4.5 - The Shadow Proclamation

[Deleted]

In San Francisco circa 2392 the streets where considered safe. This was not always true of course, but the Federation had changed many things. That said, it was still not advised to wonder the streets at 3 am; not entirely sure where you where going, not entirely sure if you wanted to get there and quite sure that you where drunk, but this was precisely what Travis Paterson age twenty was doing. His main goal at the moment was to put as much possible space between himself and The Giddy Android,the despised club occupied by the alien who had stolen Travis’ girlfriend. So when he was certain that cutting through the alley behind the barber would meet this need, he took it without a second thought.

The alley was one of few areas in the city that was not well lit at any time of the day, specifically at night, and specifically when clouds blocked the new moon. Two figures stood under a flickering light successfully blocking Travis’ path. By their stature it was obvious they knew each other and had secret business. Their clothes and form of speech revealed that they where not punks exchanging illegal drugs, but rather professional, upper class adults. Travis backed up against the antique brick wall the barber shop had vigilantly defended against vandals over the past decades.

“I’ve been waiting almost two bloody hours Bee. If I didn’t know you had urgent news I’d have left ages ago so spill it. Neither of us has time for games.” This voice belonged to a male, by the dim light Travis guessed he was either Rigellion or something similar. He had a military style cut to his hair and kept running his hands threw it almost as though he was still checking if it was there.

“I’m not playing games Red, I’m telling the truth. The Nevada was destroyed. They are trying to keep it quiet, after all it’s destruction was suspicious and the last thing they want is widespread panic.” The second figure explained, the high voice was female she had markings down her neck, most likely a Trill or at least that was the first thing that jumped to Travis’s mind. She had long slick blond hair pulled into a complicated braid.

“The boss did this?” Red asked, he sounded both impressed and frightened

“No you fool, we don’t operate like that.” Bee snarled softly “We are not sure what happened, but it certainly works well for us. The scans the ship picked up when the passed by he location would have been destroyed with the ship.”

“Then we don’t have to worry anymore, it’s all taken care of,” Red sighed in relief. He turned to leave, for a moment Travis was sure he’d been spotted.

“It’s not,” Bee corrected “Any number of people could have seen those scans, senior officers and countless of other crewman. This is some mess we are stuck...”

Red cut her off “Do you have it?”

“Of course I do.” Now the women sounded cocky.

“Then show it to me... yes now. No one is watching.” Red insisted, he brought his hand forward. Bee hesitated, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a... Travis was not sure what it was. Whatever it was both aliens where now fully distracted. He thought about taking this opportunity to turn back, instead his stomach added some more content to the nearest trash can.

“What’s that!” Bee exclaimed, she shoved the item back into the safety of her pocket.

“They saw it, you know what that means.” Red pulled out a phaser and pointed it in the direction of the offending noise.

‘Fool, we don’t work that way, far too suspicious a death. Let me do the talking.” Bee forced his hand down. “Hello, it’s the Police, show yourself.” She yelled out into the darkness. ‘We know you are there, we can help you.” she produced a badge and held it out in front of her.

Travis pulled his head out of the trash can and raised his hands “I...sorry, I’m try to get...”

“Home, where do you live you poor thing?” Bee cooed. “Show me your ID.” Travis produced it without question. She examined it “It’s not far, we will take you there and help you get in. It’s not safe out here.”

“Here, this will calm you down and settle your stomach.” Red produced a flask and handed it to the lad. Travis drank and instantly felt better, safer. The trio walked together keeping in the shadows, Bee led the way. Travis’s mind slipped off into thoughts of the evening, he wanted to get home and to bed, maybe the club had been just a horrible dream...

“Here we are, this is your house.” Bee exclaimed, Travis looked where she was pointing, was that his house?. “Here I’ll let you in.” Travis thought he heard the sound of waves, he must be very tired he was dreaming already, he even smelt the salt in the air... “There we go, in you go and go to bed.” the women gave him an encouraging shove and Travis took a step forward over the threshold, then plummeted down.

Red looked over Bee’s shoulder at the young human struggling in the ocean trying to grasp onto things he could not see and understand how he’d ended up soaking wet being pulled down by the weight of his clothes. He began to cry for help, but the liquid Red had given him slurred his speech and dulled his senses. Any autopsy would reveal an overdose and drowning, a hopeless drunk who’d stumbled over the pier. As the young man succumbed to the waves and disappeared from view Bee turned to Red. “He knew too much.” Red nodded in agreement. “Let’s part here, and take the steps needed to insure this is not a risk to the organisation.”

The two shadows confidently headed their separate ways, the smashing of the waves underplaying the echo of their footsteps.

(92143/1004)

[fthelev]

Prologue, Chapter 2

It was an old building. The building the committee had entered to discuss the hearing concerning the USS Nevada and its crew. It could be considered historic. It had been around for at least since the nineteenth century. Perhaps even longer but no one was really sure of the exact date of its construction. Its interior was chic, sophisticated, and furnished in an old fashioned style. Or perhaps classic or antique would be more appropriate term here. Rumours went it was still the original furniture put in those several hundreds of years ago. It has once belonged to a wealthy businessman who dealt in shipping. Perhaps hence the view over the old docks, or at least, where the old docks once used to be and the bay.

Five officers sat down around a long, though somewhat narrow, coffee table made out of heavy oak in one of the lush rooms. They had made themselves comfortable in the easy armchairs positioned around the table. Each holding a drink of their choice.
It might be clear that this was not your average Starfleet officer lounge, and in fact, it wasn’t. Actually, this building had nothing to do with Starfleet apart from the fact they were both situated in San Francisco. It had long since been transformed into an exclusive club, private members only. And for the members it could be said they were indeed private and exclusive as well. Membership was on invitation only.

Rear-Admiral Atnaf Egnaro who was appointed to form the committee and act as chairman looked around, slightly uncomfortable and yet curious. He was an older man, coming to an age at which retirement would be welcomed. He should have done that years ago, go back home to Zakdorn, but there was always some reason to keep going for another year. But no more. He felt tired, small and grey. This was, perhaps not entirely surprisingly, also a good description of the man himself as well.
It was not him who brought the group here. No, this had been the idea of Smith. Smith was man about to become middle-aged, with salt and pepper coloured hair, his eyes grey and restless but intelligent. Tender build, with slender hands and bony fingers held in front of him, fingertips resting against each other. He didn’t know much about him, not where he came from, how he gained membership of this club, or his captain’s rank. But he had come highly recommended for this committee by the JAG, so he had included him in his group under some pressure.

The other members of this committee he knew better. One or two personally, the others by reputation or a short nod in the hallways in the jag offices. Two human commanders, Nathalie Ullgren and Piotr Haritakis. This only left the Tyrellian Captain Elaysha Aminea as the last member of this group.
The latter sighed and tapped with a PADD on the side of her chair. “Okay,” she said, “I agree that the decisions made on that planet where not most ideal, but…”
“...not ideal?” Ullgren exclaimed almost dropping her drink, “Have you seen the data, heard what they had to say?”
“What choice did they really have?” Aminea argued, “Staying in space would have meant certain death for all of them with that flare. The planet was an educated risk.”
“A risk that went horribly wrong,” Haritakis remarked.

The three officers turned to look at Smith, although Admiral Egnaro was officially in charge, involuntary they turned to him. He had remained quiet through most of the discussion, as he has been during the hearing. Occasionally pitching a question, placing a remark during lunch. But there was a feeling of control in the air when he was around.

Smith tapped the tops of fingers together, a gesture they had all grown accustomed to over the course of the investigation. “The planet is sparsely populated enough to be worth the risk,” Smith agreed, “But they didn’t land in a sparsely populated area, did they? Or remained hidden?”
“They claim it was not their fault,” Aminea opposed, though more softly.
Smith smiled without any humour in it and pressed a hidden button. A well hid computer console was brought up, hidden in the thick heavy table itself, and he tapped in a command. An audio recording of the hearing was played back in crystal clear clarity.

Commodore Harrias Jira:
- It seemed the safest course of action.
Hearing Committee:
- You are aware, Commodore, that Shamin is inhabited by a primitive pre-warp civilization?
Commodore Harrias Jira:
- We were aware that was a possibility, not all reports confirmed that. Since then I have been acutely aware of it however.
Hearing Committee:
- The planet was under observation by Federation anthropologists; the data was in your database
Commodore Harrias Jira:
- The information we had was… some indicated a civilisation while others did not.
Hearing Committee:
- Commodore, we believe you were well aware of the presence of this civilization on this planet. And of the risks running into them when landing a complete starship crew on that planet.
Commodore Harrias Jira:
- You may believe what you wish sirs. If you are not going to listen to what I am telling you, I have nothing further to say.
Hearing Committee:
- I am afraid that is not for you to say Commodore. We know for a FACT, you sent to of your officers out in a runabout to investigate the conditions of the planet. Also they DID inform you of the presence of this pre-warp civilization.

Another control was tapped and the recording stopped. “Remember that,” Smith said dryly, “Jira also claimed he didn’t know the planet was inhabited. Something that has been contradicted by at least two of his senior officers, if I recall correctly.”
“And later by himself,” admiral Egnaro added, “So you’re saying…”
“Well, yes,” Smith admitted, “He was aware of the possibility of making a first contact, who says he didn’t do so on purpose?”
Aminea wasn’t convinced yet. “Why?” she wanted to know.
“Survival?” one of the other suggested.
Admiral Egnaro bent forward a bit in his chair and spoke again. “From what we gathered from the hearings so far,” he said slowly with his dry and dusty voice, “Is that they seem to lack discipline and perhaps responsibility, but to think…”

Haritakis looked up from his notes. “Listen,” he declared, “So far we’ve got a CO who appears to have a problem with authority, a medical officer with a lack of confidence, a navigation officer who’s done more harm to himself than the Dominion did to the Alpha quadrant in a couple of years, a first officer…”
He stared at the others and made a hopeless gesture. “Need I go on? It’s a wonder this crew functioned at all.”
“Look Admiral,” Smith had placed his now empty glass on the table and started at the tapestry hanging on the wall for a moment before turning back to the admiral. “It’s clear they were mostly preoccupied with there own safety. That’s what they indicated themselves. They’ve blundered from the beginning, and they tried to make that up by protecting themselves.”
He leant back into his chair and looked around the table. He knew he had them, and that these officers would follow his lead, all of them, eventually. He could imagine how these businessmen, wealthy men with widespread influence, had sat here perhaps in the 1930’s at same table discussing things of importance with a brandy in their hands and blowing the blue-grey smoke from their Cuban cigars to the ceiling. And fifty years before that the same sort of men smoking their opium pipes. Wondered what they were doing back then would have had the same impact as of what this was part of.
Smith snapped back to reality. “I received notice just before of new evidence against the Nevada’s staff.”
“So I guess,” Aminea said slowly, “It’s more or less hopeless for them?”
A little smile, hardly noticeable, curled around Smith’s lips.
“I guess so.”

[Deleted]

Melain lay awake in the same room, on the same bed, where she had lain awake so many nights as a child. Those nights she had listened to the late night traffic and thought about her first day at school, her first friend, her first kiss... This night memories of her debriefing, no interrogation, ran through her her head. The JAG officers had trapped her. Nothing she could have said would make them understand. They’d already decided what they thought about Melain before she’d entered the room. They would never understand her, They where trained in laws and policies, she was a Bajoran doctor.

“So I failed, I tried to satisfy too many opposing policies and beliefs and I ended up failing all of them. What does this mean for me now?” She had tried to avoid saying what they wanted for the past half hour and found it to be impossible. Why was it so hard to admit failure now, she’d done it on the surface only days before?
“You will be placed under non-active duty” The vulcan replied flatly as though this was nothing to be concerned about.
“What are my options then?” Melain asked, could she appeal, ask to talk with someone else, someone more like her?
“Take a holiday.” he advised
“I hardly feel like a vacation.” Melain muttered
“That’s not my concern. You will be court martialed.” he added, almost as an after thought. Had she not been through enough? “Meeting adjourned.”

Melain sat up and brushed a shaking hand through her hair. The house felt hot, was the environmental control working? She slung her legs around and got out of bed, paced the room twice, then went into the adjacent bathroom to wet her hands and face. She could not sleep. She needed to talk with Frek and Harrias, but they would be monitoring her calls, she was not supposed to talk to her colleagues. She was not even allowed to leave the property. She’d been put under her parents’ care like a young child. Split off from the rest of the crew because the Star Fleet counsellors thought it would be best. Grace would not have done that, she knew Melain better then that.

“You all right honey?” Her mom called out, she’d finally gone to bed herself after fluttering about all day refusing to leave Melain alone for one moment. What had the counsellors told them, why did they act like Melain was so fragile and weak?

“Fine.” Melain lied, she stared at herself in the mirror with a mixture of disgust and melancholy.

“I left some stew out for you. I wish you’d eat... You’re a doctor you know this is not healthy .” Lenary replied. “You can’t change the past hon, stop dwelling on it.”

“I’ll dwell on what I want to, the courts do.” Melain answered bitterly as she passed by her mother’s room on the way to the main floor.

The stew sat on the warmer, Melain picked at it, then threw it in the replicator to be recycled. She sat on the stool near the counter. The house was spotless just as she remembered as a child, her mother had always been a neat freak. The candles at the shrine still burned, although their wicks where almost out. Melain noticed her mother had lit one in addition to the two reserved for her father and aunt, both dead, both murdered. She breathed in sharply and turned her focus back to the counter. Only one item lay in contrast to the careful organisation; the PaDD she’d caught her uncle Benjel reading earlier as she skulked around the house. She picked it up. “San Francisco Daily News” she read aloud, maybe there was someone in here with bigger problems then hers that she could distract herself with.

“New Federation president sets date for conference” She’d almost forgotten about the elections, had she voted? “Starfleet unveils new design for transport shuttle.” how exciting, “Ferenginar sets record rain fall.” Big surprise there “Local man found drowned.” Not every day this happened, Melain read on.

The body of Travis Paterson age 20 was found this morning off the Heraldy pier on the east end of the city this morning. Tests revealed a large quantity of alcohol in his system. Talks with his friends and family report that Travis stumbled out of a local club and was headed home last night around 3 am. One friend could be reached for comment.
“He was not in good shape, Depressed and angry you know. Some cocky betazoid stole his girl and kept shoving it in his face, poor guy. I hope she never forgives herself.”
Police would like to use this as an opportunity to remind citizens about the dangers of alcohol. Local pressure groups have reported that they will use this as a chance to bring focus once again to Bill 6745....

Melain put the PaDD down. This Travis was dead, he had no problems anymore. She entered a search for ‘Nevada.” A small article about the state’s decision to add a new transporter pad in it’s main government office was all that came up. Melain threw the PaDD across the kitchen. An entire Sovereign class vessel had been destroyed, almost twenty crewmembers had died after the evacuation and there was nothing, not even a single obituary.

Melain poured herself a glass of Kava juice, took a sip and then put it down thoughtfully. She searched through the cupboards till she found what she was looking for, a bottle of Terran vodka. Spiking the juice she took another taste, much better. She put the alcohol away and headed out the back door to the garden.

It was also similar to when she was a child. Her uncle, a proud gardener both in profession and in hobby, kept the yard in the same condition as her mother kept the house. It was perfect, not a blade of grass was out of place. Melain slugged back the last of the juice and tossed the cup into the freshly pruned rose bush. She let her muscles relax and collapsed onto the grass where she began to ripe out patches of turf. If her life was in shatters why should the yard be perfect?

---------------------------------------------------

Melain awoke to the face of the local Vedek, his wrinkled features framed by the stars. In a single, confident gesture he shot out his hand and clasped her by the ear. “You Pagh is troubled daughter.” Melain hardly needed a Vedek to tell her this. He firmly helped her sit up and placed a hand on her back to keep her that way. Looking around she saw almost the entire communities Bajorans staring intently at her. Nearby her mother was holding the pieces of the cup Melain had tossed last night, she was sniffing them disdainfully. Melain uncle was staring down at the remains of his grass, a single tear struggling down his stubbled face.

“She lost someone.” The Vedek commented. “The grief pours out of her.”

“She mentioned a Bajoran pilot, a Toledo Javel.” Melain’s mother nodded eagerly. “They where an item... I lit a candle for his Pagh.” she added almost as an after thought.

Melain shrugged, they could not understand her situation if they kept trying to simplify it. This was why she wasn’t speaking about it with anyone, it was like banging her head against a wall.

“Your mother says you have given up daughter. Why give up when you have so much to live for, and the Prophets have granted you many gifts?” the Vedek droned. Melain sat silent, indignant.

“You had an excellent voice, with some training you could became the singer you wanted to be. Yerma has offered to give you lessons.” Her uncle pointed to a toothy women with an elaborate earring who waved nervously. “We still have most of your old instruments.”

