Ensign Butterbar

From the Logs of the Starship U.S.S. Jaguar * NCC-74750

January 2380-July 2380

By Don W. Willits

w/thanks to: Scott A. Akers, Chris Wallace & Allyson Dyar

Table of Contents

Part 1: One of our Starships is Missing 1Chapter 1: No Refuge for the Innocent 1Chapter 2: "But I'm not a Marine, sir!" 3Chapter 3: Behind the Lines 13Chapter 4: Chaos, Refined 21Chapter 5: Aftermath 27

Interlude 31Part 2: The Dictates of Logic 33

Chapter 6: Signs & Portents 33Chapter 7: The Slobadan Puzzle 35Chapter 8: Maximum Response 83Chapter 9: To Draw Out the Inevitable 89Chapter 10: To Prevent a Greater Catastrophe 113

Part 3: By a Necessity of Nature 117Chapter 11: Escalations 117Chapter 12: Jockeying for Position 123Chapter 13: Move, Counter Move 131Chapter 14: Pre-Conceived Notions 139Chapter 15: Close Combat 150Chapter 16: The Burning of New Waco 150

Interlude 157Part 4: The Rapid Downward Spiraling Charlie-Foxtrot 159

Chpater 17: Severe Escalations 159Chapter 18: Ye Olde Fashioned Snatch and Grabe 161Chapter 19: Reconcilation and Readiness 162Chapter 20: Operation [Censored] 163Chapter 21: As If By Fluke, The Birth of a Weimar Republic 163Chapter 22: Aftermath Redux: Scattering the Seeds 164

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Part 1: One of our Starships is Missing

Chapter 1: No Refuge for the InnocentThere were two schools of thought among the graduates of the Starfleet Academy winter class of 2380 regarding assignment to the newly commissioned USS Jaguar. The first was that it was a golden opportunity for a young Ensign to kick-start a fast-track resume with a high-profile assignment that any cadet would fight tooth and claw for. The other thought it was a disaster waiting to happen for any officer with less than flag rank, as the Jaguar itself was unusually top-heavy in this regard. If the Jaguar's C.O., Admiral Chris Wallace was successful in his efforts, it would only get worse as his roving think-tank of former Starfleet brass continued to grow. Ensign Caleb Stein considered his offered billet on the Jaguar nothing but insanity, as any junior officer was likely to going to get double the scut work as a result. He'd done everything in his power to politely reject the billet and accept one of several others on "normal" starships. Unfortunately, the decision to accept the offer had become far too difficult to resist, and thus far too easy to embrace the insanity of the Jaguar. For Caleb's Vulcan wife, S'lek had been offered a plum assignment on the Jaguar's engineering staff. The Jaguar was also the mobile headquarters for a number of premier publications that S’lek had been offered a contributing editorship to. He had long begun to suspect his own position in Astrometrics was—as much as anything—just a bone to entice S'lek aboard. For love, one could even embrace insanity, although not necessarily with willing arms.S'lek, in a particularly dry attempt at humor, gave him a present on their last night on Nexus Spacedock before transfering aboard the Jaguar. With some confusion, he unwrapped a PADD with replicator programming for a substance called Brass-O. S'lek watched him stoically as he fell out of his chair when he learned what the substance was used for. As he pulled himself off the floor she explained the joke. "The Jaguar is slated for diplomatic work, the senior staff will no doubt need someone to polish their medals and rank epaulets," she reminded him. "Since I'll be busy on the new runabout designs, somebody has to do it." Her face was a mask of Vulcan stoicism—the more Vulcan she appeared, the more likely she was quietly tweaking his nose, the faintest hint of a mischief in her Vulcan heart. First impressions aboard the Jaguar…Caleb had quickly made a good first impression with Lieutenant Pi Yuakawa, who would be his "partner-in-crime" (as she put it) in the Astrometrics lab. Pi was friendly, open, bright, and very passionate about her work—someone Caleb knew he would get along with. Best of all, she was a junior officer like himself, no flag rank anywhere in sight. They were in the process of completing final calibration of the lab, using the Obsidian system as a baseline, when he met the CO of the boat. Admiral Chris Wallace was equally promising as CO—a seasoned veteran whose friendly demeanor seemed to bypass the formalities imposed by their disparate ranks. Caleb was also surprised when

"Wallace" revealed a souped-up stellar cartography that would be his (and Pi’s) to play with. "I used to be the head of Stellar Cartography on Nexus when she was an old Centurion class station. I often like to drop by and visit, but I promise to check your work schedule before I do, to make sure you are not running anything delicate," Wallace laughed.So much for the refuge, Caleb thought, but somehow the CO's warmth and friendliness didn't cause him as much concern as he would have expected."How is your wife?" Wallace asked."For a Vulcan, excited, sir.”“Postively aloof, then?”Caleb smiled, “she is really looking forward to this assignment," Caleb replied.Wallace smiled. "We were fortunate to get her," he replied. "She has some very intriguing ideas on high-warp field dynamics that I am interested in experimenting with."Caleb paled slightly. Experiment? On an operational starship? At warp? He made a mental note to ask his wife just what the "ideas" she had."Ensign, start running diagnostics, I want any major problems fixed before we depart Nexus," Wallace ordered, clearly delighted with Caleb’s involuntary grin."Yes sir!"As Pi and Wallace walked out, the full Admiral remarked, "Now that’s the kind of enthusiasm I like to see…" Caleb heard both of them chuckle as the doors swooshed shut.Caleb floated in the immense space, the Obsidian system surrounding him, and with the wave of a hand he could zoom in, turn on sensors, turn off sensors, filter data. It truly was a Gods-eye-view, and intoxicating in its use. He instructed the computer to play some music, lesser known Q’einn and Mozart, and found himself almost dancing to the rhythms of the sounds as he set about to verify the astrometric database for the Obsidian system and calibrate the newly installed system. He was just beginning to feel some excitement about serving on the Jaguar when it all came crashing to a halt.Literally.The lights brightened, the holograms snapped out of existence, and Caleb fell to the floor, seeing a dark shadow standing in the doorway."Ahem," more a growl than anything else, Caleb scrambled to his feet."Yes, sir?""On this ship, we applaud initiative, but it is normally good procedure, not to mention etiquette, to ask permission from the current Officer of the Deck before engaging all of the ship's active sensor arrays, Ensign. If the Dominion War was still raging, you would have just announced our presence to every Jem-Hadar ship within 20 light-years." This growl had come from Lieutenant General Scott Akers, the ships Executive Officer, and rather strangely infamous Fleet Historian. Caleb knew of him by reputation, which itself was mixed in both its praise and condemnation.

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Akers leaned in very close, his deep incisors flashing as he smiled. "That would not be a good thing, Ensign. Not good at all.""Oh." Caleb murmured. "Yes sir, of course sir"," he answered to the half-Caitian. Unthinking, the next comment came out despite all common sense. "You’re not going to rip my throat out for this, are you sir?"Akers smiled, it was feral and brief, but the grin danced in his eyes. "Not this time, Butterbar. Everyone is allowed one mistake." He grinned again, another brief flash of gleaming incisors. "Be in my office at 0700, we'll go over your official duties. This is in addition to any assignments the CO may provide." Then the XO was gone, sweeping out of Stellar Cartography in a blur of fur and uniform.What the heck is a Butterbar?

Unwilling to ask, sheepishly Caleb reactivated the systems, but this time remembered to request permission before lighting up the sector with enough active scans to power a small city. His first official day on-duty, and Caleb wondered how the Fickle Finger of Fate could possibly make the next one any worse.

Chapter 2: "But I'm not a Marine, sir!"The Jaguar bounced about the Federation, as ADM Wallace engaged in a full-scale recruiting drive, attempting to solicit former Starfleet brass into serving on board the newly commissioned diplomatic cruiser. Such a roving think-tank was the first of its kind, and Wallace was determined it both be a successful one, and a model for other regional fleets within Starfleet. His drive to get Starfleet's best on board was only a few degrees short of an obsession, but one that seemed likely to pay off.How, Caleb wasn't sure, because he had no time for high-concept shifts in Starfleet policy. He was more concerned with pleasing the XO, who insisted on calling him Butterbar, and had even encouraged others to do so. Caleb even started thinking of himself by that nickname, signing one of his official reports as Ensign Butterbar instead of Ensign Caleb Stein. It was all the more frustrating, because nobody would explain what exactly a Butterbar was!Akers was not satisfied with Butterbar's qualifications that he passed while at the Academy. Instead the General was requiring he re-earn his certifications under Akers high and utterly demanding expectations. Then there were the ship-board qualifications, with Akers insisting that all new officers and enlisted personnel set what felt like fleet records for qualifying on ship's systems. At least that was an exercise he could share with S'lek, who proceeded to glide through the grueling process with her usual stately calm. In this, Butterbar found some measure of relief as he himself struggled to memorize the location and specifications of various Jeffries tubes, plasma conduits and EPS Relay junctions.Akers was never overly critical, but he did let it be known he'd rather be working on his histories than nursing a junior officer through rudimentary shipboard training.Finally, relief!Butterbar blinked, weeks passed by, and he was now certified to serve on the bridge and to utilize the full facilities of both the Astrometrics and Stellar Cartography labs. He'd even been allowed on board both runabouts for several short detached missions. His

assignment to night watch, alternating between the bridge and stellar cartography, though, gave the most relief as Lieutenant General Akers most assuredly enjoyed his beauty sleep. Which put him safely out of Butterbar's hair.Or so he thought.Near the end of Butterbar's second month on the Jaguar, while serving on another graveyard shift at Ops, he spotted something unusual on his sensors. As events transpired, he and the Officer of the Deck (who carried the rank of Fleet Captain and was still stuck with the mid-watch) viewed them with increasing concern. Before Butterbar knew it, he found himself facing the entire senior staff, clustered about the immense view screen in the bridge as Butterbar made his presentation."At 0014 long range sensors detected the warp signature of twin LF-25 warp engines, which was shortly thereafter confirmed to belong to the USS Claymore"," Butterbar started, but was interrupted."Helen's ship"," Akers said and Wallace nodded. Butterbar remembered something about the Claymore being at or near Nexus during the Jaguar commissioning ceremony. With the OOD's nod giving him silent encouragement, Butterbar continued. "At 0258, the Claymore issued two brief com squirts. Here's the first." Butterbar keyed the computer to replay the first message they'd received."Mayday, Mayday, USS Claymore is being hijacked. Mayday, Mayday…" There was a screeching burst of static and the transmission ended."Com systems squeal like that when hit by phase fire." Akers commented softly, looking up from his PADD, where Butterbar secretly suspected he was still working on one of his infamous 'histories' of Starfleet combat."We acknowledged their reply, but no response except for this, which was identified by prefix code as coming from the auxiliary bridge." Butterbar paused. "It was simultaneous with this second squirt that the Claymore altered course for Breen space via way of the Clandath’u nebulae." Butterbar tried not to count the number of flag rank pips from the assembled uniforms of those watching him as he played the message."Mayday… [static] Breen Hijackers… [pulsing static] They’ve taken the ship… [screams] Help… [Extremely loud burst of pulsing static]"Wallace turned to face the OOD who picked up where Butterbar left off and continued the report. "We immediately reversed course for the Claymore, shortest time intercept. If they are heading for Breen space, it means we'll have to pass on the opposite side of the nebulae. We'll lose contact with them for at least four hours, assuming they don't double back."Wallace nodded, studying the plot now displayed on the main viewer. "And if we follow them the long way around, they'll have at least six hours to change course undetected."

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Wallace walked over to the security officer's station and called up a tactical display. The Jaguar could hardly be positioned worse for pursuit of the rogue starship.Butterbar sighed and sagged in relief as he was now ignored while the senior staff clustered around the station, lost in tactical details. He kept playing the second message back, noting it was somehow different in character than the first. A different voice, certainly, but the bursts of static bothered him. The computer confirmed that the first message did indeed have phaser fire, but the second message remained an enigma. He started running some standard filter algorithms on the data, and the computer's conclusion was startling."Excuse me, Gentlemen?" Butterbar asked the collected backs clustered around the Security console."What is it, Ensign?" Akers asked."The second message. I think its manufactured in some manner. The computer estimates a 68% chance that at least one of those bursts of static is some kind of encrypted signal.""Two messages at once?" Akers asked. "A piggyback? The primary one meant to disguise the second?" Wallace hypothesized."Possible, sir," Lieutenant Commander Senya Kinyin, the Chief of Operations, commented. "If so, then they probably assumed someone—us—would intercept it.""Fast work." Akers muttered softly, and Butterbar thought at first he was commenting on the behavior of the Claymore, but then saw something like approval in the wizened old eyes."What do you think is on it?" Akers asked Commander Kinyin, who started running decryption routines on the static bursts.

Senya shrugged. "A message that they had succeeded? A call for reinforcements? A rendezvous point?"Wallace stepped away from the crowd at the security console, sat in his chair and studied the tactical display again. "We’ll still proceed on an best-time intercept course. If that proves to be a red herring, we’ll double back. Ensign, I want you in the Avon, follow the Claymore’s original course and report in if you spot anything else unusual.""You’re sending Butterbar after the Claymore?" Akers shook his head in disbelief."He passed his quals, didn’t he?" Wallace asked, a teasing timber in his voice."Yes, but…""Since you’re so concerned about the Ensign’s safety, Number One," Wallace said with a sly smile, "you can accompany him on his journey. Of course, by the time we find out we've followed the garden path, you two will likely have found the Claymore, rescued the crew and I'll return to find you both standing proud on the bridge, right Ensign?" Wallace said, teasing his XO."Yes sir!" Butterbar said with more conviction than he felt."On second thought, you better take the Coventry instead," the CO offered, referring to the ship’s modified Danube class runabout. "That way you can take some more Marines along with you, just in case you something turn up."Akers mumbled something that made Wallace smile, looked at Butterbar and gestured for him to follow. "Come on Butterbar, let’s go see if we can find you some power armor.""Power. Armor." Butterbar breathed softly. "But I’m not a Marine, sir!"Akers smiled. It was almost as frightening as his next words. "No, you’re not… Not yet."

