Captain’s log, stardate
63599.8:
The Bellerophon has encountered an alien vessel of a
configuration never before encountered.
As promised when the Fifth Fleet was re-commissioned, this mission
opening a new frontier has produced more first contacts than at almost any time
since the late 22nd century.
K’danz,
out.
“Are you sure
they’re receiving us, Ensign?” Captain (Carrie) K’danz
asked her operations officer, Ensign Xin Zhadesh.
“Indications I’m
receiving say they are,” the Efrosian ensign
replied. “They are either incapable of
transmitting or are choosing to ignore our hails, Captain.”
K’danz looked over at the man sitting to her left. In spite of the fact there were still several
hours before Commander Tom Paris would normally assume the bridge watch, the
first officer had chosen to be present when the Bellerophon attempted to make
first contact with the never-before-encountered race.
“What do you
think, Tom?” she asked.
“Well, if I were
having problems with my transmitter, I think I would stop and welcome whoever
hails me in a friendly manner in the hopes thay could
help me fix my equipment,” Paris replied, still watching the sleek, almost
aquatic-looking starship on the main viewscreen. “The fact that they changed course and
increased speed would seem to indicate that they don’t want to stop and say
hello.”
“Yeah, that’s
what I figured too,” K’danz agreed. “Mister Zhadesh,
continue friendship greetings on all frequencies. If we get no response soon, we’ll call this
first contact a bust.”
“Aye, Cap…,” Zhadesh started to say when he suddenly grimaced and held the
sides of his head as if in great pain. K’danz was about to say something to the newly assigned
operations officer when she noticed that Commander T’Ashara,
sitting at the science console on the port side of the bridge, was also
reacting as if in pain, though her Vulcan demeanor made it less obvious.
“What’s wrong, T’Ashara?” Lt Commander Walter Hickam,
the starship’s helmsman, asked the chief science officer with concern. The Vulcan woman, rather than addressing Hickam, turned to look at the K’danz
instead.
“Captain, we are
being bombarded telepathically,” she announced.
“Do you think
it’s an attack of some sort?”
“No,” T’ashara replied.
“More like a message.”
“A message?” K’danz inquired. “Telling us what?”
T’Ashara grimaced again, trying to hold back another wave
of mental anguish as Zhadesh suddenly collapsed at
his post.
“Sickbay! Medical emergency on the bridge!”
“On our way,”
said chief medical officer Robert Cuomo.
Meanwhile K’danz was still looking at her
science officer.
T’Ashara looked directly at the captain as she answered,
“Telling us to go away.”
Space,
the Final Frontier…
These
are the voyages of the starship Bellerophon!
Star Trek: Bellerophon
“Contact” By PJK
Two hours later, Captain
K’danz, Commander Paris, and Dr. Cuomo sat around the
briefing room table with Commander T’Ashara, Ensign Zhadesh, and a young Betazoid
lieutenant who worked in engineering with Commander Dar.
“It appears all
the telepaths on board received the message the unknown aliens were
projecting,” Dr. Cuomo was telling everyone.
“Even some of us lowly humans with high ESP-er
factors felt a little of what was occurring.
And each one felt it differently, depending on their natural telepathic
ability. Full Vulcans
were able to understand the message, but it caused pain in the nerve centers of
the central brain.”
“It felt like a
mental assault to me,” Zhadesh commented. “That may be because, like many Efrosian warrior priests, I apparently have latent telepathic
abilities, not nearly as refined as other species. And being the only Efrosian
aboard, I cannot tell if my experience was typical or not.”
“Meanwhile Betazoids like myself heard the
message as clear as a communicator transmission, but the contact caused severe
pain within the brain stem and temporal lobe,” the lieutenant reported. “I could probably communicate telepathically
with them, but only for a very short period of time or I fear it would cause
severe brain damage.”
“Who are
they? And why do they want us to… go
away?” K’danz asked.
“From what I
could pick up during my brief contact with them, they are a telepathic race
that has never developed a spoken language,” the lieutenant explained.
“That would
explain why they didn’t respond to our hails,”
“Apparently they
are quite skittish about contact with alien races,” the Betazoid
continued. “They have had violent
encounters with unknown aliens in the past, and generally prefer to keep to
themselves.”
