Treylana lay there in the milky substance staring at the ceiling as if almost in a trance. The faint lights glistened off the interior cave walls. She could hear voices, but not from anyone within the cave. They were voices coming from within her. Voices from the symbiont and it’s past hosts. Narissa, Vilaar, Ejom, Lillu…all of them. Each one attempting to share their experiences simultaneously. She remembered trying to decipher what each one was saying, but it was too much for her to take in all at once.

The memory of the Caves of Mak’ala and her joining were so vivid in her mind it was as if it was yesterday. However, that memory was cut short at the sound of the computer waking the Trill from her deep slumber.

“Incoming priority one message from Starfleet Command.”

Rubbing her eyes, Treylana glanced over at her bedside table. Upon it sat a replica of an antique Earth timepiece, mechanical in nature, the hands pointing to a quarter past two. What could Command want at this ungodly hour? She thought to herself.

She sat up and slipped out from under the covers and sat on the edge of the bed for a minute before walking over to her closet and grabbing a silk nightgown from a hangar to wear. She didn’t care who was on the other end of that call, she was not going to give them the satisfaction of forcing her to put on a uniform.

Once she felt she was presentable enough, she instructed the computer to activate the terminal atop her desk as she sat down in the chair behind it.

The screen illuminated and an elderly man in a red command uniform donning a bar with four pips indicating the rank of Admiral appeared on the screen.

“Good morning Captain. I’m sorry to have woken you.” The man said apologetically, noticing the bedroom attire.

“It’s okay Admiral. What can I do for you?”
“There is a planet, not far from your location that is home to some wreckage, a ship, that we need you to investigate. This wreckage could contain the missing piece to a puzzle Starfleet has been trying to solve for a very long time.”
“Are you certain?” she asked with a quizzical look on her face.

“Quite certain. We’ve known about the existence of this ship for some time.” he paused for a moment, “Or at least we think it’s a ship. We haven’t been able to send a team down to investigate. The inhabitants of the planet are not warp capable.”

“And therefore, off-limits due to the prime directive.” Treylana replied, almost cutting off the Admiral.

“Formerly off-limits. We have reason to believe the recent Omega outbreak across the galaxy has something to do with the Tkon Empire.”

“The Tkon? I remember studying them at the Academy. It was rumored that they could move stars. You don’t suppose…”

“I’m not suggesting anything. We’ve had archeologists studying the Tkon for decades. The only lead we have is that they lived beyond the galactic barrier in a system we’re calling Horizon. To this day no one has been able to traverse past that galactic barrier and this wreckage may yield the answers as to why. I’m sending you coordinates. I want you to take Atlantia and investigate that wreckage before anyone else can get their hands on it. The Omega Directive is still in place for the duration of this mission. Use whatever means you must to find out more. However, I urge you to keep contamination levels to a minimum if possible.”

Treylana took the Admiral’s words under careful consideration before responding. She knew the risk of violating the Prime Directive would be high. The only thing that eased her mind with everything that had been told to her was that this mission fell under the jurisdiction of the Omega Directive and therefore it superseded any other directive. “Understood.” She replied with mild skepticism.

“Don’t worry Captain, you aren’t the only officer I’ve had to give orders to that put them in a moral dilemma. And you won’t be the last. If we didn’t trust you to make the decisions you’ll undoubtedly make over the next few days, we wouldn’t have given you a command. I will look forward to reading your report when this is all over.”

Treylana nodded to the console reassuring the Admiral before the console went black and the screen was replaced with the Starfleet insignia. She thought she had pushed her crew to the limit in trusting her and now she was going to have to tell them they were being ordered to go somewhere and potentially violate the one principle held dear to all Starfleet officers. Something however that was going to wait until morning.

She walked back over to her bed, once again sat on the edge, and reached for her combadge, tapping it as she picked it up. “Captain to the bridge.”

“Go ahead Captain.”

“In the last communication from Starfleet Command, there are some coordinates for a nearby planet. Set course for those coordinates and notify the senior staff that I’d like to have a meeting first thing. Hess out.”

With that, she set the combadge back on the end table and slipped back under the covers. Hopefully she could get at least a few more hours of sleep before having to get up for the day.