The man was humanoid; wearing what was obviously a uniform. “I am Commander Pr’eem of the Royal Pelleri guard vessel Mus’em. Greetings to you, to your Federation, and welcome to the Pelleri System. Representatives from other governments are already here, and I presume you wish to join them in order to begin negotiations. Please lower your shields for a security scan, and you may proceed on your way.”
Ross covered his mouth and said sotto voice to his Captain, “This is going well.”
“We’re being scanned” Collins told anyone who was listening.
“How can you tell?” asked Ensign Goldberg. It was his first tour of duty and he was a little disapponted he had to spend the whole thing guarding the 2 prisoners. He wasn’t sure about Collins, but he knew in his gut the Cardassian must have done something horrible
“I am very sensitive to ultra high pitched sounds. That’s either a scan or someone playing clarinet very badly”
“I’ll venture a guess,” opted Sheket “that we’ve arrived in the Pelleri System and our hosts are trying to assess your ship’s capabilities”
The whining changed in frequency. “Or,” Gul Sheket remarked, "we are being trans”
“Oh crap.” Exclaimed Ensign Goldberg.
“ported. Welcome, Commander Collins and…Ensign…to…pardon me.” Sheket glanced at the Cardassian office standing by the transporter pads. He came to attention like a rat trap closed. “Commander Dumas, Sir! Commanding the Imperial Scout Ship Sparrowhawk! I have re cloaked, and laid an evasive course!” You could hear the exclamation marks.
“The Sparrowhawk.” Continued the nonplused Sheket. Dumas, let’s have blind folds for Commander Collins and…her associate so they don’t see anything they shouldn’t until such time as we can return them to the Franklin.”
Captain Xiang is not going to be the happiest of Captains at this point, mused Sheket.
“I am sorry Gul! We could not quickly differentiate your life signs. I chose to beam everyone in the area.” Dumas looked as though he were ready to shoot his transporter chief.
Gul Sheket removed Ensign Goldberg’s phaser. “Have our guests separated. Be careful with the Ensign, he appears to be rather agitated. He may hurt himself.”
Dumas led Collins and Goldberg to a room. All Collins knew was that there was at least one bench and that Goldberg was in there with her. She heard footsteps moving away from her, the sound of a door opening and closing, then nothing except her even breathing and the panicked breaths of the young ensign.
“Commander, I”
“Shhh.”
“But, I only”
“Shhh!” more forcefully this time. She had to concentrate if she was going to be able to hear anything going on outside. It wasn’t only high pitched sounds to which she was sensitive. T’Parel had shared with her some Vulcan mediation techniques back when they were friends, back when T’Parel had first chosen Security as a speciality. Collins was on her second assignment and was asked to oversee the new graduate. And inasmuch as a Vulcan could, T’Parel became Jeremie’s friend. Jeremie taught T’Parel some fighting techniques she’d picked up from 20th century Earth movies and T’Parel taught Jeremie how to hone her senses through mediation.
The next noise Collins heard was that of an engine, and it was accompanied by the unmistakeable vibrations of… they were on a shuttle! Damn! “Ensign, listen very carefully to what I am about to tell you”
“Bear with me for a moment, my friends.” Interrupted Gul Sheket. “Please, remove the blindfolds, only Pelleri to see now. Remember your famous Terran philosopher, Damon Runyon, who said, ‘I am doing well, but that can change.’ A few moments, and I’ll send you on your way to the Terran compound.”
Jeremie saw herself in a Cardassian shuttle, designed more like a fighter aircraft than a Federation shuttle; bus, cargo carrier, instrumentation vessel. This was a miniature warship.
“Daymon Runyon?” asked the incredulous Goldberg.
“Shut up.” Explained Collins. She saw a PADD near Sheket’s chair. The landing zone was mapped, presumably where they were, the Terran compound and a building marked, she believed, “Target”. Aycharaych?
Sheket popped the hatch. The night smelled like Sigma Iotia, damp. She heard something like frogs. “Are you going to kill him, Asha?” Goldberg started.
“Of course.” Replied Sheket. “When he sees Xiang, Aycharaych will know the destruct codes to the Franklin. He will know her husband’s address on Earth, should his master’s wish to blackmail her. We have no idea what they plan. My government,”
“The Obsidian Order.” She interrupted.
