Chapter Title: Old Solders

Chapter Synapses: A starship reported missing six years ago suddenly reappears – with only one crew member, who remembers nothing. A visiting doctor annoys Sen.

Written by: Seraph Koji

"I'm getting some odd readings from the surface." One scientist called to another, "A Theta-band radiation pattern."

The doors slid apart, causing the scientist, a woman, to turn, "If you please!"

"Did I interrupt?" Starwind asked, "Doctor Helen Morris, I presume?"

"Yes." Morris nodded, "I'm sorry, sir."

"Any leads?" Starwind asked.

Morris nodded, "We think the extinction was cau-"

Starwind's badge chirped, "Captain, receiving an urgent distress call from a ship… USS Endeavor. The message is really one you should see, sir." VonBach's voice echoed.

"Put it through in Science Lab Three, Commander." Starwind ordered. An Asian man in a uniform that would indicate his role in tactical or engineering replaced a display in the lab. He stood alone on a bridge.

"This is the Endeavor to any ship in comm. range. I seem to be the sole survivor. We are trapped behind Dominion lines… and I seem to be slightly amnesiac, because I honestly have no clue what we're doing or how to fly this thing. Please advise."

"Dominion lines?" Starwind rose and eyebrow. He paused a second then tapped his badge, "Starwind to senior officers. Conference room, now."

"What do we have here?" Starwind asked his officers after playing the distress call.

"USS Endeavor. Listed as MIA shortly after D.S. Nine fell to the Dominion." VonBach reported. He had looked into it after receiving the message. "This is the man in the distress call. Lieutenant J.G. Hiro Sakurai. He was elevated to Chief Tactical Officer…"

"Good doing homework, VonBach, but we don't need his service record." Starwind explained, "He thinks we're still at war with the Dominion, and he can't remember anything about starship maintenance. Sen, theorize."

Sen had an answer already, "Amnesia." Noticing this wasn't nearly detailed enough, he added, "Functional as well as temporal. He's lost years."

"What about the ship?" Collins asked, "It was missing in action."

Talara pondered a moment, "Maybe someone found it."

"Temporal anomaly?" Ivano suggested.

Starwind shrugged, "We'll see when we get there, won't we?"

"Captain's log, stardate 57574.9. Hyperion is en route to respond to a distress call from a ship that had been listed as MIA since the midst of the Dominion War. The Endeavor has… reappeared. We aren't sure why. More puzzling is why only the tactical officer, Lieutenant Hiro Sakurai, seems to be aboard. I am drafting the visiting diagnostician, Doctor Helen Morris, to help Sen treat Lieutenant Sakurai. Doctor Morris was studying the extinction of a race and just happens to be on Hyperion. Perhaps the two of them can shed some light on this mystery."

"Lieutenant Sakurai." Starwind entered sickbay where Sakurai lay on a biobed, "Welcome to the Federation starship Hyperion."

Sakurai looked about, "This a new design?" He asked, "To fight the Cardies?"

"Sakurai…" Starwind paused, "The war is over. We won."

"I couldn't remember how to fly the ship. Or raise the shields. They would have captured me." Sakurai ignored him.

"The war is over, Lieutenant." Starwind's tone quickly became official.

"Interesting." Morris watched the exchange, "It seems as though all he remembers is the war. Like that is his reality. Psychosis."

"Psychosis?" Sen asked.

"Doctor Asim, grab a colleague or two. We're going to your office. Differential diagnosis."

"What if it isn't a sickness?" Sen protested, "Vitals are normal. What if there is an external cause."

Morris shook her head, "No trauma."

"Not trauma…" Sen theorized, walking into his office, "Maybe experimentation. Explains the missing crew and the disappearance of the ship."

Morris followed, "Let Starwind's people explain the ship. We have a patient." She scowled, "Differential diagnosis."

"No." Sen frowned, "In case you forgot, Doctor, I'm one of Starwind's people. I believe someone diced this man's brain like a good seasoning, and I think I have no need for a diagnostician's consult on this matter." Sen fumed, "And my name is Sen. Bajoran names are surname before given name, you ignorant shrew. Now get your arrogance and smugness the hell out of my sickbay before your ego suffocates one of my patients."

Morris left in an offended manner. Which was fine by Sen, he meant to offend.

On the Endeavor, several of Hyperion's officers worked to come up with a reason for the ship's disappearance.

"Look at this." Collins gestured to a control panel, "This database has been totally wiped."

"Somebody was here." VonBach mused, "Fly boy, check the sensor logs."

Ivano scowled, "Sir." He walked over to the operations console, "Sensor logs from the battle are present… but they suddenly are cut off. The sensors aren't even recording now."

"Who disabled the sensors?" Collins asked.

Phral looked up from the engineering station, "No one. Something destroyed them." He crossed to get her attention, "Something shredded the sensors. More than that, though, it seems as if dozens of systems have been ripped apart and rebuilt."

Collins rose an eyebrow, "Our amnesiac been busy?"

"Doubtful." Phral replied, "Something with a lot of intelligence and curiosity did this."

