Post 7.4 R&R

[Deleted]

The Victory arrived in dock only because she was being towed by a merchant ship, the same one that had been towing her for the last four days. Nika did what she could to see that the Victory was given partial priority, and had the very real reason rationale that she was afraid her ship might fall apart to give.

Nika watched the repairs start, to make sure that everything was going well, before dismissing those of her senior staff who were eligible for leave on Assailant to it. She then visited with Commander Blakus. She hadn't done so before in large part because, while his part in the direct disobeying of her orders had been significant, he hadn't taken out any of the other senior staff, and he had Wong's word exonerating him.

So Nika had decided to let the earlier promotion of him which had been processed while they were away stand, but always kept him confined to his quarters during off-duty hours during the journey back to Assailant.

Nika nodded to the security officers guarding the door, greeting them, and then released them from guarding him. She then rang the doorbell, waiting for Commander Blakus to invite her in.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted him. “I'm going to release you from your confinement to quarters. But unless you can come up with a really compelling reason why I shouldn't, there will have to be a minor official reprimand placed in your file for your part in disobeying orders and going behind your CO's direct orders.”

<Blakus>

[Andae Blakus]

Andae almost spluttered in reply, he knew it was coming, so why was he so shocked? The Captain's tone was fair, and it would be unreasonable to attempt to argue with her. She had come by his quarters personally which Andae hadn't really been expecting.

He slowly exhaled a lungful of air and straightened his stance and looked the Captain dead in the eyes, "I accept the reprimand Captain," he said slowly but surely. "You have my word as an officer, I will not go behind your back like that again," he added after a pause.

<Cir'Kem>

My word as an officer... Blakus recalled what he had said, how much did Blakus's 'word as an officer' mean to Captain Cir'Kem? It wasn't the only reason his reply sounded hollow in his own ears, because if something went against Blakus's deepest ideals again, what would he do? He did not know himself, but he wasn't sure he wanted to find out, not so soon anyway.

The Captain left soon after, and as the door shut Blakus turned around to look out the viewport above and behind his couch. The docking arena was spread before him. He recalled the beginning of the mission, when he had gazed out the same window at the docking bay, now he was back, doing the same thing.

Blakus's last duty shift had come and passed, so he was now officially on shore leave, but he didn't want to leave the ship just yet. He wanted to watch some of the repair work, repair workers could be so unreliable for specifically and accurately documenting what work they had done, and informing ship's staff. He twisted away from watching the docking port, sat heavily on the couch, and tilted his head in thought. Of course, they would need to completely replace the warp coils, and most of the external systems would need extensive work done on them, and the power conduits would need repairing, and... There was a lot to do.

[Deleted]

“Thank you,” Nika replied. She didn't know how much Blakus' word meant to him, but he wouldn't mention it if it didn't mean anything, and so his statement went a good deal of the way towards mollifying her. “Enjoy your shore leave,” she said, and then she left.

Nika returned to her office to file all the paperwork that she'd filled out earlier, as well as handling a few new issues and transfer requests that had arose. Then, as a result of having filled out most of the forms while the Victory was in transit and the length of time she expected the Victory to have to sit in dock, being repaired, Nika had some time to relax.

She didn't socialize much with the crew, which she suspected was more of a result of her and the work she seemed to be nearly constantly dealing with than a constant of her position. She wasn't sure that was necessarily a problem though. She would like to know her crew better, they were all great people, but she was rather solitary by nature.

Rather than self-analyzing too much, Nika downloaded a novel to her PADD, and took it with her when she went to Assailant. One of the things she loved best about visiting the station was the opportunities it gave for her to add variety to her diet. After some thought, Nika decided on a Bajoran restaurant, and found a table there.

[Deleted]

Tiberian had been let out of the brig upon their arrival at Assailant, but had not been allowed off the ship as per the Captain's orders. Nonetheless, as far as punishments went this was a relatively light one, and he wasn't going to complain. He had taken his time in confinement to catch up on some much needed sleep, none of which he had had whilst he was engaged in the extreme mission situation he had arrived in. Beyond this, he envisaged some time alone with Katie, nice luxurious meal breaks, and the opportunity to finally check into his new old position properly. Well, at least he would be able to complete the latter part.

Still annoyed at him for his recklessness, but not to such a great extent as to warrant breaking up with him, Katie hade continued to sleep in their now shared quarters, but had opted to leave the ship every day to catch up with the staff on Assailant with whom she was friends. Consequently, Tiberian found his luxurious meal breaks to be quite solitary affairs, or at least he would have done if interruptions had not kept arising through the ship repairs. Most of the senior staff had abandoned the ship whilst the Starfleet Corps of Engineers had invaded with the intention of stripping down and essentially rebuilding the larger part of the ships systems. Unfortunately, as with any engineering project, nothing could go totally smoothly, and thus Tiberian was perpetually being called away from his paperwork, food, and exercise time to attend to problems.

One of these occasions came as Tiberian was stood in his sonic shower, hands against the wall and head down as the sonic pulses beat the dirt from his body. To pass the time, he had opted to relive a classical Earth battle at a place called the Somme, quite a famous battle by all accounts, but one that regrettably involved any marines. In doing so, he had spent several hours running through holographically simulated mud and rain as a junior officer, trying to break the German lines. Unfortunaately, his frustration at being unable to win after about three hours worth of attempts had caused him to violate the period specific protocols and call in a photon torpedo strike from a Defiant class warship that materialised in the atmosphere. That having taken away some of the fun of the simulation, Tiberian had opted for a shower and a hot meal.

