"The Regime Change", Part 1

BACKPOST - Beginning of the mission.

Flight Sergeant Jonathan Frost,
Rogue Squadron Flight Deck
Chief Technical Sergeant Olivia Thomas,
Acting Rogue Squadron Flight Deck Chief

The shuttle ride was horrible.

But then again, when are they not? Frost looked about the sorry excuse for a manned spaceship. When were they not? Why, when they were HIS shuttles, goddamnit! The rug on this one seemed old, all the ‘windows’ were smudged, and – worst of all – if he squinted his eyes really carefully and titled his head just right, he could almost swear he saw an ancient coat of paint happily chipping away on the door frame.

He shook his head and crossed his arms; this sort of shoddy work would have never flown on the Akira. Were such a monstrosity to leave the docking bay the technicians and dock-hands would be pulling triple shifts until their ears bleed. A nice, polished, well maintained shuttle says words about the ship it came from. Who in their right mind would marry a girl if her mother’s teeth were falling out, her breath stank, and she seemed to leak fluids? No one, that’s who – because, as we all know, girls wind up resembling their mothers… just as a good shuttle craft resembles the mother ship from which she flown.

An uninterested voice filled the shuttle via the ships intercom.

“We will be docking with the Miranda in two minutes, prepare for landing.”

The old man made an irritated sound and shifted his weight, pretending not to notice the stain on the seat next to him.

-----

Olivia Thomas tapped her left foot impatiently. The shuttle couldn't dock fast enough for her, though she certainly didn't like the idea of what she was doing any more than she liked dropping spanners on her feet. Turning over her charges to another technician, even one as capable as Frost was reputed to be, was hard for somebody like her. You just got... attached.

Olivia had made up her mind to meet Flight Sergeant Frost first and find out just what kind of person he was. She'd fight for it if she had too. After wrenching Wes out of his fighter in the fight with the Borg, she didn't want to leave his squad's safety to just anyone.

----

The hatch to the shuttle craft hit the deck with an unceremonious thud. First off the shuttle, moving a two steps faster than the rest, was one of the oldest men anyone has ever seen wearing a Starfleet uniform; the man before Olivia was gruff, to say the least. His hair was thoroughly gray; his face wrinkled from 40 years of straight service to the fleet.

Frost surveyed the docking bay and frowned. Everything seemed to be moving too slow for his taste. The ground crew was moving at their own pace, it seemed. Hell, some of them were even leaning against the crates they were supposed to be hauling and talking to one another like it was in their job description. He shook his head and began to make a mental note when he saw the liason. He eyed the person he was to replace up and down, trying to size her up.

“Flight Sergeant Jonathan Frost reporting for duty” He saluted with one hand, the other firmly held his transfer papers.

Thomas nodded. This was one of the old salts. He'd been around longer than she'd been alive. There'd be no questions. She returned his salute and accepted his papers. Glancing over them, she checked to see that they were in order, though with his experience, he wouldn't be handing them to her if they weren't.

"I'm Tech Sergeant Olivia Thomas, the acting Rogue Squadron Flight Crew Chief, and you're my replacement. Welcome to the Miranda," she said, trying not to feel any of the disappointment that she knew she would feel.

Frost let the conversation hang a few seconds more than is socially acceptable. He stared into the woman, trying to gauge from her voice the type of person she was. Young, certainly, no question about that – and she seemed to have a casual way about her, despite how she was trying to appear formal. The old man muttered, the last time he had transferred to a new ship was 16 years ago. He felt like a fish out of water.

“Sergeant… ” he nodded, letting his body go slightly limp. He leaned down and picked up his duffle bag – every one of his movements seemed calculated, like he was always in drill. He let her title hang in the air, giving her time to squirm while waiting for the end of the sentence “… I have been told to report to Major Wes Hammond, I do not want to keep him waiting.”

Olivia winced. She'd learn from him, certainly, but she hated having to. She'd enjoyed running the crew while BUPERS searched for a permanent. "Walk with me," Olivia said and started to lead him down the hall toward the lift that would take them to Deck 48, home of the Rogues.

"I'll warn you though. He's in a foul mood today," she said, allowing a smile to creep through her practiced calm expression, "Hammond's a wild Irishman from a colony world near the Breen DMZ. He's a good, solid commander, but right now something's bothering him."

Frost nodded, but didn’t let the conversation continue further. He wasn’t particularly interested in the life history of his commander; if he was a good officer he’d the man’s actions – not his pedigree- show for it. Instead, he asked his subordinate: “How long have you been serving the fleet, Sergeant?” small talk was never his forte.

Olivia thought for a moment. It had been a while. Longer than she'd initially thought. Four years to look good on a resume, then business school, right? She'd found a love in fixing fighters, and had stayed. "Eight years, since I was eighteen. I wanted to do a tour, so I could appreciate it, but I fell in love with the machines and never really left."

“Eight Years” he repeated the words and shook his head – he had been serving for that and thirty two more. Frost was a relic, and even he knew it. As the people on the starships got younger it became harder and harder for him to communicate with him. Everyone that came up in his class was either retired, dead, or an admiral by now – the two enlisted people shared very little common ground. “You are the acting chief of the docks” it wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement. Jonathan knew full well she was in charge before he, but he needed to hear her validate the claim all the same… so that he would know who the dock workers and technicians would try to pin the blame on in a few short hours, after chewing them out. In her defense, though, he’d seen worse decks… though he would obviously never admit it to anyone but the Major.

She frowned, knowing where he was going. "Yes. I run a fairly tight deck, Sergeant. You'll find that if a mistake is made, I fix it myself. Right now we're running four person crews per wingpair, with another four manning the control room. Hammond and Joral have their offices over there," she pointed, "And next to them are the pilot and deck crew lounges and quarters. You'll be housed somewhere in there, probably across from me. I'll be your assistant for the time being."

Frost nodded, taking it all in. “and how many wing pairs are there? How many men are off of one shift while the other is on? In the next few days there will be changes made accordingly, but for now, all I want is a report on the dock’s logistics, as well as a duty roster and chart, as well as full and up-to-date personnel reports on all the men.” The sergeant paused a moment, in thought “I will also need a report on each and every individual fighter craft, shuttle, and anything and everything else in this damned’able ship. If it can move, is housed in my docks, and is used by my men I need to know its current condition, when it was made, when it was last repaired, and anything else you can think of, Sergeant.” The old man spoke quickly, asking the same questions he’s been asking his technical sergeants for decades.

"Six, obviously. Half and half, as we're running alternating double shifts. And I have that report largely completed, since I heard you were coming. We're officially only responsible for the twelve fighters, two backups, and four runabouts," her mind raced, accessing the information in her memory and spitting it out, "And I'll have my individual wingpair chiefs start those reports. Should be on your desk by noon tommorrow. If you want, you can look at the old ones, but they're backdated a month."

The Flight Sergeant stopped in mid-step. “And what exactly do you mean, sergeant, when you say we “officially” are only responsible for something? Just what in God’s name do you have on MY deck that isn’t official?” he took two steps forward. “And how did your reports become backdated by over a month? What did you people do down there, play tidily-winks while waiting for your shifts to end? Well, I’ll have none of it. From this moment forth I’ll not rest until all reports are up to date, and all unofficial craft are either MADE official or are jettisoned into space. Do I make myself clear, Sergeant?”

Olivia refrained from sighing. New chief. Hardly an old routine. "Listen, Frost. I know you want to leave an impression, but you need to lighten up before you develop a blood pressure condition. When I said officially, I meant that that's all we're responsible for, on our flight deck. Helm manages the rest of the shuttles. The only thing that we have on our deck that would be remotely unofficial is Hammond's Valkyrie. He's not a fan of the Rogue-Class, so he bought a used one from the fleet. It's registered with the Starfighter Corps, so it's all legit."

"As for the reports, it was Chief Gibbons' policy to do them on a monthly basis, before I even showed up. Hammond brought me with him from the Pennsylvania. That was when the Starfighter Corps was organized and Gibbons retired," she explained, "If you want to change them, it's up to you, but so far, it's been just about fine."

“Sergeant, you listen to me. I’ve been kicking lazy dock crews asses clean across the Galaxy for 40 years now – Hell, I’ve been serving Starfleet when you were just a glint in your daddy’s eye and a buldge in his pants. While you were off kissing Jimmy Nickles behind the bleachers I was in the trenches, with grease up to my elbows and broken shuttles all around. But, we aren’t in the past, are we? Now that I’m here we play by my rules. If you don’t want to play ball, transfer. It’s easy as that. I was brought here by the Major to do a job and I won’t let some… kid FUBAR it up for me just because she seems to think she knows how the world works.” Frost glared at her, daring her to say more.

"Whatever you say, old man. But like I said, we have to work together, and the simple fact is that the crews know me, and are willing to work for me," Olivia said, her own sarcastic temper finally getting the best of her, "So you're welcome to make all the policies you want. I'll carry them out." She shrugged for emphasis, and continued, "... But we need to get a few things straight. I'm a professional, and I don't have anyone to impress, you or Hammond. I'm also a lesbian, so you can keep Jimmy to yourself. And now that we're through all that, I'm nobody's kid, certainly not yours."

She scowled back at him for emphasis, "I don't have an issue with you, Sergeant. The crew's yours. You do with it what you like. But don't take your frustration out on me. Hammond's office is this way." She walked through the busy fighter bay to the door to Wes Hammond's office.

Into The Fire

Cmdr. Jaal Jaxom
USS Miranda

==Bridge==

The Trill spoke one more time, addressing the ship's computer. "Computer, please record status of Commander Brex as incapacitated, and note that I have assumed command of this vessel, as of 13:40 hours of this stardate. Yeoman, note that in the ship's log."

They were words Jaal never thought he’d hear himself speak. He inhaled slowly and exhaled even slower when he finished. ‘This is bad,’ he thought, ‘Very bad.’ As if Taalis’ injuries weren’t enough. He walked to the center of the bridge and looked around. It seemed to him everyone was looking back. No one was without a grim look of determination on their face.

‘Isn’t this what you’ve been working for all this time?’ a voice inside asked, ‘All that training, all the experience, all the studying, all the hard work boils down to this. Now what will you do?’

‘This is not the way I expected to gain command of a ship,’ he told himself. It felt wrong somehow. He didn’t feel he’d earned the right but gained the position more out of dumb luck and circumstance. Up until now, he could always tap his commbadge and say ‘Captain, please come to the bridge.’

Not now though.

‘Not necessarily true,’ the voice said, ‘You earned the second officer’s spot. Everything you’ve done up to now has prepared you for the position you’re in now.’

‘Why don’t I feel that way?’ he asked.

There was no answer.

Jaal swallowed hard. He wasn’t particularly a religious person but he said a small prayer to whatever gods would listen that the diplomatic team on Breen would live through this. Then he prayed again that the Miranda’s crew did.

Commander Jaxom finally sat in the center seat. Somehow the chair seemed larger than it did when he pulled his command duty shift. For the time being at least, the Starship Miranda, and all sixteen hundred lives aboard her - were under his command and right now it scared the shit out of him.

‘I need to stay calm … relax … just a little.’ The last thing the Trill wanted now was to appear indecisive. He knew the crew looked up to him. The absolute last thing he wanted now was to let them down.

**Th’l’ya,** he called to Taalis through their bond.

There was no answer even though he could still feel her through the weakening bond. There was nothing either could do. The latest report from sickbay had her slipping into a coma. Her injuries were severe and neurological in nature as well as physical. The window that they’d communicated since being married was slowly closing. It wasn’t a good feeling. Jaal felt a part of him was slowly eroding away. Alas, there was nothing he could do. It was the worst feeling he’d ever felt in his life.

He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on the apex they formed. He watched the people on the bridge go about their business repair and readying the ship for combat that would inevitably come again.

Cares

Doctor Felicia Khatroweena,
Commander, CMO
USS Miranda

Cat was still wearing her scrubs when she slumped in her chair in her office. She had just passed the bad news up to Jaal. Certainly the man deserved the position, but he certainly wouldn't have wanted it to come about the way it had. No one would have wanted to.

Swinging slightly in her chair, the tension from the surgery seemed to drain away, at least her energy drained away and she felt very weak. She was coming down off the adrenaline rush.

Resting her head on her hands, she felt some eyes watching her, looking up, she saw the latest of her staff, Ry'shan. This mission had had some changes, she had lost Vas. Now Brex was in a serious condition...

As she went to sit back in her seat, her hand knocked the small pile of padds on her desk. The unbalanced pile fell to the floor with a clatter. Reaching over she started picking them up. Reaching out for the last one, her finger hit the activate button and the last file that had been accessed on it opened up. It was some vid-mail from a mother of her newest staff - Doctor Nancy Hannha.

"Commander Felicia Khatroweena, we've never met, but I'm sending you this message because I am concerned for Nay. That is Dr. Ry'shan Nadene Hhanna who should be reporting to you for duty in the near future. I know you've probably had a chance to look at her bio, and I know you're aware of her background, or will be. I just wanted to ask you if you could do me this tremendous favor... Could you please keep an eye on her without her knowing that you're doing so? I'm sure captains may get such requests from parents who are losing their kids to Star Fleet careers, and I never thought I'd ever be in this position to do just that. I lose my daughter... and you gain a doctor."

Nancy nodded her head. "Yes, Doctor, I know... I'm not her real mother, but I have been there for her since I found her 13 years ago. She is sweet and gentle, and a bit too trusting, and this is why I need you to watch her. Keep her safe. I know when you first meet her, you won't believe that this young girl is a doctor. She has that impression, but I also assure you... you're getting the best doctor in Star Fleet."

Smiling, Nancy continued, "Mothers can brag on their little girls like that. Well, this little girl is an innocent lamb, Doctor, and I would like you to keep her from the predatory wolves you encounter on your travels." Pausing, "I don't expect you to respond to this communique. I just wanted to express my concern and my love for Nay. Don't let her know I contacted you. I don't want her to know that I worry about her. Thank you for taking this time to hear me out. Godspeed on your travels."

Cat gave a slight smile, having someone worry about you is a nice thing. To know that someone else cares about you, can be one of the best gifts another person can give.

Putting the padd back on her desk, she reached across and pressed the comms button on her desk, she called for her head nurse and the assistant chief counsellor, Ryley Kincaid.

=/\=Ryley, this is Cat. Meet me in my office, when you can.=/\=

The changes in staff and the situation of being stuck in Breen space, a lot of the crew seriously injured - Cat could see problems, she couldn't envisonage the details, but she wanted to make sure Medical and with it, Counselling were ready for anything.

The New Kid In Town

Jeremiah Leger,
Ensign,
Hazard Team Member
USS Miranda

Nak Labron,
Ensign,
Security Detail
USS Miranda

Ensign Jeremiah Leger was at a loss as he scanned his PADD for directions to the Hazard Team Rooms onboard the massive USS Miranda. It was, after all, his first time on a Pathfinder Class ship and he was sure that he looked like a total idiot standing there in the corridors with his overstuffed duffel slung over his shoulder, a PADD in his hands, and a total befuddled look on his face. His thoughts and mental ramblings were derailed when he felt the deck start to vibrate.

Thud... Thud... Thud...

'My God... The ship is being attacked' he thought suddenly looking around 'Why isn't the ship going to Red Alert? And where the hell am I supposed to go!?'

Thud... Thud... Thud...

The vibrations seemed to stop right behind him and Leger suddenly felt as he was being watched. He slowly turned around and looked up... and up... and up... "Oh my God..." he said, mouth gaping open.

Ensign Nak Labron towered over him, looking down on the surprised human. When he talked it was like a volcano rumbling before an eruption. "Are you lost Ensign?" he asked.

Dumbfounded and wide eyed, Leger managed to only nod.

Labron eyed him. "What's the matter? Never seen a Brikar before?"

"Uhhh... no." Leger managed to croak out.

"Where are you supposed to be at?" Labron asked, continuing his line of questioning. Leger handed him his PADD with his orders on it. "Ah. The new Hazard Team member. You need to be in the security area in the Hazard Team room." he pointed down the corridor with a arm that was about the size of a tree trunk. "Down the corridor and take the nearest turbolift. It will take you right to where you need to be" He handed the PADD back to Leger and contiuned plodding down the corridor leaving the astonished Ensign in his wake.

"What the hell am I doing in the security field when we got people like HIM?" Leger asked to no one in particular, still staring down the corridor Labron went down. He finally shook off his stupor and darted down the hallway to the turbolift he was directed to. "Hazard Team Room" he instructed the computer. The doors slid shut and took him further below decks.

He exited on what he hoped was the appropriate deck and set off for the Hazard Team Room. He found the locker room with no problems at all and even noticed that one of the lockers was prepped for him, new uniform and suit at the ready for him. He opened his locker, tossed his duffel in and quickly changed into his new hazard suit. "Saweet!" he said as he looked over all of the specifications; transporter buffer to hold any number of items including a helmet for his suit, type 3 phaser rifle, and type 2 phaser, personal shields, standard comm badge, power pack, et al... Leger was as giddy as a kid in a candy store. He couldn't wait now to get to training.

He then noticed a note on his locker to report to Lt. Commander Darion upon arrival. He nodded as if acknowledging the order, stowed his gear in his locker and headed off to find his new CO.

Leger had a good feeling that he was going to like it here.

Half Of A Life Is Better Than No Life

Ensign Ry'shan Nadene Hhanna
Medical Doctor
USS Miranda

==Sickbay==

Half of a life was better than no life at all. Ry'shan Nadene Hhanna knew that more than anyone did. She was 28 years young with 14 years she wished she could forget and 14 years she cherished with all of her heart. So half of her 28 years had been wonderful to her...but the first 14 years of her life had been a brutal hell.

Experimentations. Torture. Physical and mental abuse. Isolation. The things she had been forced to endure at the hands of the Seitician's could not compare to her worst days in her life after captivity. As far as she was concerned, there were no bad days. The nights were the hardest, but that was due to the nightmares, and it was the one time when she found herself alone at the end of the day.

She hated to be alone.

Actually, that wasn't correct. The word 'hate' was not in her vocabulary. She strongly disliked being alone. She craved the company of others and aboard the USS Miranda, there was no lack of crew members there. She may dread the long nights, but the mornings were a joy to look forward to. She walked the corridors of the ship on her way to her shift each day with a smile on her face and a bounce in her step. She greeted every one she passed with a wave, a smile, and if they were close enough, she'd put her hand on their arm, or give their wrist an affectionate, heartfelt squeeze.

On this day, however, there was nothing joyous about it. Sickbay was a busy place and two of Miranda's command officers were currently admitted, one critically so. Something had happened on the bridge and then Commander Brex and Lieutenant Commander Narim'Malyki were rushed in. The medical staff, led by Cat...Commander Felicia Khatroweena...did what they could. It had been a horrible explosion, and both officers had received serious injuries.

Some time later, after the surgery, Ry'shan had come to Cat's office to see if she could do anything for her. Her heart ached when she heard Cat reporting to Commander Jaxom, "I've done all I can," Doctor Felicia Khatroweena replied hollowly. "There was severe neurological damage. I've repaired it, but he's not showing any signs of coming around. He may waken in an hour, a week - or never. I simply have no way to tell."

Discreetly, Ry'shan backed out of Cat's office and she went to the unit where Commander Brex was. He was in a Surgical support frame (SSF), otherwise known as a "Clamshell" frame. Ry'shan felt as if the man was being eaten by a mechanical beast, but she knew it was for his own good. Would he recover? She didn't know. But there was one other medical administration that could be done for him.

She went to his side and gently stroked his face, as she could not reach for his hand inside the frame. "Commander," she said softly, "I have not had opportunity to meet with you since I have been on Miranda...but if you should go, you will be missed. People here who know and love you will miss you. So please don't go. Stay with us. Come back to us. Let our lives be blessed with you still in it."

There was no response, of course, but she believed there was a chance he was able to hear her. She spoke to him softly, words of encouragement and hope, and then she promised to return to speak to him again. There were other duties to attend to. There were other patients in need. Ry'shan double checked the medical readouts on the side of the frame. Brex was stable. Cat had done all she could have. The rest was up to Brex.

"Never Again"

By James Mitchell,
Chief Science Officer,
USS Miranda

James shifted uncontrollably in his sleep. Nightmares plagued him, but of the sort he was used to having in the past. There were no machine insects with fluttered wings rending him limb from limb this time. No omnipotent being speaking in riddles to him, no block ruins with unidentifiable writings of a language he felt was long dead speaking in echoes to his psyche.

No, those nightmares had seemingly ceased since he'd taken up with Arel Smith. He wondered if his child was experiencing those dreams now? He din't want to believe the child was really his, but he knew better. For all the banter and machismo the Security Chief was playing up with, he knew the real truth of the matter was that she loved him in some insane, distorted way. I mean, how could anyone love him? His psyche was so one-sided. At least, he thought so. Maybe she just liked pain.

No, these nightmares were about Arel. He kept seeing her die.

He'd only been resting for about 3 hours; the sleep just brimming in limbo between deep and unshakeable slumber, and being 'hyperawake'. The terror of venturing into the fathoms of sleep only to be assaulted by the horrible images frightened his psyche into just coasting along the rim so that he could jolt awake at the first sign of trouble.

Finally, he jolted awake and upright in bed. A sudden urge made him turn and face the window port behind his headboard, the glacial planet drifting peacefully below him, his former posting, the Galaxy, to the left and below.

Curious what brought him to this feeling of premonition, he saw something in the corona of the planet's atmosphere approaching the two ships in orbit, a reflection of light from the planet's surface. At first he thought it to be a satellite. But it approached too fast. Then the firefight began, its first impacts raining down on the shield outside his own portal window.

Moments later, and the ship was rocking from blasts. Outside his window, it became surreal, and he felt a moment of nausea as the ship twisted, crossing paths with the Galaxy that was under it, but now perpendicular and beside. Phaser fire littered the landscape, and debris was floating carelessly by the window from the already destroyed Breen escorts. Fighter crews 'screamed' by, accidental deflections of the shields they came in close contact with. A fighter of unrecognizable design clipped Miranda's shields and careened directly into Galaxy's to be obliterated in fine fashion.

He was truly hyperawake now. The dreams forgotten at the moment as he flew out of his quarters in the dim red lighting to man his post on the Bridge.

****

It took some difficulty getting to the bridge. He'd stopped to tend to injured crew where the shields had been breached - or ripped through in some case by who know what. Could Galaxy have fired her phaser cannon to hit Miranda? He shook his head. No Tactical officer was that bad. Unless, of course, the rumors of the Romulan leading their Tactical team were true. Made one wonder.

Either way, taking detours around, helping where needed... by the time he got to the Bridge, the battle was over. The crew remained silent as they listened to what seemed to be an audio transmission from the surface.

Apparently, there'd been a revolution of sorts, and now the military was in control. Miranda was moving towards the planet.

Arel!

It struck home as the adrenaline of the moment disappeared back into the bloodstream.

She was still on the planet. Had anything become of the landing party? He'd noticed Breen cruisers from what little of the battle he did see from whatever vantage points allowed it from the moment it started in his quarters to the various holes and portals on the way here.

The answer came as he stood frozen just inside the Bridge deck as he took a step towards his station.

[...placing your diplomatic envoys under arrest as per your failure to maintain your... how do you humans put it? ... end of the bargain.]

His heart skipped a beat. Dammit, James! You're tougher than this. Shake it off, wimp! Maybe you'll get lucky and the runt will die in her womb. That'd keep your dirty little secret, wouldn't it?

[...We are only taking measures to assure our species survival in that you do not break this promise as well. Your crew shall be returned, once you have completed the task we require of you. If you do not comply, we shall terminate one of your crew ever hour until you do.]

Pulse rate increased. He couldn't move. By the prophets, he felt helpless! Do something, Brex! Anything! Why isn't someone beaming them out of there?

Because they have a mission to accomplish, that's why. They won't kill them. Not if they want to bring the Federation down on their heads. James gritted his teeth; comfort in the fact the Breen wouldn't stoop to taking such a broad chance. The fear fell away, the worries of a life without Arel Smith being replaced with stolid courage. As much as he showed her such arrogant discourse and apparent hatred, she was the one thing in his life he really only truly cared for, he knew. He pushed away all those that he loved (or was that his host saying that?) because all he ever cared about died. He would rather have her at arm's length alive to care about her from afar, then close and dead.

The situation below made him nervous. More banter between the Breen Thot and M'Kantu. Damn that Captain! He was going to push the Breen over the edge and kill the entire landing party. Was he that irresponsible? Fear gripped him. He still couldn't move from the spot he'd grown roots on.

Then the Breen ship hovering between them was fired upon by two uncloaking ships also of Breen design, and annihilated. The Bridge flew into an uproar of which only Brex could forcibly calm them down about in order to hear the rest.

["You would kill your own people for a revolution? It's more like a coup from this perspective."] M'kantu's voice could barely be heard above the din.

[I will do what is necessary for my people to survive. Now, not a moment to waste. To prove my point, I shall terminate one of the hostages.]

The Bajoran finally uprooted himself from the spot on the carpet that had clamped onto him to dive forward gripping the rail near the Tactical station. His knuckles instantly faded to white.

The very identifiable whine of a disruptor blast echoed over the subspace wave, the shriek that followed barely lasting a moment.

The whole patchwork repair James had made to his failing psyche instantly unraveled in one single moment.

The world halted, save the shriek that reverberated in his mind. His eyes closed, knowing that scream would stay with him for an extremely long time indeed if it were Arel. His entire world crumbled around him. His head drooped, shoulders sagged.

All he tried to do to keep her from becoming victim to his living curse, and he failed. He stumbled, his fingers letting go of the railing, and he fell. Time stretched and the fall went on. Eyes staring at the window portal above, he wondered if her soul had fluttered away into the night. If her last thoughts were of anger and hatred towards him. That was no way to die. Not for her. No one should end their lives so violently and without love. Especially not her. He never knew how much he loved her until now. Now that she might be gone.

He crumpled to the floor, scurrying back to the turbolift, where at once the doors closed; he crawled back against the paneling to wrap his arms around his legs, tightly drawing them to his chest. Bowing his head into his knees, he was racked with sobs.

Never again would he love. Never again.

patent pending

by Turan Trelar,
Quentite engineer wannabe

Turan lifted up another part of the deflector control room's ceiling. The piece like many other before reminded more at a worn out straw hat than at the wall cover of a 24th century space ship.

The fibres protruding from the edges on first sight looked rather soft. On first sight .... on second sight, every of the fiber was able to mutate into a harpoon when combed against the pile as Turan found out when he tried to throw the piece onto a zero-g-carrier.

"Ouch"

Turan dropped the tile back to the floor to look at his left hand. A needle-like piece of fibre - about 4" long over all still stuck in his palm. There wasn't any severe injury. There wasn't even blood. The fibre just punctured the skin and ached like hell.

Carefully, the Quentite engineer wannabe pulled at the fibre. He didn't want any splinter to stay behind in the wound. Again, the pain almost overwhelmed him. But at least, the fibre was out.

As careful as Turan removed the fibre, he lifted up the piece again and laid it on the carrier.

The next part to be salvaged was the one covered with the stained blood of ensign Meowky Haat. One of its edges was snapped upright. With his tip cut away evenly it didn't remind at the danger it bared when unlucky Meowky fell and pinned his shoulder on the blade sharp tip.

"Miss Desoanso? Could you have a look at this, please?" Turan called the female engineer who was there, too, when the ceiling fell down.

