Captain's log, Stardate…

…sh'Sihl paused, thought a few moments, and reconsidered starting a new log with a new stardate. It just raised a question she wasn't entirely sure how to answer.

Captain's log, supplemental

After interacting with a temporal anomaly that appeared apropos nothing near Ceres, Hydra has been pulled over four hundred years into the past. She is in essentially good working order and there are no notable injuries to any of our sixteen crew aboard. I have activated the ETH with the intention of using Sol as a slingshot to begin time warp back to the twenty-fifth century, however, fate has seen fit to provide me with a problem that prevents that. Hydra has detected the phenomenon known as Omega at Earth, in addition to a quartet of ships belonging to the Ikroden Hegemony, a stellar nation that, according to our records, never existed. I therefore find myself in the situation of being forced to choose between the Temporal Prime Directive and the Omega Directive, as both have been assigned absolute priority by Starfleet Command. Note to Starfleet Command: this is a stupid mistake and shouldn't have happened, morons. No wonder the Galaxy is in the state it is.

Sh'Sihl let out a grunt as she finished saying that, briefly imagining the chewing out that she would receive for submitting such a log to Starfleet Command. It would almost be worth it – almost, but not quite. "Computer, delete previous two sentences in captain's log."

"Confirmed."

The Andorian leaned back in her chair and groaned, rubbing her eyes and wondering how any being could possibly be so tired after having two cups of replicated coffee. A glance at her computer's chronometer confirmed that she had been locked away in her ready room for four hours, going over everything Starfleet had on Omega as well as reviewing – not for the first time – all the standard operating procedures of a ship that had traversed time.

Unfortunately, all the data seemed to point to one and only one conclusion: this situation was entirely in her own hands. There were no standing orders for situations where the Omega Directive and the Temporal Prime Directive overlapped, no precedent of it ever happening in the past, nor even any vaguely similar situations she could use for comparison. She was in uncharted ice flows here, the night was dark, and she had only her own instincts for serve as navigational aids.

Well…so be it. "Computer, unseal captain's ready room. Sh'Sihl to commanders Omak and T'Lal, and to Agent. Join me in my ready room."

She didn't need to wait long for T'Lal, who was just on the other side of the door already and only had to pass command over to lieutenant Sila. Omak was somewhat slower in coming, since he had to come up from the engineering section, and was still wiping his hands with a rag as he came up, his uniform sleeves rolled up and the uniform itself stained in several different colors. Agent was the last to arrive, and was still clutching a PADD as he did, typing away at it.

Sh'Sihl eyed the hologram as she stood. "I would have thought you could do all the calculations internally," she noted.

"I can," Agent responded, not looking up, "but my program is entirely compartmentalized, I can't spread the knowledge to the rest of the ship. This is for you lot once I'm done."

Sh'Sihl decided to ignore the fact that Agent was basically ignoring her; he was, after all, just a hologram. "Alright. Commander T'Lal, what are the Ikroden ships doing?"

T'Lal shifted somewhat, folding her hands behind her back as she spoke. "We have positively identified the three Ikroden frigates as the Katar, the Talwar, and the Kukri, while their command cruiser is the Parang. None of these ships exist in Federation databases, but we have been able to ascertain their names based on the Ikroden script on each one. The frigates are maintaining a high orbit around Jupiter's equator, outside the effects of the magnetosphere and within line-of-sight of each other. They have additionally launched probes that have taken up orbit over Jupiter's north and south poles." T'Lal's eyebrow raised slightly. "All in all, captain, the Ikroden have set up a crude but effective blockade. We could not leave Jupiter's atmosphere without them noticing."

Sh'Sihl nodded, expecting the news. "And the cruiser – Parang?"