=/\=Engineering to Colonel Wong=/\=

=/\=Wong here=/\= Tiberian replied, shaking his head in partial annoyance as he deactivated the sonic shower =/\=What is it?=/\=

=/\=Sorry to bother you sir, but some of the station engineers want to dismantle some of our primary phaser couplings in order to get some parts they need for the warp coil repair=/\=

=/\=They want to what?=/\= Tiberian asked, a note of incredulity in his voice, albeit a professional one, given his close affinity to the phaser banks =/\=I'll be right down=/\=

~A few minutes later~

Tiberian strode into engineering, annoyed at what appeared to be the umpteenth interruption since their arrival at Assailant. He had forgone his tunic, and simply had his commbadge attached to the left arm of his black t-shirt, which read in white writing "Marines do it under heavy fire". He was greeted by a nervous looking ensign who must have been part of the ships company, given that he did not act arrogant in the presence of a non-engineer.

"Who's in charge here?" he asked.

"I am" a burly man in a gold uniform stood up from behind a console. He had a thick bushy beard and enormous forearms, the look of something from an old Earth textbook on Russia "Commander Brazhensky. And you are?"

"Lieutenant Colonel Wong, Marine Corps. SMO. Whydo you want to strip out our phaser couplings?"

"We need them to refit your warp coil induction array. Proper phase inducer couplings would need to be specifically crafted, and would take weeks to get here and install. This way, you can have warp engines in a matter of days"

"And then no phasers for a matter of weeks" Tiberian corrected him.

"Which can be refitted easier, and which can be superceded by photon torpedos anyway. I'm just following orders"

"And I'm just disagreeing with them" Tiberian turned to the nervous looking ensign "Go to Assailant and get Commander Blakus back here please"

"He's still on ship sir. He didn't leave"

"Then why did you call me?" Tiberian was getting more frustrated by the moment, but he had enough reprimands in his file for one week without adding assault.
=/\=Wong to Commander Blakus, will you please come down to engineering=/\=

<TAG Commander Blakus>

[Andae Blakus]

Commander Blakus was on the bridge trying to make sense of the engineering console. "Oh, damn. What??" He mumbled in squeaks of fury at the console and glanced sourly behind him at the engineering and maintenance personnel milling about the bridge, hoping at least one of them would notice him. Assailant's staff had spent the last several hours reconfiguring every component, ripping out every piece of hardware, rewriting every byte of software.. on the ship. And Blakus was angry that he wasn't in the loop. They would just tear something out, and not even run it by the chief engineer.

Blakus knew deep down, that it was impossible to know of everything that was being done to the ship, it didn't change his feelings of frustration, he was after all the chief engineer. He stepped back in a huff and glared bitterly at the engineering station in front of him. The damned thing was going haywire with all the system changes, forcing it to constantly update. It seemed to him that the station personnel were switching and changing systems with little or no regard for the consequences.

=/\=Wong to Commander Blakus, will you please come down to engineering=/\=

Wong's out of the brig? "On my way Colonel." Blakus responded in as orderly a tone as possible. "Some shore leave..." he muttered, "Ensign." A junior officer from the starbase briefly looked up at Blakus, pausing in pulling a thick bunch of cables out of the trunk of the Tactical console.

"Yes?" he said.

"That's yes Sir, and any major changes, inform me." Without waiting for the reply, if there was any, Blakus made for the turbolift.

Blakus wondered into Engineering and noticed that several of the staff whom he recognised, looked quite pleased to see him.
Commander Brazhensky whom he had met earlier was standing with Colonel Wong, the two seemingly in heated debate. "So what's this all about?" Blakus asked approaching them, fully aware that his tone of voice betrayed dejection. The large engineer Brazhensky explained what he wanted to do. Ah, another thing I didn't know about! No surprise there... Blakus thought.

"Commander, I asked to be informed if there were any 'radical' plans were regarding the warp coils," said Blakus.

"I know, this is in my opinion not too radical," replied the bearded engineer, his accent unmistakeably Russian, or at least Eastern European.

The CEO glanced at Wong who seemed content to let him have the reins for the time being. "Taking essential components from the phaser arrays and using them in the warp coils seems radical to me." Blakus stated, barely controlling his anger but not his annoyance, that was plain to see. He stepped backward, "I'll tell you what Commander," Blakus had raised his voice, "Why don't you just dismantle the entire ship! Break it into pieces!" he practically shouted, making sweeping gestures with his arms. He was ignoring the fact that Brazhensky had an extra black pip on his collar coupled with the fact he'd only just been officially reprimanded.

"Ok, I'm sorry," Blakus continued upon seeing the reaction he had provoked, "We will discuss this later. Please inform me first before you decide to change any more major systems." Blakus wandered into his office to sort through the padds strewn over his desk, some of them associated with the current work being done on the ship, most of them to do with the mission just gone. He sat in the chair and started.

<Tag Wong>

[jamesmatthew]

Scene Main Bridge USS VICTORY

The Final docking maneuvers were finished and the engines shut
down. "Cmdr Davis , all off duty personnel are allowed shore leave.
Make sure all injured are transferred to base medical."

"Aye Captain." CMDR Davis said in cool tones.

The Captain stood and eyed his bridge crew even though he was missing
some people in key places. "You've done a remarkable job. I look
forward to next time we go out. Enjoy your leave. Cmdr Matthew ?"

"Cmdr Matthew I intend to Captain ?"

"Cmdr Matthew Set the Port watch. Contact the base tell them they can start sending there repair teams over Lt. Craig You have the bridge."

"Aye sir, I have the bridge, Port Watch Team report to the bridge."

