Colonel Reed watched from the "Forward Command Base" which was the U.S.S. Kamehameha. The entire powered-armor platoon plus another platoon of regular infantry to back them up was out there, sneaking up on the Hirogen outpost. Some of her boys had begun calling Hirogen outposts "Hunting Lodges" which fit their use nicely. Minimum living space, taxidermy equipment up the ass and then their wierd bio-fluid tanks they have. Reports from Voyagers previous encounters with the Hirogen indicated that the fluid tanks were used to preserve trophies, break down enzymes from bodies to acquire said trophies, but also to process various beings into a soupy paste that the Hirogen were observed ingesting.

Ensign Kolaas had volunteered to come and assist with this mission, she figured it was to help counter that Klingon urge. It was like an addiction that they could not get rid of, Reed didn't mind him being along and he agreed to listen to her orders when it came to it.

"Contact, three sentries, 18 meters" a voice came over the comms.

"Confirmed" another voice said, then, "Orders?"

Reed tapped a console, "Remove them, maintain weapon silence, be observant for sensors"

"Copy"

Silence again. Commander Kim had requested that this operation to be as quiet as could be, there was a native settlement 280 kilometers west. Reed believe that was a sufficient distance not to worry about weapons fire sound, but Kim wanted to be safe. They were to maintain strict weapons sound control until they were fired upon by the Hirogen. Another factor was they were operating at night, it was also overcast, so light flashes on the horizon as well as light from fires may be another issue they might have to contend with the natives, should they become curious and investigate. Sound control was another reason why they didn't have air support or orbital support aside from emergency beam outs. Ospreys weren't quiet by any means, nor were their weapons. Orbital strikes with either phasers or torpedoes were even louder and did much greater damage, not good in a Search and Rescue operation. Pops from tetryon weapons sounded distantly.

"Under fire, weapons free. Sound suppressors off, clear 'em out" Sergeant Bonner's voice said calmly over comms.

Immediately, hisses and cracks from phaser pistols and rifles began returning fire. Reed tapped the console again, "Any idea on how you were detected?" she asked.

"Unknown, perhaps an out-of-spectrum tripwire, or a silent alarm was activated automatically. All I know is we just walked into a waiting squad sized enemy force that opened fire as soon as they saw us" Sergeant Bonner replied.

Reed had been standing, she took a seat at the helm station and took a deep breath. It starts. She sent the standard "if you need anything from me, please let me know" communique and sat back. It was the sit and wait time, let things play out and hope to god there isn't many casulties. Small skirmishes like this were the worse, high casulty rate, sometimes an unpredictable outcome with a simple goal. This time: locate Captain Benson and return her to the Endeavour, then get the fuck out of dodge.

Alona woke to her tricorder chirping loudly. It was detecting weapons fire near the large power source she had detected. She looked at what the tricorder was detecting. Phasers! She remembered from Admiral Janeway's logs that no other species in the quadrant used phasers, so she constantly stated that it helped when she was trying to determine who were her people and who were not. She jumped up and quickly put out the fire, grabbed her tricorder, then started running toward the weapons fire. She stopped. Use the damn tricorder Alona. Alona began punching in commands for a communications contact with Endeavour, hopefully, she was orbiting close by.

Being as big as this planet is, she wouldn't be able to contact her if shes orbiting over the other side of the planet. The tricorder was trying to connect to the Endeavour so she canceled the command and entered a communications contact in through subspace. with a subspace communication, she should be able to speak to Endeavour as long as the ship is within a few light years, almost like a combadge. She also started broadcasting a subspace emergency beacon, she didn't care if the Hirogen detected it or not.

"Captain Benson to Endeavour, do you read me?" Alona said. Silence. She repeated herself. Again, silence. She repeated herself once more. Silence. She was about to try maybe boosting the frequency or widening the beam but she heard a familiar voice, "Howdy Captain, did you enjoy your shore leave?"

She chuckled, relieved, "Get me out of here Daro, now"

"We're locking on to your signal, standby"

She smiled when shimmering blue light filled her vision a moment later.

Colonel Reed recieved the notice that they had located and beamed Captain Benson aboard. Apparently, she was over 20 klicks away and somehow had a tricorder. It had detected Reeds platoons weapons fire, so she rigged the tricorder to work as a subspace communicator to get ahold of Endeavour. Clever girl.

