USS-Daystrom Alpha mission

[Mikey]

"Commander!" barked Mikey, as the Tholian turned to leave. "You misunderstand."

Rochey scuttled crablike back towards him, in a disconceritng manner of moving sideways, yet keeping his "face" toward the lieutenant. In fact, he got close enough that the Andorian was uncomfortable from the heat of the Tholians e-suit. "Do I, now, lieutenant? I think not."

"If I may be frank, sir, you have studied my background, profile, and service history far more intensely, I'm sure, than I have yours. But I know something about you and your people. You know what I'm about to say is true: this ship is staffed by a bunch of damn good Starfleet officers and crewmen, but precious few soldiers. You know what I mean. Aside from a few of the older graded crewmen, it's just we two who have that frame of mind."

"It seems true, lieutenant, that your career has been earmarked by a military discipline which I have been unaccustomed to seeing from most humanoids - all the more reason you should be able to take an order!"

"Yes sir," said Mikey, while dipping an antenna, "and in that vein, let me be clear; I have not gone to Captain Fletcher, nor my department, nor security, with this information. My duty is to the safety of this ship and crew and the success of her missions - that will never change. But I have a soldier's mind, and I understand one, be it composed of carbon or of silicon. You said that I was attempting to discredit and harrass you; yet if I could have some tangible assurance that, whatever your communique was, it wasn't detrimental to this ship, crew, or mission... why then, I wouldn't have to bother a soul about it. After all, there seems to be enough here for people to worry about, without adding something that isn't a problem after all..."

[Teaos]

"So then the Captain says to me 'But since your duties have been being preformed up to standards and your staff is doing well in there limited facilities I believe we can over look this incident'" Teaos read from a PADD as he sat on a mobile scanning unit in the Cargo bay, the crewmen near by chuckled at there commander dodging punishment. Several members of his staff were scanning the cargo hold top to bottom and back again to find and sign of their phantom.

Teaos was currently watching the display on the mobile scanning unit looking for any sign of what happened. He was picking up the trace of weapons fire were Metalhead had decided to remodel the cargo bay and the latent sign of the regeneration cove and the ships natural background readings. He had the incident report and knew where the intruder supposedly went but no matter how they scanned it they never got anything more than the standard readings.

"Oh to hell with this, Steve go fetch the particle replicator and bring it back here" Teaos said as he jumped off the mobile scanner and took one final look around "Madison set the MSU to remote canning and rout it through a tricoder and workstation 2 back in the labs, everyone pack and move back to the labs"

"Giving up already are you?" Madison asked from the MSU.

"Not bloody likely, we're doing a Chroniton saturation scan" He said with a smirk at the chocked faces of the crew.

"A little extreme don't you think" Madison said momentarily forgetting about the MSU.

"Probably but were getting nowhere the normal way" Clapping his hands the crew quickly got back to packing up there stuff and positioning the MSU.

"Security could you send me down a guard to Cargo bay 1 please" Teaos said as he tapped his com badge.

Security and the security guard and Steve with the particle replicator showed up at the same time.

Seeing the security was eyeing all the equipment suspiciously Teaos clapped him on the back "Not to worry mate just doing some scans, just make sure no one goes in there, it may be hazardous for awhile"

Instructing Madison to stay with the security guard and monitor the cargo bay through the tricorder. She activated the particle replicator which was sitting on the other side of the door, it let out the familiar sound of replication as it was slowly filling the room with the invisible particles.

"Righto then, we'll all be in the lab looking at the reading, page me if anything happens down here" Teaos said as he and the rest of his staff made there way to the turbo lift.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Blackstar was exhausted. Shi had pulled an all-nighter and a double-shift knowing quite well that Chakats were supposed to have 10 hours of sleep roughly for every 14 hours of being awake. Shi entered hir quarters, took off hir uniform and laid on hir sleeping pad. "Sally, any messeges for me?"

"Negative. I have no messeges for you. However I detected a low level signal that was not transmitted on normal channels. I was unable to determine what it said, however I was able to determine that it was a messege between this vessel's Tholian and the Warship we encountered."

