I'm finally uploading another episode. Sorry about the delay, but I've been very busy with the school and studying and stuff and I haven't had any chance to write in the last few weeks. But anyways, here it is, though I have no idea when the next one is going to be published. Enjoy!
EPISODE 6: HIDE AND SEEK
Captain's log, stardate 91670.6. To access the following information, level 6 clearance is required. Starfleet Intelligence cracked the messages sent by the Undine agent. They contained several references to the Paulson nebula near the Lackey system. Our orders are to survey the Nebula and find out why the Undine have an interest in it.
Captain Dalis was sitting in the ship's lounge and reading maintenance reports. Again. They had left the Earth Spacedock a few hours ago and were on their way to the Lackey system. She looked up from her reading and saw Elisa standing in front of her.
"How long have you been standing there?" she asked.
"Just a few seconds. What are you reading?" Elisa answered and sat down beside the Captain.
"Maintenance reports."
"Again?" Elisa seemed surprised. Lyzara took a sip of her coffee and said:
"Yes. And if you don't mind, I'd continue reading them."
"No, sir. I don't mind," Elisa said very formally, although a bit bitterly, and left the Captain reading. When she went out of the lounge, into the hallway, she bumped into M'Rew who was walking, reading and drinking coffee, at the same time.
"Hey, watch it," M'Rew snapped without even noticing who he was talking to and did his best to balance the cup of coffee on three fingers.
"Oh, sorry, Commander, I didn't realize it was you," he quickly said as he realized he had been rude.
"Easy, Lieutenant," Elisa told and smiled. "Actually I was just looking for you."
"Me?" M'Rew marveled and set the cup onto his PADD. "I mean, why, sir."
"Come take a walk with me and I'll tell you," Elisa invited and without waiting for a response, started walking down the corridor. M'Rew made sure his cup of coffee remained perfectly balanced on the PADD and followed Elisa.
"So, what did you want to talk about?" he asked her as soon as they were walking side by side.
"You like the Captain, don't you?" she asked.
"Yes, of course I like…," Mrew said as he was sipping his coffee and suddenly spat it back into the cup as he realized what Elisa was referring to, "No. I would never…"
"Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against it. I've just seen how you look at her and I wanted to remind you that she is your superior officer," Elisa said, staying completely calm. M'Rew stopped and looked at her. Elisa turned around; looking at him curiously in the eye. M'Rew remained silent for a moment and then just said:
"What?" Now it was Elisa that looked puzzled and apprised:
"What I just said, was…"
"Yeah, I heard what you said," M'Rew answered before she could continue, "and your accusations are completely…," he smirked and exhaled rapidly, "… absurd. Why would you ever think I was romantically interested in Lyzara? We've been friends since the Academy, yes, but I'm not having any romantic fantasies about her." Elisa just stood and looked at him. How could she be so stupid? Had she really misunderstood his intentions? Well… that was awkward. She and M'Rew were really good friends and now she had made the things quite embarrassing.
"I… I must have gotten it all wrong," Elisa said and blushed.
"Yes, you have. Now, if you'd excuse me, I'd like to go back to work. There are some phaser relays that need calibrating," M'Rew uttered and walked away, his tail wagging behind him.
Elisa cursed herself for being such an idiot. After standing in the hallway for a while, she decided to go to the sickbay and speak to the doctor. Dgirexox was exactly the kind of person she needed right now. So she took the turbolift to deck 4.
"Good morning, Commander, is there something I can do for you?" Dgirexox asked as soon as Elisa entered the sickbay.
"No, thank you, I'm quite alright," Elisa answered and wondered that maybe she shouldn't have come.
"Then what brings you here? By my experience people come into the sickbay when they are not feeling well," Dqirexox enquired, "And it seems to me that you aren't."
"No, really I'm alright. I should go," Elisa said.
"You came all this way here to leave? I can see there's something really bothering you. Let's sit down and talk, shall we?" Elisa nodded in agreement and sat beside the Doctor onto one of the beds. For some reason there were no other people in the sickbay, except them. When they had sat there for a moment, Elisa started talking:
"I… accused M'Rew in fraternizing with the Captain."
"But he's not interested in her," Dgirexox seemed to state a fact.
"No, that's what he told me… Wait. How would you know?" Elisa looked surprisingly at Dgirexox.
"As the ship's doctor I hear things," Dgirexox answered.
"You mean you know everything that's going on aboard the ship?"
"No one knows everything, but rumors travel fast aboard a small vessel like this one," the Doctor said and smiled, "But you're not here to listen to me talking. You came here to talk yourself."
"Yeah, well… I screwed up. It's very awkward now and I don't know what to do," Elisa told.
