GOT to be kidding me! Why would he possibly have–?” Dawa’s eyes were wide and panicked as she brought them up to full speed. “Let’s just hope he put all his upgrades into weaponry and we can still outrun him. Josh, while we run screaming, see if you can get any data on our friend with the manual sensors. If we make it to the colony and back in one piece, I’m sure Starfleet would appreciate it if we had something besides scorch marks and a busted nacelle to show for this encounter.”

“Already on it!” Joshua’s fingers flew across the console, reactivating full sensors. There was no use hiding scans from their attacker now. He turned their full attention to the opposing ship. His eyes went wide as the initial scans came in, “There’s no way we would’ve stood up against them in a firefight, that’s for sure. I would say they’re armed to the teeth, but it’s more like their armed teeth are armed.” A few more beeps, “A bit of good news though, it looks like it’s not built for speed. Well,” Joshua looked at the scans, “it is, but it won’t be able to keep up with us for very long.”

He watched the ship on the scanners, “Ship is following us, but keeping distance.” A few tense moments passed and he breathed a sigh of relief. “It looks like it’s breaking off and heading further out of the nebula.” Joshua pushed a few buttons to place a location marker on their maps. “I don’t think it was guarding something, but it might be a drop point for smugglers.”

Dawa shook her head and sighed. “Lovely place to have a drop point, so close to the colony. And if any of the other smugglers are armed even half as well as the ship we just encountered then I’m definitely curious about their contraband.”

The beeping of her console interrupted her musings. “Well there’s some good news at least: we didn’t get hopelessly lost when we went off course during our little scuffle. The colony’s just ahead. Should be entering orbit in just a few minutes.”

Joshua looked at the scan results, “I don’t think they started here. If the computer’s trajectory estimates are correct, they moved to the asteroid to hide. Ah well,” he said, closing the results, “that’s above my expertise.”

As she keyed in the landing coordinates, the console beeped again, this time in a more urgent tone. “Oh… ooooh. Uh oh.”

Dawa’s eyes didn’t leave her console as she started pulling up the status of every internal system she could think of. “I thought I smelled smoke earlier… our fuel cells were damaged in the engagement. Looks like we’re running on emergency power right now, which means no transporters. And landing might be a little bumpier than usual.”

“I can’t say I’m enjoying this rollercoaster of good news, bad news,” Joshua chuckled. He pressed the commands to activate their distress beacon. “At least they know we’re coming.”

The Susquehanna lurched forward abruptly. Joshua looked over at Dawa, “Tell me that was you.” An urgent beeping from his console drew his attention. “Ah no, it wasn’t…” He turned to Dawa, “So, more good news: We’re caught in a gravity well of the planet.”

More lurching as the ground rapidly came closer. “Gravity pull increasing by a factor of four!” Joshua yelled over the urgent beeping. “I hope you got one last magic trick left!”

“I just might,” Dawa yelled back, “But, uh, brace yourself anyway.” Her hands flew across the console, authorizing pilot override after pilot override, and then… nothing. She watched their altitude and waited. Waited. Waited.

At 2500 meters every system in the runabout went dark and silent, and several seconds (and several hundreds of meters) later it all came back to life, and after a breath, the thrusters roared. The ground was approaching at a much more forgiving speed, and they met it with a jolt and another jolt, and then spun and skidded for what certainly felt like more than two seconds.

And finally they stopped, and it all went dark again.

A spark from the console woke Joshua up. He blinked and surveyed the damage: the entire cabin was pitch black. He attempted to stand, but dizziness quickly changed his mind.

The runabout’s doors groaned and hissed as if they were being forced open. “Got it!” a voice triumphantly exclaimed. Joshua looked over and saw Dawa slumped over the console. His mind reeled, what weapons were within reach? He couldn’t fight off raiders in his condition. Joshua quickly looked around, his head spinning. And everything went black. 

Joshua woke with a start and sat bolt upright. “Easy young man,” a voice said, placing a hand on his chest. He turned to see an older woman at his bedside. She eased him back on the bed.

“Where am I?” Then his mind began processing his environment. An infirmary? “The woman I was with, where is she?!” Joshua looked at the woman.

“Over here!”

There was a tugging at a curtain two beds over, followed by a sigh as said curtain was pulled back by a young woman in medical scrubs. Dawa lay there, still in uniform sans the outer jacket, which was laid at the foot of her bed. There appeared to be a few patches of dried blood on her arms and face, but the original wounds had long since been closed by a dermal regenerator.

A wave of relief washed over Joshua at the sight of Dawa.

The nurse returned to the stool on the other side of Dawa’s bed and placed one hand gently on the top of her head while she waved the hand-held bone-knitter back and forth above her forehead; the colony was not large or developed enough to warrant a full osteo-regenerator bed, but at least they had some way to treat the hairline fractures in her skull.

Still looking at the ceiling as the nurse worked, she waved a hand in Josh’s direction. “I’m so glad you’re awake! Sorry about the rocky landing.”

“Shh!” The nurse muttered, “This will go faster if you don’t talk or move.”

“Sorry,” she whispered.

Joshua gave a thumbs up, “Back at you! You know what they say: Any landing you can walk away from,” he chuckled and winced at the pain in his ribs. “I guess we technically didn’t walk away from this one.”

He turned to the woman, “I need to speak with your colony administrator,” and began to sit up. The young nurse stopped him with a firm hand and laid him back down. “I won’t tell you again,” the woman said in a voice used to scold a child. “Stay. Down. Your ribs are still healing. I’ll send for the colony leader if you stay in bed.”

The young nurse hesitated to leave and Joshua put up his hands in defeat. “I’m not going anywhere.” The older woman nodded to the nurse. He returned her nod and left the ward.

When the man had left, Joshua turned to the woman working on Dawa. “What happened? I mean, besides the obvious of our runabout crashing.”

Continuing to work, the woman responded, “Our security patrols received your distress signal. They found both of you unconscious. She,” the woman grabbed Dawa’s head. “Stop squirming! She had a skull fracture which is mostly healed.” She set down the device on a side table to look at her handy work. “Or will in time. You, on the other hand, broke three of your ribs. We had to replace a fair amount of blood. You’ll need to keep the osteo wrap on for two more days. Then we’ll check your healing.”

Three men entered the ward. “Dr. Bryant,” one of the men said. “I’m Liam Cabrera, administrator for the Ignaus Colony. This is our chief scientist Varin Ber,” the Trill man next to him nodded.

Joshua nodded and shook Varin’s hand. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t get up. I’ve been told not to by my betters.” He chuckled and looked at the nurse. No response from any of the colony representatives. “Tough room…” Joshua mused.

“Anyway, I look forward to working with you on your agriculture problem.”

“Wait, there are only two of you?!” Liam said indignantly. “Starfleet only saw fit to send two scientists to help us?”

“Well, she’s technically not-”

“And how are you going to conduct surveys while in bed?!”

“We planned on releasing them later today,” the woman piped up.

“You see, I can get started later today.”

“On light duty.” the woman shot back.

Joshua put up his hands in defeat, “Light duty, right.”

“Well Dr. Bryant, I hope you break the trend of Starfleet’s helpfulness,” Cabrera said, with sarcasm at the end.

“You listen here!” Joshua said, his voice rising as he sat up in bed. A wave of pain came over him. Joshua winched, grabbed his side, and cursed. “Your colony is three years away from starvation!” Joshua instantly regretted his words as the entire ward went silent. “And I’m here to save you.”

“Well, Dr. Bryant,” Liam said, taken back by Joshua’s outburst. “I certainly hope you can.” Without another word, he turned and the three men walked out.

“Yeesh.” Dawa glanced at the nurse. “What an asshole.”

The nurse lifted her hands and shook her head in a don’t get me started motion, then snatched up a hypospray and reached for Dawa’s arm as the other woman tried to get up off the bed. “Careful! You have a concussion. Obviously.”

She allowed Dawa to sit up at the edge of the bed before pressing the hypospray against her neck with a hiss. “Twenty cc’s of vertazine will help it heal faster, but no exertion for you either. And if you start to feel dizzy, nauseous, or otherwise unwell you need to come back here and lie down immediately.

Dawa clutched her head with one hand and gave the nurse a grin and a thumbs up with the other before slowly getting to her feet. She took two careful steps, and those felt steady enough, so she made her way over to Josh’s bedside.

“Old habits die hard, so I’m itching to take a look at the runabout, but realistically I think the locals can handle it for now. What about you? Need any help running those surveys? Between the two of us, we’ve got about one functioning body!”

Her enthusiasm brought a smile to Joshua’s face. “I can’t do any reaching, so I’ll need some help collecting and processing soil samples. It’s not a glamorous life, but it’ll keep you busy.”

Ethan shifted himself in his seat slightly, taking another sip of his blue Andorian drink. He was seated at a table in the observation lounge of the U.S.S. Iowa, an Excelsior II-class starship that was ferrying new crew rotation to Starbase Bravo. The station was Ethan’s first official assignment as a Starfleet officer, having just graduated the academy. He was extremely eager to get his career started and begin his adventures in space. 

Though he was initially assigned to a station, which is usually less exciting that a starship posting, Ethan didn’t let that mindset disrupt his determination to make the most of it. He was now an Ensign and living his dream, and he was absolutely going to make the most of it. Having been assigned as an engineering officer aboard the station, he was looking forward to the duty assignments and impressing his superior officers. He picked up his drink again as he put his feet up on the small coffee table, sipping the liquid as he continued to watch the stars go by at warp speed. 

“Kinda surreal, isn’t it? Just a few more hours and we’ll be on our first assignment! I can’t wait to see what sickbay looks like. It’s gotta be bigger than the Academy’s, right?” The speaker was a short but attractive young Orion woman with olive-colored skin, who seemed to have simply appeared out of thin air behind his chair. Well, either that or Ethan had simply been so focused on his drink that he hadn’t even heard her approach. She was out of uniform, dressed in a dark red t-shirt and jeans, slender fingers daintily gripping the back of his seat. “Sorry to scare you. I thought it might be a bit more fun to say hi this way”. The young Orion giggled. “The name’s Kianaa. What’s yours?” 

Ethan jumped slightly and let out a short ‘ooo’ sound when he heard the voice directly behind him, almost spilling his drink in his lap. He immediately smiled at how jumpy he had been, laughing slightly before saying, “Definitely more fun this way.” He placed his drink down on the table as he studied her face. Ethan knew of her species, or rather the famous legends of her species, but he had not seen her before, neither at the academy nor here on the Iowa. 

“I’m so looking forward to this new posting, though I suppose every newly graduated Starfleet officer looks forward to beginning their careers.” He extended his hand and continued, “The name is Ethan, I’ll be one of the many new engineering officers for Starbase Bravo. And judging by how excited you are about how big the station’s sickbay will be, I’m going to assume you’re in medical?” He smiled slightly as he leaned back in his chair, bringing one hand to his chin to rest his head. 

“Well, hi, Ethan. I guess we’ll be working together from now on! Well, in a sense, I suppose. Did you know engineers have the highest workplace accident rate out of any Starfleet ship department?” Kianaa quipped before smiling and giving him a reassuring pat on the arm. “Of course, I trust that you know very well how to keep yourself safe on duty. I’m a nurse, you see, and I’ve seen a few too many engineering cadets come through the Academy sickbay. Burns, bruises, scrapes, cuts and one crushed toe. Don’t worry. That guy is fine.” The Orion smiled and sat down in front of him, crossing one leg over the other. “But hey, the gloom and doom isn’t what we wanna talk about, is it! Why engineering of all things. Doesn’t standing round a buzzing warp core all day get boring eventually?”

