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Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/5x3olB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 02:24:48 GMT, in alt.startrek.creative "Jay P Hailey" wrote: Title: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile 24: Cardassian Incident 3103-A Author: Jay P Hailey (JayPHailey@hotmail.com) Series: ST-OM, OCC - TNG era [24/54?] Rating:[PG] Part: REP 1/2 Archive: Fine with me, just tell me where. Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Star Trek. I claim Original Characters and Situations for me. Webpage HTTP://jayphailey.8m.com Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile Episode 24: Cardassian Incident 3103-A (Stardate 48580) By Jay P Hailey and Dennnis Washburn "Um, that's interesting." I lied. I was standing on the holodeck with my First Officer, Carlos Mendez. He was avidly talking about the conceptual metaphor of the painting we were looking at. I could have achieved the same effect by placing random cans of paint on a canvas, placing them flat on the ground and then backing a jeep over them. Mendez was my age, but he had been to greater heights in his career. He had once been the Captain of the starship Farragut. When she was lost at Wolf 359, he broke down. He had worked his way back up through the ranks to be my first officer on the starship Discovery. I was glad to have him, but frankly he made me feel a little inadequate. He was easily more qualified to be the Captain of the Discovery than I. "I am very excited about our trip to the Demilitarized Zone." Mendez said. "Huh?" I pulled myself back from wherever I had wandered to. "What?" "Well, I don't want a confrontation with the Cardassians or the Maquis, But I hope to be able to find Pre-Union artifacts in the area." He explained. "Pre-Union artifacts?" I asked. "When the Cardassians formed the Cardassian Union, they abandoned an old and peaceful tradition, Captain." Mendez said. "They were philosophers and artists. They were also starving. The Union fixed that, but at a high spiritual cost. They sold off many ancient treasures to finance their military build up." "And you're hoping to find these ancient cultural treasures in the Demilitarized Zone?" I asked. "Maybe. Maybe I will be able to make a contact to help me track them down. Maybe I will meet another collector like myself and we can trade information. I don't know what might happen. That is what makes the future worth the wait." He seemed serene. "Okay. What else have you got?" I asked. I wanted to get on with the tour of Mendez' virtual gallery. We would have loved to have his collection on the Discovery, but he only kept holographic scans of his paintings on the ship. He shipped his collected artworks back to his family's Hacienda in Colombia. I was caught between two feelings. On one hand I felt like a philistine because I really didn't understand what made many of these paintings worthwhile. Although he had two Ellisa Mitchells, who doesn't like those? A lot of them looked like random hash to me. On the other hand I felt as though "artists" had seriously rooked Commander Mendez with no talent except salesmanship. The intercom beeped. "Captain to the Bridge!" "This is the Captain." I answered "What is it?" "We're receiving a distress call from the Demilitarized Zone, Sir. A Cardassian warship is under attack and in trouble." "Set course to intercept. Maximum warp. We'll be right there." I said. If we could rescue a Cardassian warship it might help to ease tensions between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. I turned to Mendez. "I guess we'll have to finish this at another time." Mendez was already heading for the bridge. "That's all right, Captain." -*- The main threat in the area of the Cardassian Demilitarized Zone was the Maquis. The Maquis had come into existence while I was outside the Federation, so I knew little of the background. Apparently there had been yet another confrontation with the Cardassians along the old border. The Federation and the Cardassian Union had been having an on-again, off-again conflict for the last fifty years, since the original contact between the two governments. The old border was near the planet Minos Korva, and that world was the strategic lynch pin of the border area. Apparently while I was away from the Federation, the Federation had ceded the zone to the Cardassians in an attempt to buy peace. It wasn't an unconditional surrender, though. The area between the old border and the new border was supposed to be a "Demilitarized Zone". No forces of either side were supposed to be allowed to operate inside the DMZ. There were a number of Federation colonies inside the DMZ. Although the worlds had been ceded to the Cardassians, the Cardassians had apparently promised to administrate the worlds fairly and to treat their new human citizens well. Many of the human residents in the new DMZ had refused to give up their homes. Then there was violence. Now there was a thriving rebellion against the Cardassian rule in the DMZ, called the Maquis. Personally, I thought that the DMZ treaty was idiotic, but no