* * *S’lek stirred, rolled over and opened her deep brown eyes. Butterbar froze, sensing her stare, and sat down next to her. Their fingers sought each other out. He always liked holding her hand more than the traditional Vulcan 'two-fingers touching' grasp, but either way it was warm and giving of her strength even as he returned it."Where are you going?" she asked, glancing at his duffel bag."Detached mission with the General and a squad of his grunting Marines." She raised one eyebrow. "Your favorite senior officer," she said of General Akers. "You can’t seem to escape him, can you," she added coolly."He’s like a fungus. No matter how hard you scratch, he just keeps itching.""Stop scratching then," she said, leaning up to kiss him briefly and then rolled over to go back to sleep. Butterbar watched her fall back asleep for a few moments, wondering how she could be so Vulcan and yet so much more than that at the same time. He finished collecting his field gear. There wasn’t much room in his duffel bag, with the armor that Akers had provided, but he managed to squeeze it all in. As he lugged the 75 pounds of gear out of his quarters, he gave S’lek one last longing gaze and then departed for the hanger bay. Contemplating spending the next few days with Akers and his Marines, Butterbar shook his head. Insanity!

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* * *

Name Handle Rank Description Weapons FireTeam

Element

Major M. MyersAlso Chief of Security/Tactical

The Major Major Armin Shimmerman with glasses compact

Phaser Pistol, Power Fist, Sonic Grenades, "The Look"

ALPHA

0

Dyrn G’rdun Flash Sgt. Major

Gunny Toomer, but Andorian, (Missah Akers)

Phaser Pistol, Power Fist, Sonic Grenades 1

Charles Brom Cookie Staff Sgt. Hefty with a graying beard Joe Don Baker

Sonic Grenades

Rufus Maksud Red Sergeant Red haired olive skinned lethal babe

Sonic GrenadesBETA

2

Thomas Irwin Dogbreath

Sergeant Very non descript everyman look except for his eyes

Grenade Launcher, Sonic Grenades

William Praus Drag Corporal Tall thin goofy looking

Sonic Grenades3

Wilson Praus Frag Corporal Like his twin brother

Sonic Grenades

Neil Seusz Brow Sergeant Looks like a TOS Klingon

Heavy Phaser Rifle, Sonic Grenades G

AMMA

4

Roberta Donovan

Needles Corporal Tall thin, graceful, black hair

Sonic Grenades

Ebon McManus Blacky Corporal Looks like Christopher Lambert

Sonic Grenades5

Jamie Hovis Camper Trooper Older, Grandfather-ish, White Hair,

Sonic Grenades

Name Handle Rank Description Weapons FireTeam

Element

Wilfred Brimley from Hard Target

As Butterbar arrived in the hanger bay, Akers had his Marines lined up in formation besides the Coventry. Akers turned to give him a dispassionate gaze, with all the consideration one would give an astro-bus driver when commuting to work, and Butterbar could feel the cold yellow eyes taking his measure. He had a brief vision of a herd of white tigers feasting on the remains of what had once been a green Ensign. Then the moment, thankfully, passed.Akers gave him a cursory introduction to the Squad. "This is Fifth Brigade, Fourth Battalion, Second Company, Fifth Squad." Akers intoned. The eleven highly dangerous looking Marines immediately gave a loud grunt that resounded off the hanger bay. Together, with Butterbar, they mustered aboard the Coventry, which was quickly filled to capacity as the Marines loaded their equipment on board. Butterbar found them to be surprisingly courteous. In fact, they seemed to be going out of their way to make him feel comfortable. Except for the fact that they, like the General, insisted on calling him Butterbar.The Sergeant known as "Cookie" helped adjust the armor that General had hurriedly thrown at him. "Blooming Officers, don't think twice about anything." Cookie muttered as he tried to adjust the plating to fit Butterbar's frame, apologizing for a poor fit that felt very comfortable to Butterbar. When Butterbar asked why that nickname, the grizzled veteran smiled."Military tradition, son. Every Marine unit going back at least five centuries has a grunt named Cookie."Butterbar had a brief vision of a ceremony conveying such an honor down thru the ages, but quickly squelched it as Cookie pulled some straps tight around his chest. Once finished, Butterbar felt energized, and nearly punched his fist through the hull just leaning against it. "Careful, Butterbar, your protected from explosive decompression only if you have your helmet on," the veteran solider offered by way of advice. For the duration of the flight, Butterbar left his gloves and helmet off, and his armor unpowered.He even got the nerve up to ask Cookie why he was called Butterbar, but Cookie only answered (again) cryptically. "Historical Precedent, son. Ask the General." Butterbar wasn't about to do that."Look at it this way, kid, at least their not calling you Butterball!" They both laughed and he found himself instantly liking Cookie. Between his demeanor and physical appearance, which loosely resembled an old friend (the Professor who had introduced him to his wife), the Marine charmed Butterbar immediately. The differences were

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distinct though, Hiram Thornberry had been a devout pacifist, and wouldn’t have been caught dead in power armor. Even so, the resemblance made Butterbar feel much more at ease than he would have otherwise.

* * *They lost sight of the Claymore approximately two hours before they reached the outer reaches of the nebulae. For most of that time, Butterbar was left alone in the cockpit, while Akers and his Marines conferred in the aft of the vessel. Just as they arrived, Akers slid soundlessly into the co-pilots seat, startling Butterbar. One moment the chair was empty, the next...

"Sensors are not on full power, I see," Akers said approvingly, looking at Butterbar's displays.

"Not yet, sir," Butterbar said, bringing up the sensor analysis of the Claymore's course. Akers sat next to him, bringing up various data sets from the sensor packages and applying it to the data."We all agree, Butterbar, you can do wonders with the sensor package, pick signals out of static that few others could catch. But getting the extra juice with full power just tells your quarry you’re looking for them. You need to think about ways to accomplish the same thing without going active."Butterbar looked at him quizzically."So you don't advertise our location at the same time your finding the bad guys," Akers explained with a tone of exasperation."No, it wasn't that sir, just how would you go about doing that? Turning off your equipment always seemed like such a waste of time to me."Akers paused for a moment. "We've had four years of peace recently, but I don't expect that to last. Neither should you." He handed Butterbar a PADD with a list of texts detailing covert operations. "Here, you should have at least one of these read the day after we return to the Jaguar. To compensate for on obvious discrepancy in your Academy curriculum." Butterbar sighed. Each of the tomes that the General had downloaded was between 400-5000 pages in length. "We never had any of these at the Academy, General.""I know!" Akers shook his head. "What are they teaching kids these days?" he muttered as he got up and Cookie gave them both a knowing smile."Actually sir, one of the newest additions to the curriculum was 'Problem Solving Through Applied use of Sub-Atomic and Sub-Space Particulate Radiation Fields.'""Say what?" Cookie asked as Akers slapped his forehead in disbelief. Butterbar smiled sheepishly. "We called it 'Better Living Through Physics.' It was an entire semester course devoted to the use of various particles to real-world applications."

"Such as…?" Akers asked skeptically."Probably one of the more entertaining examples is when a transwarp experiment conducted by the Voyager caused the ship's helmsman to mutate into a hyper-advanced humanoid form which resembled a six-foot long salamander.""A salamander?" Akers asked rhetorically."The EMH used anti-protons to reverse the mutation and restore both the helmsman, and the CO back into baseline human form. Although we got a report that several years later both started to develop vestigial tails which had to be surgically removed.""Mere surgery?" Cookie asked, getting enthused. "It didn't use chronoton particles to create a inverse time field to remove them?""Right…" Akers muttered and leaned towards Cookie. "Are you sure you didn't make that armor too tight? I think its cutting of the circulation to Butterbar's head.""It's fine, I checked," Cookie offered helpfully. "Twice," he added when Akers continued to glare at him.Akers grinning, showing his teeth this time, and started making dramatic squeezing gestures with his hands."What's that?" Cookie asked."Just trying to figure out how small of a space I can stow the Ensign," Akers replied cheerfully.Cookie put one hand on the General's shoulder. "Easy, General, times change, we have to change with them.""Sh-ure we do," Akers intoned, unimpressed.

* * *"That's it," Butterbar announced. "We're at the last confirmed location of the Claymore." He squinted at his displays. "Look, sir!""I see it," Akers replied. The Claymore had almost immediately dropped out of warp, and proceeded at impulse power into the depths of the nebulae. "There, the Claymore's Impulse Ion trail," Butterbar announced triumphantly. "They dropped out of warp, looks like their going to hide in the nebulae for a while."Akers put one hand on his shoulder. It was somehow comforting. "Good work Ensign. Take us in."Butterbar sat in awe at the sheer size and majesty of the Clandath'u nebulae. Stretching for nearly five light years and created millennia before by three nearly (astronomically speaking) simultaneous supernovas, he resisted the urge to power up the sensor pack's and try to probe its secrets. The faint brackish green phosphorescent glow cast an eerie illumination in the cockpit of the Coventry, giving everything in the cockpit of the runabout a sickly tinge. At irregular intervals, static discharges would erupt, like some kind of nightmarish lightening, and illuminate parts of the nebulae. The Claymore's course slipped in and out of the nebulae's fringes; at times with only their impulse ion trail to follow. Other times the chaos eddies left by the Claymore's wake were still swirling in stiff slow-motion currents. A faint whisper crept along the hull as they traversed through heavier concentrations of gas and dust.

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Butterbar deftly plotted their course negotiating through the outer edges of the nebulae, following the trail of the Claymore. The Ion trail fluctuated sharply. "They slipped up to 2/3 impulse here, sir," Butterbar reported.Akers rubbed his chin. "A little faster than I'd take, perhaps, but within limits. Steady as she goes, Ensign."Butterbar watched his passive sensors, measuring the disturbance the Claymore had made as she passed through, and comparing it to the Coventry’s own passage. Butterbar shook his head. "I think we're being led down the Garden Path, General.""Explain, Butterbar.""Why go into the nebulae at all? It’s actually about 45 minjutes longer to take a shortuct than it would be to continue around the far side of the nebulae.”“Your right, this course and velocity doesn’t make sense,” Akers replied.“Why the jockeying to unsafe velocities? It's like they're trying to hide their real course while we waste time trying to cover our bets…""…They're pulling a fast one," Major Myers concluded. He raised his eyebrows and nodded to Akers. "The kid could be onto something."Akers gestured for him to continue. Butterbar stammered for a moment then sat up straight in his chair. "If they passed through the same region twice at ½ impulse, it would look like they'd gone through at 2/3 impulse. They could instead slip to the side, and with the larger wake, we might not notice their exit point. They'd be inside the nebulae while we pass by, wasting time looking for them on the other side, sir. Sirs," Butterbar added sheepishly glancing rapidly between the Major and the General."How would you prove it…""I could time bursts of our active sensors with the static discharges, and only along our aft trajectory. If they broke off we'd find it, and with reduced risk that they'd detect our sweeps. We could also follow a spiral course around their trajectory, say a kilometer beyond the wake turbulence. That way if they did slip off course a second time, we'd be more likely to pick it up," he sighed as if in exhaustion. "With your permission, General."Akers nodded. "Make it so, Ensign." Butterbar turned back to the controls, but Akers put one hand on his shoulder. “And Butterbar—don’t forget to breathe when your talking. Makes it a lot easier that way.” There was a mischievous twinkle in the General’s eye.They found numerous suspicious eddy currents that appeared to be the Claymore breaking course, but they turned out to be false leads. Akers sat silently next to him, occasionally pointing things out, but more often nodding—ever so slightly—in approval. Finally, they found it. A very clear, if small disturbance that did not peter out like the previous ones. "That's them General," Butterbar breathed, excited by his discovery and terrified because it meant combat would not be far away now."Nice work Ensign. Dispatch a Message Buoy to inform the Jaguar of our current course and position, then take us in. ETA to Jaguar picking up the buoy?" he asked."If they realized the Claymore never emerged from the nebulae, two hours minimum, sir." Butterbar nodded.