Commander Kim issued a standard notice to all planet side away teams and detached units to standby for immediate beam out. All small craft were to recalled to the ship immediately. Reed turned to one of the Starfleet members in the cockpit.

"Get us back to the ship" she said, then pressed the comm, "Colonel Reed to Endeavour, respectfully request that you beam my platoons to the Marine Deck, Bay 4 for stand down and debriefing"

"Acknowledged"

Reed had turned to face the view-port, they had just exited the atmosphere and Endeavour was ahead, her shuttlebay door was open and ready. Reed could see the Hirogen vessel, lights were coming on the ship, its engines were lighting up as well. Reed put her hand on the Starfleet officers shoulder.

"Get us aboard quickly, I don't want to get caught out here when the shooting starts" and pointed towards the Hirogen warship. The Bolian followed her finger, then nodded, "Yes ma'am" and began rapidly punching in commands.

Kim stood, watching the Hirogen vessel powering up on the view-screen.

"Viir-Keim" he said.

"Aye sir, firing" he replied.

The Hirogen ship had just got its warp engines online and was attempting to go to warp when Endeavour tore into it, her phasers and photon torpedoes punching holes in its hull. Soon, the ship was drifting, venting atmosphere and leaking plasma. Endeavour then tractored her and went to full impulse, dragging the ship towards the sun. After a few moments, Endeavour dropped the tractor beam and went to warp, leaving the Hirogen to their fate. By T'saal's estimate, it will take the Hirogen vessel three days before it entered the corona of the star and there were plenty of lifesigns still aboard the ship. Kim knew he would catch hell for this, but he didn't care. He had seen too many friends and colleagues get hurt or killed by the Hirogen and he vowed he would never let them do that again.

12 hours later...

Alona called all senior officers to the observation conference lounge. When everyone arrived, they found her looking out the window at the nacelles, watching the ship at warp. She had finally gotten some real sleep and a decent meal. She was holding a cup of cappuccino, sipping on it. When everyone had arrived and took their seat she sat as well. Looking around the table she smiled.

"It's good to be back, thank you everyone for tailing that Hirogen ship to Gaia, and what a planet! I never thought there would be an M-class so big. So how far away from that planet we were surveying was I?" Alona asked. Six hours after Alona's return, she had ordered Endeavour to establish a geosynchronous orbit over the planet then had the science department put in five hours of extensive scanning of the planet for scientific study.

"Around nine light years ma'am, the Hirogen didn't seem to care about covering their tracks or about us hunting them down" Korlaas said.

"These Hirogen don't. I assume everyone has read my report of what happened while I was on the Hirogen ship?"

"Yes captain, I find that there seems to be a Hirogen splinter group or some other internal faction that doesn't like to hunt photonic lifeforms intriguing. While their ship was in orbit, Commander Radis accessed their ships computer and gleamed some information from it" T'saal said looking to Radis.

Radis cleared his throat, "Yes, this splinter group you encountered, ma'am, call themselves the "True Hunters" other Hirogen also call them the "True Hirogen", regardless they seem to have been an internal issue within the Hirogen Hegemony. I know, according to all relevant data, its astonishing that the Hirogen Hegemony even exists, though its a relatively new government and they have only one or two sectors of space under their control. When the True Hunters split from the Hegemony, they took a large populus of the younger generation with them. Much of the younger generation of Hirogen believe that hunting holographic prey is for initiate hunters or those who don't believe in acquiring trophies. They even say its for those who don't like the sight of blood.

"Regardless of the reason, the True Hirogen have become a thorn in many sides of the various species around this area of space. Some of them have turned to raiding as well hunting prey, their technology has also improved. It looks like they have taken pages from the Jem'Hadar handbook with their technology such as personal cloaking fields, shield penetrating transporters, and transporter inhibitors. We think they have somehow acquired this technology by maybe capturing and interrogating holographic Jem'Hadar or perhaps emulating them. Nothing from their records or ours indicate a Jem'Hadar or Dominion vessel has come out this far into space and the Hirogen didn't indicate how they acquired this technology so we can only speculate. Also from what I have gathered, they haven't extended their hunting ranges beyond the next 80 or so light years" he finished.

Alona looked at Kim, "Do you remember if Admiral Janeway gave them any information of the Dominion for their holographic systems?"

