Lieutenant Commander Varyn K’lev, captain of the Culver City, entered Cargo Bay 1 to find the cavernous compartment a flurry of activity; members of both the ship’s company and loading crews from Starbase 86 were busy loading and stowing the last of the ship’s cargo for her newest assignment.  Crate after crate of components were being brought in, catalogued, taken to their assigned places, stacked, and tied down, all according to the plans drawn up by the ship’s new Operations Officer (previously its quartermaster), Lieutenant (jg) Ri Mali Sa No Tiza.  It was the lieutenant that K’lev now sought.  He found him standing before the bay’s pedestal-mounted computer terminal, very much evoking the image of a conductor directing an orchestra as he oversaw the final loading procedures; Cargo Bay 1 was the last bay slated to be loaded before Culver City was to get underway.

K’lev walked up to join Tiza at the console, clapping him on the shoulder.  “Tiza!  How goes it?”

The Xahean Ops officer jumped slightly, so engrossed was he in the action before him that he didn’t hear his commanding officer approach; he recovered quickly, though.  “Oh!  Sorry, sir, didn’t see you there.  Um, it’s going well!”  He showed K’lev the display on the monitor.  “We should have bay 1 loaded within the hour; the others are all set, stowed, and ready to go.  I guess they’re really anxious to get us underway,” he finished with a chuckle.

K’lev joined him in the chuckle.  “Yeah, I got that impression, too.  And I’m not gonna lie, I’m right there with them.”

“Well, we’ll try not to keep you waiting too long,” Tiza said brightly.  “I’ll let you know once the last of the cargo’s loaded and stowed.”

K’lev nodded.  “Thanks!”  With that, he turned to leave, though stopped halfway to the door and turned back.  “By the way, any luck with those extra probes?”

Tiza checked the display quickly.  “Let’s see….  yup, there they are!  Cargo Bay 3; we’ve got a dozen extras there.”

“Great!  I’ll tell Ophelia; I think she’s anxious to do a little exploring, after all we’ve been through these last months.”  K’lev chuckled.  “Thanks again, Tiza!  See you on the bridge.”  With that, he left the room.

A ride on the turbolift deposited K’lev onto the bridge; stepping out of the car, he made his way to his command chair, but did not sit yet.  Instead, he patted the back of the chair with one hand, then turned to face Lieutenant Ophelia Lotharys at the Science station.  “Got some good news for you; Tiza says that we’ve got a full dozen spare probes in cargo bay 3, so we should be able to do a little exploring on our way out from Framheim Station.”

Lotharys beamed.  “That’s great!”

K’lev smiled.  “Couldn’t agree more.”  He patted the chair’s headrest once.  “Well, Tiza also says that the last of the cargo should be loaded and stowed within the hour, so let’s go ahead and start pre-launch checks; that way we’ll be ready to fly by the time loading’s done.”

The next hour passed smoothly.  Pre-launch checks found no issues with Culver City’s systems; everything, from the warp drive to the ship’s lights and sonic showers, was ready.  Near the end of the hour, Tiza entered the bridge, nodding to K’lev as he made his way to the Ops station.  “Bays’re fully stowed, and the station personnel have all left,” he said as he took his seat.

K’lev nodded, clapping his hands and rubbing them together.  “Then let’s not keep the Expanse waiting!”  He took his seat.  “Tiza, the dockmaster, please.”

After a moment, Tiza confirmed that the channel was open.  “Dock control, this is Culver City,” K’lev said.  “Requesting clearance to depart, outbound for the Shackleton Expanse.”

“You’re clear to depart, Culver City.  Be aware, there is increased traffic in close proximity of the station,” came the reply.

“Don’t worry, control, I promise we won’t warp right out of the bay,” K’lev said with a chuckle.  “Culver City, departing from this mark.”

“Your departure is logged.  Safe journey.”  The channel closed.

K’lev turned to face forward.  “Confirm all airlocks and loading doors are closed, then detach umbilicals and gantries.”

Tiza tapped a few controls on his console.  “All hatches sealed.  Umbilicals and gantries detached,” he said.

K’lev now addressed Lieutenant (junior grade) Ari Phillips at the helm.  “Thrusters to station keeping, then let’s clear all moorings.”

Phillips nodded, their fingers dancing across the helm console.  “Thrusters set, docking clamps released.  We’re floating free.”