"It has maintained its close position over Earth's south pole. There has been significant communications traffic between the Parang and the Ikroden frigates, but Jupiter's magnetosphere has prevented a detailed analysis of the situation." T'Lal shifted a little once again. "As for a tactical analysis of our situation – I do not at this time believe any of the Ikroden vessels to pose a significant threat to Hydra. While the Ikroden vessels are faster than any other ship we are aware of in this time period, this appears to be their only exceptional quality. They are still far slower than Hydra herself. Even if we were to engage all four vessels at once, I still place our odds of emerging victorious at greater than six to one, unless the Ikroden have some hidden weapon that our scans cannot detect, or some other circumstance were to work against Hydra."

Sh'Sihl crossed her arms. "Good to know…commander Omak, how is Hydra?"

"Warp core is fully recharged," Omak said, walking over to the replicator, placing the soiled cloth he had into it, and recycling it before jerking a thumb at the replicator itself. "Half the ship's replicators are down, all the ones on the port side. Other half are working fine. Holodeck is still running, too. But you wanna know about weapons and shields," he said, before sh'Sihl could say as much herself, albeit with somewhat stronger language. "Phaser turrets are just fine, and with the warp core back up they'll run at full power. We still have more than half our stock of photon torpedoes. Shield power is fine, but I'd want to get out and inspect the shield emitters before turning them back on. Like I said earlier, they were fried. Their self-repair systems are functional, but…well, Corps of Engineers rule number one: nothing beats a visual inspection."

T'Lal shifted slightly. "Without shields our tactical advantage over the Ikroden vessels drop significantly. Hydra's ablative armor will be able to absorb or reflect most phaser fire from the Ikroden vessels, but torpedoes or mines could prove to be…problematic. Less so than their 25th-century equivalents, but a notable threat nonetheless."

Omak pointed a thumb out of the viewport in sh'Sihl's ready room, to the Jovian atmosphere outside that was composed primarily of equal parts liquid and gaseous hydrogen, barely visible but for the running lights of Hydra. "I can't send someone outside in that to check, is the problem. The pressure and temperature our suits can handle, but the wind speed out there is hundreds of kilometers an hour. They'd be torn apart or blown off."

Sh'Sihl shook her head. "Not a real problem. Even if I intended to fight the Ikroden, we could break Jovian orbit and warp away to deep space before they could intercept us, and then we'd have all the time we need to conduct repairs then, assuming the shields even need to be repaired at all. But I don't intend to fight the Ikroden."

"What we intend and what happens have never exactly been similar," Omak pointed out. Sh'Sihl glared at him.

"I…must concur with commander Omak," T'Lal said. Sh'Sihl's glare shifted its target, but T'Lal held firm. "There are a number of variables in place which prevent a truly accurate assessment of the situation."

She didn't say it, but her tone made it clear what she was referring to. Sh'Sihl managed to maintain her glare for only a moment longer before sitting back down, and indicating the two chairs in front of her desk and the couch off to one side. Agent reached the couch first, stretching out comfortably as he continued to type away at the PADD – despite the fact that, as hologram, he in fact could not get tired of standing, and if anything Omak probably needed the couch more from all the physical labor he'd been doing.

The Ferengi and Vulcan settled into the chairs without complaint, however. Sh'Sihl leaned back in her own, going back to ignoring Agent and wishing that she had ordered another coffee before sitting back down. She could stand up and get it, of course, who cared if it made her look restless, she was the captain, she could sit or stand whenever she wanted…

"Captain?" Omak prompted after sh'Sihl was quiet for several long moments.

"Thinking," sh'Sihl answered quickly, returning herself to the here and now and wishing that her metabolism didn't burn through coffee so fast. She breathed in deeply, staring at her desk. "Okay. Under normal circumstances, on the detection of Omega, I would get a line to Starfleet Command, who would deploy a specialized team to deal with it, and we wouldn't have to have this conversation."

"Impossible at the moment, of course," T'Lal noted, leaning back in her chair and folding her hands together in front of her.

