“Drink, Fight & Vomit, or not!”

(This is set while the Galaxy is undergoing the refit. After “Get Around or Not”. There was an in-between post, but it got lost)

Lieutenant Commander Ethan Suder
Chief Engineer

Lieutenant (jg) Dhanishta Eshe
Engineer

Ethan half stumbled into his quarters and instantly made his way towards a small cabinet near his desk. "Computer, lights. And music too!" he ordered. "Anything, play something at random."

The lighting shone through the green filters, giving a cosy glow across the room. Some ancient classical music from Betazoid history began playing. At last, Suder reached the cabinet and opened it. He pulled out two bottles and turned, leaning on his desk to take a moment.

The doors to his quarters opened and Commander Sanders stepped in, half leaning on the door for support. The drink was starting to get to her also. She moved in and grabbed several glasses from a near by table. She then found the mark, flopping down on Ethan's famous couch.

"Computer," she began, "play some different music, something relating to party music." Rachel requested. The classical music stopped and replacing it, new boppy music began.

The door opened again letting in the laughter of the two to follow. Dhani nudged the loud Bolian at her side as they walked into Suders quarters.

Jiiles continued to snicker, “Computer,” he half shouted drunkenly, “play something from the all time greatest hits form the land of the blue.” he slurred.

Dhani turned and gave Jiiles a hard look. Jiiles wavered slightly under her gaze. Dhani seemed to be the only one in the room who wasn’t drunk yet. But she aspired to be slightly sober for only a few minutes longer.

“You babble more rubbish now then when I first met you!” she stated, “And you’re your taste in music is …..” she didn’t finished her sentence just started laughing at the cheesy smile Jiiles gave her as he continued to wobble whilst leaning against the wall. “Computer play some music from the late 20th century and the early 21st century Earth, start with something by Queen.”

Sanders took this chance to disappear into Ethans bathroom for a very quick cold shower. Of course, the wet kind. She was still dirty from her hard days work. In fact, everyone was.

Ethan was busy pouring drinks and handing them out as the music by Queen began playing. He frowned at Dhani for her choice in music and then shook his head and began drinking again.

Jiiles drank the contents in his glass and in doing so, fell off the couch and on to the floor, laughing.

Ethan sat on the couch, next to the large Bolian. He looked down at his friend and kicked him with his foot. "You're not done yet are you?" he asked. "As the ship is not active, with no missions or anyone to blow up, and considering the hard work we've done lately, we deserve a little time off. So a late start is in order tomorrow, which means we can all have a late night tonight."

Dhani left Ethan kicking Jiiles and walked to the bathroom,

“Sanders, how long are you gonna be?” Dhani shouted through the door.

Like older showers, there was a glass door separating the shower from the rest of the bathroom. The glass was all steamed up, but a female figure could be seen.

“Not long, come on in.” Rachel offered.

Slightly surprised, Dhani walked into the bathroom and stopped when she caught a glimpse of Sanders flesh. Averting her eyes she slightly stammered, "erm…er."

Rachel slid the door open and stepped out, wrapping a towel around her. She flicked her wet hair out of the way and looked at Dhani. "It's all free." she said. She then turned to the mirror and gave it a wipe. Unlike Dhani, she did not know about the extra stack of towels in a compartment next to the door. So she slid the towel off and began drying her hair with it, occasionally swaying as the drink from earlier continued to intoxicate her.

Dhani turned and grabbed two towels form the closet by the door. Walking past Rachel she placed one on the warming rack and handed the other to Rachel.

“Here.” she said simply.

Rachel hadn't been that aware of much apart from trying to dry her hair. It wasn't until she saw the towel that Dhani had given her that she realised she was naked. But then with being drunk and hot from the shower, it didn't seem to matter at the time.

Dhani removed her clothes and stepped into the shower. It was quite strange how Ethan, Rachel and she all preferred showers with water as apposed to sonic showers. Dhani mulled over the similarities as she turned on the water and stepped under the shower head. She half moaned as the water cascaded over her body, warm and refreshing.

Ethan kicked Jiiles again. "Blue, wake up!" he muttered.

"I'm just running a diagnostic on the inside of my eyes." Jiiles mumbled back.

Ethan stood up and stumbled to his desk. Reaching behind it, he grabbed some more bottles. "You know..." he began, pouring another drink, "I think it's probably a good idea I didn't go today. I mean I would have arrived, and if she's even there, I'm pretty certain it wouldn't have gone bad. I mean good. Or is it bad?" Suder scratched his head and bit his lip. "It would have been a tragedy. Possibly. Perhaps. A little bit. Maybe a little brighter than that. A good day perhaps. A glorious and beautiful scene. A moment that would become historical fact?" he asked himself considering the possibilities of what could have been.

Dhani lingered in the shower a little more than usual. When she stepped out Rachel was still posing in front of the mirror. Dhani smiled to herself as she padded across the bathroom, dripping with each step. Pulling the warm towel off the rail she wrapped round herself and sat down on the toilet seat and began to towel dry her hair with a separate towel.

"You and Jiiles, you guys seeing each other or something?" Rachel asked glancing to the side at Dhani.

Dhani looked up through a veil of wet hair,

“What?” she asked totally surprised.

"Oh, was just wondering, wasn't sure if you guys were or not. I mean he sometimes looks at you like you are, but then he probably looks at everyone like that." she giggled to herself.

Dhani stared at Rachel for a few moments longer and shook her head, drunks, she mused. She pondered for a few minutes,

“I never noticed.” Dhani mumbled as she continued to dry her hair.

Ethan looked around and saw no one but Jiiles on the floor still. “Hmmm.” He muttered. “Where’d they all go?” he asked.

Jiiles lifted his head and looked around. “Don’t..” his head hit the floor again before he could finish his sentence.

Ethan chuckled and took his top off. “Catch you in a few.” Stumbling passed his desk, he eventually found his way into the bathroom. He rubbed his face as he took several steps towards the glass door. It felt surprisingly warm and damp already, but he shook off the thought. Taking off the rest of his clothes, he stepped into the shower and turned the water on.

Rachel’s eyes were wide open. Still standing in front of the mirror, her eyes never left Ethan. She couldn’t believe he had just strolled in. Not that he even knew her Dhani were there. Speaking of Dhani, she turned and looked at Dhani who was near by.

Dhani had been drying her hair with a towel. Said towel was now on the floor as she stared at the space where Ethan had been. Slowly she turned her wide eyed open mouthed face towards Rachel.

“Oh my god.” Rachel mimed to Dhani. Looking back towards the steamy glass, she giggled a little and covered her own gaping mouth.

Dhani was surprised at the thoughts flowing through her head. She raised an eyebrow at Rachel and then smiled broadly and looked down at the floor. Picking up the towel she signalled Rachel to follow as she tip toed out of the bathroom.

Once out she and Rachel broke out into fits of giggles.

Rachel rested her hand against the door to support herself. “Wow, I had no idea.” She managed to get out.

Ethan stumbled to the doorway, towel wrapped around his waist. Rubbing his wet face again, he looked up to see Dhani and Rachel stood by the door. Confused, he pointed at them. “I thought you guys had gone.”

Rachel placed a hand on his shoulder and looked at Dhani. “No, we’ve been here the whole time.”

Ethan looked down and then across at Dhani. Both also wrapped in towels. “Oh.” He whispered.

Dhani tried with all her might to keep a straight face, eventually she had to turn away as she thought her face would explode.

All three looked over at the moaning coming from the floor in front of the couch. Jiiles was getting to his feet. “More drinks everyone?” He looked around, surprised to see no one sat around him. Finally, his drunk eyes narrowed down on the doorway leading to the bathroom. There, all stood in towels, dripping wet, he saw Dhani, Rachel and Ethan. “What?” he mumbled to Ethan as he approached them.

Ethan looked at Dhani and Rachel, then at Jiiles. “Shit.” He mumbled. “You know it’s not like that.”

Jiiles lunged forward and hit Ethan, square on his jaw.

As Jiiles stumbled back a couple of steps, Rachel dropped to her knees and looked at Ethan. “Are you ok?” she asked. “What was that about?”

With one hand securing her towel Dhani pushed Jilles back putting her self between both men. At first Jiiles struggled against her trying to reach out towards Ethan, all his might against her. As they neared the wall he stopped and looked down at Dhani. Her eyes boarded into him as he tried to explain himself.

Rachel heard the muttering between Dhani and Jiiles and got to her feet. Standing in front of the Bolian, she pushed his shoulder to get his attention. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

Ethan, back on his feet took the chance to return the favour. He lunged forward between the girls and hit Jiiles.

The Bolian bounced off the couch and landed on the floor. But he was up to his feet in no time at all.

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” Ethan snapped.

“Drink?” Rachel asked, offering Dhani a glass that she had just filled. “I wouldn’t worry about them, it’ll finish in a few seconds.

Dhani held up her hand and shook her head. She turned and stared at Jiiles and Ethan her hand across her chest holding her towel up that was now slipping down.

“Come on man, I should be asking you what you were doing?” Jiiles shot back to Ethan. “You know what I thought and felt, but that didn’t matter. Was it because you were mad about not getting out today?” Jiiles punched out again, hitting Ethan hard.

Ethan dropped down to one knee. “I’m not going to do this Jiiles. I’m not going to fight you. I’ve not had to hit anyone for a long time. I sure as hell don’t want to start now!”

Jiiles hit Ethan again, ignoring what the Chief was saying. “Was it because we had to call you back?” Another hard hit. “Is Klingon woman not enough for you?” He punched again.

Ethan, now on both knees looked at the floor, staring at it. He slowly raised one leg and planted it flat on the floor. One of his hands were on the wall, ready to help him up. His cold eyes moved from the floor to Jiiles, who had his back turned to him.

Jiiles had heard his name called out and had turned to see Rachel holding a glass. “Perhaps we should get you in the shower as well?” she asked.

“Is that where the party was when I was sleeping?” he asked a little confused. Turning around, he didn’t have time to react as Ethan launched himself from the floor. Raising his right foot, he kicked out, smashing his foot into Jiiles’ jaw.

The Bolian came crashing down to the floor. Dazed, drunk and a little dizzy.

Ethan rubbed his jaw and the side of his head. He walked over to Rachel and took the glass off her. Drinking some, he moved back over to Jiiles and looked down into his eyes.

“I should have seen that coming.” The blue skinned beast said quietly.

Ethan held out his hand and pulled Jiiles up to his feet. “No one ever does.” He replied with a chuckle.

“One day you’ll have to teach me that kick.” Jiiles took the glass away from Ethan and put a hand on his shoulder. “So, you didn’t…?” he nodded towards the girls.

Ethan looked in their direction and then laughed at Jiiles. “No. Not my style to move in on someone a good friend likes. And more than two people’s a crowd.”

Jiiles laughed a little and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I just saw you guys, thought the worse.”

“And I thought I had troubles.” Ethan smiled before taking his drink back. “Now, girls, get some music on and more drinks.”

Dhani watched Rachel as she moved across the room to get more drinks. The music started up again and still Dhani stared across the room at Jiiles and Ethan. She didn’t understand what was going on. Why did Jiiles hit Ethan? What did Ethan mean when he said ‘Not my style to move in on someone a good friend likes.’ Who was he talking about? Jiiles likes Rachel?

Ignoring the others Dhani moved across the room and grabbed her clothes. She slipped back into the bathroom relatively unnoticed and got dressed. As she pulled on her top she looked into the mirror.

Ethan moved into his bedroom and slid on some trousers and a shirt. Strolling back out, he gave Jiiles a pat on the shoulder. After grabbing some drinks and handing them to Rachel and Jiiles, he raised his hand. “To us, I guess. A group that will never fall apart. And you can pass that on to Commander Ford.” Ethan said winking at Rachel.

Dhani could hear the clinks of glasses as she stood motionless in the damp bathroom. A slight steam lingered from the shower fogging the mirror slightly. And still she stared into herself. Her mind ticking over previous events. This wasn’t the first time Jiiles had struck out at Ethan. A pattern was occurring and she seemed to be there every time. Jiiles thinks Ethan is moving in on someone he likes. Likes as in wants to date. And that someone is……. Me!

Dhani began to laugh. No way! She thought. Never!

Shit.

Sitting heavily on the toilet seat her laughing waned and she just sat with a look of shock and horror, shaking her head.

The drinking continued into the early hours of the next morning. Laughs were high, music was loudish and the fun was had. And like all parties, it eventually died down. Jiiles made an attempt to find his quarters. Rachel fell asleep on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her. Ethan fell asleep at his desk, the picture on it in his hands. And Dhani sat in Ethan’s leather arm chair with a pint in her hands staring at the light weights with a smug smile on her face.

BACK POST

"Honey-Pot of fire Part 1 of 6"

(This is set when the Galaxy was undergoing the refit. It was also written bout two years ago, and now its finally making its début. I’ll take a moment! LOL!)

Lieutenant (Jg) Dhanishta Eshe - Engineering
Lieutenant Commander Ethan Suder - Chief of Engineering
Commander Karyn Dallas - Chief Counsellor

Dhanishta came out of her trance like state and grabbed the honey jar next to her, she couldn't stand the taste but it helped to bring her back down to earth, as it were, quickly.

She had been managing her insomnia by meditating and falling into a deep trance like state for an hour or so before each shift; it gave her body and mind time to relax so that she was able to focus on her work. Her vacation at the Vulcan monastery had been more than relaxing and inspiring, but still even though she had had her first nights sleep in over a year, now that she was back on the Galaxy her insomnia was back with a vengeance. She sighed and stood up, her shift was due to start in 10 minutes, she left her 'circle' as it was; no use packing it away, she would need it for tomorrow, and the next day and the next…!

As she stood up her head swam a bit, she ate another spoonful of the sticky honey, and placed the jar on her desk. Slipping on her jacket she left her quarters and headed to engineering.

The refit was going well. The new saucer section had been installed and welding hade begun weeks ago, and was almost finished. The warp core had finally been inserted. Though due to the complications they were now running behind slightly, which meant another double, maybe even a triple shift. But there was no point to complaining, after all Dhani didn't have much of a social life to be missing out on any way.

It was a-shame that Suder hadn’t been able to get his vacation. He was still moody; there wasn’t one datapadd intact in his office anymore. She sighed as she strolled in, nodded to Jiiles and Jason as she passed them. She was sad for Suder yet happy for herself, things were finally going right for her. Grabbing her tool kit she smiled and left engineering, with a datapadd full of work to do.

*A short while later*

Dhanishta was crawling through the jefferies tubes. She had to reconfigure the EPS conduits. She opened up a panel which revealed a mass of circuitry and a small control panel which maintained the EPS power grid. She removed a few isoliner chips and placed them into different slots.

Tapping her communicator, she called out, "Eshe to Engineering."

"Suder here." came the simple reply from the Chief.

"I'm ready when you are." Dhani replied.

"Everything's set down here, go ahead." Suder ordered.

Dhanishta activated the dormant EPS conduit and waited a few seconds for a light to begin blinking green. She smiled slightly as the tiny light flashed green. She closed the panel and moved on to the next one.

*** A few hours later ***

She crawled up to the last EPS conduit, glad that this was the last one, and removed the panel. She took a deep breath, she'd been crawling round for the last few hours and would be glad to get back on to her feet; her knees were beginning to get sore. She rested her head on the wall and closed her eyes for just a second.

Once again removed several isoliner chips and placed them into different slots. Tapping her communicator, for the last time; she called out,

"Eshe to Engineering."

"Suder here." came the dull reply from the Chief; he sounded almost as board as she was.

"I'm ready when you are." Dhani replied.

"Go ahead." Suder ordered.

Dhanishta activated the EPS conduit and waited a few seconds for a light to begin blinking green. She put the panel back in place and sat back on her haunches and sighed, turned and began to crawl towards the exit.

The deck vibrated beneath her; the tremors rose through her hands into her shoulders and through her whole being. She glanced behind and saw a section of the conduit blow up into shrapnel.

Her heart pounded through her rib cage, she began to crawl as fast as she could. The pain in her knees was suppressed by the adrenaline which erupted through her blood stream.

The fire flashed behind her. She could feel its heat and ferocity as she cried out; "Computer, local EPS grid shut." her words were cut short as the blast enveloped her, forcing her down the tube.

She felt as if she were floating, sensations ran through her body rippling her skin. Her throat and mouth dried out like a sponge on Vulcan. She was still crawling fast. Though her vision was blurred she could see that the exit was near. She pummelled the access panel till it opened and fell out in a heap on the floor. Her breathing was fast and she couldn't slow it down her skin prickled with heat and her throat and nostrils felt like the inside of a furnace. She curled up on the floor holding her knees up to her chest, her body began to shake and her eyes welled up. She couldn't contain it anymore; she wailed and sobbed, tears gushing down her cheeks. Her stomach hurt with every sob that tensed her muscles, increasing her agony. The emotions were alien to her, her body felt unfamiliar. She retreated inside her mind.

After a while her sobs waned and she lay on the floor staring blankly, tear after tear dripping silently on to the metal floor.

Back Post

"Honey-Pot of fire Part 2 of 6"

Lieutenant (Jg) Dhanishta Eshe - Engineering
Lieutenant Commander Ethan Suder - Chief of Engineering
Commander Karyn Dallas - Chief Counsellor

(This is set when the Galaxy was undergoing the refit.)

*** Main Engineering***

Ethan came out of his office and glanced around Engineering. He walked up to a young Engineer, he wasn't sure who he was. "Ensign." He called out.

The Ensign looked up from his console at the Chief. "Chief?" he replied.

"Where's, Lieutenant Eshe?" he asked.

The Engineer kid shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the main display near his console. "Last thing I heard, she was working on the EPS power grid."

Ethan looked closer at the console. There were several lights flashing indicating that the EPS power conduits had been checked out.

"No reported problems with the EPS power systems?" he asked.

The Ensign shook his head. "No, sir."

Ethan turned away from the younger Engineer and made his way out of Engineering. Dhanishta's shift had finished twenty minutes ago but she hadn't checked in when she finished working on the last EPS conduit.

After a few minutes of walking through corridors and travelling through a turbolift, Ethan arrived at the junction in the corridor that would lead to the EPS conduits Dhanishta had been working on. He removed an access panel on the wall and climbed inside the jefferies tube. He crawled forward for about two minutes and came to a junction that lead down three different jefferies tubes. He began crawling down one and when he reached the end, he climbed out into a very tiny room. He looked down and saw Dhanishta lying on the floor.

He knelt down and moved his hand over her head. He didn't touch her head, just held his hand several inches above it. He then tapped his communicator. "Suder to sickbay, could you send a team down to section 24 Beta, near the EPS conduits."

"Acknowledged." came the response.

Ethan continued to look at Dhanishta and then back down the jefferies tube. He moved over to the last conduit that she had worked on. He removed a panel and looked at the insides of the conduit. It seemed that she had finished work on all conduits except the last one which was still dormant. He replaced the panel and moved over to where Dhanishta was again.

*** Two days later ***

Ethan sat back in his chair. He was waiting for an extensive report to come through from Sickbay. They had told him that from what they could tell, Dhanishta was in sever shock. He felt a little uncomfortable. He didn't like anyone in his department being so much as ill, let alone passing out in a jefferies tube, or whatever had happened to her. He looked at the time on his console. His shift had finished an hour ago, but he thought he'd stay until he heard from Sickbay. If no message had come his way in about half an hour, he'd drop by Sickbay himself.

Dhanishta came to on a bio bed. Her head spun and she didn't know where she was. The only thing she could remember was working. She slid off the bio bed and landed quite gracefully on the floor. All was quiet and the lights were low, she couldn't see anyone or hear them. She pulled her self up using the bio bed for support and like a homing pigeon returned to engineering; took her a while to get there as the halls kept rocking about like a seesaw but she managed to keep her balance, most of the way!

Upon entering engineering Dhani walked up to the jobs board and scanned it; she couldn't remember what it was that she was doing but she knew that she hadn't finished whatever it was. The jobs board kept shifting in and out of view; she started swaying as she tried to read it. After 5 minutes Dhani gave up on the jobs board and stumbled her way to Suder's office.

Dhani forgot to ring the chime and just wandered straight into the Chiefs office and stood in front of his desk, swaying slightly. "I'm sorry sir," she blurted out before Suder had even looked up at the intruder, "I forgot what I was doing."

Suder was taken by surprise. "Have a seat." He said gesturing towards the chair.

Sit, that sounded like a good idea. Dhanishta sat down, on the floor. The room was spinning round, colours phased in and out changing like looking through a kaleidoscope.

Ethan studied Dhanishta for a while and then focused on a data padd. He slid it across the table so it was directly in front of him. "So." He started. Ethan made a few notes on his console and looked back over at Dhanishta. "How's things?"

Dhanishta closed her eyes for a moment. If only the room would stop spinning that would be a good start she thought. She could hear someone talking to her but it made no sense; she couldn't focus.

Suder tapped his console. "Suder to Sickbay, could you send someone down to my office? I have a bit of a situation here, would you also be able to get Commander Dallas to attend?" Ethan tapped another button on the console to close the channel. He stood up and walked over to Dhanishta and knelt down next to her. There was something going on in her head, but he couldn't make out what.

Dhanishta turned and focused in on Suder, "I didn't finish." she stated. "What was I doing?" her face scrunched up in confusion. Trying desperately to remember what she was doing, where she was and why.

"Working on the EPS power grid." Ethan explained. "You didn't finish working on the last conduit, but don't worry. I'll sort it out."

"Hummm." she mumbled acknowledging Suder. "I have to..humm." she mumbled laying down. "Spinning." she said. The room continued to spin. Dhani focused in on a panel on the ceiling. The rest of the room spun but that panel stayed stationary. "I was in a jeffries tube. EPS conduit. It...humm." she tried to remember.

She sat up quickly and back-pedalled into a corner as the memory came rushing back to her; the heat and the pain. She started to hyperventilate, she tried to explain to Suder but the words couldn't come out. Panic set in and tears ran down her cheeks. She fought to keep on the same plain and not retreat as she had before. She remembered everything.

Ethan jumped to his feet and grabbed a tricorder off his desk. He began scanning the delusional Engineer and then slammed the tricorder shut and threw it to the side. Engineering tricorder! Need a medical tricorder! He rushed over to the replicator and tapped in a few buttons. A small device appeared that looked like an old breathing mask of some kind. Simple. He got back over to Dhanishta as soon as he could and placed the device in front of her mouth and nose to help her breath and calm down. The other hand was placed on the back of her head, on her soft long hair. He held it there to ensure her head would stay still so she could get oxygen from the breathing apparatus.

Dhanis breathing was short and fast, she tried to breathe deeply but she could feel herself retreating further and further. The sandy plains of Vulcan floated through her mind, the sun felt warm on her back. She could feel Sark's hand on her face; it was warm and warn with age, his eyes were full of wisdom, she felt so safe there with her mentor, she relinquished her self to him and him only. Dhani bucked against the imagery, kicking it away trying to return to herself. She could feel something on her face and tried to push it away, she began to struggle.

Ethan stood up and jumped over to his console and punched a button. "Sickbay, need that medical down here now!" he demanded. He ran back over to Dhani and picked up the breathing device that she had thrown to the floor. He placed his hand at the back of her head and squeezed gently, but firmly. It was a technique he had learnt on Betazed a long time ago. It temporarily seized that persons nervous system for a few seconds. He used those few seconds to try and get her to breathe normally.

Dhanishta gasped for air like a fish out of water, as she forcefully retuned. She took in huge lung fulls of air one after another. Suder's face finally came back into view. She smiled weakly at him. Her head hurt but at least the room had stopped spinning.

"Dhanishta, you know where you are?" he asked.

She looked around rubbing her throbbing head, "Your office?" she croaked.

"Good guess. Yeah, you are." He said sitting down in front of her. "This is my office." He continued nodding along. "Been mine for a short while, that makes me the Chief Engineer. True story." He explained.

Dhani looked at him confused, "Huh?" she questioned. She felt exhausted.

"Just keep breathing." Ethan said. Ethan glanced over at the console on his desk. He could just about make out the time. The medical team should be here any second now.

Dhani leaned her head back on the wall behind her, did as she was told, she breathed deeply.

Ethan's office doors opened and a medical team walked in. They knelt down next to Dhanishta and began doing their thing. Giving her hypo's and scanning her with proper tricorders.

"She came into my office a little disoriented. Sat on the floor, complained of the room spinning and began hyperventilating." Ethan explained so that the medical team could have a rough idea of what happened.

The doors to Suder's office opened again and the renowned Commander Karyn Dallas came in. Ethan approached her with a slight smile,

"Sorry to call you down so late." He started. "Obviously, you know Dhanishta." He stated.

"We're going to get her back to Sickbay, we'll let you know more shortly." A medical officer said.

Ethan gave a nod and turned back to Karyn. "I'll explain on the way." He said as he gestured to leave his office and follow Dhanishta and the medical team to Sickbay.

