IKC Hegh'Ta
Monday 3rd March 2375
Content for now to leave the investigation in the capable hands of his Imperial Intelligence colleague, Krang joined his officers for breakfast in the mess hall, before returning to his office. His plan for the morning had been to continue working on the Orinoco problem, but the conference reports Admiral Portway had promised him had finally arrived, and until he heard from Moragh, he decided his time would be better spent reading them and finding out what he had missed.
Opening the first file, he settled down to read, making careful notes on a padd as he worked. Several new security protocols had been put in place by the Federation Council, but the Klingon did not feel that they were adequate. They seemed inconsistent to him; almost paranoid in some aspects, yet over simplified and distinctly lacking in others. Not for the first time, he wondered if his presence at the conference he had missed would have made any difference. Reading these reports, he rather suspected that it would not. He was just one man and politicians were not renowned for listening to opinions if it didn't suit them.
Looking through the dispatches one final time and making a few more notes. Krang decided to consult his fellow captain about some of his ideas. He was about to open a comm channel to Captain Mackenzie when Ch'vok called through to inform him of another incoming communication from Qo'noS. As he guessed, it turned out to be Moragh.
"I have made contact with my field operatives in that sector," the security captain informed Krang without preamble, "As soon as I hear anything worth reporting, I will contact you again."
Krang acknowledged, saying, "I am in your debt."
"I serve the Empire," Moragh said seriously. "I am always glad to render assistance to a fellow officer. However, should the time come when I need your help, I will expect to receive it with the same willingness that I have aided you." With no further comment, he signed off and was gone.
Krang remained still for a few moments; then, getting up, he placed a call to Endeavour. "We need to talk," Krang told his Federation counterpart. "There are some security issues we need to discuss."
"I'm free now, if you want to join me for a raktajino," Captain Mackenzie invited him, "I'll be in my ready room." He laughed. "I won't bother sending an escort; I'm pretty sure you know your way around by now."
"On my way," Krang responded. "I'll be with you in a few minutes."
Playing field, Frontera City High School
Monday 3rd March 2375
Football, or soccer as the American boys in the class insisted on calling it, was not Antonio's favourite game. Group sports were not really his thing, but he was good at the game, and as he'd told his father, he'd somehow ended up being picked for the boys' team. He was proud of that achievement, but it was a lot of pressure for a game he didn't enjoy, and he had already decided that when match season was over, he was not going to continue with the sport.
Seeing an opportunity, he ran for the ball and tackled the lad from the opposing team, kicking the ball right out from under his foot. The other boy cursed and shoved at him, causing him to slip and fall, an obvious foul if only the teacher refereeing the game had bothered to notice. He knew how to fall, of course; it was an essential part of his martial arts training – which he would much rather be doing right now instead of playing this stupid game, but the school did not think bat'leth training was a suitable activity for a boy of his age.
Landing safely, he rolled onto his back and remained there, taking a moment out to just stare up at the sky. It had been sunny an hour ago, but as the afternoon progressed, it had clouded over, and he realised the temperature had dropped a little. There was nothing unusual about that; the climate here in Frontera City was pleasantly warm in summer, but at this time of year, it could be unpredictable.
His attention on the sky, he ignored his teacher's yells to get up, stop malingering, and get on with the game. Something wasn't quite right about the clouds; it looked like a storm was coming in, but they were not dark enough for that and no storm had been mentioned on the weather forecast that morning. Still, they were moving very oddly, in a way that he had seen only once before… in reality, at least. In his dreams he saw it all too often.
Antonio was a survivor. His teachers had no idea about his past, and if he'd told them, they would not have believed him.
He'd been four years old when it had happened, and his sister only two, on a day trip to the zoo with their grandmother. She was a stern old lady, although looking back, he supposed she hadn't been as old as he'd thought, probably only about fifty or sixty – but dressed in severe black, with greying hair swept back into a bun, and her facial expression as severe as her clothing, she'd always looked very scary to the little boy he had once been. She wasn't really scary, though, always giving them sweets and taking them to interesting places, although she would tolerate no bad behaviour or disobedience, and the child had noted the deference shown her by the big, smartly dressed men who followed her everywhere.
