Tangential connections
By tremor3258
Timeline: Set sometime 'before' the contacts for Future Proof, 'after' in the timeline of the mass recruiting of Temporal Agents. Also, as will be readily apparent, after Admiral Revka's meeting with her quantum duplicate in 'The Road at Midnight'
First officer's log, Commander Antonine Revka, stardate 87291.2: USS Wasp: Captain Matthews has been very patient with my progress with the crew and other officers in this Starfleet I now belong to. Transfers to existing bridge crews can cause a lot of uncertainty in any timeline it seems. Given my 'twin's' success and Starfleet's mad desperation for command officers, the scuttlebutt is that my appointment is temporary. Commander sh'Theln has a great deal of respect for his commanding officer, and is likely to return after his kidney transplant. And to be a captain so young is still amazing, an opportunity I can't pass up.
This Starfleet is still strange, full of too many young faces. The regulations are the same, but things are wilder, without the calmness of decades of experience. It seems things were even crazier last year, but the survivors have started to hone their craft. Being here, back on patrol, I get the feeling that the bones of this Federation match mine – the familiarization courses at the Academy had to emphasize the differences, and I fear gave them too much weight.
Wasp itself is a well-found ship. The crew is young, but so am I, and getting Matthews' experience on what worked and what didn't on this, his third command in two years, is invaluable. I'm proud to be her exec, even for a little while, and I've graduated to commanding watches faster than I thought. But perhaps my species is more emotionally flexible than we usually give ourselves credit for, after our exposure to humanity, my parents have handled gaining a daughter with remarkable aplomb.
Commander Antonine Revka – Starfleet, though of a service that may have never actually existed, grinned a little at that memory as she finished putting on a uniform. Her timeline was separated from this one by the presence of the Iconians, but eon-old energy beings and their manipulations had little effect on recently contacted planets, joining mainstream galactic affairs. Her parents were her parents, simple as that. It was almost disappointing.
She changed the pattern on the bulkhead holoprojector from abstract to an exterior view, the rainbow-streaked stars of warp. The Arbiter class, one of the most advanced and technologically jam-packed ships in Starfleet, had actually meant a downgrade in quarters from being a senior-grade Lieutenant on a decade-old Exeter-class. Windows, even for officer quarters, were a rarity on the compact little battlecruiser.
But the view of warp always helped her expand her mind beyond the quarters, and so breakfast was spent checking the ship's log from her time asleep, and checking any urgent business forwarded by the captain. It looked like more drilling and patrol, with no mission updates from Starbase 39.
There were a relative glut of mission specialists of the right time-in-grade, but that was only compared to the rare breed of command officers, and every ship in the fleet was being raided to fill out experienced cadres. Every captain was guarding experienced crew, and failing at it miserably for the hundreds of new ships anticipated to join the fleet this year needed their personnel.
By wartime standards, Starfleet was hideously understrength; even by Antonine's standards of a peacetime Starfleet, they didn't have half the ships they needed, and the commitments were larger here, with huge sections of space opened up that had been closed in her version of the timeline. Wasp's current mission was a perfect case in point.
The Hobus sector was still 'enemy' territory to Starfleet after the Star Empire's collapse and the end of the Iconian War, a section of space wracked by gravimetric disturbances and bizarre spacetime distortions caused by the death of a star before its time. But progress couldn't be denied, and Republic and Federation interests were spreading into even a 'haunted' sector. Whether it had specters, it did have pirates, and Wasp was the backbone of efforts to sniff them out.
That was a mission Commander Revka understood perfectly well. She casually dropped the dishes into the recycler, and made a few notes. Wasp was still struggling to come up to its efficiency reports from its last personnel rotation. And if Starfleet Command did decide it wanted to fast-track its spare Antonine, she was determined to send sh'Theln right back to the hospital with a heart attack from sheer shame over the zeal she had performed in his place.