>From the far end of the room, ensign Susan Desoandso approached to look at the giant boy who was bending the edge back and fore. With every move, further of the edge's fibres snapped like spaghetti.

"Did you ever think about those ceiling tiles?" asked Turan.

"Not really" answered Ensign Desoandso a little bit annoyed "and there's quite some work to be done, so it's not the right time to look an the ceiling and chat."

"But Ma'am" protested Turan. "with a little more thinking about those tiles, ensign Meowky wouldn't have been injured that severe. May be he wouldn't have been injured at all."

"And you think you are better than the folks who designed the vessel?" Susan wanted to know.

"I didn't say so, did I?" replied Turan. "I think they spent a lot of effort to design the fastest engines, the durablest hull, the strongest deflectors and probably even the replicators producing the tastiest food. They put it all together and covered it with wall covers they had on stock. They didn't expect them to on fine day fall down and injure a crewmen. They expected them to stay there ..." Turan touched the ceiling without even standing on his tiptoes "... forever."

"Your point" admitted Ensign Desoandso. "so what would you propose to change, Mr Trelar?"

"Hmm, I'm not sure" Turan answered "I wouldn't let the decision where the cover breaks or not to random. Could you lend me your phaser once more?"

Susan nodded and passed him her phaser.

"Is it still on the same setting, I used with Ensign Meowky?"

Again, Susan nodded.

Turan engaged the phase and let the beam touch the piece of wall cover lying topmost on the carrier taking care not to cut fully through it. After giving the phaser back to the woman curiously staring at the experiment. He lifted the cover up over his head.

"Watch, what happens", ordered Turan.

First, the cover laid absolutely straight. With every inch, Turan's hand moved towards the piece's center, it bent more. Suddenly, there was a loud crack and half of the piece fell down to the floor, whirling up some dust.

"Look at this", offered Turan, proudly presenting the new born edge. "It's not as smooth as cut by a laser knife. But there aren't any long fibres and not blade sharp tips."

Susan combed her hair over her shoulders and scratched her temple.

"That looks much to easy to me, I must admit" she said quite puzzled "but it's worth presenting it to Lieutenant Suder. But first get this crap and dust out of here so we can reestablish control before our friend out there decide to ride another attack."

Turan nodded "Yes Ma'am" and instantly continued to fill the zero-g-carrier with the remains of the deflector room ceiling cover puzzle.

"Disconnected" or "Big Shoes To Fill" (you pick, i hate coming up with titles)

Cmdr Gail Dawson,
Flight Control Cmdr
Jaal Jaxom,
XO USS Miranda

==Bridge==

Jaal had only sat in the center chair for a few minutes. realizing there wasn't a whole lot for him to do at the moment he stood absent mindedly straightening his uniform and announced, "Mister Dawson, you have the bridge."

He walked toward the Captain's ready room and went in.

Once inside with the door closed the Trill more or less collapsed into the chair behind the Captain's desk. He was suddenly tired and still couldn't believe what happened.

He was in charge for the time being.

Jaal shook his head. **Taalis, can you believe that?** he tested the mental bond he held with his wife.

**Yes, I can. You've worked so hard.**

The commander nearly jumped out of the chair with excitement. He was glad beyond glad to hear Taalis' voice in his head again, but at the same time there was a nagging feeling it wouldn't last.

**Th'l'ya,** she called, **I'm sorry. I don't think I can hang on much longer.**

**What do you mean?!** Jaal asked frantically. **You don't mean that!**

**I'm tired, I need a break. The doctors are doing everything they can. I'm afraid I'm stuck here for the time being.**

**What do you mean ... stuck?** A streak of panic went through Jaal as he realized the bond he'd shared with Taalis since they were married was slowly shrinking.

**It's hard to put into words,** she replied slowly. **I ... have to go for a time. I can't say when ... or even if I'll be back.**

**NO!** The bond was only open enough to let a pin prick of light through. **NO!**

Jaal repeated. **I love you ...**

**I love y...**

The bond was gone.

**TAALIS!** Jaal called in his head to no avail.

**NOOOO!** He cried mentally while slamming both fists into the desktop. "NOOO!" he screamed out loud. He banged his fists on the desk once more. A sharp pain emanated from his left hand where it had been burned by the ops console during the lastest skirmish.

"NO! No! No!" His eyes were closed tight in pain. Not just from his left hand, but from the emotional pain from losing his wife. His head slowly sank to the desk while his right hand still banged on the desk albeit softer and softer. "No, no, noooo!"

He was panting now. Beads of sweat showed on his forehead. Now Jaal hoped that the wall between the ready room and the bridge was sound proofed. 'Kat will be calling soon,' he thought while trying to compose himself for the inevitable call from the ship's CMO. A sudden pang of nausea rippled through his stomach. After dry heaving a couple of times, Jaal got up and made his way to the head.

He turned on the cold water tap and filled the sink half way. Three more dry heaves later Jaal was splashing cold water onto his face. Looking in the mirror he told his reflection, "Get a hold of yourself man. Get a hold of yourself!"

Now he managed to slow is breathing to what was somewhat normal. It would do no good to panic now. The entire ship was depending on him to stay focused. 'Focus,' he ordered his image in the mirror. "Focus damn it!"

The realization that it wasn't just the crew that was depending on him, the whole mission did now. That meant keeping the peace and not letting things escalate into a full scale war between the Federation and the Breen ... and the Hydrans ... 'and' the T'kith'kin. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

Ever since he'd been with Taalis they'd been able to draw strength from each other in difficult situations. His rock was gone. Now what could he do?

Jaal had just finished wiping off his face in the ready room's head when the door chime rang. He put his command face back on and straightened himself back up. "Come in," he said with strength returning to his voice. He saw it was Commander Dawson.

"Ah Commander," He said as he cleared his voice a little "It's nice to see you again."

Gail knew he was a liar. Not that he wasn't happy to see her, but he was worried, beyond worried.

"Captain," She said with a little trepidation when she saw him sit a little taller at the word "May I have permission to speak freely sir?"

'Don't call me that,' Jaal thought to himself. He didn't feel he'd been around long enough to be called 'that' and he didn't care about old time Terran naval traditions.

He could not possible know what she wanted, but he always had a policy of communication with his officers. Now they were really his officers whether he liked it or not. "Of course ... have a seat." Jaal tossed the towel back into the head not caring where it landed. Then he took a seat as well.

She smiled as she sat. This was his ready room now. Only temporary, but his. She took a deep breath "Captain, I know how you feel right now. I SAT in that chair, in this office once or twice. I was XO of this ship when Murdock was not here..." And she paused for a moment smoothing her hair "And I know how it feels to see your spouse in trouble."

Jaal listened intently. He took a moment to take this all in. She probably was the only person on the ship who REALLY knew how he felt.

"Thanks. I really appreciate that Commander..."

"Honestly, You can call me Gail. We are not on the bridge. Its okay."

Jaal gave a curt nod, "Right, of course." A small smile grew onto the Trills lips.

Gail decided she REALLY liked this man. "Jaal", she said hoping he would not mind her taking some liberties, "We talked the other day when you promoted me. I trust you, and this whole ship trusts you. It SUCKS that your wife is hurt. I KNOW I dont have to remind you of your duty. You have put it squarely on your shoulders MUCH more than anyone can put it there."

Jaal's head bobbed up and down twice in a weak nod. "Yeah. I know Gail, I know."

"And I'm here to tell you that NO MATTER what happens, this crew is behind you. I am behind you, and I trust YOU with the life of my husband."

It was a small gesture, but one he really appreciated. He did not doubt his ability. He never did. But he DID have the responsability of the whole ship on HIS shoulders now.

And with Taalis's condition unknown....

Now he got what he was waiting for.

=^=Sickbay to the Captain=^=

Jaal looked at the screen on the desk and frowned. 'I'm gonna have to get used to being called that, aren't I?' "Go ahead Kat."

The ship's CMO appeared on the screen. Jaal couldn't remember ever seeing her look so upset.

The Catian took a deep breath and explained. =^=Taalis slipped into a coma a few minutes ago. We tried everything we know of to prevent it. Her physiology is ...well, not entirely Vulcan or Romulan. There's something else in the mix that is making diagnosis and treatment difficult.=^=

Jaal nodded slowly, "I know. She's always wondered about that part of herself."

Kat nodded and continued, =^=She needs someone who knows more about it than I do. I have to suggest we get her to a Vulcan medical facility as soon as possible.=^=

"I understand," Jaal answered with a furrowed brow, "How are Brex and Gwyin doing?"

Kat slowly shook her head side to side, =^=There's been no change in either of them yet.=^=

"I know you're doing the very best you can Kat. Keep up the good work." Jaal told her solemnly.

The Catian CMO nodded. The screen went back to it's usual view.

Jaal pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He sat that way for several seconds. When he finally looked up his face was a couple of shades paler than usual. Gail was a little worried him. Hell she was a lot worried. She stood up and went behind the desk and did something he was not expecting. She hugged him. And he did something he did not expect. He hugged her back. He needed that. And he full well knew this ship was not going anywhere untill they saved the away team. The longer it took.... Gail broke the hug first and went to walk out. Just as she got to the door she turned to the new Captain. "Well, Captain, I say we go and kick some Breen Ass. Are you with me?" Jaal smiled at her "I'll be on the bridge in a minute. Tell your husband not to get to comfy in that chair, it doesnt belong to either of us." She gave him a wink "Yes sir." And she went back to the bridge.

"Reporting In"

Jeremiah Leger,
Ensign,
Hazard Team Member - USS Miranda

T'Chani Darion,
Lt. Commander,
Hazard Team CO - USS Miranda

Fek'Ihr,
Master At Arms 3rd Class,
Master At Arms - USS Miranda

Upon leaving the Hazard Team Locker Room, Leger went straight for the CO's office nearby. As luck would have it for him, Lt. Commander T'Chani Darion was there in the process of reviewing PADDs. He walked straight up to her desk and snapped to attention. "Ensign Jeremiah Leger reporting as ordered ma'am."

"At ease Ensign" Darion said looking up. "So you're the newbie from the Peral Harbor huh?"

"Yes ma'am." Leger replied, handing his orders PADD to her and dropping into parade rest.

Darion took the PADD and examined it. "You got demoted and transffered off as a result of a court-marital hearing on the Pearl. Care to shine some light on that subject? Details on that have been sketchy."

Leger shrugged. "What's to say? A bunch of Jem'Hadar were using civillians and their frieghter as a shield to get near the ship. I fired and destroyed them when they got too close." He said. "Its all in the official report."

"I know of the 'official report' Ensign," Darion said leaning forward a bit. "What I'm looking for is your account that you refused to put into the report."

"Permission to speak freely ma'am?" he asked, when Darion guestured for him to continue he went on. "I made a judgement call. Sure, my orders were to not fire on the freighter, but that was before we detected the Jem'Hadar onboard. Their presence changed the whole situation. I saw that they were going to use the frieghter to kamakazie the Pearl so I made the call as flight leader to smoke them before they had the chance."

"Killing innocents in the process?"

"Better than letting them wax an entire Concorde Class Carrier." Leger stiffened back to parade rest. "Ma'am".

"OoooK" Darion said looking back at the PADD. "You're currently on standby status until we need you. Use the time to get outfitted by in the Armory and to get settled into your quarters. Dismissed Ensign."

Leger snapped to attention again. "Ma'am." he turned on his heel and marched out. 'at least she didn't ask about the Davenport...' he thought on his way out of the office.

He continued out and headed down the corridor a bit and into the ship's armory. He stopped short inside when he saw the Master at Arms sitting there. "Qa'pla" he said in greeting.

Master at Arms 3rd Class Fek'Ihr turned in his chair and grinned. "Qa'pla" he replied. "Come on in sir"

Leger grinned too as he walked further into the Armory. "First a Brikar, then a Klingon. What's next, a Breen?"

"Have you've met Enginner Stava yet?" Fek'Ihr asked.

'Tell me he's joking...' Leger thought suddenly. He cleared his throat. "Er no... I need to get outfitted." He said, handing his PADD over to him.

Fek'Ihr nodded, looking at the PADD. "Type 3 Phaser Rifle and Type 2 Phaser. Not a problem. Anything else?"

"Not unless you got something for hand-to-hand combat."

"Would a D'K'tagh work?"

"I was hoping for something like a mek'leth" Leger admitted.

Fek'Ihr grinned again. "An excellent choice. I prefer dual D'Ktaghs myself, but the mek'leth is a good one to conceal on one's body."

"I know, learned how to do that from Commander Worf." Leger said, grinning back.

"I'll see what I can get you sir." he said, laying the phasers on the table for Leger. Leger holsterd the type 2 and slung the type 3 over his shoulder. "Qa'pla Ensign."

"Qa'pla" Leger replied, raising his fist to his chest in the Klingon salute. He walked out and toward the nearest turbolift. "Personal Quarters, Deck 14." he instructed the computer as the doors slid shut behind him.

"Damaged"

By
Legate Kylar Curran
Federation Liaison Officer
USS Galaxy

Appearances by a few members of the Landing Party.

The Kelvan had remained seated at the elongated table where he was to present the Federation timetable and aid the Breen would negotiate for once they returned from whatever formalities they had insisted were more important than the delegation team that held whatever answers to the questions that awaited asking in suspenseful pretense.

The Federation envoy to Breen, a Commander Chris Thomas, was a disgusting sod. An embarrassment to the Federation, it was quite possible he had permanently damaged any potential relations the UFP could possibly have with the glacial beings who had come out of the habitual shell for whatever obvious nefarious reason came to be.

He clasped his fingers together, tapping against his knuckles in silence. The Starfleeters whispered in their conspiratorial manners elsewhere in the chamber. Legate Pryce-Randall, equally resolute in her avoidance of the minions of the war machine, remained her usual stoic self. There was no need to talk or discuss. They had been prepared just prior to beaming down. It was now up to the Breen to determine their point of strategy in achieving the Federation's aims. If they would only arrive.

It was a calculated move on their part, thought Kylar. Force the other team into a submissive and impatient stance deprived of any news or information from outside. They could not even communicate with the ships above even as they watched the orbital ambush by the Hydrans and T`Kith`Kin. This of course instigated an uproar from the crew currently held in 'invitation' by their hosts, only to be calmed down by the Bajoran captain. In the midst of the debates, the feeds to the screen cut off, leaving them all in the dark without a word from the Breen as to what is occurring outside their doors. The thought of an orbital assault or fragments of starship burning down through the thin atmosphere to crush them into molecular fragments was a touch worrisome.

Then their hosts came barging through the only entrance. Cold air rushed in behind, numbing his cheeks even as he rose to take a step around the curved head of the table. As he opened his mouth in dignified response, the pregnant woman from Miranda came tearing through the air at him to knock him over even as a disruptor blast whistled through the air to leave a scorch mark in the wall where he once stood in front of. He crashed into the chairs he previously sat in, rolling to the floor gripping an ache in his side where he had been unceremoniously rammed into an unyielding seat edge.

Shooting hammered all around him as he scurried into cover. The table was ripped from its moorings and thrown over as a shield by someone. Screams of threats, dares, bodies hit the floor. A Breen came around the edge of the makeshift shield to take aim at Legate Pryce-Randall. Curran dove forward connecting at the knee of the creature, causing it to tumble. He tore at the methane tubes at the back, catching a blast of what may have been nitrogen to the side of his head, where he felt his ear lose all sensation. The window they'd watched the space battle blew out, carrying one of the Starfleeters and a Breen outside.

Then it was all over. The screaming had faded to a morbid silence as the toll was taken of the surroundings. Many Breen lay unconscious about, but more had beamed in and held the Federation team at bay. Jii issues his final command to lay down arms and surrender. Typical Federation coward. A Breen sentry, chittering in its alien language yet to be deciphered by the universal translators, trounced over to Curran, gripping him by the collar and lifting him up off his feet by the scruff of his neck. Eying his dead companion upon the floor and ice crystals on Curran's left side of his face, a flurry of sound erupted from the mesh mouthpiece. He couldn't understand the Breen, but he knew what was going to happen. Kylar braced himself even while gripping the gloves of his captor.

He was bodily thrown halfway across the room in the general direction of the others. Randall was shoved into the circle as well.

Another Breen had the tiny counselor's creature as they were being herded. Through the ringing in his ears, he could hear the cries of the woman who would think could help him. Now her pet was the liability he knew it would always be.

Still, it was heart-wrenching even to his cold organ to bear witness to her pleading. He now thought he understood the symbiotic relationship they shared, and, seeing none of the other Starfleeters bore he courage t assist their own, it sickened him. He crawled to his feet, blood dripping from a gash in his clean cheek.

Without a thought, he charged the Breen holding the creature.

Surprised at the audacity of the diminutive being, the Breen were caught unawares as the Kelvan speared it with his shoulder in what would be a humanoid stomach. It dropped the furry creature even as it staggered backwards from the hit. A stream of tweets and flew from its vocal speaker in rage. It brought up two hands clasped in one large fist over its head, to be brought down in a smash on Curran's back. The Kelvan grunted as he dropped down several inches off the waistline.

Returning the favour with several futile punches, he finally succumbed to the raining blows on his back from the giant. End result was him laying face down, broken and bleeding on the floor. The Breen who had defeated him kicked him upwards to face the ceiling. He saw then that the animal had found its way back to its owner, but his eyesight was hazed over.

A new Breen arrived just then, laced in the bodice of costume denoting one of higher rank. Seeing the diplomat in a heap on the floor, it approached the Breen sentry, engaging it in communication. They then halted their speech, motionless and anchored in place for a single moment, in thought or transmission.

"That one." The new Breen pointed to the shattered Liaison Officer. "He is of no use to us any longer. Damaged."

The sentry drew his disruptor on Curran and fired. A shriek, short and painful, escaped his lips even as the last light faded from his eyes.

The Breen Commander turned his gaze to the rest of the shocked group. "You are now prisoners of the Breen Confederacy. Your behavior will determine whether your lives are forfeit or not. Take them to their cells. As a sign of what may befall you, we shall leave the body of this one here to remind you of what will happen if you disobey."

"Searching for A Solution"

by:
Dr. (Lt., jg) Phoebe Ivers,
Science Officer/Astrophysicist

***********************************

Phoebe Ivers was in the science lab. It seemed she was always in the lab. Always at work. But that is the way she liked it.

She had an idea, and despite the goings on around her she had to at least try and apply it to an experiment.

So, she had headed immediately for the science lab. And now she sat, huddled over a desktop monitor, a frustrated look on her face knitting her brow. A mine field that made it impossible for a Starship to achieve warp. There had to be a way around it. It was an ingenious device. But it was still just a device. Technology. And there were always ways around simple machinery if one knew where to look.

The problem was, Phoebe didn't know exactly where to look.

She left her seat, taking a long drink of something out of bottle she had replicated afteran hour's work. She turned and moved to almost the opposite end of the science lab. Her dark eyes fixed themselves on a small holographic display; the Miranda and the Galaxy. She stared at the two ships. Two of the most powerful ships in Starfleet. The Pathfinder class Miranda, and the upgraded Galaxy class ship that was the USS Galaxy.

And it just seemed ironic to her that two such powerful vessels could be put into such a desperate situation.

If she could do anything, she would do it.

And that's what the holograms were for.

Her first theory had been to use the ship's weapons- both ship's weapons- to remove the mines, but she learned quickly enough, just from running simulations that that simply would not work. So, she had poured herself over every thing she could find, and read in two hours time on the possible effects these mines could have. And, understandably there wasn't much. At least notihng that someone like Commander Wolfson, Commander Mitchell, or Commander Jaxom would have missed.

But, she had to try, anyway.

That's what the holograms were for. Phoebe had a theory. It was a theory someone may well have already proposed and proved wouldn't work. But Phoebe was going to test it out, just in case.

"Computer... run simulation Ivers-316." she ordered, in her soft, husky voice, that seemed to echo off the walls of the lab, bringing home exactly how alone she was in there. It was a secondary lab, normally used for minor research projects, to keep the main science lab from being overloaded with "non-essentials" during emergencies.

A light-bubble engulfed the two holograms- first the Miranda, and then the Galaxy. Then the ships pulled closer together, and the bubbled seemed to expand around the them, and intensify in thickness. Phoebe smiled, as she watched. So far so good. But this was really engineering stuff. She hoped she got it right.

Phoebe crossed her arms, and slowly brought one hand up to cup her chin as she watched what happened next. The two ships began to move, slowly. The computer did a countdown of the space the vessels were travelling according to the scale of Phoebe's model. The hand left her chin, and she ran her fingers through her long, dark hair. The hand stopped at her ear, and Phoebe curled her neck to push her arm against her chest. In that position she had the appearence of a young girl, trying to cuddle a stuffed toy. Her eyes blinked as she watched the two holograms make their way across an expanse of simulated space.

And she straightened her neck Her arms were crossed again, as the bubble dissapeared from both ships, and the holograms made a clear indication of portraying the vessels as trying to go to warp. Nothing.

It wouldn't work.

Based on the data Phoebe had available, there was no level of shielding that could stave off the effects of this mine field. And the shielding would have to be dropped for the ships to go to warp, even if she did find a powerful enough level that could be applied with the resources available to both ships. At that point, the mine field would have it's effects. And the Miranda and Galaxy would be stuck with a very long journey home.

"Computer, end simulation" Phoebe returned to her workstation, frustrated. She would try again, and keep trying until she was called away- until an alert called her to a different station. Or until she simply worked herself into such a state of exaustion that she could no longer hold her eyes open.

And so it was that, hours later, Dr. Phoebe Ivers could be found, by anyone chancing to enter the science lab where she was working, with her head resting on her arms, and her arms up on the console infront of her. She was sleeping. And she would have been decidedly dissapointed had she known it.

“Adventures in Ops” (for lack of a better title)

by
Ensign Tarin Iniara
Operations, USS Galaxy

The battle was over. Or at least it seemed that way.

For the time being, the ship had stopped rocking. Iniara took this opportunity to release her grip on the side of her console, sliding back into a much more comfortable position in her chair.

It had been too long, she thought as her mind traveled back to her last starship duty. That had been over two years ago…and she hadn’t been stuck at a desk during it, either. Frustration welled up from deep within. She wanted to be tearing Breen scum limb from frozen limb (even if they were trying to be our allies, she mused), not pushing buttons and allocating resources and personnel.

Her console abruptly began to do its best impression of a gaudy holiday decoration, lights flashing rhythmically in an attempt to get her attention. Iniara snapped back to the present, eyes once more focusing on the smooth panel in front of her.

No time for wishful thinking. She had work to do.

Deftly her fingers began to slide across the console, taking care of each request that appeared on the screen, appeasing the console-wraiths so they would quit the light show. Engineering was definitely asking for a lot of juice. No surprise there. Once the guys up top had finished slinging more than thinly-veiled insults at each other, it was the engineers’ duty to clean up the mess they left behind. One didn’t have to be an empath to feel the level of irritation rising in that area of the ship.

“Sir?” Iniara’s head whipped to the left, pinpointing the source of the interruption. A young crewman toting a repair kit had stepped into Ops, and was now looking at her a bit anxiously.

“Yes, crewman?”

“I need to get at that access panel,” he replied, pointing at a large section of wall just to Iniara’s right.

“Fine, go ahead.” She waved him in, briefly wondered what was so important behind that wall, and then turned back to her console.

Silently she mused over how the whole thing got started. This was supposed to have been a diplomatic mission. The last time she checked, the Federation wasn’t quite so violent with their diplomacy. Something was definitely not right.

Ignorance is bliss, the Musashi’s security chief used to remind his staff. ‘When the shit hits the fan,’ as he would so eloquently put it, ‘keep your head down and do your job. Let the guys with the gold worry about the big picture,’ he’d finish, tapping the three gold pips at his neck. It was useful advice, but curiosity was sometimes a very compelling force.

Her left hand hovered above the console, one finger twitching ever so slightly. With a couple keystrokes she could access as much of a situation report as her security clearance would allow. Her curiosity satiated, she could then go back to work. It was certainly tempting, if distracting…

~*Son of a--!*~ The exclamation shot through Iniara’s mind like a phaser blast. She glanced to her right at the young crewman. Elbow-deep in the wall’s guts, he gave no signs of having heard anything.

So that had been telepathic after all. Damn, but sometimes it was hard to tell.

~*Oh hell ow ow BLOODY ow OW OW!!!*~ Every hair on Iniara’s body stood straight up as the flow of thoughts further degenerated and crescendoed into agonized screaming. She froze, hands pressed against the cool surface of her console, all senses on full alert. Being just three decks above Sickbay was not helping.

She closed her eyes, exhaling deeply. ~*Bring me--*~ It did nothing to relax the knots forming ~*--losing him!*~ in her shoulders and neck. Ripples ~*Make it STOP!*~ of goose bumps sped up her arms and ~*This one’s--*~ spine as the barrage continued. ~*AIIUGHHH….*~

~Something’s not…not…~ A ghostly finger, as cold as it was fleeting, brushed the exposed flesh at the back of her neck, ~something…~ setting off a new wave of goose bumps. ~is…not RIGHT!~

Dimly she was aware of the slight sucking sound her palm made as it disconnected from the console. The feeling of soft fabric grasped tightly in her hand, the inertia of a fabric-clad object as her arm jerked reflexively backward, and finally the dull thud of hard floor against soft flesh.

Her senses came rushing back to her then. Solid floor against her back. A brief wave of heat caressing her face. Something heavy on her arm, straining the joints of her hand. An acrid smell which made her wrinkled nose wrinkle even more. A loud alarm.

She opened her eyes in time to see a puff of smoke disappearing into the ventilation systems, its source not two feet from where she had been. She mused detachedly over the fire suppression systems, which thankfully still seemed to be working.

~*Holy mo--*~ came the very close, very strong, very jarred thoughts. With deliberate slowness she turned to her right, coming face to face with the young crewman who had landed haphazardly on top of her arm. “How…did…” He stared back at her with wide, spooked eyes. ~*Jesus Mary and Joseph…*~ To her, his thoughts conveyed what his words could not. Much more eloquently than speech ever could.

Wordlessly, Iniara let her tangled legs drop from her chair to the floor, then pulled her arm free as she sat up. She had no explanation for the man, so instead she offered her other hand and pulled him up to a sitting position. “You…what…I...” he sputtered.

Iniara was just as startled as her companion. She knew her reflexes were good…but this was something else. Something unsettling. Instead of fabricating an explanation she just stared back, unblinking.

The inevitable smell of charred flesh reached her nostrils soon enough. “Crewman…your hand.” She pointed at his right arm, the skin of which was bubbling in a very unhealthy way.

“My hand,” he stated, as if he had just realized it was there.

Iniara got to her feet, pulling the young man up with her. “Report to sickbay, crewman,” she ordered in a gentle yet firm voice, hoping that would be enough to get him back in the here and now.

He looked back to the smoking wall and his half-charred toolkit, debating whether to collect it before leaving, then deciding against it. Cradling the injured hand he repeated to himself, “Sickbay.” Then, louder, “Yes, sir.”

Iniara watched silently as the crewman left, then gave the wall a cursory glance and moved to a workstation on the opposite side of the room. She transferred control to the new console and tapped out a brief note to Engineering about her exploding wall problem. She tried not to think about what had just happened, and instead prepared herself for the next wave of requests.

And hoped that she would never, ever do something like that again.