one asked me. What made the whole situation especially bad was that ordinarily, the treaty would not have lasted long. The Federation would have renegotiated, eventually. However the Maquis was not a problem that negotiation could solve. Not only had the colonists of the area rebelled but Starfleet officers had mutinied and joined them. It was a first in the Federation's history. It was deeply disturbing to me that Starfleet officers would abandon their duty to the Federation as a whole to go fight such a dirty war. Now the Federation Council could not back down from the idiotic treaty. To do so would validate mutiny and armed rebellion. So the Federation was stuck supporting the DMZ, the Cardassians and a dumb treaty while the Maquis became a haven for rebels, terrorists, mercenaries and criminals all with grudges against the Cardassians. It was a mess. The Discovery was on her way to patrol the Federation side of the DMZ and wave the flag. We were under orders to take whatever action necessary to stop arms shipments and supplies heading to the Maquis. Starships had been flying under those orders for four years or more and the Maquis was stronger than ever. I was stuck in the position of supporting Orwellian totalitarianism or bomb-tossing terrorism. Like most people in my shoes, I really wanted to find the middle road. -*- The Cardassian ship was a standard Galor class cruiser, although her equipment had been upgraded somewhat. The Discovery was screaming to the rescue, but the moment we got into sensor range we knew we were going to be too late. The Cardassian ship was already losing her shields to the more maneuverable attackers. We watched as one of the raiders moved in for a phaser strike and then cloaked. "Report!" I said. As far as I knew the Maquis didn't have any cloaking devices. "The raider cloaked. Captain." Stephanie Anderson. My Chief of Security said. "We're scanning to find it now." "Huh, They're palming the cards." Lucas McCoy said. He was the hard drinking, hard gambling ladies' man who also served as my third in command and Chief of Ops when he could find the time. Actually McCoy was a fine officer. He just made it look as if he was not. "The plasma exhaust from the raiders is hotter than a five dollar pistol, Captain." He reported. "They have some heavy gamma ray emissions too." "Hmmm. Anti-Matter Pirates?" I guessed. They used technologically advanced engines that were more powerful than Federation engines. They were also much more dangerous to use. "Sounds about right, Sir." Lt. Commander Anderson said. "Look at this." She switched the focus of our scan to another raider. The Cardassian ship hit it with a dying blast from its weapons. The Raider shuddered and then blossomed into a ball of fire. The fire was much hotter than a Maquis raider should have been able to manage. Were the Anti-Matter Pirates allied with the Maquis? Was whoever built the advanced engines of the Anti-Matter Pirates now selling to the Maquis? "Are we rushing into our own massacre?" I asked Stephanie. "No Sir. We should be able to break their cloaks." She reported. Soon enough we could see fuzzy dots on the tactical screen. These were the cloaked raiders. Now that we could see them, they couldn't surprise us. The Discovery was more than a match for them, now. Soon, the Cardassian ship succumbed. Her shields failed, her engines shut down and her weapons ran out of power. The raiders moved in and beamed every speck of anti-matter off the Cardassian ship. Then they split up and fled. The warship was in serious trouble. With no anti-matter her main power plant was just dead. On reserve power, she could stay alive but couldn't move in any meaningful sense. Her hull was damaged and there were heavy casualties. We were still fifteen minutes away at full warp. "Bridge to Sickbay, prepare for rescue operations." I said. -*- Gul Evek was the commander of the warship Enabran Tain. He was standing in our sickbay watching our Doctors. Marcella Burlington and T'Sing were treating his crew. "I'm sorry we couldn't get here sooner." I told him. I didn't know what to say really. How do you comfort a Captain who has lost a battle and some of his crew? "I'm sure that everything went according to plan." He snarled. "What?" "The Maquis with cloaking devices? A Federation flagship close behind them? This is proof. Proof, Captain that the Federation is secretly supporting the Maquis." Evek was coldly angry. "I'm sorry, I know how you must be feeling, but really I don't think that this was the work of the Maquis." I said. "Oh, and who was it?" He was sarcastic. "Well, come with me, and I'll show you." I motioned him over to Doctor Burlington's office. On her terminal I called up the tactical readouts on the Anti-Matter pirates and then I showed him the scans of his own battle. "See," I said. "Look at those readings. Their engine core temperatures must be at least 3.5 million kelvins. Look at the gamma ray flux. The real clincher is the spectrum of the gamma rays. Heavy ions. They aren't burning deuterium in there. Look at the cloaking devices. Multi-mode. Just when you think you know what you're