[2392]
Begin Transmission.
Attention: Picard, Jean-Luc. Status: Ambassador, Starfleet. Category: Personal
Lt. Commander Zahana Shafi, granddaughter to the late, renowned Ambassador Durdana Shafi, has accepted a new assignment that will take her to Terlina III, under strict quarantine for an indefinite period. She has offered to resign her commission to do so. We are granting her sabbatical instead. The mission is classified code blue.
End Transmission.
The communique offered little by way of illumination as to the hows and whys of the matter. Regardless, Ambassador Picard has little doubt it will be the cause for significant developments at a later time, for him to have received it. Code blue. That meant non-Starfleet, a spin-off. What kind of mission could induce an Officer, a rising star, to willfully abandon her commission? She had been promoted as Second Officer just a year prior, and despite being essentially a Political Relations Officer, already had many convinced she would find herself in the chair on a Starship bridge within a decade.
And yet of late, her records showed erratic behavior. Her off-ship assignments had been frequent before as well, a pilot of her caliber and with her list of skills in high demand on Starfleet special missions, but now they appeared in increasingly remote, politically troubled locations, leading her to eventually transfer off her ship, the Mighty, leaving her Second Officer's post. She seemed to be searching for a cause. It appeared she had found one.
He noted with some interest that her extended stay at the academy (6 instead of the usual 4 years) had been pretty chaotic too, as she jumped from one major to another. Starting with Engineering, moving to Cybernetics (and making waves with her pro-sentience rights stance there), on to Law, then Poli-Sci, & even a Special Ops course after being commissioned. She was the consummate Starfleet officer.
The Ambassador had never met the woman himself, but recalled glimpsing her from afar at some reception or the other, flanking her illustrious relation. A cool, sleek countenance fronted a calm presence beside her often outspoken and deeply compassionate companion. If she was anything like Durdana, Starfleet's loss was great. But he found he was more interested in whose gain it had been.
Terlina III. Picard found himself troubled at the thought of it; he wasn't sure why. He recalled his own ship's encounter with the place. He thought of Data, what he had found, and lost, there. What new plot was brewing on that lonely planet now? Time would have to tell he supposed.
Data would have compiled and listed all 381 possibilities in order of probability a matter of seconds. He smiled to himself, missing his companion of 15 years as he had done often since that fateful mission in 2379.