"Just Dust"

--------------------------------------

Ammanalyn Llywhyn Assistant Chief Counselor (and current hostage) USS Galaxy

--------------------------------------

With Kylar Curran out of commission and left to be an example for the rest of the team, there was an odd number. Ammanalyn was alone in a cell -- as alone as a Daedryn could be, anyway. After Kylar had forced the Breen to drop Tampatiaen, he'd shifted into the smallest thing he could and hid inside her clothing, not to emerge until after she was thrown into the cell and he was sure the coast was clear, he'd emerged, returned to his leopard shape, and curled in the curve her body made as she lay on the floor.

The pain from the experience was still reverberating through her psyche. She'd passed out not long after Tam had nestled against her chest, and was only now emerging from unconscious, slowly beginning to feel her body again, slowly feeling Tam's, waiting for her eyes to be able to focus, but not really wanting to move. She felt very disconnected. The rational part of her brain told her she was in some kind of shock, though she couldn't really see herself from outside her body, it was her battered psyche making a projection...

But it was really no good. She closed her eyes again.

It was probably only minutes later that she opened them again, feeling slightly more collected.

It was at this moment, as the fog in front of her eyes began to clear, that she realised the Breen had made sure her cell had the perfect view of Kylar's fallen form: front and center, as though placed there to silently torment her. The Legate's face, bloodied and frozen in the absence of expression with his eyes closed, was turned toward hers. She stared, unable to turn her eyes away, her arm around Tam tightening. He whimpered softly and moved closer, burying his head away from the man's form and into her body. He shrank slightly, trembling, terrified. She, on the other hand, had moved beyond being terrified. In effort to continue to function, her psyche, in its state of shock, was pushing all emotion away. Dimly, very dimly, she was aware of guilt tugging at her, but that was pushed onto Tampatiaen, away from her. It was for him to deal with, for now. Eventually... well. If eventually ever came, she would take it back, see a counselor or speak to one of the Scholars on Daedrice.

For now, she stared, the events playing back to her. Her large eyes opened wide, curiously watching the distinct lack of activity on Kylar's part.

He'd saved her.

Despite everything, all his angry, self important and entirely removed bluster, he'd been the one who acted. He had saved Tampatiaen, he had saved her.

Despite everything.

It was difficult for her to understand. Logically, she could see no reason to it. And beyond that, there was nothing in his psychological profile, the one she had so carefully constructed based on educated and elaborate observations (could observations be elaborate? she supposed they could be, maybe, if they were made of elaborate activities), that said he was capable or willing to do something like this.

Odd.

She had not accounted for it. Not at all.

Perhaps it was the heat of the moment. She had always allowed for him to have the capacity to be caught in such a thing, to react based on basic instincts, to be carried away.

Though it would have to be one very large, very heated moment.

Was this is? Was that what happened? A very large, very heated moment? Or was there something more than that? Or was she reading too much into it? Did she want too badly for there to have been one? A moment that might very well have broken him from whatever "funk", as the humans might say, that he had been in? Did she want, somehow, to have been responsible for a breakthrough? To believe, even for a moment, that she was important enough, that anyone could be important enough, for him to...

But she didn't really want anything at the moment. She didn't feel anything except for a vague curiosity, and a slight tug at the back of her mind. Absent everything else, she had a sudden feeling of awakening, as though another part of her was coming into being: there was a warmth around her that she couldn't place, and a haze around her mind, but she could see through it...

She lifted one hand from Tampatiaen's fur and lifted it spreading her fingers so her palm faced out toward him, blinking, her forehead creasing. Ammanalyn wasn't aware of actually doing this, or why, it was just something that occurred. After a minute, the girl smiled slightly and began to move her hand, very slowly, as though it was on a gentle wave of wind: up and down, fluidly. She then, giggled softly: a muffled, girlish sound, as she wrapped her arms around Tampatiaen and whispered to him, hugging him tightly, large almond colored eyes still focused on the Legate's unmoving form.

"Dust," she whispered, a giggle dancing within her words. "It is all Dust."

"Name, rank and number"

Commander Navarre Shinta,
CCO

"I don't know anything you bastards!" Shinta was hanging from the wall shackled at the wrists. it was beginning to chafe and hurt. She had no idea where the others were, she could only pray they were safe. Shinta was especially worried about pregnant Arel. Her friend couldn't take something like this right now.

Something like an electronic whip hit her on her naked back, knocking the breath out of her.

"Give us information!" Only one of the Breen talked to her, asking the same question over and over again."

Shinta raised her sweat covered head, so tired and pain... "Navarre Shinta, commander, 903..."

Crack!!!

She screamed.

"Give us information!"

"Go to hell, you bastards." Never would she say anything to endanger her children, her husband and her friends up there."

One of the Breen lost his temper and started hitting her in her stomach, her face. Shinta cried out from the pain. Yet her spirit was far from broken, the fools, this way they would never break her. She was trained at resistance, violence might break her body but never her spirit.

She passed out when another violent kick landed on one of her temples.

"Vacation, All I Ever Wanted"

Chief Petty Officer Shivis Stava,
Chief Engineer's Mate (USS Miranda)

****

Egroval Resort, Risa, United Federation of Planet

It was funny. For his entire life, CPO Shivis Stava had felt a strange warmth within him. Maybe that was why he'd never felt comfortable on Breen. Maybe it was that he'd never really had the heart to be as ruthless and treacherous as the 'normal' members of his race. Maybe it was just curiosity.

Whatever the case, Shivis Stava wondered where his family was, how they were faring. Not that he meant his family in a traditional sense, but more the family that had adopted him when he'd enlisted in Starfleet, nine years previous. His biological family was long ago dead, slaughtered in one conflict or another. With treachery being so focal a trait among the Breen, it was simply inevitable.

No, it was the USS Miranda, and everyone he'd worked with that he was concerned for. Concern was another emotion that was usually foreign to the Breen. But the people of Starfleet, while initially suspicious of him, had been fairly quick to warm to him.

Warmth. And there it was again. In the end, Shivis Stava had decided that he craved that feeling of warmth, for the reminder it brought that there were people in the world who cared about whether he lived or died, failed or succeeded. That was the difference between the UFP and the Confederacy.

Which was what brought him to where he was, standing on a beach on Risa. Of course, he was still encased firmly in his refrigeration suit, though he'd donned an oversized pair of terran 'board shorts' that he'd found aesthetically appealing, pulling them on over his refrigeration suit. Hitting the beach had been fun, especially after he'd gotten a chance to play some beach volleyball with a group of terran children. They'd been fearful at first, but when he'd caught a stray ball and approached them, they'd been quick to accept another player, evening their teams.

That had been a few hours previous, and the boys had since gone home. As the sun set, Stava found himself looking up, still wearing his board shorts. His eyes were immediately drawn to Breen. What was happening up there?

Sadly, he had little doubt that the Breen were being anything but treacherous. Racial nature was a hard thing to overcome. Being born different had been his only escape from that world. In any case, his frozen heart was focused on his crewmates.

(TIME FRAME: Takes place during the last leg Battle with the T'Kith'Kin and Hydrans....pesky methane breathers...)

"Sickbay Blues"

Dr. Janelle Reynolds,
CMO
USS Galaxy-A.

And Dr. Klaus Fienberg,
MO
USS Galaxy-A

Main Sickbay

"Doctor Reynolds!" Klaus shouted over the commotion. "I'm Here!"

"Good, I can really use a hand. The nurses are assessing the injuries. The most critical ones are to get our attention first." She motioned for him to take the patient next to them.

"Ok Ma'am," turning to the Patient. "You will be fine. You will survive as long as I'm hear to keep you alive." He proceeded to set the Broken upper-arm as quickly as possible. The patient whimpered with a rubber tube in his mouth to stop him from biting his own tounge off, as Klaus snapped the humerus back into place. He quickly splapped on his reading glasses, and gave the patient an anesthetic hypo, motioning for a nurse to splint the arm. He bolted off to the next patient. Dr. Reynolds had now been working on the same patient for ove! r 30 minutes and refused to give up, "Don't die on me you bastard!" The brave nurse laid her hands on her shoulders, "Dr. Reynolds! Enough, he's dead."

Dr. Reynolds gave a loud sigh and cursed out loud, "Damn it. Damn it all to hell." The nurse covered the patient with a sheet and was taken out of the room. She walked away to her office and cursed again. She took five minutes to pull herself together before walking out and beginning on another patient. She ran her scanner over the crewmember, "Send this one to surgery."

The next patient got impaled in the abdomen, missing all vital organs. This one was lucky. She grabbed the autosuture and sewed him up after cleaning out the wound. A piece of hair fell onto her face which she blew at, trying to get it off her face. She finally brushed it off using the back of her hand.

The crew had been battered pretty badly. A vulcan was wheeled in, and Klaus' expertise was in particular demand here.

The Vulca! n, an enlistedman named Grik,(Which was barely readable, his nametag was partially charred and cracked) had been trapped under a large peice of the hallway near one of the emergency bulkheads that had moved into place following a hull breach. His ribcage was crushed partially, his torso appearing flatter. Yet he was still breathing. His right leg was severed above the knee, his knee cap still gruesomely attached, green. His right arm was broken in 3 places and severely burned. His neck was twisted slightly, and appeared quite bruised and green. He had been trapped for 11 minutes.

After a quick examination, Dr. Fienberg had but one thing to say. "There's nothing we can do for him. Severe internal bleeding, it's a miracle he can even breathe with the condition his throat is in, let alone his ribcage. Get him out of here."

"But he's a Vulcan!" The young nurse didn't have that much experiance with Vulcans.

Klaus closed his eyes, devastated deep ! inside, since he had met Grik several times before. The Young engineer had promise. "Vulcans are far more durable than humans, but they aren't invincible. Even a Brikar can be cracked and shattered. He appears to have had little or no blood flow to his brain, any more than 4 minutes like that, and he has brain damage, that not even a Mind Meld could penetrate. Other than that, his body is in mortal condition anyway. Move him aside..." Klaus paused for a moment, acknowledging his desicion within. "...and make him comfortable."

At that very moment, Grik flatlined. The Nurses and another MO started to rush over. Klaus returned a little order to the room. "Do nothing, he's gone."

Dr. Fienberg took the young nurse aside for a moment. "Crewman.....crewman."

"Holester."

"Holester, I am sorry. But there was nothing we could do for him. I am not the most experianced doctor myself, I've been at it for a number of ye! ars, but everyone sees something new. Other than that, I was at the Medical institute on Vulcan for 2 years. That was incredibly catastrophic damage to a Vulcan. Even if we were able to keep him alive and repair the damage to his body, his brain was damaged beyond repair. He would have been a complete.....how did they used to put it.....A Vegitable."

The Nurse merely nodded and walked off to help again. Klaus began to move to assist another patient that had stumbled in the door.

A Nurse ran to the crewman's side. He held his head with his left hand hand, the other behind his back. His collar was either Red, or saturated in enough blood to change the color. "What happened." Klaus asked as his started to use his scanner on the crewman's head.
"perhaps you had better take a look at this instead..." The right hand was actually a bloody mangled mess, barely attached to the to the wrist.

Klaus felt that for some odd reason, the only way! to keep his sanity was to make a joke. "What did you do? Stick your hand in a malfunctioning transporter?" He quickly flipped out an anesthetic hypo, applied it and motioned for a couple nurses to come over. "Put him under and prep him for surgery. And stop the bleeding on his head." He turned back to the crewman, who seemed to be more than a bit drowsy from the anesthetic. "You'll be fine. Provided we don't get blown out of the sky, we'll have your hand fixed up, and if the damage is too much, we'll replace it." At the moment, the nurses grabbed him and placed him on a mobile bio-bed, and carted him off to surgery.

-I wonder what Malgin will say about him.-

Klaus immediately stepped to the side, needing a 3 second breather, and at the same moment, caught eyes with Dr. Reynolds.

She felt his pain. Losing patients was very hard and it happened even to the best doctors there is. They weren't Gods even though sometimes they wished they were. Her attent! ion was diverted back to another patient.

Fourty percent of his body was burned. The smell of burned flesh still made her stomach turn, something you never get used to. "Get me the Dermoline Gel." They applied it to the burns. Peeling the burned skin off first was a thing of the past. This man was lucky that he was living in this time of medical technology. He was moved to make room for the next. People left and right were being taken to the triage area that was set up to house those who were already treated but couldn't be sent to their quarters.

A young female Ensign was brought in and she was screaming her head off. She had seen her roommate killed right in front of her. As Dr. Reynolds tried to examine her, the patient was thrashing...fighting her. She was very strong and smacked Dr. Reynolds in the face...hard, causing her to step back. It took two orderlies to hold her down. Reynolds cheek bone and under her eye stung but she didn't let that stop her. She tried! to calm the Ensign down but it wasn't working. With her voice raised, "Nurse, I need a hypo of Chloromydride."

The young Ensign calmed down. Upon examination, the Ensign was found to have bleeding coming from her side and something sticking out of it, apparently an explosion sent items flying through the air, hitting her. Scans showed that it wasn't life threatening so slowly, she pulled it out and used the dermal regenerator to close up the wound. It always amazed her how an explosion could propel things through the air with such force behind it...another lucky patient. Dr. Reynolds continued working non-stop.

Klaus was watching as the object was removed. A phantom pain seemed to enter his gut.
-That looks familiar.-

Dr. Fienberg snapped back to reality as an older looking Enlisted man entered the room. His prescence frightened alot of people. He walked in, missing his left arm, bleeding, but not even noticing it. Well, he must have noticed sinc! e the severed arm was in his right hand.

Klaus was just as surprised as the rest, and wished he had that much adrenaline coarsing through his veins. "Nurse.......prep that man for surgery."

Dr. Reynolds had seen some strange things but that took the cake. She took a deep breath. It seemed that the patients kept coming. By this time, most of her hair was hanging down in front of her. She was hot and what once had stung, now was hurting. She couldn't go on. Most of the severely injured had been either seen by them or was sent into surgery so she thought this would be the best time to bow out and take a coffee break. She whispered to the nurse that was helping her, "I need a short break. If anyone needs me, I'll be in my office."

Klaus watched as Dr. Reynolds entered her office, then mended a few more broken bones.

-Hmmm.....That looks like something I need.- He continued to mend random patients.....broken bones, shrapnel, random bur! ns, cuts, abrasions, the whole 9 yards.

Outside the door to Reynold's office. "Ma'am?"

Janelle was sitting at her desk, too tired to move. She didn't look towards the dooorway, "Come on in. I bet you are just as tired as I am. They can handle the injured for a while." She watched him come in and motioned him to sit. She started to rub her eyes but stopped, feeling the swelling around her eye and the top of her cheek. Embarrassed that she got nailed like that, she joked about it, "Rule number one...never stick your face where it doesn't belong." She chuckled at her own joke.

"Duely noted." Klaus pulled up a sleeve, revealing a large welt on his right arm.

He stopped for a moment. He mumbled something. "Grik."

She just shook her head. Her smile disappeared and was replaced with a frown, "God I hate battles. We've lost a lot of people today, good crewmen. I'll never get used to it as long as I live." She felt like throwing something.

"I have been in many a sensless battle myself. I only regret that maybe I was a bit younger. At least then I may have tried to save Grik. But I knew all too well there was nothing to be done for him." He slammed his fist against the wall of the office.

"I'm barely into my thirties, wearing reading glasses, with the demeanor of a bitter old man." Klaus turned around, looking out of the office. Things had died down, and the ship stopped shaking from weapons impacts. "What in God's name has happened to me?"

She stood up and went to him, putting her hand on his shoulder, "I wish I could say something to make you feel better but I'm the last one you should be asking." She tried to lighten the tone of the conversation, "Things could be worse, you could look dorky in reading glasses." She had to admit that the joke wasn't as funny as it sounded in her head, "I'm sorry, my bad. Why don't you sit down and have a cup of coffee or something."

"No. Not right now. I've been trying to go from Coffee to Tea, but it's hard to break an old habit." Dr. Fienberg removed his reading glasses and set them on the desk. "I'm allergic to Retinax V, which is the reason for those glasses. And medical science has been unable after 80 years to come up with a replacement for it. Specifically one that causes no allergic effects.....but I suppose the allergy is rare enough that no one actually cares."

Wandered around the room for a moment. "I could get my eyes replaced completely, or even that old form a refractive surgery. But they wouldn't be MY eyes."
Klaus looked out into Sickbay again. "It's a rough business. But think of all the lives that we DID save. I know it doesn't make us feel better, but it makes it worth in my humble opinion."

She nodded, "I have to agree. It's a good feeling when one of our crew is able to walk out of here. But it doesn't make losing someone any easier either.! " She sighed, "I remember the first time I lost someone. It haunted me for weeks. I almost quit Starfleet and the medical field." Her eyes watered slightly as she remembered that day, "I then realized later that I am not God and I am going to lose patients no matter how good today's technology is but if I can even save one life, I shouldn't quit." She admitted, "I still get torn up inside when I lose someone but that's good, it means I care." She added, "The day I feel nothing inside is when I need to give up medicine." She wiped off her eyes, "Sorry but I still remember it as if it was yesterday."

"You're lucky you didn't know the person as closely as the first person I lost. While I had been a doctor for awhile, I managed to not lose a single patient under my direct care.....that only lasted until my father grew ill. In fact, the illness, a degenerative diasease that appeared to be caused by Light Exposure to certain rays caused by anomolies in a warp core, is called the 'Fienberg-O'Bannyon Neuro-degenerative syndrome.'" Klaus had come the closest to crying in he had been in 5 years. "My parents were in an accident when I was 3. My father was exposed on a short minute and a half to anomolous rays emmitted by the damaged warp core of the USS Rennville. It nearly breached, but the core was ejected. My Mother, on the other hand, was the Chief Engineer and had been exposed for nearly 10 minutes. She had evacuated main engineering and tried to repair the damage herself. My father went in and pulled her out, while the core was ejected via a secondary console. She died several weeks later, an imbolent. My father however, took nearly 25 or so years...I don't even remember how long exactly...but it took him far longer for the diasease to take full effect. I had been trying to find a way to reverse the condition for nearly a year, but he eventually fell into a coma and died under my care." Klaus stopped for a moment, dejected.

Janelle felt his pain, having gone through a loss of her own. She remembered what the counselor told her, "You can't keep beating yourself over the head." She added, "You did all that you could do." She once again approached him, "I hope you are planning to continue to find a cure. You may have not been able to save her father but you might be able to help someone else some day." She walked past him and picked up a picture of her sister and her together, wearing matching outfits...the only bad thing about being twins.

"There have been no cases for 8 years. So there has been no way to study. Just as efficient as delta rays." Klaus noticed the picture. "Your twin. I heard you had one. Don't ask how, I don't remember."

"I think I told you one time when we were talking. After her death, I couldn't take a shuttle anywhere. It's amazing how something like that can make you gun shy about things." She put the picture down, "Kind of like losing a patie! nt." After she lost the patient, the thought of losing another patient scared her.

"No. I suppose. I'm not a fan of Away missions after my combat medic service during the war." He walked up to one of the Displays. "I wish there was a window here. God help me, but I have always found debris fields after a battle fascinating. It's a morbid curiosity but sometimes I can't help it."

"I have to admit that I have never seen a debris field. Never cared to either. Seeing the bodies of crewmembers after a battle is enough for me." She was feeling a headache coming on. She squeezed the bridge of her nose near her eyes, "Today was the worst I have ever seen though."

"It's something that rubbed off on me from an ex-captain of mine. Alberion S. Savage. Particularly warlike. Definitely a Hawk, but of a different kind. He's sort of like a Klingon, but half insane. A man, that has an extreme personality. The kind that rubs off on anyone he comes in contact, wether it ! be chaotic thoughts, morbid curiosities, or an unending sense of Honor. Sometimes all three." Klaus seemed less interested, and looked out at Sickbay. Mercifully for all. It seemed the late entries were all light injuries, minor burns, broken hand and arms, insignificant injuries compared to what came through earlier.

"Things seem to have calmed down. But I have a terrible feeling. It's not over."

She sat back down, "Well, I don't know about you but I could really use a short nap. I mean, if it isn't over, I'll need to be at my best." She could usually work for more than thirty-six hours straight but for some reason, today was mentally draining as well as physically draining.

"I'll keep an eye on Sickbay. And if there's any administrative work to do, I'll take care of it."

"Are you sure? Afterall, you worked just as hard as I did."

"I may have hated work as a child, but I do not now. Besides, I want my own sickbay some day, Any sic! kbay really. I dare say I wouldn't mind being on the Sturmovik, but Kay probably wouldn't have it." Klaus smiled the first time since he woke up the prior morning.

"Well, if you need a good reference, let me know. I'm sure I have a lot of clout. Besides, with your record and performance, I think they'd be glad to give you your own sickbay."

Klaus moved to the side slightly. "I wouldn't mind staying right here though. Something seems to just.....hold me here. Not Kay though. As much as she'd hate it, she'd stay with me."

"Oh, I see. Well, the offer still stands if you change your mind." She looked over out in sickbay, "Looks like it's getting busy out there again. I think I'll hold off on that nap."

"No....something binds me to this ship. And yes....our calling..well...calls."

"Infallible Logic"

by
Lt. Ella Grey

****

Ella Grey wrinkled her nose as she looked into the bathroom mirror and then attempted to wipe the grease off of it with the back of her sleeve.

Of course, since her sleeve was almost as dirty as her face it wasn't really effective.

The engineer sighed. All she wanted to do was sleep. But she also didn't want to get grit and grime all over her pink bedsheets and comforter. Ella could almost hear her mother screaming in her head for just thinking about it.

Ella rocked back and forth on her feet. She frowned, closed her eyes, and wondered if someone would come over and make the decision for her.

But, finally, she shook herself and then started to peel off the dirty uniform.

The Galaxy may have been immaculate on a normal day, she thought, but during a disaster it's parts still tended to have enough dirt to terraform a planet.

Don't think about planets, Ella then told herself firmly. That would lead to thoughts about Victor and then concerns about Victor and then hysteria about Victor and then...

Just stop it, she warned herself. Victor was fine.

He had to be fine because he was Victor.

And with that infallible bit of logic, she coordinated her legs to step out of her pants, removed the rest of her clothes, and walked shakily into the sonic shower.

****

Sleep would have been nice about an hour ago, Ella thought as she buried her head under her pillow. Hell, even a nice, dozy sleepy feeling would have been nice.

But no, her mind was refusing to rest, deciding that now was the perfect opportunity to rehash every thought she'd ever had.

Ella gave a loud growling sound, fortunately drowned out by the loud moaning that was coming from Indigo's room (which was another source of irritation although she really couldn't blame her friend for wanting to celebrate their survival with her boyfriend.)

She just wished that Bill weren't so vocal.

"Oh, Indy!" Bill was saying. "Oh!"

Ella rolled onto her back and threw the pillow to the side.

She was going to have to figure out something for the communication with the engineering staff during a crisis. When it was normal paced, everything was fine and understandable. But during an emergency, they didn't have the time to decipher her charades. And she was tired of getting irritated looks thrown her way.

That was going to be great to try to figure out, Ella thought sourly. How to accommodate Engineering without sacrificing any values.

"Oh!Baby!"

Ella plugged her ears.

Curtis had mentioned in passing something about taking a runabout to look into some mines. At least that would get her out of Engineering for awhile. And it was easier to communicate with three people instead of thirty.

"Yee-haw!"

"Yee-haw?" Ella mouthed to herself in disbelief.

Her father's fifty-third birthday was coming up, which was just another occasion for her mother to throw a big party, snub whoever had pissed her off this year, and set Ella up on another date from hell. Maybe she'd be nice this year and wear something that passed for decent in society. Her dad hadn't been happy with the sheer violet backless number she had worn a couple years ago. Or the black one with out the midriff the year before that.

"Oh!Baby!" Bill repeated himself.

Ella rolled eyes.

Victor was down on the planet.

Victor was down on the planet and no one had heard from the away team in awhile. Someone had even been killed, she'd heard whispered around her department. It might have been Victor.

It couldn't be Victor, Ella argued with herself. No one could kill Victor. He was...Victor.

"Ohhhhhhhhh....." was followed shortly by "Ahhhhhhhh...."

Ella crossed her eyes. At least there was one place on the ship that she could go to and not be followed by the sounds of machines or wannabee cowboys.

*****

Victor's quarters, of course, were silent.

She wandered over to his bed, crawled under the covers, and held onto the next pillow tightly.

He'd be back. He'd be okay.

He had to be.

She stayed there, awake, until it was time to get back to work.

"The one where Phoebe meets Jordan"

by:
K. Jordan Elaithin (Cdr.)-
Intelligence Liason
Dr. Phoebe Ivers (Lt. jg)-
Science Officer

***********************

Jordan rubbed her neck softly where the hypospray had been moments earlier. She had decided to kill two birds with one stone and check in on Brex the same time that she had to get her weekly injection from sickbay: a coctail of prenatal vatamins and other good things along with whatever the hell it was that helped her sustain the pregnancy. They'd explained it to her upwards of a hundred times but she was beginning to think that human biology wasn't all too dissimilar from a ship's engineering: she was just incapeable of wrapping her brain around it. In the end it just seemed to boil down to the idea that it works because it works. Too much faith was involved and there was very little up for debate. What was the fun in it, really?

Brex wasn't doing particularly well. All given, he wasn't doing particularly bad (ie he wasn't dead) but he certainly wasn't on this side of stellar. She'd held his hand and spoken to him, though she wasn't sure what good it did. He was in a deep coma, after all. It was the least she could do. He had been a great friend to her when she hadn't had any around for a time, and it was something she could never hope to repayno matter how long she sat at his bedside.

She felt next to useless on the bridge and pretty much the same about of useless elsewhere. The injection always made her tired so she had decided she'd head back up to her quarters and turn in until someone needed her on the ship blew up. Either way...

She sighed and stepped into the turbo lift, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the wall, trying to figure out if she looked pregnant yet. She decided she probably didn't, that she just looked like she was gaining weight which might not necessarily be a bad thing (though, as she'd told Karyn in numerous sessions, it depended entirely on one's point of view whether it was a good thing or not).

Before the lift had moved more than a deck, the doors slid open, and a tall, dark haired woman entered. She had an elegant gait, with her hands folded behind her back. Long hair adorned her shoulders, and she was tall. Her dark eyes fell on Jordan as soon as she entered the lift, and a small, almost imperceptible smile came on her face.

"Excuse me." she said. "Are you on your way to sickbay ? I don't want to hold up the lift." her voice was deep, and throaty. And she had an accent that was quite obviously British.

"No, just coming up from it, actually," Jordan said, opening her eyes and smiling slightly. "Meditating in the turbo lift a moment, that's all."

The woman, who wore the royal blue uniform of the science section, stood next to Jordan, leaning herself against the wall, as well. She gave the order for the lift's destination. And then introduced herself in a voice that sounded tired, and overworked. Not at all an uncommon sound on the Miranda at present.

"I'm Doctor Ivers." she said. "Phoebe Ivers. I don't believe I've had the pleasure. I'm with the science section." her manner wasn't quite Vulcan, more like that of an old-fashioned school teacher. Quiet, and somewhat serene, if a bit dry.

"Jordan Elaithin, uhm..." Jordan had to pause a minute to think of her rank. She rarely went by it and hardly ever wore a uniform. "Commander, Intelligence Liaison, actually, hence the black get-up I suppose. You come on board just before this mission?"

