Matilda Penal Colony, Erebus II

Yes, it is a smooth stone, but you're not listening. I do consider myself immensely... lucky to find this in the wreckage. I think luck is what my father would have called it, finding this stone. In the wreckage, I mean. But my father was the one to give it to me. He says that whenever he does the daily meditation with my mother he always has this in his pocket.

Hmmm? Well, I actually do not know why. He said he picked it up at the bottom of some pond somewhere. The story escapes me right now, you know. He was quite an ethnographist, really. That's how he and my mother met. He was studying Vulcan culture at Cochrane West, and my mother tutored him.

You are not able to see the ears? For a good part of my teenage years I hid them under my hair. You know about that, right? Here, see?

Well, getting back to finding the stone in the wreckage... hey, be careful with it. What you are doing is highly illogical; please refrain from—hey! Please give it back. Thank you. That is the last time I am showing you this stone. I find this missing and the warden will be the first to know, I promise.

Actually, I shouldn't call it a wreckage; it was more of an emergency landing, really, but I would be getting ahead of myself there. It was a planet listed as Ozymandias IV in the official Starfleet stellar cartography, but for some reason on my ship it was called 'Elegium'. How that ever happened, I do not claim any knowledge.

I remember that we had to call Captain Neval out of his quarters as the ship time at that point was only 0325.

"Bridge to Captain Neval."

"What is it?"

"Your presence is requested on the bridge."

Captain Neval let the low, almost imperceptible hum of the ship's inner workings take over the conversation, then after a few stretched seconds he intoned, "I will be there right away."

Lieutenant Severin stood up from the captain's chair after the conversation terminated, and gave me a reassuring look, which is what I noticed more than what she really said. "Are there any signals from the planet surface?"

I must have looked completely nervous. I saw the look she gave me; perhaps momentarily the maternal instinct took over her or something. I looked down at my console, and replied, "No, ma'am; all radio signals are from the cosmic background."

"No lifesigns in the general area," interjected Ensign Friedman from his console. "I have what looks like a good landing area for shuttlecraft."

"Bring up the coordinates."

The display showed the proposed landing site, a sand plain in the southern continent. No doubt the humans in the crew took the non-land portions of the planet to be water; in my training for this mission I had caught the bad habit also. But what I noticed the most were the deep shadows on one side of the dunes. The computer reassured us that we were indeed looking at a ground variance of less than one meter, but something about that reading was... I don't know, illogical. Perhaps the solar star was already low in the horizon. And besides, it was just an illustration extrapolated from a planetary scan. The pits could have been the product of a false coloring.

The first officer nodded, with what I would characterize as too little forethought, and addressed the helm officer. "Helm, maintain a stationary orbit above the spot."

"Aye, sir," returned Ensign Garronax, and while he was manipulating the ship's attitude toward the planet Captain Neval appeared in front of the bridge hatch.

"We are in orbit?"

"Yes, Captain," maintained Severin, as she resumed her seat beside the captain's chair. "Lieutenant Delaney has the shuttlecraft ready in Bay 2."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Neval placed his forearms nonchalantly on the armrests. "Have you considered the selection for the first away team?"

"Yes, Captain," was the reply from Ensign Thyllen, but at that point she did not yet look towards the captain's position. "We got Chief Areckla, Chief Matson, Doctor Acosta, and Ensign—"

"Doctor Acosta is undisposed at the moment. I do not think he will be able to make the mission." Neval only then cast a gaze at Thyllen, who visibly skipped a beat.

Thyllen had to take a deep breath in order to suppress the rolling boil in her blood. "Captain... then perhaps Ensign Farad can take his place." Neval put a hand to his chin, perhaps knowing the angry overtones Thyllen tried to hide beneath her voice. What is with that? I've seen how my mother could deflect my father's heated words at dinner, but somehow it never made my father feel any better.

Neval stood up. "Ensign Farad is an excellent suggestion. He has worked closely with Doctor Acosta and should be able to satisfactorily apply his research in his stead. Please prepare the team for the mission."

"Aye, captain," was the curt, yet much calmer reply.

Severin leaned forward in her seat. "Captain, is Doctor Acosta all right?"

"He walked into the arboretum before taking his allergy medication. He expressed his regret that he would not be able to land today. But he is recovering; he should be much better tomorrow."

By that time I saw everything I could observe from the bridge. The rest of the work could be done at Astrometrics.

"So I'll see you later?" I said as I passed Friedman.

"You're on, man. Holodeck 2."

I knocked knuckles with him, and boarded the turbolift.

What? Of course there was an away team; an away team was needed to collect data that would not be available to ship scans. Yeah, the whole ship did not land. Of course it made sense... Emergency landing? No, that was much later... or earlier, actually, I should say. No, I'm not lying; you only perceive this as a prevarication on my behalf because you did not hear the whole story yet. Now, listen—

Yes?—It is nothing, Officer. It will not happen again.—Now see what you did? One more time and it's an extra hour for the both of us in the work barracks tomorrow.


Starbase 978

"Elegium? You've been there?"

"Yeah, it's a nice place... the Federation has done a good job setting up a good treaty that was equitable for all the races."

"What?"

"Yeah, Elegium. Near the Typhon Expanse. The badlands are very bad, if you catch my drift... great for offroading your buggy around or just hiking. I took lots of photos."

"I don't think we are talking about the same Elegium. The Elegium we orbited was all desert."

"Two Federation planets with the same name? Now I've heard everything."

"Well, actually, I was under the impression that we named it Elegium."

"Whose idea was that?"

"Maybe someone from Astrometrics at the time. Don't know. I got an allergy attack before we could get an away team together, so I spent the whole day in Sickbay."

"Yeah, I remember you were telling me about Dr. Talmey!"

"Such an interesting character."

"Good morning."

That was the first voice I heard after my afternoon nap.

"I was out the whole day?"

"About twelve hours. Is that normal?"

I looked around Sickbay, and found myself surrounded with equipment. There were hyposprays, isolation beds, an array of medical tricorders, and a library computer display—all were epitomes of cleanliness. Then, of course, as my eyes always did during my time there, my eyes rested on Dr. Talmey's bat'leth. It was mounted right above the hatch, so one saw it upon leaving, not upon entering. I ascribed to this some sort of symbolism, somewhere along the lines of "Now you are ready to do battle again."

"...Not really," I replied. The headache subsided just a little bit, but that unleashed a memory. "What time is it, Dr. Talmey?"

He glanced at the computer display briefly, before nodding to himself. "It is 0742 hours."

I lay back on the bed, my mind still foggy but now fully realizing that I neglected to return Thyllen's tile decorating tools.

Dr. Talmey probably saw the expression leak to my face. "Kahless himself would have said that there is very little honor in throwing away a dagger because of a missed stab; better to keep it sheathed and to struggle with the hands."

I nodded, when what I really wanted to say was, "What the heck does that mean?"

"At any rate, you are free to return to your quarters. Is your work shift in the afternoon?"

I nodded, and straightened myself out.

Maybe a few hours after that I caught some breakfast at the mess hall, and I asked Captain Neval about the away mission.

"It has been a success. Ensign Farad took your place to collect the data."

I said, as I polished off my egg whites, "I hope we were able to find something of geological significance. Perhaps a future site for a long-range observatory complex?"

Neval rose from his seat across from me. "You will find some of the data about Elegium quite intriguing. It is good to see you well, Doctor. I must attend to the reports."

I rose up after him, then sat back down, my thoughts turning to Thyllen's tools on my work table in my quarters. Then I remember thinking, Elegium. That's a nice name. I wonder who picked it out for the planet.