Chapter 5
Shuttle Bay 1 USS Enterprise
"Enterprise, This is Captain Monnet in Crystal 3 requesting approach clearance."
"Crystal 3, clearance granted, stand by for tractor beam."
"Enterprise you have control"
The small shuttle approached the shuttle bay and landed. The door opened and Captain Monet exited alone with another tall man.
"Captain Monet I am Jean-Luc Picard."
"It is a pleasure to meet you Captain. May I introduce my intelligence officer Captain Rogers."
"Captain" Rogers acknowledged.
"This is my first officer Commander Data and the Captain of the Titan Captain Will Riker and his first officer Commander Barak."
"Pleasure to meet you all."
"If you'll come with us we can sit in our briefing room."
Observation lounge USS Enterprise
The lounge was quite packed with officers from both the Titan and the Enterprise. Captain Rogers started the briefing.
"Approximately two hundred years ago the first evidence of the Tulrelian crystal showed up in our sector. First I will go over what we know as fact and then the legend and theories. Fact one is that the crystal emits a highly concentrated form of gravimetric radiation that acts on the sub-molecular level of neural pathways. This was determined by multiple first hand accounts and autopsies performed on cryopreserved bodies of people known to have been in contact with the crystal. It is true that Lt. Cyprus brought the crystal hear after stumbling upon a transwarp conduit sometime after our First Borg War. He sought our governments help in destroying the crystal for good. He said that the crystal made any telepath a superpower capable of controlling anything or anyone making them virtually invincible. As we have no telepaths in our sector we agreed that the phenomenon was just to dangerous to have around. So the government under the strictest codes of secrecy decided to destroy the crystal by placing it in the Magnesian Belt and setting off a chain reaction in the belt to crush it under the large amounts of static energy present. Unfortunately the Borg picked up the crystals emissions while it went through the conduit and decided to capture it for themselves. The Borg sent twenty cubes to destroy our planet and nearly succeeded. It is not known what became of the crystal after that. After the cubes were destroyed by our ships nobody knew where the crystal was."
"The three best guesses are that the crystal made it off the planet undetected and is hidden in the Magnesian Belt. Second, the Borg did happen to steal it and it is at Unimatrix Zero.
"And the third?" Riker asked
Monet and Rogers looked at each other, Monet spoke up "The third possibility is that it was ejected out of the galaxy to unknown coordinates."
"Do you have any idea why The Federation would want the crystal back." Picard interjected.
"No, but if I were you Captain I would find out."
"I know"
"Lieutenant Eneik" Riker responded
"Gentleman this is our computer intelligence expert Lieutenant Eneik What have you found out Lieutenant." Riker asked.
"Berill's orbit is decaying. All I could find out is that it must have happened during the assault on Betazed during the Dominion war. The crystal is needed to recorrect the orbit by placing it inside the planet core. The Federation hopes that this will encase the crystal, and allow it to stabilize both planets orbits."
"Oh no" Deanna exclaimed.
" What is it?" Captain Monet asked.
Picard explained, "Berill is the peace loving neighbor of Betazed. Betazoids are telepaths while the Berillians are not. However the Berillians possess a unique power of being able to control physical state so there is no sickness there. They are considered the best doctors and humanitarians in the galaxy."
"You seemed to think that the crystal is outside the galaxy." Riker said.
"It is a possibility. There is some evidence that our black ops team got it off the planet before the Borg cubes came. The leader of this team was a rebel named Cypher. He claimed to know exactly where the crystal is and also how to retrieve it without being detected." Rogers said.
"You don't believe it." Picard asked.
"Cypher died in prison for trying to steal plutonium from a laboratory, but I don't think he was lying. He had the highest success rate of any black ops leader in the history of our race, 97 out of 98 missions were confirmed successes. The only stain was the crystal, so I tend to lead credence to his story." Monet replied.
"Did he leave any clues as to where it was?" Picard asked.
"His grandson claims to have the secret to retrieving the crystal but is lacking in the funds and equipment. Our government thinks it is best to leave it alone." Monet said.
"Where is he?" Riker inquired.
"He is a freighter captain out of Tulius 3. You should be able to get there in about 33 hours. This is the off season so check a bar called The Junkyard in the northern hemisphere." Rogers answered. "Also this place is rough so I would go in there with the attitude of "I'll shoot first and ask questions later."
"You seem to know a lot about him." Deanna offered.
"He's my brother." Rogers replied sorrowfully.
A/N: Sorry its been so long, but I have been sort of dissapointed with this story. I'll try to wrap it up in 3 or 4 chapters. Please R & R.
P.S. Look for "The Voyager Project" after this story is done. Details to follow.