“The hospital is always looking for more doctors, you are more then qualified to work in any field there. You’d be welcome to stay at home and we could travel to work together.” Her mother added. “I know many people who would gladly put in a good word.”

“No one would want me to treat them if they knew who’d rejected me.” Melain muttered. ‘I can’t sing anymore, or play an instrument. I gave that up and now I don’t remember how.”

The entire population of the yard gave an exasperated sigh. “We will all pray for you then.” The Vedek decreed. He raised his hands and voice, leading the assembled crowd in a chant. Melain sat in the middle of a circle of strangers fully aware of two things: One, she wanted to get out of there as fast as she could and two, the biggest members of the congregation where blocking the exits. She lay back down on the mutilated grass and stared sightlessly up at the dawn tinted sky.

“Whether tis nobler in the mind” Melain muttered . “to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or....”

Melain’s mother was instantly at her side “What honey?... Quiet everyone she’s trying to tell us something!”

Melain stopped, she’d memorised that entire soliloquy years ago in her last year of high school. She’d never understood Hamlet then, now she did. She let out a slow and painful sigh. “Is it too much to ask that you leave me alone?” she asked.

“Leave you...” Benjel repeated as if he could not believe what she was saying. “The girl’s right Lenary, perhaps this was not a good idea.”

Melain’s mother began to protest “But Benjel, the Prophets....”

Benjel raised a callused hand to cut her off “...Don’t need our help. Go home everyone. If we need you again we will call. Thank you Vedek Grina we will keep you posted. Lenary, speak with your daughter alone” Benjel directed the tittering throng to the gates and exited behind them.

“Your shoulder still hurts?” Lenary asked, sitting on the grass beside Melain. Her voice was etched with motherly concern.

“How can you tell?” Melain asked, tensing up at the sudden proximity of another living being.

“I’m your mother, and I’m a nurse. Besides you are not hiding it very well. You said you where hit by an arrow, that kind of wound should have been easily healed. What medication are you on?” Lenary put out a sympathetic hand towards Melain’s.

Melain shook her head and pulled her hand away “None, they won’t give me anymore and my prescription privileges have been revoked. The doctors told me that the wound is healed and the pain is gone. It’s not gone and It’s not healed.”

“Let me see.” Lenary encouraged. Melain glanced around nervously, the yard was surrounded by a 6 foot gate and it was dark outside. She nodded and pealed off her pyjama top, Her mother began to patiently examined the shoulder.


(93959/2820)

[fthelev]

With a sigh he put the book down, yawned and walked over to the window. The view was hardly to be called spectacular. Okay, the room was good enough. It was one of those standard quarters they kept on the Starfleet premises for guests, or officers who would only be stationed here short term, before being transferred or heading to a new post. If you were lucky and got a room on the other side you would be able to see the Golden Gate Bridge and the buildings belonging to the academy towering up towards the moderately clouded skies of San Francisco.
Luck was apparently not something that was with him when they assigned the quarters. Although it could also have something to do with the fact that he was here to appear before a hearing and not as an honoured guest or an officer awaiting his new post. He too got a room overlooking Starfleet grounds. But not the good side with its nice well kept gardens at the front, but the concrete and the hangars around the back, well hidden from the casual eye.
In his mind Frek went back to his turn to appear before that committee. I had been a few days now. It had been a bit weird. It was as if they were trying to discredit him, picture him as an officer not fit for duty. And come on! Who would believe this; as someone who spend too many times in sickbay.

He could still hear them go over it. “Tell me, did you have this many accidents while in the Academy or is this a more recent development?”
“I wouldn't know sir,” he had answered, “although doctors in hospitals always seem to remember me for some strange reason. Weird...”
“…because I have a difficult time understanding how an individual so prone to injury was able to graduate, let alone in a field requiring so much care such as Navigation,” they had remarked.

Now what the hell was that supposed to mean? Sure he had come out of the infirmary a week or two before he was summoned to appear for the committee, but hey, that was not his fault. Anyone could catch a nasty illness on a nasty planet where they had an equally nasty sense of personal hygiene.
And then they had the genius idea of addressing him as a hypochondriac. ”…I believe you may also suffer from a mild form of hypochondria and will look into finding a counselor capable to addressing this in the future…”
Pff, since when did they qualify as a doctor?

Frek placed his hands carefully in the windows frame. Okay, he had to admit; he had been in the infirmary here as well and it wasn’t for a check-up on that pneumonia thing. He stared at the bandaged finger on his left hand. The finger nail had already fallen off and presumably the same would happen with the finger itself. That was only a matter of time.
And really, no one could actually blame that on him. It had simply been a warm day and he wanted to open the window to let in some fresh air. It’s surprising how much draft you have up here on the seventh floor. He had barely opened the window and had leant in the opening to take a nice deep breath when this gust of wind slammed the window back into its start position. This doesn’t have to be a really bad thing, unless your finger is caught in between. It was nothing less then a miracle that it hadn’t been severed at that instant.
For some reason the guard escorting him to the infirmary found it all quite amusing. He hadn’t stopped laughing till they had reached it. The doctor had to give him a tranquilizer to calm him down.
“We were expecting you,” the doctor had said with a grin, and had shouted to a colleague, “I win! That means you get this weekend’s nightshift. Ha ha.”

It somehow reminded him of the Nevada. In anticipation of the hearing results they hadn’t been allowed to roam around the premises freely and had mostly been confined to quarters. Accordingly he hadn’t seen or at least spoken to most of his crewmates for several weeks. Although he had seen some of them in the corridors, when taking a guarded walk or when leaving the room where the hearing had been conducted. But more than eye contact it hadn’t been. He was fairly sure Captain Jira was housed somewhere in this same building and perhaps Stevenson, though he wasn’t sure about her. He hadn’t seen any of the others, or Melain. For he knew they could be light-years away.
Though it was pretty early in the evening the sun had already started to set and sink away behind the horizon. It turned the late summer evening into various shades of pink, purple and dark blue.
A bit like his finger.
They said it would give the Golden Gate a golden glow. But of course that was something he couldn’t see from this end. What he did see scared the hell out of him.

There he was staring out the window, not seeing much, lost in his own thoughts. And then…there it was. It popped up, just out of the blue. A face appeared before his window with such abruptness that Frek couldn’t help letting out a yelp about the same time he jumped back a few meters. It was only a good thing there wasn’t an open window on the other side. The face was pale with a reddish glow around it like an aura.
Frek was panting and he could feel his heart pounding in the top of his antennas, which by the way were kind of wobbly, not entirely unlike his knees.
Then the face spoke. “Open the window you idiot!” True, they were a bit muted by the glass, but those words were definitely not spoken in the soft soothing tone a mother would use get a sick child to sleep. “It’s me!”
Frek swallowed and took a step forward, closer to the window. His face betrayed disbelieve. “Captain?” His mouth opened and closed. If he had been orange and swimming around in a bowl he might have given away a pretty good impression of a goldfish.
“Captain?” he said again, “What are you doing out there? You do realise we are on the seventh floor?”
Jira seemed to mutter something that might have been a prayer. Or a curse. “Yes I do realise,” he said with restrained patience, “Now please open the window before I fall all these seven floors down!”
He hastened himself to the window and carefully opened it, making sure not knocking his commanding officer down. It was a bit of a long way down, and he had the distinct feeling Jira wouldn’t really be very appreciative afterwards.
Jira climbed in, exhaled powerfully and ran a hand through his windswept red hair.
“Don’t have to do that too often,” he muttered, ran his hands over his trousers and looked at his host.
“We need to talk,” he said shortly and walked over to the replicator to get himself a drink.
Frek nodded, and found some words. “Yeah, what were you doing out there sir? It’s kinda dangerous.”
“Well, I could hardly take the lift could I?” Jira replied sarcastically.
“Uh…no?” Frek started still a bit dumbfounded.
Jira lifted his eyes and inspected the ceiling. “We are locked in, remember?” he said with admirable patience. His eyes came down from the ceiling and caught the bandaged finger. For a moment it looked like he was going to ask about it, but then changed his mind and ignored it.
He looked around and brushed a pair of shoes of the sofa and placed himself on the freed spot. Frek watched as he took a sip from his drink.
“Something is not right,” Jira eventually said.
Frek could see that for himself as well. “Well, no sir, I can see that for myself as well,” he said stating what was on his mind.
Jira raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Well, we are being investigated. An inquiry that can and probably will end in a court-martial,” Frek said. “That might count as…”
“Apart from that,” Jira growled interrupting. “Haven’t you noticed anything about that hearing? That committee?”
Frek stared at the Captain. “Well, they were awfully keen on discrediting me as a Starfleet officer,” he said slowly, “They kept going on about my medical record, which is perfectly fine, and my functioning as an officer accordingly.”
Involuntarily Jira glanced at the bandaged finger and decided to refrain from commenting on the medical part. “Exactly,” he said, “It’s as if they are not out to find the truth but to bring us down. Perhaps we…I…didn’t make all the right decisions, but the way they handle it...”
He stared at the floor and shook his head. “They only seem to hear what they want to hear,” he said lifting his head up.
Frek found a chair himself and pulled it closer. “You think they are out to get us?” Frek said unbelievingly, “On purpose, knowingly?”
“Look Frek,” Captain Jira said, there was certain strength in his voice and in his eyes determination. “I’ve been around for a while. This hearing was…well, at the very least not objective. I get the feeling something is not quite right here.”
“More like terribly wrong?” Frek inquired.
“Well yes. And I don’t want to sit here and wait we are all sentenced to twenty years of labour on some distant penal colony on a very uncomfortable dark moon.”

Frek said nothing and stared at a spot on the wall where probably some unfortunate insect had come to its end. What the Captain just said sounded ridiculous, impossible, that sort of thing could not happen within Starfleet. Happening to them. And sure enough. If he was right this was not going to be a very pleasant happening. Nothing like blowing leaves in the park.
But yet, when thinking about it. Now Jira mentioned it, it seemed to fit. Someone was keen to dismiss them, but why? Sure, they had made mistakes and perhaps reprimands or some sanctions were in place. A demotion perhaps, loss of command. But Jira was right; they were out for more than that.
“So what do we do now sir?” Frek asked slowly.
Jira’s face lit up a bit. “So you agree with me?”
“I don’t want to end up in prison.” Frek spoke slowly, “And you are still my CO, sir”
Jira smiled and nodded. Officially all their privileges and security codes had been revoked pending the decision of the hearing committee, but apparently loyalty still meant something. “Good,” he said and explained, “If we want to figure out what’s wrong here we’ll need to get the staff back together, now…”
“Do we know where to find them,” Frek interrupted, “and can we reach them?”
“I managed to catch a glimpse of some of the data,” Jira admitted, “Stevenson is two floors down. I’ll get to her next. Loki and Steve have both been accommodated in different buildings. Hannah and I will split up and get to them as well.”
“And…” Frek already started.
“Doctor Lorre has been placed under the care of her parents,” Jira cut off knowing what was coming. “You know where that is?”
Frek shook his head. Jira slid him a piece of paper. “That’s the address. You inform her and get her to our meeting point.
“Where’s the meeting point?” It might be useful to know where to go.
“That big oak tree in the middle of Golden Gate Park,” Jira told him, “There’s that annual festival in the city tomorrow. The place will be crowded, little chance we will be spotted. Let’s meet there at 2200 hours. By that time it’ll be more or less dark as well.”

Frek tried not to look down. He was standing a small ledge. A very small ledge that ran along every floor, passing under each window. Foot by foot he shuffled along. He had asked Captain Jira how to get down.
“Same way I came in,” he had told him, “There’s a ledge. You can use it to reach the fire escape from here.”
It suddenly occurred to him why Jira wanted to get in so promptly. This was not much fun indeed. He could feel the wind tearing at his thin jacket. It was a good thing there was hardly any of it. Wind that is, not the jacket. You didn’t need much get blown off from. Slowly he went on, the sweaty palms of his hands pressed against the glass, leaving moist prints as he moved on.
Only four metres left. His breath was coming in and out rapidly. He still hadn’t forgotten the tall building experience on Tammeron. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second before going on. When he opened them again he stared straight in the eyes of some elderly lady. Perhaps the wife or mother of some officer who she had came to visit. She blinked a couple of times and kept staring back, unmoving.
Frek put on his best smile, or the best he could do given the circumstances. “Don’t worry,” he said loudly enough for her to understand. “Just checking for alternative methods of descent.”
He gave her a troubled look and shook his head. “You’d better take the lift. Much better.”
This was definitely the time to move on. “You can go back to bed now,” he said and waved quickly. “Goodnight.”

From firm ground he looked up to where he had stand. He checked his hands. They were trembling. He quickly made a mental note not to go into acrobatics if he ever needed a change of career. Something not entirely unlikely given the circumstances at the moment.

Although it couldn’t have been much later than half nine when he left it was surprisingly quiet on the streets. Not that he really minded. For all he knew that lady had called for security and half the town officials were on the look-out for him. It has been astoundingly easy slip away unnoticed. Well, almost unnoticed. But then again, those apartments were meant to house officers and guests. It was not a brick. Apparently they had reckoned that the people they locked in their quarters on occasion had the decency to remain in those quarters and not climb out of windows. And normally they wouldn’t especially not from the seventh floor. Good thing that dusk was well on it’s way as well. It had been shimmering when Jira had come rapping and tapping at his chamber window. All you would have needed was a bird of yore whispering ‘nevermore’ instead of a Trill commodore and it could have been some old poem.
In the diffuse light of the streetlamps Frek checked the address and looked around. He should be getting closer now. Right?
He checked again. Okay, perhaps he bit of a problem getting orientated. He knew it should be somewhere around here. Granted, he had lived here in this city for several years. But usually his interest in those days weren’t sparked by urban quarters. Unless they housed parties or other such joys.

Frek swore softly and looked around. The Captain should’ve given him a map instead of an address jotted down on a rag of paper. Not to mention in unintelligible hand writing. Even the most prominent linguists and cryptologist would have had a hard time deciphering it. Where were those information columns when you needed one? Downtown you would find them on every street corner, providing information to the tourists. But here there were none to be found. It was time tourists started to pay more attention to the residential areas of the city. What was so special about that bridge anyway?
It was then that something caught his attention. A sound, not really a noise but more a bustle. It was as if a whole procession was coming his way. Swiftly he glanced around and dived into a dark portal. For all he knew this could be a bunch of law-enforcement officers on patrol as well as bunch of kids carrying lampions trying to annoy old people getting to bed. Or a combination, the first chasing the latter. Whatever it was he deemed it best to keep himself out of focus. You’d never know.

There were some lampions alright. A bunch of Bajorans came from a street around the corner. They appeared to be chattering about something, arguing. But Frek couldn’t care less; but this could be a good sign. He must be close.
Impatiently he waited till they past around the corner and tilted his head around the edge to take a peak. The coast seemed clear.
He was just about to move on when a window opened overhead. A dark face with shiny white teeth and curly hair appeared overhead. “What ya doing down there boy!” the dark face was dark with anger.
For a moment Frek thought he would have a heart attack. “I…uhm…uh, was eh,” he tried tactfully.
“I know your kind,” the voice boomed on, “You youngsters. You…”
“But I eh…” It was a miracle if this wouldn’t alarm the entire neighbourhood.
It didn’t seem to help much. “It’s always the same! Well, I’ve had it! No more peeing in my mailbox!”
“Sorry, really gotta go,” Frek murmured as he split. That was definitely an unhealthy location to hang out for too long. Either he would be arrested or a flowerpot would undoubtedly land on his head in a very unsubtle way. He quickly rounded the corner he had seen the group of Bajorans come from and leant against a wall. A gust of air escaped his lungs in a strong hiss.
Then his eye caught the street sign. A smile appeared on his face and his antennas erected. The name matched with the one on the piece of paper.
He glanced around and quickly spotted a side street, more like an alley and almost certainly leading to the backyards of the detached houses in this block. His eyes scanned the house numbers. The fourth from the left. That one must be it!