“The Order,” agreed Sheket, “has no idea what they plan. The ability to get here from outside the quadrant is frightening enough.”
He stepped outside into the night, and Collins followed. Goldberg stayed near the hatch.
“Where did you get a cloaking device for the shuttle?” asked Collins.
“Ah, that’s one of the things you weren’t supposed to see.” Smiled Sheket. He pointed South. “The compound is ten kilometers that way. Start walking.”
“Asha.” Collins put her arms on Sheket’s shoulders. She made eye contact with Goldberg and looked pointedly at the crowbar clamped to the nearby escape hatch. “Do those ridges go all the way down?”
“Jer!” exclaimed Sheket. “I could be you Father! Hell, you’re human; I could be your Grand Father!”
Collins made faces at the wide eyed Goldberg. “Older men are so…strong.” She murmured. The ridges were rather interesting. “HIT HIM!” she mouthed at Goldberg.
The Ensign picked up the crowbar and hit Sheket as hard as he could across the shoulders. The Gul went down like it was an axe.
Ross covered his mouth and said sotto voice to his Captain, “This is going well.”
“Rig for class five scans,” said the captain. Alerts were silently sent through the ship. Delicate biological and physical experiments were isolated or paused. Sensitive computer stores were cloaked so that their information was scrambled but visible to scans as not hiding any biologicals or weapons. Parts of the armory, engine room, holodecks, and other areas with technologies not yet to be shared were fully cloaked.
“Scans initiated,” said the science officer. Scheitz followed this shortly by, “Transporter activity detected. In the brig.”
“Red alert, shields up,” ordered the captain. “Scan for a vessel,” added Ross.
“The Pelleri vessel is powering its drive, Captain,” said Scheitz. On the screen the rest of the bridge crew watched as rainbow hued streamers looped out and back to the Pelleri ship. The streamers curled wildly around, snapped to a pinpoint, and vanished along with the ship. In its place were a few dots of light that momentarily faded away.
“Where did that transport originate?” asked the captain. Scheitz bent over the scanner hood. “It was a cloaked ship and not the Pelleri vessel that hailed us. I cannot yet identify the cloaked ship as Pelleri or otherwise.”
“Find that cloaked ship and contact the Pelleri government. Our red alert probably scared the hell out of them. We have some explaining to do,” said the captain.
“So much for this going well,” remarked Ross.
Personal Log of Crewman First Class Stoney Jackson, Stardate 43133.1
Um…Dear Diary I guess. They told us in bootcamp that we should make one of these personal logs, because we get 2 points towards promotions for having a current log entry. Anyway, here I am on the Franklin. I’m a pilot now, sorta. The officers tell me “Crewman, pile it here” or “Crewman, pile it over there”. It’s better than basic. People don’t yell so much, and you get to do cool stuff when you’re off duty. Even a two striper like me gets some time in the holodeck every week. When they’re working. The librarian told me there’s lots of programs ready made that you can use, or you can even make your own.
Work is not so bad. I don’t have any specialty yet, so mostly I get assigned to the Officer of the Day for general work detail. We did an inventory of the medical supplies this week. Next week, they said we’d be cleaning the jefferies tubes. Maybe I’ll get to work with Crewman Thatcher. She says I can call her Becky when the bosses aren’t around…
Computer, save and close personal log.
The Ensign picked up the crowbar and hit Sheket as hard as he could across the shoulders. The Gul went down like it was an axe.
“Okay, that was a little harder than I’d meant. See if you can’t find a weapons locker or something. We’re going to need guns. Lots of guns.”
Goldberg stopped his search and turned to look quizzickly at Collins.
“It’s from an old Earth movie. Never mind, just keep looking” Collins, meanwhile, took Sheket’s phaser and something she figured was a Cardassian tricorder. It only took her a few minutes to get the hang of it.
“How’s this?” Goldberg very proudly posed with a phaser rifle in each hand Collins mused ‘you’re no Rambo, but you’ll do’ Out loud she said “Okay, now bind his hands and help me get him out of the shuttle. We’re going after the alien ourselves”
"Shouldn’t we contact the Franklin?’
