The USS Thyanis has docked at Starbase Bravo. Lihran had spent the journey working on dismantling the bootleg cloaking device and scattering the parts around the ship. The ship docks for repairs and the crew disembark. Lihran strode off the shuttle, relief flooding through him. He hesitated a moment before tapping his combadge, “Ensign Lihran to Lieutenant Oin’sun? I have returned. Did you receive the message I sent?”

Cynndle’s shift was almost finished, but he had handed off to one of the ensigns as he had to check in with security regarding a particular Romulan child and a strange teddy bear and to follow up with them on those tricorder readings. He had just walked out of the Operations Office on deck 710 and rolled his shoulders when his combadge chimed; “Ensign Lihran to Lieutenant Oin’sun? I have returned. Did you receive the message I sent?”

With a snorting laugh and smile, he tapped his combadge, “So Mr I GOT KIDNAPPED has returned safe and sound; I did get your message by the way; Thanks. I should be done here in 30 minutes if you want to grab a drink? I am sure you have a story to tell.”

Lihran snorted and chuckled, “Safe and sound, mostly. Barely. Good, I wasn’t even sure if sending it would even work! Sure! Would love that, where at? And boy, do I ever.”

“Great, how about we meet at Downtime in an hour? Gives me a chance to wrap up and deal with any loose ends”

“Sounds good to me! See you there!” Lihran closed the line and headed to his quarters to get into off duty clothes and clean up a little before heading towards Downtime.

—  

Cynndle walked into Downtime and looked around taking in the smooth metals and functional furnishings. The bar was moderately full as was often the case. Between the number of residents and the influx of Romulan refugees meant every restaurant and bar always had a decent number of patrons at any given time. Without seeing Lihran he wandered to the bar and ordered a beer, nodding to the Tellarite bartender and turned to take a seat.

Lihran spotted Cynndle from across the room and approached where he sat with his whiskey in hand. He was dressed incredibly casually, in jeans and a tshirt from some metal band on Earth, a strikingly casual look for a Romulan. Lihran smiled, “It’s good to be back!”

“I bet it is,” Cynndle said looking around for an empty table. Spotting one in the back corner, ‘Why is there always an empty table in the back corner of these places…’ nodded in its direction. “Shall we grab a seat, I am curious to hear how you survived. That Vulcan friend of yours seemed to think there was no hope,” he said as he headed towards the table.

Lihran followed Cynndle to the table and settled down in the chair closest to the wall, “He contacted you? Hmm… And yeah, it was an incredibly close call. Between my ex being the captain of the ship and the Klingon attack…”

“Yeah, we had a chat, not long after I received your message. Honestly, he didn’t say much, something seemed a bit off with the whole call. Was an overly emotional Vulcan from what I could see…” Cynndle said before pausing to take a sip of his drink, “…not that it’s a bad thing some of the time I would say. So your ex was the Captain and you were attacked by Klingons? Do tell? The most excitement I had was when I thought I figured out who was messing around with the power junctions and it turned out to be a kid who had her teddy bear stolen, well not a bear but a nei’ɽrh.”

Lihran sipped his whiskey with a nod, “Well, Thevius isn’t fully Vulcan. We grew up on Romulus together, my parents were friends with his mother. Might explain a lot. This whole situation hit quite close to home for both of us.”

Lihran leaned back slightly. When he leaned back, a greenish hued bruise would be more visible on his face. He said, “He and I both got calls about the death of loved ones during that coup. Ah, yeah. We had no idea who the captain of the Ridaere was. Turned out to be Covel, my ex.” Lihran made a face and sipped his drink again. “He spotted me and of course, wanted his spouse back. Think he knew I was with Starfleet. Klingons attacked and managed to board us when I was on his ship, one got me good and I was incapacitated for a bit.”

With a snort Cynndle puts down his pint before taking another sip. “Incapacitated by Klingons, thought you would be able to handle a couple of them?” he says in a clearly mocking tone before a bit of concern creep into his voice, “You were ok I take it?”

Lihran smirked, “To be fair, I was only armed with a hyperspanner till I took one of their bat’leth’s.” He lifted his hand, gently touching the back of his head, “I got hit from behind and spent a day or two in medical. I’m quite alright now though.”

