"Do you realize you just had a 20 minute conversation with Victor Kreighoff?" someone behind her whispered. Paige turned to see a security ensign -- a big guy who towered over her; he was easily three times her general size and six and a half feet of solid muscle. His eyes were wide and his face was pale, an unnatural pale, the type people had when they had seen the proverbial ghost.

"What?" she asked, trying to sound as blasé as possible. "Is that supposed to be hard or something?"

His eyes almost bugged out of his head then, and with that, she turned and went the other direction down the hall, ready to tackle whatever may come.

He looked thoughtfully at Maxim. "What do you think is the moral of this story?"

Maxim listened to his father and couldn't help smiling as spoke of what happened. The El-Aurian looked at his father, down at the floor in thought, then back at the man. "Never challenge disruptor proof monks?"

Adrian nodded thoughtfully. "Precisely what I would have said…"

She wiped at an equation with frustration, and Fear asked if she wanted to have a counselor evaluate the Starbeast before they went into combat? "It'd help yes." Rebecca grumped, and doodled with a 11th dimensional binomial matrix, more out of boredom than anything else. "I could probably apply a repeating van Berger parabola and kill the stupid thing by expanding on the empty set. but...."

"But?" Fear prompted.

"But M'Kantu asked me not to expend needless friendly casualties... and I figure losing half our fleet in a diversion would be considered extreme," she sighed. "Some people are so picky. Tell you what; call M'Kantu and tell him we'll leave the star beast to him, and we're gonna go take out some Dreadnoughts instead - those are easy."

"Sure thing..." Fear replied, rolling her eyes. "Transmitting now."

"Does this mean we're not going back for a bigger boat?" said Panic.

"Fascinating," the human cadet biologist at the Amaranthine's Science console said, interpreting initial scans of the Starbeast.

"Any way we can use it to our advantage other than as a shield?" Captain Airik asked as the Nova ship shook, darting from fire and tentacles. The ship was much smaller than the others in the Task Force, but its maneuverability and fire power were up to par.

"Can it fart quantum torpedoes?" The Trill tactical officer's hands flew across the console causing the Amaranthine to narrowly miss another volley.

"I am not confident we could stimulate flatulence," The Vulcan Chief Science Officer commented.

Administrators apparently had a saying across known space, you could tell how organised someone was by looking at their desk and surveying the work piled there. If someone new stepped into the job could they look at the desk and see at a glance what was being worked on, what was outstanding, and so on and so on. Anyone looking at Kimberly's desk would have been hard pressed to put her in any one specific category, that is until they looked at the floor and saw the amassed piles of paperwork and PADDs that were carefully piled around the desk.

It was in her mind the most kinetically stable form of filing. They had no further to fall since they were already on the floor.

Still, the Hydrans seemed intent on engaging in the practice at every opportunity, despite the warning he'd sent them to leave the ship alone a year or so back - really, was having three scientists shipped back to you in a box that was barely large enough for one of them in structurally intact form and the words 'Do Not Bother This Crew Again' burned into the lid so difficult to interpret correctly?

"This one thinks you should reconsider", the Nassari said weakly through gritted teeth. Days since the radiation incident on Deck 11 and Galaxy's CAG had quickly become the bane of each and every Medical staff. Shift by shift, Quattro had made it his personal mission to find out when he would be released, and the lack of answers were as grating on the staff as it was for the pilot. Most preferred to give him a wide berth, but when particularly bad news had to be given Medical usually called in a "Specialist".

"This one thinks ye shoudl shut yer fekkin' gob and let 'em do their fekkin jobs - savvy?"

"Can't tell ye wot I don't know", Mathieson mumbled. "Yer one o' two Nassari in th' bleedin' fleet, an' th' other one 'parrently doesn't give a rat's ass about *you*. Quite th' reputation ye've got fer yerself, lad. 'Been tryin' t' get more data from yer homeworld, but that's slower'n a Klingon t' a salad bar. They're a Warp 5 culture, so I'm askin' a question nicelike - why they want ye t'die?"

"Top it all off, yer biochemistry's almost toxic t' most bipeds in th' Alpha Quadrant. Wot's in that tea yer drinkin'?"

"Gentle ingredients for aiding digestion - elacca root and fai'shen leaves in water", Quattro managed. "Why?"

Mathieson grunted and looked at the Nassari's empty cup. "'Cos it's got a fair kick o' arsenic when fully steeped - and yer bloodwork seems t' use it like a tonic, bit of a pick-me-up. 'Ave another, and keep yer mouth shut."