"Yes," sh'Sihl said. "Fortunately there was an addendum to the Omega Directive – that's the name of this order – made in 2379 following the return of USS Voyager to the Alpha Quadrant – called the Janeway Amendment, which permits a captain that is unable to contact Starfleet Command to inform as much of her crew as he or she deems necessary to complete the Omega Directive. I am invoking that amendment now."

Sh'Sihl was aware that her antennae were standing tall, a sign of nervousness. She forced them into a more neutral position as she began relating the story of Omega – a synthetic molecule first created by Starfleet in 2269 by a man named Bendes Ketteract. A single molecule of Omega had the same power potential of an entire warp core, a miracle even by the standards of modern technology. A civilization that based its energy requirements around Omega would have the power needed to perform feats that would seem almost divine. Transmatter drives, stable genesis effects, feasible Dyson spheres, the casual transport between quantum realities and timelines and even entire universes…

But like all impossible-to-believe treasures, this one came with a terrible cost. Omega was highly unstable. Ketteract had been able maintain the integrity of the single Omega molecule that he had created for a fraction of a second before it had destabilized and exploded with the power of the warp core that it could have replaced – and done far more damage than that. The Omega molecule had torn apart and destroyed subspace within several light years in the Lantaru sector, the subspace that the warp drive needed in order to make a warp field, the subspace that interstellar communication and travel was based around. In short, Omega could stop a ship or signal from ever entering subspace – from achieving warp – from moving faster than light.

One single molecule had destroyed subspace in a region lightyears across. A small string of Omega could devastate a larger region – a few hundred molecules, still too small to see with the naked eye, could destroy subspace across an entire quadrant. It was the single most dangerous substance in all of known space. The Klingons, the Undine, the Borg, nothing compared to Omega.

"Which is why," sh'Sihl said in conclusion, "Starfleet classified everything to do with Omega. They lied to the public, claimed the disaster in the Lanatru sector was the result of a natural phenomenon. Then Statfleet developed the Omega directive. In short – we are to do anything, anything, in our power needed to destroy Omega. The Omega Directive supersedes even the Prime Directive."

That got a reaction out of T'Lal and Omak both, raised eyebrows from the Vulcan and a slight jump for the Ferengi. It was Agent who verbally reacted first, however, standing from the couch. "No," he said, making a cutting motion with his free hand. He tossed the PADD that was in the other onto the couch. "Nothing supersedes the Prime Directive. If that were even remotely true then I would know about it!"

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Sh'Sihl asked blithely. "Believe me, Agent, I've been trying to sort this mess out for hours now. Here, watch." She looked to her computer. "Computer, between the Omega Directive and the Temporal Prime Directive, which has higher priority?"

"Omega Directive has absolute priority. Error: Temporal Prime Directive has absolute priority. Error: Omega Directive has absolute priority. Error: Temporal Prime Directive – "

"Computer, cease," sh'Sihl ordered, and the computer did so. She looked back to Agent. "It's only naming Omega first because it comes first alphabetically, I checked. Someone at Starfleet Command screwed up. Neither directive was ever given higher priority than the other – probably because even amongst captains and flag officers, discussing Omega is frowned upon." She shook her head, leaning forward in her chair and rubbing her hands tighter. "So. That's where we stand."

"Our situation is…unenviable," T'Lal noted. She very nearly frowned. "How is it that the Ikroden have even developed Omega? The technology would appear to be beyond them."

"Technology isn't a steady march from one point to the next to the one after that," Omak noted. "The Ikroden don't have dilithium in their home system, so they invented singularity drives. The maintenance and danger of those must have made them start looking for alternatives, and for whatever reason their line of research took them to Omega rather than dilithum-based warp drives."

"They are isolationist in our time," sh'Sihl noted, picking a PADD off of her desk and waving it around. "I did some research, confirmed what you told us." She nodded towards Agent. "They don't have any interest in maintaining colonies outside of Epsilon Indii, so no dilithium mines – and in this era dilithium is hard enough to find that not a lot of people are willing to trade it to other races, and even when they are, the prices are enormous."