“We’ll both be back in the brig if we do. Aycharaych is dangerous. We have to stop him before he gets anywhere near the Franklin. And we have to do it without being seen by him”
“If he’s as dangerous as that, we’ll need help”
“Ensign, you will not contact anyone. That’s a direct order”
“Yes, sir”
“Like it or not, you are now part of a secret mission and you will do as I say. Now let’s get the hell off this rock”
“The PADD shows Aycharaych’s compound to be here.” Collins gestured at the device. “The tricorder shows an unusual lifeform at those coordinates. Two kilometers. Not as long a walk for our pal the Gul. Let’s go.”
“What’s the plan?” asked Goldberg.
“We break down the door and stun him. Then we deliver him to the Captain and I hopefully return to her good graces. Remember, he’s a telepath. Bust down the door and shoot. He can read your mind if he sees you. Try not to think.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” mumbled the Ensign.
“I ask for a security officer, they send me a comedian.”
It was a quiet day so far, to be honest it had been a quiet tour of duty on board the Franklin. Lt. Giotto wasn’t sure if that was the diligence of the Captain or just chance, but he yearned for a little action, why else had he chosen security duty? When he had passed his academy exams, his parents had been pleased, but his grandparents puzzled him. His Grandfather, a veteran of service onboard an old Constitution class vessel was ecstatic, but his grandmother visibly shuddered when he announced his new security posting, muttering something about devils in the dark and the pressure this would put on his loved ones. He thought about that sometimes, but never saw any significance in it.
Giotto entered the brig, where he would releive ensign Collins. Entering, he saw nobody and, puzzlingly, an empty cell was activated. He deactivated the cell and looked inside, then went to the brig’s command console to contact the bridge…
The building was twenty meters on a side, a mansard roof that she presumed was common to Pelleri architecture.
“You blow the front door, I’ll fire on stun. The tricorder indicates he’s five meters inside. You ready?”
Goldberg nodded.
“GO!”
The phaser rifle vaporized the door. Collins burst in through the smoldering doorway, fired the rifle on stun, swept the room.
Aycharaych tossed a concussion grenade from behind a shimmering force field.
“Oh, crap” muttered Goldberg from behind Collins as he body blocked her.
They are aware of my presence. A shuttle with a cloaking device, and a path away from the sustem.
Aycharaych had difficulty with the pilot’s chair; he stood as he brought the shuttle from the surface. As he achieved orbit, he switched on the cloaking device.
He had just enough time to feel an immense pressure all over his body as the shuttle exploded and his body was blown into many tiny pieces.
“Brig to the Captain.”
Xiang replied. “This is the Captain. Who is this?”
“Lt. Giotto, ma’am. It appears that Lt. Cmdr. Collins and Gul Sheket have been beamed out of here. I think Ens. David Goldberg was also taken.”
The Captain looked Ross. “By whom?”
“I… don’t know, ma’am.” There was a pause, and she heard Giotto checking a control panel. “The internal-surveillance records were, um, fuzzed somehow, so we can’t try to identify the abductors by the appearance of the transporter effect.”
“I see. Notify Lt. T’Parel. Then run a full scan for transporter trace-energy remnants, and organize a deck-by-deck search and scan of the ship. I want to be sure that those three haven’t just been beamed elsewhere aboard the Franklin. Also, make sure no one else is missing.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
Xiang turned to Scheitz and Aldrich, working together at Tactical. “Any progress?”
“I’m picking up indications of a cloaked vessel’s trail, Captain,” Scheitz said. “They’re some pretty odd readings, though. It appears to be a relatively small ship, maybe a frigate or a destroyer, with a Cardassian drive but a modified Romulan cloak.”
Cmdr. Ross looked puzzled. “The Romulans, providing cloaks to the Cardassians? Not likely. They’re hardly the best of friends.”
“Maybe the Cardassians have devised their own version of a cloaking device,” Aldrich suggested. “We know they’ve been working on it.”
Xiang rubbed her chin. “Maybe. Where did the Cardassian ship - assuming that’s what it was - go?”
