"Memories"

Colonel For'kel Arvelion- SFMC
Commanding Officer
188th Starfleet Marines Detachment
========================================

(Arvelion Quarters)

The Operations Department on the Galaxy had been 'very' accommodating, and for that he had nothing but praise and the deepest, heart felt thanks. For'kel hadn't had much time as of late to worry about this... most depressing of rituals. The fact of the matter was that without his wife, and his son being cared for by his parents back on Al'Klei'sh, there simply was no point in having the family sized Quarters he'd called home since transferring from the Miranda.

So on the coffee table at which he and Berilyn had shared so many lunches, dinners, deserts, and simple moments of relaxation, now rested a tomb-like crate for personal belongings. Most of 'his' belongings were already transferred, but he'd been delaying 'this' moment all he could. He would need all his digits just to count how many days the mere thought of having to do this brought tears to his eyes... and Prophets willing he never would have to. Some things, particularly mourning, were best done in private, and shouldn't be recounted for the benefit of others save in very rare circumstances.

He stated down at the black composite box in a moment of prayerful silence. In gold writing on the small LCARS placard in the center of the top were the words 'Personal Effects: Chief Petty Officer Berilyn Suum-Arvelion.' The next line listed Fork as the next of kin, and the address of what 'would' have been their house on Al'Klei'sh as the destination. There was the encoding information necessary for customs transfer and final delivery, complete with an accepted 'taker's' ID number. So many serial numbers... it seemed such a shame that in the end, that was all the people who handled this most precious of packages would see her... see his wife, as.

He unlocked the magnetic clasps, let the crate top swing open, and breathed a heavy sigh as he steeled himself for the task at hand.

Every item he stowed, he did so with a ceremonial reverence. Each one brought back memories... from her favorite set of satin sheeting she deemed useable in only 'certain' circumstances, to the pillows that weren't supposed to ever be used.
===============================================

(Arvelion Quarters- USS Miranda NCC 77000-B, Approximately 18 months ago)

"For'kel Cor'dat Arvelion, don't you 'dare' use those pillows!" His long-time lover, and newly minted wife demanded, storming out of the bedroom stark naked when she realized what he was up to.

Fork blinked. Ut-oh, she used the dreaded middle name. He was in trouble for something now, and like men of all di-sexual species out there, he had no freaking clue as to why. "You said you wanted more pillows."

"Yes, but not 'those' pillows." She sighed... men.

"Why not 'these' pillows?"

"Because those pillows are for the sofa, they're decorative." She explained indignantly.

"Come again?" The befuddled Stagnorian perked a brow.

"They are DEC-OR-A-TIVE." She sounded out like they were playing some kind of 24th Century adult version of Hooked on Phonics.

"SOR-RY." Fork smirked.

"What's with that smirk?" Berilyn returned one of her own.

"Guess it's just beyond me to understand why it is we wasted time replicating pillows we're not going to use."

"What do you 'mean' waste of time?"

Why is it women always felt compelled to ask what it was you meant when, you knew for a fact, you were speaking perfectly clear Federation standard? Sometimes it seemed like guys and gals just thought on completely different wave-lengths. "What do you 'think' I mean?"

Berilyn 'hrmphed' at that comment. She crossed her arms over her bare chest, walked over to the sofa, plucked one of the subjects of the moment up, and showing off that Miranda Softball league's arm she had, chucked the damn thing at a ludicrous speed given how close they were, at her husband.

"Ow, you hit me!" He said 'ow' more out of surprise than actual pain, but in her defense it really was thrown really hard.

"Damn straight I did!" She stuck her tongue out.

Fork smirked, grabbed another pillow, and showing off that expert grenade throwing arm of his, slung a pillow back at his wife.

It hit her dead in the chest, and she fell back onto the sofa, likewise in surprise, and with a very mockingly displeased look on her face. "You can't hit me, I'm a girl!"

"Sometimes I wonder." Fork crossed his arms.

Growling, Berilyn picked up another of the sacred pillows and started swinging away. Naturally Fork followed suit, picking up a pillow himself and swinging back. The growling turned into shrieking, and laughing, and in the end Fork managed to pin her down. She giggled when he kissed her neck, and gave him one last, coy 'bop' with the pillow. Realizing she was beaten, she wrapped her arms around his neck and made herself far more comfortable... and that became the absolute most awesome pillow fight ever bar none, period.
=======================================================================

There were already tears in his eyes when he rested the two 'decorative' pillows they opted to save as one of a museum's worth of small momentos they'd accumulated during their prolonged suitor periods, and all too short marriage. He placed her precious, bound versions of books next... they were a rare find in the digital age, but Bery always had a thirst for literature, and the experience of reading a paper book to her was much like the difference between high-class wines for a wine connoisseur. In there lightly frayed, gold-leaf edges was a number of memories he had... and he stared at the collection of leather covered volumes before him as if reading a story on his own.

=======================================================================

(Arboretum- USS Miranda NCC 77000-A Approximately 12 Years Prior)

And there she was... the most stunning creature in all of existence, sitting on a decorative stump under the well-trimmed branches of a weeping-willow tree, cultured to remain small enough that deck space did not become a problem... though on the massive Jupiter Class starships space was seldom an issue. He felt fortunate being an engineer on a ship like this... even 'more' fortunate to be able to admire the beauty of one particular transporter technician who most certainly had to be the most incredibly gorgeous woman ever to wear the uniform. Fork was normally careful about using terms that were so absolute in their nature, but in this case it was definitely well warranted.

"Wow... she 'is' hot." A newly minted 2nd Lieutenant Cougar Johnson murmured, sliding some of the hedges behind which they were, for whatever reason, hiding. "You weren't lying. I think I'm in love."

"Tell me about it." Fork replied before realizing what Cougar just said. He then turned back to the dark skinned Terran Ranger. "How could you 'possibly' be in love when you haven't even talked to her yet?"

"I don't need to talk to her, she has blonde hair." Cougar practically licked his lips.

"What does 'that' have to do with anything?!" Fork chastized is a shushed tone.

"She could give me a dozen blonde haired children!" Cougar retorted, the young man rather misguidedly looking for a wife rather than a girlfriend. Love didn't matter after all, what they needed to win the war was a new generation of blonde-haired Cougars!

"Cougar... you're dark haired." Fork pointed out.

"Yeah, and?"

"Your parents are dark haired too. Blonde hair is a recessive trait, and you don't carry the appropriate genetic make up." The Stagnorian rolled his eyes, he couldn't believe he had to explain something so simple. "The only way you'd get blonde haired children is through genetic engineering... or bottle coloring."

"Hmmm, you have a good point there, Ensign." Cougar smiled wickedly. "But your Mom has blonde hair."

"Yeah, and...?"

"Good luck, mate!" Cougar gave the Stagnorian a hearty push through the hedge, and Fork stumbled out barely able to stop himself from falling. "Do me proud!" Cougar whispered aloud.

The Stagnorian muttered several swears before noticing Bery's eyes on him. Rather instantly his cheeks went cherry red, and he found himself looking for pockets to shove his hands in to.

"Hey there." Bery grinned, letting down her leather bound copy of Skur'al's 'Animalistic Passions', a pre-Surak Vulcan read that was a commentary on Vulcan society at the time. "Pleasure to see you again, Fork! Come here often?"

"Yeah." The rather bashful Engineer chuckled, surprised that she even remembered his name. "What're you reading?"

"This thing?" Bery asked, raising the book cover. "You'd be surprised just how emotional Vulcans were prior to Surak. Did you know that..."

Ofcourse he didn't know, but that didn't stop him from nodding as her lips shot out words. Enamored was the word of the day.

"Great, I'll see you at my place, I have the night shift this week so we'll have to make it breakfast. See you tomorrow, 07:00!" The excited Trill kissed his cheek before, like one might imagine the beauties of the ancient Greek mythological 'Elusian Fields', pranced away for the arboretum doors, being joined in flight by one of her girlfriends. They both giggled, looked over their shoulders, gave finger-waves, and headed for the door. Fork barely had time to return the gesture before they disappeared.

And that's when his 'own' wingman finally decided to join him. "Dude, that was fucking awesome! Congratulations man!" Cougar slapped the Stagnorian on his back in a hearty congrat. "So tell me what happened!"

Fork, still stunned, blinked a couple of times before the words "I'm not sure I know." managed to jump from his lips. "Let's go to the lounge... I think I need a drink."
==============================================================

Her wedding dress was already at their home on Al'Klei'sh, so he was fortunate in so far as he didn't have to worry about packing that away. He batted at the tears rolling down his cheeks with the back of his hand. He placed her various 'knick-knacks' that she loved to adorn their quarters with next, including but not limited to glass figurines in their boxes, her private photographs, small paintings, the un-published poems she was annually considering trying to have published... their holodeck vacation programs that they loved to run off for on weekends when their schedules permitted, her private journals and music selections, the piano books she rarely used for her own instrumental practices... with every item he added it became more and more apparent that, as horrid as the loss of a wife was, he'd lost 'much' more than just a wife.

He'd lost his best friend.

He'd lost a dancing partner.

He'd lost his closest confidant.

He'd lost the mother of his children.

He'd lost the only woman he ever really loved.

He'd lost a chance for a 'lifetime' of memories left unmade.

He'd lost the most significant, the best, part of his life, period.

And what was more, the entire universe had missed out on one of the few that made life 'better'.

Revenge was bad policy he reminded himself. It was what he was taught when he grew up. But not for the first time, in a brief moment of weakness, he seriously considered revising that long standing personal policy.

Finally he began putting away her clothing and jewelry. She had amassed several beautiful examples of craftmanship in a number of precious metals, gemstones, and jewels, but not one of them ever came close to matching the beauty of the woman who possessed them. They could really only hope to accent what was already there. He put them in the good sized cherry-wood jewelry box he made for her by hand.

The last thing he put away was the infamous 'Martian Marvels' baseball jersey. He couldn't help but feel her body in his mind by touching the fabric... the forty some-odd credits they blew on the Martian Marvels- Lunar Ticks baseball game when the Miranda was at Sol, parked in the stands, eating hot dogs, pounding back Pepsi and beer, wearing ball caps and screaming at the top of their lungs when the Marvels loaded the bases in the bottom of the 9th, down by 2 with 2 out. One would never have guessed that just an hour earlier they were at a Classical concert at the Lincoln Center in New York. It was the clash of social worlds they loved exploring together, concert goer to 'cheap seats' occupier.

The Marvels one that game when Sal 'Salsa' Hernandez doubled home two runs on a 2-2 count, and Earl "Quick-E" Brett went into the record books for the first successful steal of home recorded in a century. The Marvels gave them a happy ending to a night out, and the night in was even better.

He folded the jersey like one might expect a Marine color guard to handle the Federation colors, and as if it was Berilyn, laid it to rest carefully atop everything else. It was really amazing just how everything in your life could fit into one crate. He slowly locked the top of the crate down, keying in the security code, and sending notice to Ops that it was ready for shipping. He took one last look around... although he hadn't been on the Galaxy for long before Berilyn went missing, she made the room feel like home. It was tough to leave, or even stand looking at the Starfleet regulation furnishings which now occupied the place.

It was amazing just how one's life could fit in a tomb like box. He kissed the top of the crate, a last goodbye to her, the best he could do.

"Gizmos"

Starring

Saiyk -Planetary Sciences

Miguel Mandoval- Chief of Botany department

For a Vulcan, Saiyk was frankly shocked.

"A Viewmaster 9000?" he repeated although there was nothing wrong with his hearing the first time around.

"Yup." confirmed the lab technician with a smug smile. "Hot off the delivery shuttle from Tellar.....hand crafted

precision tuning knobs.....High definition liquid crystal view screens and an optional 3 year warrantee and service plan."

He patted the microscope lovingly. "It dont get any better than this my friend."

Saiyk was virtually jumping up and down inside despite his cool demeanor. "Indeed it does not get better than this." he

replied, restraining the urge to reach out and lovingly caress the instrument.
"Even the science labs back in the Academy do not have a Viewmaster 9000.....how was this accomplished?"

The Tech, Crewman Orloff, motioned the Vulcan to lean forward and replied in low conspiratorial tones.
"Thank the boss for this particular gem. Seems that Lt Kara'nin is somewhat.....eccentric in his social interactions,

despite the brilliance of his work right?"

"Well..." he continued, "Seems that ever since the days of Einstein the scientific community has a thing for strange

behavior

in its genius's so the Viewmaster Corporation sent this little puppy along as a sort of promotional device."

Despite the cliche', Saiyk could see the logic of it.

Ever since he read the article on the Viewmaster 9000 last year in POPULAR QUANTUM-MECHANICS, he....and every other

scientist in the Federation had been aching to get their little latex-gloved fingers on one of the microscopes.

He took a step back to take it all in.

The device was two meters and 300kg of pure metallic white scientific wonder.

Even if most of the practical functions was outside his specialty areas of planetary formation and vulcanology, there

remained....an admissibly illogical.....desire in every scientist to put things under a microscope just to see what they

looked like.

Saiyk restrained a sigh. his logic was imperfect at best, however he did try hard to keep up appearances.

Orloff....clearly proud of his new toy, buffed off an imaginary speck of dust from the focus knobs.

Saiyk opened his mouth to ask another question but was interrupted by the hissing of a door from behind him.

"Where is it? Somebody said we have a Viewmaster....MADRE DE DIOS!! Es Verdad!"

Miguel Sandoval pulled up short just beside Saiyk in openmouthed wonder. "Its true si?" he repeated in amazement.

"Indeed." Saiyk confirmed with a nod.

Orloff only beamed further...clearly enjoying the attention.

"The viewscreen?"

"Liquid crystal."

"Ah si....and the resolution.....string level?"

Both scientists sighed a happy sigh.

String level resolution. The fabled basic particle......one dimensional matter strings that formed the basis of the

entire universe was at last within reach.....at least according to the packaging insert.

"I wonder what a flower petal will look like under it?" mused Miguel the botanist, while the Vulcanologist raised a

similar query regarding lava samples.

Orloff the tech chuckled. "They'd look the same." he smiled. "On the string level all matter is essentially the

same.....organic...mineral.....everything."

"Still to actually see it." Miguel gingerly stroked the instrument panel in a manner Saiyk wished he could. "To actually

see all the way down...."

Saiyk could only nod. "Unprecedented." he agreed. "We stand at last on the Final Frontier of the infinitely small."

Miguel sighed. "There's only one thing left to do ."

"Indeed?" the Vulcan asked, "And what is that?"

The botanist gave an evil grin and brandished a pencil. "Sign up for time slots before the rest of the science department

gets a chance to hog it si?"

There was only the briefest of delays before Saiyk too was hunting for a pen."

