Tensions among the bridge crew had risen significantly in the last few hours, in everyone except the Captain. His peculiar orders centered around the mysterious device transported to the cargo bay had not sat well with many, but all remained perplexed at the sudden shift between the Andorian’s personalities. Noli shared their concerns and had spent the next few hours doing as much research as she could on their new commander but truth be told, his service record was exactly as she had first found it to be – entirely unremarkable. Just a normal guy who had worked himself up the ladder, receiving his first command relatively late compared to most these days. He’d been transferred to the Fourth Fleet some time ago and had served on the Adriatic before that. He hadn’t done anything particularly noteworthy in his career and nothing that really seemed to justify his new position as commander of a ship such as Columbia. Even with recent events, Columbia was still a ship of prestige, of history, so what exactly had brought this man to her hallowed halls?

With no sign of the Captain returning from the ready room anytime soon, the Commander had decided to take her investigation to a new level and had left the bridge under the command of Flyboy while she paid a visit to one of her most trusted crewmembers on the ship.

“You can’t be serious…”

Standing with her hands on the back of the chair at the head of the observation lounge table. She watched her Orion friend pace the length of the aft bulkhead, directly in front of the windows.

“You’re asking me to snoop on our commanding officer,” Vashara shook her head as she folded her arms across her chest while continuing to pace.

“All I’m asking you to do is see what you can find out about him,” Noli shook her head, trying her best to put her friend at ease. “There is something about him that is not right. How does a man who last commanded a first-generation Excelsior-class starship get put in charge of one of Starfleet’s finest vessels?”

Stopping behind her own chair to the left of the Captain’s seat, the Orion shook her head again. “That’s not reason for me to go snooping into his background!” She looked almost angry at the suggestion that she should get involved in such a task, but then she realised something. “You think he has intelligence links, don’t you?”

“Something is in that cargo bay, and either he knows what it is, or he expected to find something out here,” the Bajoran nodded in agreement. “Either way, he knows more than he has let on, and now he won’t let us even investigate. We’re a glorified courier service!”

Dropping her hands to her waist, Vash’s head drooped. “I’ll do it,” she eventually agreed, “but if we find something…”

Noli threw her hands up and paused her friend. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it to myself.”

Vash smiled and nodded slowly, knowing that her friend would do as she promised, but that didn’t stop her from hoping that her colleague was wrong.

Emerging from the turbo lift on deck fourteen, the ship’s executive officer was somewhat taken aback by the dimly lit corridor that greeted her and the lack of personnel on one of the ship’s key decks. A deck usually abuzz with science activity had seemingly been shut down. As she slowly wandered the corridor, she was perplexed by the usual sea of blue that had been replaced by a smattering of yellow dotted seemingly at random along the walkway. But, as she was beginning to realise with this new captain of theirs, what seemed to be random occurrences to outsiders such as herself was anything but to him. In the last twenty-six hours, Thalek th’Zorati continued to demonstrate the fact that he knew far more about the situation they were in than he was prepared to admit to his crew. That didn’t sit well with the XO, hence her calm resolve as she approached the cargo bay she had been summoned to. She was prepared for the inevitable confrontation; a clash of wills as she prepared to stand up for the crew and their right to know what was going on and what he was involving them in. Yes, she’d probably been influenced by those final days on the Lakota, where she’d felt let down by her then Captain, and she wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

It was only once she got close enough to the cargo bay that she noticed something disturbing about the guards either side of the door; hand phasers plastered to their hips, easily accessible should they be needed. But who were they protecting the contents of the bay from? And why? What the hell was in there?

Still, she couldn’t let them know she had an issue with their orders, so she continued the long march down the hall, a procession of confidence, but what met her worried her even more. Instead of stepping right through the open doorway and being presented with the Captain, the two guards (one Trill and one Vulcan) stepped across the doorway and silently barred the entrance.

“Are you joking?” Noli glared at the Trill. “I’m the executive officer of this ship and you will let me through,” she instructed him.

“Your argument is illogical Commander,” the giant Vulcan remarked, glaring down his stubborn, pointy nose at the diminutive Bajoran. “The Captain has decreed that no one shall enter without him,” he added.

Noli’s expression must have changed sufficiently to concern the Trill who started sweating. “Who do you think asked me here?!” She queried, her eyes trained on the Vulcan tower of manhood.

Vulcan Bouncer was just about to warn the XO a second time when the doors suddenly parted and revealed the Andorian standing in the entrance.

“You better come in,” he told the XO, waving her inside and shooting an approving look at his guards.

A smug grin and a look that insinuated she would remember their faces and make them pay somewhere down the line later, the XO crossed the threshold and entered the bay, entirely unprepared for what she was presented with.