looking at, poof, it's gone. These guys are bad news." I explained. "We'll give you full readouts on what we know." "You sound very proud of your new technology." Evek snarled. I was taken aback. "But, that's not Federation technology." I said. "Save it for somebody who believes your lies." He turned and walked back into the Sickbay to watch over injured members of his crew. -*- The Enabran Tain was in sad shape. We transferred power to her through a tractor beam, and that kept her stable. Without the Discovery, the Cardassian ship would have literally fallen apart. Eventually Evek and his crew were able to stabilize the Cardassian ship. About that time, a squadron of three more Cardassian cruisers showed up. They assumed an attack formation against the Discovery. I didn't like their attitude. The Demilitarized Zone was supposed to be a neutral area where starships and troops didn't go. What was the Enabran Tain doing there to begin with? Then they treated the Discovery like we had violated their territory to perform the rescue. I almost wanted to call them on it but a battle over it would be futile and painful. Starfleet ordered us to report to Starbase 412, along the Demilitarized Zone. -*- "There's really nothing I can do from here." Captain Cornell was the commandant of the Starbase. "I have you and the Discovery here, I have the Sutherland ten light years out. You won't be here long and the Sutherland is only one ship. We can't challenge the Cardassians with that." "Can you report it back to Starfleet Command?" I asked. If he needed more ships to hold the border, then he should ask for them. "Don't you think that I already have?" He said "The response was you and your eggshell dreadnought out there." He waved out of his office window at the Discovery. "Did you know that I received orders from Starfleet Intelligence regarding you?" He quoted his orders. "The Discovery's mission is of the highest priority to the Federation. You will not delay or endanger her mission unless the survival of the Federation is directly threatened. You can't stay here and back the Cardassians down anyway. Starfleet won't let you." "Oh. I'm sorry I didn't know." It must have been frustrating. Despite skirmishes with the Klingons, the Cardassians had plenty of ships and troops to reinforce the Demilitarized Zone with. Now, he had the ship to even the odds, but we weren't allowed to risk a fight and we weren't allowed to stay and guard his rear. "Don't worry about it. We'll make it through. Fairness isn't our goal here, Captain. Survival is." -*- Captain Cornell did ask one thing and I was happy to oblige. The maintenance crews of Starbase 412 were hard pressed. They took a small tender out to a number of sensor buoys in the area. This let Starbase 412 monitor traffic in the sector. The sensor buoys were a natural target for the Maquis and even the Cardassians. No one wanted Starfleet watching over their shoulder while they maneuvered for position. The buoys themselves were targets, but the maintenance ships were also targets. The sabotage would last longer if Starfleet was afraid to fix the system. Starbase 412 had already lost a couple of runabouts and crews, one to a raider and one to a booby trap in the buoy. Under the guns of the Discovery, though, the maintenance crews could relax and take their time. We loaded up the maintenance crews and their tools and took a slow cruise around the neighborhood of Starbase 412. -*- "Captain, may I speak with you momentarily?" Mishimi Miatsu said. He spoke so rarely that his polite request carried the same weight as another person's scream. "Certainly, please have a seat. Would you like something?" I waved vaguely at my replicator. It was easy to be polite with a replicator. "Captain I have noticed a slight decline in the efficiency of our warp core." Miatsu looked uncomfortable having to make the statement. "I am unable to determine the source of the problem. It grows worse with each passing moment." "What!?" I jumped to my feet "How long have we got?" Miatsu looked startled and then thought about it. "I would say that within the week we will notice a serious decline in power. Within two weeks main power will fail. If the current trends hold." I took a deep breath. "Okay." I sat back down. "May I see your data?" Miatsu bowed and handed me a PADD that he had been holding behind his back. I read that the warp core had gone from 98.3% efficiency to 97.7%. When I had been the Chief Engineer of the USS Akagi, I called it good when we could get over the 90% mark. At 95% we were hot. Once we held 97.5% for a week. We threw parties about it and bragged to our friends. I called up the records and saw that the Discovery had maintained over 98% efficiency since about three weeks after our launch. I looked at Miatsu. He was at attention, staring straight ahead with perfect calm. "Could this be a normal fluctuation?" I asked. "With respect, Sir. The Galaxy class starship is a most excellent design. A competent engineer should be able to maintain 98% efficiency as a routine matter." He said. I looked again at the data. There was a definite, though microscopic drop