Personal log, stardate 85122.5.
We spent about a month patrolling the Eta Eridani region. Quiet, peaceful. Very lonely, too, because Eta Eridani is mostly uninhabited empty space. We had another month left on our assignment. I ordered the ship to Drozana Station, located in interstellar space. There were still trade routes that took one through Eta Eridani, and Drozana Station was the only real stopover past a certain point in the sector. Due to its isolation, Drozana had gained a reputation for being a very seedy place. But still, it was better than nothing.
When we arrived we found a very strange sight: a Klingon bird-of-prey and a Cardassian cruiser duking it out within visual range of the station. The bird-of-prey was eventually destroyed, but not without dealing heavy damage to the Cardassian vessel. I hailed the cruiser, and was answered by their first officer. Apparently his captain and the Klingon captain had a little too much to drink and got into a drunken argument that somehow escalated into ship-to-ship combat. Their captain had just passed out and the relieved first officer was having him carried to sickbay. (On a Cardassian vessel, anyone attempting to relieve a superior officer under any circumstances would be shot immediately.) I asked if the Cardassian vessel would like our assistance in repairs; the first officer said yes.
When I informed my crew of this change in plans, everyone became extremely frustrated with me. To be this close to some badly needed shore leave and now you have to sit around and do nothing while engineering crews fix an enemy starship! (Despite a change in government, popular memory of Cardassia in Starfleet is still that of an enemy due to their involvement in the Dominion War.)
Zarva beamed aboard the cruiser with an engineering team. Their crew was not happy to see us either, for the exact same reason. Everyone's hackles were up. I retired to the holodeck, wanting to kill some time until the repairs were complete. To be honest, I needed shore leave too. I was not there for very long before the Cardassian captain contacted me, in a state of near-panic. Apparently one of his crew was found dead, and he blamed our crew for murdering him. I said I would beam over immediately.
The Cardassians had confined our crew in one of the engineering bays pending my arrival. When I arrived, both crews started arguing loudly. Shouting them both down, I asked the Cardassian captain to tell me exactly what happened. She said that the dead Cardassian, a member of their engineering team, was last seen alive working in one of their engineering compartments. Our crew was working in the next compartment over. I grilled the crewmen involved; they said that they were busy working and they had heard no disturbance whatsoever from next door. If one of them was lying to me…
However, soon thereafter I was summoned to the cruiser's sickbay. The autopsy of the dead Cardassian had resulted in more questions than answers. Cardassian medical science is not as advanced as ours, and they had no idea what their results meant. After examining the body myself, I hit my badge and called for Morek to beam over. He took a look at the autopsy results, and said that this man was killed by an outburst of triolic energy. Triolic energy is a very exotic form of radiation that the Federation does not have the technology to generate. I told them this. The Cardassian captain had apparently kept current on his government's intelligence reports about Starfleet technology, and he, thankfully, agreed with me. My crew was innocent.
But then the question was, who killed the Cardassian? Back on our ship, Morek and I poured over the records, looking for any prior encounter with to triolic energy. Someone would had to have seen it, or how else would Morek recognize it? We soon hit paydirt. On stardate 45959.1, the USS Enterprise-D encountered triolic waves on Devidia II, in conjunction with an alien species that murdered humans so they could consume their brainwaves. Devidians exist in a phase variance of 0.004, making them invisible to sensors that have not been specifically recalibrated. I ran to the bridge and asked Asher to run a detailed scan on the Cardassian cruiser at a phase variance of 0.004. She was confused for a moment why I would ask this, but once she complied, she found evidence of numerous Devidians on board the cruiser. Unfortunately, Devidians are very difficult to kill due to their phase variance; any attack not at the same phase would pass right through them, and modifying someone's phase to 0.004 through equipment would make them invisible and incapable of communication with anyone at regular phase.
But Morek, who had read the rest of the file, said that then-Commander Geordi la Forge had developed a device that could force Devidians into regular phase. It was in the replicator files, so we were able to fabricate it instantly. Now equipped with the proper technology to fight a Devidian, I beamed over with the security team.
The Cardassian captain was extremely upset when he saw a number of armed Starfleet officers beam onto her bridge. She immediately accused us of trying to seize her ship, and called for her security officers to arrest us. I quickly explained what we were looking for; she didn't believe me. Elise had to engage the emitter field before the security team got here; normally, establishing the field would take a few minutes. It was very tense. Elise got the emitter on line just as the Cardassian security entered the room. Now that we were able to see them, the Devidians attacked immediately. We were expecting to fight with phasers; instead they jumped us person-to-person. The dumbfounded Cardassian captain ordered her security men to separate the two species. I shouted for her to stay back, but that just made her more aggressive. But when her security officers ran into the fracas, one of the Devidians waved his arm and killed one of them with triolic energy. The dead Cardassian, now looking like he was a long-decayed corpse despite being dead only for a few seconds, fell on the deck.
This got her attention. She then ordered the surviving two security men to fire on the Devidians, shoot to kill. After but a moment, the Devidians were all dead.
At this point I was quite exhausted. I was much better with endurance following a crisis, but I will never be capable of hand-to-hand combat. I told the Cardassian captain that the crisis had been resolved, and she said that her ship would depart from Drozana Station immediately. Notwithstanding the Devidians' presence, she would still be held responsible for her drunken ship combat with the Klingons. I felt sorry for her, as I knew that they would not show her any mercy. The Cardassian military never did.
And now, to shore leave.
Computer, end recording.