"There are only two things you can do. One is to apologize and the other is to act as if nothing happened," the Doctor said, jumped off the bed and looked at Elisa.
"So you think I should apologize," Elisa concluded.
"Does it matter what I think? I can't and I shouldn't be telling you how to live."
"Thanks, Doc," the Commander also jumped off the bed and left the Sickbay. Dgirexox shook her head and returned to her duties, wondering where all the nurses were.
Elisa went to the bridge. As she entered, everyone else was already there, except M'Rew. His station was manned by a junior officer.
"About the time you arrived, Commander Flores," Lyzara told her when she saw her enter, "We'll be arriving in a moment."
"Sorry, I was doing… something, sir," Elisa answered and sat down into her chair.
"Well, could you do that something off-duty?"
"Yes, sir," the Commander uttered and then asked: "Where's M'Rew?"
"He's down in the engineering, calibrating phaser arrays, why?"
"Oh, just asking, sir."
"Dropping us out of warp," the helmsman said. They had arrived at the Lackey system.
"Sir, we are receiving a distress signal from the U.S.S. Valor. They are under attack by Gorn and their shields are failing. Captain, they can't take much more," T'Vrell announced a moment later.
"Take us in, Potter," Lyzara ordered, "Fire all weapons." The Altair closed in on the Gorn Vishap Frigates. There were three of them attacking the Valor. As the Altair entered the battle, the Gorn ships turned their attention from the badly damaged Valor to her. They circled around the Starfleet ship, trying to find a way to outflank it, while the Altair was constantly firing at them. The Gorn ships were faster and more maneuverable, but their already weakened shields were completely disabled as the Altair fired a volley of photon torpedoes at them. As a last resort, the frigates joined their forces and attacked the Altair from her starboard side, trying to break through her shields. Their combined fire was quickly bringing down the shield, but the Altair unleashed a full spread of torpedoes that the unshielded frigates had no protection from. They passed the Gorn vessels as they blew up one after another.
"We're being hailed by the Valor, putting it onscreen," T'Vrell said when the battle was over.
"Thank you for the assist, Captain Dalis. Our ship was on a mission to map the Paulson Nebula. Unfortunately, we failed to adequately compensate for the power drain the nebula had on our engines. We retreated from the nebula to make repairs. That's when we stumbled upon an illegal Gorn mining operation. If you hadn't showed up when you did, Captain, we'd be sucking Vacuum. Our chief engineer says there's no we can make it back to a starbase. In fact, without new dilithium crystals, we're stuck," Captain Stefan Marz of the U.S.S. Valor said through the comm.
"Thel, do we have any spare dilithium crystals," Lyzara asked her chief engineer.
"No, unfortunately we don't," he answered. The Captain of the Valor continued:
"There are crystals on some of the larger asteroids here. That's why we headed for this location in the first place. If you could gather some crystals for us, we can make it to safety."
"Very well. Potter, set course for the nearest dilithium deposit," Lyzara said and ceased the comm link. They went deeper into the asteroid field and beamed up dilithium crystals from one of the Gorn mines. The Gorn patrol they had destroyed had to be only one in the area, because the ship's sensors couldn't detect any more hostile vessels. Either that or the nebula was affecting the sensors. When they had enough for the Valor, they returned to her location.
"We're in your dept, Altair. This is enough dilithium to get our warp engines restarted. After we finish preliminary repairs, we'll set course for Starbase 157," Captain Marz said when they had hailed the Valor.
"If you want to go into the Paulson nebula, your engines will need a boost. I recommend you visit Lackey III. The Gorn drove out the Federation miners there and took over a decalithium processing facility. It's only fair that you take some of our crystals back," the Captain finished and terminated the communication.
"Chatty fellow," Njahla marked. Lyzara smiled and said:
"Potter, set course for Lackey III, warp 3."
"Aye, sir," the pilot answered and the Altair entered warp.
"Captain, the decalithium processing facility is dead ahead. The Gorn have numerous structures in the debris field, sir. We're also picking up several fighters and frigates," Njahla said when they arrived at Lackey III.
"They know they're in Federation territory and they're trying to protect their ill-gotten gains. I advise we approach with caution," Elisa told and the Captain nodded agreeing. As they closed in on the decalithium refinery, they encountered three more Vishap Frigates patrolling the area. As soon as the frigates noticed the Starfleet vessel, they opened fire. This time, the Altair wouldn't let them try to flank her and unleashed a full spread of torpedoes crippling the ships' shields. When the frigates had lost shields, they engaged evasive maneuvers to get out of the Altair's grasp. One of them succeeded, but the other two were destroyed by another volley of torpedoes. Three fights and the Altair still didn't have a scratch. It was a good day. The ship moved into transporter range of the refinery.