"Greased Lightning"

Lt. JG Ophelia Zamora
JAG

PO2 Benedict Maxwell, APP
NCOIC EMRT

Main Sickbay

==================
Wincing, the pain shot up through her ankle as Ophelia limped into sickbay. She didn't know exactly what was injured, just that something around the general area of her left ankle hurt. Another thing to get used to was that Logan was not exactly the neat freak that Ophelia was. It was the second time she stepped on one of his metal trains, but this time the wheels on the train where in the correct position to roll and took her foot along with it.
Locating the nearest chair, she sat with a pathetic look etched upon her features.

The doors to Sickbay opened to reveal an NCO in a duty vest wearing medical teal underneath. He was carrying a helmet which was clearly part of a Hazard suit. Max smiled at the JAG seated in the waiting area. "You look like you just lost your best friend," he started.

"That's if I had a best friend." She retorted with a pained grin. "Kidding.....I did something to my ankle. I don't suppose you could help me?"

Grinning himself, Max replied, "Sure, lemme put this headpiece away and grab a Med-Tricorder." He entered the treatment area and put his helmet aside under a table, then shortly returned with the scanner. "You'll have to excuse me," Max apologized. "I was in the Holodeck doing a little training. Left ankle, huh? Yeah, already looks a bit swollen," he added as he took off Ophelia's boot.

"Yeap...." She stated shortly. At this point, several thoughts popped into Ophelia's mind. What socks did she wear today and more importantly, did they match? Nail polish? She prayed it wasn't chipped. And then...the dreaded sweaty foot problem. Rolling her eyes and her head upwards, she groaned in pain at the unanswered questions. Why she worried about the small stuff, she would never know. "How's it look?"

Finishing a quick sweep with his tricorder the Medic replied, "Well it's not broken, but you do have a good enough sprain to have you hopping for a day or two. I'll help you inside to an exam bed and give you a treatment or two."

"Then what?" She retorted in true Ophelia fashion.

"I'm glad you asked. We're going to give you an anti-inflammatory to reduce the swelling, an analgesic to reduce the pain, and some tissue regeneration to help along the healing process. You'll be fine in about-" quick math being done in Max's head "-twenty minutes, M-kay?"

At the sound of the medical terminology, she turned a slight shade of green. "Like I have a choice." She muttered with a half snicker. "Sorry, it's been a hell of a day around the ole legal department."

"Is that how you hurt your ankle?" Max inquired. "Someone tossed a gavel at you and aimed too low?" He could never resist sarcasm. They made their way to the exam table and Max motioned for her to have a seat after he lowered the table to an acceptable height.

"Sarcasm becomes you. No. My son left a toy train out and I took a ride."

A sad smile crossed Max's face for an instant, then he was a professional again. "Kids, despite everything, you've gotta love 'em." He was moving quickly, loading up the multi-dose hypospray with the anti-inflammatory and pain reliever. "How old is your son?"

"Six, almost seven. He's adjusting to being on a starship. Quite different then the open fields of Spain." She grew obviously distant for a moment before half smiling. "Much better...."

"Keep him close, and never let him go. Not for nothin'," said Max.

"Do you have children?" She posed non challantly.

A pause. "I have a son, Connor. Lives with his mother on Mars. And lemme tell ya, the kid could play baseball like a pro." The moment of pride as he mentioned his son's athletic prowess quickly faded as he tried to focus on the task at hand.

"Okay," he advised, "I'm going to administer these two agents to you and then work on that tissue regeneration. You'll be dancing the cha-cha before dinner." He proceeded to administer the hypo.

"Actually the Tango. Cha-Cha is for losers." Zamora smiled with an overly cheesy grin.

"Oh, well excuse me for at least trying to dance to something," Max joked, working the tissue regenerator over the JAG's left ankle. "This might feel slightly uncomfortable for a moment," he said.

Momentarily, she winced wondering if he got some pleasure out of making people squirm. Ophelia would admit she did when the opportunity presented itself. "I bet you could dance." She offered.

"I was never the dancing type. Was pretty much a geek for most of my teenage years, and never bothered to learn anything beyond the two-step." He was able to see that the swelling had visibly decreased, the inflammation reduced by the steroid he administered earlier.

"You a geek? I highly doubt that." Zamora blushed to herself. Was she actually flirting? Shaking her head, the woman continued to feel her cheeks warm. "It's not that difficult.....I bet you would do wonderfully."

The very slight flush of his patient's cheeks were not lost on Max, which he filed for later reference in the back of his mind. "Me dance? Oh, no, no, no, my good lady. With my two left feet, I'd wind up in here treating myself." He adjusted a setting on the device and then continued. "Of course, if a willing enough instructor were to offer their services, I may be inclined to at least try."

"Do or do not, there is no try." She muttered. It was a line from one of her favorite movies, an ancient one in fact. Glancing up, she caught him looking at her and she blushed again. Damn it. Ophelia cleared her throat. "Well.....when I'm fully back up on my feet...so to speak....I'd be more than willing to......offer a lesson or two if you would like."

'Oh my god, I did it again!' Lia mused to herself.

Smiling, he replied, "I might take you up on that sometime." He focused again on her ankle, The swelling was gone, and there was no sign of bruising. "Alrighty, I think you're all done there. You should be pain free, but I'll have you take a few steps just to make sure." He turned off the tissue regenerator and motioned for Zamora to stand and take a few steps.

She stood, testing the waters with her foot as she took a few steps. Satisfied, she smiled sweetly yet her eyes flashed mischievously.

"Good, good. Well, unless there's something else you'd like me to do for you, I think you're all set and ready to go." Max took a good look at the young woman for the first time since the Chef competition between Arel and Jaal. She was indeed striking, and was that a hint of bad girl flashing in her eyes? Max kicked himself for almost drooling. You're a grown man for goodness sakes, get a hold of yourself, he chided silently to himself.

"There is something else...but." She stopped herself short, clamping her hand over her mouth in a weak attempt to silence her next comments. Her dark eyes danced playfully at him as her mind scolded her inner most thoughts. Pointing towards the entrance, she laced a small smile with a light laughter. "I better go before I get myself in any more trouble. Thank you....."

Max couldn't believe the words he allowed to escape his mouth: "Sometimes getting into trouble could actually be fun-" Now it was his turn to clap hand over mouth and widen his eyes like an old Constitution-Class saucer section. "I am so sorry, that was totally inappropriate on my part..."

Zamora let a half grin sneak across her mouth. "Yes, it was. But don't let that stop you." Winking once, she over came her shyness for a mere millisecond. "Don't be a stranger Max."

Now it was his turn to feel hot under the collar....and a few other places. "I'll remember that," he finally got out. Damn, but she's hot.... "I'll see you around...soon, I hope." Oh, you're so going to hell, Max his conscience began taunting. In a freaking greased up bobsled!!

“Unbidden Tears, Unbridled Joy”

Lt. Victor Krieghoff

Flight Officer Angelienia

****

USS Galaxy

Deck 7

Victor Krieghoff’s Quarters

“We’re not going to make it, are we, Victor?”

“No. No, I don’t think so.”

“Should we tell them?”

“Of course we should; they deserve to know, don’t you think?”

“But everyone will be so disappointed. They’ve got all these anticipations, all these hopes for you and me being there together. I hate to….”

“No, chartriz,” Victor had started using the Andorian word when speaking to Angelienia several months back in place of the more common ‘dear’ since he felt that its meaning – ‘heart’s light’ – was much more appropriate, “we tell them the truth, and we do it tonight. It’s better for them to find out that we’re not going to make it now, than to let them build up their hopes and dash them at the last moment.”

“Still, we might…”

“No,” he sighed, shaking his head. “That’s a ‘what if’ you’re thinking right there, and we agreed not to deal in those. There’s a chance that something might happen to allow us to be there, together, but it’s so slim that it can’t really be called a possibility. Not with the War going on; your new boss needing to maximize flying time with the squadron to get to know everyone and find his command style; Commander Corgan taking family leave time to travel to Vulcan and leaving me in charge of the Department; and the ship getting a new CO on top of all of that.”

“You’re right, dear,” she sighed, closing her eyes and resting her head on his shoulder. “But it would have been so nice to finally meet them all in person at the reunion.”

Victor smiled the quiet, caring smile that only his family – and now his loved one – saw and rested his cheek on her head, letting the soft, flowered scent of her hair relax him. “You already know them all, maybe better than I do in some cases, after all the comm-time you’ve burned up in the last few months. *I* certainly never got sewing tips or baking advice from any of Mother’s relatives before in any case; or gardening advice from Father’s.”

“That’s just because you didn’t know how to talk to them,” she returned. “You hadn’t learned how to speak to people yet back then, how to tell them what was inside you, so they didn’t know what to say back to you. I bet if you tried now, they’d give you all sorts of advice.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed. “But the shock might kill some of them. Most of the family isn’t exactly on the good side of their prime any more, and a few of them are old enough that they can see ‘ancient’ from where they’re at.”

Stifling a giggle without a great deal of success, Angelienia elbowed him. “Victor! That was terrible!”

“You laughed,” he pointed out, smiling. “And terrible or not, it’s true. Once you get past me and my parents, Greta and hers, and Ar’resh and Rexa, the average age for the family jumps by about forty years or so.”

“Why *is* there such a big gap in ages? I’ve always wondered about that.” Angelienia shifted to look up at him, a pastime that she found endlessly satisfying. “Is there some sort of religious reason?”

“No, it’s nothing like that; we’re not an especially religious family as a rule. Most of us tend to believe that the Divine is out there, but has better things to do than to show up and hold our hands when we’re feeling sorry for ourselves,” Victor explained. “For whatever reasons – cultural, genetic, social, or something else - the family has never run to large batches of children, usually just one or two per generation. It used to be different back on Earth, before we – that would be the family, not humans as a general group – went to the stars; families tended to run to a half-dozen or more. Since we’ve come out here, though, the numbers have dropped off sharply. Added to that, many of the ones that *are* born go into Starfleet, which tends to further reduce the number getting married and having children.”

“So… the family is… dying out?”

“I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say that,” Victor returned. “Both my parents and Greta’s are easily young enough to have children again if they decided to, and there are a couple of cadet branches of the family that we’ve lost touch with over the years. But calling us ‘endangered’ wouldn’t be that far off the mark, I suppose.”

“Is that…” Angelienia asked slowly, a shadow crossing her eyes, invisible in the dark room, “why everyone was so happy to see that we’ve found each other? Because they want us to have children?”

“All families want their line to continue, chartriz,” Victor whispered, kissing the top of her head. “That’s only normal. But whatever else the family is, they’re not stupid; they understand.” His mother certainly had when he’d called her to talk about it after Angelienia had revealed to him months ago that they couldn’t have children in the traditional way thanks to core-level genetic incompatibilities. Victor assumed that his mother had explained it to everyone else in the family after that, since they’d not asked him about it since. “What they were, and are, happy about, I think,” he continued, “has nothing to do with wanting me to get married and have children, and everything to do with my having found someone that loves me back.”

“I want to give you a son,” Angelienia whispered suddenly, her words as fierce as the tears that came unbidden to her eyes were hot. “A son to carry your name. A son that I carry inside me and feel grow, that’s made from a part of me and a part of you. Our son, yours and mine. I want….”

“Shhh…” Victor shifted on the couch, his arms cradling her tighter, one hand moving to brush away the tears that he knew were there, that were always there when she spoke of this. “Shhh… No tears. We’ve talked about this, and we know what we’re going to do. It doesn’t change anything for me, doesn’t make me love you any less, doesn’t make me want to be with you, to be yours, any less.”

“But it’s not *fair!*” she hissed, her cat’s eyes burning with tears that wouldn’t stop coming now that they’d started. “It’s *not!* I waited so long for you, for the one that I wanted to give children to – and now that I’ve found you, and I know that you’re the one, I *can’t!*” Her words started slowly, but spilled out faster and faster as she went on, until they were starting to run together, all the secret fears that she’d kept locked away inside her heart flying out to escape. “I can’t give you a child, and you’ll stop loving me because our stupid genetic codes won’t match up without lots and lots of illegal gene-splicing, and now you’ll leavemealoneagainandI’llneverfindayonetolovemebecauseI’vegivenallmylovetoyouandthere’snotanylefttostartoveranditsnotfairbecauseyou’retheonlymanIeverhaveorwillloveandnowyou’llleavemeandI….”

Victor stopped her in the only way he knew how – with a kiss.

Angelienia struggled for a moment, her final words murmured against his lips, and then kissed him back, the tears still flowing and burning her eyes, though now they were as much from shame at having blurted out the dark fears she’d kept from him as they were from the pain of those fears. She clung to him desperately as they kissed, as if afraid that he would leave her then, at that moment, and the only thing that prevented his departure was her hold on him.

Victor kissed her and stroked her hair and whispered the words that it had taken him a lifetime as another man to learn how to say, telling her that he loved her and that he wasn’t leaving her, and that she was the one who completed him, who made him whole. He kissed her, and whispered his love, until a different heat suffused their kisses, and shortened their breath, and she was no longer clinging to him in fear, but for a different, equally urgent, reason.

Without warning, without even having realized that it was happening or knowing when it had happened, he realized that he wasn’t kissing her lips, but the globe of her breast, bared to his attentions by a shirt that he had no memory of opening. One of Angelienia’s hands was tangled in his hair, the other was clutching his arm, and the sounds coming from her mouth weren’t words any more, but soft sounds that reached inside him and touched a part of him that had only been awake when he lived another man’s life.

Even as he realized that, and realized what was happening, his lips reached the peak of her breast. She arched her back at his touch, gasping out his name, and shuddered as he let his memories from his life as Chulak and the nights he’d spent with Sakonna guide him in seeking the places and caresses that would please her.

This wasn’t how he’d imagined the moment, wasn’t what he’d always believed it would be like. He’d thought of dinner and dancing and a trip to his room with both of them aware of what was coming, savoring the moment and each touch until they were alone on his bed. But that wasn’t the way it was going to be at all; instead it would be sudden and passionate and breathless and urgent and here, on the couch in his room, looking out at the stars, and it would be every bit as beautiful and powerful as any daydream he’d ever had… and more.

He knew what was happening now, knew what was going to happen, and knew that Angelienia knew it as well - and that she wanted it, she *needed* it, as much or more, than he did. She’d waited years for this moment, had longed for it with an ache that only one who had known and craved intimacy before could – but she’d never pushed or tried to force the issue with him even while she had burned for it, for him.

Victor hadn’t realized how much a part of a relationship it was until he’d lived Chulak’s life, but ever since returning to himself he’d wondered whose face he would see when he closed his eyes as they made love for the first time. Now that the moment was here, he closed his eyes briefly and relaxed as he discovered the answer: he would see Angelienia’s face, because there wasn’t another that he wanted to see.