"But who?" VonBach asked.

"More frighteningly, Commander…" Collins paused for dramatic effect, "Why?"

"Sir." Sen entered Starwind's ready room, "The scans confirmed my diagnosis. Someone has performed excessive surgery on Lieutenant Sakurai's brain."

"Morris came to see me." Starwind rose from his chair, "Said that my chief medical officer was 'insufferable'."

"Morris is an egocentric, self-righteous, quack." Sen replied, adding, "With all due respect."

Starwind snickered, "Duly noted." He sighed, looking out the window, "So, someone experimented on Hiro's brain?"

"It was as if they were trying to figure out how it's assembled. There is significant damage." Sen answered.

"Endeavor has several computer systems that went through the same thing." Starwind's gaze was fixed on the stars, "Something was studying the Federation at the height of the war."

"Dominion?" Sen suggested.

Starwind shook his head, "Smarter. Besides, the Dominion wouldn't return Endeavor, especially now, after they lost the war."

"Who would want to assess the Federation? Learn more about us?" Sen asked.

"Something not humanoid." Starwind figured. Something clicked in his mind. The height of the Dominion war was when… "Sen, will you excuse me?"

"Of course, Captain." Sen exited.

Starwind sat at his desk. He stared at the painting on his wall. It was Hyperion, beautifully painted by Collins – made oh, so long ago. There was an answer to his puzzle. He could almost see it. The clues were there… Bah, he couldn't solve it.

The officers sat at the conference table the next morning. Starwind was not present.

VonBach toyed with a pad, "He's late."

"Probably tying up loose ends." Sen postulated.

"Computer, locate Captain Starwind." Collins ordered.

The computer blipped, "Captain Starwind is not on board the Hyperion."

The officers exchanged glances.

"Collins to Harman." She attempted to contact the transporter chief, "Where's the Captain, Walter?"

"He beamed over to the Endeavor." Harman replied.

West glanced at Sen, "Guess you're right."

Just as Collins prepared to conduct the meeting, a beam of light pierced the room as Starwind materialized, "Am I late?"

"Right on time." Ivano said, somewhat sarcastically.

Starwind stood at the head of the table. "Sen said something yesterday that got gears going in my mind." He began to pace around the table, "Endeavor vanished at the height of the Dominion war. First thought is P.O.W., but not this time. Something with little experience with humanoid life sliced up Sakurai's brain." He paused, "I got to thinking. A lot happened during the war, but most of the concerned parties were humanoid."

"Most?" Phral interrupted.

Ivano chained onto this, "Tholians are more bug-like, I think."

"That's what Morris said." Starwind responded, "Clever, but wrong. There was another enigmatic event during the war. An Admiral I know was on a ship called Fairview and stumbled upon something."

"Cosmos." Collins, remembering Starwind's briefing near a year ago, replied.

"Bingo." Starwind replied, seeing some of his officers make the connection before he finished, "We don't know what the species looks like, but I'd guess they're unlike anything we could imagine. It's possible that Cosmos wasn't the only expedition sent into our galaxy. And it's possible that they took home a souvenir."

"But they need two Singularity Projectors to create the wormhole. There would need to be one at each end." Winters objected, then her voice dropped to a softer tone, "And if Endeavor was returned…"

VonBach's eyes grew in horror, "You mean to tell me one of those freaky dimension-jumping look-alikes is still in our galaxy."

"It would appear that way." Starwind nodded.

"You're sure?" This concerned VonBach.

"I scanned the ship and found the same kind of energy signature as the Singularity at Jupiter Station." Starwind confirmed.

Sen interjected, "What about Lieutenant Sakurai?"

"We leave him at a Starbase, send him to Starfleet Medical to get some help. Happens I still have a brother with some pull there, maybe there's some experimental treatment to take care of the brain damage."

"Endeavor?" Collins asked.

"Hmm…" Starwind pondered, "Take a skeleton crew. Bring her to the Starbase as well. We'll dump them both off there." After a moment, he dismissed them.

Sen entered sickbay to find an unfortunate sight. Doctor Morris was waiting in his office. He approached a nurse, "Fetch me a hypospray of anestasine."

"Doctor?" The nurse asked.

"In case Helen is feeling particularly talkative." He replied, grabbing the hyopspray the nurse had prepared and entering his office. "Hello, Doctor Morris."

She avoided eye contact, "Doctor Asim."

"Sen." He corrected her.

"Sen." She repeated, "You were right. Amnesia caused by botched brain surgery." She took a moment, not good at saying things like this, "I thought it was a symptom. Psychosis. I would have seen a disease where there wasn't one. I may have prescribed treatment that would hurt him."

"Or kill him." Sen added, then toned down the hostility, "You're a diagnostician. You went into it looking for an illness."

Morris began to exit, "Perhaps I'll see you again, Asim?"

"I hope not." Sen replied, "You're an egocentric, stubborn, catastrophe waiting to happen."

She stared blankly at him.

"No offense." He added.

Hyperion glided at high warp to its Starbase destination, closely followed by Endeavor.