He dived into the alley getting out sight and moved on, counting the fences. The fourth house from the left. Should be this one. He gazed at the fence. He reckoned it was rather tall, almost two metres at least. He could take it.
A little run up. No problem.
He stepped back a metre or two, which was furthest he could go. Accelerating forward his foot hit the fence, the rubber soles damping most of the sound, and grabbed the upper side. With some effort he managed to hoist himself up.
Suddenly he had a vivid memory of physical training at the academy. How he had hated that. Then gravity did the rest. Just like at the academy.
He cursed as he lost his balance and crashed down on the other side.
Someone gave a cry.
Frek groaned in pain.
The rosebushes cracked ruefully, unable to hold the Frek’s weight and were flattened against the ground, taking their revenge by piercing his skin with their thorns.
A door flew open and a big Bajoran stormed out into the garden. “What the…” he started but quickly spotted the Andorian.
And his beloved rosebushes.
Before he knew what was happening Frek was picked as if he was light as a feather and pinned against the fence, his feet losing contact with the ground.
“My roses!” he bellowed, “What do you think you are doing?”
Frek gurgled something, hardly able to get some air let alone speak. The hand around his neck was like a clamp. But it didn’t seem to matter.
The Bajoran appeared to answer his own question. His eyes were sparked with fury. “I know your kind,” he growled, his eyes were small slits, “You Andorians, always peeking through windows and over other people’s fences…”
“Buthayghamefughugh,” Frek gurgled desperately pricking his finger in Melain’s direction, who was sitting there motionless, while kicking with his legs.
“Yeah, peeking at her, uh?” the Bajoran laughed bitterly, “Well you caught the wrong time…”
A fist was slowly coming up.
“Frek?” Melain rose halfway up from her seat.
The fist was lowered as was Frek, who sank back to the ground gasping for air.
“You know this guy?” Uncle Benjel inquired with surprise in his voice. He looked down to Frek, trying to get up. “Why didn’t you say so?”
A wrinkle appeared uncle Benjel’s forehead around the same time an eyebrow went up. “And why didn’t you just come through the front door? We do have a doorbell you know.”

[4619/123046]

[loki]

Black bed sheets, bright cream walls, and the pungent smell of rotting apples. Never before had Starfleet quarters reminded Lex so vividly of a prison cell, and on reflection, she could think of several cells inhabited that were far more to her taste. The smell, she surmised, manifested from her room being on the ground floor behind a chemical storage building, which was all she could see save the road that ran between them. The imposing frame of the brick wall did much to block out the sunlight, leaving the science officers room as dark and dingy as her mood. From what she had gathered from a brief glance earlier, Commander Stevenson had been escorted off in the direction of the towering building to the left, while Harrias and Steve were taken to the opposite side of the complex. Occasionally a figure would walk past her window, and each time she would jump up off the bed to see who it was. The excitement of the moment never lasted long however, as scientists and patrolmen seemed to be the only people using that route.

For a little while Loki had thought that perhaps things could have been worse, for instance, they could have all blown up along with the Nevada, or still be lost on the planet with a raging war. But somehow being cut off from communicating with her crew and being shadowed everywhere by a pair of armed guards seemed a whole lot worse. From time to time Lex would listen at the door, and though not able to hear anything, would scowl at the men she knew were flanking it. They were not all that bad really, they had allowed her to visit the mess hall and go for a short walk in the grounds, but were always looking over her shoulder. She would have dearly loved to be inside the city library now, wading through archives of archeological texts, but did not think their good natures would stretch quite that far. Sighing, the young woman decided that if she couldn’t be studying the realms of history, then she would just have to get someone else to do it.

With a sigh she got up and opened the door, smiling at the gold-tuniced men outside. “Excuse me.” She said politely, “Any chance I could make a personal call?”

The guards looked at each other. “To whom?” The taller of the two asked.

”Just a friend. Not one of my crew, I know I’m not allowed to speak to them. It’s someone here on Earth, his name is Dr. Carter.” Lex tried to smile sweetly: they did not look convinced.

”I’m not sure Miss Loki…” The other began, interlocking his fingers together in a stubborn manner..

“Oh please.” Lex interrupted as he took a short breath. “Its only one call, you can watch me do it, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease? I only want to tell him about the coverstone I saw, its got some ancient Klingon markings that he’ll be interested in and seeing as I’m not allowed to go and research it…” She spoke so quickly that the men had little time to keep up, but she could see that the tall one was coming round to the idea, if only because he wanted to shut her up.

“Alright. Our orders were to stop you from communicating with your crew so…but no funny business.” He said sternly as he stepped into the room. If they had been on better terms Loki thought she might have given him a big hug, but considering the status of their current relationship she decided just to grin wildly. She settled down at the computer station as the man started it up, making sure she could use it for one purpose only. When it was ready he gave her a single nod, and stood back so that he could watch over her shoulder. For some reason a little nervous, Lex spoke to the machine.

“Computer, personal call to Dr. Daniel Carter, Stamford Estate, Los Angeles.” Barely a few seconds later the black screen flickered on to reveal the face of a floppy haired individual who wasn’t looking at the camera. He ferreted around for a few more seconds before finding his glasses, putting them on, and looking up at her through his shining blue eyes. Loki’s grin had been replaced with a deep seated smile at seeing his face for the first time in years. She had last seen the doctor back before she had left to join the USS Excalibur, and had not been to Earth in the three years since.

The mans reaction was almost identical. “Lex.” He said quietly.

“Danny.” She smiled.

”I heard you were back.” He said quickly, shooting a glance behind her at the half-a-man he could see. “They wouldn’t let me get in contact with you, what happened?”

Lex swallowed. “I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about it.” She explained hastily, “Anyway, that wasn’t why I wanted to see you. When I was coming back here, the ship we were on had discovered a coverstone just like the one we found…before we went to Kruttar.” She told him hesitantly. He understood.

”What, with the same markings as before?” He asked.

“The whole Klingon dialect I would say. I didn’t have much time to study it, but I know its going to be sent over to Paris when it gets here.” She told him.

“Well that’s good.” He sounded excited, “I’m going over there in a few weeks to stay with Loretta, I’ll be able to look it up. This really is fascinating Lex…” He continued.

“I know, I just thought your team should have the heads up, and all the better if your going to be able to work on it.” She said, ready to launch into even more detail. The security man behind her cleared his throat as a polite reminder that he was doing her a favour. “Sorry Danny, I gotta go. If they ever let me out of here I’ll catch up with you asap.”

“Ok, thanks for the inside info, I’ll get onto researching it tonight.” He said gratefully, and ended the transmission.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Several hours later, with the outside world even darker than before, Lex awoke from an interrupted sleep into the stifling heat of her room. Deciding it was probably that which had woken her, she stumbled off of the bed and turned the heating off. She was still fully clothed, having not intended on falling asleep as she lay on her back on the bed, but these things just kept happening. With her eyes half closed Lex wandered over to the window and peered out across the miniature road. To her surprise there were several groups of people spotted along it moving in various directions. She sighed and leant down on the sill; what she wouldn’t have given to be out there with them, able to move about as she pleased.

The chronometer on her desk changed to show 01:00 hours. Lex was not sure how much more of this boredom she could stand. She had nothing to do except sleep, but that did not appeal to her in the slightest at that moment. She tried to think back over the work she had been doing on the Nevada, trying to think if there was anything she could slog away on while she was trapped here. She almost didn’t hear the door slide open, but then she hadnt been expecting it to. It was almost thirty seconds before she casually glanced round to see if she had been imagining it.

Harrias gave her a weary smile and looked somewhat exhausted. “Thought you were going to ignore me for a minute.”

Lex shook her head slowly. “What are you doing here? How come they let you –”

“No time to talk.” He interrupted her, “We have to leave now.” He said with a convincing emphasis. Lex got the message – their ‘leaving’ would not be of the sanctioned kind. She hesitated for a moment, but decided she didn’t have much choice. With a nod and growing excitement she headed for the door, not bothering to wonder how her Captain had got past the guards.

“Quickly.” He said, dashing through the door and ushering her up the corridor. Lex did as she was told and snuck along in a low crouch. They sped round a corner almost bumping into the back of two officers heading down to the mess. Lex came to a sudden and complete halt, throwing out her arm to stop Harrias. He collided with it, and as he did so Lex shoved him round the corner and they pinned themselves to the wall. The young woman pulled a slight grimace after using such force against her superior officer, but decided he wouldn’t have minded the spur of the moment decision. Harrias did not mention anything, and after a couple of minutes peered into the now empty corridor.

“Come on.” He whispered as he lead the way. “Hannah will be waiting for us round the front.”

”Hannah?” Lex questioned

”Yep, she caused a little diversion that got rid of your guards, but I’m sure they’ll be back by now.” Harrias explained, “We got everyone else through the window, but there seems to be a lot of activity hereabouts.” He mentioned annoyingly. By this time they had traveled to the opposite side of the building, and headed through a service entrance out into the grounds. They flew over a flat patch of lawn and arrived at the meeting place Harrias had arranged. Stevenson was there waiting for them.

“Nice distraction.” Harrias commented as the three of them crouched low behind a line of trees. “Where’s Steve?”

“Scouting out the perimeter, finding us a way out.” Hannah told him as she pointed behind them.

“Right, lets get outta here.” Harrias ordered. The three of them jumped to their feet, staying as low as possible but moving quickly. Stevenson lead the way, and Loki followed in the middle, wondering why on earth her commanding officers were breaking everyone out of here without an explanation.

[hannah]

Hannah lay down staring around the room. It was a nice room and she could see the beautiful sunset over the golden gates bridge out of her window. But it felt like a prison to her, how ever nice it was. The door was locked with a guard stationed outside and she was unable to leave or get in contact with anyone she knew. Her dinner now cold still sat on her desk; it had been delivered about an hour ago. But she hadn’t felt hungry. She closed her eyes and her mind drifted back to hearing and the voices kept repeating in her head. They wouldn’t listen to her side of the story and what ever she said it made her seem more and more guilty.

She decided to stop thinking about it, her future was already decided now and there was no point on dwelling on it. She decided that sleep would be the best option. She stood and headed over to the desk and took the pills she had been given for her nightmares. Then she moved back onto her bed laying back and thinking of happy childhood memories as she’d been told to do by the counsellor. She drifted into a dreamless sleep.

Hannah was awoken from her sleep by a banging sound, she turned over trying to block the sound out and fall back to sleep.

“Hannah,” she heard a voice whisper. Her eyes shot wide open and she sat up quickly looking around the room to see a face at her window. She felt her heart jump in shock and felt a wave of fear run over her. She was about to call for security when she heard the voice repeat her name. The voice sound familiar and felt reassuring. She moved over to the window and as she got closer she began to make out the face of her captain. She let out a sign of relieve. Then she felt extreme happiness to see him again and see that he was fit and well. She wanted to hug him but knew it was inappropriate.

“What you doing here?” Hannah whisper as she slid the window open for him helping him clamber in. Jira ignored the question.

“What was your hearing like?” he asked talking a seat on the edge of the bed while he caught his breath. Hannah sat down next to him.

“It seemed like they had already made up their mind about what happened and were unwilling to listen to are side of the story, they twisted everything I said to make me seem more guilty,” Hannah said repeating what was on her mind.

“Exactly,” he whispered.

“But that doesn’t explain why you’re here.” Hannah commented.

“Mine and Frek hearings were the same,” Jira continued dismissing Hannah’s comment.

“You’ve seen Frek?” Hannah interrupted.

“Yes, about half an hour ago,” Jira said.

“How is he?” Hannah asked. Hannah hadn’t seen Frek since they’d left him sick in that room when they left for battle. She asked the nurses and security guards about him and the other crewmember but they had unwilling to say much about them.

“He’s fine, he’s gone have to fine Melain,” Jira whisper answering Hannah’s next question as well. More question bubbled in Hannah’s mind but before she could ask anything else Jira spoke.

“These hearing are unlike any other hearing I’ve been to before, I think there’s something going on,” Jira whispered returning to the previous conversation.

“And you want me to go with you and find out,” Hannah whisper finishing what Jira wanted to say.

He nodded. Hannah thought for a moment back over the hearing and what Jira was saying seemed to make sense. She trusted him and she knew breaking out was worth the risk; her starfleet career was already over from the way things were going and a court martial around the corner.

“Ok,” she whispered.

Jira headed towards the window and began to climb back out.

“We need to go find Steve and Alexis,” Jira said. Hannah headed towards the window and looked down at the gardens, bellow. She look towards Jira who was now stood on the small ledge.

“It looks like a long way down,” Hannah whispered as she climbed on the edge.

“The best way is not to look down,” Jira suggested.

Hannah slid her way along the edge and towards the fire exit stairs. She held herself closely into the wall grabbed every window frame as tightly as she could. She began to question whether this was a good idea or not but she knew it was too late to head back. She reached the stair well, which seemed a lot further than she’d initially estimated. She climbed over the edge and planted her feet firmly on the metal ground.

They quickly made there way down the stairway and though the Starfleet grounds towards the building where Loki had been accommodated.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” a voice said from behind. She looked to her great relieve to see command Steve behind her.

“What are you doing here?” Hannah asked surprised to see him.

“No time for that, I assume you heading to get Loki,” Steve said. They nodded and Steve leaded the way to the building she was being held in.

They stood out side realizing that this wasn’t going to be as easy to break in though the window as people routinely passed by Loki window as it seemed like a common route.

“We need a deviation,” Steve said. Hannah thought for a minute.

“I could re-arrange some power flow blow a few circuits down the corridor,” Hannah suggested.

Jira nodded, “Steve you keep watch.”

The plan went perfectly and Loki and Jira came running out the building towards where Hannah was waiting for them. They rushed away from the building hoping it would take the guards a while to notice they were all missing from the room. Hopefully they would have until morning when they would notice they were missing when they came to deliver breakfast.

“Keep moving Hannah,” said noticing Steve signalling towards them.

They had gained a bit of distance from the building as they approached Steve they crouched down together to discuss how they would escape starfleet campus.

[Deleted]

Melain’s mother was humming softly, punctuating the rhythm with the occasional “Hmm,Tsk” as she prodded Melain’s shoulder. Melain was getting a little frustrated, either her mother had no clue what she was doing, or she was stalling for time since she did not have a good reply.

The intimate session between mother and daughter was quickly interrupted when a noise erupted from the back of the garden. The gate that Melain’s uncle has installed (for the safety of the house and it’s occupants) gave a triumphant groan as a shadowy figure tumbled over and into Benjel’s prized rose bush. Melain and Lenary leapt up, one of them screamed, although it was not clear which. Melain heard her uncle exclaim something from behind them as her mother instinctively stepped forward, sheltering Melain from whatever prying eyes the intruder might posses. Melain struggled to pull her shirt back on, finding it to be a rather difficult task considering she was shaking terribly. The figure sank deeper into the bush. ‘Benjel!!!!” Melain’s mother yelled.

“Got it!” Melain’s uncle hollered back from the doorway where he had paused momentarily, a picture of heroism; backlit from the light of the house, a look of pure wrath in his eyes, wielding a frying pan still stained with that morning’s scrambled eggs. Melain had a vision of what he must have been like back in his youth on Bajor. He had been a resistance fighter, and even during a famine he had always been a hefty individual with fire in his eyes.

“Do be careful! I’m calling the police.” Lenary called out as her brother-in-law charged out into the yard after the trespasser. “Come Melain, we don’t need to see this.” She placed a firm, but concerned arm around Melain and urged her toward the still open door. Melain hesitated, she was not afraid, she was worried, but more about her uncle’s rose bushes and even the state of the intruder then herself. She even flinched when Benjel lifted the fellow up off the bushes, hand around his throat, pressing him against the fence. Thankfully the frying pan had been forgotten or the trespasser would have “made in China” printed onhis forhead.

The figure said something and pointed toward Melain. This motion caused the man’s naturally blue face to hit the faint, early morning light. She recognised that face.
Melain stepped forward. ‘Frek?” it was not so much a question as a statement of disbelief. “You know this guy? Why didn’t you say so?” Melain’s uncle asked, placing the Andorian back on his feet.
“By The Prophets Frek, I thought you where dead!” Melain exclaimed rushing over to her friend’s side, she was about to give him a strong embrace when she noticed his resemblance to a hedgehog. “Get the med kit, he’s covered in thorns.”
“If your uncle had let go any later I might have been dead.” Frek replied with no sign of sarcasm. He was massgaing his throat.
“I have every right to protect my family, how was I supposed to know you where a friend? There is a saying “The herder uses the gate, the thief jumps the fence.” you jumped the fence” Benjel countered, standing guard above them. “What’s your busniess here anyway?”
“I’m here to get Melin, the others are meeting us by some tree, Harr.. The Captain looked up your address and sent me to get you.” Frek replied as Lenary returned with the medkit.
“You can’t leave Melain, they put you under our care, besides you are not well.” Lenary interjected as she selected a pair of tweezers from the kit. She lifted up Frek’s thorny arm and held the tweezers, poised for action
Melain grabbed the tweezers from her mother and set to work on Frek’s arms. “I’m not staying here another hour if I don’t have to. I’ve got orders from my Captain I...”
“You where put on non-active duty Melain, orders from your Captain are not possible.” Lenary insisted.
“Look, I don’t want to get involved in something that may or may not be my business. I don’t know why they think Melain is crazy and I don’t need to know, but as I see it Melain is in more danger here then with us. Besides, I don’t see anything wrong with her.” Frek replied flinching as Melain removed various thorns.

Melain’s mother opened her mouth as if to say something, but was silenced by a stern look from Uncle Benjel. “Lenary, she is a grown women, and even though she is sick the final decision about this is up to her. Melain, I do not believe you are in any state to go with this....” Benjel looked Frek up and down. “... friend, but that is just my opinion. If you choose to go I will not stand in your way and neither will your mother.”

