USS Galaxy: The Next Generation Sim Log Stardate: 60812.21 - 60812.27

Weekly Summary

Number of posts this week: 12
Total word count this week: 21,930

On ship:

Kimberly Burton gets an unexpected visit from Rafael Davila, who shows up in Galaxy's Sickbay with a picnic lunch for the two of them. Since both of their ships are still in orbit, why not make the most of the time they have left together?

For'kel Arvelion heads to Sickbay to ask Allison some questions about the future. Allison initially refuses to give him any info, but gives in once For'kel gets her a few bags of Frito's from the replicator. Not that she gives him much info anyway...

As expected, the Agent's ship is caught by Starfleet sensor scans. They're confronted by a Starfleet security patrol, and rather than be taken into custody, the Agent sets her ship's self destruct and then performs an emergency beam-out...which drops her on the USS Galaxy. Needing to manufacture an alibi, she decides to head for the Captain's quarters. T'Vara is quite surprised when her old friend Jesprit Dvora shows up at her door, and even more surprised when Jesprit abruptly bids T'Vara farewell with a rather passionate kiss, then leaves.

In the continuation of her consult with Dr. Risdanach, T'Pei explains some previously unknown/secret things about Vulcan katric transfer. As she speaks, Risdanach notices some changes in her composure which indicate that she might be having memory troubles. After she leaves, he consults her medical records, which contain a note from the Vulcan Academy Hospital that they are to be contacted if T'Pei begins to show any strange neurological symptoms.

Victor Krieghoff is notified of an unauthorized transport to the surface. Victor immediately suspects something, and has himself beamed down near Suder and Siebur's location. Siebur has caught up with and injured Suder, but is stopped dead in his tracks when Victor, now in his Death guise, confronts Siebur. Siebur puts up a fight but ultimately doesn't stand a chance, and he quickly calls for a beam out.

Now released from Sickbay, Allison quickly gives her Security escorts the slip so she can access a public comm booth to try and call her mother. She connects to the USS Zeus, but is quickly cut off by whoever answers on the other end. Undeterred, Allison decides to enlist the help of Victor Krieghoff, who apparently has also tried to contact Rebecca von Ernst without luck. Allison declares that she's going to hire a shuttle to take her to the Zeus, but Victor says there's no need-- he's already requisitioned a warp-capable shuttle for the same purpose.

Discouraged by her lack of leads in the Eptgac case, 8-ball decides to drag Ella back to her quarters so they can go over the evidence once again. 8-ball remembers that she can check the visitor records for her quarters...which reveal that the only person who was in her quarters during the time specified was Victor Krieghoff. 8-ball and Ella head to Victor's office, and when he's not there they head to his quarters, in the process interrupting a rare afternoon off. Confronted with the evidence, Victor insists that someone must be trying to frame him, because there's overwhelming evidence that he was in his office at the time...and because a clone of his commbadge appears in the internal sensor logs for about an hour and a half before being deactivated. 8-ball returns to her quarters to mull this over, and, several hours later, she thinks she knows who the culprit is.

Off ship:

Believing that K'aa just killed Jaal Jaxom, Gloria Beauregard attacks him, choking him until he loses consciousness. Then, the head of Jaal's body falls off, sprouts some mechanical legs, skitters over to them, and begins choking Gloria with its unnaturally long tongue. (I'm assuming that after this, things get REALLY weird.)

On the Concorde Space Station (in the Dodekatheon system), Victor and Allison are pursued by Agent John Rhinestone of Temporal Affairs. Rhinestone pulls his phaser, hoping that the presence of the weapon will cause them to stop, but instead it turns the surrounding crowd into a panicked mob. Victor and Allison are able to escape in the ensuing mess, leaving Rhinestone behind to explain the crap he's just caused.



Logs

"Kittens and Catnip; A (Mmmmm.... Cheeeesssey....) Film Noir Story"

Part 3: Snooping Around.

Lt. JG Le'on Khatowren, Security Kitty

**********

USS Galaxy, Holodeck Five

In some old town in America in, say, the 1920s...

I leave de Canine Unit upstairs to do their regular sniffing around as I go do some sniffing of my own. De lack of any type of real evidence short of dead butler concerns me. I vill find out later from Police on vhether or not knife has prints on it. My hunch is no so dere is no reason for me to be around for shoddy early American forensics.

As I vander up the stairs to the more private rooms, I vonder exactly what Mister Carmichael had gotten himself into. Sure, business partner vould be just as obvious and just as easy, like de Butler and like de Wife, it is too obvious, easy and cliché. I find my way to large office dat overlooks gardens in back of house. I am sure that sight from de bay windows behind the executive chair vould be impressive if whole world vould be shown in color.

I jump into chair and lounge back in it for moment, taking in office and put self into Carmichael’s shoes, even though they are big on me and look goofy. I slip dem off and picture vhat he might do in here avay from office at factory. I den take out note pad and pencil in order to note observations and evidence to dis point.

After done jotting notes down, I start to take extensive look into desk area. A small cigarette is on de right paw side of desk. I pick it up, roll in paw for a moment and den take good whiff. Ahhhh... Dis definitely comes from good stock of Carmichael Brand of Catnip Cigarettes. Resistance is futile and I take out match to light cigarette. The sweet aroma fills room as I smoke whole ting. Other than the cigarette, dere is nothing unusual about office; just papers, memos, and variety of books all on business. Nothing out of ordinary.

My gaze keeps on settling on far wall dat boarders hallvay. Dhere is something about wall that rubs my fur wrong vay, I just can’t seem to put my paw on it. I end up valking around strange wall, going back and forth between hall and office many times. Something about construction is not right. I valk back to desk and start pawing around and I end up hitting paydirt; small button on underside. I press button and then vatch as large painting on vall slides to one side to reveal spiral staircase leading down. Now ve getting somevhere.

I descend into darkness and heat; reminds me a bit of gates of hell itself. Between fur and trench coat, it is almost unbearable. Hot scorching air surrounds me from all sides; makes me vonder if effect is intentional. I notice vents on all sides of staircase as I go down, and as I go down, hotter tings become. By the time I get to bottom of stairs, I am almost vanting to go back up just to escape heat. Dere is door at foot of stairs lit up by eerie glow. Probably red, but who can tell. I am color blind as dogs in dis silly simulation.

Surprisingly, door is unlocked as I push against it. I go through into a velcome blast of cool air. At least inside is air conditioned. I close door behind me and den look for lights in here. I find small lamp and turn it on. The scene is den shoking.

Map of city is on vall in front of desk. To left it looks like altar dedicated to de Big Cat upstairs. To de right another altar for de Big Cat downstairs. It looks to me dat Carmichael was planning city takeover and vas playing all possible angles he could. Looks like he was trying to get a bit closer to both heaven and hell. On desk dere were notes after notes on his plans. A few names stuck out; Binky Bartholomeww of Carmichael Catnip Corporation, Father Mally O’Tabby of St. Morris Church, and Captain Robert Barker of the City Police Department.

Tings were getting interesting indeed.

I take down more notes and stuff key letters and notes of Carmichael’s into coat pocket before turning off light and scurrying back up to official office. I close secret door and take out a handkerchief and vipe down wall to eliminate any paw prints I might haff left behind. I make way back down to mail hall. The Stiff that was Carmichael has been moved, probably to city morgue. I’ll get to body later. Now, I haff leads that I must check into.

"Unexpected Visitor"

Lieutenant Kimberly Burton - USS Galaxy
Ensign Rafael Dávila - USS Gorgon (NPC)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ USS Galaxy ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Strolling down the corridors of the USS Galaxy Rafael tried his best to
appear nonchalant and like he belonged here. Okay, he was in uniform and he
did have permission to be here, but the two bags of food he was carrying
were giving off some mouth watering aromas, and that perhaps was what was
drawing the odd looks he was getting.

~ At least I hope that's it. ~ He thought, pausing by a panel to get
directions. ~ This thing is huge! ~ Figuring out where he was and where he
was going was easy, the systems on the Galaxy were fairly user friendly and
so after a quick walk he was turning into the main sickbay of the USS
Galaxy, smile on his face and food in hand.

What he hadn't counted on though was the nurse on duty.

"Name!" She snapped brusquely, PADD in hand and an evil look that screamed
sadist in her eye.

"Umm, I'm here to see Doctor..." he started, only to be cut off.

"No food in sickbay, and I didn't ask who you were here to see! I asked for
your name!" Looking up at his face instead of the bags of food he was
carrying the nurse did a classic double take and held up a hand,
forestalling his reply. "Sorry," she said suddenly, her tone and demeanour
changing instantly into something more friendly, "Her office is over there."
Indicating a nearby room from which a raised voice was emanating.

"Ah..." He started, confused now. He'd heard rumours about the stability
of the crew on the Galaxy and after meeting Kimberly had assumed the stories
were exaggerated, but now...?

Making a shooing motion with one hand the nurse waved him away, "Go, go.
Before we get an urge to perform some unnecessary medical procedure on you,"
she offered with a smile.

Taking the hint Rafael retreated quickly across sickbay, casting the
occasional glance across his shoulder at the nurse who seemed to be watching
him with an unhealthy glint in her eye. ~ Prophets protect the unworthy! ~
He prayed quickly and silently. Sticking his head around the door carefully
he saw Kimberly, back to the door arguing with someone on the wall screen.
Most of what they were saying he assumed was standard, he understood the
words, but the actual conversation lost him entirely.

"Okay, okay. Well when you have a better idea let me know, until then we'll
continue with what we have on hand. Thanks." Nodding absently at the
polite rely from the face on the screen she watched the Starfleet Medical
logo appear and then let out a muttered string of obscenities.

"Bad time?" Rafael enquired gently, stepping into the office.

Spinning around Kimberly felt both eyebrows rise in surprise at the
unexpected visitor; smiling broadly she shook her head, "Never a bad time to
see you," she replied, moving swiftly around her desk. Slipping her arms
around him she looked up, "Something smells good," she murmured, relaxing
against his chest.

"I was thinking when I got off shift earlier," he started, desperately
wanting to put the food down so he could reciprocate the embrace, "I have
the afternoon free and we're both still in orbit, so I figured I'd bring
dinner over." Shaking the bags gently he smiled, "and so here I am."

"Good plan." Disengaging long enough to relieve him of the bags she put
them on her desk and returned to her hug, "When are you working again?"

"Gamma shift tomorrow. You?" Arms now free he tilted her head back gently
and kissed her.

"Hey, I'm in charge here, I make my own hours." She replied after a while,
"s'good to see you."

"Likewise. Ummm, is your Nurse..." Debating briefly how to phrase this so
it didn't sound like he was calling her a closet psychopath, "having a bad
day?" He ended tactfully.

"Arrietty? Probably. The 'post shore leave medical rush' has begun."
Kimberly explained, then seeing the look on his face she smiled and added
some details. "It's the usual complaints, people eating the wrong food,
doing stupid things while playing games and generally not looking after
themselves while they were off ship relaxing. Happens all the time, you'd
think by now the crew would have learned to look after themselves."
Chuckling she realised even she'd had her own lecture from the head nurse,
though at least Arrietty had spared her the yelling.

"Something funny?" Rafael enquired curiously.

"I'll tell you later, let's eat. You couldn't have brought food at a better
time." Sliding out of his arms she replicated some plates and utensils and
laid them out on her desk, at the same time she polarised the window of her
office to give them a measure of privacy, "We could eat in my quarters, but
I should hang around until the end of shift if you don't mind?"

"Not a problem," Rafael agreed as he unpacked the food. "Have you been
keeping up with the games?"

"Only the casualty list," she admitted. At his raised eyebrows she smiled,
"Some of my people are helping out with the medical teams, so I get reports
on injuries and the like. You'd be surprised what people get up to and can
do to themselves when they really try." Okay, she probably wasn't one to
speak, after her last z-g run she'd had an impressive collection of bruises
and two slightly cracked ribs, so she really wasn't one to lecture others
too seriously, but still... Just how do you manage to crack someone's coccyx
while playing table tennis for crying out loud!

"Did you have any plans for today?" Rafael enquired as he started serving a
mixture of food from various Federation races.

"Nothing I can't postpone." Kimberly replied instantly, and honestly. And
if they couldn't wait then that's what she had a staff for. ~ Delegation is
a wonderful thing! ~ She decided happily.

"Good, because I was hoping you could give me a tour?"

"Of the ship, sure." Kimberly agreed readily, "Where'd you like to start?"

"Your quarters." He replied with an innocent smile.

"Agent in Trouble"

*****
40447-003 Epsilon planetary system
Somewhere between Epsilon 5 and Epsilon 6

As the tiny ship broke orbit, heading away from the grey-brown rock that was planet Artemis and back towards the watery Poseidon, the Agent sighed to herself, her posture relaxing into the cushions of the cramped bridge's center seat.

Her enthusiasm, running at near record levels when she'd been unexpectedly contacted by the Operative over two months ago, was now all but spent. The last time she'd taken such a job, twelve years ago, everything had been much more straightforward. Even though it was just over a decade ago, the power balance among the syndicates had been vastly different. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, the Camboro Cartel hadn't been a huge player, but in the corner of the market that dealt with betting, particularly sports betting, they were champions. Mr. Camboro, if that was even his real name, had done one thing and he had done it well.

But now, things were changing. Camboro was still a big fish in that particular pond, but they were no longer the only fish to worry about. As so often happened in a free (or free-ish) market, established proprietors would always be threatened by new competitors.

She knew that was exactly what was happening here, and that was exactly why this would be her last time dealing with this mess for Camboro, or anyone for that matter. The pay was excellent, especially since it allowed her to do things she never would have been able to if she'd just stuck to her day job, but there came a time when no amount of money would be worth it. Their competitors were getting almost as aggressive with their own "improvements" to many sporting events, forcing her to have to deviate from her own protocols, resorting to ever dangerous and risky plans to keep Camboro on top...and now, despite her best efforts, they were just barely staying on top.

