Star Trek: The New Adventures (IC Thread)

[LuckyVic]

Lt. Commander Torres, Captain's Ready Room

Miguel stood quietly observing everything that was being said. He had no idea who the Chief of Security was talking about, but then again he only had time to review some of the personell files as yet. So really he had no idea who this Lt. Jace was, but it was obvious that the Chief of Security was worried about him. Or was it some type of Borg paranoia due to coming up against the unknown. It was interesting, but he didn't see it as something that needed his attention. However he would be sure to keep his ears open in case something came up later on. For now he was more interested in why the Captain had called them in to his Ready Room. So again he just stood and waited.

 

[AmenRa]

Harper nodded his head to signal his recognition of Nine of Nineteen's unwilling acceptance of the finality of Harper's decision, and as well to end its discussion.

Harper figured it would come up again, but until then, they had other things with which to contend with.

Harper walked to his desk and opened an antiqued brass pocket watch that lay on it. He checked the time. Their departure was only a few moments away now.

"Computer," he said aloud, "have all senior staff and departmental officers report to Conference Room 1."

"Acknowledged" the female voice replied. The ship then informed the Chief of Engineering, the Chief Medical Officer, and the rest of the senior staff and department heads to report to the conference room adjacent to the Captain's Ready Room.

Harper looked to the members of his crew that were already in the Ready Room. "If you'll follow me, please, I'll tell you and the others what we're doing here and where we are going." Harper stepped to the doors that opened into the conference room. The doors swished, and he stepped through, going to the head of the long, polished wooden table where he stopped and stood, waiting for his crew to assemble, waiting to brief them on a mission whose outcome could very well decide the fate of worlds.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Past. Tense. (Flashback)

It was dark aboard The USS Nogura.

Extremely dark.

Lights flickered on Deck 10, flickered and gave way to shadow.

Ordinary starship operations would cause a subtle but unmistakable vibration in the deckplates, but now those plates were still. Except for when the monster caused them to shake with footfalls like scuttling thunder...

Councillor Yeltneb, Federation seat-holder for the The Third Global Republic of Toorandi Prime, clutched his heart as he staggered along these stilled deckplates and away from the sound of that thunder. Thunder not nearly so distant as he would like.

The scuttling thunder was getting closer.

Yeltneb looked very much like an average, middle-age Toorandi, orange-skinned with shock-white hair and an aesthetically pleasing feathery pattern on his fingers and palms and the backs of his hands. Before being elected by the Toorandi Senate to hold his position on The Federation Council, Yeltneb had been quite a health nut. More recently, however, enjoying the fringe benefits of his position, he had developed something of a softer midsection.

He was currently regretting being so out of shape. Regretting it very much indeed.

His heart was pounding and he was very much near absolute unthinking panic as he struggled to reach the lounge that lay at the Forward reaches of the Galaxy-class ship. He had been in there earlier in this leg of his voyage home, he had seen furniture and adornments on the walls, he could use these to barricade the doors--

The scuttling thunder stopped. And then suddenly increased, pattering and booming as it grew rapidly rapidly rapidly closer.

"Oh, gods," Yeltneb mumbled, rounding a bend and bashing his knee against the wall in his panic, nearly falling, falling... "Not like this."

The lights above flashed and flickered and a shadow crawled across the wall beside him, a shape like a pipe-cleaner from Hell.

Yeltneb's eyes slammed shut and he tried not to imagine how it would feel to be eaten alive.

He could smell the monster's fetid breath. He could smell death stuck between its mandibles...

But then he heard a roar. A roar like a savage beast, a roar of a female voice, and despite himself, despite everything, Yeltneb's eyes snapped open again.

The roaring thing leaped over him, leaped past him, landed between him and the beast and it was a Klingon woman, dressed in the Command red of Starfleet's uniform and wearing a glinting silver-and-gold baldric, as well as a pair of half-fingered gloves lined with what looked like hologrid circuitry... she had two Type Two phasers holstered at her belt at the back, she had a curved bladed two-handed weapon strapped to her back, she had a devil-spawned dagger scabbarded at each ankle and in her hands... in her hands she carried a wicked-looking staff with what looked like electrodes at one end...

...the beast was three and a half metres tall, an unholy cross between a humanoid reptile and a primordial arachnid...

It had eight limbs and clacking mandibles and a segmented body... its blue scaly body was covered with horns and its innumerable eyes were full of feral craving rage...

It was after Yeltneb but the Klingon woman stood between the beast and its prey and she hesitated not as she jabbed the staff's business end into a spot under the beast's chin...

She roared, her dark eyes ablaze even here in the penumbra of The Nogura's saucer section, and when that staff struck home the crackling light of agonising energies illuminated her all the better. Spittle flew from her teeth as she roared and as the beast howled and flailed she kept on and on and on...

Its spasms cracked the computer touch-panels that lined the walls, shattered them like glass, shook the walls themselves, but still the woman pressed the weapon home.

"Die already," she snarled, "you miserable fucking petaQ, please just die."

But then one of its fists shot upward and crashed down like a hammer and snapped the Klingon painstik in twain, and a follow-up backhand bashed her head over heels, knocked her off her feet, knocked her metres through the air...

Yeltneb, awestruck and silent during the woman's roaring display of nigh-crazed courage, whimpered in disappointment as, shaking its head to clear it, the beast surged back onto its segmented feet and howled at him anew...

Its two uppermost limbs grabbed Yeltneb by the front of his tunic and lifted the councillor face-to-face with itself... he whimpered and wet himself and the beast seemed to chortle...

...it sniffed at him. And with a voice like gravel and broken glass, it whispered to him... "Remember. Remember you."

"Oh." Yeltneb wheezed. "Gods."

And then that voice split the air again, bellowing what sounded like an ancient battlecry: "Hab SoSlI' Quch!"

...and those devil-daggers plunged past Yeltneb's feather-fringed ears and schlucked hilt-deep into the beast's face.

The beast screamed, and its hands released, and the Klingon woman grabbed Yeltneb 'round the waist and dragged him furiously bodily away. "HIghoS!"

Ten-Forward was only a few sections away and they ran for this as behind them the beast kept right on screaming...

The Klingon woman dug her fingernails between the doors of Ten-Forward and hauled them open with a cry of brute strength, shoving Councillor Yeltneb ahead of her with a black boot. Following him inside, she hauled the door closed again behind them and then, wiping at her bloody mouth-- a veritable river of thick pink fluid rolled down her lower lip and over her chin --with one sleeve, she drew one of her phasers with the other. Thumbing the controls quickly, scowling, she pointed that phaser at the door and fired, tracing the centre join of the twin doors and then proceeding to trace the entirety of the doorframe... welding it shut.

"Might slow it down," she muttered, as the welding cooled, though it sounded a vain hope. (Like the vain hope that stabbing it in the face with two d'k tahg blades would slow it down.) "Just a little."

Yeltneb sank into one of the lounge's chairs, still clutching his heart. "Not to seem ungrateful. But why didn't you use those things on that... that monstrosity in the first place?"

The woman looked at him like she might look at a worm she'd crushed beneath her heel. "That 'monstrosity' is highly nadion-resistant. Later generations of its evolution are simply immune to the stun setting... that thing, on the other hand, you could empty whole sarium krellide power cells into its hide and it wouldn't even slow down."

Yeltneb's face knotted in perfectly reasonable bewilderment. "'Later generations of its evolution?'"

The woman grunted, and wiped more pink blood from her mouth onto her uniform sleeve. She had the pips of a Commander. But her eyes were cesspool dark and singularity deep and she looked more like a Commodore.