“Any idea what race they have encountered that would cause them to
be so reclusive?” K’danz asked. T’Ashara, Zhadesh, and the Betazoid
lieutenant all looked at one another, almost like a form of telepathy was
passing between them, before T’Ashara again spoke.
“The Kairn,” she answered.
“Why am I not
surprised?” K’danz asked her first officer.
* * * *
Captain’s log, stardate
63608.0:
I have sent a subspace communiqué to Home Plate and requested
advice on how to proceed with contacting this new race we have encountered, and
have been informed by Commander Pearson that Starfleet is sending three ‘first
contact’ specialists out to us that should be able to help open lines of
communication.
K’danz,
out.
Captain K’danz was sitting behind her desk in the ready room
reviewing the latest engineering reports while, sitting on the couch across the
room, her husband Dar played with a model train on the table with the couple’s
young adopted son, Jacob.
“When do you
expect the Besiege to arrive with
those so-called experts?” Dar asked his wife during a pause in her
reading. “And who are these experts
anyway?”
“I’m not sure,” K’danz said to her half-Klingon
husband as she walked over to the replicator and
retrieved a hot cup of tea. “And with
our current distance from the Typhon Sector, it’ll
take at least a week or more for the Besiege
to reach us out here.”
“So we’re just
going to hang around here doing nothing?” Dar asked.
“The crew
deserves a few days of rest,” K’danz assured as she
put her teacup on the desk and returned to her paperwork. But almost the second she sat back down, the
intercom on her desk beeped.
“Captain,” said
the voice of Tom Paris. “We need you on
the bridge.”
K’danz exchanged a look with her husband before saying,
“Jacob, stay in here.”
“Yes, Mommy,” the
little boy replied as K’danz and Dar walked out the
door onto the bridge.
“What is it,
Tom?”
“Sensors are
detecting subspace disruptions with a field magnitude of more than three teracochranes and triquantum
waves,” the first officer reported.
“Commander!”
interrupted Lt. Wheeler at ops. “We have
a transwarp corridor opening off the starboard bow,
bearing 265 mark 5, range fifty kilometers!”
Everyone on the
bridge turned to look at the viewscreen, where a
purple and blue explosion throwing off spiraling tendrils of energy
erupted. A moment later a vessel that
dwarfed the Intrepid-class starship emerged from the hole in space and slowed
to a stop alongside the Bellerophon.
“Commander, we’re
being hailed by the IKV Hem BortaStaH,” announced the female Denobulan
Marine 2nd Lt Asra from the tactical post.
“On screen,
Lieutenant,” Captain K’danz ordered. A moment later the image of the Klingon warship Proud
Vengeance was replaced by the image of her commanding officer, General Ke’reth.
“Greetings, Bellerophon. We have arrived to deliver what I have been
told are a trio of very important passengers,” the general stated.
“Your arrival
comes much earlier than we were expecting, General. Thank you for your prompt delivery,” K’danz replied. “Any idea who these ‘specialists’ are?”
“Admiral Raiajh thought it important that they reach you as soon as
possible, and my vessel is much faster than the Besiege, no matter what Captain McLeod may boast. Though truthfully, I am unsure why they are
so important. I only met one of them, a
rather scrawny Betazoid woman, when they first came
aboard, and they all spent the voyage secluded in their cabin. But we will beam them aboard your ship very
shortly.”
“Will you and
your staff beam over with them?” K’danz asked. “As I said, we weren’t expecting you so soon,
but I’m sure we could at least provide some refreshments and a good story or
two to share while you’re here.”
“Thank you,
Captain, but no. The Vengeance must be returning to the Typhon Sector as soon as possible. We are helping to establish a new Imperial
colony world about ten light years from Starbase 719, and
must return to make sure the Kairn do not take
advantage of our brief absence.”
“Understood. Once
again, thank you, General Ke’reth.”
“Qapla’, Captain K’danz!” Ke’reth replied as the viewscreen
blinked back to the external image of the Proud
Vengeance.
“Do you want me
to go meet our arriving guests?” Tom Paris asked.