Plus, she wasn't as young as she used to be, and it was time to start thinking about retirement. Working for Camboro had given her a fat nest egg...now she found herself wanting to be around long enough to enjoy it. And she couldn't do that if she was dead, or stuck in some Federation penal colony, which was just as bad as being dead.

"Approaching the fifth planet now, Boss."

The report, delivered by the young Orion woman in the pilot's seat, brought the Agent out of her thoughts. On the small round viewscreen, the bulk of the green and blue planet grew rapidly until it completely dominated the view.

"Put us into a high orbit," the Agent ordered, the lilting way she spoke indicative of someone who grew up on the southern continent of the Orion homeworld. "Leeli, cloak status?"

At the adjoining operations station, an even younger Orion woman checked a readout, nodding to herself before answering, "Functioning perfectly, Boss."

"Good." In the shadow of her own cloak's deep, oversized hood, the Agent smiled slightly. She'd never worked with the young Leeli or her older sister Meres, but they had proven themselves to be quite useful. The daughters of a family who owed the pirate named Ahjesa a significant favor, the pair hadn't once questioned orders, or expressed any curiosity at her true identity. All they knew was that at the end of the job they would both receive a large payment, and their family's debt to Ahjesa would be considered paid. Given that the debt had cast a shadow over their family for as long as they'd known, the Agent suspected the two girls would have done just about anything to clear it.

As the ship settled into its orbit, a short beeping alarm began to sound from the operations console, causing the Agent to automatically sit up and take notice. "Report," she called out, the leading edge of concern evident in the single word. Beeping alarms were never a good thing on this ship.

Leeli frowned, checked something, then beckoned Meres to lean over and check the readouts. "I...Boss, I think we're being scanned."

"Explain; you *think* we're being scanned? Active or passive?"

"Pa-- no...it's an active scan!" Leeli turned in her chair, fear written across her face as she looked back at the cloaked Agent. "Like they knew we were going to be here!"

The Agent frowned. They were running cloaked; they had been since the ship had arrived in-system a month ago, so the fact that Starfleet was now actively scanning them meant only one thing: someone had tipped them off. But while the ship had a state-of-the-art cloaking system, incredibly efficient yet highly illegal by Federation standards, the rest of the ship was not nearly as amazing. It had been brand new when Ahjesa had won it in a tongo game, but that had been nearly a century ago. With an aging warp engine that had a maximum speed of warp three, the Agent knew they couldn't outrun anything Starfleet would send at them, so the only option now was to head for cover and hope Starfleet mistook them for a piece of debris.

Cursing under her breath, yet refusing to betray any sort of emotion, the Agent ordered calmly, "Drop down to minimum operating levels. Break orbit and set us on a course towards the asteroid belt. Once we're on our way, shut everything down but life support; if they can see us, let them think we're a piece of space junk."

The girls nodded, silently going to their tasks, as if speaking would alert the 'Fleeters to their position. The Agent watched as the view on the small screen changed, the bulk of the planet spinning away as the ship angled toward the narrow asteroid field between the fifth and sixth planets. A moment later the screen winked out, along with all but one emergency light on the bridge, as Leeli began to shut everything down. Two decks down, the engine crew set to their own work, completely powering down the warp drive and impulse engines now that the ship was drifting, end over end, towards eventual cover.

At their present speed the Agent estimated it would take between five and seven minutes to reach the asteroid field. If they hadn't been targeted by then, there was a good chance they wouldn't be found. If so, they could easily float along for a day or two until Starfleet gave up the hunt and assumed that whoever had sent in the (no doubt) anonymous tip had been wrong.

But if Starfleet was on the ball for a change...

The Agent frowned again, reaching into a pocket deep within her cloak and feeling for the small device within. It fit easily into the palm of her hand, and as she felt the slightly sickening sensation of the ship's artificial gravity deactivating, she decided to hold on to it, grabbing onto the arm of her chair with the other hand in an effort to stay mostly in her seat. After all, the device was her lifeline, and the final piece of what she considered to be "Plan B", so having it float away when she needed it most would not be smart.

"Almost to the asteroid field," Meres, both hands clamped onto her station, whispered after a moment.

Before the Agent could respond, the commline crackled loudly, startling the trio. Then, their worst fears came true.

"Unidentified vessel; this is Starfleet patrol ship CX-742," a booming male voice announced, the excessively loud order reverberating around the tiny bridge. The Agent knew very well that Starfleet occasionally used such tactics to intimidate (or perhaps annoy) their potential targets, but never before had she actually been the receipient of such a greeting. Not that she had the time to contemplate that now. "Disengage your cloak and identify yourself!" the voice continued.

"Easy, easy," she soothed her bridge crew, the "lifeline" still firmly within her hand. If it came to that, it would only take a moment... "They don't know we're here," she continued, "they're broadcasting on all frequencies and hoping we get scared and surrender. They don't know where we are."

Several seconds passed, then the voice came again. "Unidentified vessel; this is your final warning!"

A split second later another alarm sounded on the control board. "Incoming fire!" Leeli called out, the words barely leaving her mouth before something exploded just to starboard, the blast wave sending the ship spinning.

"Damn!" the Agent shouted, struggling to hold on to her chair as the ship twisted rapidly through space. The 'Fleeters may have been shooting in the dark, but that first shot had been far too close for comfort. The ship was operating without shields-- there wasn't a cloak she knew of that could operate with shields up-- so if the patrol ship got any luckier, they were all dead. Whether she liked it or not, the decision had been made. Time for Plan B.

"All systems to maximum! Disengage the cloak, bring the shields up, engage the impulse engines now! Engine room-- maximum warp as soon as possible!"

A flurry of ayes peppered the air as the lights powered on and the viewscreen popped to life, showing the small patrol vessel, which was now being joined by two of its brothers. The Agent leapt to her feet as artificial gravity was restored. As the members of her small crew worked, the trio of patrol ships pursuing valiantly, the Agent took the few steps towards the bridge's auxiliary operations console. Activating her lifeline, she let it scan for the nearest matching target. Next, she tapped a series of commands into the ship's command console, silently setting the auto-destruct on a sixty-second countdown. Although her future was at stake if she didn't go through with Plan B, she still felt bad about destroying the ship. It had been one of Ahjesa's favorites, and even though Ahjesa was long dead, the Agent still felt guilty destroying her property. Maybe she could apologize later.

A moment later the lifeline beeped, displaying its results: UFP STARFLEET USS GALAXY NCC-70637. The Agent almost laughed; finally, something was going her way.

Tapping in a final short command, the Agent deactivated the ship's shields. Then, deciding there was no sense in concealing herself any more, she slipped the oversized cloak off her shoulders, tossed it on the now unneeded console, and turned to face the pair of women frantically working their own consoles.

Leeli was the first to notice. "Boss! The shields are--" Her voice died in her throat as she spun around and came face to face with the de-cloaked Agent. "You're...not..."

"Not what you expected, yes," the Agent finished for her, idly wiping the emerald green makeup from her much paler hands with a corner of the cloak. Smiling slightly once the job was complete, she picked up her lifeline once more.

Leeli's eyes widened as she looked from the Agent to the screen behind her, where a countdown clock had just reached 20 and was still ticking lower. "Who are you?" she asked, still disbelieving.

"Ahjesa," the Agent replied softly. The original Ahjesa had died decades ago, but as one of her successors, the Agent supposed it wasn't a complete lie. Shrugging, she then added, "Your family's debt has been paid. Thank you." When the countdown reached 10, she depressed the large control button on her lifeline. Leeli leapt forward as the telltale swirl of a transporter surrounded the Agent, but the beam whisked her away before the young girl could do anything about it.

Seconds later, a torpedo struck the unshielded ship dead on, blowing a hole into the top deck just as the self-destruct mechanism activated, sending a shockwave back towards the trio of patrol ships. The lead vessel was destroyed immediately, the other two managed to evade, although not without taking heavy damage themselves.

*****
USS Galaxy
Auxiliary Cargo Bay 2

Materializing into a corner of one of the massive ship's cargo bays, the Agent automatically slid against a wall, silently observing the area around her. After a moment she realized that the bay was empty except for her and about two dozen cargo containers. That meant she had a moment to right herself.

The first order of business was to discard the now spent lifeline, which was easily accomplished in the cargo bay's matter reclamator. Next, she slipped into the public lavatory, washing the remaining green makeup from her hands and straightening her hair and clothing from where they'd been rumpled under that huge, stifling cloak. Satisfied, she stepped out, exited the cargo bay, and headed down the hall.

Taking the first turbolift she came to, the Agent contemplated her next move. Destruction of Ahjesa's ship certainly stung, and it left her down one mode of transportation. But, she remided herself, it had been necessary to ensure she wouldn't be apprehended by Starfleet. Besides, the Games were all but over, and since she was now planning to retire, she supposed it ultimately didn't matter.

Using the lifeline had been a smart move, and she'd been incredibly lucky that the nearest location suitable to humanoid life had been this particular ship. Any other 'Fleet ship, or a nearby planet, and she would have been a little hard-pressed to explain why the transporter logs showed her beaming aboard at close to 2200 hours at night. But here...here she could manufacture an alibi. All she needed was the presence of a single person aboard.

Stepping out of the crowded turbolift behind the next passenger to exit, the Agent slowed her pace, waiting until she was alone in the hallway, before tapping the wide LCARS panel embedded into the wall. As it always did, the computer chirruped pleasantly.

The Agent smiled. "Hello, computer. Would you please tell me the location of your captain?"

“Slip of the Tongue”

Lt. Commander Th'Khiss K'aa, Chief of Operations, USS Galaxy
Specialist Gloria Anna-mae Beauregard, Life Support

Tangnagel Array, Tycho Epsilon System
==============================

“Son of a bitch!”

Foolishly, K’aa didn’t pay attention to the words that heralded a
strong blow to the back of his head. He felt the thin, sharp plastic
edges of a broken multi-meter bite into the skin of his neck then the
cold, hard feeling of the array’s deck plating against his face.

“I knew you couldn’t be trusted”, Gloria Beauregard panted as she
straddled K’aa’s thin back. “My sister… the Hazard Team on the
Miranda… your owrn goddam friend!” She wrapped the fiber-optic cable
twice around his neck and pulled with all her strength, relishing the
wet gurgling sound that came from the Galaxy’s Ops Chief. Tears
streamed down the sides of her face as she put aside the image of her
victim’s desperate but useless struggling and thought of her sister,
the wonderful garden Susan had grown on the banks of Sugar Creek, and
their delicate peach blossoms dancing in the spring’s breeze off the
Gulf.

“Shoulda…. done this… a long... time… ago!”

Curiously, K’aa felt no pain from the cords across his windpipe.
Black spots already swam on the edges of his vision, and his ears
threatened to burst from the sound of his own racing heartbeat.
Gloria Beauregard had wisely placed her weight on the small of his
back, and used all the leverage she could muster to choke the life out
of him. Try as he may, he couldn’t reach back to claw at her, and his
thin, weak fingers couldn’t create any slack on the cable being used
to kill him. ~Clever woman~, he thought foggily as he gulped down a
last desperate mouthful of air.

~Finally… a human… willing… to kill… for… the… right… reasons….~

When K’aa’s head sagged from the conduit in Gloria’s hand his
struggles also ceased and his body lost all the tension that seemed to
hold it together. Her sister’s murderer had become limp and lifeless,
and his limbs and muscles lacked any of the force the living
posessed. No movement came from his chest, and his throat was
silent. Slowly, she lowered his head and let go of the cable.

Gloria turned the body over, and bent over the still form listening
for any sign of breathing. K’aa was deathly still, and peeling back
the lids of his eyes revealed their whites to be thoroughly
bloodshot. A chill danced down her spine as the unseeing eyes stared
back at her, and while she had to remind herself that this… thing had
killed her sister, she couldn’t help but feel some kind of pity for
the thin, emaciated body beneath her. Tears continued to stream for
her eyes as she looked down at K’aa’s lifeless form blurring her
vision, but from the edge of the dim emergency flare, something moved
from where Jaal Jaxom’s body lay.

The Trills unattached head was smiling, and on crab-like legs scuttled
to rest beside K’aa’s. It looked briefly at the lifeless form before
looking up at Gloria. It drooled and gibbered, a high pitched
squealing sound that snapped Gloria from her shocked reverie. She
screamed, and the Jaal-thing giggled before it’s unnaturally long
tongue shot from its mouth and wrapped itself around Gloria’s throat.

"Will work for Food"

Colonel For'kel Arvelion

Allison Von Ernst (Age 20)

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

(Sickbay- USS Galaxy)

For'kel had planned on heading to sickbay to visit everyone's favorite

Tellerite as he was recovering, however he was still asleep, and after the

conversation with Arel, For'kel figured he had to meet the mystery woman

herself.

With so much banter being passed around on the ship about her arrival, and

herapparent sequestering in sickbay subsequent to that, he thought it best to

reserve judgment until he actually saw her for himself.

With all the talk, it was really only a matter of time before his Marines

began hearing stories anyway, and he wanted to be prepared to handle that.

At least that was how he rationalized the personal curiosity that popped up.

He couldn't help but wonder what happened to the somewhat ditzy blonde gal

that bombarded them with paperwork before every mission, and how she turned into

the emaciated refugee that Arel described in their conversation. However it

happened, it couldn't be allowed to happen again, as it were.

Besides, being alone in an alien place... well he was really trying to set

two people's minds at ease.

So using all the accumulated wisdom of someone with over a decade of

Starfleet experience, For'kel replicated a quick lunch. Her diet was being

strictly monitored because of her severely undernourished state, but a nurse was kind

enough to help him with the selection choices. The fact that security and

medical staff were stretched thin with the games, R&R, and broader

requirements also helped. He didn't need the poor girl freaking out

because of armed yellow shirts buzzing around like bees ready to sting.