"She gave them an Optronic Data Core, so, I believe that there was information on the every Alpha Quadrant species and then some. We had received several data transfers from the Hirogen communication network before the buoy was destroyed. In those data transfers we received information about the Dominion War, Jem'Hadar, Changlings etcetera, etcetera. Its quite possible that they found information about a great warrior race called the Jem'Hadar, as well as Changlings. I can imagine their delight at hunting a species that can turn into anything it wants" Kim said, everyone around the table nodded.

"I think we need to investigate this further. I would like to at least find out how they acquired this technology or if they took it with them when they left their Hegemony. If all Hirogen have this technology then there is nothing we can do about it, however, if only the True Hirogen have it then perhaps we can figure out a way to level the playing field with them. We acquire this technology ourselves somehow, then finding out a way to defend against it, from there, we can inform all other species which should help with defending against raids and such. Ideas?" Alona asked.

"Perhaps it would be best to speak to the Hegemony first before we begin to track down a True Hirogen vessel to steal the technology" T'saal said.

"I think thats our initial step, but we need to keep our sensors active for a True Hirogen vessel in case we need to track one down" Kim said.

"It would be prudent that we be ready for battle at any moment, their vessels may have cloaking devices as well" Kolaas said.

Everyone around the table agreed.

"We'll be within communication range of the Hirogen Hegemony in a few days, their areas of controlled space are quite some distance away" T'saal said.

"What was that fleet we saw if their space is so far away?" Bari asked.

"According to the True Hunter computer, the Hegemony is trying to expand, in many ways militarily. That battle we ended up in was one such "front". The Hegemony is combating both civilly and nearby neighbors for space that was originally no ones until the Hirogen claimed it as their territory. A few other species said no, it was their ancestral territory and fighting soon began. Sound familiar?" Radis said.

Kolaas snorted. Everyone else said nothing.

"Anything else?" Alona asked, looking around the table.

"I have a question ma'am, its off topic though" Drake said.

"Ask away Morgana, you know me" Alona said.

"Well" she looked around the table, "It's about you ma'am. How were you able to lift a 160 kilo being and kill it with a single blow? How were you able to dent Hirogen body armor with your bare hands? When I scanned one of the bodies, it turned out that their armor is made out of a composite monotonium material, also bones are three times as strong as a humans, therefore, making them three times harder to break. My final question ma'am, is how are you still alive, your skull should have been crushed by the Hirogen when he hit you from behind. So I am curious, are you human?" Drake said.

"Lieutenant!" Kim said.

"No, its ok" Alona said raising her hand as a calming gesture.

'Great, well, I guess its time to tell them about me. Thankfully, the doc hasn't said anything about me yet' Alona thought.

Following the same thought process, Drake looked at Dr. Novana, "Doctor, is the Captain a human?"

"Now just a damn minute, you know thats privileged information and you should know better than to ask me. I am not required nor obligated to tell you shit, if you want to know that information, the captain is the one to tell you. Don't go trying to get into my medical files either, because if you do, I'll shut you down myself - with a phaser" Novana said, glaring daggers at Drake.

"Easy, we don't need to be shooting our operations officer" T'saal said.

"Perhaps she's got some Vulcan somewhere in her family, Ensign Seron killed a Hirogen bare handed down in engineering when they attacked and hes a Vulcan" Bari said.

"Why are we even discussing this? We got her back safe and sound, so we can continue heading for home and forget about all this" Radis said.

"The captain was a security and tactical officer for years, shes learned to fight well, perhaps you are mistaken about her physical capabilities" Viir-Keim said.

Chaos ensued, people were beginning to talk over one another. Alona sighed. She figured this moment would come sooner or later, she just hoped it would have come in a somewhat more private setting and also much later than now. She knew that Novana must know something is wierd by her medical file, being as blacked out as it is. Still, she should tell them the truth, after all, their going to be living, eating, and working together for the next 18 to 20 years. Wait a minute, has Viir-Keim looked at her service record? How the hell did he know she had been a security chief and tactical officer for years before she went into command? She stood, quieting everyone.

"Please, give me a moment to explain. But first, Computer, seal and soundproof the observation lounge, level nine-alpha classified briefing in progress. Authorization Benson-Delta-Foxtrot-Pi-Two-Zero-Four"

"Authorization confirmed, no listening devices detected, soundproofing compartment. Occupants may feel slight pressure in their ears...soundproofing complete. The compartment is now sealed" the computer said.