"This is what happens," she explained, with distaste and a kind of grudging respect, "when some fool idiot induces Barclay's Protomorphism Syndrome in a Jem'Hadar warrior. (I was really hoping that painstik would make its head explode... but I guess cephalic pressures work a little differently when the subject has a cephalothorax.)"

She grimaced at the councillor. "Smart bastard, too. Managed to awaken old Bynar refit programming to temporarily take the computer core and a big big bunch of primary systems off-line... bulkheads slammed closed, even the turbolifts are down, site-to-site transport... I had to climb up a turbolift shaft so I could go hunting."

She flexed her fingers, indicating her interesting gloves, but offered no immediate explanation for them. "Back-up's coming. They're coming up through the Jeffries tubes. But I thought I might expedite matters, given that your venerable hindquarters didn't come along with the rest of the saucer section's evac..."

Yeltneb managed to get a modicum of breath back, and with it came his traditional bureaucratic pseudo-righteous indignation, just in time to call attention away from the fact that he had stayed when everyone else had managed to get away: "And what. Was that thing. Doing on this ship in the first instance?"

"The same Section 31 jackass--" she snarled, but was interrupted when she realised--

The screaming had stopped.

"Okay, shut up," she growled. "bIjatlh 'e' yImev."

The councillor nodded.

The Klingon woman holstered her phaser.

The scuttling thunder started anew, scuttling thundering closer closer closer--

The Klingon woman unslung her betleH.

"Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam," she decided.

The welded door didn't slow the beast down at all, it ploughed right through it, screaming and snarling... it had pulled the daggers out of its face and had already almost entirely healed...

It seemed bigger. Much, much bigger. Five metres tall now, not just three and a half, and it had to cram its way through the door.

Its first sweeping blow knocked tables and chairs aside and the Klingon woman bounded and rolled to dodge the flying furniture even as Yeltneb recoiled and scrambled away, tripping and yelping as he managed to get to the great wide bank of windows that looked out upon the fore of the ship.

...the beast reached for her and her blade sang, flashing this way and that as her body flowed like water infused with lightning...

One of its forelimbs flew away, and then one of its hands, and then four of its fingers, and still she kept flowing and hacking and slicing...

...she ripped its belly open, its throat, its thigh...

An intact fist cracked her in the face and she crashed backwards, upturning still more chairs, her weapon spinning through the air and lodging, quivering, in the front surface of the bar.

She struggled to rise. Couldn't.

World was spinning.

She had redundant inner ears for balance but still the world was spinning and she couldn't get her hands and feet under her couldn't stand couldn't fight she could hear old Korvawn howling at her to die with honour but she couldn't stand she couldn't fight...

Yeltneb was howling, too, and she could barely make him out over the imagined torments of her old mentor: "You can't. You can't. Don't let him. He's here for me he's here for me my people betrayed The Breen and this is revenge don't let him eat me--"

Up.

Upupupupup.

She surged to her feet. She whirled to face Yeltneb and the spider-thing was looming over him and Yeltneb had his back to the great wide windows...

No pain.

No fear.

No mind.

D'Har.

She bounded onto a tabletop and ran across it and lunged and dove and slithered through a gap in the spider-thing's flailing limbs, a gap cut by her own sword of honour, she rolled when she hit the ground, she came up on her feet and in the same fluid motion drew both phasers, drew both, double-fisting, leveled the weapons at the spider-thing's still-raw face and fired, fired both phasers setting 16 narrow beam...

The spider-thing recoiled, recoiled, sputtering, just a little bit blinded even as Commander Kahlest Raan switched both phasers from narrow beam to wide and turned their energies instead on the windows...

Ten-Forward's panoramic view-ports crackled orange saffron vermillion white-hot-heat and shattered...

Explosive decompression.

Wind and wild objects whirled out into space and even as Yeltneb screamed one last time Kahlest exhaled all the air out of all three of her lungs and, hurling down the phasers, belted the man in the tubby gut with a fist that blew all the air out of his lungs.

They hurtled out into space.

Kahlest grabbed Yeltneb by the collar of his tunic and struck a key on one of the gloves...

It hummed to life.

Lit up.

And as her oxygen-saturated blood kept her barely conscious in the vast vast void of the night, Kahlest watched the Jem'Hadar spider-thing hurtle off into oblivion.

And she thought.

As hard as she could.

At the top of her paracortex, all hailing frequencies open.

'DIVERS OVER THE SIDE!'

...she watched beads of her blood float past her as the two humanoids tumbled end-over-end, her arm around Yeltneb's waist as they hurtled...

...seconds ticked by...

...and then... and then... at the very limit of her conscious endurance, there came a crackle in her fingertips, a thrum of power and proximity, those gloves came to life...

A Type-15 shuttlepod swooped up to meet them and she latched onto the side of it with a grip empowered by quantum chromodynamics...

Muscles aching, she couldn't tell which way was up, she clung to the side of the shuttlecraft and crawled for the rear hatchway with the councillor bobbing against her like some kind of massive balloon. She crawled for miles and miles, too many seconds ticking by.

She lurched through the forcefield that served as atmospheric membrane and dumped Yeltneb onto the deck beside her and she staggered and wheezed and gasped for breath and the politician slapped his palm against the deck and similarly struggled to put air back into his lungs, rudely awakened by the prospect of oxygen.

Kahlest propped herself up on an elbow, and glanced up to see who the pilot of the shuttlepod was.

She grimaced when she saw the face of Barry Cooper. Captain of The Nogura.

He did not look happy.

"Per--" Kahlest harrumphed, couldn't manage it, tried again...

"Permission to come aboard?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

Horseshoes, hand grenades, and Parrises squares.

The Arizona.

[ Kahlest Raan - Commander, XO - Ready Room ]

Apparently this was the place to be for poker faces and locked-down feelings.

It was interesting to see Human males in their natural habitat. So quickly the pack instincts came... waiting to see which Alpha would crack first and settle back to being Beta. And it appeared even Human males who had been Borg were not immune to this.

Deities save them.

Still, this was a shakedown cruise in more ways than one. Just as Kahlest had already observed, they were finding their footing with each other, searching for chinks in each other's armour... Partly, firstly, they were looking for advantages if conflicts were to ever come to a head. Secondly, they were looking for ways to bolster each other in the face of such a conflict, to rise above their internal strife and synchronise as a command structure.

At least, Kahlest hoped that was what was going on.

Captain Harper gave the order to gather in the conference room, but Kahlest lingered back for a moment. She decided to take a risk, to err on the side of throwing caution to the wind...

She hung back, and she regarded Nine of Nineteen. She resisted the urge to touch him on the shoulder, as she'd hardly earned such a display of familiarity...

But she thought at him, sent to him, and wondered if he might hear her: 'If it helps, Lieutenant Commander, I wondered the same thing about Jace. I was just looking him up... but if there's one thing I know you know, it's tactics. And with tactics, well? Just because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, geometry and trans-warp conduits, that doesn't mean it's necessarily the best route to travel. Sometimes to get to the higher ground, to get to advantageous terrain, you have to take the long way around.'

She smiled faintly at him, ever so faintly, and turned to follow her captain. 'Circumnavigation may not be super-efficient, but if it achieves victory...'

 

[Screech]

Marjia had just started to rememorise the power transfer systems routes, strengths, and modification potential, when the call came in, voiced by the same, methoidal tone of the computer. "All senior staff and departmental officers report to Conference Room 1" She sighed to herself. It seemed that the ship wasn't going to let her get on with her own thing, and was determined to push and pull her wherever it wanted.