"Transporter room, beam up the decalithium," the Captain ordered.
"Captain, we can not get a lock on the decalithium. It appears the Gorn have a sensor jamming device on one of the nearby asteroids. The computer indicates that the technology may be Klingon in origin. I will begin scanning for any suspicious tachyon emissions," T'Vrell reported.
"Sir, there may be people inside the jamming station. We need to destroy it to get the decalithium, but if we beam spatial charges down, it should give anyone inside enough time to escape," Njahla added.
"Helm, bring us around to the jamming station," Lyzara ordered. As they were closing in on the station, the frigate that had previously escaped came from behind one of the asteroids and attacked the Altair from behind. It fired a direct shot to the aft shield generator and almost brought down the shield. It had probably hoped to bring the shield down entirely and then slip in a torpedo, but Altair quickly turned her port shield towards the frigate and fired all its phasers. A Vishap Frigate alone was no match for the Altair and it was destroyed moments later. Then the Starfleet vessel beamed explosives down into the scanning station and everyone could see the fireworks.
"Potter, bring us back to the refinery and transporter room, beam up those crystals," the Captain said and helm steered the ship back towards the decalithium refinery.
"The decalithium crystals will do the trick, Captain. Engine efficiency has increased by 4,7 percent and we should be able to boost the impulse drive enough to deal with the effects of the nebula," Thel reported through the comm.
"I have the coordinates for the area of interest mentioned in the Valor's report, sir," Potter said.
"Good. Engage the warp drive and bring us into the nebula, Potter," the Captain ordered and the Altair entered warp.
"Captain Dalis, scanners show that the amount of metallic density of this region is much higher than it would be expected for a nebula of this class. There is definitely something big here and it might be hidden on another high-density object. We should scan all the high-density objects in the vicinity," T'Vrell informed when they dropped out of warp in the nebula. It was a quite thick nebula with clouds of red and white.
"Helm, set course for the closest… whatever it is," Lyzara ordered and a few officers smirked, but the Captain chose to ignore them. The Altair moved through the clouds, relying almost completely on its sensors as one couldn't see almost anything ahead of them besides the orange-yellow gas clouds of the nebula. The first thing they scanned was a ruined mining station – nothing interesting there so they moved on. After a while of flying deeper into the nebula, they almost crashed into a satellite. It was disabled, but that was about the only interesting thing about it. Moving on they also discovered a metallic asteroid and a derelict hulk that were as intriguing as the previous ones. As they moved forward, they reached an enormous asteroid that was surrounded by a minefield. The moment they came close to it, a Klingon Raptor decloaked and opened fire on them. Firing its forward disruptor cannons, the Raptor was ripping the Altair's front shields apart. The Altair flied around the asteroid to get away from the raptor's direct fire, but it only postponed the inevitable. Meanwhile, several mines had also locked on the Altair and the ship had to push its engines to the limit to avoid them.
"We can't avoid the mines and fight a raptor at the same time," Lyzara said, "Thel, could you do something about either of them?"
"Perhaps if...," Thel stopped when a mine hit the Altair and lowered the integrity of her starboard shield.
"… If we were to emit a pulse to make the mines attack the raptor instead," Thel finished his thought and another mine impacted with the ship's shields.
"We would need to emit it on the right frequency," T'Vrell told, "I can specify the frequency, if we are to let several more mines impact our shields."
"How many more?" Lyzara asked.
"Six," the science officer responded and Lyzara ordered:
"Thel, full power to the shields." The Altair came to full stop and a few seconds later the ship shook under the explosions of first mines.
"One… two… three…," T'Vrell started counting and the explosions were already starting to scratch the hull.
"… Four… five… I almost have it." The Altair's shields were failing and the entire ship shook wildly.
"Six. I have the frequency. Initiating pulse." The mines stopped as the raptor was coming around the asteroid. The Klingon ship suddenly became very irresistible to the mines and they started their approach. Lyzara would have paid to see the Klingon captain's face as the mines that had previously followed the Altair were now crippling his ship. The raptor engaged evasive maneuvers, but the Altair fired at the vessel and disabled its engines so that the mines quickly crushed it.
"Captain Dalis, we have found something. I believe you will be very interested to see the results, sir," T'Vrell said, "There appears to be a structure on the surface and we've detected several Klingon lifesigns within. Determining by the high-frequency transmissions, the structure seems to be a listening station."
"Transporter room, we're beaming down. Thel, Njahla, T'Vrell and Dgirexox, you're with me. Elisa, you have the bridge," Lyzara announced.
When the away team was safely aboard the station, Njahla told:
"Captain, we're going to have to fight our way to the computer core and upload the data there. Several Klingons are already on their way towards our location, I suggest we hurry."