He had been laughing at the antics of the penguins when the pretty green light-beams had come down through the clouds… clouds which were rolling and boiling like a pan of water, and that should not even have existed at this time of year considering Madrid's climate. They had formed out of nowhere – not that he'd cared apart from the embarrassment of his grandmother making him wear a cardigan so he wouldn't catch cold.
The lights were pretty, but were followed by bangs and explosions, and then people around him had started screaming and running around, and one of the men had picked him up and pushing through the panicking crowds, hurried back to the car. They'd put him and his sister on the back seat and shoved a blanket over them. His grandmother too had been in the car. She'd sat proudly next to the driver, refusing to cower, but her expression sterner than Antonio, peeping out from under the stifling folds of the blanket, had ever seen before–- and that, the little boy thought, was the scariest thing of all.
"Martinez! What do you think you're doing? MARTINEZ!"
The angry shouting finally registered, bringing him back to the present, and he looked away from the clouds to face his teacher. "Sir, something's wrong."
"What's wrong is you standing there daydreaming and holding up the game," the teacher snapped. "Get back on the field right now before I decide to give you a detention."
At any other time, the threat might have given him pause. Standing in the corridor outside the principal's office for an hour after school, or worse, being forced to write hundreds of lines, was not Antonio's idea of fun. He looked back up at the clouds. They were moving in a way that was unnatural, rolling and boiling just as they had on that day when he'd been four and alien invaders had attacked his home.
Panic welled. It couldn't happen again… could it? He swallowed, forcing down the fear. "Sir, please… look at the clouds. You need to raise the alarm!"
By now, the entire class had crowded around, initially to see their teammate getting chewed out by the teacher, but the sudden, unexpected change in the dynamics of the student/teacher argument was starting to spook them.
"Don't be ridiculous, there's…" Irritated, the teacher looked up and immediately stopped. The boy was right, that was not normal.
Captain's ready room, USS Endeavour NCC-71805
The two captains had a lot to discuss. Apart from the requirements laid down in the memos resulting from the conference, Krang had some ideas of his own, and communicating them to Mackenzie, he found that they were thinking along very similar lines.
They had already agreed on an 'open ship' policy allowing the crew of both ships to share their facilities. Both sides had been wary and suspicious at first, but little by little, they had started to mingle, the Klingons venturing onboard Endeavour to use the holodecks and spar with the Federation marines, and some of the more adventurous Starfleeters visiting Hegh'Ta's mess hall to try the food and practice their Klingon language skills.
That was of course, the point of the exercise, to get to know each other better. Brought back together by necessity after the breaking of the Khitomer Accords by the Klingon High Council, the alliance between their two governments was new and tenuous.
Mackenzie sighed at the thought. He'd been vocal in his dissent when he had learned the Federation did not intend to support the Klingon attack on Cardassia. Even when hindsight had proved that the attack had been ordered by the Changeling posing as General Martok, in an attempt to destabilise the quadrant, he had never believed in the Cardassians' innocence. It was with bitter amusement and no real surprise that he had been proved right as the Cardassian government had gone over to the enemy in an attempt to stay on what they perceived as the winning side.
He and Krang had talked about it several times, and Mackenzie knew that as one of a very small number of Klingons serving in Starfleet, it had been a difficult time for Krang. Even now, neither side completely trusted the other, yet if they were to fight together as allies, they must learn to trust each other again. The two ships had maybe a week of travelling together to reach their destination. It was a relatively short time and the open ship policy, implemented when they had been expecting to spend an indefinite amount of time together fighting side by side, was no longer strictly necessary. But allowing the crews to mix and get to know each other was one small step forward in rebuilding the trust that had been lost.
This being the case, they needed to keep track of who was on which ship. After some thought, the two captains decided that a simple logging-in procedure was needed. The transporter logs partially fulfilled their requirements, recording time and destination of transport but once the pattern buffer recycled, there was no permanent record of who had used the transporter. This would be remedied by having the crew sign in and out at each end.