She straigtened out her uniform, and ran her thumb across her pips for luck. "Lieu******t Emerson, I leave Engineering in your capable hands." She nodded in his direction, before walking out of engineering, and straight to the nearest turbolift. The doors swung open, and she stepped inside "Deck 1, conference room" The doors close, and the lift wizzed off. At least one thing was going her way today, and that was she'd had every turbolofit to herself so far. A good chance to collect her thaughts and run over events of the day so far.

The lift came to a halt, and Lieutenant Orsoth stepped out onto the main bridge, not stopping to engage any of the staff in idle chat, but head right to the opposite door, leading into the large conference room. Truth be told, she'd not visitied it yet, but perfect recall told her this was exactly where it was. Passing through the door, she saw Captain Harper at the head of the table, and gave him a curt nod, before taking a seat furthur down

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Lt. Connor Jace

I'm sure I made a interesting sight, walking down the corridors in my yellow and Grey uniform, nose buried in my PADD and stopping every now and then to stare at a blank wall, punch in something on the device in my hands, then move on.
By the time I had made it to the first installed weapons locker I had already noted where three more could go, where one needed moved, and had passed by one security team.

Seems my new C.O. ran a pretty tight crew. These guys were wired tight. Then again, it could be my stellar reputation with Security personnel. Only Starfleet career that thought worse of me was marines.

"All senior staff and departmental officers report to Conference Room 1"​

I paused an second, then continued on my way. I was at my next weapons locker near sickbay when my comlink beeped.

I slapped the link. "Lt. Jace."

"Report to Conference Room One."

"Acknowledged."

Seems someone wanted me listening in on whatever was going on. I made my way to the nearest turbolift, passing by a stunning redheaded Medical officer. I had little more than a moment to smile when the door closed behind me.

"Bridge."

The ride was quick, and about two minutes later I was on the bridge and crossing it to the door to the meeting. I paused a second, steadying myself.

My old sensai had taught me a way to calm my emotions, clear my head. I had done it so much it was almost as natural as breathing to me. It made me a deadly swordsman in matches (and in battle once) and helped me focus.

I took all my emotions, my nervousness, my worry, my anger at not BEING what I was, and focused them into a flame sitting on a field of black in my mind. I placed them into the flame, until it was all that was left, a light in the dark.

I opened my eyes. It had taken only a few seconds, but I was ready now. Calm. detached.

I opened the door and stepped in.

 

[MilkManDan007]

Nine of Nineteen

The captain nodded and turned away from him, checking an old watch before instructing them to join him in the adjoining Conference Room. Nine of Nineteen waited for the captain to enter before taking his first step.

A cold shiver ran up his spine before he got the chance. The voice came softly inside his head. His eyes closed and he focused on it, driving out all other physical and mental sensations to focus on it. It had been so long since he had heard a voice without hearing it, but there it was. It was quiet at first, but grew as he concentrated on it.

He physically shuddered as the memories came out, the vivid feeling of security from his time in the Collective. He had been adrift, hearing the voices of the others but never receiving the command to do anything. He could feel the cold, mechanical nature of the Collective; efficiency defined. There was no hatred, no camaraderie, no jealousy, no lust. There was only efficiency and survival. A part of him wanted that back, wanted back the security of the millions of voices that had been taken from him. A part of him yearned to have that back, the comfort in knowing that he would never be alone, never feel that which could cloud his judgment.

But then there was the other part of him, the part of him that woke up screaming and drenched in sweat at night, that wanted to have never been part of the Borg. He could remember very little of himself before the day he was assimilated. The memories were faint and made little sense to him or anyone he told. But when he slept, his subconscious unlocked the memories that he wished he could forget. That day aboard the USS Ahwahnee when they had come; the brief flashes of phaser fire; the cold hand of the Borg who had taken him and beamed him aboard the Cube; the injection of the nanoprobes and then nothing.

He opened his eyes with a deep breath, the kind of deep breath the doctors at the Daystom Institute had coached him on to help him control the terrible things locked away in his mind. He grasped her shoulder, perhaps a bit too tightly, with the cybernetic arm that the Borg had left with him and spoke in low and measured tones.

“Stay out of my head,” he said, clamping down on her shoulder with enough force to crack a human bone. He could feel the strain in the skeletal structure of her Klingon clavicle, but let off before the bone fractured. “It is not a suggestion, Commander.”

He stepped past her and into the Conference Room, sitting opposite the Chief of Engineering.

 

[MilkManDan007]

CMO Emma Watkins

The computer screen at her desk had been humming ever since she had sat at her desk and began reviewing the medical personnel files of those aboard. She’d lost count of how many times she’d read them since accepting her post, but she wanted to be ready for anything. Even though her staff would be diligent in making sure the proper files were pulled when people came to Sick Bay, it would be that one nugget of information she had read that could save someone in an emergency situation.

She was intrigued with the ship’s Tactical Officer and Head of Security. A former Borg. It wasn’t exactly him that interested her, but the files that had been sent to her from those at the Daystrom Institute who had been his caretakers. The neurosurgeries, the physical surgeries, the amount of him that had been taken by the Borg.

Her concentration was broken by the intercom system, the female voice of the ship.

“All senior staff and departmental officers report to Conference Room 1.”

She sat at her desk for a moment, continuing to look over the file, until the reality set in. Departmental Head, Senior Staff; that meant her.

“On my way,” she said, rising and heading towards one of the turbolifts. She was still learning the ship, more concerned with the crew than the physical layout, and missed the nearest turbolift, turning at the sound of the doors closing. She barely managed a smile at the scarred Lt. Jace. That scar, he’d be an easy one to remember.

“Rats,” she muttered to herself, turning the corner and making her way quickly to the turbolift in the next section. She didn’t want to be late for her fist meeting. She grumbled to herself as she jogged. “I’ve really got to sit down and figure this ship out.”

Two sections later, and another missed turbolift, and she was on her way to the bridge. She straightened her uniform, tucked the few loose strands of hair back and took a deep breath.

“Here we go,” she whispered to herself as the doors opened and she crossed the bridge to the Conference Room. Captain Harper and Lt. Cmdr. Orsoth were already seated. She took the seat immediately to the right of her Cardassian counterpart from engineering.

 

[ChasNicollette]

ghojmoH

She could feel the twisting, the burning, the screaming and the sweating and as her eyes went wide and he opened his eyes with a deep breath, Kahlest immediately knew she'd made a mistake.

[ Kahlest Raan - Commander, XO - Ready Room, en route to Conference Room 1 ]

“Stay out of my head,” he said, clamping down on her shoulder with enough force to crack a human bone. He could feel the strain in the skeletal structure of her Klingon clavicle, but let off before the bone fractured. “It is not a suggestion, Commander.”

It hurt like blazes, the pressure on her shoulder, the protest of her collarbone...

(Oddly enough, it reminded her of a joke. That was a pretty Klingon thing, it occurred to her. That such agony would remind her of something funny.)

She made not a sound, she did not cry out, nor even flinch, and she met his gaze as he declared his limitations without suggesting them, and her gaze did not waver.

He released her, and he moved on, and she walked along behind him.

There was a part of her, incensed, that wanted to kill him for doing that.

Wanted to reduce his cybernetic parts to so much veQ. After all, she had her limits. But limits were only limits so that one could push them back, and she wanted very badly to push back the limits of her patience.

She walked along behind him and she glanced down at the PADD, saw all the green lights gathering in the automated checklist, and she rolled her shoulder experimentally, and she let her hot blood cool.

When she sat down beside Captain Harper, however, she looked down and across the table at Nine of Nineteen and smiled a faint little smile.

