“Good afternoon travellers and welcome to the Delta Quadrant,” Lewis Chin announced rather loudly as the Vondem Rose escaped the open maw of the Barzan Wormhole and into free space, along with a few dozen other ships from the Alpha Quadrant.

Already some of the pack leaders were breaking up into their little gaggles of aligned merchant ships and escorts. Some were likely undertaking checks of their ships and systems before getting underway, others were rapidly moving away at warp, having opted to get moving and make claims before others showed up behind them.

“The Delta Quadrant, for first time travellers, is home to a variety of travel concerns and advisories. All passengers can rest easy in that we will be refraining from checking in on some of the more exotic dangers, opting instead to head in the opposite direction from the likes of Borg Collective. For the other dangers in the quadrant we have come with the finest Klingon military hardware to ensure your safety and comfort.”

“Lewis, if I ever, ever get bored and go mad enough to ever found a cruise line, I promise you can be the first ship’s captain, but until then, please shut up,” Sidda said. With a quick laugh and a ‘yes ma’am’ from her helm officer, she turned to face Orelia at Ops. “Got directions to Gaeda’s destination?”

“Naroq sent them through before we left. As well as up to date financials for you to look at.” That last sentence from her cousin was said with some disdain. Orelia really didn’t like the idea of the legitimate side of their enterprises, though she did seem to enjoy the extra benefits it provided her. And she wasn’t exactly a fan of Ferengi in general, despite Naroq being female.

With a shake of her head and opening her eyes wider, the body language question of ‘Well?’ was received as Orelia shrugged an apology before looking down at her screen. “Bearing two six five mark zero zero six, twenty five light years. A KIII star with a couple of gas giants and three sizable asteroid belts.”

“Thank you,” Sidda said, then spun back around, really enjoying the much freer and lighter motion of the Starfleet chair, out of place with the rest of the decor, compared to her old Klingon chair. “Mr Chin, make your course two six five mark six and prepare to go to warp. But first let’s get ourselves out of everyone’s way shall we?”

“Behaving myself or showing off?” he asked in reply.

“Only if you can get fancy around Endeavour without pissing anyone else off, otherwise just behave.” Punching a key on her armrest brought up a tactical plot on her viewscreen and she knew that what she’d just allowed was impossible and so did Lewis as he settled for finding a hole in the expanding formation of ships and just opted to make a break for open space, taking the ship to full military acceleration up to full impulse and away.

He had to show off somehow and piling on the speed was the best he could do, with a barrel roll she noted for flair. 

“Warp speed in three…two…one…” Lewis counted down before he pushed the button that launched the Vondem Rose to speeds far in excess of the speed of light. “Warp seven point five and holding steady.”

“Excellent Lewis. Orelia, activate the cloak and let’s disappear.”

“Starfleet will likely still be able to see us, you know. Or at least infer where we are.”

“Yah, but only for a while and none of the civvies will be able to. And likely not any of the locals either. Not straight away at least.”

Admitting the lost point, Orelia tapped a series of keys and the telltale hum of the Vondem Rose shifted just slightly as the ship’s cloaking device came online, disappearing the ship from most sensors thanks to a cloaking device only a decade old versus their last one. Their current one had less than a hundred hours of use on it thanks to the IKD Va’thu spending so much time in mothballs. It was however one which Starfleet likely had good intel on thanks to previous visits from Starfleet engineers when the ship came under new management, so if Rourke and Co had dutifully shared the details, the Rose was likely hard to spot, but if they were careful could be the next best thing to invisible.

“Captain,” Tavol said from Science, “I would recommend we decrease to warp seven point two.” He tapped a few keys and brought up his findings on the main viewscreen for all to see. “Stellar dust and subspace conditions means our current speed would likely be difficult for the cloaking device to mask completely.”

“Why can’t the universe just be kind for once?” Sidda growled. “Lewis, slow us down. In fact, Tavol, you’ve got the throttle. I want to go as fast as we can while being as sneaky as we can. You two make it happen.”

“Understood,” Tavol replied.

“Works for me,” Lewis answered cheerfully.

“And with that,” Sidda got to her feet, “I’m going to tour my fine ship, then we’ll have a briefing in say an hour?” She waited for a chorus of agreement. “Lewis, you’ll have the conn during the meeting. Orelia, Orin, Tavol and I’ll see which of the twins I can drag along to the briefing.”

