– First Officer's Personal Log, USS Victory (NCC-1724)
– Stardate 8912.10, 2200 hours EST
Three days have passed, and I still haven't slept. Our battle damage is mostly repaired, the Alien ship is destroyed, our colonies in the Isulus sector won't be having any trouble with raiders any time soon. I should feel relieved, even satisfied now that we're underway for space dock again. Yet I feel... restless. Captain Styles seems to feel the same way, but I think he understands the feeling while the rest of us are left to wonder.

Maybe I'm uneasy with my new position here. Or maybe I feel inadequate for this job; Commander Kelly was the best Executive officer in the fleet and I can't even hope to measure up to that. Or... maybe it's this sense of futility that's been nagging me... nagging all of us ever since the battle. Sixty crewmen died fighting a warship who's identity is still unknown. I know our victory means safety for the Federation colonists, but why does this feel like an empty victory? Everything we brought back from that ship, all the weapons and equipment, even the few bodies we recovered from the wreckage will tell us volumes of information about these aliens, but even so I find myself wondering... is it worth it?

Maybe there'll be time for that later. Right now my number one concern is getting back to space dock and, hopefully, Mr. Kalanin's estimate of a six-week layup for repairs.



Chapter 1: Politics

Commander Takeshi Nagumo found himself lost in the mesmerizing dance of clouds in Saturn's upper atmosphere and the majestic system of rings framing the giant globe. He turned away slowly and returned to the surreal world of the Victory's bridge; the damaged instrument panels had all been replaced, but the ugly scorch marks on the sides of the bulkhead from electrical fires persisted. There was a brand-new seat in front of Commander Kelly's science station, but try as they might, the damage control teams had still not been able to lift the blood stains from the deck beneath it.

Captain Styles was below decks now, so following his well-learned patterns the first officer walked to the center of the bridge and leaned over his helmsman's shoulder, "Status Mr. Wiseman."

"There's a power fluctuation in the warp field, and Chief Watson's working on it. Engine efficiency is holding steady at 82% of normal..." He checked the navigational display for just a moment, "And we should reach space dock in about two hours."

"Very well," He stepped over to the tactical station on the port side of the bridge, "Jackson, how's the analysis going?"

The Lieutenant handed him a data pad without looking up, his attention still focused on the computer readout in front of him, "Despite the size of their ship, their phasers aren't all that powerful... they just have a lot of them."

"Aint that the truth. Have you figured out why our shields caved so quickly?"

"They're not as powerful, but they use a higher frequency than ours do. Wreaks havoc with the shields, but doesn't do much against the hull."

Nagumo nodded slowly. "No wonder they ran out of torpedos so quickly..." He read through the finer details of the report from the pad, then scrolled down to something a bit more interesting, "Hmmm... twelve tons of gold-pressed latinum?"

Lieutenant Jackson stopped and grinned. "It was in their cargo hold. And judging from the look of the containers, I don't think it was theirs."

"Whose was it then?"

"Not sure. The only reference in their computer was to a place called Bajor, but it's WAY outside charted space. Probably somebody they pillaged on their last mission."

"I see." For some odd reason, twelve tons of latinum in the Victory's cargo hold greatly curbed the lingering emptiness he had felt ever since destroying the alien vessel. "What's in the regs about material goods or items recovered from shipwrecks?"

Jackson was already well ahead of him, "Regulation 83F, paragraph two. Any valuables or consumables found aboard derelict space craft may be salvaged by starship crew, so long as the indigenous crew of the derelict is not present and the derelict is not in its home territory."

Nagumo patted him on the shoulder; he had obviously researched the regs for just such an occasion. "We'll divide it up evenly after we dock."

"Yes sir."

Commander Nagumo turned towards the turbolift, hoping to speak to the Captain on such matters... then at the last moment, he stopped and looked around the bridge, then glanced back at Lieutenant Jackson, "On second thought, don't mention this to the Captain."

Jackson raised a brow, "Why not?"

"Haven't you heard? Captain Styles has developed morals."

"Has he really? Does this mean he'll stop hunting Romulans for sport?"

