Trellik, the foremost engineer in his field, stood next to the large metal drafting table of his penthouse suite apartment preparing for the day’s work. Although he was not thrilled about the applications of his theories, it rewarded him handsomely allowing him to indulge in a rather lavish lifestyle. Ready to take on the challenges that awaited him at his office that morning, he placed a series of blueprints into his briefcase before taking a seat to put on his shoes.

He fastened the laces of his last shoe and proceeded into the dining area, at which point a young girl of no more than five years age came running toward him and grabbed hold of his leg “Daddy, daddy! Must you go?” she cried.

He hated to see his daughter like that, but he had some very important business to attend to that day. Meetings that would change the very future of his people. He bent down to get closer to her level and gave her a big hug. “Yes sweetie. Daddy has to go to work but I will see you tomorrow though.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Now go and get ready for school.” he said as he released her and sent her on her way, gently patted her behind

Trellik stood up and looked up at his wife who was now entering the dining area carrying a small container for him. He was a stubborn man. If it was not for his wife preparing a meal for him every day that he worked, he would go hungry. The man was a work-a-holic and often didn’t stop what he was doing to look after the things that mattered, like himself.

Taking the dish he said to his wife “Melora dear, I will be late coming home tonight. I need to finish my proposal for the First Minister and the General. Please don’t wait for me.”

“Again?” She pleaded, “This is the third night this week.”

“I know, but the General has insisted to the First Minister that I would have these designs completed for tomorrow. I can’t let him down.”

“She misses you.”

“I know. Why don’t we go up to the lake this weekend? Just the three of us. No distractions.”

“That would be lovely.”

Trellik kissed his wife and then headed out the door. It would take him about an hour to get to work.

***

Upon arriving at work, the General was waiting for him outside his office. General Chen was a large man, both in height and in weight. It was obvious that a sedentary life behind a desk was not kind to the man. “Trellik!” he said, waving.

“Good morning General. A pleasure as always.” he replied. That wasn’t necessarily true, but he merely wanted to be polite.

“Are we ready for the meeting with the First Minister?”

“Yes we are. I just want to run one more launch test of this new design to make sure the targeting array is configured properly. Would you care to join me?”

The general nodded and the two proceeded into Trellik’s office. Inside there was a drafting table similar to the one he had at home, a large workstation with several displays and a large transparent board displaying a diagram of one of the weapon designs he had been working on. Trellik walked over and sat down at the workstation and loaded up the status display for prototype zero-eight-six. He keyed in a few additional sequences and looked up at the General who had moved in behind next to him. “As you can see General, all systems appear to be operating according to specifications. Setting coordinates for Subspace Munitions Range Four-Three-Four and ready to launch on your order.”

Satisfied that everything checked out, the general acknowledged that he could fire the weapon when ready.

Trellik finalized the launch sequence and confirmed the command to fire. “The weapon should reach the range in about 6 hours. I’ll make the presentation of the design to the First Minister shortly and then you can present the follow up data later this afternoon.”

“Excellent.” said the general, giving Trellik a congratulatory handshake before heading out of his office.

Trellik continued to stare at the monitors watching the readouts as the weapon left the orbital station and went into subspace.

***

Treylana stepped off the turbolift ready to begin the day shift knowing that today was the day they would reach their destination and the real mission would begin. She circled round to the command chairs as the remainder of Alpha shift had also arrived on the bridge, to relieve the Younger Bolian who had been covering the night watch. “Anything to report?”

“Sickbay reports two crewmen reported cases of nausea but are otherwise okay and Engineering is running a diagnostic on the sensor array. They should be complete in the next fifteen minutes. Estimated time of arrival at our destination is thirty minutes.”

“Very well. You are relieved.”

Treylana sat herself down in the command chair and pulled up her status display to look over the reports for the previous day. Particularly she wanted to review her first officer’s report as it would summarize all other reports. She had noticed a disciplinary action on one of her ensigns. Third late arrival to shift in one week and failure to submit a duty report. She looked at the comments and was instantly reminded of her younger days as an Ensign which made her smile.

Commander Nichols arrived and sat down next to her catching the smile out of the corner of his eye “Something funny Captain?”

“Your report on ensign Truman. It reminded me of my days on the Triphane. I think her commanding officer might have been a little hard on her, but we’ll see. I’d like you to keep an eye on her. If her name comes up again in the reports, have her come see me and I will have a talk with her.”

“Aye Captain. If you insist.” he replied.