"Let's just hope we get to the Claymore before any of their reinforcements arrive," Cookie mumbled."If they have reinforcements," Butterbar added hopefully."Trust me, son, there are always reinforcements," Akers replied.The journey was hellish, Butterbar inching his way through the brackish colored nebulae, this time using careful bursts from his active sensors directed aft ensure the path they were following was correct. They passed through deeper concentrations of gas, and static discharges buffeted the ship ruthlessly. These same charges were also steadily degrading the Claymore's path making it more difficult to follow. Akers was grinning now with that feral smile and rubbing his beard. "There!" Butterbar shouted, bringing the Coventry to an abrupt halt as another static burst washed over the craft. Grumbling Marines announced their displeasure at the sudden shift in momentum, which hadn't been compensated for adequately. "I don't see it," Cookie said, leaning over Butterbar's shoulder. Butterbar just smiled confidently as they drifted out of a particularly deep pocket of gas into a relatively thin bubble. On the far side, the Claymore gleamed sickly green, apparently drifting."Thrusters only, Ensign, and very delicately, slip us back, and then around." Akers got up and went to confer with his staff. It was difficult work and during it, Butterbar managed to pick up snatches of conversation."…Worried about those other traces… reinforcements? Kid did good, real virtuoso with… act now before they get any help… Maze on deck 6… disable the ship if we can't… Find the crew first and foremost… Three turbo shaft choke points on Decks 6… Secure the stairwells… Bring the grenade launcher and the heavy weapons…"Half an hour later, the Coventry was again sliding into the gas bubble and directly underneath the Claymore. The intense static discharges surrounding the bubble disguised their approach perfectly, even if giving the increasingly testy Marines a very bumpy ride. Butterbar halted their approach exactly 10 meters below the lower navigational dome. "General, we have arrived. Their shields are down, and I doubt if they've seen us," Butterbar reported, shutting down the engines and powering up his own armor."Good work, Ensign," Akers said. He turned crisply to his second-in-command, "Major Myers! I want that ship back.""Yes sir!" Myers answered and his Marines snapped to attention. Butterbar felt the Danube rock slightly from the force of their motions.Akers nodded and peered past Butterbar out the main view port. "We have us a starship to rescue." Suddenly Akers didn't seem nearly so frightening to Butterbar if only because that savage glare wasn't directed at him (for a change).He almost felt sorry for the hijackers

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Chapter 3: Behind the Lines"Ensign, you're crushing the data crystal membrane. Turn your armor off until you leave for EVA," Cookie advised and Butterbar looked down to see a deep impression in his console where he'd been pressing with his gloved fist. Grinning sheepishly, he reached up to the control panel on one wrist and deactivated the power systems.Cookie nodded and then handed him a small imperial purple cloth bag with a yellow cord. "Here, in case you need them. Security bypass modules, just like the ones Frag and Drag are using." He gestured and Butterbar focused on the lower navigational dome. The sensors inside his helm automatically compensated, and zoomed in on the region, where two power-armored Marines were already slipping inside the access hatch. "Just pop open the panel for any given door or hatch, slip one of these babies into the circuit panel, and viola. Instant access without any door alarms tripping," Cookie said proudly."Cookie baked them himself," Akers said softly, watching alongside them. "If you ever want to knock over a bank, he's the first one you want to ask for help.""General! You're corrupting the boy."Akers grunted and got up. "Depressurize the main cabin, Ensign, and you can follow us over." He paused and looked at Butterbar. "We'll leave you in electrical, and if things get hairy, you bug out, and go fetch the Jaguar. You understand?""How will I know when to...?" Butterbar couldn't finish.Myers smiled at him grimly. "Trust me son. You'll know."Cookie rubbed on shoulder affectionately. "Yeah, when they start shooting at you! Shoot back, then run.""Riiight..."Butterbar had little experience in zero-gee, but he found it surprisingly easy inside the power suit, which compensated for the environment almost before he needed it too. Flight between the two vessels was smooth, direct, and more accurate as Butterbar had ever could have hoped to do in regular pressure suits. The extra gear he was ferrying over for the Marines was hardly cumbersome at all. He was curious, though, what the large pancakes of white material were for. They were like blocks of old-fashioned cheese, only far lighter even in a gravity field, just large and bulky. Butterbar wasn't sure what they were for, other than the fact the Lieutenant General had enough weapons to blow up a good part of the Saber-class vessel's primary hull if things got bad enough. "Probably not without rescuing the crew first," Blacky had replied when Butterbar had asked about that possibility.Butterbar arrived aboard the Claymore in the main sensor array compartment, and from there, quickly climbed into the Electrical Control space, where most, but not all, of the Marines were clustered. Butterbar saw dozens of security bypass modules, and variants thereof, scattered across the open circuit breaker panels for the entire ship. Cookie was clapping his hands, as if brushing them off. "That's it General. We can't do any more here."Akers nodded. "Major, deploy your troops.""Gamma-Five, secure that lift, then proceed to choke points on Deck 6," Myers growled. The lean and compact Major, having taken his antique glasses off when he donned his

power armor helmet, continued. "Beta Fire Team, you've got port and forward stairwells, Gamma-4, starboard. Alpha, you're with me in the central shaft. We'll meet at aux and then proceed to the Brig."Butterbar tried not to let his fear of being left alone show. Blacky and Camper, the members of the Gamma-5 fire time, didn't give him much time to worry about it. The two Marines opened up a hatch, reached in, and ripped out a large section of conduit housing. "Didn't want to leave the phaser emitter circuits intact, anyway," Blacky said at Butterbar's surprised look. Still grinning, he walked over to the turbo-lift, wedged it open while Camper placed one of the pancakes of Styrocal squarely in the center of the shaft. Blacky held the conduit over the pancake and winked at Butterbar. "See kid, official Starfleet regulation nozzle. Insert into Styrocal chamber like so." He jammed the conduit into the pancake. "Twist and activate Styrocal." He punched several buttons on the access panel for the Styrocal and a fountain of white foam erupted from the end of the conduit, streaming high into the turbolift shaft. "The trick is not to let it expel the conduit before its finished erupting," Blacky offered, pressing the conduit deep into the pancake. Camper leaped into the shaft, and started squeezing the deflating pancake around the edges towards the conduit.Butterbar peered inside the shaft and for a length of 3-8 meters above him, the Styrocal was congealing on the sides of the turboshaft. It was like some kind of surrealistic dripping nightmare of hardening white goo. "Between our spoofing here," Blacky paused then gestured to the panels. "and the fact that Styrocal's so light, it won't set off the debris sensors in the turboshaft—they'll never know this is in here. However, the car will automatically stop at the closest exit, reporting a normal, unobtrusive malfunction." "Where we can give them a proper reception," Camper said smiling. It was like being menaced by a friendly, charming, white-haired old man—armed to the teeth.Blacky nodded, pleased, when the Styrocal finally ceased erupting, Camper stepped out, carefully wiping off the several bits that had dropped onto his armor. Butterbar poked at several droplets that had congealed just above the lift door. They had already hardened into rock-hard consistency. Camper pulled out several sonic grenades, activated them, and threw them on top of the globs of Styrocal above him. "In case anybody decides to look in on you from above," he said gently, winking at Butterbar."We'll be back with Captain Harrington, Butterbar. Stay here and wait for orders," Blacky added as the two Marines bounded out of the Electrical.Ensign Caleb "Butterbar" Stein found himself standing next to the wedged open turbo shaft, accompanied only by the occasional and infrequent dripping of semi-hardened Styrocal.

* * *The time stretched on for hours. A starship is not normally quiet; there are creaks, bumps, systems activating and adjusting, pulsing with the life of the craft, even when silent running. At the slightest bump of noise, Butterbar stirred, trying to balance vigilance with not phasering a hole thru the hull. And he didn’t want to embarrass himself by shooting one of the Marines if they returned unexpectedly.

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Butterbar tried to pace softly, but found he couldn’t do so without slamming his feet into the deck. The footfalls seemed to echo so, he tried standing in one place, but he kept fidgeting. Beads of sweat gathered on his and even soaked a cloth rag he found and still kept perspiring. He turned up the cooling unit on his power suit to no avail.Waiting for the explosions to begin, the screams, the dying… Butterbar checked the chronometer to see how many hours had passed since Akers and his Marines had departed.Five minutes.(Actually, it was less than five minutes; he had rounded up to feel less chagrined).Caleb Stein wasn’t comfortable with the combat aspects of Starfleet. He knew it happened. He knew that a starship could be an extremely hazardous place, even in peacetime, but being this close to it made him distinctly uncomfortable. The attention of the XO, blatantly, unapologetically a Starfleet Marine, had only been exacerbating that discomfort these last two months. It wasn’t the XO personally, although he could be an extremely demanding taskmaster—it was Caleb Stein. Butterbar. Uncomfortable with the Marines he’d let that intimidate him, push him down, and in so doing, had lost a bit of himelf. Yes the Marines, and the XO in particular had participiated, but he himself had precipitated this as much as anyone.Caleb "Butterbar" Stein inhaled and exhaled deeply, several times, focusing just on breathing.Comrades, shipmates, some who he could feel that in time would be friends—were going into harms way. He wasn’t a Marine, but he was a Starfleet officer, highly trained, capable and proactive. He wasn’t the first or best choice to lead a fire team to retake the Claymore, but he had other strengths, ones that could serve him, and his fellow Starfleet officers and crew well.Butterbar sat down in front of the main console, smiled, and prepared to……do nothing.He couldn’t think of anything he could do that would be useful to Akers and his Marines beyond just waiting for them to request his backup spoofing the ship's systems.Still smiling, Butterbar breathed in and out one more time. Start with the basics. Who is the enemy? Breen…Opening up a secure link back to the Coventry, Butterbar did what he did best—filter and manipulate data. Looking for something he could use to defeat the enemy.

* * *"No sign of the Claymore, Admiral," Marine Captain Bill Tillman announced, not entirely surprised.Wallace stood up and peered across the console and looked at his Security officer."The Coventry," they both said in unison."Lieutenant Steele, prepare to alter course!" Wallace barked.

* * *

Any kind of communication, especially when being stealthy, is problematic due to the possibility of intercept. Starfleet Marines alternated between thin isolinear fibers or, like Akers preferred choice, communications relay chips. Small, resembling tiny pieces of lint, they blended in well with the carpeting that was standard issue on 24th century starships.When Butterbar’s power armor chirped, he nearly jumped out of his skin."Ensign, this is Major Myers. We need you to run a check for us.""Yes sir…?""Claymore crew complement, can you confirm a Chief Benjamin Arnold," "Stand by…" Butterbar answered, resetting his display of the Coventry’s database. "Downloading to your suit now, sir. Senior Chief Benjamin Arnold, reported lost aboard the Scimitar in 2373 in action along the Klingon frontier. Recovered by the Claymore two months ago while on patrol near the badlands. He'd apparently spent the last several years marooned on a Class L planetoid. After debriefing, Captain Harrington took him as a member of the crew.""Thank you, Ensign." Myers clicked off.Butterbar was still mulling over the Major’s query when the red alert klaxons went off, and the boards in front of him started lighting up. The battle to retake the Coventry had begun in earnest. Butterbar could hear squirts of battle language over the power armor's COM system. This wasn't nearly as clear or succinct as the distant thump of explosions or the occasional faint shrill whine of phaser fire."Butterbar, kill power for any containment fields that come up!" Akers snapped. "Keep sharp!""Aye sir!"A few moments later, Butterbar heard a rush of footfalls outside of electrical. Pocketing his PADD’s, and wielding his phaser rifle, he stepped to one corner."Butterbar, help me out here…" Myers ordered, stepping inside carrying a semi-conscious Starfleet crewman, his hands manacled, and spilling him onto the floor like a rag doll."Meet former Senior Chief Ben Arnold," Myers huffed over the red alert klaxon. "And collaborator with the Breen hijacking this ship.""Sir?""A decoy, bait left for anyone foolish enough to try a rescue," Myers frowned sharply. "Keep him unconscious, Ensign, its about to get hairy!""What about the crew?" Butterbar asked as the Marine checked his cover and prepared to leave."No sign," was the soft reply, "except this one." Myers then disappeared up the stairwell to rejoin the fighting. Butterbar noticed the ship’s intercom system was active now, with Breen scratching noises echoing off the walls. Butterbar tried the universal translator——but it was of no use. He checked the boards—so far Cookie’s jury-rigging was holding. Considering his options, Butterbar decided to put the Chief in a pressure suit. He pulled open a panel and found several of the baggy kind designed for rapid ingress. The bulky shape allowed him to

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keep the Chief secured while still providing protection. The man looked older than the records Butterbar looked up—more like Arnold’s father than Arnold himself. The Chief was groggy, and started mumbling as Butterbar stuffed him inside. "Where…? What…?"Butterbar took his phaser and considered stunning the man—but he couldn’t.The Chief blinked his eyes as if they could focus for the first time since being stunned, his eyes widened and he looked around in sudden fear. "Eologian…! Must warn Eologian!"Butterbar ignored him, finished wrapping him the suit, leaving the hood open despite the urge to seal it, and sat back down at the console. Dull explosions continued to echo throughout the ship—and he could hear the distant whine of phaser fire—moving further away.New warning tell-tales started flashing on the electrical distribution panels as a new vibration rolled through the deck plates, reminding him of a temblor he had experienced once on Vulcan. This was far more frighteneing, as Butterbar was fairly convinced that deckplating wasn’t supposed to roll in waves like ocean surf.The battle was fast moving, he could see from the winking lights its progress through the ship as systems were damaged or failed completely. Akers' Marines were in three groups, two racing for the bridge, and one in a pitched battle in Engineering. At this rate the Claymore would need to be towed back to Nexus for repairs. He wasn't sure she could take much more.A thermal cooling unit failed in the crew decks and it finally hit him. How he could help. He thought back to some of his courses at the Academy, seminars on Breen physiology and even on the cooling systems of their uniforms. An idea began to germinate, and Ensign Caleb Butterbar started to smile.If Akers or any of his Marines had seen it, they would have started to worry immediately. An Ensign with an idea behind the lines is even more dangerous than an Ensign in the battlefield.That was just when the turbo shaft door blew in.

* * *No plan survives contact...An axiom that was never truer than in General Akers’ attempts to retake the Claymore. First, there was no sign of the crew—it was as if they had vanished completely. Akers didn't like to contemplate the implications of that fact. There were some signs that the takeover hadn't been immediate, but not many, other than the scorched hull plates outside and within the auxiliary bridge, the vessel was in pristine condition.Then there was Senior Chief Arnold. In hindsight, Arnold was obvious bait that had worked all to well. The former Starfleet chief had tripped the alarm system, alerting the Breen to their presence. Akers was almost ready to take a more direct approach, but he would have preferred not having the choice made for him.Finally there was the Breen—there were far too many of them on board. Passive scans had revealed only a dozen, yet after ten minutes of harried fighting, he estimated they'd easily disabled at least three times that many.