Scheitz brought up a near-proximity starchart, and traced a line across it with his finger. “Towards the Pelleri system, ma’am, closely matching the course of the Mus’em, the Pelleri guard vessel.”
The Captain returned to her chair. “Very well. Maintain Red Alert. Mr. Irex, resume our course to the Pelleri homeworld, but follow the cloaked vessel’s projected course as best you can. Increase speed to Warp 8.”
The orange, tripodal Edoan officer at the Conn nodded. “Aye, Captain.” His three orange hands moved smoothly over the helm’s control panels.
“Mr. Scheitz, keep up an intensive scan as we go. And signal the Pelleri homeworld and the Mus’em, repeating our peaceful intentions but explaining that we’re missing two of our officers and a Cardassian… visitor.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lt Cmdr Jeremie Collins woke up in a sick bay; it wasn’t until she saw Doctor Fletcher standing over her that she realized she was back on the Franklin. She looked to the bed next to her and saw Ensign Goldberg nursing a mug of something hot.
“How do you feel?” the doctor asked as he ran his medical tricorder across her chest.
“Like I just took a wrecking ball full front, but other that than…”
“Well, your bones have knit and the internal bleeding has stopped. Another day of observation and you may return to duty”
Collins was puzzled
“Oh, and if you feel like getting out of bed, you received a secure transmission while you were unconscious. You may take it in my office”
Collins sat up slowly. She looked around, there were no security guards in the room. She got up and walked over the doctor’s office. She shut the door and sat down at the console.
“Play incoming message for Lieutenant Commander Jeremie Collins” she commanded the computer
“So much for this going well,” remarked Ross.
Lt. Scheitz called the science lab, “Lt. Tr-trlit-kahsomatj, analyze the sensor readings of the Pelleri ship and concentrate on their propulsion system.” The science lab was already monitoring so an “Aye, sir” was immediate.
S/He appreciated the humans attempts to pronounce the name correctly. In most circumstances it was faster and expected to simply say “terlit”. And it was amusing that “terlit” very roughly sounded like the Wouhananmee word for “tree”. As a joke, when being introduced as “terlit”, s/he’d developed a habit of raising four tentacles in droopy arches and balancing momentarily on the other two to pantomime a tree. Now it became something of a reflex and proved embarrassing, especially since many humans now thought it a standard Wouhananmee greeting and would parrot it back.
S/He distributed the analysis tasks and perched to analyze the ship’s spacial jump herimself. For a humanoid-centric ship they were very accomodating and s/he was surprised that the ship already had designs for standard Wouhananmee furniture. The chair bars fit unobtrusively in the ceiling and made hanging and working in the lab much more comfortable than the bridge (though s/he heard the same complaint about limited chairs on the bridge from the humans).
The ship had started to create a subspace distortion like a warp bubble. However, instead of closing the bubble, the field elongated. The ship “fell” into the elongated bubble and the bubble slowly contracted behind it, like a speed boat on the water. The power curve was huge. Two things were strange though. The spots of light at the end and the sensor readings as it moved. The dots had the spectrum of stellar matter and s/he sent those to stellar cartography. The trail showed that while the ship was moving, it scanned as much smaller in their warp trough than it really was. So, instead of looking like a speed boat it looked like a hydroplane.
An answer from stellar cartography came back unexpectedly quickly. The computers had identified the spots before anyone had a chance to speculate. They were the stars as seen from just ahead of the ship’s warp trough. So the Pelleri had an inefficient warp drive that seemed to plow through space, but on the positive side their passage looked like a ship a lot smaller than it really was.
The image of the stars in the Pelleri vessel’s wake seemed familiar. The it clicked. S/He pulled up Yosemite’s scans of the anomalies they had encountered. They looked to be the same as the subspace trough the Pelleri ship made. But those appeared more stable. Did the Pelleri drive chop up space in a more permanent way? S/He summarized everything and reported it all to tactical and to the science officer.