"Well, this is fascinating," Agent said, clapping his hands together. "Truly, it is. But I don't see what it has to do with me getting you people home, unless you're suggesting doing what I really, really, really hope you're not."

T'Lal and Omak looked back to sh'Sihl at that, who nodded, clearly unhappy with her decision but making it anyway. "My reasoning is this: the Temporal Prime Directive is an outgrowth of the Prime Directive. It's given a higher priority because of just how damaging it could be…but it's still essentially just a subsection of the Prime Directive. And the Omega Directive trumps the Prime Directive normally. So it should do so here, as well." She looked to her two most senior officers. T'Lal would probably be a captain in her own right soon, Omak not long after, if they wanted it, considering the rate that Starfleet was building new ships and snapping up people to run them. She sincerely hoped that they would never have to face choices like this – life-or-death decisions on which seemed to hang the fate of the entire Federation, and where no choice seemed like a good one. The Kobayashi Maru had nothing on real life.

"So," she continued. "We're going to go to Earth and destroy any Omega there, then try and figure out a way to stop the Ikroden from researching Omega further. We have to do this – by any means necessary."

"No we don't," Agent countered immediately, though there was an air of desperation to his voice. Sh'Sihl's glare was on him instantly, but the hologram didn't seem to care. "You really don't. This is easy! You can time travel, captain, I'm here to make sure of it! All you have to do is pop back to the 25th century and take a look around. If there are Ikroden everywhere, then you know that you've made a mistake and then we can travel back and fix things."

"That is not correct," T'Lal noted, steepling her fingers before her face. "If Omega truly can destroy subspace, then any return to our subjective present could well be one-way. If the Ikroden fail to stabilize Omega at Earth, then it could lead to the entire sector being cut off from subspace – thereby preventing us from initiating a time warp."

"And preventing the Federation from ever forming," Omak added. "At the least, Earth and Alpha Centauri would be cut off from subspace. Depending on how much Omega the Ikroden have synthesized the effect could reach further. Andor and Tellar are both within fifteen light years, Vulcan not much further." He shrugged. "So, there go all five founding members. Can I have PADD with all the information on Omega on it?"

Sh'Sihl considered refusing him on the grounds of how secret Omega was supposed to be, but instead sighed to herself and nodded, tapping some commands into the PADD at her desk and uploading all the information in Hydra's computer on Omega to the PADD. "We're not going to get out of this if I play this close to the chest," she noted, then retrieved another PADD from her desk and uploaded the information a second time, handing it over to T'Lal. "That said, the information stays on my personal computer, and in those PADDs. I will inform the crew of the basics, but the finer details don't go any further than these three computers."

"Oi. Four," Agent interjected, jerking a thumb at himself. "I'm not certain I even believe this Omega nonsense, captain, but if it does what you say and if it can be detected on Earth from where we are now then I need to know its properties to do my job. Time travel requires exacting knowledge of subspace harmonics."

Sh'Sihl considered. "No. Not yet – not until we've dealt with the Omega. Until then…put your calculations on hold, and instead dig up anything you know about…" she considered, then called up on her desk's computer where the Omega had been detected on Earth. One was a small chain of islands in the far south Atlantic, uninhabited by humans and presumably the Ikroden's main base and, and the other location…

"Irkutsk," she read. "Irkutsk, Siberia, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

The briefing was not handled over the intercom – sh'Sihl had wanted to address the thirteen remaining members of the skeleton crew personally, and so had gathered them together on the bridge, with everything else set on automatic for the next few minutes. She had only gone over the basic information – what Omega was, the reason for the Omega Directive, the conflict it had with the Temporal Prime Directive, and her decision to violate the latter in order to carry out the former.