Casual inspection revealed why they were so easily defeated—they weren't Breen!Some kind of distant Cardassian/Bajoran hybrid, with some other sapient species that the tricorder couldn't identify mixed in. Upon close inspection, the Breen "uniforms" were anything but. Soiled, frayed, and on the verge of falling apart, they offered little or no protection to the soldiers masquerading as Breen. What they lacked in armor and sophistication, though, they made up for with tactics of desperation. Akers recalled historical accounts of Marines fighting off "human waves" at Chosun—this was in the same spirit. The enemy didn't attack so much as roll towards them like the tide. So far the tactics were surprisingly effective—the sheer weight of numbers was keeping him and his Marines on the run. The fighting was a total furball.He dodged across a hallway, following Myers and a fire team into an officers' wardroom on Deck 6. "Firecracker, gentlemen," Akers snapped. Myers threw him one of their specials, a modified flash-bang-stun grenade using some ancient principles of Chinese pyrotechnics.Cookie cut a hole in the back wall, and they started filing through into the next compartment. Akers set the grenade, heard the shuffling of approaching enemy, and dodged into the next compartment. As he passed, Cookie slid a partition to one side, covering their escape from immediate attention.The first fake-Breen stepped into the compartment, setting off the grenade. The solider slumped, and Akers heard the thump of two more outside the hallway. Several more cautiously stepped in, covering the room as the second half of the grenade went off.Akers and his fire team had already departed as the cabin filled with explosive bits of fire and smoke—fireworks from another era, erupting out into the hallway and trashing the residence of some poor unsuspecting member of the Claymore's crew.The fake-Breen following them stepped back in surprise, not realizing the show was mere light and smoke, broke their cover in the process then were cut down by Cookie and Myers, who had already circled around and were coming up behind them.All told the op had taken out almost a dozen fake-Breen, and Akers suit tell-tales started flashing, indicating at least as many were nearby, ready to take their place.Myers shook his head. "Where are they coming from?""Doesn't matter, we'll kill them all if we have to," Akers said, though he was worried. To have this many troops for the hijacking of an Escort class like the Saber spoke volumes for the desperation of the hijackers. For the first time, security force fields started to slam into place. Akers and Myers exchanged a glance, then just shot out the emitters embedded in the side of hallway.Akers looked at Cookie closely, "You're bleeding." He said, pointing to the older man's left arm."Oh..." Cookie replied, shooting at the emitters for the next force field in the hallway. "I just polished that," he said softly. It was dry humor, but it also meant that Cookie’s power armor was not going to be able to protect him from phaser fire much longer.

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Akers did a quick inventory—four of the nine Marines with him were wounded to one degree or another. Blacky had a nasty limp acquired right when they had linked back up. Frag's right arm hung limply at his side (fortunately he was left-handed). They were on Deck 4, so it wouldn't be long now. Either they'd start falling and the Claymore would stay hijacked or Akers could reach the bridge and end the conflict from there quickly.It was a horse race, and Lieutenant General Akers hated horse races.

* * *Butterbar roused to find the electrical center demolished—panels hung loose if they were attached at all, the deck was cluttered with bypass modules and powdered Styrocal. The turbo lift doors were wrenched open, one lying on the floor in several pieces. Butterbar got up, tried to raise the General—and got nothing but static. Either his suit was damaged or... easier to believe it was damaged. Butterbar’s PADD blinked, and he looked at the warning message. The Coventry had detected signs of multiple vessels in the surrounding nebulae, apparently using a trick similar to his own to narrow in on their position.That wasn't the Jaguar, he was certain of that.Butterbar started swearing. Repeatedly. He was merely an Ensign; he hadn't learned truly creative profanity yet. He couldn’t tell if the other ship was going to arrive quickly, or linger; they seemed to be taking their time. That was good—he needed all he could get.The battle was still raging; he could hear distant explosions and still pick up phaser fire. There appeared to be some kind of running battle going on in the turbo shafts from the echoes that kept drifting downwards.Butterbar was on Deck 10. Deck 7 had numerous transport platforms, ships services, auxiliary bridge, and a backup electrical control. He wasn’t sure how he could continue to follow his orders, but he wasn’t about to give up for lack of trying. He was trying figure out how to take the Chief with him up to Deck 7 when the problem was taken from his hands, and not in a way he would approve.Three figures materialized in the room.A trim figure in a stylized body armor that was a cross between duranium composite and black leather turned to face Butterbar, looked up him and down once and spoiled the moment for Butterbar, who was deciding if he should shoot, by speaking."Greetings Ensign, I am Special Inspector Fawkan of the Slobadan Hegemony's Enforcer Division. I believe we can be of assistance.""Ensign Caleb Stein, USS Jaguar," Butterbar answered, hesitantly shaking Fawkan’s outstretched hand. "I’m not familiar with the Slobadan Hegemony." Think very carefully, Ensign, Butterbar thought to himself. The intruders black uniforms sported only a single ornament—a gold medallion embedded in the fabric—a stylized dragon encircling avaguely familiar symbol."We’re a democratic state on the far side of the Cardassian Empire. This is our first opportunity to make contact—I wish it was under more civilized circumstances." Fawkan

looked around the devastated compartment with a gesture bordering on disdain. "I have to apologize Ensign. Some insurgents decided to steal one of your vessels. We would like to offer every assistance to recover it intact and with minimal loss of life."The General would not go for that—time to change the subject! "Was that your ship out there? We picked up traces…""Likely, yes. Your own wake was substantially harder to follow than theirs." Butterbar smiled despite himself, the General would be pleased. His smiling stopped when he realized that Fawkan had somehow commanded his attention. Through charisma or force of will, Butterbar found it hard to watch the Slobadan Officer and keep track of the two other Enforcers that had beamed over with him who remained silent. "You may have picked up two distress signals. The first was authentic, the second was an encrypted signal informing the criminal’s co-conspirators of their intended course. Make no mistake, we arrived here first, but more are on their way."Was it an offer of assistance, or a threat? Before Butterbar could decide, matters escalated. The two Enforcers with Fawkan picked up Senior Chief Arnold and threw him against the bulkhead. Arnold roused from his stupor, glanced at the two men holding him, and then began to writhe in terror. Before he could slip from their grasp, one neatly dropped him, chopping him behind the neck as he did so. Arnold fell to the deck in a heap.Butterbar was there before he could even think about, tricorder out, searching for some sign of life—a pulse, anything. The two Enforcers stepped back and Butterbar rose in one smooth motion, jamming his phaser ruffle into the neck of the Enforcer who had murdered Arnold. "You did not have to do that," Butterbar spat each word. "He was our prisoner, you murdered him!""Ensign, be reasonable.""This is a Federation vessel. This is a Federation matter. Leave. Now." Butterbar didn’t even turn to Fawkan, his eyes and that of the Enforcer’s were locked in a deadly glare. "Don’t make me ask you again," Butterbar said softly. To his later surprise, his finger didn't waver, itch or twitch, he could feel the firing stud of the phaser rifle sink ever so slightly against the pressure he put on it. Fawkan gestured. "Very well, but this is not settled Ensign." He waved one hand over his wrist, and all three began to beam out. Butterbar stepped back and looked at Fawkan, and just nodded his agreement. It was by no means over…When Butterbar finally linked back up with Akers and told him what had happened, all Akers gave him was a non-committal grunt, and a reminder to stay out of the way.The ship echoed with a vibrating, rippling explosion. Bits of debris leaped into the air and then fell back down, leaving trails of dust and powder behind. Butterbar reached down, picked up the PADD he had used for research on the Breen, and tucked it a pocket.The hallways were empty; occasionally he saw scorch marks from the fighting, and on Deck 8 he passed underneath a jagged hole that extended upwards at least three decks. Balancing a desire to peer upwards and the hope of not being seen, he carefully skirted around the opening. The battle was always distant, and were it not for the obvious signs of combat, he could have believed himself alone on the vessel.Explosion, range 25 meters.

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Sonic Grenades (7), range 38 meters.

The suits tell—tales kept him painfully aware just how close he was to the fighting.Finally he reached the double transporter room he wanted. The room was intact, untouched, and pristine. Stepping between the two consoles, he found the backup electrical panels he wanted. He had an instant picture of the Claymore’s condition and the damage from the fighting.The Claymore was dying. Butterbar doubted she could even make warp speed. As if in answer to that thought, the anti-matter pod storage system ejected itself, crippling the vessel. The lights diminished sharply.Butterbar studied the panel—the display—something was wrong. The ship's power distribution system... he suddenly realized why the force fields were not coming on, and it wasn't just Cookie's spoofing.Looking around the compartment, Butterbar smiled. He'd found the crew.Time to get some phasar rifles!

Chapter 4: Chaos, RefinedButterbar ran his hand over the transporter panel, which lit up as he did so. With a buzzing hum, twenty-two very surprised looking members of the Claymore's crew materialized, some of them in less than optimal positions and promptly fell downupon reconstruction. They turned to stare at him, and one-stepped forward in relaxed casual clothing. "I'm Captain Harrington, and you are?" she asked."Ensign Caleb Stein, USS Jaguar. We intercepted a distress signal. Breen hijackers have overtaken your ship. A squad of Marines is currently engaging them to retake the ship." As if on cue, the room shuddered and distant booming noises could be heard.Harrington nodded, walking over to the case of phaser riffles Butterbar had brought with him. She hefted one, smiling faintly. "They started beaming in just as they we detected their ship. Before we could react, they had most of us incapacitated." She looked at the transporter chamber wistfully. "The rest of our crew?"Butterbar nodded. "Spread out across the ship's transporters." Harrington snapped her fingers and dispatched most of her people to the other transporter pads on Deck 7. Butterbar saw that his usefulness was coming to an end—he wasn't ready for that. "I also have an idea for incapacitating the Breen. I could use a couple of your engineering staff to pull it off.""Make it happen," she said, nodding to her two engineering chiefs," and give us five minutes to fetch the rest of the crew!" She added.Butterbar nodded in happy agreement."And Ensign?"Butterbar paused and looked directly at the Captain. "Thank you."

When Harrington and her crew started emptying the remaining transporter buffers, Butterbar's face beaming bright enough to light up the room. He and the tech's proceeded to the life support control room. Butterbar quickly explained what he wanted them to do. "That's rather dangerous," one of them commented, as more rolling explosions vibrated through the consoles. He flashed a quick grin at Butterbar. "I like it."The other tech nodded. "I owe those shell-faces for the Merrimac."With two additional sets of hands to help, setting up the overload in the EPS system was quickly accomplished. The two experienced techs appreciated what he was doing, but also pointed at small flaws that would prohibit it from working effectively. Synergistically, the three of them took his idea and came up with a scheme that would more than double Butterbar's original estimated output. Finally, it was ready.With a sense of immense satisfaction, Butterbar looked at his two newfound colleagues, and then deliberately stabbed the control that would initiate the overload.At a moment when chaos was in full control of the Claymore—things got worse. Much worse. Harrington was leading her crew up the stairwells in force, carrying hastily erected transporter scramblers and armed to the teeth with every phaser they could find. Akers was leading his troops in a steady battle of attrition, having reached Deck 4, and racing for the bridge. The fake-Breen were in a pitched three-way battle with Akers Marines—and unknown to all was Inspector Fawkan's Slobadan enforcers who had decided to take matters into their own hands.Butterbar had hoped to overload the power system in such a way as to blow the Power Junction Circuit breakers without them cutting the circuits. It was theoretically possible, but to do it he and Harrington's tech's had to disable a number of critical fail-safe's that would have prevented it. As a result, conduits began to melt from the overload, and emit radiation at a particular frequency and with a carefully calculated emission cycle.The lights went out across the ship, came back on, surged in brightness, and went out for good. Red emergency lighting filled the faintly smoky air—filled with the smell of burnt circuits and the dust from numerous explosions.Had actual Breen been onboard, with their authentic Breen armor, it would have caused said armor to freeze up, immobilizing them for as much as five minutes. As it was, the particle emissions had wholly unintended side effects, and on the only armor available. For Akers wounded Marines the power surge brought on many of the desired effects—or variations of them at least. The exact effect depended on how badly damaged the power armor was. Cookie, who had suffered the worst damage, found his right arm suddenly extending and retracting spastically—several times per second. The net result of which was he beat his own shoulders to a pulp with his power-armored fists. His legs twitched uncontrollably, and his right hand kept twisting alternately clockwise and counter-clockwise."They've cooked cookie!" Major Myers exclaimed in disbelief, as he helped Cookie reach Deck 4. "General, General! Did it work?" Butterbar's squeaky young voice came over the COM badges.

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"Did what work?" Akers growled, as he peered around a corner to fire at one of the Fake-Breen pursuing them. Cookie was now in a full-blown, mechanically induced epileptic fit as a Myers and Flash tried to shut him down."We generated a neural suppression field for the Breen. It should have disabled their armor!"As a hail of phaser shots peppered the bulkhead behind him, Akers shook his head in disbelief."We're. Not. Fighting. Breen! -Turn it off. Now!"Butterbar stared at the two techs in horror. Then all three started pulling circuits to shut the overload down.Cookie suddenly was still, barely conscious. As Myers helped him up, his chest plate fell off to the deck, and promptly shattered."You didn't tell me they weren't Breen," Butterbar whispered."You didn't need to know, now keep this channel clear, Ensign!"Akers shook his head at the Major, who had a strange grin on his face as if to say you two were made for each other. "It's not a bad idea, too bad they aren't real Breen," Flash commented.Akers looked around him. "Gentleman, ladies, I'm tired of this crap. Let's take the bridge, and end this once and for all." Akers heart swelled as his Marines, even the injured Cookie, gave a hearty Marine Corps grunt.