The issue of shapeshifter infiltration was a little more difficult to tackle. New guidelines decreed that starship crews be regularly tested. Captain Mackenzie, however, felt that constant tests would leave the crew feeling that they were under suspicion and would be damaging to morale. The war wasn't going well for the Federation and morale was already low enough without making things worse. Krang suggested that sensor sweeps be carried out and all crew members be tested, including the captains. He felt however that once it was determined that there were no shapeshifters on board, then no further testing was necessary unless they came into contact with crew from other ships or space stations. Any newcomers would be tested rigorously, regardless of any previous testing they might have undergone.
Classroom 2B, Frontera City High School
Early afternoon, Monday 24th February 2375
"Fina, come with me! Now!
"This had better not be a prank, Toni!" Shocked by his sudden appearance at the entrance of the classroom where she'd been attempting to solve a series of quadratic equations, she already knew it wasn't. His expression was deadly serious and if anything, she thought he looked frightened.
Leaving his sports teacher and teammates on the playing field to make up their own minds what to do, Antonio had made a run for the classrooms, driven by the need to find and protect his younger sister. He'd gone via the changing rooms, pausing there only long enough to kick off his football boots and shove his feet into his normal shoes which were far better for running on hard surfaces. The corridors were mostly empty, and he'd been able to move fast, although he had almost bumped into another student, probably out on a toilet pass or taking a message to a teacher somewhere.
As he ran, he'd frantically tried to remember what his sister had told him about her timetable for the day, cursing himself because he hadn't paid much attention and now he really needed to know. She'd said something about Federation languages, and he almost turned towards the stairs that would take him to the linguistics block. No… that had been this morning, his mind informed him just in time; it was maths after lunch. He'd burst into class 2A only to find she wasn't there, and leaving the inhabitants of that classroom wondering what was going on, he'd quickly backed out and tried the classroom next door, which thankfully turned out to be the right one.
"It's not a prank! I swear."
Realising he could not leave without at least trying to warn them, Antonio half turned towards the very angry-looking maths teacher. "Sir, look out of the window. Look at the sky. Something is coming, I don't know what but it's bad. You need to get everyone to a shelter."
The emergency alarm started to blare at that point, and Antonio guessed that the sports teacher had decided to believe him and take action. Fina was already on her feet and approaching him, and he grabbed her hand and started to pull her away. Students and teachers were starting to spill out into the corridors, nobody quite knowing what to do or where to go. The noise was horrendous, the shriek of the alarm competing with shouting teachers frantically trying to control frightened, crying children. Pushing his way through the milling crowds, Antonio tightened his grip on his sister, determined that they would not get separated.
Finally outside, he stopped momentarily, trying to get his bearings and decide which way they should go, and what to do for the best.
"There's a gap in the back hedge," Fina told him, guessing at the cause of his hesitation. "It's just big enough to squeeze through."
"I'm not going to ask how you know that," he snarked, although since Fina had only been at this school for six months, he really did want to know. Mum and vavoy would go nuts if they thought she was skipping classes. But they weren't here, and this was a survival situation. "Okay, show me."
They started to move in the direction she pointed, only to come to a halt again as a fire monitor stepped in front of them. "Hey, you! Where do you think you're going? The assembly points are that way."
Antonio shook his head. Not a chance! There was absolutely no point in standing around waiting to be counted… or, if this was what he thought it was, massacred. Nor was there time to argue, to try to convince the monitor of what was happening. Dodging around the man, he started running again, pulling his sister with him.
Toni, what's happening?" She trusted her older brother, she really did, but she was scared and very much in need of, if not reassurance, then at least some answers.
"I'm not sure," Antonio said grimly. "Invasion maybe, or worse…"
"Worse?" His sister did not like the sound of that. "What could be worse than invasion?"
"The Federation is at war," he reminded her. "If I had to guess, I'd say the Dominion have just found us."
"But…" The sound of an explosion somewhere behind them caused Fina to skid to a stop. She started to look round, but he stopped her, tugging insistently on her hand.
"Don't look back! Venga! Vamos! We need to keep moving, get home before…" He left the remainder unsaid but she heard it anyway.
Picking up their pace, they kept running.
Big thank you to RobertBruceScott and JDC0 for their kind comments and support of my work. Just to let you know that this story is completely finished and will run to 50 chapters (51 if you count the prologue) and an epilogue. So it will not be abandoned and as long as there's interest, I will keep posting.