His hand slipped lower, fingers finding their way into her – When had her skirt come off? Or his clothes? - and she cried out again, her body bucking in response. Then, as had happened years ago when she’d hidden naked in his bed to try and seduce him, her control snapped with only the slightest of touches (though this time they were not hers alone), and her release swallowed her, making her writhe as if with a seizure and cry in out hoarsely for what seemed like forever before she collapsed, gasping.

He held her for a time, touching her, kissing her, whispering the things that lovers whispered to a partner that they, in truth, loved, as she recovered. Slowly, gradually, the touches grew more intimate, and the kisses more passionate, and the whispers fewer and fewer, until they weren’t speaking at all anymore. Not with words, at any rate.

Her hands found him, pulled him to her, and guided him to where they both wanted him to be, her legs gripping him as they slipped together slowly, her hands and lips and hips urging him on, until they were one. For a moment they were still, their eyes locked on each other’s, and he saw the tears that flowed from hers start again, matching the ones that suddenly began to fall from his to match them.

She brushed at his tears in the same moment that he brushed at hers, and they laughed as one, each one realizing that these were not tears of pain or sorrow or fear or hurt… but tears of unbridled joy at being together as one. He kissed her then, and as they kissed their bodies began to move, finding together the physical expression of the love they shared and the passion they had held in check for so long.

As they moved, the room faded away, followed by the ship, then the system they were surveying for the source of a mysterious signal, and, finally, the rest of the universe, until there was nothing but the two of them, and the gift they gave each other.

"Shooting Code Blanks"
Pt I

Lt Chris Daniels
Ens Aina Mason

Combat Information Center
Deck 11 - 0630 hrs
=========================

Chris strolled into the CIC looking no worse for the wear after his night of abusive drinking down in 10 Forward. He was nursing a bad hangover, but years of alcoholic experience had taught him how to hide it well. Despite the army of gnomes working on his brain with jackhammers, he was alert and ready to see the resolution of the issues the tactical department had been having with their weapons test.

He first stopped by his office to get the overnight reports and the daily intelligence updates. After that, he made his way out onto the CIC floor and found the crew commander, LtJG Ek'Bah, who greeted him. Normally, this was Chris' shift to be up on the bridge, but with the tests going on, he was working from CIC while Ens Ragnar assumed TDO duties. Chris and Ek'Bah went over what was going on at present.

"Ops said they'd be sending someone down to work on the computer problems in the next 30 minutes, sir."

Chris nodded and retreated to his office to grab coffee and then returned to the floor, chatting with the CIC crew as they waited.

=====

As the turbolift was humming to take her down to deck 11, Aina squeezed her eyes shut, to try an get rid of the grittiness in her eyes. For the last few weeks, she'd been either on grave-yard or afternoon shift, being ordered to Alpha had left her very minus on sleep. As the doors to the lift opened, she used her hand to cover her unsuccessful attempts to stifle a yawn.

After a few moments, the doors to the CIC opened and Aina moved through, as looked at the screens and tables in the CIC. For a brief moment, she had a feeling of deja vu - the place looked similar to the Intelligence Centre. Well, many of the analyis tables and consoles were in the same position. But the data and information that appeared and rolled off the screen was vastly different.

Asking a Tactical ensign the location of Lieutenant Daniels - Aina was directed to a man just sipping from a ship's mug. He nodded to something being told by another officer and had put down his mug on an analysis table, as a padd had been given to him.

Daniels looked at the bajoran ensign that come over to him, quickly scrawling his signature on the padd and picking up his mug, he took a quick sip before asking, "Yes ensign?"

"Lieutenant Daniels - I am Ensign Mason, I'm here to look at the computer problems you are having," Aina replied.

Chris' eyes had that look of vague rememberance. "Aina Mason?"

"Yes sir," she returned.

He smirked. "I remember my sister Ezzie told me a little bit about you. Don't worry, it wasn't anything bad." He picked up his mug and began walking. Come on, I'll show you over to where the disaster is." He motioned for her to follow and they began the quick walk to the other side of the CIC. "So how's life on the Galaxy treating you?"

"Ezzie," Aina exclaimed. While the Lieutenant's sister and Aina hadn't had that long to become friends with Aina's transfer originally to the Carthage, Aina did like the girl. Ezzie had tried to get more out of her shell and had suggested a number of boys for Aina to hook up with, none with who Aina had any confidence to do so. "I hope she is doing well."

He nodded. "She's great. Engineer on the Pericles and just as...action packed as ever." He smiled. Even during war, Ezzie could find a way to make it seem like everything was going to be OK.

"As to life on the Galaxy," Aina nodded, "It's good."

Aina paused as she stopped and finally came to a decision, "Sir..."

Chris stopped a few feet short of the station he was walking towards and turned around. "Yeah?"

"Ummm...when I heard that K'aa had been a traitor and was in the brig. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I only knew him for a few weeks and some of that time was on Gyndine, but I didn't think that he would do anything like that - he ummm, we worked together and if it wasn't for him - I think I'd have gotten in a lot of trouble."

Chris exhaled softly, trying to hide his discomfort with that topic. He knew exactly what Aina was talking about and didn't feel it relevant to bring up, at least in this arena. "I heard you two worked a lot on Gyndine...what about it?"

"Well - is it true that the K'aa in the brig not K'aa, 'coz that is some of the rumours I have heard. I mean, why would a Gorn want mushrooms?" asked Aina.

Chris gently put his hand high on Aina's back and escorted her over to a quiet corner of the CIC. To a casual observer, it would have appeared that the department head was pulling an Ensign aside to "council" her on one thing or another. When they got to the corner of the room, he put his hand to his side and turned to face the young ensign.

He said quietly. "Aina...there's a lot going on with that situation. K'aa was my friend as well and needless to say the whole situation has thrown me for a loop. I can't talk about most of it and I don't really want to fuel the rumor mill...but I'll tell you that Mr. K'aa isn't exactly himself as you knew him anymore. Nothing's official yet, but I think it's going to work out to a relatively normal situation...eventually." His eyes broadcast a reassuring look at her.

Aina just looked at Chris and nodded.

Chris looked back at her smirking. "I'll keep you posted as best I can. But none of this goes outside the two of us, OK?"

"Yes sir," return Aina.

He nodded. "Alright, now let's go fix my computers."

"I Foresee Some Mischief"

---
Staff Technician Rheay Olin,
Flight Crew Technician, Vanguard Group,
USS Galaxy-A

Technician Gedala Darks
Ordnance Specialist, Vanguard Group,
USS Galaxy-A
(APC - Aet)
---
===Somewhere in Fighter Country, Deck Wherever===

(OOC: As far as I can figure, these two joined your lot after your
visit to Deep Space 3(!? Or 578, whatever :>) so the timeline is
twisted accordingly. Also, would love for someone to wheel out their
character for a JP, show my disastrous two around a bit for comic
value perhaps.)

?I miss Jamaal.?

It was an eloquent, yet still purposefully whiney mumble from the
fair-haired lass, who was laid horizontally across her berth, head and
long legs lolling over the sides in a semi plastic, semi corpse-like
fashion. She yawned and stretched as well as can be managed from the
top of a SFFC country double-bunk, leaving her hands to swing merrily
over her head towards the truly uninspiring grey floor.

After a moment of silence Gedala eyed the drowning victim look-alike
from across the sizeable gap between their respectable beds and
shrugged neatly. ?I miss Lieutenant Snejider?s bed.?

That statement was met by a stifled snort and the cracking of some
joints. ?How is missing a towering male, who used to tote me from one
fighter wing to another, in any way reminding you of the last Engineer
you popped??

Gedala chuckled lightly, falling back on the pillows and gouging her
haphazard fiery ponytail out from under herself. ?How is pining after
a personal lift service in any way connecting to the topic of
navigating this here tin can for our assignment, hmm??

?I can?t be arsed to get off this bed and go find whoever it is we
need to find on my own muscle power. Jamaal would be intolerably
loveable for that task. And stop mirroring my speech, you wretched
Denebian slime spit.? Ra huffed, performing some complicated
gymnastics to get herself in a somewhat more upright and less
life-threatening position, involving almost cracking the overhead
compartment in two when she grabbed the edge of it for leverage.
Luckily, a resounding creak was all that she managed to fish out of
the contraption this turn. ?Is it just me or does this soup platter of
a space vessel seem somewhat dingy at first glance,? she queried as
much to herself as to Dala, while now rampantly shuffling through the
shelf in search of her morning gum-dose.

?Bitchy morrok victim?? Dala hoisted herself up on her arms, glaring
around the room with a barely visible glimmer of discontent. ?Well,
since I have had nothing fall on me as of yet and you have, in fact,
set off no fire-extinguishers in the first 9 hours we have been
onboard, I am to conclude that this is one rocking tin and we are
?highly privileged to be part of it?s magnificent crew and as
dedicated Starfleet patriots, we are to hold deep within our hearts
the very core values and pride of this fine starship?.? The bottom
line of said sentence was met by an indulgent snort from both lovely
young ladies and the ruffling of a wrapper from Ra?s side of the room.

?And we will both miss Crew Chief Bailey,? they bellowed in
quasi-amused unison, Ra adding a plop of a gum bubble as a fitting
ender.
?I swear, the man will miss us to pieces. I would not be surprised if
he caught up with us at some point, begging us to return to our
rightful places with the Mustang Group.? Dala was now halfway to
hoisting her voluptuous self out from under the covers and into some
kind of a state to get dressed and decent, just pausing for a second
to consider the many possibilities she had neglected to take advantage
of on the Venture.
?Would this be before or after he threatens to have us dishonourably
discharged for turning the 3rd cantina into a scene for a piñata party
and then trashing it accordingly?? Ra smirked sweetly, tossing her
roommate a loving glance. ?I think he?d rather give up his notorious
holonovel collection than have us back there. And he was awfully keen
on sacrificing you as a hull-plate for a while there.?

?Yeah, but deep down inside he loved me,? Dala muttered, painfully
sliding down on the cold floor and sputtering along the room, trying
to distinguish her sealed bags from Ra?s.
?Very deep inside. A true soul-excavation-style deep.?
?Shadup.?
?Love.?
?Warp nacelle discharge.?
?Tramp. I feel like getting some Raktajino. I wonder where the mess
hall is. I would also adore for someone to tell us what?s going on.
And I would like to wager that they?re going to send the most bloody
boring Ensign to lecture us about Officer respect while failing to
introduce the fighter pits to us on our round tour.? Ra popped another
errant bubble and pulled the covers over her head, adamant to capture
even one more moment of warmth before having to face the excruciating
pain of finding her Class A Duty Uniform from somewhere between
cigarettes and embezzled PADDs.

?Well, odds are it?ll be better than what we got on the Venture. ?Up ?
up, down ? down, sideways ? sideways. Pits to the left. Behave.?
Spectacularly articulate young woman.? The girls snickered with warm
remembrance, clashed by the sounds of Dala trying to rip through two
tape-seals with the angered passion of a mother lion.

?Eh, if we manage the day without severely pissing off some Officer,
we can call it a job well done and then go smoke a bit on the
Vanguards. Just to make friends.?
?With the Vanguards or the techies??
?Whichever catches fire last.?
?Deal.?

?Now, what ?are- we actually supposed to do today?? Ra peeked out from
under the blanket, frowning askew at Dala, who was busy gnawing at the
preposterous seals with sullen misery by now.
?Win the fight against syntho-plastic materials and then commence to
better the universe.?
?Aah, and I thought we were just fighter technicians. Now I see that
we must truly be Gods.?

Light cursing and pillow-throwing ensued soon after.

"Liebman Vs. Liebman"

Lt. JG Ophelia Zamora
JAG

Location: JAG office

"A lawyer is never entirely comfortable with a friendly divorce, anymore than a good mortician wants to finish his job and then have the patient sit up on the table." Jean Kerr

======================
Her specialty was criminal law. At least, that's where she felt most comfortable. Being JAG on board a starship meant that she had to stretch her wings in the various areas of law conflict that can come about. This included family law, specifically divorce between members of Starfleet. At times, the situation could get sticky as most civilian divorces could. Yet, Starfleet had specific rules and regulations pertaining to separation and divorce. Sighing, Ophelia took a sip of the pumpkin spiced coffee that beckoned her.

"Ma'am?"

Her assistant popped her head in, smiling in such a way that was un natural for this time of morning. "Yes, Ensign."

"Your appointment has arrived."

"Good, show him in....." She stood, tugging on the uniform as the security lt. entered her office. Dark circles under the eyes, blood shot eyeballs, the lithe appearance all led to one conclusion in the eyes of an experienced attorney.

"Lt. Liebman.....welcome...take a seat."

"Thank you Lt. Zamora." He sat, wringing his large hands in an attempt to keep them from shaking from nervousness.

"Now, Lt. I understand that you are here seeking representation in a divorce."

"Yes....that's correct. My wife filed....I received this...." He handed the padd over to her and gave Ophelia a quick moment to scan the information.

"Irreconcilable differences..." Zamora muttered. Standard excuse when no one wants the couple's dirty laundry aired for all to see. She glanced up, her dark eyes somewhat hardening against his weary stare. "What's the real reason Lt?"

"She left me......we are stationed separately, but.....can I be honest here Lt?"

"Please, call me Lia. Yes.....I need the whole story."

"She....she met someone. At least, that's what I think. We had our differences, but always were able to work things out. Ya know...for the sake of Jake anyway. Since I was stationed here, I guess it was just too much for her....me being away and all....and...."

"You believe she met someone. You are aware, that with her being an officer in Starfleet, if we can prove this she is in a world of hurt. It's an ancient rule, barely used, but is still enforceable depending on the judge and circumstance. You mentioned a Jake....is he your son?"

"Yes."

"How old is he?" She was scribbling notes fiercely now.

"12. He's with her."

Lia paused for a quick second. "Lt. I'm available to you as the ship's JAG. However, I would recommend retaining a military attorney that specializes in domestic law for this situation. We actually have an attorney on the Galaxy that is a domestic law expert and very good if I might add. Don't get me wrong, I can handle this case. However, I *have* to be honest with you that it would be a stretch for me. My specialty is criminal law. And while I can tell you that if you decide to pursue the affair route, I would be more than happy to represent you, I am hesitant to represent you in the general divorce arena."

"What about both of you....."

"Mmmmmm....." Ophelia was thinking it over in a manner that was purely analytical.

"Lia, I've heard things about you......as an attorney."

"Great." The woman whispered.

"I would feel comfortable with you representing me. Could we bring in this other attorney as a consult?" His voice was less shaky, and getting more determined with each sentence he took.

Her left hand raised, scratching her neck as she continued to think. "It's possible...but...."

"Good, I want you."