“Cmdr Matthew entered the lift with his First Officer. "We have several new
crewmembers reporting aboard. Before our next Deployment I can only hope that star fleet personal find some officers to fill those key senior position that need to be fill I will have the final mission status reports for all of the Department heads on your desk before I start my Shore leave “ ?

‘Cmdr Matthew computer stop lift this is where I get off see you later commander .

[Andae Blakus]

Andae read the sentence for what felt like the hundredth time, he screwed up his face in concentration at the PADD, trying to make sense of it. From his peripheral vision he noticed someone standing in the doorway of his office. "Come in," he said roughly and glanced up briefly at who it was, then quickly returned his gaze to the damned PADD. It was the bearded station engineer. "What do you want Commander?"

Brazhensky came to the desk and Blakus offered him the seat opposite. "Commander Blakus," he addressed him as he sat.

"What?" The CEO didn't look up.

"Commander, I hear that you have been under a lot of stress on your past mission?"

Blakus sighed and put the PADD down at last, "Yes, you could say that," he said.

"Why do you not take a break?" asked Brazhensky, in his distinct Russian accent. "We can take care of things here."

Blakus violently shook his head, "No, if I leave you people to get on with it, I'll spend the whole of the next mission catching up with everything you've done. If I stay here for a bit longer, then I can..." He paused, "I can... hmph! I can try and keep up with everything."

Brazhensky seemed to disagree. Blakus knew he was being 'slightly' unfair. Only slightly, he thought. The man was being reasonable now at least, not opposing Blakus with as much zeal as the CEO was showing. "I promise you Commander, that we will document everything we do to our best efforts."

Blakus started shaking his head again, "It would serve, if I stayed here." He insisted.

The Russian tried a different tack, "Remember, Commander, that with these warp coils and phasers, I am only following orders. If you go to Starbase, you can perhaps change that. I'll hold off on the warp coils for a while."

Blakus considered it, he tapped a finger on the edge of the desk and sat back pensively. "OK," he said, and shot his eyes at Brazhensky, "But I 'will' be back soon."

"Very well, and I will try and keep Colonel Wong off my back." Brazhensky added a mischievous joke. Blakus laughed,

"Good luck with that Commander." And with that Blakus disembarked from the USS Victory-C and headed for Starbase Assailant.

[Tiana Galwyn Cet]

Tiana had woken with her alarm and considerably better than when she had fallen asleep. It was then that she realised that she had actually crashed out with her uniform on. She had a quick shower, changed and wandered down to the lounge to meet Liam.

He arrived shortly after her, it seemed that he hadn't managed to sleep. Or at least hadn't got that much sleep. He yawned as he settled at the table and again as he started on the first drink. Tiana knew neither of them were due to be on duty for a while, one of the advantages of being a department head, but she was a little worried about Liam all the same. They talked about things that didn't really matter, this was a time to unwind after all. Liam continued to yawn, Tiana was tempted to sent him back to bed but didn't feel that that would be fair. Even though he was obiviously still exhausted he was carrying on an intelligent conversation.

They were on their second drinks when Russ arrived. Tiana looked up. "Hi," she said. "How are you?" Liam didn't immediately say anything Tiana wondered if he'd finally dropped off to sleep.

"Busy," he replied dropping into a chair at the table. Tiana smiled, knowing full well that this was his default answer for a normal day to day situation.
All three of them chatted for a while, Liam's comments were getting shorter and his yawns more frequent. In the end he sighed and stood shakily leaning on the table. "I think I better sleep." He announced with the studied deliberation of someone who knows the words will come out wrong if he doesn't think about every single one. He took two steps away from the table and staggered. Tiana caught him, darping his arm around her shoulders.

"You're going back to your quarters now." she said firmly. He nodded. Tiana turned to look over her shoulder at Russell "I'll catch you later. He smiled.

"You have lovely eyes," Liam said. He was staring unfocussed in Tiana's direction, or maybe it was over her shoulder... Tiana couldn't tell. She hoped Russell hadn't heard. They made it back to Liam's quarters and she more or less forced him inside, hoping that this time he would get some rest.

Tiana went back to the lounge, but Russ had all ready been called away, apparently the duties of a first officer were never completed. Still they had a dinner date set for later that day so it wasn't as if there weren't spending much quality time together. Or if she was honest much time at all. Tiana had found the last mission tiring but she knew it had been worse on Russ, it hadn't been the ideal mission for a new First Officer. Tiana intended that their leave was relaxing and hopefully destressing. If they had more time she might have attempted to drag him to the Hoobishan Baths on Trill they were the ultimate stress reliever. Trying not to worry too much about Russ, Tian left the lounge and returned to the science labs. She had a lot to catch up on. Some experiments had been left running and some had been ended prematurely meaning that there was stuff everywhere. Most of the science staff had also worked themselves to the point of exhaustion or in Liam's case beyond. She hoped nothing science critical occurred on the way back to Assailant.

OOC: Edited as I didn't post for a while and the story moved on.

[Deleted]

Nika enjoyed her meal, but she found the book she had chosen to read dull and fairly incomprehensible. Nika wondered how much of that was the culture that the author came from and the way it would differ from Nika's own experience, and she was willing to bet a lot of it was, but also how much of it was just bad writing. There was no way to know for sure, without immersing herself in that culture. Even if that was what she'd wanted to do, it would have proven quite difficult, since the original culture had undergone significant changes in the intervening hundreds of years.

In truth, Nika didn't understand most popular Federation literature. Having grown up on Firont, a world apart from the interconnected nature of the Federation, she felt that she spent a far too large percentage of her time just trying to catch up with cultural understanding. So many books that were a part of the curriculum across the Federation hadn't been heard of on Firont, one of the many negative side effects of the Firont's policy of general isolationism.