Ethan smiled as she spoke, appreciating the enthusiasm she had in her voice for her new role. More so than appreciation, he recognized that same tone in the way he talked about his new posting on Starbase Bravo. He let her finish before replying, “Actually, I didn’t know that, but I would have definitely guessed that engineering is probably one of the most hazardous jobs.” He smiled slightly as she went on about her past experiences, taking another sip of his blue andorian drink, “Well, I’m so very glad that I’ll have you there to patch me up if things get out of control in engineering. You never know what may happen!” 

As Kianaa posed her next question, he pondered it carefully before giving her an answer, “You know, I always thought that myself before joining the academy. I never anticipated I would be joining the engineering department, and if you would have asked be back then I for sure would have said there is no chance of that ever happening.” He looked away towards the window, gazing out at the stars, “But I did end up taking an engineering course to see how interested I might be with the subject, and wouldn’t you know it, I fell in love with it. For some reason, it just came so naturally to me, and I really underestimated how much I would enjoy it.”

He looked back at her before continuing, “Now, I suppose I should ask you the same question: why medical? What drove you to that decision?” He put his drink down and then leaned back into his chair, preparing for her answer, “I’m not sure I’d be able to do it, working to fix broken technology is one thing, but working to save a life of a living being? And what if you need to provide medical assistance to someone and you’ve never encountered their species before? That’s a huge responsibility.”

But before she had a chance to speak, an announcement came over the speakers informing them they had arrived at Starbase Bravo. Ethan put his drink down and stood up, “Well, I wish we had more time to chat, but it looks like we’re here. I’ve got to head to my quarters and grab my things, good luck in your assignment! Maybe we can get together in the future!” He smiled at her before departing, excited for what new adventures await on their first assignments. 

“Running sample RX-35,” Joshua said, typing away at the console. The results appeared on the screen. He frowned, “Are these from the 1.25 or the 3-meter batch?”

Dawa stood a short distance away, leaning forward on a sample extractor to push it deeper into the earth. Her eyes stayed focused on the data display as it ticked off the increasing depth of the mechanism. “1.25. I’m getting the first 3-meter sample right now.”

Joshua’s brown furrowed, “That doesn’t make any sense. This should be deeper into the limestone.” He took off his sun hat, wiped his hair with a rag, and placed the hat back on. “The soil regression pattern shouldn’t move like this.” He made some quick notes on the PADD and set it back on the table. He entered more calculations into the console and took a drink while they processed.

Joshua squinted his eyes, “Let’s break for lunch.”

Dawa eyed the extractor, its display still reading 2.48 meters. “Well, it’s not like this thing is going anywhere, and I could use a break.”

She left the extractor in the ground and plodded over to the table, wiping her arm across her brow as she went. “Well at this rate,” she said as she sat, pausing to take a swig from her canteen, “I might be able to skip Starfleet’s monthly vitamin D supplement. This is kind of nice, though! It reminds me of my first two years at the Academy; it definitely never got this hot or bright on Titan.”

“It makes me a bit homesick, Cynia Minor is a lot like this.” He opened up a package on the table, pulled out two sandwiches, and handed one to Dawa. “Compliments of the Caring Women’s Association of Ignaus.”

Dawa unwrapped hers and pulled it apart to eyeball its contents. “Ooh, some kind of relish? Smells like escabeche. They really do care.”

He rummaged further through the package. “It looks like weird formations in the ground, it’s not consistent with- ooh cheese!” Joshua grabbed a block of something yellow. He gave it a sniff, “I think it is, it smells like parmesan.” He set it on the table, “Anyway, it’s more mineral-based than soil. I sent the sample results to a geologist friend of mine.”

“So,” said Dawa, holding her hand up to her mouth as she tried to speak around a large bite of sandwich, “Could this be related to the Century Storm somehow?”

Joshua munched on his sandwich and gave her words some thought. “It’s possible the ion discharge seeped into the soil. It could be causing-” he excitedly picked up a PADD on the table and compared it to a console readout.

Dawa finished her bite and leaned in to get a closer look at the readout, despite having only the barest idea of what it said.

Joshua’s fingers flew across the console. “If the ionized particles from the Century Storm entered into the atmosphere, and later the soil, it could have been irradiated.” Joshua spoke quickly, “The people of the colony wouldn’t have been affected by it because they weren’t here at the time. By the time they got back, it had dispersed.” A look of fear crossed his face, “That means-” he quickly typed commands into the console. A cheerful woman was displayed on the screen.

“Ignaus Colony Administration!”

“I need to speak with Varin Ber!”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Ber is in-”

“I don’t care,” Joshua yelled at the screen. He cleared his throat and composed himself, “It’s an emergent matter.”

The woman looked taken aback, then annoyed, “One moment.”

The screen was replaced by the image of Dr. Ber. “Dr. Bryant. Annisa said this was urgent.”

“Yes, how does the colony receive water?”

“Through a series of aquifers. Why?”

“How deep are they?”

“Anywhere from 100 to 900 meters,” Varin said, his words becoming increasingly irritated.

“You need to test them for ion radiation.”

“Dr. Bryant…”

Joshua’s console beeped the results of the 3-meter excavation. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m sending you the results of our soil samples. We’ve only gone 3 meters and we’re picking up trace levels of ion radiation. It’s unclear how deep in the soil it goes. I’d like to meet with your science council to present my findings.”

“Of course. I’ll have them test the aquifers and we can convene this evening.”

“Understood. Bryant out.”

Joshua turned to Dawa. “You are a GENIUS! I’m deputizing you as a junior scientist,” He took a triangle of his sandwich and moved it across her shoulders in the traditional knight dubbing movement. “Which confers absolutely no power or authority. But I think I can get you a sticker,” he smiled.

Dawa sat up a little straighter and grinned. “Make it a scratch-n-sniff sticker. Those are the most scientific, in my professional opinion.” She went to take another bite of her sandwich, paused, sniffed it, then shrugged and took another bite. “So I guess you’re gonna need a lot more dirt for your presentation, huh?” she said around another mouthful of food.

Sonja was off duty and decided she had been slacking on her gym time. So instead of being lazy she woke up early and headed for the gym. She arrived to see the gym empty and grinned. It was always quiet when she came because most people would not wake up that early. 

She could hear the gyms music playing, as she set down her bag and prepared to start some lifting before moving onto other exercise’s. She quickly did her stretches and got to lifting some weights. 

Ryke didn’t sleep well; a combination of insomnia and previous bad life choices saw to that. He should have gone for a run, easing out the kinks of the last few day’s travel, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Running, even on a base this large, was monotonous and boring as hell. Running on a treadmill was even worse.

Instead, he opted for some bag work, his hands strapped up so that he didn’t cut them up. He had appointments this morning, and the last thing he needed was for some poor, traumatized crew member to have to sit with a counselor who looked like he’d gone ten rounds in a ring.

By the time he’d warmed up, he’d worked up a light sweat. Calling it good, he headed for the weights section only to realize he wasn’t alone anymore. A young woman was also working out.

“Good morning for it,” he nodded to her as he settled down on a bench.

Sonja looked at the newcomer. He looked like someone who had been doing this awhile and was a senior officer to her. She nodded to him “That it is, there is something about working out, especially when no one else is around. Where are my manners I am Sonja. On duty one of the patrol shift leaders for Promenade Security. Off duty the life of the party.” She laughed “I kid of course, but I have been told I am quite the happy person.” She shrugged as she lifted the weights more seeing how the newcomer was going to react to her.

“Pleasure to meet you, Sonja,” he said with a smile, altering his weights. “I’m Ryke. One of the counselor’s aboard for my sins.”

He watched her for a second as she lifted.

“You have some good form there. Is this the best time to be here to find this place empty?” he asked, settling down himself and setting his grip on the bar.

He always liked to find a regular gym-goer quickly so he could figure out the best times to workout. He didn’t like it crowded. Or rather… he didn’t like to be around a lot of people when his attention was compromised. When he worked out, he liked to relax and zone out a little. Which was impossible when all his attention was on his surroundings and people in them.

Sonja nodded “No better time to be here. It is when I try to always be here because it is quiet and I can get in and out.” She liked to work out when there wasn’t lots of people watching. 

“Awesome. And same here. I hate waiting for machines,” he admitted, running through a quick set of reps to warm up. He had a long day ahead of him and he could already feel the tension setting into his shoulders. Or at least, it felt like it. He knew it was just in his head, but… if he started his day off relaxed then at least he had an advantage. At least, that was the way he saw it.

Sonja had to admit the newcomer was someone who was here almost everyday as herself. She was surprised though during her security accesses she hadn’t come across the name before. It was curious to not see the name as she dealt with most of the base ingress. “When did you arrive Ryke? Are you finding everything easily? I know the base is quite a sight and took me weeks to navigate and I still don’t always know where I am heading.”

“Just got here yesterday.” Finishing his set, he sat up to talk a little, water bottle in hand.

“I’ve only gotten lost twice… no, three times,” he admitted with an easy smile. 

“All the corridors look the same. It’s going to take a while. But, I can get from my quarters to my office, so I’m calling that a win for the moment.”

Sonja laughed and shot a schematic to the newcomers PADD. “Here take this I labeled most of the areas to make it easier so this should help you out.” 

He blinked as he picked it up and realised what she’d sent. “Oh, you are an angel, thank you! This’ll stop me from making a prat of myself, at least with getting lost. You’ll have to let me thank you with a coffee sometime.”

Sonja nodded “If I can help others that’s my goal. I know this place is intimidating, but give it time and you will feel as home as me and the many others who got stationed here.” 

“I really do appreciate it. And I’m sure I will,” He smiled as he put the padd down and settled himself back on the bench, starting up another set of reps. He was on a light workout today, while he learned the layout of the gym, but in a few days, he’d up the weights. And start running, even though he hated it.

Sonja smiled “I don’t have any plans today so I figured the gym was a good pastime, but now you have me wanting to go grab a cup of coffee. Do you want to tag along?”

Ryke finished his set and checked the time. “I can, but I’d have to rush off before too long. Full morning of appointments this morning I’m afraid.”

Sonja nodded “We can take a rain check then! Hope to see you here more often!”

“Awesome and likewise!” He smiled as he grabbed his water bottle and slung his towel over his shoulder. “Catch you on the flipside.”

“The Ignaus Science Council now turns the floor over to Dr. Joshua Bryant. Doctor?”

Joshua cleared his throat, “Thank you, Dr. Ber. My associate, Dawa Vlček,” he said, motioning to Dawa in the seat next to him. “And I discovered some low-level ion radiation in the soil.” He pushed buttons on his console, and a three-dimensional rendering of the ground appeared in the middle of the council chambers. “As you can see, it began to show up around the 3-meter mark.” More button presses and a more precise rendering, “We took samples up to 42.5 meters. The radiation numbers increased in samples RX-36, 37, 38, and 41.”

“Perhaps the radiation is concentrated in that area,” a member of the council replied.

“That’s what I originally thought as well. However,” he pushed buttons, displaying markers on the land surrounding the colony, “we received similar results at these locations too. What did the aquifers-”

“What are your thoughts on why, Dr. Bryant?” Varin asked, cutting off Joshua.

“I believe it’s due to ion particles from the Century Storm being absorbed into the ground.” He posed his original question, “What were the results of the aquifer testing?”

A council member picked up a PADD and read from it, “Initial testing proved no radiation was detectable.”

“Apologies to the council, but that can’t be correct. The radiation wouldn’t just… stop.”

“Are you implying the science team is incompetent?!” The council member said indignantly.

Joshua ran his fingers through his hair. “No. I’m saying there’s a mistake in the results.”

“How dare you, sir!”

