The door slid open, admitting Commander Temoris to Kormoran’s small cargo bay.  Usually filled with provisions and other supplies that the bird of prey might need during a patrol, some of those crates had been moved into the corridor outside to make way for the ship’s more recently-acquired cargo.  The new crates – the very same ones that the ground team had recovered from the surface of the planet she now orbited – sat in the middle of the compartment, safely ensconced in a security field and with a clear walk path around them.  Armed uhlans stood nearby, keeping guard over the crates, while Lieutenant Akashi and his team, newly returned from the surface, paced around them with tricorders in hand, taking scans.

The guards’ heads turned, almost in unison, towards the source of the approaching bootsteps; seeing their commander, they stood to attention.  “Report,” Temoris bade, her eyes focused on the three consulting science officers.

Akashi turned around, leaving Lieutenants (JG) Mryala and Vela to finish their scans.  “Commander!” he said with a bow.  “As far as we can tell, the cases pose no danger to the ship or crew.  We’ve detected no known form of radiation, no exotic particles, no energy signatures… There is some organic material, but it reads as various fibers of fabrics.  The transporters’ biofilters should have removed any micro-organisms from the planet that might have been hazardous; I’ve asked Centurion Derxis to run a diagnostic on them, but the results haven’t come in yet.”

Temoris nodded, producing her communicator.  “Temoris to Derxis,” she said into the device.

A moment later, the voice of the ship’s engineering officer emanated from the speaker.  “Yes, Commander?”

“What are the results of the transporter biofilter diagnostic?”

There was a pause before Derxis responded, the centurion likely checking either a console or with one of her subordinates.  “The biofilters are functioning properly, Commander,” she replied.  “No hazardous materials were detected in the transport.”

“Understood.  Temoris out.”  She closed the channel, then turned to Akashi.  “Lower the security field, then open them.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Akashi replied.

He crossed to a nearby wall-mounted console; within a few moments, the security field’s emitters cycled off, the energy barrier dropping to allow anyone access to the crates themselves.  “Okay, let’s start with…” Akashi trailed off in thought for a moment, then pointed at one of the crates, “that one,” he said.

Mryala and Vela took up positions on either side of the crate as Akashi opened his tricorder once more, taking one final scan.  Satisfied, he nodded, and his two subordinates carefully unlatched the container, then lifted the lid away and set it down.  Nothing blew up or jumped out at them – always a good sign – so after a moment the three science officers, joined by Temoris herself, moved closer, looking over the edge of the crate to view its contents.

Lying in the container, cushioned by padding once frozen solid and only recently thawed and protected by a sterile field emitter carefully placed on it that had long ago run out of power, was a series of three small statues.  Well, the pieces of three small statues, at least; while their packaging had protected them against the absolute worst of the transport’s crash, they had still been damaged when its stern tumbled down the ravine, but at least all of the major fragments were present.  It was impossible to say who these people were just from looking at the pieces, beyond that they were likely Romulans, but Akashi was able to confirm via quantum dating that they were old.  “Re-seal this crate,” Temoris said after a moment, “and check the others.”

Over the next perhaps thirty minutes, the science team worked methodically, opening crates and creating rough catalogues of their contents before re-sealing them.  A shorter, roughly cuboid crate contained several tube-packed tapestries.  A long, thin crate revealed articles of old clothing – including what appeared to be a piece of Reman make – each individually contained before being sealed in as a group.  A smaller crate contained several pieces of jewelry, remarkably intact.  Each crate they opened – they did not open all of them – held pieces of the past, preserved now as much by fate as by the efforts of likely now-dead curators.

As the last crate was re-sealed, Temoris stood silently, deep in her own thoughts.  She shook herself from her reverie, then turned to Akashi.  “Well done, Lieutenant,” she said.  “Prepare your report for transmission to both Starbase 86 and Republic Naval Command.”

“You’ll have it within the hour, Commander,” Akashi replied with another bow, trying – and partially failing – to hide his own excitement, which was mirrored much less subtly on the faces of his two junior lieutenants.

Temoris nodded, then turned and left the cargo bay.  Behind her, Akashi and his team began packing up their tools, before reactivating the security field – not to prevent contamination, but to protect the precious contents of the crates – and leaving the bay themselves.  As promised, within the hour Akashi’s report was ready to file; Centurion Keval packaged it with Kormoran’s logs from the deployment, Subcommander Sovikruk’s after-action report, and Temoris’s own summary, then sent it off to both the starbase and the Republic.  In short order, the bird of prey was receiving answers, from both bodies; appreciation and commendation, along with orders to report to the colony world of Tychala Secundus, several light-years rimward of Psi Velorum, there to offload her precious cargo.

Hearing her orders, Temoris – by now back in the control room – nodded, settling back in her chair.  “Send acknowledgement,” she bade Centurion Keval, before shifting her attention towards Sub-Centurion Vesan.  “Set course for Tychala, maximum warp.”

As Keval relayed Kormoran’s acknowledgement of her orders, Vesan brought the ship’s bow around, smoothly breaking orbit and accelerating to full impulse on an outbound vector.  Once clear of the planet’s gravity well, her nacelles flared with green light as the bird of prey – visibly this time, as she was heading back, winner of the race for the missing treasure – went to warp, streaking away from the system.

