Rebecca stood at the back of the bridge of the USS Leeds flanked by Cheon and Seong on her left side and her husband Milo on her right.  She was trying hard not be a disruption to this crew as the mere presence of an Admiral often did, but she was anxious to get to the Watership and get to looking for the Pike. It was true Aimee was her daughter and Ethan her step-son, but she had had a hand in raising Jolie and she had some motherly instincts for the girl despite not being her own biologically.

“Approaching Starbase 23 Captain,” the helmsman called out.

“Slow to impulse Lieutenant,” the captain ordered.

“Aye, slowing to impulse,” Helm repeated back.

“Captain we are being hailed by the Watership,” operations announced.

That was quick. Peter must be as anxious as I feel, Rebecca thought.

“On screen,” the captain ordered standing up.  As he moved towards the center of the bridge he tugged at his uniform jacket pulling it down.

USS Watership – Captain’s Quarters – 0900

“Captain’s log, supplemental.  My daughter newly assigned to a ship has gone missing with the ship, and her crew.  It is the worst kind of thing for a father to worry about – my greatest fear is always that she would fall in the line of duty young.  Her love of the world beyond the blue and green is partly my fault…but she wouldn’t blame me. She’d blame the evil in the galaxy that tries to destroy the good…the thing that needs fighting and stopping.”  He sat back on the couch in his office, sipping on the apple cider carefully.  “I will find her.  I will bring them home.  End log.”  He stood, and headed back to the bridge.  The time was nearing when they would arrive.

USS Watership – Bridge – 1000

They had arrived at Starbase 23 and immediately begun the process of getting the attachment of officers they had requested.  A small number of officers were coming off and coming back on in anticipation of what they were searching for in the darkness of space.  Peter had long held the belief of making sure he had strong chief officers in charge to train up strong assistants and below.  It had worked out well for him on the Watership and he’d only needed to move a few chess pieces around to get the mix of knowledge and talent he needed.  He’d even scored some mild science equipment upgrades under the guise of a search and rescue mission.  The Starbase 23 crew had just finished installing and testing it when the USS Dauntless arrived, bringing Crawford a sense of relief in the midst of the chaos.  His daughter was missing.  He was thankful he had a starship to command and the leeway within the fleet to be assigned as needed.

“Hail the Leeds.”  He moved to stand in front of the center chair.  The communications officer tapped at her console.

“They are responding.  Onscreen.”  The viewscreen snapped to the vision of the Leeds bridge.  He could see Talon and company in the background.

“Captain Peter Crawford, USS Watership.  I’ve been tasked with picking up your passengers, Captain.”

The captain looked over his should and back at the viewscreen,  “They look like they are ready to get going.”

He gave a nod, “We’ve completed our transfer and offloading needs.  Our transporter room is ready to receive them.”

“Understood.   I don’t know what the emergency is, but God speed Captain Crawford.”

Crawford gave his thanks and closed the channel, turning to his operations officer, “Meet our guests in transported room 1 and bring them to my ready room.”

USS Watership – Captain’s Quarters – 1015

Crawford looked up from his desk as old friends and new walked in.  He stood and gestured to the seats he’d arranged.  “Welcome aboard the USS Watership.”  He looked at Talon, “So, where are we going?”

Rebecca was out of uniform and into civilian clothes now.  From this point on she did not want to disrupt the chain of command aboard the Watership. Right now she wasn’t here on official Starfleet business.   She was just a worried mother.  

Cheon stood behind and to the left of Rebecca a familiar stance that he had done when we had been her “number one”, and it still felt right, even after he had taken over the Denver after she had left he never forgot that it was her ship after all. Now here on the Watership it felt like old times, minus of course the continuous threat of the Dominion.

Rebecca indicated she wanted to use Peter’s computer terminal she spun it around entered her access codes and brought up the last known position of the Pike.  “Here, near the Paulson Nebula.”

Peter leaned in, “Helluva place.  It’ll task our sensors, but we’re game.”  He tapped his in-desk console, “Captain Crawford to the bridge, plot a course to this location I’m sending.  Engage maximum warp immediately.  Sound departure stations.”  The officer on the conn affirmed and the gentle klaxon of the departure alarms sounded.  A moment later the stars outside the window accelerated and they were on their way.  He returned his attention to Talon, “You can only tell me so much, Rebecca.  Do we know what they were doing out there?  Both the Pike and the Heracles?”

“I am uncertain about the  Heracles,” Rebecca admitted. “I honestly wasn’t worried about reading up on their mission profile.   But, the Pike was sent to collect data and possibly close some rifts detected from that massive ion storm that was going on in the area. The Fourth Fleet must have been desperate to send that ship since they have inadequate sensor suites and no science officer.”

“Luckily for you Rebecca, I did my homework,” Cheon pipped in as he moved over next to the console. “If I may?”

Rebecca nodded and stepped aside.

Bringing up the profile of the Heracles he entered in his still-active Captains codes. The insignia of Forth Fleet appeared and then as it spun to its reverse side the insignia shifted to that of Task Force 72. The images both then faded away to show the Argonuant class ship USS Heracles. He then flicked his wrist up and the mission profile was shown. Tapping on the icon he once more entered his code and the mission was displayed: The Heracles is called upon to help the fleet with closing subspace rifts fueling the storm in the Paulson Nebula.

“From what I have gathered it appeared that sector of the nebula held the most dangerous rifts as well as some critical areas that if the rifts had opened would have caused a catastrophic explosion which would have caused the ion storm to expand further,” he stated as he showed the simulations that had accompanied the “Rift closers” device.

Crawford looked closer, “A chain reaction.  There’s a lot of research out there on rifts, wormholes, and all things temporal.  Some of the folks on board are a part of a task force assigned the duty of exploring quantum and temporal scenarios.”  He tapped the console and pulled the service jackets of the group.  “I’ll talk with their chief.”  Peter leaned back in his chair, concern playing across his face.  “On another subject, I suspect you ran roughshod over Korlin to get here.”  He chuckled at what that must have looked like with Rebecca Talon on a tear, “I think he probably deserved a shakeup or two in his schedule.”

“I didn’t have to,” Rebecca smirked.   “The benefits of rank, but I gave him a piece of my mind for trying to go classify this and hide it.”

Cheon looked away from the console as he closed the Heracles’ profile. A heavy tone left his lips as he swore, “Meinu no ano musuko” Something that Cheon never did. Even when Jolie had broken a family heirloom. He looked at Rebecca with apologetic eyes.

Peter sat forward, “This is hard for all of us, and I don’t think it’s going to get easier the closer we get.  If you need to take a station – all you have to do is ask.  My crew is yours should you need anything. You’ve all been assigned quarters near each other.”  He pulled the console to face him and tapped out a few commands, “Looks like six hours to the Paulson Nebula.  I’ll get our science teams on our long-range sensor work.” He glanced at his chrono, “You have full run of the ship as needed.  There’s a workout facility, a pool, and a library onboard should you need a place to be besides quarters.  We’ll reconvene on the bridge around 1700?”

“We should coordinate with the Inverness as they search for the Herecles.  But, I think this ship has the advantage.  The Watership has the most advanced sensors of the two, and it’s personal for us.Crawford stood, “My next stop is the bridge to coordinate with Ops and Comms.”

“Very well,” Rebecca replied.

They departed out the door, leaving Peter Crawford alone to contemplate.  All these years later they were coming back together to find friends and family.  As big as Starfleet was, and as wide as the galaxy could be – family made it all just a little smaller.