All of the senior staff and several other crew members were seated around the long table. Being but a few hours away from there starting location the Captain had called a staff meeting to inform everyone of the current status.
"A Tholian cruiser has agreed to meet with us to chare any information they may have on the area and give us permission to cross into their space hopefully. From that point on we shall work in a system by system pattern scanning for the lost vessels of sign on what has happened to them." The captain stood from his chair and walked over to the wall display which had a map of the sector showing on it.
"As you can see we will be working in the buffer zone between the boarder between the Tholians and ourselves and hopefully in Tholian territory," he said point out there area. "The Sydney will be working the area between stations T-2 to T-7 were several of the ships have gone missing also"
Sitting back down in his chair he looked around at his officers, "During the search for the missing ships Commander Rochey will be our primary source of information on the Tholians we may encounter. Commander Teaos will be responsible for the long range scans and the sensor probes we will be launching. Lieutenants Mikey and Jon will jointly be in charge of launching our shuttle fleet for short range scanning missions. Deepcrush will continue to get our fighting units up to spec. I believe several small faults have already shown themselves which should keep Lieutenant Seafort busy for awhile."
"Now that everyone has their primary roles for now I believe Helmsmen Blackstar has a Project he…Err it has just started," he signalled to Blackstar to take the floor.
"Yes Captain thank you. I have been planning and designing a custom built scout ship for myself for quite some time now. I have the basic designs but would also appreciate any help anyone would be willing to give. Due to the size the features of the ship we will be building it from the ground up and should hopefully have it done with in the month," shi said while swishing her tail backwards in forward.
"Right, well is that everything?" the captain asked looking around the table.
Seeing no one had any major points he dismissed the meeting.
Lieutenant Hewer waited for everyone to leave the room, and the captain noticed this.
"Is there something else, Lieutenant?"
"I didn't think it was worth bringing it up at the briefing, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Shield emitter seven was showing a zero point zero two percent fluctuation, which is well within Starfleet safety parameters. I decided to go and take a look with Lieutenant Seafort and Chief Nelson. There were no outside signs of it, but there was a fifty percent reduction in transfer efficiency between the generator and the emitter. Lieutenant Seafort replaced the link immediately, and I took it up to the Science labs for analysis. I've had my systems engineers look it at - the link is doing its job just fine; it's being reprogrammed to reduce efficiency. A reduction like this has had two effects; our ventral shields are weakened by thirty eight percent..."
"And?"
"And the generator link could potentially overload, causing a feedback loop to the generator. We would loose all ventral shields, and get a large explosion just two decks away from the warp core."
"How could such a small fluctuation do this?"
"That's the problem, I've never heard of anything like it. I wouldn't have even known to go look at it if I hadn't been specifically analysing each emitter."
"Sabotage?"
"I couldn't say. The link's internal workings are similar to those used on the Intrepid class ships, it's not impossible that someone simply installed the wrong one. But I checked all systems, everything was scoured!"
"Mr Hewer, do not worry, it's understandable that everyone makes a mistake or misses something. Keep the link in case we need it. Is there anything else?"
Jon was annoyed with himself for missing something, but refrained from making any give away.
"No sir."
Captain Fletcher made a nodding gesture, giving his leave for Jon to leave. He had forgotten about the meeting regarding the shuttle at 1930 hours, as he was too busy trying to get some answers. He didn't miss things, he simply didn't. "Forget it," he said to himself. And that's just what he did.
"Seafort to Hewer," said Seafort across his communicator.
"Go ahead," replied Hewer.
"Please meet me on deck ten, section two, bring a type eight phase discriminator, there's a problem in the dorsal phaser relay."
"Aye sir."
Jon made his way there, and entered the Jefferies tube. Seafort nodded in acknowledgement and Jon passed him the phase discriminator. He tapped a few buttons on the discriminator and put it next to the relay. His tricorder began beeping, and Seafort smiled.
"Sorted, just a small imbalance in the EPS-phaser relay conversion rate. What'd the captain say?"
"Nothing really, I suppose someone just installed the wrong link."
They crawled out of the Jefferies tube. "Well Lieutenant, I'm off duty now. Fancy a drink in the mess hall?"
"Yes sir!" said Hewer, just then realising his shift had ended about three hours ago, and relieved that the first full day onboard the Daystrom had come and gone. They'd be at the Tholian border and meeting with their ship in just seven hours. He'd have a drink then get some sleep while he can.
Finally calling it a night after discussing the scout ship design with Blackstar - it wasn't a meeting, because Jon hadn't shown - Mikey decided to finally get the education about talking to the Chakat which he had intended. He couldn't get a read on the big quadruped; he/she seemed to enjoy Mikey's company, but that could simply be due to Andorians' own intricate marriage/procreation practices, and resulting tolerance of such.
Entering the turbolift, Mikey instructed it to take him to senior officers' quarters, then tapped his comm. badge. "Ensign McKenzie? Mikey, from ops. If you are available, and Seafort doesn't mind, I'd like to have your input on a project we're working on. If you can, meet me tomorrow at 1930 in the aft shuttlebay."
Arriving at the 'diplomat's' quarters, Mikey paused a second. That 'Cardinal' was a strange duck for a human. He seemed to be a man of passions - almost as much as an Andorian - but who forced himself to keep them under wraps. Not quite like one of those daisy-eating Vulcans...
Beeping at the door, Mikey found himself waiting more than few seconds before hearing an almost-too-cheery, "Enter!" from Cardinal.
The diplomat was standing behind his desk, in the process of slamming down his console screen. He smiled extremely broadly, and said, "Mikey! What can I do for you?"
