Captain’s Log, stardate 77547.8.

 

I’d always been taught and told that the Badlands were a particularly rough patch of space, something to seriously consider alternatives to before entering, even for the most stalwart of crews and ships. Turns out Atlantis is a bit of a badass. Our initial plan however to sprint through the Badlands as fast as we could hit a snag in the form of two freighters, encountered heading to DS47, so I opted to provide an impromptu escort. 

 

The Captains Franklin were a delightful pair and I’m glad circumstances let me meet them, but more importantly swap a few stories with them over dinner. Their daughter, Zoey, was a delightfully engaging young girl we played host to for two days after she asked if she could be my assistant for a couple of days over dinner. She just about exploded when I made her an acting junior officer for her stay and her fathers have informed me she won’t stop talking about joining Starfleet when she’s older. I may have created a monster! She’ll make a fantastic officer one day with her determination to, and I quote, visit every star in the universe. 

 

I think Lieutenant Fightmaster isn’t terribly happy with me making him her escort aboard the ship, but he frankly did an amazing job. I’m still struggling with the concept of a yeoman, but with the amount of paperwork this ship generates, Stirling has become fundamental to getting it all done. We arrive at DS47 within the hour and I’ve given orders for a few days’ leave to the crew to give everyone a chance to breathe before we set off. I’m frankly looking forward to hogging one of the holosuites aboard the ship for a few days and spending some time with Lin.

“Answering all stop,” T’Val said from the helm, bringing Atlantis to a dead stop relative to the Narendra-class station, Deep Space 47. T’Val had brought the mighty ship to just over one hundred meters from one of the station’s many circumferential docking ports, but Atlantis’ length would preclude the use of at least one of the others. Though with the light traffic present at current, it didn’t seem like it would be that big an imposition.

“Inform station ops Rrr that we’re ready for docking,” Mac announced from his seat and waited as the Gaen went through their motions. Before he could speak a series of polite alarms let T’Val and Adelinde both know the ship was now under a tractor beam, just enough to pull the ship in close and precise to the docking port.

“Starboard saucer docking port is reading hard capture. Seals are good and umbilicals are connecting,” Rrr announced from Ops. With a polite chirp from their console, Rrr smiled, then tapped the button to open comms to the station.

“USS Atlantis,” the same dry male voice that had greeted them when they dropped out of warp came spilling from the bridge speakers, “Deep Space 47 welcomes you to the Thomar Expanse. All facilities are open to your crew for the duration of your stay.”

“Thank you DS47, a pleasure to be here.” Mac smiled as he got to his feet. “Looking forward to seeing what you people have to offer.”

“Tastes of home and afar Atlantis. 47 out.”

And with that, the line went dead and Mac was left with a bridge of eager folks all looking at him for his words. “Hey, don’t look at me, Rrr made the leave schedule.” That bought him relief as all eyes shifted to the Gaen who kept their rocky expression perfectly still.

“Oh, you wanted that done today?” Rrr asked, waited a moment, then another, a few faces went from expectation to bordering on exasperation, perhaps ready to figure out how to strangle a silicon life-form to death, before they tapped a single button.

The main viewer switched over to the leave schedule for the immediate bridge staff, and then everyone’s consoles started to chirp as well, informing them of new documents sent through the ship’s mail routing to each of them – their departmental schedules. “You may all wish to start informing your departments,” Rrr spoke. “Commander Velan and I both agreed we’d need all hands for at least six hours to secure the ship before we start cycling personnel for leave. Everyone has two days leave, staggered to maximise what crew remain aboard the ship, giving Atlantis a total of four days here at DS47.”

“You didn’t break up any of the budding relationships we have aboard ship did you?” Mac asked, not wanting to have to deal with complaints that could, no, make that would arise if the handful of couples were broken up.

“While my intelligence of such matters is not all-encompassing, I have worked with Counsellor Hu and other discreet resources to learn about what relationships I could and minimise any fall out from staggered leaves.”

“What Rrr means to say,” Gabrielle said from Sciences, “is that they spoke with the serving staff in Port Royal and learned all the gossip.”