“Thrusters ahead slow, Ari; take us out.”

Culver City’s thrusters fired, and the California-class vessel began to edge forward out of her berth and towards the massive, open space doors.  She had to stop for a few moments near the doors, to wait for a pair of freighters that were making their way slowly by; once they had passed, she resumed her own way, drifting out of the station.  “We’ve cleared the doors,” Phillips said.

K’lev nodded.  “One-quarter impulse until we’ve cleared the inner marker, then full impulse to the outer marker before we go to warp.”

Phillips nodded.  Culver City gracefully began to accelerate away from the starbase, her impulse engines glowing red.  As the minutes ticked by and she approached the station’s outer markers, K’lev couldn’t help but feel his pulse quicken in excitement; here they were, about to fly off to a far-flung, little-explored region of the galaxy, with all manner of mysteries just waiting to be discovered.  Some, perhaps, were scientific; others, technical, and still others beyond ethical or philosophical.  The truth is, he didn’t know, and for the engineer-turned-captain who always liked to tinker, there were few things more exciting than a problem to solve or a mystery to unravel.  This was why he’d joined Starfleet; why they all had, really.

Soon – though oddly both sooner and later than he had expected, as much as that made no sense – Culver City had reached the outer markers of Starbase 86.  On her bridge, the crew waited with bated breath; K’lev did not keep them waiting for long.  He leaned back, almost reclining in his chair – these last few months, he had finally come to feel comfortable in the center seat, rather than intimidated by it.  “Ari, set course for the Vadia system.  Warp 8.”

Phillips pressed a few controls, then looked up, leaning forward slightly.  “Plotted and laid in, sir,” they said, their voice excited.

A half-smile spread across the right side of K’lev’s face, causing the skin around the outer plating of his cranio-ocular prosthetic to wrinkle.  “Let’s roll,” he said; with the pressing of a single control on Phillips’ console, Culver City‘s nacelles flared with light as she leapt off.

A few days later, after an uneventful transit, Culver City dropped out of warp on the outskirts of the Vadia system.  As she began moving towards the transwarp conduit, K’lev looked around his bridge crew.  “Okay, everyone, we’re about to be passing through a transwarp conduit, so let’s do one final, final check to make sure we’ve got no surprises.  Ari?”

Phillips looked back over their shoulder.  “All good here!” they said.

“Ophelia?”

Lotharys double-checked her console.  “Ready on my end,” she replied.

“Tiza?”

“Everything looks good to me!” he answered eagerly.

“Tyrisa?”

sh’Livo nodded.  “Weapons and shields are good to go.  And hopefully we won’t need them,” she added.

K’lev now opened an intercom channel from his chair’s armrest console.  “Bridge to engineering and sickbay.  Pelix, any issues down there before we go into the conduit?”

“If there were, I’d’ve told you by now,” came the gruff reply, bringing a chuckle from K’lev.

“I’ve no doubt you would,” he answered.  “Hilava, Teles?  All good on your end?”

“Sickbay’s nice and quiet,” Hilava answered.  “And I haven’t had anyone coming to me out of the normal,” Ghimir added.

K’lev nodded.  “Sounds like we’re good to go, then!” he said, closing the intercom channel.

In short order, the transwarp conduit entered the ship’s visual range, along with the Borg vessel that had been protecting it for around a year at this point.  Looking at the massive craft, K’lev felt a momentary flutter in his chest, and his hand unconsciously touched his prosthetic.  He shook it off, though, then looked to Tiza.  “See if you can get them on audio,” he said, nodding towards the hulking vessel.

Tiza nodded.  “One moment,” he said, working his console.  After just a few seconds, he looked back up towards K’lev.  “You’re on, sir.”

K’lev straightened instinctively.  “This is Commander Varyn K’lev of the Culver City, calling the Borg Cooperative vessel.  We’re just passing through on our way to the Expanse, and wanted to thank you for keeping an eye on things on this end of the conduit.”

After a moment, a voice emerged from the speakers, sounding both living and synthesized, but lacking both the many-as-one-ness of communications from the old Borg Collective and their threatening tone.  “Culver City.  Your kindness is appreciated.  Safe journeys.”

“And to you as well,” K’lev answered.  “Culver City out.”