Nagumo shrugged and continued towards the turbolift. "I'll check to see if hell has frozen over, otherwise no."


- Alamo System, USS Concordia (NCC-2005)
- Stardate 8912.10, 2300 hours EST
The bridge lurched slightly as another gravity wave washed over the ship, the inertial dampers struggling to keep the crew from being plastered against the walls by the sudden changes in gravity. Captain Duran put his hand on the young offier's shoulder, burying his frustrations beneath ten years of command experience. "You said you would have an analysis for me in twelve hours. How can your scans still be inconclusive after two days?

Lieutenant Kedzie, the youngest yet most capable officer on the ship by far, threw up her hands in surrender to the whims of her psychotic computer consol. "I can't make heads or tails of this. The readings change every two to four hours and they're completely random."

Duran turned his head towards the engineering station without looking away from her consol, "Mr. Kennedy, any change with the warp drive?"

Kennedy shook his head sadly. "No change, sir. I can't understand it... engines all show green lights, but the warp field is still unstable."

The Captain turned back to Kedzie's station and looked more closely at the sensor scope. "Subspace distortions are usually somewhat localized, but this one seems to span fifty light-years and then some."

"Well, on the bright side I think I pinned down the center of it..." The science officer toggled the field on the sensor scope and pointed to a spot in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. "There," She said, increasing resolution, "The gravity wave phenomenon originates from these coordinates at steadily increasing intervals. Frequency increases at a rate of 0.8 seconds every hour," As if responding to her comment, another gravity wave hit the ship, again forcing the entire crew to stop in place to keep from falling over.

It's like one of those old subway trains in New York, "And what about the probe we sent out? No report?"

"We lost contact with it halfway there. Gravity waves keep pushing it off course. Sensors are useless in a 220,000 kilometer radius from what looks like the center of all this trouble, but it looks like there's a halo of intense Gamma and Theta radiation around it."

Duran nodded and the display and stepped over to the consol next to her, calling up celestial and susbspace activity records for the Alamo system. "It seems to be in a stable retrograde orbit around Alamo's star, but there's nothing in the records showing an object in that area. On the other hand..."

Kedzie was way ahead of him; she plotted the orbits of the system on her screen and displayed the orbit of their mystery object over the original map. "It would explain the bizarre orbital behavior of the outer planets. The first survey teams in this system a hundred years ago noted gravitational influence from something but they never did find out what. People have been living here ever since, and it's always been a big mystery. They call it 'the Phantom Star.'" Kedzie paused for a long moment, then called up something from the databanks she had scanned through before the Concordia came into the system, "The colonists on Alamo-VI believe in some kind of astrological significance to it. Sometimes the other planets in the system undergo dramatic orbit shifts, and they always blame it on the Phantom Star."

"Maybe they know something we don't... I don't suppose you have any astrological records from Alamo's databank?"

Kedzie nodded. "I already looked through them." Another gravity wave hit the ship, but this time the inertial dampers managed to compensate and the lurching of the hull was very low. "From the orbit of that... whatever it is out there, I'd definitely say there's a correlation."

Duran thought about it for a moment, weighing his options and risks. Whatever was happening out on the fringes of this system, it had only been going on for the past eight days and then only its current level of intensity for the last 48 hours. He remembered back to the Command School; the first thing every cadet learned in their Space Navigation courses was that any celestial event that didn't take hundreds of years was almost always extremely dangerous. Still, his explorer's curiosity was beginning to prevail. "You think we could go in for a closer look?"

"Gravity waves won't be too much of a problem, but I worry about the radiation levels."

The ship's navigator didn't even miss a beat, "The Phatom's on the far side of Alamo, sir. Without warp power, it'll take us at least five days to get there."

Duran figured as much. Stepping away from his science officer, he returned to his chair in the center of the bridge having already made his decision. "Ms. Kedzie, do we have any kind of time limit?"

Kedzie turned away from her consol and shook her head, paused as another gravity wave shook the bridge, "At the rate of increase, we won't have anything to worry about for another month at least... but sir, I should mention that the colonists on Alamo-VI have reported a series of mild earthquakes from all this turbulence."