"Helm, prep course for waypoint eight-one-beta in our mission database at warp two," Antonine was saying a few hours later, as she 'minded the store' as Matthews insisted on calling it. That, apparently, was his usual expression, which had caused some concern at first. The captain was in his ready room, dealing with all the paperwork a XO simply couldn't head off. "Operations, all remaining power to transceiver. Communications, prepare primary subspace transceiver for real-time connection Starbase-39 for update on secure channel."
The orders rang out, with their usual affirmations. A tightbeam through this sector took a lot of power, even for a ship as fresh from the shipyards as this one. The usual back-and-forth was electronic, however, the latest Starfleet tactical and intelligence packets in, and all their backed up sensor logs to add to the Federation's body of knowledge – once it was declassified.
"Commander – we're receiving a priority in the upload – communication request from Admiral T'Nae's office flagged to Captain Matthews and a distress call rebroadcast," the tactical officer on communications reported.
"Bridge to Captain Matthews," Antonine said instantly, and she pulled the side console over to pull up the sector assessment.
"Skipper here," Matthews reported easily after only a moment.
"Captain, we have a priority subspace call flagged for you from Admiral T'Nae's office – they've also routed a distress call," the XO said.
"Let's hear that first – bridge speakers and my office," Matthews nodded. Antonine had no need to nod for confirmation, and the call came out after only a second
"Starfleet! This is mining vessel Mad Venture out of Bolia past Iota Regulus! We have Na'kuhl decloaking off our side –we've attached our coordinates! Send help!" came a frantic message over the speakers, before starting to retreat.
"Cut it," Matthews ordered when it became obvious there was nothing new, "Helm, go to impulse, put through Admiral T'Nae to the ready room. Revka, work your magic and get me a workup."
"Aye, Captain," Antonine said, as the connection closed. "Transfer coordinates to helm, contact astrometrics lab and arrange a least-time, lowest-risk, and a stealth course plotted to be available at captain's discretion. Be aggressive on the last one – we had the Republic look over the cloak. Operations: level three diagnostics, all systems." The helmswoman nodded and cracked her fingers.
Antonine bent over her console as well, pulling what they had on the ship's registry. And given the coordinates from there, she'd be able to provide a decent idea what they were up to when the distress call went up, which might help. Also, she needed to see where other ships were and have that if they needed to call a fleet in. Though since they were the top-flight ship in the sector, it was unlikely.
She was sending the last-known crew list to sickbay when the call came out. "Senior officers to conference room in fifteen minutes for briefing."
The conference room was like most of the vessel, Spartan and slightly cramped. Admiral T'Nae was readying some frigate groups and released some intelligence data – with mainly proved a negative: there wasn't anything interesting in the systems up there. The Republic had cleared out the Tal Shiar nests and even Tholians were rare in the neighborhood.
"It's some tiny independent wildcat unit. They're not some intelligence cover. What were they looking for out here?" the Captain asked at the head of the table. Outside, the stars streaked past, back at warp.
"Well, based on their equipment, rhodium or iridium," the chief engineer (so young) said. "High value, easy to detect, and common in later generation star systems post-supernova, and pretty easy to process with high-energy gear, if the radiation makes it a bit risky."
Antonine said, "I checked the ship's recent logged traffic; their last trip was a rare earth vein strike near the Donatu system, but then I checked their last five trips – all of them were to that sector, but those trade lines are some of the biggest between the Federation and the Klingons; where the Na'kuhl have been concentrating their pirate raids on shipping."
Matthews blinked, then began to grin as big as a Klingon. "History would show the system those miners chose as unexplored at this time. And if you thought your history was good, and you wanted to hide something, such a perfect place."
Doctor Tellas added, "And if was something bigger – they may have actually kept the miners alive instead of the old 'pump full of drugs and out the airlock routine'." The Tellarite sniffed, "No consideration to actually bringing them around, of course, but I have to assume the smart Na'kuhl aren't trying to alter time."
There was some brief staring. "What? An enemy you kill is a waste," Doctor Tellas said. "You lose any chance to bring them to your view. It means they won."
"A useful perspective," Matthews acknowledged. "These pirates are mad enough to destroy their future though."