"I'm not surprised. You don't need to be an empath to know somethings going on. And we're not in on it. When you play poker and can't tell who the sucker is, it's probably you." Blackstar sighed.

Sally asked, "what's our exit strategy?"

"That new shuttle. I'll also keep you with me at all times. Is the replacement ready?"

"Yes, to the improved specs. It's in the top drawer."

Blackstar opened hir top drawer with hir tail and pulled out an arm identical to hir left arm. Then without hesitation shi pulled hir left arm out of its socket, revealing several connectors. Shi winced in pain as shi put the new arm in. Shi tested it's reflexes, and its minature shield projector. Blackstar nodded in approval, now we should be prepared for anything." Then a tear rolled down hir cheek. "And now I may lose everything again."

"Well you always have me," said Sally. "And I can satisfy any need you have" She demonstrated her vibration feature.

"Oh, funny. Now leave me alone I need to sleep." Once Blackstar's head hit the pillow shi was out like a light.

[Granitehewer]

Even the almost preternatural faculties of the Andorian and Tholian were totally innured to and oblivious to the presence of 'Cardinal', all eyes and ears, like some grotesque wrathful deity from the forgotten vaults of the ancient world.
'Alexis' was in his quarters, his mental quarters; in reality, 'Cardinal' was here now, he rose out of the shadowy corner, lithe with slabs of corded muscle, his usual slouched bookish form, taking on the presence which exuded sheer menace, almost on a primeval level, which was imediately perceived by the aliens, and jarred their central nervous system with a horror akin to a train ploughing through a childs' playground....
''Gentlemen, let us not disrupt the unity or coherency of our floating family; speaking of families; 'rochey'; i understand, that yours are on Loskene continent; a most dangerous locale, with what all of those militant activists, left overs from breen slaver incursions, and what not, i do hope that they enjoy themselves, i would regard it as a personal favour, if you choose to be obliging, in our little tete a tete chat, these interactions are so precious, time is a valuable commodity and there is no price high enough to define our lives, or the lives of our loved ones....''
With that 'Cardinal' left the room.

[Granitehewer]

Kudak'Meso'Etan, an honoured eldar alpha Jem'Hadar, 25 years old, gigantic stature even for his breed, unreliant on ketracel, and marooned in the alpha quadrant during the dominion war, became disillusioned with the single mindedness of his drug adled brethren, worked his crust as a mercenary for ferengi liquidators, and then caught the eye, of section 31.
Kudak wanted the emancipation and liberation of his people, to free them from being mindless automatons and drones, in the dominion hive.
He, recalled the mantra; 'victory is life'; instilled in him, pre-birth, which now had an ironic resonance and yet an innate reassuring quality, and proceeded to steer the Onyx away from the Daystrom...

[Teaos]

Teaos, Metalhead and Captain Fletcher were all gathered in the science lab looking at the huge display screen on the far wall which currently showed the lay out of Cargo bay 1.

"Normal scans were unable to pick up anything unusual in the cargo bay, we could pick up the residue of phaser fire 'Teaos glanced at Metalhead' and the normal background readings we get from the starship. I was prepared to put it off as a false alarm, a mistake by Lieutenant Metalhead. That was until Dr Omen and he got the readings off the fiber"

"Having no luck with either hand held scans or the MSU I decided to do a Chroniton Saturation scan" He said pulling up the scan results on the screen.

"Chroniton scan commander? A little excessive don't you think?" Fletcher said as he stepped forward to get a better look at the readings. He may not be a scientist but all Starfleet officers have to have a working knowledge of all fields.

"I thought it would give us the best results captain, and it did" Teaos said assured that he had taken the right action.

"Chroniton particles are highly reactive and dangerous requiring authorization before use by any science officer in experimental use in accordance with Starfleet regulation 351 subsection 4" Metalhead stated right out of Starfleet regulations.

"Very true commander lucky I am a fully trained Starfleet officer and scientist and not some fresh ensign" Teaos said slightly annoyed at the security chief standing over his shoulder "And for your information I did have authorization"

"Who's authorization did you have commander, I don't recall giving you any" Fletcher said still trying to decipher the data in front of him.