Melain looked up at her uncle, over to her mother and back at Frek. She felt better now then she had an hour ago, she was even a little hungry. “Why do they need me?” She asked.
“Because something’s not right. Our hearings where not exactly without bias right?” Frek explained, Melain nodded reluctantly. “That’s not normal. We are meeting with the remaining senior staff...”
“What, whose missing?” Melain exclaimed, letting panic edge it’s way into her voice, Frek mentioned the Captain, so at least Harrias was all right...
“We can’t find Cyle, I think he falls under another jurisdiction, and Ramsey has been reassigned already so has Farsir.” Frek explained. “Harrias just wants to meet, talk about what happened, try to make sense of the hearings and then figure out what to do next. So are you coming?”
Melain nodded “I think so, Let me get dressed, have something to eat..”
“Oh Melain!” Lenary cooed, rushing back into the house. ‘I’ll go replicate something right now!”
“... and have a shower, then I’ll come.” Melain finished. “Besides, you’ll need to eat too and some new clothes might be in order, your’s are ripped.
Frek looked down at his tunic. “Oh, yeah. Be quick though, I think we are in a rush.”
Melain nodded, handed her uncle to tweezers and bounded back into the house. The thoughts and concerns that had been drowing her before where now replaced with an excitment and urgancy she had been craving. Besides she wanted to see the others more then anything, have someone tell her she had done something right.

Back out in the garden Benjel looked at the Andorian seated at his feet and down at the tweezers in his hand. He felt a mixture of disgust, pride and loathing. Being angry at the young fellow would have ben easy if his niece did not have such an obvious attraction to him. “Here, you take care of getting MY rose’s thorns out of your buttocks, I’ll see if I can find you something to wear.” he tossed Frek the tweezers and headed into the house. Whatever he had for clothes would be a tent on Frek, but that was not exactly his problem. He would fix the fence and try to save the bushes later that morning. If things worked out with Melain maybe he could have this fellow come back and repay him through some manual labour, There was a tree out front he needed to prune and an extra pair of hands might come in handy.

Melain re-emerged from her room fully clothed, complete with a shoulder bag. The bag contained her own, home sized, med kit, a change of clothes and anything else she might need. She had decided to skip the shower and was hopping she would not regret it. Her stomach growled reminding her how long it had been since she had eaten. The smell of hasperat wafted up the stairs from the kitchen and Melain followed it to the source.
“Save some for your friend. Athough tt might be too spicy for him. If so I’ll replicate a sandwich. I pulled out some fruit, grain bars and such for you to take with you. I don’t think anyone else will have though to bring food....”
“Thank you. You’re not going to call those security guards are you?” Melain asked, plunging her fork into the hasperat.
“No, If anyone asks, you where in your room last time I checked, then you where gone. I’m not surprised, they did train you to be clever like that at the Academy.” Melain mom gave her a smile. “You’re hair is a little greasy hon...”
“Where did Frek go?” Melain interrupted, swallowing the last of the hasperate into her mouth.
“You like him don’t you?” Lenary asked putting the food into the bag.
“MOM!” Melain howled. “I’m 26, who I do and do not like is hardly your business. By the Prophets, you used to talk to me like that when I was in junior high.”
Lenary shrugged“I’m just curiose that’s all. He’s a little awkward, I don’t think your uncle likes him.”
“The Kai himself could crush those rose bushes and Benjel would not like him.” Melain replied under her breath.

(95480/4341)

[loki]

Chief Warrant Officer Luke Mortimer paced up the perimeter fence for what seemed like the eightieth time that night. On reflection, he walked this route at least three hundred times in one shift, but the fact remained that it became tedious after a while. Starfleet Campus, San Francisco, rarely saw any action, and if it did, it was usually so far away from the goods entrance that it was days before Luke even heard about it. For several months at the beginning of the year the base had been on high security, and there had been a team assigned to each of the watchposts. Luke had enjoyed having some company while he worked, it had seemed to make the time pass by so much quicker. Now, however, they had fallen back into the routine, and he had to work the nightshift without anybody to talk to. Occasionally there would be the odd late arrival, or a staff member turning out late at night, but in general he found that the goods entrance behind the science labs was the least popular attraction on site.

Lex and Steve had been watching the guard for some time now as he trudged along his well known route. The other two were off gathering some ‘intel’ and trying to find them another way out of here. If she was honest Lex did not think they would find anything, and they were running out of time. Jira, it seemed, had come to a similar conclusion, and returned quickly with negative results. Crouched down behind the east entrance to the labs the four officers whispered to one another.

“I think this is going to be our best bet.” Jira decided, stroking his lips with a soft finger. It was not that the others disagreed, but they could not think of any way of getting clear of the campus without being spotted. Loki was also wondering where they were going to go should their escape go undetected, but supposed that question would have to give way to the more pressing problem for now.

“So what are we going to do?” Hannah asked, “Another distraction?”

Jira liked that suggestion. “Yes. Although nothing really looks too promising…its deserted here so I think he might notice us.”

“So far we have seen one delivery, that was about half an hour ago, and two people I think pass in and out.” Steve informed the Captain.

Jira nodded. “Ok, we can work with that. All it would need is for one of us to pose as a scientist and distract the guard while the others sneak out.”

“What about the one that was left?” Steve asked.

“Well, we’ve seen a few people come and go” Jira mused. “I don’t think he’d let five of us out at one time without suspicion but one doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem, especially if they can convince him they are a scientist…”

Loki found herself nodding. The plan seemed simple enough, although she was sure there were cameras around somewhere that would pick them up if they were not careful. Not that it would really matter once they were out, it would only be a matter of time until they were missed from their rooms anyhow. She was about to speak in agreement when she noticed the others looking at her keenly. Suddenly self-conscious she half-smiled.

“What?” She asked cautiously.

Steve grimaced. “Well, you are our science officer…” He pointed out.

“That doesn’t mean he’ll believe me!” Loki objected in a shrill whisper.

“Oh come on. You can do it easily, just start talking about some astrophysics stuff, something he wont understand, your good at that…” Jira said sounding convinced.

”I’m an archeologist…” Loki muttered under her breath as she stood and skirted the area with her eyes. “Ok I’ll do it, but it’ll have to look convincing…” She agreed half-heartedly.

Ten minutes later Jira and Steve had acquired a white lab coat, two old PADDs and a very strange item that Loki had only ever seen a picture of way back when she was at university. She was rather opposed to carrying it around with her having no idea what it was or where it had come from, but Jira kept insisting that it would be alright. In the end Lex shrugged, deciding that if she didn’t know what the item was the security guard probably knew even less.

At the far side of their vision Luke Mortimer gave a large and powerful yawn as he began yet another trip along the perimeter fence. This time, he was heading North-east, back towards the buildings that were the backdrop of the campus. He liked walking in this direction a little better than the other, it almost seemed as though one way was walking uphill, and the other down, even though the grounds were all perfectly slopeless. About halfway through his marathon walk, he heard gentle footsteps and something tumble and fall to the floor.

“Oh dear.” Said the voice of a young woman, as she bent down to pick up her scattered belongings. A quick glance up saw the security guards feet as he rounded the corner swiftly. Seeing her struggling to collect her things, he leant down and picked up a most curious item.

“Oh, thank you.” The young woman said, suddenly coming over all embarrassed. She looked around one last time to make sure she hadn’t missed anything she might have strewn on the floor.

“That’s quite alright…” he said, and handed the item back to her, still looking at it most intently. Loki smiled.

“It’s a device for measuring the stability of the event horizon of a wormhole.” She told him, and before he could ask any questions continued, “The capacitor here helps to record the fluctuations in space-time continuum while the wormhole is active, obviously we don’t have a wormhole inside the labs but we’ve actually been working on a way of creating enough energy for the event horizon to form without the other forces needed to establish an physical wormhole…” Lex paused to take a quick look over the mans shoulder. Satisfied that the others had all made it through the goods entrance unnoticed, she decided to take her leave.

She smiled sweetly at the man, and heading past him towards the gate without any question she said “Sorry, I’m talking too much again. I was actually on my way home. Thank you again.”

[Harrias Jira]

When he had first sprung the idea of breaking from his cell and freeing the rest of his crew due to the oppression that he felt they were facing, Harrias hadn’t spent too long on analysing the plan. He knew that if he was wrong about the one-sidedness that they were facing, all he was doing was proving their disregard for authority, and breaking a large number of addition rules into the bargain. These thoughts had suddenly started to run through his mind as they had broken free of the facility thanks to Loki’s diversion. Until that stage they could easily go back to their own rooms and forget that they had ever attempted to escape. Now they were inexorably escapees, and on modern day Earth, it was a difficult place to be truly fugitive.

San Francisco was perhaps one of the most liberal cities on the planet; it was still possible to walk around the majority of the city without need for identification and constant security checks, but many of the other cities did have such systems, with areas being sectioned off and although when you had your ID and weren’t on the run, it was nothing more than a quiet bleep as you moved from one to another, it suddenly seemed a very oppressive system when you wanted to avoid being detected. The trill slowly began to realise the tricky world that his brother operated in, and for once wished that the younger Tobias were here. He smiled at that unusual thought. He had seen his brother only once or twice a year since he had found out his true ‘profession’, and their parents had completely cut him off.

He glanced over at Steve and Hannah who were in close conversation about how each of them had escaped, while Loki seemed to be suffering some degree of delayed panic after providing the distraction. He knew from some of his earliest forays into away missions that taking part in such a different operation, especially one that involved a significant degree of danger had a strong effect on most people. Certainly, being trained in science, the expectation was usually that the majority of your service would be spent in a lab analysing data, or for the more astrophysical scientists, the direct observations of space. But on joining the senior staff your job changed, not just in importance, but you became a manager instead of a scientist. Unfortunately, in Starfleet management was a bit more exciting that in most other professions. He shrugged internally knowing that there wasn’t anything he could really do to help her. Comforting words worked for some but annoyed others, so he felt it safest just to watch that she didn’t lose herself too badly.

As the night darkened further towards its climax, Harrias started to wonder where they would spend the night; it was another of the things he had unfortunately not fully considered when he had made this plan. They weren’t to meet with Frek and Lorre for about 20 hours, and he didn’t fancy spending the rest of the night wandering the streets.
“Anyone know anywhere we can stay? It’s been a good number of years since I last spent any time here.” He aimed the question mostly towards Lex, knowing that she was the most recent graduate from the academy. However it was Steve rather than the science officer who spoke up first.
“I know of a few intelligence locations here, I could probably call in some favours, but they would know exactly who we are, and once they find out what’s going on, I don’t think it would last. It depends how quickly it’s discovered that we are missing.”

Jira pondered for a few seconds, his mouth twisting and untwisting as he did so. His conclusions was quick though, and without too much surprise. “It’s too risky, if they find out, we’re putting ourselves straight back into the hands of those we escaped from.” Before he could prompt her, Loki started to talk, judging her idea as she said it.
“I think I know somewhere. I mean, it’s a nightclub really; I went to it a few times during the academy. It’s open all night. Unless its changed, it has an area with some sofas that we could rest in. I mean, we wouldn’t get much sleep probably, but its safer than roaming the streets, and as its not entirely legal, they don’t have any ID sensors to gain access.”
“It sounds like our best bet. It’s a while since I’ve been to an all-night club, but let us hope that I don’t raise too many eyebrows.”

[hannah]

They followed Loki to the nightclub. As they entered into the area of town filled with all the nighttime attractions the number of people on the streets began to increase. She watched as groups of people staggered the streets searching for there next watering hole and was glad that even though there were more people around, that most were unlikely to remember them in the morning either due to there drunken state or being preoccupied with there own affairs.

The state of the nightclubs and bars seemed to decrease in appeal the further and further they walked. They started in the posh area of town with the large nightclubs and pubs and cocktail bars with ID sensors on every door and fancy holographic signs. There were there takeaway bars and replicator outlets on every block. And transport stations and hovercraft station dotted around for an easy way home.

Now they were walking though the older area of town. It wasn’t old in the sense of beautiful odd antique buildings but it the sense of dark, gloomily, uncared for buildings. They saw the occasional hovercraft pass quickly by trying not to stop in this place and a few drunken youths.

Loki led them down a dark alleyway, where the only light came from a doorway at the end of street. As they approached Hannah could see a group of people queued up towards the light source who mostly looked under the legal drinking age or seemed to be very unsavoury characters who you would not like to meet in a dark alley like this. The queue moved fairly quickly compared to some she had stood in, in her youth.

As they approached the front she could an old fashioned sign handing over the door reading dogman. There were also two men (the bouncers) standing in the doorway both in black jackets, ushering people in. One was a large Andorian and the other was a slightly smaller human.

Hannah watched as another two large men in the attire dragged a drunken trill man by his arms out of the nightclub. They carried the struggling man around the corner into the sideway between the club and another building. The Andorian bouncer followed them leaving the slightly smaller human bouncer on the door by himself.

Hannah stomach started to churn as she realised what was going to happen to this poor man, it didn’t matter what he’d done no-one deserved the punishment he was about to get.

As they reached the end of the queue they were looked over by the bouncer who looked all most surprised at seeing them enter this type of nightclub. But he didn’t say anything and just allowed them to enter the club.

As they entered there sensors were bombarded. Their ears by the loud rock music, their eyes and noses by the smoke. Very few places on Earth allowed smoking but this was unfortunately for them one of them. Hannah let out a small cough as her lungs tried to cope with toxic smoke that now began to fill them.

Loki gestured to the crowd and tried to shout over the loud music for them to follow her, but Hannah couldn’t hear a thing and had to try and lip read.

She lead them though the crowd of people dancing and jumping up and down under an array of flashing light sources and fake smoke. They moved over to the sofa area looking for a free seat between the kissing couples and drinking groups of friends.

A few minutes of searching they found a suitable sofa and sat down. It wasn’t very comfortable and was covered in tears and was sticky from the alcoholic drinks that had been split on it, but there was nowhere else to sit. Hannah sat back trying to make herself comfortable and released that this was going to be a long night.

[Deleted]

Melain quickly polished off the hasperate, she hadn’t realised how hungry she was, and chased it down with a glass of apple juice, what was taking Frek so long? Her question was soon answerd by a loud crash from upstairs and a howl of rage she recougnised as her uncle’s. Moments later she heard rapid footsteps coming down the stairs and Frek appeared, flush faced, his baggy shirt only half on and his equally roomy pants riding low.

“How do you live with him!?” Frek exclaimed, trying to pull down the shirt and pull up the pants at the same time. “Impossible to please, how am I suposed to keep from tripping when I’m wearing something big enough to fit three Tellerites?”

Melain tried to keep from erupting in a fit of giggles. “He’s not normally like this, he’s just a little protective over his things. Mom, maybe Frek would fit better in your things?”

”I’m not much bigger then you are now, and I have a feeling your friend would not be interested in one of my old dresses.” Lenary replied. “If you have time I might be able to hem those pants.”

“We might not, when are we meeting the others?” Melain asked sliding the jelly sandwhich her mother had made over toward her friend.

’Tommorow morning.” Frek replied as he picked up the sandwhich.

“Frek, that’s more then enough time to get to the park, we don’t need to leave that soon.” Melain laughed.

”Yeah, but I haven’t the faintest idea where this place is.” Frek admited, taking a big bite. Hi facial expression revealed a moment of revolsion which was forced into a smile. Melain forgot to warn him about her mother’s sandwitches, Melain’s health food obsession paled to her mothers.

“We won’t get that lost, besides I know how to get there, remember this is my hometown...city.” Melain corrected. “You can crash here tonight, we have a spare room in the basement.”

“Not advisable, they’ll be monitoring the house, they probablyt already know your friend is here, her certainly made enough noise.” Benjel interjected from the stairwell. “You guys should head out and find somewhere else to hide low, somewhere no one would look for you. I know a thing or two about staying off the radar.”

Frek looked over at Melain, confused. “He was with the Bajoran resistance, don’t get him started.” Melain replied.

“Ahh,” Frek nodded, as if this explained a great deal. “Then we will head out.”

Melain hopped off her stoll and gave her mother and uncle a farwell hug. It was odd, less then a year ago she was under the impression that Benjel was her father, yet after discovering the truth the transition had been rather easy. Perhaps this was because they had never ben very close, it was as if deep inside she had always known.

Benjel guided Frek and Melain left the house through the back gate, taking care to mention the damage to the rose bush as they passed. “I won three state gold medals for those roses, and got fourth place in a national competition, now look at them.”

Melain rolled her eyes. “I thought you where staying with mom?”

“I’ve decided you two need me more, at least for know. I won’t stick around the whole time, just untill you meet the others.” Benjel replied, Melain was reminded of her first dates in High School when her father... uncle insisted on chaperoning.