"Yes, at the last layover." Ivers replied. "I'm surprised we haven't met before. Elaithin...." she paused a moment, herself. "The Captain... your husband ? Then I suppose congratualtions are in order." her smile widened. It didn't take long for Phoebe to get to like someone, and there was something about Jordan she liked. But at that moment even she couldn't put a finger on it.

"Yeah, my husband," she said, the word bringing a small smile to her lips, though the worry for him reflected in her eyes. "We've, ah... been together almost three years now. Married for about about year and a half or so... give or take, so it' not really a new thing especially. He's a good man though, a great Captain, you'll see that pretty quickly." Jordan brushed a hand through her rather messy hair: the curls were being unruly. "Have you had much dealings with your department head yet?"

"Just from reading the reports of his command of the Miranda during the Galvanis incident I have a great deal of respect for Captain Elaithin." Phoebe said. "One of the main reasons I was overjoyed at being transfered to the Miranda. But, I haven't actually worked with Commander Mitchell much. Mostly, I've been reporting to Lieutenant Cernu Kern." and then she asked a question Jordan wasn't quite expecting. "When is your child due ?"

Jordan raised an eyebrow and then smiled slightly. "Honestly, we're not sure," she stated. "It's hard to tell with human/bajoran babies. The doctor's think it'll probably be in about four months, give or take a couple of weeks. How did-- I'm barely even showing yet."

"A lucky guess." Phoebe said. "You said you were coming from sickbay, you don't look injured, and you are married. Add that to the fact that you are showing some, thought just barely, and I that it was worth the gamble. Congratulations. I hope your husband is safe on the planet."

"Hah. Lucky guess indeed. What if I was just getting fat?" Jordan smirked slightly, then winced and sighed. What was it that Ryley had told her? So what if she was, would it be the end of the world? Which reminded her, she should eat something... "I hope he's safe too. One of the risks you take though, marrying the Captain. What can you do, really? Pray and hope I guess. Come to the bad stuff only if it comes to you. I wish I was with him though. God knows, I'd be more use down there." She glanced at the woman standing next to her. "I'm sorry, what did you say your name was again? My head's off in another universe right now."

"That's understandable. You must be under a lot of stress right now." Phoebe said. "No worries- I'm Doctor Ivers... but you can call me Phoebe. And if you need someone to talk to, I've been told I have big ears." she pulled her long hair back to reveal one ear, and smiled a girlish grin.

"They are kinda large," Jordan replied, smirking. "Phoebe. Would you like to get something to eat? I haven't yet. Today. And I should before things get any more chaotic. My quarters are just up a few decks and I have fresh, grown fruit."

"That sounds wonderful." Phoebe said. "I have gone unfed for some time. Working very hard to impress Commander Mitchell; who, if I may speak so frankly is a hard man to impress."

"Oh, Lord, the things I can tell you about James Mitchell," Jordan said, barely containing a shudder and a look of distain. "I'm sure you'll hear all sorts of things about my relationship with Mitchell. It's one of the favourite rumour points on the ship. Don't really know why except that, well, we hate each other and that makes it interesting, maybe."

Phoebe put a hand on Jordan's shoulder in a friendly gesture; "Well, maybe you'd best not tell me *why* you hate him. Because I think I like you already- and it might interfere with my work if I had a constant desire to stuff my commanding officer under a petri dish and see what makes him tick."

"Oh. You'll find out. He's a pompus, self-absorbed, egotistical, ass. I guess those are all fairly synonomous with one another, but you know what I mean." The doors of the turbolift spread open and Jordan smiled and waved for Phoebe to follow her. "And when two rather egotistical people get together in a room, it rarely bodes well. There are a few things you need to know: one, James Mitchell is always right. Even when no one in history has ever been so wrong. Two, he also only looks out for himself. Three, if something doesn't go according to his plan, it's someone else's fault and it's a big conspiracy against him. Four, he hates women, from all that I can tell because I'm not the only one he absolutely hates. So, best of luck. You probably won't have any problems, he's mellowed toward some people, trying to divert attention or, something, I don't know. Doesn't really matter." She paused in front of her qarters and listened. "Okay. I think the step-son is away for the moment. There isn't any Vulcan metal playing. We should have a bit of peace..."

Phoebe let the information regarding Mitchell sink in, and filed it in that special place in her mind where she put the usefull, and often enjoyable anecdotes of life that did not pretain to science, but were often just as stimulating to her psyche. "I'll be wary of Mr. Mitchell, then." she said. "He sounds... interesting. People like that are fun to play with. Vulcan metal ? That sounds a bit redundant. I didn't know Vulcans made 'metal' music. Klingons, yes... but heavy metal music is very... illogical ?"

"Don't ask me, I tune it out or make him put on headphones. All I know is he loves it." She shrugged as they journeyed in. The large livingroom of the Captain's family quarters was spotless: everything had its place. Photographs were framed along horizontal surfaces, old fashioned books were organized on old fashioned shelves. There were awards decorating the area as well as various bajoran cultural relics and items that could only be diplomatic gifts. There were brightly coloured throw-blankets over the backs of the standard-issue sofas, giving the room a personal flare to it, matching the expensive looking rug on the floor. "Sit down, make yourself at home. There's strawberries, pears, plums, and various bajoran fruits in bowls on the coffee table assuming Toryl hasn't gobbled them up. Can I get you anything else? What kind of dishes do you like?"

"Anything barbequed." Phoebe replied. Her eyes had fixed upon a particular item decorating one wall. "This piece... it's Bajoran, isn't it ? Do you know what period ?" suddenly Phoebe seemed very studious, and every bit the scientist.

"Pre-occupation," Jordan said, ordering from the replicator. "I don't know much more about it. I know about Bajoran literature and political history, but as far as artwork go..." She glanced at the scientist who was studying their quarters. "That and the more religious questions are more my husband. If you're interested, you should speak to him about it. I know the basics, but only incidentally: hard to know about the politics and not."

"I'd be delighted to speak to Captain Elathin about Bajoran culture." Phoebe said. "I'm fascinated by it. The spirit of that people- very moving. All the hardships they've had to endure. My parents were archeologist, so forgive me if I tend to stare at anything that looks old, and interesting."

"That's fine." Jordan moved and set Phoebe's plate on the coffee table as she sat deep in a chair, tucking her legs up underneath her. "I guess there's not much more for a scientist to be doing around here, right now, than there is for an intelligent specialist, is there? When it comes to the Breen, i've got next to nothing, and when it comes to the Tith/kith/kin, I have even less. Makes me feel wonderfully worthy of being here. Sometimes, it's no wonder people don't think I serve any purpose. I don't." She took a small sip of her soup, then dabbed at the thick white liquid with a piece of sourdough bread. "You might not want to speak of the spirit of the people though, most Bajorans find it rather... I don't know. Insulting."

"I'll keep that in mind." Phoebe said, sitting across from Jordan. She was nibbling at a piece of fruit and wondering if there was any chocolate sauce to dip it in. "I guess we're in the same boat. Semi-useless right now. This is the time when the warriors get to show their mettle. But, remember, the warriors all might as well be wondering around blindfolded if it weren't for good intelligence."

"Good intelligence in Starfleet? You've got to be kidding me." Jordan shook her head. "I don't know. Sometimes, I think I'm here to look pretty. Be the Captain's arm candy. I was better off as a civilian. But, c'est la vie. Tell me more about you. I've been yammering. I tend to do that." She chewed on her bread a second. "Conversation and friendships are usually kinda one sided, I've been trying to fix that."

"Well, you probably need to yammer." Phoebe offered. "Me ? Not much to tell. I'm not terribly interesting, but, then again most scientists aren't. We are always thinking in terms of the laboratory, or the new discovery. That's why Vulcans make such good scientists. No emotions to get in the way. I do have my minor vices, though. The holodeck keeps those on hand for me. Ever been parasailing ?"

"Is that when you're pulled in the air by a boat?" Jordan asked, frowning. "No, and I think I'll keep it that way. I'm not exactly adventurous."

Phoebe smiled. "Yes, it is. Parasailing. Windsurfing. I love that sort of thing. Picked it up when I was in college in Australia. If you ever change your mind I have a holodeck program we could try together. What's to drink around here ?"

"Whatever you want. Help yourself, Lord knows, I'm not using it." She swept a hand toward an old fashioned, antique liquor cabinet off to the side of the room.

Phoebe followed the gesture. And, of course, her sence of history was immediately intrigued by the cabinet. "Terran design." she asked, bending over it like an antique dealer, looking to make a bid on it.

"That's 450 years old," Jordan said. "I shouldn't have it on the ship, if it ever was destroyed... but it reminds me of home, of my father."

"It is lovely." Phoebe commented. "Old Earth. Another rich and diverse culture. Sometimes, with all these aliens from other planets among us- things that our ancestors were taught only existed in fiction- I think we tend to lose sight of how rich our own background is." she turned from admiring the cabinet to face Jordan. "Your father must come from a wealthy background to have such an object."

"We come from a very long line of high standing. And unpolluted bloodline too, until now, I suppose," she rested a hand on her stomach. "My mother takes it far more sreiously than my father does and she's having a difficult time adjusting to the idea that her grandchildren will only be half. But, I don't know. Love doesn't see race, and if she has a hard time with it, that's her problem."

"I'd have to agree." Phoebe said. "Your family background sounds fascinating. And now it will have the richness of Bajor to add to it. Meaning no offense, but if I were your mother, I'd be too busy being proud of you for marrying the Captain of a big Starship. But... parents are an odd breed sometimes. The things they dissaprove of in their children are often the very things they did when they were younger."

Phoebe decided against the drink, preferring to admire the cabinet some more, before moving to the replicator. "Iced tea- double sweet- lemon." she ordered. "And now that's something you don't see every day." she commented. "And English woman icing her tea."

"I've known more than a few," Jordan said, shrugging. "My mother disaproves of me for doing the things she wishes she did when she was younger. She doesn't believe I have the respect for family history as she does because I refused to put asside my desires because she wanted me to, but that's a whole lot of water under the bridge and a lot of counseling session. More to come, I'm sure. But... she doesn't give a hoot about starfleet, would rather I have married a politician. A nice human man from Boston or somewhere, with a bright political future or something like that." Jordan waved her hand. "Who knows. Jii might have his own ahead of him, but if he doesn't, who gives a... he loves me, that's all the matters." Jordan sipped her lemon water and balanced it on the chair of the arm. "Thank you for joining me for lunch. I prefer to eat with someone, helps alieviate a guilt factor. But my best friend, Jerri Wolfson, is the chief engineer, so she's trying to hold the ship together, and my husband is--" Jordan's low and steady voice caught for a minute and she cleared her throat, smiling slightly in embarrassment, hoping the woman wouldn't say anything: that's all she needed, really, to be comforted. It made her feel beholden. "My husband is being held captive by the Breen, so... I appreciate it. Saves me from having to spend more time with my shrink. While I adore her, one does not need to be analysed over lunch."

"No, the only thing one should analyze over lunch is the freshness of the mustard." Phoebe said. "And that is only if you like mustard. I'm glad I could join you, and I hope I've not proved too analytical. When one sees most of the universe from a petri dish, one tends to get lonely too. I like to talk, and it shows." she sat down across from Jordan again. "Next time if you like, lunch in my quarters. Sandwiches, and iced tea- whatever you like. And we wont talk of anything but... lunch." she smiled again.

Phoebe's manner seemed almost motherly, and yet she was nowhere old enough to be Jordan, or much of anyone's mother, aside from a young child. Her sultry voice had an almost white noise quality.

"I hope we will see one another again." she added.

"Oh, I'm sure we will," Jordan said, "the Miranda is large, but not that large." She smiled. "Watch out for James Mitchell. And thanks again for joining me."

"It was my pleasure." Phoebe replied. She gave Jordan another one of those smiles that seemed to belong on an older woman, and showed herself out of the quarters Jordan shared with her husband. It was always interesting to meet new people.

"Comm...er, Captain's Log"

Cmdr Jaal Jaxom,
XO USS Miranda

==Ready Room==

Strangley, Jaal had been comforted by Gail's visit. He didn't know her that well, but still, her reassurances helped him get his mind back where it needed to be.

There was one more thing he needed to do before going back to the bridge. He tapped a control on the Captain's desk.

He stared at the display a moment. He still couldn't believe what he was about to do. It was one of the simplest duties a captain performed, in fact, anyone performed. It was something Jaal had done hundreds of times before. Why was it so daunting now?

He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. "Captain's log, supplemental," the Trill began. His voice as a bit shaky at first, but gained steadiness as he went on.

"We're on out way, with the Galaxy, to stop an apparent T'Kith'Kin/Hydran alliance. They seem to be threatening Breen which is why they agreed to diplomatic talks with the Federation in the first place. Well, that's what we think anyway. There's been no word from the away team since the ambush. The Breen have surrounded their entire territory with mines that prevent Federation ships from using their warp drives to travel. We've found out they make use of biotechnology to operate. I've sent out assistant science chief, Cernu, and a team to capture one for study. Cernu, as I understand it, is somewhat of an expert in bio-tech. I can't think of anyone more qualified for the job.

"M'Kantu, Brex and I have decided on a stealthy attack by our two ship's Hazard Teams on the T'Kith'Kin/Hydran base. We felt that would be better than a full frontal assualt. I plan on having the Miranda ready for anything, including MVAM... I can't help thinking that my initial analysis was wrong during the battle over Breen by not using it. Commander Mitchell will be in command of the secondary hull and Commander Wolfson will be in charge of the tertiary.

"When were done there, we're going back for our away team. Many of the crew and senior staff have expressed much concern over leaving them on Breen. I feel they'll be okay as long as we do what we're told, at least for the time being. Plus, if I know Captain Elaithin, he'll probably escape before we get back.

Jaal paused and took a deep breath now. "Kat reports most who were injured during the attack will live and are doing better... except for Brex and Taalis. They will need further medical attention once we get back to Federation space."

That seemed like a good place to stop Jaal decided. He was afraid of his voice going staticy while talking about his wife. "Computer, end log."

Jaal stood brushing the hair off his forehead, gave his uniform a tug to straighten it out, then made his way back to the bridge....

"Who Needs Rescuing?"

By
Commander James Mitchell
Chief Science Officer,
USS Miranda

Doctor Phoebe Ivers
Astrophysicist
USS Miranda

After the shock of the moments on the Bridge earlier, James did what any person who wanted to avoid despair. He dove into his work. The last place he wanted to be right now was on the Bridge, so he retired to the offices on Deck 8 near Stellar Cartography and buried himself in identifying Warp EM signatures generated by the Hydran and T`Kith`Kin fleets. The dampening fields lain down on the ships from the energy mines seeded throughout the sector interfered with subspace bands, which in turn affected the ships sensors.

So now, the tuning had to be done manually, which he usually would assign to some other minion in his doghouse, but in this case he graciously took it upon himself. Limited range and combined close distance feeds forwarded out in a net around them allowed a radically slow three-dimensional design to be graded out in Stellar Cartography.

For this matter, he'd been pulling double-duty for himself and anyone else who irritated him. Operations at least gave him more resources and computer use to work with. The mainframe access greatly sped up the processes, to Engineering's chagrin.

His eyes were tired. Staring into the spectrometer picking out bits of random radiation had really worn on him after 15 hours.

As James tried to shake off his weariness, the doors to Stellar Cartography opened with the characteristically loud and mechanical sound, similar to that of a holodeck door. The figure that came through them was a woman; nearly as tall as James, with long legs and a walk that came from a cultured, well-schooled upbringing.

She approached Commander Mitchell, and in a sultry voice, flavored with a British accent asked: "You sent for me, sir?"

His eyes, dark as night, were fuzzy, but his hearing wasn't. Husky, accented voices were always a pleasure on the sensory organs.

"You'll have to forgive, me, Miss... I've never seen you before." He could make out the blurred blue of the undershirt signifying medical or sciences. "I'd think I would have known if you'd come on board."

"I'm Doctor Ivers- I transferred aboard at the last layover An hour ago." the woman replied. "An hour ago you put in a call for assistance in here, and I reported as soon as my regular shift was done. I'd be happy to assist you."

"Ah, yes! Now I remember. Personnel changes. Have had a lot of them of late." He blinked away the fuzz, until her dark features shimmered into view. Now he recognized the face to the voice. "The archaeologist with theories on time travel. My kind of woman."

Phoebe smiled gently. "I'll take that as a compliment, sir." she said. "It seems you've read my service record. Yes, I've always been fascinated by time travel. The archeology comes from my parents. Technically, I'm an astrophysicist."

He yawned and stretched. He must not have heard the reply as he groaned when pulling his roots out of the chair he lived on for the past dozen or so hours. "Let's get you set up with your access codes."

They walked together to the master control console mounted in the center of the lab; a hexagon of light as all terminals were in use, slowly building a holographic model that rose out of the center like a broken puzzle partially assembled.

"So, Doctor, tell me about yourself. Have any family? Boyfriends? Lovers? Psychotic stalkers?"

Phoebe was momentarily taken aback by the forwardness of Commander Mitchell's questions, but the feeling passed just as quickly. Phoebe had met a lot of people that spoke as frankly as Mitchell, when she was in college on the island-continent of Australia. So, it didn't take too much getting used to.

"Family- well, there my father for that. And my sister. Though you might have a hard time finding her." the remark was meant to be a bit cryptic, just to pique Mitchell's interest. "Boyfriends- none at present. Lovers... no, no one I can think of right off hand. Psychotic stalkers- if I do they're not doing such a good job of stalking me. And if they did they'd regret it. I know a few aboriginal tricks." her smile, now, was a mixture of friendly, and wicked.

"Yes, well, ramming a bone through one's nose does do wonders for scaring people off." Ejecting a datachip from the slivered console that looked pretty much nothing like the dumbed down blahness of old-style LCARS, he handed it out at waist level.

"You're all set in the system. You might want to change that passcode I put in there. People might figure it out. 'Dreamtime'."

"I'll change it... if I think of something better." Phoebe replied.

"The job we're doing here is a real pain in the ass, Miss Ivers. Very tedious. Still up to it? Or would you rather wander off and gossip like women naturally do? I'm sure the I-Hate-James_Mitchell fan club is looking for more members. I believe Commander Jordan-Elaithin is still running it these days."

'Jordan...' Phoebe thought, to herself. The woman she had met in the turbolift. She liked her. And Phoebe considered herself a pretty good judge of character. There was obviously something more to Commander Mitchell than three rank pips, a handsome face, and Bajoran nose. There was definitely an attitude. Did she like it or not ? Well... it was intriguing.

"I've been referred to as tedious pain in the ass myself on a few occasions, sir." she said aloud. "So, I think I'm up to the task. As for gossiping- that's boring. Sitting around and discussing the comings and goings of one's peers, as if one had no comings and goings of their own. Not my 'bag' as they used to say. I prefer windsurfing, and parasailing. And a good barbeque, on the beach, after the sun has gone down beyond the horizon. Now, let's see what you have for me."

"Then we should get along just fine, Ms. Ivers. Just fine, indeed." With that, he smiled for the first time since the hostage situation became deadly. Oh, and he'd show her something alright, if given enough time. Anything to forget about Arel would be welcome indeed. "Follow me." Stepping aside, he curved one arm out, bowing slightly in a curtsey.

Phoebe had her arms slightly crossed, and her chin rested in the cup of her left hand. She moved in the direction Commander Mitchell indicated, a smile on her face he could not decipher: was it friendly, or was their some underlying devilry behind her slightly curved mouth.

Mitchell led her to a console; the same place he had been working. And he gave her instructions. Tedious work, indeed. But necessary. If the sensors were not aligned properly, the science department was all but useless. And every department had to play their part to get the ship, and her crew out of this mess.

There were hostages awaiting a rescue.

So, everyone was trying to pull their weight, and a bit of someone else's.

Phoebe flew into her task with a vigor more suited for examining a newly discovered nebula. Her eyes often straying to Mitchell.

She watched his handsome face as he worked, and found herself intrigued by it. She might have said attracted had she not already hear of him from Jordan. Yes... they had gossiped a bit. But, Phoebe wasn't about to tell her new commanding officer that. She knew she would enjoy working with Mitchell on a professional level. His reputation as an officer was a good one. He was regarded by most of the cadets at the Academy as a top-of-line officer in his field.

But, the attitude. Well. It would require working on.

James could feel her eyes on him he knew, but the reasons why were lost on him. For the next several hours, until Gamma shift came on to relieve the double-duty officers, he brewed up more coffee from the real beans he'd acquired from a seedy contact on Starbase 212. He shared this with Phoebe even as they learned more about each other. It certainly helped him forget about the wait for finding out the status of the away team.

"It Only Hurts..."

Captain Elaithin Jii

The Bajoran Captain of the Miranda cut off his story as the door to his and Karyn's cell opened. Silently, he motioned for the Counselor to stay back, as he stood to address this latest visit from thier "hosts".

"Looks like storytime is over." the second officer of the Galaxy murmured.

Elaithin's tale had served several purposes one - to distract his friend from the death of Kylar Curran. Though she'd not liked the man, Jii knew Karyn well enough to know she would have lamented his needless death. Seeming death, the Bajoran mentally corrected himself. Something about the whole thing made him doubt it - some peculiarity that the former Security Officer couldn't quite pull from memory.

Aside from that - it passed the time until this, somehting he'd figured was coming.

The Breen, it seemed, or rather thier new military rulers - were not so sanguine about the good-faith invitaiton extended towards the Federation. In fact, the murder of a diplomatic envey was considered an actionable Act of War.

Steady, Jii, He mentally chided himself. The Breen will get what they deserve in all due time. For now, though...he checked his chronometer again. Well, Smith and Kreighoff wouldn't be ready yet. The plan was slightly changed now - the Breen had finally caught on to the fact that Cantrell was something more than human, and a directed E-M pulse had shut the mans cybernetic systems down. For the moment, he had all the ability and charm of a drooling toadstool.

"Thot Gor." Elaithin noted as the Breen, flanked on both sides by armed guards. The man was an infamous general - one of the few Breen figures actually known to the Federation. He was also sought after by the new government of the Cardassian Republic for war crimes, having been the Breen's representative to the Dominion.

To put it mildly, he was notorious. And also, apparently, the new leader of the Breen.

"Captain Elaithin." the helmeted Breen intoned with a nod. "We would like to speak with you."

"I thought you might." the Bajoran replied, deciding he might as well play along. "Which way?"

"You're being remarkably civil about this, Captain." Gor said, a shrewd tone entering his mechanical voice.

"Practicality, Thot Gor. I'd rather get this over with."

"You don't seem particularly afraid, either."

"It's not the first time I've been tortured." came the shrugged reply - a feigned indifference that the Bajoran certainly didn't feel. He'd learned a long time ago though - never let them know what you really think.

It was a lesson he'd learned well, he thought momentarily of the old scars, long since healed by Federation doctors. The physical ones, anyway.

"Well then." came a mechanical chuckle. "We'll see what we can do to make it memorable for you."

----------------------------------------------

They had started with drugs.

It had come as something a suprise, but, apparently, the Breen were not particularly experienced in the area of Bajoran biochemistry. One conction, which his helmeted captors assured him would fire off the nerve endings of his pain receptors one by one, until his entire body left him screaming in agony actually ended up triggering his pleasure cetners, having an effect not too dissimilar to laughing gas.

They spent quite some time attempting to ask him questions. Questions about the military capabilities of his ship, of the assignments of various vessels or Captains of the Twelfth Fleet, of his knowledge of the T'Kith'Kin Hive, of classified military secrets, the assignments of Starfleet Intelligence officers. The oddly long effect of the laughing drug let the Bajoran too easily laugh all the questions away, though he was having some trouble catching his breath. It was all just so wraiths-damned funny.

The drug wore off, after a time, however. If he could have seen through thier masked helmets, Jii would have known that these torturers were in fact smiling - cold, cruel smiles. They anticipated a great deal more information arriving now.

To thier shock, however, Elaithin was no more forthcoming with information - even when they got to the point of something so prosaic as electroshock. Beaten, cut, bloody, and more than a little woozy, the Captain of the Miranda still refused to answer any questions - though he repeatedly made various comments about the circumstances of his parents heritage.

They did not find this amusing.

"Verkat!' one of the Breen finally swore, slamming his fist down. "Why do you not talk?! It is inconceivable that you remain unbroken."

"Well..." Jii stuttered out. "I'll.. give you an answer. But only because you've been such... polite.. hosts... so far."

The lead Breen silently folded his arms, clearly still not amused.

"No sense of humor at all." Elaithin muttered under his breath, and then caught it, so he could speak as clearly as possible (though he was, in fact, fighting very hard not to loose consciousness.) "It's not the first time I've been exposed to pain, my friend. I've been shot before - phasers, disruptors, and even by some ancient chemically propelled pieces of metal on this quaint little world out on the Rim, once. I've lost a hand, had a lung caved in, I have a completely new liver, and once, during the war, they had to clone a completely new calf for my leg - I thank your Jem'Hadar buddies for that one. They're rather fond of mines."

"I lost a hand to the Borg - as you've no doubt noticied, my left is artificial. And aside from all that, I've also been totured before. Once, as a teen, by the Cardassians - and the whole quadrant is aware of the Obsidian Order's private amusements. They tortured me and four others for days, just for the hell of it. And several years ago, I feel into the hands of the Tal Shi'ar. I'm sure even on this frozen little mudball some of your people have had experience with their torture methods. So let me tell you this, little man. Torture me all you like. Kill whoever you like. Kill every member of the my team, destroy my ship. You will never, ever get the information you want from me, and all it will earn you is the swift reprisal of Starfleet. The Federation is no toothless old cow, that you can pick off sides of her at every turn. We're a slumbering giant, and if you're not very careful, all you're going to manage to do is awaken us."

"My whole life has been pain, friend," he finished, staring directly at the eye sockets of his toturer. "And as torturers go, you're nothing more than a rank amateur."

The Breen he'd been wathing reached down for his sidearm, intending to end the impusent Bajoran's existence right then and there, but another arm caught his, and gave a slight shake of the head. The other shape stepped forward, and was revealed to be Thot Gor, who had entered at some point unknown to the Bajoran.

"A very pretty speach, Captain. But if you do not tell us what we wish to know, we will never let you or your ship depart our space."

"You don't know my crew, Thot Gor. Somehow, I doubt you'll have much to say in the matter."

"You're that confident, are you? Of thier abilities?"

"No." Jii grinned wolfishly. "I'm that confident of your lack of them."

He was rewarded enough to see the Breen's hand flex, though the new leader relaxed it immediately, and began speaking in the mechanical language of the Breen.

Before Jii knew what was happening, he was drug rather roughly back to hi cell, where he was unceremoniously tossed in next to Karyn.

"Oh my God." she muttered. "Jii, are you you all right?"

"Deja vu." he muttered to himself, allowing his body to relax. "Oh, Prophets, I don't think I've ever felt worse in my life, Karyn. I'm going to lie down over here and die, if you don't mind.

"You like like you're about ready to." she said, eyeing him critically.

He gave her a wan smile in return as he closed his eyes, desiring to sleep the worst of it off. "Sure. It only hurts when I laugh."

"Information Void"

Lt (jg) Cora Dobryin

Intelligence work could be thankless job, but it was necessary. Cora had been studying every single report she could possibly lay her hands on. It came down to information. Bits and pieces of hidden data. The initial package for this mission had been so full of holes it might be mistaken for swiss cheese.