"I don't blame them, but unless we get more data we won't know what to do about it. And that's assuming there's anything we CAN do about it." Duran settled back into his chair and cleared his throat, "Ensign Dubaro, set course for Alamo-VI, full impulse power. Ensign Chatham, open a channel to the local authorities and let them know we're coming."


- Earth Orbit, USS Victory (NCC-1724)
- Stardate 8912.11, 0002 hours EST
The scars of battle along the Victory's hull were an order of magnitude worse than the actual damage to the ship. Three patched hull breaches in the engineering section framed by a crown of scorched metal indicated where the worst of the damage had been, after three of the intruder's torpedos had detonated against the skin of the ship and exploded just beneath the outer hull. The saucer section was riddled with small burn marks from phaser strikes, but two larger scars just port of the impulse deck put all of them to shame. Any observer could see that the Victory had been through hell, and as the space doors of the dock opened to allow the ship access, hundreds of observers did exactly that.

Captain Styles adjusted the image on the veiwscreen and focused in on the two ships he had expected to see in the dock when they arrived. Another Constitution-Class was moving towards the next set of space doors across from the Victory, and Styles fought the urge to salute the ship in the tradition of the space commanders of old. "There goes Yorktown. Fresh out of space dock and already on a new assignment."

Seated at the navigator's station next to the helm, Commander Nagumo watched the ship slip into open space, bound for Nimbus-III on one of the many follow-up missions after the Enterprise's botched rescue attempt. For some reason, a tiny itch in the back of his mind told him there was something useful on the "Planet of Galactic Peace," but until he could connect the mental dots he wouldn't know for sure...

Then Styles changed the image and turned to their other point of interest, something that immediately changed Nagumo's state of mind, "She's a beauty isn't she?" Styles said more to his first officer than to anyone else on the bridge.

She was one of the new combat vessels the Federation had recently brought out, one of four trial vessels intended to be field tested under a variety of battlefield conditions. Few ships in the fleet would have been mistaken for her; she bristled with mega-phaser turrets and torpedo tubes in a manner befitting of the old battleships of pre-spaceflight wars. When Commander Nagumo looked over his shoulder, he saw a look in the Captain's eyes like that of a child seeing a new toy on Christmas morning. "That, my dear Exec, is one of the new Soyuz class attack frigates. They say she's optimized for combat against Romulan ships."

Well that explains it. Styles needs some new hunting gear. "Can't wait to get your hands on her, can you Skipper?"

Styles chuckled. "I'm just imagining how different it would have been with a Soyuz class when that warbird attacked our outposts along the neutral zone. Sure, Enterprise was a tough ship, but a Soyuz would have eaten them alive."

The space dock controller fired the breaking thrusters, bringing the victory to a gentle stop in front of the gangway arm. A half dozen small tractor beams locked into the ship's mooring points and held it in place next to the dock, and the main engines of the ship immediately began powering down. Nagumo waited for the indicators to turn blue, then turned and reported, "Docking complete, sir, all umbilical and gravitational lines connected, and we're now on external power."

Captain Styles stood up stiffly and walked over to the turbo-lift. "Good work, Commander. Hope you're looking forward to a little shore leave while we..."

"Captain..." Lieutenant Garcia did a double take at a text message scrolling down her communications monitor, double checking to be sure she wasn't misreading something, "We... we've received new orders from Starfleet, sir."

Styles raised a brow. "They must be a little short-handed on Nimbus-III."

"No sir. They're asking all senior officers to report to Admiral Cartwright's office immediately."

Nagumo frowned. "Did they say why?"

Garcia sighed, "Do they ever?"

"Right, stupid question." Commander Nagumo abandoned his station, joined by Lieutenant Jackson and Garcia in the turbolift along with the Captain. "He probably wants to give us a medal or something for sinking that raider vessel."

******

"... Furthermore, your reckless disregard for regulations, flaunting of interstellar law, ignoring even the most basic Starfleet protocol to pursue some kind of personal agenda... if I didn't know better, I'd say you all WANT to be court-martialled!" If ever a Starfleet admiral had done a convincing impression of a grizzly bear in rage, it was Admiral Cartwright hands down. "You had better consider yourself DAMN fortunate the Cardassians were willing to reopen communications or else the Federation would already be at war right now!"