She smiled, knowing that the comment was phrased one way, but her mind took it another way. Silently scolding herself, she made it a point in the near future to figure out a way to injure herself again so she could officially see Max.

"Alright then. I need some forms filled out and if you could, bounce them back to me as soon as possible to we can file any motions. Let's see...anything in here about...." Her eyes scanned the information yet again. Shaking her head, she sighed. "What kind of attorney did that woman hire? It mentions nothing in here concerning temporary custody."

Holding her head up high, she leveled her eyes against his asking him a simple question. "Do you want your son with you?"

"Yes." The answer, simple in response held great weight.

"All righty then, good. The first order of business is to file a motion for temporary custody. Now....here comes the fun part. After you fill out the forms, and this is off the record, I would suggest hiring a private investigator. Again, I can suggest someone for you. She was in the Fleet for years, security, and actually served on this very ship."

"Okay."

"Here is her contact information.....I've used her firm in the past, and although Civilian and rather pricey, the woman will get the job done for you. Plus...she's a real pistol." Ophelia smiled at the mention of her good friend.

"Okay...." His nervousness was back, that much was apparent.

She felt pity for him and what he was about to go through. "It will be all right. I know that sounds like a bunch of Cardassian cattle crap at this point in time, but trust me." That rare sharkish grin was back as Ophelia instantly smelled a legal challenge. "After all, I am your attorney."

He stood, she stood and offered him an overly firm handshake. "I'll look forward to seeing those forms soon."

The Lt. nodded before exiting her office. Watching him, the slight sense of satisfaction weaved it's way through her before she sat down. Turning in her seat, she pressed a few buttons on her console. A face appeared, along with small crows feat around the eyes and some thin lines etched into the forehead. The hair, flaming red was styled with perfection as the voice spoke.

"Elaine O'Hare Investigations......What can.....Oh! Hey Ophelia....what's up?"

"Shooting Code Blanks" pt II

Lt Chris Daniels
Ens Aina Mason

CIC
Deck 11
=======

He nodded. "Alright, now let's go fix my computers."

"Yes sir - I haven't got much in the way of details. What is the problem with the system?" Aina asked.

=====

Chris took her back over to the Weapons Control station, which had been the main terminal for the weapons test. The technician sitting there saw them approach and brought up a screen that showed a recap of what had been happening.

"Tactical R&D dropped a weapons test project on us involving a new ship-launched cruise missile. When they loaded the software into our system and we attempted a dry-fire test, it jacked the system to hell all three times. None of the R&D guys can figure it out and I don't have any computer specialists down here..."

"It seems like there's a miscommunication between the targeting computer and the tube launching software." The technician added with a shrug. "Every time we try to launch it, it dumps all the targeting telemetry and the computer aborts the launch."

Aina frowned as she looked at Chris and then back to the data, "Everything is good, until you go to launch?"

He nodded. "The R&D guys managed to work out all the prefire kinks." Chris entered a command and a replay of one of the test came up, showing Aina a replay of what happened, ending with the multiple "LAUNCH ABORT" messages. "We pull the trigger and that happens."

"Ummm...when is data verification occuring? In the missile or in the launch system?" asked Aina. "I mean, if all is tested good on the bench, but on launch it goes nutzoid...what about a manual load to missile...hmmmm...do you have access to the design simulations?"

The tech pulled up a couple new screens of data while Chris talked. "Data verification may be a problem...the missile is designed to accept changes in targeting data once it's already been launched...I don't know if a manual load is the problem. I'm thinking the problem lies in the handoff of control from Galaxy's computer to the missile's CPU...but like I've alluded to, we don't have any computer experts down here that could figure that crap out."

Aina was looking at the log messages as Chris talked. "This ain't my normal area but..."

The technician butted in. "Here's all the design specs and simulations, ma'am."

Aina stopped for a second at being called "ma'am," you called Captains and Commanders "ma'am," not cadets or faux ensigns like herself. With a bemused look on her face she watched as the all the data appeared on the screen. Her face slowly lost it's bemusement and changed to concentration and watched as the data scrolled up the screen.

Chris looked at the mass of data on the screen and then turned back to Aina. "And if you're as good at this stuff as my sister's story makes you out to be, I think I got the right person for the job."

Giving a slight smile in response to his comment, Aina reached over and accelerated the data on the screen. It was moving too slowly for her.

To Chris and the technician, most of the data just became unreadable - as they scanned the text appearing and rolling up on the console, they could recognise a character here and there.

To Aina, she saw more than the code, she was lost in the concepts that the code represented. And in her mind, she was in a reality that only existed in the circuits, processors and gel packs of computers, and with what usually the case, time became irrelevant.

Over a couple of hours later, after talking with some of the engineers and looking over logs and code and the diaganostics, she went to find Chris. She was stretching her neck as she headed to his office, she'd spent too long haunched over the consoles, a habit that she knew she should stop, but...

Heading into his office, she made her report, "I'm not sure...but...put in a three thousand millisecond delay before the on-board requests an update from the ship. That will give us enough time to get verification of data after firing, so they'll have to download through the missile's diagnostic telementry back to the ship. From what I've seen - about three hundred milliseconds after firing, the nav-system makes a request to telementry for an update. I think that the update is overwriting the nav-system data. But there is no update uploaded and garbage is getting written to the nav-system. I’ve looked at the telementry code on the missile - it looks like that it’s expecting data all the time - like a remote control drone. When the nav-system is more designed for set and forget. So if it goes postal after three seconds, then we’ll know.” Aina shrugged, “It’s too simple - so it’s all probably wrong.”

Chris had been sitting in his office chatting with Daylen Maret, the missile's project officer, when Aina had walked in to report on the very topic they were discussing. The two Lieutenants listened intently, absorbing what the young woman had to say. Chris knew jack about computers, but the way Aina put it made enough sense for him to figure out what the issue was.

He shot a look over at Daylen. "If that's the case..."

Daylen shook his head, obviously miffed. "The engineers gave us the wrong coding. Wonderful. Hell, we could set the request time to be even later...or just not even have it call back to the ship since it's only going to change data if we send it...cut the request for data updates entirely. That'd just be a change of code...I think."

Chris nodded, then turned to Aina. "What do you think Miss Mason, is that doable from a programming standpoint?"

Aina nodded, "Yes sir - but you can't just cut out the update requests for the nav-system, it's not calling to the ship - telementry is handling that, nav is getting bad data because telementry has only garbage, I think it's in control security verification that is causing the abort. You'd need to rewrite the code and only get the nav-system to change on a pushed update, rather than pulling in updates.

Chris turned to look at Daylen again. "Are your people capable of making that major of an update at that level?"

Daylen nodded. "For the most part...I'll let you know if we do," he turned and looked at Aina. "How long would it take after the software is updated to write a program to test it in the computer before we do another dry-fire?"

Aina gave a half-shrug, "Not long, an hour or so - most of that is ripping the code from the missile - coz looking at the logs on the simulations, compared to the logs from the dry runs - I think someone has done a swifty."

The two Lieutenants sat in front of the young Bajoran exchanging glances. It was evident quite clearly that neither of them knew what 'swifty' meant.

"Care to elaborate, Ensign?"

"Someone has probably run out of time for their code after they've discovered a bug and put in a patched routine from another system, or there was a glitch in the manufacture of the control circuits. I don't think the development code and that in the missile are the same. If you want to go for a full simulation, it will take about...about two hours to rip all the code elements and have them running. But I'd reckon, it be easier just to bandaid this missile and test it."

Chris sat back in his chair and tapped his finger on his desk as he quietly swiveled a few degrees each direction in his chair. Here he was at an impasse. He wanted these tests done with in as minimal time as possible so they could get back to normal duties. But, at the same time, to not run every test was to cheat the engineers and possibly themselves out of a very effective weapon. The truth was, Aina had done more for the R&D team in the last 2 hours than any of the tacticians turned engineers could have done in a week. He looked over at Daylen to see if the project officer had any ideas.

"Your call boss. You'd know I'd like to do it all, but I understand this is still a line cruiser."

Chris took a breath and looked at the two. "Alright, we'll run a parallel test. Daylen, take whoever you need to from our Engineer detachment or Tactical staff to get the missile's systems updated. Aina, if you can spare some more time from your new job with Lieutenant Bental, I'd like you to put that simulation together at the same time, that way we can have a backup ready if this next dry-fire goes tango uniform again."

"Yes sir," Aina nodded. "I'm going to need to be hooked up to the on-board, for about an hour, so I can copy the systems to the ship. Unless there is other systems or missiles available?"

"All we brought is the test dummy." Daylen answered. "None of our test staff is working it'll take awhile to get them all going, so it's yours until you're finished."

"I'll get right on it. Simulation should be ready by eleven thirty hours, you'll need to talk with Lieutenant Bental and Lieutenant Gaal in authorising my work here in CIC...sir."

Chris nodded. Gaal was easy enough to persuade once you allayed his irrational paranoia. Bental, well, in his limited dealings with him, Chris could see the Intelligence officer not taking well to Tactical stealing his new shining star. But it didn't really matter to Chris. He had a problem that needed Mason's ability to become part of a computer. And while he had the problem, he'd do everything he could to keep her on retainer.

"I'll make the calls. Anything else?"

Daylen and Aina both shook their heads.

"Alright then, let's get to work."

"Chewed Up"

Captain T'Vara, CO
Lt. Cmdr. Tarin Iniara, XO

-----
Ready Room

"Please, begin."

Iniara blinked, brows knitting together slightly as she struggled to
interpret the captain's instruction. 'Begin'? Begin what? She
wanted to look away; wanted to look at the wall or the window or the
desk or her hands in her lap that she was having a damn hard time
keeping still or anything else in the room but the captain herself.
But this was her new commanding officer, and the one person on whom
she needed to make a decent, perhaps even good, impression. Of
course, Iniara already suspected that the captain's initial impression
of her had been less than favorable--not because of anything specific;
it was more like a general feeling--but there was no sense in digging
even deeper into the hole she had no doubt already begun to dig for
herself.

She blinked again, mind racing faster than warp 9 yet still unable to
produce a single coherent thought that might in any way be useful in
the current situation. But slowly, other thoughts coming to her at
perhaps only warp 4 or 5, Iniara realized something. Someone had once
given her a strange piece of advice, some little nugget of wisdom
about how it was better to remain silent and be thought a fool than it
was to open your mouth and remove all doubt. But right now, whether
she liked it or not, it seemed she didn't have much of a choice in the
matter. Whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to make a
fool of herself.

"I'm... My apologies, sir; I'm not quite sure what you mean. What
should I begin?"

T'Vara remained silent for a moment as she contemplated the current
situation. Had Tarin not been paying attention to a single word she
had said? This wasn't the first time the captain had been in such a
situation, but normally when a subordinate let their mind wander so
blatantly, it was because said subordinate was an inexperienced ensign
or overly nervous cadet, not a lieutenant commander with well over a
decade of service behind her.

"The request was to list areas in which you feel your performance
aboard this vessel could improve, particularly in recent months.
Unless...you believe your performance has up to this point been
completely satisfactory?"

"Oh; no no no," Iniara replied hastily, then immediately regretted it.
"That's..." How could she answer that question without making
herself look like a complete idiot? 'Yes, my performance has been
satisfactory'? That would open the door for T'Vara to bring up every
failing, no matter how minuscule, since she'd arrived on this ship
four years ago. But if she answered the other way, if she admitted to
T'Vara that her performance hadn't been perfect, well that was
practically admitting defeat. But...it was true, wasn't it? She
*wasn't* perfect; nobody was.

She exhaled, trying to center herself, before beginning again. "What
I meant to say is that my performance may not have been perfect, but I
did the best I could."

"I see." T'Vara fell silent again, watching the XO carefully. Not
for the first time, T'Vara wondered if her earlier vow to Admiral
Valerian to avoid major and potentially disruptive crew transfers
during her tenure aboard Galaxy had perhaps been made a bit hastily.
"Then by your admission, the level of dedication and leadership you
displayed during your tenure as Acting Commanding Officer of this
vessel is all that you are capable of?"

This time Iniara couldn't help but react, although in her defense she
certainly tried to keep the surprised look off her face. By the
Emissary, how was she supposed to answer *that* one? Claim that she'd
been holding back and that she was capable of more? Or admit that the
job was more than she could handle?

She felt her throat tighten as she studied T'Vara's cool expression,
struggling to figure out what was going on behind that placid mask.
With the dampening effect of the psi-blockers and the tight control
Vulcans kept over their emotions Iniara couldn't sense much of
anything...but there was something there. A little tickle of
something, a wisp that if she was careful enough, she could maybe just
reach out and touch. It felt like...

Disappointment.

And then suddenly, a cacophony of noise unleashed itself inside
Iniara's mind as a million voices cried out all at once, tried to tell
her that she wasn't a disappointment, wasn't a failure, that what she
did really counted for something...or that she was, that she wasn't
cut out for this job, or that she should have stopped letting people
put their faith in her, that she should never have tried to be
anything more than a nameless cog in a nameless wheel, because no
matter what she tried to do, no matter how she aspired to be something
more, she would always disappoint. And among all those voices,
screaming out, pounding futilely at the crowd with its useless fists,
was her own inner voice, the tiny thing that would never stop
insisting that she might not be strongest, or the fastest, or the
smartest or the wittiest or the most cunning person out there, but she
gave each day and each task her very best effort and damn it all, that
had to count for something.

But as always that voice was eclipsed, drowned out by another she knew
very well, one she hadn't heard with her ears in decades but which was
nonetheless with her every second of every hour of every day. It was
the one that never forgot her shortcomings, that never ignored her
inadequacies, that never ceased to remind her that she wasn't as tall,
or as thin, or as pretty as her sister, or that she wasn't as cunning
or as strong as her brother, or that she didn't possess the patience
or the aptitude or the raw talent necessary to control her mental
abilities as well as she needed to, or that she would never in her
wildest dreams be a proper daughter of the Seventh House, and that no
matter what she did, no matter how she tried to mold and change
herself, no matter how many sleepless nights she spent alone just
trying to improve herself that one tiny little bit, no matter how hard
she hoped and wished and prayed and cried out that it would one day
count for something, none of it would ever matter because it would
never change the fact that, in the eyes of her mother, she would never
be anything more than a disappointment.