Karyn looked from the young woman to Ethan, not quite sure what the emergency was or why she had been called, but for the moment that didn't matter. Someone was in distress and she had been called. She paused to peek at the latest tricorder scan before Dhanishta was transported to sickbay.

Back Post

"Honey-Pot of fire Part 3 of 6"

(This was set whilst the Galaxy was undergoing the refit)

Lieutenant (Jg) Dhanishta Eshe - Engineering
Lieutenant Commander Ethan Suder - Chief of Engineering
Commander Karyn Dallas - Chief Counsellor

Karyn turned to Ethan. "We'll get to the bottom of it, Ethan. What can you tell me about what happened?"

"Salem!" Dhani cried before Suder had a chance to answer the counsellor's question.

Ethan jumped a little and raised an eyebrow at Dhanishta.

"My cat." she explained, "Can someone look in on him for me? I'm not sure how long I've been out, and he hasn't figured out how to use the replicator." she added.

Ethan then slowly turned his head and looked at Karyn. He figured they now had an obligated duty to go check in on her cat. He sighed and began walking down the corridor with Karyn. For a short while, he remained silent. Her body language, for the most part gave off that content impression, but Ethan had the feeling things ran a little deeper.

In truth, Karyn was a little tense. Ethan was suddenly back around and trying to keep things steady, what with Michael now gone, but this was not the same old Galaxy. They weren't the same people they were years ago, and while she considered Ethan to be a close friend, and Michael, gods knew how she felt about him...everything seemed that much more complicated.

She had her work, but not much beyond that. It was hard to know how to just pick up again. She wondered if Ethan felt the same way. Now, though, just didn't seem the right time to address them. It was silly. She'd known him for a long time, but it was like she didn't know how to talk to him.

Ethan spoke at last. "How have you been?" he asked.

"Well." she lied casually. "Even busier than when we first talked. I've been given a lot to think about." She added as an afterthought. "How about you?" she asked.

"Same as always." Ethan replied softly. He glanced at Karyn as they made their way down the corridor. "I've been trying to catch up on things, everything that happened after I left. Seems so long ago now. It's annoying really, I feel that I've missed out on so much." He admitted. "It seems everyone I care about, my friends, have gone through so much over the last few years. I feel guilty that I wasn't there for them. Busy dealing with my own problems." He explained.

Karyn dismissed the concern. "Sometimes we need to care for ourselves before we can care for others. Don't feel bad. If anything, I owe you an apology for not keeping in touch. I guess I was just overwhelmed by the transfer. It...it's not the same here, but we should be focused on creating new memories, or some other cliche or something." She added, somewhat at a loss for words.

"Agreed." Ethan replied with a warm smile.

They continued to make their way towards the Dhanishta's quarters when Ethan spoke again. "I've missed you. I've missed the ship. At the time, a few years back, thought I would never get over things as long as I were here. But it made no difference. After a while, I discovered I still couldn't get out of the dark pit I was in..." he trailed off and glanced at Karyn. "Anyway, this isn't a session. I'm concerned about Dhanishta." he began. "She was working on the EPS conduits. It seems that she thinks there was an accident or something. Well, there was, but it was a few years ago. She was taken to sickbay and after a while, left on her own accord. She came to my office. Confused and somewhat delusional. She was going on about the EPS conduits. Saying that she had to finish working on them. Then she had that... fit of some kind. Like she had completely lost it. An attack of some kind, she had trouble breathing. I quickly called for you and the medical team. I'm not quite sure what's going on with her though. Any ideas from the cryptic information I've given you?" he asked.

Karyn frowned. "From what you've told me, it sounds like some sort of telepathic echo event. Normally, I'd classify it as a possible panic attack, but Dhanishta wasn't here when the accident occurred, so unless she's experienced something similar to that accident in the past and just happened to react to it here and now, I'd say she somehow managed to pick up on it. I wasn't aware of any accident from dry dock? Did something happen that I wasn't privy to?" It certainly wouldn't have been the first time.

"No." Ethan replied. "I've not read anything in her bio that might indicate that she's been in some kind of accident, similar to what I think might be going on." he explained.

They reached Dhanishta's quarters and made their way inside. At first, the cat mentioned earlier was no where to be seen. Ethan let Karyn enter first and then followed, looking around from the doorway. He saw some markings on the floor and some stones too. Plenty of candles to light up even Ethan's quarters.

Ethan proceeded to prepare food for the cat. "So I can't really think about what happened to her. There hasn't been a major incident with the EPS conduits since.... For a long time, present situation excused of course. No one was lost in the conduits." Ethan said with a sigh. His mind drifted off for a while before coming down to the ship again.

"I don't know why it happened to her." he whispered. After a few seconds he turned and looked at Karyn and then realised what he said. He used a lot of gesturing with his hands after seeing Karyn's confused look. "Um, Dhanishta." he lied. "Don't know, why... what," he said shaking his head, "happened to her. I meant to say 'what'." he said hoping that he had stupidly pulled off the false statement.

"Sure." replied Karyn, filing it all away for later. "I guess we should get back to her then. I'll speak to her as soon as she's been stabilized. I suppose Salem will eat when he's hungry." she said, indicating the food Ethan had replicated.

(OOC: Warning, some klingon words/phases included, this is also set shortly before the Galaxy arrives at Trill)

"Outtage"

Ensign Marcus A. Slayton

Catalen Morka, Trill Civilian Technican

Location: Emored Dax Memorial Hospital-Outskirts of Leran Manev, Trill

++++++

Even after a few hours after the crashing of the federation ship, chunks of the large vessel was still on fire and causing damage to the surrounding buildings and there was power still fluxating throughout the entire city and at one of the larger hospitals that was still in one piece on the outskirts of the city was where Marcus Alexander Slayton, formerly of the USS Lenoard H. McCoy was, working on the hospital's power core.

"Frakking peace of second hand ferengi bachHa'!!" Marcus snarled in general as he worked underneath an open hatch next to the main power couplings of the generator, a tool kit and tricorder sat on the ground next to him and he was wrapped up enough in trying to get the system to come back online fully that he didn't hear the door to the generator room open or the young man's voice shouting to get his attention that he didn't realize there was anyone else in the room until the young man's face looked at him from leaning so that he could see Marcus underneath the panel.

"Ensign Slayton, sir! It's me, Catalen!" the young trill shouted which Marcus' jump and bang his head on the panel directly above his head. Catalen moved out of the way to allow Slayton to slide out from where he was and into a sitting position, muttering a few choice words in Andorian before looking at the younger man.

"What's wrong, Catalen? Did the power finally go out completely?" Marcus said with a look of intense worry on his face as he took off his glasses, wiped the sweat off of them and then put them back on.

"No sir, actually Doctor Meahros heard something important but the city's comm-net is still offline so he had me run down here to get the message to you. Starfleet is sending aide to us and the first relief ship should be here in a while." Catalen said, his eyes big as he was panting a little. This made Marcus snicker just a little because Catalen must have ran from Doctor Eloa Meahros' office on the eighth floor all the way down here just to make sure that he heard about it. Doctor Meahros had little respect for anyone that hadn't earned it and ever since Marcus had joined the effort to get the hospital working so that the flood of refuges could be properally taken care of which was made more interesting as Meahros refused to give him anything hardly and things didn't improve when the infamous "Slayton Temper" came into play and he mouthed off to the doctor and then stormed down here. But Catalen he liked, the kid was okay in his book...

..wait, did he just say that the Galaxy was coming here?

"Catalen, you did say that the USS Galaxy was coming here right? NCC seven zero six three seven right?" Marcus asked with just a hint of disbelief.

"Um, I don't know about those numbers but yeah the Galaxy is coming here as a part of a full relief fleet..why?" Catalen asked, confusion written all over his young face.

"Everyone's A Stranger"

Naranda Sol Roswell
Saia Juis (APC)

LOCATION: Trill

Nara held the cloak tighter. The wind was blowing hard this afternoon. Saia was quiet and Nara wasn't sure what she was thinking. Klaus and the other man seemed to deep in argument to even hear Saia's exclamation and Nara had to pick her up to get out of the tent. Now they were lagging behind everyone and Nara had to use both hands to keep the hood from flying away from her head and keep the cloak around her body. Not that her body looked any different from a Trill, but still. Better safe than sorry.

A symbiont in a human? That's what Saia had cried out before she was picked up by Nara. Was that even possible?

Nara looked ahead. Another tent. She sighed. She hated being on this planet and not being able to do anything. She looked at Saia. She should be somewhere safe. She was just a child and the person who seemed to had taken up caring for her couldn't even speak.

Suddenly Saia turned and with her hands on her hips pouted at Nara, "Why are you hiding?"

Nara stopped and bent down to look at her.

"And why don't you speak?" The child asked. Everything was weird. A ship crashes on her home. A mysterious stranger appears. They want to put symbionts in humans. "You're not Trill are you?"

Nara looked down not sure how to react. She thought of something. She pointed to Saia's head, then herself, punched her other hand and then pointed at Saia again.

Saia took a moment to sort through the gestures. "No. I don't think you'd hurt me, but I'm scared."

Nara wrapped her arms around Saia as if to say she would protect her. She then looked the child in the eyes again and put a finger to her lip.

Saia laughed, "What would I say! You're just a stranger in a cloak."

"May The Fire In Your Heart Burn Bright"

Commodore Gareth Chandler Roswell,
Commander Of Sakarian Fighting Force Against The Rebels (APC)

Lt. Allas Aria Tris-Roswell,
Counselor (APC)

Suyel Veris,
Ruler of Sakaria (NPC) <And Other NPCs>

LOCATION: Sakaria

The meat sizzled on the pan over the large fire. Everyone in the village was helping prepare food. Several homes were destroyed and most were living in tents or in homes that were covered in plastic. Allas decided to have everyone group together to eat so they could share the food they had. Traveling to market was pretty dangerous and Gary had several men surrounding their village as protection.

The planet had turned back into how it was when he first came to it. It took years to bring it to a new glory and now rebels were tearing it to pieces. He had gotten some ideas about how to find Nara's assassin and was packing up for a trip to wander out to hunt down his first lead. The rebel leader seemed awfully cocky and careless lately. Like they expected for the Gary to be weaker or dumber. He set his pack by the tent flap and went to eat dinner with his wife before he left.

He was glad that some of their neighbors were helping build temporary shelters. They were taking any usable wood and making a small shelter. Enough for two people to sleep. It was almost done and Allas would help the others build shelters as well as help cook. For the week she had left anyway.

He smiled proudly as he smelled the spiced meat. She had become quite proficient with the Sakarian menu. This helping out was good for her. She had spent two days in a heap of tears, but then she saw a man outside the tent peeking in.

"Dreio?" She had asked. His face seemed familiar; if older. Dreio was about a year younger than Nara and was few of the children who wanted to be Nara's friend. He didn't care about her being the daughter of the Resurrected Hero or that she wasn't "really" Sakarian. He was only four. All he knew was Nara was bigger and could reach the cookie jar. Nara seemed indifferent to him.

He looked at her and started to turn away. Allas stood, "Wait!" She stepped outside the tent and looked at the dirty young man. She smiled, "Looking for a cookie?"

He smiled and stepped closer. "Mrs. Roswell, we're running out of food and there isn't much at market as people are too afraid to travel and." His face grew weary as he talked.

Allas put her hand on his arm, "Well, we'll have to help each other then."

Now Allas held out a plate to the young man who quickly nodded a thanks and sat to eat with his wife of two years.

As Gary stepped out of the tent, he saw specks moving on the road. He grabbed the binoculars from his pack and held it to his face. It was four hover vehicles. One was a dark green with purple stripes with a golden emblem on the sides. The ones surrounding it were a dark charcoal grey. ~Now, what's he doing here?~ He walked out and went to Allas. "There is someone coming up the road. I'm going to meet him. I'll be back for supper and perhaps with a guest and his friends."

Allas looked at him a moment as he kissed her cheek, "Are you taking some of your men in case."

Gary smiled, "Trust me, my love. It's someone we'll welcome." He then leaned into her ear and whispered, "Too bad we don't have a red carpet."

That was a clue to Allas. "Oh." She nodded and went back to handing out plates of food. They couldn't know the Suyel was here. They would swarm the poor man to death.

Gary walked down the road and several minutes later stood and noticed the vehicles slow to a humming stop a few yards before him. A tall muscular man stepped out of a black hover and walked over to him, "Commodore Gareth Chandler Roswell?"

Gary kept a straight face, "That's Resurrected Hero of Sakaria to you, sir."

They both broke into smiles as the guard stated, "Suyel Veris knew you would meet him on the road. He would like you to enter the vehicle, Commodore."

Gary nodded and walked over to the hover and waited for the door to open before he entered the vehicle. He looked over at the man beside him. The ruler of Sakaria sat staring ahead. His frame was covered with richly colored robes. His eyes shown wisdom and age as he turned to look at Gary. "I am sorry about Naranda."

Gary frowned, "How do you know sir?" He felt his body be pushed into the seat as the hover continued down the path.

"You know I make it a matter to know what happens to my people. Allas had to provide orders from her captain that she was to return in two weeks. They know of the war, and wanted to make sure we would allow it in the case of a transport ban." The man touched Gary's hand. "She was a true hero. A true testament to her bloodline. And what happened on Trill.It is enough to turn someone away from the Federation for what that ship did, or to turn them to the Federation for the aide they are giving."

Gary nodded. Veris was one of the few people aside from himself that kept up with news from the Federation. "I have thought of a compromise to give the rebels."

The old ruler smiled, "I believe I know what it is. Know, however, that there is no such thing as complete peace. As long as someone can get weapons and people they will try to conquer. Will this appease the rebels enough to stop their fighting? Maybe. Will signing a paper guarantee peace? No. Will it bring us back to the same Sakaria we had before? For a time. We must make conditions with the Federation as well, Gary. We must be able to say no to fighting a war that is not our own and they can not have any say how we rule Sakaria."

Gary nodded, "I understand sir. Shall we make a meeting with the rebel leader to discuss this?"

Veris nodded, "I prefer you speak to him for a bit first. Then if he agrees, we may meet together."

"Actually, I was going to go find him after we had dinner tonight."

As the vehicle stopped, Veris motioned for his guards to wait. "You are leaving Allas alone?"

"There is not much I can do for her. She told me she plans to help the village this remaining week she has for leave."

"What of a ceremony for Naranda?"

Gary sighed, "Allas and I agreed that could wait until the village is repaired." He gulped away the lump, "There is no body.." He closed his eyes amazed at how emotional he felt when he knew the truth. "We believe Nara would have agreed to this plan. Allas had her mourning time and to spend another day mourning seemed wasteful when there is so much to do."

"You Gary. Those females had softened a warrior's heart. Their love opened your heart. And now that heart has to be broken. To lose one and to watch the other in such agony must be hard on you. We have known each other for over 30 years, I've seen your heart bleed for Sakaria and I've seen it healed by your union with Allas. I saw it enlarge with the birth of Naranda. I see in your face, it is bleeding again. Not for Sakaria, but for your daughter."

Gary shook his head at the words of the Suyel, "You should had become a poet or a priest old friend." After a moment to compose himself, he asked, "Join friends for dinner, Suyel Veris?"

"If I am allowed to work afterward." The old man sat taller. Truly a Sakarian; proud and strong.

Gary was about to protest but knew better, "Only within your limits."

Later, Allas sat with her husband and the Suyel eating. She spoke abruptly, "I want to ask for an extended leave."

Veris and Gary both looked at her. Gary took her hand, "Will they let you?"

Allas looked at Veris, "If the Ruler of Sakaria requested it, I'm sure it would have better chance." She turned to look Gary in the eye, "I can do much more here than on the Miranda. I would feel so useless up there listening to some girl complain of a bad hair day the same day she was late for work when down here people need grief counseling and help with food and." She looked back at Veris, "Would you send the request?"

He simply nodded, "I will."

Gary smiled, "I can't help but be glad you'll be near, but." He frowned looking into her eyes as worry filled his mind.

Allas smiled, "I know. You'll be gone fighting and you're not sure I'll be safe. There's wars in space too, Imzadi. I'd rather be in danger here, at home, near you."

Gary smiled, shaking his head, "You're so full of sap." He kissed her nose, "You could have just said something about duty and spilling blood on your home planet or something."

Allas laughed, "And what? Sound like you?"

Gary hugged her. It was good to hear her laugh again. "Speaking of duty." He stood. "I."

She stood with him, "I know. I'll keep things going here."

They kissed and Gary went to pick up his pack before he left.

Allas walked over to the Suyel before he had a chance to pick up a tool. "Ok Suyel Veris. You can help by telling stories to the children."

Veris looked at her and smiled, "You know I rather get my hands dirty."

"Believe me. Those kids found a mud puddle today. You'll have lots of dirt to deal with."

The Suyel went toward the children and asked them if they heard the story of the day the sun was ten times darker. It was a fairy tale, but it would keep the kids out of the adults' way while they worked for the remaining three or four hours of daylight.

Allas and several other men and women walked toward another ruined house to start building shelter out of the remaining wood. The pain of Nara's death still ached in her heart and she had wished Gary would stay, but in spite of all that, the strong endurance of the Sakarians rubbed off on her. She continued to mourn for Nara in the dark, but during the day she would help keep her people alive and make sure their leader felt useful without hurting himself.

It's something Naranda would have done. It seemed turned around, but she hoped her daughter would be proud of her. She knew she was proud of her daughter.

OOC: To the USS Miranda: You may consider this my last post. It's been fun!

Ensign Correy Smith,
Flight Control Officer
USS Galaxy

"Rest"

Correy stood, once again, in a ruined street of the Trill Capital. Each street now starting to merge into the next. He couldnt help feeling lost, not knowing which way he'd come, or which way he was going. Taking a glance around, he remembered back to the events of the last few hours.

The dead woman in the museum, the dead bodies on the way, and the man he'd saved in the street. He felt ashamed that he hadnt been able to help anymore, but deep down was holding back. The fear of what he could find was daunting. And now, as he stood infront of the collapsed building he'd ran to hours ago, he learned of the death of one of the Galaxy's officers.

Someone he no doubt would have got to know onboard, had been reduced to nothing, by the ever increasing force of the sabotaged ship.

His thoughts were inteupted with a large gust of wind. A wind that whistled around the last few standing buildings. A wind that penetrated the rips in his uniform, and once again sent a shivering chill up his spine.

He needed rest, food, drink. He felt guilt for thinking of himself at a time like this, but his stomach and throat insisted. He made his way to the nearest food station, and took a seat inside the tent. Stretching out his legs, he took a towel from a passing aide. Wiping his face clear of dirt, he lowered the towel to find a glass of water.

"Can I getcya sum food?" said the elderley trill woman infront of him

"Erm...I'll do it......you should rest"

"Lad, I may be old, but im not completely useless yet" As she totted off, Correy couldnt help but smile at her. Returning with basic rations, she sat next to correy.

"This is all we have, but it should keep you until later" she passed him the food.

"Thanks..." Correy replied. He opened the packet, and she watched. "So...you injured or anything?"

"No...no, I was one of the lucky ones...Least I could do is come here and help...Its not much, but people need to eat right?" she looked at Correy for reassurance "T'Mal..." she said reaching out her hand

"Correy, Correy Smith" he replied, taking her hand and shaking "And really, thanks for this"

"Its okay, I dont have anyone else to look after....family are all gone now"

"Oh.... I'm errr.....im really sorry..."

She let out a loud cackle to Correys surprise "Ah lad, dont be silly.... didnt die today. My husband died 8 years ago now....never had any children.............."

There was a long silence between the two, Correy covered it by eating.

"Anyway Mr Smith, I'd best be getting off, plenty more hungry like you..... good luck, and keep up the good work..."

With that she left, and Correy began to think about the "good work" that he'd done. Which, at the moment, wasnt that much. Five more minutes wouldnt do any harm though...would it?

Back Post

“Honey-Pot of fire Part 4 of 6"

(This is set while the Galaxy is undergoing the refit)

Lieutenant (Jg) Dhanishta Eshe - Engineering
Lieutenant Commander Ethan Suder - Chief of Engineering
Commander Karyn Dallas - Chief Counsellor

** Sick Bay ***

Dhanishta had been probed and scanned and then some as she lay on the bio bed. Her head swam a bit as the nurses and doctors ran around. She couldn't keep track of them all. She kept taking deep breaths as she lay there looking up at the ceiling, since she'd been on this ship she was spending quite a lot of time here. And she was in for yet another session with the counsellor! Life was great, could it get any better? She grumbled to herself.

The memory of the EPS conduits flashed through her mind and she shuddered. A crawling sensation rippled along her skin, and the smell seemed to cling inside her nostrils, reluctant to let go. She shook her head and returned her focus to the panel above her.

The familiar sound of Commander Dallas's voice floated through sick bay, and Dhani turned her attention to her as she entered.

Karyn immediately went to Eshe's bedside and smiled a reassuring smile. "How are you feeling?"

"A little disoriented." Dhani replied keeping her eyes fixed on the ceiling panel.

Dallas placed a hand on Eshe's arm to offer reassurance and also to encourage her to make eye contact with her. "Can you tell me what you remember?"

She looked up at the counsellor, a little surprised, "Unless I'm imagining things I was burned in an explosion in the EPS conduit." She said, eyebrows raised. As she spoke those words her mind started ticking over the word imagine. A frown crossed her face as she looked up at the counsellor, gauging her reaction. It matched everyone else's: surprise. Pushing herself up on her elbows she glanced around sick bay, "The EPS conduit overloaded." She stated vaguely as her eyes met Dallas' again.

"I believe you," she replied. "I'm thinking you experienced some sort of empathic echo. We're not sure yet, but we're going to find out. You're not crazy. Have you experienced anything like this before? I have to rule out a panic attack."

"An echo?" Dhani asked her forehead wrinkling as she frowned, "An empathic echo? It happened, I was there. I was burned!" she said thrusting her arm out as evidence. But all there was to show was pale, smooth, unblemished skin. "No!" she said sitting up and sliding off the bed, "It happened!"

Karyn was startled and belatedly tried to calm the young woman. "Dhani, it's ok, I believe you. Just calm-"

Pushing her way past the fumbling doctors she ran out the door of sick bay. Her mind was racing. Images of the explosion flashing through her mind like a slide show. ~I'm not imagining things ~ she told her self, ~I'm not crazy. I was there it happened, I know it did.~ But there was still that uncertainty, that need for clarification.

She ran into the nearest turbo lift the momentum she had gathered made her crash into the wall, "Main engineering." She called out breathlessly.

As the doors opened she fell out of them, staggering somewhat to regain her balance and speed.

Flying through the doors of engineering she made a b-line for the master systems consol display, barging past her colleagues to get to the truth. Her fingers raced over the consol bringing up the logs for the previous days. Her eyes darted across the information displayed.

Ethan turned around after hearing some grumbles of confusion. Looking across Engineering, he narrowed his vision on Dhani, stood at the Master display console. He gave a data padd to the Ensign he had just been dealing with and then slowly moved over towards Dhani. Not saying anything, he placed his hand on the edge and traced the corners and edges with his fingers as he walked around the console, observing what Dhani was looking for.

"Looking for something?" he finally asked.

Dhanishta blanked him as she recalled the logs for the past two weeks. Her hands darted across the consol. ~It's got to be here somewhere. ~ she told herself. Across her brow her frown lines increased as her searches returned fruitless. Widening her search she brought up all the records for the EPS grid from the launch date of the Galaxy. Nothing! Banging her fists down on the console with frustration she brought up the entries for the last week again, maybe she'd missed it!

Ethan, now standing beside Dhani gently placed a hand on her left shoulder.

"Dhani, what is it about the EPS grid that you're trying to find? I can help you. Trust me."

"Back off!" she shouted. Her voice echoed through engineering, others stopped and stared, none of them would have ever dreamed of talking to the Chief like that. As her eyes scanned over the information again she felt her stomach flutter as the truth she sought was what she feared. It wasn't there. The EPS conduit didn't overload. She had imagined it.

Her hands slid from the display, flopping, defeated by her sides. She stepped back from the consol as if repulsed by it. Her bottom lip began to waver a little, "It didn't overload." she stated, more to herself than Suder. She covered her mouth with her hand her eyes widening with shock. If it didn't happen then what the hell happened to her? Her face paled as her hands trembled.

BACKPOST - December 2381

"Lost and Found" - Part VI

by

Kylar Curran,
Chief Liaison Officer,
USS Galaxy

**

Gorn Marauder
Cargo Hold

Hours or days passed. In the bowels of a Gorn cargohold locked in with only a half dozen glassy-eyed, radiation poisoned, disfigured creatures, the lone humanoid had long lost the awareness of time passing.

In the section of the hold he had marked as his own, the Kelvan had seated himself in a Lotus position; palms up, eyes closed, back straight. he had placed himself into a deep meditative trance to give him the mental and physical strength he would need when he arrived on Kelva II. The cleansing of his soul would not be pleasurable in any form, and nor should it be. The punishment he would endure at the hands of the Cleansers would be righteous and deserving indeed. Yes, he would need every ounce of strength if he were to survive the rite.