No matter how many times you saw it, you never quite got used to seeing a

person in as deprived a state as she was, even well after the advanced

medical processes at their disposal. "Allison, is it?"

"24-32-5 and 17....enjoy." The blond replied without even looking up from

her magazine. She was sitting cross legged in her biobed, legs buried

beneath the thin covers, and her flimsy gown hanging half off one skinny shoulder.

Hmmm, the old rank, name, and service number routine eh? He'd been there.

The more he thought about it, the more the Colonel realized she was short a

few obligatory alphabetic characters for it to be a legitimate Starfleet

service number. "Coordinates?"

"Next Weeks Lottery numbers." she explained, flipping another page. "That

is why you came by right? See if you can score the big one off of Future

Girl? You're the sixth this morning."

"Next week's lottery?" The Stagnorian, thoroughly unfamiliar with most

types of gambling he hadn't witnessed first hand among his Marines, had to

Admit to being a bit lost at this point. She might've been the blonde one, but he

was feeling like the ditzy idiot of the two. "No, that's not it..."

"Oh?" Alli's head popped up, blond hair bouncing. "Here to ask me out on a

date then. You go for the Hospital Gown Chic? In that case perhaps 35-22-36

would be the numbers you're looking for? I'm afraid Dr. Burton

already erased all my old scars if thats what you're into. "

"Huh?" A bit of a blush that he would later deny crept up his cheeks.

Granted in physiological terms of age they were roughly equal, both probably

slightly more aged then they should've been due to stress, but in terms of

Life experience he had between 5 and 10 years on her at least. "Uhm... no, I'm

married." He finally managed to get out, holding up his betrothal bracelet

As evidence.

Besides, even if he wasn't, Fork couldn't get the mental image of

that 16 year old enlistee running the armory out of his head.

"Hunh....nice sparkly." Alli grunted at the bracelet. "Okay...then who the

spuff are you and what the zark do you want soldier boy?"

That was his first hint that she actually was whom she was claiming to be.

"Colonel Arvelion, and first, I'd like you to take the damn tray. It's

heavy."

Alli eyed the platter of sandwiches suspiciously, considering her options,

and balancing them against the crappy hospital food the doctor had

been feeding her trying to get her weight back up to normal.

"Spuff it." she swore, grabbing the tray and tearing into mushy egg-salad

goodness. "Thsshks." she muttered through a mouthful.

"Now that that's done, my name is For'kel. I was hoping you could tell me a

little bit about the last few things you remember before waking up here."

Alli halted halfway through chewing, and glared at the man. "What...buy me

dinner and now you expect something in return? Gee Sugar-Daddy, what

particular part of my collective nightmare were you interested in? Starfleet death

Squads? Watching my mom killed before my eyes? Or maybe you were wondering if

little Sally foo foo from kindergarten ever hooks up with you?"

"There wasn't anyone named 'Sally foo foo' in my Kindergarten class." He

replied somewhat intelligently, opting to defend himself on the odder of the two

accusations. "And I wasn't asking for anything in return, I thought..."

"Fritos."

He blinked, setting up an inquisitive stare. "Beg your pardon?"

"Fritos...duh..corn chips." Allis tapped an empty spot on her tray. "Hook

me up with something crunchy and I'm your temporal Prime Directive-violating

gal. k?"

"Free-toes..." he rolled the unfamiliar word around in his mouth, hoping the

computer could make some kind of sense of that request. What was it, like

some kind of edible sandals? Made out of corn chips? As delicious as most

dishes were, he had a feeling there were some elements of Terran cuisine he'd

never be introduced to... willingly. "All right, Fritos it is. I'll be right

back."

"Whatever."

Hell, you figured that once you got hitched you wouldn't have to worry about

a woman forcing you to do something you didn't want to based on a bribe,

right? And yet, Fork found himself doing just that... putting countless hours

of military training from a multitude of services and a decade's worth of

battle experience hard won to the test...

All in the name of bootlegging a bag of freaking chips. Wonderful.

It was a little more complicated then one might think. The replicators in

sickbay recorded 'every' order, and he didn't want to get the nurse on duty

into trouble by making her an accomplice to supplying a patient's salt lust if

for whatever reason the treats were off limits. So he was left having to

work for this one.

He looked up the Gal's internal schematics. The spot directly above the

bio-bed next to Allison's had a jeffries tube running over it. The closest

place for (virtually) unrestricted replicator access to that point was one of the

holodecks, which said jeffries tube was undoubtedly meant to serve.

He left without saying anything to the nurse, who did little more than look

up from her novel to make sure he wasn't leaving with anything, or anyone.

He went a deck up, and after reviewing the holodeck schedule saw that holodeck

2 was the only one unoccupied. It would be so for the next 5 minutes.

He walked in, hands behind his back, and went straight to the wall mounted

control console. A little known fact about holodecks was that (in the newer

models) each one also had a replication capacity... thus when you ran programs

for picnics or were in need of special outfits, you didn't need to worry

about them automatically dissolving once you left the holodeck. "Computer,

fritos."

"Insufficient search perimeters." The computer chirped back. "There are

one-hundred and twenty eight entries for 'fritos'. Please specify..."

128 different choices? Fuck... this was going to take forever. Sandals?

Huh, no. Pickled targ feet? How the hell did the computer extrapolate that

from 'fritos'? A model for advanced medical study?

Wait, didn't she say something about corn?

He added that to the search and reduced choices down to 4. All of which

were different flavors of corn chips.

He prayed to the Prophets that she meant these things, and not knowing which

flavor to go for he replicated medium sized bags of all 4. She could use

the rest to barter in sickbay... yeah sickbay was a lot like jail that way.

Shit, he was on the clock!

Grabbing the bags, the Stagnorian made his way to the maintenance hatch,

pulled it open, and closed it just as he heard the doors open. He couldn't make

out the voice that called for the 'Vulcan Love Slaves meet Lonely Orion

Girls" program, but he made extra sure to dog the locks on the hatch. Last thing

anyone needed on a ship this crazy were escaped holographic, horny Orions

and Vulcans... after all the Galaxy Class was infamous for Holodeck

malfunctions.

Trying to put the noises echoing throughout the jeffries tube behind him out

of his mind (the resonance courtesy of the fluidic conduit systems which ran

across the ship) he made his way to the predestined intercept point, pulled

open the hatch, and sat the bags on the next lowest hatch.

Replacing everything he then made his way back to sickbay. What kind of

woman spilled her guts for chips anyway? Talk about a cheap date...

The nurse gave him a curious glance as he walked in, making sure that the

Stagnorian wasn't bringing in any unauthorized goodies no doubt, and then went

back to her novel when he was out of eye sight.

Allison was still sitting cross legged in her bed, a slightly bemused expression on her face.

Obviously soldier boy was desperate for something.

"One second." He murmured, climbing up on the opposite unoccupied bed and

removing the bottom hatch. Just like a tray, the 4 bags of chips were still

there. No roving engineers nabbed his stash... good. He passed her each bag

in turn, figuring she could pick whichever she liked most, and replaced the

ceiling panel. "That's what you wanted... right?"

"Y'know..." Allis began, tearing open a bag of Original flavor, with a slight crinkle, "You're either some sort of investigator from Temporal Affairs, or some sort of Stalker-boy to go all mission impossible over a bag of corn chips."

"I can assure you I'm not a temporal investigator." He replied absently.

She crunched lightly savoring the salty treat. "Okay Gomer Pile. Im your Frito-Ho....whacha' want to ask me about?"

"Everything, and I apologize in advance if they sound stupid." He poached a chip, they did look pretty good. "Were you ever posted on the Galaxy?"

"Duh." The single word was infinitely versatile.

"Where?"

Allison munched on another chip before taking another bite of the egg-salad sandwich. They sure didn't have anything like this in the 25th century.

I was an armory specialist." she replied lightly. "I know how to field strip and maintain a particle bazooka, as well as the best methods for perma-charging your phaser clips." She dug in for another Frito. "I also used to be pretty spiffy at paperwork if that helps you."

"Who were your roommates while you were here?"

"Boy you are Mr. Nosy." Allison leaned back in bed and stretched. "You do realize Vic's gonna tan my hide for telling you all this stuff." she yawned. "Oh well...lucky for you Im a sucker for corn chips, and dont really give a crap anymore. I suppose you could just look it up anyways on the ship's manifest, but I was rooming with Mary Poppins.

" She's uh....a rock." she added, realizing suddenly she out to look Mary up, and see what was new in the last four years.....or in the last week as the case may be.

He remembered the answers as they came, figuring it would be useful to verify them later. It took him a moment to figure out how to ask the next few questions as diplomatically and tastefully as possible He wanted, needed the answers even, but at the same time he was regretting having to raise them. "You mentioned Starfleet death squads... who runs those? When did they begin being used? Why were they created?"

Alli's chipper mood darkened instantly at Forkel's question, her blues eyes studied him closely with newfound suspicion. "How the fuck should I know mister?" she spat. "All I know is what I was taught, they show up, you better run like hell. Considering they were called Death Squads and not the Glee Club, it seemed like good advice to take right?"

Fork nodded. "Absolutely it does. Do you remember the Triad War? Did these actions start during, before, or after it?"

Alli pointed a threatening Frito at the Colonel, no longer interested in playing answer-girl. "For somebody who inst part of the Temporal investigations unit, you sure got a lot of time-Travelly questions Mr. colonel sir." she said. "Again I answer...how the hell should I know? I didnt live through those years...I skipped over them in an effort to get back home. Ha! Big freaking mistake. I show up in some sort of Hr.Giger nightmare world, and not five minutes into it people are already shooting at me."

She made a show of checking a non-existent watch. Seems like they didnt stop shooting until I just got back last week."

She looked Forkel up and down disdainfully. "What exactly is your beef here goose-stepper? Everything Im telling you is worth quality time in the Temporal Police Pokey, so whats its worth huh? Just anxious to meet your inner butt-rape buddy?"

"What?" Okay, so he hit a nerve. That much was obvious... but damned if the theatrics weren't far reaching to say the least. "No. I want to know what happened so that it can be prevented. The kind of future you are describing has Starfleet run by criminals, roving death squads run by members of this ship's crew, and by the looks of it rampant humanitarian disasters within the Federation. I'm trying to figure out how

these things happen so that if and when you return to your time, provided you are of our time-line, you do not go through again what you've been through already, if that's okay with you?"

He sighed, a bit more in frustration then anything else. He had a whole new respect for counselors today, ducking phaser beams, out-running explosions, and surviving CQB was tough, but he could never see himself doing 'this' crap day in and day out for any length of time. The whole 'helping people help themselves' thing wasn't really up his alley.

"Listen, Allison, think whatever you want... but I'm sure as hell not going out every day and risking the lives of my Marines or my own life so my son can live to see a Federation with Starfleet death squads, pointless murders, and starvation. I've lost too much, and I've given too much, to see that happen." He ran his hand through his hair. "I know you've been through hell and back, but I'm trying to get you to help me prevent it, all right? The questions probably sound moronic when they're not bringing up memories you don't want to recall, but I 'need' to know the answers. I wouldn't be asking otherwise. Now, you can decide to help, or I can go tender my resignation now and run off to Al'Klei'sh with my son, and live out the rest of my days in peace and safety rather than waste my time trying to make a difference here when it won't matter in the end anyway. What's it going to be?"

"You want to make a difference and change history?" Alli scoffed. "Good freaking luck. Like I told you I skipped those years. When I experienced them growing up the first time, everything was hunky-dorey. Lollipops and zarkiness right? I have no idea what you guys did the next time around, but you cant blame me cause I wasnt there."

She eyed him wearily. "If you want to help me however, you can spring me from this joint." she motioned to the makeshift security guard Vic Krieghoff had stationed at the door to keep Alli from blabbing her head off exactly like she was doing now. "Get me past Deputy Fife there and I'll give you list of planets you so do not want to be on in a few years.....that is unless you happen to like nuclear winter and such."

Fork thought about it for a moment. If she couldn't fill in the links, there wasn't really anything he would gain from springing her from the joint. On the other hand, he knew personally that sickbay wasn't a place you wanted to be if you could avoid it, despite Dr. Burton's best attempts to make it otherwise. Playing Bonnie and Clyde with pilfered meal items was fun and all, but perhaps now it was time to work within the system. "I'll tell you what, let me speak to Lieutenant Krieghoff and Doctor Burton. If you're stable enough, for security reasons it may be best to move you to private quarters... you're too easily accessible in a public place like sickbay anyway." He stood up and gave her arm a gentle squeeze. "I'll be back in a bit."

"Whatever." Alli sighed and flopped back into her pillow. Her stomach was already slightly nauseated from the frito overload….obviously it wasn't quite ready for normal foods yet.

Flipping back open her fashion magazine, she tried to remember a time when she cared about such things.

"The Agent Revealed"

*****
USS Galaxy
Deck 8
Captain's Quarters

Late evening was fast giving way to night, and so T'Vara found herself mentally and physically preparing for the day ahead.

Having changed into the more comfortable Vulcan-style robes that she preferred to wear in the privacy of her own quarters, the Vulcan captain busied herself around the room, replacing items that were no longer needed at the moment, taking out other items that she would need on the next day, and straightening up a few items that weren't in their proper places. It was the normal routine of her evening; the dull, domestic tasks that came after she had ended work for the day and before she started her evening meditation.