Captain Styles took a deep breath and continued slowly, "Admiral, I do apologize for what happened out there, but as I mentioned in my report, they responded to our hails with their phaser banks. We didn't know it was a Cardassian ship until you told us ten minutes ago."

Cartwright paused for a moment, staring down the Captain as if preparing to squash him under his boot, "Had you consulted Starfleet Command before responding to that distress signal, you would have known that ten DAYS ago. Obviously that thought never crossed your mind, since your own report clearly shows a twenty-hour interval from the time you arrived at the colony and your first contact with the Cardassian ship."

Styles nodded in acknowledgement, inwardly scolding himself with the realization that the Cardassians might have responded differently if he hadn't hailed them with a spread of photon torpedos. On the other hand, it gave him some comfort to know that if he reported what actually happened, he would already be in a stockade by now. "It was Captain's discretion, Sir." He said stiffly.

"Indeed. You seem to have taken a great deal of 'discretion' in this matter, Captain." Cartwright turned his back to them and stared out of the window, gazing out to the glistening lights of the city on the hill. The moon was full overhead, and the light looming into the window made him appear somewhat menacing to the half-dozen officers petrified in his office. "Fortunately, the Cardassian government accepted our apology, something our intelligence report suggests they are not known to do. Considering we have only recently begun communications with the Cardassian Empire, I'd be surprised if peaceful relations with them will even be possible after this."

"Admiral, they were attacking a Federation Colony. We HAD to do something or..."

"You failed to explore your options, Captain. A resourceful commander would have found any number of other means that did not involve creating an international incident." Everyone knew who Cartwright meant by 'a resourceful commander.' Yet today, as never before, something in his reference was diluted by the Enterprise's recent debacle on Nimbus-III, a planet that was slowly being dominated by a well-armed cult. Sensing this, Cartwright took a liberty of his own, turned around and faced them again, "Off the record," He began slowly, "Speaking for myself, and not for Starfleet, I believe you made the right decision out there. Starfleet won't survive long if we keep putting Alien interests ahead of ours."

Commander Nagumo flinched at the remark. He could tell Cartwright believed what he was saying, but for somehow he felt there was something very wrong about what the Admiral was implying. Like everyone else on the Victory, Nagumo had whole-heartedly agreed with the Captain's decision to destroy the Cardassian, but it wasn't until this very moment that he had fully understood why it seemed like such an empty victory. "Admiral," He began slowly, "What'll happen to us?"

Admiral Cartwright stared at him for a moment, then dropped his gaze. "It's been decided by Starfleet Command that Captain Styles, along with the first officer and most of the crew will be reassigned immediately to... well, lesser duties."

Lieutenant Jackson felt as if he had been slapped. "You're taking the Victory away from us?"

"No. I'm taking you away from the Victory. Starfleet is putting you someplace where you can't embarrass the Federation any more than you already have. I don't know where any of you will end up, but I can say with confidence that Vulcans will tap dance before any of you sees the inside of a starship."

Nagumo felt his knees start to shake, "Admiral..."

"You're dismissed. Captain Styles, please remain here a moment." He said curtly, putting the conversation out of its misery. All of them turned slowly and headed for the door with all the lackluster of a funeral procession, all but Captain Styles himself, left in the cage with the angry beast to face his full fury. As soon as the room was clear, Cartwright did something Styles would never have expected: he reached out and shook his hand. "Well done, Captain."

Styles flinched. "Uh... sir?"

"The Cardassians are playing political games. They've been making incursions into Federation space lately to see how far they can push us before we retaliate. When you destroyed that ship, the Cardassians complained bitterly, but their armed incursions have entirely ceased."

Styles grinned nervously. This was the Admiral Cartwright he remembered from the Academy. "They'll think twice before they move on us again, Admiral."

"That they will, Captain. And had you contacted Starfleet, they surely would have advised you to try and negotiate with the Cardassian for a peaceful solution. Fleet Command may not think so, but your judgment on this matter was perfect."