Around three days later, Kormoran was closing in on the Tychala system, with arrival estimated in a few hours, when another ship appeared on her long-range sensors.  It was clearly a large ship, or at least significantly bigger than the bird of prey, and on an intercept course.  Temoris felt her pulse quicken, and was about to order Sovikruk to cloak the ship when an alert sounded from Keval’s station.  “Incoming hail, commander,” they said.  “Approaching vessel identifies as RRW Relvana, a Dinaes-class warbird.”

“On the main viewer,” Temoris replied.

The viewscreen shifted from the lengthened streaks of starlight that heralded a vessel at warp, to show the interior of a control room rather more spacious than Kormoran’s own similar compartment.  The camera focused on a Romulan man wearing a Republic Navy commander’s uniform, who seemed relaxed; perhaps that was the confidence that came with commanding a proper warbird – even a comparatively modest one like a Dinaes – or perhaps it was due to an assurance that no danger lurked nearby, it was hard to tell.  “Kormoran, I am Commander Keletar of the Relvana.  Commander Temoris, we have been sent to escort you to Tychala Secundus.  We will be forming on your starboard wing in approximately three minutes.”

Temoris frowned.  “I was not told to expect an escort,” she said, caution clear in her tone.

As she spoke, Temoris glanced towards Keval, who nodded silently; they had quietly cross-checked the Relvana’s identity, as well as that of Commander Keletar, and both were confirmed.  The other commander was on the level.  “Naval Command considers your cargo to be of import to the Republic, Commander,” Keletar replied.  “This is not a question of your loyalty to the Republic, or of your ability; consider our presence to be a safeguard against external interference with your mission.”

Temoris nodded.  “Very well,” she said, relaxing; having a warbird alongside would certainly drive off virtually anyone who might try to attack Kormoran on the last leg of her trip.  “We are grateful for your company, and your protection.”

Keletar nodded, then the channel closed.  As promised, within the next two or three minutes the predatory, aggressive form of the Relvana – looking in some ways almost as a more compact form of the storied d’Deridex-class warbirds of the 24th century – swung in alongside Kormoran, taking a flanking and escort position off the smaller bird of prey’s starboard wing.  Together, the two ships carried on, Kormoran reducing speed slightly as she was faster than her escort.

A few hours later, twin flashes of green light on the outskirts of the Tychala system resolved themselves into the two-ship formation as Kormoran and Relvana dropped to impulse, banking deeper into the system.  Traffic control on Tychala Secundus had given them priority clearance to approach, which graduated to a full halt on local orbital traffic until after the two warships settled in over the planet.  In short order, representatives from the local branch of the Office of Culture had reached out with instructions for beaming down the crated antiquities, a team of conservationists standing eagerly by to begin caring for their new charges.  And of course, the Office representatives were most anxious to discuss the circumstances of the recovery with Kormoran’s crew.

The next five days passed in an absolute blur of activity.  Commander Temoris and Subcommander Sovikruk had insisted on being present for the preliminary examinations, and Lieutenant Akashi had requested that he and his team join as well, a request which was readily granted.  That process alone took a full day, as each individual artifact was carefully unpacked and inspected at high detail, before being sent for conservation work.  The Starfleet officers seemed quite excited and kept edging closer to the action before being politely returned to the observation area, to the point that Temoris had overheard one technician suggest to a colleague that they be given mild sedatives to keep them out of the way.  Temoris and Sovikruk, though, were more sanguine; they were there to give their reports, and observed the inspections out of a degree of idle curiosity more than anything else.

The reports, then, took another full day, as it was not only the Office of Culture that wanted to conduct interviews, but also the Republic Navy.  Naturally, they did not schedule their interviewers to be in the same room at the same time, and so everyone summoned – Temoris, Sovikruk, Akashi and his team, and the surviving members of Kormoran’s ground team – found themselves in the unenviable and quite frankly annoying position of having to tell the same story twice.  By the end of the process, and thoroughly annoyed by the bureaucracy of it all, Temoris cracked open a bottle of ale after she returned to her quarters for the night, her frustrations subsumed by the cobalt liquid.

Truthfully, neither Kormoran nor her crew were needed for any of the next three days, but Temoris insisted on staying on anyway, providing additional protection to the colony in case some of the pirates’ friends – or whoever the other bird of prey had worked for – came to try and steal the Republic’s prize.  Fortunately, the days were quiet, as the academics argued on the planet’s surface about where various pieces would go.  Near the end of the fifth day, word finally came: decisions had been made.

While the pieces in question were decidedly fascinating, the simple truth was that they did not uncover any new insights, whether new artistic periods, construction methods, materials, or artisans of ages past.  They were pieces of Romulan and Reman history, yes, but pieces of known history; no paradigms were altered, and no new chapters needed to be written.  As such, they would – in the coming months, though a date had not been set – be exhibited as a contiguous collection on a brief touring engagement, before being divided according to their nature among various more focused institutions for long-term display.  The bird of prey and her crew, though, would not fade into obscurity in their tale, for each data display would include a line that read: “Recovered by the crew of RRW Kormoran”, with the stardate of the recovery.  Her mission now completed, on the morning of her sixth day at Tychala Secundus Kormoran broke orbit, her course now for Starbase 86; once clear of the planet’s gravity well, the bird of prey went to warp, leaving the limelight and returning to the quiet diligence of duty.