in the efficiency of the engines. I ran the curve out and sure enough. By one week into it, the warp core had dropped to 75% efficiency. By two weeks it died altogether. The current drop was well within what I figured would be the normal variation. "Tell you what. Keep an eye on it. If the engines drop below 95%, let me know." I said. On the predicted curve that would be about three days from now. Miatsu looked unhappy. "95%? Yes, sir." We continued with the maintenance tour. ... Continued in part 2 (Split by ASCA Moderator) -- Stephen Ratliff Senior Moderator, ASCA Submissions: ascatrekfic@crosswinds.net Contact: stephen@trekiverse.org Constable Katie, ASC* Archive team ASC* archive: http://www.trekiverse.org or http://trekiverse.crosswinds.net Submissions/corrections: trekiverse@ trekiverse.org For archive updates: ASC-Archive-annc-subscribe@ yahoogroups.com ASC Stories-Only list: ascl-subscribe@ yahoogroups.com ASCEM Stories-Only list: ascem-s-subscribe@ yahoogroups.com ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek.creative or directly to the author. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From ???@??? 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Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/5x3olB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 02:25:04 GMT, in alt.startrek.creative "Jay P Hailey" wrote: Title: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile 24: Cardassian Incident 3103-A Author: Jay P Hailey (JayPHailey@hotmail.com) Series: ST-OM, OCC - TNG era [24/54?] Rating:[PG] Part: REP 2/2 Archive: Fine with me, just tell me where. Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Star Trek. I claim Original Characters and Situations for me. Webpage HTTP://jayphailey.8m.com Continued from part 1 ... Three days later was a generalization. Sixty-three hours later I was awaken by Mishimi Miatsu. It was one o'clock in the morning. "Yes?" I answered, yawning. "Captain, I apologize for the inconvenience." He sketched a quick bow. "You asked me to report it when the warp core fell below 95%." "Okay. Did it?" "Yes Captain. Five minutes ago." He said sadly. It didn't sound quite right. "Boy, that was right on the curve, wasn't it?" "Yes, Sir. I have made every effort, but I have only affected the problem slightly." Miatsu's calm voice held a sad undertone. He had failed. "There's more going on here than meets the eye." I said. "Get some sleep Mr. Miatsu. Tomorrow we will return to the starbase and do a class one diagnostic on the warp core." "Yes, Sir." Miatsu bowed and left my quarters. He backed out to avoid the rudeness of turning his back to me. A class one diagnostic entailed totally dismantling the warp core and examining every piece of it manually. I was aware that the Discovery was a major player in the sector. That made us a target for sabotage. -*- "I have it." Kamaline said. We all looked at her. The Galaxy class starships were the most advanced and complex flying machines of the day. To take down the warp core and examine every piece required every one in the crew with any engineering background to participate. I didn't want to trust the engineering crew of Starbase 412. I was being paranoid but I rationalized that it would be a good bonding experience with my crew. We were all scattered through Engineering. We would take a piece off, label it, scan it, examine it and then a crewman would take it to a nearby cargo hold. There it was carefully placed on a grid marked out on the floor. It was almost like archaeology. "What is it?" I asked Kamaline. "The number two anti-matter injector nozzle is radioactive." She said. "Whoa. How did that happen?" I said. It was an extremely unusual condition. There was no reason for radiation in the object. "Lieutenant," Miatsu spoke more sharply than I would have liked. "Recheck your scan, please." "Aye, Sir." Kamaline said. She cleared her tricorder and scanned the component again. Then she showed both the component and the scan to Miatsu. He read the scan and his face darkened. "Most unusual." I went and looked over his shoulder at the report. The radiation trace was very faint, but it was of a type that had no place in a warp engine. "That's neutron radiation." I said. "What's it doing in the warp core?" Kamaline looked thoughtful. "I wonder if the other injectors show the same trace?" We checked and they did. After a long afternoon of dismantling and checking our antimatter fuel system we discovered the culprit. There was something radioactive in our fuel supply. It was contaminating our anti-matter and that was affecting our warp core. The decreasing efficiency marked a slow but continuing rise in the radiation level of the anti-matter. Eventually we tracked the source down to the antimatter fuel pods. We could not localize the source of the radiation any more than that. We scanned the insides of the fuel pods only to find anti-matter. -*- "It must be the anti-matter itself." Kamaline pointed out. "How?" I asked. The Discovery, like all Federation starships of the day used deuterium and the anti-matter equivalent as fuel. Deuterium is a variation of hydrogen. Hydrogen