His heart, still pumping its viscous Terran fluid throughout the shell of a body he was forced to inhabit, had begun to slow down its mad pace. It would be almost time for another dose of the stimulant that prevented the nightmares to overcome him. He needed to focus.

As he pondered what he would trade to the Maggot for enough to prevent theonset of mental instability that was surely to come if he fell to the human biological frailties, the bay was bathed in a wash of scarlet red, followed by the bleating of a shrill siren that undulated with the waves of light.

He hesitated as the inability to absorb the meaning of the event escaped him. It had been so long in this hold with nothing to occupy him but his own thoughts and the stench of the animals that shared it with the Kelvan... it had permeated his mental processes, suffocating logical and efficient thought.

[Monk! Up to the Bridge with you. You're time has come!] The distinct click of a bulkhead door, and upon the balcony above, a heavy ovular panel rolled to the side. The Ugnaughts scrambled, shrieking as they bounded up a flight of steps at the opposite end of the hold.

[Back! The lot of you!] Curran heard a whirring somewhere up above, a flash of green, and the whole bundle of creatures tumbled off the steps to a pile on the floor, still.

[I don't have time to this, Monk. Up here now, or I make sure you don't make it to Kelva.] Faded into the background was the chatter of muffled voices and alert echoes.

The importance of his destination could not be put in jeopardy. If all was lost on him to be healed of this form, he would commit himself to the void of space quite contentedly. Until then, though, he would take whatever options he had to get to Kelva I, no matter the cost. He wasn't hear to make friends.

Scrambling over the fallen bodies of the Ugnaughts, Curran hopped the stairs nimbly two at a time in a surge of adrenaline. His cloaks flowed flappable behind him as his leather boots gliding over the balcony plating in an easy flow as if on air until he slipped through the dark exit.

As soon as he carried himself over the threshold, the bulkhead behind clamped shut with a solid thud. The corridor beyond was cast in a dusky haze, and the acrid scent of burnt toast reached his nostrils. A panel sparked beside him, the dancing flint escaping along the pipes and conduits down into the darkness. He surmised this as the source of the smell. Fluorescent lighting above him bounded back and forth between lit and unlit. Cautiously, he moved forward in the corridor into the unknown sections of the ship.

[Hurry, monk. Your usefulness is required *now*.]

"If you'd give me proper direction to wherever you are, I could probably get there a bit faster for your liking, Grelkor.] Kylar jerked his arm back as the cuff of his cloak hung precariously close to yet another electrical eruption.

[Impudent pup!] A pause. [There. Follow the lights.]

Curran looked around for something remotely close to whatever the Gorn was talking about. Was he talking about the broken panels that hadn't changed their inept appearance? He continued to walk hesitantly through the murky corridor for anything to assist his navigation.

"What lights? Only ones I see are the damaged ones with wiring harnesses hanging out." Over the intercom, he heard a thump and smash. Shortly after, a row of red dots strung themselves along the edges of the deck plating on either side of him.

[Those lights, pastyface. Now get up here!] Curran shook his head. This was what the Federation was paying to protect borders? If they hadn't given so many luxuries to Starfleeters, maybe there would have been enough to make these clunkers more worthwhile. Holodecks and cantinas. Worthless.

*****

Main Bridge

Curran stepped through the last bulkhead to find himself in a mish-mash of parts and more sparking panels. The one closest to Grelkor's reptilian head, with its freshly hanging wires and broken switches, signified his 'repairs' to the navigation aid Kylar used to get here.

"Sit." The huge talons on the being clawed their way over the steering column in front of him. Curran had to duck to avoid more debris as he settled into the much larger seat for his frame. He felt lost in it. The communications panel to his left was lit up with overlapping signals. Some he recognized as Starfleet, others not.

"Are we in the Alpha Onias system?" He gazed out his port window at nothingness. It had been earlier this year he'd been here at Quentin where the Galaxy had experienced a time paradox when another Guardian of Forever found on the planet below had been accidentally damaged. Only he and a few select others knew about the portal below. The timeline had been restored when the timeship he and Karyn Dallas had been aboard returned them to the proper timeline and removed the biological weapon that would have destroyed the planet as it had in another divergence.

"Near enough." Grelkor sniffed the air, turning to Curran, who continued to peer out the portal. "You stink." He rummaged through a pack in a unit between the two seats, producing a hypospray. He jabbed Curran with it.

"What...?" The Kelvan jumped, grasping his arm in the process while the Gorn put the unit away.

"Radiation treatment. You'll need another one in 3 Terran hours. You can compensate me for it later."

Curran slanted his eyes warily, weariness overcoming him as the stimulants wore off faster - probably due to an element in the medication he'd just received. The Gorn wasn't intimidated slightly. In fact, he just shrugged. "The herd damaged a plasma manifold intake in the cargo bay. Costs a fortune to repair it."

"Are you offering them the same treatment?" He hadn't seen anything come down during his stay there.

"They get it in their gruel. What does it matter to you? Just put your codes in. Starfleet is hanging around." The Gorn handed him a PADD. "It interfaces with the commsystem, since I doubt you can read or operate Gorn systems." Curran couldn't operate the system, but he did know a little Gorn. Enough to know that they were actually in deep to the system according to the navigational map above them. How Grelkor got that far, he'd never know, nor would he ask. He also knew that the label on the hypospray read a sedative as well as his 'treatment'. Grelkor wanted very little resistance if he had to kill his passenger.

Curran entered in a series of varying access levels to obtain a telemetry path around the outskirts of the system away from Quentin, which would guarantee the highest levels of success. Anything higher would betray his identity. He was sure there were bounties on him still from deals bartered while serving in Intelligence and JAG offices on Earth. Grelkor would very much likely sell him to the highest bidder if this were revealed.

There was a long pause after Grelkor had transmitted the codes, one of which was of painful suspense. The faceted eye of the reptile fixed on Curran in the meantime, who had settled into his enormous seat with confidence, crossing his arms at the chest.

[Your flight path has been approved, Marauder. We will send a fighter escort with you to carry you out of the system safely] Grelkor let out a long breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Looks like you might be of use after all, Monk. I don't know how you acquired those codes, but they could be worth a lot on the open market if you're willing to part with the algorithm."

"That is not an option, Grelkor. I've done my part now. Do yours and get me to Kelva. I'll be staying up here form now on in, though if you don't mind."

"I don't think so, Monk. Back down into the hold with you. You smell like a Targ having rolled in Rigellian Bat feces. It's infesting my equipment."

"Then what'll you do when they signal you for anything related to those codes?" He pointed out to the 3 Banzai class fighter craft that settled into formation along and above the ship, away from the pulse cannon below.

The Gorn bared his teeth in exasperation. "Fine. But change those clothes. I've got some Terran clothing that was 'left behind' in one of the staterooms. Help yourself to it." He waved a talon in front of his face. "And get cleaned up. The waste of electricity is worth it. The room is yours. I don't want you up here unless I call for you, understand?"

"Aye, Captain. Signal me when we arrive at Kelva. I do not wish to be disturbed until then. Unless the escorts deem it necessary." Curran slipped out of the monstrous berth and hurriedly escaped the bridge. The Gorn smelled just as bad.

(OOC: This takes place after the arrival of the Galaxy at Trill)

"Odd Timing" part 1

Principal Characters

Ensign Marcus A. Slayton

Catalen Morka, Trill Civilian Technican (NPC)

Private Richard Simmons, Marine Trooper-USS Galaxy (NPC)

Secondary Characters:

Private/Medic Salu Digby, Marine Field Medic-USS Galaxy (NPC)

Location: Emored Dax Memorial Hospital-outskirts of Leran Manev, Trill

+++++++++++++++++++++++

Marcus Slayton was getting the last of the hospital's power grid up and going when he looked up and noticed three people enter the room. One of them he knew off the back as Catalen Morka, the civilian who'd been helping him off and on since the crisis began but the other two he wasn't too sure of but he knew that they were starfleet due to the fact that they were both wearing the black and green field uniforms of the Marines. One was a human with short reddish-blonde hair and dull shade of green eyes with a slightly wiry build like he came from a high gravity world and the other was a peite woman with had slight vulcan features. The man had a mark four compression phaser rifle at the ready while the woman had a medical tricorder out and she saluted along with the man.

"Sir, Privates Salu Digby and Richard Simmons from the United Star Ship Galaxy marine detachment. Are you in need of any assistance?" the woman, who was apparentally Salu said as she saluted, causing Marcus to salute back.

"Ensign Marcus Slayton, I take it the Galaxy has arrived?" Marcus asked as he lowered his hand from his salute and inwardly winced at his dumb question which made Simmons kind of snicker which caused a sharp look from Salu. She then turned to face Marcus again.

"Sir, I've been asked to bring any starfleet personnel who's been here a while to meet with the chief of engineering of the Galaxy who's arrived on planet in hopes of providing any infromation of what has happened here since the Akula crashed, sir." Salu said to which Marcus nodded in response.

"Sure, as long as mister Morka comes with me as he's been my primary assistant in restoring the power grid here. He's a civilian technican and a student at the local college who's been helping me. Is that alright, private?" Marcus asked and Salu nodded.

"Yes sir, Private Simmons." Salu said and the wiry looked at Salu with a questioning look.

"Yes ma'am?" Simmons asked as he moved his phaser rifle into a lower ready position

"I have to remain here and help with any medical cases here. I want you to escort Misters Slayton and Morka here, Understood trooper?" Salu said and Simmons came to attention and saluted her.

"Yes ma'am, understood." Simmons said and then turned to face Marcus. "Sir, if you would please come with me. You too Mister Morka." Simmons said also to Catalen and Marcus stopped only long enough to grab the tool kit and along with Catalen followed the young private out of the hospital, leaving Private Digby behind to help with the cases that needed attention.

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

Location: Relief-Engineering Center, outskirts of Leran Manev, Trill

Time: 45 minutes later

As Private Simmons lead Marcus and Catalen through a commerical district of the city towards where the Galaxy's staff had managed to make in order to start full relief efforts for the people of Leran Manev. Simmons filled Marcus in on what had happened in other parts of the city while he was working to restore power to the hospital and Marcus had to give up props to the Galaxy's crew because apparentally from the moment that they got the order to help with relief efforts, the crew of the ship had already gotten stuff ready to help with the relief efforts. Simmons, as Marcus found out, was not high on the totem pole so to speak and wasn't able to fill him in on much. After a few minutes, they arrived at the main center for the relief effort's engineering section. It was a standard pre-fabricated building complete with a situation table, and Simmons opened the door and lead the three of them in. Simmons came to attention before a man with a slight caitian look to hi! m wearing the same black and green as Simmons.

"Sergeant Stacker, Private Richard Simmons of Red Team reporting with Civilian Technican Catalen Morka and Ensign Marcus Slayton, sir." Simmons said as he saluted the caitian who returned the salute.

"Very well, private. Report to your duty station." Stacker said to Simmons who quickly left them and then turned to face Slayton and Morka. "Welcome to the forward position so to speak, gentlemen. I'm Master Sergeant Peter Stacker of the USS Galaxy, in command of Blue Team. Ensign Slayton, I think that you might want to speak with Lieutenant Commander O'Shea, so if you'll please come with me sir." Stacker said as he geastured towards the situation table was and Marcus nodded and followed the caitian officer over to the situation table where Sergeant Stacker got O'Shea's attention and that allowed for Marcus to look at his possible superior at least from the back and abject part of his mind took note of O'Shea's movements, they indicated that she was annoyed and troubled by what had happened but when she turned fully around to face him, Marcus' came to attention.

"Ensign Marcus Alexander Slayton, reporting for duty ma'am." Marcus said and when the other officer turned around to face him and he took in her features and noticed that she looked familiar and then suddenly it came to him and a part of his mind that also remembered that fact abjectly said one thing..

(OOC1: This takes place after the arrival of the Galaxy at Trill)

(OOC2: Snip taking from "Odd Timing" part 1)

"Odd Timing" Pt 2

Lieutenant Commander Brianna “Anna” O’Shea

Chief Engineer / Liaison to Starfleet Corp of Engineers

Master Sergeant Peter Stacker. -NPC

Present:

Ensign Marcus A. Slayton, Engineering Officer

-----

Location: Relief-Engineering Center, outskirts of Leran Manev, Trill

"Ensign Marcus Alexander Slayton, reporting for duty ma'am." Marcus said and when the other officer turned around to face him and he took in her features and noticed that she looked familiar and then suddenly it came to him and a part of his mind that also remembered that fact abjectly said one thing..

Of all people that were in Starfleet and all the unified and unaligned worlds Anna had never thought this person would ever be in her presence again. Standing there before him her mind saw the same boy she saw when she was at the academy. She looked at him for a long time, slipping into memories of what was then. Her mind took her back to the academy where she was just a sprig of a girl, trying to prove to her father she had what it took and he, Marcus, was a man trying to run from his father’s control. She had her cliqe at the academy, which consisted of Lisa, Dina and Josie whom she shared a dorm room with. The minute Brianna O’Shea and Marcus Slayton first met in the cafeteria at Starfleet Academy her friends and his both began to plot to get them together. They were attracted to each other, but both were either to shy or blind to notice it and ask the other out. So it was up to the friends to get them together.

When it did finally work and they went out, their relationship was anything but tame. Dina used to tell Brianna their relationship was one that loved to fight and then loved to make up. It wasn’t until Marcus and his friends raided the their room and took their panties did the true war began before the ‘Starfleet Angels and the Starfleet Cavaliers.’ Took a whole knew meaning for war zone. The girls punished them without mercy, only in the end to be reprimanded for insulting the Bolian and Andorian people because of the blue pigment dye they used to stain the boys skin. Weeks had passed and once again, they all were friends again.

Glancing at Master Sgt. Stacker she saw his look and knew he was wondering if she was alright. “Thank you, Peter… I’ll handle things from here.” She said, nodded in return when he did to her and then watched him walk away. Turning her head she brushed her dirty hand against her face, pushing her red hair back behind her ear that had fallen down from the ponytail.

Again her mind took her back several years to the academy. To the night Marcus had hide her and took the whole reprimand for the late night encounter they both were guilty for. Brianna turned her head as she thought about it for a moment. She could still remember the fight they’d had after words. She wanted to come forward and take her share of the punishment, he’d protested and told her not to. Marcus was the one that started people calling her Anna, that was the name he called her. He was the start of so many things and then end of so many things. Looking back to him she studied his face for a moment, wondering if he was having the same vivid memories she was relieving right now. As she looked at him it reminded herself of the last real time they were together, the night of the Academy Gala, the great party which honored the graduating class.

It was the night she just about told him she was falling in love with him as they danced. Least he never knew how close she came to telling him. The only reason she didn’t tell him was she knew her path and his wouldn’t be going the same way. He was still fighting his father, she was still proving to hers. As much as she did love him, it wasn’t enough to work at a long range relationship. Looking back to him she took a deep breath.

“Ensign,” She said finally talking to him. “Still holding on to my panties?” Anna finally said as she stood there now with her arms loosely folded over her body.

"Odd Timing" Pt 3 or "Of all the disaster zones, you had to walk into mine.."

Lieutenant Commander Brianna “Anna” O'Shea
Chief Engineer / Liaison to Starfleet Corp of Engineers

Ensign Marcus A. Slayton, Engineering Officer

When she turned fully to look at him, Marcus' throat suddenly found a quick way to wind up into his wind pipe. She was still as striking as she was all of those years ago. He remember when Irving and Shran finally pointed out that he had feelings for her, he remembered coming out of the dorm room shower with his skin dyed blue and having Shran promptly falling out of his bunk with laughter as he said a series of words that stayed with Marcus for years.

"What's the matter pinkskin? Figured that if you dyed your skin to match mine that you'd fit in better?" Shran managed to force out between the gales of laughter. He remembered confronting her after the incident and how the words quickly turned to other things. He remembered having fun with her and his friends, he also remembered having to drag Aya Nakajima out of one bar after another but that was a completely different subject all togther.

But one thought stuck with Marcus out of all of them, the night of the Formal for the graduating class. He remembered how she looked in her dress as the formal was one of the three events that the commandant of the academy would allow the female students to wear something else than the standard dress uniforms. Marcus vividly remembered holding onto her as they danced.

<Mental Flashback>

Location: Starfleet Academy, San Francisco CA-Earth

Date: A few years ago...

The Academy Gala was big, alot of the officers of the fleet was there including a few of his father's friends but Marcus didn't care about the great Andrew Slayton and his cadre of officers who wanted to ensure that Marcus followed his father's footsteps in an honorable service to the Federation. Marcus was more concerned with the angel in his arms as he was dancing with Anna which was saying something since he always considered himself to having two left feet despite what Arwen 619 said, bless hir hermat soul.

"Marcus, I need to tell you something.." he heard Anna say to him in his ear and Marcus pulled back just enough so that he could look her in the eyes.

"Yes, Anna?" he asked, Marcus was hardly at a loss for words but with her unless they were fighting or working on a project together for engineering, he couldn't say much because deep down he was fighting his feelings for her that he was afraid of saying.

"Um..I'm glad that I met you. You're important to me..." Anna said, like she was afraid of something which caused him to tilt his head quizzly to the left as he always did when he was confused but Anna couldn't finished and simply blushed a bright pink and laid her head on his shoulder again and sighed against him and he resolved to ask her about it later...but that would not happen...

<Present Day>

Marcus shakes his head when he noticed out of the corner of his left eye did he notice Catalen looking at him funny.

"Um, Mister Slayton..are you okay?" Catalen asked in a very confused manner, apparently thrown off by Anna's panty comment but her comment demanded an answer and as such he titled his head to the left and simply answered her question with a question

Still standing there she watched him. "I don't believe he is fine." She finally said, then shrugged slightly. She then snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Earth to Slayton... " She finally said. She was unsure how to respond to him being here. Anna didn't like being put on the spot, right now she felt as if she was about to have a stroke cause here he stood and she wasn't able to prepare herself for meeting him again. "Which ship are you with?" She asked then.

Marcus snapped out of his thoughts and looked at Ann with a slight smile. "I was on Trill awaiting transfer to the USS Galaxy, ma'am. I was twenty seven miles away from the impact zone." Marcus said on reflex. Marcus came to full attention like his father taught him and hammered into him so many times and said "Ensign Marcus Alexander Slayton transferring from Engineering of the USS Leonard H. McCoy to engineering section of the USS Galaxy as per request of Captain Daren M'Kantu and Captain Jonah Metis, ma'am."

"At ease..." Anna replied. She knew he did it just to sting her with such formality. He knew she rarely used ranks, unless she was barking an order to someone. "Leave us." Anna said, to Catalen who nodded and began to walk away. Once she and Marcus was alone she looked at him. Brianna was covered in dirty, hair a mess, hands caked with dirt and dried blood from herself and she shook her head. "You look like hell..." She said, "that means something coming from how I look right now." She said, then turned to the situation table. "So your working in the engineering department. How you going to handle that knowing I'm the head of it?" She asked.

Marcus smiled at her "To be utterly honest, I'm glad it's you in a strange way. I guess the Galaxy will have the best damn engineering staff in the fleet now, huh?" he said and then his expression changed to a bit solemn, "Anna, it's bad. When I woke up after the crash of the Akula and I saw the damage, I thought I was in hell. It's actually kind of funny as it was Catalen who found me."

He took his glasses off and used a piece of his inner uniform to clean them off with before putting them back on.

"I know it's bad." She said, turning back to look at him. Anna didn't comment on his statement being the best engineering team in fleet service, but slightly she liked the idea of it. "Starship just doesn't do this sort of thing, Marcus." Anna said as she reached for her water canteen to get a drink. "My people are about to drop down here from exhaustion."

Marcus nodded and then put his hands on his hips, looking at her. "So, what do you think happened? Anna, we know how a starship works. It might have been the gravimetric systems failed or the warp core simply broke down but I'm at a loss for what happened."

"I don't much, Intelligence has pretty much moved in and taken over. Got me assing around with my people shoring up buildings. When we found the flight box, ordered to turn it over to Intelligence. I know nothing and they don't want me to know anything." Anna said, then looked at him.

Marcus nodded and moved over to the situation table it's self and brought up a map of the outskirts of the city and brought up the Emored Dax Memorial Hospital. "I managed to get their power grid working after working on it for a while. If it's possible to spare a few of the engineering personnel, we might want to check out the only other hospital that wasn't in the crash zone just to be certain."

Anna nodded, standing there beside him she leaned over the table. "Sure I can get you some personnel." She responded. "I've managed to get this grid to this grid done... only got this section to go with shoring up. Then I'm moving there." Brianna said, pointing to the grid next to the symbiontical pools in the caves. "Did you request this transfer to here and if so, did you know I was here?" Anna asked just out of the blue.

Marcus turned to look at her and shook his head. "I was stationed on the McCoy by request of my father and since Captain Metis was one of my dad's old crew from the Sulu and I got put on there. After two years I asked for a transfer and Captain Metis told me about Captain M'Kantu and Lieutenant Commander O'Shea's request for personnel to replace those that was either lost to your conflict in Breen space or when the Galaxy was upgraded."

Marcus closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again, turned just enough to try and look her in the eyes and said "Anna, I didn't put two and two together until I saw you standing there with the pips of a LC. It doesn't matter if you're my boss or if Geordi La Forge or even a EMH mark 1 is my boss, I still would've taken the transfer. Captain Metis said that the Galaxy is where I would fit in and make my own way."

"Metis know what was at the academy?" She asked ,looking at him. "I need to know all this so I know what to do about it all." She said, moving now to sit down in a chair. Her legs was so tried and achy she just looked at him. "You have to know that I'll be hardest on you more so then anyone else. I need to know you are going to be able to handle that, handle me when I get in your face. I won't be able to show you any mercy, everything you get from me will have to be because you earned it, I don't give a shit who your father is." She said, being honest with him. Anna and Marcus had always had that honesty with each other. Now was no different.

"Anna, I wouldn't expect any less and nor do I expect any special treatment. I signed on to be an engineer and that's my life so don't expect me to try and win brownie points with you but at least you know that I won't try to go over your head, I respect you too much to do that to you." Marcus said as he crossed his arms over his chest

"I would even entertain the thought of you doing that. I don't do that and know you don't either." She replied. "Suppose I say welcome aboard," Anna said standing and offering her hand to him. "Welcome to the department.." She said, wanting to say so much more but didn't, just like at the gala.

Marcus took her hand and shook it with a smile. "May I say it will be a pleasure working with you again, Anna. We'll get the people of Trill through this, trust me and then we'll help point Intelligence where to go with our dazzling genius to the source of what happened."

Marcus looked at her and fought down saying what he wanted to say, but he didn't but he knew that his eyes betrayed what he was feeling but he quickly looked away and took of his glasses and made like he needed to rub them for some reason.

Turning her head she looked at the situation table, "So what became of you since our last communication. Stealing more panties to add to your collection?" She asked, forcing a grin, even though she wondered if he had met someone and was in a relationship but didn't dare ask.

"No, I haven't been in a relationship not since the academy. If it wasn't one crisis or another, it was my father. I mean Aya, you remember her from the academy right? Well she tried to hook up with me but it didn't feel right to even think about it, her family and mine have been friends for years." Marcus said He snickered "Oh, and I still have your panties if you ever want them back by the way." he said without looking at her

"Such a sad soul there... she lusted after you something awful. Really pathetic if you think about it." Anna said, then looked over at him with a dead pan serious stair. "If I wore panties I might want them back." She said very seriously, then broke into a grin to show she was joking.

Marcus smiled back and then the smile got even bigger. "Oh yeah, Aya along with her twin brother Homare, Shran, Arwen 619, Irving, Claire and T'Pall have gotten plum assignments if you haven't heard. They're serving under Captain Muller on the USS Trident." Marcus said with a smile

"Who dog did you do not to get a plum assignment?" Brianna chuckled. Then shook her head. "Never mind, I really don't need to know the details of your sex life." She said, teasing him. Besides, he was the one that managed to take her own virginity back at the academy. "Last thing I need to know is what your into now." She grinned, as she picked up a data padd and looked over the information on it.

"Actually, I requested not to join the Trident's crew. I enjoy working on ships with their own histories you know? Not to be on a Hollywood ship and besides, the Trident has only been in service for a handful of years while the Galaxy is...well, the USS Galaxy. One of the most historic ships in the fleet and besides, name one place where I could find the "Angel of the Class of 2373, Anna?" Marcus said with all honesty "Besides, it was my choice to join the USS Galaxy and not a ploy of my father or anything. I was told about the request for personnel and Captain Metis suggested it." Marcus finished after a couple of seconds

"Metis suggested it then I have to assume your qualified to be here." She responded. Anna then looked at him, "don't start with the angel of the class. You know I didn't like that. Everything I got while at the academy I did so by working my behind off for...." She said then looked at him again, locking her eyes with his. "I'm sorry... just always feel like I've got to justify what I've got and how I got it." Brianna said, she knew he understood her father's mind set. "that comment every time I hear it just irritates me." She said, turning her back to him now as she leaned back over the situation table.