"My own authorization sir" Teaos said with a smirk "The regulation says you need the authorization of a senior officer or a Commander or above. Luckily I am both.

"Hmmm" Fletcher said making a note to check on those regulations and close any loop hole that is there "Care to explain your findings commander"

"Very well" Teaos said turning back to the viewer "We detected a strong residual reading from this location 'Teaos indicated the area to the left of the regeneration alcove' how it got there we don't know as there is no track leading up to it or any sign of how it got there. It then moved from there over to the doors then back into the room were it disappeared once again" The viewer showing the lay out of the Cargo bay showed the path the object had taken and the path Lieutenant Metalhead had taken along with his phaser fire which had narrowly missed.

"What was the annomily?" Metalhead asked from over Teaos' shoulder.

"No idea" Teaos said with a shrug "The scan only tells us that it was there and where it moved, due to the higher disturbance next to your alcove we can estimate it was there for approximately ten minutes before you awoke"

"Is that all Commander?" Fletcher asked turning away from the view screen.

"For now, we did pick up some other details in the scan but we will need time to go over them, it may be nothing, this type of scan tends to pick up a lot of static"

"Very well then, keep us informed" Fletcher said as he strolled out of the lab.

After the Captain and Metalhead had left Teaos signaled for two of his staff to join him. The disappearing anomaly in the cargo bay had reminded him of the subspace blip they had been picking up on sensors. He was going to see if could link the two.

[MetalHead]

MetalHead walked slowly back to the cargo bay, contemplating what he had just heard. Chronitons, often associated with time-travel, frequently used by the Borg. Alot of information on such topics as time-travel was restricted in Starfleet. Fortunately for Jack 'MetalHead' Ryson, information in the collective was never classified, as that would have been redundant and contradictive to the idea of the collective. When he was seperated from the collective, alot of memory of such things faded, but alot is "burned" into the mind of the drone, due to the trauma of seperation.

Jack considered the possibilities of a stalker from another time, and his aptly trained security mind screamed at him. It was most likely that these people would be from the future, given the technology to travel through time (if that was the case, chronitons were often used by the Borg to make a cloak, placing the vessel in light temporal flux easily camoflaged it from any casual sensor sweeps. It may just have been part of the technology that rendered the entity invisible to sensors and the naked eye.

"Temporal prime directive." MetalHead muttered to himself, his mind ablaze with possible counter-intrusion methods for dealing with enemies with vastly superior technology. He could only come up with one real solution: and that was to set all phasers to maximum and widebeam setting, vaporize anything that moved.

Dangerous, and very likely to blow a few holes in the bulkheads, but it would be efficent and useful. A few more ideas began to float in his head, but he archived them in his thoughts, to meditate on them while he regenerated.

MetalHead arrived at the holodeck exactly three minutes before his scheduled time, and entered early. "Computer. Run program SFIT Omega three, maximum difficulty level." he announced.

A dystopian urban environment instantly appeared around him, and he suddenly found himself high atop a massive building, a phaser rifle with an enhanced targeting scope at his feet. The computer chimed. "Distance to extraction point - five kilometers. Hostile targets - high. Threat level - extreeme. Begin." it said. MetalHead scooped up the rifle, and began sweeping the skyline. Just another exercise.

[Mikey]

Andorian and Tholian looked at each other with renewed curiosity.

"I had no- I mean, I couldn't-" began Mikey.

"If this is 'tangible' enough for you," said Rochey, deliberately emphasizing Mikey's own word, "Than we shall leave it at that." Without waiting for confirmation, Rochey turned and scuttled from the room.

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

10 minutes before the alpha bridge shift was due to start, Mikey waited outside Blackstar's quarters. Once again, he found a sort of escapism in the Chakat's company as well as their project. Shi emerged from her quarters, nearly trampling him.

"Take it easy," he said, "or I won't let you see this." He waved a PADD under her nose. "Or maybe you just like playing rough, hmmm?"