Something in the back of her mind couldn't help but wonder how such a
simple question posed in a straightforward business meeting could
affect her so profoundly. But sometimes that just happened, right?
Sometimes the right words at the right time (or the wrong words at the
wrong time, she amended) could take you back to that place, the one
place you wished you could just ignore or forget or even wish entirely
out of existence, and those seemingly innocuous words could suddenly
make you feel like you were twelve years old again and facing the
inevitable: that no matter how hard you tried, no matter what you did,
no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears you poured into everything
you had ever done in your life, you weren't now and would never be
good enough. And then you realized that no matter how much time and
distance you tried to put between now and then, here and there, it
didn't matter one bit because even though you'd grown older, maybe
smarter, maybe even wiser, you would never be able to silence that
tiny little voice or the creeping doubt and insecurity it always
brought with it like a couple of uninvited drunk guests to a party you
really didn't want to be having anyway. Because just like the steady
beat of your heart in your chest or the feeling of air in your lungs
as you breathed or the nagging crawling sensation in your leg if you
ever stopped tapping your foot for just one short moment, as long as
you were alive that tiny little voice would always be there, right
with you, something you would never be able to truly and completely
shake.

"Lieutenant Commander...?"

And then, just like that, she snapped back to the present, the fog
around her mind clearing as she suddenly realized what was the most
urgent thing in her universe right now. T'Vara was still sitting
across the desk from her, still watching with that impassive
expression, still waiting for an answer. A tiny puff of air escaped
her lips as they parted ever so slightly, the delicate muscles of her
face and mouth waiting to go into action just as soon as her brain
figured out what it was she wanted those muscles to say.

"My..."

Take your time, she reminded herself. Don't rush into it. She licked
her lips, inhaled slowly, and tried again.

"At the time, that was all I was capable of, sir. My own inadequacies
prevented me from doing as good a job as I should have," Iniara
answered at last, surprised to find that speaking those words and
admitting her failings to an almost total stranger wasn't as difficult
as she'd built it up to be. "However, I can improve. I can do
better."

Had she been anything but Vulcan, T'Vara might have smiled. She had
expected Tarin to make excuses, go through convoluted
rationalizations, or try to explain it away, and so to hear the woman
admitting her own shortcomings and claiming that she was in fact
capable of improvement was a pleasant surprise. No, not claiming,
T'Vara mentally amended; she'd watched as Tarin took a look deep
within herself, had gone further than either of them had expected, and
had responded not with what she thought her superior officer wanted to
hear, but with words that carried with them nothing more than plain
and simple truth. And that was something that changed the direction
of the conversation entirely.

Although she didn't need to, the captain allowed herself a quick
glance at the LCARS screen sitting just at the edge of her peripheral
vision. On it was a list of items she'd intended to discuss with her
XO: the debacle with Admiral Akaar and Captain Maivia, the lack of
progress in eradicating the ship's tribble infestation, declining crew
morale, lack of discipline, poor professionalism within the senior
staff; the list went on. All issues for which the executive officer
was either directly or indirectly responsible, and all items at which
Lieutenant Commander Tarin had failed to one degree or another. But,
as she had seen so many times in the past, these issues were not so
much problems in and of themselves as they were symptoms of a much
larger issue.

And getting Tarin to admit that she was capable of doing better was
the first step to correcting that issue.

"Good," T'Vara answered simply, nodding once. "That is all."

Iniara blinked, disbelief clearly written on her features. "I...beg
your pardon, sir?"

"This discussion will continue tomorrow. Until then, that is all."

"Aye sir," Iniara heard herself reply. Still wondering what had just
happened she became vaguely aware of her body beginning to move on its
own, autonomous systems taking over and issuing commands she herself
seemed unable to give, the muscles working in perfect harmony to get
her to her feet, turn her around, walk her towards and through the
softly swishing ready room doors and up the sloping incline of the
bridge and into the waiting turbolift.

Her mind was once again at warp 9, desperately trying to puzzle
through the situation, trying to understand why in a meeting that
lasted less than five minutes she felt like she'd been thrown into a
meat grinder and chewed up and spit out, but instead of feeling like a
complete and utter failure who didn't deserve to breathe much less
serve on a starship, she actually didn't feel all that bad. Because
after being thrown to the floor she'd stood up, dusted herself off,
and proclaimed that even though she'd given it her all in the past,
somehow in the future she was going to find a way to give even more.
She wasn't quite sure how she was going to accomplish that, but
somehow she would make it happen.

"Please state your destination."

The irritatingly pleasant computer voice snapped her back to the
present once more. What was her destination? Where was she going?
She looked up at the ceiling of the lift, squinting against the
brightness of the overhead light; even though now, as always, there
were no magic answers written there or anywhere else in the tiny round
room. But still the question remained, repeating itself in her
thoughts like a broken holorecording: where was she going? Where was
she going? Where was she going?

"Where am I going?"

She looked back down, eyes cast to the floor as the echoes of her
voice died out in her ears. And for the first time in her life,
Iniara realized that she could not truly answer that question.

"Aftermath"

Commander Jaal Jaxom - Strategic Operations Officer
Lieutenant Kimberly Burton - Chief Medical Officer

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ USS Galaxy - Main Shuttlebay ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Looking at the morass of parts and old tools that littered the rear of her
cargo hold and the cargo ramp Kimberly quietly took a tally in her mind of
all the separate pieces she had counted and let out a soft groan as she
realised the amount of work ahead of her. When Dhanishta and Branwen had
disassembled her bike back on New Rhea she had assumed at the time they has
simply removed the exhaust and wheels and that was that. When she had
opened the small side cargo bay that housed her prized Harley the look on
her face had probably been one of abject horror.

The entire bike had been stripped to its component pieces, a mammoth task
that should have taken careful days, not the few rushed hours they had
actually spent. All the time that she had spent collecting, researching and
replicating parts where needed looked to be starting all over again.

"I just hope everything's here." She mused as she picked up her tools and
the manual and started organising everything into boxes. There wasn't time
right now to do a proper reassembly, but at least she could figure out what
had to be replaced. Slowly, piece by piece she catalogued, scanned and
packed the pieces, building a model of the bike as she went on the computer
to compare against her logs.

Jaal leaned against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest
watching the ship's CMO work. He couldn't as yet determine what kind of bike
she had from the unassembled pieces laying about but did know one thing, it
was definitely a motorcycle and as such, caught the Trill's attention.

A small smile worked its way onto his lips as Kimberly carefully catalogued
and packed the parts. "Looks like you have a lot of work ahead of you," he
spoke quietly so as to not startle her too bad.

Blinking in surprise as she looked up Kimberly nodded as she stood, "Yes
Sir," she replied automatically, "a few weeks worth at the least." Wiping
her hands on a rag she looked around, "right now I'm just tidying up,
figuring out what needs to be replaced." Nudging a tyre with her foot she
sighed again, "Hopefully not too much, though it's not as if there's gonna
be any opportunities in the near future to use her anyway."

"I know how ya feel. I restored an old Ducati when I was aboard the
Miranda. It took me eight years but you're far ahead of me." Jaal pointed
to the boxes of parts, "I started with nothing. It looks like you're ready
to start putting things together."

"Putting things 'back' together actually. This used to be a fully working
Harley Night Rod Special, but a couple of friends needed a few parts a while
back, and I'm just now getting around to sorting things out." Looking down
again she shrugged, oh well. "What happened to your Ducati then?" she asked
curiously.

"Well," Jaal began the explanation, "When I was transferred from the Miranda
to DS5 to take command of the Carthage. I took some leave time to get the
bike home and left it there because my ship 'really' didn't have the room to
store. Now I'm glad I did otherwise I'd have nothing now." He paused in
reflection of his short time as a ship's commanding officer. "So, it's still
there, on Trill."

"Perhaps you can bring it aboard one day?" Kimberly asked. "Once I've got
this back together, and the new engine installed I plan to take the time to
go planetside and do some riding next time we're around a world with some
roads. It's a great way to relax." She admitted with an almost childish
smile.

"Maybe someday," Jaal conceded, "And it's definitely a good way to relax."
He took a few steps and peered into one of the boxes. "What parts did your
friends need? What'd they do with them?" he asked curiously.

Able to smile now at the memory Kimberly had to admit that looking back at
the moment, it was funny in hindsight, "We found ourselves in a position
where we needed a gun, something impressive looking, so they used the
exhaust and a few other parts to mock up a rather evil looking crew served
weapon. And since they'd stripped the muffler, it was quite noisy as well.
A pretty good bluff actually, got us out of a bit of a situation."

Jaal was rather perplexed. "They took the whole thing apart just to get some
pipes? That's whack," he shook his head in sympathy. "Well, if you need any
help, let me know. Ducatis are significantly different in the way their made
but I 'am' familiar with two wheeled vehicles."

"I'll keep that in mind, Thanks." Grateful of the offer, she eyed the parts
again, last time she had assembled the bike she'd needed some help from a
couple of engineers, someone familiar with old motorbikes would be really
helpful.

"Sir," she started a little hesitantly as she sat back down and continued
cataloguing and packing parts slowly, "would you mind if I asked you
something while you're here?"

"I can't 'stop' you from asking," Jaal answered with usual, playful grin.

"Well, our mission to the Vered cluster a while back. What did we accomplish
there? We uprooted all those people, but even now I'm still fuzzy as to
why? What did the Federation gain from it?" The note of confusion in her
voice was evident, and she looked at him with an equally bemused expression,
this had obviously been playing on her mind for a while now. "You're our
Strategic Operations officer; do you know what's going on? Or what happens
next?"

"What did we accomplish?" Jaal repeated with a tinge of disgust in his tone,
"Officially, we saved a large group of Federation colonists from the
advancing Hydran fleet. What did we gain?" He shrugged and went on trying to
sound comforting, "I'm not one hundred percent sure yet... as for strategic
operations, I have an idea of what the rest of Starfleet is doing but I
can't see the future. I have no idea what's going to happen next."

Idly running the links of the very heavy chain that helped drive her bike
she looked at the grease and oil stains that were covering her hands as she
thought. "You say officially, is there another side to it?" Hesitating for
a second she looked as if she wasn't sure exactly how to say what was on her
mind next, "Sir, I'm absolutely the last person who'd advocate force in any
form, but it just surprises me is all that the Federation and Starfleet
would so willingly give up territory that has been colonised for so long,
especially during a time of war when our 'enemy'," she said the last word
with an odd tone to her voice, "is the one who gains so much. During the
last war the fleet fought tooth and nail to halt any advances into
Federation territory, and only pulled back when the absolutely had to. Yet
there, we pulled back before even a single shot had been fired. Why?"

Jaal looked at her for a long time before answering. She had to ask the hard
questions, didn't she? "Well, there were some rumours that possibly, we were
just giving the Dreshayans back what they thought was theirs to begin with.
There's another that says we gave up the colonies in exchange for their help
in watching our borders. There's also the possibility that they've signed a
non-aggression pact with the Hydrans so they can pass through Dreshayan
territory to Federation borders without any trouble. Take your pick. At this
point in time there's been no concrete proof for any of those."

"So basically we've uprooted all those people with no definite cause or
reason, and just let the Dreshayans walk in not knowing if there's going to
be any benefit what so ever of them being there?" Sounding bemused at the
thought she shook her head. "I don't understand." She admitted.

Jaal shrugged sadly, "That makes two of us."

"Commander, can I say that you really know how to reassure a gal." She
muttered deadpan. "So where do we go from here? What's next?"

The Trill was tired of talking about death, doom, and destruction for one
day. He really needed a break to relax and cut loose a little bit. "Next,"
he said attempting to cheer Kimberly, and himself, up, "I think we should
start putting the engine back together first then mount it in the frame."

Smiling Kimberly nodded, "That sounds like a good way to start." She
agreed, looking at the engine block and the Starfleet powercell that
replaced the combustion engine. "I'll get an antigrav."

Jaal smiled, "Excellent." He was already going through Kimberly's tools and
selecting what they'd need.

==A While Later...==

The frame had the engine, handlebars, wheels, and exhaust manifolds. There
was still a lot of work to do despite the considerable progress that had
been made.

Jaal stood back a moment and admired the Harley's clean lines. This was
definitely a brute of a machine where he was used to the subtle, clean lines
of his Ducati. Where the Harley definitely looked like it 'could' move fast
the Ducati looked like it was flying while standing still. "She looks like
she runs fast," he commented.

"She does," Kimberly admitted, "with the original engine I could probably
get up to almost one hundred and fifty miles an hour, but I swapped that out
while I was first building her for a modified engine that runs off standard
power cells, more environmentally friendly." She admitted with a smile.
"Theoretically I can run for a few days non stop if I ever wanted to try,
and hit speeds of almost two hundred if I'm stupid enough, though I've
installed a limiter that restricts me to one twenty max."

Jaal grinned. He'd been up to around two hundred miles an hour on his bike
on the holodeck. Sure, it was nothing like the real thing but the sensation
of going ridiculously fast still made one's adrenaline rush. "I oughta take
you on the race track program I have for the holodeck sometime. My Ducati
runs a little faster than that."

Looking at the design PADD that sat amongst the parts she smiled, "I'd like
that, thanks. And if you don't mind, I have the specs for my bike on a
PADD, I could download them to the program and add my bike to the matrix if
that's okay with you?" Asking in a slightly hesitant voice, knowing that
some people didn't like their programs tinkered with.

"It shouldn't be a problem, most bikes made in that era are already included
in it," Jaal informed her, "You may just have to customize some of the
specifications to make it match your real one."

"That, sounds like a plan." She agreed with an enthusiastic smile.

“The Dogs of Ops”

Lt. Commander Th’Khiss K’aa, Chief of Operations
Lieutenant Fen Gaal – Assistant Chief of Operations

Operations Center, USS Galaxy
=======================

“You’re in my desk.”

From underneath Fen Gaal’s bushy eyebrows a scowl quickly formed as he
looked up at the speaker. It was a tall, emaciated human who frowned
back at him and glared with pale grey eyes rimmed with bloodshot. The
thin man bore a small stack of pads neatly stacked between frail
fingers. “My desk”, he repeated. “You’re in it.”

Gaal knew he was being replaced, but he also knew the schedule and
manifest of all incoming shuttles. No new personnel were expected
with the exception of an addition to Security, and the human before
him bore no resemblance to the diminutive Caitian they were
expecting. “And you are…?”, the Tellarite asked, hesitating as he saw
the extra half-pip on the man’s collar.

“Lieutenant… Commander… K’aa”, the human said slowly, accenting each
word with a pause pregnant with impatience. “Perhaps you’ve heard of
me.”

The Tellarite froze over his terminal, looking slightly past the
Commander to the Ops Workcenter to see if anyone was hiding past the
threshold, laughing at his expense. Other than the constant hum of
the warp engines, Operations was unnaturally silent as though all
personnel in the department had quickly found work at other locations
in the ship. “That’s not possible”, Gaal managed to sputter. “He’s…
in the Brig! And… you’re not a Gorn!”

“Careful, Mister Gaal”, K’aa replied with deliberate restraint at the
unintentional insult. “If you tear yourself from your current task,
you’ll find a communiqué from the ship’s XO explaining the current…
hrmmm… condition. I’ll wait while you review the document.”