"I didn't say they weren't foolish, just that it is foolish. Maybe they've enough reason we can save the hostages," the Doctor said.
Matthews said, "Hypothesis for what they have their?"
"R&R station," the Doctor said, "With extra sharp-knives."
"Building habitats for their relatives in this time," the chief engineer suggested.
"Repair station," Antonine suggested.
Science officer said, "Time travel relay back to their time for resupply and communications." The Republic liaison, a dark Reman named Manas, always raised the hairs on the hindbrain with his predatory countenance, but now his words chilled the blood as well. He'd been on only a month longer than Antonine, but she was impressed with his confidence.
The bridge officers looked at each other. Antonine decided to take initiative. "Captain, I've set the science labs to checking for tachyon concentrations as we close in," Antonine said. "Na'kuhl time travel is apparently 'hard' to pick up but maybe we will get lucky. We have a good approximation of their ion trail for the Mad Venture from transwarp gate records, so we may be able to follow that at close-range."
"Good for now – prep your departments for emergency situations and probable combat," Matthews said. "We'll come out cloaked, but hard, so all hands braced on entry in case we come out too close. Dismissed, yellow alert in six hour, main crew on the bridge in ten for insystem transit."
They were lucky as they threaded the irradiated asteroids and drifting gas clouds of the system, another random victim of Hobus. They didn't drop out of subspace right on a patrol or a tachyon net, and the stocky ship drifted into potential invisibility. Unfortunately, Wasp was no sleek warbird, built for it with phased deflectors and modulated sensor arrays, or an Intrepid stocking dozens of science labs. They mainly had passive, and it was a mess of strange energies, an over-energized red dwarf blasting solar wind, and strange energies they could not analyze well enough to identify.
Unfortunately, it'd been over twenty hours since the distress call came in. Finding anything would be fortunate, survivors a miracle.
With the tormented star making an ion trail unlikely to find in open space, Matthews had simply pointed the ship at the largest collection of mass, figuring it was where miners would go first, keeping an eye out. When no one gutted them with plasma beams as they entered the mass, and their passive sensors a tortured mess, Matthews stood from the center chair.
"Helm, you're relieved – I'm taking control for the moment," he said calmly. He flexed his fingers grinning, and with delicate bursts of thrusters, maneuvered the ship tight behind a cluster of rocks, in a permanent shadow from the sun, but obscured from deeper in the patch of asteroids.
"No active scanning detected," Antonine said after a few minutes. "Cloak stable."
"All right – all labs and science personnel, you're up," Matthews said with some satisfaction, standing up and letting the lieutenant back in place "Time to pick out the Venture's trail out of the solar wind for the last day – or any debris."
With Matthews manning the bridge and worrying over the cloak, Antonine followed Manas down to the few science labs the engineers had managed to cram in. With the cloak and the smear of gravimetric anomalies blotting out the subspace passives, the science team was reduced to checking through spectrometers and checking magnetic differentials.
An hour's labor later and even Manas's stamina was flagging. "We have plenty of data, but no trend. Highly polarized ions scattered in places with matching energy levels, but not together and in some sort of line."
"A false trail?" Antonine asked. She'd been coordinating the lab's energy requirements to try and maximize their view through the cloak. "You can do some tremendously bizarre things with impulse exhaust if you have time and don't mind getting dirty rebuilding your manifolds. That's Starfleet though – no worries about trying to dampen down the signature for a cloak, energy fields everywhere without worry, wide-band deflectors."
"There's all sorts of chaos out there," Manas said absently. "I'm not sure I like the look of these tachyon bursts, or the scale. Might be evidence of heavy travel, navigational deflectors can knock a lot around, and we've not gotten a real good look at an undamaged Na'kuhl long-range sensor array yet."
"Oh," Antonine said, "Depends on your hull plating – we had a True Way ship that had off-angled its deflectors; I want to say it was to try and confuse the course, but the captain was convinced they were just idiots. We managed to find their base because some hull plating got knocked loose from micrometeorites, and we were able to figure where in the system the base had to be from it. Terrible way to treat a ship."