As she worked, T'Vara allowed her thoughts to drift to recent matters. Tomorrow would see the conclusion of the Starfleet Games, that three-week series of sporting events and other competitions held every six years in the 40447-003 Epsilon system. Galaxy's crew had performed well, and although the final medal count would not be announced until the Closing Ceremonies tomorrow afternoon, the ship was favored to place in the top ten for overall medals. T'Vara was pleased to hear this; although normally she believed that the simple act of testing one's skills against an opponent was sufficient, it was satisfying to prove one's superiority over said opponent. So many individuals at all levels of Starfleet Command saw Galaxy as a rogue element, a ship full of misfits and miscreants; perhaps her showing in the Games would be a step towards convincing them otherwise.

And, for the nearly sixty percent of the crew that had not elected to participate in the Games, the short break in the Dodekatheon system had proven beneficial. Many crew members had elected to take shore leave, a few had family or other personal matters to attend to outside of the system, while others had remained aboard the ship and used the downtime to attend to ongoing projects or hone their skills in their designated duty areas. As expected, a few crew members had harbored displeasure towards such an assignment since the Federation was currently at war, and T'Vara had initially been one of them. But, the crew was still adjusting to her command style and recovering from their own losses on the front lines earlier in the year, and so a period of time to relax, unwind, and recover had been, to quote the Terran expression, just what the doctor had ordered. Besides, the conflict with the Triad showed no signs of slowing or ending in the near future, so it was likely that Galaxy would soon be reassigned to the front lines. Because of that, it was best to make the most of every break that they received, since their next break might be a very long way away.

Placing the last of her padds and other desk materials into a small drawer, T'Vara took a last look about the room. Satisfied that her work was complete she turned to another drawer, pulling out a single, cylindrical white candle. The candle wasn't real, of course; open flames of any sort had been prohibited aboard the ship for some weeks now. T'Vara had been among the many affected by such a ban, and had actually questioned her own judgment for a moment, before she had reminded herself that the needs of her ship outweighed her own personal needs. Complete elimination of all recreational burning aboard Galaxy had caused a four percent drop in air circulator usage; while it wasn't much, every percent counted.

However, T'Vara still required a candle for the purposes of daily meditation, and so she had settled upon a simple solution. After requesting an artificial candle from Engineering, T'Vara had received this particular item. Assembled by one of the department's several cadets as a school project, the candle was a relatively simple affair: tall, column-like, and made of replicated wax, but with a small holoemitter embedded inside instead of a burnable wick. When activated, the holoemitter would produce a false, but very realistic-looking flame, one that would even respond to nearby currents of air just like a real candle would.

As she activated the candle's flame and placed it in the center of the round stone dish that now sat unmoving in the center of her living room, T'Vara wondered why this sort of device hadn't seen more widespread use aboard the ships of the fleet. After all, with the technology of the current era, the only thing separating this candle from a real candle was the process of combustion and the heat generated by that process.

Settling herself onto the worn, square cushion that sat before the dish and the candle, T'Vara meticulously arranged the folds of her robes as she prepared for her meditation. Her gaze settling on the gently flickering flame she slowly focused on the myriad thoughts of the day, putting them away one by one, until at last nothing remained but the candle and herself. Now she could begin.

<chirri-chirp>

The interrupting noise cut through her thoughts like a lance, and T'Vara's shoulders sagged forward ever so slightly; the only reaction she showed towards the interruption. The time was just after 2200 hours, and so anyone ringing her door chime this late at night was either doing so because it was an emergency, in which case they would have just as likely commed, or because they weren't in possession of their mental faculties enough to know that they were standing in front of the wrong door. She'd had three such encounters since arriving aboard Galaxy, all of which had been with crew members who'd overindulged in Ten Forward or elsewhere; all of whom had been subsequently given a lecture about the dangers of such overindulgence.

But, feeling disinclined to give such a lecture this evening, T'Vara decided to ignore the initial chime. Most wrong room callers realized their mistake within ten seconds and rarely chimed again; if the person on the other side of the door was really here to meet with her, she knew they would wait several seconds and then chime again.

<chirri-chirp>

Although she was still reluctant to deal with whoever it was this late in the evening (again, anyone with a true emergency requiring her attention would have commed by now, even if they were standing right outside the door), T'Vara decided that, if the person had deliberately rung her chime twice, she should at least do them the courtesy of seeing what they wanted. Blowing a puff of air towards the candle to "extinguish" the holographic flame she stood, took a moment to smooth out the folds of her robes, and made her way to the door.

As the door slid open to reveal the late-night caller, T'Vara felt a single eyebrow, completely of its own volition, arch skyward.

"Good evening, T'Vara," Jesprit Dvora said with a broad, friendly smile. "I hope I didn't wake you."

"No," T'Vara replied after a slight pause, in the back of her mind wondering why her long-time friend, who had never once made such a personal visit in the decade and a half they had known each other, had elected to come by at this late hour. "I was about to begin my evening meditation," she explained.

Then, even though she didn't particularly want to, T'Vara realized it would be seen as rude to not invite her friend in. Stepping back from the open door, the Vulcan gestured with a hand towards the interior of the room. "Please, come in."

Murmuring a quiet "thank you", the Trill woman stepped inside, automatically taking in the surroundings. Of all the years she'd known T'Vara, Jesprit realized she hadn't once seen the interior of any of her personal space. But as she quickly realized, the sparsely decorated room, with its few small artifacts placed here and there, soft, subdued lighting, and the typical Vulcan mantra written in flowing script letters displayed on one wall, was about what she had expected to find here.

As the door slid shut, T'Vara turned back toward her guest, silently evaluating the other woman's appearance. Reserved and predictable, Jesprit Dvora was normally the picture of poise and grace. She always presented herself meticulously and was well-groomed, her hair usually pulled into a bun or other restrictive hairstyle. In fact, T'Vara realized as she searched her memories, she didn't believe she had ever seen her fellow captain in anything other than a standard Starfleet uniform or a tasteful, subdued business suit.

But at the moment, Jesprit was dressed far differently. Clad in loose brown trousers, scuffed black shoes, and a slightly wrinkled, oversized grey tunic cinched at the waist with a wide, black belt, the Trill appeared far more casual than T'Vara had ever seen her. That, coupled with the fact that her long white hair, normally so perfectly coiffed, was now pulled into a low, messy ponytail, made T'Vara wonder if perhaps all was not well.

Realizing that she should say something as the silence between them threatened to become uncomfortable, Jesprit cleared her throat, smiled slightly again, and continued, "I'm sorry to have disturbed you this late in the evening."

"It is no matter," T'Vara replied smoothly. "I trust that all is well?"

Jesprit bobbed her head in a slight nod. "It is. Although...I suppose you're wondering why I came here so late, and especially so unexpectedly."

"I am," T'Vara agreed, then added, "However, it is agreeable to see you, whatever the reason."

"Likewise," Jesprit replied, taking a few aimless steps around the room, until the words she was looking for came tumbling out of her mouth. "I...I wanted to see you."

There. That wasn't a complete lie, which was a good thing considering T'Vara, like many Vulcans of a certain level of skill, was quite adept at spotting outright deception. No, it was true; she did want to see T'Vara, and for more than one reason.

Most important of course was the manufacture of an alibi. Her "lifeline" had been programmed to deposit her on a habitable ship or planetary body nearest to the point where it was activated, and it was sophisticated enough to lump the transporter signal in with normal transporter traffic, making it seem as if she had beamed directly to a transporter pad instead of whatever empty location into which it had decided to deposit her. But, without a significant amount of computer tampering, something with which Jesprit was only slightly familiar, there was no way to conceal the fact that, at just before 2200 hours, Captain Jesprit Dvora of the USS Orobourous had beamed aboard the USS Galaxy.

So, to legitimize the visit, she needed to do something or see someone here, and T'Vara provided the perfect target. After all, her 15-year-plus friendship with the USS Galaxy's new captain was no secret, and was even the subject of occasional gossip in the 'Fleet. In particular, those who misunderstood-- or ignored-- the subtle intricacies of a long friendship between a middle-aged Vulcan and a joined Trill of equivalent age had often declared that the two must be lovers. Jesprit had always considered her relationship with T'Vara to be more than a friendship, yet less than a romance, and she was fairly certain T'Vara felt the same way. Yet now, if it helped to strengthen her alibi, she was content to let the rumor mill spread what it would.

But secondary was the fact that she honestly did want to see T'Vara. The thought of retirement had weighed on her mind as of late; first it had been retirement from her dealings with the Camboro Cartel, but now the idea had grown to include retirement from her "day job"-- that of a Starfleet officer. As a former science officer Jesprit had never been favorably disposed toward war or any sort of armed conflict, so over the past several years she had performed her duties to Starfleet and the Federation with no small degree of reluctance.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that it might be possible. She could leave Camboro, leave Starfleet, and take the remainder of the fortune she'd inherited from Ahjesa Tolana and just disappear. Maybe even settle on that planet of which Bejal had once had part ownership. Sure, it was a desolate rock, sparsely inhabited, but alone she could easily make a living there.

But, if she went through with it, if she retired from Starfleet (or simply left, although that was a last resort) and went to live on a planet outside the boundaries of the Federation, Jesprit realized she would likely never see T'Vara again. While it was something that would take some getting used to, and Jesprit felt she would eventually get used to it, she still didn't want to leave without saying farewell.

"We'll be parting soon; our ships, and you and I," Jesprit continued after several seconds. "Not knowing when we'll see each other again, I wanted to give you something."

"I...see," T'Vara replied, a bit confused. After all, the Closing Ceremonies were tomorrow; they were sure to see each other then, either during the ceremony itself or the hours of celebration that would no doubt follow. She looked at Jesprit, wondering where the other woman was going with this, and just what sort of gift she had brought. Whatever it was, it had to be small enough to fit in a pocket.

Despite her desire (or need) to remain calm and collected, Jesprit's heart began to pound as she closed the gap between them with three short steps. She hadn't really planned this; it was just sort of happening, and now she was moving more on instinct than anything else. "It's a...a parting gift, I suppose," she clarified, before reaching up with one hand and brushing T'Vara's cheek softly, tentatively.

Thankfully for her, T'Vara didn't flinch or draw away at the sudden contact. Instead, she continued to wear that expression of mild confusion, which changed to a look of mild surprise only when Jesprit pushed herself onto the tips of her toes, threaded surprisingly strong fingers through T'Vara's close-cropped hair, and pressed her lips gently, yet passionately, against T'Vara's own.

After a long moment Jesprit pulled away, a satisfied half-smile playing across her features. Several more seconds passed before she spoke again, softly. "I hope you don't mind."

Still more seconds ticked away as T'Vara's mind analyzed the event and processed its sensations, until finally she replied simply, "Not at all."

"That's good to know," Jesprit commented, a hint of her usual, more mirthful, deportment creeping back in, if only for a short time. "I have truly valued our friendship over the years. Take care of yourself, T'Vara."

And with that, the Trill captain moved to the door, wordlessly making her exit without so much as a look back at the friend who, for all intents and purposes, she would now be leaving behind forever. Still mystified by the unexplained turn of events, T'Vara could only watch, speechless, as the door slid softly shut, leaving her alone once more.

~Process of Elimination, part 2: Information Seeking~

Lt. JG T'Pei

Dr. Leronem Risdanach, Cognitive Neuropsychologist/Psychotraumatologist (NPC)

Risdanach folded his hands and suppressed the broad smile that threatened to spread across his face. "Excellent, that is exactly what I was hoping to hear. Now, if I am correct—and for the record, most of the time I am—then you have experienced some kind of trauma which is the cause of your current difficulties."


"With all due respect, Doctor, as I have stated, I recall no such trauma," T'Pei reminded him neutrally.

"The brain is a funny thing, Lieutenant. Often the things which have the greatest impact seem the most insignificant at the time."


"It would have had to have been quite insignificant. If you have reviewed my Starfleet medical file, you will see that nothing of note has occurred."

He had read it. Risdanach's eyes unconsciously shifted to the PADD, shoved hastily under one of the piles on his desk when T'Pei had entered, and he cleared his throat.


"Humor me," he continued gruffly. "Your medical files do not contain the level of detail that I am looking for. Also, there are some gaps in my knowledge that you can help me fill in. The Science Consulate, even when I was studying at the Academy, were remarkably close lipped about certain aspects of Vulcan neuroscience—specifically, katric transfer."


"Katras are very personal. Vulcans are uncomfortable with outsiders discussing them."


"Understandable, although when the person is a medical researcher, it hardly seems logical, does it?


T'Pei ignored his gibe. "What information do you need to know, Doctor?"


"Tell me about katric transfer. Everything you know."


She nodded slightly. "As you are no doubt aware, the katra is only newly rediscovered in our history. When their existence was finally acknowledged, in the twenty-second century, we began to store them in katric arcs in the Hall of Vesht, at Mount Seleya. Vulcans seeking wisdom may petition the Korsausu—the keepers—to meld with a katra to gain its wisdom and experience."


So far, this was all information he had already. Leronem studied T'Pei closely, more interested in her behavior for the moment, letting her words blur before him like the background of a photograph. "Children are not considered mature enough to initiate a mind meld. It is only in extreme circumstances that a child is even allowed to participate in one at all; the potential risk is too great. It is only when Vulcan children come of age that they learn to initiate a meld."


"Come of age...after the Kahs-wan, then?"


"Yes. Once a year, the families of those who have completed the Kahs-wan travel to Mount Seleya for the 'She-tor'. One by one, each child is guided by the Korsausu in melding with three katras."


"Which three?" Leronem leaned forward, shifting his focus from the woman across from him to her words. He knew nothing of this ceremony, but it clearly held great personal significance.

"It is different for everyone. One by one, the Korsausu joins with the children, and..." T'Pei faltered, furrowing her forehead in thought. "There is no word in Standard for it. We call it sataya."


"Divergence...that is what it means?"


T'Pei nodded approvingly at his mastery of the language. "That is the closest translation, yes, but it is not the entire meaning. The Korsausu...sees...who each child is, and shows them what adults they could become. Even as children, there are those to whom we are deeply akin. Humans have a word for these people, although I do not believe they truly understand it; they call them soulmates."