“You may wish to bring Doctor Ward along as well, Captain,” Tavol provided. “Starfleet have provided some interesting travel advisories that I wish to bring up with her and the wider command crew.”

She nodded in agreement to the Vulcan before handing command over to Orelia, the larger woman happy to stay at her station, before leaving the bridge and wandering through the halls of her ship. The Vondem Thorn had been small enough to go from one end to the other in no time at all, but the Vondem Rose had put that notion to rest a long time ago. The crew went from tight-knit to just over an order of magnitude larger. There were multiple decks!

And she wouldn’t have it any other way!

She knew it was a trick of memory, thinking she could walk her old ship in a handful of steps, but compared to the Rose, the Thorn was tiny! But compared to so many other ships out there, her Rose was tiny as well. But for what she wanted in life right now, it was perfect. Her, a gaggle of rogues, the galaxy at large at their mercy – anything more would be too much like starting that slippery slope to responsibility and command.

Engineering went from a cramped space barely big enough for everything to the powerhouse of the ship, though somehow retaining some of its cramped nature thanks to Klingon ‘efficiency’. A dozen people were there, going about the tasks of monitoring systems, preventative maintenance or repairs and that was just those that would have been in Engineering properly. Klingon concepts of acceptable life support had been augmented by Romulan tolerances and Orion wealth so the space wasn’t the sauna it could have been. If anything the air was too dry, wicking away moisture in the gentle heat.

“T’Ael,” Sidda called to the woman who was nominally the Rose’s chief engineer, her brother had opted to not be in charge. “Staff meeting in an hour. Want you there.”

“No can do,” she countered, tapping at a console, getting an angry response, then slamming her fist into it as a response. “R’tin can go.”

“What’s wrong with my ship?” Sidda asked as she closed, opting to stand on the other side of the console. “Anything serious? Because we can’t go back to get parts easily you know and if we need to go begging to Starfleet I’d like to go do it now.”

“No, no, nothing serious. Yet.” She was clipped and to the point. “Just an issue that kind of needs my attention.” She looked up just as one of the other engineers approached with a padd, this one brand new and of Federatio civilian design. “Secondary EPS shunts are playing up and I want to sort it out now before someone shoots at us and we need it.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Sidda said, then turned to face the rest of Engineering. “R’tin!” she shouted. “Briefing room! One hour!”

“Right boss!” came a muffled response from somewhere, behind something or inside some service space. It was accompanied by a series of rapid and aggressive clangs. “If I can dig myself out of this!”

“Sorry I’m late,” R’tin offered an hour later as he stepped into the briefing room. “But trust me, you wanted me to have a shower first.” Taking his seat, he offered a smile to all present and settled on Sidda last. “Found the power issue finally, T’Ael is working with Pete and Uuhilt to get it properly sorted. Half a day at most. Turns out it was a tertiary tap that kept turning itself on and then the software shut down the starboard secondary just like it’s meant to.”

“Sounds good.” Sidda let quiet settle before starting on the briefing. “So, as you all know by now we’re out here to track down Gaeda and crew and rescue them from whatever fresh hell the Delta Quadrant has thrown at them.”

“If there’s anything to rescue,” Orelia grumbled. “Likely he’s lost the Martian Thorn you know.”

“I don’t care about the ship, I care about the people,” Sidda chided. “And besides, we can always go and pilfer another ship.” That earned a few grins, a frown from Melissa Ward and passive lack of expression from Tavol. “Heck, we could even try and procure a legal ship.” Mock shock horror came from R’tin at that, before he apologised.

“Humpf,” Orelia said. “Still though, he’s lost company property at a minimum.”

“Let’s just find out what happened first shall we?” Sidda asked.

“Fine.” Orelia tapped at a command key and the main monitor in the briefing room came up with a star system diagram, a picture of a Ferengi Daimon and text that at any reasonable distance was just a touch too small to read. “Gaeda took a cargo delivery contract to bring a special cargo out to a Ferengi mining concern. Daimon Hilke was willing to pay for delivery and a fee for having the Thorn out of commission out here in the DQ. From what was mentioned, the concern is mining dilithium, likely this new blood dilithium knowing Ferengi.”