“So I was thinking of a place we could hide out, there is always the holocinema, or maybe the...”

“Cinema is too predicatable I know just the place.” Benjel interupted taking an abrupt turn. “I’ve done some gardening there in the past, all the residence are too far gone to even realise you are there, and if they do it won’t be long untill they forget.”

Melain froze “Oh not..”

”Aspen Lane center for the Elderly, just stick with me and the nurses won’t ask any questions.” Benjel explained. “I’ll tell them I’m in to prune the bushes, and that you are my assistance.”

The home for the elderly was sweltering hot, it smelled vaguely of garlic and lemon cleaner. Benjel approched the receptionist, a middle aged human women, and explained that he had recieved a call from the manager about the bushes growing over the foot paths. She did not even bother to ask him for paper work, but gave him a big smile and waved him on through. Melain and Frek followed behind trying to look like part time landscaping employees.

The garden in the center of the complex bore Benjel’s style, lots of roses, very Bajoran. He took out some pruning sheers and passed them over, this was the first time that Melain noticed he had brought his tool kit. “Watch and learn,” he demonstarted how to prune the bush. Most modern complexes no longer required gardeners, but according to Benjel most of his patrons missed the “personal touch” of the modern methods.

“Do you think he brought us here to hide, or do his work?” Frek whisperd under his breath.

“Possibly both.” Melain replied.

(5198/96337)

[fthelev]

“That's just great,” Frek groaned softly enough not to be heard by Benjel. The expression on his face a mixture of disdain and despair. He glanced at Benjel and his capable hands managing the tender roses and stared yearningly to the gate that marked freedom. It was hard to believe that those same hands almost decapitated him not that much earlier. And that those tender roses almost stung him to death. The everyday life of a simple Andorian could be pretty harsh at times, he thought not entirely without pity.
“So you see? That's how it's done,” Benjel said in a tone that suggested that there was no doubt about it. “Now you take a go.”
He held out his tools of trade. “Come on!” he urged the hesitant Frek, “Just like I showed you.”
Reluctantly Frek accepted the tool. Perhaps he actually should have paid attention to the Bajoran's short lecture about the joys of pruning roses. He knelt down next to the plant, bush or whatever category it fell under and carefully took the stem of one of the roses between his fingers. To be honest he didn't have the slightest idea of what to do now. But somehow it didn't seem a very good idea to admit that he hadn't been listening to Melain's uncle. Especially if there was a chance he might actually be doing it right somehow and get away with it. The rather big man was standing slightly behind him hovering over him like a huge watch tower. And he was watching indeed.
Frek swallowed and cut into the stem. Almost immediately a hand soared down and ripped the prune-knife out his hand, almost cutting off a finger in the process.
“Not like that you prospectless untalented Andorian!” he snapped. Surely that must have awoken some of the fossils in this place, even hearing impaired ones, if not given a heart-attack. “It's a pruning-knife, not a guillotine!”
He squatted down to inspect the damage done. “This time do pay attention instead of glancing at my niece,” he said in such a manner that it was clear he didn't tolerate anything less than pure devotion, Hare Krishna style.

“Now,” he said handing the tools over once again. “When I come back I expect this rose-bush to be perfectly trimmed...” A painful look briefly appeared on his face. “...and not murdered.”
He turned around to head off to the main building, but suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned around. “And I want at least six feet between you and her,” he said warningly.
“Benjel,” Melain protested, “We ar e not sixt...”
His hand raised. A finger wiggled.
Then he aimed his forefinger and middle-finger towards his eyes, before the forefinger did a solo performance pointing at Frek. “I'll be watching you,” he said supporting the gesture.

Frek watched him disappear into the building, swallowed and turned to Melain. “Somehow, I get the feeling he hates me,” he said still staring at the door.
Melain smiled and stepped in closer. “He doesn't hate you,” she said and took hold of his arm, clearly not impressed by the six feet rule. “He just...well...uhm, dislikes you a little bit. Give it some time, he's not that bad.”
“Hmm. Yeah, sure...” he obviously wasn't entirely convinced. He had been reading some Earth history. Wasn't that about the same thing Chamberlain said about Hitler?

The sun had gone down hours ago, and the half-full moon had been climbing up and soon it would start its declination, completing another day of its cycle. In a way the garden was quite beautiful. With its carefully pruned roses, green carefully cropped trees and carefully kept lawns. It was surrounded with a high fence all around that guaranteed privacy. Privacy for the people would lived outside the fence that is. I think we can all agree; you don't want some drooling old person drifting off and start stealing your Sunday brunch. The fence prevented them to from escaping. Besides, they had enough space for movement inside the complex. The carefully kept lawns were intersected by carefully kept paths. Hardened paths. You don't want to have old people getting stuck in the mud with their canes and crutches. Although, in a bad way, fun to watch for a while, the eventual horrors outweigh the fun factor.
But all-in-all, it was still a good looking place.

Frek looked away from the building in which Melain's uncle disappeared and stared at the young woman in front of him. The soft light of the garden illumination glanced on her light brown hair and bounced off her pale face. To Frek it seemed as if she had lost some of her tan since the last time they had seen each other. The tingling sensation, the butterflies were back in his stomach. In contrast to what was happening, what they were getting into, this place was quiet and serene. Not counting the old people. And in this soft light, from the moon as well as the carefully designed garden lights, she looked as beautiful as ever. He felt the urge to take her in his arms, hold her and kiss her. Give in to this pleasant tension.
It could be like in one of those old film-noir movies, if you leave stumbling on some corpse out of the picture.
And he might have just done that right there and then if it weren't for a sudden, vivid imagination of how dear uncle Benjel would react to that romantic display.
And then the magic moment was over. Reality rushing back in.

The corner of his mouth drew down and he breathed out through his nose. “I hate gardening,” he admitted with a sigh, although that was probably something even the most senile geranium-gazer could have guessed.
“I know,” Melain remembered, “The last plant you had died within a week.”
“I probably forgot to water it...”
“Frek, it was a cactus! You hardly have to water them at all.”
He looked away from the roses. “Oh.” A cow going to the slaughter house might have mowed more cheerful.
“You know, I'd rather have taken my chances in the holo-cinema,” Frek said and stared at the fence. “You think he would hold it against us if we climbed over the fence and make a run for it?”
Melain smiled. “I sure he'll hold it against you,” she said, and added playfully, “Although I might get away with it.”
“Seriously, you aren...” he started somewhat startled.
She laughed. “Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere.” She took the gardening tool out of his hand. “Come on, I'll show you how it's done.”

Silently they worked for a while side by side. It was strange in a certain way. You can imagine what it's like. Having a million things to tell each other, to talk about. But somehow it is not coming out, and without the whole thing being awkward.
“You think he's gonna keep us here all night?” Frek broke the silence after a fifteen minutes or so. “We still got till ten tomorrow evening, and I really don't want to spend the next eighteen hours getting my pierced by rose bush thorns.”
Okay, that would be very unlikely, but it still it would be nice to have some confirmation on that.
Melain shook her head, sniffed and ran a finger under her nose. The dirt on her hands left a muddy smudge. “Nah,” she replied looking over her shoulder towards the main building. “I'm sure he's simply arranging some form of accommodation for us. We do need to get some sleep before we head out tomorrow.”
And in an afterthought, “He probably just wants you to think you'll be spending the next twenty hours trimming bushes and plants.” It placed a grin on her face.
“Ah, good.” There was something that resembled a sigh of relief.
There was a small pause.
“Melain?”
“Yeah...”
“It's good to see you again.”

[5965/124392]

[lucykanz]

There was a series of loud beeping noises, followed shortly by someone cursing. “Computer, what's going on?"

The computer answered in its ever-smug tone, "The time is 0900 hours."

Lucy groaned and rolled over. Why she kept bothering to set alarms she didn't know. It wasn't as if she had to do anything at a specific time. In fact it wasn't as if she had to do anything at all. Her daily routine consisted of eating, studying and arguing with the computer. That was, of course, when she wasn't reprogramming it. Lucy was fairly sure that she now had the most secure shuttle ever to belong to Starfleet. It was also probably the most stubborn, vital for keeping entertained.

But it was still just a computer onboard a shuttle with only one occupant. It had been for too long now, and the journey was not yet over.

Despite its fairly routine start, it was going to be an interesting day. That is, interesting compared to the other days since she had left the Vesuvius. It would be difficult to beat her last day there for surprising events.

Having finally dragged herself out of bed she got ready to face the day. Like the days before, Lucy sat in the pilot's chair with her feet up on the helm console while she sat eating cereal. The view was quite nice to look at, it was no nebula but good all the same. She wondered, as always, what would be happening now if she hadn't left the ship. Not that she'd had much choice over the matter.

She placed her bowl in the replicator and activated the front consoles. She saw something on the readout that put a smile on her face. "Computer, when did we enter the alpha quadrant." "Today at 0700 hours" "Why didn't you tell me?" "Messages are not permitted before 0900 hours." "Why didn't you tell me when I woke up?" "Instruction not specified."

Lucy swore at the computer again, more out of habit than any actual hatred. It was still good news though. She set up a datalink with the nearest Starfleet news beacon and sent a message to check-in with security. She wasn't looking forward to their reply, but how bad could it be...?



After weeks of complaining she actually felt a sense of sadness about having to send her shuttle back home. All the time she'd spent training it up as well. "Computer, when I leave where are you going to go?"

"USS Vesuvius-A"

"Good, and who is the only person besides me allowed to go anywhere near you?"

"Commander L'Ola Kanz"

"Perfect. See you around." She took one last look and stepped out into the shuttle bay. Immediately the engines started firing up, and what had been her temporary home headed back off to its rightful owners. Lucy sighed and headed off to what could potentially spell the end of her right to travel through Federation space. Starfleet security hadn't been mildly annoyed about her recent absence, they'd been furious. And this meeting would not be fun.



"Lucy Kanz, do you accept that you have acted in violation of our agreement and have in doing so endangered the security of the Federation?"

*Now that's another friendly question* she thought. This had been going on for an hour already and they weren't getting anywhere. "I fail to see how I violated the agreement. It clearly states that I have freedom of travel."

The senior officer spoke up this time, "The travel itself is not the issue here, Miss Kanz, it is the potential for leaking information. Which is precisely why we arranged for you to check in with us on a regular basis. If news got out then it could be as damaging to you as it would be to us."

Lucy glared at them, now she was annoyed, "I haven't told my best friend. How would you feel if you couldn't talk to your best friend about what you did for the first 16 years of your life? Or about your family? Or where your interests stem from? Everytime I get asked a question about my past the answer includes a lie. If I haven't told the people that mean the most to me, what on Vulcan makes you think I'd tell a complete stranger?"

Her interviewers were slightly taken aback at this but they continued anyway. "I do not doubt your loyalty. However the issue still remains that you are potentially vulnerable should a situation arise in which you are pressed for information."

"Sure, if I ever get tortured there would be problems. And I don't deny that you guys are watching my back in case that happens. But please can you accept that it's no different to anyone else walking round with high security information in their head?"

"Miss Kanz, I'm afraid it is different. You are not a trained Starfleet Officer with years of experience, you are an 18 year old civilian who has still not fully integrated into this society."

There was silence for a moment before one of the other officers spoke up, "I think we could all use a break now.
How about we get back together tomorrow to discuss this further?"

"Agreed" replied the senior officer, "Miss Kanz, we will provide a room for you in this facility, but you are free to wander the city as you wish." The officers filed out.

She found the quickest way out of the building and then started to run. She wasn't running to anywhere, she just needed to use up all the anger that had been slowly building up inside of her. Lucy knew, however, that she would be back tomorrow as requested. And if it had to be done, she would admit to them that she was a security risk. She just had no way of telling what that would lead to.

[Deleted]

When Melain had been a preteen, (old enough to work, but still young enough to be conned into doing so for free) her uncle (father to her then) would pick her up after school and take her to the Academy grounds. There she would lug tools around for him as he described the different plants and flowers and how they ought to be cared for. She meanwhile would gaze around at the cadets going about their business. There was so much more diversity at the Academy then her junior high, and she envied the fact these young adults looked so collected, so professional.

Despite her daydreaming during these times she had learned a thing or two about gardening, of course they had never come in handy before then. On the Nevada she was often too busy to keep plants. Although he had a cactus once, but passed it on to Frek when he showed interest in it. This had been a mistake, Frek visited her twice as often in sickbay that week to get thorns removed and the cactus soon died. Now here she was, gardening, and finding it to be a rather enjoyable, relaxing experience. Maybe relaxing was not right, it was hard to relax with her uncle lecturing Frek, but once Benjel headed off, leaving Melain and Frek alone, she felt rather comfortable. Benjel had always harassed any boy she had brought home as a teenager. It was as if Benjel believed that if the lad could endure his bullying they would treat her right. She had never really liked it, but learned to understand it. Of course she had always hoped he would stop when she became an adult.

She looked over at Frek, meaning to check how he was doing but distracted by the silhouette that the light was making of him. His antenna twitched rhythmically, and she realised that the thing she liked most about him was that he was so easy to talk to and just be with. He was awkward, but nobel in that he refused to admit it. He made her laugh at him, but never took great offence. He had slimmed up a great deal since she had first met him, although this was most likely not due to her influence, but rather the hardships they had been through since then. She could have at in that garden for hours with him close by her side, but she knew that her uncle would soon be back.

They exchanged their usual small talk as they worked. Frek was worried about getting stuck gardening all night, apparently he had not caught on to Benjel’ sense of humour.
“Melain?”
“Yeah...”
“It's good to see you again.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She wanted to say something deep and profound and beautiful but could not find the words. “It’s good to see you again too.” she replied, but regretted the simplicity. “I mean... Do you know why I was at my parent’s house?”

“Not really, It sounded like you where under their care, but I never asked why.”

”After my interview the council decided I was not in any shape to be on my own. I.. I did a lot of things wrong on that planet Frek and people died. Maybe not because of my decisions, but I lost a lot of colleagues and friends... I thought you where one of them.” Melain paused to take in a deep breath. “I was... I became unbalances I guess. I’m not sure I’m back to normal yet, but knowing you are alive and seeing you again really helps.”

Before Frek could reply Benjel swooped in. “Those roses won’t prune themselves, hop to it or you’ll be here all day.”
”Uncle Benjel, surely you are not going to keep up pruning that long. I think there are laws about that kind of abuse.” Melain replied harshly. Her patients for his harassment of her friend was wearing thin and the fact he had barged in so suddenly did not help, how long had he been standing there?
”You’re right, I won’t, but I would like you to finish this bush at least. I was chatting with one of the nurses and they mentioned that the basement has been leaking a bit. I told her that you know your way around plumbing and I could have you take a look. The problem will end up being very complex, and it will take some time. Long enough for you to have a nap. As for you...” he pointed at Frek. “I will be checking on the progress of fixing the leak periodically, and at random so don’t try anything.”

Melain wondered why her uncle had said she was the knowledgeable one rather then Frek. The only leak she knew how to fix was a severed artery. The basement was a rather dank place, probably due to the leak. It seemed to function mainly as storage, although a mysterious, sheet covered shape on a gurney made her wonder what other functions it had. The leak was easy to find, a pool of stagnant water had formed under a rusty pipe that was dripping periodically. The Home for the Elderly was in an older part of town and had apparently been neglected in the last few rounds of renovations. She looked at the pipe as though she knew what she was doing until the nurse finally left.
“How lovely.” she commented, pulling over a pile of what she hoped where clean blankets. She settled into them an attempted to ignore the smell of molasses and body odour that encompassed them. She was very tired, she had not realised this until now. She had not been sleeping well at all over the past few days, and it had finally caught up with her.

She had just begun to drift off to sleep when the door at the top of the stairs opened. Melain had pictures of Star Fleet security officers jump to mind and darted behind a nearby shelving unit. Slow, but unsteady told her someone was coming down the steps. They where breathing raspy and let out a tremendous cough.

(97364/6225)

[hannah]

Hannah, Jira, Steve and Lorre followed the bouncer as he escorted them out of the nightclub. As they entered back into the alleyway they could see the redness in the sky indicating the sun was starting to rise. They fresh air felt better on Hannah’s lungs than the smoke filled room she’d spent the last few hours in. Her eyes stung and her ears were ringing and her eyes lid felt heavy from lack of sleep. Also her stomach was rumbling from lack of food, she now regretted leaving her dinner untouched.

They walked the empty streets, most nightclubs had shut a couple of hours earlier and it was still too early for the majority of people to be commuting to work for the day shift. Hannah started to think of anywhere they could spend the day unnoticed and maybe even get some sleep as she had managed to get very little over all that loud music that had ears ringing.

Hannah stopped and the others stopped as they realised what she was staring at. She looked up at the large screen and listened as the mornings headlines where read out. She listened intently for any mention of them, lucky there wasn’t one. That was either because they hadn’t realised they were missing yet or they weren’t willing to inform the public at this stage.