"Trust me, I understand. Try living with the moniker of "Fleet Captain Slayton's son" hanging over you. But you've earned every thing that you've worked and fought for since the academy, Anna. I know it may not seem like much now, what a full year or two after you got the position but congratulations on making Lieutenant Commander" Marcus said, but somewhere deep inside of him he suddenly felt very afraid to look at her as a familiar feeling started to grow inside of his stomach.

"Rank still feels foreign to my ears when I hear it." She said, still with her back to him. "It resonates like that's the high point of my career. Times I find myself wondering who they are talking to when I hear it, only to realize it's me." She said then shook her head. "That's something for the counselors I suppose." Anna said then picked up a data padd and put some names down on it. "Here is some personnel you can assemble together and check out the grid for electrical problems and power supply." Anna said, just as she always did, diverted to a new subject when things started to get to serious.

Marcus took the padd and looked it over then nodded. "If you don't mind, I would like to bring mister Morka with me. He's been a real help while I was working on the hospital's power grid."

"That's fine.. his safety is your concern. Do not put him in danger." Anna said, knowing he knew better then that anyway. "When you finish with that... get some rest, don't need more people dropping." Anna said, then picked up her padd and began to move out form under the canopy tent.

Marcus lowered the padd and called out to her. "Anna, wait a second, please." he asked

Turning she looked back to him. "Yes?" She asked, furrowing her brow slightly.

"I was wondering when we both have a few moments free during all of this if you want to talk, you know two old friends talking about nothing or anything or everything." Marcus said as he walked over to her and gently placed a hand on her right shoulder comfortably. "Plus if you remember right, I'm a good person to distress to and I hope that I still am." he said, looking at her face.

He then raised his free hand up and even with the PADD in his hand, he did a passable imitation of the old terran "Boy Scouts of America" hand motion. "I promise there is no hidden reasons or anything like that, just a friend wanting to be there for a friend. Scout's honor." he said

Anna thought about it for a minute, then nodded her head. "Sure... sounds good. Could use good drank later on. Only when this is over." She said, then added more of a whisper. "Thanks." Before turning and headed on to her task at hand. As she walked away she couldn't help but wondered if he saw the pain and sadness in her eyes, or if he was driven by needing to be near her for old time sake. Swiping her face with the back of her hand she tried not to think to much or read to much into his question, one thing was for sure, life had certainly just slapped her across the face with him coming back into her life.

Marcus nodded and then tagged his comm-badge as he watched her leave. He knew Anna better than that, her body language was screaming that she was upset at seeing him again which was something that he wasn't even ready to see yet. "Master Sergeant Stacker, this is Ensign Slayton. For the sake of security I need to borrow some of your squad to help with the engineering team that I'm assembling. Please ask your CO if there are a few troopers that she can do without." Marcus said pausing for a moment, After contacting Stacker, and said quietly something that a friend of his aboard the McCoy had taught him.

"Blessed prophets heed me please. Jia kasha tren tolaren lapur ila nekos ina Brianna Catherine O'Shea, Via korvais ver." he said in a combination of a traditional Bajoran prayer of protection and naming her specifically to be protected by it but the last part of it he said softly, as it was something that he had hoped to tell her many years ago. Marcus snapped out of his funk and switching over to "business" mode and a few seconds later Stacker's voice came back with a confirmation and then Marcus began contacting each of the engineers on the PADD that Anna had given him and started giving off orders. But he couldn't stop thinking about the pain that he saw in her eyes...was joining the USS Galaxy a bad choice or a good one now...

{{OOC: Takes place before "Did Ya Miss Me"}}

"The Irregular Suspects"

Lt.Commander James Corgan, Chief Security Officer
Lieutenant J.G. Cora Dobryin, Chief Intelligence Officer
Lieutenant J.G. Saul Bental, Intelligence Officer
Ensign Paulo DiMillo, Intelligence Officer
Petty Officer Lysandra Stuart, Intelligence Analyst (NPC of Cass Henderson)

"Excuse me ma'am, I don't understand a word of what you're saying."

The image flickered, then returned to life. Saul brought the PADD as far as possible from his eyes, desperately trying to avoid a headache. He didn't completely recover from his fainting, and he surely didn't want to faint again.

Not here, not now.

"Again.", She said, "I was asking if you are Lieutenant Bental, the senior Galaxy Intelligence officer in the field."

Saul blinked. Technically, he was, with Cora investigating the black box on the ship. But the title somehow sounded absurd in his ears.

"That's me, and you are.?"

"I was ordered by SFI HQ to deliver you the manifest of the Akula via encrypted uplink. The data is being transmitted as we speak.", She continued flatly, without responding to his question. She was a Lieutenant, of an insectoid species (Saul couldn't recall the name exactly, and rebuked himself for that), and right now seemed to be in a hurry to end the conversation.

"Finally.", He said, satisfied. He wondered for a moment why this information was relayed to him directly and not, say, to the Captain or to Cora.

"I'm also sending you a list of Galaxy personnel who are allowed to access the material. Starfleet has decided to classify all details regarding the Akula until the investigation yields results. Also, we dispatched some. Good men to aid you."

Saul scowled. Basically, she just told him that the higher-ups in Starfleet Intelligence reached the same conclusion as the Galaxy Intel department did - that the story behind the crash stunk like a bowl of Gagh left to dry in the Vulcan sun for seven days - and they sent their best agents to the scene because they didn't trust the Galaxy and the local Trill Intelligence elements to solve it.

Well, Saul wasn't going to give these Super-Ultra-Austin-Powers-Wannabes a chance to mess with the investigation. He swore to sort it out long before they will put their expensive shoes on Trill soil.

"Thank you ma'am. We'll put it to good use."

Once the PADD turned blank, Saul asked Xil to stop the vessel, then set up an online conference with several key names in the 'clearance list'. It was quite complicated, but after toying with the PADD for two minutes the resourceful Intelligence officer finally succeeded, and the first faces emerged on the screen.

=/\="Hello?"=/\= Called out James Corgan, the security chief. His glasses, hair and skin were flecked with dust, but the background of his screen was the security office. He was pulled from his humanitarian work to return to the ship. Though James was grateful to be out of the ruins, he still had enough worry for everyone. As the chief of security, he would be not only key to the investigation; he would also have to go into harm's way when a suspect was found.

But a chance to one up Starfleet Intelligence? How could a security officer pass that up?

"Shalom chief." Saul replied.

More faces appeared on the divided screen. Paulo was next, sitting down at the conference table. Since he and Cora were still in the Intel offices it had been decided to just use the conference room and to lock the doors. He really didn't look forward to this meeting as the "heat" between he and Saul could come out, as was the chance in every meeting, and he didn't want that right now, especially with the XO in on the meeting.

Paulo himself had brought all the information he had gathered about the Akula. It still stunk bad. All the data he had looked at gave no clue to what went wrong, or who was even on board. As was the standard for passing by ships to just make surface scans, he had pretty much nothing.

The image of Lysandra Stuart, a minor intelligence analyst from the USS Galaxy appeared next to Paulo's. She was sitting in the same room as the two senior intelligence officers.. She had only been invited in on the meeting because she'd handed off some information to Dobryin that she had received from a 'superior officer' in SFI. Nobody but Dobryin knew that Stuart was, as usual, acting as Cass Henderson's go between.

"Hello all." Saul began. "First, be aware that this uplink is heavily encrypted, so we might experience communications difficulties. Next, I just received the manifest of the Akula, and I figured we might take a look on it together."

Paulo nodded. "Before we get to far in," Paulo started. "Do we know if any crew were on board? All the data I have been able to collect has been, well, not helpful, and the fact that no bio matter has been found."

"I took a glance at the forensics reports." James added, "You would expect to have bodies everywhere, mostly impacts from a high speed collision. Problem is, we're not seeing that. We're not ruling out that they're still there, though, but it looks suspicious. Have they found anything on high resolution bioscans yet?"

"Not that I have seen," Paulo replied, "but we are still in the process of scanning, and with the surge of power from the auto destruct system we can't get clear readings.

Corgan dropped another question, "Will it also obscure any signs of phaser and disruptor fire inside the ship?"

"It could," Paulo replied. "We will know more as soon as engineering can disable the auto destruct and we can send some teams in to take a look around. Not that I would like to find any, but it would be helpful to find some bodies inside the parts of the ship that are still intact. They could tell us some more about what happened."

Saul raised his eyebrows. He didn't hear anything about surge of power from the self destruct mechanism. "We were also asked to check a possible... method used to fool sensors with false life signs prior to the crash.", He said, referring to the Neural Jellpacks, "But I can't discuss it right now."

"By the way, has anyone checked the navigation records?" Asked the security chief, "A ship like that couldn't chart a course straight into a planet without some override activating. It would need a command officer's override. That's what i'd like to find."

Paulo looked over at Cora who would have that answer.

Cora had exactly the answers they were seeking. A series of charts and various other data from Akula's black box appeared on the encrypted data screens. "This tell us exactly what we need to know. Due to impact damage it took some time to extract the data but it tells the story we needed from the very start of this mess." A well defined star chart with the appropriate flight recorder data superimposed on it relayed more than words could.

Saul glanced at the chart as it was transmitted to his display. Behind his shoulder, Lieutenant Xil also inspected the data.

"It looks just like we theorized.", Said Saul, "The Akula went through here, here and here on its regular patrol... it went radio-silent here, due to 'malfunction'... then changed course and headed toward Trill. No wonder they Trill ground control figured the ship was arriving to get assistance, it was all done by the protocol."

"I hope crashing into major cities isn't part of the protocol.", Lysandra Stuart said cynically.

"All right.", Saul cleared his throat. "You can all see the manifest on the top right corner of your screen. Our first 'suspect' is obviously the Captain. Bolian, Forty-Eight standard years old, goes by the name of Zedbi Geliba…"

There was no way that Saul or the other conferring officers could know, at that time, that the USS DISS carrying Commander Christopher Thomas was heading full speed toward Trill and the Galaxy.

And yet, their efforts were not futile, as - again, unknown to them at that time - they were going to talk about Thomas' mole, as well as a one-of-a-kind hero...

TO BE CONTINUED...

"An Engineers Break"

Lt. Commander Brianna "Anna" O'Shea
Chief Engineer / Liaison S.C.E.

:: Ten-forward Lounge, Deck Ten, USS Galaxy ::

It had been couple hours since she had finished shoring up the buildings around the crash site. Anna knew she was pushing her people hard, that was when counseling offices and Baile told her to take a break or she was going to make her department mutiny against her. So after some reservations about taking a break from it all she did just that, returning to the ship to clean up, get something to eat and then take moment to collect herself before heading down to the main crash site to inspect the Akula.

As she entered the lounge she glanced around and nodded to a few people as she moved over toward the table which sat by itself near the large forward windows. Looking out she looked down on Trill, and realized just how peaceful chaos looked from the heavens. Brianna’s thoughts were interrupted when she heard the waitress speak to her.

“Can I get you something, ‘Commander?” The lady asked softly.

“Yes,” Anna replied. “I’ll have fried chicken, French fries and small side chef salad.” She said, before continuing. “I’d also like a sweetened iced tea to please.”

“Sure thing, be one moment.” The lady replied, turning she then walked away.

Anna turned her head and looked back out the window. Only this time she wasn’t thinking about the destructive wake of the USS Akula. She was thinking about the wake of realizing Marc was back in her life so to speak. She didn’t know if she could go through this again. Their previous relationship was as stormy as the weather on Fregnar. One thing was said for them, they were always loyal to the other. Neither of them cheated on the other and well at the end it all came down to different career paths. Neither was brave enough to ask the other to follow them. Anna knew why she didn’t, only speculate why he never asked her. Maybe he was still trying to be something his father wanted, doubtful, but over the years that is what Anna told herself to keep from thinking he felt more attracted to his career then her.

When the lady returned with the food, Anna again was taken from her thoughts and looked down at her food as the waitress sat it out. “Thank you.” She responded, before picking up her napkin and placing it on her lap.

Just before she took a bite, she paused thinking about how suddenly all this came about and her mind instantly clicked. “Dina…” She whispered. It had her written all over it, Dina was the one she’d talked to about Marc no more then a few weeks ago, shaking her head she just signed, yes, retribution would be hell. Anna began to plot a Texas chain-saw massacre style ass whooping on her friend.

"Views of a forum"

Starring..

Ensign Marcus Slayton, Engineering Officer/USS Galaxy

Private Michael J. Caboose, Marine/USS Galaxy (NPC)

Ensign Rena Lanford, Starfleet Medical Officer (NPC)

Also featuring:

Lance Corpral Grace Waldron, Marine/USS Galaxy (NPC)

Private Peter Tempus, Marine/USS Galaxy (NPC)

Location: outskirts of Leran Manev, Trill

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

At one of the many replimats in the city where Starfleet had set up a food center, Ensign Marcus Slayton was working hard to help get the food services flowing easily and steadly as the main planetary power-grid for all of the planet was still in "shock" over what happened to Leran Manev. He felt a presence behind him and that's when he noticed the black and green body armor of a starfleet marine and to his bigger surprise, the marine was one that he knew from their days on the USS Hiroshima but the young woman with the slightly tapered ears like a vulcan threw him off. She wore the standard blue that made her either medical or sciences but the fact that she was running a medical tricorder over him made it obvious which branch of the fleet that she was apart of. Marcus turned to the marine with a slight smile.

"MJ, what are you doing here on Trill?" he asked as he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly. He heard Caboose's easily soft and somewhat slow but stead voice speak.

"Oh, I got transferred to the Galaxy after the war, Marcus. It's been fun, especially with the rest of the unit also being on the Galaxy also but Miss Lanford here is from the medical section of the ship and she seems to be rather cross with you right now..." the marine known as Michael J. Caboose said in a low steady tone but he added in a slight exaggerated and lower voice when he said "she is kind of scary, isn't she?" to which Miss Lanford rolled her eyes.

"Sir, how long have you been doing disaster work here planetside?" she asked, her voice somewhat harsh but her eyes was locked on him as Marcus slide his glasses back onto his face.

"Since before the crash of the 'Akula. I was awaiting the arrival of the Galaxy, why doctor?" Marcus responded with more than a small hint of confusion in his voice which Miss Lanford easily and quickly responded.

"Ensign Slayton, my scans are showing that you are having issues with stress right now both mental and physical. Therefore I'm hereby ordering you to beam up to the Galaxy for a rest period of at least a day. If you have any problems with that, then I suggest that you take it up with Lieutenant Klaus Fienberg, Chief Medical Officer of the USS Galaxy." Doctor Lanford said and Marcus simply nodded and reached up to tag his comm-badge, Caboose caught his hand.

"Marcus, if you're hungry. Me and the gang is getting some food in the lounge...that is if you wouldn't feel dirty eating with marines.." Caboose said in his usual strange way which made Marcus smile for the first time in a few hours.

"Sure Caboose, hold on." Marcus said as he tagged his comm-badge. "Slayton to Galaxy, two to beam up." he said and a few seconds later, the damaged landscape of Leran Manev fades to a blue as the transporter beam sweeps him and his friend up.

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

Location: USS Galaxy's Lounge

Date: a few minutes later.

Marcus, cleaned up slightly and in a clean uniform, stepped into the lounge of the Galaxy and smiled. Marcus looked around the room and finally caught sight of the members of the 42nd Tactical Unit sitting at one of the larger tables in the corner and he ambled over there. He noticed that Peter Tempus, the team's resident loud mouth and sniper, was trying to tell a story or something that had a punchline while Grace Waldron, Tempus' "spotter" who was apparentally trying to eat some sushi but everytime that she brought a piece to her mouth, Tempus made her stop in mid motion. Marcus made his way over to the table and said "You know, petey, if you don't let Grace eat she'll probally show you why she's one of the more dangerous members of your squad." he said while standing directly behind Tempus.

"What the?!" Tempus said as he turned around and when he saw Marcus standing there with a big smile on his face, the sniper shouted "MARCUS, YOU OLD SEA DOG!!" and then caught the engineering officer up in a hug mean while, Grace-noticing that the attention was off of her, scarfed several pieces of food into her mouth and chewed quickly. After a few minutes, of exchanging hellos, Marcus was finally able to sit down and relax and the various topics until finally Grace leaned over and tapped Marcus on the shoulder.

"So, have you noticed that your new boss is your ex-flame yet or are you as dense as you were in the acdemy?" Grace said in her soft voice so that the others wouldn't hear the topic.

"Yeah, I just don't know what to do Grace. I guess I should've expected this when Dina suggested that I take the post huh?" Marcus said as he leaned back with a troubled look on his face to which Grace only nodded and then Marcus stood up and excused himself saying that he wanted some time to himself and he made his way to the holo-decks, but as he was leaving the lounge, Marcus noticed Anna eating and looking distracted over in one corner and he fought against his feelings and left the room. After a couple of wrong turns, Marcus finally found himself in front of the holo-decks.

"Computer, do you have an records of a bajoran temple of worship on file?" Marcus asked the ship's computer

"Yes, the database contains over a hundred styles of bajoran temples including the main temple of Kendar Provience on Bajor.." the computer responded

"Alright, run the Kendar Provience temple program and add simple monks robes for the sizes of personnel known as Slayton, Marcus Alexander." he said and a few seconds later the computer responded with "Completed, enter when ready" and then Marcus stepped towards the doors which opened and he was greeted by a bajoran vedek character after he passed through the arch and then he proceeded to loose himself in the teachings of what was taught to him by a friend and he proceeded to loose himself in the program...

...Meanwhile, back in the lounge. Grace got up from where she was sitting and walked over to Brianna's table and coughed politly. When her superior officer looked up Grace simply said one thing.

"May I join you, ma'am?"

(OOC: Takes places hours after "Odd Timing" part 3)

"Odd Timing" part 4

Starring:

Lt. Commander Brianna "Anna" O'Shea

Chief Engineer/Liasion S.C.E.

Lance Corporal Grace Waldron-(NPC)

Starfleet Marines

:: Ten-forward Lounge, Deck Ten, USS Galaxy ::

Looking up she heard the voice of Grace, asking if she could join her at the table. Anna remembered Grace only briefly from the academy, she was part of Marcus' circle of friends.

"Sure.." she said, geasturing to the chair. "Something I can help you with?" Brianna asked, as she took a bite of her salad.

Grace sat down in the chair directly opposite of Brianna. "You know that Marc's on board don't you?" she said, as usual going for the throat of the matter.

Anna nodded. "Yes. I know". She responded. "He reported to me a few hours ago." Brianna said, as she then took a drink of her tea. "Surprise to have him here, is it not?" Anna asked.

Grace leaned back casually in her chair, keeping her cobalt blue gaze on Brianna. "Not so much, no. But then again I've kept in more regular touch with him. You see, right after I got out of the academy I got sent to marine boot camp for special cross-department training and the I wound up with the rest of my unit stationed on the USS Hiroshima which was Marc's first assignment out of the academy."

"So you two have remained in close contact with each other?" Anna said, then leaned back herself. "Did you know about him coming here?" The Chief Engineer asked as she looked down in her tea glass. "Just all seems strange, just last week I was talking with Dina about him and now he's here." She said, looking back upto Grace's face.

Grace allowed a very rare smile to cross her features. "Brianna, I didn't know he was stationed on the Galaxy until about six minutes ago when he came into the lounge. But yes, I have kept in touch with him over the last couple of year. Is there anything you would want to ask, I'm willing to share with a friend if you're curious." she said

"Just tell me his being here isn't a plot his and my friend cooked up, that's all I really need to know." She said. Anna wanted to ask if he had ever moved on but didn't ask it.

Grace's eyes studied Brianna for a moment before speaking. "For your question, let me ask you one..are you happy?"

Looking down she sighed. "Happiness is subjective to the indiviual needs. Some have it, some don't." She said, looking back up and taking a drink. Sitting her glass down. "Is anyone ever really happy?" Anna asked.

Grace leaned forward, her starfleet marine corps issued dog tags hanging down slightly from their place around her neck as she said quietly but loud enough for Brianna to hear. "You were once."

"That's pastense, Grace." Anna replied. "Marc has moved on, I've moved on." She said then.

Grace shook her head. "What makes you think that he's moved on and what makes you think that you've moved on?"

"Grace look around me, do you see him near by, do you see him with me?" Anna asked.

"Time has allowed for too much water under the bridge for us to be stuck on that same island together. We took our exits and he or I never looked back." Anna said, "We can't change the past and the future is unknown."

Grace's eyes flashed something firece and then a slightly more predatory smile appeared on her face. "So, you think that just because he's not right here now that he doesn't yearn to stand next to you or he doesn't want to hold your hand anymore?" I have news for you Brianna, letting you go has been hurting him for the past few years." Grace said and she ran a hand through her hair quickly as she was trying to keep her temper in check.

"I can't believe that, if he was so then why didn't he contact me. Doesn't he even know that I waited for him for years to come to me and he never did, Grace." Anna said, standing.

"Brianna, I could give you any number of excuses that any person could give one friend for another friend but in the end, he's afraid. He was afraid that he hurt you and that you wouldn't want him back." Grace said quietly, she then looked up and Grace's usually proud face took on a more demure look, almost like she was afraid of saying something. "Brianna, he didn't even realize his mistake that he made until something happened on the Hiroshima."

"What do you want from me, to run after him like the end of some damn movie and tell him that I never stopped loving him?" Anna asked as she stood there and then suddenly, Anna's face took on a concerned look. "What are you talking about, what happened over on the Hiroshima?" The red haired woman asked.

Grace pursed her lips and looked up at Brianna for a moment, the look of worry actually appeared on her face. "During a patrol of a sector of space very close to the Cardassian border during the war with the Dominion, the Hiroshima was attacked by a joint Cardassian and Jem'Hadar battlegroup. They managed to knock down our shields. Marcus almost died in the attack but me and Caboose were the two that found him." Grace said, the last part just a little bit soft almost like she was afraid of saying it. She then closed her eyes for a second and then looked up at Brianna. "For three years he was afraid of saying something, but he never could say it to you."

"What was that? That he loved me? If he did love me how could he just let me walk away or how could he walk away from me?" Anna asked, standing there, about ready to leave. She couldn't go into all this right now, it was too taxing on her.

Grace stood up and looked Anna in the eyes. "Listen to me, O'Shea. Goto Holo-deck three, enter it and you can ask him yourself." Grace said in a quiet tone.

"Revenge of the Toilet Paper!"

(OOC: FINALLY!! I feel that I am back in the groove writing posts! Yeah, ya just know this will be a little bit out there!)

With Captain Darren M'Kantu and the Galaxy bridge crew. Also included is the infamous Commander Christopher Thomas.

Location: Bridge of the USS GALAXY

Time: After the USS DIIS fired upon the defenseless Galaxy.

"Tell me, please Darren..." Christopher Thomas began before catching himself in midsentence. He leaned closer to the viewscreen with a look of what appeared to be forced concern. "May I call you Darren? I just have to ask you a question. Just one teensy tiny little question. Would that be all right?"

Captain M'Kantu stood ramrod straight on the bridge of the USS GALAXY barely able to control his outrage.

"By all means." he said icily through teeth that were nearly clenched together.

Thomas nodded as though he were smack in the middle of signing a peace treaty with the Dominion. Then his diplomatic facade fell and his now familiar lopsided sneer creeped across his unshaven face.

"IS THIS A BIG FUCKING SUPRISE OR WHAT, EH?" he shouted gleefully, clapping his hands on his knees.

"COMMANDER!" M'Kantu bellowed, feeling his ire begin to percolate. He paused a moment and then continued. "Commander you are hearby ordered to stand down, lower your shields and prepare to be boarded. Mr. Corgan, prepare a boarding party. Commander Thomas is under arrest."

Thomas chuckled.

"Belay that order, mister!" Thomas shouted, then looked at the GALAXY's head of security with a mixture of curiosity and disgust, usually reserved for when one looked at Ferengi animal pornography holos.

"Quite a suprise to see you still on board, 'Brokenhead'. You still pining away for the lovely Lt. Reese or have you moved on to ruin some other gutter tramp's life? Oh and by the way, for what it's worth, Price and I never thought you were fit to carry Savat's codpiece, much less lead his department."

He turned back to M'Kantu.

"And Cap-ee-tahn, please respect the rank. It's commodore now. See, I learned a little something from Captain Bhrode. I am a brevet Commodore." he said pointing to his pips. "Commodore Christopher Kell Thomas. Doesn't that have a great ring to it?"

Commander Henderson stood and took a place next to M'Kantu.

"Your rank is meaningless. You have to be appointed brevet Commodore by..."