“So what happened next?

Lihran laughed a little and leaned back, “We got off the ship… Barely. Took a few friends and defectors with us. Now, that sounds absolutely rivetting with the child you mentioned.”

“I feel ‘We got off the ship’ leave a lot of it out. What has happened to the defectors? Starfleet Intelligence debriefing them I assume?” Cynndle asked.

Lihran nodded, “It really does. I intentionally ticked off my ex spouse and we provoked a mutiny against him to start a mutinous brawl. We were able to get off in that chaos.” He paused to sip his whiskey before nodding, “Yeah, they are being screened and questioned right now. One is barely an adult, so young. The other was my apprentice many years ago now.” A flicker of emotion crossed his face, “Provoked him enough to lay his hands on me in front of the crew instead of in private.” He gestured to the bruise on his cheek, then quickly said, “The kids!”

“The kid, well not too much to say; I had set up some alarms on junctions I thought might be targeted so it would notify it they were accessed. By the time I got to one, I found a Romulan kid opening it. Apparently, a group of boys had been stealing her teddy and hiding it around the station. She was told by one where it was. Sure enough, they had hidden it behind the panel. The odd this was that she didn’t trip the alarm, someone else had accessed the panel and tampered with it. An adult non-Romulan… I am looking into it now….I was able to sort it but they knew what they were doing. The individual set it up so that it put computational analyses, requests, etc into a cyclic pattern causing a rotation of computations and an exponential increase in memory usage. If left unchecked it could have caused some serious issues down the line.”

Lihran leaned forward and furrowed his brow as he listened, “I’m glad you caught that. Poor kid, sounds like how Thevius used to pick on me growing up.” He nodded, “Was about to say, a child isn’t careful or knowledgeable enough to snip certain wires or do certain damage.”

“Yeah, I have follow-up up with her a couple of times, she is staying in one of the displacement centres and has some ‘friends’, she goes to security regularly to check up on her stuffed animal as it is safe from the other kids so they are also keeping an eye on her to make sure she is ok,” Cynndle said with a sigh. “I just hope they can find her parents soon; though I am not sure they will sadly.”

“As for the damage, well the earlier damage we saw and you helped fix could easily have been some of the other kids. But this newer stuff is something else. They know our systems and that is concerning. Have some things in place to not prevent it but notify me of any issues so hopefully will get to the bottom of it soon. Security is also more involved now so that is helping.”

Lihran’s face softened as he mulled over Cyn’s words about the child. He took another sip of whiskey, “If you need help taking care of a Romulan child, I do not mind assisting or even taking her in. Not many of us in Starfleet, let alone on the base here on this side of this crisis.”

Cynndle leaned back and took a long drink of his beer as he thought about what Lihran had said. “Hmm. Well, that is something you would need to speak to her about. She is very independent-minded from what I saw.” he said with a shrug.

“So what has your CO had to say about your impromptu reassignment? Are you in the dog house? Proverbially speaking?”

Lihran says in the most deadpan expression, “Woof.” His face splits into a grin, then shook his head, “Not as far as I know. I didn’t exactly consent to being knocked out with a bronze shield and pulled away. Not as much hot water for me at least. Havent spoken to my CO yet. Just docked actually.”

“Well, I guess that is a fair point. Though as a Star Fleet officer one must always be prepared for the unexpected the bizarre and the strange…” Cynndle said with a bit of a laugh. “So I was the first person you contacted when you go back. Appreciate that.”

Picking up his drink and finishing it off Cynndle leaned back and stifled a yawn. “So, you happy to be back? I know those Raven class ships don’t have much space on them.”

Lihran’s cheeks flushed a very slight green, “Of course you were. It’s a lot more exciting than the Tal Shiar, thats for sure.” He threw back the rest of his whiskey with a slight grimace, having let it sit for too long. He nodded, laughing, “Nice to have personal space once more.” 

He emitted a soft sigh and stood up, “I should go speak to my CO. I’ll catch you around. If this situation taught me anything, it’s not to take friends for granted. NEver know when you may not see them again.” He gaves a rather genuine smile and gave Cyn’s shoulder a friendly pat before turning to head out.