"Forgive me," she suggested to him, speaking aloud this time. "I'm not familiar as I could be, right yet, with the way Captain Harper runs his ships, so I may be speaking out of turn. I apologise, Lieutenant Commander, for violating your boundaries. In my defence, I was only seeking to comfort you, to offer advice, and to answer a question for myself as to how I might offer such comfort and advice in future. It seems I got the answer to my question. Obviously, I went about that in the wrong way, and I promise to never communicate with you in that manner again, unless the need be dire."

She paused, though, and she scrunched her eyes at him. "But if I promise you this, you have to promise me something in return. The next time there's an interpersonal conflict with you and another member of this crew, you'll have to promise me you won't solve it with physical action or its threat, or we will have more than just light promises to exchange. We'll exchange real words, with lasting impact, am I perfectly clear?"

Kahlest smiled at him, every bit of her sincere apology etched into that smile, and into her eyes, at the same time that her intent command tightened its way through the squaring of her shoulders and the angling of her neck. She was sorry she'd done what she'd done. She was sorry it had come to this. But she couldn't very well let him walk away from this thinking that it was okay to (almost) break Starfleet collarbones anytime people stepped on his toes, proverbial or mental or otherwise.

(Broken collarbones. Heh.

It was traditional among Klingons that if someone broke a clavicle on their wedding night, it was a good omen. During, well, the "honeymooning," if someone busted a collarbone, this was good luck.

Of course, when Kahlest Raan met John Harper for the first time, they'd gotten into a sparring match on the practise mat of his self-defence course that had resulted in him breaking or cracking twelve of her ribs and her breaking his collarbone. So the day they'd met, she'd done something to him that a woman's only ever supposed to do to a man on his wedding night...

This implied so many things. All of them positively scandalous.

She'd often wondered if he'd gotten the significance of this. But, perhaps wisely, she had never ever asked him.

And now, here she was, almost getting her collarbone broken by another man on the first day she'd met him. Perhaps his not succeeding was the good omen in this case, rather than the other thing.)

Others were present. The aforediscussed and mysterious Connor Jace. The stunning Emma Watkins. The all-business Marjia Orsoth.

But Kahlest's dark, Betazoid eyes did not waver from Nine of Nineteen.

Yes. She'd erred. But so had he.

 

[AmenRa]

While waiting for the arrival of the ship's counselor, and of course the Operations Officer (who was just in the Ready Room with them), Harper listened to the impacted speech from his Executive Officer.

Directed, obviously and pointedly, at Nine of Nineteen.

Problems have arisen already?

Harper looked into Kahlest's dark eyes. He started to ask what was going on, but then he decided against it, because it looked like the Klingon half of her had already settled whatever issue it had been.

He trusted her completely. And not just because she could break a collarbone, but because he knew her concepts of loyalty and integrity would never break.

In Klingon, the word was batlh. Honor.

As he looked at her, another word came immediately to his mind.

'IH.

Harper looked at the polished table top, seeing his own reflection in it.

He wondered how the assembled would react to the briefing he was about to give.

Soon, he would find out.

 

[Screech]

It wasn't long before all the other senior officers gathered in the observation lounge, although, with Captain harper holding back, it seemed that there were more to be expected. Marjia didn't mind the wait, if only it wasn't so cold in here...

A red-haired woman in the blue science officer uniform sat directly to her right. As she was here, that indicated to Marjia that she would most likley be the cheif medical officer. Quite attractive too. For a Human, anyway. Merjia smiled politely at her, and inclined her head in a slight nod

Then, of course, there came trouble. Nine of Nineteen, closely followed by Commander Kahlest. The two sat at opposite places, but it seemed something was not sitting right between them. The Commander's little speach confirmed it. Not even out of drydock for an hour, and already there were cracks appearing. Never happen on a Cardassian ship, that was for certain, she thaught to herself.

Leaning back in her seat, marjia Orsoth clasped her hands together, and rested her chin on them. One way or another, this meeting would turn out quite interesting. Quite interesting indeed....

 

[LuckyVic]

Lt. Commander Torres, Conference Room

Miguel for his part didn't have much to say, so he stayed quiet. When the Captain ordered the change of venue, he left along with the other officers. However before entering the conference room he had been held up by one of the junior officers, who had asked him about the best way to take care of something. Once he was done he entered the conference room. He nodded at the Captain, letting him know that everything was alright and then took an empty seat. Now he would just have to wait patiently to see what the Captain had to tell them.

 

[Varshanka]

M'Chel Raica S'Tarr - Marien MSgt

USS Endurance – McKinley Station

The squad moved around the corner and instantly began firing. Phaser rifle fire filling the corridor. Each weapon was on a different frequency. A different setting. Overload the enemy troops. That was the plan. The distinctive whine of a transporter filled the air behind them. “Resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated.”

Even as she was moving to face the new threat a sharp stab in her neck made her jerk in pain. “Species 5618 – Human. Species 3259 – Vulcan. Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours."

The scream she heard echoing across the walls and down the corridor was loud. So very loud.

It was her own.

Jerking awake M’Chel swung the blade in her hand, but the room was empty. Safe. Empty.

She’d tried sleep. But it was always the same. Sleep meant nightmares. She should give up on indulging her human side. Just stick to meditation. Standing she looked at the door. The door she would soon be passing through. The door she’d never walk through again. She’d been reassigned. A new ship. Soon she’d be on The USS Arizona.


*****

(yeah, it’s a back post from her last assignment.. you’ll understand soon.. – Muahahahaha)

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Lt. Connor Jace- Conf. Rm. 1

Taking a seat at the table, my back to the wall and facing the door as best i could, I looked around the room at my fellow officers.

Yep, I was the lowest ranking there. Now I really wondered why I was here.

Looking around the room I could definitely see that there was some tension. Nine of Nineteen had some tightening around his eyes, and his nostrils were slightly flared, like he was getting his emotions under control. The new XO was looking the same, with her uniform slightly rumpled on her shoulder.

I must have missed something just a few moments ago.

The new Operations Officer was just sitting calmly. Same with the Medical chief (so that cute redhead was the head doc. Interesting.)

The Cardassian officer was here too, looking if I had to guess a bit anxious. Aliens are hard to profile. I can do it, but Cardassian was not one I had trained for extensively.

The Captain was at the head of the table, looking down in concentration. If I had to put a word to it, he would be... concerned. Like he was about to give us some very disturbing news.

This was going to be one interesting shakedown cruise!

 

[AmenRa]

Captain John Harper - Conf. Room 1

Everyone had gathered and was seated, and he had their attention. Harper stood and inserted a data chip into the reader at the base of the view screen behind him. He then turned to face the gathered crew.

“First,” he began, “I’d like to say I am grateful that Starfleet has blessed this ship with a crew of distinction. You have distinguished yourself throughout your career as officers of the highest caliber. As your captain, I will strive everyday to maintain my command as one worthy of your respect and integrity. This is my commitment to you. It is the highest honor that I can receive to be allowed to command a crew of such diversity and distinction.” His voice was prideful and sincere.

Harper straightened himself just a bit, one hand resting on the back of the chair at the head of the table. “In the coming time that we will spend together, we will learn many things about each other. We will grow as a team, we will live together as a family, bonds will be formed, and we will have times of strife. These things are inevitable, and they are necessary. However, there is one thing that we must never, ever forget, and that is we all serve a greater purpose. We have sworn to defend the United Federation of Planets from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and in so doing, we must put away our personal diversity and act as one. And that, my new friends, is exactly how we’re going to do it aboard Arizona. We are going to be one team, one entity, full of so many differences, but working together to complete our mission. As your captain, I will accept no less than one hundred percent commitment to this ideal, this philosophy of teamwork.”

He let that last statement sink in for a moment before he began again. When he spoke next, his tone was even more serious than before.