The chambers exploded in overlapping conversation. Varin banged a silver orb on the table three times. “There will be order!” He composed himself, “We’ve been conducting this hearing for over an hour. I think a recess is in order. We’ll adjourn in 20 minutes.”

Dawa’s movements as she left the council chambers were restrained and jerky, like a bird ready to lash out at the nearest inanimate object that offended it. “What a bunch of self-important blowhards! Heaven forbid they have to double-check their work. Ugh, they wouldn’t last five minutes in a shipyard, I can tell you that much.”

She glanced at Joshua, who was surely even more upset and frustrated than she was. “They’d definitely fall into and get macerated by the nearest machine, but it would probably spit them out pretty quickly for tasting so bitter.”

“Do you normally get this kind of pushback when you deliver bad news?”

“Depends on the person, I guess,” Joshua said, attempting to control his frustration. “I don’t think it’s simply me wanting to double-check their work. They seem pretty adamant about me not checking their work at all.” He sighed, “That doesn’t make any sense for something so crucial as a water supply. Something weird is going on here.”

He pulled up information about his talking points on his PADD and updated them. “I have an idea. Do me a favor and dig up as much information about the aquifers as you can. Or any sort of alternative water supplies in use in the colony. Nothing is too far-fetched. Unless,” he pointed his thumb towards the council chambers with a smile, “you want to be bored/angered to death.”

“You present a compelling case to get the hell out of here.” Dawa grinned. “I’ll see what I can dig up. Literally or figuratively!” With a wink and a nod, she turned on her heel and left the building, destination already in mind.

Fortunately, the colony town was still small and hard to get lost in, especially if one was going only from the civic center to the infirmary. Dawa burst through the doors and thanked the stars for a bit of luck at last when she saw that the nurse on duty was the same one who had treated her that very morning. “Hello, friend! They sure have got you working some long shifts here. Maybe you could pass the time by telling me a bit about public health and your asshole council members?”

“Dr. Bryant, what would lead you to believe something’s wrong with the aquifers?”

Joshua rubbed his eyes, “As the readings show,” he pointed to the three-dimensional rendering, “the ion signatures are present throughout the soil. If the estimates are to be believed, it’s reached the shallow aquifers. And rest assured, I won’t be the last person from the Federation that wants the information about the aquifers. But I will be the last person that asks for it.”

A collective gasp from the council members. “You dare threaten us, Doctor?!”

The chamber doors opened and Dawa entered. She walked to Joshua and handed him a PADD. “You might want to look at this,” she leaned in and whispered.

Joshua read the PADD’s contents, stopping the proceedings.

“Dr. Bryant?” Varin asked. When he received no response, “Dr. Bryant! Shall we continue?”

“I have here,” he held up the PADD, “information that confirms my original thoughts. In fact, it’s worse than that. I’ve uncovered information of instances of radiation poisoning and contaminated water throughout the colony. And,” he looked at the PADD, “old water table surveys showing trace radiation in the colony’s aquifers. Those affected have since been shut down for repairs.” He looked at the PADD, “and this is interesting. It looks like some of the water has been rerouted through the- Well that’s a fun animation,” he smiled at Dawa. “Water that has been rerouted to bypass contaminated sectors. Pretty damning stuff.”

Silence from the council members.

“But from your faces, I’m guessing you already knew that. I’m willing to hold off on any formal reporting if you-”

“What do you want, Dr. Bryant?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What is your price?”

Joshua looked confused. “You think I want a bribe? I came to this colony to help you. Your colony is three years away from starvation. In five years, everyone here will be dead. And those are the liberal estimates. I grew up in a situation like this, and I don’t want parents wondering how they’re going to feed their children. What I want to know is, how can I help?”

The display beeped confirmation, drawing Joshua’s attention. “The results of the soil deionization are,” he sighed, “negative.” He rubbed his eyes and growled in frustration. Joshua removed the sample from the analyzer and slammed it on the table. They’d been doing soil analysis for roughly a week with no results.

In the days following the council meeting, the council administration had been more receptive to Joshua and Dawa’s presence. The council admitted they knew about the contamination of the aquifers and began to strategize with Joshua on a solution.

Dawa had, for the most part, been a diligent lab assistant, but that morning they’d been doing final repairs on the Susquehanna and her presence was required for the Starfleet stamp of approval. Judging by the wide smile on her face when she walked into the lab, their work had been more than satisfactory.

That smile quickly faded, however, when she saw Joshua hunched over his lab table, looking thoroughly defeated. “Still a whole lot of nothing, huh?”

“What? Oh, hey.” Joshua said, noticing Dawa had come in. “I’m glad to report I still have a whole lot of nothing. How’re the Susquehanna repairs coming?”

“Repairs are done!” Dawa’s smile came back in full force. “I did the final inspection myself, and I gotta admit they surpassed my expectations. Real quality work! They even aligned the self-sealing stembolts just the way I like to do it. Ah, makes my heart glad.”

“At least one of us is making progress,” Joshua said with a sigh. “For the soil to absorb the nutrients, the ion radiation has to be repolarized, neutralizing it. A geologist colleague researching the Century Storm, and he gave me suggestions, but I’m still-”

“Dr. Bryant?” Said a voice near the entrance of the lab.

Joshua and Dawa turned to find a small girl, no more than 5 standing in the doorway. Joshua stood and made his way to her, “I don’t owe you money, do I?”

“Huh?” The girl looked confused.

“It was a joke,” Joshua chuckled, kneeling to her eye level. “What can I do for you?”

The girl took a deep breath, “IwantedtosaythankyouwiththiscardImade.” She said, breathing rapidly. She held a card at arm’s length as if it was a shield between the two of them.

Joshua smiled, took the card, and opened it. Inside there was a stick figure drawing of a man in a lab coat, triumphantly holding a beaker. Taped to the card was a small piece of candy. “Well thank you… Daniellea” He touched his hair, “My hair doesn’t look like that, does it?”

Daniellea shrank with giggles, “No Dr. Bryant, I’m just not very good at that.”

“Well I think it looks great, thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” She smiled and quickly left the room.

When Daniellea left, so did the smile on Joshua’s face. “They’ve been doing that all day.” He said, slumping in his chair. He pulled the candy off the card and turned over the shiny wrapper, letting it catch the light. “I think this is from Maisley’s,” Joshua said absent-mindedly. He opened a desk drawer, revealing a collection of similar handmade cards. He placed the new one with the others.

“I wish the council hadn’t put out that release about the water supply. The people handled it well, but they all look at me like I’m a savior.”

“Yikes!” Dawa wandered over to the desk, shut the drawer, and leaned against it as she regarded Joshua. “Almost enough to make you look back fondly on a few days ago  When they were calling you an incompetent liar instead. So now, instead of worrying about a famine scenario three years from now, you’ve got an impending water crisis and a colony full of people thinking you’re the one who’s gonna solve the whole puzzle. Seems like this is way more than you bargained for when you first took this assignment.”

“I started operating out of my depth when we discovered the shadow conspiracy,” he wiggled his fingers. “I’m tempted to pack things up and go home. But that will only make it harder for the next person Starfleet sends here. I just feel bad dragging you into all of this. This was probably more than you bargained for too.”

The console’s display beeped with an incoming message. Joshua acknowledged the transmission and the display were replaced by a Bajoran man in a teal uniform. “Prill! Have you found out anything?”

“I’ve been doing some dig- well hello,” he stopped when he noticed Dawa. “I didn’t realize you had company J.D. I can always send you the information instead.”

Joshua sighed, “This is my associate Dawa Vlček. Dawa, this is Turjon Prillim. Now that we’ve all been introduced, what did you find out?”

“The Century Storm was composed of tachyon radiation which agitated the nebula particles in the Paulson Nebula.”

“I thought you said you had new information.”

“I’m getting there. When the starships were charged with closing the temporal rifts, they used dekyon particles.”

“You’re suggesting I use dekyon particles to deionize the tachyon particles in the soil?”

“I’m saying it’s possible. I’ll send you the simulations I’ve run.” The display was split in half, one side Prillim and the other the simulation results. “It’s not fool-proof, but there is success in the majority of tests. I’d recommend trying it in a remote area first, in case the particles don’t react properly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Check out simulation result… 22”

Joshua pulled up the result and read them, “Whoa…”

Prillim nodded, “You definitely wouldn’t have to worry about the colony’s problems anymore,” he said with a smirk. “Anyway, good luck!” Prillim’s face was replaced by Starfleet’s logo.

Joshua sighed, “Where the hell am I going to find a device to inject dekyon particles underground?”

Dawa shook her head and stared into space, pondering. Suddenly, her face scrunched up as if she’d just smelled something rancid and she tapped her finger on her chin. “I, uh. I might have an idea.” She shot him a glance. “Follow me.”

There was no one else in the hangar where the USS Susquehanna sat in all her buffed and polished glory, for which Dawa was immensely thankful. “If I detach one of the phaser arrays and take apart the assembly, I can attach one of the assemblies to one of the sample extractors we were using before, hook that up to the warp core, and modulate the energy input to create dekyon particles instead of nadion particles. And then, you know.” She mimed pointing a phaser rifle at the ground and shooting. “Pew pew!”

Joshua thought about her idea, “That would work. And if we ran the modulation slow enough, it’d be less of a jackhammer and more of a delayed dekyon cascade. The effects wouldn’t be immediate, but it would increase dekyon particle absorption in the soil.”

Dawa nodded. “Except you’re gonna have to help me, because if I ask one of the technicians here to start taking this lovely girl apart after they spent the last several days putting her back together, they’re either gonna pop a vessel or cry crocodile tears, and I can’t handle either one of those.”

“I’d wager on the first one,” Joshua said, keeping his voice low. “Nothing says ‘I appreciate all your hard work’ like completely undoing said work. I imagine you’d piss off most of the colony’s engineers. But as long as you put it back together, no harm no foul, right? I’m not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination, but I can turn a wrench. Show me what I need to do.”

Dawa patted his shoulder. “Not here. The hangar walls are judging me already. Let’s get far away from the colony like your friend suggested and make the modifications on-site. I’ll help you load the equipment.”

Thirty minutes later they were flying low and slow through the atmosphere in the Susquehanna, banking left and right as they went to get a better look at the landscape below. “Plenty of places flat and wide enough to put the runabout down, but, uh, how far out from inhabited areas do you think we should go?”

“Ah…” Joshua looked at the Sciences station screen, “Set down about 100 kilometers out. I think Prill’s estimates were not quite as dangerous as they seemed. He didn’t account for the slow cascade we’ll be doing. Still, it pays to be cautious.” He scanned the topographical map, “Set down right here,” he pointed, “it’s a high enough concentration to determine effectiveness. But not enough to,” he mimicked an explosion with his hands.

The runabout slowed and descended in the open field. Joshua stood up and moved to the cargo space. “I’ll unload the extraction equipment and set up a perimeter outside.”

“Copy that!” Dawa landed the runabout with a gentle thump, and the second it was completely powered down she leaped out of her seat. “I’ll start taking apart one of the phaser assemblies! By the time we’re both finished, we can hook our makeshift injector up to the warp core, find religion, and start praying real hard.”

“If this works, I might take up religion. Not that I don’t trust your plan, “Joshua said with a smirk. 

He set up the table and accompanying equipment. “Let’s start small, 1 to 2 meters and work out from there.” Pressing a few buttons, a laser grid outlined the perimeter on the ground. Joshua opened up a cargo box and began assembling the sample extractor.

After several hours of assembling, disassembling, checking, double-checking and triple-checking, there was finally nothing left to do but flip the switch.

Dawa sat at her station in the runabout, eyes glued to the energy readouts from the warp core. She tapped her comm badge and spoke to Joshua, still outside. “We’re about as ready as we’re gonna get in here. You wanna come in and ‘fire the phasers’ so to speak?”