"Moniterin' sensor surgically implanted", he said with a malicious grin. "Tells me where ye are at all times, an' sets off alarm when ye leave th' bed. Ye run outa sickbay an' I'll beam yer ass back so fast it'll take minutes fer th' main engines t' catch up with ye at full warp - then it's Gorn laxative fer yer! Like I said - I've met yer kind before, Lieutenant."

"I... assure you... that the doctor... has NEVER... met this one's kind... before."

"Maybe you didn't get there, stud. I'm a Captain. El Heffe!!! I don't take orders from some two bit jacked up Wii......"

"I think I'm going to be sick." he said.

The Emergency Holo simply pushed a waste basket towards Leo with his toe and continued.

Another bolt from a Hellbore rattled the shields; she could feel it in her bones just as she could feel the ships momentum in the pit of her stomach. It jerked and swerved, climbed high and then fell, either driven by force of the waves of energy directed at her, or navigated by a pissed wayward fart of an officer, that really needed to take into consideration the maintenance crew that would inevitably be cleaning vomit off the carpet, walls, floors and ceilings for the next few weeks.

"Aw, c'mon, you gotta admit that was good," Nathan protested, glancing back over his shoulder at the trailing Tellarite.

"With all due respect, sir, have you always been an insufferable showoff?"

Cowboy shook his head, the corner of his mouth twitching in a smirk. "Yer just upset 'cause you got yerself into some trouble and Ah had to save yer bacon."

"Was that a pig joke?"

~Another one wot's gone barmy... jus' fekkin wonderful!~ Mathieson thought as he looked at the young woman's back. Five lines of crimson scored the flesh from right shoulder to left buttock, and the patient couldn't stop laughting. ~Painkiller reaction?~

"An' wot's t' bleedin' laugh at?"

"Your head," She laughed. "It's like a big shiny bulls eye waiting for a bat'leth."

~Bat'leth?? Another fekkin' human wot' likes t' play Klingon! Jus' me luck.~ The old man's bushy eyebrows knotted when he looked at the bio-bed's readout and saw the patients name and rank.

~Sweet Mother O' Christ! It's 'er!! Shiiiit!!!~

Arel tried to calm herself down by exhaling and waving her hand in front of her face to dry the tears escaping down her cheeks. This of course only lead to hiccup-laughs and a fascination with her hand which felt nearly boneless as it flapped in front of her face.

"Look what I can do," She cackled, flinging her hand about. "That'll show 'em!"

"Tattoo?" Mathieson took a look at Arel's lower back, seeing a slightly faded blotch underneath the blood. Cleaning the wound he saw the rune. The doctor was a Klingon opera buff, but only knew a few words of the written language. This word he knew. "Courage", shone clearly on Arel's backside once her blood was removed.

~Fekkin 'ell. 'Warning' would have been more appropriate!~

"Nice. Fits yer... really. So'll th' scar." ~'Ave some courage yerself, old man~, he chided silently. ~Sooner she's gone, th' sooner yer balls can fall back from yer throat an yer gut can unknot itself. "Jus a shot of antiobiotic, few mins under th' protoplaser, and yer outa 'ere."

"Oh shit." Branwen groaned coming to her feet. "It's the boss. Don't breathe a word about my problems to her, Mark. I have problems enough as it is."

'You ain't shittin' sister,' Mark thought to himself.

Where were the negotiators of peace? Where were the tables of conference? Where was the seeking of understanding and the unification of ideas, thought and promise to protect one another?

Had the Federation turned its back upon those words that formed its foundations? Or had the Hawks split the ground, torn it asunder and fixed the remaining fragments into a mosaic of their own image?

Or was it the more sinister: that the new lives and civilisations they sought out despised the Federations foundations? Was it their rejection that split the earth, rocked the stability and caused the Birds to fly in opposite directions?

What part had we to play and what part had they?

"Good... now get out of sickbay so we can treat some intensive care patients. I do not want to turn your treatment and assessment into an undue waste of time and resources. Sarek be praised!"

"Everyone remembered the stereotype that all Vulcan women were of superior hotness to any other lifeform, and ones with authority were thereby closet minxes when they could let their guard down."

"Yeah, I heard the reason the captain's still alive is because Kreighoff told him he can't die," Kan'G stated.

"That doesn't mean anything," Lou said. "I told my dog that, didn't stop him from taking the trip."

"OMG my quest is over, for HERE I have found the universes paragon of cuteness and cuddliness!"

Mary continued. "Anyways…..Im a rock and Percy is…..well…..he's a geologist."

Awkward silence.

"A geologist?"

"Aye luv...Lt Preston from the Geology Department." she paused. "After all if you happen to be a living rock, then who better than a trained geologist knows how to make a girl feel..."

"Thousands of Borg drones against four of us. Should not be too much of a problem."