“Three days ago, an emergency transmission was relayed from Deep Space Salvage Station Gamma Four located near the Romulan Neutral Zone. The call for help did not originate from Gamma Four, however. It originated from a Borg scout ship, was intercepted by Gamma Four, and then sent directly to Starfleet Command via subspace.

“The transmission was encrypted, but it was deciphered that it was a call for help, sent to the Collective, saying they had been attacked and destroyed. Gamma Four moved into the area to investigate, more than probably hoping to salvage pieces of Borg ship. Communication with the station was lost fifteen minutes after they arrived in the sector. They did, however, get off a coded burst transmission that included video from an airlock security scanner.”

Harper took a deep breath, let it out, his eyes darting to Kahlest, and he wondered if she knew he felt a tinge of trepidation at even seeing, once more, what the video contained. “Computer,” he said, “play video.”

The computer didn’t audibly respond, the view screen just fuzzed to life . The picture showed the interior of a long corridor, with an airlock door at one end. There was overhead and side wall piping visible, as was typical of the interior construction of this type of working station. There appeared to be a red beacon flashing, obviously indicating the station’s alert status. The interior lighting was out, except for the faint emergency lighting at the floor level, and the alert beacon’s red flashes. Smoke partially filled the corridor.

Suddenly, there was a flash of movement in the corridor, something moving quickly.

“Freeze,” Harper said.

The image stilled. The something moving was frozen in place. It was clear now, its figure unmistakable. It seemed to have a carapace of some sort, and it was tall, its limbs muscular and sinewy, yet hard like a shell. It had three legs, tripedal, and moved almost like an insect. Its face was elongated, expanded in the cranial area, superior looking in its design, form, and function. But those eyes, there was something about those eyes, greenish with split black pupils. They were cold like a doll’s eyes. Lifeless. Sinister.

“Species 8472,” Captain John Harper remarked as he watched their reactions of recognition. He then looked at Nine of Nineteen. The once-Borg drone would have a memory of the Collective’s knowledge of encounters with the fluid space life forms they named Species 8472. Harper was counting on Nine’s access to these memories in the coming mission.

“We encountered them on Voyager,” Harper told them, “and I can assure you they are some mean sons of bitches,” the Native Texan came out then, as it did every once in a while when he spoke. “What we’re guessing so far is 8472 broke into our space near the Neutral Zone, found two targets of opportunity, and attacked them. One was the Borg ship, the other Gamma Four. Whatever the case, we’ll find out soon enough.

“Our mission is to proceed immediately to these coordinates and assess the situation. We need to determine if this is a random incursion by 8472, and if so, take whatever action is necessary. However, it could be the prelude to an invasion, and if we determine that, then we are to again take whatever action is necessary.”

Harper narrowed his eyes, his jaw clenching just a bit. “Let me re-iterate something: we will take whatever action is necessary. For those of you who have never encountered these creatures, they have one objective: total annihilation of anything that’s not them. They will stop at nothing. Their idealogy is ‘the weak shall perish’. They only understand violence, they only know to kill. They are highly advanced, their ships and weaponry superior to ours. They use a form of bio-technology, they communicate telepathically, and they are a very, very formidable adversary.”

Harper was quiet for a moment, letting them digest what he just told them. Before the murmurs got too loud, he added one more thing. “Personally, I believe this is probably a prelude to an invasion. While on Voyager, we encountered a space station manned entirely by these creatures. They had constructed a replica of Starfleet Academy, and they were using it to train their soldiers for an invasion and infiltration of the Federation. We were able to brook peace with them, but they have apparently decided to break it.

“ You can use your command access to view the logs of Voyager’s encounters, this video you’ve just seen, as well as all intel data from Starfleet Intelligence. I suggest everyone study this information and learn as much as you can about them. Take this information back and share it with your commands. Make sure your crewmembers know what we’re facing. Especially brief the Hazard Team, as they will surely be needed.

"Tell your people when we encounter 8472 on this mission; be prepared to go to war.”

Harper took his seat, folded his hands on the table, and looked at Commander Raan. He looked into her eyes for a moment, eyes that he was sure he could get lost in without a tractor beam to save him, and opened the table for discussion.

“Comments? Questions? Thoughts? Now’s the time.”

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Lt. Connor Jace- conf. room 1

Species 8472. Yep, someone really wants me dead!

I closed my eyes and let my mind go deep within itself. facts, figures, video, all of it played back in my head. Information swirling through my subconscious, gathering data and organizing it in the most efficient manner.

"Species 8472, the Fluidians. Very, very nasty! Triple helix DNA, usually fight hand to hand, claws are poisonous, consuming the victim alive and almost impossible to cure. Very resistant to be phaser fire and physical attacks. Almost like they have a second endoskeletal structure. Species is telepathic, aggressive, and mellinia ahead of us technologically. Technology is based on bio-organic manipulation, no real way to disrupt the ships. Very resistant to damage, and the ships are presumed to be controlled telepathically. Transporters can't lock on them, and sensors have a hard time picking them up.

Voyager managed to create a nano-weapon that stopped them for a while, but current intelligence believes that they have already countered this.

Negotiating with them is tricky at best, and unless we hold a position of strength, useless. Their doctrine is "The Weak Shall Perish", and they follow it religiously.

If we are going up against these things, you don't fight fair, you don't offer quarter, and you don't let them get away. And one last thing, people are going to die. These guys scare the Borg, and Borg do not scare easy. I am not aware of any weapons programs ongoing to fight these guys, but I have been out of the loop a while.

Thats my 'quick and dirty' assessment Captain. I'll need a bit more time to be more through, but in a nutshell thats species 8472."

I should have listened to Mom & gone into teaching.

 

[LuckyVic]

Lt. Commander Torres, Conference Room

Miguel rubbed his chin as he had looked at the data the Captain was showing them. "Sir, from what I remember reading. Species 8472 only attacked Voyager, bcause of the temporary alliance with the Borg. Now we see them attacking a Borg cube, so it seems to me that they've resumed their war with the Borg. But what bothers me is that the Borg haven't been heard or seen since Voyager's return. The sighting of this cube and the intercepted distress call suggest that the collective has reconstituted itself. Which means we could be looking at two potentially powerful adversaries now. Especially if Species 8472 thinks we're allied with the Borg." he said. Even as he said it he found himself worrying about both these races attacking Federation space. If the Dominion came within a hairs breath of wiping the Federation out, these two races could do it if they wanted to. Until now the Federation had been lucky against the Borg.

 

[Screech]

Lt. Cmdr Orsoth, Conference Room

Marjia had listened with interest at the breifing. She'd not heard alot about Species 8472, and now she knew why. There was a fair chance that everyone who had encountered them was dead. Well, except for the Voyager crew. From what she had heard, they managed to get through all kinds of scrapes.

"So, If I'm right about this, we are expecting to go up against a species who are resistant to phasers, can't be detected except by sight, and have nigh-invulnerable ships? Forgive me for being blunt, but I normally wouldn't rate our chances of success anything above gloomy"

She leaned forward, narrowing her eyes and resting her elbows on the table. "However, I heard about a weapon that was developed that might just improve our odds. The TR-116, I believe it was called. Solid round weapon with micro-transporter system. I'm sure with the aid of the armoury officers we should be able to replicate something similar"

 

[MilkManDan007]

Lt. Cmdr. Nine of Nineteen (Conference Room)

Species 8472. He had never faced them in person, but knew well of their capabilities from what he had read in the official reports from Starfleet. Beyond that, he knew only of them through the nightmares that continued to plague him. It had been nearly a week since the last one, but the images were still burned into his memory.