Alona turned and stepped up to the bay windows again, gazing out into the void. She took a sip from her cappuccino, "What I am about to tell you is classified at class three-level-nine, whatever is said in this room does not leave this space. If it does, I will have to enact clause six of your commission. That means I have the authorization to terminate your commission and throw you into the brig for the duration of our voyage home. When we get home, you report to the maximum security penal facility located at Gardner Island on Earth for indictiment, procecution, and judgement with probable life imprisonment. Any questions before I proceed?" she said looking back and around the table, everyone else quickly glanced around the table as well.

"Alright. I am a human, through and through, but, I am different as you can tell. So, uh...I'm an Augment, I don't know if you heard of them before but we're ancient technology for the lack of a better term. From what I was told, I was created in the latter part of the Eugenics Wars, a prototype I think. We were specially designed to kill other Augments, to be superior in some ways too but in many ways equal, a super-Augment if you will. I am not the only augment out there, I have two other siblings, a brother and a sister. " she paused and took a deep breath, "I found my mothers reports from long ago on how they found us. They were classified and sealed but, heres how it went: In the year 2293, an Excelsior-class starship, the U.S.S. Anchorage was patrolling along the Romulan Border of the Neutral Zone when her sensors detected a weak power source near its position. The captain, a Vulcan named Serona, ordered the ship to investigate thinking the Romulans might crossing the border cloaked, but what she found was much different.

"When the Anchorage arrived at the coordinates they found a pod, 21 meters long, 18 wide, basically a long tube. The crew believed that the pod was part of a ship, but later they found out it was a small sleeper ship launched into space. Sensors detected 92 lifesigns aboard, life support and enviromental were barely active so an away team was assembled, suited up in environmental suits, then beamed over. They found 300 fetus-state cryogenic stasis pods. Of those 300, only 92 were still alive. The other 208 and all four of the adult sleepers cryogenic systems had failed, resulting in their death" Alona said then took another swig of her cappuccino.

"Life support, power, and the cryo-stasis systems were failing so in order to save the fetuses, Captain Serona brought the pod aboard and hooked it up to the Anchorage's power systems. Then she had medical techs check out the fetuses and an engineering team repair the cryo-stasis systems. The medical staff discovered that the fetuses, we, were Augments. When the report came in, Starfleet's knee jerk reaction was to beam the pod out into space and put a couple photon torpedoes into it but Serona talked to Starfleet Command. She convinced Starfleet that it was immoral to kill 92 humans, especially fetuses that were in cryogenic stasis. We couldn't hurt anybody, we weren't even full grown babies.

"She managed to change their mind, she even got the authorization to have the ships Chief Medical Officer take 15 fetuses and attempt to correct the known genetic malformation. You will remember the classes on the Federations Augment Reclamation Project of the 2280s? Its where they took all the Augments they had in stasis and genetically "adjusted" them into normal, albeit, long-lived humans. Claiming that the project was a relative success, they attempted to make the same genetic adjustments that they had done on the other augments back on earth, but it didnt work. They ended up killing all 15 fetuses, it turned out that there was an extra dormant gene inserted into the genetic coding of these fetuses that became active when certain genetic adjustments were made, such as reverting their strength back to normal or their speed back to normal, that would flood the body to toxic levels with adrenaline and epinephrine.

"Death by high blood pressure?" Novana asked aloud.

"Yeah, basically it cranks the blood pressure so high up there they would suffer multiple aneurysms" Alona said, then continued, "When this discovery was made, Anchorage reported back to Starfleet Command, in which command recalled her back to Earth. From there, they spent years and unfortunately several fetuses attempting to make us more like a normal human and to combat that dormant "killer" gene. Eventually, of the 92 survivors only 68 remained. The Federation didn't want to kill any more fetuses so they asked Starfleet to place the remaining fetuses in permanent stasis storage, never to see the light of day, however, again, Serona stepped in and requested one more attempt at adjusting the fetuses, stating that she had a plan. Grudgingly, Starfleet agreed and authorized eight fetuses for adjustment, the rest were placed in storage. Serona's plan was, since full adjustment was killing the fetuses, she opted for the malformation to be corrected and then the children would be surrogated, born, but raised on Vulcan.

