Vondem Thorn

Archanis Sector

“Well?”

“Well what?”

Sidda turned to face her nominal executive officer in the gloom of the bridge and glared heavily at the man. She would have said something more but instead of being treated to him giving her some disrespectful look, he was actually doing his job and studying his displays.

“Well, what am I looking at?” she said slowly, refining her initial inquiry to try and coax more information out of the human, Gaeda. He was average height for a human on slightly on the dark tone, though in the gloom it was hard to place exactly, especially with his fast cast in red from his console.

“The blasted remains of the SS Penzance. No survivors on sensors. Poor bastards never even got a distress call off.” With that Gaeda tapped on his console and pointed to the main view screen for Sidda to look at.

Before she could even turn her head, she heard the whistle of her helmswoman. She fully echoed the woman’s sentiment when she saw the damage for herself. The ship’s comm array had been blown clear to pieces. They hadn’t heard a message, neither likely had Starfleet with damage like that. Theirs was a happenstance discover.

“Likely crew?”

“Twenty at most. Penzance was a Merrick Shipbuilding T-20 class long range freighter. Built in the Sol system.”

Sidda shifted slightly in her chair as she considered her course of action here. She had a multitude of decisions before her, a few of them simply right out for how morally bankrupt they were, even to her. Her contemplation however was broken when a gentle touch of fingers on her bare left shoulder stole her attention. She could count each finger as it lighted upon her shoulder.

Revin, her Romulan lover stood, eyes fixated on the viewscreen. “Sidda love, wouldn’t you like to at least be found?” Revin asked, her voice lyrical and utterly entrapping, at least to Sidda’s ear. The woman could read her a menu at one of the damnable Ferengi chain bars that kept popping up and she’d listen with baited breath. Her touch, could steal her attention. And those eyes…

It didn’t do for a ship’s captain to be distracted.

Shaking her head, she brushed Revin’s hand from her shoulder rather harshly and collected her thoughts again.

“Orin, take two others and go over there. If you find any bodies, leave tags on them so Starfleet can find them easily when they show up. Search the ship stem to stern and see if anything valuable was left behind, doubly so for anything we might be able to use on the Thorn.”

The large Orion male at the tactical console nodded his head in one single swift action, spun on his heel and marched out of the bridge.

“Trid, I want you alert you hear me?” she then turned on the Bajoran woman at the helm. “We’re close to the Klingon border after all, could be a cloaked ship hanging around. We’ll need fancy flying until we can get Orin and his crew back aboard.”

“Aye ma’am,” Trid responded in a precise way that Sidda knew, just knew, meant that Trid had been through Starfleet Academy.

She had never asked the Bajoran her background, but over six months had heard enough to know she’d left the Fleet due to some disagreement somewhere along the lines. But she’d never directly asked if she’d been Starfleet. Just assumed. A loyalty test perhaps in the coming weeks would be in order.

“Gaeda, decloak the ship when Orin is ready to beam over. You have the bridge. I’ll be in my quarters.” Standing, Sidda stretched slightly, reaching for the low ceiling and then quickly took Revin’s hand in her own and dragged the woman off the bridge.

Someone needed to be reminded of the rule about their presence on her bridge.

A few moments later the space around the broken form of the SS Penzance waved as the Vondem Thorn decloaked. The older Klingon B’Rel class bird of prey no longer sported her KDF green paint job, but was now painted a shade that Sidda had been reassured was called Paisley Purple.

She hung in the inky blackness was three figures materialised in the bridge of the Penzance, able to see their mothership through the hole blasted through the hull of the freighter, leaving not but ruin in its wake.

All in all, the suited figures would spend nearly three hours recovering what they could and on their own initiative, moving the bodies they did find to a common location on the ship, tagging each one for recovery.

The final act before they departed was to place a subspace beacon, programmed to broadcast on Starfleet channels, to alert Starfleet of the fate of the Penzance and to hopefully guide the seventeen lost souls aboard her home.

There would also be no missing the symbol of House D’Ghor on the Penzance’s bridge, but that was a problem for another day.