Continued silence from the away team had her worried but that just scratched the surface of things that bothered her. Rumors circulated but they weren't really rumors since they were based on inreffutable fact. Galaxy and Miranda had decided to go after the T'Kith'Kin and Hydra rather than recover their missing personnel.

This was one of those times, Lt Dobryin sincerely hated her job. Normally her skills allowed her to do some good. What use would they be if they couldn't be used to find their own missing crew?

'Yeah keep asking yourself that. But orders are orders.' That particular mental banter with herself might just last forever if she didn't curtail it soon. Either way Cora would be asking that question for a very long time, no matter what happened.

Her frustration over the whole situation had become too much, Dobryin needed a break. "Sometimes it doesn't pay to be the good guy. Locating the reasonns behind the T'Kith'Kin and Hydra attack on Breen won't bring our away team home." The comment came out as a whisper.

There was no way to what kind of end this mission would have. Currently that had to be the least of her concerns.

"The Best Options?"

Lieutenant JG Ven'r Nong,
Asst. Chief Tactical Officer,
USS Galaxy

Har'an Weapons Officer
Breen Lead
Gravnor

Appearance by:
Captain M'Kantu,
Commanding Officer,
USS Galaxy

Ven'r had remained where he was the entire time the Breen had been on the bridge. He had taken no affront to the presence of the weapon's officer who had, of course, not been introduced. 'He' had come to stand near Ven'r, watching over his shoulder while he performed his routine checks, scans and assessments. He had not commented when Ven'r ran repeated tactical scans against the Breen cruiser and ran threat-analysis against the Galaxy. Nor when those analysis showed the Galaxy with a seventy-two-point-six-six percent advantage.

"What is your designation?" Ven'r squeak-chittered in Breen, quietly so others on the bridge would not hear him. With his unique vocal chord arrangements, it was a simple matter to pitch the sound too low for most others to miss it. The Breen, however, heard in the same ranges he did.

Har'an snapped a cautious gaze at the nominally intelligent alien. It had spoken to him in a fairly passable attempt at his own language. Instantly, the concept of this possible intelligence breach coursed through the secondary pathways of the Breen neural network to propagate in the minds of the others.

"Where have you acquired the capability to speak our language?" Har'an would not give the inquisitive alien the satisfaction of responding in kind with the homeworld words of truth. It may have only known of that single sentence and he would not give this ships computers the opportunity to absorb more of their language. It would be a death sentence for himself and this ship if that were the case.

"It is something learned," Ven'r replied in Standard at the same low level unheard by most beings, "a difficult language to learn to hear correctly, much less to master, which I do not claim. Nor is it widely known, or shared." He was saying, without speaking it, that he knew their language quite well.

"I will not give your Federation our language if you are attempting to infuse your universal translators with it. Unless, of course, you are requesting termination of your personal life as well as this ship and its crew. Do you have authorization for such a decision?"

"A threat-" Ven'r shook his head slightly, barely a twitch, his tone colored with a note of derision, "predictable. I offer discourse only and to get your attention, which I have done." He paused to consider and changed to a neutral tone, "Your species is highly unique. There are no other related species of your type in the known galaxy, making the link between the other species and the Preservers highly unlikely. Similarly, I am unique. My species has no known similarity with any known species in this galaxy."

Har'an had noticed the dissimilarities between this creature and the other bipedal life-forms on the Federation starship, but did not stop to ponder the evolutionary processes of life. He was not a scientist; he left the fantasizing to them. Similarly, he ignored the minor divisional tones in the aliens words.

"You are not Breen, therefore by association with the inferior Federation you are not a core founding species in this sector. Perhaps after we have rid this part of the Galaxy of your species, we will then study your remains for a link, but that we shall leave to the sciences caste. Picking over molecular remains is not conducive to the true warriors in Breen society."

"The arrogance of genetic superiority despite defeat at the hands of 'inferior Federation species'," Ven'r twitched his crest slightly, making his flat brow crinkle expressively, for a moment appearing like the forehead and crown of a House of Mau Klin. The display meant humor, not that the Breen would know or care.

"Our... defeat," Har'an sneered at the thought any inferior species could have done so, "was as a result of the over-confidence by the Dominion in believing the Founders were a more evolved species. In fact they should have developed a caution in overtly acting on emotions. The mistake in trusting another species in alliance with us will never occur again; not without the Breen overseeing operations." Realizing he was possibly divulging more than was required, Har'an drew into quietude.

"Yet," Ven'r replied, pausing as if considering his words, "the Breen made the Alliance with the Dominion and were you not controlled and eventually dominated by them? Was it not your world and colonies that served the Dominion; an inferior species?"

"Your intelligence has obviously misinformed you as much as you have not heeded my words. How typical. You are corrupted by these primates." Har'an drew silent in what would be a typical humanoid moment of sighing, though it could not be heard. It was only in his stiff body language slightly shifting that it was an interpretation of the emotion.

Ven'r merely cocked his head slightly as if considering but remained silent, continuing to stare at the console as he ran his scans and maintained repair and refurb schedules.

"The Dominion Founders are a core species as the Breen are. The question of superiority is still being analyzed by our scientists and should be arrived at in due time. The fact they use the Vorta as mouths suggest they cannot think for themselves. Reliance on another species to perform standard functions suggests they are inferior to us. Symbiotic species are in themselves weak. The very notion they create soldiers tells us they fear death. To live ones life without risk is not living. They are cowardly. They could never survive without their Jem'Hadar and Vorta. We entered into an Alliance for our own reasons, of which are not necessary to your function as obeying our orders."

"And do you believe that we obey your orders?" Ven'r asked, seeming to ignore the rest of the diatribe.

Har'an observed the Captain and his First Officer in silent whispers amongst themselves in the center seat below them, and then rise to follow the path around the arch. They were planning something, obviously. He initiated his recording sensors to stream the video to his shared communion with the Breen on the Web. The Captain threw an apparently casual glance in his direction, completely unaware his behaviors were to be recorded and analyzed. Instead of stopping, as Har'an momentarily presumed he would, the two humans passed them by, discussing matters of protection for the starship. Not that it would matter in the end. They ended their trek at the console of which the two identical creatures who communicated in a language closely related to his own through chits, squeaks, and tittles, but he could not decipher it.

"You are searching for the opposition's base of operations, are you not? Do you conceal another agenda then? I suggest you inform me of any such matters, or this outcome may not bode well for any of us. If you are trying to trick us, it will not go well for you, indeed."

"If it were my decision to make either agendas or plan trickery," Ven'r replied with pedantic surety, "my choice would not have been to allow you knowledge of it, surely." The Breen were many things but mostly they were predictable and unimaginative. Fierce yes, wily sometimes; their technology had far more to do with the Qlrn than any other species so encountered other than perhaps the Gomtuu. And compared to those two, the Breen were rank amateurs. Only the Hive possessed the level of cybertec fusion on a par with Qlrn at least, those the differences were enough to make them either masters of the other. At least according to his tactical assessments and the base of intel data he had access to.

While working at his console and engaging the Breen in conversation, Ven'r maintained sensory data on every individual within his sensory range; the bridge currently held his range. Expended thermal signatures, chemical signatures, ambient temperature, humidity, electromagnetic signatures, etc; everyone had something to tell him each in their own way. And the Commander and the Captain told a tale that his senses interpreted; tone of voice, heart rate, pheromonal discharge. Excitement, caution, a taint of fear tickled his nose and made his mouth water- his reaction to mammalian prey- scents. With Vulcanoid intransigence, he reflected no outward sign and kept his breathing, blood pressure and secondary biorhythmic signals under tight control.

"Your people have chosen to break a treaty with us and for the moment have the tactical advantage," Ven'r gave the Breen a half-nod of respect, "having preyed upon the Starfleet psychology. It was a well-played scenario but one which cannot end in peace. Should we manage to fend off and foil your enemies at the moment, we will not come to your aid again, through deception or entreaty. Assuming of course we do not choose to take retaliatory military action against you ourselves. You will reap what you have sown."

Tapping the console he filed his tactical assessments into the system for analysis, carrying with it a flag for Savar. "For the moment we cooperate because each of our commanders feel these are their options."

"They are your only options. As for treaties, that is none of my concern. It is for the diplomatic castes, if in fact, any remain." The curled sneer of the latter phrase declared no love lost between the warriors and politicians. At least, not until the pitch of the victorious rose on the last word spoken by the Breen Weapon's officer. Opposing ends of tenets clashing indeed.

"Now, tell me of this phaser cannon you use. We were not aware of this weapon. What are its power expenditures and what effect will it have on ships defenses?"

"If the Captain orders me to release that intelligence to you, I will," Ven'r said by way of reply; nothing more.

Har'an leveled his gaze so as to stagnate the already irrepressible air that loaned itself out to the two opposing aliens who in all likelihood shouldn't be standing in the same room, let alone sector, without killing each other.

"You have been ordered by my superiors to facilitate the immediate arrest and destruction of the hostiles that have found it prudent to remove us from our homeworld. Previous to that, you were ordered by your superior officer to expedite and allot all relevant information relating to the shared goal of removing the hostiles from our sector. Selectively sharing information will only encumber tactical strategy in resolution."

Captain M'Kantu couldn't ignore the exchange between his tactical officer and the Breen. Holding a hand up to Henderson while warily eying the alien, he nodded in the direction of the voice in the monitor screen behind him.

"Is there a problem here, gentlemen?" He had no way of knowing if the Breen was male or female really, but passed on the political gesture regardless.

"This officer refuses to impart pertinent information in assessing disposition of the hostiles."

"What pertinent information do you seek?" Two security guards took up flanking coverage inconspicuously, of which the Breen observer did not fail to notice.

"You opt to defy the alliance? You agreed upon a contract of analysis of weapons and defenses."

"No, we agreed upon giving you assurance we would not power up weapons in an offensive threat to your people. It was not an agreement to share classified data on our tactical capabilities. Are we on red alert status, Mr. Nong?"

"No, sir." The humanoid officer shook his head minutely from side to side.

"Then, have we targeted any Breen marks?" He kept his eyes trained on the Breen officer, still immobile in his own right. Likely transmitting all data without interruption to his own superiors, but the crew had no way of knowing that.

"No, sir. Phasers are offline. Photon tubes are empty as per the agreement on first contact."

"Then, would you say we have fulfilled our end of the bargain, even if we no longer are required to since the treaty has been severed?"

"Aye, sir." Nong needed not to expand on the Captain's line of thought. It was not his place.

"Carry on, then." Without another word, Daren turned his back on the two to return to his dialogue with Eshe, Henderson, and the Bynars.

"The Hunt" (Part One)

Principle Characters:

Lt. Commander Arel Smith
Lt. (JG) Victor Krieghoff

****

Breen Diplomatic Party
Reception Area
Crashing through the window

It was cold.

Not quite the cold of open, empty space - Victor had been forced to cross that without a suit once back during the War and remembered it well - but close enough that he doubted his body could tell the difference. Certainly there was about as much useable breathable material in Breen's atmosphere as there had been in hard vacuum, maybe less. Vacuum wasn't in and of itself corrosive, and the gasses that made up Breen's atmosphere would certainly be that in addition to anything else if he inhaled them.

Fortunately, if Grey's work had been a success, he wouldn't have to find out.

His hands grabbed for the wide, but flat, pendant Grey had fashioned using the specifications from the archaic device he'd dug up out of the ship's archives and pressed down on the front as she'd told him to. It would work or it wouldn't, just like everything else. Win or lose, live or die - the universe only understood opposites at moments like this.

The pendant made a 'click' sound - audible even in his current situation-and, as he fell past the line of sight from the shattered window, a dimly luminescent field wrapped itself around him, shutting out the cold like a wall had slammed down between it and him, and allowing his to take his first breath since starting backwards under the impact of the phaser blasts on his improvised shield.

Grey would be glad to know the device worked, he decided. She seemed to take pleasure in knowing things like that. To tell her, though, he'd first have to survive the fall off the edge of the plateau the diplomatic quarters had been built on.

As he fell, the structure that had housed him now above him and naked stone passing quickly in front of him, he reflected that perhaps he should have asked her to do something about a pair of those ancient flight boots he'd seen schematics for as well...

****

Breen Diplomatic Services Building
Third Level

It had been nearly half an hour since Arel had left the others.

If it had not been ordered to do so, she would have felt like a complete coward for doing so. As it was she felt irritated that she couldn't do something more immediate to aide them. All she could do now was complete her mission.

She'd been living on adrenaline for that last half hour.

It wasn't a terribly hard one: create enough chaos so that Krieghoff could complete his task.

And not die.

From the darkened corner where Arel watched the two guards who had just entered the room, Arel nearly snorted.

As if she would do something so foolish.

****

Breen Plateau
Cliffside
200 Meters Below The Rim

Victor supposed that it was a good thing the Breen had never considered one of their diplomatic hostages would try something like climbing along the plateau's cliff face. If he'd been in charge of security, the face would have been glassed off smoothly, just in case, even though no one in the diplomatic party could breathe the atmosphere or survive the climate here-which, all things considered, was just as well for him personally at this particular moment. He didn't like his chances on surviving a fall without the convenient ledge that he'd located a hundred meters or so back. As it was, only the gravity differential and several attempts at grasping rocky protrusions that had torn away in his field-encased hands had let him manage this one with only a few cracked ribs and what he believed to be some sort of internal injury near his spleen.

He hoped he wasn't going to have to take those Klingon painkillers again, especially considering what had happened the last time, but if he didn't start feeling better soon, he was going to have to do something.

Maybe this time Counselor Dallas would understand and kill him before he hurt her - or anyone else but the Breen.

Above him, some sort of exhaust poet opened and vented a cloud of gasses out, the heat differential between them and the atmosphere so great that they almost appeared to flame before freezing solid and falling in a frozen hail.

Whatever those gasses were - something from the life support system he supposed - they came from a vent large enough for him to pass though it...which was a good thing, because Grey had warned him that the power charge on the Life Support Field might not perform to specifications because of the size she' had to reduce it to.

As he neared the vent, the field live down to his concerns and flashed red once, warning him that it was nearing the end of its power life and needed to shut down to recharge.

As he continued to climb, Victor wondered whether he'd make the vent before that happened.

****

Breen Diplomatic Services Building
Sub-Level 1

Arel knew that the Breen were following her by her lifesigns and that needed to be fixed. But the longer they followed her, the more time Krieghoff had.

So she left the combadge on.

She might have taken more steps to prevent the Breen from following her so closely if not for two things. One was that she wasn't entirely sure of their computers and didn't want to end up taking away something like all their oxygen. That wouldn't be too good.

And the second, but equally more important, was that she was really hungry.

Starving actually.

And there she was, at the mess hall. There was also a big plate of what she hoped was cooked meat in front of her.

She thought she might be drooling.

Arel started to creep over which was when a couple of Breen appeared.

She sighed.

****

Breen Diplomatic Services Building
Sub-Level Six

The Breen, Victor decided, were lazy. They must have used some of the technical staff from the Federation Embassy to install and maintain the life support machinery, and had never reset the atmosphere and climate back to Breen-normal after that. Again, bad for them, good for him.

He'd made the exhaust vent with only a few minutes to spare, and forced an entry with the archaic Type 1 Phaser he'd taken from the Defiant almost a year previously. The Breen weren't going to be looking for anything on those phaser frequencies, since no one had used them in close to a century, and he'd welded the damaged section back into place to keep an alarm from going off. It wouldn't pass visual muster, but Victor doubted that the Breen checked things like vent hatches that often.

Their mistake.

He took a few deep breaths, and decided that he didn't need any of the Klingon drugs yet. Another fight and he would though; whatever was broken inside him wasn't getting any better.

He shook himself once, like an animal shedding water from its coat, and let the mask he wore fall away, leaving only the truth.

It was time to hunt.

****

Breen Diplomatic Services Building
Sub-Level One

"Now look what you did!" Arel snarled as she looked down at the evaporating fluid and shattered bits from the faceplate that had landed on the food. Four Breen lay at her feet.

"You fuckers better have something in the kitchen." She grumbled, stomping over a body that was in her way and then into the back room.

****

Breen Diplomatic Services Building
Sub-Level 1

Killing the Breen he passed by would have been easy, but the trail of bodies beaming back to wherever their suits were set to recall them to would have led to unwanted consequences: Breen assault teams, ambushes, possibly even mass atmosphere purges or the like. Victor hoped that Commander Smith had restrained herself as much as he had, and was merely skulking about as he was, having discarded her combadge so the Breen couldn't track it - Victor hoped someone had a nice time searching for his and the presumed attached body at the base of the plateau.

He kept on hoping right up until he heard the sounds of combat ahead of him.

****

Breen Diplomatic Services Building
Sub-Level 1

Arel was in trouble.

She knew it.

They knew it.

She shrugged mentally. So what else was news?

At least there were more scores for her side. The body count was significantly high on their side. Arel only had some gashes to her arms and possibly a broken cheekbone from a Breen who'd backhanded her.

She'd taken care of that asshole real quick.

But now she was literally in a corner with a few minutes before she would either have to surrender or suicide herself. Maybe, a long time ago, she might have chosen the later, but she had Korvin to think of now.

Not that the Breen were going to be too friendly after the wake of Breen bodies she'd left behind.

Victor watched for a moment, until it became clear that the Breen had her pinned in a corner and that they were not going to just stun her into submission. He wasn't sure why they didn't just do that, it certainly made more sense, but maybe whatever passed for Breen manhood was wrapped up in it now. That was the normal reason soldiers - and everyone else - did stupid things like this, anyway.

She must have been killing them, as opposed to merely rupturing their suits. Not bright, but Victor understood that pregnancy did that to people, throwing chemical balances in their brains out of whack. That, at least, was a problem he'd never need to worry about. You needed the One - or at least a wife - before that was a problem, and he had, nor was likely to, neither.

He glided forward, unwilling to let the Breen kill her, even though it would make his presence here more secure. No one would look for him after they'd killed her, but he couldn't allow that. He'd need to do things differently now. But that would be later, now it was time for something else. As he reached out for the first Breen, and let himself be what he'd been born to be, he wondered what the frozen scream of a Breen sounded like inside those helmets.

Arel watched, impressed. And then she carefully wiped some of the evaporating antifreeze that the Breen used for blood off her cheek with her sleeve.

Victor dropped the last Breen, fumes boiling up around his feet like fog from the ruptured suits that had dropped, spewing out the decomposing remains of the soldiers within them before beaming away and looked up, Death still resident behind his eyes and speaking through his lips. "Time to go, Commander," he said in a voice as cold as the frozen world outside and stepped forward.

She held out her knife. "Stop right there, Sparky. We're going to have a brief chat before I let you come anywhere near me."

"Confessions to a Droid"

Ensign Jeremiah Leger,
Hazard Team,
USS Miranda-B
Marvin the Maintence Droid,
USS Miranda-B

Leger made it finally to his quarters on Deck 14. After keying in his authorization code fo entry into his new home, he stepped inside. Layout was pretty much the same as any other quarters he's had in the past. Nothing reall new except for maybe the single crate that had his few belongings. He tossed his phasers down onto the single desk and went straight for the crate to make sure everything had made it from his last posting.

Then, call it instinct, call it a 6th sense, call it whatever you want but Leger had the feeling that he was not alone in the room. He looked up from the mainfest PADD he was holding and looked around the dimly lit room. "Lights" he said. Nothing happend. "Computer, Lights!" he said again, this time with more urgency. He heard a clanking of metal on metal behind him and the next thing he knew he was diving over his desk and scrambling for a defensive postition behind his desk in no time flat. "WHO'S THERE!?" he called out, charging the rifle and trying to find a target.

"My apologizes for the lights Ensign..." a flat, metallic, and slightly depressed voice answered him from behind the crate. "I will have the voice recognition working momentarily."

Leger cautiously stood up and worked his way around the crate as the lights came up. He saw a short 4 foot tall white robot standing in the corner working on a panel under the replicator. Leger arched an eyebrow. "Who are you?" he asked.

"Marvin." the little robot replied. "Maintence Droid for the USS Miranda."

"Starships have droids now?"

Marvin seemed to slump a bit. "I guess I should be used to it..." he said in an even more depressed tone. "No one ever notices me."

Leger put his phaser rifle down and picked up his PADD again. "What do you mean? You're kinda obvious." he went over to the replicator and got a glass of water. He half wondered if he should offer Marvin anything. A can of WD-40 or something.

"Well, I served on all of the Mirandas to date. I happen to be working in an escape pod by luck when the Miranda-A went up... And in the hustle of getting everything transferred over to the Miranda-B, I got trapped in a maintence locker for quite some time." Marvin explained.

"Really? How long were you in there?"

"Two years."

Leger gagged on the sip he had been drinking. "I'm sorry?!" he asked, astonished.

"Two years..." Marvin said dejectedly as he slumped to the floor besides the couch. "We've gone through many a crew in that time and people just seemed to forget I even exist."

"Why not just go to the Chief Engineer or something?" Leger asked, sitting on the couch next to him.

"Why bother?" Marvin said, getting up and hopping up to the couch. "So what about you Ensign? You seem... tense."

"Long story..."

"I got time. What's bothering you?"

Leger eyed him. "What are you? A maintence droid or a shrink now?"

"Both."

"Another profession?"

"Its more of a hobby." Marvin admitted, sitting there expectantly.

'ah what the hell...' Leger thought. So he began to regale Marvin with his story of on what happened on the USS Pearl Harbor when Marvin intruppted him.

"No, the Peral Harbor isn't what's bothering you. You seem to still be carrying a chip on your shoulder from the USS Davenport."

Leger stared at him wide-eyed. "How'd you know about that?"

Marvin shrugged. "I downloaded your BIO just before you got here."

Leger sighed and proceeded to tell him his whole story. Lock, stock and barrell.

“Are Drastic Measures Necessary Yet?”

The Omar home was truly beautiful.

It had been built quite recently – since the Omar family only became wealthy within the last twenty years or so – relatively recent when compared to the old aristocratic families, who have been wealthy for as long as one can remember throughout history.

A long time, in other words.

Since the house was reasonably new, it was filled with the latest modern technology: such as transporter inhibitors. Not even the most sophisticated of transporters could penetrate the fortified family house.

Riov Omar had insisted on it for years.

As was usual for the evenings, he was quietly contemplating matters in his luxurious office – a room that would have stayed entirely silent were it not for the intrusion of the colonel’s aide – Centurion Adna.

“What is it?” Omar snapped.

“Sir,” Adna said without flinching – he was used to his boss’ irritability. “We have received word: there has been an incident with the Breen and Starfleet’s former flagship vessel.”

“The Galaxy?” Omar said in surprise.

“Yes sir.” The aide looked confused. “But don’t you have an operative onboard, sir? Don’t you know this already?”

Noticing the colonel’s frown, Adna said quietly. “Sir, though very rare – it is not unheard of for Tal Shiar operatives to go astray. Usually a bit of persuading is all that is needed.”

The colonel considered this for a long while. Finally he spoke.

“Are drastic measures necessary yet?”

He hadn’t turned to his aide for advice before, and yet Adna replied without surprise in his voice. “I believe so, sir.”

Riov Omar nodded.

“I would like to talk with Banker Tekri.” He smiled in anticipation as his aide left.

"Theory Of Advantage"

(Occurs after "There's A New Chief In Town" - Part One.)

Commander Cassius Henderson,
Executive Officer

Lieutenant (JG)
Dhanishta Eshe - Engineer

****

Corridor 36B,
Deck 36,
USS Galaxy-A

Dhani continued down the hall with her nose still stuck in the padds, and into a turbo lift, "Sick Bay" she ordered, her eyes never leaving the padd.

A few seconds later the doors opened and she emerged. Shuffling down the corridor she was suddenly pushed aside as several medical teams carrying injured on gurneys rushed passed her. She took a moment to look at them. One man had sever plasma burns, his eyes writhed in his sockets, his hands shaking with the pain. Dhani visibly shuddered at the sight. As another came down she couldn't not look. This woman was covered and blood and boy could she scream.  Dhani put her hands to her ears and tried not to 'feel'. She always had mental blocks up but adding a few more couldn't hurt.

She remembered the sights she had seen as Naut, the cargo bay full of dead crewmen and women. She never wanted to see anything like that again. Slowly she limped to the door of sick bay and watched as the doctors rushed to the wounded, buzzing round them like flies to a dung heap, barking orders to each other trying to shout over the woman's howls.

Dhani felt a sudden pang of guilt, she couldn't determine if she still felt things like Naut did. She knew that she no longer thought like she did, nor did she see things, namely people, as Naut had. But still she felt things that were alien to her, like guilt. Guilt at the fact she was coming to Sick Bay because she had cut her leg, sure it hurt, stung like a bitch, but these people were in real need of medical attention. Her leg would heal fine on its own, it wasn't life threatening.

She sighed, and tried to stem the tears that were welling up. Turning back she returned to the Turbo lift, "Bridge" she called out once inside. She scanned her data pads quickly during the ride, tucking them under her arm as the doors opened.

****

Main Bridge,
Deck 1,
USS Galaxy-A

Cassius Henderson was nursing a fresh burn that had seared his left hand and destroyed the uniform around it. It was truly amazing the amount of punishment a Starfleet Officer wound up taking. And he hadn't even been in combat when it had occured, standing next to the ops console and trying to help Lieutenant Bartlett make sense of his readings.  Somebody really needed to redesign console circuitry with some kind of surge protector.

Left briefly in command when Captain M'Kantu retired to his ready room, Henderson turned at the sound of the turbolift doors opening, accidentally allowing his injured hand to make contact with the tactical arch. Once again, he and Lieutenant Nong had been huddled around it. Cass wouldn't admit it, but he still missed the arch.

Wincing in pain, he waited to see who would emerge.

As she took a step out her ripped trouser leg flapped round her ankle showing the blood soaked bandage underneath. She looked down and realised how bad she must look. The bandage round her head was covered in dirt, as must her face be, she hadn't had time to check. Her uniform was littered with dust and fragments of the Deflector Control room, hastily she brushed her shoulders down and then took a glance round the bridge, no one had noticed her yet and by the looks of them no one was really going to mind. She was sure they were going to prefer a scruffy looking engineer working her butt off than one who thought she had time to replicate a crisp new clean one just to look good.

As quickly as she could she hobbled to a nearby vacant position. The station was dead, burnt out no surprise there. She crouched down and pulled off the access panel. Taking a look around she could see the problem, the majority of the inside of the unit was charred from fire damage. Delving her hand inside she disconnected a bunch of optical wiring from the main processor and removed it. She hadn't anticipated that the unit or its contents would still be hot.

"Blast!" she exclaimed as her fingers began to burn, dropping the offending item she watched it role across the floor as she sucked on her fingers.

Cassius caught it under his boot, and sighed. He barely knew Dhanishta Eshe, though he'd heard some of the current stories. He largely avoided discussing her, except with M'Kantu. It wasn't that he was apathetic, which would have been more in keeping with Rima, but that she reminded him of Quentin, where he'd apparently picked up the memories that now haunted his estranged friendship with 'Lieutenant' Pennington.

"You too?" he asked sympathetically, carefully picking the rapidly cooling device up off the floor and crossing the bridge to where Eshe was lying on the deck. Apparently, the engineer didn't hear him.

"What the hell hit this ship?" she questioned the air around her. She hoisted her self up onto her knees and cast an eye round the Bridge floor. ~ Where the hell did it go? ~ sighing and rolling her eyes she bent down so her head was level with the floor. From this unattractive angle she would be able to see every little piece of dirt, ~great~ she groaned to herself.