As he drifted in space aboard the Ahwahnee, assimilated and dormant, he was a part of the Collective. The hive mind allowed each drone to hear, to see, to know, all that was connected to the Collective. He could see through the eyes of the drones aboard the Tactical Cubes as they opened the quantum singularities and moved into fluid space. He could feel the shudders as the weapons of Species 8472 tore through the hull and the bitter cold as the drones were sucked into space through the breach in the hull. He could hear the voices of hundreds of drones fall silent as Species 8472 obliterated countless cubes and several planets that were incinerated and blasted to dust. They seemed unstoppable. They could not be assimilated. Their weapons were far superior to those of the Borg. They forced the Borg into retreat.

“Captain, Borg nanoprobes and assimilation technology are ineffective on Species 8472. Expanding on Lt. Jace’s point, a series of photon torpedoes loaded with modified nanoprobes proved successful on several occasions with Voyager, but the technology was given to Species 8472 by the Voyager crew to garner peace and stave off Species 8472’s first plans for invasion. We must consider this technology obsolete and ineffective. By now, they will have found a way to counteract these modified nanoprobes and render then ineffective.”
Lt. Cmdr Orsoth’s option of using the TR-116 rifle was plausible, but Nine of Nineteen knew that they needed more than one option if they were to stand a chance against Species 8472.

“Captain, another available option would be to synthesize the cellular toxin they use to commit suicide when they are cornered. The Emergency Medical Hologram aboard Voyager scanned this substance when one of the Species 8472 impersonators was detained aboard Voyager when they discovered the copied of Starfleet Academy. As their toxin is not a foreign substance, it is unlikely their immune system will intercept and neutralize it as it does to nanoprobes and other forms of attack,” he said. “While this may prove to be effective against Species 8472, it would have the same fatal effect on anyone in the area when the toxin was released. It could be used in limited bursts and be contained by the security forcefields within the ship.”

He turned to the new Chief Medical Officer. Her file was clean, showing nothing that make her a security risk, but offered little as to her actual abilities.

“Doctor, synthesizing this toxin must be accomplished before we contact Species 8472. You should also work on synthesizing an antidote to the toxin should any be released near our own personnel.”

People had always looked at him as the ultimate evil in the universe, but 8472 was worse. It was a truth he was all to familiar with and a truth this crew was about to discover.

 

[MilkManDan007]

Chief Medical Officer Emma Watkins (Conference Room)

There was no sugarcoating the truth.

She sat, eyes intent on the captain and Lt. Jace as they spoke about Species 8472. They seemed to be the things that nightmares were made of; seemingly unstoppable, resistant to all forms of weaponry, able to move without being seen by sensors.

The senior staff began to toss around ideas of ways to fight off these intruders should they ever come aboard. Her mind raced, thinking of how, or if, she would be able to keep those who fought with Species 8472 alive. There was no antidote to their poisons, no cure for the terror they inflicted.

She was pulled from her slightly shocked state when the Borg turned to her. Turning their own toxins against them might work, their bodies wouldn’t see it as an intrusion and it would take its course.

She nodded, knowing what had to be done.

“I’ll get right on it,” she said, somewhat sheepishly. They all seemed so confident in themselves, even though their decisions could change or end the lives of countless people. Was she ready for this position? Did that determination and strong nature come from experience and knowledge, or was it an intrinsic trait she feared she was missing? She lifted up the PADD in front of her and began pulling the necessary files on the toxin.

What have you gotten yourself into, Emma? she thought, brushing a stray strand of hair back as she read.

 

[AmenRa]

Capt. Harper - Conf. Rm 1

Captain Harper listened to each of his crewmembers, taking their suggestions and ideas in. He began to formulate plans, theories, ideas of his own based on what they had told him. He hadn't even heard from everyone yet, but he was already seeing several different possible plans of actions to implement when they encountered 8472.

 

[ChasNicollette]

"Don't give up. It's just the weight of the world."

Kahlest leaned back in her seat, one elbow propped up on an arm of her chair, and she twiddled the fingers of that hand in the air for a moment, before curling those fingers into a fist. Through all this, she didn't take her eyes off of the captain's eyes.

[ Kahlest Raan - Commander, XO - Conference Room 1 ]

You must trust me a great deal, she pondered. To ask that I come along with you down into the dragon's throat.

Species 8472.

This was one of those things she'd heard of, but whose data she had not embraced. Perhaps foolishly, she'd thought them a threat left behind in The Delta Quadrant in the shadow of Voyager's triumphant return. Even soldiers and sailors of The 24th Century, it would seem, were not immune to the lackadaisical notion that certain threats would never visit their backyard.

She shouldn't have done this. Of all people...

A daughter of Betazed, when Betazed had fallen to The Dominion.

A daughter of Qo'noS, when Qo'noS was still in shambles.

A daughter of The Federation, when The Federation was still licking its wounds.

She should not have assumed that any threat would stay oceans away. She should not have assumed that any threat should stay at a safe distance.

Captain Harper opened the floor, but, feeling woefully underprepared, Kahlest didn't immediately offer her opinions. Instead, she dragged her eyes away from the captain's-- oddly, this felt as difficult as dragging poor broken Praxis out of orbit --and looked down at her own PADD before her on the table.

They went around the horn, and she kicked the pre-flight checklist back into a secondary window, all those green lights going onto a back burner as she called up this deathly frightening species. Yes, Jace was talking, so much like a Borg in his way, so oddly Vulcan, emotions present but thickly thickly veiled, information so easily recalled, like it had been perched on his lips waiting to take flight. And Torres, quite wisely, suggested that they might do well to fear a two-front war.

('Only a fool fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to a kingdom of fools fights a war on twelve fronts.')

So many people had possible ideas, off the bat, quick thinkers, cool thinkers.

She read about Species 8472 while Marjia Orsoth commented (focused, so very focused) regarding the possibility of transporter-targeted solid-ammo weaponry, not a bad notion.

And Nine of Nineteen, proving that he could approach violence judiciously as well as impulsively, pondered a masterstroke concept of turning Species 8472's own tactics against them.

(Starfleet Academy.

I wonder if they had a Boothby.

Not like they could match the real thing: bet he's El-Aurian, that brilliant cantankerous fellow. He'll live forever.)

Her gaze flitted over the PADD, drinking in the pale blue text with eyes no longer fettered by the weight of half-destructed moons.

She paused, though, when Nine of Nineteen turned to Doctor Emma Watkins and suggested that she configure poisons for what amounted to, essentially, biological warfare in a situation where biological warfare was fighting fire with fire.

And, oh, she could only imagine how a Starfleet CMO would feel about such a situation, Hippocratic oath and all... Kahlest could hardly read her thoughts, but the woman certainly felt perplexed by all of this, by all of them.

Kahlest felt for her. And she could hardly blame her.

But Deities bless the good doctor, she stuck right in, she didn't quibble or flinch, she stuck right in, got right on that.

Kahlest nodded quietly. Among other things, that was impressive.

She glanced back at the PADD, and noticed a stretch of text... 'Species 8472 can also survive the unprotected rigors of normal space, and appears not to need to breathe atmosphere, or even the organic fluid present in its own realm.'

"Great," she murmured wryly, shaking her head, smirking absently as she set the PADD back down on the table. "A monster I can't kill by blowing out an airlock. (You know that's my signature piece, right?)"

She paused, though, and ran her tongue over her elegantly fanged teeth, and flexed the hand still propped vertically on the arm of her chair. And she thought... she thought...

"They seem to fight in proximity," she murmured. "Claws and brute strength and ignorance. Tearing through forcefields and bulkheads so they can gouge enemies with their claws and infect them, us, with that self-same impregnable immune system, let their own immunology rip us up from the inside out. It's in our interest, I think, to keep our distance."