The apprehension was obvious. Yes, Hydra had time-traveled before, but those times were under orders from Starfleet Command – and while previous incidents had occasional put the fate of the future of the Federation under threat, this time they were dealing with a situation that could potentially prevent the Federation from ever existing in the first place. The knowledge of Omega and what it could do was even more existentially terrifying – as was the knowledge that no one knew if they were supposed to be acting at all. It was entirely possible that the Ikroden had historically been allowed to continue their research at Earth and then return to Epsilon Indii without incident. Or, perhaps, the crew of Hydra was supposed to stop the Ikroden, here and now, in this time. It was impossible to know.

"Having said all of that," sh'Sihl said in closing, spreading her hands, "just because we're going to be violating the Temporal Prime Directive, does not mean that we're going to just fly over Earth and announce our presence. By the same token, we can't simply tell the Ikroden that we're from the future and here to stop them."

She looked to doctor Tsegaye. "Doctor, we'll need every member of the bridge crew and away teams to be cosmetically modified to not look Human – it's the easiest species to disguise ourselves as, and Humans are found across the Alpha and Beta quadrants already, so it shouldn't raise suspicion. Replicate us some different-looking uniforms and combadges too, while you're at it."

The human man rubbed his beard. "Not my normal area of expertise…" he said, then looked to doctor Hauser. "But, I think it can be done."

Sh'Sihl nodded as she turned to Sila. "Lieutenant, I want you to scramble our universal translators somehow. Our disguises won't mean much if they hear us speaking English. Let their translators do the work – use a Delta Quadrant language, I doubt they'd have heard any before. I also want you to change all the writing on all visible control panels on the bridge to use the same language, and re-activate the ship's hull holo-projectors so that we can disguise the name plate."

Sila nodded, and sh'Sihl looked to the rest of the crew. "One way or another we have to get to Earth and stop the Ikroden. Our scanners can detect Omega in two locations – the Prince Edward Isles in the south Atlantic, and the city of Irkutsk in the Soviet Union. The islands are supposed to be uninhabited, so the main Ikroden base on Earth is probably there. But Irkutsk is a Human city and home to a military base – we're going to need to beam multiple teams down to the planet to figure out what the Ikroden are even doing in the USSR. So everyone else who isn't busy doing something to keep the ship running," she nodded towards the four engineering officers, who would be using their time in empty space – once they had peaceably made contact with the Ikroden – visually inspecting the shield generators and ensuring that they were fine, "I want you to brush up on your Terran history, concerning the Soviet Union."

Sh'Sihl glanced over her crew. She should say something inspiring right now, but damned if she could think of what it should be – there was just too much on her mind right now and she was too damn worn she was beginning to feel at the sheer enormity of the challenge before them. "We can't screw this up, people," she said, trying her best to sound serious. "But we have a four hundred year technological advantage on the Ikroden, and an even bigger one on Earth. We've done this time travel thing before, and we can do it again, and with any luck this will be for the last time.

"That's all. Dismissed."

Captain Avarar of the Katar paced the command platform of his vessel with one hand behind his back, the other running along the railing that separated him from the rest of the bridge. The chair on the platform was empty and had been for some time now as the Ikroden captain remained on the bridge, coordinating the search efforts of Katar with the Kukri and Talwar. Their prey, an impossibly fast vessel – it had somehow exceeded warp eight, according to the Kukri's operations officer – had taken refuge in the clouds of the systems' fifth planet.

And there it could stay, for all Avarar cared. He leaned back against the railing, crossing his arms and looking to his tactical officer. "Anything, subaltern?"

The subaltern shook his head. "No change, captain. The alien vessel remains hidden." He paused a moment, glancing towards the political officer before looking back to his captain. "Captain, I remain of the opinion that the intruder vessel was most likely crushed by the planet's gravity, or the pressure of however deep they have hidden. No ship that small could possibly withstand the atmosphere of a gas giant."