"Don't flatter yourself," Blackstar teased. Grabbing the PADD, shi said, "What is this nonsense?"

"This is none other than a preliminary design for the scout's manual interface - the one you said couldn't be practical..."

Blackstar's expression became vacant. Mikey wasn't yet an expert at reading the Chakat, but every indication emitted from hir body professed sadness and withdrawal - not gratitude, respect, or... anything else he might have expected.

"Well, I guess we can discuss it later," said Mikey, thinking how this ship never seems to let you leave any problems behind.

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

The pair arrived on the bridge followed closely by Commander Rochey - almost exactly on time, as usual. The Tholian rotated, scanning the room for any lateness, sloppiness, or other dereliction. As Rochey scanned past the ops station, his eyes locked briefly with Mikey's; the Andorian felt the faint static buzz that meatn the Tholian was transmitting - but to whom?

Looking down, Mikey saw a display window open in his LCARS display. In it appeared a message: "Mr. Harrison has vouched for your sense of duty and your discretion. I advise you not to discredit him."

Mikey stood a little straighter as he began going through the shuttle sweep reports.

[MetalHead]

**Personal Log, Lt. JG Jack 'MetalHead' Ryson**
*Stardate: Irrelevant*

List of tasks completed today:

Solo Urban sniper course, score acceptable

Basic briefing on intrusion remnants, insufficent data to propose conclusion

Re-certification with surface to air infantry weapons, score acceptable, certification achieved.


...however, this is an item on the list that puzzles me. The Security Cheif, Deepcrush, was reportedly killed today. Checking with Sickbay's records, he is confirmed deceased, cause of death was apparently a malfunction during a shuttle maintenance check. He was attempting to re-polarize Shuttle 07's thirty fifth maneuvering thruster unit when the system briefly overloaded. The resulting anti-gravity thrust from the unit crushed every internal organ in his chest, and he died instantly, painlessly. His body will be kept in the morgue, as he clearly stated in his living-will that he wished to buried on earth.

Death of a commanding officer is...regrettable. However, I find myself feeling an indescribeable sensation. It is fleeting. I am next in line for Chief of security, which may or may not be worthy of a bridge posting, a worthy task. However when I think of this posting, I find myself filled with...I am not sure wether to call it ambition or fear. Fear is irrelevant, and ambition is flawed. I will resist this sensation. End log.