After dinner, Nika walked the promenade on Assailant for a while, continuing her train of thought. The biggest difference she could see between Firont literature and the majority of Federation literature was the purpose of dialog during the narrative, but there were many other details. They combined to make it difficult for her to simply enjoy a book, she always had to be focusing on details that she usually ignored.

Not yet ready to call it a night, Nika on a whim stopped into a bookstore instead of walking past. Although she could get most of the classics from the Victory computer, she liked the experience of buying a book, and she wanted to try reading something more recent this time.

[Tiana Galwyn Cet]

At some point in the Victory's trip back to starbase.

Tiana had finally finished sorting out the science lab and the science staff all of whom had had far too little sleep over the last mission. They were now running on minimum official staffing levels although others were still in the lab to fiddle with their own research, that made Tiana smile. Now though that all the sorting out and admin had been done there was something she had been promising herself she would do, mainly for her own peace of mind.

Tiana walked down to the Brig. She waved briefly at the still incarcerated marine although she didn't think he really noticed her either that or he was ignoring her which was possible. She reached the cell where their two original prisoners were being held. Tiana took a deep breath and began.

"I just want to tell you that is was stupid and irresponsible to mess around with a star and chroniton particles. A school kid would know better. You do realise that you came with a hairsbreadth of causing your star to explode and take your whole system with it. That's billions of deaths because you tried to use a star as a weapon. I hope you're pleased with your work." Tiana paused momentarily to draw breath before continuing her tirade.

"I want you to know that if you ever get out of prison I will personally see to it that you are never able to work in any sort of research ever again. I also want you to know that the only reason we are having is conversation at all is that one of my crewmates took a very large risk to stabilise your star. He though he was going to die but he did it anyway. The only reason he had to something that dangerous was because you were incompetant and very stupid. I hope you're happy and I hope you and live with yourselves."

Tiana turned on her heel and left the brig leaving some slightly shell shocked prisoners and a bemused security officer in her wake. She felt a lot better now.

[russelldavis]

Russell was relieved when they finally arrived at the star base, he watched on the view screen as they made their final approach to the star base. The trip back had been quite uneventful, the victory was in bad shape and the engineers had finally resigned themselves to the fact that they could not fix everything with the aid of the bases engineers, this had made a few of the engineering officers moody about letting strange engineers touch their precious ship. As the merchant ship moved off to allow the victory to make the final move to entire the space dock that had been given to them Russell watched as everyone on the bridge began working on moving the ship into the dock and switching from internal power to the bases power. Once the docking was complete and the bases engineers started moving their equipment onto the victory Russell heard Nika say to everyone that they were free to leave the victory and head over to assailant, Russell considered leaving right that moment but he felt he should finish the last few reports that he had to sign off on. He noted that there were quite a few new names joining the ship soon, signing the last report Russell stood and took one last look around the bridge before moving to the turbolift and making his way to his quarters.

Russell was glad to be back on the base and out of uniform, and even more glad that the holodeck had been free. Programming in his favourite holo program for calming himself Russell walked onto the holodeck to find himself in a peaceful meadow near the base of a mountain, looking towards the top of the mountain he could see a gleaming a small temple built into the mountains peak. Finding a climbing pack and gear near the arch Russell suited up and programmed into the arch a program deactivation at 1100 hours so that he would have enough time to freshen up before the morning meeting that he had found out about for science staff on assailant, he knew Tiana had been having trouble convincing Liam to get some rest so he thought he would see how bad it was. Beginning to climb Russell felt the rocks in his hands and tried to remember where this was, he had never been able to remember where this mountain was, if it even existed.

As time progressed Russell began to move carefully but surely up the mountain, he was annoyed that he had not looked up far enough to avoid getting himself in a position where he had to go back down to make his way up again. But after 5 hours of climbing he finally reached the path that would take him the rest of the way to the temple. Just as he was arriving at the temper he all of a sudden found himself in an empty holodeck =/\=Time is now 11 hundred hours, program terminated=/\= Russell was thankful to the computer for turning off the program, he probably would have been there a lot longer had it not. Walking off the holodeck Russell made his way to the temporary quarters e had been assigned for his time on assailant. After having a shower and a change of clothes, Russell was shocked to find a message for him from his younger brother, Russell wondered what had James writing to him as when Russell had left to begin his Starfleet training he and James had almost come to blows and James had refused to speak to Russell since. Opening the message he was very surprised by the message.

FROM: Doctor James Davis, Junior Scientist, Project Arcturus
TO: Commander Russell Davis, First Officer, USS Victory-C
Subject: <None>
Hey bro, sorry I have not written but I was mad at you for not going into science like me, mum and dad. So I hear you are a first officer already, you were always a fast person to rise up to challenges.

Right I will get onto why I am writing to you before my experiment explodes on me, you probably do not know but I past my science degree and I am on a science project that has me very busy, cannot tell you what the project is but what I can tell you is that while on this project I meet someone. Her name is Lilly, she is a medical doctor who is working on a different project to me but her lab is next to mine. Ok I will get to the point, you know I get easily distracted, I proposed to her last week and she has kicked me to get back in contact with you.

I will not blame you if you do not want to come or cannot make it, but I would like you to be at the wedding and I am sure mum and dad will want you there too.

Well I will stop there as I think one of lilly’s experiments has just up and walked off again by the racket in the corridor. Hopefully will hear from you soon.