"No ship that small could possibly have a warp drive capable of moving at warp eight either, cornet," the political officer, Kala, said, her voice soft and her face holding a pleasing smile – neither of which fooled anyone on the bridge for a moment. "Yet it happened."

"It was not an Ikroden vessel," Avarar pointed out.

"No. But do you, captain, wish to take the chance of our cousins back on Ikroda learning what we are doing here?" Her smile widened slightly, and the small woman stepped closer to the command platform. "Hegemon Rajaisi will recall us once it is clear that the intruder vessel poses no threat. But it has only been a few hours."

Avarar was about to comment on that, when the tactical officer spoke up. "Captain, Talwar is detecting activity from the planet – it's the intruder vessel!"

Avarar sprung into action at that, sitting down into his command chair. "Get me a visual, and contact Kukri. All vessels converge on the target."

Kukri's engines, which until a few hours ago Avarar had considered the best in the Galaxy, sprung to life, the shift in her artificial gravity noticeable but slight. The intruder vessel was emerging on the far side of the gas giant, opposite the systems' sun – but too slowly to be trying to escape. Within just a few seconds Kukri and Katar had joined Talwar in surrounding the vessel.

Small did not seem to cover it – the vessel was half the size of Katar at best, painted primarily silver but with blue highlights, and shaped like a malformed disc or saucer with engine pods on its sides. It was their first clear look at the vessel – it had moved too quickly each other time to get more than a blurry image that the computer had not been able to resolve.

"The vessel is…unharmed," the tactical subaltern reported. "More than two hundred and fifty kilometers down and unharmed…"

"Tactical analysis?" Avarar asked.

There was silence, and a fizzling noise from the console. "The vessel is jamming our sensors. I can see at least one torpedo launcher, and forward and aft phase turrets and canons…but I cannot tell their power."

Avarar nodded, leaning back in his chair and pressing his hands together before his face. "Species?" he asked. "It doesn't look Vulcan or Andorian. Too smooth to be Klingon…too blue to be Orion…"

The subaltern shook his head. "I cannot tell that either, sir. Ship doesn't match anything in our computer."

"We are being hailed," the communications cornet reported. "The language is…not in our files. It will take the translator several minutes to give us something workable."

"Contact Parang," Kala said, prompting Avarar to look to her incredulously. She didn't notice "Inform the Hegemon that the intruder vessel has reappeared and surrounded. Ask her for instructions."

Kala looked back to Avarar, and noticed his glare. Her own smile was gone now, and there was iron in her voice. "This is a first contact situation, captain. It cannot be left solely in the hands of the military. That was what lost us Ikroda."

No, what lost us Ikroda was the Hegemon's lack of leaving matters to the military, Avarar thought. He kept the thought to himself, however, as they waited for a response from the Parang. They were not waiting long, and the viewscreen flipped to show an image of Hegemon Rajaisi, sitting behind her desk aboard the Parang. She had grown remarkably gaunt over the past three years, her skin fading to a more neutral gray and pale brown rather than the healthier black and deep brown of a fit Ikroden.

Avarar stood respectfully, as did anyone on the bridge who was not performing a task vital to the ship's ability to function. "Hegemon," Avarar reported. "The intruder vessel has emerged from the fifth planet. We have it surrounded. It is hailing us, but we will need a few minutes to translate their language."

Rajaisi leaned forward at her desk. "Do they know of the Parama?"

Avarar wasn't sure how to answer that when he hadn't even spoken to the aliens yet and had just said as much. "I do not know, Hegemon. They have so far done nothing but run from us, hide, and then emerge from hiding without running again. Their ship is advanced but I do not believe them to be a threat."

Rajaisi considered. "I do not like this, captain. Not when we are so close to stabilizing the Parama. But without knowing where the intruders come from, why they are here…" She brightened after a moment. "Be gracious and hospitable. Invite them to the Parang. I shall speak with their captain and find out what it wants with us. I am sure we can offer them something to leave us alone."