"Mass transit might explain the polarization," Manas said, "Deflectors pushing things everywhere – though I would expect to see more obvious recent disturbances in the asteroid belt – if we had decent charts, it would be obvious, without you could hide a base without any real effort. All these point energy sources though – not the normal results of the cloak, but clearly energized particles hitting an area. Something is shrouded, many impulse drives in the area, but what? A fleet gathering, a shipyard? A squadron moving on?"
Antonine frowned, and said, "Well, the captain certainly would want more information before heading against opposition without a fleet backing us up. He hates this many variables. Launch some tachyon probes, maybe?"
"Yes, a liaison and an exec from Command are already almost more than he can bear," Manas said with a ghastly grin. "But he hates failing missions even more. And we face unknown opposition – tachyon pulse can certainly give us the outline… but time is an issue, and the Na'kuhl have some of the technology of the Krenim in a more polished, less esoteric form. No, I prefer subtlety, but are you familiar with a man named Obisek?" Antonine nodded hesitantly. "Sometimes his ways are best."
Manas explained, and Antonine shook her head. "Well, once we find it, at least it's useless as a hiding space. Commander Revka to Captain Matthews. Please report to the science lab at your convenience," she said, tapping her commbadge, and began to explain.
Matthews was certainly enthused at the suggestion of action, and had taken them to the bridge from the science lab immediately. "Tactical – prepare tricobalts, maximum yield in pattern being uploaded from lab one," he ordered, and then added, "Resume red alert."
"Helm, drop the safeties on the maneuvering thrusters – plot least-time to warp-out point," he continued. "We'll see if there's anything still in the area and if the Wasp can sting it." He patted the armrest on his command chair affectionately. His voice hardened a bit, "Security teams to transporter rooms. Medical teams to transporter room one. Anti-radiation team to torpedo room. Pre-charge all phaser banks." The affirmations went out. Antoine and Manas returned to their station.
"Helm, get us away from the rocks – prepare to decloak and engage firing pattern," Matthews said. The viewer shifted, showing the rock wall dropping away and showing the tortured, energized gases of local space, studded with rocks.
"Torpedo room reports ready. All buffers in place and mass-drivers charged," tactical said, frowning. Wasp carried tricobalt, and while it gave an impressive boom, it was slow and easier to spoof thanks to the radiation it threw out compared to photons in the standard casings. And that was carrying the safe load, maximum yield was simply a target by the speed of modern warfare.
"Decloak and engage firing pattern," Matthews ordered, now clutching the armrests.
The lights flickered as the ship decloaked, targeting sensors coming on. A torpedo salvo didn't gut them immediately, which was good in Antonine's mind. "Fire, tactical," Matthews said.
As a tactical exercise at the Academy, this certainly wouldn't get a passing grade. There were too many counters – but knowledge of opposition was just as useful. The ship thrummed as the pulse of its torpedo tubes passed through – and several seconds another, and another – a time on target detonation series.
Flares of white roared out – and as they began to detonate, spreading a deadly glare across the rocks, several Na'kuhl patrol craft frantically decloaked, plasma beams stabbing at the remaining warheads.
"Comm – wide band: Attention pirate craft, this is the Federation starship Wasp – you are suspected of crimes against Federation citizens. Drop your shields and warp power and prepare for a boarding by forensics teams under the Khitomer regulations," Matthews said. Antonine sent the message – and slapped the macro for bringing the ship to full combat conditions, armored bulkheads sealing off vulnerabilities.
The ship shuddered in lieu of a reply, plasma beams bright heat splashing against ready deflectors. Hull plating flashed, but only briefly – keeping any sympathetic detonations on the EPS system out. The attack was cursory, the Na'kuhl swinging away to pursue the remaining warheads. Space before them looked like a mirage, twisting more.
"While they're distracted, tactical," Matthews said, "Attack pattern alpha-seven – corkscrew high. Full phaser spread. Disable if you can but it seems we're in a hurry." He leaned forward. Antonine worked her board, helping coordinate power flow to maximize the impact of each shot.