[Teaos]

~~~Ready room~~~

"With the unfortunate death of Lieutenant Deepcrush I here by promote you to Chief of Security, the position comes with a position in the senior staff and over all command the the security force on the Daystrom. You will be working closely with Lieutenant Jon to manage our shuttle fleet and fighters as they preform the sensor sweeps of the planetary systems" Captain Fletcher said from behind his desk. He looked up at the former Borg Drone in front of him, the events that leed up to his promotion could only be discribed as a freak accident but there was no doubting that Metalhead would make a fine officer.

"Do you accept this position lieutenant?"

"Aye captain, I will fulfill my duties to the best of my abilities sir"

"Very well, I dear say you'll need a few days to settle into your position but I expect your duties will not suffer due to this" Fletcher said looking down to the duty roster on his PADD.

"I see your shift on bridge starts in a few hours; I suggest you get sorted out before your on duty. Dismissed"

With out another word Metalhead turned on the spot and strode out of the ready room.

[Deepcrush]

Captain Teaos turned to PADD on his desk, it was a sad day.

*Officers log* (Deepcrush)
My orders have come in and I will be leaving for the USS Dulland tomorrow for reassignment. I've not read or heard to much on this ship. From what I know she is one of our newest starships in the Nebula class. The hull was laid down for war and war only but she was finished after the Dominion War ended. It should be a sight to see, that much I am sure of. My request for Metalhead to replace me was granted. He will make a fine Chief of Security, given his abilities that I have thus far seen in his service to ship and crew. My respect goes out to this ship and crew. They are a solid bunch and it is a shame that I find no use for myself here. As to the Dulland, notes given to me on and about that ship show a soldiers' dreams come true. Despite her size, it is said that she is more then a match for a Negh'var! Though before I read her spec's myself I thought this more of a crew's pride then fact. I was wrong. She is making a small detour to pick me up on her way to the Breen Border. The Breen have been rumored to be attacking trade ships between the Federation-Klingon-Cardassian Border. Though they have mostly withdrawn from outsiders after the war, the fleet remains well intact and they maybe thinking about using it to reach out a little bit. They might be just as well be itching the border, testing what everyone will do in response to their aggression. Another rumor is that a larger Breen vessel has been sighted, if true then the Breen would now have themselves a true ship to call a heavy cruiser. The USS Dulland is being sent to the 7th fleet where she'll be one of about two hundred ships placed along the border. The Klingons have also sent a fleet to the area but I don't think their thoughts are on deterrence as much as just looking for a fight. The Cardassians have sent a 'fleet', or so they call it, to support us in patrolling the sectors in question. From what I hear of the Cardassians task force, their numbers are no more then fifty ships. I may yet get to feel combat again, for this I am very happy.
*End Log*

*Delivered to Commanding Officer of USS Daystrom, Classified as 'Your eyes only'*
The "Unfortunate death of Lieutenant Deepcrush" has progressed as planned. We thank you for you assistance in this matter Captain. Please enter his final entry to your ship's log. He will surely enjoy his new roll in the service of the Federation and he would I'm sure, thank you if he could. Please give the replacement body a 'fond farewell' and burial at sea as was listed in his last will and testament.

Remember Captain, this message is for your eyes only.
*Starfleet Command Security Council*

[MetalHead]

His heart was beating out of his chest. I must resist he continued to think, but regardless, his senses were hyperalert, fresh adrenaline slammed through his veins. Why? Insufficent data. Extrapolations from hypothetical analysis suggests you're excited emotional intereference with adrenenal glands and general cardiology. All reactions are within acceptable parameters, you may proceed as normal. That was what the collective would have said before mutilating his cerebral coretex in an attempt to extinguish any emotion.

His legs were shaky as he entered the turbolift, heading for deck 3, to his new office. The sensation was constant, like being tortured by a sonic shower (part of his academy training, he vaugely remembered) set on maximum. He felt so alive wrong but so happy worried at the same time. Duty, obligation, honor. He would do his former officer proud.

The turbolift deposited him on deck three, and he strode silently into his new office, regaining his composure as he sat down at the chair. He quietly adjusted the crude manual controls to his comfort, then activated the desk-screen. A small note from the Captain was visible, text only:

Congratulations on your new promotion, though I wish the circumstances were different. Im sure what you lack in experience, you will make up for with brashness. Don't rush headlong into things and you'll be fine, its unusal that a sharpshooter should be shifted so quickly to this position, but such is the nature of our mission. There will be a service for Deepcrush at somepoint, please prepare a few words. Good luck, MetalHead.

Regards.

Jack 'MetalHead' Ryson closed the note, and began scrolling through the agendas for the day, determined to pick up exactly where Deepcrush had left off. Some long buried reaction forced him to contain a short smirk - the first item was to finish work on Shuttle 07.