is the basic element. Radioactive materials decay from complex forms to less complex forms. Hydrogen is the least complex form of matter there is. How can it degrade any further? "Let's test the assumption." Kamaline said. We checked the anti-matter fuel pods carefully. Sure enough, we found the basic left-overs of radioactive decay. It was in microscopic amounts but the ratios were growing. Our contaminated anti-matter was giving off high energy neutrons. There weren't too many of them and so the danger to us was slight, but the more neutrons the anti-matter gave off the more radioactive the anti-matter became. We tried every measure at our disposal but the strange radioactive neutrons easily penetrated our isolation fields and contaminated more anti-matter. The question was "Where did this start?" Until then the only way to halt the reaction was to take the contaminated anti-matter and dump it. It had to be gotten rid of. Our odd radiation endangered the starbase and all the other ships docked to it. We secured the warp drive system and the warp core. We took the Discovery away from Starbase 412 on impulse drive and dumped our entire load of anti-matter into the star that the starbase orbited. Until we could be decontaminated, and new fuel pods with anti-matter flown in, the Discovery was crippled. -*- Our engine room was decontaminated, although it took some work. After that the Discovery was just another boat tied to the dock. We had nothing to do really but await the fuel shipment that would resurrect our ship. I ordered Kamaline and Stephanie to continue the investigation into the contamination. I would hate to be a helpless spectator to a Maquis or Cardassian operation because we had been sabotaged. The rest of us got some time off. We spent it in the starbase touring their facilities. It was a little like a space going Casablanca there. There was traffic into and out of the DMZ and all along the frontier. The Cardassians, the Klingons, the Bajorans and the DMZ were all within reach of Starbase 412. The only place like it would have been Deep Space Nine on the other end of the DMZ and they had the Romulans nearby, too. You knew that some of the grungy people slouching the corridors of the station were mercenaries or operatives of the Maquis, but you could never tell who was the real article and who were "Wanna-Be's". I left orders that the crew of the Discovery was to use the "buddy-system" on shore leave. That meant that no one was allowed off the ship alone. I hoped that it would be harder to do something nasty to my crew if they were in groups together. I had Snoopy keep a couple of security quads on standby in case we got any calls for help. -*- About a day later, The Sutherland came in. She was not quite as pretty as the Discovery, but then I was biased. The Sutherland was a Nebula class starship. They were the real work horses of Starfleet at that time. They had many of the same components of the Galaxy class, but were not nearly so expensive to build. Although the engines and large parts of the hull were the same, the Nebula class didn't have as many modules available for change out and could not separate into two ships. I got to watch the Sutherland glide into the starbase and dock. It was fun to watch the big ships move. -*- Mendez and I were walking along the main promenade of the Starbase when I saw a familiar figure. It was Dennis Washburn. He had been my best friend at Starfleet Academy. It had been eight years since I had last laid eyes on him. He had invited me to a party held on his first command. "Dennis!" I called, waving to him. He was alone. He was a tall, thin man with brown hair and a sketchy beard. He had grown the beard right out of the academy and it suited him. "Hello." He said. "Well! Captain Hailey, congratulations." We shook hands and I introduced him to Mendez. We stood and chatted aimlessly for a moment until Mendez said. "I'll leave you two to visit." He started to move away. "Um, Commander," I said, "By yourself?" He turned and said "I have some business to see to. You remember what we discussed on the holodeck?" "Will you be all right?" I asked. I wasn't sure what we were talking about. "Trust me." He grinned. "What was that about?" Dennis asked. "This place is a real dive." I told him. "I don't like the idea of my crew wandering around it by themselves." "It's not as bad as it looks." Dennis said. "I've been through here with the Sutherland before." "The Sutherland. Is that your ship?" I was impressed. He must have made a couple of good moves to be given command of a front line ship. He grinned "Yeah." I waved over towards the cafe where the big bay windows looked out over the docking section. "Which ship are you pushing, Captain?" He asked. He seemed a little tickled at the idea. In the Academy I was a year behind him. The relationship cast me in the role of little brother and Dennis in the role of older brother. We both assumed that he was on a faster career track than I. "The Discovery." I said pointing her out down the docking arm from the Sutherland. Dennis was surprised. I don't suppose I blamed him. I realized that