"SIT DOWN, COMMANDER." Thomas thundered, then combed his hair back in place with his fingers. "I circumvented that little policy by going online. You can get certified for anything if you look online. It's a beautiful thing really. It gives any ham and egger the chance to be somebody. I suggest you try it. Might be a good career move for you, since I really don't think being Number One on this ship is going to pan out for you."

"THAT IS ENOUGH." M'Kantu said sternly. "This game is over."

Thomas' face darkened noticeably. He crossed his legs and steepled his hands in what appeared to be an obscene imitation of a gesture that Ambassador Spock would have done.

"You are quite right, Captain. The game is officially over. This is what they call checkmate. All the pieces have been moved. The pawns on Trill have been sacrificed. And now victory is at hand. Do you know how gratifying that is? I mean really. I find it to be so exciting that it's borderline...arousing."

Behind the Captain at the Tactical Arch, Lt. Anna Nonomos, the rather average looking Tactical officer wispered: "Still no shields."

M'Kantu, having had some knowledge of Thomas' legendary knack for wanting to talk about himself continued to keep the man talking to buy some more time for the ship's shields to come online.

"Commander Tho.."

"COMMODORE!!!"

"Commodore Thomas, are you telling me that you were somehow behind the disaster on Trill?" M'Kantu probed, feeling a knot form in the pit of his stomach.

Thomas smiled a toothy grin that would have made any used ship salesman weep with pride.

"Now the pieces fall into place, don't they? Now the fog that usually blinds Captain's of the 'Ship of the Line' begins to lift. By the way, as a side note, you really should have kept the third nacelle and the impulse cannon. It looked so...phallic. I loved it. Where was I now? Oh Yes, I remember! My scheme. Fantastic isn't it? There I was, banished to the frozen piss ball of Breen while...you get to surf the stars in what should rightfully be mine. MINE!" he said shooting to his feet.

"After all those years dealing with that limp dick Price and then being screwed over when they assigned Bhrode to the chair..BHRODE?!?! C'MON! WERE THEY REALLY SERIOUS?!?! ALL OF MY SKILL, DIPLOMATIC GRACE, GOOD LOOKS AND NATURAL CHARISMA AND THEY CHOOSE THAT WALKING WARHEAD TO BE CAPTAIN?!" he shouted, then composed himself again.

"After I was booted to Breen, I plotted and brooded until finally it came to me. A plan so grand, so air tight, that the Academy may start using it rather than the Kobyashi Maru. Imagine cadets trying their hand at the 'Thomas' Gambit'. But I digress, it was a simple matter of contacting those still loyal to me to call in some favors."

"Must have been easy to call them both up." Henderson spat dryly.

Thomas, seemingly ignorant to the whole thing, continued.

"I needed a way to get your ship into this area. So I arranged for the USS AKULA to have a little accident. Nothing against the people of trill. Simply collateral damages is all. I suppose that was something else I learned from Bhrode. Amazingly, as luck would have it, the nearest ship to respond was the GALAXY. How about that for planning, huh? To make it even better I arranged to have your shields fail you, knowing that your vaunted Engineering Staff has traditionally been the most woefully inept group I have ever seen."

M'Kantu looked at Corgan.

"Find what he is talking about."

"Oh yes," Thomas called out at the exiting Corgan. "Run along and find out what string I pulled for that miracle. You're in for a suprise!"

"Are you telling me that you murdered hundreds of Trill, injuring countless more, and destroyed irreplaceable pieces of their culture - even going as far as placing their whole species at risk just so you can have this ship?" M'Kantu asked.

Thomas' eyes narrowed wolfishly.

"You know Captain, you had me monologuing there for a moment. That was very clever. Let me be right to the point with you. I don't want your ship. I want to destroy your ship. See it's like toilet paper. You wipe your ass upon it over and over, and the paper just takes it. But every once in a while, when you are wiping, the toilet paper gives way and your finger shoots straight up your ass. That's the toilet paper's revenge. And that's what's going on right now. It's the revenge of the toilet paper. After wiping your asses on me, you are all going to die with my finger in your ass."

Thomas' face vanished from the viewscreen and was replaced with the image of the USS DIIS. It's hanger bays opened and a squadron of Breen fighters swarmed out and towards the USS GALAXY.

"EVASIVE MANEUVERS!" M'Kantu ordered, trying to banish all thoughts of how Thomas' finger and his ass had nothing to do with his analogy.

OOC: We are coming to the end of this mission. Those of you on the planet may want to finish up your rescue stories. Vanguard Squad, we could really use you guys right now. If you can get up here that would be most helpful. (You could always post that you were back aboard the ship for a rest when Thomas attacks.) Right now you guys and the breen fighters should be In a dog fight wile the GALAXY and the DISS are fighting each other. (Actually the Galaxy is more less ducking and dodgeing. )Dallas, it's on us now to get the shields back up so that we can start to fight back more effectively. Engineering if you have any questions, email me.

"Ah Hell"

by Lt. Jasmine Heloi
Acting CO Vanguard Squadron
Chief Science Officer

----

What was it about insane megalomaniacs that made monologuing such a necessity? Did they really get their jollies by telling their arch nemesis (read good guy) about how clever, wonderful, and awe inspiring they were? If she were a psychologist she could probably come up with an award winning paper on 'Megalomaniacs and Monologuing.' She had kept the channels open between her command fighter and the Galaxy and had heard every word of the Galaxy's own Megalomaniac's tirade.

Jasmine and the rest of Vanguard squadron had been quietly returning to a gathering point just on the other side of Trill from their patrol patterns. She wanted to keep the bulk of the planet between them and the DIIS at least until the rest of the squadron arrived. Keying into a secure channel, and silencing the rants of the 'Commodore' - if he was a Commodore she was a tooth fairy, Jazz ordered, "Starbuck, take half the squadron around the South pole and come up on them from below. I'll be taking my part of the squadron and coming from the North. We need to free up the Galaxy before the DIIS' commander gets the bright idea to shoot her out of the sky. Keep radio silence until we reach them. Keep close to the upper atmospheric limits, hopefully the magnetic field will keep our presence masked until we get there."

["Roger, Jazz. Starbuck out,"] returned the deep tones that were characteristic of David "Starbuck" West.

With a brief nod, though he could not see it, Jasmine led her portion of the fighter squadron in a daring maneuver so close to the upper tips of Trill's atmosphere that the air inside her fighter got noticeably warmer. Flying this close to the atmosphere was extremely dangerous, especially since if the other fighters did not pay attention it was possible that due to friction and the angle of their fighters they could 'bounce' out from the protective layer of the magnetosphere.

An orange glow licked about the edges of her viewscreen and the Betazoid bit her lower lip as the nacelle tips of the DIIS and the Galaxy came into view from the 'upper' plane of the planet. That was, of course, when she saw the swarm of Breen fighters that started heading towards her wing with all the characteristics of a swarm of angry bees. "Ah hell," she muttered as she keyed in to ship-to-ship, "We've got company. Attack maneuver One Gamma Three."

The still glowing fighters of Vanguard Squadron peeled away from the atmosphere of Trill trailing fire behind them. Choosing a target amongst the swarm, Jasmine keyed in her OMS thrusters to change her orientation to aim her weapons at the oncoming fighter. A split second later deadly lances of phaser fire streaked through space towards the Breen.

["YEEEHAW!"] the yell emitted from the speaker system as David West's contingent of the Vanguard joined in the foray.

Jazz grinned ferally as she spun her craft in a maneuver that made her inertial dampers whine in protest. Breen and Vanguard exchanged phaser and torpedo fire lighting the skies above Trill with orange, white, blue and red fire. ["Vanguard Lead to Control, looks like you needed some help. Leave out the welcome home mat for us."]

With those words, Jasmine wheeled her fighter and continued harrying the Breen. Spurred by the words of her fellow pilot, Jasmine grinned into the darkness of space and whispered, "Ye haw," as she released a torpedo into her next target. So many Breen fighters, so little time.

"Act One"

by Ella Grey

*takes place before 'Revenge of the Toilet Paper'*

****

Ella didn't believe in altruism.

No matter the situation, whether it be taking the proverbial bullet for a loved one or saving the little old lady from the speeding transport, there was no such thing as an unselfish act because every action, however well-intended, was made in self-service and always with certain expected results.

Was it really the life of the loved one you were saving? More likely it was the pain of their death that you were saving yourself from.

That wasn’t to say that she didn’t believe in acts of compassion, however. From her spot, that was clear of dead bodies, large debris, and any immanent danger, Ella watched other officers’ work while she took a much-needed water break. She believed that people were capable of mercy and actions that were made in the spirit of brotherhood.

Hell, there were probably people in the universe that were so charitable as to give Mother Teresa a run for her money and who were probably the closet to reaching that unattainable altruistic plateau.

Ella couldn’t have claimed to be either altruistic or charitable.

She had sympathy for the people of Trill, of course, because she wasn’t a complete monster, but she didn’t know any of them. Had she been somewhere else in the Galaxy, she wouldn’t have come running to their aid. In fact, she probably felt the most compassion for Corran Rex since this was his homeworld and she considered the born-again flirt to be a friend. But as for Trill, it was an assignment, a job, and she was good at her job. She’d make sure the buildings were sound, the people were safe, and then she’d go home. End of story.

Ella shook her head at the ensign who offered her more water, it tasted like wet ash to her anyway, and headed back to where she had left off.

"Not Quite Done Yet"

8-ball Hunter

(takes place after 'Little 8-ball Bo Peep and Her Wayward Sheep' and before 'Revenge of the Toilet Paper!'

She thought it was done.

She thought it was done, over, and finished with. She thought they were gone out of her life forever.

She was wrong.

"You can't be serious," 8-ball said. "WHY, for Godssake?"

The counselor standing in front of her was a blonde woman with eyes the size of small, blue pearls. "The little boy appears to have formed an attachment to you," she said calmly, looking at 8-ball as though this wasn't the end of the world, which it obviously was. "It's very typical in small children who have lost their parents to become dependent on an surrogate parent, in this case you. Considering that you were the one to rescue the children---"

"I didn't rescue anything," 8-ball said flatly. "I just found them. Let's not make it out like I saved them from a pit of overflowing lava or something."

The woman smiled. "All right. Considering you were the one to find the children, it's hardly surprising that they have formed a bond with you. Particularly Kaden. He's in need of a parental figure right now, someone he can trust. He's been very vocal about his displeasure from being separated from you; he also won't stop crying."

8-ball sighed. That kid seemed to only have two basic functions: grinning or tears. There was absolutely no in between. "What about Azra?" 8-ball asked, thinking of the stubborn little girl. "I can't imagine she's too terribly disappointed about leaving me. I should think she'd be rather pleased. In fact, I'm surprised she isn't an Captain already. She was very clear about how unimpressed she was by me."

"Actually, Azra's quite upset too, although she has pretended to be otherwise. You must understand that Azra is trying to be very strong right now. She's trying to age about ten years in ten hours, and it's not working out that well. She needs someone she can trust right now too, and no matter what she says about you, Lieutenant Hunter, Azra feels that she can trust you."

"But I can't stay here," 8-ball said violently, feeling the urge to strangle the calm little woman in front of her. She settled on waving her hands in the air for dramatic emphasis. "I'm needed on the Galaxy. I can't just gallavant around on Trill, playing around with little children, just because they lost their mom. A lot of kids probably lost their moms. I am not the person to help them."

"Normally, I'd agree," said the blonde woman. "You don't appear to have a good temperament for handling children, you're not really all that old yourself, and most importantly, you're not a blood relation. Unforunately, we can't FIND a blood relation. The father died years ago, the mom was killed in the accident, and their uncle is currently MIA. Right now, we don't have a lot to work with. What we have to work with is you."

"Well, that's just great."

The blonde woman rubbed the sides of her forehead, as if she was starting to get a headache. 8-ball was glad. She was sick of this woman seeming unconcerned and neutral. "Our plan is not to keep you on Trill. Obviously, if you're needed on the Galaxy, you'll have to go there. What we're asking is to have the children go back on board with you until we can locate the Uncle or some other blood relation." The woman put her hands in the air, automatically defending herself before 8-ball could even start to attack. "I know this isn't the most convienant solution. But until we can find their Uncle, I think the best course of action is to keep the children with you."

"That is not a best course of action," 8-ball snapped. "That's not even a plausible course of action. That's a LOUSY course of action, and we both know it."

The woman was quiet for several minutes. 8-ball had the idea she might have been counting to ten in her head. "Do you like the children, Lieutenant Hunter?"

"I wasn't planning on adopting," 8-ball said sourly.

"That's not what I asked, Lieutentant, and you know it." The woman's look was direct. "Do you care about these children at all, or do you not care what happens to them as long as you don't have to deal with them?"

"That's not fair."

"I think it's very fair," the counselor said bluntly. "It's a simple question."

8-ball took a long breath and blew it out, irritated. "Yes," she said. "I do like the kids. I do. I don't want them to be upset, I don't want them to be hurt, and I don't want them to feel abandoned. If I could snap my fingers and make their mom alive again, I'd do it. If I could snap my fingers and keep the Akula from crashing on the planet, I'd do it. But I can't do those things, and I am not a good choice for these kids. I feel for Kaden and Azra, I really do. But if you think I'm capable of being responsible for them, you're fucking crazy."

"I think you're probably more capable than you imagine," the counselor said. "And somebody's got to take them in. The Galaxy isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and at most you'd be watching them for a couple of days, if even that long. No one's asking you to become a full-time parent. We just need you to look after Azra and Kaden for just a little longer."

"But---" 8-ball tried again, and the woman cut her off.

"They need you," the woman said. "They need you to help them. For whatever reason, no matter if it makes sense to you or not, Azra and Kaden trust you and they need you. The Galaxy is a safe ship. They aren't going to get hurt, not physically. But they need somebody to be there for them emotionally, and the person they need right now is you. And as long as they're physical safety isn't in danger, don't you think we should start trying to take care of them emotionally?"

8-ball sighed and was quiet for awhile. Finally she asked, "Have you talked to M'Kantu about this? You do realize that the Galaxy isn't exactly my ship."

"We've arranged everything with the proper authorities," the woman said. "Will you do this for them? Can you do this for them?"

8-ball closed her eyes. She thought that this was all over.

She was wrong.

"Yes," she said. "I can."

"Good," the woman said in tones of obvious relief. "I'll be right back with Azra and Kaden." She left the room, leaving 8-ball staring at the wall.

This was insane.

This was nuts.

But it was happening anyways.

"Wrong Planet, Asshole."

Major Corran Rex, Vanguard Leader
President Lirisse Durghan, of Trill (Thanks to Laurel and Frank for their brief dialogue cameos from Jazz and Cass.)

Office of the President, Leran Manev, Trill

After an all-too-brief reunion, Rex had immediately gone to work in the President's office as the Starfleet liaison. Coordinating status reports from all Starfleet personnel on planet, as well as relaying communications from Captain M'Kantu to the president and back and forth, he felt like he hadn't slept in the days since they'd arrived at Trill.

Outside the windows, the fire of the Akula's crash had finally been put out, though the devastation remained. They'd received word not too long ago that the self destruct systems had been deactivated as well, so no immense matter-antimatter explosion would be forcing Trill cartographers to be redrawing their maps any time soon.

Pressing a hand to the communications device in his ear, Rex's attention turned to President Durghan. "Lirisse." he said, getting her attention. "Galaxy reports contact with another Federation starship in orbit. USS Diis, Akira-Class. Registry NCC-69612. Reported missing.. the same time as the Akula." he finished, his voice getting quieter as she spoke.

President Durghan turned immediately to General Verek, the commander of Trill's planetary defenses. "Bring the defense network online, General."

"Already doing so, ma'am." Verek was a recent appointment to her general staff, and one of the unjoined, furthering her agenda of social change. Though he might not have had ten lifetimes of experience, he was retired from the Starfleet marine Corps, having been a Battalion Commander during the Dominion War. Status indicators on the tactical panel on the west wall (hidden in more peaceful times by a holomasker) showed the orbital defense network coming online, tentatively targeting the Akira-Class starship.

Hand still pressed to the earpiece, Corran looked up again. "They've gotten a hail from the Diis. The operations officer is piping us a feed."

"Put it up." Durghan said quietly, arms folded as everyone turned to the screen to watch the conversation unfold.

As Christopher Thomas's ravings began to unfold and the Captain tried to - increasingly visibly - control his anger at this fool's babble - Durghan leaned in to Rex. "Who is this 'Thomas'?"

"He was the Galaxy's first officer a few years ago. Pretty bad at the job, too, and Captain Bhrode - Captain M'Kantu's predecessor - had him transferred to the Federation embassy on Breen."

"That's pretty cold."

Corran didn't acknowledge the pun. "We saw him when we were there about six months back - he was a drunken mess. Captain Elaithin relieved him of his duties and placed him under arrest. Last I'd heard, he was in the brig at Starbase 212, awaiting a court-martial."

"He seems to have altered his circumstances."

"No doubt." Corran replied, as they started paying attention again.

[ "I needed a way to get your ship into this area. "] Thomas was saying, his face livid. [" So I arranged for the USS Akula to have a little accident. Nothing against the people of trill. Simply collateral damages is all. I suppose that was something else I learned from Bhrode. Amazingly, as luck would have it, the nearest ship to respond was the Galaxy . How about that for planning, huh? To make it even better I arranged to have your shields fail you, knowing that your vaunted Engineering Staff has traditionally been the most woefully inept group I have ever seen." ]

You could have heard a pin drop in the President's office. Corran was already pulling his flight jacket back on. When Durghan finally spoke, she was practically growling - and visibly very, very mad. "Target the Diis. I want that ship disabled. And I want Thomas. That man is going to pay for all the people he killed."

"Diis is targeting Galaxy - Galaxy is not returning fire. it seems her weapons are disabled."

"Corran." the President said, putting a hand on his upper arm. "Get him. for all our people."

"I will." he solemnly promised, and made for the docking bay where Vanguard One was resting.

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

Vanguard One
Near Trill orbit

Corran couldn't recall having ever launched his fighter quicker than he had just now. Blasting at full impulse, he was quickly on a course that would catch him up to where Vanguard Squadron was engaged with the Breen fighters that Thomas had somehow acquired.

The small craft were taking heavy losses against the Vanguards, who were clearly the superior pilots in the match. Of course, from the way they flew, they certainly weren't Breen. Breen had much more of a groupsense than these pilots did. it looked like someone had taken a dozen academy dropouts and put them at the conn of those craft. Of the original squadron, only five remained. Comm was flowing across the squadron frequency as he took a moment to view the scene in front of him.

The orbital defense satellites were firing relentlessly at the Diis, phaser beams and torpedoes flying at the nimble Akira-Class starship from all angles. Corran didn't know where Thomas got his crew, but whoever was flying that ship was a damn sight better than the pilots of the Breen fighters. Maybe half of the hits from the defense net were hitting the ship.

That paled next to the maneuvers that the Galaxy was going through though. Corran might not have respected Savoie as a pilot before, but he certainly did now. With her weapons down, Galaxy's only hope was being nimble enough while the Engineering staff made the appropriate repairs.

"This is Vanguard Lead to Vanguard Squadron." he said as he lead his fighter into the formation, opening up his pulse phasers on the bogey that had a lock on Vanguard Five. "Jazz, how're things?"

["If you hang around long enough, I'll have your birthday present ready,"] Jasmine quipped, ["About time you got your butt off the ground, Rex. We were starting to think you liked being a land lubber."] The Betazoid fighter pilot grinned as she launched another torpedo with deadly accuracy at her next target.

"Right then." he responded. "Two flight, Four Flight, finish off these pathetic excuses for pilots. One Flight, Three Flight, on me. We're making a run on the Diis. We're going to take this son of a bitch down."

["Like I said, Chief..."] Jasmine said as she and her wingman destroyed the last enemy fighter, ["Happy Birthday."] The Betazoid was not phased by the lack of humor in Corran's voice. They were about to, after all, take on a capital ship. She keyed the more private ship to ship with Corran instead of the all flight, ["Corran, if I remember correctly the Akira class keeps its inertial dampers close to the junction between the disk and the engineering deck. We knock them out, we knock out their maneuvering capability."]

{"Thanks Jazz. I'll get him."' he replied, and switched over to the squad frequencies. "Allright folks, Jazz has a great idea. Target all weapons on the juncture between the catamarans and the primary hull - that's where her inertial dampeners are located. Kill that, and Diis is dead in the water."

There was the general acknowledgement of orders as Heloi took her half of the squadron to take on the remaining fighters - who'd been bolstered by a further three fighters launching from the Diis, giving them an even run on things.

Corran and his eight came up on the Akira-Class starships, their strafing run bouncing shots of the Akira's weakened shields. She was starting to take a real pounding from the defense nets. Her point defense phasers lanced out, striking Vanguard Three and knocking it's shields out.

"Three, pull back. Head back to the roost." he commed, bringing his group around for another pass.

One Flight and Three Flight came in one after another, their pulse phaser battering the ship's dorsal shields, eventually lowering them in the target area. A small string of explosions ripped across Diis' hull, and Corran eagerly awaited the results, hoping the ship would stop. With no inertial dampeners, safety overrides would kick in, and kill the ship's engines.

The questions was answered as the Diis surged forward, firing once again on the Galaxy for a moment, and then ceasing, though it was still on a course for Galaxy herself.

"Damn." Corran swore. Looks like they'd figured out Corran's attack strategy, and rerouted to a backup system. ["Allright, Vanguards - "] he started as a comm from the galaxy overrode him.

["Vanguard Leader, this is Galaxy."] came the voice over his comm. ["Diis is breaking off it's attack run - it looks like it's heading right for us on a suicide run. It's shields are down - Captain orders you to stop that ship."]

"Oh, hell no." Corran swore quietly. "Roger, Galaxy." he confirmed, and changed his course. ["Lead to squadron, break off."] he ordered, as he entered the final sequence.

Sending his fighter straight for the bridge of the damage Akira-Class ship, now out of range of the planetary defense network, and heading straight for the weaponless Galaxy.

"You picked the wrong planet, asshole." he said, pressing a single button on his flight suit right before the fighter struck, as the dome of the other ship's bridge grew even larger in front of him.

Jasmine's eyes widened as she witnessed her CO play a game of chicken with the Diis. She was going to kill him. If his kamikaze act didn't, she was going to. She knew he'd probably survive this, though his fighter probably wouldn't. The little joys of the emergency transporter were wonderful. But, that still did not negate that Corran Rex was a dead man. Dead. With a capital 'D'. Adding in, of course, a full 'what the hell were you thinking?!' rant.

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

Bridge,
Federation Starship
USS Galaxy

Corran materialized in time to see Vanguard One's kamikaze crash into the bridge of the Diis on Galaxy's viewscreen. Silently, he blessed whoever had thought to include those emergency transport devices developed a few years back on pilot's life support gear. Smart person, that one.

"My god..." someone breathed as the Akira-Class ship lost all power, plasma fires burning on the decks that had been exposed to space.

The ship would be salvageable, maybe. After that part of it's primary hull was rebuilt.

"I would imagine," Cassius said as he redirected the Galaxy's tractor beam to snagging and destroying the Breen fighters that were left. Diis had managed to launch another squadron of them during Corran's attack run.. "Snatch, point, click. With extreme prejudice. Feeling any better now, Corran?"

"Indeed. The military judicial system can be worse than such a quick and simple death," the executive officer grinned wearily. He knew from firsthand experience. Cass keyed the fighter coordination system. [Galaxy to Vanguard Squadron. Take up a position around the Diis' hanger bay. Watch for escaping craft."

"Damn." Corran muttered after a moment.

"What?" Cass asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I liked that ship." the Trill fighter pilot replied with a sigh.

"Pants Down, Drawers Off"

By Lieutenant Commander James Lionel Corgan
Chief of Security, USS Galaxy

Location: Security Department, USS Galaxy

Security was quiet.

One usually makes a snide quip about the office being too quiet, but James had a perfect explanation.

His security officers were planetside, helping out in the Trill disaster area. It took a lot of Starfleet officers to protect a disaster area. First, there was the crash site, which had to be cordoned off. Then there was the aide camp, where security guards were the only protection in case the locals went out of control. After all that, security strength was siphoned away because Trill was short on bodies to sift through the rubble.

In his own office, James felt vulnerable inside.

But not too much so. Security was protected by a couple of officers. One was T'lan, who was summoned back from medical leave after the chronic security shortage. Summoned back on her own accord, she insisted on saying. The other was Lieutenant E'xch, the male Denobulan that insisted on going planetside to help, but was held back because he was the best at the security central workstation. Somebody still had to co-ordinate the ship's internal defenses. A security ensign was at the door, standing alertly with a rifle cradled in his arms. He was E'xch's defense. Teams of two were mandatory while on alert.

What was left on ship was not in the office, but on patrol. After James had his meeting sifting through the downed Akula's records, he had what was left of his detachment patrol the ship. The Akula hinted at possible sabotage. James wasn't going to take chances on the Galaxy.