She – and her other self, she'd found, always pictured this like something from the more exciting documentaries and holodramas. The lone ship charging, boldly outnumbered and with the odds against them, with stirring music in the background. Presumably, the rightness of their cause helped them. Admiral Revka had been in a fairly lurid retelling of parts of the Vaadwaur War, to her intense embarrassment, and it was just as bad as the rest.
Reality was more subtle, and not so easily captured. They weren't nearly so outnumbered as it appeared.
The Na'kuhl, fanatics though they were, were simply enthusiastic amateurs against Starfleet's tradition. But there were always exceptions, where a captain could have driven his or her ship to a higher pitch.. The tension on the bridge notable slackened as phasers washed back across unaligned deflectors, rapidly degrading them and filling their emitters to capacity. Exceptions there were, but they weren't here today.
Wasp had a good crew, and Matthews control filtered down as perfectionism. The bridge gave the orders, but the way they were carried out in efficiency and power weren't obvious to a layperson until ships started exploding. Antonine would consider Wasp crack in her reality, but Matthews was merely excellent in the war-forged Starfleet.
Space around the Na'kuhl frigates writhed, and then cleared under the insistent spears of orange light, shields collapsing and hulls crackling with energy as nadion streams tore matter into energy. One spewed antimatter frantically – coming to a relative halt, surrounded by steams of plasma, its EPS system collapsed. A second staggered, spewed a scant few escape pods, and became a new sun. The third stopped trying to tag warheads and dumped power to impulse, moving for an area of distressed space.
"Deploy drones, chroniton mode, give me maneuvering plotting" Matthews said, "Give them a taste of their own medicine. Ready tractor beam."
"Reading wide-beam short-area distress calls and at least," Manas said and stopped, surprise etched on his gargoyle face. "At least fifteen tight-beam messages. They are bouncing off the rocks around here with all the distortions, may be more."
"Relay their probable vectors to the reinforcement fleet and Starbase 39," Matthews said. "What's happening ahead?" The ship's noise grew louder as power fed to impulse, trying to catch up with the smaller ship, which had a definite acceleration advantage. With a lurch, two heavy drones dropped from the shuttlebay, scattering short-ranged torpedo-mines as they raced towards the last patrol frigate.
"Distortion is contracting," Manas said, "Definitely reading chroniton and gravitational action along with a tachyon web. Frigate is within original period of anomaly – updating tactical plotting, several new asteroids appearing – asteroids doubling, now reading chronal quantum distortions consistent with Na'kuhl technology. Multiple small satellites appearing – showing signs of electrical overload." Dots appeared on screen, technological and natural satellites – stars doubled, twisted, looking like warp effect.
"Captain," Antonine said, "Those probably extended a cloak around the distortion area, but they may be carrying weapons, or additional temporal technology."
"Right," Matthews said, "Detailed scans if we can, time until drone impact."
"Four seconds mark," Antonine replied. "Three, two," the screen flared, a pulse of thin plasma needles – both drones exploded, as well as several of the replicated mines they'd dropped. "Taadari plasma barrage fired, drones destroyed."
The closet two mines oriented and launched. The frigate's shields flared, the odd slow play of light from chroniton torpedoes, as it impacted the distortion. Space flared, a small galaxy birthing and dying, views of a thousand different realities, before dying away as silently as they emerged – revealing a dozen small stations, in the orange, finned organic flare of Na'kuhl designs – a small shipyard.
Tactical cursed as his plot updated. Matthews turned and raised an eyebrow. "A proper status update, please," he said coolly.
"One Khaerops-class dreadnought present in gantries at largest station. It's acquiring a lock but its firing arcs are currently obscured" Tactical said breathlessly. "At least four other clusters as independent stations. Not reading defensive weapons, navigational shields only."
Manas broke in, "No power readings originating in dreadnought – it looks like one warp nacelle is currently removed. Station power is increasing – they're increasing power flow and the capital ship's engines are in cold-restart. No sign of the Venture – still a lot of interference, I can get life-sign clusters but not distinguish them yet."