Mikey's antennae rotated; the human's heart was going a mile a minute. "Err, I wanted to give you this by way of introduction" - Mikey produced a tall, narrow bottle of Andorian ale – "and maybe ask to trade it for a favour. I've been working with the Chakat helm officer, and I would feel more comfortable if you could school me in proper forms of address."
"Well," laughed Cardinal, a model of amiability, "you don't have to bribe me for that! How about over breakfast - say 0700 at the officers' mess?"
"Thank you. I look forward to it..." Mikey sensed that this conversation was now over, whether he wanted or not. Nodding, he backed himself out of the room.
"Mikey?" his comm. badge buzzed with the gravelly voice of Ensign Grr'lek, currently at the bridge ops station. The Caitian explained, "Sorry to bother you, sir, but I'm getting... Something... On the new subspace vector sweeps you had installed. I didn't want to send it to science until you had seen it, sir."
"On my way," replied Mikey, "And let science know that we might need some sensor analysis..."
Commander Teaos and Ensign Sternson made their way to the Bridge, technically Teaos was supposed to be their anyway but he had asked one of the ops crewmen to keep an eye on his station. Not like anything was likely to happen for the moment.
Stepping into the turbo lift the Ensign asked for the bridge.
"So what are these readings that they want us to have a look at?" Teaos asked as the flashing light speed by signalling there accent.
"I'm not to sure, something about the subspace sensors, the ops officer just asked for us to look at something for them, Lieutenant Mikey is already on his way," Sternson said as the turbo lift doors opened to let in two engineering crewmen who signalled they were heading to deck two engineering.
"Subspace sensors? That sounds like something the science department should deal with," Teaos said as he looked over at the ensign.
"Yes they are commander but the Lieutenant apparently has been doing some modifications and sweeps with them," she said as the doors opened to the bridge, Lieutenant Mikey was already there standing by the on duty ops officer next to the Science display panel.
"Hello Lieutenant, I hear you have found something with my sensors," Teaos said putting an emphasis on their rank difference and that this was his station. He might not be one for protocol most of the time but that didn't mean he took too kindly with people messing about with his department with out informing him.
'Cardinal' deftly swept along the corridors, towards the Andorian's vacant quarters, moving more akin in its subtlety and guile to a shadowy serpent than a man; a product of years of intensive study at prodigious, yet highly classified special operations schools.
Within the blinking of an eye, 'Cardinal', entered the quarters, his dextrous hands overcoming any obstacle to his entry and any indicator to his presence, upon the Andorian's clan kumara-bureau, he placed an encrypted electronic codex; which read; 'In the name of the merciful and beneficent ancestors of your clan W'trisk , and of that sacred vow, orally transmitted through the last two generations, confined only to the male members of your lineage, the hydra is free, seek out the piper to tame it, unto its casket.'
This reiteration of an oath, held sacred, and its implications, were simple, an in viable favour needed to be repaid, for the honour of clan W'trisk, there was danger involved and that the diplomat, needed assistance at any cost, for to renege upon the oath, was a sin far worse than dishonour or death.
With that, 'Alexis' with a wry smile, at the thought of the Andorian, realising that the universe, had just gotten smaller, also dropped a note: 'Dear Mikey, your friend Alexis cordially informs you, to address the Chakat, using non-neutral gender terms, to refer to yourself in relation to your esteemed parentage, to readily apply and receive hugs but also to know the limits of appropriate behaviour and not to misinterpret Chakats' cordiality for anything sordid.'
With that 'Cardinal' slithered out of the quarters' and 'Alexis' stuttering and clumsily trundled through the corridor, back into his quarters and makeshift office.
Anyone stumbling upon the diplomat would be hit by a wave of tedium, at this vanilla pen pusher...
Mikey stood at attention, somewhat surprised by the rank-pulling shown by this otherwise lackadaisical-seeming officer. "Begging the Commander's pardon, sir," replied Mikey, "But I did attempt to contact you, if you remember, at approximately 1300 hours the day before our departure to discuss the matter, sir. I merely delayed transferring the new functions to the science station while awaiting your preference of interface displays, sir. Grr'lek, go with Ensign Sternson and shift all sensor functionality to science."
Teaos cocked an eye at the ops officer. "Yes, anyway..."
"The matter is this, sir. What I added was a function to detect subspace vectors and delta-v; we used on my last boat, and I thought you could make use of it here. What we found just now, sir, seems to be a subspace object, matching our velocity but changing relative position randomly, but..."
"But WHAT, Lieutenant?"
"I did not approach Commander Rochey or Captain Fletcher, sir, because according to all standard scans of the area where the body in question appears, there is NOTHING THERE, sir. I have already dispatched the pertinent sensor logs to Lieutenant Seafort to determine if a hardware error is to blame, and if not... If not I thought your analysis should come into play before a report is issued, sir."
Somewhat mollified by the Andorian's deference, Teaos said, "Rightly done, Lieutenant. Sternson - transfer all this to the lab. I can work more easily there. Thank you, Lieutenant."
"Aye, sir," said Mikey, and then to the brown-furred Caitian, "Good pick-up, Grr'lek. Knock off when you're done with the interface transfer - have Smith pick up the remainder of your shift."
Striding back to his quarters, Mikey intended to improvise a little on his flabbjellah, maybe a blues in a minor key, to calm down before bed - he was due to meet Alexis at 0700. When he entered his quarters, however, all intentions and appointments fled from his mind. Looking at the ciphered and closed electronic book, he finally broke the code with a simple voice authorization. He read it; then read it again, recognizing an incantation his great-grandfather had only heard of...
Reading the note on the PADD which dropped from the codex, Mikey gaped. "How in the three frozen hells could he have known about the oath? And what in the name of The Great Hearth could he want from ME?"