“Likely,” R’tin spoke. “Very, very likely indeed. Interesting that they decided to set up camp so far away from the wormhole.”

‘To get away from anyone else,’ Orin signed after tapping the table to get everyone’s attention. ‘Distance means safety means less need for security.’

“And lower costs mean more profit,” Sidda followed up.

“There is some concern with this new dilithium variant,” Tavol said. “Starfleet has issued medical advice and a series of other warnings. I am naturally curious as to the medical issue, but confess my true interest lies in the scientific phenomena that gave rise to this blood dilithium.”

“Well, we’ve got a couple of probes on board, and some scanners that might help. I’m sure we can help with that curiosity Tavol.” Sidda waited for the Vulcan to subtly nod his head. “Bones, had a chance to read Starfleet’s no doubt hyperbolic warning?”

“Actually, if anything they might be under-selling it.” Bones’ voice was gruff as usual, the older woman a veteran of far, far too much in life and a former Starfleet officer as it was anyway. A frontier doctor they’d picked up when she realised the crew was ‘doing good’ and needed a ‘sawbones’ in her estimation. It wasn’t a hire so much as Bones had adopted the crew and no one had thought to tell her otherwise.

She wasn’t the crew’s mother, more like their hard-working, tough love aunt who would call them stupid when they were and offer mild praise for doing good. Much like Kevak, which is probably why the old woman and the old Klingon had some weird relationship going on that Sidda wasn’t going to pry into. She wanted to survive her next visit to the infirmary and the galley as it was.

Taking the silence as a request to continue, Bones leaned forward over the table just a touch. “Apparently this Blood Dilithium has severe and unpredictable effects on telepaths and empaths. Ranging from inability to control one’s senses, loss of emotional control and inhibitions, to total suppression in others. With a lack of sample sizes and cases, Starfleet still hasn’t got a list of what this stuff does and to who.”

“Interesting,” Tavol said quietly. “I shall have to take extra precautions.”

“And none of this stuff goes near the brig,” Bones said. “That fucker you’re keeping doesn’t need to be made any creepier Sidda.”

“We’ll all take precautions. I don’t want to find out someone was latently telepathic or such by having them suddenly floating down the halls claiming to be a god.”

“Eh, just drop a rock on them if they do,” Bones added before sitting back. “Works every time.”

“Okay…Orin, keep a rock handy.” Sidda chuckled as Orin nodded, even grabbing a padd to take a note, bringing a serious note to the joke. “And what about the engines R’tin, anything to be concerned about?”

“Nah,” the romulan engineer added, relaxed as possible given the circumstances. “Rose isn’t a dancer Boss, she’s a godsdamn mountain goat. If this wave repeats it could have some impact on our engines, but we’re not bleeding edge like those Fleeters are, vulnerable to every tiny little change in space and subspace. Solid, dependable, field-serviceable Klingon engineering. Guess those violent barbarians can get some things right.”

“Watch it,” Bones growled.

“And their cooking. And singing. And fighting,” R’tin quickly added. “They get those right too.” It didn’t make his faux pas a thing of the past, but it was oil on rough seas at least. “Sorry doc.”

“Right, well then, this all sounds like fun and games, doesn’t it?” Sidda asked. “Orelia, Orin and R’tin, I want this ship fighting ready when we get to Daimon Hilke in case we need to convince him to be polite. Bones, Tavol – pour over everything about this Blood Dilithium we’ve got and then figure out best steps for handling disasters. If that’s all then folks, be about it.”

As the room emptied out, Sidda found herself alone with Bones still seated. She waited for the door to close on the last to leave before speaking up. “I’m not just worried about the Vulcans onboard you know,” she said, nursing her cup of coffee before looking down the table. “We’ve got a handful of Romulans aboard ship as well you know.”

Sidda nodded, understanding the additional problem. “Honestly think it could be that much of a problem?”

“They’re close enough genetically it could be,” Bones answered. “Guess we’ll find out.”

“Any friends out there you could check with? Must be more than a few other Romulans running around out there that someone must have noticed something.”

Bones snorted, then slowly stood. “I’ll see,” she supplied. “But no promises. Too many young and cheerful doctors these days that haven’t seen real horrors yet.” She stopped next to Sidda. “Yet.” And with that she left.

“Cheery,” Sidda allowed herself once Bones was out of the room. “Just cheery.”