Exactly what the hegemon could offer was something that Avarar couldn't even begin to guess at – these were not the Russkiy, they already had warp capabilities, better ones than the Ikroden – but he only nodded. "Yes, Hegemon. What if they do not wish to go to the Parang, however?"

"Be insistent, captain. As insistent as you need to be. Preserve the Hegemony at all costs."

"Yes, Hegemon."

With that, the hegemon signed off. Kala's smile returned, but it was far more predatory than before. "Captain," she said, "might I suggest opening gunports? As a…precautionary measure."

Political officers only officially made suggestions; unofficially they gave orders. Thankfully that was still a very unofficial power, and Avarar had made sure to staff his ship with officers who knew who was supposed to be in command on a bridge. "Not yet," he said. "Not until the alien vessel gives me a reason to."

"Captain, translation finished," the comms cornet said. Avarar nodded, and the viewscreen before him changed, showing the bridge of the alien vessel. Like its hull, it was primarily done up in varying shades of blue or white, with a slight purple tinge to the lights. The bridge was of comparable size to the Katar's own, but the station were all smaller, more compact, and surrounded the captain's chair rather than being set in front of it.

Of a greater note to Avarar was the species that he saw – humans, at least in appearance, dressed in uniforms that were primarily blue but with a brown stripe down the right side of the chest and across the shoulders on which sat rank insignia, simple gold vertical lines. Avarar guessed that the more there were, the higher the rank.

The one with the most rank stripes – four – was standing front and center, a female with pale skin and eyes and black hair arranged in a tight bun. To Avarar, she looked more than a little ragged – unsurprising given that she had just been hiding for six hours, probably wondering if the Ikroden were planning on bombarding the planet to drive her out. It had been considered, but she didn't need to know that.

"Ikroden vessel Katar," the human captain said, "Captain Avarar. I am captain…Zelyh Sihl of the Confederation starship Hydra." She placed extra emphasis on the name of her government for some reason. Avarar glanced to the comms cornet, but he shook his head – their admittedly limited database did not contain anything about a Confederation stellar nation occupied by humans. "We note that you have surrounded our vessel. This is making us…nervous. We have undertaken no hostile action."

"Why is the Galaxy full of humans?" Kala asked.

"They might only look human," Avarar pointed out, though that, too, only raised questions. Apart from Sihl, there were other humans on the bridge – two with somewhat darker skins, both female, one at the captain's side, probably her first officer, and another, shorter and heavier one at a console that looked like it might have been a tactical one. The other two, at what was probably the comms station and undoubtedly the helm, were possessed of paler skin, though not as pale as the captain's own. Avarar glanced to his communications officer, nodding, then turned back to the viewscreen. A small brown dot appeared in one corner, indicating that he was now live with the intruder vessel. "Captain Sihl," he said, "this is captain Avarar. Our ships are surrounding your vessel as a…precautionary measure. We have never encountered the Confederation before and were not sure as to your intent."

"We're based…very, very far away from here," Sihl said.

"The other side of the Galaxy, in fact," her first officer said, a small smile on her face. Sihl looked to her and notably started slightly for some reason – she was a jumpy thing, it seemed – before settling down. The first officer continued. "We were stranded in this quadrant of the galaxy after the wormhole we used to get here collapsed unexpectedly. We have been trying to find a way home."

"Wormhole?" Avarar asked, glancing to his bridge crew. That word wasn't in the database any more than the Confederation was.

The first officer's smile remained fixed – and slightly unnerving, for some reason. "A corridor connecting two separate points in space-time, allowing for extremely fast travel between those two points. They are rare, and stable ones even rarer. We had thought the one we traversed was stable, however, we were wrong."

"Yes," Sihl said, having collected herself and smoothing out her uniform. "Unfortunately even if we found some way to sustain our maximum warp indefinitely, we have determined that it would take us more than a hundred years to return to the Confederation."