"One too many Hydran fighters, and I have what you're looking for," Cass answered her as he walked over. Squatting next to Eshe, he looked her over.  Between the obvious head wound and the leg wound that was not as obvious but still apparent to the trained eye, she was looking like she'd done a few rounds with a Nausicaan prize fighter. "Are you okay to keep going? You look like you're in shock, Lieutenant."

Dhani sat back on her heels, winced, and thrust her leg out to the side so she was balancing her butt and the heel of one shoe. Looking up at the first officer she pondered his question. Shaking her head she stood up slowly,

"No shock." she mumbled. Squinting she looked at him, "Hydran?" she questioned.

"One of our opponents in the fight over Breen.  The blue ships.  They haven't been seen in something like 70 years," Cass filled her in.  He didn't know a whole lot.  But then again, who did when it came to the Hydrans?

"They have a very fighter based military, as well as some powerful long range weapons.  Luckily, we haven't had to get too far within their range yet."

Dhani nodded taking the information in, her mind racing back to her academy days trying to remember anything about the Hydrans.. blank.  Frowning she regarded him once more.

"You didn't just come to chat, I hope," Cass asked, glancing about him.  She was supposed to be a phenomenal engineer.  Perhaps it was time for a little creative problem solving.  Otherwise, he was 93.41% certain that they wouldn't make it through the next fight.

"You know, never mind.  Come look at the data we've gathered about the Hydran and T'Kith'Kin weapons.  We need to find some sort of countermeasure."

She took a glance back to the exposed bridge station, shrugging inwardly, and then followed the first officer.

He lead her over to the tactical station, borrowing a portion of it from Lieutenant Nong and his Breen observer.  Henderson had just finished going over the tactical information from the battle, and had his own theories on the loyalties of the players, but with Har'an hovering over his shoulder...  There would be none of that.  He'd have to trust in tr'Khellian and Dobryin.

"Look at this," Cass pointed to a few readouts of the energy impacts of the Hydran Hellbore Cannon, as well as the Hydran energy weapons mounted on their fighters, "The Hydrans tend to try to overwhelm the shields all at once.  They almost succeeded, so we're weakened right now.  To survive, we need an advantage.  Anything come to mind?"

Dhani read the information over his shoulder.  She sighed at the readouts, they did have the advantage; she had the wounds to prove it.

"If we could modify the shields to send the blows right back to them, that would be an advantage." She joked sombrely.

"Well, considering the tri-dimensional nature of space conflict...," Henderson replied.  This was tactics, and it was his specialty.  "... I doubt it would be feasible to use the shields to 'return' the attacks, but we might be able to modify them to deflect some of the energy back out, lessening the impact of the blows."

As she stood there her words echoed in her mind.  Why couldn't they?  She questioned herself, just because it hadn't been done before didn't mean that it wasn't possible.  She stood deep in thought for a moment.

"You know that might actually be possible" she said turning to him.  Her eyes lit up.  Quickly the hobbled back to the station she had been working at and grabbed a padd from her tool kit and began to call up the specs on the shields.

"All we need to do is..."

Lieutenant Commander Ethan Suder
Chief Engineer

Lieutenant jg Dhanishta Eshe
Engineer

“There’s a new Chief in town.” Part two of two.

The main doors to Engineering slid open. Ethan, along with Tom strolled into Engineering, both whistling the same tune. The song they were whistling was an old Betazoid song, not that it was of any importance.

They both had an engineering kit slung over their shoulders, if they had both been human, it could have been said they looked like dwarf’s whistling, ‘I ho, I ho’… But not these fellows, not at all!

Dhani glanced up at the whistling duo from the Master Systems Display console and smiled, at least someone was happy!

Strolling up to the Master Systems Display console, Ethan dropped his kit on to it and picked up a couple of data pads, still whistling the tune. Tom in turn continued whistling, joining in at the chorus where they both turned and pointed at each other with a finger and a wink. It had taken them quite some time to become intone with each other on this particular song, clearly their duties fixing the fracture of one of the injectors as ordered by Lieutenant Eshe had been rather dull.

After a few seconds, they finished the song. Tom smiled as he went about his work. Ethan looked up from the data padds at Dhani. “So Chief, what’s next?” he asked with raised eyebrows as he leaned over the display console on his knuckles.

Dhani returned him a curious glance in answer.

“You wanted the fracture repaired, and so it has been done. What’s next?” he asked.

She frowned at him trying to work out what he was talking about.

“Bring the Warp engines back on line.” She replied slowly as if it was the most stupidest question. A small smile danced on her lips as she realised what he was referring too. ~ Ahh it was Ethan she was talking to earlier. How embarrassing! ~

She shook her head slightly and let out a chuckle,

“Do I really have to tell you every little thing? Did you not attend the academy? I feel like I’m working with a bunch of retarded school children!” She flapped her hands, over gesturing purposely, and stood up. Sighing she turned away from him and strolled over the replictor,

“Coffee, black double sweet and another coffee, black. And a warm lemon with honey tea.”

Taking all three drinks back to the display she handed them out, black coffee to Jason and the other coffee to Suder. Sitting back down she took a long sip of her tea and grinned at the both of them.

“You heard the lady, Tom.” Ethan said with a nudge. “Bring the engines back online.”

Tom smiled and gave a nod in return as he activated the engines.

Ethan turned back to Dhani. “Ok, I’m temporarily making you Chief of Engineering. What’s the next course of action?” he asked sipping his hot coffee before folding his arms.

Another frown crossed Dhanis face as she tried to work out what game Suder was playing. She thought for a moment as she drank her tea.

“Firstly I would bring your attention to the fact that we have an assistant Chief.” She paused, “Then I would tell you both to get some rest as it’s been a long day….. but knowing the both of you, neither of you would actually do that. You would both work till you dropped. So I’d say we need to do some serious work on the shields. The engines on line, Sick bay have all they need for the moment, emergency teams are working to repair the structural damage on the ship and most key systems are back on line or are at minimal power.” She regarded him for a moment and then added, “I would also ask for an update to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything.”

Ethan leaned closer to Tom. “Get working on that update.” He glanced back at Dhani. “I’ll head to Deflector Control, see what I can do to tidy the place up and see what we can do to the shields from there. And I’ll let the Assistant Chief know you’re in charge for now.” He said with a half smile.

“I don’t think she will appreciate that.” Dhani commented.

Ethan stopped in his tracks and turned back to the Master Display Console. “If she wants to argue, let her. Until I say otherwise, you’re the Chief, got it, ma’am?” he said with a smile.

Dhani tilted her head to one side as she stared out across the display panel. Frowning, her lips pursed she asked,

“Why?”

Ethan returned the frown. “Look, consider it an order if you haven’t figured out already. This,” he said gesturing with his hands over Engineering, “is yours, that office,” again he pointed at the office, “is yours. What you do with the time that you have is up to you. But you’re going to have a lot of people looking up to you for answers. Let’s see how well you deal with everything that is about to come your way.”

“But Sir!” Dhani protested standing up, “I’m….” she shook her head confused and shocked, “I’m just an,” she was about to say ensign but she stopped, “just a junior grade lieutenant!” as if that was a reason to disobey her superior officers orders. But then surly she was supposed to question his orders if she thought he was wrong. And he was wrong, wasn’t he?

Ethan once again stopped and turned, this time with a sigh. “Dhani, there are Lieutenants out there that are Chief of Engineering. Getting ahead, learning and getting experience that can’t be taught from a book, can’t be learned from watching others around you, it comes from doing it. I’m giving you a chance. See what it’s like being in the big shoes, understanding the pressure, knowing what it’s like every single day, the work load, the responsibility.” He stepped forward as he spoke, slightly gesturing with his hands. “Being an Engineer isn’t just about fixing replicators, putting out fires and being carried around the ship by an over grown boy scout, it’s about holding the ship together. More than that, it’s about knowing the ship. Being one with it. Not like a man and woman, but to understand the ship. How and why it works. Knowing what needs to be done to keep not only the walls together, but the top-snots upstairs happy too. When they want power, shields, weapons, propulsion, and we have only twenty three per cent auxiliary power left, how to use what you’ve got. To understand, accept the reasoning, adapt, improvise and overcome the situations you’ll face. You have to do it.” Resting his clenched knuckles on the console in front of Dhani again, he waited for her response.

She blinked several times, her eyes wide, staring in disbelief. Dumbfounded. Totally speechless. For the first time in her life she didn’t know what to say or how to react. Was her Chief going mad? Why did he bring up Turan, was he angry at her? Had she done something wrong? He was giving her a chance but why? Had she said or done something to make him think that she didn’t realise how much he did? She could feel herself tremble inside, like she was a naughty child, being made to do something because she didn’t appreciate the person who did all those things. But then she had worked over time, a hell of a lot of it since vanquishing Naut. For several months she lived, ate and ‘slept’ in engineering, though her sleeping was meditating due to her insomnia. True though Suder didn’t know most of that, she had made sure she kept her overworking quiet. But… still, why? She could refuse. Maybe she should refuse. She would refuse. She went to speak but all that came out was a hoarse whisper. She looked down at the console and then back up and into Suders eyes deeply, searching for the answer to her question.

Ethan remained silent and just stared back into her green eyes, waiting for her response. He saw much of himself in her in a way. He remembered being her age. Being an Ensign and Lieutenant on the Galaxy. Working as much as she did. He had noticed, although he had also noticed she had tried to keep it quiet. Finally, he spoke. “I’m not going to explain right now the other reasons behind my actions. Just accept it. Understand what you have been tasked with and act accordingly. I will shortly go over the reasons to these actions.”

Dhani realised that she hadn’t blinked for about a minute; it was like a staring competition. She noticed that engineering had become silent all eyes, it appeared, were on the two of them, even Jason was holding his breath!

Without out breaking eye contact with Suder she called out,

“Jason.”

“Yeah.” He replied after a moments silence.

“That status report?” she questioned her piercing gaze still fixed on Suder.

“Yeah….” He said slowly as he approached the console, looking back and fourth between the two “chiefs”. He put a padd on the console and slid it over to Dhani. “Shields are going to need some serious work. Engines are ok. We’ve got various damage to the outer hull, quite a lot of secondary systems are down. The Deflector could use some work… the rest,” he paused still looking at Dhani and Ethan, “is… in the report.”

Dhani took the padd off the desk and finally broke eye contact with Suder. She began to skim read the report, pausing she looked back up at Suder,

“Deflector control should be cleaned up by now. Most of the consoles were off line last time I saw them, burnt out. I do believe that one survived though.” She told him.

Ethan lowered his head, as if respecting a superior officer. “I’ll get right on it.” He said. Grabbing the kit he earlier placed on the console, he turned and began heading towards the exit, a smile on his face.

“Suder.” She called out stopping him in his tracks. This was going to seem strange after the turn around, but she was still an engineer in training herself. And even though he had thrust this responsibility on her she still could help but look up to him. After all that is what he was there for.

“When I was on the bridge I got talking with Henderson about the attack. We are up against T'Kith'Kin fighters and Hydrans, and from the sound of it the Breen too. They have activated their defence perimeter with fusion mines. We are stuck here, and have to comply with their demands.” She paused wondering if he already knew that. From the gasps around her it seemed that the rest of the engineering crew didn’t.

“I had an idea about modifying the shields.” She continued, picking up a data padd of her own, that she had been working on since she left the bridge and all throughout her visit to Sick Bay, she passed it over to Suder, “I wanted your opinion.”

He took it from her and glanced over the information. “Personally, I’m not sure we have the power to perform this function.” He said honestly. He looked down at the Lieutenant and winked. “But I’ll see what I can do.” With that, he took the information with him as he left Engineering.

Dhani watched him leave and then looked around engineering and then down at the report in her hand. Shaking her head she cursed inwardly. What thee hell hade she gotten herself into?

Lieutenant (Jg) Dhanishta Eshe – Engineer

Lieutenant Commander Ethan Suder – Chief of engineering.

“I’m just keeping the seat warm for ya baby!”

Dhanishta stole a few minutes out of Engineering to grab something to eat. The Mess hall was quiet, and she was quite thankful of that. It occurred to her that during a crisis she was usually away from engineering, fixing something. She had become to sympathise with Suders position.

“Club sandwich” she ordered from the replecator, “Oh no!” she exclaimed, “make it a baguette. And an icoberry juice.” Taking the long awaited items out of the replicator she crossed the room and took up a window seat.

Sitting down the knots in her shoulders loosened a little, picking up the baguette she paused to savour the smell. Her stomach growled nosily and saliva flooded her mouth. Bringing it to her lips she opened her mouth wide and sank her teeth in. Just at that moment her com. Badge chirped.

[“Suder to Eshe.”] He said plainly.

Her heart sunk. Pulling the sandwich out of her mouth she quickly licked her teeth, removing any fragments of bread, and tapped her comm. Badge,

“Eshe here” she replied unenthusiastically.

[“Meet me in Deflector control, if you’re not busy.”]

She placed the sandwich on the plate, ~so close~ she thought, ~so close~

“On my way.” She replied. She stood up slowly, pushing the chair back under the table, mourning over the lost lunch, ~Ah what the hell~ she thought. Grabbing the baguette and the juice she quickly left the Mess Hall.

Down the hall, into a turbolift out of the turbolift and into an empty deflector control, some times things became so mundane.

Ethan wiped his forehead with his sleeve, both of which were rolled up to his elbows. His face had various marks on it from the burnt materials in Deflector Control, not to mention his hands. They were just damn right dirty. He glanced over at Dhani as she entered the newly devastated room.

“Your mess I presume.” He said, waving his hands about, gesturing at the damaged walls and consoles.

“Technically….” She paused and sighed somewhat, “Yes,” she replied sarcastically, her hands flapping, lightly, at her sides, as not to spill anything, “I, single handily pulled the ceiling down, over loaded the consoles and set fire to everything!” she gave him an un-amused look.

Ethan picked up a fragment off one of the destroyed consoles and looked at it before tossing it to the ground. He then turned, frowning at Dhani. He physically bit his bottom lip in an attempt to restrain his anger.

His glare turned to his side, where he saw someone else. Nodding, as if being told something, he turned back to Dhani. “I’ve been going over the notes you gave me earlier.” He started, grabbing the padd from one of the consoles that was in some sort of working order.

She sighed again relieving her tension. Nodding she stepped forward in a responsive manner. Sometime she went too far she guessed, if he bit down any harder he would draw blood! She gave in and smiled slightly at him, a small peace offering.

He moved round to the console she was stood at and placed the padd down, activating it. “There’s a lot of modifications needed here if we were to follow this, but we had an idea.” He said, his eyes flickering up again before dropping back down to the padd.

“Go on.” she said taking a lump out of her baguette, if you can’t sit and eat then she could work and eat, she mused.

Suder glanced at the food and for a moment, realised it had been a long time since he had eaten anything. And that baguette was looking real nice. But he brushed his stomach aside and pointed at the padd.

“We’re liking the idea of using power from different sides of the shields and concentrating them on one side, thus giving us extra protection if were we to be bombarded from a particular angle. Means more work for Tactical, but I hear they don’t have enough anyway.” He paused to get some breath before continuing. “Only trouble is using this method, obviously lowers shields from the other vectors, thus leaving us a little vunerable…”

Dhani nodded along as he spoke but a frown crossed her face. Without even thinking she broke a bit off her sandwich and stuffed it into Suders mouth.

Taking a swig of her juice to wash her mouth full down she began to shake her head, “Yeah I know,” she began, “but if we create a second shield, like a second skin, then we will still have the protection from the original shielding. We could modify them and enhance them, like I was doing,” she waved her hand round the room, “before it collapsed! The only thing is,” she turned to a wall panel and attempted to activate it. It flickered for a brief moment and then died. She shrugged and turned back to Suder. Breaking the rest of the baguette in half she went to put it in Suders mouth again.

Ethan raised his hand in protest. “Wait.” He said, frowning.

“No your hands are dirty.” Dhani said pushing his hands away.

“Your hands are dirty too, what are you afraid of?”

She placed the morsel in his mouth before continuing, “I’m just afraid that we won’t have enough power to run both. And I think we should save using auxiliary power.” She waited a few moments for him to finish chewing and then passed him her drink.

“Oh, and who’s ‘we’?” she questioned taking a look around at the empty room. The thought crossed her mind that her Chief was going crazy and talking to imaginary people…. Nah!

Ethan stopped chewing and awkwardly swallowed the large chunk that didn’t go down so well in his throat. He looked around at the empty room and then back at Dhani. “I meant, myself, I came up with an idea.”

Dhanis eyes narrowed in on her senior officer. Again she scanned the room. There was no one else with them it was just her and him. A cold tingle ran along her skin, something wasn’t right. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, there was something more to this, and she didn’t know weather to call him on it or just let it go. She waited for a moment, giving him a chance to explain.

He moved away from her and stood around the other side of the console. “So,” he said turning the subject, “I’m thinking we set up extra shield generators. One’s that have their own power source. Thus if we were to get attacked from various angles and the weaker side of the shields went down, we’d have the backups that wouldn’t use any auxiliary power at all.”

Dhani nodded and looked down at the floor; so many times she had been in this situation, but on his side of the fence. She finally realised what she had put him through. She was a private person, and didn’t like to share what was going on in her life, let alone her mind. And she found it so hard to tell him, mainly because he locked her in her quarters and tried to keep her there till she fessed up! But she finally understood why. She knew that Suder was just as private as she, even more so, but this was the wrong time to have a problem…. Inwardly she laughed at herself, a mocking laugh, like there was ever a good time to have a problem!

Ethan eyes narrowed slightly. His head slowly raised and looked at Dhani. Her thoughts seemed to have centred and focused. Boy had she shown a lot of improvement. Crazy Dhani to normal Dhani. Was good to have her back.

She stood there waiting, nodding her head for him to continue. So far the idea was sounding good, but she felt like he was missing the point a little.

“So, we need to get crews working on this right away. We….” He paused and looked around again. “No, I’ll stay here and continue repairs here, why don’t you go down to Engineering and start modifications there, get four teams together to start work on the back-up generators. We’ll need two for the nacelles, one for Engineering, and one for the Bridge. I know they won’t hold much power, so they won’t add that much protection, but it might give us those extra few seconds to get out of this crappy mess. Like no one saw it coming.” He mumbled to himself as he removed another piece of junk from one of the consoles.

She crossed the room to stand in front of him. Her hand brushed his as she took the charred fragments from him and threw them aside,

“Ethan you said ‘we’.” she gazed into his eyes. She was sure that she was disobeying some Starfleet protocol by using his first name but then it seemed right. At least it would get his attention,

“You said it more than once, ‘we had an idea’, ‘we’re liking the idea’.” She quoted him. Her voice was soft, there was no judgment or implication in her statement, just compassion.

“I had a chat with Jiiles about it earlier.” Ethan lied. “As soon as I get some food in me, I’ll be right as fire!” he declared.

Dhani was not as easy as some to convince. She gave him a long look and again waited.

“Well, Lieutenant, better get on those modifications.” He ordered, straightening his uniform and turning to return to his work of repairs.

“No.” she replied simply.

Ethan sighed, frowned and turned slightly and glared at her. “What?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I said no.” she replied her voice even and cool.

Ethan shrugged. “What then?”

Dhani regarded him intently for a moment, trying to decipher what was going on. Of course she could use telepathy on him, but that was something she didn’t do out of principle.

“You made me chief of engineering, or have you forgotten?” she asked him.

“Fair enough.” He said holding his hands up defensively. “Orders then?” he said, glad the subject had changed.

“Follow me.” She said simply walking to the door.

Ethan wasted no time following the Lieutenant out of Deflector control.

She led him down the corridor and into a turbo lift, “Deck eight.” She called out.

“So,” she began turning to Suder, “just to clarify. You want to put in extra shield generators in to back up the shields when they go down.” She paused a moment, “That sounds good to me. But with regards to my suggestion of creating a second shield system?” she questioned.

“Not sure we have enough power or time to sort that out. Otherwise two layers of shielding would be standard no?” he asked as they waited for the turbolift to come to a halt.

She sighed, “You’re missing the point.” She said trying not to sound exasperated.

“The second layer would act as a buffer of sorts, deflecting the weapons discharge. Thus protecting the ship and relieving the pressure on the shields.”

Ethan thought about it for a short while and sighed. He didn’t like the idea of tampering with the ship systems to this extent. He didn’t mind the hard work, but it did mean a lot of tampering. “No problem.” He finally agreed with a sigh. “Lets do that.”

She frowned at him, “What? Don’t you think it will work?” she asked him. His sigh was a defeatist one to say the least.

“No, I think it probably will.” He replied. “We’re going to need a hell of a repair afterwards though. You realise we’re going to need a lot of power to create this ‘buffer’ of yours? But hey, I’m sure you’ll get a mention in some sort of Engineering conference, maybe bring in a whole new evolution of starship shielding.” He explained with a hint of humour.

Dhani smiled at the prospect. That would certainly boost her career, but all she cared about right now was saving the ship. It was weird, she had never cared so much about the Galaxy before. She shrugged it off. Stepping out of the turbo lift she led Suder down the corridor to his quarters. Tapping the door release she watched it slide open before ushering Suder inside,

“I don’t know what’s going on with you,” she started, “and I’m not going to pry. What I am going to do is ‘order’ you to take some R and R. You have exactly two hours. Eat, sleep, take a shower, a bath or even read a book. I don’t care. But if you leave these quarters for anything other than an emergency or request from a senior officer there will be hell to pay.” She made herself look him in the eye, “Do you understand, commander?” this was such a crazy situation, her bossing him around, talking to him like she was superior officer. If anyone else knew about this she would surely be up for a demotion.

“In the mean time I will have crews working round the clock to implement the new shield generators. And I will run simulations to see how the ship copes with the power distribution. And I will inform the Captain of our progress, unless you would rather update him when you come back, Chief?” she purposely emphasised ‘Chief’, not just because he was, but she expected him to take Engineering back upon his return.

“I’ll arrange it sure.” He said looking around his quarters. Seemed odd to be resting at such a critical time of the day, when he should be working. But then he was hungry, and that could have been seen as apriority as this point. He turned and faced Dhani. “Two hours it is.” He said, still curious about how she was coping with the authority of Chief. Of course he’d take command when he got back, but he was still testing her, and maybe him too.

Dhani nodded and turned to leave, “We will talk about all this at a later date I’m sure. I’ll arrange it in your calendar, you know while I’m tainting your office with the smell of my shampoo!” she gave him a girlish grin and then proceeded back down the corridor to the turbo lift.

“My office…. Is the way it is for a reason, move a thing and…” Ethan stopped himself and turned away. Why did it bother him, the thought of someone moving his stuff? Everything in his office had been the way it is for as long as he could remember, since he was a little Ensign. “Don’t change a thing, it’s important.” He said quietly.

“Baby, I’m just keeping the seat warm!” she shouted back as the doors to the lift closed.

"Revolutionary"

Captain Daren M'Kantu,
Commanding Officer

Commander Cassius Henderson,
Executive Officer

Lieutenant (JG) Dhanishta Eshe,
Engineer

****

Main Bridge,
Deck 1,
USS Galaxy-A

Revolution, in the past, had always been a mixed bag. Sometimes it brought about a political change for the better, creating more freedom and better living conditions for the revolutionaries. Sometimes it was merely a group of people no longer content to sit at the bottom of the heep clawing their way to dominion over their fellows. Revolution could be a peaceful movement to affect social change, as had happened in India in Earth's 20th Century or at the United States' Second Constitutional Convention.

But revolution also had its far darker side, with prolonged civil wars taking place, casualties piling up, innocent deaths, and years of bitterness that would last for centuries after the revolutionaries themselves had gone to the grave. The Gryphon Civil War was proof enough.

The Breen Revolution of 2381 would no doubt be remembered in this light, Cassius Henderson noted with at least a hint of regret as he finished coordinating power distribution with Lieutenant Geluf and Lieutenant Commander Suder. His worst suspicions had been confirmed, and the consequences would no doubt be profound.

Turning back to Captain M'Kantu, Henderson offered the obvious, "The chances of getting a message to the 12th Fleet are slim and none. We're on our own out here, at least until the 26 hour failsafe period is up and Fleet Admiral deMercereau moves without word. Somehow, I doubt we can stall for that long."

"Quite possible, Number one. So we'd best make the most of it while we're here. I want you to coordinate with Mr. tr'Khellian on the Main Bridge in the event we encounter more forces. I'll be taking over the Tactical Bridge." M'Kantu and Commander Brex on Miranda had worked out a sketchwork plan in the 8 minutes they'd been allotted. Breen had now fallen behind as they lay down a broad sensor net to trace plasma and warp trails. The T'kith'Kin and Hydran forces had scattered in criss-cross patterns to throw off the scent, so they instead were using Stellar Cartography on both ships to build a holographic sensor 'net' to detail and eliminate aberrant sensor ghosts to narrow the field of a location for the enemy base.

"That sounds familiar," Henderson nodded, vaguely remembering the mission to Quentin that had gone sour, but been corrected by a temporal incursion. The memories of what had happened the first time were only now beginning to come back to him, with most of the details left out. Without thinking, Cass stood perfectly still as they talked, a byproduct of the body control classes he'd taken at Advanced Intel, many years previously.

"If we are to enter battle once again, I would prefer the civilian population not be exposed. If we are unable to determine a method of sending the saucer section out of the system safely, then we must allocate primary shielding to the section. Engineering tells me they may have a solution to enable a deflector method against the Hydran fusion weapons. Commander Brex is transmitting all information they have on the T`kith`Kin tactics and schematics. Work with Lt. Dobryin and Sub-Commander Savar on developing strategy. I have a feeling we don't have much time to resolve this in."

Cass nodded, "Judging by the force that was thrown at us over Breen, my guess is that in our weakened state, we'll need some sort of technological edge to survive another direct confrontation." Word had just come from Miranda that now Commander Brex was incapacitated, leaving the ship's second officer, a Trill who'd for all intents and purposes lost his wife at Breen, in charge. The losses were beginning to stretch both crews thin, emotionally and literally. They'd taken a beating for the first victory. "Do you have any grasp of what the engineers want to do?"

M'Kantu nodded as he carried his bulk up and over to the Tactical arch Ven'r Nong was silently handling as he ran tests on various shield configurations and scenarios. The Breen observer had not left his side since arriving several days previous.

Not wanting to interrupt, he instead led Cassius to the Engineering station currently manned by the two resident Bynars assigned to the Galaxy. He still hadn't determined the physical differences between 1100101011111110 and 1011101010111110 as yet, nor would he in due time, he supposed. Either way, Bynars were excellent technical engineers, due to the very diligent involvement in the design and implementation of the ships systems in the initial test runs of the Galaxy class series of starships. A pair were assigned to every Galaxy class in the fleet.

[No, no, no! The plasma manifolds can handle the 20% cutback in power. Auxiliary reserves will kick in if extra power is needed. We're not in warp, nor will we be anytime soon. Would you rather be alive and slow, or dead and slow? Just do it and run the simulations!] Why were engineers always so excitable? The Bynars chattered back and forth as they passed on the orders from Engineering.

"How are the tests running, Lieutenant?" Suder must be attending to ship infrastructure repairs, if he were leaving Dhanishta Eshe in control of the shield project. Curiously, he wondered where Lt. Grey was. There were rumors circulating about the mute and Victor Krieghoff. Not that he was against fraternization among the ranks, but she was ranking officer over him, let alone the fact he hadn't decided on a transfer for the Security officer yet.

