Commander’s Log Supplemental.

We are returning to Starbase 86 in the runabout Apollo after failing in our secondary mission. I’ve already filed the reports with Starfleet, but should commit it to my log while the memory is fresh in my mind.

It was my fourth mission through the corridor through underspace and the second on the runabout Apollo. It was also my third consecutive mission in charge while Captain Cruz is recovering from her injuries. I was tasked with leading a small team to study just what the Cardassians were up to with their platforms. In recent weeks it’s seemed as if they’ve been hard at work doing something, though we did not know what.

I took a mostly different team than I did to Paris X, where we’d found the lost ship. With Lieutenant Murf being the only officer who repeated. Lieutenant Eishita Das was brought from Science to study what data we could get from scanning the platform and the Cardassians working on it.

Within about a day Das was able to determine that they were aiming to close the corridor through underspace, and likely all the newly opened gateways. After informing Starfleet we were given supplemental instructions to stop them, which came back so fast that I believe Starfleet already knew what they were up to and just wanted confirmation.

Given that they, the Cardassians, had a Galor-class warship and we were in a runabout there was not much we could do. It was LIeutenant Commander Jake Dornall who argued for inaction, and he’s not one to avoid conflict with the Cardassians seeing how he’d lost his father to them during the Dominion War. He pointed out that our best plan we managed to come up with would see us all killed and likely only delay the Cardassians for a day. Thus we returned to the Cardassian neutral zone to contact Starfleet and ask either for more resources or a better plan.

During this brief time the Cardassians acted and closed the fissure. Das’ reading found no evidence of a way to open it again, and thus defeated in the mission we began our journey back to Starbase 86.

I don’t want to speculate on that this means either for myself or the Federation as a whole. Obviously underspace presented a great opportunity for exploration and in a way was diverting the Klingons from all out war with the Romulans thanks to much more territory to conquer elsewhere. Yes I can’t help and be grateful, after traveling through underspace eight times now, I think it’s dangerous. We’re explorers sure, but there’s a certain accomplishment in doing it to the old fashioned way, Flying out and seeing what’s off the map.

The USS Luna should be fixed soon. Lieutenant Commander James Young, our Chief Engineer, and the team at Starbase 86 are hard at work on it. Once it’s able to fly again, and our crew is back from whatever leave they’ve taken, we’ll resume that journey venturing into the unknown. The way we’ve always done it, one foot in front of the other.

Damn the dragons, full speed ahead.