“No. It’s your shift. I’ll greet them myself,” K’danz
replied before speaking to her husband.
“You want to take Jacob back to our quarters?”
“Sure,” Dar
replied. “Call me if you need me.”
K’danz nodded as she started walking toward the turbolift, tapping her combadge
as she went.
“K’danz to Chief Colv. Meet me in transporter room one.”
“On my way,” the Tellarite Chief of the Boat responded.
* * * *
Moments later the
doors to the transporter room swished open, admitting Captain K’danz. There already,
standing at parade rest in front of the operator’s console, was the Tellarite Chief Mor
chim Colv. He nodded at K’danz
as she took a position to his left.
“The Vengeance signals they are ready to beam
their passengers aboard,” the transporter operator announced.
“Synchronize and
energize,” the captain ordered. A second
later the room was filled with the hum of the transporter as it materialized
three beings on the platform. Two of
them wore heavy dark grey cloaks with hoods that covered their heads, hiding
their features. The third wore a
Starfleet uniform with a blue shirt under the black and grey duty jacket. K’danz was
surprised when she realized she recognized the Betazoid
woman.
“Jo Ann?!”
“Carrie!” Lt
Commander Tredworth exclaimed as she rushed down the
platform steps to greet her former shipmate.
“How long has it been?”
“Fifteen years
since I transferred off the Sarek,” K’danz replied. “You’re the first contact expert Starfleet
has sent us?”
“Actually, I’m
more the assistant,” Tredworth replied. “Tehanu and Karondar are the experts.”
The Betazoid gestured toward the two people
still standing on the transporter platform.
K’danz and Colv
watched as they pulled back their hoods, revealing a man and a woman, both with
pointed ears and upswept eyebrows.
“Vulcans?” Chief Colv asked.
“No, Chief,” K’danz replied, not quite believing her eyes. “Romulans.”
* * * *
Several minutes
later, Lt Commander Tredworth entered the Bellerophon’s
briefing lounge, where Captain K’danz, Commander
Paris, Commander Dar, Commander T’Ashara, Lieutenant
Wheeler, Marine Capt Michael Drake, and Chief Colv
were already gathered.
“Karondar and Tehanu are settling
into the quarters you’ve assigned them,” Tredworth
said as she took a seat at the table.
“I still don’t
understand why Starfleet is sending us a pair of Romulans
to try and make contact with a reclusive alien race,” security chief Drake commented.
“They’re not
simply Romulans,” K’danz
remarked. “They’ve been living on
Vulcan, working with the Vulcan Academy of Sciences for the last fifteen
years.”
“In fact,” added Tredworth, “they’ve been training in Vulcan mental
disciplines since their arrival in the Federation, where they’ve spent half
their lives. They consider themselves
more Vulcan than Romulan at this point.”
“That still
doesn’t explain how they’re supposed to help us,”
“Both Captain K’danz and I were part of the crew that rescued the
siblings,” T’Ashara explained. “Along with Commander Tredworth,
we were all assigned to the starship Sarek during its initial mission into the Gamma
Quadrant. During the second year of our
mission, due to the interference of the Q
entity, the Sarek
unexpectedly found itself in orbit of the planet Remus,
sister-world of
Tredworth continued telling the story.
“I was quickly
captured by the Romulans, as you might expect, and
imprisoned. But thanks to Q, I managed to escape my confinement
and encountered two teenage Romulan twin siblings
who, because they still retained many of the mental abilities – including
telepathy – of their Vulcan ancestors, were treated rather harshly by the
crew. All three of us managed to escape
the Warbird before Q returned us all to the Gamma Quadrant and, when the Sarek returned to
the Alpha Quadrant several months later, I accompanied Karondar
and Tehanu to Vulcan and assisted in their further
training and mental development. They
have trained under several Vulcan Masters and Betazoid leaders, including Betazoid Ambassador to the Federation Lwaxana
Troi, to further develop the latent abilities the Romulans had spent a lifetime
trying to suppress. They are the
strongest telepaths I have ever encountered.”
“And coming from
a Betazoid, that says a lot,” remarked K’danz.