* * *Butterbar couldn't have sustained the reaction much longer if he tried. Feeling very much like the proverbial green Ensign, he shut down the overload while the two techs smiled weakly at him."It was a good try kid," one of them said. Then as if he was instantly forgotten, they stood up, picked up their phasers, and left him.Butterbar started swearing again.It was a noticeable improvement over the previous effort. Inspiration was after all the mother of invention.If anything, the fighting seemed to have increased, with Harrington's crew entering the mix. He slowed down spitting out colorful metaphors and glanced at the ship's displays. The Claymore was limping, and if help didn't show up soon, life support might start to become a real issue. The batteries were fading fast, and the ships systems were struggling to stay operational.Activating his power armor, Butterbar slid on his helm, calibrated phaser rifle and proceeded to rejoin General Akers. He could pick up battle language over his COM system, and knew the goal was to retake the bridge. Life support was near a stairwell that went almost all the way. Lacking any better idea he decided to see if he could get there on his own.Several times the path was blocked by debris, and he criss-crossed the ship, stepping over wounded and stunned Fake-Breen, Starfleet crew looking practically naked in their

uniforms (without any armor), and even a few of Fawkan's Enforcers. Butterbar frowned sharply. Reaching down, he plucked one of the gold medallions off their chest—he wanted to examine it later.Butterbar was surprised he didn't get sick from the carnage. Only fear kept him going—fear that he'd screwed up badly, fear that he wouldn't be able to fix it. He would have to try, even if it meant throwing himself into combat—embracing the insanity that had in some way been the temptation Akers offered up since his first day on board the Jaguar.

* * *The human waves had finally ebbed, as the Fake-Breen struggled to hold onto one corner of the ship—the bridge. Akers also had discovered the bodies of Butterbar's new players—the Slobadan, but so far actual contact with the mysterious third party had been avoided. Akers doubted that would last and how it would play out was anybody's guess. Decks sagging, hallways broken and shattered; Akers was surprised the ship hadn't lost pressure yet. There was a rustle of feet, and Akers and Myers took cover, only to drop their weapons as Captain Harrington and her crew rushed around the corner and slid into them. Akers reached down to pull her up"Scott, we meet in the strangest places," she said, smiling broadly."That we do, Helen," Akers peered around to see about thirty-five of the Claymore's crew waiting patiently behind her. "I was thinking about going up to the bridge? Care to join me?"She held out one arm that he graciously took in his, "Delighted, General. Positively delighted."Akers COM system squeaked, and a much hoped for signal came through. Anticipating victory, he and his old friend proudly marched upwards to finish reclaiming her battered ship.

* * *The going was slow. Butterbar had to retrace his steps more than once. He found that the best path usually mean crawling through holes blown in the deck plating to reach the next deck upwards. He stumbled into the hanger bay by accident—finding a demolished craft of alien origin, resting precariously in the force field sealing the hanger bay from the vacuum of space. He estimated somebody had tried to escape and failed, from the peeled back plating; the craft was clearly a wreck and unsalvageable. The pace of battle picked up and Butterbar found himself stumbling from the vibrations. Inertial dampers were sputtering, and at times found he floated momentarily off the deck.Then silence—which itself was far worse than the signs of battle.Butterbar reached Deck 2, and spotted the stairwell leading to the conference room on the bridge deck. At the foot of the stairwell he found several bodies of Fake-Breen and Claymore crew mixed together. And at the foot of the stairwell, Captain Helen Harrington, badly injured and being tended by a medic who only nodded to him as he worked feverishly to save her life.

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Butterbar thought he would retch, but instead a cold anger overtook him. Picking up a second phaser rifle, one in each hand, he stealth-fully slipped up the stairwell, a frightening grimace on his face.As he reached the top he paused, and overhead two voices, both familiar."...criminals wanted by the Slobadan Hegemony on capital crimes. General, you have no jurisdiction in this matter.""No, Inspector, this is a Federation matter, the Federation will handle it. You may apply for extradition after formal recognition has been completed. Until then, get off my ship!""So your Ensign told me," Fawkan replied, taking on a triumphant note. Butterbar heard a faint hiss of static, and raced around the corner, both phases primed......and nearly shot Akers in the back. Fawkan stood on the other side of a shimmering force field, a mobile emitter lying on the floor blocking Akers from reaching him. "Excuse me, General" Butterbar interrupted and proceeded to fire both weapons at the field. It absorbed the energy with no effect. Butterbar glared at the Slobadan Enforcer, tilted his head to one side, and faced the wall to his right."Fire in the hole!" he barked and Akers had time to give him one glance before ducking for cover as Butterbar blew open the side of the wall, opening a man-sized hole into the bridge.Fawkan met them on the bridge as Butterbar watched over a dozen Slobadan Enforcers and Marines/Claymore crew aiming phases at each other. Scattered on the floor were nearly as many Fake-Breen, most stunned or groggy."Come General, this is a stand-off," Fawkan pleaded. "Logically you have nothing to gain by fighting us, and we outnumber you significantly." Akers looked unimpressed and Fawkan continued with his justifications. "I am duly empowered by my government to pursue these rebel insurgents and eliminate the threat they pose by any means necessary.""Including murder!" Butterbar said, appearing in the doorway on the other side of the room, panting from having run up several flights of the stairs. "They killed the chief, General. He was unarmed, and helpless, and they killed him!"Akers rubbed his chin thoughtfully and then smiled—it was a deadly grin. "Computer, Destruct Sequence 4432-Akers Tango Bravo," Akers said softly and sat down in the Captain's chair. "You are welcome to leave, Inspector, however in fifty-five seconds this ship will be an expanding plasma cloud.""The blast radius will be magnified by the presence of dilithium hydroxyls in the nebulae. Your ships will be heavily damaged," Butterbar added helpfully."This is not logical, General!" Fawkan pleaded."Neither is commandeering this ship!" Akers snapped.Fawkan tilted his bloodied head to one side and nodded. "Very well." With a wave, he and all of his Slobadan troops vanished in a sparkle of energy. Butterbar slumped. "Can we deactivate that now?" he asked as the countdown crossed 30.

Akers shook his head, walked over to the console, activating the remaining scanners. The bridge view screen displayed the wedge shaped craft, each significantly larger than the Claymore, hovering menacingly nearby. "They haven't left yet," he said, even though the three Slobadan vessels were turning away from them. Then the impulse engines fired, leaving the Claymore behind. Butterbar tensed up as the countdown continued. "5… 4… 3… 2… 1… 0… Destruct sequence completed."Butterbar's jaw must have dropped all the way to the floor, from the laughter that roared from Akers. "Ensign, you should know there is no Destruct Sequence 4432.""There isn't?""No," Major Myers answered and then smiled. "Except as a bluff.""Now we'll have to change it to something else," Akers sighed as he considered how the paperwork to get it changed fleet-wide would be tedious at best."A bluff?" Butterbar stammered."A bluff," Myers answered."But they're still out there, when they realize it was a bluff…" Butterbar replied. At almost that instant, their COM badges beeped."Jaguar to Akers, come in please.""Wallace! You're late," Akers barked as Admiral Chris Wallace's image appeared on the view screen partially blackened by phaser fire."You knew?" Butterbar asked Myers, who didn't seem any more surprised than Akers by the arrival of the Jaguar."That's why he's a General, and you’re an Ensign, Ensign," Myers whispered amicably.

Chapter 5: AftermathLater…The Jaguar detected the rapid departure of the Slobadan craft, which changed course pursuing what appeared to be a surviving Eologian vessel. Early indications were that the Fake-Breen, also known as Eologian, had hijacked Starfleet vessels before, although this was difficult to explain. Since the war, hardly any had been lost under anything less than well-known circumstances. The answer became clear, as among the dead Eologian were several more Starfleet crew and officers presumed "lost" during the Dominion war. Starfleet’s recordes of ships lost during that conflict would have to be reexamined.Casual genetic analysis identified enough drift in both the Slobadan and Eologian casualties to conclusive confirm that neither came from either modern Cardassian or Bajor. If they were related, it was from a branch that had diverged several centuries earlier. They also found other racial types in both Eologian and Slobadan uniforms, further compounding the mystery.Casualties among the Claymore's crew were high given their lack of armor. Even with Starfleet Power Armor, half of Akers squad was laid up in sickbay when he came to visit the next morning. Most were unconscious from their sedatives, but Cookie was still

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awake. Akers sat down next to him and tried not to wince at the immense bruises covering much of the Sergeant's exposed flesh."How are you doing Cookie?" he asked softly."Where... is… the Ensign?" Cookie asked, gasping hoarsely."Back on the Coventry, cleaning up, why?""He's mine… now. I own him." Akers smiled. "He helped save the lives of the Claymore's crew, Cookie.""I won't hurt him," Cookie gasped, "permanently." "Would a regular schedule work?” Akers asked casually. “Say 45 minutes, 4 times a week?" Cookie's eyebrows went up—all one of them and Akers continued. "The Ensign hasn't been assigned a physical fitness regime since he arrived. I figured you, Sergeant, would be the ideal choice to administer one."Cookie smiled. It was a grin. A very, very, evil grin. A Starfleet Marine Corps grin."Ensign Flambé…" he breathed, closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.Akers smiled and murmured softly, "Ensign, the other white meat." Chuckling to himself he left the sick bay.

* * *With the Claymore safely under way (albeit shaky), the Jaguar was on course to return the damaged ship back to Starbase 375 and a much-needed overhaul. Butterbar was invited to sit with the C.O., Akers, and Major Myers, as the senior officers commenced what he had learned later was a ritualistic debriefing in the Officer's Mess. It involved the consumption of alcohol, charred animal flesh (with authentic Texas Barbecue, he was informed), and other food supplements his wife would have designated as "junk food."Butterbar tried one bit of the special sauce referred to only as "The Man" and then swore off charred animal flesh for the rest of the evening, much to the amusement of the Marines and senior officers. He listened to the banter going back and forth, as various members of Akers squad filtered in and out, and even Cookie winked at him as he dipped his Cajun Ribs heavily in "The Man.""So, General," Butterbar asked, deciding he finally deserved an answer, "what exactly is a Butterbar?"Akers laughed, and several of the Marines tittered. "You Ensign, you’re a Butterbar." With Butterbar's confused look, he continued. "In wet Naval tradition, the rank insignia of an Ensign was a single gold bar, which resembled a bar of butter."Butterbar looked at his waist self-consciously, he was trim by Starfleet standards. Cookie walked up and patted Butterbar’s tummy. "Don't worry, we'll be taking care of that soon enough." Laughing, he slung his arm around Butterbar's shoulders and gave him a one handed bear hug. "Next time you try any of your particle-of-the-week physics, give me some advance notice, eh?" Cookie demanded."Why is that?" Butterbar asked nervously. There was a gleam in Cookie's eyes that resembled the General's in one of his feral modes.

"So I can high tail it away from you at Warp 9." He ruffled Butterbar's hair and called to the Major and General. "This kid's dangerous!""To his own side!" Akers roared, laughing and Cookie again ruffled his hair affectionately. Realizing he was going to take some more ribbing over this, for quite a few more months to come, Butterbar sat down with his meal. After a time, he shifted, realizing he was sitting uncomfortably on the emblem he'd taken off the Eologian enforcer. His study of the polished medal must have been noticeable because he looked up and found Akers and Wallace starring at him."Let's see that, son," Akers said softly and Butterbar handed it over. "I like dragons," Akers said and Butterbar listened carefully as the General examined the medallion. Was that a purr or a growl he heard from the General?Butterbar offered commentary, "the central figure looks like a Vulcan IDIC, but it's wrong, and the Dragon, definitely not part of Vulcan mythology.""Where did you get this, Ensign? " Wallace asked as he took it from Akers and examined it before handing it on to Myers for a look."One of the Slobadan," Butterbar answered, trying not to think about the splash of tissue and bone that had… no, it was too much to remember."Your wife has anything to say about it?" Myers asked.Butterbar shook his head. "Haven't shown it to her, not yet."Myers nodded, "Have her take a look, but I doubt if it's anything related to a IDIC." In the Dragon's claws were several humanoid forms and none of them looked to be in a healthy condition. Wallace continued, "when we got Butterbar here, we were lucky to get his wife with him. She's doing some good work on warp shell design."Butterbar digested that last statement for a moment—it didn't fit with his world-view. "Starfleet tries to place married couples together, doesn't it?"Wallace nodded. "Usually, although it's not a guarantee. Fortunately we had some empty billets in Engineering so we could make an offer to the two of you."Butterbar's look of confusion must have spoken volumes as Wallace shrugged and nudged his XO. "Ask him. He's the one who fought for you."Akers grumbled and growled but didn't say anything."But I thought it was S'lek you wanted."Myers shook his head. "No, kid, she was just the bonus. Akers wanted you. You two were a pair so we got ourselves a whiz-bang engineer, but you were the one he wanted down in Astrometrics."Akers was still grumbling, a soft growl that was more amusing than threatening. Butterbar raised his eyebrows. "General…?""Thought you showed potential, Butterbar."Butterbar's jaw hit the floor. Bounced off the ceiling and bulkhead several times and landed somewhere near his lap."Who knows? You might even make a good Marine some day."

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Wallace smiled. "Speaking of S'lek, hadn't you be heading back to quarters about now?"Not wanting to give up the camaraderie he'd finally found, Butterbar waffled, it being his turn to squirm and mutter under his breath. Akers put a furry hand on his shoulder. "Go see your wife, kid. Too many evenings drinking with our buddies is why we don't have wives any more—"Admiral Wallace snorted."The CO being the exception, of course," Akers hastily added. "Now shoo!" As Butterbar left, he heard the half-Caitian muttering something about green Ensigns to Wallace and Myers in amusement. And for the first time since coming on board the Jaguar, he felt at home.Whistling as he left, Butterbar returned to his quarters and to his wife.