“Commander Collins.” Gul Sheket appeared as untroubled as ever. “I am sorry for arriving late to retrieve you. Your athletic young associate hit me harder than I expected. You people are supposed to be peaceful. I believed I would be stunned. He blocked the stun grenade. It wouldn’t have killed anyone, but the physician tells me it was probably rather painful. At any rate, he made immediate repairs to the two of you, and I attempted to reconcile your actions to Captain Xiang. I am not certain that I was successful. I was reminded of my youth, when I brought a certain young lady home far later than was to be expected. Should she not wish to retain your services, Section 31 can find employ for you with them, or with Starfleet.
Aycharaych was beguiled into stealing the shuttle because you honest, upstanding young people really believed it a safe means of escape. He is quite dead, and as I quoted your human philosopher Blind Willie Johnson to your Captain, ‘It ain’t nobody’s fault but mine own.’
Take care, Jer. The universe would be a grayer place without you.”
He ended the connection.
From her seat in the CMO’s office, Collins faintly heard the Sickbay doors whoosh open. She activated the comlink to the recovery ward and heard Dr. Michael Fletcher say, “I thought I asked you all to wait outside…?”
“Sorry, Doctor,” she heard Lt. Giotto say. “She just received a message from the Cardassian stowaway. The Captain said that, if she’s healed, she has to go back to the Brig for further interrogation.”
“I haven’t discharged her yet,” Dr. Fletcher said crossly. “Just a minute.”
Collins heard his footsteps approaching. She quickly cleared the LCARS screen, her mind racing furiously.
He just couldn’t stop, could he?
Sheket had explained that Collins legitimately worked for Federation espionage, she had been duped by him, and the death of Aycharaych was his own doing.
Then he had to spring that sexist “Universe a grayer place without you”.
Crap. Guaranteed to annoy the Captain no end.
Collins heard his footsteps approaching. She quickly cleared the LCARS screen, her mind racing furiously. She deleted the message and hoped that the Captain had listened to what Gul Sheket had said. She stood and walked towards the door as it opened to reveal two security guards. “I insist on speaking with the Captain”
“You’ll have that chance” Lt Giotto said as he took Collins’ arm to escort her to the Brig.
Doctor Fletcher stood in their path. “Lieutenant Commander Collins is to remain in Sickbay for at least another 24 hours. You may post gaurd on her, if you must, but I will not discharge her before then”
Lt Giotto tapped his comlink “Giotto to the Captain. The prisoner is confined to Sickbay, under guard”
Captain Xiang rubbed her temples with both hands “Understood” She exited her ready room onto the Bridge “T’Parel, you’re with me” she stated and headed into the turbolift, Commander T’Parel right behind her
Xiang strode into Sick Bay like a capital ship, T’Parel her destroyer. “let’s debrief, Commander. Your report says you were necking with Gul Sheket.” Her eyes drilled through Collins to the deck.
“Report? Sir,“ dammit, she hated that! “Captain, I ‘ve been unconscious.”
“You made a cursory report to me.” Explained T’Parel. “You engaged in some human pre mating ritual with Gul Sheket.”
“I was distracting him, while the Ensign hit him.”
T’Parel raised an eyebrow in the typical Vulcan display of almost annoyance. “ ‘Too hard’ you said.”
“He swung a wrecking bar from the escape hatch like Tiger Woods and the Grand Open.” Explained Collins.
“A twenty-first century Terran sports enthusiast.” Explained T’Parel. “Note how Gul Sheket also makes twenty first century references to a Jazz musician.”
“Blind Willie Johnson,” broke in Collins, "was a precursor of the Blues. He called himself a gospel singer. He was blinded when his mother, beaten by his step Father for infidelity, threw lye in Wille’s face. His step father put him to playing music on the street, begging with a cup around his neck. He was early twentieth century.” You job stealing, pointy eared son of a bitch. She thought. “Sir.” * Dammit!*
Xiang stared at her former Security Officer. “When the Sawbones lets you out of his torture chamber here, you will be confined to your quarters while I decide what to do with you.” She turned on her heel and left. T’Parel waited a moment and followed in her wake.
Now what? thought Xiang. Upon exiting sickbay, She and T’Parel encountered Samantha Wilson and a young crewman. In the crewman’s arms was an unconscious person who was wearing the uniform of somone in Starfleet Medical. The crewman stopped, shifted his passenger, and saluted the officers. As if prompted by this shift, the passenger started muttering something about the Cardassian pod.