James
<Message ends>

Russell wondered what project James was on, knowing him it was not classified he just likes to think he is higher than he is. Deciding that responding now would not be a good idea, let the information settle first Russell left his quarters and made his way to the lounge where Tiana would be holding her meeting. As he arrived he noted that Tiana had picked a nice table near the window looking out at space, only Liam was there at the moment and Russell could see that he was struggling to stay awake. Walking over to them Tiana spotted him coming and quickly spoke "Hi," she said. "How are you?" Russell took a seat next to Tiana before he spoke “I am good thanks, I am a little tired, but nowhere as tired as Liam looks” Russell smiled as he pointed at Liam who seemed to be edging ever nearer to the drink that was in front of him. Russell handed the padd he had been holding onto with his brother’s message on it. “So what do you think? And do you have any idea what this project Arcturus is?” Russell did not expect Tiana to know but he thought he should ask.

<Tag Tiana>

[jamesmatthew]

Scene: Office of the XO



“Cmdr Davis was finishing off his daily report and was preparing to Start His Shore leave when the chime sounded, "Enter" he said absently



In walked the ship Chief of Operations looked up when the door opened. "Cmdr Matthew , how are you?"



"Cmdr Matthew I'm well; I have a final After mission Departmental report for you."



“Cmdr Davis took the proffered PADD and reviewed it he mostly looked at the
header sentences on each paragraph. "What are your personal thoughts on
this matter?" he asked



“Cmdr Davis listened as Cmdr Matthew spoke. "I see. Well, from looking at this I think I'll send a report to Starfleet Personal and request they send Replacement but as for new senior Department Heads we seem to be on a waiting list but while we are her ill be making a trip over the base personal office to see if I can speed up the process before our next mission’

“Cmdr Davis paused "Tell me did you enjoy your jaunt in the shuttle over to the base ?"



“Cmdr Matthew looked a bit uncomfortable so Cmdr Davis relieved him of his burden of
answering. "I hope they did they seem to have provided some very useful information here. Thank you."



"Oh and one more thing, I must apologize for being blunt with you during
this entire mission. Perhaps we can have some time later to get to know
each other on a professional level a little better soon. You are dismissed;
go enjoy your dinner Date , with any luck we'll be out of here soon."

“Cmdr Matthew Left the xo Office with a puzzle look on his face how did he Know he had a dinner date Later this evening .

[desertpride]

Walking on to the bridge to look at the damage, at least the ship made it back. He hadn't spent any amount of time on here, but it was his new home. He noticed the repair crew and walked over. They were doing there jobs get things back in order but it was going to take time.

He cleared the mess from the helm and took a seat, He couldn't really do anything but he was trying to get a feel for things. Closing his eyes after briefly studying the lay out of controls. He started to run system checks and get a feel for response times. He was bored transfering off the scavenger had not been easy for him. He still missed the crew but to serve aboard the flag ship was a chance of a life time so he took it. <Tag anybody>

[Andae Blakus]

Andae smiled in satisfaction as he left the engineering office, on Assailant. He'd succeeded in convincing them to postpone the dissembling of the phaser arrays to benefit the impulse engines. A part of his mind asked himself, Why did I do that? Like shooting and destroying things is more important than the engines. The real reason for it was simply the fact that the ship was being stripped and refitted without his knowledge, forget the actual piece of work being done.

The engineering office came out on the upper level of a large promenade-esque arena, alike to the layout of a shopping mall. The Victory's CEO stepped forward to the rail, there was a walkway extending around the upper level, no more than two metres across. He leant over the edge of the rail, Starfleet personnel milled through the bottom level. Pretty much all of the places were Starfleet offices; Operations, Security, of course Engineering, Communications. As a consequence there were very few civilians in sight.

Blakus's first instinct was to return to the Victory. But after careful consideration Blakus decided that he would do some exploring, i.e. relax. He had told himself that he wouldn't but the more and more he had thought about it the more it seemed like a good idea. Damn him, Brazhensky, damn... He pushed off the railing, heading left, and caught a turbolift ride down several levels to the promenade.

The whole place was packed full of shops and eateries, fronted in places by people at stalls 'selling' various bits and pieces. A cultural haven, some might say. Full of colour, trademarks of different species displayed for all to see, and to share. There was such a large difference between a starbase and a starship. The sterile implacable nature of the starship was so far removed from the homely, vibrant feel of Assailant that they may as well have been in different universes. Aromas of all sorts drifted Blakus's way as he began his wander across the promenade, some pleasant, some not so - but Blakus was sure they were meant to be, to noses of different chemistry - and some just... just bizarre. The sounds got him next, the howling of a group of Vespadolians permeated the air to his left ear, their strange method of communication baffling Blakus's senses. On his other side, the voice of a Klingon asking for a Targ leg in what looked like a butchers. Ahead a gathering of Cardassians sampling some of their, quite simply, nauseating cuisine. Blakus scrounged up enough courage to walk closer to see what it was they were eating, it was Tojal in what looked like Yamok sauce, it was never going to be anything else.

Blakus shedded his morbid curiosity and hurried on by. Resisting the temptation to head to the holodeck, Blakus headed into a rather old, yet characterful looking shop. It soon became apparent that the store sold anything and everything, relics from Earth's past, allowing people to wallow in nostalgia, as so many did these days. Some items - from the looks of them - looked as old as nineteenth century. There was even a grandfather clock.

"Twentieth century that one, you seem interested?" Blakus turned around surprised. A middle-aged civilian man stood there looking up at Blakus. It had been a while since anyone had sneaked up on him.

Blakus chuckled gently, "No, I don't think it would suit my quarters."

"You are a Starfleet officer?" Asked the man.

Blakus stared at the shop-owner, then glanced down at his own uniform, then looked back at him again. "Yes." He said.

"Thought so."