“Anyone think of anywhere we could hide out for the day?” Jira asked.

“There’s the holocinema,” Hannah suggested.

“Too risky that one of the first places they’d look,” Steve said. Hannah ran though a list of places in her mind thinking about the possibility of spending the day at each. They needed to get of the streets before the morning rush of people as they was a high chance that they would get noticed and would be able to identify them.

She could of quite of few places if it was the weekend, a few building sites, schools and factories but they would be full of people working very shortly. She tried to think were there were any derelict or empty buildings, but also knew they would searched first by starfleet security. They need some less obvious.

[Deleted]

Melain held her breath and could sense Frek doing the same. The erratic steps continued, then stopped. “I put it down here last year... just last year... it was a good year.. good year, vines where full... have a bottle left. My grandfather corked it and...” the creaky voice stopped. “What, where.... Oh dear.”
“I think it;s one of the tenants.” Melain whispered, letting her breathing relax.
”What should we do?” Frek whispered back.
”Take him back to his room I guess, alert one of the nurses.” Melain replied. “What’s he going to do, beat us with his cane?” With that she stepped out from behind the shelving unit.

The elderly man was a human, with a wrinkled head that would have been bald but for a few wisps of silver hair. He was hunched over and was using a cane. He must have been at least 90 years old. He was feeling the wall and muttering about having “lost it.” and “where had she put it”
Melain looked back hesitantly at Frek, who had not moved. Both her sets of grandparents had died on Bajor before she had been bored. The only seniors she had ever interacted with where those who she met on the streets or where involved with the Academy.

”Hello, I think you have the wrong basement.” she replied, cringing at the idiocy of her statement.

“Wha? Who are you, how’d you get in here?” the man asked, doing his vary best to sound threatening.

“We are fixing the pipes, this is Aspen Lane centre for the Elderly.” Melain tried to explain

“Elderly eh, Do I look like a fool missy?” The man retorted, he was obviously delusional.

Melain turned back to Frek “Frek, go get one of the nurses. What’s your name sir?”

“I ain’t telling you nothing, get outta my house!”

Melain let out an exasperated sigh as the door at the top of the stairs opened for a second time. A shadowy figure filled the doorway. It was not one of the nurses, neither was it one of the tenants. The faint outline of a Star Fleet uniform sent chills down Melain’s spine, she slid back into the shadows.

”You there, The nurses are looking for you.” the man shouted down the stairs. “Who where you talking with?”

“We need to get out of here, there might be a back exit.” Melain hissed, nudging Frek further back.

“What are you doing here, get out of my house! I told you ot leave!” The senior turned his attention to the Security officer. By the shuffling of his footsteps Melain suspected he was heading up the stairs to apprehend the “invader”.

Then another voice joined in. “Oh thank heavens you found Mr Sullivan! Ever since his son stopped visiting he hasn’t been the same.” It was a chipper female voice, one of the nurses. “It’s going to be difficult to get him to his room, could you please give me a hand?”

”I’ve still got to find those fugitives, the lady at the desk told me they might be down here.” The man protested.

”Oh, I’ve been around here all day and I haven’t seen anyone other then the tenants and employees. It’s almost time for his medication, if I don;t get him back to his room he might miss it. I’d be very grateful if you’d help me.” She was flirting with him, Melain could tell. Either she was into Star Fleet security, or her father had convinced her to give it a go. Either way, it worked.

“Did you see anyone down there Mr... Sullivan?” The man asked.

”It’s my basement, no one goes there but me! I haven’t got anything of worth, go try the neighbours!” The elderly man’s voice grew sharper.

“all right, all right, I’ll help you.” The Security officer agreed. This was followed by sounds of a scuffle and a few last shouts by Mr Sullivan. Melain wondered why they did not just give him a mild sedative, it would have made things easier.

The door slid closed and Melain let out a sigh of relief. “We need to get out of here.” She stepped out into the light again. How did Star Fleet know where they where? Tracking signal, A tip of? She was hoping for the latter. “Is there a doorway or something back there?”

Frek waited a few moments to respond, “Just an old brick wall. I guess there is only one way out of here, I’ll bet there are more security guys up there as well.”

“Probably.” MelaIn looked around, trying desperately to think up a plan. A nurse’s uniform lay in messy folds on a shelf, she picked it up. Her eyes then settled on the gurney, still loaded with it’s mysterious passenger. “Frek, You are going to hate this but...” She pulled the sheet off the cadaver. It was, or rather had been, an old women. Why she was down here Melain didn’t want to think about. “Help me move her off of here.”

Frek looked at her, visibly shocked. “You’re a doctor, you know how unsanitary that is.”

“Look, she would have been old, very very old, died of natural causes....” Melain paused, if Frek was hesitant about this, how would he respond to her next idea? “Frek, this might be the only way we can get out of here. If you do this I’ll... I’ll have dinner with you, anything you want be it a hotcat and grease dripping fries or anything.” there was no point in hiding her full plan. “Once we get her off I’m going to put on this uniform, the surgical mask will cover my features so I’ll look human, then I’m going to need you to take her place....”

Frek’s eyes widened to the size of a racquetball, his antenna shot strait back, it was almost humorous. “No, No no no. I’ll put on the nurses uniform and you...”

”Frek, I know this is hard for you, but the uniform is my size, I’ll look human a lot easier then you and besides, I can talk medical. Please please please do this for me, I’ll grab a medkit on our way out and I’ll check you over once we are somewhere safe again I promise.”

She had never been so manipulative, and she wasn't even done yet. She pulled Frek toward her by the collar and gave him a quick, but passionate kiss. She had meant to pull away a soon as their lips parted, but instead she remained, her heart beat quickened. This was not fair, she should not be playing him like this. She loved him, and that was not something she wanted to jeopardise.
"I.. I'm sorry. I'll understand if you can't do it."

<Tag Frek>

(98499/7360)

[Deleted]

The sun peaked through the blinds and landed in thin wisps on the desk. The light ran up and down the pads, half empty coffee cups and stale toast. The computer gave a shrill call that pierced through the lone occupant’s dreams and thrust him back into reality. Oro had been in his office since the Nevada officers had been placed under guard. He was in charge of maintaining the Organisation’s watchful eye on them, something he had failed. That morning when the guards went to check on the officers, all of them where gone. A search of the grounds was underway immediately. One security guard reported seeing a women matching Loki’s description near the good entrance by the science labs. Oro immediately dispatched agents to check every building in that area of town, then he sent an agent to check on the Lorre household. That agent had yet to get back to him. Ideally they would find the officers within the next hour, then maybe he would not have to contact the higher authorities.

He answered the call in nervous anticipation. It was the agent he had sent to the Bajoran’s home. “Give it to me strait.” he ordered
“The Bajoran is gone, I tried to get details out of the mother, but she’s tougher then she looks. The best I can give you is that she headed out in the company of her father and some neighbours reported seeing an Andorian in the area this morning. They can’t have gone far.” The agent sounded both tired and defensive.
“I’ll tip of Star Fleet security to check out the area. Keep an eye on things. I want Star Fleet to find them, but they won’t take the steps necessary for the safety of the plan, that is up to you.”
”What should I do with them once I have them?” the agent asked.
“Bring them here, I don’t care what state they are in, but we need them off the street and under our watch.” Oro commanded. his computer gave another call. “I have another message, get back to me if you find anything new.” he broke that comm and opened another.

This caller was an agent he had placed with Star Fleet security it’s self. “Good news.” he reported. “First, a bouncer at a dingy club gave a positive ID on Harrias, Stevenson and Loki. We could not get anymore then that, but at least we know they are together. Second, we’ve taped into some of the city surveillance systems, Lorre and Thelev are travelling together in the residential sector in the company of a large Bajoran Male...”
”Her father.” Oro interrupted. “Divide up your team to cover both groups and don’t under estimate them, these are not civilians, these are Star Fleet officers.”

Oro ended the conversation and leaned back in his chair. They had some leads now, it would not be long before they had the problem under control again. They where on a deadline, things had to come into place soon or everything would be ruined and this damned, ignorant Star Fleet officers where getting in the way. Perhaps now he would have the go-ahead to remove the obstacles like he had planned to in the first place.

(99042/7903)

[lucykanz]

After another session of questionning, Lucy was once again free to roam the area. This time, though, it was while her fate was being decided. And that thought made it a little difficult to escape from reality.

It was done. She had told them what they needed to know. She had even admitted to hacking into Starfleet computers in the past, but stressed that she never passed anything on. And then she said the words they wanted to hear. That, unchecked, she posed a threat to security. But she made sure to add that she would go to most lengths to avoid problems.

She sat on the ground just outside the main building, leaning up against a wall. She couldn't help but think about what she had just been through. She knew that she shouldn't dwell on it and that nothing could change what had been said, but it didn't stop her worrying.

The number of security officers walking past started to increase, not by much but just enough to be noticeable. At first, Lucy assumed that it was shift changeover time, but something about their attitude told her otherwise. Little groups were disappearing in different directions, discussing something which they obviously considered to be important.

Despite recent attempts to stay on the right side of the law, she was so full of curiosity about what was going on that she almost went to get access to the nearest computer. Luckily, common sense got the better of her. It was not the time to start causing trouble again.

At any rate, it gave her an idea of how to kill the time. Lucy bet herself that she could find out exactly what was going on using nothing more that the information available to any civilian and some determination.

With her newfound mild enthusiasm, she got up and half-followed a pair of particularly talkative officers. She didn't want much information, which was just as well as she could barely hear them. But she overheard a couple of things and that was enough to get her started.

Back in her room, well aware that her computer usage was being monitored, Lucy cross referenced the words Stevenson and Loki to see what she could find...

[fthelev]

"I... I'm sorry. I'll understand if you can't do it."

"Uh...?" That was definitely not much of a response, but it was more or less the only thing he could bring out at that particular time. This was not exactly what he had expected. Sure, bit of a surprise, but a damn good one though unexpected. At least for the moment he had completely forgotten about the gurney.
"Frek?" Melain spoke softly, somewhat hesitant. Perhaps unsure on how he would respond to her action. After all, science learns that every action gives an equal reaction. Albeit according to Newton an opposite one. In this case you could say Newton was dead wrong.

Still somewhat lost for words he did the first thing that came to his mind. And okay, that was not uncommon for him, but this time it would be very unlikely he would end up running out of one of those haunted houses on a funfair with his wearing his underwear on his head.
He tilted his head slightly and bent forward a little. Melain's lips, half parted, were soft and warm under his when they met again in this short time span. It was amazing how long you could hold your breath. The kiss was long, gentle and tender with hardly concealed passion. When he backed away he could feel the tingling sensation of excitement running through him. Melain, still standing quite close to him looked up with big eyes. He could only imagine the stupid look he must have had on his face.

Neither of them spoke, quietly enjoying the moment. If you consider it, it is quiet amazing how a cellar in a home for the hopelessly elder used for storing at least one very old and apparently a very deceased lady could become such an adoring place all of the sudden. A place neither of them probably want to leave.
But what they wanted was of no importance, not now anyway. Not if the wanted their next kiss to be through the bars of a prison cell, romantically set in some county jail. Or downtown San Fransisco.
It was Melain who finally broke the silence. Her eyes moved away and rested upon the gurney.
"You really need to get on there Frek," she set quietly but with soft persuasion hidden in her voice. "If we want to get out of here and..."
She didn't finish her sentence and she didn't had to. Frek knew well enough what was at stake here. And it wasn't a vampire.

He starred at the old lady. She had wrinkles. A lot of wrinkles.
"How do we get her off there?" he asked quite stupidly. He was clearly not very keen on touching the corps.
"We lift her off," Melain replied quite logically. She grinned slightly. "She's dead Frek. And very much so. She not gonna bite you."
That might be true but still. "But she's all wrinkly and who knows where she has been," Frek protested. At least Melain had succeeded in taking his reluctance to get on the gurney away. Well, he wasn't complaining about it anymore anyway. It was one step in the right direction.
"Can't we just slit her off and drop her on the ground?" he suggested in a sudden brain-wave. It would be ideal. It wouldn't involve touching someone's slightly incapacitated grandmother.
"Frek!" Melain didn't know whether to laugh or be shocked. "We can't do that, that's inappropriate and simply disrespectful."
Frek shrugged. She was already dead anyway. She wouldn't mind. It was not like she could get hurt or anything. After all, she was dead. You couldn't get much hurt than that.
"I'm sure she was a nasty person anyway," he pointed out, "Why else would they've stuck her down here instead of a nice clean morgue?"
And added in an after thought, "She's not going to complain."
"Oh you," Melain said and dragged him to the gurney, "Come on and give me a hand."
Frek sighed and gave in to the inevitable.

Five minutes later the old lady had found a new resting place on the ground and Frek on the gurney. Melain had switched into the nurses uniform and ran her hands down the sides of the white dress, as if trying to get the wrinkles out of it. It almost had as many as the granny.
"Right," she sighed, "Let's get going."
She looked down on Frek and ran a finger passed the base of one of antennas. "We'll be out in second," she promised.
"I truly hope so," he said with an aggravated tone. "Really, this feels rather uncomfortable. Not to mention totally freaky."
"Shh," she hissed. She had activated the gurney and the anti-grav panel levitated the simple structure carrying Frek with ease. It made thinks a lot easier. Certainly considering they had to go up a stairs. "There's someone at the end of the corridor. Keep still."
She pushed it forward. "Just play dead."
"Very funny!" Frek hissed from under the blanket.
"Shut up!" Melain replied through her teeth. "Keep your head down."
She forcefully pushed it down.
"Hey!"
There was still a bulge under the sheet.
"And keep your antennas down as well," Melain ordered.

It was rather weird lying there. He was unable to see anything all he could go by was what he could hear. And at the moment that wasn't particularly much. Melain's footsteps, his own heart beating with about the same volume as a drum band pounding away. He could feel little shock. They must have stopped. With effort he restrained the pulse to sit upright and check what was happening. But that was something dead people usually refrained from doing, and so should he. If he didn't it would either give the person halting them a heart-attack or it would land them in a nice San Franciscan holding cell with a barred view on the Golden Gate.
"Who's that," someone wanted to know.
"One of the residents," Melain answered.
"Dead?"
"It's an ex-resident now," Melain admitted.
"What happened?" Some curiosity had slipped into the voice. It would be just their luck if he wanted to take a peek under the blanket.
"Ate something wrong," Melain fantasised, "Too much unhealthy food."
"That can kill you?" The voice sounded a bit alarmed.
"Oh yeah," Melain went on, "Infection in the stomach. Spread from there to the rest of the body."
"Hmm..."
"Gut rot you know. Awful sight," Melain told him merrily, "Especially near the end, when it comes through the skin and..."
She paused, as if something had come up in her mind. "You know, I can explain all I want but one look... You wanna see?"
No!, Frek prayed.
"No!" the man urged.
"But..."
"Please," the security officer pressed, "Take that away...far away."

A word of far-well and the gurney started moving again. Frek swallowed and lay dead still. If that would have taken any longer he would've been dead indeed. Complete heart failure.
Then the sheet was ripped away. The sun's early beams shone in his eyes, until they were blocked and replaced by Melain's very pleased looking face. He was pleased looking at it as well.
"We're out," she said with a grin, "Told you it would work."
Frek let out a sigh of relied. "I really, really don't want to do that again. Ever!"
He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. "I feel like I smell like old dead ladies," he complained.
Melain laughed. "Stop complaining and let's get going," she said cheerfully and took his arm.

To remain invisible, or at least out of sight of the powers that be looking for you is not as hard as you might think. Not today anyway, and not in this city. The quiet it was last night when he had come to look for Melain, today the opposite was true. Either most people had the day off or called in a sick-day. The streets were literary filled with people from all parts of the society and the Federation. The festivities had started early that morning, and as the day grew progressed so did the festivities. For most of the day they had wandered through the streets, had a quiet lunch in some lunchroom making sure to get a remote table out of immediate sight. Captain Jira had picked the right day to set up a clandestine meeting.
Not the afternoon had made place for the evening and the crowd was moving towards the park en masse. And amongst them Melain and Frek and in some other street Jira, Hannah and the rest of the company as well. The park was a good choice. It was very public and accessible and yet, tonight, one of the safest places.