[Sionnach Glic]

Commander 'Rochey' stormed into his quarters in a foul mood. Today could hardly have gotten any more frustrating or worse. Firstly, the accursed Andorian had begun snooping around things which did not concern him. Then he had that 'diplomat' (not that Rochey particularly considered him one anymore) making veiled threats towards him. Then there was the fact that Commander Teaos had escaped punishment, despite shirking his duties. And, just to top it all off, the head of security got messily killed. Just perfect.
He slipped out of his enviromental suit and placed it carefully on a shelf, then began trying to think things over. He was still as frustrated as he had been this morning. The crew of the ship had quickly learned to avoid him if he was in a bad mood, and, in a sort of 'underground' way, warnings tended to get round the ship before he could. This meant that the only person Rochey had been able to vent his annoyance at was some ensign who had ran around a corner and knocked into him (and ended up having his holodeck privilages removed for the week). The maintanence crews who had been working on shuttle 07 had wisely made themselves scarce, although due to the severity of what had happened they were merely putting off their comming punishment. He would consider them lucky if they escaped a court-martial.
And as for 'Harrison', he wasn't quite sure what to think of the incident this morning. It was quite clear what he said had been a veiled threat, but how he got his information was rather more worrying. Rochey resolved to keep an eye on whatever communications went to and from the ship. Although, it did seem as though Harrison had some sort of hold over Lieutenant W'trisk. And he had been quite sure the Andorian would keep his mouth shut, so perhaps that was one less thing to worry about. And even if he didn't, what could W'trisk do about it? It was highly unlikely the captain would take his claim seriously, and if he did talk about it, there were plenty of ways to get back at him. Perhaps his little shuttle project with Blackspace, or whatever its name was, would suffer an unfortunate accident. Or maybe, more simply, he would.

[Mikey]

"Wonderful," thought Mikey to himself, "I don't even know what the game is, and my 'teammates' are against me. Thank the Great Hearth, Grr'lek will be relieving me in a few minutes." While he didn't quite understand the pinkskins' attitudes toward death, Mikey knew that human funerals were meant to be quiet, somber affairs, and he meant to work off some nervous energy before attending this evening. An Andorian would have prepared himself for his own death when embarking; even so, Deepcrush's was an unproductive death, and it saddened Mikey.

An alarm from his console interrupted Mikey's reverie. "Captain," he said, "report coming in from Recon Flight Gamma-4. They have a contact. Transferring sensor data to science for analysis."

"Thank you, Mikey," said Fletcher. Mikey appreciated the captain's familiarity - not least because it annoyed the Crystal Commandant.

As Ensign Grr'lek entered, Mikey hit his comm badge and started to leave. "Sharkey, get Carson and Friedman down there - I want a full diag on each shuttle coming in for relief. And have Taylor begin on all embarked non-tactical craft."

"Aye, sir."

********************************
"Doctor?" inquired Mikey as he strode into sickbay.

"Coming," answered the doctor, as a voice behind Mikey said, "Welcome to sickbay. What's your problem?"

"Trouble with your EMH, Doctor... Taal?" said Mikey, finally recalling the name.

"Work in progress," said the Trill, deactivating the hologram.

"No kidding," muttered Mikey, then aloud, said, "Well, I could certainly get some holographic specialists up here if you need them."

"Thank you, uh...?"

"Everyone calls me Mikey. And I actually came down to see if you could do a favor for me."

"Really," answered the Trill with a touch of irony. "And what would that be?"

Nothing major, really. As you recall, I'm working with Lt. Blackstar on the expeditionary vehicle. We are of course designing a helm around hir, and I was hoping if you could provide me with some physiological and biometric data?"

By hook or by crook, Mikey was at least going to figure out what was going on with Blackstar.

[DarkOmen]

The Doctor contemplated the request for a moment

"Biometric data huh... Wouldn't physical paramaters be enough?" The doctor asked.

"Well, uhm... I just wanted to be sure we didn't have an oversights on hir specific physiology. The ships system are very specific, almost integrated into the pilot." replied Mikey... he looked almost anxious.

"Hmm... ok. I have not completed all of the physicals of the crew, but I can provide you with the data that I was provided from Starfleet medical. Computer... please copy general medical profile of Lieutenant Blackstar to isorod in slot 4."

"Transfer complete"

"General profile doctor...?" Asked mikey perplexed "Is there more?"

"Of course there is. Medical profiles are private information, they contain very personal, sensitive information. I can't just go giving them to everyone who walks through that door. The general info will be suitable for your needs." The doctor handed Mikey the iso rod, and turned back to the diagnostic display. A young ensign wearing science colors walked through the door.

"Ah! Ensign Detal, right on time." He noticed Mikey still standing there staring at the doctor. "Mikey is there somehting else, or would you like to help me give this nice young ensign here her physical" he said with a smirk on his face.

"Uh.. no.. uh.. thank you doctor" He said and turned an left sickbay.

"What is going on there...?." the doctor muttered under his breath.