She certainly could have reached across the console and done so herself, but she knew she’d feel much more comfortable if Josh was safely ensconced in the runabout when their experiment began. ‘Though if the calculations are off, I don’t think it’ll make much difference either way.’

Joshua looked up at Dawa in the runabout window and nodded, there wasn’t any further fine-tuning to do. The moment had arrived. He walked into the runabout, closed the door, and took a seat at the tactical. “This is the second time I’ve sat at this station on this trip.” He looked down at the controls and chuckled, “Hopefully this time ends better.”

“Let’s start at .03 microns. You shouldn’t even see a blip from the core, but keep an eye on the radiation. Initiating dekyon cascade,” he pushed the button on the console. Part of the viewscreen was taken up by the radar from the surveying equipment. One advantage of using the survey extractor is the equipped radar.

Joshua’s stomach instinctively clinched as he watched the particles move down the extractor. They spread throughout the ground, no reaction. “Increase output to .07 microns,” he said, his eyes glued to the radar. “How’s the radiation?”

Once Dawa’s heart dislodged itself from her throat, she answered. “No measurable sustained change.”

“All right, once this cascade cycle disperses, hit it with a 1.2 micron pulse and roll back to .05…”

Dawa waited for the ripple of dekyon particles on the screen to cascade away until there was no trace of them left, then adjusted the energy output and nodded to Josh to “fire phasers” again.

Joshua watched as the burst of dekyon spread through the ground, his soldiers preparing to meet the enemy. The radar display wavered and blinked, causing Joshua’s breath to catch. When the display returned, he breathed, “Just a bit of radiation interference there,” he smiled. “Increase the rate to 1.2 from .05, in .01 increments a minute, then drop it to .05, and keep repeating the cycle.”

He watched with bated breath as the particles rhythmically went from a trickle to a flood. “On this next cycle, sustain 1.2 for a full minute, then drop it down to .03.” The meter jumped to 1.2 and Joshua counted the seconds. Forty-five ticked in his mind and a low rumble caused the Susquehanna to quiver, then the rumble slowly became more severe. “Back it off! Back it off!” 

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Dawa muttered, as if she could soothe the warp core like a skittish animal, lowering the energy output as quickly as she thought could without creating any feedback.

The meter jumped down, and a tremor like a tide wave ripped underneath them. “She didn’t like that,” Joshua said, keeping his voice calm while looking at the screen. “The particles have made contact with the radiation… Incoming seismic activity!” The ground rippled again in anger. “Hang on… work with me here…” Joshua said, his eyes glued to the radar.

He chuckled incredulously as the specks of tachyon blanketing the soil slowly blinked out. Joshua’s fingers flew across the sensor display that was scanning the ground. “Tachyon radiation readings in the soil,” his voice caught in his throat, “is negative. It’s gone Dawa… Every particle within a 3-meter radius. And,” he chuckled, “the dekyon is neutralizing itself. That’s a fun little surprise.”

“’Fun’, yeah! Compared to the other surprises we could have had today, I would absolutely classify that as a fun surprise.” Dawa sat back and crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes at the sensor displays as if they might suddenly reverse their readings and all that was keeping reality in check was the intensity of her gaze. After a moment, she finally relaxed and allowed a smile to creep onto her face.

Breathing a deep, cleansing breath, Joshua closed his eyes. It was finally over. After nearly two weeks of defeats and setbacks, “’Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat’.” He said, in stunned silence as the sensor information came in. “Let’s contact the Science Council.”

“The Ignaus Colony Council would like to formally recognize Dr. Joshua Bryant and Ensign Dawa Vlček for their contributions in solving the crises of both our soil and, later, our water. Their deeds will forever live in the hearts and minds of the Ignaus citizens!” Liam Cabrera, the colony administrator said, addressing the crowd.

There was a big turnout for the announcement, roughly 200 or so people. The room couldn’t hold many more citizens, many standing or looking through windows and doorways. The colony council, Joshua, and Dawa sat at a long table on a dais, facing the majority of the citizens. 

“Would you like to say a few words?” He turned away from the audience and to Dawa and Joshua, with a warning look a parent gives a child not to embarrass them in public.

Joshua cleared his throat, “Thank you, Administrator Cabrera. I know our initial arrival wasn’t seen as a positive, but I’m relieved by Dr. Ber’s and the Science Council’s assistance.” Joshua gave a quick nod to Varin and his family in the audience. “They were paramount in providing access to the information required to do our research. The long-term planning we’ve developed together will ensure prosperity for your lands.” He paused at the applause. “And if you’re thinking about making a monument, bronze compliments my features the best.” He chuckled, receiving similar laughter from the room.

“Well,” Dawa scanned the crowd, preparing to say her piece. She caught sight of some of the local engineers near the back and addressed her words to them in particular. “I just hope this makes us even for me tearing our ship apart right after you fixed her up so nicely.” 

She took their hooting and cheering as an affirmative and responded with some finger guns in their direction, before turning back to Josh. “Hey, you know, I hope someone’s been watering your plants while you’ve been gone!”

Joshua gave a short chuckle in disbelief. He leaned in close, “That’s what you’re worried about? We’re about to have our butts kissed for hours by the colony for saving their bacon. But yes,” he smiled, “I’ve made sure they’re taken care of. Most are in artificial transition environments. I’ll make sure to give them your love. Ah, thanks Administrator Cabrera,” Joshua turned and shook the other man’s hand.

Dawa elbowed his side and whispered, “Don’t forget you promised I’d get to see those plants in person! Of course I want them to be alive when we get back!”

Before he could respond, Dawa leapt from her seat and left him at the mercy of Administrator Cabrera. “Hey!” She called as she surged into the crowd. “Where’s the Caring Women’s Association of Ignaus? Your sandwiches were amazing and I need a jar of your escabeche for the road!”

A group of women in nice dresses, crimson cloaks, and wearing pins of two clasped hands looked in Dawa’s direction, “I will relay your compliments to Delouisa,” one of them spoke. “She makes the sandwich with geatrin meat, smokes it for 14 hours, and slices it thin!” Another woman said excitedly. “We’re not sure what the second item is, but if you’re referring to the sandwich sauce, we make that from the jaffra fish. We’d be happy to put some in your thank you care package.”

“Did someone say, ‘Thank you care package?’” Joshua said, appearing from the crowd with a drink in his hand. The excited woman shrank behind the other women in the group. He looked confused, “Did I say something wrong?”

One of the older women spoke, “Kheali has taken a liking to you, Dr. Bryant.”

“Oh,” Joshua said. “Oh!” he exclaimed, fully understanding. Joshua approached Kheali, “That dance looks fascinating,” he thumbed towards the dancing crowd, “would you teach me?”

“Kheali is Daniellea’s mother,” the older woman offered and pushed Kheali toward the front of the group.

“I see the resemblance,” Joshua smiled. “And tell Daniellea that I love the caramels from Maisley’s.”

Kheali smiled, “I will. And yes.”

“Oh, excellent!” Joshua said excitedly, set his drink down, and led Kheali into the dancing crowd.

Dawa chuckled as Josh led the smitten woman into the crowd, then let her gaze fall to the crowd’s feet gliding across the dance floor as she tried to figure out the steps for herself. Her thoughts were interrupted by a tap on her shoulder.

“Dawa!” She turned to see Adélard, one of the engineers who’d worked on repairing the Susquehanna. 

“Adélard!” She made a show of looking him up and down. “Not a single stain or tear on this set of clothes. You got dressed up!”

“Har har! I guess you won’t be wanting this back.” He held up a whale-shaped charm dangling from a short chain, the same one she’d placed on the runabout’s console when they’d first left the starbase over a week ago.

“Gillian!” She snatched the charm from him and turned it over in her hands, as if to convince herself it was real. “I thought I’d lost her in the crash!”

“Guess not. We found it when we were doing repairs and I guessed it might belong to you. Had a 50% chance of being right.” He shrugged. “Is it some kind of good luck charm?”

“I guess it is. ‘Any landing you can walk away from’ and all that. Thank you!”

Adélard nodded and smiled. “Does this mean I can ask you for a dance?”

Dawa returned the smile and pulled him towards the dancefloor. “Sure thing! Let’s see if my lucky charm can keep me from stepping on your feet!”

“Thank you again, on behalf of the Science Council,” Dr. Ber Varin said, shaking both Joshua and Dawa’s hands in turn.

“The Caring Women’s Association of Ignaus would like to present you with the traditional thank-you packages,” the older woman said, handing a box to Dawa. “And, yes, we put extra jaffra sauce in there for you,” she said with a knowing smile.

Kheali stepped forward and presented a similar box to Joshua. “We wish you safe travels back to your home.” No sooner did he take the box than she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek, “Come back and see me, Josh.”

Joshua smiled, “I will Ali. And if you get tired of waiting, you can come to visit me at Starbase Bravo.”

The older woman cleared her throat. Kheali smoothed her dress and took her place beside the rest of the women. They each clasped their hands together and bowed.

Dawa returned the bow ever so slightly. “Thank you for the parting gifts and the extra jaffra sauce.” She winked. “Hopefully we can pay this colony a proper visit sometime soon!”

She glanced at Josh, then climbed into the runabout, carefully stowed the precious cargo, and made herself comfortable in the pilot’s seat.

Joshua gave a quick nod to the gathered group and ducked inside the runabout. He stowed the gift box and took his seat next to Dawa. “All right, let’s go home.”

Dawa was sitting ramrod straight in her seat. Her eyes did not leave the console and the tension did not leave her muscles until the last visible wisps of the nebula left the viewscreen. Only then did she allow herself to fall back into her seat and breathe a sigh of relief. “I think that was the quietest part of our little adventure so far, and thank goodness for that.”

Without leaning forward again, she stretched out her arm, set the runabout to autopilot, and let her head loll over to face Joshua. “Well, are you going to open your care package or are you going to wait to do it in private?” she asked with a smirk.

Joshua rubbed his eyes, “Uh, yeah. It’ll be a nice break from all the reports.” He closed the current report he was writing. “That’s something they never prepare you for in school.”

Standing up, he made his way to the cabinet where the care packages were stored. “If I open mine, you’ll have to open yours,” he said, walking back to their seats with both packages. Dawa fired finger guns at him in agreement.

Joshua set his on the console he was sitting at and set Dawa’s next to hers. “It kind of feels like Christmas,” he said excitedly, taking a seat.

Dawa nodded. “Sort of, except I don’t have to fight off a dozen cousins to get my gift from under the tree. Just one angry smuggler.”

Pulling the ribbon off, he opened the package. “Let’s see…” He pulled out a small, rounded instrument made of ceramic. It had air holes like a flute, but strings running its length. “Oh, I’ve seen one of these. You blow into one end, vibrating the strings, and pluck them,” he attempted this, producing a discordant note. He winced, “It’ll take some practice, for sure.”

He set it aside and reached back into the box. He paused and broke out in laughter. He pulled out a small statuette of himself, holding a beaker to the sky, “And it’s in bronze,” he slowly turned it, letting it catch the light, “Man, it does outline my features.”

“I wonder if this means there’ll be a full-sized one in the colony next year,” said Dawa, as he passed it to her for a closer look.

“Oh, and seeds!” He read the description of the package. “‘Cerastium gypsum.’ These are hardy and quite pretty.” He gave the package a sniff, “It gives off a slight sulfur smell, interesting.”

Dawa sniffed the envelope of seeds and stuck out her tongue. “Ick. Hope the plant doesn’t smell like that.”

“And food, of course.” Joshua pulled out a couple of sandwiches and a bag of candy from Maisley’s. “Keeping people fed has to be a tenet of the Caring Women’s Association. And I’m not mad about it.” He set the sandwich next to him, “I’ll take advantage of that in a moment.”