As Gaal attacked his work-console rapid-fire, K’aa took a thorough
look at the Ops Chief’s office. As on the Miranda, Operations was
built around the Galaxy’s massive computer core, and the Ops Chief’s
office was the closest room to that hub. No less than twenty monitors
flickered with constant streams of data from each department of the
ship, and others still on the main console scrolled though manifests,
requisitions, material transfers and other mundane ‘paperwork’ that
made the Galaxy function. It was said that the amount of bureaucracy
on a starship was directly proportional to the vessel’s tonnage, and
while the Galaxy was no Pathfinder-class leviathan, the sheer volume
of the data flow reminded him that the ship was still one of the
larger ones in Starfleet.

Gaal broke onto a cold sweat as he read Iniara’s brief, rapidly
soaking in the impossible story it attempted to convey. “Not…
possible”, he murmured from underneath his thick beard., “I… don’t
understand…”

~That makes two of us~, K’aa thought as he brooded over the power-
output of the main warp core. He could almost feel the Tellarite’s
tension, and allowed the Lieutenant time to thoroughly absorb the
truth in the document. When Gaal finally pushed back from the Ops
Chief’s desk, he bore a look of profound and almost absolute
confusion. “How did this all happen?

“That… Mister Gaal,” K’aa began, offering the Lieutenant one of the
several PADDs he had brought with him, “…is a very long story. I’ve
detailed something of a more thorough explanation, as well as a text I
want you to be more familiar with in the next few days.”

The Tellarite nodded as he accepted the device, and began to scroll
through the directory. “So… um… the Hydran in the brig? What’s to
happen to him?”

“Not your concern”, K’aa said sharply. “Instead, I want to focus on
what happened to him before he attempted to relieve Captain M’Kantu’s
body of its head. You’ve reviewed his actions in this department,
Lieutenant. Tell me about it.”

Gaal’s forehead darkened in embarrassment. For weeks the traitor had
held court in Operations right under the Tellarite’s snout, and the
reminder grated at him as did what he had to say about it. “He was…
charming. Empowering. He believed in delegating as much as possible
and observing the performance of those tasks. The department… er…
got along with him very well despite his reputation from the Miranda.
Apparently under Captains Elaithin and Summers he was more than a
little… ah… moody.” He gave the Gorn an awkward, lopsided grin. “He
was quite pleasant to work with.”

The words drew a snort from the new Ops Chief, who frowned at the
information. He felt almost cut buy the hard edge of irony that the
Galaxy’s Ops staff had been relieved that the Hydran spy’s behavior
was contrary to *his* reputation. They believed the agent had been
*on* the Miranda, not knowing that he had assumed K’aa’s identity some
weeks after the transfer of personnel. “Wonderful”, he muttered, and
saw Gaal’s brow furrow with worry.

K’aa’s own complexion reddened as he mulled over his first move in
Ops. Instinct drove him towards marking his territory and diving into
the tasks at hand as quickly as… well… humanly possible. The
Lieutenant’s expression however, gave him cause to pause and to
reflect on the nature of the terrain. “Take the remainder of your
shift to transfer your workstation”, he said at last. “Tomorrow we’ll
review the Hydran’s activities while we discuss the transition. I’d
like you to assign someone to audit the transmission bandwidth he had
access to, as well as all activity his workstation had performed. If
he so much as scratched a scale while accessing classified data, I
want to know about it.”

“At once, Commander”, Gaal said nodding, and inwardly relieved that he
was given the opportunity to think and plan about the transition.
“I’ll get our best people on it.”

“No… our best people will be preparing away-team gear set-ups for
Sciences, Marine/Security, Engineering and Medical”, k’aa growled from
the doorway. “Hostile, sub-tropical type terrain, with full first-aid
kits for all personnel. Engineer personnel will also be equipped with
auxiliary radiation and has-mat gear. I want this done for my review
within the hour, understood?”

Gaal nodded as he began to enter requisitions from the ship’s central
stores. “Aye, I’m on it now, sir.”

A curt nod from K’aa ended the conversation and he left the Ops Center
with unsteady but determined footsteps towards the Brig.

"It's a Matter of Trust"

I've lived long enough to have learned
The closer you get to the fire the more you get burned
-Billy Joel, Matter of Trust

Captain T'Vara
Lt. Cmdr. Tarin Iniara
Lt. Cmdr. Th'Khiss K'aa

-----

Several days had passed since K'aa had been officially returned to
duty, and the XO was pleased to see that the Human-Gorn officer had
been making steady improvements every day. Of course, he still had a
bit to go before the gaunt, shadowed look fully disappeared from his
features, and getting to the point where he could pass the exhaustive
battery of Starfleet physical tests was a long way off, but every
little bit counted for something.

As the turbolift steadily ascended to Deck 1, Iniara glanced briefly
at K'aa. He still looked uncomfortable in Class A's, but thankfully
he'd filled out enough to where the jacket was no longer hanging off
his frame like some sort of tent. "Ready for this?"

"Since arriving, I've had to endure thirteen bows of oatmeal, seven
salads, and dozens of assorted fruits and...hmmmm.... vegetables",
K'aa answered with a grimace. "That kind of... sacrifice had better
not go unrewarded. I'm as prepared as I'll ever be, and I'd like to
sink my claws back into life... such as they are."

"Good." Iniara nodded thoughtfully; it was good to see that, despite
everything he'd been through, K'aa's spirit still remained strong.
"Try some Bajoran food," she said almost as an afterthought. "Most
traditional dishes are vegetarian, but they're much more flavorful
than the Terran equivalents...and certainly more flavorful than
oatmeal."

K'aa managed a grunt, but out of politeness said nothing more.

The turbolift came to a halt, doors sliding open to reveal the bridge.
Iniara stepped out and took a moment to survey the bridge, then
stepped aside so that K'aa could do the same. Unless she was
mistaken, this was his first trip to the bridge since arriving aboard
Galaxy in his current form.

~Smaller than I thought~, K'aa mused, recalling the spaciousness of
the Miranda's bridge. His first glance was not at the Ops station,
but
at the Ensign currently manning the Tactical post with something more
than a pang of envy. Looking at Lieutenant Gaal at Ops only brought a
feeling of intense disappointment that he hoped didn't alter his
controlled expression.

Instead of taking the expected route to the Ready Room, the XO headed
for the Observation Lounge, the doors parting automatically as they
approached. Inside, the captain sat almost perfectly still at the
head of the table, her expression predictably stoic. In the corners
behind her, also as still as statues, stood a pair of Security
officers.

As the doors closed behind them, Iniara tried to ignore the
presence of the guards. Although K'aa had been declared safe by
several sources, clearly the captain was not fully convinced. But,
given what had happened to Galaxy's previous captain the last time
he'd encountered a K'aa, Iniara supposed she couldn't entirely blame
the woman.

"Lieutenant Commanders Tarin and K'aa reporting as ordered, Captain,"
the XO announced.

Silently, T'Vara watched them enter and approach the gently curved
table that dominated the room. As was her custom, she raised a hand
and gestured to the chairs immediately to her right, indicating they
should sit.

"Mister K'aa," she began, critically examining the man's appearance.
"I have read several reports from the Medical and Counseling
departments, as well as testimonials from officers who claim to have
served with you in the past, all of which state that this body
currently houses the mind of the real Th'Khiss K'aa and not a Hydran
impostor. Please explain to me why I should believe any of them."

The thin human didn't answer immediately reflecting on the Vulcan's
interesting choice of words. "Captain... since I've arrived, I've
been prodded, bled, tested, re-tested, examined, questioned, briefed
and de-briefed almost without pause. You've no doubt been made fully
aware of the investigations performed and the data before you, and
while I'll certainly agree to the improbability of it all I assure
you, I am Th'Khiss K'aa - test me in whatever manner you see fit. As
for why you should believe your staff...", he remarked, eyeing the two
guards with a frown. "that would be up to your own observations and
judgement. It would, however, seem that your actions are speaking for
you. I commend that."

T'Vara's demeanor changed ever so slightly; that was exactly the
answer she had been expecting. Beside her, Iniara felt fairly certain
that, were she not Vulcan, the captain would have smiled.

"Ensigns, you are dismissed." At the captain's command the pair of
Security officers popped to attention, snapped off a salute, then
turned to depart from the room. Iniara watched them go, and only now
realized that they were wearing standard duty uniforms and not Class
A's. It seemed Krieghoff had gotten his way after all.

"Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Commander," T'Vara continued once the
doors had shut. The use of his rank was a subtle, but important,
change. Now it seemed likely that T'Vara had already been convinced
by the reports she'd read, and had only been testing K'aa. "All
available information suggests that you are a superb officer and
talented tactician."

"I have been privileged to serve some outstanding commands", K'aa
answered with an air of formality, "and with outstanding crew." The
Captain's last word however, had given him a twinge in the pit of his
stomach and not for the first time he wondered if his body's reaction
to stress was a typical mammalian response or something unique to him.
"If my contributions have been worthy of praise, I owe as much to
them as myself."

"Given your previous record of service in the Tactical division of the
USS Miranda, the sudden career change to Operations appears somewhat
illogical. What was the reasoning behind this change?"

"Captain Elaithin... suggested that the post would be an excellent
step in grooming me for command." Inwardly, K'aa had some very
serious doubts about Elaithin Jii's motives concerning his
reassignment, after all the Gorn did bear some responsibility for the
death of the Bajoran's wife. While outwardly it seemed like a
promotion, the Ops Chief couldn't shake the feeling that this was some
form of sinister Prophetic revenge. Still... "A varied knowledge is
required of a solid command, and while I'll admit the warrior in me
chafes at Operations I can't deny the value of the learning
experience."

"Statistically speaking, since Operations became a division separate
from Engineering over one hundred years ago, it has been the division
most likely to produce officers of command rank."

Iniara nodded as she listened to T'Vara. "The captain and I both came
from Operations. And, we both started out in a different department
before transferring to Ops," she told K'aa.

"Indeed," T'Vara commented, one eyebrow creeping upward ever so
slightly. As a first year cadet, she'd spent less than a single
semester at the Academy in the Sciences curriculum; it seemed her XO
had done some research. "If command is your ultimate goal, service in
Operations is a logical move. However, we should not focus so much on
the future without first discussing the present. Despite recent
events, Lieutenant Commander Th'Khiss K'aa is still assigned as the
Chief Operations Officer of this vessel. Is this a position in which
you wish to remain?"

For the second time in his career K'aa was force to weigh his ambition
against his personal likes, but this time the deck was stacked in a
particular direction. Several queries to Admiral Bek's Tactical had
been met with a deliberate silence, and the Gorn could see the virtual
writing on the wall. While not a Tactical post, Ops on the Galaxy
*did* promise exposure... if he could perform. "It is", he said,
feeling the weight of the two words sink in. "I've already prepared a
campaign for Operations during the present mission, and certain
adjustments to the various squad and divisional resources should
improve efficiency quite admirably."

"A campaign?" the captain asked, a bit surprised by his use of
military terminology to describe a department that was rarely, if
ever, directly involved in anything more than support operations.
"Explain."

"My model for Ops is based on a general of human antiquity named Sun
Tsu, specifically his 'Art of War'." K'aa looked carefully at
T'Vara's face, trying to discern any reaction from the Vulcan as he
quoted the ancient text. "'It is a matter of life or death, a road to
either safety or to ruin. Hence it is the subject of inquiry which on
no account be neglected.' Operations will be prepared to meet each of
the challenges of its chief enemy... time. I can send a translation
to your personal directory if you wish to examine the text."

Never one to shy away from the opportunity to learn something new,
T'Vara nodded and replied, "I would appreciate the opportunity to
study such a text."

As would I, Iniara thought to herself as she made a note to look up
that particular document. "It's a novel approach," she commented.

"Agreed. Then, I assume you wish to begin this 'campaign' as soon as
possible?"

"With your permissions, Captain... Commander,", K'aa said in a
gravelly monotone bereft of enthusiasm, "I'l 'cry Havoc, and let slip
the Dogs of Ops' as soon as we're done here."

"Daily Routine"



A little something different with Lieutenant Raven Darkstar, Navigation Chief



"04:14 I find myself instantly awakened as what feels like hot knives of stone are being lanced into my muscles and then turned. Repeatedly. Despite precautions, while sleeping I have rolled upon my recently reattached arm. Any and all attempts to return to sleep have failed. Rather then staring at a wall, I am opting to do something more productive with my time and as such, will begin my daily activities."



"05:35 My customary morning jog around the saucer section continues to be an irritation. Running with one arm immobilized has slowed down my pace. Lieutenant Sanchez frequently runs along side me and seeing my...handicap immobilized her own arm to keep stride with me. I find myself grateful for her motivation this morning."



"06:45 Operating a sonic shower with one arm continues to be a challenge. I am now more open to adapting the unit with a hand held shower head despite previous hesitation due to past experience with the shower head of the Deltan officer named Wej. I reported for bridge duty eleven minutes late after multiple attempts to don my uniform properly failed. The uneasiness of the navigation officer on duty was evident. Seeing me, he instinctually prepared to hand off the control of the helm before remembering that I remain unable to physically operate the station. Delivering my Daily Departmental Readiness report to Commander Iniara, I can not help but look at the bridge and replay the battle in my mind repeatedly studying to see if there was a moment I could have acted differently to prevent the Captain's injuries."



"07:55 While meeting with the GALAXY's shuttle mechanic Dakota Willis, I am stricken by how I avoid any sort of grease or dirt from the shuttle bay as she points out various minor repairs and tune ups she is in the process of completing so that I will not have to go through the arduous task of cleaning up before this morning's physical therapy session."



"11:35 I have just left sickbay and find myself impatiently optimistic. The physical drills showed that I could move my arm with less discomfort then previously. My hand strength also has begun to return and I am able to hold my fist closed for longer periods of time. It was good to take the cast off so that I could scratch my arm again. The doctor's prognosis is that my recovery is beyond where it should be at this point in time. I have noticed that my arm looks considerably weaker then before and have made a note to adjust my physical fitness regimen accordingly when I am fully healed."


"13:08 Lunch with Leo Streely continued to be a lesson in insanity as he once more attempted to convince me that a physical encounter with a Ferengi female associate of his would speed up my recovery. I find myself loathe to admit it but the man's optimism is infectious and he remains an invaluable part of my recovery. NOTE TO SELF: be sure to delete the previous statement."



"14:30 The hours in which I have fewer duties to fulfill have been the most difficult. Sequestered in my office I have had nothing to do but dwell upon my current inabilities. Seeking a change I have come down to the whale tanks and have found some measure of solace watching these great beasts. I understand how they have the appeal they do amongst various crew members. I have also contacted the GALAXY's school teacher Amanda Green in regards to her monthly inquiry for a departmental guest speaker for her class. Having done it before and having no previous engagements, I have agreed to appear this afternoon."