Relaxing once more, he set his mismatched gaze on the viewscreen and the conduit growing ever-larger in it.  “Well, I’d say its time to see what’s on the other side of that thing,” he said.  “Ari, take us in.”

Culver City arced gracefully – or as gracefully as a California-class ship could – towards the conduit’s aperture, crossing its horizon and disappearing inside.

Several thousand light-years away, Culver City emerged from the other end of the transwarp conduit.  “We’ve arrived in the Shackleton Expanse,” Phillips announced, rather unnecessarily.

K’lev nodded, turning to Lotharys at Science; she seemed t0 be almost giddy with excitement.  “Who said we had to start surveying with unscanned areas?  Extra eyes and all that,” he said with a grin.

She didn’t need telling twice, immediately beginning a survey of the area, using the ship’s sensors; the region around Framheim Station had already been surveyed by other ships, so probes weren’t needed here.  Meanwhile, K’lev looked to Tiza next.  “Go ahead and hail Framheim; let’s see if they have anything for us.”

It only took a couple of seconds before someone from Framheim’s traffic control center answered.  “Framheim Station, this is Culver City.  We’re on our way to the Duwalla system; is there anything we need to know, or anything else we need to pick up, before we get underway?”

“No new news at present, but we do have some additional power relays that need to be delivered, along with three extra subspace relay buoys,” came the reply.

K’lev nodded, calling up Tiza’s loading plan on his armrest console.  “We should have enough space for the power relays in cargo bay 2, but I’m not sure there’s enough for three buoys as well.”  As he said that, he looked to Tiza, who shook his head.  “My operations officer agrees.  We could put the buoys in shuttlebay 3, though.”

“As long as they get out there, Culver City, that’s what matters.”

K’lev sent a quick text message to Tiza’s console: have a team report to shuttlebay 3 and prep it for the buoys.  As Tiza nodded and typed up a message to the cargo bay management team to relay their orders, K’lev addressed the controller once more.  “Don’t worry, we’ll take them,” he said.  “Do you need us to dock to transfer the buoys, or can they be transferred either via transporter or Work Bee?”

“Transporters will suffice.  Proceed to Holding 7 and await cargo transfer.”  A marker was sent over, and Phillips nodded when they saw it.

“On our way,” K’lev told the controller.

“Thank you, Culver City.  Framheim out.”  The channel closed.

Culver City edged forward to the marked waypoint – Holding 7, a non-docking orbital holding point for cargo loading – then shifted to station-keeping relative the starbase.  Within around 15 minutes of her arrival at Holding 7, the relays and buoys had been transferred and were being stowed.  K’lev motioned for Tiza to reopen the comms channel.  “Framheim control, we can confirm the cargo’s aboard.  Request clearance to break orbit and clear the area?”

“You are clear to break orbit,” the voice from the station’s traffic control center replied.  “Safe travels, Culver City.”

“Thank you, Framheim.  Culver City out.”  With a hand gesture, K’lev signaled Tiza to close the channel, then turned to Phillips.  “Take us out of orbit, on course for the Duwalla system.  Warp 8 once we clear the outer markers.”

Culver City arced away from Framheim Station, settling onto her newest heading.  She proceeded at impulse power until she had passed the station’s outer markers, then Phillips took the ship to warp.

The trip from Framheim Station to the Duwalla system wasn’t entirely quiet, but in this case that was a good thing.  Lotharys had picked up a comet, as well as a small stellar nursery, and K’lev had decided that they could spare a few hours at each phenomenon to survey it.  The comet was fairly unremarkable scientifically, though it was quite a beautiful sight; the stellar nursery, though, was the more interesting of the two.  There, Culver City lingered for a bit – not months, but perhaps an hour or two longer than they should have with the arrival window they had to keep – and launched four probes to take deeper readings.

The data was not particularly paradigm-altering, but it still proved interesting; Lotharys thought she detected traces of a curious gaseous anomaly deep in the nursery, but unfortunately the ship couldn’t spare the time to actually fly into the nursery and poke its metaphorical nose around a bit, so Lotharys had to live with flagging the nursery for a proper research team to be sent out in a runabout or surveyor later.  Eventually, though, time ran short – the survey of the comet was fairly quick, so they’d had a little extra time with the nursery, but even then they ran right up to the limit – and K’lev had to pull the ship back onto course.  She resumed her flight to the Duwalla system, arriving just over a day later.