Amused, Blakus moved off to another part of the shop. The short-ish man hobbled off towards what Blakus assumed was the backstore. What a remarkable person... he thought as he watched him disappear through a curtain. He turned back to the wall in front of him and scanned the assorted items.

---

Later, Blakus sat in the quarters he had arranged for himself. He had not been assigned any automatically, because he had initially informed the station that he would be remaining aboard the ship. As it happened he had managed to acquire a fairly nice spacious room, even bigger than his quarters on the ship. After sitting about, admiring his sailing ship in a bottle he had got from the old shop he had visited, Blakus decided it was time to contact someone, someone he had ran into just before leaving Assailant for the last mission. He looked up the station's civilian manifest and left his quarters.

[Deleted]

Having left Blakus to fight for his own department, Tiberian decided that after all of this he deserved food and drink, with both of them in copious amounts. He meandered slowly to Ten Forward, not having any particular reason to hurry considering that he was confined to the ship for the moment. He sauntered in and leaned against a wall next to the nearest replicator.

"I will have" he began in an exaggeratedly drawn out manner, feigning deep thought "A plate of chicken curry and rice, and a cup of Tarkalean tea" The food materialised, and Tiberian took it to sit in a corner. He began to eat slowly, savouring each mothful as he looked out of the window into the space dock interior. His reverie was interrupted by Martinez sliding in beside him to sit down and steal a piece of chicken from his fork.

"I was going to eat that you know" Tiberian chided, sticking another piece quickly and wolfing it down before it suffered the same fate as its predecessor "Why aren't you on station?"

"There's nothing to do" the Sergeant Major replied glumly "Maria is still on that damn hydroponics project, so I can't spend time with her, I've got a bad back I'm trying to walk off, so I can't exercise too much, and you're stuck here, so I can't go drinking"

"So your wife is away, your back hurts, and your best friend is confined to the ship. Wow, all those people on the edge of the Neutral Zone must count themselves so lucky" Martinez growled at the jibe.

"Don't start with me, I may just do something about it today"

"Oh don't whinge so much, go and find some of the men and make their lives miserable. The benefit of rank" Tiberian told him, still not hesitating to eat drink and stare out of the ship, away from Jose, during the course of their conversation.
"Or, you could come with me and help make a dent in my paperwork" The mention of administrative tasks perked Martinez up almost instantaneously.

"You know what, I make take your advice. Find some of the boys you know..."

"Avoid doing any real work, I know..." Tiberian waved, dismissing Martinez who was already edging towards the door. Finishing the remnants of his meal, he dropped his crockery into the replicator for recycling, and headed down to the armoury. He knew in his head that he had to make some osrt of headay with the administrative duties to which he had been assigned, but in his heart, he knew he wanted to try out the knew phaser rifle modifications that Crystal had sent him following his transfer. He walked down to a disused holodeck, and activated a firing range programme, allowing him to create waves of Cardassians moving in and around a series of defensible objects. If the modifications worked, he should be able to eliminate the targets with a far greater degree of accuracy.

"Computer" he called "Create a phaser rifle, standard issue, incorporating the modifications cited in file Wong 97 Omega"

A table appeared before him, and then a compression phaser rifle on top of that. Tiberian picked up the weapon and went down into a one knee firing posture. Tapping a control in the arch, the exercise began, and a half dozen Cardassians began advancing on his position. They fired intermittently, but their shots were inaccurate, and afforded Tiberian the luxury of marking his targets clearly. As the nearest one came up, he fired his first burst. Or at least he tried to, as the holographic phaser rifle failed to discharge, instead making a series of spluttering noises. Without halting the programme, Tiberain stripped the body of the rifle open, ducking behind a simulated boulder as he fingered through the circuitry to see if there was a malfunction in the rifle distribution network. When this failed, he removed and then clipped the power pack back in, attempting to fire once again, and the rifle once again failing.

"Computer, are you detecing any faults in the holoemmitter system?"

"Negative"

=/\=Wong to Commander Galwyn, I'm sorry if yo're busy, but I'm trying to run a combat simulation, and I can't work out if its the holodeck, or the rifle modifications which are faulty. Could you come and take a look=/\=

<TAG Commander Galwyn>

[Tiana Galwyn Cet]

Tiana was sitting in the Lounge waiting for Russ. Liam arrived. "Sorry to disturb you, Commander." The formality of his speech was very unlike him. "I wanted to apologise for the other evening. I hadn't really got any sleep before that. I wanted to thak you for making me go home." He yawned and smiled ruefully. "I just spent fifteen hours recalibrating the crystal diffractometer, but it is working now."

"That's very good news," Tiana said, knowing the piece of equipment in question was very touchy had had overloaded badly during the last mission

"I'm just going to finish my hot chocolate and turn in," Liam said, he gave another yawn. "I'll be going under my own steam this time" Tiana grinned. Then Russell arrived.

"Hi," she said. "How are you?" Russell took a seat next to Tiana before he spoke “I am good thanks, I am a little tired, but nowhere as tired as Liam looks”

Liam laughed, "I can take a hint, I'll go turn in now." He paused "umm, I wanted to say, sir, I'm sorry for interrupting the party the other night. It was rather irresponsible of me." Russell good-naturedly accepted the apology and Liam left. Russell handed Tiana a PADD, she read the contents carefully, it was a letter from his brother. Russell had barely mentioned his brother but given her brother related issues she hadn't prodded him for more information. Now she realised that they had more in common than she had thought and felt a little guilty for not asking more questions earlier. “So what do you think? And do you have any idea what this project Arcturus is?” Russ asked. She thought for a second or two.