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InterludeProfessor Hiram Thornberry stood next to the captain's chair on board the Akira class USS Wilkinson, reported lost for more than five years now since the height of the Dominion war. Former Starfleet Fleet Captain Sylia Stingray did not meet his gaze, her disapproval clear. On the view screen, they watched the Jaguar tow the Claymore free of the nebulae. The Wilkinson had suffered greatly in the last few years; she was falling apart almost as much as the Claymore, in some cases worse."Perhaps one of the other acquisition teams..." Thornberry offered, the enthusiasm in his voice falling flat against her gaze."The Slobadan are clearly prepared for our efforts. We cannot continue this fool’s errand and still muster the resources to hold the remaining systems.""We have the trade mission to Nexus..." Thornberry offered hopefully.Stingray snorted in disdain, "Professor, we have six months at most, probably far less. Your stolen Cardassian freighter can't purchase enough to be more than a drop in the bucket the next time they attack." She stood up, "I'm going to my quarters," she announced."To do what?" Thornberry asked.She finally met his gaze, "To decide if I should turn myself in for high treason, Professor. You should this alternative as well—it may be the only thing that can save us and the Eologain both."Thornberry watched her leave and tried not to let the mood on the bridge of the battered vessel infect him. She wouldn't turn herself in—she couldn't! Not without risking everything they'd fought for, everything they had sacrificed...Thornberry shied away from that thought.Ben Arnold had been Stingray's confident, perhaps even lover, his loss was no doubt casting a pall over things. Thornberry was convinced she'd feel better in a few days and they could devise some new plan to acquire the parts and hardware they needed.It was a sentiment that was not shared by the renegade crew standing watch on the bridge with him. Thornberry was the only one on the bridge who did not know that.

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Part 2: The Dictates of Logic

Chapter 6: Signs & Portents

Captains Log, Stardate 57416.2: Following in the wake of the hijacking of the USS Claymore, the Federation has received an official invitation from the previously unknown Slobadan Hegemony to establish diplomatic relations. We’ve been dispatched to the far side of the former Cardassian Union to visit the Slobadan homeworld and begin diplomatic discussions. This more cordial approach is a marked contrast from Slobadan Inspector Fawkan's attempt to claim the Claymore by force just a month ago.

Akers was thrown off his feet as the corridor slid sideways out from underneath him with another direct phaser hit to the hull. The USS Texas was taking a beating; the attack had come swiftly and unexpectedly. The inertial dampers kicked back in and he found himself flying towards the ceiling and bouncing onto the floor, struggling to reach with his wife Tanya Barker. This isn't right, this happened decades ago, he thought to himself, knowing the inevitable conclusion of this fight. If I had only been there…

"Still with me?" she called, bracing herself nearby, as she worked to restore ship's power. Small arms phaser fire flashed through the smoke, and Akers turned instinctively and popped off several rounds. A scream informed him he had scored some kind of hit. The Eologian masquerading as Breen were everywhere, it seemed, struggling to take the ship intact. That's not right, we hadn't encountered the Eologian in 2288.

"There, that's it!" She cried victoriously, and the lights came back on. Akers saw a fire team of Breen/Eologian bearing down on them. Before he could shoot, Butterbar neatly picked them off and them came forward with that annoyingly silly grin of his, twirling his phaser rifle casually like a baton. "Am I ready dad? Can I be a Marine too?" He asked and Akers was tempted to shoot him in reply. You don't belong here, Butterbar, let me grieve her loss in peace.

The ship rocked, and he found himself flying towards Butterbar, landing at the Ensign's feet. "Logically, General, you should have better balance." The Ensign smirked. Akers looked back towards his wife, but Tanya was fading from view, as an immense dragons tail, covered in golden scales, swept down, wiping everything away.NO!Lieutenant General Scott Akers, Executive Officer of the USS Jaguar, sat bolt-up right in his quarters. He hardly noticed the sweat soaked sheets, or the cool air on his skin. These nightmares, the ones with Tanya's passing, were the worst. She had saved the ship, but at the cost… such cost.Realizing sleep would elude him for the rest of the night, Akers rumbled out of bed and into the sonic shower. It would be a long day and he might as well get started, trying futilly to ignore the aching loneliness in his heart.

* * *Ensign Caleb Stein, affectionately known as Butterbar, stood on the underside of the Jaguar's hull, grav boots holding him place—doing his best to rub sore muscles through his pressure suit. Cookie had been especially rigorous the previous evening, and Butterbar was half convinced he’d strained something. Cookie’s casual scan with a medical tricorder did little to alleviate the concern. Standing—sorely—at the edge of the deflector dish, he peered at the primary hull spread out above him. He wasn't sure what new torment the General had conceived this time, but the location he’d chosen on this day didn't bode well. Nexus Spacedock had long since faded from view, and it would be several hours before they entered warp. There was no real reason to remain at sublight, except, of course, to give the General this new opportunity to taunt him in the name of ‘mentoring.’ Butterbar had been fortunate enough to have several genuine mentors previously, and he considered the General’s approach "unique."Frankly, Butterbar was wondering why the General was still paying such close attention to him in the first place. Once they had returned to Nexus, LCDR Candy Tsai boarded to assume her role as Chief Science Officer and everyone was rolled back under Sciences. However, at the "request" of the Executive Officer, Commander Tsai had agreed to release Butterbar for "mentoring" a few hours a week."Here, catch," Akers snapped, startling Butterbar who turned just in time to catch the PADD thrown at him. Fumbling, he bumped it out of his grasp and then snatched it back just as it almost slipped out of his reach."What is this for, sir?" Butterbar asked."It contains the Astronomical Almanac, Dutton's Navigation, and Hydrographics Office Publications 10-31, 10-32. Resources no self-respecting navigator should be without."Hydro… graphics?

Butterbar's stomach flipped, he preferred his stellar cartography via computer—what was the General up to now? "It's been a while since I took rudimentary navigation…"Akers reached behind his back with one armored hand and pulled out what Butterbar recognized as an antique sextant. "Then its time you started brushing up." He handed it to Butterbar. "Where are we Ensign? What heading do we need to take to get to where we want to be?" Akers grinned at him. "Try not to run us into any nebulae while you're at it." Butterbar raised one hand in protest, lowered it, opened his mouth, and closed it. Akers didn't notice, already walking back to the airlock, leaving the stiff and sore Ensign to his task.

* * *Akers entered the Captain’s ready room to see Admiral Chris Wallace, the Jaguar's CO, watching Butterbar on a monitor. The Ensign’s motions were spare, sitting cross legged on the lip of the deflector dish, hunched over a PADD, occasionally looking up and taking sights down the sextant and shaking his pressure suited head."What's he doing?" Akers asked.

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"Trying to get a clue, I think," Wallace said laughing. "You’ve added new depths of cruelty to the guidance of junior officers, Scott. Commander Tsai is going to kill me if you turn him into a nervous wreck.""Tig, the kid's got so much potential, we just got to keep him alive long enough." Akers looked at the monitor closely. "If he can’t handle himself in new situations, he shouldn’t be out here."Trying not to frown, Chris changed the subject. “Have you gone over the squirt from Intel?" Wallace asked, prompting a nod from Akers. "What’s your take on it?"Akers shook his head. "We’re stepping into a hornets nest without really knowing who the players are. The fact that one of them gave us an engraved invitation doesn’t make it any better.""They seem to have known about the Federation for some time and only now decide to make contact?" Wallace shook his head. He was beginning to think that this was one tarpit it just seemed better to avoid entirely."It makes one wonder if the Eologian hadn’t tried to snatch the Claymore, would we really be invited by the Slobadan to stop by for a friendly visit?" Akers noted.

Chapter 7: The Slobadan PuzzleSlobadan Ascension: Term used to refer to Slobadan Wyer’s rise to power following her journey through and around Federation space. Upon returning to her home world of Eologia, Slobadan proceeded to unify rival merchant houses in a bloody civil war rival. The resulting Hegemony was loosely based upon of Vulcan Kolinahr philosophy with some apparent Romulan influences. Surviving members of the previous Eologian Houses put aside their differences to unite in resisting Slobadan’s ascendancy. Despite the successful assassination of Slobadan Wyer in 2372, their efforts failed to do little more than slow the rise of the Slobadan Hegemony. In the following years, the Eologian managed to stave off final defeat via hijacking various Starfleet vessels at the height of the Dominion War. This offered only a temporary respite, though, from the final…Starfleet Intelligence Briefing, Submitted by Ensign S’lek Stardate 57903.1

Butterbar was off working night shift, in part, it seemed, so the XO could plague him further. This was the only reason he was on the bridge, working Ops again, as the Jaguar arrived within the stellar cluster that was Slobadan space. The bridge was crowded as the bulk of the senior officers arrived to witness their passage, even though several hours of it would be spent bypassing outer Slobadan systems before reaching the capital world of Eologia. Though the Jaguar was a diplomatic vessel, Starfleet hadn’t dispatched a special Ambassador for the occasion. However, several dignitaries were on board including a retired Rear Admiral, Steve Thomas. With his presence and expertise, the conversations on the bridge focuses heavily on the speculation that the Slobadan/Eologian conflict somehow mirrored the Cardassian/Bajoran conflicts of the last few decades.Butterbar kept himself busy, running his sensors and marking their progress as they slid past one Slobadan system after another. He masked his active sensor sweeps using the ship's deflector dish. Nothing too aggressive, and with the XO's approval, who would

grade the "stealthiness" of his efforts upon arrival at Eologia. After a time, an interesting pattern began to appear in the inhabited star systems—a pattern he found in three different systems. Each was aligned with the system's plane of elliptic, and he called the XO over to take a look."I'd say they have some pretty impressive system defense networks," Akers mused as he reviewed the data and sensor sweeps, "how would you get us a closer look, Ensign?""Without them noticing, sir?" Butterbar grinned. "As we approach the Eologian system, we could boast our deflector dish output by 25%, in a cone shaped spiral when we drop out of warp. Maybe… two seconds total, but that will give us a pretty good sweep."Akers looked over at Wallace who nodded his approval. "Make it so, Ensign."The next system they bypassed marked another pattern, one that was discomforting for all of its innocuousness. Butterbar had spotted several systems now with relatively young and concentrated asteroid belts. Statistically, though, the belts were unusual as they constituted a highly nonstandard asteroid field distribution. All four systems were billions of years old, but each sported, in or extremely close to the free water zone of each star, a relatively dense cloud of asteroidal debris. The gas giants in each were in the process of scattering them. The relative density and grouping clearly violated Kowal’s Law which dictated solar system distribution and composition for asteroidal and cometary material.It had long been known that, given time, a large enough gas giant would sweep a solar system's asteroids out of any orbit that was an even fraction of that planet's orbit. The usual tendency was to fling these rocks into the inner solar system where they would eventually find stable orbits or collide with other planets. Asteroids also tended to clump into "families" in regions with similar orbits and inclination. Several systems in the Slobadan cluster violated this rule with patterns of rocks that indicated a relatively recent formation—within the last few decades at most. The mass of the groupings was less than that of a typical Class M planet. These uninhabited systems were also distinguished by their utter lack of defense networks—as if there were nothing of value left to defend."I see it, but I don’t understand it," Butterbar commented to the XO."Looks like the Slobadan ascension was more violent than we first thought," Akers commented. "Sir?" "Those ‘asteroids’ are what’s left of a planet. Haven’t seen any planet busters since we first met the Sheliak." Wallace looked at his XO, who continued. "In 2255 the Sheliak warned us that New Jamestown was in their space, and we had better evacuate. This was pre-treaty and one of our first encounters with them." Akers shook his head. "We all underestimated that one, but there was one jackass, Planetary Governor Ivan Harrison, who refused to believe the threat was real." Akers sipped his raktajino, and snorted contemptuously."After the Sheliak toasted the Fiodor Mertz, Starfleet decided they’d better get the colonists out of there. My Brigade was called in to help. Harrison refused us landing privileges, said the threat wasn’t real. We started beaming where we could, the rest—we went in anyway, just as the Sheliak broke warp. It was chaos, Harrison hadn’t warned the populace, some thought we were the invaders and started shooting at us." Akers looked

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at Butterbar. "Power armor wasn’t as good then as it is now…you got a solid hit by a phaser, you went down." Butterbar could almost hear the screams of terror, and the small arms fire echoing in he background. He pushed that reflection of his time on the Claymore out of his mind."We got out, just in time. The Sheliak took one pass over New Jamestown. We didn’t see what they did, in the wrong position. New Jameston Colony was a typical M-Class world, ten minutes after the Sheliak passed by—it exploded into a cloud of debris and ash."Akers shook his head. "That Jackass condemned three million colonists to die for his own twisted sense of property rights."The rest of the flight into the tightly packed star cluster proceeded uneventfully. Finally, during the mid-shift, they arrived at the Slobadan Capital system of Eologia. Akers was standing behind Butterbar as they dropped out of warp, and nodded with approval at the deft sensor sweep. The results that came back were stunning. If they had measured a statistically viable sample, then the Eologia system was protected by no less than two million automated defensive platforms. Vast sections of both the Oort Cloud and the Kupier belt were missing— harvested, no doubt, to provide raw material for the platforms.

"The Slobadan take their planetary defense seriously." Butterbar commented.