Dhanishta sighed slightly as yet another person bombarded her with questions. Since Suder had handed Engineering over to her she hadn't had one minuets peace, she was sure that she didn't ask Suder THIS many questions.

She glanced up from her console and stared momentarily into the eyes of Captain Daren M'Kantu through the small view screen. She hand never really spoken to the Captain, she had tried once after the Quinten incident but he had already left to talk with Starfleet Investigations. She was never told if her full 'no holes bared' report had actually done him any good. But seeing as he was back she guessed that it at least had done no damage. She tried, like everyone else, not to think about it, but then it was easier for them. Forty-eight hours and a lifetime, there was no comparison really.

Looking down she quickly scanned the information that was running through her terminal, "The tests," her voice was a little croaky from ordering everyone around, coughing slightly she cleared her throat and started again.

"The tests are running fine Sir. We are currently running several simulations to see which type of shielding would be the most effective." She wondered how much detail he actually wanted and decided to hold off the rest until asked. She thought briefly about her first idea, creating a shield that would actually repel enemy weapons fire and send it back to them. She was sure that the idea had merit and could work, but there wasn't enough time to figure out how. The ramifications to the ship would be enormous, it would take up so much power that the ship could blow up. That, and there was no way to tell if the trajectory would be correctly calculated to return the weapons discharge to its original source. But if they could remodulate the shields and a tinker with the deflector... her mind wandered. As another report slid across the panel, hitting her hand, she cast an eye back to M'Kantu.

The banter between the Breen observer and Nong behind them was distracting to the parties in this conversation. The tempo would elevate tensions on the bridge already. He raised a dark manicured to halt the report.

"Commander Henderson, would you continue this update for a moment, please?"

"Of course, sir," Cassius replied, "Somehow I don't think Mr. Har'an is going to want to wait. Perhaps we should remove the Breen observers form the bridge." It was a suggestion. It was certainly what Cassius would have done, with the alliance firmly snapped over the knee of revolution.

M'Kantu nodded and left them to their business while he attended to the tenuous exchange over the tactical console.

"Lieutenant Eshe," Cass asked, turning to look once again at the engineer, "How long are we going to be able to run this 'deflector' before it's power supply becomes too exhausting for the ship's resources to handle?"

"The simulations have yet to confirm that Sir." Dhanishta replied, "But at a guess," she paused considering, "about forty minuets. But Sir, this is still in the test stage. I would suggest that no one gets their hopes up." She added.

"That's sounds about like I would have expected," the executive officer nodded, glancing at the specifications that they had so far, "And how long do you think you need before we'll be able to have this online and tested?"

Dhani drew in a long breath, "Under normal circumstances, with the amount of modifications that would need to be made to the shields and the Deflector, several weeks!" she told him truthfully. "But we are currently installing shield generators in other key locations around the ship. They will run off their own power source and serve as a back up to the current shields. They should be installed and on line within the next few hours." She said with a small smile.

"And what effect do you think saucer seperation will have?" Henderson asked. Though he hated to run from a fight, orders were orders, and civilians were civilians.  He'd never understood why the fleet continued to leave them on ships throughout and after the Dominion War, "We're probably going to seperate if it gets too rough."

Dhani gave him a slightly nervous look, "I'll add that to the simulation and get back to you as soon as i have the results." she replied alreading keying the information into her console.

M'Kantu arrived in time to catch the end of the colloquy Henderson and Eshe were sharing with the Bynars.

"Your recommendation, Number one?"

"My opinion is that we should at least make the attempt," Cass replied, "It sounds like Lieutenant Eshe has thought it out fairly well. And to be perfectly truthful, we desperately need this advantage."

"Continue your simulations, Lieutenant. It's the only option we have right now. Send the schematics over to the Miranda and see if their engineers have any input as well. Be prepared to enact it at a moment's notice, though."

"Aye Sir. We will keep you informed as to our progress." She waited for him to end the transmission before turning back to work.

"Very good."  Leaning in, he terminated the signal.  With trepidation, he glanced from the Breen observer, now silent in its reproach with Mr. Nong, to Cassius.

"Meet with Mr. tr'Khellian and Lt. Dobryin, Number One.  We'll need tactical assessments in the event the shield enhancements do not meet with our needs. I'll be taking up residence on the Battle Bridge from here on out.  Begin the evacuation of the civilians to the saucer section.  The Bridge is yours."

Cassius moved off without hesitation, calling for his associates as he took up position in the center seat.  M'Kantu approached the Breen observer and Ven'r Nong.  

"Mr. Nong, you are to accompany me to the Battle Bridge as my Tactical Advisor."

"I insist on accompanying you as well."  Har'an had slipped into his predictable behavior.  One that Daren had counted on, since Savar would be needed here on the Main Bridge for the rest of the mission.  The Breen had no love for the Romulans, and their unavoidable collision on conflicting behaviors would only serve to delay reactions.  Ones that could get them killed.

"Of course.  We leave now."  Without waiting for an acknowledgement, he paced down the ramp to the Battle Bridge turbolift alongside the viewscreen. Nong slid in behind, the Breen attached at his hip.  Daren nodded to Cassius as the doors closed.

"The Triangle"

Sub-Commander Savar ir-Aihai tr'Khellian
Chief Tactical Officer
USS Galaxy-A

Lieutenant JG Cora Dobryin
Chief Intelligence Officer
USS Galaxy-A

No secret Cora didn't like what she was seeing. So far her information on the T'Kith'Kin fell into the sketchy category at best. There is no way she'd leave Galaxy vulnerable. Yet finding a way to defend themselves was the trick now. After the Intelligence Chief downloaded what she needed to a PADD her first stop was the Tactical Department.

Sub-Commander tr'Khellian's office was inundated. Only the man's terse, authoritarian manner was stopping a queue building up in the outer office, as he despatched people hither and yon on various errands, answered queries, resolved concerns, and dismissed whining civilians, imperiously referring them to the Executive Officer. Regardless of his personal views on the situation, the battered and wounded Galaxy would indeed be departing on a fool's errand into enemy territory, instead of withdrawing, as would be sensible, to a friendly space dock to undergo extensive repairs.

He was less than pleased to see yet another person arrive at his threshold, standing there a little apprehensively, clutching a PADD. Tr'Khellian finishing scanning the report, thumbed the appropriate place to acknowledge it, and handed it to the waiting crewman, who rapidly departed.

"Come in," the Romulan commanded, waving his arm expansively, then turning away from the Chief Intelligence Officer to pour them both a glass of water from the ever-present pitcher on his desk. As Cora approached, she could clearly see the sour expression on his face. Savar was still profoundly annoyed that the Starfleet forces had been caught with their trousers around their ankles, and put the blame squarely on the shoulders of poor intelligence. He still thought it utterly ridiculous that has-beens and disgraced morons had been stationed on Breen rather than some of the sharpest minds the Federation had to offer - but that was probably indicative of poor leadership. At this moment in time, Junior Lieutenant Cora Dobryin was the sole representative of that flawed leadership.

"What can I do for you, Lieutenant?" tr'Khellian demanded.

His brusque manner didn't phase Cora at all. "I'm here to help you find a solution to this mess. All I did was interpret the Intel for this mission I didn't come up with it. Before you say anything if it was me in that department back at HQ I wouldn't have let any of it out that door so full of holes."

Savar eyed her for a moment, before raising his eyebrows and raising his chin slightly. This was the closest she would get to an acknowledgement of her pseudo-apology.

Cora placed a PADD on his desk. "This is the latest assesment I've been able to come up with. Not sure if it will any good since rescuing the away team doesn't seem to be an option at the moment. Besides solving the whole T'Kith'Kin and Hydra equation is like trying to shoot at a rapidly moving target."

Tr'Khellian resisted the temptation to explain that this was what he did for a living, and instead glanced over the PADD. It was a brief summary of existing intelligence to date, on the Breen, the T'Kith'Kin and the Hydrans. There was nothing particularly new.

"Lieutenant," he said, handing her back the PADD, "we need as much information on the people involved in the Breen coup as possible. We also need to start theorising on the linkages between them, the Hydrans, and the T'Kith'Kin." He folded his arms and perched on the edge of his desk. "There is some sort of triangle here waiting to be discovered. If the Hydrans and the T'Kith'Kin are really in league and are threatening the Breen, what do they want? What would anyone want in this sector? There is nothing of material interest and the strategic value of the area is not worth the investment in men and ships. I don't believe they are hostile at all: the Hydrans or T'Kith'Kin could easily have overrun the Breen self-defence forces well in advance of our arrival. So the question is: why did they wait until we were involved? And I suspect the answer lies here," the Romulan said, jabbing a finger towards the ice-blue world slowly rotating beneath the Galaxy, visible through his office windows. "The Breen allied with the Dominion; they are now a spent force, and the Breen, disgraced, are the whipping boys of the alpha quadrant. Their goals have not changed, and nor have their methods. Only their allies have changed."

"Are you suggesting some sort of conspiracy?" Cora asked.

"Watch." Tr'Khellian moved over to the large display panel on the wall behind his desk. Tapping at the console adjacent to it, he brought up a reconstruction of the recent battle. "Watch the Breen cruisers."

She did.

"I realise you are not a trained tactician, Lieutenant Dobryin," tr'Khellian said, when the replay was over, "but you cannot have failed to notice what happened." He paused to drink from his glass and to refill it. "The Breen hovered on the edge of the battle, and though they took heavy casualties among their fighters, their cruisers were hardly scratched until the very end; and nor did either Hydrans nor T'Kith'Kin make any move towards them, until the very end. And, whereupon we had gone to the Breen's rescue here," Savar said, winding back the animation and pointing at a freeze-frame, "and suffered heavy damage to our rear, the enemy ships, rather than pressing home their advantage, abruptly withdrew."

For a long moment Cora just looked at him, "Tactics may not be my expertise but I can hold me own when it comes to interpreting them. Now if there is some sort of conspiracy playing out right before our very eyes why are we abandoning our people down there."

Tr'Khellian raised his open palms in the Romulan equivalent of a shrug. "You'd have to ask Captain M'Kantu. He is the one allowing the Breen to dictate our actions and send us on a fool's errand from which we may never return."

"If the anwers lie on that planet they pursuing the T'Kith'Kin and Hydra ships will do nothing. All the real damage will occur right under our very noses without anyone bothering to take a second look. Our people will be left hanging for no good reason." Cora didn't like that idea anymore than she liked how rapidly the situtation was deteriorating.

"The people on the planet are completely secondary, Lieutenant!" Savar cried, flinging up his hands. Her constant reference to the hostages had snapped his stretched patience. "Can you not see the bigger picture? Your attachment to your comrades is nothing if not touching, but completely counter-productive. Look at the wider context. A planet is in revolutionary forment; two powerful galactic powers are aligning against your Federation... And you are worried about a handful of people?" He shook his head and sipped at his water. "We have three options: do as they say; leave the system; or stage a rescue attempt. M'Kantu believes our best hope lies in bowing to terrorists. If you want to take issue with that, speak to him. If I had my way we'd be bombarding the cold-blooded shits from orbit, right now," he snarled.

"We can hardly wage war without proof, Sub-Commander," Cora said, reproachfully.

"We already have proof of their warlike intent, Lieutenant," Savar said icily. He rounded his desk and sat in his chair. "They've staged a military coup and took Starfleet officers hostage." He glared across the table at her. "Everything has been turned upside down. We can't trust the old intelligence any more."

"What do you suggest?"

"We need information and we need it fast. I can't really afford to spare anyone, but Lieutenant Remur is the best computer specialist on this ship; if you're serious about finding out what is really going on here, I'll reassign her temporarily to your department."

He paused, and gave Dobryin a piercing gaze from his hawklike eyes.

"Find the triangle, Lieutenant. You have the three points: the Hydrans, the T'Kith'Kin, and the Breen military. Time to join the dots."

"The 12th Fleet, And Other Truths"

Commander Cassius Henderson,
Executive Officer

Lieutenant JG Cora Dobryin,
Chief Intelligence Officer

Lieutenant JG Chase Remur,
Chief Tactical Computer Specialist

****

Intelligence Center,
Deck 8,
USS Galaxy-A

Commander Cassius Henderson had avoided the intelligence center since his last contact with Major Bolivar. The two officers had never gotten along, and it had been obvious to Cass. They'd both had a strong sense of ambition, and with Henderson also being a trained field agent, Bolivar had seen him as a threat. Especially when he'd commented on the Nietzchean's less than ethical performance on certain occasions.

But he had reason now. With Lieutenant' Eshe working on her project, the executive officer of the Galaxy now had time to turn his attention to something that interested him: the analysis of the previous battle. Arriving at the door to the Intelligence Office, Cassius rang the chime. Hopefully the place would have changed since Bolivar's resignation.

Cora Dobryin had left her meeting with Sub-Commander tr'Khellian no better off than before their conversation had occured. Somewhere along the line he'd missinterpreted her comments about answers being on the planet to mean she deemed finding thier missing crew mates of more importance than the possible formation of a new very powerful alliance. However her comments about waging a war without proof still stood, much stronget than ever now. "Enter," she called out as the door chime signaled.

"Lieutenant' Dobryin, I'm glad to see again," Cass nodded, stepping into the room. This would be the first time they'd gotten a chance to talk outside of the staff breifings. The first time since the Pallas Athena. Looking around, he was impressed with the changes in the Intel Center. No more dark mood lightings and operation tables. This was a modern office.

"What can I do for you Commander?" Cora had attempted to pull herself back together in a very short time. Yet the pace around the Intelligence office indicated she had her staff busy on a new angle.

"Let's start by bringing me up to speed," Cass said, grabbing an open chair. He'd been on his feet too much today. Of course, the day'd been longer than he'd expected. "Have you and SubCommander tr'Khellian made any progress?"

Cora took a seat in her own chair, "Well that depends, sir. The Commander seems to think I'm blind to whats going on out there and that I care more about getting our people back then the consequeces of a potential new alliance forming right under our very noses. I'm not, I know all to well a powerful 3-way alliance of the Hydra, T'Kith'Kin and Breen could be more than devestating. The battle tactics in our last encounter make no sense unless you believe in conspiracies. Thats the only way they do."

"That was my opinion as well," Henderson agreed, thumbing up a copy of the battle recordings and once again moving them to the time index where it was most obvious that the Hydrans were ignoring the Breen. "The only explanation that I can come up with that doesn't involve a triad alliance is that the Hydrans and T'Kith'Kin consider us to be more of a threat and the Breen are holding back so they don't lose forces. However, what makes no sense is the Hydran and T'Kith'Kin retreat."

"Yeah if they considered us more of a threat than the Breen they more than likely would have stuck around to finish us off then moved onto the Breen," Cora concluded, "A triad alliance isn't a pleasant thought but it really is about the only thing that could explain such a sudden retreat."

"How does it explain a sudden retreat?" Henderson asked, in a devil's advocate tone, "They had us outgunned, especially if the Breen Defense Force had entered the battle against us. If they'd pressed their advantage and pulled more forces from their home base, we'd be so much dust at the moment."

"I never said they'd leave us hanging if that was the case. It only explains why they didn't hang around to finish off the Breen. Perhaps they figured the Breen could handle us. What we also don't know is if they retreated to do the very thing you suggessted,...pull more forces from their home base. Either way we are in very turbulent waters as it is, " Cora responded never letter her gaze waiver from the Commander's eyes.

"True, that much is obvious. However, no sound commander would ever pull his forces from an unfinished battle that was within his grasp," Henderson said, looking over the section of footage again. "Did we ever think to look for organic matter in the wreckage of the enemy vessels?"

"I have my staff searching for that now," Cora said that loud enough for the entire office to hear. Just as she was about to ask how they were doing with that, one of the crewman handed her a new PADD. "Well it looks like we have our preliminary results." Deftly she handed them over to Henderson. "They still need to be refined but this is what we have so far."

Henderson grinned at the display. She was proud of her people. That was a good thing. Glancing over the padd, he frowned, then glanced around the work... Where was that woman? After a couple seconds, he stood up and called out to the lone red shirt in a sea of black, "Lieutenant' Remur, can you come over here for a moment?"

"I'm a little busy, Commander," Chase replied, turning to walk over to her former CTO. She waved her hand behind her, silencing the protest of the analyst she'd been working with. Loyalty was a strong tie, not to mention the fact that he was the executive officer of the ship.

"I'm sure you are," Cass said wryly, then handed the wreckage analysis results to the experienced computer analyst, "Tell me what you make of Section 3 and Section 5."

"Looks like nonstandard computer parts onboard the Hydran and Breen vessels... Could be Kobheerian, but they're a Federation member. You know, they almost remind of slave circuits," she replied, then scrolled down to the other section, "And that's definately less organic matter than there should have been. Sure, you can account for some by vaporization, but not as much as is missing. Skeleton crews?"

"As in some sort of mechanical drones?" the Cheif Intelligence Officer inquired.

"Not exactly," Remur replied, "A skeleton crew is a crew reduced to the bare minumum required to operate the ship. A slave circuit is a computer link from a ship to another ship, so that the first ship can be controlled by remote from the second one. Or you could slave a ship to a remote station dirtside or stationside."

Cora nodded, "Skeleton crews, I know. I was asking about the drones because you said there was far less organic matter than there should have been. But I can see now you were referring to the actual number of crew each ship should carry." It had been a long mission so far and things were getting any better. "So now the question become why go to all that trouble to retrofit the ships to work under that kind of technology? Clearly they could have already done away with us pretty easily if they wanted to."

"What if it was all a show?" Cassius asked, an idea forming in his mind.

"An expensive and time consuming one on the leading end if that's all it was," Cora saw the look in Henderson's eye, "Where are you going with this, Commander?"

"I think the battle that took place over Breen was supposed to make us think these things," Henderson said, "And I think that so far we've been playing into all three of our enemies plans. The enemy retreat over Breen is inexplicable. Or it was until we noticed that they didn't actually devote much manpower to the execution of that battle."

"That accounts for the bad tactical decisions and sloppy execution over Breen. No slave rigged ship or skeleton crew will ever respond as well as a flesh and blood... Well, not blood for the Breen, but still... There is no substitute for a live, full crew," Cassius said. Then it hit him. "Wait..."

"Software can only accomplish so much even on ships this sofisticated. And you're right that a live, full crew does far more in battle than a slave rigged ship with minimal crew." Cora still sorted through the pieces as they conversed, "Unless they needed the bulk of their manpower for something more..."

"Exactly," Cassius said, "What if we're being lead into an assault at this enemy base to draw the 12th Fleet into an ambush. Right now, we can't get a message to the fleet because of the mine fields. Consequently, in roughly 52 hours our failsafe period will be over and the 12th Fleet will cross the border and locate us. When they do that, they'll warp to our location, falling into a trap."

"And we won't be able to get out any messages before 13 ours has past.." That didn't sit well with Cora. An ambush is the last thing any of them needed.

"My guess is that's what they're after," Henderson said, "The Breen Confederacy is a largely meaningless entity, so they're a means to an end for the Hydran Soverignty and the T'Kith'Kin Hive. If they can destroy the 12th Fleet, the entire Breen border on the Federation will be laid open to them, and they'll be able to mount an invasion of the Federation."

Cora nodded, "Yeah, it's more strategic targets than two starship that has me worried. All of this will be as significant as a single grain of sand if they are allowed to carry out their plan to its conclusion."

"True," Henderson agreed, then began issuing orders, "I want you both to devote the majority of your efforts to finding a way to get a message to Fleet Admiral deMercereau. Borrow people from Engineering and Operations if you have to. I'm going to go appraise Captain M'Kantu of our theory."

Lt. Dobyrin fully agreed with is assessment, "Yes Sir. We'll work on that and find a way to get a message out somehow."

"We'd best find that way, and quickly. We're rapidly running out of time and you know the weight of this situation," Henderson said, nodding to Dobryin and Remur, then turned and left the office. He was suddenly feeling far worse about the possibilities than he had been before. The dots were connected.

~A Letter to a Colleague~

Lt. Cutter Kara'nin

To: Ivers, Phoebe; Lt. Jg.;
Science, USS Miranda

From: Kara'nin, Cutter; Lt.;
Chief Science, USS Galaxy

CC: Subject: Simulation Ivers 316

Date: _____

===================================

Phoebe,

I recieved the program of your simulation in a last minute exchange of information before the two away teams from both the Miranda and Galaxy set off to obtain and study one of the T'Kith'Kin bio-tech subspace jamming mines.

I'm sure you know more now than when you programmed the simulation, but even then you were on the right track. The principle mistake, I would say, is that you were approaching the problem as an engineer rather than a scientist. You were trying to come up with an anti-technology without fully understanding the working basics of the technology.

We have never met, and I haven't had the time to read through your Starfleet and scientific record, so I'm going to assume basic academy graduate, so forgive me if I talk beneath your level. I assume I will be.

Think back basic warp field theory. Warp drive is essentially the manipulation of assymetrical peristaltic fields. Many fields are used, it is the force of one layer against another (assymetrical force, greater in the aft of the ship than fore) that causes the propulsion of the ship. However, it is the very accurate timing as these fields decouple from the nacelle generators and the transition of this energy into subspace which gives the net effect of ship mass reduction to below zero that makes faster than light propulsion nessecary.

Now, think about how subspace communication works. It is similar to warp travel, expect we are creating a very complicated field and decoupling it only once, creating a subspace information packet. These packets are picked up, hopefully, by another ship or communications relay station within 22 light years before the field packet transitions back into normal space.

Surely, you can see the relation. How far apart do these T'Kith'Kin mines seem to be placed? Approximately 20 lightyears. They are functioning like our communications transmitters, which suggests that these mines are nothing more than the subspace analogy to radio jamming signals. They are constantly transmitting warp fields which interact with our propulsion fields and disrupt our preprogrammed field timing formulas. Similarly, they are interacting with and destroying the symmetry of our computer core FTL processing cochrane fields. For more detailed theory, see the following paper my assistant and I have worked up, I have forwarded it to both ship's science departments (OOC - I'm not actually writing this paper). This idea may prove to be false, but I think it is at least on track.

If one could figure out how to shield our ships from these outside field packets, then theoretically we could then go to warp. Most likely, this would be done by creating a null field, which would require knowledge of the configuration of the T'Kith'Kin mine fields. Theoretically, this could be calculated (by combining the power of the two now-handicapped ship computers) within a few days. However, our enemy will have taken this into account, if they have any tactical intelligence at all, and will have set the mines to constantly rotate field configurations. Net effect: we're stuck on a cloud without our wings.

This, of course, is why I recommended the formation of the away teams for the retrieval of one such mine. Hopefully, we will be able to decifer its auto-rotation programming and be able to counter it.

But, continue your work while we are away. There is a chance, small but finite, that you or others will be able to crack the problem on ship. If not, your work will have already laid the foundation for the null-field generation.

Ekanarado, Cutter Kara'nin

"Clean, Shiny, and Silver Chaos"

By: Ensign 8-ball Hunter

It had happened again.

8-ball had been on the ship a year. . .maybe a few months less. . .or more. . .or. . .who cares. . .about a year, and most of the time it was a relatively normal looking ship, fairly clean and shiny and silver, just like a good spaceship should be. However, every few weeks or so, the crew of the Galaxy seemed to find themself in one complicated scrape or another and it didn't seem possible for a month to go by without the ship being shredded into pieces. This month, of course, was no exception. What was supposed to be a normal, diplomatic mission. . .well, a semi-normal mission, at any rate. . .had, of course, gone to shit, and chaos was left behind.

Normally, 8-ball did not mind chaos. Chaos was the opposite of logic, what most humans seemed to breathe, and it suited 8-ball just fine. Usually. Until it was time to clean up the chaos and make everything fairly clean and shiny and silver again. Then the chaos was just a big pain in the ass.

8-ball sighed as she tried to straighten up the disaster that was the astrometrics lab. Piece of bulkhead here, piece of bulkhead there. It was tedious work.

What 8-ball wanted to know was why chaos seemed to stalk her. As long as she could remember, the places that she lived always seemed to flip upside down during her stay there. This ship. The huge barfight in Big Man's Bar. The Academy dorms. Hell, 8-ball had even accidentally almost burned down a Vulcan temple when she had been stuck living with her mother. Of course, that had been kind of fun.

Still, 8-ball was left to wonder. Was the Galaxy always so insane? Or had there been a time, before 8-ball had arrived, that things had stayed relatively clean and shiny and silver? Did she bring the chaos with her or was she attracted to the chaos?

Deep questions for the philosophical mind. Or for bored ensigns stuck cleaning up science labs.

8-ball kicked aside a piece of debris and looked moodily out at the stars. She wondered how the Away Team was faring, what had happened to them, if they were all okay. She remembered Adhijia, alive one minute, talking to 8-ball in a bar, and seemingly dead the next, without so much as a warning. She might have died a hero but she was still dead, and heroism didn't mean a whole lot in 8-ball's book. And Adhijia was hardly the only one in 8-ball's life that had been seemingly gone before she could blink. They all died like that, suddenly. Big Man had, without even the slightest warning. 8-ball didn't see it until it had already happened; she was too busy fighting for her life herself. Years before, her father had been alive, cooking her pancakes, or attempting to, at any rate, and then later that day just dead. Alive then dead. If the away team was dying at this very moment, she'd never know about it. You frittered around in your life and forgot that outside your perephial vision, the universe was still real, that things were still happening. You forgot that while you were alive eating breakfast or having sex or cleaning up royally damaged science labs, other people were living and dying. Someone you talked to two weeks ago could be dying this very minute. And you'd never know.

Chaos.

8-ball turned away from the stars and went back to cleaning up the debris. No point in brooding about what could be happening to other people in other places. There was no way to know and nothing that could be done even if you did.

"Just have to carry on," 8-ball murmured to herself. "Make everything clean, shiny, and silver again, and forget that in three weeks, there will just be more chaos to tear it all down."

8-ball cleaned and slowly forgot that as she did so, other people on other worlds were dying as she ignored them.

“all things have a beginning”

Ammanalyn Llywhyn

----------------------------------------------------

They were returning. The heavy footsteps were unmistakable. Tampatiaen’s ear perked as he awoke from slumber, and he began to shiver in terror.

“Hush Tam,” Ammanalyn whispered softly, her voice a breath as Old Daedrae tumbled from her lips. “All is well.”

A force field down the way opened, a scuffle as someone was replaced. More footsteps: a pair leading out the way they'd come with another approaching. She could only see the heavy boots as she'd not removed her gaze from the face of the fallen Kylar Curran. The Breen officer stood over Kylar for a moment, kicked at the body, and then turned, walking heavily toward Ammanalyn’s cell. He stopped right in front of it. She could see water on the boots, darkening them in places.

He was speaking to her. Tampatiaen trembled. She didn't really hear him.

“Ammanalyn.”

She blinked and looked up.

The Headmaster stood over her. “Child. Has he yet explained his choice to you?”

Ammanalyn sat on the large, overstuffed sofa in the Headmaster’s suite. Her feet didn't touch the ground; instead, they hung in the air above it. She felt small and insignificant there, surrounding by the big things: everything was large at the university, and everything was even larger around the Headmaster.

Tampatiaen sat beside her, flicking his tail. He was in wolf form. Tam had been in similar shape for the past week. It was his newest favourite; he'd only just learned how to perfect it, and he would shimmer from one form to a next, experimenting with the transition from each. While many a Daemon would begin to decrease the number of forms it had by this point in life, Tam only continued to add to his repertoire. It was amusing, if not mildly irritating.