"I doubt it's as secret as he's implying, if it were he wouldn't be able to tell you as much as he has. As for project Arcturus," Tiana smiled, "for some reason that a name scientists like. I can think of three off the top of my head but I doubt it's any of those. A project to revitalise farmland on Galass Prime; an investigation into graviton beams and a project on far imaging the Andromeda galaxy..."

Tag: Russ

**********************************************
Some time later

Tiana was strolling through the shops on Assailant, she was looking for some specific things and hadn't yet found them. Actually she hadn't been looking all that hard. She had been pondering family. It had been nearly three years since she had last spoken to her brother Havan and he did not seem likely to be the one to break the silence.

=/\=Wong to Commander Galwyn, I'm sorry if you're busy, but I'm trying to run a combat simulation, and I can't work out if its the holodeck, or the rifle modifications which are faulty. Could you come and take a look=/\=

Tiana sighed then responded =/\=I'm not doing much at the moment. Give me twenty minutes to get back to the ship and I'll see what I can do.=/\= She wondered why he had called her rifle modifications and malfunctioning holo systems were more of an engineering problem than a science one. However, it still sounded fun.

Checking the colonel's location with the computer she reached the holodeck. She entered the simulation and immediately ducked behind the nearest piece of cover. She had checked the safeties of course but she wasn't taking any chances if there was a potential problem in the system. She saw the marine behind another piece of cover further over. She waved and he launched himself into a dramatic rolling dive to her position. He dusted himself off a bit.

"So," Tiana said "what exactly seems to be the problem?"

[Deleted]

Tiberian was sat behind a rock, phaser bursts shattering in a shower of sparks over his head as the Cardassians fired on him from cover. He didn't really know why he hadn't just pasued the programme for the sake of convenience whilst he checked the system, but it seemed more fun this way. As he sat, twisting the rifle around in his hands, he saw Commander Galwyn duck into the holodeck, throwing herself behind the nearest piece of shelter that she saw. He was fairly certain that she knew that the safety protocols were on, and so he restrained himself from shouting at her that she was in no real danger. However, even if she didn't know, then him shouting at her from across the room wasn't really going to help her in any real way. That being so, he responded to her wave, and then checking the enemy fire (a pointless task considering that he couldn't be hurt), he launched himself in a roll across the gap between himself and the Commander. He came up on one knee, dusting himself off a little, and smiling at Galwyn.

"So," Tiana said "what exactly seems to be the problem?"

"Well Commander" Tiberian began "That message that you relayed to my quarters a few days ago was a message from my old science officer on the Olympia. Lovely set of gams that one. Anyroad, she sent me some phaser rifle modifications that I was working on with her before I left, so I could try them out. So i come down here, load them into the computer, and begin the simulation. The only problem is that the rifle doesn't actually work. According to the computer there's nothing wrong with the holosystem, so I was wondering if you could take a look at the rifle modifications, and tell me whether or not they're the source of the errors" He proffered the phaser rifle to her.

<TAG Commander Galwyn>

Just at that moment, a Cardassian had taken it upon himself to sneak up on the other side of the boulder, and he launched himself over the top towards the kneeling couple. Rising suddenly, Tiberian leaned his head back slightly, and then launched it forwards in a full force head butt, knocking the Cardassian on to his back, unconscious. He looked down at a startled Tiana.

"Perhaps I'd better shut down the programme after all" He called out into the room "Computer, end combat simualtion, but keep the modified rifle programme active" Soon the scenery melted away, leaving the regular yellow lines of holodeck quiet and peaceful.
"Now run a level one diagnostic on all holodeck subroutines and processor units. Enable" Tiberian ordered, then kneeling down beside Tiana.

"From what I can recall from the message, she said that the targetting sensors and confinement beam had had work done on them, but beyond that, I don't know what might interfere with the rifle mechanism itself"

<TAG Commander Galwyn>

[Deleted]

“Can I help you?” asked a bookstore employee.

Nika regarded him. “Probably, but I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for, I'm afraid.”

“That's not a problem,” the employee said. “What kind of book do you tend to prefer?”

“I'm honestly not sure. So far I've had quite a bit of difficulty in bridging the cultural gap to enjoying the reading of the books I've tried. But I know that I don't like anything that's a stream-of-consciousness.”

“Alright. What culture are you?”

“Firont,” Nika answered, then, since the employee seemed to want her to, she described the literature of the Firont. She wasn't sure how this was helping, but about midway through her planned description, when the employee gave a triumphant grin, and left, coming back with a stack of books for Nika to glance through.

“Actual books?” she asked.

“I think it adds artificial value to the words. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Plus, it lets you look glance through possibilities better.”

Nika shrugged. In the end, she left with one actual book, two other ones downloadable to a PADD, and a vague response to the request from the employee that she tell him how she enjoyed the books next time she was on Assailant.

She slept well after she returned to her quarters, and enjoyed breakfast in her quarters the next morning before heading to the bridge, to find out how the repairs were going. The news was not great, but it was fairly unsurprising.

She noticed Commander Pride at helm, an odd sight, considering the ship was stationary. “Good morning, Commander,” she greeted him, while she glanced over the more detailed reports of the ship's repair.

<Tag Pride>

[desertpride]

He heard her enter the bridge, but kept his thoughts focused on feeling the ships response to his commands. He eyes were closed and he could feel the space surrounding the ship, then he heard the captain greet him. He hadn't realized it was morning already no shock when your deep in thought.

" Good morning captain, repairs are progressing slowly. Wish I could report better but the damage was quite extensive."<Tag Nakaila>

He closed his eyes again to go back to what he was doing he could feel the worker drones swarming the ship they were leaveing a trail in space he could follow with his sense. He loved space its vastness always drew him to see what was out there.