"Excuse me," Frek asked and tapped the man walking in front of him on the shoulder. "Do you happen..."
The man turned around.
Frek almost choked on his words and Melain suddenly seemed to have gotten a bit paler and was carefully studying her shoes.
He had tapped on the shoulder of a security officer. Heart attack seemed to be a close call today.
"Sir?" the officer asked politely, "Can I help you?"
"Heh, I uhm...." Frek stumbled, "Time? I mean...do you know what time it is?"
"Yeah," the reply came, "Half past ten..."
"Oh dear, we are late," Frek silly grinned, "Think we have to go dear..."
He grabbed Melain's hand and nodded at the officer. "Good day..."
They quickly took of and merged with the crowd. Although it was very unlikely all Starfleet personnel was informed about them, let alone on the look for them it was still an unnerving experience. One that was not fit for repetition.
Melain swallowed and took a deep breath. "Frek, please don't do that ever again."
"Heh, I wasn't planning to," he said wondering when his knees would stop wobbling."
It took some time to work themselves through the crowd towards the meeting point Harrias Jira had set. But the managed in a very reasonable time. The Captain with the others were already there and waiting.
After the joyful greeting they set down in the grass, just like many other scattered around the field. They wouldn't stand out.
Quickly Jira explained what was on his minds. It was basically the same as he told Frek on yesterdays visit.
"So what is it you want to do?" someone asked.
"Well," Jira slowly answered, "Before we delve any deeper we need to know where we stand. Figure out who and why they are so keen on getting us out of the way."
"We need to get out hands on our files," Hannah said, "See what they have on us..."
Jira nodded. "That sounds well. That mean we have to get into the Starfleet JAG database. Find an entry point."
"It's doable," Steve replied.
Jira continued. "Secondly, I want to know more about those involved in the hearing. That Smith."
Melain agreed. "He perhaps was the most quiet during the hearing," she said, "But he seemed to have some sort of control over the others. Whether they know it or not."
"So you want to break into his house?" Frek enquired.
Jira shook his head. "No," he replied, "I heard some rumours. He's a member of some sort of exclusive club. From what I've heard he likes to conduct his business there."
"So getting in there might gives us a clearer view on what that is," Frek concluded.
"Yep," Jira confirmed, and then warned, "But I doubt it'll be easy. Some creativity is probably wanted."
Frek looked around and pulled some grass out of the ground and fiddled with it. It had become even busier in the park in the past thirty minutes. he pointed it out to the rest.
"With everyone here it's bound to be nice and quiet pretty much everywhere else," he reckoned. "Not bad if you want to do something illicit."
"I agree," Jira said, "We need to split up again. Hannah you take Lorre and Steve. Look into a way to get to our files, and whatever other information you can find. I'll take Frek and Lex. We'll meet again here tomorrow around the same time. If one of use can't make it and doesn't show up, same routine next day. If someone can't make it after two days we can assume they've been caught."

[8020/126447]

[Deleted]

"I agree," Jira said, "We need to split up again. Hannah you take Lorre and Steve. Look into a way to get to our files, and whatever other information you can find. I'll take Frek and Lex. We'll meet again here tomorrow around the same time. If one of use can't make it and doesn't show up, same routine next day. If someone can't make it after two days we can assume they've been caught."

Before these final words of the Commodore's Melain had been only half paying attention. The other half of her focus was being spread out between the activities of the park, gazing at her fellow crewmembers (and relishing the fact they where together once more, doing something) and thinking back to the basement in the Home for the Elderly. She could still feel a faint tingle in her chest and lips from Frek's sudden, but not unappreciated, gesture of affection.

Harrias's final order brought her full focus to the task at hand. Granted, neither of the two options had much to do with her expertise, but she would have liked spending more time with Frek. Instead they where being split up. She was not prepared to lose him, and Harrias' statement about the prospect of capture left a bitter taste in her mouth. That said, Melain would not question Harrias's orders, even if she was not technically under his command at the moment. She got up off the ground, shook the dirt off her pants and adjusted the bag of supplies she had brought with her.

As Steven and Hannah got ready to head out, Melain pulled Frek aside. "Be careful okay. I already lost you once and I don't want to go through that again." Melain cautioned. She took a quick glance to see if anyone was watching, before closing in on Frek once more. She left him with a token of her love on his lips and a bemused smile on his face.

Despite the horrific situation the Nevada crew was in, Melain felt like she was walking on clouds as the trio made their way to the nearest library. They where hoping to secure access to a computer there and tap into the Star Fleet Database. It would not be easy, the database was well protected and the library would not be a secure place. However going to one of the Federation buildings was out of the question.

The library, a grand old building from the 20th century, towered above them as they made their way up the steps. The stairs where dotted with couple's and families who had congregated there for a good view of the parade that would be coming through shortly. Melain approached the doors first, and was dismayed when they failed to open. "Oh come on!" she exclaimed.

"Closed for the festivities I guess." Steve commented. "We could wait until tomorrow."

'I knew this was going to be too easy." Hannah sighed. "Suggestions?"

"I'd rather not wait until tomorrow, who knows how long this is going to take. We are going to have to find another computer. What about one of the network centres?" Melain replied. These computer galleries had taken the place of 21st century internet cafes and where usually located in the downtown core.

"They will probably be closed as well." Steven corrected. “We could use a residence, what about your parent’s place?”

“Not an option, by now it will be crawling with Security officers.” Melain sighed, she did not like where this was going. “Do either of you think you will be able to hack into the database anyway?”

<Tag Hannah and Steven>

Before Melain could reply the public service screen lit up above them. Similar to the old television screens Melain had seen on Tammeron, the purpose os the PSS was to inform Citizens going about their daily lives of significant news items, and even scores during sporting games. Most public building had them installed, the library was no different. The face that appeared was identified as Allan Wilson, a employee of Star Fleet Public Relations. Melain had a bad feeling about this.

“Citizens of San Francisco are asked to keep a look out for several fugitives being sought by Star Fleet Security.”
Alan’s image shrunk to make room for several photos depicting six very familiar faces. Melain noticed that the images had been cropped so that none of the Nevada officers' uniforms where showing.
Tips on their wereabouts can be reported directly to the nearest law enforcement office. Do not approach these men and women as they are considered armed and dangerous.

Melain’s bad feeling got worse, a lot worse. If Star Fleet had made a press release about their escape it meant they where very very intent on finding them. That only left one question, why?

(99850/8711)

[hannah]

Hannah stared up at her face on the screen entranced as the news report was read out. She jumped as she heard a scream.

“That’s them, that’s the ones on the screen,” a frightened young child said point towards them holding his mothers hand tightly with the other hand and hiding himself partly behind her back. Everyone attention was now on them including the starfleet security guards who were there on crowd control.

The families who were on the steps were dragging their children back down the steps and away from them. The security guards had begun to move though the crowds with their phaser in their hands ready.

“Run!” Hannah said to Lorre and Steve leading the way down the steps and into the crowd of people. People tried to move out of there way but to little success, as there were so many people and so little room. Hannah pushed her way though the crowds followed by Lorre and Steve.

Lucky the security guard where unwilling to fire at them, as they would risk injuring someone in the mass of people between them and the three former Nevada officers. The officers continued to push there way though the crowd followed by the every decreasing number of Starfleet security, as they got lost in the crowds.

Hannah reached out her hand behind and grabbed Lorre’s afraid that if they didn’t keep hold of each other they would lose each other. Lorre then grabbed steve hand and the made there way as quickly as they could though the crowds.

Hannah didn’t know how long they had been running for and whether anyone was following as they pushed there way though another crowd of people all to intent on watching a parade in the road that look down at another set of people trying to push there way thought fortunately for them. Hannah noticed an empty alleyway and saw it as an opportunity to escape the crowd hopefully into some quiet street.

She pushed her way towards the vacant alleyway trying to see if she could see the other end. The entered the alleyway and walked down, checking every few seconds to see if anyone had followed them. They exited onto a quiet street with towering building around and closed shops and business.

They stopped and Hannah leant against the wall catching her breath.

“We appear to have lost,” Hannah said with relive in her voice.

“For now,” Steve responded repeating the reality of things.

“I’ve been thinking of somewhere that might have open computer access, the only place I can think of is the university library that should be open for study, but we will need to hack into there system before we can hack into the JAG,” Hannah suggested.

“I should be able hack into the university network,” Steve said with confidence.

“We also need to find some way to disguise ourselves so we don’t get noticed like that again, any suggestions?” Hannah asked as she stood up of the wall ready to get moving again.

<Lorre, steve>

[Deleted]

While Melain knew nothing about hacking into databases, she did know a little about disguises. Granted, any of the supplies she needed to make a disguise did not come in the average civilian medkit, she was relatively certain she could locate someone who would facilitate this need. In fact, she knew just the place to find the right person.

Adaren Leral had been a member of Melain’s congregation when she was younger, he had been subsequently kicked out of the temple for several minor convictions by the local authorities. These convictions all had to do with altering his identity, and to be honest Melain has not 100% sure he was even Bajoran. Either way, he always had a fondness for her, and Melain suspected he had not moved since she had last seen him. “I know just the place, follow me.” Melain encouraged, leading Hannah and Steven through the crowds and ducking into a back alley.
---------------------------------

Melain located the apartment with relative ease, it was not hard to miss being the only residence in an industrial area. She paged the room, and easy to remember 321, and waited.
”Who is it?” The reply came. It was Larel, but he sounded older then Melain remembered.

“An old friend in need of you gifts.” Melain replied. “You know me as...” she paused, was her little nickname something she wanted Hannah and Steven to over hear? “Fidget” she had never been able to sit still during the Vedek’s sermons.

“My My, Melain I’ll bet your big now.” Larel laughed.

“I’m still pretty small, Let me and my friends up and you’ll see.” Melain coaxed.

‘Sure sure, just a moment.” there was a slight pause, and then the light above the door light up and the door slid open. The apartment was old, but relatively well kept up. However it seemed like the higher they got, the less well kept the building was. On the third floor the carpet was stained, and Melain could catch the faint smell of mildew.
--------------------

Larel opened the door and ushered them inside quickly. He gave Melain a quick hug, and then held her at a distance. “What would a pretty thing like you need with my talents? You look like your mom when I first met her, lovely lady. If she did not have you father on her arm at the time I’d have swept her off her feet.” He had a habit of over-enunciating his consonants, something that had once got on Melain’s nerves, but now she found it rather sweet.

Melain did not want to go into the details of her family’s secrets, so she simple smiled and nodded then answered his question. “It’s complicated. We are running from the law, someone wants us under watch, but we never did anything wrong. We are not sure what is going on, but we need to find out. Of course our faces are all over the media, which is wear you come in. I could do this myself, but I don’t have the supplies.”

“No problem, no problem. Something simple then, nothing too illegal. That’s good, I stopped with the Law enforcement officers, impersonations and whatnot ages ago. It got me in too much trouble. I have just what you’ll be needing, and it won’t be hard to remove.

--------------------------------------

It had been a relatively quick visit, they never required much alteration and Larel was still well equipped. He had made Melain look about 10 years older, and provided her with a wig of black hair pulled back into a braid. Hannah and Steven had been so well disguised that Melain did not even recognise them. Larel had not asked for any kind of payment, his only request was that they not bring up his name if captured.
Fully disguised, the trio headed to the University library in confidence.

Being a holiday, the library was relatively quiet, it had been kept open for the few students who needed the time to prepare for up coming examinations, write term papers and other such dismal work that came with a secondary education. There was even a couple taking the opportunity of privacy to turn a study corner into a makeup session. Melain, Hannah and Steven headed up to the 4th floor (Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology) to find a secluded computer consul. The floor held host to only one other person, a student who had fallen asleep reading a worn volume of “Grey Psychology, 10th edition.” not all texts had been placed into the databases, and Melain did not even want to know why this poor fellow had resorting to such an outdated book.

“Go ahead Steven, Hannah, I’ll keep a look out.” Melain encouraged. She stationed herself in a place where she could keep an eye on the door and wondered who Frek was faring.
Sneaking a glance back to her comrades she could see that Hannah had taken a seat and was typing furiously while Steve was hunched over her staring at the screen intently, lips pursed

(100687/9548)

[loki]

The afternoon sun shone strongly down upon the park as Jira, Frek and Lex meandered their way through the crowded park. Lex had not said much during their little reunion, and with the parade happening barely metres away from them she was robbed of the chance to voice any questions while they walked. She was quite sure she had missed something during the last few minutes, because she couldn’t for the life of her figure out where they were going; she only hoped Jira had a plan in mind. The two men walked with lengthy strides, and Lex found herself almost jogging to keep up. When they were far enough away that the sounds of the parade had died away, Jira made a sudden stop and spun on his heel to face them.

“Sorry about that.” He said, in a manner showing he did not intend for them to answer. Loki had other ideas however, but he continued before she could say anything.

“I just wanted to get away from that blasted noise so I could run my plan past you.” The science officer made a small ‘hmphing’ noise, and was obviously disgruntled about being kept out of the loop. So far Frek had remained silent, waiting for Harrias to make his speech before adding ideas of his own. Lex’s patience was wearing thin: technically he wasn’t even her captain, and here he was dragging her around the countryside without so much as an explanation to accompany it. She stared at him accusingly.

“The plan is simple, I want to start with locating that guy Smith, but I don’t know where this club of his meets but I’m certain hes got something to do with the –” He stopped suddenly as his voice was drowned out by an ear splitting tannoy announcement. Having sensitive hearing, Lex actually had to screw up her face in order to deal with the ferocity of the booming voice. From the looks of things, Frek was having similar problems, and only caught the very end of the announcement.

“…flyers identifying the fugitives are presently being handed out. Any sightings are to be reported to your nearest law enforcement office. Do not approach these men and women as they are considered armed and dangerous.”

Jira grimaced. “Sound like anyone we know?”

Loki did not need to look at the flyer that Frek bent down to scoop up to know that she would see her own face printed onto the sheet. Giving her friends a lopsided glance, Loki didn’t hold out much hope for their concealment. Both herself and Jira sported flaming red hair and Frek…well… It didn’t take long for the whispering to start, and soon enough several trembling fingers were pointed in their direction. To the publics credit they had yet to flee screaming in terror, even though the trio had been described as armed and dangerous. Several seconds passed in complete stillness as Loki’s eyes met with those of a woman peering at her from out of the crowd. A mixture of terror and hatred stared back at her, and Loki marveled at the simple misconceptions that could be bred by the media.

When Harrias forcefully tugged on her sleeve she felt as though she had received a sudden and abrupt awakening from a blissful sleep.

“Time to go.” Frek urged her, and Harrias pulled her bodily into a run. It took a little while for the adrenaline to build up in her system, but after a few minutes Loki sped up and overtook the others. The lads, who had been moving at nothing more than a blind run, took off after her and quickly caught up.

“Do you…know…where you’re going?” Harrias asked her between strides.

“Yes.” She replied shortly, remembering vaguely wandering these streets as a teenager with Daniel. It was all slightly different now, so much had changed in so few years – she hoped her sense of direction help out. Catching a glimpse of the primary school out of the corner of her eye the redhead veered to the right, darting down a narrow road that ran between two highrise buildings. Halfway down she spotted it was a deadend, and hesitated, swearing.

“We’re gonna have to go over the wall.” She said to the others, and catlike leapt so that both her hands and one of her feet landed on the top ledge of the wall blocking their path. Their energy reserves running low, the other two scaled the wall, and dropped onto the other side, all panting heavily. Briefly Loki rested her hands on her knees, recognizing the road they had landed in (thank God). They heard footsteps from behind the wall, and although still far beyond it, they knew there was no time to linger. Speeding off once more, Loki had only one place in mind. She knew they wouldn’t have much time, but it might just be enough.

They rounded a corner into a horseshoe shaped alleyway, and she counted the houses as they ran behind them now at a diminished jog. On the fifth one she faltered, swiveled herself so she was facing the fence and scrambled over the top of it. Harrias and Frek followed with haste, the Andorian dropping into foreign bushes for the second time in as many days.

“What the hell?” they heard the voice of a man ask as he stood confounded on his back doorstep. Harrias looked slightly abashed, but Lex did most of the talking.

“Danny, no time now, we need your help…” she pleaded, scurrying up the lawn towards the surprised young man.

“Danny?” Harrias asked scathingly. “Who the hell?”

“It doesn’t matter, there isn’t time. He has a computer. And contacts.” Loki said with rising urgency. Harrias naturally looked to Frek for some indication of his stance. The andorian merely shrugged.

“Have you got a better idea?”

Harrias reluctantly, although quickly, agreed, and they shot inside the house. Without putting up much of a protest Daniel set to work finding anything he could about Jira’s Mr. Smith. The trill leant menacingly over his shoulder, wanting first look at any information he was able to collate, still amazed that he was so willing to help them. Loki stood watch by the front room window, taking very little notice of the appearance of her friends house. She bobbed up and down on the balls of her feet, occasionally resting her hands on the sill as she peered out from behind the curtains. That left Frek to pick inquiringly as several of the strange artifacts Daniel had laying about his home.

Her keen eyesight still did not give them much warning. She knew it had been risky coming here, she had just hoped it would have taken them longer to catch on. There were only three Starfleet officials in the street before she had turned tail and darted through into Daniels office.

”Come on, they’re here.” She called to Harrias from the doorway. He nodded, but made no move to leave, his eye fixed on the screen. “Harrias, did you hear me?” She insisted, taking a quick glance over her shoulder. Frek was now by her side, and also eager that they left before they burst through the door.