in the last five years I had gone from rear echelon desk jockey to the command of a Federation flagship. It was quite a turn of fortune for me. "A Galaxy class, huh?" He said quietly. Then he grinned widely "I didn't think you had it in you!" "You know, now that you mention it, neither did I." -*- Dennis and I caught up on old times. He asked me about my secret writing career. I had always carried the aspiration to be a writer. I never really followed it through. I had a few stories in my computer but I never felt like they were anything worth submitting. I asked Dennis about his music. The guy was some sort of musical genius, and really might have gone somewhere as a musician, if not for the minor detail of being a Starship Captain. Dennis admitted that he still practiced and still played from time to time, but that the Sutherland took almost all the time he had. I sympathized. We talked about old friends and mutual acquaintances, catching with old news and current whereabouts. "Will you look at the pair of us." Dennis said. "Captains and gentlemen." He sounded a little surprised and a little nostalgic. "When did that happen?" I said. "Did you ever really think that one day we would commanding starships out here?" "No. I always hoped for it, but I never really believed it." Dennis said. "I always did." I knew that he was talking about himself and that he had been right. We didn't really speak to each other after he had gotten his command. I put it down to the pressures of job and time. The last thirty years had been pretty busy, but what I remembered was the party on Dennises' new ship. The New Brunswick was an Excelsior class on her last legs, but she was still a ship of the line. Dennis was proud of her and I felt a little jealous of him as we stood in the old ship toasting and talking. It occurred to me halfway through the party that Dennis was the only person I knew there. His crew was all wet behind the ears young officers on their way up. There was an Admiral there, Kenally, who was polite in a distant sort of way. There were other people, too, but that party was where I realized that my career had topped out. I hadn't even known that Dennis was getting a ship until the day before the party when he stopped by my office at Starfleet Command and invited me. It didn't occur to me to wonder why he hadn't asked me to be his first officer until later. All I knew at the time was that I was a fifth wheel, a staff officer in a crowd of line officers. Since then I had not gone out of my way to seek Dennis out. To be fair, getting command of a starship took one of two things. Luck or drive. Both helped. I had stumbled blindly into my command of the Discovery. Dennis had worked hard and earned his commands. It took a certain focus, a certain intensity and a drive towards the goal. Dennis had become so focused on getting his command that he simply hadn't thought of his buddy, stuck behind the desk. I suppose that I might have been holding a resentment until that moment on the starbase. I looked over at Dennis Washburn. He was the consummate Starfleet Officer. What had he paid for it? Would it have better for him to be a musician in some band or orchestra somewhere? We would never know. Soon enough we said our good-byes and went our separate ways, promising to stay in touch. The mission of the Discovery wasn't going to allow for much in the way of letters from home, but maybe afterwards... -*- Miatsu, Kamaline and Stephanie discovered what had caused the contamination of the Discovery's anti-matter. The clues were in the outer hull of the Discovery. Tiny holes in our hull. They were microscopic, almost atomic in scale. The drives of the Anti-Matter Pirates spit out high energy particles. The particles were so energetic that they sliced right through radiation shielding and navigational deflectors. These high energy gamma rays were of a sort previously unseen, but the evidence seemed to support the hypothesis. When these high energy particles struck anti-matter, they started more radioactive decay. The rate started out small. We had been infected during our visit to Mereau 4 some weeks previously. Eventually it would grow to dominate the fuel systems. It occurred to me that the Romulans did not use anti-matter in their main drives. Nearly everyone else did. If known space suffered this antimatter infection to any great degree, then we would be short on fuel while the Romulans were fully operational. It was not a comfortable idea. We wrote up the report and forwarded it to Starfleet Command. Now we had an idea why the Anti-Matter Pirates were so intent on stealing everyone's anti-matter. Starfleet didn't reply to our report. They were still digesting our previous report on the incident in the DMZ. I personally took our findings to Captain Cornell and advised him to warn any other starships stopping by. -*- The Discovery was ready to leave. We had a new load of fuel and a clean fuel system. The only thing missing was Commander Mendez. He had logged back aboard the Discovery the night before. The computer led me to one of the tiny auxiliary labs in the Battle Section. There I