Risdanach waited patiently for her to explain, biting back his urge to ask questions. "Vulcans believe that at all points in our life, there are individuals who are, at that moment, at the same juncture in their life, but that our paths diverge as our experiences and decisions shape us. In the She-tor, the Korsausu join us with the katras of those individuals who were our soulmates when they came of age, and we gain wisdom from seeing the paths that they chose." She looked up. "Do you understand, Doctor?"


"Partially, perhaps. Who are the Korsausu? How do they decide whose katras will be stored, to be shared?"


"You have misunderstood me." T'Pei was shaking her head. "I will answer your second question first. It is illogical to discount the knowledge that can be gained from understanding any other life. This is one of the most basic fundamental tenets of IDIC. Every katra that can be saved is stored in the Hall of Vesht. The Korsausu preserve them all."


He had heard of katras being stored, but assumed that only high dignitaries, or priests--people of great influence, would undergo the procedure. The shear numbers involved in something like that were staggering. Even if this had only been customary for 200 years, and taking into account the population of the planet, and the standard Vulcan lifespan, there were still tens of millions of katras being stored. "They are all passed on through mind melds, yes?"


"That is correct. Typically, they are passed on to one's bondmate. There is the highest probability of successful transfer, and the bondmate is the least likely to suffer ill effects."


"I was aware that katric transfer was dangerous for non-Vulcans, but I did not realize this was true for Vulcans as well."


"It is not for very short periods of time. To carry a katra is to carry another being's consciousness, however. Two consciousnesses together for an extended period can greatly damage each other." She cleared her throat. It occurred to Risdanach that she had been talking almost continuously for ten minutes, and he rose to get a glass of water as she continued.


"For humans, marriage is a symbolic union. For Vulcans, however, bonding is much more than symbolic. It is a katric link. One is better able to carry a bondmate's katra because—"


"...it's already part of them," Risdanach finished, handing her the glass. "I see...you did this for your bondmate, then?" he asked. "I saw in your medical file that he died sixteen years ago."


T'Pei's face clouded as her eyes drifted to focus on something very distant. Leronem had not expected anything, even death, to upset a Vulcan, and scrambled to recover from his faux-pas. "I apologize, Lieutenant—"


"No, Doctor," she interrupted, and as she met his gaze again, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow, Risdanach suddenly realized that what he had interpreted as sadness was not—it was confusion. 'Why would she be confused?' he wondered.


"I..." T'Pei's faced smoothed itself once again into its normal, placid expression. "I was not present when Sren died. He was in a medical facility on Vulcan. He endeavored to pass on his katra, but the transfer is not always successful when the recipient is not the bondmate. His katra was rejected. It is lost now."


Her speech was delivered smoothly, with no hesitation. 'As if it were rehearsed.' Risdanach thought. He stayed silent, wondering at this unusual response. 'At first, she couldn't remember,' he thought again. It was the first sign of abnormal behavior he had noted since his patient had awoken.


"Lieutenant, I greatly appreciate how forthcoming you have been. All of this is very helpful to me, even if it does not seem like it could be. Whatever else you can tell me would be similarly helpful. Especially if it pertains to you in particular."


"I apologize, doctor, but there is nothing further to tell you. Up until the away mission, I had not had any occasion to attempt a katric transfer. Thus, I have no personal information on this topic."


"And you have never carried another's katra."


T'Pei froze, the hand holding the water glass hovering before her face. Deep creases shadowed her face once again, as if she was focusing intently.


Then she blinked, and the shadows disappeared. "No, I have not."


Leronem narrowed his eyes. 'It happened again. For one moment, she was confused. What happened?' She was rising now, excusing herself and saying she need to leave for her duty shift, but would schedule another appointment. Leronem nodded distractedly, barely noticing that she was leaving until she had reached the door.


"T'Pei, wait."


The Vulcan woman halted in the doorway.


"In your She-tor, what lives did the Korsausu show you?"


T'Pei tilted her head to the side, her expression entirely unreadable. "None of them is the life that I live now."


The doors slipped closed behind her, and Leronem stared after her, deep in thought.

He had called T'Pei in, hoping she would shed some light on what he had discovered. Now, the Efrosian doctor mused ruefully, he had more questions than answers.


After several minutes, he absently unfolded his hands, one steadying the tall pile of PADDS, the other deftly extracting one which had been buried at the bottom of the pile. When T'Pei had failed to come out of the coma, and had become Leronem's patient, Doctor Burton had given him her medical records. Not the official version that the Efrosian himself had access to, but the complete file, containing an additional message, marked with the seals of both the Vulcan Academy Hospital and Starfleet.


If the patient shows any neurological or behavioral anomaly at any time, immediately contact Doctor Solek at the Vulcan Academy Hospital. Due to the sensitive nature of this matter, it is imperative that the patient remain uninformed of this action until further instruction is given.

"The Contract, Conclusion - Attempts and Intercessions"

Mr. Siebur (The Assassin) [Omar]
J. Andrus Suder (The Victim) [Mek]
Lt. Victor Krieghoff (The…what??) [RobH]

***

Planetside

He'd pissed off people before. Given the lifestyle he had chosen for
nearly twenty years, it was kind of a given. Andrus had never had an
assassin after him before and the fact that he hadn't been shot in the
back yet spoke volumes. This was supposed to be an accidental death.
And now it was probably going to be a very violent, accidental death.

If he lived through this, Andy thought as he ran, he was going to kill
Saul Bental.

For his part, Siebur visually tracked his target for a moment, then
took off after him in a paced jog. There weren't many places to hide
down here, and that area was fairly remote. No one would hear him
scream.

****

USS Galaxy
Deck 7
Victor Krieghoff's Quarters

=/\= "Skore to Lieutenant Krieghoff." =/\=

Victor paused, sighed and chuckled softly as he and Angelienia drew
apart after a few seconds more of the kiss they'd been sharing. "No
rest for the wicked, love."

"You're not *wicked,*" she assured him breathlessly, returning the
smile. "'Bad' though, *that* you've got a good handle on."

=/\= "Krieghoff here. Go." =/\=

=/\= "I realize that we're no longer on alert, but I've just
registered an unauthorized transport to the planet's surface, sir."
=/\=

=/\= "Who?" =/\= Victor asked as he stood up and fastened his tunic.
=/\= Where on the planet?" =/\=

=/\= "Two individuals, sir," =/\= the Security Duty Officer responded
crisply. =/\= "The Computer identifies one of them as Andrus Suder,
Ship's Librarian, and the other as a new arrival, Lieutenant Lorne
Siebur, on-board less than 18 hours. It is worth noting that Lt.
Siebur has *not* finished his in-processing. Transport was to a remote
non-urban area." =/\=

Angelienia wrinkled her nose. "Eighteen hours on-ship, and not even
in-processed yet? That's a bit fast to be kiting off with someone for
a secret rendezvous."

"Especially with Andrus Suder," Victor agreed. "He and Brian Elessidil
just moved in together. I can't see one of a pair of telepaths
cheating on their partner within weeks of moving in together. I can,
however, see that Suder did some shady things before he landed here
and one of them may be catching up with him." He patted himself down
for his equipment, nodded in satisfaction, and said, =/\= "Skore, lock
onto Suder's combadge and get me transported into something resembling
cover no closer than 10 meters and no further than thirty from his
location, Skore. That should hide the transporter effect. Then get
T'risia or Shelley - whichever one you get hold of first - to have a
three-man team ready for me to call in if this is a problem. I'm ready
now, so beam
when ready." =/\=

Victor looked over at Angelienia smiled, and nodded towards her agape
tunic. "Hold that thought, dear. With any luck, this won't take...."

The hum of the transporter took him away before he finished.

****

Siebur increased his speed so that he could catch up to and take down
his target. Despite Suder's jinking and such, Siebur was able to keep
on him and close the distance even more. At this point, he was
definitely going to enjoy killing this fucker.

Andy ran hard, knowing that he wasn't going to last much longer. He
had never been great at long distance running and his knife fighting
skills were handy when dealing with your average crook or drunk but
not so hot against assassins. If he lived through this, Andy decided
that he would have to work on both. After he killed Saul, of course.

Three things happened next: Siebur dove for Suder's legs; Suder went
down like an antelope to a lion; and in an impossibly deft motion
managed to turn his target over and unsheathe a nasty looking
vibrablade while managing to get on top of him. Okay, so that was five
things that happened. But the end result was the same: Suder was one
dead antelope, as far as the Assassin was concerned.

"Well, that's insulting," Andrus said, managing to pick up on some of
the assassin's thoughts. He wanted to have something more clever for
his last words but the knife at his throat made witty comments hard to
come by.

Having mostly recovered from the run, Siebur offered a wan smile as he
began lightly carving into Suder's left shoulder. "I really am going
to enjoy this, but not as much as I'm going to enjoy killing...never
mind." He almost broke one of his own rules: Never tell one target
about another. He quickly shielded his thoughts as best he could and
hoped that the chemical was still strong enough in his blood stream to
block out the telepath.

"Fuc ..." Andy began but the knife dug deeper into his skin and he
screamed. He tried to fight the man off and was rewarded with a blow
to the head that made his vision blur. So this was how it was all
going to end, carved up like a damn turkey. His stomach knotted and he
thought he could almost feel death approaching.

It took him a moment to process it - during which he could feel the
knife hitting bone - and then Andrus started laughing.

"What the hell are you laughing at," Siebur asked as the man beneath
him incredulously began giggling. Then he heard a voice that changed
everything.

"If it's not one thing, it's another with you, Andrus," a voice spoke
up pleasantly, the light tone of the words offset by the way that they
dug into the spines of the two men like talons of ice. "Locked up in
mines by misguided guerillas, menaced by men with knives. What is it
about Librarians that causes them to lead such interesting lives?"

Indeed, the Assassin froze in mid cut and turned slowly to look over
his shoulder. It wasn't so much that someone found them, but the act
that the voice carried with it a heavy dose of death incarnate.
Something Siebur was intimately familiar with as he had dispatched
many to their makers.

"So," Victor said as he emerged from the undergrowth, a tiger's smile
on his face. "Since I'm guessing that Andrus here, based on my past
knowledge of him, doesn't consider this to be foreplay, I think that
there's something we need to get clear from the start." He glanced
down at Andy. "You don't have permission to die, Andrus. Are we clear
on that?"

"Crystal," Andrus said weakly.

"I thought that we might be," Victor nodded. "Now, as for you, Mr.
Siebur...Would you like to try and explain this in some way that
*doesn't* make it look like you're attempting to kill Andrus, here?
Please do, if you can; I love a good story." He smiled encouragingly.

"I don't think so," drawled Siebur. "You showing up just makes this
situation a bit messier. But if it makes you feel better, I have no
problem taking the both of you out-" he turned to Suder "-starting
with him!" And he plunged the blade into Suder's belly before quickly
rolling off and standing to face his new opponent.

While Siebur was confident that he could take out the newcomer, he was
also sober in the thought that the man before him was a true
professional. Killers know killers. "We can do this dance anyway you'd
like," he challenged.

The smile was gone from his opponent's face when Siebur looked back
up. "That," Victor said quietly, "was a mistake. If you'd run, I might
have let you go, but now..." He shook his head. "Now we do this the
hard way." He took a step forward and circled to the side, forcing
Siebur to turn away from Andy to face him. "That's okay for me,
because I enjoy the hard way... but I'm thinking that you're not going
to find it as much fun."

"I'm a professional, stranger. But I do take great pleasure in what I
do for a living...and I'll be more than ha-"

"Sorry about this, Andrus," Victor said, ignoring the assassin's words
for a moment. "But maybe it'll take your mind off the pain." He smiled
as he finished speaking, the expression having nothing of humanity in
it. Around them, the clearing stilled as his presence expanded to fill
it, tugging at the back of Siebur's mind, down deep in the part of his
brain that still thought and reacted like a lizard, filling it with
the knowledge that Death was come to call.

Under the weight of Krieghoff's presence, Andrus pulled his hands
away from his stab wound and covered his eyes instead.

Victor took another step closer and passed through the shadow of a
tree branch, and the being that emerged on the other side of the slim
bar of darkness was not the same one that entered it, as if the bar of
shadow had erased the man and left only that which lay beneath his
skin in his place. "Any last words? Screams? Pleas? Messages to loved
ones?" Death asked in a whisper that flayed at Siebur's skin with
razors colder than the vacuum of space. "They won't save you, but I'm
trying to be politer about these things nowadays."

Something is wrong here, thought Siebur, even as his hands were
shaking involuntarily. Something is seriously FUCKING wrong here! This
was not the same man- no, he couldn't call the presence before him a
man anymore. But the being who had first interrupted his "job" was not
what was now approaching him. In spite of that, in spite of the fact
that every fiber in his being told him to run he stood his ground and
brandished his vibrablade in such a manner that the blade itself was
tucked under his forearm. The right hand was poised in a somewhat
chambered position.

"Come get some," the Assassin's voice wavered.

"Really?' Death whispered. "For me? You shouldn't have." He smiled
again and moved to the right, abruptly, drawing Siebur into a turn to
follow him - and then stepped back to the left and slapped him with an
open hand hard enough to knock the killer's head to the side.

"Literally," Death continued, as he blocked the knife as it came
around, took a straight right to the jaw without blinking, and slapped
Siebur on the other side of his face in return. "You shouldn't have.
Because he's mine, not yours... and no one kills the ones that are
mine - or tries to - without paying for it."

Reeling from each slap, Siebur was beginning to get very annoyed at
this man. "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," he spat,
"but bitch slapping me will only make what I'm going to do to you look
like something out of a horror flick!" He brought his left arm around
to bear on his intended target, blade humming as it cut through the
very air itself.