Lieutenant T'lan entered his office after he switched off his screen. She looked fresh and rested, while James was dirty and mussed up. The luxuries of staying in the sky on a safe starship, while James had to dig through buildings the whole day.

But then again, T'lan suffered severe trauma during the last mission. Not an enviable position considering it was HIS trauma.

"Good day, Lieutenant." Corgan greeted, his throat rasping like a dozen rusty chains. "I hope all is well."

"I regret to inform you that it is not." T'lan spoke back, her Vulcan veneer unphased by bad dreams or ill news. T'lan has two abilities; one to use sarcasm and wit uncharacteristic of a Vulcan yet still pull it off with enough logic and unemotion, and the ability to cut through most bullsh*t like a high powered phaser. "We are understaffed. I would like to request more teams brought up from the surface. They would welcome respite while keeping our security levels at a more acceptable level."

He nodded his head, "I agree, Lieutenant. This talk about saboteurs and setups are making me nervous." Should he have told this to T'lan? A leader try to act as a paragon of bravery and calm, but in front of a Vulcan it made no difference.

"A problem remedied by a fastidious response and quick solution." T'lan quipped, "I will implement your orders immediately."

"Please do. And T'lan..."

T'lan did an about face. Surprise on a Vulcan, the most priceless of looks in the entire galaxy... when she heard what was next.

"...You didn't have to do this. You're still smarting from our last mission. In fact, you should be resting. We're you supposed to meet Lt. Iniara?"

"Sir." T'lan stuttered, a strange sight on a Vulcan, "I am... uncomfortable with the procedure. As for reporting here... you know my duties. I will not avoid them when my physical health will allow me to do my job without fail. Did you not do yours in your younger years while mentally suspect?"

It was James turn to be surprised. "Hmph. You got me there. Fine. Stay with me. I could use the help. I have to sort through more of the Akula's data, check up on progress on the surface and see about improving our own defences. See about the defences first. I'll leave you in charge of that."

"Sir." T'lan received her order without complaint, but eagerness.

"Get to it."

"Aye."

T'lan left James' office. He switched on his LCARS display and brought up placement data on the rescue effort. He had the locations of all Galaxy personnel on his screen; his security officers were tagged with gold. The refugee camp, situated in a park in downtown Leran Manev, was neatly arranged with sentries inside and outside the area. Outside its grids were security teams patrolling the perimeter set by three city blocks. Further still from those areas was a lineup of Trill civilians, shaded in gray to indicate their status as non personnel. Many were lined up outside the camp, waiting outside the checkpoint to be allowed in. Most would be turned away. The camp was for wounded only. There were not enough beds for people to linger. But further on were more people, scattered about the city blocks, until noticeable patches were seen wandering the streets.

Small gangs, feeding off the refuse. Larger ones were protesters, wanting to strike out at anything that wasn't Trill. At least they were easy to understand. Land a Federation Starship into a city, and they were bound to conclude the worse. There were reports of attacks on non-trill and Starfleet personnel. It put everyone on edge, and his security officers down below on alert. Losing the camp to these protesters would be a major loss.

He contacted one of the security teams closest to the larger groups of civilians. "Corgan to O'Rourke. Report."

Lieutenant Shelly O'Rourke's voice crackled through his comm. badge. =/\="Sir, everything is tight here. I've organized all security personnel to keep a tight cordon around the camp. Nothing is getting in or out."=/\=

Corgan nodded his approval, for himself since O'Rourke could not see it. The past year saw phenomenal improvement in her performance. She was coming out as a solid, dependable leader, instead of a simpering, whiny slacker when she first came aboard. James would have to promote her soon. "Good. Any trouble with the malcontents?"

=/\="No sir, not too much."=/\= O'Rourke responded, =/\="Mostly scared Trill, sir. Some looters, but the local police and defence force are handling them. We had to deal with some protesters who wouldn't back off. A squad of us using widespread stun on our phaser rifles changed their minds. All clean. Geneva and Khitomer would be proud."=/\=

"Alright, I'm glad everything's ok down there. Good work, Lieutenant. Keep me informed. Corgan out."

T'lan came back with a PADD in her hands. She handed the PADD to James.

"The personnel manifest of our department on board, as of now."

James gave the document a cursory glance, "Everything is in order. Good. Put out a shipwide warning. All security personnel on alert. Watch for signs of internal sabotage. I'll tell the captain about this myself. He'll understand."

"And T'lan, I want you to come with me. I'll need backup in case something else happens." Corgan requested.

T'lan was once again taken aback. That was the second time. What brought Corgan's curiosity on her was why. "Sir? Do you expect something to happen?"

"I do." James admitted to his subordinate, "It happened on the Akula, I'm sure of it. It could happen just as well here."

T'lan wasn't finished, "That is not all you are worried about, Commander. You cannot lie to a Vulcan."

Of course, T'lan was right. She was always right. That was the hallmark of a Vulcan. James had more on his mind than security, though that was at the forefront. He also left a woman behind on Trill, and the stories of Trill attacking non Trill brought the hackles on his neck bristling starward.

"Aye, I do, but it can wait." Corgan told his subordinate. Mika could wait. James wasn't in a position to do any work on Trill. If she was ok, she was ok and was making her way to safety now, or even already there. If not, James was too late, and that was a cold and hard fact. He was powerless to help her, that much was appearant, but to stay behind while she was out there somewhere, churning his guts into a creamy soup worrying about her whereabouts and condition, knowing there was always something he could do directly... it filled him with guilt that sickened his bowels.

He just felt he had to do something else. Go out there and search himself if he had to.

But the again, that was a selfish act. He had to remind himself that a little bit of faith had to be used. She would be ok. She could take care of herself. What happened happened.

No comfort. None whatsoever. And T'lan could see it.

"F**k it." Corgan sighed, a phase he was becoming too familiar with when he found himself powerless against events, "We have a job to do. Let's go talk to the Captain. We must..."

Out of nowhere, the ship was impacted (or did it impact on something else itself). The shields took none of the hit, forcing it all to crash through ship's armour and decks. The hit shook the ship like a fistblow from god, hurling T'lan and Corgan off their feet and into the floor. The lights flickered, then went completely out, as the rumbling noise grew to apocalyptic proportions.

Another hit! This sent the ship reeling. James could hear Lieutenant E'xch' panicked pleas for help and order as his console shorted out. Sparks provided brief illumination as the ship rumbled and quaked. Debris were their only shower as security plunged into blackness.

James saw nothing but the dark, an impenetrable dark broken up by the occasional spitting of frayed wires. The rumbling stopped, the ship came under control.

Security was in total darkness.

"Get some wristlights!" Corgan ordered over the din of a spitting wire, "Find out what the hell happened here. And get some weapons!" In the darkness he groped for his comm.. badge. The fall knocked it loose. Feeling on the ground, James found the device and activated it. "Commander Corgan to Captain M'Kantu. Security central is down. What the hell was that?"

James waited. M'Kantu didn't answer back.

"Corgan to M'Kantu." He waited a moment longer without an answer to reward him, "Captain! Respond!" He gave up on the comm.. badge. "F**k sakes! T'lan?"

"Right here, sir." T'lan replied from somewhere to his left, "I am unharmed. Security... is another matter. The local power relays are down. We will have to repair them or leave."

"Hell." Corgan grumbled, "We have to get out of here. E'xch, Sullivan, find a security or engineering...."

"SIR LOOK OUT!"

T'lan dived at James, tackling the security chief in mid tumble, her warning scream as feral and urgent as an animal. T'lan's superior Vulcan strength and momentum took James off his feet, over his own desk as both bodies tangled themselves up and tumbled over the desk's edge. They both felt the searing heat of a phaser beam scythe through the air, a brief flash of red angry light that dazzled their eyes, missing them both by a slim margin.

Another phaser beam sung its death cry at the other, crackling on the wall as the enemy phaser answered again. James heard a shriek from Ensign Sullivan. The phaser hit the young Ensign, its glow showing his momentary silhouette fall back first, his phaser rifle clattering on the floor as his breath went ragged.

E'xch answered back from the cover of his desk, shooting at the offending beam. Corgan heard a spark and a small explosion, and saw a small mushroom of light.

The security station was back in darkness.

Corgan untangled himself from a compromising position below T'lan. They awkwardly shuffled off each other. James stomach and lungs ached. T'lan accidentally knocked the wind out of him when she pushed him out of the way of the phaser.

"Christ sakes!" Corgan screamed, "What the hell was that?"

"Sir!" Lieutenant E'xch shone a light towards the armory. He was the first to a wristlight, and was lighting up the damaged room. At the weapons racks, E'xch shined towards a charred corner, where a burned out tricorder and the remains of a phaser centered a sooty blast radius. "Might be set on command to fire."

"Sullivan! Where's Sullivan?!?"

"Sir... there's nothing left of him. The phaser trap was set on its highest setting."

"But I swear I saw him...." Corgan then went sick, the feeling threatening to escape his throat. E'xch handed the security chief a wristlight. Activating the device, James tried to look for Sullivan. ~"I saw his body drop!"~ Corgan argued with himself as he searched.

He saw Sullivan's rifle, and a black stain. His body was dropping during mid disintegration.

"Oh god..." Corgan gasped, "E'xch, get some help. Secure the area, get power back online. T'lan, try to find a working sensor and find out what's going on. I want some leads so I can get that bastard. I'm going to see the Captain. See if the bridge is ok while I'm at it. GET TO IT!"

"Aye, sir."

T'lan and James left the office, holstering their phasers as they left. No communications, no power, an unshielded hit, a suspected saboteur on the Akula... and now an attempt on James life.

Coincidence was easily ruled out.

They were caught with their pants down and their drawers off.

Back post

"Honey-Pot of fire Part 5 of 6"

Lieutenant (Jg) Dhanishta Eshe - Engineering
Lieutenant Commander Ethan Suder - Chief of Engineering
Commander Karyn Dallas - Chief Counsellor

(This takes place while the Galaxy is undergoing the refit)

"Overload?" Ethan whispered. He frowned and shot fiery glances to the others just stood around watching them. They quickly dispersed, continuing with their duties in Engineering. He then turned back to look at Dhani.

"No one's been caught in an EPS blast since." his words suddenly became lost as the situation sparked more memories of times past.

"For a long time." He finally finished, his eyes still glazed over and staring at the console.

"It's been a long time since there was an accident, nothing happened to the EPS systems when you were working on them." He explained.

She reached out, groping for the wall. Her knees buckled and she crumpled on to the floor, quivering.

Ethan slowly turned and looked at her. He quickly and swiftly picked her up and carried her into his office. Sitting her down in one of the chairs opposite his desk, he grabbed a drink from the replicator and placed on the edge of the desk in front of Dhani.

"Problems with the EPS? Trying to shut it down? An overload?" he asked wondering if he was on the right track and praying to the Betazoid gods that he wasn't.

She nodded numbly as she reached out for the drink. Her hands shook as she picked up the glass spilling some of the water on to the desk. She tried to mumble an apology but her vocal chords didn't want to work. Sipping the drink she longed for something stronger. At some point she hoped someone would walk up, pinch her and get her out of this nightmare.

Clearing her throat she tried to talk. Her voice came out in a harsh whisper, "I was working on the last conduit." She began, "Everything seemed fine. As I was crawling away the deck began to vibrate, the conduit exploded. I tried to shut it down but the blast caught me and I was thrust down the Jeffries tube. I managed to get to the hatch, I think. I don't remember much after that. Except the feeling as the fire caught me, surrounded me, I." she trailed off. She felt cold and damp, wondering if she had been crying, again she looked down. Most of the water in the glass was now seeping through her trousers.

As if seeing a flash of light, the past continued to haunt him. Every second, he would see bits and pieces as Dhani explained what was going on. Coincidence? But nothing happened to Dhani, perhaps this was some sort of empathic echo of some kind. Strange that nothing like that had happened to him, but then he had avoided that section of the EPS power systems for some time. He drew in a deep breath and helped Dhani place the glass back on to his desk.

He tapped his communicator. "Suder to Dallas, I apologise for all the chasing and time wasting, but I have Dhani in my office. And I think I have a thought about what's going on, but I'm not sure how."

"Thank the gods," replied Dallas, heading to Main Engineering, "Is she hurt? I have a few med-techs under foot who want to *help.*"

Ethan looked at Dhani. "Not physically." He replied. "Just in a sort of shock at the moment. I'll see you shortly, Ethan out." He moved slightly closer to Dhani. "Just hang around for a while ok? Karyn is excellent at what she does, all you need to do is talk, nothing else. You don't need to understand why or how, just talk."

The door hissed open and a concerned Dallas entered. She nodded once to Suder and turned to Eshe. "Dhani, I believe you, whatever it is you're going through, I only want to help you." She made sure she wasn't too close to her, so she had some room to breathe.

Dhanishta nodded, like one of those nodding dogs you find in the back of old 20th century taxies. She remained quiet though, her eyes fixated on a point on the desk.

"I hope you do." Ethan said with raised eyebrows and a half smile. "I'm getting tired of running around the ship." He looked back at Dhani. He thought for a moment and looked over at Karyn. She believed Dhani was going through something and what Dhani had experienced had on some level, been real. Ethan felt the same way. He grabbed a data padd from his desk and sighed. Looking over it briefly one more time, he stood and walked over to Karyn. He gave her the padd and returned to his desk. He stood in front of it for a while before turning around.

"A few years ago there was an incident involving the EPS power grid. I was monitoring the situation when part of the grid overloaded." He paused for a moment before continuing. His facial expression changed, becoming more morbid. "The Chief Engineer at the time was injured in the blast." He took a seat at his desk and frowned a little. "The Chief tried shutting down the grid, but it was too late. The power grid was undergoing observation as is standard procedure when work is being carried out on them. Lieutenant Eshe was undergoing work on the grid, work similar to that of what the Chief was doing a few years ago." He drew in another deep breath. "We lost contact with Dhanishta. From what she's explained, she believes there was an accident when she was carrying work out on the last section of the grid. Of course, there wasn't an accident." He looked at Dhanishta and then Karyn, waiting for a response from either of them.

Dhanishta spoke up now, "I was working on the last conduit. Everything seemed fine. As I was crawling away the deck began to vibrate, the conduit exploded. I tried to shut it down but the blast caught me and I was thrust down the Jeffries tube." She repeated what she had told Suder, like a minor bird. Through her account her voice remained steady, unlike before. She detached herself from the event; after all it didn't happen right? Why should she feel this way?

Ethan became lost in the description. His imagination took over, playing the scene in his head. The observation, the explosion. Until now, he had never known what it was like, to be caught in the blast. He finally lifted his head and looked at Karyn. His eyes seemed, sad.

Dhanishtas eyes remained fixated on the desk, inside turmoil; ~ They all tell you that it didn't happen. Why would they lie to you? To what end would this serve them? But it did happen, I felt it. I can still feel it. Illusions, all of it. Call it an echo, whatever. It didn't happen. But I was there. I was burned. I remember. Your memory is incorrect. Why? This isn't something that I would just dream up, it's no fantasy either...~ Dhanishtas mind continued to try and rationalise the situation.

Karyn's eyes grew wide and her voice was filled with awe. "I believe you, Dhani." She turned to Ethan then and looked to both. "She experienced Samara's accident, Ethan. I don't know how or why, but it's too accurate to be a coincidence."

TBC…

"The Irregular Suspects" – part II

Lt.Commander James Corgan, Chief Security Officer
Lieutenant J.G. Cora Dobryin, Chief Intelligence Officer
Lieutenant J.G. Saul Bental, Intelligence Officer
Ensign Paulo DiMillo, Intelligence Officer
Petty Officer 1st Class Lysandra Stuart, Intelligence Analyst

The encrypted remote conference continued, and now Saul finally reached the main cause of that gathering.

"All right.", He cleared his throat. "You can all see the manifest on the top right corner of your screen. Our first 'suspect' is obviously the Captain. Bolian, Forty-Eight standard years old, goes by the name of Zedbi Geliba."

A wrinkled, bald blue-hued face appeared instantly on the top right corner of every person in the conference. Details from his personal file appeared next to him. Captain Geliba was one of those officers who made it captain because it was about time, not because he excelled at anything, and he post's prestige was set accordingly.

Corgan briefly scanned the Akula captain's personal file. The face looked honest enough, but he'd seen traders and other rogues who could look the same way and prove otherwise. He had to put aside Federation arrogance for the possibility that he was a traitor, but... "He looks clean, but who knows. Wife and kids on Bolivar. No reprimands, no real awards. Even for a war veteran his record is pretty quiet. Maybe he was sick of being pigeonholed into unimportant positions... or maybe he was a humble man that didn't stick his neck out too much. Either way, after the Akula he seemed to do well. Who knows. I'd put him under 'maybe'."

As Saul wrote James' recommendation down, flipped over to the next file. His eyes widened; this one was much more interesting. "Lieutenant Commander Chris McCauley, Chief Navigation Officer. He has enough authorization to aim the ship and override the safeties. His record is... spotty. Before the war he was an Engineer aboard the USS Haida. He has a reprimands list a mile long. Fighting and alcohol consumption mostly. One is listed as a 'diplomatic incident'. He's old by most standards, a solid 56 years.

"Eight years older than his Captain.", Saul interjected, "Jealousy could kill."

James continued, "He was once before listed as lazy and prone to argument, hard to motivate, could raise a fuss at the drop of a hat... but transferring from second in command of Engineering to Navigation the reports lessened. Looks to me like he was dissatisfied with his job, among other things. Also says here he had credit troubles... how in the hell do you manage that in the Federation is beyond me... and he was divorced ten years ago. Looks like a man who has multiple reasons to betray Starfleet, don't you think?"

"Sounds like a man that shouldn't be admitted to service.", Saul muttered. Then again, Saul himself with his shady business-on-the-side was probably not the ideal Starfleet officer either.

"Maybe not, but at the time Starfleet wasn't very choosy during the war." Corgan pointed out; he was one of those almost washouts.

"Certainly. If you'd like my opinion, this is where we start one angle of our search. As an analyst, I'd start with his creditors... Which I took the liberty of doing," Petty Officer Stuart said. A few questioning looks were directed her way. Questioning looks that were silenced by the following recognition. That she wasn't representing herself at the moment, but couldn't admit that. "McCauley was a gambler. He liked to do it on shore leave, and usually blew most, if not all of his paycheck. His real credit problems started about seven years ago, when he was on Risa just after the Dominion War. He was a Lieutenant JG at the time, and according to his psychological profile, he had 'seen things on Cardassia that had rattled him.' He seems to have entered a high stakes game of poker, and lost big. The total at that point amounts to 450,670 credits."

"For a junior officer, that's pretty much unrecoverable. He tried to gamble for the money, but drove himself deeper in dept. Eventually, the gamblers sold his debt to a corporation based on Rigel VII. Rigel VII, as we all know, is the headquarters of Omega Corp," she let that sink in.

Saul took advantage of that moment, "Rigel VII is the house of half the slime on the Galaxy..."

Stuart continued, "Omega Corp is technically regarded as one of Orion pirate cartels. In reality it's a semi-legitimate business that also dabbles in weapons dealing and information brokerage. SFI has availed itself of their services in the past," Stuart continued,revealing more knowledge that she shouldn't have had. "Right now, I'm looking into the investors and known clients of Omega Corp, to see if there's a connection to anyone who would want to see this happen."

"But if you want my current best hypothesis, here it is... Omega Corp is contacted by one of their better paying clients. This client wants to disrupt Trill society, perhaps to cause a civil war that they could gain from, either through a power grab or through weapons deals. Omega Corp decides to call in their debt with McCauley. The man's proven himself unscrupulous before. All debts are canceled, possibly with a line of credit established, if he hijacks the ship and crashes it into the symbiosis commission. From there, details are sketchy. If you want my guess, he slave rigged the ship to the helm and had the crew beamed into the cargo bay sections that we haven't been able to access yet, where they died. He probably had Orion help. Thoughts?"

"If you wanted to destabilize Trill, that's the way to do it." Corgan whistled, impressed with the plan, "Put us in a hell of a position too. We either destroy the ship or let it blow up. Either way, the Symbiosis Commission will be destroyed. If that doesn't piss off the Trill enough to separate from the Federation, nothing will. We have a good motive, but there isn't enough proof. Do we have proof positive?"

"Nothing yet, unless something came up on the black box.", Saul glanced at Cora, who remained quiet. "But a helmsman is indeed one of the only people who could pull such an act."

"True," Paulo replied looking over both the chief nav officer and the Captain's profiles. "But even being at the helm the Captain or XO could override his control from their chair/station on the bridge. An OPS officer could set up blocks to stop such actions being taken by the Captain or XO," Paulo said as he started looking over the OPS officer's profile. "A Commander Sam Keel, just recently promoted and transfered to the Akula. He has skills in computer hacking, which were useful during the war, and other computer related measures. Nothing in his record would show that he would betray the Federation. He received many awards and commendations during and after the war. He was even being considered for the XO position of the Akula in the event of Commander Ashley Watson getting promoted to Captain and given her own ship."

"If he was so good, why did they dump him on a ship which was on her final journey before decommissioning?", Saul inquired, "If he was being prepared for a leadership position, they should've sent him to a ship with more character-challenging missions, such as our own old lady."

Paulo nodded in agreement. Saul had made a good point. Why would they dump him like that?

Intently Cora had been listening. "Care to tell me why I didn't receive this data directly as Galaxy's Intelligence Chief. It's a hole we cannot allow in our system. I should have see if or at the very least been aware of it prior to this meeting." Her comment was directed at Saul. Then she continued once her point had been clearly made. "Now that we have this data we need to do something with it. You've all seen the black box data I showed earlier. That link closes a lot of holes. The question remains as Lieutenant Bental stated earlier how could they just dump him like that."

Saul pressed on his display, momentarily switching to private mode and establishing direct link to Cora's office.

"I asked for the meeting the moment I got the information Cora, I was instructed to deliver it to a list of people on the Galaxy and figured we might as well brainstorm on it. If I was wrong I apologize."

He then returned the confident smile ot his face and switched back to public mode, hoping no one else noticed that his image froze for a moment.

"As for Commander Watson.", Saul continued, glancing at her own file, "No offense to anyone here, but people with strong religious faith could be risky because they are prone to external influence. Crashing a ship onto Trill is like unleashing god's fury from the sky, only that I doubt the Anglican Church had anything against the people of Trill, aside from them being infidels."

"But in this day and age we don't see to many religious zealots that are willing to crash a ship into a planet to kill some infidels," Paulo added. "It's true we still see some wars based on religion, but it's usually from younger species."

"What about the Catholics?" Corgan threw out.

"What about them?", Saul replied automatically, not realizing he was bordering disrespectfulness by addressing an officer two ranks above him that way.

"Some times I wonder if all these missionaries aren't blatantly violating the prime directive.", Saul murmured. "I really can't see what would a Terran religious organization which isn't extremist would benefit from supporting this act of atrocity... not that I'm saying that the Anglicans or the Catholics are extremists, of course."

"I don't know about you all, but I think we can eliminate them, until further evidence can be brought up agianst them," Paulo finally replied after a pause.

"There's more than enough suspects to look up." Corgan cautiously steered the conversation to another direction. He summoned beside his screen another profile, a Starfleet Security officer from the Akula. "Ensign Wallace Wellsy. Age 25. First year on the Akula. Specialized in intership combat tactics at the academy. I found his name as I was reading through the security manifest. Normally, he wouldn't stick out, that is until I checked the Akula's communication records..."

Another display showed the Akula's records pertaining to Wellsy, "Notice anything peculiar?"

"He has a ton of messages going outbound, but nothing coming in," Paulo put foward.

"It might be a coincidence, but most of these messages have been aimed to relay stations on the Federation border. In turn, the messages are sent to neutral or friendly neighboring powers... and god knows where else they end up. The trail ends there. Hell if we'll get another lead without dealing with tons of alien red tape, but that's alot of comm. traffic outside the Federation for one human. His background doesn't show any relatives outside Earth. No rogue traders, independent explorers, nothing. Why would he be talking outside his own borders so much?"

Paulo shrugged.

"That's not all." Clucked James, "One can explain that away too. Friends in Starfleet on ships in deep space, friends outside the Federation... we do get around, after all. But the oddest part is that alot of his comm.-traffic as of late has also been aimed at Trill..."

He then showed the records to prove Wellsy's communications to Trill, then to another location, "No destination addresses, so we can't tell who the receiver is, and they're encrypted, so I can't tell you what was on it. I wouldn't have noticed it if he wasn't brought on report from the security chief for disorderly conduct nearly a week before the crash. Thought he might be worth checking after seeing that... no reasons given, only that he was in an altercation with a fellow crewmember, and was thrown in the brig because of it."

"Here's the kicker, people." James brought up again Ensign Wellsy's communication logs. He highlighted the dates and enlarged, until they were blinking like beacons for everyone else to see. "The messages to Trill were three days before the crash, when he should have still been in the brig. Then two days ago, then one...What I wonder is what the hell he was sending."