“Last, but not least, we have-” His words came to a complete stop. He pulled out a framed picture of Kheali. He turned it around to show Dawa. It was a picture of her sitting on a rock by the water, a beach perhaps, hair blowing partially in her face.

Dawa whistled. “Girl is down bad for you.”

“Honestly, she made quite an impression on me too. I saw this on her mantle last night and commented on how beautiful her eyes looked in it. I would have settled for a holographic recreation.” Joshua paused, “They sure know how to put the ‘care’ in a care package.” He started putting the things back in the box, sans the sandwiches. “Your turn.”

“Okay!” Dawa pulled her box into her lap and removed the ribbon with the pull of a single string. “Ooo, nice. That’s like the first gift right there.”

She removed the lid and pulled out an instrument identical to the one Joshua had. “I promise not to practice while you’re finishing those reports.” She winked and set it aside.

Joshua laughed, “We can start a band now! I’ll have to figure out how to play it.”

There was food and candy as well. Dawa pulled out a large jar of pickled something-or-other. “Extra jaffra sauce, just like she said!”

Her grin didn’t budge as she pulled out the next item, a package of stationery. “Some old-fashioned postcards from my girl at the infirmary! Her bedside manners could use some work, but she is a hoot. Don’t know how we got to talking about stationary, though. Guess that’s just one of those hobbies that sneak up on you when you get into your thirties.”

“Stationary? Like… writing letters?,” Joshua said confused. “I don’t know how many postcards you can write from Starbase Bravo.” He shuffled through the cards, “They’re pretty scenes though, we have to explore that planet more.”

“We have an old-fashioned mail service attached to the cargo lanes, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get out to our colony friends. Plenty of good excuses to go back.” The grin vanished from her face as she pulled the last item from the box, replaced by one of utter surprise. It was a tool, albeit one not used in centuries. She shook it in Josh’s direction. “This is a monkey wrench!”

As soon as she could think clearly, she grasped the tag attached to the wrench and squinted at the name. “I knew it. Adélard, you son of a– He had a collection of these amazing antique tools, and–” She sputtered, gesturing at the wrench with one hand while waving it around with the other. “This thing is older than the Federation!”

“A what? Why do they call it a monkey wrench?” Joshua tried to look at it through the frantic waving. “What would it even fit?”

“They used it on pipes and such. Or beating intruders over the head; feel that heft!” She handed it to Josh.

Joshua tested its weight and was taken aback. “They certainly don’t make tools like this anymore.” He turned it and looked from all angles. “You could probably make a whole engineering kit out of this thing.”

“My uncle says it’s named after a toy kids played with way back in the 19th century called a ‘monkey on a stick’ because they move up and down in the same sort of way. He gave me one for my birthday one year–the monkey on a stick–replicated, but I loved it just the same. Pretty sure it’s still back in my old room at home.”

Dawa stared off into the middle distance for a moment, looking all the way back to Titan, before shaking the memory from her mind and focusing on Joshua again. “Old home, I guess. Because we’re going home right now. How’s it gonna feel, going from being the most famous man on the colony back to a crewman on a station of thousands?” she asked with a gentle smile.

Stowing his box, he sat in the co-pilot seat and looked at the stars, “I think I’d like to get lost amongst the crowd for a bit. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always good to bend your brain a bit. And the ego fluff was nice. But it’ll be nice to be a nobody for a while.” He smiled and turned to Dawa, “I’m not looking forward to the reports and debriefs though. What about you? What’s the next adventure?”

Dawa hummed and considered. “I think some quiet Starfighter patrols closer to the station are in my future. Ones where I’m not terribly outgunned lightyears away from any backup and with no clear visuals nor sensor tracking. That sounds like a nice reprieve right about now.” She laughed. “I’ll miss the conversation though! I guess we’ll have to make sure to catch up with each other when we’re off duty. Right?”

Joshua smiled. “Right.”

Joshua grabbed his PADD and headed out of his office. On it, he had downloaded all the information about the starship Dawa and he encountered in the nebula. There was a formal report, for sure, but it was always good to meet face-to-face for a more detailed debrief.

Stepping out of the turbolift, he made his way to the Security Office. The doors opened with a woosh and he was greeted by a receptionist in the Security office. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Yes, I’m here to meet,” Joshua checked his PADD, “Ensign Ward regarding a debrief.”

The receptionist nodded, “I’ll let him know you’re here, have a seat please.”

PADDs littered the desk despite Byron’s attempts to reintroduce some sort of order to the shared office; counteracting the disorganised workflow of his colleagues seemed to be an aspect of his Academy experience that followed him into active service.

The familiar chirp of the comm alerted him to the arrival of the next appointment on the list with the intention of continuing his battle against the disarray after lunch.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting, we’ve been busier than usual this morning.”

With an apologetic smile, Byron motioned for the taller man to enter the office first, extending every courtesy in order to make a good impression, “I don’t want to keep you longer than is necessary.”

Joshua waved away the apology. “No worries; I’ve blocked out the day for reports and debriefs. I wanted to come down and speak about the unidentified starship my associate, Ensign Dawa Vlček and I encountered in the Paulson Nebula. I filed most of the information in my report, but more of a follow-up and to any answer questions.” He looked around at the PADDs on the desk, “It won’t take long, it looks like you have a lot on your plate already.” He sat down at the chair across the desk.

“I read through your report this morning. The encounter was brought up with the department heads at their daily meeting and I was ordered to make this a priority,” Byron explained as he occupied his own seat, his demeanour relaxed as he quickly shuffled the strewn PADDS into two neat piles. “I’ve run some preliminary checks against other reports from that area, but so far, there haven’t been any secondary sightings. That being said, the nebula hampers any real chance of locating the ship without dedicated scans.”

“You’re telling me,” Joshua said with a chuckle. “We didn’t see it on sensors until we were practically on top of it. It looked like a modified Peregrine-class starfighter. It might have been an isolated situation, I know a lot of smugglers pass through the nebula. I marked it on the star maps, whatever good that did with the interference.” He frowned, “We were mostly troubled by its armament. It was carrying quantum microtorpedos, which I didn’t even knew existed. It seemed like it was built for defense, not speed. We outran it pretty quickly,” he rubbed his side, “but it left us hurting for sure.”

“Isolated or not, that ship launched an unprovoked attack on a Starfleet vessel. It seems odd that a single smuggler’s ship would risk attracting that kind of attention.” Ward mused, equally concerned about the unusual weaponry deployed. “Defense or attack,” he countered, his gaze studying the screen in front of him as he scrolled through Bryant’s report, “Why would anyone go out of their way to modify such a small ship for smuggling? You’re a science guy, is there anything out of the ordinary about that nebula?”

“My specialty is botany. I’m better with the ground than in space. Still,” Joshua thought a moment, “Dawa and I spoke about that very thing. I felt the exactly opposite was true though. I think the ship didn’t want to engage us. If we hadn’t exposed it with our sensors, it would have stayed hidden on the asteroid waiting for us to pass.” He paused, “I’m not sure why they would chose something small, perhaps for its maneuverability. Or it could have been for smaller cargo that would need to move relatively undetected.” Joshua pondered, ”To your question though, there are a lot of natural debris floating throughout the nebula. We had difficulties avoiding obstacles even before we encountered the ship. A starfighter wouldn’t be able to outrun most ships. It couldn’t keep up with us when we retreated, even in our damaged state. If it came across trouble, it would need to stand and fight. When it sufficiently crippled its opponent, it would make an easy getaway.”

“Of course,” Byron agreed somewhat apologetically and somewhat sheepishly, hoping that he hadn’t offended the other man. He probably should have familiarised himself with the two officers involved in the incident; looked at the bigger picture instead of focusing solely on the tactical implications and the objectives set by his CO. “If this was a defensive engagement, then I wouldn’t think there’s any real threat to fleet operations in that area, but, there was still no threat posed to them. I’d recommend active surveillance in the area, that should give us more of an idea of what we’re dealing with.”

“That sounds like a solid plan, and that’s why I wanted to share this information with you. I agree there doesn’t seem to be risk of retaliation on future ships. Listen, I’m heading back out to do more relief efforts at the colonies. I’ll get as many scans as I can while I’m there. And you can compare them with your surveillance notes.”

Byron offered an enthusiastic nod of his head before closing off the console and rising from his chair, “I’ll submit the recommendation that we send a science vessel to monitor the system, see if we can determine what exactly is going on out there.”

“Excellent,” Joshua said, rising from his own chair. He shook Bryon’s hand. “I hope I was able to provide something to work with. If you’ll excuse me, I have a stack of reports on my own desk.” He turned and walked out of the office.

[Nope, that’s perfect for me, thanks]

clang, clang!

Joshua grunted as he moved the weights up and down on the machine. It felt good to have all his after mission reports done so early. He brought the weights up, and felt a pop in his side. Joshua dropped his grip on the handle, bringing the weights down with a crash. People in the gym looked his direction as he gripped his side. His wind was knocked out of him and he began to breathe in gasps.

“Are you okay?” Came the concerned voice of an woman.

“I… gasp… don’t… feel…”

“Stay here, I’m going to get help,” the woman fished in her bag for her combadge. “Richter to Infirmary, there’s a medical emergency in the main gym.”

“We’re on our way!” came the response.

It had been a quiet day in the infirmary for Doctor Evan Brooks. He’d had a few appointments earlier in the day, but he’d spent most of the day catching up on his administrative duties, which included checking in on one of the smaller infirmaries located around the station.

“I’ll go,” Evan told the duty nurse as a medical technician handed him a medkit.

The jog to the main gym on the upper promenade was a short one, and he easily spotted a concerned group of people standing around his patient. “Let me through.”

Joshua felt himself being lowered to the ground as his breath came quick. It had been almost two weeks since his ribs were healed at the Ignaus Colony, There was no way… jeez, it was hard to breathe… hard to think… He resumed staring at the ceiling.

Before he knew it, a man in a teal uniform came into his vision. A couple of clicks and the beeping of a tricorder.

“What happened?” Doctor Brooks asked as he scanned Joshua with the medical tricorder.

“He was working on the machine over there, sir,” Richter pointed. “And he started holding his side and couldn’t breathe.”

“She… right…” Joshua said, his breaths coming in gasps. “Ribs… broke…” He attempted to point to his side, but it was more of an arm flop.

Doctor Brooks frowned as he studied the display on his tricorder. “Looks like your ribs were broken no more than two weeks ago,” he announced, “which means they were still healing.” Brooks shut his tricorder. 

“You have a pneumothorax.” Brooks pulled a hypospray from the medkit, pressed the nozzle against Joshua’s chest and activated it. “You rebroke your ribs, which punctured your lung,” Brooks told him. “Air was being trapped between your chest wall and lung, making it difficult to breathe. I’m using the hypospray to remove that excess air from your chest cavity.” With his free hand, he flipped his tricorder open and resumed scanning. Seconds later he pulled the hypospray away. “Breathing easier?”

Joshua let out a gasp, inhaled, and coughed. His heartbeat, which was pounding in his ears, began to slow. Joshua took some small, test breaths. “Yeah, it is.” His voice came out like a croak, “I thought they told me they were healed. Did they miss something? I know they told me to take it easy, but I’ve never been the best patient,” Joshua managed a weak smile.

“An impatient patient? I can’t imagine what one of those must be like,” Brooks joked as he continued to study the tricorder. “It looks like they did a fine job healing you, but with this type of injury we usually recommend avoiding this kind of strenuous activity for three to six weeks, the longer the better, and when you do start working out again, to start light.”