"That's stronger than Earth's defense network." Akers breathed softly. "By several orders of magnitude.""With no serious interstellar navy, why would they need to buttress themselves against a siege by a force with one," Wallace noted rhetorically.Butterbar’s console beeped, and he looked down at the information coming in. "Admiral?" Butterbar said, "I have a transmission from a High Commissioner Nuanzi of the Slobadan Hegemony," he said formally.Wallace gestured to Butterbar. "Put him on, Ensign."The main view screen flickered and a view of an elaborate marble office appeared, a number of Slobadan officials were gathered together, dressed in spare, crisp black uniforms, each adorned with the golden medallion with the Slobadan emblem on it. Most were Bajoranoid, with some Cardassian, and even a few Andorians. High Commissioner Nuanzi was clearly visible from the rest, his uniform standing out with extra silver piping. Compared to the trim uniforms of the other dignitaries, Butterbar thought Nuanzi looked almost prissy."Welcome to the Slobadan Hegemony, Admiral Wallace," Nuanzi stood and stepped forward from behind his desk. "Your arrival here today marks the start of a new and glorious era!" He spread his arms wide and smiled. "On behalf of people, welcome!""On behalf of the United Federation of Planets, we return your greeting. It is our privilege to be here.""We're so glad you came—after that unfortunate incident with the Claymore, we were afraid that former Inspector Fawkan's behavior would sour the Federation to our request for diplomatic contact.""The Claymore incident was unfortunate, Commissioner," Wallace smoothly glossed over, "but the Federation does not judge a government merely by the actions of one individual.""If you and your crew care to join us here in the capital, we'll be happy to begin your introduction to our society." Nuanzi wiggled his head in excitement. "By IDIC, this is a wondrous time, Admiral, truly wondrous!""Thank you, Commissioner. Please provide us the proper coordinates and we will beam down shortly.""IDIC?" Wallace asked, and all eyes were suddenly on Butterbar. He had the medallion that he'd found on the Claymore with him and pulled out of his pocket."S'lek reported no dragon-icon in Vulcan mythology or ideology—but the resemblance is uncanny," Butterbar offered.The viewer snapped back to a view of Eologia growing in size as they approached. The space surrounding the planet was thick with the flare of satellites and spaceships. Clearly Eologia was a very busy place. Profiles of Slobadan vessels began to appear on Butterbar's consoles and the main viewer as the computer system logged new classes and made estimates of capacities. By any reasonable estimate the Slobadan were, in many respects, a full century behind the Federation in technical achievement. What they lacked in technological sophistication (by Federation standards), they made up for with sheer weight of numbers.

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Wallace harrumphed and turned to his XO, "Number One," Wallace said to Akers, "You have the bridge. Commanders Kinyin and Sinclair; Captain Tillman; You’re with me."You going to wear the Waiter’s Whites?" Akers asked."I think not," Wallace scoffed. "Standard duty uniforms will suffice, I think.""Try not to go into glucose shock while you’re down there," Akers quipped and Butterbar couldn’t help the chortle that erupted—Nuanzi did seem rather… sticky and sugary.After Wallace departed, Butterbar busied himself with performing a passive-sensor survey of the planet. For the most part, Eologia was an impressively developed world, clean of pollutants from earlier industrial levels, with vast tracts of wilderness and undeveloped and reclaimed land. The cities practically sparkled from orbit, gleaming alloys and marbled buildings, fountains, sculptures — it was like looking at artwork from high above.Then there were the exceptions. Large tracts, with impressive fences running on both land and out to sea enclosing the region. Within, the architecture and technology base dropped dramatically. Primitive by comparison, although Butterbar noticed free flowing commerce traffic going in and out of the regions. He called the XO to take a look."It’s in such a marked contrast to the rest of the planet, General." Butterbar commented."The look like some type of Reservation, but for who and why?" Akers asked rhetorically.

* * *The capital system of Eologia was enormous, filled with large buildings, many made of ornately carved marbles and granites. Nuanzi met them in an immense square that reminded Wallace of the Forbidden City in China on Earth. The broad plaza had carved surfaces, and in the center, an immense bas-relief that resembled Butterbar's recovered medallion — a large stylized Vulcan IDIC surrounded by an immense and vicious looking golden dragon. This emblem was repeated elsewhere in medallions on the center chest of Slobadan officials, and carved in various styles and methods on the walls of surrounding buildings. The city reminded him of Rome of the early 1st Century — or Berlin of the middle 20th…"In the spirit of Diversity, welcome to Eologia!" Nuanzi said, holding out his hands expressively, then reaching forward to clasp Wallace's hand."It's a pleasure to be here, but I’m afraid you have us at a disadvantage," Wallace replied taking his hand, instantly noting that the official's grip was a firm one. "I’d like to introduce Lieutenant Commanders Senya Kinyin and Catreece Sinclair, two of my senior staff, and this is Marine Captain Bill Tillman, my Chief of Security."A pleasure. This way…" Nuanzi pointed to a nearby building, immense with gothic overtones. Overall the Slobadan capital struck Wallace as designed by someone with overly pretentious use of marble and steel. The net effect was one meant to be one of intimidation, he thought, but ended up almost reaching tacky overkill. The effect was only reinforced by ornate carvings, columns which covered the buildings, lined and mounted by sculptures of other worldly creatures locked in mortal combat."We were hoping the Federation would send your vessel, Admiral. We wanted the chance to apologize in person to the members of your crew that helped recover the Claymore from the Eologian terrorists. Are any of them on board?"

"Of course.""Perhaps tomorrow, then, a small informal ceremony to convey our sincerest regrets?""I'm sure we can make the arrangements.""We're very sorry that Eologian terrorists threatened the lives of your crew, and more importantly, we were afraid their activities would sour the Federation to establishing any kind of productive relationship."It was an effort for Wallace not to frown. If Nuanzi knew as much about the Federation as he indicated, then he'd know that historically the Federation was not a reactionary government, and preferring diplomatic solutions above all others.Nuanzi beamed. "The Federation is a Legend to us, Admiral. Our founder, Slobadan Wyer, wandered through and around your great society for several years before returning to found our Hegemony. Much of her inspiration in reforming our society came directly from her travels. I'm curious, Admiral, are there any Vulcan's aboard your vessel?""Yes, several." Wallace neutrally replied."It was Vulcan philosophy that gave our society the turnaround it needed"," Nuanzi gestured expansively. "All this, all this wouldn't have been possible without the Federation, and in particular without Vulcan Kolinahr philosophy."

* * *While Wallace was away, Akers took the opportunity to grill Butterbar."Why do we figure for solar wind direction and strength?" Akers demanded, sitting at the Captain's chair, sipping the last of his raktajino. "Even such a minute force magnified over the length of the hull can produce a considerable set and drift in our course.""How do you measure the solar effect without any the ship's computer and only tricorder quality sensors?""Angle of the ship tangent to solar wind, stellar classification, phase of cycle, quantity and strength of current sunspots, then use the tables in Stars and Currents.""Incomplete!" Akers said and Butterbar, despite himself, jumped in his chair. "The question wasn’t what are the current conditions on the star’s surface, but the effect on the hull of the ship right now. How would you adjust your first set of results?" Before Butterbar could answer, the turbolift opened, and Wallace stepped out, with a number of individuals who could only be Slobadan dignitaries including High Commissioner Nuanzi. Automatically everyone on the bridge stood at attention, with Wallace relieving them. Akers stepped forward as Wallace introduced him. "This is my Executive Officer, Lieutenant General Akers. Scott, may I introduce High Commissioner Nuanzi, his Federation attaché, Inspector Katerine Leeding, and her aide, Special Agent Hardon Bowie Chipper.Akers shook hands with Nuanzi, but when he came to Katerine, paused, as if transfixed. He then bowed and reached to kiss her hand. She had a familiar quality, long black hair, dark penetrating eyes, and a graceful balance in her trim black uniform.

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"I'm afraid my XO is something of a traditionalist"," Wallace commented to Nuanzi as Akers then proceeded to shake Chipper's hand. Nuanzi grinned and looked at Akers and Katerine. "Admiral Wallace and I have decided you two shall tour our civil defense complex for the next several days."There was a small crunching noise, and Butterbar noticed Akers had crushed the metal container he'd been sipping his coffee from. Nothing spilled out, fortunately, preventing an embarrassing stain. Butterbar also knew the CO would be very upset if Akers spilled raktajino on his plush lambswool carpeting."Ensign, you will accompany the General as well, acting as liaison to Special Agent Chipper." Wallace ordered.Trying not to frown, Butterbar watched Akers staring at the Slobadan Inspector, feeling a sense of dread. It was as if he could sense the feral-eyed tiger prowling restlessly underneath Akers calm demeanor.

* * *The next day, Akers, Butterbar, Katerine, and Chipper began their day in the Ministry of Justice, where Inspector Katerine worked. The building was granite and lavishly carved, almost gothic in its intimidating structure. They began, first, with a meeting with a Slobadan military officer that both Akers and Butterbar had met previously—Fawkan—the over-zealous Inspector who had tried to commandeer the USS Claymore. He was noticeably subdued, humbled even, since the last time Butterbar had seen the Slobadan Inspector. His dark black tunic had ripped threads, where insignia and other decorations had been forcibly removed. He had the look of a condemned man."I wish to apologize for my illegal, inappropriate and irrational interference in the recovery of the USS Claymore." Fawkan began, after bowing to Akers and Butterbar, in a monotone and expressionless voice. "I exceeded the authority and mandates of my command and take full responsibility for any and all damage I or my subordinates may have caused.""Accepted." Akers responded giving the impression he wouldn't be giving the matter any further consideration.As if on cue, Fawkan turned sharply on his heels, and walked out of the room, with a guard escorting. Butterbar found himself sighing in relief, it was a good thing for Fawkan that Regional Command had recently admonished the General about not loosing his temper any more.Upon the departure, Katerine leaned into the General. "Fawkan has been stripped of his rank and title and is subject to further disciplinary action.""Of course," Akers responded, almost amicably. Katerine indicated the tour should begin, and Akers graciously offered his arm in escort. Confused momentarily, she slipped one slender limb inside his beefy elbow and the two left Butterbar and Chipper looking at each awkwardly before following, arms swinging stiffly at their sides.They rode an elevator to a sublevel that was quite some distance below the surface. The doors opened to reveal an immense cavern of a room, which was dedicated to planetary civil defense and traffic control. The walls were inscribed with bas-relief images of the

Slobadan dragon, as well as IDIC and other Vulcan symbols. In this room, though, the Dragons were wielding blood-dripping swords. "This is where we coordinate air traffic control, and at one time we also coordinated our defenses from the occasional Eologian raid. That ceased to be a concern, though, some time ago."Butterbar raised one eyebrow. "Even with the theft of Federation starships?""You saw our defense network arriving in system, no doubt?" Katerine asked, giving him a direct look, as if to tell him his trick for scanning the system while dropping out of warp had not gone unnoticed. "Federation equipment gave them a stronger defensive capacity only. It did little but slow down the progress of our eventual victory." She paused to catch her breath, as if agitated. "We will reunite all of Eologia, Ensign, it is only a matter of time. ""This is more of a civil war, then?" Akers asked."More so thirty years ago. Today it is closer to what you might call a ‘police action’. We don't expect it to last much longer, though. Without their supply of Federation starship's, the Eologian will have little chance of mounting an adequate defense." Katerine smiled. "When Slobadan returned from her journey through Federation space, she put an end to the internecine warfare and competition that defined our society at that time. The logic of her approach was quickly accepted by those who wanted what was best for our people. The hijackers you encountered would prefer the destructive and counter-productive practices of the past to a unified and rational future." "Was that out of Propaganda 101?" Akers asked and Butterbar tried not to let his shock show. Chipper, though, was less successful, and appeared ready to toss out an angry retort. Katerine simply smiled gracefully. "I can show you the scars on our world even now from the warfare that plagued our people for generations. Kolinahr, IDIC, Vulcan philosophy—these all put an end to what was surely a self-destructive path for our people, and we owe the Federation a great debt for this." Her words and demeanor seemed to suggest that she knew—at some level—it was propaganda, but couldn’t quite bring herself to not embrace it whole-heartedly. Butterbar, through his marriage to S'lek, had grown to have a deeper appreciation than most of Vulcan philosophy. But at some level he found it hard to believe that Vulcan influence alone—from a distance at that(!)— could have turned around the Slobadan society."Who are you trying to convince, me or yourself?" Akers asked and Katerine immediately put one hand out to restrain the uncontrollably fidgeting Chipper. "Neither, General, your belief is not necessary. But I will enjoy showing you the benefits our society that were achieved, in part, thanks to yours.""I am intrigued," Akers replied.Butterbar shook his head, wondering if there were two conversations being spoken here. Chipper, though, only saw one, and was physically turning red in the face. Akers looked at the obviously agitated officer, "Does he need a leash?"Katerine betrayed the faintest hint of an amused smile. "The Special Agent is one of the Hegemony’s most loyal officers."

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"Reminds me of somebody named Heydrich." When faced with a sea of confused faces, Akers raised one hand to his forehead in apology. "Obscure Earth reference, my apologies.""Accepted." Katerine replied, gesturing for them to continue down a long hallway. Butterbar used this as an opportunity to change the subject. "Inspector, you have a very modern world, remarkably polished and elaborate. But we couldn’t help but notice from orbit a number of areas that were…" He stumbled for the right words.Katerine smiled. "Technologically backward?" She waved her hands, as if concealing some inner tension. "IDIC dictates that we allow others who disagree with our chosen way of life. So we created Cultural Preserves to house those who reject Kolinahr.""I’m confused, what is the difference between those who live in the Preserves and the Eologian, then? Other than tech level, that is?" Butterbar thought about the simple huts he’d viewed from orbit."The Eologian have chosen to resist with violence, to thwart with political disruption the benefits of the society the bulk of our people have chosen." She sighed, "unfortunately the Cultural Preserves seem less successful at IDIC than at generating sympathizers, spies and even terrorists on behalf of the Eologian.""I can see how that would happen." Akers said, and Butterbar gave the General a sharp glance, but noted that Chipper seemed to miss the snub. The tour continued from that point relatively smoothly, Akers point having been clearly made.