A hand that seemed to be composed of iron clamped around Siebur's
wrist, halting the knife thrust, and another slap landed, blurring his
vision for the fraction of a second it took for his opponent to step
in and kick him in the side of the knee, buckling it as something gave
inside it with a grating, sickening 'crunch.'

"No," Death whispered. "I don't think so." He smiled at the pair of
blows that Siebur slammed into his torso, and twisted himself to take
the one aimed lower down on an immovable leg. "Tell me," he asked,
powering a foot into Siebur's ruined knee again and sending a blast of
white-hot pain through the assassin's system as the remaining
structural integrity of the joint gave way in a shattering instant,
"how does it feel to know that you're no longer whole? That something
you were born with is gone, and that no matter what the doctors do, it
will never be the same again?" He smiled and Siebur's hand bent
sideways, turning against the joint, leaving him with the choice to
release the knife or have the wrist shatter.

As the knife fell, Death smiled again... and finished twisting the
wrist the rest of the way, the bones giving way and tendons tearing.
"Still waiting for an answer," he prompted, releasing the useless hand
and starting to reach of Siebur's remaining functional arm. "Do I need
to be more... creative?"

The agony was almost too much for Siebur to handle. He spit in the
face of the man who had effectively disabled him. "I'll be back, and
when I do, I'm adding you to the list...just for the fun of it." With
his good hand, he hit a point on the opposite arm which caused white
blinding pain from Krieghoff's hold on it. An instant later, the
familiar effect of a transporter took the practically maimed man from
view.

"Boring conversation, anyway," Death whispered to empty air. He
glanced around the clearing, smiled as the wind played across his
face... and was suddenly Victor again, with a shake of his shoulders,
like a dog sheddding water from his coat.

=/\- Krieghoff to Skore - I need a forensics team at my location, and
one at Suder's quarters. I need something to identify the man that
just beamed out from my location. Try and sort his transport signaal
out of the local traffic and see where he went as well... and beam
Suder into Sickbay ASAP. Stab wouund to the lower torso with a
vibrablade. Non-fatal. Alert Elessidil to meeet us there." =/\=

=/\= Team beaming down in ten seconds, Sir. Transporting to Sickbay in
thirty seconds. Initiating transport trace and other requests." =/\=

Victor didn't respond, instead, kneeling to check on Suder. "I know it
hurts," he told the injured man. "But it isn't fatal. If it helps, go
ahead and scream."

"Think ... I might," Andy replied and passed out instead.

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

Aboard the cloaked corvette, Carian

As he materialized on the small transporter pad, the professional
killer dropped to the deck in a mess. The ship's master casually
strode up to him and said, "Well, that'll be a total of fifty bars of
latinum including the wait time."

Siebur looked at the raven-haired vixen and shot a look of disgust.
"The job ain't over yet. Get your medic to patch me up and let's get
outta here. I have to rethink how I'm going to close this job."

"I kind of figured that you didn't get your mark, at least not in that
shape," she replied, indicating his leg and the bruises on his face.
"Don't worry. As long as you've got the latinum, I've got the time."
With a smile, she summoned the ship's medic and called for another
crewman to help her get Siebur off of the floor.

"Time," the Assassin huffed as he was lifted off of the floor. "Time
is on my side."

"Roadtrip!"

MomQuest Pt-1

Lt. Victor Krieghoff
Citizen Allison von Ernst (age 20)

~`Spuff, my legs look skinny.~~

Propping her bare feet up on the wall, Allison von Ernst leaned back into the seat of the public ComBooth and heaved a weary sigh.

Dr. Burton had finally released the young woman from the sickbay, but Uncle Vic still had the little time traveler on a short leash so far as her contact with the rest of the crew.

Confinement to quarters, and a permanent Security escort had been his way of trying to reduce the effect of the terrible time paradox that was the enigmatic young woman from the future.

Unfortunately for the hapless Security Ensigns assigned to her, years of dodging Starfleet Hunter-Killers amidst the ruins of old Earth had taught the 20 year girl old a thing or two about escape and evasion techniques.

A quick flash of the aforementioned skinny legs, and a quick diversion had given the lame-brained Security escort the slip ten minutes and two decks ago.

Now tucked away in the cubby-hole of a Communications Booth clad in naught but a hospital gown and bare feet, Allison von Ernst was looking to give poor Uncle Vic even more to worry about.

She wasn't through violating the Temporal Prime Directive today.

Punching into the Federation Comm Net took a few minute, and for once the lines were open.

Given the popularity of the Ongoing Starfleet Games, additional subspace frequencies had been opened up for civilian use, and Alli was quick to take advantage of them. Too bad she didn't remember her old Starfleet Access codes. They were only two weeks old so far as the Computer was concerned, but subjectively Alli hadn't used the silly things for over four years.

It made your head hurt if you thought about it.

Waiting for the blinking ==PLEASE WAIT== icon to clear off the screen, Allison stretched her long legs and marveled at the feeling of being clean for the first time in who knew how long. She'd always been a bit fastidious about her appearance as a teenager, but those concerns had faded in light of more pressing concerns: Food, Shelter, and not getting shot by Starfleet Death Squads.

Was it only last week? She toyed with a strand of long blond hair, marveling at its shine. Maybe so long as she was safe in the past again it wouldn't hurt to get a nice shampoo and haircut by....what was her name again....Bing? Alli smiled. It'd been years.

The soft ping of the Comm interrupted her musings, and the scroll of official text indicated a connection.

FEDNET

USS GALAXY COMM BOOTH #63

HAILING USS ZEUS

COMM SUBSTATION

When the screen was replaced by the image of an official looking woman dressed in a Starfleet uniform, Alli thought, ~~Now we're getting somewhere.~~

"Hi there...I'd like to speak to Captain Rebec...." she began only to be cut off by a terse reply.

>>How did you get this line?<< to woman questioned without preamble.

~~Good freaking morning to you too lady.~~ Alli frowned. "Hey it's a public comm line and..."

>>That's not possible.<< the woman interrupted again. >>We're outside the standard FedNet Carrier Wave. Who are you. Where are you calling from?<<

"Hey...who the spuff are you?" Alli shot back leaning into the screen, poking a threatening finger at the tiny camera. "I'm trying to reach Rebecca von Ernst, kapish? What the heck are you doing censoring her mail?"

The woman on the screen eyes narrowed as is she was studying Alli carefully. Soft beeps from off camera indicated she was doing something Allison could quite see.

>>This is a Military Channel.....not a public comm<< The woman announced at length. >>I'm tracing it back to the USS GALAXY....are you a member of her crew? How did you get access to this extension? What's your name?<<

"Look my name is Allison...." she paused, catching herself before blurting out her real name, "Allison Jimsdottir...I'm in Security here...I uh...met the captain once the last time she toured the ship."

The rest of Allison story got cut off by the snippy young woman at the other end of the line.

>>Sorry, crewman. The captain is unavoidably detained, and doesn't take calls from mere enlisted members. Besides we're in a warzone and all live Comms are strictly monitored. USS Zeus out!<<

With an almost audible snap of electrons, the screen fizzled out, leaving a red faced Alli swearing into the darkness.

For long minutes Allison stared at the blank screen trying decide whether or not to punch a hole in it, or to head on down to the armory looking for something with a little more 'oomph' to it.

Well....She crossed her arms with a hrumph!....there was more than one way to bathe a Klingon.

Five minutes later ,still bare foot and wearing her short hospital gown, the skinny blond was pounding on Poor Victor Krieghoff's office door. "Yo, Vic." she called out, drawing all sorts of strange stares from the office staff around her. "You in there bud? Got a favor to ask of ya."

"I think I live in here some days," Victor replied, looking up. "Come in and... hold on a moment. " He stood up, moved around his desk, and opened the small closet located beside his plant stand. Withdrawing a long black leather coat, he handed it to Allison. "Why don't you wear this before one of the Ensigns has a stroke from looking at your legs?" he offered.

"My legs?" Alli looked down at the thin little pins, "Hey you like them?" she pivoted them saucily. " A little too much of the emaciated wench look for my tastes, but you'd be amazed what four years of running for you life will do for toning yah?" It seemed Alli's sense of humor was returning with a slightly dark vengeance.

Allowing herself to be ushered in with a mischievous smile, Alli plopped her bare feet up on the desk and came straight to business. "Sorry about having to ditch the confinement to quarters, but I need your help Unc," she said. "I've been getting the runaround as a mere crewman, but I figure your name carries more weight around here.....I want to call my mother."

"Your mother?" Victor repeated carefully. "Outside of anything else, are you certain that's a good idea?" Victor was certain that it wasn't, but that hadn't stopped him from trying to reach Rebecca once before the report of her disappearance had arrived. "I realize that your situation is a bit... I don't really know what to call it - 'desperate' maybe? Even so, there are rules to this sort of thing and breaking them is never good for everyone involved."

"Timelines." Alli spat. "Oh hey yeah.....wow, I'm so glad you reminded me. Yeah imagine my surprise if I tried to return to my own time, looking for mom and Apple pie and all that and suddenly found it turned

into an apocalyptic nightmare....yeah wow, then I'd be sorry."

She paused letting the sarcasm set in. "Oh wait....that already happened." Her eyes were dark with fury. "Forgive me if I am less than enthusiastic about following your stupid rules Victor Krieghoff. I should have been home in Iceland making snow angels, but instead my life is seriously fooked. Last week I saw some crazy Klingon-wannabe bitch stab my mother to death in front of my eyes, so I guess you can forgive me if I'm feeling a bit sentimental about the whole affair and want to make a phone call yah?"

"I never said that they were *my* rules," Victor returned quietly, digesting the first real piece of information that he'd gotten from Allison since her return - that the future she'd returned to hadn't been the one that she'd left. "Someone else came up with them; I was just using them to try and keep you from getting locked up somewhere and forgotten."

Dropping her feet back to the floor Allison taped her finger on Victors desk to make a point. "I'm not a damn child anymore mister. Maybe last week you saw me popping bubblegum and wearing glitter paint, but those days are long gone for me. I've been running for my life from Starfleet for half my childhood, so don't think you can chain me here. If you don't help me, I'll zarking do it myself?"

Victor sighed, the moment that he'd known was here from the minute he'd first been told Allison's secret, and had know he didn't want to face the moment he was told of Rebecca von Ernst's disappearance. Oddly, the knowledge of what he was going to do was relieving, the tension of anticipation vanishing into the afterglow of decision. The only real decision remaining was when he'd tell Allison that her mother was listed as missing.

"I never said that I wouldn't help you, Allison," Victor replied. "I've just been doing it while trying to protect you, that's all." He waved her back to her chair. "One thing to remember, though, it may have been years for you - but it's been days for me. I'm still seeing the girl that left, not the woman that returned. Going to take some time to reconcile the two."

Allison rolled her eyes impatiently. Old folks. "Okay here's a quick Alli 101 refresher. Your Alli was the hyper-caffeinated young thing with flawless skin and too much makeup. I'm the surly zarked off version with the hot legs and combat flashbacks....saavy?"

"Okay," he nodded. "First things first: I've tried to contact your mother since you came back aboard as well - with no luck. I keep getting one of two women that stonewall me on the Zeus."

Alli frowned. "You've been calling her yourself? When? Why? Wouldn't that cause a disruption to this timeline thingie you keep moaning about?"

"Nothing, I expect," Victor returned. "AI'm just an old shipmate trying to exchange greetings, and invite her to a social function the next time she's in the vicinity. What's the harm in that? But no luck in getting through - it was like talking to a wall." He considered adding the information that those calls were before he got the message that she'd vanished from her quarters, but a part of him held back, hoping that there would be a better time.

"Social Functions? Have you even met my mother the wallflower? " Frustrated, Alli jumped up, her hospital gown flaring, "Enough of this crap. If they won't take my calls I'm going to go visit her in person. I still got some money tucked away from my first visit...two weeks ago to you....so I'm hiring a shuttle and heading out to the Zeus. You gonna try and stop me?"

That answer was easy. "Yes."

She actually looked hurt at that. For most of her life, dependable Uncle Vic had been just that….dependable. "You wont let me go? How could you?"

"Because there's no need," he explained. "I placed a warp sled on call three days ago, just in case it was needed. It can be here in sixteen hours, which gives you plenty of time to get clothes, and take care of whatever else you'll need before we go."

Her frowns turned into a sly smile. Somewhere beneath all her trauma was still spunky young woman. "Warp Sled huh? Zarky. Anybody tell you what a warm fuzzy guy you are Vic?"

"Did you think I was going to let you run around the Federation alone?" he asked with a slight smile. "What kind of Uncle would I be if I did that?" Of course, he wasn't any kind of an uncle in fact, but Victor had long-since decided that Allison was telling the truth, and had simply found it easier to become the man she remembered him to be than fight the tides of time. Or something like that.

Turning for the door, Alli was already making a list. "Alright, you get the ship warmed up, while I make a stop in armory to requisition a few necessities. This is gonna be so cool." she bubbled. "Kinda like a roadtrip."

“The Night They Phasered Santa Claus”
~ A Galaxy Christmas Parody ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Somewhere – Federation/Hydran War Zone ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There’ve been strange things done ‘neath many an Alien sun,
but the thing that locked my jaws,
was the night ‘neath twin moons, the third platoon,
phasered down Santa Claus.

It started off right just another night,
you had to spend in the dirt,
security was out, 360 about,
with fifty percent alert.

We had photon bombs and phaser guns,
our tanks were belly to the dirt,
and on top of that, an arty FO,
with orbital barrages on tap.

I froze where I stood ‘cause out of the woods,
eight critters came charging along,
this may sound scary those mustangs were hairy,
“Oh no,” I moaned, “now mounted Hydran!”

They were coming our way pulling what looked like a sleigh,
you never knew what they’d use,
our flares were tripped our marines had flipped,
Our tipsy blew a fuse.