"16:10 My interaction with the children has been completed. I seem to be a constant favorite of theirs. Lt. Green states it is because my actions on the ship when their is danger have elevated me to superhero status amongst the younglings. No doubt fueled in part by "Uncle Leo". I find their belief in me to be somewhat flattering and continue to marvel at how they do not seem to notice my injuries at all. Their interaction with me as awkward as it sometimes makes me feel, has been the high point of my day. I now find myself hurrying to my quarters to drop off hand drawn pictures the children have colored for me so that I will be on time to meet with my physical therapist again."



"18:23 I fail to see how rolling a ball across the deck plates will help me regain what I have lost. In my frustrations I was perhaps a little more vocal about my doubts then I needed to be. As such, it was politely requested that I meet with an anger management specialist to help channel my energies into a more positive manner. I have also been told that I am prohibited from working double shifts until cleared by the Medical Department. It is an opinion that I do not agree with."


"19:11 I have just left sickbay after over exerting myself in the holodeck. Dr. Burton was extremely unhappy that I would attempt such a thing without her clearance. As a result, I have been temporarily restricted from using the holodecks. Leo Streely stopped by and attempted to coerce me into going to a therapeutic masseuse that he somehow found aboard the ship. Despite his odd storybook promises of a "happy ending" I have declined and am opting to remain in my quarters.


"24:27 It has become readily apparent how so many members of this crew find themselves in the situations they do. The holonet is filled with nothing but reality shows, sonic ball games and what appears to be the same movies on different channels. I have sought the solice of the Navigation Done and have spent the last hour or so meditating. When one finds themselves sitting atop what appears to be the saucer section underneath the holographic stars, l,life seems to have more clarity. On the way by my quarters, I believe I saw Leo walking around the hallways wearing nothing but a bath robe and a balloon tied to his genitalia. In truth, I am too weary to investigate and am ready to attempt sleep once more."


"02:07 PSSST......IS THIS THING ON????? HEY BUDDY....IT'S ME LEO. I JUST STOPPED BY TO SEE HOW YOU ARE DOING. YOUR DOORS WERE UNLOCKED AND WHEN I CAME IN YOUR LIGHTS WERE ON. YOU MISSED A HELL OF A PARTY. I WAS GOING TO WAKE YOU BUT YOU LOOK LIKE YOU NEEDED YOUR SLEEP. I'll CATCH YOU IN THE MORNING SOMETIME. OH YEAH...ITS AH...YOU KNOW...NICE TO HAVE YA BACK. I GOTTA GO. THE GIRLS ARE WAITING. OH BY THE WAY, I BORROWED YOUR LOIN CLOTH. DONT ASK. THEY HAVE A FETISH. ILL BRING IT BACK WHEN WE'RE DONE."

"A Night Out At CBGB's"


With

Benedict "Max" Maxwell, APP
Petty Officer 2nd Class, USS Galaxy

And Special Guests.........



At times like these, even when it seems that everything is going your way it was hard to keep one's head on straight. You trade up to something...or rather someone better. Your ideas are blooming into maturity. You're the rock that your friends can depend on.

Therein lies the issue. Max's life was going so well that he was waiting for the bottom to drop out on him. That's when he needed to get away from it all, and break out one of his hobbies. Today, it would be his rhythm guitar, but he wanted more than to just pluck at the strings. He wanted to play. And play hard.

Which is what brought him to the Holodeck during Gamma shift. He needed to vent his frustrations in new ways, nothing involving training simulations, no Hazard suits. Not even a freaking game of monopoly with a Ferengi.

"Computer," Max began, then looked around to endure that he was alone in the immediate area. He didn't like anyone knowing about this particular program of his. "Computer, load Maxwell Charlie Bravo Eight and run program."

There was a chirp, which was followed by the computer acknowledging. [You may enter when ready]

He took a deep breath, put on his Oakley sunglasses, and entered..............

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

Moments later...

"Alright everyone we've got a great night in store for you, hope you havin' fun..." the emcee was saying to the crowd. While he continued to pump up the audience in the club, Max gargled with some garlic sauce and water. It soothed and relaxed his throat (he thought so at least).

"Man, your breath is gonna reek," Sean was saying. He was limbering up his fingers and wrists, his drumsticks twirling and deftly moving from one side of his hand to the other.

"That's alright," Max replied. "That's what mouthwash and gum is for." He took several deep breaths, feeling nervous about getting on stage. Mike, who was standing next to him patted him on the shoulder.
"It's alright bro, everyone gets a little nervous their first time out with us," he said, trying to reassure Max. "The last guy puked his guts out right after the show. It was hellacious." The bassist gave another clap on the shoulder and resumed checking his bass for just the right tuning.

Finally, Jerry stepped up next to him, not saying a word. He didn't have to. Max knew that Jerry had his back.

"...And without further ado, With Max Maxwell filling in as lead singer.....ALICE IN CHAINS!" The entire crowd went insane as Sean, Mike, Jerry...and Max took the stage. Max stepped right up to the microphone and the band began playing.

Be what you wanna be
See what you came to see
Been what you wanna be
I don't like what I see

Like the coldest winter chill
Heaven beside you... Hell within...

Max felt alive at that moment, losing himself in the moment, the music. The crowd vibed with the band. For him, that particular song evoked several images in his life, which in turn fueled the voice from within him. When they finished the song, the crowd howled so loud the walls shook. The band members were all smiles, giving each other nods of encouragement.

"Thanks, everyone," Max was saying to the crowd, now. "You ready for more?" The crowd responded with a resounding cheer for the band to continue. Max smiled broadly, feeling more and more in his element now. "Okay, alright. Here's something from the Jar Of Flies album..." Jerry started off with the rhythm, then Mike broke in with the bass. Finally, Sean broke in with the drums as Max and Jerry began to sing.

Yeah, I want to travel south
This year
Aaah, Woah, Woah
Won't prevent safe passage here...

Then the rhythm and bass took on an eerie sound as the duet continued the song, feeding of of Max's dark moods and emotions. It's why he enjoyed listening to and interacting with the ancient Terran band from the late 20th/early 21st Century. Each song had its own emotion, and if you looked at it that way its own message. Then Max reached the point in the song where he truly let out the angst he felt and kept under lock and key...

"I-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i Staaaaaaaaaaaayed Awaaayyyyy......."

The raw energy he put into those lyrics made him feel as if those lyrics were his, the energy from the guitars and drums were ecstasy to him. in fact, he would even go as far as to say better than sex. It made him want to perform even more, and at that moment a decision was made. He wanted to put together a band on the Galaxy, a band that can understand, appreciate, and live the music the same way he did.

After the set was finished, he took his bows, sweat streaming down his face and neck in that now infamous New York City music bar. He said his goodbyes to the band members, and left the Holodeck, saving the program before closing it.

It was definitely an awesome night out at CBGB's.

"Walls"

Ensign Jess Underwood, Science Officer (NPC)
Ensign Brian Phillips, Science Officer (NPC)

-----

"Hey, Jess."

"What?"

"Hey. Come take a look at this."

"Brian..." Jess Underwood tried and failed to conceal the irritation
in the sigh that escaped her lips. She'd broken up with Brian
Phillips over three weeks ago, and even though they were still
assigned to the same shift in the same Science lab, she'd been lucky
enough to avoid having to talk to him much since then. "Brian, if
this is some..."

"Jess, just shut up and take a look at this."

"Fine." Pushing back from her console the young ensign crossed the
room and grabbed a spare chair, sliding it as close as she could get
without feeling uncomfortable. "Okay, what?"

"Tell me what you think this is," Brian answered, tapping a few
buttons on his screen and then pointing with a finger.
"Right...there."

For a moment Jess was silent as she stared at the spectrographic
analysis. All thoughts of keeping her distance from her ex-lover were
forgotten as she leaned closer, trying to make sense of the lines that
crossed the image at strangely regular intervals. "It looks like, I
dunno, limestone. Where is this?"

"Down on the planet."

"You got a visual image of the area?"

"Yeah, but it's boring," Brian answered, clicking the display over to
show her. "See? All trees n' shit."

"Hm." Jess scratched idly at her chin as she examined the overhead
image of the dense foliage. "Is this in the rainforest the initial
survey report was talking about?"

"Kinda." He tapped on the screen again, zooming the image out to
display a much wider chunk of the planet's surface. "It seems like a
small rainforest grew up around this river that runs more or less this
way," he explained, slashing a hand diagonally across the display.
"Nothing near as impressive as anything on Earth...but around it the
environment is a lot more temperate...fields and grass and stuff.
This is right on the edge of the rainforest, here," he finished,
tapping a spot near the upper right hand corner of the image.

"And that spectrographic signature is only in this area? Nowhere else?"

"No other area that I've found yet. At least...well, it's strange. I
found the same thing in some mountains to the north, and lots of it,
which is where you'd expect to find limestone...not down here in a
rainforest, and especially not in tiny amounts like this."

"Huh. Don't suppose you have an infrared image?"

"I think so, but I haven't looked at it yet." Brian tapped through
some more menus, cycling rapidly through options until he found what
he was looking for. "Ah, here we go."

"Woah." Jess' eyes went wide as she looked at the brightly-colored
image. Scanning through the thick foliage meant the image was mostly
unclear, but there was definitely something there. She reached
forward and adjusted the view back down until they were looking at the
same area they'd originally been examining, then dragged a finger down
a couple lines that caught her eye. "Look at that."

"What is it?"

For the moment ignoring him, Jess instructed the computer to begin
measuring the distances between all the lines. "See this?" she asked
Brian, pointing at the numbers the computer was filling in on the map.
"Four meters. Two meters. One and a half meters. Three and a half
meters. Seven meters. Two meters again. And the thickness of each
line is almost identical...just under half a meter. And then there's
more lines running perpendicular to those..."

"Yeah, so what is it?" Brian asked again.

"Okay, look at it this way...room, room, hallway, room, possible empty
space, another room..." Jess paused and looked at him. "Brian, I
think they're walls."

"Walls?" he responded, surprised.

"Yeah. The lines are at almost perfect right angles, which indicates
they may have been artificially made and aren't part of a natural
phenomenon. The intervals are regular, but not identical or in any
sort of a pattern." She shrugged. "But it's difficult to tell at
this level of resolution. We need more detailed scans or some eyes on
the ground checking this out or something."

"...Walls?" Brian repeated softly, obviously not having made it past
his ex's original conclusion.

"Maybe, yeah." She gave him an odd look. "So?"

"So maybe this means the crew survived the crash long enough to
build...I dunno, walls?"

Realization dawned on Jess as she finally saw where Brian was going
with this. She resisted the urge to shrug and instead slowly nodded.
"Maybe, yeah."

Prisoner of Duty

Lieutenant (JG) Valentina Kyznetsova
Intelligence Officer (officially)

~~~~
I sit in my quarters, alone.

Ever since returning to the Galaxy nothing has gone the way I expected. While the periods of time between visits with Nathan have been filled with idleness, those times we do get to spend with eachother have been Nathan's frustration with the new fighters and their constant technical issues, and my frustration and boredome at having nothing to do myself. And that is an issue I try not to push on him. I have to deal with it every day, which is more than enough attention to the issue than is needed.

Saul has been, uncooperative to say the least. I tried to report in the day after I got back; the outer doors, the ones even guests can get through to see the receptionist, wouldn't even open for me. He won't answer any of the messages I've left him. It's been made clear to me that I no longer have a place within the Galaxy's Intelligence department. Likewise I've similarly been forbidden to participate in other departments and their activities. Access to outside comunications frequencies has similarly been denied. If he's going to be such a bastard, he should have just accepted my resignation and let me go. Better than than the alternative. I don't know what he wants, what he's planning, what's going to happen to me.

I am a slave to my own patriotism and loyalty. He knows this, and he is using it against me in the worst possible way. Every day I wake at the same time, conduct personal hygene, don my uniform .... and wait. For the entirety of Alpha shift I wait in my quarters for messages I know won't be sent, and for an armed escort that I know is inevitable. So I wait out Alpha shift in my quarters, and venture out into the ship. I have no knowledge of how much time I have left, and so I try to fill it with as much as I can reasonably experience.

Word has it Arel Smith is in cahoots (read, had intimidated) some poor sops in one of the lounges and is setting me up with a "blind date." I think Nathan is in on it somewhere, because when I told him he didn't take it badly. I think that's a good thing. The actual date is in a couple more days.

Until then, and afterwards to the moment I'm carted off, I remain a prisoner in all but name. I still have my comission and rank, but none of the authority or responsibility that comes with the same. Somewhere, somewhen, someone has branded me a Threat to the safety and integrity of the Federation, and peace for the Alpha Quadrant in general. There are no wanted posters as I have yet to do something wrong. The contradictions within Starfleet Intelligence are filled with great gaping voids of logic and information. For reasons unknown (and yet easily guessed) someone wants my cybernetics. They are one of a kind. They are a part of me, and have been since before I joined Starfleet. They were given to me by a people no longer in existance, and that apparently is justification enough for others to say I shouldn't have them. That's my guess, at any rate; I'm not an analyst.

~~~~

She pops open the PADD, examining the circutry within. Already she has disabled the Subspace Tranceiver Assembly, it won't be talking to anything else any time soon. An isolinear chip is withdrawn, the STA turned on. When Nathan comes over later tonight she plans to give it to him, for safekeeping. A repository of her thoughts, her musings, and the things she has seen and done since first boarding the Galaxy fresh out of the Academy.

A tear falls from violet eyes.

Liebman vs. Liebman Part 2

Lt. JG Ophelia Zamora
JAG

Lt. Mark Liebman
Security NPC

Amanda Frier
Civilian Family Law Attorney USS Galaxy

Location: Ophelia's office

===========================================================

The quiet strains of Chris Botti, jazz artist filled the air as Opehelia finished the initial paperwork associated with the divorce of Lt. Mark Leibman. He wasn't going to be happy with her decision to bump the case to the Galaxy's civilian attorney, but he and she had no choice in the matter. It came down to ethics, and Ophelia, at least in a professional manner, was not one to screw around with that.

He was shown into her office, and sat timidly with a level of necessary unsureness seeping through his gaze.

"Lt. I have news." Ophelia stated ominously.

"That is?" The security officer responded. He prayed it was good, although part of him was prepared for the worst that he could think of at least.

"I am declining to take your case and have refereed the matter to the in house civilian family law attorney. A Miss Amada Frier. She is a college and friend of mine and is specialized in Starfleet divorces." She took a quick sip of her luke warm coffee before watching his face fall in defeat.