“This is their
first official mission as members of Starfleet…,” Tredworth
started to say.
“They’re
Starfleet officers?” Drake questioned.
The Betazoid woman looked over at the Marine
officer, an annoyed expression on her face.
“They hold no
actual rank, but they are to be regarded as specialists under my command,” she
explained.
“They will be
accorded the same respect as any member of this crew,” K’danz
emphasized. The rest of the staff all
nodded in acknowledgement. The captain
then nodded for Tredworth to continue.
“Starfleet
believes the siblings have the ability to contact the race you recently
encountered in much the same method as that race tried to warn away the Bellerophon. Our mission is to contact them, assure them
that the Federation only wishes peaceful contact and exploration – not conquest
– and try and establish relations with them.”
“Do you think it
will work?”
“Yes,” Tredworth replied.
“I have the highest confidence that Tehanu and
Karondar can establish contact with this new
telepathic race.”
K’danz looked at each of her department heads as she
admitted, “Normally I would be very reluctant to conduct a mission like this. When an alien race demands we leave their
area of space, generally I would abide by their wishes and bypass their
system. But having served with Commander
Tredworth aboard the Sarek, I trust her judgment. I’m willing to authorize this attempt at
peaceful contact.”
* * * *
Captain’s log, stardate
63612.1:
I have ordered the Belle back to the
coordinates where we first encountered the alien vessel that warned us away in
hopes we will encounter, if not the same ship, another of their spacecraft.
K’danz, out
On the bridge of
the USS Bellerophon,
the twin Romulan siblings Karondar
– the brother – and Tehanu – the sister – stood
between the command seats and the rails behind the helm console, both staring
out at the image of deep space on the viewscreen. According to sensors, the starship was
located right on the outer edge of the star system the crew believed the aliens
they had encountered originated from, and both siblings were concentrating.
“Captain,” said
Ensign Zhadesh in a voice slightly louder than a
whisper. “Long range sensors are
detecting a vessel. Course indicates
that it originated from orbit of the system’s second planet, which sensors have
determined is class O, with very few land masses.”
“Where are they
headed?” K’danz asked.
“If they do not
change course, directly toward us,” Zhadesh replied.
“Range and speed?”
“Currently at
bearing 355 mark 0, range one-half AU, speed just a
hair under .25C, roughly akin to full impulse.
They’ll be here in approximately fifteen minutes forty-five seconds.”
K’danz noticed that the twin siblings
demeanor had changed. Now rather than
simply staring at the viewer, it was as if they were mentally projecting
themselves at the area of space it displayed.
“Don’t over do it
yet,” Commander Tredworth advised from where she sat
in what was normally
“Actually, they
are,” Karondar remarked. “It is quite remarkable. I have never before encountered such strong
minds. Even this far away I can
understand them.”
“They are
resisting us,” Tehanu added.
“Resisting? In what way?” Tredworth wanted to know.
“We are being
rebuffed,” Karondar answered.
“Captain!” Zhadesh interrupted,
his voice no longer whispering. “The
alien vessel has changed course. They’re
headed back toward the second planet of the system.”
“Are they
ignoring us?” K’danz wanted to know. “Or are they inviting us into their system?”
“They are hiding
something,” Tehanu stated, finally turning around and
looking at the captain. “I cannot tell
what it is, but they are definitely hiding something. It almost feels like…” Tehanu’s eyebrows
knit before she turned and looked at Tredworth. “They did not expect to encounter such
powerful telepaths as my brother and I aboard your ship.”
“I believe they
meant to chase you away again,” Karondar
commented. “We have definitely come as a
surprise to them.”
Tehanu stepped over to Tredworth
and leaned close, whispering something in her ear. Tredworth’s
expression turned worried.
“Are you sure?”
she asked the Romulan woman.
“No, I am
not. Which is why I
said this to you privately.”
“What is it?” K’danz wanted to know.
“Captain, may we
speak with you in your ready room?” Tredworth asked.
K’danz nodded, then led the Betazoid woman and her two Romulan
companions into the ready room. Hickam exchanged a look with Zhadesh
back at ops, who merely shrugged his shoulders.