“Why would he explain his choice?” Ammanalyn questioned, looking over at the man’s Daemon: a tabby cat with long legs, the same silver-white colour at Tampatiaen with the same pale blue eyes. It was what put her there in the first place, Tam’s colour, and the thing the Headmaster was asking her about now, as he did every once in a while. “You always ask me this. And I always tell you he has not. I don't think it is something that can be explained, you see, Tampatiaen can only be what he is and if he is a silver-white Daemon, then I cannot see how he could be anything else. Besides that, colour is irrelevant.”

“How can you say that, child?”

She blinked, shifting her eyes toward the old man. He looked older every time she saw him: the creases in his face were deeper, his eyes were darker, his skin was greyer. His hair was even lighter than the lightest hair on his Daemon.

“I was told that,” she said.

“By whom?”

“Someone.” She folded her arms and fell back on the sofa, kicking out her feet. She was eight years old. She had lived within the walls of the University for six years and had no recollection of who her parents were. Her contact with other children was minimal: Tampatiaen couldn't control himself around them, which, in the bigger picture, meant they terrified her. She didn't know how to react, they were so unpredictable, so emotional, so… cruel and insensitive. And no one ever believed her when she said so. Every incident, as they called it, was her fault.

“You don't know? But you must have some idea?”

“I must a lot of things,” Ammanalyn observed. “I always must have something. Some idea, some notion, some answer, some thing. But I don't. I must nothing.” She shrugged, itching her nose with the palm of her hand and sighing, wiping it on the pink fabric of her skirt. “I just am told these things. By voices. I guess. But nothing in particular, I just wake up and I know things. I must have told you this before.” She smiled at him slightly. “Because we always come back to this. Every meeting. Every time.”

“But you do not wake up knowing why your Daemon chose this colour?”

She looked at Tampatiaen who looked back up at her and flicked and ear before he shimmered into his ermine form and crawled up to wrap around her neck. “He chose this colour because this was the colour he was intended to chose, I might suppose.” She cocked her head and stared at him with large unblinking eyes. “Did Haeron tell you why she chose her colour?”

The Headmaster’s Daemon bristled, whipping her feline head around to stare at her Person. The Headmaster himself tensed at the sound of the child speaking her name and it took him a moment to relax enough to answer. “Haeron's choice did not destroy everything the Dust has always told us.”

“Perhaps the Dust is trying to tell us something new.”

The Headmaster stood angrily, his Daemon following suit. “What have we discussed about hearsay?” he bellowed.

The child in front of him blinked passively as her Daemon cowered. It was something they'd been unable to figure out: one of the many things, really, how she was able to deflect her negative emotions such as fear or anger upon her Daemon. As far as they could tell, she wasn't even aware it happened. It simply did.

“Heretical truth,” she said, “is a bizarre concept, headmaster.”

The back of his hand was hard and cold. Ammanalyn closed her eyes a minute as she hung her head, then raised her eyes to look at the Breen who stood in front of her. Tampatiaen had hidden; he was nestled in her clothing, his fur against her skin. She could feel him trembling, but ironically, she felt nothing even close to what he did. *What they were so afraid of,* Ammanalyn thought, *it’s happening again.*

The Breen had decided Tampatiaen was of little threat, and they had left him alone, though they asked of him frequently, curious about his presence. But they though he was something else.

“Just Dust,” she said, looking at the Breen with large, passive brown eyes. “We’re all Dust and that is that.” The Breen paused a minute, as though contemplating something, but they could easily have been contemplating the best was to rid themselves of this annoying child and her shape-shifting pet.

“Why do you harbor a changeling?”

“Why do you think he is a changeling?”

The Breen backhanded her again. Tampatiaen whimpered, though it was only audible to Am -- or so she thought at any rate.

“Answer the question.”

“I can't; your question is irrelevant, because I don't. I'm not.” She looked up at him again.

The Breen interrogator was curious of this child. She looked so human, seemed so human, but seemed so young on top of that. There was a naivety to her, an innocence, and he was disgusted even further by that. But there was something else, something unusual. Each of the other members of the group that they had interrogated thus far had played the typical Starfleet card: name, rank, serial number. Some had offered curses, or what they thought might be witty comments. The Bajoran Captain had tried to suppress his fear and pain, though as veiled as both were, as well as he hid them on the surface, the Breen Interrogator had known he felt them, deep down. It was present in his eyes. And while the Bajoran didn't offer the kind of satisfaction he looked for, he took pride in the eyes.

This child though, was different. Her face was the epitome of what the humans would call wide-eyed innocence and her voice corresponded to that by being soft and meek. But he saw no fear in her eyes, only an almost Vulcan-like calm passivity, negated only with a flicker of curiosity. And she gave no name, rank, or serial number. He knew she was a lieutenant only by the collar of her uniform, and her name only from the records from the ‘diplomatic team’. Ammanalyn Llywhyn. Daedryn.

“What do you hope to achieve in this?” she questioned,

“I ask the questions.” He bent down low, over her. If he were not covered in his metallic suit, she would have been able to smell his breath, see the small imperfections of his skin, feel his body temperature if he was even warm blooded-- perhaps even if he was cold. “If it is not a changeling, then it must be something else.”

“That is very astute,” Ammanalyn said. Her Breen interrogator was not the only one to notice the lack of fear in her voice. Ammanalyn couldn't help but do so, and she wondered how it was that she could speak in this manner to someone holding her captive and threatening physical harm, but when asked to speak to the Captain, one of the nicer men she had ever met, she could not help but shake like a leaf. It had always been that way. People like the Breen, or Victor, who for all his scare tactics didn't prick a hair, or the Headmaster, who was more an annoyance to Ammanalyn but struck fear into those far greater than she; these people yielded nothing. But it wasn't even bravery. She wasn't sure what it was. Sometimes, she thought she felt everything in these situations, absolutely everything, and it all cancelled out leaving her with nothing. Passivity. Curiosity.

She narrowed her eyes slightly at the Breen, cocking her head. “What do you hide, beneath that helmet?” She'd been wondering that from the very moment she saw these people in their suits.

And then the Breen chose to show her.

"all things have a beginning"

Ammanalyn Llywhyn

----------------------------------------------------

Ammanalyn stared through the crack between the doors of the closet as the Scholars gathered in the large room. They were all old men, each aging faster than the next.

"Brother Thaelieon has passed," One said. He wore purple robes, revealing his order and place within the Ministry. "And still no new Chosen have come forth. This is the third of us to go without replacement."

"Ever since the girl," Second stated. Yellow robes, just like Third who said, "You say she knows things?"

The Headmaster, who wore purple like One, nodded. "She knows things she should not. I fear there is more behind her than we could have imagined."

"What things?" Second asked.

"All things. She speaks of voices. Of the Dust. She had complex theological discussions, speaks of revelations that have occurred only days, sometimes moments earlier, as though it has always been known. Yesterday, she spoke of the revelation that only now occurred."

There was mumbling around the room. The look of the headmaster's face spoke volumes of truth and not one doubted him. She knew that before she even glanced around at their faces.

"Could she be a witch?"

"A witch, Batlaque?" One questioned of four. "She's an eleven year old child."

"Besides that, a witch? Come now. These things do not exist. There is no magic beyond the Dust or beyond what any other of us is capable. Gentlemen, we must keep in mind, she does belong to our order, her Daemon tells us this," Five said.

"Brother, we have studied for decades. Some of us, still, are unable to receive the full meaning of some Revelations. She hears whispers," Headmaster said, "from somewhere. From Dust. From ghosts. From something wrong in her mind, I have no idea. But. Let it be said that I love Ammanalyn'Llywhyn'Tampatiaen as though she were my own. We all do, here, at this university. She is a sweet girl. But. That being said. There is something not right. She speaks of whispers. Of thing we were never exposed to until we were men several decades old, far beyond childhood.

"Gentlemen." Headmaster stood. "Ammanalyn's presence as she is has broken ever coven in our history. She is nearly twelve years old and her Daemon continues to change regularly into varied forms. Yet, he reacts to the touch same that our may-- not like a child's. Ammanalyn knows secrets we carry, personal secrets as well as those contained within our order. She hears whispers. She is capable of dispelling emotion, separating herself from her Daemon in all ways except for the most physical, and that may not be far behind. Gentlemen, she is dangerous, to everything we know."

"She is a girl, a child, Jaersont," said Five. Ammanalyn smiled slightly as Brother Lucaen was by far her favourite of all the scholars from all the countries. "And she could not possibly be blamed for what fate has dealt her. Dust decides as Daemon guides, sirs, remember this I think many of us are forgetting. Perhaps the child is better able to listen to the Dust than we may be, or may have been when we were at her stage in life. But there is a reason for her presence in our time and the revelation will come when it is necessary." There was silence in the room and Five looked around at the other men gathered. "Am I alone in this belief?"

"Not in the principle, Brother," Headmaster said, "but as a body we do not believe you are taking her as serious a threat as you should."

"I suppose I do not fully understand why she is a threat," Five replied. "We are in the positions we are because that is where fate has placed us; we have risen to our charge in the best that we can, through use of our minds and Daemons. She must have the opportunity to do so. Our cultural caste system means nothing if she is not allowed such because of her age or her gender. By all rights, if she is as advanced as you say, Jaersont, she should be in this meeting at this very moment, just as we were all allowed in the meetings when we were first able to interpret a Revelation."

"If she is allowed, Brother, our cultural caste system might still come to mean nothing."

"Is that what you are all fearing?" Five questioned, seeming disgusted. "If it is then, it is meant to be. Do you understand? You cannot chose which occurrences you want to recognize and which you do not. It takes away our credibility, takes away from our purpose."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps, it is our purpose."

Kylar Curran was laying just where he'd been when she was taken. Her eyes focused on his unmoving body as the Breen half pushed and half carried her down the central corridor toward her cell. The large strong hands had her under the arms, and she could only take every third step or so. But she hardly realized. She could feel the eyes of a few of the others. She grinned and glanced up at the Breen.

"It's not at all what you are expecting," she said.

Brother Lucaen was, according to the few women Ammanalyn knew who tended to the needs of the scholars and the University, quite a handsome man. As she stared across the table at him, she could see it: the way his green eyes creased, how his sandy colored hair fell into them, the way his freckles stood out even against the slight tan of his face. He had a weathered wind-blown appearance and always looked casual, even in his most formal attire. He Daemon was a falcon formed named Maerae, who was as gentle spirited as he was, and who stuck closer to him than even Tampatiaen stuck to her. She could not remember ever seeing them not physically attached to one another, somehow.

"Oh, I'm sure it's not," he said, grinning as he studied the pieces on the board in front of him. Ammanalyn would later learn that the game, Patalis, was not too dissimilar from the human game of chess, though Patalis had more pieces and a larger board. "I have a feeling you already know every move I'll make, so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage."

"Maybe," she said, nudging Tampatiaen with her finger. He was in mouse form, scampering up and down the edge of the board, studying every piece. "You might should watch out for the Headmaster."

"Oh?" he questioned, moving his piece.

"Yes." Ammanalyn reached forward and subtracted it from the board, adding it to the collection at her side. Tampatiaen scampered forward and shuffled it into an order he'd created for them. She glanced up at Maerae, whose eye were closed as she rested in the curve of the Brother's shoulder, her feathers fluffed. She shivered as she saw Haeron, the Headmaster's long legged cat Daemon, attacking the beautiful bird, then holding her down on her back as the men struggled. She blinked back toward Brother Lucaen. "You must."

"Headmaster Jaereont is old fashioned in his thinking, perhaps, but he's hardly someone to be wary of, unless, of course, you are taking an examination." Lucaen laughed as he moved another piece. Ammanalyn sat back in her chair and folded her arms. "Oh. Child. Come now. I apologize, I was making a bad joke. Let's continue our game."

"What is the point? The game is irrelevant. I already know all the moves. And it will be over in six no matter."

Brother Lucaen looked at the board, then back up at the girl. Maerae had opened her eyes and was doing similarly. "Okay," he said, "then we won't finish the game. Little point there is, in continuing with something that already has a certain outcome." He smiled at her, but she did not return it. "What are you afraid is going to happen, Ammanalyn?" Lucaen questioned. "What is meant will come to be."

"Some things come to be that are not meant," she stated, "it happens on a regular basis."

"Perhaps that is a part of life."

"Perhaps it is a part of the Corrupting."

He frowned, his forehead creasing. "The Corrupting, Child?"

"If the Dust was kept pure, there we be nothing more than what is meant to be," Ammanalyn said. "We would live and we would die as we are needed to."

Lucaen laughed slightly, but she could tell he was nervous, uncertain, and so was Maerae who had crawled down the front of his robes and nestled in his lap, mostly hidden from her view. "Is that not how it is now?"

"No. If the Dust was pure, then there would be no murder. There would be no illness. There would always be a balance. But there is not. There is murder. There is illness. And accident. And pain. The Dust is corrupted and the Headmaster plans to keep in that way. They all do."

There was silence.

“all things have a beginning”

Ammanalyn Llywhyn

----------------------------------------------------

It was almost painful as Ammanalyn sat on the floor of her cell, listening. If she listened hard enough, she could hear the wind blowing outside: that cold, cold wind, that covered the planet Breen. If she lived here, she would probably be mean and grouchy too. They'd taken someone else, the one whose name she couldn't remember, but they hadn't returned her yet. Everyone else was silent. Waiting. Laying within their own pain, mental or physical or a little of both.

Tampatiaen was curled in her lap, ermine shaped, pale blue eyes wide and staring into nothingness as she absently stroked his fur. He'd stopped shaking, perhaps even he was resigning himself to what might happen. But she had no way of knowing, he'd been silent, had not spoken once since the Breen had tried to pry them apart, stretching their metaphysical bond nearly to its breaking limit.

It made her think about what the Headmaster had said, long ago, and she wondered how much of their metaphysical bond was purely mental: how much of it was there only because they thought it should be because it was for everyone else. They were different from everyone else in so many ways, who was to say this wasn't another one of them? What if they could physically separate themselves into two separate beings? What would that mean?

What would that make her?

Tampatiaen, knowing her thoughts, looked up at her, and licked her hand softly, reassuring her that he was there and always would be. It warmed her for the first time in hours and she glanced at him, smiling with her love for him, laying both her hands protectively over him.

But what would that make her?

She thought of Victor at that instant. Last she saw, he was flying outside, thrown there by a Breen, into the frozen, methane environment of the planet that surrounded them. But he was alive, she knew he was. If she was able to separate herself from Tampatiaen, she would probably be very similar to Victor.

But at the same time, something else completely.

She glanced against at Kylar's body, wishing that it would move, or suddenly, no longer be there. She realized she had little attachment to him. She felt for the man who was her patient, worried for him, but beyond that, there was nothing. She had no desire to save him, no desire to befriend him, no desire to care for him as anything more than a patient, a case, a problem that needed to be helped, solved, cured. She was always told that she could be very clinical as a counselor, effectively clinical, was what her formal reviews always read. Effectively clinical. Has a great reluctance to get close to her patients. Sometimes is too anxious to see them as cases. Refuses to befriend patients. It was both a positive and negative in the world of Starfleet Counseling. She had tried, being friends with them, but it hadn't worked so well. She realized all the down sides to it, particularly in watching her colleagues: too many counselors wanted to be best friends with their patients. Or visa versa. Or a little of both. But if she had the choice, she would never see a patient outside of her office. Ever. It wasn't always possible on a ship, but…

The lights seemed dimmer, the shadows longer, and the building stiller than it ever had been.

Ammanalyn walked down the hallway, the polished wood floor cold against her bare feet. Tampatiaen was curled around her neck, small front paws gripping the fabric of her too-big nightgown. She trailed her hand along the wall to keep herself steady, to use as a guide. The door to his room was opened and she turned into the doorway, staring into it. Maerae lay on her back on the carpet, wings fanned out, small head turned to the side, toward her person, her pale blue eyes opened only a crack. Her form was light, uneven, wavering. Ammanalyn glanced over toward Brother Lucaen, laying sprawled on his back at the base of the far wall, a hand out, reaching toward his Daemon. He was bloodied, a pool of his blood forming beneath him. His other hand rested over the wound in his stomach. Ammanalyn saw the knife dropped by the large chair he liked to sit in to read.

She moved in, carefully, stepping lightly, she crouched beside Maerae who shifted a look up at her and opened her beak softly. Ammanalyn bit her lip, and then carefully, with all the love she would have held in her heart were it her own Tampatiaen, she lifted the Brother’s Daemon. It was the strangest feeling she'd ever had, holding Maerae, feeling her Dust slowly brushing off her form. It was warm and cool at the same time, the essence of love and pain. Maerae cooed softly, making the last sound she probably ever would as Ammanalyn carefully carried her toward Brother Lucaen, and laid her gently onto his chest, moving his outstretched hand to rest over her. She watched the Daemon laid her head against her Person’s chest and shudder a minute before Lucaen smiled at Ammanalyn, mouthing words of thanks before he closed his eyes and sighed out. Maerae broke apart then, and Ammanalyn watched the fine, silvery particles drift into the air. She reached out and touched a few carefully with her fingers. They were warm.

“I hope someone would do us the same,” Tampatiaen whispered, flattening himself as close against her skin as he possibly could.

“He was all I had. He should have listened.” Ammanalyn stood and moved toward the knife, picking it up, looking at it. “It’s just an object,” she stated softly. “Just an object.” She glanced at the doorway. “They’re here.”

And in rushed the men, two of them grabbing her: a scholar and the man who oversaw the security for the University. She dropped the knife in the process and another picked it up, examining it, then looked at her.

“How?” the security man asked.

She looked past him toward Headmaster who stood in the door. She saw his smugness although no others could. “How?” she asked of him. “We are all just Dust and there are no secrets.”

Headmaster narrowed his eyes at her. “You, child, are in a great deal of trouble.”

“You, man, are too.”

There was a noise.

Tampatiaen stood from her lap as Ammanalyn took him in her hands and she stood from her seat, moving to the edge of the force field, looking over as far as she could.

“They’re here,” she said, and smiled.

'Sweeps and sensor echoes'

By Lt (JG) Dylan Reed

His arrival and introduction to the ship had been brief; it hadn't been long before he found himself pouring over short range sensor data, searching for a proverbial needle in the haystack. Deck 8 was fast becoming Dylan's new home, but then a science lab had always had that appeal. He sat back briefly, taking a sip from the glass of ice water beside him and glanced around at the team of officers sat hunched over data tables displaying estimations combined with the few fragments of sensor data collected from the short range sensor clusters. He turned back to his console and punched up the next few 'quads of data and began a filtering algorithm. As the program ran, he thought back over the last week or so since arriving, and the Miranda as a whole. He'd transferred from the Oberon; a Nova class science vessel that could probably fit inside one of the Miranda's vast cargo bays. They had been such an intimate crew of scientists, like minds. He snapped back when the algorithm chirped completion. He sighed, noting down the cubic density of space dust and the low levels of background radiation and put the padd to one side. Finding the trail of the faction was the first priority, settling in could wait. He stood and carried over the completed data to one of the other officers.

Chasing vapor trails.

Lt. (JG) Dylan Reed
USS Miranda

"Battle Readiness"

Ensign Jeremiah Leger,
Hazard Team,
USS Miranda-B

If a robot could cry, Jeremiah was pretty sure that Marvin would be bawling his red little eyes out. After squaring his quarters away and the nice long heart-to-heart (if one could call it that with a droid) with Marvin, Jeremiah decided that now would be a good time to blow off some steam while he was on standby. The talk with Marvin simply resurrected old ghosts and demons that he'd been wrestling with for a very, very long time. 'Yes, definitely time to blow off some steam...' he thought as he pocketed some isolinear chips of his, slung his phaser rifle over his shoulder, marched out of his quarters and took the turbolift back down to the Hazard Team deck.

His first stop was the armory where he obtained a mek'leth short sword from Fek'Ihr as well as charge packs for the phaser rifle and then it was off to the Hazard Team holodeck. He inserted the chips containing his holodeck programs and then proceeded to the middle of the room.

"Computer, load program: Normandy, Allied Assault. Variant Leger-Foxtrot. Difficulty 8."

"Acknowledged." the computer replied.

Instantly the yellow-grid lined room disappeared to be replaced by a World War II troop transport boat in the middle of the english channell. All around him were men in standard starfleet uniforms instead of the olive drab of the old WWII GIs. Leger checked his rifle again and made sure his mek'leth was secured under his belt behind his back then looked at the commander of his holographic platoon.

"We're going in with the first wave!" the platoon commander shouted of the roar of the engines and spray of the sea. "Means more Jem'Hadar for us to kill. You smash the entire area and you don't die unless given permission first. Understand?"

"SIR YES SIR!" the platoon, Leger included, shouted back. Leger grinned. Instead of the standard Allies vs. Nazis as in the actual historical event, he made this program for Jem'Hadar to be guarding the Normandy beach with the Federation going in to wipe them out. Faces were changed and the weapons upgraded to the more moderen phasers and photon torpedos than the old WWII weapons. Part of Leger wished he could disable the saftey protocols, but the more reasonable side of him told him that there was no point in dying from a stray phaser shot, friendly fire, or as something stupid like falling over the side of the boat and drowning.

A nearby explosion shook him out of his revere as he forced himself to focus. The transport would be hitting the beach soon. And while the safteies were still on, the whole thing looked real enough to make him think that his life was on the line. And that was enough for him. "Thirty Seconds!" the boatmaster called. "God be with you!". Thirty seconds came and went in a blur. Next thing he knew the whistle was blowing and him and his holographic platoon was storming the beach under a hail of phaser shots. Leger managed to make it into the water and up under one of the massive wodden beams that were there to deter an amphibious landing.

Now the thing that made the entire scenario even more intresting was all of the targeting equipment that came with the technology. Leger engaged the HUD eye on his Hazard Suit and zoomed in on one of the concrete bunkers up on the cliffside. Sure enough, the zoom was good enough that he could count the spikes on the Jem'Hadar. He leveled his rifle. "I hate Jem'Hadar, the fucking bastards..." he hissed as he began to pick them off. After dropping the first couple, Leger ducked his shoulders and ran up the beach some more before making a baseball slide to saftey behind a metal-girder tank stopper.

All around, holographic fighters fought, lived, bled and died in recreation of one of Earth's bloodiest battles. Explosions all around, the scream of projectiles and phaser beams cut through the air, the cries of the wounded and the shouts of hatred rang out everwhere. It all reminded Leger of real battle, the time he served on the Defiant-A. Glancing around brought all of it back but he shunted the memories from his mind and focused as he cautiously advanced up the beach in a low crawl. Every so often a shot would come in his direction but pass overhead a bit. Leger would snap off another shot at whoever fired at him and continued on until he came up to the beach wall. Holo Engineers were already fitting charges to blow it so they could continue on. Leger waited patiently and then proceeded as soon as the gap in the wall and razor wire opened up. He was one of the first to the base of the cliff. Jem'Hadar fighters began to open fire from the tops of the cliffs in c! oncrete forts, from sandbag bunkers, and even from well prepared foxholes as well. Leger and the Holo Federation fighters tore through them with a vengence and move up the cliffside.

At the top, Leger took a side route and entered one of the massive concrete bunkers. He kicked the wooden door in and open fire on anything that moved inside. He then ducked back outside as the Jem'Hadar inside rallied and returned fire. Leger popped a few more shots in all the while silently cursing himself for not bringing any grenades with him or, at the very least, simply pick some up from one of the dead holographic fighters. Tossing any caution to the wind, he entered the bunker again and mopped up the last few Jem'Hadar on the topmost level before proceeding down into the lower levels.

Dropping down a level, Leger cautiously scanned the inner area. He knew there were more fighters down here, he could practically smell them. He moved foward a bit and then caught a blur out the corner of his eye. Too late did he turn to train his weapon on the incoming menace. His rifle went skittering across the floor as the Jem'Hadar knocked it out of his hands and then decked the surprised Hazard Team member.

"QI'yaH!" Leger exclaimed in Klingon as he reeled from the punch. With no time to go for his rifle as the Jem'Hadar pulled out its knife and began advancing, Leger reached behind him and pulled out his new mek'leth. The Jem'Hadar's eyes widened in surprise. Leger quickly took advantage by parrying the incoming knife thrust and then swng his blade once over his head and planted it right inside the Jem'Hadar's skull. He then pulled it out just as quickly as it went in and allowed the fighter to fall over dead. "Learned that little move on the Defiant. Thank you Commander Worf." he said as he put the mek'leth back and retrieved his phaser rifle.

The world flashed and Leger found himself back in the holodeck's yellow grided room. "What the?" he asked aloud, looking around. He then frowned as he went over to the control panel and viewed the replay. He then mentally kicked himself as he watched another Jem'Hadar fighter come into the room he was in and pretty much vaporize his image with a nice solid shot to the back. Leger groaned. It had been a long time since someone got the jump on him like that. Thank God it was just a simulation or else Starfleet would be composing the letter to his family back home right about now. Grumbling out a string of curses in Klingon, Leger killed the replay and booted up a firing range for him. 'Might as well do some target practice before I try to conquer France again...'

Strawberry Fields Forever
Ensign Ry'shan Nadene Hhanna
Medical Doctor
USS Miranda

==Deck 20; Cantina-Main Lounge==

Ry'shan had a long day. She felt saddened for Kat, who seemed not to want to leave Sickbay. Kat had ordered her to take a break, otherwise she herself would have also still been in Sickbay.

So Ry'shan found herself in the Cantina, standing near the entrance and looking around the lounge at all of the different people. She wished she could know them all, but since she had been aboard, there had been no real time to know any one. She had known it would have been busy aboard a starship, but not so busy as to make it difficult to make friends.

Not to mention it was also her first visit to the Cantina.

It looked full and she had no idea where to sit. She finally saw a table next to a window and headed for it. She sat down and as she did, someone appeared to take her order. She ordered an Autumn Color Salad, a dish her surrogate mother used to make in the fall on earth. The salad had every color of the fall, and she knew it would remind her of home. The basic ingredients were yams, chopped apples with the skin on them, celery, and chopped red onion, plus green leaves. Ry'shan also ordered up a small bowl of chilled strawberries.

Strawberries were her absolute favorite. Once her surrogate mother had taken her to an Orhard in Boston where there was a large field of strawberries. That was when she was fifteen, one year after being freed from her captivity. She tasted one strawberry on that field and wanted to stay in that field forever.

Her next order was a simple glass of ice cold water.

The water came to her first, and as she waited for her order, she gazed at the minefield outside and idly twirled her finger in her glass of water. The at'lantian hybrid part of her began to soak up the water as she hoped for better days ahead. She felt guilty sitting there while Kat was still in Sickbay. Her thoughts went to her and to Brex, and all of the wounded in Sickbay. She also thought of her surrogate mother, Nancy Hhanna, who had helped her on the road to recovery from her long captivity.

Some people would say she was slow in certain areas...like social life. In truth, because she had been in captivity with no social life whatsoever, the adjustments she had to make in her new life were sometimes difficult. In human years, she was 28. In social circles...she was 14. She had no love life. Wasn't even sure what true love was.

By the time her salad and strawberries had arrived, her water glass was empty. Another one was brought for her, and this time, she raised it to her lips to drink from it. Then, she ate her dinner and wondered what the future had for her.

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