"But, why? I don't understand. I thought that you would....."

"I am in a round about way. I'm acting as co counsel...a person that your attorney can consult with, however I will not be representing you in court when that time comes. Lt......I specialize in criminal law, not family law. Family law, especially divorce within the realm of Starfleet is tricky. I just do not feel comfortable. I don't believe I can give you the best representation especially concerning your son."

"Okay....." His voice fell silent as Amanda stepped into the room.

"Hey!" She waved with a pageant style way and an award winning smile. Coming up along side the security officer, she reached out for his hand and shook it firmly. "Lt....I'm Amanda Frier, I'll be representing you in your divorce proceedings that have been filed against you....arn't you a cutie!" She turned towards Opehlia. "Innit he a cutie honey?"

"He is indeed." Ophelia responded a little too flatly for Lt. Leibman's taste.

Zamora had to smile at her friend. The woman before her was an established attorney with years of experience, yet the Southern charm still oozed out of her. She was at least into her 50's with white hair that was cut short, yet still styled with perfection. Perfect hair styles were a requirement of female attorneys, at least, on the Galaxy they were. Amanda found her rotund bottom squeezed into the seat in front of Ophelia's desk as she continued to look through his information. "So my dear Ophelia...where do we stand?"

"We have the investigation underway with Elaine's agency...."

"Good....have you met O'Hare yet sugar?"

He shook his head. How could he? He was here on a blasted ship and O'Hare was on earth. He had to wonder if his newly appointed attorney had a few tools short of a full shed.

"Oh, she's a hoot!" Her bold laughter filled the air for all to hear.

"As I was saying....." Ophelia started again attempting to steer the conversation back to being somewhat professional in nature. "The investigation is in the preliminary stages. They have a tag on her tomorrow in the evening and after that we should know if we have anything solid to go on or not. As far as the filing of the work for temporary custody...."

The plump hand of Amanda shot up. "Oh! I got that....it's been filed with the San Fransisco court. That's where the soon to be ex...doesn't that have a nice ring to it suga?" She watched as his head bobbed up and down unenthusiastically. "Jurisdictional purposes. She's stationed at the academy, and since she filed....poof! That's where it will all take place. We have also submitted our answer to the motion for divorce. The forms for the division of marital property have been drawn up, debts separated, all that good stuff. The 'military' stuff as far as pension, child support, and all those other goodies will be motioned soon enough. I'm waiting to hear a response out of her attorney. Then the fun begins."

Zamora zoned out for a moment as the woman continued her rant. The woman's perfume was overpowering. Ophelia did not know if was a feeble attempt to swallow up the lingering body oder she smelled as Amanda walked into the room or an attempt to wipe out the opposing party by asphyxiation. Either way, Ophelia's head started to swim.

"Lt. Zamora?" Liebman questioned.

"Huh?" Her head rose to match his concerned eyes. "Oh, yes. Sorry. Long night last night. Amanda......character witnesses?"

"Yes! Oh my, I almost forgot. Honey.....do you know of anyone that can speak on your behalf? Concerning your character.....the way you are? Perhaps your supervisor...partner. Your in security...right?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a partner? Oh, I bet you do."

"Yes, I do." His flat tone was hinting at his slight irritation at the whole situation.

"Great! I'll need him or her....to come visit me for a deposition. Basically, it's an interview that I'm going to conduct under oath that we can use before the court to help if any issues would arrise with custody. I'll have my paralegal contact you if you would like to talk to them. We need to be prepared here, it could get quiet detailed. There's no such thing as a quick divorce....even in this time!"

"Fine." The same flat tone.

The calm, soothing voice of Zamora piped in. "Lt. Liebman, we are going to do the best we can for you. Going through this, you'll find yourself drained of every ounce of energy you thought you had. Your emotions will be tested, you'll be overly stressed and things for the next....oh year will be up side down. I've been through it, so I can offer that through personal experience. Just prepare yourself."

His head tilted downwards as a long heavy sigh escaped his soul. Looking up, he caught her attention with eyes that were now red. "I want my wife back." His eyes shut as another sigh held the air. "We met at the academy and were inseparable. Even when we were assigned in different places with Max, we made it work through communication. We talked after every shift......when we were together....it was wonderful. She was so.....she.....my soul. She's my soul lt.....and now this."

Amanda and Ophelia shared a pitied glance. "Mediation" Ophelia whispered.

"Are you serious? She filed...she wants it over. We've already filed." Amanda pouted.

"It's required by Starfleet regulations Frier, you know that. Before this goes to court, these two will have to go before a mediator and attempt to work things out. Starfleet makes...."

"Yes, honey. Starfleet makes every notion to attempt to keep marriages together. Yet they go and do this....this crap and force two people apart then when things don't go all rainbows and glitter, they shut the parties in a room with a 'mediator' and expect months and even years of differences to just up and disappear!"

"I am aware that Starfleet is not perfect....I was suggesting it before it actually is ordered to take place."

"She won't go for that....she wants out." Mark spoke quietly.

"Even if she wants out, she will go through procedure or she will just be screwing things up for herself." Zamora paused. "Make an appointment with a counselor on board Mark.....we take the steps before they are ordered it will look better for us in the long run. Amanda.....a suggestion....draft up a preliminary alimony and child support payment agreement. Even if we don't have custody right this second, it's a show of good faith that Mark will make strides to make everything as even as possible. Sound good?" She posed the question to Liebman.

"Yeah, I guess so." He retorted.

"Okie dokie. I gotta scoot. Mark honey....we'll do this....I'll be in touch."

"Great...." Was his only reply.

Ophelia nodded as Amanda left the office. Sighing, she gave Mark a knowing look before he exited. Days like this made her soul weary. She did however, feel somewhat better for dumping the case onto Frier. Turning her attention back to her departmental duties, she scheduled the monthly meeting and sent a quick reminder to all in her department that would be attending the meeting with a special post script for Davis to bring the donuts for her this time around. Being the boss did have some advantages.

"The Investigation"
Part 1

Lt. Cmdr. Tarin Iniara, XO
Lt. Victor Krieghoff, Security Second
Lt. T'Pol "8-ball" Hunter, Sciences
Lt. (jg) Naranda Sol Roswell, Engineering
Ens. Alexandra Lee, Engineering (APC - Aaron)
Cwm. Jonathan Smithwick, Medic (NPC)

-----

The doors to Transporter Room 1 parted before the XO, revealing that
the other five members of her team had already assembled and looked
pretty much ready to go. As expected, they were all dressed in warm
weather fatigues, each one carrying a small pack in addition to the
tools specific to their trade.

The plan was fairly simple, but the execution of said plan was likely
to be anything but. Thus far, scans of the wreckage indicated that, by
the time the ship came to rest, much of it had been crushed, twisted,
or otherwise damaged...and then it had been subjected to over two
centuries of environmental damage. The stardrive section had been torn
partially in half and some of the decks had collapsed around the area
of the tear. Predictably, the spherical main hull had separated from
the rest of the vessel on impact, and appeared to have actually rolled
over once or twice before being caught by (though 'plowing into' was
probably a more accurate descriptor) a large hill on the edge of what
appeared to be this planet's version of a rainforest. Fortunately, it
had stopped more or less upright, but tilted at about a 45 degree
angle to the ground.

"Alright," Iniara said, meeting the gaze of each team member before
continuing. "I assume you've all read the mission briefing, so there's
no need to review our objectives. A word of caution though -- sensors
indicate the temperature is currently around 35 degrees Celsius and
relative humidity is just below 70 percent, which is mainly due to the
rainforest right next door. If you start to feel off from the heat,
let Medic Smithwick know. I don't want anyone getting heat stroke or
passing out because they decided to ignore something their body was
trying to tell them. Any questions?"

"No, ma'am," 8-ball said, who had never spoken those words with such
fervency. She'd had heat stroke once and only once in her life, and
that was damn well enough for her. Besides, she'd only just recently
gotten OUT of the hospital. She had absolutely no desire to get sick
enough to go back.

"No questions," Victor spoke up, "but a few warnings. Scans show that
there's plenty of life down there, which is to be expected anywhere
near a jungle. Nothing monumentally large seems to be moving around,
but there's plenty of life in the three hundred kilos and down
category to watch out for. Additionally, after two hundred years the
wreckage is likely to have become a nesting place and breeding ground
for every local life form that can get inside, since it's better
shelter from the elements and predators than anything else in the
area." He looked around the group. "What that means is that you
shouldn't assume that just because you're poking around inside the
wreckage, you don't have to watch out for wildlife that will think
you're dinner being delivered. Everyone clear on that?"

Nara didn't respond. She figured silence was a good enough answer to
the question. She was slightly nervous as it had been awhile since
she'd been on an away team. Not that she doubted her skills.

8-ball nodded, wondering what kind of no-name, red shirt ensign you'd
have to be to think that poking around the wreckage of an old starship
in the middle of a jungle was, in any way, a safe activity. People
possessing that particular level of stupidity didn't belong on the
Galaxy... which wasn't to say that the Galaxy didn't have them. Just,
they didn't have very long life spans.

Alex also nodded. She felt honored to be chosen for this Away Mission.
How many people got to study an experimental artifact from the first
days of the Federation?

"Clear." Iniara nodded once, and was pleased to see that at the
moment, her normal reaction to Victor's presence was relatively mild.
That was definitely a good thing, she thought; the inside of the ship
was likely to be creepy enough, and she didn't need anything else
putting her even more on edge.

She stepped onto the transporter padd and waited for the rest of the
team to do the same. A brief feeling of sadness passed over her as she
looked back at the room's main console: it should have been CPO
Arvelion behind the controls, not the young Bolian who was there now.

"Six to beam down, Chief," she said, pushing the feeling back inside
and forcing herself to focus on the mission at hand.

"Aye, sir." He tapped quickly at the console, and a moment later they were off.

-----

"Owwww..."

"My God..."

Something loud screeched and then crashed, the sound reverberating
through his head for many seconds. JP wasn't sure if the sound was
real, or if the pain in his head was simply tearing it apart. Or
maybe he was dead. But if that was the case, why did he feel like
complete shit? Wasn't getting into Heaven supposed to take all his
pain away?

"Lieutenant Halberstam, I doubt 'God' had anything to do with this."

Hm, maybe he wasn't dead...after all, Vulcans must have some sort of
afterlife to go to, but he had always assumed that each species had
their own little clubhouse to hang out in once they croaked.
But...then again, if he really thought about it, that was pretty
racist. And he'd never been to any sort of afterlife before, so he
couldn't exactly say he had any sort of experience with the matter.
Maybe they all went to the same big party in the sky after all.

"Captain."

Something was on his arm. He reached up to try and brush it away, but
it remained. He reached up again and grabbed at it, tugged at it,
tried in vain to pull it off.

"Are you injured, Captain?"

"T'Mar?" he tried to say, but for some reason it came out more like
'tmmmmmmmhhhh'.

Her hands were on his chest, his face, back on his arms; it felt funny
and for a moment he tried to stop her, but then something in the back
of his mind realized that she was only trying to check for injuries.

"You appear uninjured," she said after a moment. And then, he felt a
tugging at his arms as she pulled him up...off the floor,
perhaps?...and into a chair. His chair?

Or at least...somewhat into his chair? It felt like the whole world
was tilted sideways.

Grabbing onto one side of the chair he tried to straighten himself.
"T'Mar." He tried to say her name again; this time it almost came out
the way it was supposed to.

"Yes, Captain?"

"What the hell happened?"

"We have landed on the planet."

-----

The familiar blue tingle of the transporter dissipated quickly, and
was just as quickly replaced with an entirely different feeling: a
wall of almost oppressive heat. Thankfully, they had been beamed down
inside the massive shadow cast by the wrecked vessel, so at least they
weren't out in the sun too. Already it felt like she was breathing
through a wet sock; Iniara didn't want to know how bad it would feel
in direct sunlight.

Pulling out her tricorder, she along with the rest of the team began
to spread out a bit, getting some initial readings and impressions of
the area.

Victor stayed centrally located, finding a small rock outcropping,
probably upthrust during the impact, and hopping atop it to get a
better view of the area while making his scans. "No one move out of
sight of at least one other team member," he called out cautioningly.

8-ball nodded absently, peering up at the great ship. "Good God," she
muttered. "What were these guys overcompensating for?" The sheer bulk
of the wreckage seemed to span without end. It seemed like it would
take days to go through.

Nara smirked and winked at 8-Ball, enjoying the joke.

8-ball put a hand to her forehead, tried to ignore the uncomfortable
itch of sweat rolling down her hairline. She really had no interest in
being here for days.

Alex's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she forced herself to focus
on the beeping tricorder in her hand and not the massive ship that
laid before her. Trickles of sweat had already begun to roll down her
back from the heavy humid air. "Odd..." she mumbled as she got closer
to the hull of the vessel and continued to scan. "Uh, commander...my
tricorder is indicating mass amounts of gravitons on the hull."

Nara checked her tricorders, "I concur." She tried to ignore the heat
herself, but she had to admit she'd grown soft after years of being in
a nice Starship and not being on the Sakarian battlefield.

"Any idea as to where they came from?" the XO asked as she made her
way towards the pair of engineers. "Malfunction of the gravity
generators, perhaps?"

Nara was about to answer, but someone got to it first.

Alex shook her head. "Unknown, commander. But these graviton emissions
seem a bit higher than normal that is used for gravity aboard
starships. I'd have to take a closer look at their environmental
systems to be certain."

Victor looked up from his own scans. "Plenty of life-signs, but none
that resemble humans," he offered. "My scans of the wreckage show
minimal power readings in…" he checked again "…two places in the
primary hull – one of those is the signal location - and one in the
stardrive section, where Main Engineering should be if this thing
follows standard internal layout for ships of the day." He frowned at
his scanner and looked up. "I've also got five 165 kilo life-forms
moving in the jungle about 1500 meters away in a manner that suggests
they're pack predators watching us. I suggest that we move into one
section or the other of the wreckage soon, before they decide to come
out and investigate whether or not we taste good."

"Well, I agree with that," Nara started moving toward the ship.

"Signal first, then the stardrive section?" Victor asked Iniara.
"Signal's closer, which may be a factor until we can get some energy
pickets down here and fence the site off for a more detailed look
around."

"Agreed," Iniara responded, finally able to tear her gaze away from
the massive wreck. She looked down at her tricorder, confirming a few
pieces of information before continuing, "Rather than trying to cut
our way in on the ground floor, we may be able to climb that hill,"
here she waved her free hand toward the ridge into which the main hull
had crashed, "and save ourselves the trouble of having to manually
ascend a couple dozen decks."

She flipped her tricorder closed and stowed it before turning to
address the team. "I hope everyone brought their climbing gear."

TBC

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