found Kamaline and Mendez. They had a sculpture on a scanning table and it looked as though they were completing a high resolution scanning pass. "Good Morning Captain!" Kamaline called happily. "Do you two know what time it is?" I asked. "Mendez looked up and said "Oh, damn." He turned to me. "I'm sorry Captain. If you will hold the ship for another fifteen minutes I will put myself and Lieutenant Darvon Ahk on report." "Why should we hold the ship?" I wanted to know. "The courier is waiting for this piece. I must finish scanning her so we can send her home." Mendez explained. I went to look at the sculpture. It was neat. A nude Cardassian woman was lounging on some warm rocks. The lines were catchy. I don't know art, but I know engineering. The sculpture had made a careful study of the physiology of Cardassian women. He enjoyed his work and it showed. "Hmmm." I said looking at her. "Isn't she beautiful?" Kamaline said excitedly. "Yes." I admitted. "That's the work of Geran the Sensualist, Captain." Mendez informed me. "There aren't many of his works left." "Fascinating." There was something nagging at me. "You reserved a courier to take this piece all the way back to Earth from the Cardassian Border?" That would have cost an arm and a leg. I don't know that I could have done it with three and half years of back pay from the Harrier mission in my pocket. Mendez looked at me startled. "No, Captain." Kamaline looked at me. "You thought he was going to keep it?" "Well he is a collector." I said. If he wasn't going to keep it, what was he doing? "These artifacts belong to the Cardassian people, Captain. I can't hide them away on Earth." "Then what are you doing with her?" I asked. "I am still greedy enough to want full scans for my collection, Captain, after all I paid for her. However, there is a Cardassian courier waiting to take the piece home and put her on display where she was meant to be. On Cardassia." Mendez said. "Hailey to the Bridge." I called. "Bridge here." McCoy answered. "Hold the count down for thirty minutes, Lucas." I said. "Aye, Sir. T minus five and hold for thirty." -*- The Discovery launched nearly on time. What with returning the little rock lounger to her proper home, I didn't worry about it. I didn't even have Mendez and Kamaline put on report. What they were doing is part of what a starship is really for. Two days later I received Starfleet's reply on the subject of the Cardassian intrusion into the DMZ. I read: "Follow up Report: Cardassian Incident 3103-A You will immediately answer the following questionnaire fully and completely. You will then administer the questionnaire to your crew. You will forward the answers to Starfleet Command in a swift and timely manner: 1> What is your opinion of the Cardassian treaty of 46361.0? 2> Might the colonists be justified in rebelling against the lawful authority of the Cardassian Union? 3> Do your commanding officers sometimes give you orders that you don't agree with?" It went on from there. Starfleet was evidently more interested in ferreting out subversion in the ranks than it was in enforcing the provisions of that damned treaty. I sent the following report to the appropriate office, along with copies to Admirals Picard and Necheyev. "Captain's Log: Stardate 48580.3, Captain Jay P. Hailey Commanding USS Discovery NCC-71890. On this date I have received a questionnaire from Starfleet Command questioning the loyalty of my crew and myself.] I have refused to answer the questionnaire and refuse to administer it to my crew because it will impair the morale and therefore the safety of my ship. My crew needs to feel that I trust them in order to conduct themselves with the confidence and judgment that I require to fulfill my directives. Starfleet has carefully trained them and most of them have years of experience in Starfleet. Their excellent service records confirm this. If a question of conduct arises then the official Starfleet policy is to hold a command level review and to determine if there is an offense warranting a court martial. I will support any such legal proceedings with every means at my disposal, confident that facts of the issue will validate the actions of my crew and myself. Until the facts warrant questioning, I will not question my crew." I sent the report wondering how long it would be until Starfleet started assigning political officers to starships. It was obvious that the Maquis had hurt us in ways that we never expected. -end- -- Stephen Ratliff Senior Moderator, ASCA Submissions: ascatrekfic@crosswinds.net Contact: stephen@trekiverse.org Constable Katie, ASC* Archive team ASC* archive: http://www.trekiverse.org or http://trekiverse.crosswinds.net Submissions/corrections: trekiverse@ trekiverse.org For archive updates: ASC-Archive-annc-subscribe@ yahoogroups.com ASC Stories-Only list: ascl-subscribe@ yahoogroups.com ASCEM Stories-Only list: ascem-s-subscribe@ yahoogroups.com ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek.creative or directly to the author. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From ???@??? 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