A couple of minutes later, the four people emerged from the ready
room. While Tredworth
and the Romulan siblings stepped up to the back of
the bridge, K’danz stepped to the middle of the
bridge.
“What do you want
to do, Captain?” Tredworth asked.
“Well,” said K’danz. “That haven’t acted overtly hostile. Perhaps they were just scared due to their
previous encounters with the Kairn, like the Morain did during the Dauntless’
encounter with them several years ago. I
say we pay them a visit.” The captain
then directed her next order toward the man sitting at the helm. “Mister Hickam, set
course 355 mark 0.
Ahead full impulse.”
“Course plotted
and laid in.
Engaging impulse engines,” Lt Commander Hickam
responded.
* * * *
“Entering
standard orbit,” Hickam reported. On the viewscreen
was visible a strikingly blue world of deep, broad oceans dotted by small
islands, yet even from orbit some areas did not appear natural, large swaths of
ocean colored a sickly deep violet.
“It’s a beautiful
world,” Tredworth said to no one in particular,
though the comment drew the curious glances of Karondar
and Tehanu.
“It’s difficult to believe it could be the source of any danger to us.”
“Mister Drake,
are we prepared for any contingency?” K’danz asked
her security chief.
“Ready, willing,
and able, Captain,” Drake replied with a grin.
“Captain, sensors
are detecting several vessels lifting off from the planet’s surface,” the Efrosian ops officer informed.
“On screen,” K’danz ordered. The
viewer immediately changed to show a view almost directly below the Bellerophon,
where two vessels similar in design to the first one the crew had encountered a
few days earlier emerged out of one of the oceans, looking almost like large
squid taking to the air, heading straight for the Federation starship.
“The alien ships
will enter orbit very close to us,” Zhadesh
added. It took several minutes, but
eventually the squid-like craft were orbiting the ocean world, facing down the Bellerophon.
“Mister Zhadesh, open hailing…,” K’danz
started to say when suddenly everyone on the bridge felt like their heads were
being hit with sledgehammers.
“What…? What’s happening?” K’danz
yelled, unable to get out of her chair while both Zhadesh
and Drake fell to the deck, unconscious.
“We’re under
psychic attack,” T’Ashara reported. “I’m having difficulty maintaining my mental
shields.”
“Is there
anything we can do to block it?” K’danz asked,
feeling on the verge of vomiting, her eyesight becoming tunnel-vision.
“We have no
technology to… to… block psychic…,” T’Ashara said
before slumping against her console. The
last thing K’danz saw before she herself blacked out
was Karondar and Tehanu
looking at each other silently.
* * * *
When K’danz woke up, her head was pounding, though she could not
tell if it were due to the mental assault she had undergone or the droning of
the computer voice that was calling out, “Intruder alert! Intruder alert!”
“Captain Drake!”
she called out in spite of her pain, receiving no response. She called out even louder, “DRAKE!”
A groan from
behind tactical preceded the appearance of the Marine security chief. “Yes, Captain,” he uttered.
“We have
company. Activate the…”
Before K’danz could finish her sentence, the turbolift
opened and three large reptilian beings in dark grey armor with a swirl-like
emblem on the shoulder carrying large weapons stepped out.
“Who issss the captain?” the tallest one demanded to know,
looking back and forth across the bridge at the crew, most of whom were still
slumped over their consoles or laying on the deck while the other two used
their weapons to cover Drake and the others on the bridge. “Who issss
the ssssenior offisssser
here?”
K’danz slowly stood up, defiantly looking up at the Kairn commander, though she only came up to the reptilian
being’s chest. “I am,” she said. “And what are you doing on my ship?”
“You mean, MY sssship, Captain.
You and your crew are now prissssoners of the Kairn Empire, thankssss to our
reluctant alliessss.”
K’danz continued to stare defiantly at the Kairn, until she noticed one of the slightly smaller
reptilian beings’ face start to twitch. The hint of a smile formed on the Federation
captain’s lips.
“You have exactly
ten seconds to surrender, Commander, or I will not be responsible for what
happens to you.”
“You Fedssss are all alike, defiant to the lassst,” the
commander hissed gleefully as the second Kairn invader also started to twitch
and the first one’s slitted red eyes rolled up into
his head.