“Whats he doing?” he asked annoyedly. Harrias seemed oblivious to the situation.

“You two go on, I’ll be out in a minute.” He said, as if they were asking him to go on a trip to the holocinema. With a strained looked Frek and Loki stumbled across and opened the back door. Halfway across the garden Harrias came storming out with a grin on his face.

“Got it.” He said triumphantly, and Lex assumed he was referring to the location of the mysterious Mr. Smith. Danny appeared at the back door, and Lex suddenly realized the trouble he was about to get into. She opened her mouth to say something but he stopped her.

“Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself.” He said, and disappeared into the house without another word. The trio had no choice but to run, and practically crashed through the garden fence as Starfleet officials stormed the front door.

[hannah]

Hannah sat down on the chair in front of the computer console, making herself comfortable, as she knew she would be here for a while. She tapped the console activating the screen. She was greeted with a message asking her to identify herself. She tapped a few buttons on the keyboard below and the screen changed from the user-friendly screen to a black screen with a white line at the top. She had now entered the computer programming part of the system.

She typed in a few more commands into the screen with a bit of help from Steve to remind her of anything she was a bit unsure about. The screen shortly changed from the black screen back to the user-friendly student interface loading the main area.

She waited a couple of minutes for the interface to load before tapping on the network button on the screen. The screen loaded connecting to the network that linked every computer on this planet and allowed access to many others across this quadrant.

Hannah worked her way out of the university network into the starfleet database towards the JAG system. Upon entering into the JAG system she was greeted by the screen requesting authorisation code to enter the database. This was going to take a while, she would first have to get though the system and then find the right files and break there encryption and try not to active an alerts and get caught hacking in or they would a security team on there backs.

It took Hannah a good couple of hours to break into the JAG system itself and then they had done a search for the Nevada crew and had downloaded all the files that didn’t have any extra security to a pad. Then they started with the first group of files with further security protocols protecting then.

The hours pass quick as Steve and Hannah worked and from a window situated at the end of the bookshelves they could see dusk come and go and the dark evening begin to set in.

“Anyone hungry?” Lorre asked as she took some sandwiches out of her bag. Hannah had learnt over the last couple of days to ignore the groans of the stomach as it got hungry and hungry and was only satisfied by small bites they could get there hands on when places were really quiet. But now it grumbled extremely loudly at the mention of food.

“Yes please,” Hannah said with a smile turning the seat quickly around. Lorre rummaged though her bag passing a sandwich to Hannah and then another to Steve and keeping one for herself. Hannah took a bit. It was delicious; she could tell it was homemade.

“How’s it going getting the information?” Lorre asked.

“We are getting there slowly, there is a lot of security in the way, they keep there files very heavily protected,” Hannah said taking another bit of her sandwich, “We should get back to it.”

They continued to work for another few hours until they heard the announcement that there was only 20 minutes to the library shuts and 10 minutes to all computers would shut down. Hannah looked out the window to the moon was in the sky and the stars were out, she hadn’t noticed how late it had gotten.

Hannah finished what she was doing and download the last of the received data to a pad.

“Did you get all the information?” Lorre asked. Hannah shook her head.

“We got about 85%, but there were still some files we couldn’t get into,” Steve responded.

“There’s a lot of data here it’s going to take a while to look though,” Hannah commented as she stood up and the screen behind her powered down and went black.

“Can anyone think of any where, where we could spend the night?” Hannah asked looking at Steve and Lorre hoping for suggestions.

[fthelev]

“What’ve you got Captain?” Frek inquired between gasps for air. They had managed to get some streets between them and the Starfleet security forces beaming in to arrest them. Good thing their combadges had been confiscated ages ago. At the time it seemed annoying, but now they would only serve as beacon yelling out their position to everyone who wanted to know. On the other hand, it did limit communication possibilities rather severely. They were more or less back to the old fashioned ways of personal communication. Or homing-pigeons. But they are nothing more than flying rats, and besides, have ever smelled one?
Even blankets pulled over dead old ladies for some time could definitely compete with that when it comes to olfactory pleasures. This couldn’t be said for the dear Captain. Clearly he had been producing to much bodily fluids in the sense of perspiration and been showering too little to be spreading an odour that could be considered nice. This could probably also be said of Frek himself, but he was careful and wise enough not to smell himself. But this is what you get when you are on the run. Literarily.

He caught Alexis Loki staring in the direction they had come from, the direction of her friend Daniel’s house, whoever he was. They didn’t actually have had the time for pleasantries and polite introductions over a nice cold beverage containing just enough alcohol and a bite containing a bit too much cholesterol. This wasn’t something he would be likely to get in prison either. And it was a fairly safe bet friend Daniel was taken into protective custody by now. The question being how long he would hold out being protective. Their DNA was bound to be all over that room, and with a little hard luck the computer would show traces of what they had been looking for.
“He’ll be alright,” Frek said to her, “He doesn’t now anything.”
Loki turned and gave him a sour look. “Neither do we,” she said rather truthfully, “And they’re after us for some reason.”
“Well….we did run away,” Jira admitted his crime and waved something he was holding in his hand. He sniffed, and for a moment looked as if he was about to sneeze.
“But, as you wanted to know,” Jira glanced at Frek and then at Loki, “We do have something now.” He looked rather triumphantly.
“A ticket to a first class resort on a vacation planet?” Frek muttered under his breath. He could do with one.
“Mr Thelev!”
“Sorry sir.”
He tapped the PADD, which turned out to be the thing in his hand. A soft glow emanated and illuminating their faces while dusk did its best to make the portal they were standing in look even darker.
“Take a look people.” He turned the device in such a manner the contents on the display became visible to them.
Frek found it hard to tell what he was looking at, as far as he could tell it was a list of names.
“There are a lot of Captain Smith’s in San Francisco,” he noted brightly, “How do we know which one is the one we are looking for? Visit them all?”

He had a bad mental picture about that last part. A nightmarish vision of him hobbling across the city on soar feet hoping it wouldn’t start to rain in addition to his misery.
Jira gave Frek what could be considered an annoyed look.
“No,” he clarified, “I cross-referenced it with exclusive club membership lists.”
That actually sounded rather sensible.
“So where is it?” There was a hint of impatience in Loki’s words and the manner she spoke them.
“Here.” Jira changed the contents of the PADD’s display and the list of names made place for a map of the bay area. A red dot blinked, marking a particular area. With another tap from Jira the map zoomed in on the specified location, giving a more detailed view of the neighbourhood.
Harrias Jira glanced up from the PADD and glanced at his two officers. He could feel a sense of pride towards them, the two here with him and the other three, completing their part of the investigation elsewhere. And although he had confidence in his people, involuntarily his eyes went to Andorian, well, one way or another, there was still this uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was a sense hard to define. Unclear whether it was because somehow he had the feeling this would end badly for them, like being found floating in the bay belly down. Most would consider that as a somewhat bad ending, or something else. Something bigger.
He shook the feeling off of him and continued.

“It’s in the old part of the city,” he said, “Overlooking the historic docks.”
“I think we are here,” Loki spoke up and pointed at the plan. She probably recognized the street her friend’s residence was located.
Frek lifted his head up, as if to get his bearings. “It doesn’t look very far,” he quickly calculated. “I think we can make it in about twenty minutes.”
He looked around. It was almost dark. Good thing the days were getting shorter every day.
“Thirty,” he added, “Thirty minutes if we don’t want to get caught until we get there.”
“Untill you get there?” Loki stared at him with a bit of an incredulous expression on her face, “You actually expect us to get caught once we get there? That’s a positive attitude.”
A shrug came in response. Not that he wanted to get caught, but on the other hand, what could they expect?
“What do you expect? That we simply walk in through the front door?” he asked.
“Stop bickering the two of you,” Jira hissed, “Frek, take off that hat of yours. Lex, cover your hair with that.”
“But…”
“I’m not wearing that,” Loki replied with some reservation.
Frek stared at the hat in his hand. “Hey,” he exclaimed, “I did wash my hair…”
An antenna went up as he thought about that for a moment.
“…well, never mind that.”
Jira sighed. “Look, on the flyer they used the picture from your Starfleet file. Not a picture of an Andorian with hair like a carrot. They did however put a photograph of a flaming redhead science officer on it. You would look less like the pics on the flyer, so just do it.”
The reactions were all but enthusiastic.
“You have red hair as well,” Loki subtly commented.
Jira gave the hat a foul look. “I’m a commodore, I’m not wearing that.”


The three of them sat huddled, hidden behind a bush observing the premises. It was a good thing most people where in another part of the city. They streets had been fairly quiet, which made their journey a lot easier. And since Earth was supposed to be paradise and not a totalitarian police state, the lack of public security was something that didn’t prove to be a disappointment for them as well.
The building the club was established in was freestanding and built in what most people called a colonial style. Though even the least talented architect could see several adjustments had been made and expansions added over the course of years, most in different styles. It gave the building an odd look.
“Well, front door is out,” Jira said after a few minutes of observing. The others followed his glare. The door was out indeed. It was rather big and made of heavy wood. At least a few centimetres thick. It was the kind of door you don’t want to get your fingers caught in between or crush your toes.
“Yep,” Frek agreed, “Door’s definitely out.”
They stared at the object normally meant to close a home to uninvited guests. It was leaning next to the doorpost against the wall. It was out. In the most practical sense of the word.
“Well, it seems like we can walk through the front door,” Loki said with a meaningful look.
“Shh,” Jira hissed as a punctured tire. “Someone’s coming out.”

A figure appeared in the luxurious hallway, soon followed by another man. Seemingly somewhat smaller, rounder and appeared to be wearing a uniform. Although they stood out well in the light, they were at too great a distance to make out any clear distinctions. Something was said to the man in the uniform and he responded with slight bow.
Jira quickly looked aside. “It’s him,” he said, “It’s that Smith.”
He was right. Now he had stepped outside, standing underneath the light that lit the entrance, Frek recognized him as well. He had seen him often enough during the hearings. Smith stood under the lantern and pulled at the lapels of the long grey raincoat he was wearing while he let his eyes scan his direct surroundings. He must have left his uniform either at home or in the club since he wasn’t wearing one. His footsteps were dry taps on the pavement as he walked away.

Frek stared after him and turned to his captain, who already started to speak.
“So, we know he likes to handle his business here,” Jira said, “That means he probably sees the place as secure, where he can attend to things undisturbed, in private. There’s a good chance he keeps some records here, notes, a log. There must be something, anything that can help us.”
Light flooded out into the street through the gap where the door was supposed to be. That at least was stroke of luck. That meant no climbing trees to reach some open window and subsequently falling out of them. The man in the uniform reappeared and pulled close a heavy curtain hanging behind the doorpost.
“We wait a moment until that butler is gone,” Jira said indicating the man in uniform, “Then we go in.”
“And if…”
“If someone asks we are there to do some measurements concerning the door,” Jira cut off the question. “All ready?”
Frek nodded and saw Loki doing the same. He could feel the tension building up, but it was not the good kind of tension like before, with Melain. This was anything but pleasant. A smile crawled onto his face as he thought about her.

“Okay, come on!” A quick glance had ensured the road was empty to either side. With big steps the three officers headed for the door of the club. If it came down to it, they would have to bluff their way out and hope nobody there had seen the news. Sometimes being in a big city had its advantages. People there had the tendency to care a bit less about that sort of thing than they would in a small rural community. Besides, there were some many different cultures not only in San Francisco, but on most of Earth. They would hardly stand out.
As the first to reach the door Frek pulled the curtain aside and slipped past it, closely followed by the others.

The very next moment he was standing stock-still. His heart made leap that was likely to be big enough to get over the moon. There he was, standing eye to eye with another person. The other person seemed to be surprised as he was, but more importantly and less fortunate, Jira’s we-are-here-to-fix-the-door trick was unlikely to work.
She seemed to hold her breath, and her eyes widened as she realised would it was she had standing here, less than a metre away in front of her.
“Oh my god, you’re…” her voice could hardly be called more than a trembling whisper, but then she came to her senses and started to turn around. Her mouth opening, perhaps to take deep breath and make a run for it, perhaps to scream and yell out for help. Whatever it was going to be, they would never be sure.

It all happened in flash.
“Frek, shut-r-up, and stop her,” Jira ordered Frek who still was the closest to her the moment he saw what was coming. He spoke softly, but there was an undeniable urgency.
Frek reacted only a fraction later. His one hand shot forward and grabbed her by the shoulder, while the other at the same time yanked the hat of Loki’s head and placed it over her mouth, successfully preventing her from getting away, or making a lot of noise.
“Are you trying to traumatise her with that filthy had?” Loki hissed.
“It’s not filthy!”
Jira had opened the first door they encountered and Frek struggled to get her in. The door was closed and a light-switch flicked. A soft light spread through the room.
“Who are you?” Jira wanted to know, and nodded to Frek to let her speak.
She looked from on to the other and then back to Jira.
“Lucy,” she replied. There was an aspect of uncertainty in her eyes. But her voice was stable.
Jira nodded and smiled. It was young woman he had in front of him. Perhaps more a girl, how old could she be? Eighteen, nineteen?
“I know who you are,” she said suddenly without being asked.
Jira exchanged a glance with Frek. “And how do you know?”
Most likely she had just seen the news, but her presence here… You never know.
“Because it’s your fault they brought me here.”
Okay, that was somewhat unexpected.
It caused a moment of a bewildered silence.

“And how exactly is that possible?” Frek inquired slowly, “We’ve never seen you or even heard of you in our lives.”
“Well,” she started, and told how she overheard the security officers talking and how she cross-referenced the names and starting looking for more information to satisfy her curiosity.
“Next thing I knew,” she concluded, “Some people in plain clothes transported in and brought me here, for questioning.”
Jira smiled half-heartedly. “By a medium build man, grey eyes, salt and pepper coloured hair by any chance?” he asked, although he already knew what the answer would be. They all knew.
Lucy nodded. “Yeah, he left somewhat before I did.”
“What was it he wanted to know?”
The girl looked from the one to the other again. “He wanted to know about you, what I know about you and why.”
Suddenly the confidence in her voice was gone and she sounded distrustful again. “Who are you people? What have you done?” Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
Jira didn’t answer her, but instead turned to his companions. “We were right. There’s something about that Smith,” he said. “See what is happening? They check everyone out that portrays any interest in us or we come in touch with. Maybe she had a bit too much of an interest to their liking and she’s gets picked up and brought in for questioning.”
Frek slowly shook his head and looked up from the ground. “But why?” he asked, “Okay, we are bit AWOL, sort of, but isn’t this a bit…”
He had stopped holding for a while and turned the palms of his hands upwards in gesture indicating he didn’t know what think of all this.

Although still somewhat anxious, Lucy seemed to have re-found some of her curiosity. “They wanted to check something before they let me go,” she said carefully, scanning the faces, “When your Smith left, he was talking about something with that woman that was there too…”
“About what?”
“I only picked up a few words,” she said quietly, and continued somewhat more hesitant as if not sure if it was a good idea, “They were in the hallway. Some of your names, and something about an assassination.”
A profound silence settled over the room.
A worried glance appeared in Jira’s eyes as he shot another glance at the other non-active Starfleet officers.
“Have you…are you going to kill someone?” Lucy’s question came in a small voice. What if they were…
“No!” the three of them said almost simultaneously.
“Look,” Jira said, “Whatever is going one, this is definitely more than we expected. We need to get back to the others.”
“What about the info you wanted to get?” Loki asked.
Jira shook his head, “No, too dangerous for now. You heard what she said. There still some of Smith’s ‘friends’ here, who knows how many. We’ll find another way. Thanks to her we learned enough for the moment.”

Frek could only feel relieved at that decision. The sooner they were out of here and back in touch with the others, the better he’d have it. He thought of Melain, they were finally getting together, but if things kept going at this rate the relation would be dead before it even had the chance to really start. Gone together, with their own demise. Perhaps kindergarten teacher would have been a better career choice after all.
“So what do we do with her?” he said nodding towards Lucy.
Jira sighed. “We let her go.”
He turned to the young woman. “Listen,” he stressed, “Whatever you heard, we are not part of any assassination, or anything like that, you understand. You want to avoid serious trouble, go home and forget about us. I get the feeling these guys are not exactly joking.”

The light went off again and the door slowly opened.
“Corridor’s clear,” Jira said, “Let’s get out of here.”
Frek nodded at Jira and turned around. “Listen to the Captain,” he told Lucy and gave her a pat on the shoulder before following the others out.
Outside the sun had completely set, the only light coming from the artificial sources positioned above the streets. They were at least almost fifty metres away from the club house when fast footsteps came up from behind them.
“Hey!” the accompanying voice shouted, “Wait-up!”

Ah, well. Who listens to captains anyway?

[10989/129416]