"Agreed," the Captain said and they started walking to their destination. The rooms and halls of the station were quite high and were obviously made for storing cargo. The walls were light grayish colored and several conduits could be seen running through them. They went through the first room and then noticed two Klingons running towards them. The team hid behind some of the containers and ambushed the warriors. They fell with a few phaser wounds in their chest. The away team continued down the Hallway and soon encountered another patrol. The Starfleet officers took cover behind some crates as did the Klingons. Two of the warriors fell quickly when they abandoned cover but the other two were determined to kill the intruders and one of them threw a stun grenade at them. Why would the Klingons use stun grenades, remains unclear, but the momentary flash gave Dgirexox – who was apparently immune to it – enough time to get rid of the warriors. A moment later the others, that were not as immune to the flash as Dgirexox was, recovered and they could continue to the core.
"Captain, the core is in the next room. I'm detecting several Klingons there also," Njahla informed. They took cover behind the door pillars and Njahla held a stun grenade in her hand and smiled just before she threw it in the middle of Klingons. The warriors weren't given enough time to react and they stumbled around from the blast as Dgirexox finished them off.
"We can upload these records to our computer for analysis, but it will take some time," Thel informed, "Meanwhile we'll need to defend the core." He began the download and a moment later several Klingon warriors came in through the door. The team immediately attacked them with phasers and the Klingons returned fire. The fight lasted until Njahla threw in another grenade and the team finished off the warriors. Then, to prevent any more warriors of entering, Thel closed the computer core doors.
"We've downloaded the data, sir. I recommend that we get it to Satrfleet Intelligence as soon as possible," The engineer reported.
"Captain, sensors indicate several Klingon ships inbound. If we leave now, we will be gone before they arrive," T'Vrell announced.
"Altair, beam up the away team and engage warp as soon as we are aboard," the Captain ordered and they were beamed to the ship.
After Lyzara had sent the recovered data to Starfleet Intelligence, she was going to go to the lounge to have a nice hot cup of coffee and read some officers' reports. On her way there, she met Elisa, who looked quite preoccupied with something so she didn't notice the Captain at first.
"Elisa!" Lyzara said as she walked past her.
"Oh!" Elisa jumped and told: "Sorry, Captain, I didn't notice you. Do you have any idea about where I might find M'Rew?"
"He could be in his quarters," Lyzara speculated.
"His quarters. Right." Elisa uttered and started walking towards the turbolift.
"Why do you try to find him anyway?"
"It's just that... I… need to find him. That's all," Elisa fastened her step and left the Captain standing there looking very confused. Elisa took the turbolift to deck three, where the officers' quarters were located and rang the doorbell on M'Rew's door.
"Enter," M'Rew said and Elisa didn't wait to be asked twice. M'Rew was sitting on a lounge chair, reading something from his PADD. His quarters were very tidy and there were beside a sofa also several cupboards and a glass table with a flower pot in the middle. Nothing one would expect a Caitian's quarters to look like – no scratching posts or fur on the carpet.
"Oh, it's you, Commander," he said without turning his head, "Have a seat." Elisa sat on the sofa and M'Rew rose from his chair, put down his PADD and leaned against one of the cupboards, facing Elisa. Elisa looked down for a moment and then reinitiated the eye contact and said:
"I'm sorry about what I said before, if it insulted you. I didn't mean to throw around wild accusations or anything." M'Rew seemed to think for a moment and then answered:
"Yeah, I know. And I'm not mad at you. Besides, it was probably my fault for leading you to conclusions like this in the first place."
"So… no hard feelings? Still friends?" Elisa seemed relieved.
"Still friends. Now, why don't we join the others in the officers' lounge?" M'Rew proposed.
"That's the best idea of the day," the Commander agreed and they left M'Rew's quarters. Before they entered the turbolift, Elisa noticed:
"How did you know to wait me in your quarters? You knew I was coming to apologize!" M'Rew only gave her a mysterious smirk.
As they entered the officers' lounge, they heard others already talking.
"Have you completely recovered?" T'Vrell asked.
"Yes, I'm quite alright. Whatever the Undine did to me was not permanent," Njahla said, "And Thel was so sweet and stayed the entire time with me."
"That's good to hear," Dgirexox stated.
"Oh, I was starting to wonder where you stayed," Thel exclaimed as M'Rew and Elisa entered the room.
"Well, we're here now," Elisa answered.
"We were about to start a new game," Thel continued, "Come join."
"With pleasure," M'Rew said and grabbed a cue.
For those of you wondering if there is going to be any romance, just be patient, things will develop as the story progresses. I would also appreciate your feedback, so let me know, what you think.