“Last chance,” K’danz said, her smile plain to
see now.
“What are you
talking about? You are my prissssonerssss. I
can kill you anytime I…”
Suddenly, the
commander’s right eye started to twitch as the first Kairn
collapsed to the deck.
“What…? What are you… doing… to us…?” the Kairn commander demanded to know as his second also
collapsed in a heap, Drake quickly kneeling down and scooping the Kairn weapon out of its claws.
“Treating you the
same way you treated us, Commander,” K’danz said just
as the reptilian being fell to his knees.
“Drake, lock a tractor beam on the vessel that boarded us, and call in
the cavalry.”
“Aye, Captain,”
Drake replied, tossing the Kairn weapon over to Zhadesh, who had just recovered, and returning back to his
console. “Belle to Hornet flight, proceed with
capture and boarding.”
As two
Hornet-class fighters, Falluja
and Tora Bora, warped
into orbit with the Bellerophon,
preventing any attempt to escape by either of the squid-like alien vessels, K’danz turned to the Romulan
siblings as they got up off the aft deck, having pretended to be
unconscious. “Good job, Karondar, Tehanu,” she said.
“There are
several other Kairn on other decks, but they are all
incapacitated at the moment, Captain,” Tehanu stated.
“I’m reading
twenty-four Kairn life signs on various decks,” Drake
reported. “Security
teams responding.”
“You
incapacitated twenty-seven Kairn with just your
mind?” Lt Commander Tredworth asked her two Romulan companions, sounding impressed. “Even I didn’t think you were that powerful
telepathically.”
“We are not,” Karondar replied.
“We are receiving aid.”
“From where?” K’danz asked.
“From the Kairn’s own reluctant allies,” the Romulan
man answered, looking toward the main viewscreen
where the second of the two alien ships orbited silently, covered by the Belle’s Marine fighters.
* * * *
Captain’s log, stardate
63625.8:
USS Bellerophon awaiting rendezvous with starship USS
Besiege to transfer prisoners. Our mission at Aquadia
is almost over, but it will not be our last visit.
K’danz,
out.
K’danz was sitting behind the desk in her ready room, the
face of Captain William McLeod displayed on the desktop monitor, as she
debriefed Tredway and the twin Romulan
siblings.
“The Aquadians, being an aquatic species, evolved a highly
complex, very powerful form of telepathy as their means of communication. Subconsciously they told us what was happening
on their planet when their ship approached us just outside their system,” Karondar explained.
“They have been trapped under the oppression of the Kairn
for several generations, ever since large areas of their ocean habitat were
somehow rendered poisonous and unable to produce food, forcing a large part of
the population to the verge of starvation.
They had no other allies in the sector until the Kairn
arrived and offered them aid. Over time,
they grew to depend on the Kairn for their continued
survival, even though the poisoned areas of ocean never seemed to decline any.”
“When the Bellerophon was
detected near their system, the Kairn, who have built
outposts on some of the small islands that dot the Aquadian
oceans, decided to take advantage of the opportunity to capture an entire
Federation starship and crew intact and forced the Aquadians
to incapacitate us,” Tehanu continued. “Fortunately, both my brother and I are
stronger telepaths than most found in the Federation. The Aquadians
warned us of what was going to occur, and we were able to warn Commander Tredworth and Captain K’danz.”
“The hardest
part,” K’danz said, addressing her fellow starship
captain, “was trying to decide if the information we were given was true, or really
just a trap.”
“Instead, you
used the situation to trap an entire brig-full of Kairn
prisoners for me and my crew to transport back to Homeplate,” McLeod said with a
smile.
“And the Aquadians finally rebelled against the Kairn,
using their mental abilities to drive the rest of the Kairn
outposts off their planet once and for all.
But the Aquadians are going to continue to
need our help,” Tredworth added. “Sure, now they have the Federation as an ally
instead of the Kairn, but Admiral Raiajh
is going to have to dispatch supply ships and science vessels. Aquadia has large
areas of ocean where nothing can survive.”