Saul frowned. "Considering that the ship lost communications the day before zero hour, that's VERY interesting."

"Very good question. One we need an answer to ASAP," Cora added. Overall Cora didn’t like where any of this was leading or the way it had come down. They should have caught it earlier and data should have reached her before it reached anyone else. But that was a discussion for another time.

"We could go back into a comm station and look up the logs. All stations keep a backup of all messages for a period of time before purging them. We could go back, get the message and find out what the heck he was sending," Paulo suggested.

Quickly, responsibilities and tasks were given, and one after the other the faces disappeared form Saul's display. Finally, when he was alone, something else came in mind and he checked the manifest again, looking for something specific.

And he found it.

The only Trill on board was the Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Menri Fex.

"Twenty Seven years old, the symbiont's first host. No relations to known political groups, devoted to work, shy... likes sailing. I can't say anything bad about someone who likes the ocean."

He glanced at Xil. "Could you please drop me here, and return to the central station? I think we have enough material for your Commander to digest, and I'm sure she could find information about the whereabouts of Doctor Fex faster than me."

"Will do. And I will ensure that my men also are searching for the jellpacks. We'll be In touch."

As the roofless ground vessel sped toward the next road intersection, Saul turned around and began to stride in the opposite direction.

He was ignorant of the drama that soon began to play itself in orbit. He has done a lot since he came down to Trill, and now there were some personal business to attend to.

The deadly kind of personal business.

"Marines does"

2nd. Lt. Jebidiah Baile,
Recon Specialist, USS Galaxy
2nd. Lt. Branwen London,
Staff Psychologist, USS Galaxy

------

Trill, planetside

Branwen was outside taking in some much-needed fresh air. For hours now she had been working with the survivors. Mostly consoling the badly wounded and sitting with the grieving and those who still had some hope. Being fresh out of the Academy this was all-new to her and it was getting to Bran. That is why she badly needed a break.

Standing outside the hospital she wondered what the other marines were doing. She had not heard from her boss of the others in hours. Branwen hoped she would be able to join them soon. And she also hoped the duty they were doing was easier than her own.

Almost five kilometers away, Baile was on the horn with HQ. "Base.. repeat message.." It wasn't really necessary, but he needed a few seconds to gather his thought.

"Objective One has engaged self-destruct."

Baile shook his head in dismay. "Tell me you're fucking kidding..." was his only reply.

"Wish I could, Bravo-leader. New orders are to assist in any way possible to clear the area."

"Base, let me see if I got this right.. you want us to help clear a friggin city in what, two hours? I doubt the good folks here will be very cooperative.." Baile commented while adjusting the backpack.

"Bravo-leader, sit-rep?"

"Up to our asses in shit, but we'll be done in an hour. Beer's on you this time, Base."

"Get back alive and drinks are on us."

"Affermative. Bravo-leader out." Baile terminated the connection and placed the hat back on his head. He turned to the Vulcan sniper that had been assigned to him as his partner. "Fuck it.. I was getting bored anyway.. "

The Vulcan didn't say anything. He had begun to understand Baile rarely wanted a comment on the things he said.

The Terran Marine rolled his head. "Bravo-team... move to LZ One Niner. We have new orders and you better haul ass.."

Next to the hospital Branwen heard her communicator beep and heard the message.

"This is Lieutenant London. I have been assigned to the local hospital, do you need my help with the team?"

Baile activated the microphone strapped to his throat as he and the Vulcan started running. "Security will evacute the hospital.. gear up and get to the LZ for more instructions.."

"Will do." Branwen said. She hurried back inside the hospital, to notify the Starfleet medical people about the evacuation and that she had to rejoin the marines team.

After that she ran to the LZ when she arrived just after the rest of the Marine team. "What exactly is going on?" She asked.

Baile brushed dust off his hat by repeatedly slapping it on the knee. Without a word he pointed at the burning wreck still visible to them. "That..."

Branwen whistled. "What the hell..."

"Someone pressed the big red button and Security's got their asses in a sling." the marine told the young woman and yawned. He wasn't very tired it was just that he found the whole situation boring. "There's a lot of softies out here that is either too injured or too dumb to leave... we're what's available... "

She was not impressed by how he decided to talk about those unfortunate enough to be injured. For now she kept silent.

Baile looked at the assembled Marines, wondering how much toll this would take and had taken on the greenhorns. "Alright.. listen up.. " he said in an even voice and looked each of them in the eye. The Terran scratched his chin and spat on the ground. "The softies may not be the enemy, but some people will refuse to leave for all sorts of reasons. That's fine.. Do not reason with them, do not try to persuade them. Just stun them the moment they start to argue... if it's a group, stun them all. We'll rack em up nice and tidy and yell at logistics until they beam their asses into saftey. Questions?"

Branwen was itching to say something. She also figured if she should speak up more. Lieutenant Hayes had said to her that she wanted Branwen as her executive officer. Yet that was before Baile arrived. Amber had not told her she had changed her mind, yet Branwen felt uncomfortable trying to take over from her much more experienced colleague. Besides he knew better what was going on.

"If anyone goes for your weapon, for what ever reason," he continued and looked at them, one by one, "you will defend yourself with whatever means necessary to keep yourself, your partner and the surroundings safe. Should that include stuffing a 'nade down their throats - then that is what you will do. Is that clear?"

She waited until the two Lieutenants were together before criticising him. "I think you are being overly aggressive, I agree we have to get these people out, and fast and there is no time for arguing." Branwen said while she already started to move to save time. "Yet they are victims, they are people, and they should be treated with a little bit more respect."

The veteran looked at her with a blank expression. When she finished talking he had already slung the rifle to his back and was checking his sidearm. "Ever been in a hotzone before, Lieutenant?"

"No." She admitted.

"People are like mudslides... it just takes one to get it all rolling and victims or not - if I can save ten more people by stunning one or twenty, then that's what I'll do..." Baile kept his voice down, but a sharp edge had entered it. "And if you don't like my phrasing - tough... there's a time and a place for semantics and this ain't it.."

"Maybe you are right. I know people can panic and pull others down with them. It is just difficult for me, to hear you talk about people that way." They were still moving not closing time. "Yet you are the veteran, I will try to do it your way." She promised.

"Sunny.. a Marine does, Starfleet tries.." he replied with a sly grin, holstered the sidearm. Truth be told they had all been given an impossible task. Clear the survivors in two hours, three at the most. Clearing a city of this size would take a few days and only if the infrastructure was intact.

"Alright people. You know what to do. We got two hours and after that you will clear out. I don't want no heroics. If I say leave then you leave." Baile signaled Branwen to follow him.

She did follow him. Branwen wanted to know how good she was at this part of the job.

OOC: This post has nothing to do with the mission, filler peice. Also give a slight warning for mushy steamy scenes. lol

"Odd Timing" Pt. 5

Lt. Cmdr Brianna "Anna" O'Shea

Chief Engineer / S.C.E. Liaision

Ensign Marcus Slayton

Engineering Officer

:: Holodeck 3, USS Galaxy ::

Standing there for a moment, Brianna looked at her. "I can't." She said, then turned to leave. She couldn't go down those roads again, she was a ranking officer in the fleet. Senior officer on the ship, she couldn't just chase after someone who may or may not have feelings for her. It wasn't right, wasn't sane to do that. Yet when she realized that she was standing outside of holodeck three, it seemed kind of moot. Taking a deep breath, she walked inside while realizing that this was probably the stupidest thing that she's done thus far.

The doors of holo-deck three opened and when Anna stepped into the deck, she found herself warmed by the artificial B'haleva Bhala, the sun that Bajor orbits. It was a beautiful spring day around her and she was standing in the inner courtyard of a Bajoran temple of some sort. An elderly Bajoran woman walked up to her, her kind face smiling at her as she asked Brianna "What are you looking for, young one?"

Anna bowed slightly to the old woman. "I'm looking for a friend of mine... Marcus Slayton... brown hair, glasses and about this high." She said, holding her hand up some in the air. "He comes to this place for meditation and prayer. Is he still here, ma'am?" Anna asked.

The elderly woman nodded to Anna. "He is, he is currently walking around the lake. His pagh was slightly off for some reason but in both a good and bad way but that is for the Prophets to know. If you wish for me to show you to where he is, I can." the bajoran woman said, the smile never leaving her face

"No.. no need for you to put yourself out of way for me. I'll find him, thank you." She said, then bowed slightly and headed out the back of the temple. Started on the path to the lake she soon saw him standing there looking lost as he looked to the water.

Marcus stood looking out over the lake, his uniform jacket was on a chair within a short walking distance. He had his arms crossed over his chest and his body actions showed that he was agitated. "You know something, I'm supposed to be a member of a great and noble family which has a long standing tradition of serving the fleet and doing brave, bold things but when it came to one choice, I made the worst thing. If I could redo that entire night over again, I would and I would look at her and say, Brianna Catherine O'Shea, I love you. And I wouldn't have chickened out at the last moment." he said out loud, not knowing that the very person in question was now only a few feet behind him

Resting her hand on the chair back. She looked at his back when she heard him say that. She'd wished he would have said that to her long time ago, then she should have done the same. Watching him stand like only made her remember how many times she just sat and observed him as he worked, played or was reading. "We both didn't say a lot things, Marc." Anna said.

Marcus' head suddenly jerked around, his jaw was partially hung open and his eyes were wide with an honest surprise as he didn't hear her come up behind him or anything. He then turned fully around to face her. "I..um...ah...er...just how long exactly have you been standing there, Anna?" he asked

"Long enough." She said, as she moved to sit down on the chair and look at him. "I should have said lot to you but didn't. Why are you beating yourself up for something you wanted to say back then?" Anna asked, as she sat there, looking at him.

"Because I was afraid to, I cared about you a lot and when it came time that I spent two months preparing to tell you...I chickened out at the last minute and then when we went our separate ways after that, I tried to bury myself in my work and yeah, I was called a miracle worker by Captain Stewart on the Hiroshima but that was no replacement for you." he said, the last part a little bit more softly as he looked at her, trying to look her in the eyes but again with the last part he looked away and a slight pink coloring crept into his face

Crossing her legs she put her hands in her lap, paying with the jade bracelet she wore tucked up in her sleeve. Something she always when she was a little nervous. "You know my mom told me that dad said you were my biggest mistake, dad has said I've made many." She said, lifting her eyes upward to look at his face. "He said I should have never given up on you. Hard to explain to them what was going on at the time with me when I barely understand it myself. One minute I'm wanting to tell you that I loved you, the next.. we just went our seperate ways, don't even remember saying bye when it was over." Anna said as she looked back down. "Colin," Anna said, speaking about her youngest brother. "said that what we had was nothing but an academy fling. Was that all it was, something for us both to waist time on when we didn't want to be alone? Were we just people that used each other for sexual comfort, Marc?" Anna asked, she knew it wasn't for her but she back then when Colin said it didn't know.

Marcus went in front of her and kneeled in front of her and gently took the hand that was playing with the bracelet and took it into both of his hands. "no, we were not an academy fling, Anna, and there was no mistake on either side expect for one and that was the two of us going our separate ways. When I went to my brother Chris' wedding on Cardassia, I realized how much of an idiot I was for thinking that I wasn't important enough for you and that I'd just be standing in the way of your career when the truth is that..." he said but then he got a confused look on his face, the kind that he got when she said or did something that utterly had him at a loss for words

"What's that face?" Anna asked, as she looked at him. "Don't say it's nothing, surely you know me well enough to know I see something in your eyes." She said.

"No, it's not that. I thought I heard you say that you were going to tell me that you loved me at the gala." he said, a brief look of hope in his eyes

"Yes..." She nodded. "The night of the Academy Gala, just before our assignment. Would have done it to, had someone hadn't got to me first." She said. "Part of me still loves you, always will Marc."

"Let me guess, Aya?" he asked

"Yep..." She said standing. Unable to relive these memories. She walked out onto the dock and stood there with her hands resting behind her. "Your son or daughter has to be what... eight or nine? Aya told me about you two sleeping together. I was ready to follow you, Marc." She said, not knowing that Aya had lied to her.

Marcus had a very angry look on his face as he stood to. "Anna, I only slept with one person and that was you. I don't have any children, I do have niece but that's Chris' and not mine." Marcus said.

"I found out from her own twin brother, you know Homare, that in the weeks leading up to the gala she was happy as a clam and she told him why. He didn't tell me this until he found out that we'd broken up when I saw him aboard the McCoy while he was helmsman there." Marcus said, the angry look leaving his face.

"You didn't... love her?" Anna asked, as saddness filled her eyes. That saddness soon gave way into anger as she was so mad, turning she looked away from him and toward the water. Lying bitch had ruined everything, moments like this Brianna felt almost klingon and willing to dish out some retribution.

"Anna, I think I know why she did it. My family and her's were close friends and while she had a crush on me, I always thought of her as one of my little sisters. When did she tell you that lie?" he asked her

"The night of the dance." She said, her brow hard and voice cold. She then turned, her firey red haired seemed to blaze with the fire in her eyes. "She took the greatest love of my life from me... I will never forgive her... I cruse her, her family and generations after her... may they burn in the seven hells of Andor.. may she feel the pain and loneliness I've felt." Anna said, she then turned away and looked toward the water.

Marcus came up behind her. "Anna, I think that I may have caused her to do that. I told her that I was going to tell you something major that night. I knew that she had feelings for me but I didn't know. I thought..." Marcus said but he stopped and took a breath before he continued to gather his thoughts. "I thought that you started to resent me, that I was holding you back from reaching your full potential. If there was a way for me to go back in time and fix this, I would and do you want to know why?"

"Why?" She asked, turning her head slightly as she looked to him.

"Because the only thing that changed between that night and right now is only one thing, I'm a few years older now but I'm still as much in love with you as I was when I first saw you, Anna." Marcus said, he wanted to wrap his arms around her and make the pain go away but he knew that there was an extremely strong chance that if he did so, that she would kick his ass. But he didn't give a damn and gently took the side of her face into his hand

"You still love me?" She asked him. Hearing that seemed to calm her down some. "So much time has been lost, Marc. I've changed some since you knew me." She said, knowing that she was wrong to have not told him back then she loved him. "I was going to tell you I loved you... was ready to follow you wherever you went."

"Yes, Anna, I still love you. I never stopped loving you, there is nothing more that I want to do is hold you in the night and chase away any of those nightmares that come, to see your accomplishments outshine all others and everything else that comes from being in love with someone." Marcus said, a finger gently tracing her jawbone without him realizing it as he looked into those eyes of her's. "God, do you know how many years I've waited to tell you that?" he finished

"You know I waited for a year... hoping you'd come after me?" Anna asked. "I've waited even longer to hear those words from someone that I wanted to hear them from." She whispered, then kissed him.

Marcus was more than caught off guard when she kissed him, but slowly he started to return the kiss and his arms slowly encircle her waist and pulls her to him and deepens the kiss. After a few minutes, his lungs remind him of a need for air and he breaks the kiss and looks her deeply in the eyes. "Anna, I love you."

"Never stopped loving you, Marcus. Just been waiting for you to come for me." She said, getting lost in his eyes. "Don't leave me again, don't think I could go on again without you."

Marcus gently stroked her face as he held her, "There was so much that I wanted to say but you know something, there is time for that now, true? I even have a surprise that I could give you for your birthday this year." Marcus said softly to her

Resting her arms around his neck, Brianna pressed her body to his. Her hips began to dance, just as if it was back at the gala dance. "I couldn't ask for anything other then having you here." She said.

"Well, there is something. But I don't think you'd want to hear that right now." he said as he started to dance with her "It was something that I was going to ask you then but like I said that can wait till your birthday. I love you Anna, it took me almost dying to realize that fact." he said as he brought his hand up and gently stroked the side of her face

"What happened?" She asked, about his almost dying.

"During the war, the Hiroshima got too close to the Cardassian border and we got over powered. I was in charge of a repair team to try and fix the secondary flux converters for the phaser array when the shields went down and a squad of Jem'Hadar and Cardassian soldiers got on board. I took down a couple but one of them had a bayonet attached to it's weapon and ran me through. By the time that Caboose and Waldron found me, I had almost bled out but we'd managed to make the enemy run because I did the stupid thing. Instead of trying to remain still and keep from loosing blood, I managed to force myself to keep going and get the weapons array back to full power. I had one single driving thought I guess you could say." he explained. Marcus took one of her hands and guided it to a spot on his lower abdomen where she could feel the scar tissue. "I know that in this day and age we can get rid of scars but this one is a reminder of sorts." he said softly.

Tracing her fingers along the line of the scar she sighed, "I didn't know... no one told me." Anna said, then looked at him. "I missed you, missed so much of your life."

"The past isn't important right now, the fact that I'm here now is. I know that some part of you is thinking that you can't do this, you're my superior officer, right?" he said quietly. "What if I told you that there was a way to be able to handle me as a member of your engineering staff and be able to hold me in the night?" he said, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes

"Much as my heart wants to... my mind says I can't." She said, shaking her head. Brianna looked at him then, knowing that look. "I'm not raiding someone's panty drawer, Marc." She said then grinned. "What are you thinking?"

"A few years ago, Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and his first officer in Commander Elizabeth Shelby of the USS Excalibur were in a relationship but that did not affect their commanding of a starship but in fact it helped them oddly enough as being in a relationship allowed them to know the limits that the other person could do among many other things. When Commander Shelby became Captain Shelby and obtained the command of the Trident, she and Captain Calhoun got married and still there wasn't any problem. Starfleet even allowed the Excalibur and the Trident to serve as patrol partners and a couple of years ago when Captain Shelby became Admiral Shelby, nothing changed but her rank and the fact that she now sat in a starbase but never once did that affect the way that they conducted each other as officers in the fleet. I found out at least six other couples in Starfleet like that where able to manage being in a relationship and being officers at the same time without problems of any sort. So, there is no problem. Hell, I can even give you my copies of Captain Calhoun's history if you want, Anna, to make any doubts fade." he explained

"If we do it, I'd like to keep it between you and me for a little while. Just like to keep it our secret." Anna said, then smiled at him. "Can you do that for me?" She asked, running her index finger down his collar bone.

"Anything for you, but I know that we have to tell Grace at least because if we don't, she'll use her talents and get us locked in here until she deems that we're ready to come out again." Marcus said with a slight grin.

Marcus gently found the fastener of her uniform's jacket and unfastened it. "Sorry, I was just hoping to help get you cooled off a bit.." he said with a small smile

"It is little warm in here.." She said, feeling the back of his hans against her stomach. With nothing but her tucked in undershirt between his skin and hers. Anna was always intense with whatever she did, from loving someone to anger. Lifting his head slightly she titled it back and kissed his neck, and then kissing his Adam's apple before nuzzling the end of her nose in the nap of his neck where it meets his shoulder.

Marcus gently slid one hand inside of her uniform jacket and slipped it underneath her shirt and stroked the bare skin of her back. With his other hand however, he gently cupped the side of her face and moved it so that he could kiss her, gently at first but it slowly deepened as all of those years of being apart kicked in

Opening her jacket, she felt it slip off her shoulders and hit softly on the wooden deck of the dock. Standing there with her shirt pulled up slightly, his one hand in the small of her back caressing her and then holding her softly by the neck made Anna moan softly. As her hands went to his body, massage his chest through his shirt.

Marcus stopped kissing her long enough to yank his shirt off and toss it over where his jacket was. He then started trailing kisses from her lips up her jaw line to her ear. "I missed you, Anna." he whispered as he pulled her closer to him and resumed the kiss. He simply held her and for the moment that was enough for him but he was torn between wanting to do something and wanting to save it for her

Moving her hands between, she caressed his stomach, as she undone his pants. Pushing them down showed the issued underwear briefs he wore, in black. Looking at him she ran her finger tips over his more defined chest then she remember it being.

Marcus' right eyebrow went up and he felt the sudden urge to return the favor and as such he broke the kiss and slowly pulled her tight rank/department shirt up and over her head and tossed it over his head. Then he gently took his hand and brought it up the left side of her rib cage, feeling the muscles underneath as he did so. His other hand did the same as the left while he gently kissed her neck and collar bone gently.

Slipping out of her pants he sat down on his knees, with her resting now on his lap facing him. Her eyes never left his as she felt his hands trace long the lines of her ribs. "I.. love you.. Marc." She said, smiling as she leaned back some.

Marcus held her close and gently stroked one of her legs then broke the kiss. "I love you Anna, more than anything, I love you." he said softly as he kissed both of her eye-lids. Marcus drew her closer to him and sat her on his lap, "Anna, I've seen all of your dreams and I know you have wings because you are an angel. Do you know how many nights that I've laid helpless in your arms and you are wanted and there is one thing that you can rest assure, that you're the one and that I'm never going to leave, despite Aya's best tries." he said softly while looking into her eyes before leaning up and kissing her gently on the lips

Returning the kiss she reached up and undone his glasses, kissed his face softly as she hend his head in her hands. "Never gave up hope, Marc. Never gave up on us, blinded at times.. hope always remained." She whispered as she back down on the deck, pulling him to rest over her. Trailing her hands down his back, she she let her sore fingers dance on his skin as she just needed him.

Marcus leaned down and kissed her deeply as he slipped his arms underneath her shoulders and held her to him. For several seconds, he was afraid of doing anything else because he was afraid that she would fade away into the ether. He felt a single tear slip out of his eye and onto her face as he kissed her

Reaching down, Anna unclasped her bra in front and felt it open as she felt her flesh touch his. "If.. this.. is a dream... I pray to never wake." Anna whispered as she closed her eyes and arched her back, as a soft moan escaped her lips from his kisses.

Marcus kissed down her neck bone to just above her left breast while one of his hands went down to her waist and rested there

lifting her hips against his, soon she'd helped him get her under wear off until she was nude. As she lifted his face and kissed him. "Let eternity hold us... ...become one in love." She whispered, their bodies held the embrace they'd not shared in a long time. He was the one that broken down the wall she'd built, he was the one that conqured her fears and held her at night when they returned. Marcus was the one person who knew of her past, the struggles she'd dealt with, in the end he was the one that gave her wings to become what at the time only he knew she could become. He was flames, she was month, drawn together because of rythym and reason. Nothing could be said, but the sigh that escaped her lips as she felt one with him was her soul crying out for his.

Marcus stopped long enough to remove his own underwear and her's as well. He moved over her fully and then he pressed forward while he held her close, kissing her deeply. She was the only person that he care about in the universe, for all he cared it could be burned down and rebuilt but as long as Anna was with him that's all that he cared about. He remembered seeing her all of those years ago and spending all of that time with her, having her tear down his own walls that he built up because of his father. He smiled and turned over with her ontop and he gently stroked her back as he looked up, the holographic sun was causing her already irish red hair to become even more fiery. Which caused the image to be burned into his mind because he knew that if he died now, it would be the image that went with him to heaven, a vision of a true goddess.

Time seemed to hold still for them both, when they finally let their bodies speak when their mouths couldn't it spoke nothing but love. Anna smiled at him as he handed her back her shirt, having spent better part of half an hour they both knew they had to get back to work. "Promise me... promise me you'll always love me." Anna said, looked at him before getting dressed.

Marcus gently cupped the side of her face and looked her in the eyes. "Anna, you already know that I promise you that but you also know that I don't plan on leaving anytime soon also, true?" he said as he bent down and kissed her once before he went back to pulling back on his own uniform

She nodded and stood up and finished getting dressed. Zipping up her jacket she looked for the thing she'd clicped her hair up with, having come out somewhere or other. Finding it she put her hair back up into a ponytail and then looked at him and smiled.

"What's the smile for?" Marcus asked as he tucked in the rest of his uniform shirt before he put on his uniform jacket, his own smile not yet fading

"Ella and the others in engineering will be grateful... someone knew for me to bitch at and someone to help me release some stress on. Win win situation for them." She said then smiled as she walked over to him and grabbed his tunic and pulled him closer. "Just so you know, one thing is different about me... I get very possessive... keep it tucked it.." Anna said, then grinned as she kissed him once more.

Marcus smiled and kissed her one more time. When the kiss broke, he looked at her with a smile. "Anna, I want you to take something with you back down planeside okay?" he said

"Sure.. what?" Anna asked, as she looked at him.

Marcus picked up an item that was sitting next to the chair. It was his tool kit that he had on the planet's surface. "I really don't know where my quarters are right now, so Caboose let me use his. But I have something in here that I trust with you to help keep you safe, okay?" Marcus said, holding the kit out to her

"Okay.." Brianna said. Her eyes then looked down at the tool kit.

Marcus opened the took kit up and revealed the standard issue tools, hydrospanner..sonic screwdriver, replacement isoliner chips, emergency beacon, type two "broom handle" phaser, and one piece of non-standard issue equipment-a klingon dagger.

"Klingon dagger?" Anna asked. "How did you get that?" She as she looked up to his face.