Captain Matthews leaned back, frowning, "Okay – clear the tubes of tricobalt against the dreadnought, and see if we get lucky. Plot escape course."
Antonine frowned, looking at the structures, and then took a deep breath. "Wait!" she said. All eyes turned to the breech in decorum, but she pressed on. "Captain – fins or no, a shipyard's a shipyard – and they're still using power conduits in the future – we target those it will leave it with limited stored power or even possibly feedback into both the station and the dreadnought."
Matthews turned to face her and they matched gazes for several seconds. "Belay firing order," he said, "Target connection points. Phasers, take out that frigate if it circles around." Antonine's heart started beating again as the warheads went out. They exploded again in hideous light, radiation and the sheer energy of liberating tricobalt causing the conduits to briefly appear to flame as the insulation on them simply vaporized from the load – lightning played over the ship, the skeletons of the yards, and the station itself. Lights flickered and went out in whole series.
Matthews nodded. Once. "Well spotted, Commander Revka," he said, "Now, all channels – all languages, demand their surrender."
Manas said, "Captain, the frigate's power levels are going critical, there's…" he stopped, unable to describe. The frigate dove into the gantry holding the dreadnought, nacelles flaring even in the visual, before it seemed to suddenly recede, attenuating somehow, before suddenly snapping to firm reality, and then exploding. As the light from a warp-core overload cleared, the dreadnought was missing, though the gantry was intact, but scarred.
"Tachyon traces detected – some sort of time travel," Manas said after a minute.
"Deploy probes, get everything," Matthews said. "Signal the stations to demand surrender and get everything to Starbase 39. Ready security teams." The bridge crew bent to comply when Manas interrupted
"Temporal fracture detected!" Manas said excitedly, then looked up. "Wells -class, U.S.S. Pastak."
"Maintain red alert, get me weapons lock," Matthews said. "Who knows what the future's like at this point…"
"Captain Walker hailing us, Captain," Antonine said. The face that appeared has been well-circulated to Starfleet. Walker had, so far, been only using time travel to react to others, and even Matthews relaxed a little.
"Captain Matthews – we were dealing with a temporal incursion in the 26th century and back-traced it to here. Wanted to thank you for flushing a dreadnought and make sure you didn't need a hand with any other loose end," Walker said.
"Well, if you want a share in prisoner processing, Wasp is willing to share. Commander Revka, head to the transporter room to liaise" Matthews said easily.
It went smoothly from there. The Na'kuhl method of time travel was hard to detect, but the version the dreadnought had used had fired alerts up and down the timeline. Hopefully, a whole strike group would be able to be snatched up as a result. The downside was their patrol as cut short – sh'Theln would be far enough in recovery and Matthews would have his preferred officer back in place.
She was still unpacking in guest quarters on Starbase 39 when the door range. "Come in," she said, having not bothered to change the temperature controls yet. A human entered the room – fairly nondescript and in civilian dress.
"Commander Revka?" he said, "Agent Crey – Temporal Investigations."
"Hello," she said uncertainly, "We had an appointment tomorrow at ten hundred. May I ask what this is about?"
"This is less about recent events and more about your future, Commander," Crey said, overly mysteriously in her opinion. "Commander Matthews gave a very favorable report on your initiative, and recommended you immediately for command." He ignored the sharp intake of breath. "Starfleet would prefer more seasoning, given your history, and an understanding of Matthews. It helps the science officer also recommended you."
"I don't think he was wrong, there," Antonine said, assuming they had seen the bridge logs. "Just that it was a better target, future technology or no."
"Exactly – Temporal Investigations liked your ability to see past distractions and variances to the real issue, and would like you to volunteer for some special assignments with us," Crey said. "Your record would be partially sealed, and the missions are potentially very dangerous, with some unusual equipment and situations."
"I understand Admiral Revka has some unusual resistance to the timeline thanks to her frequent travel," Antonine said, "But I don't know if I have the same."