She glanced at Jace. "You say they're telepathic. And it says here--" she indicated her PADD, and then glanced around the table "--that this seems to be their primary (if not their sole) form of communication. What if we could disrupt that somehow, cause them discomfort or even attack them that way? We may not have biological warships, but I know for a fact that Starfleet has implemented bioneural computer systems. (Voyager herself had those, didn't she? And our own Sovereign-class vessel now benefits from those design improvements.) Perhaps we could engineer an organic communications system that would jam their telepathic signals, perhaps drive them off? 'Artificial telepathy?' A bit far-fetched, I know, but if we're taking biological warfare in stride, maybe we should take psychological warfare to its logical extreme."

 

[Abraxas Winterlight]

Lt. Connor Jace, Conf. room 1

"That idea was thrown around but ultimately discarded as unworkable. We don't have anything resembling hard data on how their telepathy works, and really still don't know how any telepathic species works. We also don't have any viable samples of their genetic makeup or physical specimens on this ship that I am aware of, and I don't know if we ever got a sample from Voyager.

My information, of course, is a few years out of date, but as of four years ago what i know is accurate. Intelligence didn't consider them a immediate threat, so not a lot of research was going into countermeasures."

I looked around the room, trying to gauge reactions. It's hard to tell with people you don't know, and the damn Borg just almost completely lacked tells (gotta remind myself not to play poker with that guy!)


"You all have some good suggestions, and I don't think any of them should be dismissed, but tactically, the TR-116 is probably one of the most workable options. Some kind of non-energy field containment system would be a good idea too. I have some ideas on that floating around but I want to smooth out some more rough edges before I present them."

 

[Wolfsister]

Leiutenant Lavinda Ecklas

Flash Back - History of Ecklas - Journeying to the Arizona - onboard the Arizona - Conference Room

Lavinda opened her eyes and began to breathe. It was a strange sensation that coursed through her veins and she was acutely aware of the connection between her and her current Mentor. Fingers attached to her skin, slender and long. She breathed in his unigue scent, gave her mind over to his spidery soft touch. Lavinda sighed and almost leaned into his clinically intimate embrace, her heart beating far more rapidly than usual in her breast. Her brow furrowed; creased as she felt the pressure inside her head. He was attempting to go where she did not wish him to. He was strong, but her desire to hide her real emotions from a man that hid his own so well was stronger.

Sighing, she shook her head free, severing all contact, physical and mental, from Spock. He raised an eyebrow, shrugging out of non-chalant concern at her stubbornness. Yet, it was his own unique stubbornness that held him there with her. She was a precious egg to be cracked, and he was certain that one day, with enough Meldings, that he would. She was an anomaly. Something of a curiosity to the Vulcan. Something and someone that he could not erase from his mind.

If only he could not erase her from his heart. But she would have had to be there in the first place. She was never far from his thoughts, but it was always curiosity, nothing more. He wanted what she hid from him, wondered at her secrets and her ability to keep him locked out. His unique blend of humanity and Vulcan DNA allowed him more freedom with his abilities, thus allowing him to understand what he saw in a deeper state. To attach emotional meaning to the clinical data he collected.

But the emotional attachment Lavinda wished for was not there. Nor would it ever be. And that saddened her more than even the annihilation of her Clan. She had found someone, someone who could understand her most intimate and inner thoughts, someone to share those thoughts with. She had found someone strong enough to take all that she had to give. Someone she could continue with, someone to mate, to raise Clanlings with, someone to love.

It was all in vain and it was her inner turmoil, her hurt over her realisation that what made him strong enough for her, his Vulcan part of him, was what would never allow them to be together; what she loved about him would keep her from ever gaining the emotions she needed from him. It was with a heavy heart and a heavier mind that she stood from her seated position and said her goodbyes. Spock shook her hand in the fashion of humans, something he knew she was as fascinated with as he was. He held her hand a little longer this time, his eyes reaching hers as he came to realise that this was the last time they would ever speak.

Her eyes spoke volumes to him and he gave her a glimmer of what she could have had when he spoke, his voice as soft as ever, "I am sorry, Lavinda. I am truly sorry. You are a lovely creature, but I - " she turned from him in that instant and he broke off. An uncharacteristic awkwardness filled the room and Lavinda partitioned her mind there and then. She took the part that held her love for the Vulcan hybrid and stored it away. Hopefully never to be accessed again.

"My classes will start next week. I should settle into the Academy." She moved away and he made no move to stop her. She died inside. "Goodbye Spock...." and she was gone. Her last memories of him sliding down her cheeks just as he fingers had done so earlier. Her tears bright red against her ivory skin. She could not hide her grief as humans did. Her world dimmed and she walked away from the blissful months she had spent with him - walked away from the life she now wanted.

*******************

"Craea! I cannot fathom your fascination with humans! We are the Last, Lavinda! The Last of the great Clans! Not only do you join this StarFleet, now you take a human name! Ecklas! Craea asontia eblin! You are Cast!"

Lavinda cried out, she could not hold her emotions in check, not now. Not at such a crucial moment. She could not allow herself to become cut off from the last of the Living Clans. She could not! But the Cosmos had spoken to her. That night after leaving her love behind, It had spoken and showed her destiny did not lie with the Clans, here on Earth where they had been sequestered. It was with the Stars and she could not ignore It's Call. Tears ran down her cheeks as she attempted to reason with Rennas, but he was adament. Should she continue on her Path, she would be Cast and all other Clan were forbidden to even acknowledge her. Her name was to be anathema to them, as was her very existence.

Lavinda, torn between her Clan Honor and the Cosmos and her Divine duty tried to find a solution. But it was for naught. From the day that she had spotted the ship on the horizon of stars, their sensors having been damaged earlier, Rennas had been jealous of her Status. Now he had a reason to Cast her, no matter how flimsy. And he did not see that he already had more power than she could ever have had - his ability to Cast her one unique to his Status.

Lavinda turned, beseeching those around the Chamber. But they refused to meet her eyes and walled their minds from her probing tendrils. She howled and left then, knowing she would never return. Her friends, the ones she had been bred with had turned from her, and that had made her decision. She would no longer be held back by a dying species. She would answer the Cosmos's call and she would do it alone. As it was meant to be.

**************

Staring at the glittering stars outside of the viewing port on the transport, Leiutenant Ecklas sighed, her breath misting on the glass. She closed her eyes and felt the world reach out to her. She downed some of her protective walls and felt those on the nearby Arizona. She honed in on them and smiled to herself. This was to be her new home, this was to be the place where she would finally make her new start. It had been already so long since she had been Cast that though it was a raw memory, it was at least a distant one. She had kept dibs on the Clan and they had prospered in their new home. But she knew it was only a matter of time before they grew stagnant in their sheer stubborness to allow other cultures claim to theirs.

Clutching her head, Lavinda bit her lip to stop crying out. Another crew member - an ensign by his insignia - came over with questioning concern. Lavinda just smiled wanly and nodded her head, though it still throbbed with remembered pain. Someone, somewhere had just hit their head on something particularily hard. From the surprise flaring afterwards, they had not seen it coming. The sick bay would get one of the first of its patients soon enough, judging from the throbbing in her temple.

Shutting off her mind, she sat still in her own darkness. Collecting her thoughts, she soared through the stars until the transport docked within a cargo bay. She stepped out of the shuttle amid the unloading of different boxes and essentials being transported to the new ship and looked around. She did not like Transporter Beams. Never had - it was such an unsettling feeling - something she knew was peculiar to the pyschically sentient species of the Federation - but something she tried to avoid.