“And such juicy gossip too,” Rrr said, smiling to the best of their ability. “Oh, the things I know…”

“Alright, alright, keep it to yourself,” Mac said, taking centre stage. “Everyone who needs to, get your relief people up here, then go take care of your departments, those who are just awesome, get started on it from here I guess.” With a series of acknowledgements, he then set off for the Ready Room.

The door did not impede the man, who entered to find a rather common sight the last few weeks even – Tikva in her chair, Fightmaster across the desk opposite her, back to him, and a pile of padds on the desk. From the looks of it though, smaller than the last few days.

“Do I want to know?” he asked tentatively, stepping in to let the door close and cut off the commotion of a bridge trying to see how quickly they could secure a starship and get leave started.

“Hmm?” Tikva asked, looking up. “Oh, we’re done with the reports. Stirling and I have been going over every report of every previous scout ship into the Expanse, what Central Command was willing to give Starfleet and even a few star charts bought from Ferengi Commercial Intelligence.”

His left eyebrow had been rising as she spoke and soon enough he’d taken the other seat, collected a padd and looked at it. From the nature of the tidy stack he had removed it from and the less tidy one beside it, he figured he’d taken it from the unread pile. Fightmaster would have corrected him otherwise, yes? “USS Bamako? Missing since 2377? Heightened Breen provocations? Cardassian military factionalism regarding Starfleet?” He scrolled through the padd before setting it down. “I can see why we got sent out here then.”

“I get to speak softly and carry the big stick,” Tikva said, with far too much glee in her smile. There was no denying from the current force composition he’d last seen that theirs was the premiere combat vessel if called to it, but they weren’t a slouch either on pure exploration.

“The captain however has been considering our exploratory options past Ultima Thule,” Fightmaster finally spoke, his tone precise, calm and quiet, like he was reading a lecture with the intent to put a class to sleep.

In response to his questioning look at her, Tikva set her padd down and relaxed some. “Yes, Atlantis is a big stick. We’re probably a provocation to any and all who even get a whiff of our warp signature. I’m going to speak with this Fleet Captain Sudari-Kravchik about running us along the length of the Expanse and then letting us disappear out of sight into the Unknown Regions. Everyone gets a good look at the brand-new ship on the block, she gets to use us as a bargaining chip, we’re not that far removed if we have to sprint back, but we’re not in the immediate area winding everyone up.”

“Out of sight, out of mind?” he asked for clarification.

“Until the Fleet Captain throws our name around and reminds everyone that she’s got Atlantis in reserve. But heck, she’s got Nobel by herself, plus I hear another Galaxy-class is making its way out here eventually. Then a gaggle of lighter ships too.” She smiled at him, then shuffled three padds on the desk around, adding a fourth when Fightmaster pushed one towards her without looking up from his own. “Pick one.”

Each had been placed screen down on the desk, so all he had to go on was his gut. No hint as to what was on any of the padds, what secrets would be revealed. So, he reached out and pointed at one, then picked it up when Tikva indicated he should, turning it over and turning the device on to look at what was before him.

“Oh, this could be fun.” He handed it over when his captain just held out her hand for it.

She nodded appreciatively at the padd’s contents before handing it over to Fightmaster, who reviewed it, gave a single nod, and then returned it to Tikva, all without a word said.

“Well alright then, that’s the start of the list.” The padd got put down in a very specific clear part of her desk, face down once more. “Want to help sort the rest?”

“All of this?” he asked, waving a hand over in the direction of the pile.

His response was a cheeky smile from Tikva and Fightmaster just grabbed another padd and handed it to him.

Captains Log, supplemental.

 

With Mac’s help, Stirling and I have selected four points of interest past Ultima Thule we’d like to visit, all of them only imaged so far via subspace telescope. I have a meeting with the Fleet Captain in the morning over subspace as apparently the USS Nobel is away undertaking some routine survey work nearby. Then a meeting an hour after that with the station commander who wanted to make some introductions. Our first shore parties left the ship a few hours ago on leave and I’m already hearing gossip of fine eateries, a few bespoke drinking establishments and a variety of other entertainments to partake in upon the station.

 

I’m going to meet Lin in the Captain’s Mess shortly and we’ll start our exploration of the station tomorrow after my meetings. Still have the holosuites lined up starting tomorrow evening. Two days of Mediterranean spring sounds absolutely delightful at the moment.