“I’ll stick to paperwork for the next few weeks, got it.” Gym goers helped Joshua into a semi-reclined position. “I did hit it pretty hard to start,” he looked at the machine. “I guess I don’t know my own strength.” Joshua’s breathing became more slow and relaxed. “Any follow-up you’d like? This whole thing has taught me the importance of heeding medical advice.”

Brooks smiled. “They say we learn our lessons the hard way.” He packed away his tricorder and retrieved the hypospray again, loading it with a sky-blue coloured vial. “You’re going to be sore for a couple of days, and I want you to take it easy so I’m placing you on restricted duty. Come by and see me in a few days so I can check that you’re healing properly.” He pressed the hypospray against Joshua’s neck. “This should help with the pain for the next few hours.”

Joshua nodded, “Restricted duty, yes sir. Good thing plants don’t tend to be physically demanding.” Richter carefully helped him to feet. “Thanks doctor,” he said, offering his hand to shake.

“You’re welcome.” Brooks replied, shaking Joshua’s hand. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

Cynndle’s Quarters – 21:45

Cynndle threw himself onto the sofa in his quarters. The last couple of shifts hadn’t been especially demanding per se but they had been long and coupled with the rather intense training programme he stupidly decided to run in the holodeck he was exhausted. After he lay there for a moment he roll over and glanced at the clock on his wall and grimaced at the time; 21:45. 

“Better get some food and cleaned up,” he grumbled to himself as he walked over to the replicator. Before he was able to take two steps the console on his desk chimed indicating an urgent coms request. Letting out a sigh he dropped into the chair, “Let’s see what this is about.”

A moment later the face of his CO appeared on the screen. “Lieutenant, sorry to bother you at this time but we have an urgent request for assistance come through from the research station on Cardai 88 inside the Paulson Nebula,” she began while Cynndle nodded along. “Their reactor has failed for unknown reasons and it has left the research station with minimal power. The failure also caused a power surge which damaged several pieces of equipment and shut down their replicators. It has taken them a couple of days to get their communications back online.”

“I assume you want me to conduct the supply and repair run?” he asked.

His CO let out a short laugh, “In short yes, you have been given command of the USS Bodkin, one of the Arrow class runabouts station here. I want you to assemble your team, ideally someone with some knowledge of slightly out-of-date reactors and depart within the next twelve hours. Repair their systems and try to determine the cause then report back.”

Cynndle perked up as she spoke, the job wasn’t overly exciting but it would be nice to get off the station for a few days especially as he hadn’t left it since he was assigned to Bravo besides the incident onboard the USS Lorenza. “Won’t be a problem, sir, I have someone in mind already.”

“Excellent, I have sent over the written orders as well, you should have them any moment. Good luck,” with that, his CO closed the channel just as his console chimed again and Cynndle saw the orders come through. 

URGENT ORDERS

Lieutenant Odin’sun, CO8928A

– Delivery of equipment to the civilian research station on Cardai 88 within Paulson Nebula

– Departure within the next 12 hours; command of USS Bodkin, Arrow Class runabout has been granted.

– Approval for recuritment of required officers and crew

– Equipment will contain; see attachment for complete inventory

• Power plant equipment
• Medical and scientific equipment
• Replicator equipment

Cynndle double-checked the orders and attachments then opened coms request, “Oin’sun to Lihran, you got a minute?”

Lihran’s Quarter’s – 22:00

Lihran was fast asleep when the coms chirped right beside him. He groaned and reached over, grabbing his combadge off his nightstand and tapped it, “Mrhph…” He cleared his throat and tried again, “Lihran here. Yeah, I suppose I do.” He yawned and sat up, rubbing his eyes. His voice had that husky hoarseness of someone who just woke up, “What can I do for you?”

Cynndle grimaced as he realized he had woken up the engineer. “Sorry, didn’t realize you were asleep.”

Lihran checked the time, emitting a small snort, “Cynny, check the time. I don’t mind. What’s up? Gotta be important I reckon.” He moved to stand up, feeling it was something he needed to attend to right away.

“I have just been ordered to resupply and provide assistance to a civilian science outpost on Cardai 88,” Cynndle said. “It is a few hours from here inside the Paulson Nebula and I will need an engineer to help get their reactor back online. I need to depart in the next twelve hours. Are you interested in joining? I have just sent you the orders and the attachments. Figured you would be able to get it up and running in no time flat.”

Lihran stepped over to the console in his room as it chirped. He plopped down into the chair and started to read as he replied to Cynndle, “I am indeed an engineer. One moment reading…” He hummed as his eyes scanned over the orders and files. He nodded, then remembered Cyn can’t see it, “Yeah, that sounds good. Count me in. Twelve hours you say?” He debated sneaking in a short nap.

“Great, meet at 07:00 in hanger bay 5? I want to double-check the equipment before we go to make sure everything is accounted for. That should give enough time for a quick sleep and time to review reports on the planet and such before 07:00.” Cynndle said over the coms as he glanced at the time.

Lihran checked the time currently as he spoke, “Alright I’ll see you there. Lihran out.” He closed the comm line and went to catch a few more hours of sleep before meeting with Cynndle.

Hanger Bay 5 – 06:50 (the following day)

Cynndle arrived at hanger bay 5 a few minutes earlier than intended but he figured he mine as well get a start on things. After his call with Lihran, he spent the next two hours reviewing reports that Star Fleet had on the planet and the surrounding space. Beyond the increased general turmoil within the nebula, nothing jumped out as a possible threat but he knew that pirates and such should not be discounted. Stepping into the hanger bay he stopped for a moment and took in the sleek shape of the USS Bodkin, an apt name he thought for an Arrow class runabout. Walking up to the ship he used his clearance code to access the ship and step inside. It had been a couple of years since he had been on one of these ships but the layout was familiar and he made his way to the cargo bay and began to cross-check the items there with the manifest.

Lihran stepped into the hangar bay, eyeing up the runabout. He pulled the antigrav sled with him towards the little ship. He lowered it to the ground and picked up the crate of engineering tools he brought along as if it weighed nothing. He didn’t need the antigrav sled, but he also didn’t want to alarm other humanoids by lifting something far heavier than humans could carry. He stepped on board and made his way to the cargo bay, setting the crate down with a heavy thud, “There you are…” He smiled and looked over towards Cynndle, “All good to go on my end.”

Cynndle glanced over at Lihran and the large crate he had just carried in and smiled, “Ah, I see you brought everything, including the kitchen sink then?”

Lihran grinned, “Of course, can’t go without my snack supply, you know. I gotta keep up this physique somehow.”

Cynndle let out a chuckle and looked around the packed cargo hold, “Up for some routine cross-checking? I have gone through about a quarter of the materials so far and everything is as it should be but want to make sure it’s all here.” Without waiting for a response Cynndle tossed a second PADD to Lihran with a quick, “Catch.”

Lihran deftly caught the PADD and nodded, entering his credentials and unlocked it. He started to walk around, scanning crates of supplies and checking them with the lists on the PADDs. He absently asked something that has been bugging him for a while, “I’ve been denying promotions the last little while out of fear I may become corrupt and terrible…” He let silence fall for a moment, “You don’t think I am terrible, do you?”

Cynndle glanced back at him and failed at suppressing a surprised laugh, “Really?” Setting down the PADD he turned to face Lihran, leaning back on one of the large crates. “Honestly?”

Lihran nodded, “Yes, seriously and honestly.”

“You should not be an ensign, given your experience, even outside Star Fleet I would think you should be significantly higher. Your experience and knowledge are being wasted.” Cynndle paused for a moment before continuing, “Not wasted but mismanaged I would say.” Cocking his head to the side he thought about what to say next, “If we were having a drink I would have to make a joke about you being a terrible person, blah blah blah,” he said with a wave of his hand, “But in short, no I do not think you are terrible or corrupt. You have taken risks throughout your life; made decisions to get to this point showing you are not. I know it is cliche but worrying about that shows you are not. I would not be afraid or worried; you should take the promotions when offered.”

Cynndle began to reach for his PADD before pausing, “Besides, I will knock some sense into you if I think you have taken a turn to the dark side.”

A small smile crossed Lihran’s lips as he listened to Cynndle talk, “Thank you, that means a lot to me, actually. And reassures me more than you know. I think I will accept the promotion after all.” He chuckled softly, “The dark side has cookies, hard to resist.” He recalled that really old Earth joke from.. somewhere.

“Good, I am glad to hear that,” Cynndle said as he bent down to examine the crate nearest him. “Hmm, well this wasn’t on the list,” he said as he stepped back and flipped open the lid of the crate revealing a row of the newest phase compression rifles. “Think we need to speak to my CO about this, what do you think?”

Lihran walked over and both brows shot over, “Uh, yeah, I think we should. What the hell is that about? That’s a concerning amount of weapons, new tech too.”

A few minutes later they found themselves in the cockpit of the runabout as Cynndle activated the communication channel and the face of his CO appeared, “Lieutenant Odin’sun, what are you ready to depart?”

“Not quite yet. Ma’am,” he said, “We have found a discrepancy in the manifest and what is on board. There are several boxes from the station’s armoury with phaser rifles. Given that the rest of the items are repair and scientific related I wanted to check in regarding this.” 

She frowned slightly, “I know the crate you are referring to, it was a mistake that they were left off the manifest. They should be there. Given the insecurity in the region, we wanted to ensure the station had them on hand.”

Cynndle glanced over at Lihran and nodded, “Very well, I will amend the manifest and attach a log of this for the records. We should be ready to depart shortly.”

His CO nodded slightly, “If you must.” Before he could respond the line was cut.

“That was odd,” Cynndle said looking over at Lihran.

Lihran furrowed his brow, “Odd and highly suspicious if you ask me. My paranoid Romulan senses are going crazy at the moment.”

Cynndle exhaled and clicked his tongue a couple of times after he updated and sent the manifest. “Well it is recorded now,” he began to say when he was alerted to a message from his CO confirming the message. “Looks like she has confirmed it, could have just been an oversight as she said. Either way, we need to get these supplies out there but let’s keep an eye on things.”

A few minutes later, after clearance from flight operations was obtained, the large bay doors before the USS Bodkin slid open and the sleek runabout shot forth into the void. As the ship navigated around the heavy traffic surrounding the large guardian station a small courier vessel noted its departure before the Bodkin’s nacelles flared to life and the ship vanished in a flash.

The night was calm, serene and cool as the trees of the lush forest sang subtle base to the soothing chorus of the insects of the night, chirping away like a movement of violinists to the conductor’s guide.

There was a thin mist hanging just above the canopy, catching the pale magenta glow of a titanic gas giant and ring system that dominated the night sky.

Apart from the thin mist, there were no other visible signs of moisture except for the intermittent discharge of vapour from K’vagh’s breath as he lay prone in the foliage, Stalking his prey.

The Klingon reflected on the culture of his kin and considered that whilst sticking to the shade and shadowing his quarry could on initial assessment appear cowardly and unbecoming of a warrior’s honour, it was senseless to throw one’s self into battle without an effective plan.

His guille and patience are what made him such a formidable Klingon Warrior and allowed him time to assess his enemy, analyse weaknesses and defenses to ensure that the inevitable battle would be a glorious one worthy of song for generations to come. This however was not a philosophy shared by his present company.

“My blade thirsts for blood. Why do we delay? Let us quench that thirst and have our fill of glory this night brother!”

A voice spoke from the Kingon’s left.

“We will advance when I decide the time is right Gow’Rok, not before!” K’vagh silenced his complaint.

Gow’Rok rolled his eyes. “They are only a unit of 20, they are wounded and weakened from the crash…” he protested, “we shall slaughter them easily if we move now but the longer we delay the more likely it is that a rescue ship will arrive in orb–”

SHKINT!