[robertsharp]

As sharp finishes going over reports and personnel files of the security and tactical officers. Sharp is thinking on what to do about what col. wong did. "computer location of col. wong?" The computer tells Sharp where wong is. Sharp gets up and exits his quarters and heads for the holideck. When sharp arrives at the hollodeck he notices that commander Galwyn there. Commander can you excuse us please while i have a conversation with col. wong


<tag Galwyn >
Col. we need to talk?


<tag wong>

[Andae Blakus]

The doors to the holodeck unsealed with a hiss and rolled back, Andae stepped in. Interesting program... he thought as he looked up at the trees surrounding him. The arch dissolved behind him, leaving the Chief Engineer alone to admire the forestry. The leaves were green, but they had a dull colourless complexion to them, as if they were fading to grey. He was reminded in a flash of nostalgia about his training mission on the Hepta. Were they good memories? No, at least, he didn't think so. Still, good had eventually come from that encounter with the omnipotent entity. By good, he meant that at least they survived... He nodded to himself as he walked forward through the trees, yes, he decided. He had a right to remember that in a nostalgic manner.

Of course, Andae wasn't alone among the woods. He had come to this holodeck aboard the Starbase in search of the person whom he had met for the first time in ages, before the last mission had begun. He was an acquaintance from North America, where Blakus had spent only a small amount of his life. Six years, before heading to the academy. By acquaintance he did mean friend, at least that was the impression he had got from their meeting on Assailant from the time before.

He came to a rise in the forest, between two trees. The bark was falling away from the trees, and the simulated ground was covered in debris. An extremely realistic simulation, Blakus thought. He walked up to the two trees, and couldn't help to notice how the debris cracked under his feet. How do they do that? Blakus thought in regards to the holotechnology engineers. Of course, he was completely familiar with the technology involved in producing the illusions of the holodeck, but on a purely sensual level he had to admire the amazing visualisations that the technology could produce.

"Andae!" At the exclamation, Blakus spun around to his left and saw standing there the man he was looking for.

He smiled, "Hello Ben." They shook hands.

"Walking in on my holodeck program?"

Blakus laughed and made a show of looking around at the simulated forest, "Reminds me of somewhere I 'went' to once." Ben nodded. His full name was Benjamin Zielinski, his father being Polish yet born and raised in North America. Things had not always been so great between the two friends, but Blakus felt that they were definitely on good terms now. "Well, I thought I might track you down again." He finally explained his presence, not that Ben needed a reason, the reacquaintance of old friends being enough, but Blakus felt like being polite. "Have you been on Assailant the whole time I was away?"

"Yes, indeed," Ben replied, "I live here now, essentially. I have an advisory role to some of the Starfleet Intelligence officers on the base." Blakus's eyes widened slightly and nodded with approval at his friend's position. Being a civilian, Zielinski didn't have to bow down before Starfleet, but Blakus approved at the man's dedication to his work. It was something the two had in common, but for some reason Blakus felt his own work effort to be inferior to Zielinski's. Usually, Blakus would claim superiority in terms of things that he felt that he was good at, but Zielinski was that kind of person who just seemed to take that kind of psychological complex.

Half an hour later Blakus was gone from the holodeck. He had taken one last look at the great forest he had been stood in, and another wave of nostalgia washed over him, it was strong! There was something else to it, there had to be, Blakus thought. It was more than a rememberance kind of thing, somewhere deep down in his psyche something nagged at him, stabbing like a dagger in his mind. He shrugged it off as he walked back to his quarters, on Assailant...

[Tiana Galwyn Cet]

"Well Commander" Tiberian began "That message that you relayed to my quarters a few days ago was a message from my old science officer on the Olympia. Lovely set of gams that one. Anyroad, she sent me some phaser rifle modifications that I was working on with her before I left, so I could try them out. So i come down here, load them into the computer, and begin the simulation. The only problem is that the rifle doesn't actually work. According to the computer there's nothing wrong with the holosystem, so I was wondering if you could take a look at the rifle modifications, and tell me whether or not they're the source of the errors"

Tiana took the offered phaser rifle, trying to remember the last time she had held one. "I'm no expert," she said slowly looking at the mechanism inside, it really wasn't very different from any other form of energy focussing and channelling device and she had worked with many of those over the years. "But I'll have a look. I'll need to know what changes were made and..."

Tiana was about to say more when a Cardassian leapt towards them Tiana froze, she had almost forgotten that she was in a combat simulation, Tiberian didn't freeze and knock the attacker flying with a smooth head butt.


"Perhaps I'd better shut down the programme after all" He called out into the room "Computer, end combat simualtion, but keep the modified rifle programme active" Soon the scenery melted away, leaving the regular yellow lines of holodeck quiet and peaceful.
"Now run a level one diagnostic on all holodeck subroutines and processor units. Enable" Tiberian ordered, then kneeling down beside Tiana.

"From what I can recall from the message, she said that the targeting sensors and confinement beam had had work done on them, but beyond that, I don't know what might interfere with the rifle mechanism itself"


Tiana nodded, "My first thoughts are that either the holo systems are causing the trouble or the plans were scrambled in transmission or that they were wrong. I'll need a couple of the plans."

Tiberian nodded, Just then Commander Sharp arrived. "Commander can you excuse us please while i have a conversation with col. wong" Tiana though for a second or two.

"I think I've got all the information I need for the moment," She said "I'll let you know if I uncover anything."

Tiana left the holodeck and headed for one of the axillary labs. This could be an interesting little problem to work on.