Styles smiled now. This was obviously the kind of talk not meant for a junior officer; it felt as if he were being let into the fold of something far greater than himself, "What about my crew, sir?"

"Nagumo and the others will be reassigned as I mentioned. It would be unfortunate if Starfleet found out I was going behind their back, after all."

"Of course, Sir."

Cartwright sat down in his chair and leaned back comfortably, grinning slightly at the Captain's half-relieved jumpiness. "I'm sure you got a good look at the new ship in space dock?"

"Yes sir."

"We need more men like you along the Neutral Zone. Defiant needs a new Captain, and I was thinking you might be up to the job."

It was all Styles could do to keep from leaping across the room and hugging Admiral Cartwright. He managed a somewhat disconnected, "I might be, Sir."

"Report in first thing tomorrow as Captain of the Defiant. And um... don't share this with anyone on the Victory's crew."

Styles nodded. Whatever it was the Admiral intended, he wasn't about to jeopardize his stroke of luck now. "Understood, Admiral. You won't be disappointed."

Cartwright waited for Captain Styles to leave the room, then turned his chair around to face the window and lost himself in the view. "I certainly won't."


- San Francisco, CA
- Stardate 8912.11, 2000 hours EST
Commander Nagumo lifted his glass in front of the neon-yellow light, squinting at the strange pattern of colors that refracted through his drink. He knew better than to expect halfway-descent Sake anywhere but the Japanese mainland, but he had to admit a warm Jin was a good enough substitute given his sour mood. Before starting on this new glass, he raised it in the center of the table in sight of his comrades gathered around him, "To the Cardassians," He said, his words slurring more from lack of sleep than alcohol, "May they all burn in hell."

The other officers toasted in full agreement and all downed their drinks at once, then slapped their glasses on the table and exhaled heavily in unison. The smell of combined alcohol breath hung in the air for a few moments, making Takeshi's eyes water for a long moment.

He looked around the table at the officers seated here and a few others perched on chair-backs just beyond them not to be left out of the circle. He had served with these people for years aboard Victory, long before Captain Styles took the center seat a mere four months ago. Lieutenant Matt Jackson had taken the seat next to him, close enough that Takeshi could feel the bulge from the phaser pistol the tactical officer always carried with him even off duty. Crouched behind him with her cheek on his shoulder was his fiancé and Victory's acting science officer the olive-skinned Tanya "Pip" Fletcher. Ensign Mike Wiseman occupied the chair just beyond them, a former fighter pilot turned helmsman who never had thought of the Victory as anything less than a heavy fighter with bigger engines.

Seated at Takeshi's right was Chief Engineer Carl Watson, Communications Officer (and Victory's official diva) Lillith Garcia, and Chief Medical officer Miranda Porter, as always accompanied by the two identical nurses known simply as "the kids." The only missing face was Ensign Jamie Kennedy, Naumo's backup at navigation, who had for several weeks been trying and failing to overcome a puppy crush for the senior navigator to avoid breaking any regulations. Glancing briefly over his shoulder, Takeshi found her right where he expected she would be, perched in a chair directly behind him, staring at him in timid admiration.

And directly across from Commander Nagumo was a vacant seat, a seat they saved for the ship's former Executive officer Anthony Kelly in his absence. Takeshi raised his glass in another toast, "To old Tony," He said with a sad kind of grin, "Went down fighting." The others raised their glasses again in another toast, then finished their drunks and again hissed an aferburn into the air to water Takeshi's eyes again.

"We're all off duty, here." Jackson said after a long pause, "Maybe it's time someone said what I know we've all been thinking."

No one spoke up at first; everyone looked around the table at the red Starfleet uniforms and the friends inside them, hoping somehow they would be spared from taking that inevitable first step. In the end, everyone began the subtle process of differing to Ensign Fletcher's tactless enthusiasm. Pip did not disappoint them. "Captain Styles really screwed us over."

Everyone around the table nodded, finally getting their feelings out into the open. Lieutenant Kennedy jumped in, the alcohol affecting him more than most of the others, "I keep going over it and I honestly don't know how we ended up in this position. Garcia kept asking if we should hail them, remember that?"

