Kirin sat in the briefing room lost in thought, her mind reeling from the possible implications of the coup on Rator.

‘Safe to say that stability is not something we will see for a while now.’ she thought to herself as she gently rubbed her forehead with the fingers of her left hand. “The syndicate and underworld are going to have a field day with this as well,” she muttered aloud.

Looking back at the computer and the orders from command she sighed. “So much for exploring Sector Fero Psi; I was actually looking forward to that.”

Getting up she headed to the bridge. “Belania, drop us out of warp and lay in a course for Starbase 23, warp 6. We have new orders.”

Before Belania could respond Kirin taped the console on the arm of the command chair. “Kirin to all crew. We have had new orders from Command. Please report to the observation deck in 30 minutes; things are about to get interesting.”

“Commander, what is this about?” Belania asks.

“You’ll find out in 30 minutes ensign. Needless to say, our trip to Fero Psi is on hold indefinitely for the time being.” Turning to leave Kirin pauses before looking back at the pilot, “We are off to help people, it’s what we do. Feel free to put the ship on autopilot and set a 500k Km proximity warning, will you? I need to confirm with the USS Liverpool that we will not be making the rendezvous.”

Sitting in her quarters Kirin stares out at the stars streaking past her window, memories of her last mission coming back.

She could easily picture the events on Rator and the bloodshed that followed. After all, it wasn’t long ago that elements of the syndicate had tried to stage a coup on Kolar to regain some of its lost power. It failed but she still remembered the day…

Snapping out of the train of thought she pulled up the coms menu on her desk’s computer and selects the USS Liverpool and a direct line to Captain Hera before beginning to speak.

“Captain Hera, Lieutenant Tarken, USS Daradax here. I am sure that you have heard about Rator and have your own orders by now. The Daradax has received new orders and will not be rendezvousing with you sadly and have reversed course. Please pass on my apologies to the observation team.”

She reviewed the message before sending it off. “Time to go break the news I guess…” she says before standing.

—

Thanen entered the observation deck a few minutes early finding Belania and Ril already present sitting at the conference table and Kerry grabbing a large bottle of water from the replicator for the table. The hush that fell over the room as he walked in confirmed his suspicions, they were already speculating what was going on. Nodding to everyone he pulls up a chair “Afternoon. Hope everyone is well?”

“Would be better if I knew what was going on” Ril grumbled as she pours herself a glass of water. “Any idea what this is about?” causing Belania and Kerry to look at him eagerly.

“Not a clue. We may be a small ship, but I haven’t seen Kirin since early this morning. First, I heard anything about this was when everyone else did.”

Belania looked over and sighed, “The Commander should be here shortly. All I know is that she said our survey mission to Fero Psi was on hold indefinitely and we are now en route to Star Base 23.”

Kerry looked up quickly from her PADD that she was taking notes on, “StarBase 23? That is right on the border of the Romulan Star Empire. Do you think they have attacked?”

“Ha, if only we were that lucky to see some action!” Ril said rather loudly. “Starfleet has been building back up, the empire is a shadow of what it once was. With our luck, they realized that a ship like the Daradax should just be running supply runs.” Pausing briefly before continuing, “It if was an attack the Daradax would not be a ship that gets pulled in. The best we could hope to do is break even with a Malem-class.”

“Who knows at this point Ril. But I am confident that command doesn’t want this ship just running supplies around; there are plenty of freighters. If she was an older Aerie-class maybe, but not one of these newer Ravens. Might be border patrol or something; after all, that was part of the idea behind the new Raven-class.” Thanen says as he leans back his antennae moving as if scanning the room.

—

Leaving her quarters Kirin cannot help up wonder what the Daradax could do to help with this situation.  ‘A corvette, against who knows what…’. Her thoughts trail off as she reaches the observation deck door and enters. As she does all heads turn quickly to look at her and several questions are already being asked before she can even get a meter into the room.

“Afternoon everyone,” she says as she walks in holding up her hand for quiet. “I  know you all have questions, but I would ask you to hold off on those until after I run through what I know”, this is greeted with several nodes from the crew and the room falls silent

“As you are likely aware…” she smiles at Belania… “we have been ordered to Star Base 23 and our mission to survey Sector Fero Psi is on hold, indefinitely. What you don’t know is that we have just received word of a military coup on Rator 6 days ago. The military has taken over, killed whatever senators it could get its hands on, and others have fled to the federation, the free states or the republic seeking asylum. For all intensive purposes, the Star Empire is in a state of civil war and that is a problem for not just those in the empire but for every neighbouring sector; this could spill out of control quickly.”

Pausing Kirin pours herself a glass of water and looks at each of her officers. Their expressions ranged from concern to almost excitement about what this could mean for them.

“In addition to this several dozen worlds within the region have declared independence but they are not self-sufficient. This has resulted in a massive humanitarian crisis within the region. I am not sure of much beyond this yet, but we have been ordered to Star Base 23 where a Taskforce is forming being led by the Captain sh’Elas on the USS Temeraire.”

“Once a Star Base 23 we will get more information.”

Looking around the table she could tell there were questions and speculation about what the mission would entail going through everyone’s minds. Thankfully they only had a couple of days before they arrived at StarBase 23. Enough time to check the ship over but not too much time to let their minds run wild.

“That is all I know; does anyone have any questions?”

Everyone’s hands raise…