We let them close then we yelled “who goes”
just like they do in the holo-shows,
the answer we got, believe it or not,
was a hearty, “Ho Ho Ho.”

Now these troops of mine have seen some time,
they’ve done some things back-assward,
they may be thick but I’ll tell you a trick,
they knew that wasn’t the password.

The tanks they roared the phaser bombs soared,
the orbital cannons raised hell,
a bright red flare flew through the air,
as we fired our FPL.

I’ll grant him guts but that man was nuts,
or I’m a no good liar,
he dropped like a stone in our killing zone,
then I passed the word. “Cease fire.”

I went out and took a real good look,
my memory started to race,
my mind plays games when It comes to names,
but I never forget a face.

He was dressed in red and he looked well fed,
older than most I’d seen,
he looked right weird with that long white beard,
and stumps where his legs had been.

He hadn’t quite died when I reached his side,
but the end was clearly in sight,
I knelt down low and he said, real slow,
“Merry Christmas.... and to all.... a good night.”

Now we should have known our cools were blown,
when that light in his eyes went dark,
I slapped the hook with a voice that shook,
said “gimme the Six and quick,”

“Arvelion.” I said, “hang on to your head,
we just greased old St. Nick”.
Now the old mans cool, He’s nobody’s fool,
right off he knew the word,

If This got out, there’d be no doubt,
he wouldn’t be making his bird.
“Just beam him up here and we’ll play it by ear,
make sure he’s got a tag,

Call up Vic to scare the reindeer away,
and get Eshe to dismantle that sleigh,
and in the name of what’s holy find me devious Streely,
to do something with that God damned bag!”

Now by and by the kiddies may cry
‘cause nothings under the tree,
but the word came back from SFMPac
that Santa had gone Hydran.

There’ve been strange things done ‘neath many an Alien sun,
but the thing that locked my jaws,
was the night ‘neath twin moons, the third platoon,
phasered down Santa Claus.

"The Maltese Eptgac, Part IV: An Appointment with Death"
Lt. 8-ball Hunter
Lt. Ella Grey
Lt. Victor Krieghoff

****

"The case had gone cold. Dead cold. And Eptgac was running out of
time. Any private dick worth her salt knew that time was of the
essence. The longer a vic was missing, the more likely it was you'd
find him at the bottom of the river. And if I didn't find him fast...
it was good night, little teddy bear."

"But so far, no luck---my leads had gone nowhere fast. It left me
empty-handed and I hated being empty-handed. I poured myself a
whiskey, but somehow... I was emptier still."
"My last chance, Eptgac's last chance, was a brainstorm with my
partner, Ella Grey. If she couldn't come up with any new leads, I
didn't know who could."

"This is nifty," Ella said, looking around at the office, a tiny room
on the fifth floor overlooking what 8-ball might have described as the
down-trodden hobbos of society. A framed picture of Eptgac rested on
the worn office desk.

8-ball glared at Ella. Yes, the office was nifty. She had designed it
so that it would be 30% nifty, 30% awesome, and 40% kick-ass.
Nevertheless, that was not the issue currently at hand. "Focus,
woman," she snapped. "Teddy bears are at stake."

"Sorry, focusing," She said after sticking out her tongue. "I don't
know, 8-ball, it seems like there isn't anything left to do. It doesn't
look like there's going to be another ransom note, we investigated the
room for clues, you interrogated the witnesses... I'd hate to say it
but maybe you should give in to their demands."

"I AM NOT GIVING IN!" Screaming at the top of her lungs wasn't very
Raymond Chandler of her, but dammit, 8-ball didn't do defeat... she
didn't give up... she didn't surrender. Unless there were aliens with
big guns to her head, but that was an entirely different matter. "I'm
NOT going to acquiesce to this... this... FIEND! I will find Eptgac,
and you will help me!"

"Okay, fine," Ella replied, crossing her arms and tapping her foot.
They sat in silence for a few minutes as 8-ball waited for Ella to say
something brilliant. 8-ball's patience was not exactly legendary.

"Well?" she asked.

"I'm thinking."

Another few minutes. "Come on!"

"What do they do next in these detective movies of yours?" She said,
throwing her hands up in the air. "All I got is to investigate the
witnesses again."

"No, our witnesses know bupkus. They're dead ends, all of 'em. We
need something new, something that will tie our perp to the crime
scene. Fingerprints or footprints or some kind of signature...."

"I don't remember seeing any footprints at the scene. But it's not as
if we went over it with heavy duty forensic tools or anything."

8-ball snapped her fingers. "Then, that's what we'll do," she said,
standing abruptly. "Come along, dear Watson! Back... to the Scene of
the Crime."

****

8-ball's quarters (or The Scene of the Crime)

"Well, this is incriminating," Ella said, holding up a pair of
crotchless underwear with her fingers. 8-ball studied it for a minute.
The underwear was obviously feminine... but more lacy and pink than
8-ball preferred her undergarments.

"Whose... oh! That must be Crystal's." Ensign Crystal McMahon had a
thing for pink. 8-ball hadn't seen the ensign in a long time. God
knows how long that underwear had been hiding there.

Ella smirked and continued to flip over couch cushions.

8-ball resisted the urge to slap her. Friends don't slap friends, that
was sort of a rule, but... "Dammit, why aren't you taking this
seriously? You're supposed to be SEARCHING, not snickering at my love
life."

"Stop snapping at me." Ella's vocal implant didn't have much
inflection but somehow she still managed to growl. "It's not my fault
your kidnapper didn't write his damn name and location when he was
stealing your teddy."

8-ball opened her mouth to snap back... she hadn't decided what yet,
but it would be something particularly disparaging... when she paused
in mid-motion. "Oh. Oh, that's it."

"What's it?"

Instead of answering her, 8-ball turned away again, her sense of
whimsy restored with finally something to go on. "Things were looking
pretty grim, when the light bulb finally hit. My partner had said the
perp hadn't left his name... but he had. He just didn't know it."

Ella tilted her head and raised her eyebrow.

8-ball broke character to look over at Ella. "I'm such a moron," she
said. "The computer keeps logs of intruders or visitors. I was so
focused on doing this the old-fashioned way... there are some
advantages to living in this century."

"Computer," she said, "Were there any crewmembers other than myself
who entered my quarters yesterday between 0900 hours and 1200 hours?"

"Yes," the computer said.

"Computer, list those villainous dogs!"

"Lieutenant Victor Krieghoff," the computer said.

8-ball gasped. A dramatic gasp. She looked over at Ella. Ella looked a
little wide-eyed, but there was no gasping on her part.

8-ball motioned with her hand. Relenting, Ella gasped.

8-ball turned away again, towards the shadows. "The plot thickens,"
she whispered.

***

8-ball and Ella first went to Victor's office, but, bizarrely, he
wasn't there. 8-ball stomped her foot, in a very non-noir fashion.

"But he's always here," she complained.

"Maybe the man's finally decided to get a life."

8-ball had no time for Ella's unsympathetic and cold-hearted nature.
"I guess we try his quarters?" she asked. "I've never been to the
Quarters of Death before."

"It's about what you'd imagine, except with potted plants."

When they arrived, 8-ball had planned to get her monologuing done
before she entered. She had a decent speech planned about going boldly
where no half-Vulcan detective had dared go before, but Victor ruined
it by having his door admit them promptly with no waiting. Punctuality
and manners always ruined style.

So 8-ball and Ella swept grandly into the quarters and 8-ball
monologued anyway. "He was a dark man, a dangerous man, a man not to
be underestimated. Children cried at his mere appearance, women
swooned, men trembled. He was more than any mortal man---he was Death.
He was Invincible. And here I was, about to accuse him, and possibly
be decapitated by the slightest flick of his pinkie."

Victor's quarters were much as Ella remembered them, with the sounds
of some natural setting – a jungle she thought – playing in the
background, and a large number of potted plants here and there. There
were pictures on the wall – some Ella recognized, some she didn't –
and a lone Klingon d'k'tagh in a place of honor on the wall next to
the door to the bedroom. The largest changes were a free-standing
wooden frame of some sort to the side of the desk that housed a mosaic
of brilliantly colored stones, obviously plucked from a half-full
bucket of similar ones next to the frame, and a flight helmet with
Angelienia's call-sign on it resting on the desk. From the bathroom,
sounds of a shower and a wisp of steam curled into the room through
the open door.

"I'll be out in a minute," Victor's voice, muffled by the shower door
followed the wisp of steam.

8-ball stomped her foot again. "Really?" she asked. "I wanted skulls,
I wanted guillotines. I wanted Vicky to be hanging upside in the
corner with a dark cape. This is immensely dissatisfying." She crossed
her arms and yelled loudly to the other room. "You know, a girl goes
catatonic for a minor nine months, and when she gets back, Death has
transformed into The Diet Coke of Death! It's depressing."

"What?" came from the bathroom. There was a 'click' of the shower door
opening, and a wall of steam washed through the bathroom and billowed
out into the room. A heavy footstep sounded on the floor, then
another, and a tall, shadowed figure loomed up out of the fog spilling
into the room. "What?" Victor asked again, his voice deepened and
amplified by the echo of the bathroom as he emerged from the fog,
tendrils of it clinging here and there around his naked, dripping form
as if caressing him or trying to pull him back.

Ella drew in a quick breath and then turned to the nearest plant,
deciding that now was as good a time as any to take up interest in
gardening.

8-ball, who was decidedly less modest nor had any past feelings or
memories to deal with, appreciatively whistled as she looked up and
down Victor's body. He still made her nervous---maybe even more so now
that her telepathy was fritzing again---but nothing, no danger, no
evil deeds, could keep 8-ball from appreciating a good view. Still,
she was on a mission. Ignoring the obscene amount of fog that was
magically swirling around him and forcing her eyes up to his face,
8-ball took a small step forward. "What have you done with him?" she
asked.

Victor frowned. "Ella, 8-Ball," he nodded as the steam started to
slowly dissipate. "What's wrong? And… why are you dressed that way?"

"8-ball's teddy bear was taken Victor," Ella translated, her eyes
firmly planted on a pot of tiny white flowers. "You're logged in as
the last person to visit her quarters."

He blinked. "Oh, really? When was that? Because, to the best of my
knowledge, I've never been inside 8-Ball's quarters. And that's the
sort of thing that I expect that I'd remember."

"This morning," 8-ball said. "At 1121 exactly. Computers don't usually
lie, buddy. So I ask, where were you?"

"1121?" Victor considered that as he reached back into the bathroom
and pulled out a towel to wrap around his hips. "My office, I believe.
Working on a series of reports that I couldn't justify passing off
onto T'risia or Shelley." He frowned at them. "Your door said that I
was the last person to enter?"

"Yeah," 8-ball said. She tried to make that 'yeah' sound intimidating,
but when faced with Death Lite in a skimpy towel . . . such things
were out of her reach.

"Interesting." Victor's frown deepened. "Interesting, but stupid. Very stupid."

"How's that?" Ella said, forgetting her dedication to look anywhere
except Victor's chest.

"One, because they're trying to frame me for the crime," he replied.
"Two, because they committed said crime against a friend. And three…"
he smiled suddenly and the temperature dropped in the room despite the
pleasant expression, as if the last of the departing steam had pulled
all the heat from the room with it. "Three… because they did both of
those things on the first afternoon off I've had since getting the
Department - which means that I now have nothing to do today but find
them, so that I can explain how stupid their plans were...."

8-ball crossed her arms. This was partly due to her desire to look
business-like and serious, partly due to fact that Victor's mojo had
made it freezing. She hated it when he did that. "Well," she said, "as
much as I like having Death Junior as backup, you're still a suspect,
kid, until you can prove otherwise. Sitting in your office doing
reports hardly constitutes an alibi, unless you can somehow prove it.
Show me your detective chops... maybe I'll believe you."

With a nod, Victor crossed over to the room's desk and fired up the
LCARS. "All right, first things first: prove it wasn't me." He worked
the controls for a moment, and then transferred the results to the
main viewscreen on the wall. A split-screen appeared, showing six
different views of Security Main from various angles. "Here's the
recorded feed from the same time that your quarters were accessed." He
stood and pointed. "Here's my office – I grant you that the date-stamp
could be faked, but since I keep my door open, the amount of effort
required to synch up a false feed with all the other cameras that can
see into it, as well as," he advanced the feed slightly to show two
conversations with Shelley O'Rourke, and another pair with T'risia at
differing times, all corroborated by the other feeds, "faking my LCARS
activity and getting Shelley, T'risia, and the rest of the department
to lie for me would be too difficult to manage. T'risia, especially,
would be unlikely to do so with you as the victim of the crime even if
there was a logical reason to do so. As for the rest of the
department…" he shrugged. "Most of them would just as soon see me
gone, so lying to keep me there is unlikely as well."

He minimized that set of images and brought up another that showed the
positioning of his combadge on the ship. "Here's the log of combadge
activity and movement. You can see that I – or my combadge anyway – am
in my office during the time the door to your quarters was accessed.
What's interesting though, is this," he pointed to another entry.
"Even though there's already a log entry for me, a *second* combadge
entry appears here, activated on Deck 11 at 0959. If you follow the
movement of that combadge, it's the one that enters your quarters.
It's deactivated by 1117, on Deck 27 down in the Secondary Hull. Given
that there's a good case to be made that I was, indeed, in my office
at the time of the crime, then it's most likely that your culprit
faked up a copy of my combadge and used it while committing the
crime."

Victor glanced at 8-Ball. "Good so far, or do you need more?" He
paused, then added, "If it helps, I give you my word that I did not
enter your quarters and kidnap Eptgac."

8-ball stared at the log for another minute, willing her eyes to spot
some trick or falsehood. When they failed to do so, she sighed, and
glanced back at Victor. "Yeah," she said, defeated. "I don't doubt
your word. It's hard to doubt the word of a guy that won't give you
permission to die."