Lieutenant Garcia nodded in agreement. "I know I asked him at LEAST five times. I think he was ignoring me... the first thing that came out of his mouth was the order to open fire."

"He called for a spread of torpedoes to knock out their warp drive. He didn't even ask for a target scan to see if that was even the ship we were looking for." Jackson paused for a moment, staring into his empty glass, recalling the events two weeks passed, "Hell, I would've been only too happy to blow those raiders to hell and back again, but what do you say to a man who doesn't even check his target before he shoots?"

"He made the right decision given the circumstances," Takeshi interjected, putting them all back on track, "There's no way to know what kind of weapons were on that ship. For all we knew, that ship could've been loaded with some pretty heavy artillery and then we'd loose the tactical advantage taking the first hits." He noticed the change in mood as all of them looked up at him with a sense of doubt. He let them sit and wonder about it, then made his real point, "But that's what pisses me off about this mission. We wouldn't have had this problem if he'd let Kelly run some analysis on that freighter we found, or even if he'd stopped a minute to scan the ship before he ordered the attack..."

Jackson snorted. "Oh, knock if off, Nagumo. You wanted to do the exact same thing, didn't you?"

"Of course I did! We ALL did! I think every one of us, seeing what the Cardassians did on Cantur-III would've done the exact same thing! And you know what, I don't think anyone here, myself included, would disagree with what the Captain actually did! But the problem is..."

"The problem is," Chief Watson jumped in, "That WE are getting the blame for it."

"Exactly." Nagumo slammed his fist on the table in anger. "It was Captain Styles who broke damn near every regulation in the book, ignored the rules of engagement, chased the attacking ship into what turns out to be Cardassian space... and who was it who ordered us to board the ship and pillage it for tactical intelligence?"

Lieutenant Kennedy scratched her head, "But that's protocol, isn't it? It doesn't matter how many regs we break on the mission, Captain Styles is supposed to take full responsibility for it. The rest of us were just following orders."

Pip sighed and leaned back in her chair, "Maybe that's why we're not supposed to know about the Defiant?"

Everyone stopped and turned their heads in her direction, "What's that about the Defiant?" Chief Watson said suddenly.

Pip blinked, "I didn't tell you guys?"

"Tell us what?" Asked one of Porter's nurses.

She lowered her voice a bit and gestured for all of them to lean closer, "Well while you guys were down in Cartwright's office, me and Lillith were scanning some of the Starfleet bands... ya know, kinda bored, just playing with the equipment..."

"And sharpening your hacking skills, no less." Nagumo said with a grin.

Pip shrugged. "Hey, I gotta practice somewhere... anyway, Garcia picked up a coded message from Starfleet Headquarters to space dock and when I cracked the code..." she looked around again to make sure no one was listening in, "They gave Styles the Defiant."

Chief Watson spat on the table. "You've gotta be kidding me."

A wave of anxiety swept around the table and all of them slumped back into their chairs, suddenly feeling cheated.

"Lemme get this straight," Takeshi said, rubbing his temples, "We follow the Captain's orders, we save a bunch of colonists and sink a hostile warship, and for that WE get transferred to a trash can and Captain Styles gets a new ship?"

Kennedy put her hands on Nagumo's shoulders, hoping he'd be too upset with the situation to notice, "That violates protocol..."

"You're damn right that violates protocol! Styles may have screwed up but at least he got the job done! So the man gets a new ship... damn right! He deserves it! But what the hell did WE do to deserve this?!"

Dr. Porter shrugged. "Face it, Takeshi, we aint exactly Starfleet's finest."

That was something he couldn't help but bring back to mind. Ever since she was commissioned six years ago, the Victory's crew had earned a reputation for blatant misconduct, especially under Captain O'Conner who had recently been court-martialed for exactly that before Captain Styles replaced him. In six years aboard the Victory, there had been two mutinies, six drunken brawls, five shuttles stolen by joy-riding crewmembers, fifty-one serious injuries and four deaths from hazing incidents, five sexual assault charges (one filed by an Admiral's daughter) and ten separate violations of the Prime Directive. It dawned on Nagumo that Captain Styles had been Starfleet's last ditch effort to apply some discipline to the Victory's notoriously unruly crew, and now with this latest incident they finally had an excuse to simply discharge the lot of them and put Victory in the hands of a more disciplined crew.