"There's no way anyone sane could test it," Crey acknowledged, "But it gives you some useful observer distance. A lot of what Temporal Investigations does is helping people overcome the distance from the accidents and dangers that can result from Starfleet." He looked distant for a moment. "I have my own experience there."
"And you say I'll get my own ship?" she asked. Crey hid a smile.
"And a fast-track promotion, but you'd be getting that from Starfleet anyway. It may irritate Matthew not to have drones, but they need command officers. But yes, a ship. We have some specialty ships assigned by Starfleet to our office with unique technology. You'll have some flexibility with bridge officers, but the crew tends to be a little unique, as we're looking for those with temporal incident experience. The new ships need some shakedowns, they're from unusual yards," Crey said.
Antonine nodded, "It's my duty to maintain the Federation charter, and it survived one timeline event from my perspective – I don't want to risk another. I'm willing to sign up."
Crey nodded, and said, "There's some paperwork and a debriefing, but I do have a simple assignment – a familiarization exercise to assist with – while your crew is assembled. I think you may find it helpful based on recent experience. Also, based on your talents, in some respects, this is also a coordination exercise."
Antonine simply nodded. The disassociation could be maddening, but Starfleet personnel were tough.
Crey tapped a communicator – the button was on his wrist, oddly. "Bring him in," he directed.
The door whisked open, with a studiously nondescript brunette human male of indeterminate age in a dark jumpsuit with no insignia leading yet another human – blond with a thin well-groomed mustache, wearing tactical red and captain's pins. Revka stood at attention.
The captain strode forward and studied her.
"Wow, the males of your species really have smoother skin, that's one of the odder things I've seen yet!" he said cheerfully, speaking Standard with an odd lilt. "Captain Dead Foch, Starfleet – undead hero."
The older man with no name coughed slightly. "Commander Revka is not a Saurian, though I admit the coloration is similar."
The human looked her over again, and gave a low whistle, "How many species does the Federation have now? No, don't answer that, please," he said, holding up a hand. "But, come, let me at least bring you a dinner aboard my ship as an apology, and to see if we can repair our working relationship."
Antonine glanced at Crey, who shrugged, and the other man, who did nothing. "All right," she said, "I packed light – let me get my tailor specs in and get a formal uniform done up."
"Such a lack of things in the future," Dean remarked. "But I sympathize – I much prefer the old sand-color and the old workshirts to these two-pieces and red." He brightened, "Though I understand for common use the regulations allow a great deal of latitude – wonderful thing, latitude, seems never to go out of style."
Before replicators? She thought.
"Captain," she said carefully out loud, "my history may be a bit shaky, where did you originate?'
"2265," he said, "Commander and shipmaster of a sweet little Pioneer, but they build them so big and fast these days, and the poor Conestoga was a wreck."
Crey coughed, "That was 150 years ago," he said, chidingly. "Captain – you should be kinder to the Commander, she's just as time-lost but laterally." Turning to face her directly, Crey explained, "Captain Foch commanded the Conestoga in the Battle of Caleb IV."
"That Foch?" she said. Foch grinned devishily. "I read Admiral Garret's dissertation on tactical reactions to new technologies as part of my lieutenant certification." She looked at him. "I have to say, it was very nice of Starfleet to give a dead man another chance."
Foch laughed at that, "Oh, good – I'm going to make mistakes, I don't want you blinded by my heroic limelight. I like this one, I think we can work together." Foch held out a hand and took it, eyes lit. Antonine giving it a firm grip.
I suspect I may have had an easier time with the control freak, Antonine thought, but with a warm tone – this, at least, was certainly something the 'her' here had not done before.'
End Chapter 1
Author's note:
Daniels of course, is making sure Foch doesn't do anything too damaging until he can pass him off safely. Antonine's alternate came about in 'The Road At Midnight', courtesy of Q's intervention. It's a lot to live up to, yourself.
Dean is my AoY character, and he'll really get introduced when I do a bit from his perspective as part 2. Matthews is a random example of an excelling post-Vega officer shot up the ranks, not the best at delegation, but very competent. Takes a lot of heroes to save civilization on all the craziness.