“Which I wouldn’t
put past the Kairn being the cause of as a way of
making the Aquadians dependant on them in the first
place,” K’danz added.
“I’m already
escorting two Nova-class science vessels and three supply freighters out to the
Aquadia system,” reported McLeod. “With the Federation’s help, perhaps the Aquadians can recover those areas of their oceans and make
them suitable for food production and living area once again?”
* * * *
Several days
later, the USS Besiege and its convoy
had arrived at Aquadia, the Kairn
prisoners had been moved over to the Leviathan-class warship’s maximum security
brig, and K’danz, Tredworth,
McLeod, and the captain of the USS Rhode
Island, Jon Kan, had negotiated a treaty of mutual benefit with the Aquadians, who looked like two meter tall, bipedal versions
of Earth’s Orcinus orca or Killer Whale.
“With the Aquadians help, we located a Kairn
destroyer on one of the islands in the western sea,” McLeod was explaining to
the others. “I’ve already dispatched my
engineer and several member of my crew and taken it as a prize. We can return it to Homeplate for study
as well, maybe come up with a few new defenses against the Kairn.”
“Admiral Raiajh should be happy,” K’danz
remarked. McLeod looked at his fellow
captain skeptically.
“Is Val ever
happy?” he asked sarcastically.
K’danz thanked her fellow captains for their assistance, then started walking down the hall of the Aquadian city with Lt Commander Tredworth,
passing several of the cetacean-like Aquadians along
the way.
“Good work, Jo
Ann. I was really impressed with how
you, Karondar, and Tehanu
worked together.”
“Thank you,
Carrie. There were a few moments when I
thought we had lost it back there, but it all came together in the end,” Tredworth said.
“I was
wondering,” K’danz said as the pair reached an
elevator that would take them to the ocean’s surface, to a platform where the Belle could beam them back aboard. “We could use people aboard the Belle with skills like you and your
team. Would you consider an assignment
aboard the Bellerophon,
exploring strange new worlds beyond the final frontier?”
Tredworth chuckled at the captain’s exaggeration of their
mission statement, but as the elevator opened onto the surface platform, large
enough for a runabout or aerowing shuttle to land
upon, she shook her head.
“I appreciate the
offer, Carrie. I really do. But I’ve already been offered a position
aboard one of the Fifth Fleet starships.”
Tredworth blushed slightly, as if embarrassed
that what she was saying might be considered a boast. “Chief Science Officer back aboard the Sarek. And Karondar and Tehanu are coming with me, to serve as mission
specialists.”
“Back to our old
stomping grounds on the Sarek,
huh?” K’danz said, her voice betraying the slight
sound of jealousy. “I took a tour of her
back at Starbase 719 just before the fleet started this
assignment, just for old time’s sake.
She’s changed so much since we served aboard her fifteen years ago.”
“I think that
will be part of the fun, seeing just how much has changed and how much is still
the same,” Tredworth remarked.
“Well, I’m sure
we’ll see each other again soon. After
all, we’re part of the same fleet.
Practically right around the corner,” K’danz
said. “Next time the Ambassador and the Belle are both in spacedock at the same
time, I’ll show you this nice quiet bar on level 52 that Commander Pearson
tuned me into. It’s tucked away at the
back of a supply corridor, so few people even know it exists.”
“Sounds great! First
drink is my treat,” Tredworth said before giving her
former shipmate a hug and tapping on her combadge. “Tredworth
to Besiege, one to beam aboard.”
“Stand by,
Commander,” replied the voice of the Besiege’s transporter chief.
“We’re locked onto you. Energizing.”
K’danz offered one last wave as Tredworth
dematerialized in the transporter beam, then tapped her own combadge. “K’danz
to Bellerophon. One to beam up.”
“Acknowledged,
Captain,” replied the Belle’s own
transporter operator. A moment later, K’danz too had disappeared from the platform skimming the
ocean waves of an alien world.
The End
This story is a sequel to a Star Trek: Sarek
second season story entitled “Romulan Ail.” The original story can be found on the Fifth
Fleet Stories Archive at http://www.fifth-fleet.org/S-02-03_RomulanAil.htm
Return to 2386.
Return to Stories Archive.