"With the children being raised on Vulcan, they were going to receive the Vulcan emotion suppression training specifically targeting aggression and anger control. If aggression and anger were culled and with ambition controlled through achievements, while fostering other normal human emotions, the children should be successful, productive members of society. So, eight Augment children were born, five girls, three boys, we were then sent to Vulcan parents who did not have children or were unable to produce children. By this time, it was the year 2317, Captain Serona had retired to raise me, Serona and her husband, Tero, had not been able to produce children so I am their daughter. I love them as much as any child loves their parents, to me they're my Mom and Dad, they are the only parents I have ever known. As they were raising me, they found out that we must have been some sort of super-augments. We were stronger, smarter, more agile, faster than average augments. In fact, proof of that was me in my infancy. I was walking by four months old, speaking complete sentences by six months old, fully expressing myself by eight months old, by a year old I was reading elementary works" Several of her officers shook their heads in amazement. Complete sentences by six months old? "Mother had given me my Vulcan first name, father was one of the aides to the ambassador to Earth so he gave me a human middle name, then I decided to take up my surname.

"The Vulcans studied us as well as taught us and raised us. You see, the average augment is designed to be remarkably agile, five times as strong and twice as intelligent as a normal human, we're resistant to sickness, have enhanced senses, possess heart muscles twice as strong and our lung efficiency 50% better than a normal human. Our blood contains platelets capable of regenerating from practically any disease or toxin. It can also be used to cure or revive medical subjects by a blood transfusion. Normal augments also had twice the average lifespan of a normal human. Even our resistance to direct energy weapons is improved, it can take multiple shots with a phaser to stun us. We're even capable of resisting the Vulcan nerve pinch and mind melding. All that's just a normal augment.

"Whoever created us was a genetic genius. Why? Because it must've taken years to perfect us. My muscles are, for the lack of a better term, advanced. They make me twice as strong as normal augment, my bones are five times stronger than a normal human to help cope with these muscles, I have a greater amount of blood in my body - an extra two pints from what I have been told, I have double the lifespan of an average augment. Me and my siblings natural regenerative healing processes is even better than your average augment, I can heal from cuts and stabs in moments, broken bones take a day or so. If I suffer from an amputation, I can "naturally" reattach the limb and be fully healed in a few weeks. To be honest, I don't think I could be assimilated by the Borg, I heal too quickly. I have found I can resist low kill settings on phasers and I expect to live to about 500 years old or more, not to mention I am twice as smart as a normal human, twice as agile and twice as fast as normal human as well" She took another swig of her cappuccino.

"There are draw backs though, its not as good as you think. For example, my metabolism is through the stratosphere. I don't like sharing how much I eat around people, but" she sighed. "I am kind of a glutton, I have to consume around double the normal daily caloric intake of a human in order to maintain myself. Alcohol and synthol don't go well with me. And..." she looked around the table and took a deep breath while looking down at her feet. "I can't have any children of my own, unless I adopt. I can understand why too, but...I'm sterile. So is my brother and sister. Remember I said there were eight of us? Theres only three of us left now. The first of us died serving on the Enterprise-C when the Romulans tore her apart. Three of us died at Wolf-359, in fact, one of us was serving on the Endeavour-B when he died. The last had perished in the Dominion War, so theres just Justin, Marie, and me. I'm the last one thats a Starfleet Officer. The others are in M.A.C.O. and Starfleet Medical.

"So theres my true history and some private, personal things I haven't shared with anyone in years. Remember, this information is classified, none of what I said is found on file or in reports, logs, or in personal logs. If you are going to talk amongst yourselves about it, make sure you're in a sealed, secured space. I am sure there are questions?" Alona asked, swigged some more cappuccino then winced. It got cold.

"Uh, ma'am, how are you able to serve in Starfleet, let alone command a starship?" Kim asked.

"Starfleet allowed five of us to attend the Academy and serve on a trial basis. We weren't allowed to have our own command nor be able to become first officer of a starship, so, when we achieved sufficient rank for a command we were going to be assigned to an Admirals staff. We were allowed to serve on starships serving in very minor posts in non-critical areas aboard starships. Agents from Section 31 tailed us while we served on them for years, I guess they were making sure we weren't going to try anything. I think over the years, as we served exemplarily and died defending the Federation and fighting for Starfleet, Starfleet forgot about us and their promises for more pressing matters. When I became first officer aboard a Nova-class starship I had my suspicions, but when I took up being XO on the Brunswick, shes an old Galaxy-class, thats when I figured that Starfleet had stopped caring or had forgotten about us" Alona said.

Silence filled the room, everyone was processing the information.

"Ma'am, you said you were born in 2317?" Drake asked.

"Yes"

Drake glanced around the table, looked back at her and smirked, "Whatever you're doing, keep it up, cause you look good for being 74"