"This is why we want the Parama molecule," Kala said in a whisper to Avarar. "It will make things much simpler back home."

"We detected your ships," Sihl continued. "And our supplies are running somewhat low. We had hoped to trade with you for foodstuffs, medical supplies…"

"So you sneak up on us?" Avarar asked, letting his distrust show plainly in his voice. "Approach us like thieves in the night and then scurry off and hide when your attempts are discovered?"

Sihl rubbed her hands together. "We have reason to be cautious," she said. "Our course has taken us through space controlled, operated in, or contested by the Tholians, the Klingons, and…others, few of which have been welcoming. We only wished to get a lay of the land, as it were – see if you were hostile or not, before initiating contact."

Avarar had never heard of the Tholians, but he did know of the Klingons. Caution was indeed advisable after dealing with them. "Very well," he said, remembering the Hegemon's orders. He considered a few moments. "For the moment, I am willing to extend to you the benefit of the doubt. However, I must insist you come to and dock with our flagship, the Parang, and meet with Hegemon Rajaisi, our leader."

"Of course," Sihl confirmed. "We will follow your approach. Hydra out."

The screen went blank, showing the intruder ship once more. Avarar looked to Kala. "Wormholes," he noted.

"I have information on them now," the comms cornet said. "We term them Kollamu bridges. With what is known about warp travel and subspace, they are theoretically possible, but none have ever been confirmed by our science."

Avarar wasn't certain he liked the concept of Kollamu bridges – and he was an outlier amongst Ikroden already, one who had argued strongly in favor of establishing at least a small interstellar nation and offworld colonies. The Hegemon had overruled him. It was hard enough controlling Ikroda – their presence here in this system was proof enough of that – how could the Hegemony control a stellar empire?

"Helm," Avarar said, "set course for Parang, maintain formation around the intruder vessel…around the Hydra."

"If it tries to flee," Kala added, "open fire on it."

"You were smiling," sh'Sihl noted of T'Lal. The Vulcan had needed only basic modification to her ears to appear human and a small amount of makeup to hide the green tint to her otherwise dark skin, while sh'Sihl's own disguise had called for a change to her skin's pigmentation, minor and reversible surgery to hide her slight cranial ridges, and a wig under which to hide her antennae, and she'd also shortened her very distinctively Andorii name considerably to just the diminutive form of her first name and dropped the gender-indicator from her clan name. Ensign Ludjira at ops had needed to undergo even more extensive physical changes to hide her Tellarite nature, something that she would no doubt spend the next several weeks complaining about provided they escaped from this situation alive and with the Federation intact.

The smile that T'Lal had been wearing had dropped as soon as their connection to the Katar had been dropped. "Vulcans are known for our…austere nature," she noted. "I thought that a smile would aid in our attempts at misdirection."

"I wouldn't have recognized you," ensign Vanoni noted. Human already, he hadn't needed to do anything other than change into the uniforms that Tsegaye had selected, a rejected Starfleet design from the early 2200s. Lieutenant Sila had also merely needed to hide her Trill spots.

Sh'Sihl glanced over to Sila. "Now that we're not under four hundred kilometers worth of cloud, do a quick scan of the Ikroden vessels. Do they have transporters?"

Sila complied, and shook her head after a moment. "No. None that I can detect, anyway – not even cargo ones. Hopefully that means that they won't be able to detect our own transporters."

"Hopefully," sh'Sihl echoed. She looked to T'Lal. "Alright. Assemble your team in the transporter room and get ready to beam down to Irkutsk. Replicate a portable holo-emitter and take Agent with you, he'll probably be able to help. I'll keep things covered up here."

"Yes, captain," T'Lal confirmed, turning and heading from the bridge.

Sh'Sihl nodded to herself, then looked between Vanoni, Sila, and Ludjira. "Alright," she said. "So…I just said we were here to trade. What do we have to trade that probably won't risk damaging the timeline if we screw all this up?"