"A gift from Chris to his older brother for my birthday after the war ended, he made some crack about people my age needing a good solid back up, that and he felt that it would protect someone important to him being his older brother and all. But I want you to take it, Anna. Hopefully it'll help keep you safe through whatever happens down there on Trill." Marcus said in all seriousness

"I've survived worse things then Trill.. I'll take it though.." She said, as he placed it into her hands. "I should get going, Henderson will be ready shortly. Be careful yourself, okay?" She said, as she backed away and then started up the path to leave.

Marcus nodded and followed her up the path but when they got to where the arch was, he stopped her by gently placing a hand on her shoulder and saying her name softly and gently

Turning she looked at him and smiled. "Remember, just tell Grace.. no one else, not right now." Anna said, then smiled.

"I won't, but I want you to make sure that you're careful. I plan on making up for lost time with you when we have a longer break. Alright?" he said softly as he leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips

"You always did fuss over me to much." She said, grinning she returned the kiss and then turned and headed out of the holodeck. Though with her this time, she was taking the lost part of her with her.

Marcus headed out of the holo-deck and walked with her to the transporter room, discussing duty positions within the engineering department. After he made sure she got beamed down to Trill safely, Marcus went back to Caboose's quarters where the tall marine and the rest of his unit was playing poker. Grace looked up and smiled at him as did Caboose and a couple of the others.

"Well, do I need to lock the two of you in the holo-deck?" Grace asked as she smiled wickedly at him

"That's none of your anything, Waldron. Caboose, I need to borrow your bathroom." Marcus said and the big marine merely smiled and nodded as his friend headed for the sonic shower, once the door was closed Waldron and Caboose shared a smirk. "I hope he's happy, Marcus is scary when he's not happy.." Caboose said while leaning over to talk to Waldron who merely nodded and won her sixth round of poker in a row.

(OOC: Set during the USS DIIS attack on the Galaxy)

"Locard's Exchange"

Location: USS Galaxy (Galaxy-class Explorer)

Theme for this post: "Peacekeeper Ambush" from Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars soundtrack

Principal Characters:

Ensign Marcus Slayton

Engineering Officer, USS Galaxy

Also Featuring:

Ensign Sota, Tactical Systems Engineer-USS Galaxy

Ensign Richard Ringo Langly, Computer Systems Engineer-USS Galaxy

Lieutenant Pindar Danna, Tactical Systems Chief-USS Galaxy

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Main Engineering-Deck 36, USS Galaxy

Marcus had reported in to the Galaxy's Assistant Chief of Engineering in Lieutenant Ella Grey after he grabbed a quick shower and he had just started to realign the power connectors to the phaser cannon when suddenly the entire tactical systems went offline but before he could say anything or do anything the familiar sound of the red alert came through and Airaul Taern called down from the bridge that all hands were to report to battle stations. Marcus walked quickly over to where Lieutenant Pindar Danna was standing, his antenna was twitching something fierce as he muttered a few choice comments under his breath as he tried to bring the offensive and defensive systems back online.

"Langly, have you managed to find out what the hell just happened to our tactical systems yet?" Pindar said as he geastured Slayton over to where the Andorian stood.

"I've got nothing so far, Lieutenant. It appears that someone or something has taken our systems out from somewhere, but I can't figure out where. Ensign Sota has headed up to deck ten in order to check the connections to the phaser power shunts even though the diagnostic systems say that they are fully charged Sota wanted to make sure that no one is onboard there and sending us false signals!" a short human in engineering yellow shouted over the din of the alert klaxion. Marcus finally got over to where Pindar was standing and the andorian brought up a diagnostic view of the ship's systems.

"I'm sorry that this happened on your first day aboard the ship, Mister Slayton, but these are troublesome times that we live in right now. If you can, please take Mister Langly and head to Phaser Cannon Maintence on deck fifthteen and cordinate with Mister Sota and hopefully we can give the Galaxy some of her teeth back. I'll cordinate what happens with you three with Lieutenant Grey." Pindar explained and Marcus only nodded and moved over to where Langly was and then the two moved at a run to the P.C.M which was a good several decks up. On the run there, Langly started to look a little bit panicy.

"What's wrong, Langly? First taste of combat aboard a starship?" Marcus asked hoping to get the younger engineers thoughts of f of the coming battle.

"Yes, I'm still kind of new to being in space. I mean I graduated from the academy and everything but all of that preperation still doesn't prepare anyone for this." Langly said as he tried to keep pace with the taller engineer who smiled back at him. Not a sarcastic kind of smile but a reassuring one.

"Langly, you've got nothing to worry about. This is nothing, you should've seen some of the things that I had to do just to help keep the Hiroshima up and running during the war. Now that was scary!" Marcus said with a smile as he tried to reassure the young man. "Trust me on this, you'll do fine and we'll make it out of this in one piece." Marcus finished with a more serious tone but inside his own thoughts, he was scared. The scars of what he'd seen in the Dominion War was still fresh in his mind, at least this wasn't another Chin'toka.

The two eventually found themselves on deck 15 where the P.C.M was and they started working on the systems there. As per standard percedure now following the war, a mixed Hazard Team/Marine Squad stood near one of the more critical system junctions. Marcus noted with some abjectivity that Caboose and Waldron was there, rifles at the ready. Marcus went over to the primary status board and noticed right off the back that there was something blocking the primary ISP/DIT feed to the power converters.

"Langly, I want you to goto the secondary status board and go through the sub-routines until you find one that shows the secondary converter feeds and tell me what you see. I'll guide you from there." Marcus said, his voice and mind focused on the matter at hand. He quickly tagged his comm-badge. "Slayton to Danna, me and Langly are at Phaser Cannon Maintence and we're going through the systems. Apparentally someone has got a block on the ISP/DIT feed for one, whoever did this had command level access to the systems, sir." Marcus said as he worked on the status board.

"Understood, Mister Slayton" Danna's voice came back through, sounding equal parts concerned and angered, "Do what you can and I'll make sure that you get updates on what we find and you do the same. Danna out!" and then the connection closed, leaving the two ensigns to go about their duties.

<To be continued in "THE VASTRU ENCOUNTER">

"Racing Apocalypse" - Part 1

Commander Cass Henderson, Executive Officer

Lt. Commander Brianna O'Shea, Chief Engineer/SFCE Liaison

Lieutenant JG Chase Remur, Chief Tactical Computer Specialist

Lieutenant JG Walter Marsh, Combat Expert

****

Airlock,
USS Akula,
Trill Symbiosis Commission

Cass glared at the airlock, unsure if it was going to ever cycle and allow his insertion team entry.  As much as the pixyish young woman, currently fiddling with the external access panel in the airlock frame, reassured him that she'd have it open in a minute, he was unrelieved.  With the countdown clock at one hour and forty-five minutes, Cass wasn't one for dallying.

Amazingly, the Trill Symbiosis Commission and it's Guardians had chosen not to make any attempt to evacuate the caves, instead trusting in Starfleet to save them.  Personally, Cass was of the opinion that they were foolish, if ballsy. He eyed Chase Remur's back impatiently.  Every minute that this door held them up was another minute taken away from the chances of continued life for Trill society.

"There, we're in," Remur grinned as stood, the airlock sliding away behind her. The tall, skinny colonial woman took a large degree of pride in her work. For a system more damaged than any she had previously encountered, that had been a miraculously short job.

"Good.  You all know your jobs, but I'm going to reiterate one more time, for my own sake," Cass said as the team gathered up their things.  With 'Commander O'Shea in the lead, Remur and Marsh for their expertise with computers and explosives respectively, and the manpower of six engineers, Cass was pretty sure that if the job could be done, they'd manage it.

"You're to enter the vessel, head directly to the main computer core, and hack into the self destruct to disable it.  Failing that, you're to disable the self destruct by any means necessary, up to and including tearing the relays out from around the core to prevent the transmission of the command," Henderson laid out the plan.  "Nobody sets off an explosive that isn't cleared with both O'Shea and Marsh.  If this ship collapses onto the Symbiosis Commission or the Caves, then we might as well have let it explode.  Good luck in there."

He nodded to the assembled team, then tapped his commbadge.  "Henderson to bridge.  One to beam back."  He disappeared in a shimmering light, off to coordinate another part of the relief operations.

Anna looked at Remur and Marsh. "Gentlemen, lets do it." She said, motioning for Remur to take point. She stepped out after him and Marsh coming in behind her. Pulling her tricorder. "Something on this ship is playing havoc with my tricorder. Can either of you confirm that, or did I break mine?" Anna said, as they walked.

Marsh made a brief, cursory scan of the area with his tricorder. It too was showing static. "I can confirm this, Ma'am. Can't identify it though. We should be able to make our way to the core without too much difficulty. And if there are surprises... I can spot them."

Lt. Marsh shouldered his backpack, filled with the explosives he needed to blow the core. There wasn't much by his standards, and most of them were pretty simple. But Marsh only needed to detonate key parts of the computer core, not set booby traps for a squad of Jem'Hadar troops. A little drop would do when a whole bucketful of whoop-ass was, needless to say, more than sufficient.

It seemed odd to be away from his security mates. Marsh was a combat veteran who was used to being alone, but outside his own 'people' he felt nervous and more accountable. New people were less likely to watch each other's backs.

But he was close by, he knew explosives, he was part of the security detail protecting the crash site. Convenient.

~"Does anyone know that i'm only 'rated' to do some demolition work?"~ He pondered to himself. Marsh was handy with traps and explosives... on the battlefield. His specialty was that of a swamp rat, sneaking around, laying the traps, getting the kills. He never surgically trashed a computer core before. ~"I hope I don't screw up."~ He added, wishing he was doing riot control work with Lieutenant E'xch and O'Rourke, or at least up on the ship like Lieutenant T'lan.

Not only did the lack of ship demolitions experience hamper Marsh's confidence, seeing the ship's second in command vanishing in a beam of light instead of taking the risks with the team didn't bode well.

But Marsh didn't want to dwell too much on that. He had a job to do.

Chase Remur wasn't rated with explosives.  Otherwise, she would have done the job herself.  But she was trained in computer systems, and could guide Marsh in placing the charges.  Between the two of them, Chase was certain that they could get the job done.

She flicked the headlight on her phaser rifle to the 'on' setting and stepped through the airlock.  Shining her light around briefly, she was unsurprised by the amount of damage that had been done to the Akula during the crash.  The once proud ship's insides had been torn and shuffled upside down as it had ground to a halt on the ground.

Remur grimaced.  She was adjusting to Hazard Team missions, but climbing around in an upside down starship was a little more than they'd done so far. Even more physically demanding than the insertion into the Hydran/T'Kith'Kin station at Havras.

When Marsh stepped through after her, she moved over to her fellow Hazard. "Walter," she whispered to get his attention.  She'd noticed his discomfort and guessed what was going through Marsh's mind.  Marsh, while the de facto demolitions guy for the Hazards, wasn't exactly an expert onboard ship. "Don't sweat it, friend.  We've got this one.  I'll point, you place."

Marsh nodded his head, shaking a can from his belt, "Let me know where, and I'll add the whipped topping and detonators."

"Sure thing," she nodded.  "Now let's concentrate on getting there.  We're going to need to go down to the lift tube at the hall and climb it up two decks." She began to slowly move forward.  "All clear so far.  Bring on the engineers."

Reaching up Anna tapped her commbadge. "O'Shea to Beta Team... move in... do not come any farther then my present location.."

"Understood."

"Keep me apprised of what you find... O'Shea out." She said, tapping her commbadge to end the communication. Looking at Remur and Marsh. Hearing Marsh she nodded. "I can get the doors open, someone make ready with grapple and rope." Anna said, as they moved down the corridor and stopped at the turbolift. Pulling several things from her belt, it didn't take her long and she had the door opened, then side stepped and knelt down to put her things back in her tool kit.

Chase stood to the side with her rifle ready, and once the door was opened, she ducked into the empty shaft and quickly performed a visual search, drawing the light projected from the rifle's headlamp across the entirety of the tunnel. "It's clear.  Marsh, you're up."

She stepped aside to let the superior marksman throw the grapple.

Marsh was easily an expert with the grapple. The rope and hook swung in a rapid circle to his side, spinning like a top until the blur came almost invisible. Then he released, the grapple flying in a magnificent arc. Landing with a clang and scrape of dirt and metal, he dragged the grapple until it stuck. An experimental pull later, he nodded his head. It grappled to his approval.

Once the rope was pulled taut, Remur shouldered her rifle and began to scramble up it.  Thankfully, most of the ladder that ran along the wall was intact, and she could use that, but in two places, she had to haul herself up with the rope.  Stepping out, she swept her light across the hall, then called back down.  "It's safe.  Come on up."

"Of course it is, sir." Marsh scrabbled up the rope, quicker than anyone, "I made it."

****

Computer Core,
USS Akula,
Trill Symbiosis Commission

Forty-five minutes later, after much crawling through upside down Jeffries tubes, they arrived at the computer core of the USS Akula.  It took Chase a few minutes to reroute the system to allow them entry.  Many of the Akula's command codes had been chained and reprogrammed, but whoever had done the job didn't have quite the level of expertise that she did.

Stepping into the ruined room, Remur scowled.  "This is no good.  This room is too pristine, too untouched.  Somebody reinforced this room to survive the crash.  She carefully looked down at her feet, then stepped inside.  "I don't see anything dangerous.  Marsh?"

"Hmmm..." Marsh surveyed the room with his eyes, then his tricorder. The tricorder was still showing fuzz, so Marsh slid it back into his belt, "One entrance, closed off everywhere else. Easy ambush position. They could trap us like rats and we wouldn't know until its too late. Other than that... I'll have to look deeper. Excuse me." Marsh bowed out, walking off to inspect for traps.

Stepping into the room 'Commander O'Shea looked around. "Looks like they did reinforce this room. Someone has added some plating to the bulkheads." She said, looking over at the walls. Pulling her tricorder, "I'm still getting nothing, even worse in this room then it was earlier." She said. "Something in this room might be causing the distortion." The Irish woman said as she looked around.

"We need to check the consoles out. My thinking is if they've modified this room, then they've modified the consoles. Quicker we know what we are looking for the quicker we can try to stop the count down." Anna said as she looked at the others. "I'll start over here... remember, take it easy. We don't have tricorders to assist us." Anna said, kindly as she moved over toward the console.

Kneeling down opened up her tool kit to began to remove the panel. Pulling her tricorder again, she sighed. "Really wished these things would work." She said, as she laid it down and looked up. Just as she put her hands on the bars to pull the panel off, something hit her with a current of raw energy. Screaming, Anna and the panel was sent flying through the air and a small explosion rocked the room.

Anna slammed into the far bulkhead and crashed onto the floor. Her hands was black, head had a gaping wound and blood was coming from her side. She'd been stabbed by something going into her back. Her body laid there still, if the others didn't move quickly and began CPR her heart wasn't going to start after the jolt she took.

“Forced Allegiances”

Outskirts of Ki Baritan, Rihannsu capital city, ch'Rihan

The sleek personal shuttle silently descended on the impoverished slums built around the magnificent capital of Romulus. This was no ordinary shuttle – it was an unmarked government shuttle, and more than that: it was the personal shuttle of the proconsul.

General Omar stepped out of the stationary craft and sighed. He had just stepped off the shuttle’s loading ramp and into a muddy puddle, and his impeccably polished military boots were now stained with all kinds of repulsive slime.

Signalling for his bodyguards to remain onboard, the proconsul pulled on his overcoat as a protection against the bitter wind that was making its way through this despicable alley. Silently, he made his way to a grime-covered apartment building. Stepping inside, he made his way up to the top floor.

Senator tr'Khudrae, a wreck of a man, was crouched in his apartment. His dirty overalls were a far cry from the impeccable senatorial robes he had worn mere weeks ago. Before information had leaked out into the public about his affiliations with a certain Reman woman, and his overt attempts to assassinate another senator.

Omar stepped in, looking at the crouched figure of tr'Khudrae with nothing less than pure contempt. The two men had been friends and associates a long time, but the proconsul could not disguise his disgust at the way the former senator was living.

“Proconsul,” tr'Khudrae stood up with surprise. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

“Tr’Khudrae,” Omar said. “I need a favour.”

“What kind of favour?”

“A sizeable one. One of my agents, Atole Tekri, requires permission to board a certain Federation ship, called the Galaxy. For personal reasons. However, she has a past history there and it doesn’t look hopeful.”

“Fortunately,” the general continued quickly, not allowing tr'Khudrae to interrupt. “I have the ear of one or two people in the Federation Council. They’ve agreed to send a diplomat to Romulus to negotiate.”

“And?” asked the dirty, greasy former senator.

“Well, you were a top interstellar lawyer and treaty negotiator before you became a senator. I need you to argue our case.” It was an order, not a request.

“What?” demanded tr'Khudrae in outrage. “I refuse to be your pawn, old friend, and help one of your Tal Shiar cronies on their mission. I don’t have to do anything you say. Suppose I just tell the public about how you and me were heavily involved in business dealings, especially the ones concerning the Tal Shiar blunders. How would you like that?”

At this, Omar laughed heartily. He continued for a few seconds, while tr'Khudrae stared in mild confusion.

“Very well,” the general said. “Suppose you tell the authorities. They won’t believe you, and how long can you live in this hnaev of a place?” Omar kicked the crumbling wall, and a cloud of dust dispersed around the apartment.

“Let us look at the facts,” Omar continued. “You have been found guilty of consorting with a Reman woman and of blatantly attempting to kill another senator. Your villa has been seized by the Imperial Guard on the order of the Praetor and you have fled the city.”

“But your villa doesn’t matter that much now,” the proconsul harshly continued. “Because I own it. Remember – you borrowed large sums of money from me to finance those assassination attempts and smear campaigns, and now you’ve been stripped of the rank of senator, you have no way of paying me back. I own everything you have, and I own you.”

Now tr'Khudrae was silent, and Omar knew he had him.

“So,” Omar went on. “If you agree to help me, I will persuade the Praetor to remove the soldiers from your villa, and I myself will allow you to keep it. You will return to the city, not as a senator but as a minor government official. However, your wealth will be intact.”

“And all you have to do is help me secretly,” Omar finished.

Glumly, tr'Khudrae nodded. As they left the slums and climbed into Omar’s personal transport, the proconsul reflected on his situation. Tekri had blackmailed him, and he in turn had been forced to blackmail tr'Khudrae. It was a vicious cycle, and now forced allegiances were the result.

"Unsanity in the Stars"

8-ball Hunter

(takes place after 'my Not Quite Done Yet' and right before 'Revenge of the Toilet Paper!'

8-ball had been expecting a lot of annoying comments from Azra the moment they got on board the Galaxy. Lots of "Wow, look at this little rinkadink ship" or "If I was flying a starship, it'd be waay cooler than this" or "Jeez, how did you get a job on this floating tub?". Surprisingly, however, none of that happened. Both Azra and Kaden's mouths were open just a little wide as they walked silently down a corridor of the ship. 8-ball supposed they had never been on a starship before, and was glad. She could use the peace and quiet.

It lasted two minutes.

"This is a neat ship!" Kaden said, a bright, wide smile on his face. "Can I meet the Captain?"

"No," 8-ball said shortly. "The Captain's busy."

"But I want to meet the Captain!"

"I don't want to meet the Captain," Azra interrupted before 8-ball could shake her head at the little boy. "I want to see engineering. That's where all the real action goes on."

"I'm not taking you to engineering," 8-ball said, though for a moment it was tempting. She thought she could maybe dump the kids off with Ella and run away before anyone noticed. Ella would kill her later, but wouldn't it be worth it? 8-ball thought it might. Still. . . "You can't just take kids to engineering. It's a serious place." Well, it probably was. 8-ball didn't know. She didn't actually work in that department. But they all probably took themselves very seriously.

"But I wanna look at the warp coil! Pleeeeease, 8-ball! Pleeeeease!"

"Not a chance," 8-ball said flatly. "Do you have any idea what the engineers would do to me if let a bunch of children run loose in their workspace? Homicide doesn't cover it. Crucifixation is much more likely."

Azra rolled her eyes. "We aren't a bunch of children," she protested. "There's only two of us. And they aren't going to murder you for showing us the place. At most, they'd just court martial you."

"Oh, and that sounds so much fun," 8-ball said sarcastically. "No offense, kids, but I'm not getting crucified or court martialed for you. I'm just not that nice. Now, let's go do something that's not going to get me into trouble."

"Like what?" Azra asked.

"Well, we could go to the holodeck. . ."

"Ooh, can we do one of those Klingon training duel things with bat'leths? I knew a kid once whose parents owned a bat'leth and it was wicked cool!"

"On second thought," 8-ball said, "let's not go to the holodeck."

"We don't get to do anything fun!" Azra complained, and Kaden looked like he was about ready to start crying. . .again. 8-ball thought maybe a fight with the bat'leth would be a fun thing to do. She probably couldn't morally chop up the little kids for being annoying, but maybe they could stab her a couple of times and end this misery that was her life.

~More likely than not, they wouldn't hit anything fatal and would just complain that you were boring as you slowly bled to death~ 8-ball thought sourly, and tried desperately to come up with some kind of solution that kept both the children somehow happy and 8-ball's head firmly on her neck. What could they possibly do that wouldn't tear the whole ship apart? What did kids like besides torture, screaming, and. . .

8-ball smiled. "Hey," she said, "you guys like ice cream, right?"

"Ice cream!" Kaden said happily. 8-ball didn't know if Trill children were accustomed to ice cream or if a space travelling friend had brought Azra and Kaden some before; ultimately, she didn't care. All kids liked ice cream. It was a universal fact.

"I don't like ice cream," Azra said, and 8-ball groaned.

"How can you NOT like ice cream?" she asked, exasperated. "Everybody likes ice cream; it's like a universal delicacy. You obviously just haven't tried the right flavor yet. We'll find you something you like."

Kaden was instantly grinning again, his unhappiness forgotten in a moment. Azra, however, was still frowning. "I'm not dumb, you know," she said to 8-ball. "You can't buy me off with sweet stuff just because I'm a kid."

8-ball sighed. Where did this girl GET this stuff? "Azra," she said, "I'm not trying to buy you off, earn your trust, or be your friend. All I'm trying to do is find a little peace of mind and right now chocolate sounds very, very appealing. If we can all just gorge on something that is thoroughly bad for our waistlines and our teeth and somehow not get into immense trouble for it or try to rip each other's hair out, I'm going to be a very happy little ensign, and I try to be as happy as I possibly can. Now, do you want to go eat something that's very unhealthy and possibly even have a little fun, or would you rather go sit in my quarters and play with my teddy bear because nothing else in my room is exciting."

Azra stayed silent for a while. 8-ball waited. Finally, Azra said, "I guess ice cream's okay."

"Thank God," 8-ball said with evident relief. "Let's go to the mess."

Azra smiled suddenly. "You have a teddy bear? Wow, I haven't had a teddy bear since I was Kaden's age. You're not very mature, are you?"

8-ball gritted her teeth.

****

Five minutes later, 8-ball, Kaden, and Azra were almost to the messhall when 8-ball finally exploded at Azra.

"I mean, really, teddy bears are so---"

"Azra! Look, you, I happen to like my teddy bear. His name is Eptgac; he's very good for the therapuetic process. If having him means that I'm not very mature, I'm pretty sure that somehow I'll manage to live with that."

"Eepgick?" Kaden asked, confused.

"Eptgac," 8-ball repeated.

"What kind of a name is Eptgac?" Azra asked.

"It's an acronym," 8-ball explained. "It's short for Evil PlayThing Given by the AntiChrist."

"You're not very normal, are you?"

"No," 8-ball said. "I'm not very normal. I am, in fact, decidely unnormal, uninspiring, and unsane, and yes, unsane is a word because I'm making it one now. Look, Azra, all we need to do is get along with each other for just a little longer until everything is worked out on Trill, and then you won't have to put up with me any longer, I swear. But for now, for the love of God and my fading sanity alike, can we please, PLEASE just get to the messhall and eat some ice cream? PLEASE?"

"Ice cream!" Kaden said again, less interested in 8-ball's rant than in his desire for some chocolatey goodness. 8-ball sighed.

"Yes, Kaden, ice cream. And with any luck, the social worker people on your planet will contact me, everything will be straightened out, and everyone will live happily ever after until the end of their days, riding horses and having babies and doing all sorts of fun happy things. With any luck, everything is going to be just fine!"

It was at this exact moment that 8-ball felt the phasers of the USS DIIS strike the Galaxy, hard. 8-ball and Azra both flew into the corridor wall, and 8-ball only just manged to catch Kaden in her arms.

"What the FUCK was that?" she said, and then tried to balance as the ship was struck again.

"Mommy says 'fuck' is a bad word," Kaden said solemnly, and abruptly burst into tears.

"What's going on?" Azra asked, looking wildly around as if she could see what was hitting the ship. "8-ball? What's happening? Is someone attacking us? 8-ball?"

8-ball shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "But we've got to get you two somewhere safe." Another impact made 8-ball's head hit painfully against the wall. "Good God," she muttered to herself. "What ELSE can go wrong?"

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