Abruptly the Klingon subordinate was silenced by the pressure of an incredibly sharp blade against his throat. Before he could utter another breath, he was staring into the eyes of K’vagh who had drawn his Mek’leth in challenge to his battle-brother’s insolence. This was just a warning, and a promise to follow through if he spoke out of turn again.

“Before what brother?” K’vagh tilted his blade forcing his brother to look away, “Would you truly have glory this night if you turned and ran from such a fight?” K’vagh began his inquest.

“How dare you speak of honour, when you would have us hide here in the dirt like cowards.” Gow’Rok clenched his jaw and growled through his teeth, “We are Klingon! I do not wish to die with my face in the ground!”

K’vagh chuckled. “And yet you are content to die with your back turned towards the enemy, like an Orion slave girl…” he increased the pressure on his blade, “assuming… Her… station.” 

“Perhaps I should kill you for such an insult, and take all the glory for myself” Gow’rok retorted.

There was a momentary standoff as K’vagh began to feel a slow push of a d’k tahg blade into the side of his abdomen, it did not yet pierce the skin but it was sufficient to call a ceasefire between the two warriors.

“Then see for yourself the reason we lie in wait, look five hundred meters, three two zero degrees ” K’vagh enlightens his companion. 

Gow’Rok hesitated for a moment until K’vagh retracted his blade and then he raised his scope to his eye and sighted it on the encampment in the valley below. “I see only a pile of broken panels and fried circuitry”

“Look closer!” 

Below what appeared to be the pile of wreckage, one officer appeared to be accessing a visual communications device.  The apparatus was hastily constructed and from damaged components, its range would be severely limited meaning that their rescuers must be close by.

Gow’Rok dropped his scope and rapidly drew his side-arm, “I told you, the rescue party is imminent. The time to attack is now!”

K’vagh once again restrained his brother and attempted to make him see sense. “They have been communicating for the past hour! THINK Gow’Rok! Their rescue ship isn’t on the way…. it is already here!”

A sudden epiphany overcame Gow’Rok. “And they are waiting for us to attack again so they can capture us too.”

“I sincerely doubt the Tal-Shiar will be content to take prisoners when they are on our side of the border…Illegally” K’vagh turned and looked his companion in the eyes. Both men then shared a look with each other, as Gow’Rok finally began to understand the situation as K’vagh saw it. There was now no doubt in his mind that this was a clever trap by the ‘Pointed-ears and if K’vagh’s theory was correct then there was likely a cloaked Warbird in orbit or hovering nearby, waiting to vaporise any ground assault that approached so there could be no witnesses and no evidence.  

It was understandable that Gow’Rok would yearn for his first blood, he was but a youngling on his first hunt, and K’vagh was his mentor. The pair had been on the hunt for nearly a week since the Romulan ship had crashed, tracking the remainder of its crew that had so foolishly wandered into the Klingon borders with hopes of developing their intelligence picture. 

It had only been 6 months since Romulus was obliterated and while the remnants of the once mighty Romulan Star Empire were reduced to a nomadic diaspora, the Tal-Shiar had become far more dangerous and ruthless in their operation; without a central government to provide organisation and directive. They had become a radicalised splinter group whose focus turned to an agenda of expansion, conquest, and control inside the power vacuum following the disaster.

Of course, it was a Klingon vessel that shot down the Romulan scout, but K’vagh knew that such a short-range vessel was unlikely to be alone; this was something that his experience as a warrior taught him. Experience his companion sadly did not possess.

“What a cowardly way to dispatch one’s enemy!” Gow’rok exclaimed with disgust.

“You assume a Romulan can act with honour…you still have much to learn.” K’vagh quipped.

Gow’Rok pondered for a moment and then came up with his own suggestion, “Perhaps we should call for our own reinforcements?”

K’vagh turned to his companion and introduced a communication device from his pouch, upon its screen it displayed that a message had been dispatched several hours ago, “Why do you think we have been waiting?”

***

Several hours passed as the Klingons continued to observe the Tal-Shiar encampment. The night grew colder as the slow rotation of the moon they were operating on presented them with an almost eternal night. A full day lasted 96 hours 17 minutes to be exact, but this meant that temperatures plummeted to near freezing overnight. The only source of heat the pair had was a small pile of rocks that K’vagh had heated with his disruptor; but only gently so as to not give away their position.

‘BLEEP BLEEP… BLEEP BLEEP’

K’vagh retrieved his communication device from its pouch. “An encoded message. That’s the signal, we attack!” K’vagh exclaimed, now visibly excited.

“Today Is a good day to die!” Gow’rok joined his mentor in standing and locking arms in a personal salute as the battle he had longed for was about to begin.

Both Klingons began the charge down the valley slope as they both drew their weapons, K’vagh with a Disruptor pistol and his trusty Mek’leth and Gow’rok with a full-sized Bat’leth. They moved swiftly down the valley, the breeze of their motion whipping through their long rough locks as they began an aggressive battle cry. The distance was closing, K’vagh began to see the clearing ahead and the silhouettes of the pointed ears as the forest canopy receded overhead.

The night sky began to shimmer and a stationary Valdore-Type Warbird began fading into existence overhead, the Tal-Shiar were unimpressed by their approaching attackers and almost began to relax knowing that the vessel that hovered above them would quickly dispatch their foe; bringing an end to this game of cat and mouse. 

There was a flicker of green light casting shadows across trees and the meadow floor. This aura of light was acknowledged by the Tal-Shiar to be their Warbird launching a volley toward the advancing attackers, yet they were so consumed with arrogance and assumed victory that they failed to notice additional colours that did not belong; Red and Bright Orange. The Klingons still advanced, with negative impact from the Valdore’s weapons as yet.

The Romulans grew confused, ‘Only two of them?’ one Sub-commander thought to herself. ‘Any moment now, they’ll be dust’ another imagined. Moments became seconds and seconds grew longer as the flood of bright orange light flickered and intensified. It was at this moment several of the Romulans who became impatient in anticipation of green disruptor blasts, began to turn their heads away from the advancing warriors and gaze upon the horror behind them.

A swarm of Klingon ships circling and de-cloaking on attack runs; bombarding the Romulan Warbird with cannon fire and Photon Torpedoes before she could even raise her shields after de-cloaking herself. Almost immediately the shock wave from the detonating ordinance and sonic booms of torpedoes flying overhead reached the Romulan platoon knocking them off balance; stunning their senses whilst the pressure wave aerosolised whatever dry dust and organic debris littered the valley floor, reducing visibility just enough that the Romulans could barely see their ship begin to disintegrate in the sky above.

One final shockwave as the Romulan ship finally succumb to her critical damage, lost power, and came crashing down about a mile or so away from the platoon and warriors in the meadow. The Romulans were confused, disorientated, and had no idea where to look as the last thing many of them saw was the swift swing of a blade cut through the dust cloud and plant itself in a part of their anatomy. 

One by one they fell, blindly firing in all directions, hoping to wound or kill their attackers. Their efforts were futile, within minutes the battle was over, the dust settled and the burning wreckage of the Romulan Warbird cast a bright orange glow against plumes of smoke on the horizon.

K’vagh surveyed his kills, his Talley climbing ever higher until his eyes fixed on one corpse with thick tangled hair and bony ridges instead of pointed ears. K’vagh dropped his weapon and scrambled to his brother’s side only to arrive moments too late to witness Gow’Rok’s fleeting final breath. By his brother’s side; the broken blade of a Bat’leth, the edges of the shards were still glowing red hot having been shattered by a direct hit from a Romulan disruptor. K’vagh checked his companion’s wounds and it appeared the blast sent fragments of shrapnel into his brother’s chest and throat. It was at this moment K’vagh felt his brother’s purple blood begin to soak into his knees as he knelt at the side of the now exsanguinated Klingon Warrior.

There were no words to speak, K’vagh gripped his brother’s face and stared directly into the vacant expression on his lifeless face, took a deep breath, and screamed with all his strength and might at the sky; A warning to Sto-Vo-Kor ‘Beware, a Klingon Warrior is about to arrive’

With a last effort of his strength, K’vagh retrieved the shards of his warrior brother’s blade and clambered to his feet leaving his friend behind as he made his way away from the encampment and into the night.

The doors to the lab opened, presenting the busy hub of fellow scientists. Joshua made his way to his station and noticed a small box sitting on top of a PADD. Setting the box on the table, he picked up the PADD.

“A messenger dropped that off the other day,” came the voice of Hifer Xott. “I think it’s a promotion,” the Bolian man said.

“That’s what it says here,” Joshua said absentmindedly while reading the PADD. “’ For meritorious service in the Paulson Nebula’s Ignaus Colony and successfully solving their famine crisis, we award you with the promotion to… Petty Officer First Class?!’ Wow.” He set the PADD down and open the box to reveal new pips. He replaced the ones on his uniform with the ones in the box. He set the box and PADD aside.

He glanced over to the enviro-capsule lying on the workstation. “I should probably get that repaired.” It was doubtful he’d need it any time soon, but it would be nice to remove the worry. Joshua grabbed some tools from the cabinet and took apart the main housing. He wrinkled his nose at the sight of a tube grub burnt on the wiring. “It looks like they got in through the intake venting.” He scraped it off with the tool he was using. Pressing the wiring to the power generator resulted in a crackle and pop of energy. Joshua cursed, shook his hand, and sucked on his thumb. “At this rate, I’m not going to have any fingers left.” He took a step back and looked at the wiring. It was quickly apparent this was beyond his skill set. He tapped his comm badge, “Bryant to Engineering,” A repair like this might be below their paygrade, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. 

It was an uncharacteristically slow day in engineering, believe it or not. Ethan sat at his console monitoring the air density of the cargo bay as it depressurized and re-pressurized, making sure the system was operating within normal parameters so as not to interfere with normal operations. Pretty much the most boring job you can imagine, because even if the system wasn’t operating correctly, an alarm would sound before crew members were allowed back into the bay. 

He knew there were going to be days like this working on a station versus onboard a starship, every once in a while you eventually get dealt a slow day in Starfleet. Just when he thought he might fall asleep at his station, Ethan noticed an unanswered communication come in from one of the science labs sitting in the queue. His imagination immediately went to work: maybe it was a huge catastrophe that would keep him occupied for days? Well, at least one could hope. 

Jumping at the opportunity to be anywhere else, he pressed a few commands and responded, “This is Ensign Hale in Engineering, go ahead.”

Joshua looked over the enviro-capsule, “I have a device that needs to be repaired. It’s not Starfleet issue, but a personal one. I’m not sure about the regulations with that. I can bring it by Engineering if you want to take a look at it.”

“Sure thing, happy to help! I’m in the engineering office on deck 223, bring it up here and I’ll have a look for you.” Ethan replied, tapping his comm badge and closing the channel. There probably was some kind of regulation in place about repairs on personal devices, but he felt like it was best to wait until he saw what it was before making any decisions. Besides, if he turned him down, what else would he do for the rest of his shift?

Scooping up the enviro-capsule, Joshua headed out of the lab. “Deck 223,” he said as he stepped into the turbolift. Stepping out, he entered the Engineering Office. “Excuse me, I spoke to an Ensign Hale about fixing a device of mine. Do you know where I can find him?” He said, walking up to the receptionist’s desk.

“Mr. Bryant, I presume?” He got up from the desk and extended his arm to shake hands, “Ensign Ethan Hale, nice to meet you.”

Shifting the capsule in his arms, he shook the proffered hand.

Ethan took a step back and examined the capsule under Bryant’s arm, “Well, what do we have here?” He motioned to Bryant with his arms as if asking to give the capsule to him, “May I?”