After the appropriate meetings and verifications, she moved to her quarters, her own private space to be used as she saw fit. She liked this part of StarFleet, back home the Clan had been very communal. They virtually had no space to their own, their very telephatic ability a hinder to almost all but the most powerful of their race. On her way, she diverted to Sick Bay, but the Cheif Medical Officer was not on board yet. The medical staff were busy fixing up a young engineer with a sore head. Lavinda just smiled to herself and resolved to see the gentleman later to see how he was settling in.

One of the first duties for her was to go over the crew manifest. She did not need to report to the captain as of yet, he had no need of her until they were underway and so she took the time to go through records. Most of the senior staff were all flagged for to go more indepth when she had the time. These were the people she was going to work with for the tenure of her post here as Ships Counselor. Was still surprised she had not gotten her posting for the Enterprise, but StarFleet had assured her that she was needed more here, on the Arizona. She supposed it was for the best, though it was a new ship with a new crew, the Enterprise still had some painful and not so painful memories for her.

Sighing, she stood and then suddenly fell to a crouch on the floor. Lavinda groaned and hissed, baring fangs as she groped in her belt pouches for the little vial of liquid she now subsisted on. It was vile, without taste or substance, but it let her function at least some while not taking another's life. Over the years she had grown as repulsed as others were at her need to feed on fresh blood from a willing vessel. Or unwilling, if she wanted to put some extra work into it.

Gasping for air as she allowed the liquid to slide down her throat, she groaned again and lay panting on the floor. Its very vileness was what had made her miss her daily 'drink'. She could not let it happen anymore. Slowly coming to her knees, Lavinda's fangs were still bared as the nutrients she so desparately needed coursed through her veins. Colours were suddenly so much brighter, sounds so much clearer. Thoughts, sentences and words punctured through her carefully constructed partitions and she staggered at so many unfamiliar thoughts. At so many alien minds.

Then the world righted itself once more and her temporary 'fix' was soon drifting through her system, restoring that which needed to be. Sighing, Lavinda was about to flop back into her chair when an announcement came through, “All senior staff and departmental officers report to Conference Room 1.”

Lavinda blinked and gathered her PADD, moving through the doors with a professionalism that hid her inner chaos. She must have been out of if far longer this time to have so much time pass. She was sure that she would have been summoned to the Bridge before they were underway, but it seemed that a briefing was already underway. Lavinda rubbed her throat, an after thought that she was barely aware of, and grimaced. She would have to program the Synthesizer to create a stronger batch of her serum. It was getting weak again.

**********

The door swished coolly open and Lavinda stepped through. She swept her glance over those already assembled, acknowledging that she was the last to arrive. Taking the only seat available, she sat and the Captain was quick to start. His opening speech impressed her and she took this time to silently evaluate both him and the rest of the senior staff, as was her priority.

There were already tensions rising amongst the crew. Most just jostling for the respect they though their due, some trying to prove themselves to other, some just having their very own nature tested. She observed them all, thoughts and emotions swirling inside her head. She did not take note of them, however, knowing it to be a direct violation of trust. Rather she just ignored all of the whispering minds that connected her to the outside world. She shut down all but a few necessary processes - and entered her Dark state. Still, the occassional thought drifted past her consciousness.

'IH.

What have you gotten yourself into, Emma?

...... come along with you down into the dragon's throat.

Lavinda wondered several things idly, first on her list was what a Dragon was. She had only ever heard of these mythical creatures in passing and Earth history had always fascinated her. However, the past ten years of study had been hectic and she had never had the time to pursue yet another of her hobbies.

Flicking a nail briefly on the table before her, Lavinda waited to speak when everybody else had already spoken, "Telepathy doesn't always work that way." She lifted her gaze to Kahlest and gave the Klingon/Betazoid a brief acknowledging bob of her head. Then she continued, "It has always been a curious point though, for others within the Federation to communicate telepathically with Species 8472. From our limited intel, it was never advised to approach them via this means."

Lavinda clacked her nail against the tabletop again, and shifted her gaze to the captain, "I assume that StarFleet has some sort of... protocol... should we encounter them. After all, they outfitted a brand new starship, I assume, for this purpose." She nodded about the room, "Picking Her crew particularily." She pressed a palm against her chest, "From that outdated video feed alone I can feel the thoughts of that creature. Unlike what you seem to think, it has no malice. It simply has its objective.... to annihilate those it thinks not worthy..." she clacked her claw again, "I assume that you would have some experience with that, Nine of Nineteen." She swung her gaze his way and held his eyes for a brief moment.

Then she pursed her lips and addressed the captain again, "I suppose this lack of malice makes Species 8472 that much more frightening," she cocked her head and waited with watching eyes to see the reaction to her words. Of course, she had said nothing constructive, but perhaps her prodding would get someone thinking a little deeper.

 

[AmenRa]

Capt. Harper - Conference Rm 1

Captain Harper leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. The expression was pointedly Vulcan in nature, and he did it unconsciously, a habit he picked up from his childhood among their kind. He thought for a minute, his eyes closed.

"All good ideas," he stated finally. "I am proud to see everyone putting forth effort on this already, and we're still in McKinley Station."

Harper swiveled around and looked at the frozen image of the specimen 8472 on the viewer. He then turned to face the others again.

"Toxins," he said slowly, nodding towards Nine of Nineteen and Dr. Watson, "are illegal according to United Federation of Planets treaty guidelines. Forms of biological warfare have been outlawed since the Bio Wars on Earth. However," he concluded, sitting upright, "that was before the encounter with 8472. Outlawed or not, limited use or not, I want this area fully researched and a workable, air-dispersable agent synthesized prior to arrival at our Neutral Zone investigation sector. I believe air dispersal will be the best method, which brings me to the next idea."

Harper looked at Nine and Dr. Watson, then to his Chief Engineer. "The TR-116 prototype is a viable option and one made even better if we could work our toxin into its delivery system. If this can't be done, study the option of adding trans-phasic torpedoes with an air-dispersal payload to our inventory. Matter-of-fact, let's look at the trans-phasic idea in addition. Such a munition will give us a needed edge against Borg defenses as well. Beltesha is testing prototypes now, so find them, buy them, borrow them, steal them. Whatever you need, see Mr. Torres with tasking, order, and equipment needs."

Harper turned to Torres. "I concur with your opinion of a re-instated war between 8472 and the Borg. If this is the case, I can assure you neither side will be looking for allies this time. We, the Federation, will simply be viewed as being 'in the way'."

Harper leaned forward and folded his hands on the polished table top. "Lt. Jace, you will be tasked to brief the Hazard Team under Nine of Nineteen's direction. Also, you will provide intel to the rest of us as needed."

He then looked back and forth from Lavinda to Kahlest. "You two will coordinate your efforts and abilities in deciphering the telepathic processes of this species. Lt. Jace mentioned that this sort of thing has been tried before, but I don't think we had use of the abilities that are available to us now. Also, Mr. Jace pointed out that we don't know how their telepathy works, and he's right, we don't. So, you two will learn how. If this means we have to capture one of them, then we will. We will figure out how to do this. We will not succumb to them. Whether they intend to invade us or not, doesn't matter. We will prevail.

"Counselor Ecklas," Harper stated, looking at everyone seated, "said that because their lack of malice towards us makes them all the more frightening. That is probably true; to know they have a simple goal of wiping us all out makes them seemingly invincible. They are not invincible. Logic tells us that everything, animal, plant, mineral, has a weakness. We will find and exploit this weakness. We will not go quietly into the night so that an invader from another place can claim what we worked so hard to hold as theirs."

The captain stood. "If there is nothing else, you have your orders. Take your stations and prepare for departure," he told them.

It was time to get this show on the road.