Not only were the senior officers around this table in for the screwing of their careers, but so did some fifty or so senior officers and department heads whom Starfleet had always held responsible for a variety of such incidents. "So it's all politics," Nagumo grumbled, finally coming to the realization of the situation. "Come to think of it, we should have seen this coming."

"Amen to that," Garcia said with a sigh. "Where do you think they'll send us all? Listening post on the Galactic Barrier?"

Nagumo shook his head. "Probably desk jobs planetside... although somehow I get the feeling I'll get that satellite maintenance post in Siberia. You remember, Admiral Nogura's been keeping that post open just for me. He's had it in for me ever since I knocked his tooth out in the Academy."

Kennedy patted him on the back in a term of genuine consolation, and out of a random thought in the back of her mind blurted out, "We oughta just take the Victory and leave."

Dr. Porter and Ensign Garcia giggled. Chief Watson smirked quietly. "Yeah, of course. We'll hijack her right out of space dock and... then what? Hired guns? Bounty hunters?"

"Pirates," Pip added,

"Mercenaries," Said Wiseman,

"Privateers," Said Porter,

"Vigilantes," Said Jackson,

Commander Nagumo smiled, "All of the above."

All of them nodded in agreement and Dr. Porter signaled the waitress to bring another round. Takeshi sighed wistfully and folded his arms behind his head, "That would really be something, wouldn't it? No regulations, no Starfleet, no chain of command... just a crew and a ship hopping the Galaxy..."

"Life is never as good as that, Takeshi." Jackson said, at once throwing one arm over Pip's shoulders, "If anything, all we can hope for is to treasure the things we DO have." He smiled at Pip, and she kissed him on the cheek.

"That's true... still, if there was a way to get Victory out of space dock, I tell you I'd do it without a second thought."

Pip looked up at him questioningly, "Of course there's a way. It's been done before."

Takeshi chuckled, "C'mon, Pip,"

"No, really! You remember about three years ago, during the Genesis project? Admiral Kirk stole the Enterprise right out of space dock with just six officers and some computers. And she was in worse shape then than Victory's in now."

Everyone at the table stirred uneasily, seriously considering the prospect of starship theft for the first time and finally grappling with the realities of it. All at once, they all shook their heads at the idea. "C'mon, Pip," Takeshi said playfully, "First of all, James Kirk is magician. He could steal Haley's comet if he wanted to. Besides, even if we could get aboard the Victory, they've got all those new security protocols in place for that very reason."

Pip raised a brow. "Well Takeshi, you just said that if it were possible, you would do it. I'm telling you it IS possible, and yes, I'd do it too."

All around the table, all of the officers nodded in mutual agreement. "Hell, we ALL would." Chief Watson said, folding his arms defiantly. "I've put too much work into that ship to let some pompus know-it-all screw around with it."

The conversation had taken a more serious turn than Nagumo expected, and in the interest of sparing all of them a possible conspiracy (or drunken disorderly) charge he decided now would be a good time to adjourn their proceedings. "Well, it's been fun guys, but I think I'm gonna head down to the warf... maybe catch a movie or something."

"Alright, take care, Commander," Jackson said, slapping him on the back.

Nagumo stood up from the table, and Ensign Kennedy made sure not to miss her cue, following him as far as the door before stopping him just before exiting, "Mind if I tag along, Takeshi?"

"I do mind, actually." He said distantly, only barely noticing her on his way out. "I just wanna get away from people for awhile."

"C'mon, Tak, this might be the last time we're all together before they transfer us to God knows where."

"Nah. Bureaucracies don't work THAT fast..." Once outside the dank and rowdy environment of the bar, Nagumo took a breath of the cool air rolling off San Francisco bay and realized for a moment that he actually would appreciate a little bit of company for the evening. Why not? My career's in the toilet anyway. "You like westerns, Kennedy?"

The Ensign smiled and took hold of his elbow as they walked towards the parking lot and Takeshi's shuttlecar.