Joshua set the enviro-capsule on the table. “By all means,” he said with a gesture. “I was using it to transport a fragile plant, an Aurous carnivorous, to the base. It needs a high humid env- You know what? I’ll let you work.” Joshua took a step back, “I gave fixing it a go, but I’m sure I made it worse.”

Ethan smiled slightly as he moved towards the capsule and began examining it, “Ahh nonsense, my motto is once it’s broken, it’s impossible for it to get any worse until it’s fixed.” He pressed a few commands on the casing, opened the access port near the top of the capsule, and took a look inside, his eyes widening slightly and his smile slowly returning, “Hmm, I take that back. You may have made this worse, and that’s saying something because I’ve never seen what it looked like before.” 

He laughed as he grabbed a hyperspanner from the nearby workbench, then took a seat in front of the capsule, “Not to worry, I’ll have these circuits re-linked in no time.” As he started to work, Ethan decided to try and keep the conversation going, “So, plants, huh? What kind of plant were you transporting again?”

“An Aurous carnivorous. It’s a clipping from my father’s original plant,” Joshua looked at the ground. “It, like him, died years ago.” He smiled and looked up, “I think that’s what I like about plants. They can be clipped and transplanted and recreate a dead plant. So, in a way, the plant lives on. It’s a lot like children if you think about it.” He paused and watched Ethan work, “It’s certainly not the most valuable plant in my collection, but it has the most sentimental value.” Joshua pointed to the capsule. “I found some tube grubs in the wiring. It was something I used to keep the plant alive until I got into my lab.” 

Ethan smiled, “That’s an interesting take, I never thought of plants like that before, but it makes perfect sense in a way.” He continued to move the hyperspanner around the open circuit board as he spoke, “I’ve never been good with plants, they usually die if I just look in their general direction, so I try to stay away from them as much as possible.” He laughed a bit before going on, “Bring me any piece of equipment and chances are, I can fix it. Charge me with keeping a plant alive, I’ll fail every time.”

“It takes finesse; it’s an art as much as a science,” Joshua replied. “I think raising children would be easier,” he chuckled. “I had a friend who had a brown thumb too. I think there might be something hardy enough. ” Joshua thought a moment, “Ah yes, the Zamioculcas zamiifolia is pretty study. They aren’t the prettiest, but are difficult to kill.” He considered getting one for Ethan. “But I get having a straightforward problem to tackle. I’m not the best with equipment, clearly.” Joshua motioned to the mangled capsule. “So what about you? What do you do when you’re not repairing non-Starfleet equipment on company time?”

Ethan laughed as Joshua made the recommendation for the Zamioculcas zamiifolia, and then endorsed it, “Sounds like a good place to start, can work my way up to the prettier and more difficult ones later on.” He smiled a bit as he continued working on the capsule and listened to Joshua ask his next question, “Nothing too out of the ordinary, love to go on the occasional holodeck adventures and getting together with friends, you know, the mainstream stuff. I also got into Vulcan martial arts with a Vulcan friend of mine at the academy, I find it to be really… logical.” He smiled before returning his attention to the capsule.

“Are you referring to Suus Mahna? I’ve always found that interesting to watch. It’s less reactive than most martial arts. But it takes a lot to learn how to read opponents. I’m not sure I could mentally juggle that many balls in the air.”

“I’m surprised you’ve heard of it, actually,” Ethan remarked, his right eyebrow raising slightly, “It’s not something most people try to learn. I had the opportunity to visit my friend at the academy during one of his sparing matches and have been intrigued with it ever since. I practice a few times a week in the holodeck to keep myself sharp; I’ve been meaning to talk with some of the Vulcans on the station to see if any of them practice it either, always better to have a real-life partner to practice with.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Joshua said with a chuckle. “I’ve never tried to learn it. I’ve watched a few demonstrations at festivals and in school, but never looked too deeply into it.”

Ethan put the hyperspanner down on the table and closed the capsule up, then pressed the controls on the outside, watching the unit activate and come to life, “All fixed, good as new.” He smiled, patting the top of the capsule as he looked toward Joshua. 

Joshua whistled, “Wow, I’m impressed! I thought for sure I’d broken it beyond repair.” He lifted the capsule and gave it a once-over. “You even got rid of the burn smudges from overheating the control unit.” Joshua stood up, picked up the capsule, and put it under his arm. He shook Ethan’s hand, “Thanks for your help, I hope I can return the favor someday.”

“Anytime, glad I was able to help!” Ethan said with a grin, shaking Joshua’s hand. “Set me up with that unkillable plant and we’ll call it even.”

It was another normal day scanning the Paulson Nebula for Sky Athenos and the unfortunate Ensign assigned to his shuttlecraft.

“Time to start scan 29465-whatever of the Paulson Nebula, grid 14, section 8.” Sky liked messing with the Ensigns from the science department, it was one of the few entertaining things about these hours-long flights where nothing of note ever happens.

“Lieutenant! I’m not sure you should be whatever-ing the reports on the scans!”

This Ensign, however, had been particularly fun to mess with, Sky hadn’t even put the whatever in the actual report, something he had done on occasion, and the kid was freaking out.

“Easy Ensign, this is a routine scan of a spot that’s been scanned for years, the only real difference is the residue from the storm.” That and the turbulence that made flying the nebula challenging, but Sky wasn’t going to tell him that.  There’d been too many an Ensign that panicked their way through the entire 4 hours despite not feeling even the slightest bump outside of the landing.  There’d even been one Ensign that tried to take over piloting to get through the nebula safely, now that had been a bumpy ride.“Ensign, it’s not like we’re going to run into anything out here.  Now relax, this is the easiest, most boring duty you could have possibly pulled on Starbase Bravo.”

“But Lieutenant, there is something out there”

Sky sat up, this hadn’t happened in a while.  “What are we looking at, pirates?”

“Unless these pirates are running around in a federation shuttle, I don’t think so.”

“A Federation shuttle? We’re the only ones scheduled to be out here today, the next flight isn’t until the Fissure flies Grid 14 Section 10 at 1000 tomorrow. Best to contact the base, see if anyone else is out here.”

Sky moved across the shuttle bridge to the comms panel. “Starbase Bravo, this is Tremor, come in”

“Tremor this is Starbase Bravo”

“Starbase Bravo, we have a shuttle out here with a Federation signature, it’s reading as the Richter”

“Tremor, we don’t have a shuttle Richter currently in service in the area.”

“ok Bravo, we’re going to investigate”

“understood Tremor, good luck”

Moving away from the comm panel, Sky headed to the back of the shuttle, the Ensign following behind as they both started preparing for beamout to the other shuttle, phasers and combadges ready.

Upon arrival, Sky was relieved to see the dark interior of a standard Federation shuttle.  Things could have been a lot worse on this end, but it appeared the shuttle was abandoned.  Moving to the Richter’s ops panel, he booted up the system and ran a diagnostic.  

“Shields are half-gone, Engines blown, Life support fully operational, weapons gone, comms offline, survival packs gone, Power down to fifteen percent.” Sky went through the checklist, noting that the shuttle was equipped for a crew of three.

“Let’s check the logs” the Ensign said, making his presence known.

“Gonna be honest kidddo, forgot you were there.” Sky didn’t feel bad about that, most Ensigns were rather forgettable, in fact.  The only reason Sky wasn’t forgettable as an Ensign was his insanely bad luck when shuttling important people around. It was an easy mistake to head to port B-12 on Jupiter Station, when Admiral Shelby was supposed to go to Port B-12 on the USS Melbourne in Spacedock.  It’s not like she said anything when they headed in the wrong direction!

“Well sir, the logs here state that the shuttle was on a routine scanning mission in Grid 2 Section 5 a year ago.”

“So right when the storm hit, then?” Sky was impressed, he hadn’t been here for the storm, but he’d heard of the ferocity that swept through the system. “To think this little shuttle survived all that.”

“Well, with the way the Richter is now, we’d better get it back to the Starbase.  Shuttle command is going to love us”

“Why sir?” The Ensign looked confused.  Sky sighed, very few people seem to get when he’s sarcastic.

“Because now they get more of that paperwork they keep getting on my case about!”

Getting the Richter under the tractor beam, and synchronizing the shields so the shuttles don’t bounce each other into oblivion took the better part of an hour, during which time, Sky noted a particularly nasty scorch mark on the nose of the Richter that went right over the communications array.

After another 2 hours of slow going, they finally got both shuttles back to Starbase Bravo’s shuttle maintenance bay, where the Shuttle Command crew had some good news for the two officers.

“Starbase Bravo, this is Tremor and Richter, coming in for a landing”

“you’re clear to land at Shuttlepad 13 and 14, Tremor. Also, we found the original crew of the Richter, Commander Faraday, Lieutenant Garand, and Lieutenant D’Tan were rescued mid storm by the USS Brisbane from a particularly well protected Asteroid in the nebula, but their shuttle was presumed destroyed.”

“Well, glad to hear they’re ok. Proceeding with the landing”

A month later, the Richter was returned to service after extensive repairs, though Shuttle Maintenance couldn’t seem to fully remove the scarring over the comms array, leading to the shuttle being renamed the Aftershock.

Sky personally thought nobody said Engineers have to be good a naming things.

“You’ve mentioned the USS Erigone several times in our sessions, Ensign.”

Matthew Phillips sat across from the counselor, his hands clasped together on his lap.  He’d been on Bravo since July last year, and fitting in was challenging.  Given the station’s size, he’d continued to get a handle on his job responsibilities, expansive as they were.  And yet, the Erigone remained a part of his memory and struggle.   The injuries he had experienced and the immediate desire to leave had started to bother him a few months into his assignment.  Had he made the right decision?  Had he fled when he should have fought?  “I..it was my first assignment.  It was pretty intense from start to finish.”

The counselor read through the notes again, “You had a console explode in your face, Mr. Phillips.  Your injuries were significant and required additional procedures after the fact.”  She let the silence fill as she waited for him to respond.

“Yes.  It was…intense.”

She tried another tact, “Ensign, you’ve spoken today about learning that your former commanding officer, Ambrose Harris, was killed in the line of duty.”  She waited a moment before asking, “You wouldn’t have mentioned it if you didn’t want to discuss it.  Considering he was your CO on the Erigone….?”

Matthew’s usual straight and broad shoulders slowly collapsed inwardly, “He…was a good commander.  I liked the Erigone under his command and the crew I served with.”

Her eyebrows raised ever so slightly, “But…?”

Phillips tried to find the right words but failed.  He fidgeted with his hands for a moment before he tried to answer. “I wasn’t ready for the intensity.  It was as if everything was happening everywhere at once – and I couldn’t keep up.  It felt like my attention was all over the place.  I couldn’t do my job because everything was happening.”

She accepted that answer, “Have you tried to reach out to your old crew?” A quiet shake of the head was his answer. She pressed, “Why?”

“Prentice…we got along but only so far.  And Doctor Reid…she’s resigned and left Starfleet.  We never got enough time to…grow together, if that makes sense.  Such a small ship – we were always doing something.  I wonder if it would have been different if I had followed them to the Edinburgh.”

She made a note, “Do you regret that decision?”

“I do.”  He had played the game out in his head plenty of times.  Had he stayed – what would he have learned, what relationships would he have grown into, and what experiences would he have had in the blackness of space?  “But regret isn’t something I can hang onto, counselor.  I’ve been working on moving past it…to call this place my home now.”

“I’m glad to hear that, ensign.  You’ve come a long way.”  She keyed in her final thoughts on the PADD, “I have some homework for you…I’d like you to put together some notes on what home means to you, ensign.  Come back to our next session so we can explore that concept.”

They both stood, and he shook her hand, feeling the warmth.  As he walked through the door and back into the station’s large corridors, he wondered – was this going to be his home?