She turned her head to look at Ella. "Seriously," she said. "Nobody is
this crafty. Who copies combadges to steal teddy bears? Is there no
end to this fiend's deviousness?"

"He's a criminal mastermind," Ella said with a staight face.

"You have to be the most unhelpful partner in crime ever," 8-ball
snapped. "I'm trying to come up with suspects. Are you trying to come
up with suspects?"

"I'm just wondering how long you got to meet the ransom. There's an
awful lot of recycling receptacles on this ship."

8-ball glared at Ella. "You are exactly the opposite of an upper," she
said. She put her hands to the sides of her forehead. "I just need to
think for a minute. Not something that's going to happen with you and
McBroody over here. I'm going to my quarters to contemplate. To
ponder."

8-ball glanced away from them. "My spirits were low," she said. "It
seemed like every turn I took, took me to another dead end. I was
beginning to doubt I'd ever find this perp. Maybe I'd finally met my
match. Maybe I . . . oh, the hell with it."

Too discouraged even to finish her monologue, 8-ball stomped out of
the room, leaving Ella and Victor behind.
"I'll keep looking," Victor promised. "But let me know if something
turns up on your end."

"Of course," Ella replied.

***

Four hours and fifty-three minutes later, 8-ball was sitting on her
bed, discontentedly munching on a carrot. "I'm cranky, I'm tired, and
I miss my Eptgac. Who could have stolen him? Who could've done it?"

Six hundred and seventy seven variations on that question later, and
8-ball's eyes widened as the lightbulb lit over her head. "No," she
breathed. "No. It couldn't be."

But, it could. It was. 8-ball jumped up from her bed, paced for a few minutes,
and then went over to a console. After forty seconds of furiously
pounding her fingers into the keys, 8-ball stepped back to the center
of the room.
"Ha!" she yelled. "Ha! I know who dunnit!"

MomQuest PT II : Rhinestone



Lt. Vic Krieghoff
Allison (Jimsdottir) von Ernst
Capt T'Vara
Agent John Rhinestone

(In orbit over the Olympic planet. Docked to Concorde SpaceStation)

USS GALAXY

"John Rhinestone....Temporal Affairs Division." the black suited officer flashed his badge lazily, eyes already scanning the compartment as if already picking apart every detail for later scrutiny.

"Temporal Affairs?" The Security guard took a few extra moments to examine the credentials. He'd heard of the division of course....who hadn't....but in the day to day affairs of Starfleet, the 'Time Bandit brigade' as they were sometimes called were often dismissed as mere fantasy at best.....or pimple faced geeks at worst.

"Whats a Time Bandi.....errrr what brings you out to the Galaxy....uh sir?"

Rhinestone repocketed his wallet, and ceasing his scan of the small gangplank atrium, seemed to take notice of the guard for the first time. "I'm sorry," he said, "but were you just asking me for details regarding an ongoing investigation?" he scanned the guard up and down slowly as if memorizing every detail, "What was your name again?" he made a great show of dragging out a notepad and licking the tip of the pencil as if prepared to document this social faux paux.

The Security Agent blanched and actually took an involuntary step backwards. "Oh. Sorry. Ummm what I meant to say is that everything looks in order and Captain T'vara will be glad to see you shortly. " he paused, "You know how to use the wall panels for directions?"

Rhinestone gave him a stupid look, and continued his examination of the room. Stupid fleet weenies were the reason he never got a vacation. Always and forever mucking up the timeline.

It was one of the small internal jokes of the division….just once couldn't they alter the timeline to give me an extra five minutes to catch my breath.

Rhinestone used the turbo lift ride to lean back and reflect on what he already knew of the case. Everything had started a few weeks back with the disappearance off the USS ZUES of one Captain Rebecca von Ernst. Not normally a concern of the Temporal Affairs division, the case had been red flagged by somebody high up in the fleet hierarchy as deserving of a little extra attention.

How high up? Rhinestone had asked when the folder had hit his desk. So high up you've never heard of him, was the answer.

He gave a low whistle of appreciation.

That was until things rapidly hit the fan.

Seems that somebody on the USS Galaxy had been repeated persistent attempts to contact the missing captain since her disappearance. On the surface it wasn't so bad.

After all, von Ernst mother still wrote her letters from time to time, and the Crew of the Zeus were still intercepting her junk mail as well.

However this Galaxy contact had been making a nuisance of herself….it was a woman who was calling….and that deserved an extra look.

That extra look sent more stuff into the increasingly fouled up fan.

Allison Jimsdottir.

The name turned up several hit's from a folder already in Temporal Affairs files.

Damnit….a possible timetraveller.

Miss Jimsdottir had first come to the attention of T-A when the Galaxy Intelligence guru, Lt. Bental had forwarded the charred remains of a small electronics device reportedly confiscated from the young girl.

Quite destroyed, it had nevertheless radiated a negative quantum signature, as well as possessing several anachronistic components indicative of future technology.

One Red Flag for Jimsdottir.

Her second hit came when a routine medical scan by one Ben Maxwell turned up an anomalous DNA signature in the young lady. It was nothing more than a paternity test, but apparently it turned up a relation ship to one Commander James Corgan, Starfleet, where no such relationship had previously been recorded.

Not such a red flag in itself, but certainly curious in conjunction with everything else.

Add that into the sudden flurry of calls made to a missing Starfleet Captain made by Jimsdottir, as well as some loser by the name of Krieghoff…..well that was a conspiracy in Rhinestone's book.

The turbo lift doors hissed open, and the waiting Security agent shuffled him off into the waiting Captains quarters.

Captain T'Vara was crisp and efficient in grasping the importance of the situation, and within two minutes, Rhinestone could see that he convinced her.

Unfortunately she had some shocking news for him.

"NOT HERE?" he grasped the edges of the Captains desk almost shouting, "What do you mean they aren't here?"

The calm reply corrected him in saying that they were most certainly still in the vicinity, but just this morning Lt Krieghoff and his young charge had requested several weeks leave for personal reasons. T'vara had not inquired into the nature, but recalled something being said of hiring a shuttle of some sort.

As way of making amends, the Vulcan flipped open her computer screen and addressed it intently.

"Computer state location of Victor Krieghoff."

The expected no such person reply was quickly delivered.

"Computer," she began again, "Link in with orbital station mainframe and repeat search, same parameters."

A quick flurry of beeps and the link was formed.

"Lt Victor Krieghoff is aboard Concorde Station Section Alpha-2. Main Hangar Bay. Hertz Rent a Shuttle."

Rhinestone was bolt out of his chair, but T'vara held up single slim finger to restrain him. The idea of a member of her crew being involved in such affairs did not please her, and she sought to assist Rhinestone however she could.

"Transporter Room," she announced to the air, "Emergency Site to site transport form my quarters to the Concorde station at the following coordinates…."

As he swirled away into nothingness. Rhinestone nodded a thanks, and could only hope he wasn't too late.

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

Like most great Spaceports, the Galleria Area of Concorde Station was swirling mass of humanity (and inhumanity).

With the recent spectacular end of the Starfleet Olympics, there was a mass exodus of persons eager to collect their little souvenir treasures and make that connecting flight back to wherever home was.

Giggling bands of Girlscouts on holiday squeezed past weary news crews lugging their boxed up camera equipment and hoping for a seat by the windows.

Various Fleet personnel both in and out of uniform filled the air with their various final goodbyes, and congratulations.

Some wore new medals around their proud necks, while others had to make due with the knowledge they had given it their all.

The lines for transporters back to the waiting fleet were pretty impressive, but the biggest mess of all were around the various shuttle rental counters, conveniently set up in a tasteful semicircle. The ubiquitous counters were a major part of any major spaceport, and Concorde Station was no exception, polite security agents kindly pointing out to the throngs which lines were for which counters.

It was into this crowd that John Rhinestone suddenly materialized.

There were a few startled yelps as he sparkled into view, but the agent quickly found himself crushed by the throngs of people who were quite annoyed that the new arrival wasn't doing his bit to keep the lines moving.

~~Damnation.~~ he swore, trying to elbow his way forward, and collect his bearings at the same time. How the hell was he supposed to locate two people out this mess?

He ignored the pushing, twisting desperately and making little hops to see over the crush of bodies until he spotted what he was looking for:

HERTZ RENTAL

The bright yellow sign blazed over a simple open counter, and Rhinestone almost gave a victorious cheer when he saw who was standing there……

~~They're still here!~~~

Not 50 meters away tall man fitting the description of Victor Krieghoff was making arrangements with the clerk, while nearby a slim blond woman was idly twirling a little postcard display .

"Jimsdottir." he whispered to himself even as he pushed himself forward, one hand ducking inside his coat for the phaser hidden there.

They seemed relaxed and unaware of their pursuit….the woman had her back slightly turned to him, frowning at the little display of cards, a large travel bag thrown over her shoulder, while Krieghoff calm dealt with a skittish rental clerk.

Now just 30 meters away, Rhinestone jostled his way forward eliciting protests and angry cries from those he shoved aside, thinking of course that he was skipping his place in line……just give me a few more seconds.

20 meters. The man at the counter completed his business and tucked a receipt away into a small folder before pocketing it.

He touched to blond on her shoulder whispering something, causing her to turn with a light spray of blond hair, giving Rhinestone his first real look at her.

Cute.

Shit….they were walking off. He was going to miss them!

Still unaware of his presence the pair were making tier way down past a little side corridor connecting to the main boarding ramp to the hangar bay.

They were in no apparent hurry, but being outside the crowd, made better progress….they were getting away!!

At ten meters and still hampered by the crowds, Rhinestone finally got desperate, he'd wanted to handle this quietly, but it was apparent now he had to get their attention somehow so he could question them. Pulling free his service phaser he prepared to call out……which was exactly the wrong thing to do in a crowded spaceport.

There was no intention to actually fire, He only hoped the appearance of a weapon would intimidate the fleeing suspects, but even as he about to call for them to freeze, disaster intervened.

A Fat woman struggling with two screaming kids and a load of baggage inadvertently bumped into Rhinestones arm, disturbing his aim and accidentally discharging the weapon.

A shrieking blue beam sizzled through the air just above Victor Krieghoff's head, close enough to actually numb his skin just from its proximity, and exploding against the wall in a shower of sparks.

"HE'S GOT A GUN!!" Somebody screamed, which immediately triggered and ever louder cry of alarm from the entire crowd.

A thousand people tried to instantly run in a thousand different directions all of which served to throw the poor agent further off balance.

Airport Security pulled their own weapons desperately trying to find the source of the shots, only to find themselves swept away by the screaming mob.

Rhinestone's quarry also reacted ….but not with panic….the man crouching down into a ready stance rubbing his neck slightly where the near miss had numbed it while the woman putting her back to a wall, her blue eyes scanning outward for threats.

Their eyes met.

CRAP! Rhinestone swore as her eyes widened, and she pointed and tore at her companions jacket pulling him away from the gun wielding agent.

"Stop!!…Halt!!" Rhinestone yelled ineffectually as he saw the two retreat down the boarding ramp, while the entire time he was still being carried away by the panicking screaming crowd.

The cat already out of the bag, he decided to desperately try a more aimed shots, the blue fire exploding against the bulkhead just as Krieghoff and Jimsdottir turned the corner.

Visions of the ass-chewing he was eventually going to receive for starting this riot were already echoing in Rhinestones mind as he finally pulled free of the mob and sprinted down the side corridor after his prey.

He barely averted disaster when lights shattered in front of him. With a desperate leap, the agent tucked himself into a roll to avoid the yellow phaser fire sizzling in his direction.

Shit….Krieghoff had a gun and was shooting back!! He mentally kicked himself. This was growing into a major cluster!

Just up around the bend of the jet way the stern faced Galaxy Security Chief was guarding the corridor as just beyond him Jimsdottir made a run for the shuttles.

Rhinestone crouched desperately behind a potted plant not daring to expose himself further.

"CEASE FIRE!" he yelled, cradling his own firearm in his sweaty palms. "I'm with Temporal Affairs, I need to talk!"

SNAP SNAP!! Two more white hot bolts hissed by sprinkling Rhinestone with little smoking embers and leaves of the potted plant,.

Apparently they were not in the mood to talk.

Trying to get creative, the T-A agent took a few random shots hoping to keep Kreighoffs head down, before zapping a fire extinguisher on a nearby wall.

It exploded with a bang into a cloud of gushing smoke and foam, filling the air with a concealing cloud.

Covered by the billowing smoke, Rhinestone advanced rapidly up the boarding ramp only to discover that the quarry had used the diversion to race towards the main bay.

They were making a run for the shuttles!

Rhinestone emerged from the ramp, ducking just in time to avoid getting his head taken off by a wild shot this time from Jimsdottit who was already half hanging out of a shuttle hatch 50 meters away.

He bit his lip as hot molten sparks from the bulkhead sprayed on the back of his neck.

Holy crap that was hot!

That bitch was using a phaser set to kill!

Peeking carefully around the corner, he recovered in time to see the pair boarding a sleek Warp-Sled, a big-engined shuttle of sorts, and kick the boosters in with a whine of pent up power.

Oh Fuck.

Only a quick dive behind a nearby tower of crates saved the agent as the oversized engines kicked in and seared the bay with their white hot exhaust boosters!

Ears ringing from the noise Rhinestone stayed there for several moments inventorying his body parts and watching the smoke steam off of every exposed surface of the hangar.

Amazingly it seemed like the only thing not actually on fire was him.

They must have kicked it up to warp right out of the launch chute.

Damn.

"FREEZE ASSHOLE! DON'T MOVE!!" the sudden appearance of the gun wielding Spaceport security made Rhinestone jump out of his already frayed nerves.

The place was a mess and he was the only person around to blame for it.

Oh yeah….he thought as he was reaching for his ID Badge with shaky fingers.….this report was going to be a bitch to write up.