* * *That evening, the senior officers of the Jaguar’s crew was invited to attend a formal banquet at the Slobadan capital. The bulk of Slobadan parliament, civic and law enforcement leaders would be in attendance, and Butterbar had gotten advance notice that his wife S’lek would be one of the most popular members of the guest list. The crew was in their crisp white Mess Dress uniforms, forced to stand in a receiving line as the bulk of the more than 1,000 Slobadan dignitaries lined up for the privilege of meeting each and every one of them. Because of S’lek’s Vulcan heritage and Butterbar serving as the XO’s aide, they were close to the head of the line.They were in an immense hall, easily several thousand guests would be served dinner as well as room for dancing afterwards (Slobadan people shared the same love of this as the Jaguar’s crew). The marbled surfaces and polished granites reflected a thousand points of light, and Butterbar at times found himself squinting. The banquet hall, like the Slobadan capital, gave the impression of being freshly polished and scrubbed. Numerous Slobadan functionaries tried to engage S’lek in small talk about key points of Vulcan philosophy or practices. Butterbar had never heard the term "Logic Dictates" so casually (and clumsily!) dropped into a conversation before in his life. S’lek seemed pleased by their efforts, and engaged them eagerly. However it meant that Butterbar, and even Akers, were usually ignored as members of the line struggled to listen to S’lek’s conversing with those ahead of them. During the conversations he thought there was something not quite right, some niggling sense of wrongness with the conversations. It wasn’t that the Slobadan were trying too hard, it went deeper but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

One member of the procession, though, ignored S’lek completely. Katerine was clothed in a stunning green velvet gown, with a scoop neck, and an almost feudal look in it’s cut. The overall effect helped her to stand out in the crowd of elegantly dressed and coifed officialdom. On one shoulder, the Slobadan symbol of authority, all the more prominent for the lack of other jewelry. Once again he was struck by the feeling that Katerine looked familiar, but it was elusive—he couldn’t pin it down. He noticed S’lek observing his staring and shifted his gaze quickly.Akers was under no such constraint, though.With a mild flourish, Akers once again reached down to kiss her hand—a bit longer and more lingering than he had with other Slobadan females."It’s a pleasure to see you again, Inspector," Akers said softly, almost purring."It’s a pleasure to be seen."Butterbar choked, quickly covering it with one hand. The two said nothing further for what seemed like an eternity, but Butterbar noticed the General was still holding her hand. Reluctantly, it seemed, they pulled their fingertips apart as the line moved forward.Once the banquet began, Akers, Katerine, Chipper, S’lek and Butterbar were seated at the same table. Butterbar hadn’t felt this insecure since he’d arrived on board the Jaguar. He did his best to let Akers and S’lek do the talking, but Akers wasn’t talking. He and Katerine were just staring at each other. Fortunately S’lek was the focus of much of the attention, but occasionally one of the Slob functionaries would try to draw him out, as a courtesy. "Ensign, how did you and your wife first meet?"S’lek smiled and took his hand as he answered. "It was at the Vulcan Academy of Science." This brought several hushed gasps—apparently it was revered in some way. "We were both taking an elective in Philosophy, and the professor of the course put us on the same student team working on a paper. The rest, as they say, is history."S’lek smiled slightly. "Actually I think he was playing match maker.""What was the topic?" Somebody asked."Morality and ethics of just and unjust wars." Butterbar answered, feeling comfortable for the first time that evening. It was probably why he then proceeded to step right into what he later considered a social faux pas, and the type of question frowned upon by Starfleet diplomatic procedures for state dinners. "What is the Slobadan position on the morality of war?""War is implicitly amoral." Katerine answered, not taking her eyes off the General."It is neither moral or immoral, it simply is…" Akers searched for the right words and then found them. "War is hell," he continued, getting confused looks as the term did not translate well for the Slobs. "To put it another way, war is a profoundly awful experience."Chipper nodded, "A point that the Eologian seem incapable of comprehending." He turned to Butterbar, "and you Ensign, what do you suppose is an immoral act in war?"

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Butterbar raised his eyebrows, this differed with some of his readings that he’d been immersed in recently. "The extended terror bombing campaign of World War II. There’s been considerable debate that the continued decision to bomb German civilians through the end of the war was unjust and even immoral. Somewhere between the start of the campaign, when technology and doubt about the conclusion of the war made it almost unavoidable, and the conclusion of the war, when it was both avoidable and unnecessary, a line was crossed between strategic necessity and vengeance for its own sake.""Were those civilians aiding the war effort?" Katerine asked, finally taking her gaze off the General and onto Butterbar."Yes…""Bomb the factories, bomb the bases, or bomb the civilians working in both. Either way inflict harm upon the enemy’s ability to make war and bring it to end that much sooner. Logically, it is still the same—war—and not a moral issue, Ensign." Katerine replied.Butterbar rubbed his chin, aware that all eyes at the table were on him and he tried to justify his case. "Even the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, without the gain of military advantage, but solely for terror?"Chipper smirked. "You have not been in many wars, have you Ensign?"Akers rose to his defense. "Compared to a thirty-year civil war, no, Special Agent, he hasn’t. But he did serve with distinction in the recapture of the USS Claymore," Akers looked at Butterbar and smiled. "Some of us even think he might make a decent Marine some day."Butterbar tried not to blush.Akers sipped his drink and continued. "War should be fought by soldiers against soldiers, not civilians. Like the Ensign, I’ve always found the concept of total war to be somewhat disturbing.""Unfortunately, General, the lines are not so easily followed." Katerine’s face seemed to be flush now, and there was an unusually strong timber in her voice. "Until relatively recently, we had a severe problem with terrorist attacks against the civilian populace by a small number of malcontents and Eologian sympathizers. It took a considerable effort to stamp out their activities, and not without cost." "I’m sure." Akers replied.Katerine was almost shaking, from the emotions she felt, and it was then that Butterbar realized for all their talk of Kolinahr and IDIC, the Slob’s had by no means abandoned their emotions, or even tried to. He was used to S'lek's slight blurring of the lines, in part for his benefit—and that was what had masked his initial perception of the difference in Slobadan behavior. Logic as a philosophy without the denial of emotions! He wondered how that mix played out in contrast to what he had seen on Vulcan.Katerine straightened up, as if to regain her composure. "Consider the Claymore. A fruitless gesture. Five years ago the use of captured Federation starships caught us off guard, but we’ve had plenty of time to prepare interdiction teams if they tried again. All they did was risk bringing the Federation in on our side." Katerine waved one elegantly manicured hand, "was one more Saber class vessel worth accomplishing this?"

"Logically, no." Chipper answered dutifully.Katerine continued, “the civil war is almost finished, regardless of what actions the Eologian take to draw out the inevitable.”Akers nodded at Katerine, "I’ve found that war is often used as an easy way out. A truly moral act is preventing war in the first place."Katerine raised her glass in toast, with others following suit. "To preventing war in the first place!" For the rest of the meal, Akers and Katerine had returned to the conversation, leaving Butterbar safely—and gratefully—mute. They participated actively in the conversations, as if discovering they could engage in—at some basic level—seduction of each other intellectually as well as… NO! He did not want to go there.

* * *"So, Admiral, we have your assurances that the Federation has not been covertly helping the Eologian’s with starships and weapons?" Commissioner Nuanzi asked Wallace."Absolutely. It is not the policy of the Federation to interfere in the internal affairs of other states, and Starfleet is not in the habit of ‘giving’ starships to foreign powers," Wallace replied."This non-interference policy. Does it apply to governments that ask for assistance?""No it does not," Wallace replied. "The Federation has many treaties and alliances with her neighbors and independent systems within her borders. Some of those treaties are trade and others defense and still others a mixture of the two.""Excellent!" Nuanzi said, clapping his hands. "And if we wished to enter into an Alliance with the Federation? Or at least a formal announcement of neutrality with regarding the Eologian…police action?""Well, that is not a decision I can make unilaterally or overnight, Commissioner," Wallace hedged.Nuanzi looked disappointed for a moment—then the look passed and his usual grimace of joy returned. "Of course! But perhaps at your speech before Parliament tomorrow, you could maybe put in a few positive words?""We shall see, Commissioner. We shall see."

* * *After the banquet and requisite speeches by Slobadan officialdom, and senior members of the Jaguar’s crew, the formal part of the affair concluded, but the evening didn’t seem close to ending. S’lek remained extremely popular, and was chatting amicably with Butterbar standing dutifully by her side. Katerine began engaging S’lek on a number of subtle points within the Kolinahr regarding the needs of the many, and this left Chipper looking for some way to occupy his time. He decided to fill it by annoying the General."Vulcan was one of the founding members of the Federation, wasn’t it?" Chipper began with an oily smooth purr. It was as if Chipper were gloating, tricking the General into participating in an insult."One of them, yes." Akers answered, turning to give the Special Inspector his full attention.

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"I’m surprised, then, at how little they seem to have influenced the Federation overall."Akers raised one eyebrow. "Really?""Yes, for example, no Vulcan is a member of the Jaguar’s command staff. Ensign S’lek is amusing enough, but the rest of you don’t really seem to appreciate the finer aspects of the Kolinahr."Akers leaned forward, gesturing to the IDIC hanging around his neck. "In reference to Kolinahr, pride, like anger, is still an emotion and when justified by neither competence nor ability, all the more false in its posturing." With that Akers snapped crisply on his heel and left Chipper standing with a stoic mask upon his face, yet anger smoldered in his eyes.One of the Slobadan officials leaned next to Butterbar and whispered. "How did the General earn his IDIC medallion?"Butterbar whispered back—he’d just found out himself when preparing for this visit. "Vulcan Academy of Science hands those out for PhD’s. The General earned his in the field of Galactic Navigation.""Fascinating." The official replied."You don’t know the half of it." Butterbar replied, but did not elaborate any further—it was best not to raise the subject up too loudly lest he get another impromptu lesson from the General. At least now he knew why (and how) Akers was able to torment him so easily in Butterbar’s chosen field.Butterbar rejoined his wife, handing her a crisp, minty drink that was popular among the Slobadan. Katerine was still there, without the General, engaging S’lek in small-talk. Others came and went, but Katerine and S’lek seemed to have formed some kind of bond, as the two chatted interminably for several more hours. Akers came and went, orbiting around them impatiently, clearly looking for an opportunity to speak to Katerine alone. She seemed to relish his frustration, and only engaged S’lek that much more aggressively as he neared them.Finally, the evening was winding down, and both Slobadan and Jaguar crew started to drift out of the banquet hall. Akers gestured to Butterbar to join him."They still at it?" He asked impatiently.Butterbar nodded. "I haven’t heard this much on Kolinahr philosophy since I was at VAS."Akers mumbled something but Butterbar couldn’t hear, and choose not to ask, only to follow dutifully as Akers marched over to his wife and Katerine. "Over my many years, I’ve learned a few things." Akers boomed, getting their attention. "Don’t ever buy anything on sale from a Ferengi." He paused dramatically. "Don’t ever spit on a Klingon." Then he inclined his head to S’lek. "And never, ever, argue logic with a Vulcan."Katerine laughed, clapping her hands together, and then patted S’lek on the shoulder. "With that, my friend, I must concede defeat. I look forward to another opportunity."S’lek bowed. "Inspector, it has been most… exhilarating."Katerine bowed again and turned to depart. Akers fidgeted for several moments, then casually excused himself to get another drink. Butterbar noticed, though, that the

General never made it to the bar, having disappeared behind the immense columns lining the room, following Katerine.Later, S’lek and Butterbar were in their quarters, shedding their mess dress uniforms for something a little less formal."You and Katerine hit it off, I saw," Butterbar said to his wife, coming up behind her and massaging her shoulders."She is quite brilliant, and a bit wasted, I suspect, in her present role," S'lek paused, "she is also passionately devoted to Nuanzi, but not because of Nuanzi personally, I suspect."Butterbar blinked and S'lek explained. "Katerine was a personal aide to Slobadan Wyer in the years prior to Wyer's assassination by the Eologian. Her... emotional attachment is more to the office Nuanzi holds than to Nuanzi personally."Butterbar nodded thoughtfully. “Did you find any discontinuity in the fact that the Slobadan eschew Kolinahr, yet do nothing to hide or suppress their emotions?"S’lek lifted one eyebrow. "They do seem to have successfully merged what would otherwise appear to be two conflicting perspectives. I was in the process of getting some insight from Katerine, but it is too soon to speculate." Butterbar couldn’t believe it. "All my life, I’ve grown up with the premise the Vulcan’s great strength was the denial of emotions combined with Logic. The two were part and parcel of the same package.""Not necessarily, Caleb." A shadow passed over her countenance for a moment, and Butterbar knew he was treading on delicate territory. There were times he hated the rule of silences that pervaded Vulcan culture and even someone as independent minded as his wife. "It is not something we like to talk about, but the two are not necessarily linked"," she looked away for a moment. "I did notice that your counterpart seemed quite… emotional." She paused, "And Inspector Katerine as well, although she concealed it somewhat better."Butterbar rolled his eyes, thinking of the General and Katerine, and then laughed. "I swear I actually saw the General smile this evening, but under that beard, it’s hard to tell." He slid into the covers and looked at the container of pills and glass of water nearby. S’lek looked at him but he shook his head and yawned, "no nightmares tonight, I’ll be fine." She smiled and gave him a hug—it had been rough some nights after the Claymore, but things seemed to be settling down finally.

* * *The next morning, Butterbar paced nervously outside the General's quarters. They had a meeting with Katerine and her staff in less than 10 minutes, and there was still no sign of the otherwise painfully punctual General. The transporter chief watching him fret seemed amused by his angst, and he'd bounced between the General's quarters and the designated transporter room three times. Finally he worked up the nerve to ring the Generals quarters."Yes…" Akers voice boomed out into the hall."Ah… General, it's getting close to our meeting the with Inspector."

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"I know.""But sir, are you ready sir? We don't want to be late.""It's being handled, Ensign.""We'll have a fifteen minute walk to the conference room, and we only have ten minutes." Butterbar could hear the impatience on the other side of the com, but continued anyway. "Sir…? General?""The General has said it is being handled, Ensign," A voice answered from inside. Not the General's voice, either.Butterbar stepped back in recoil. Katerine? Here? Gulp!"I'll wait for you both in transporter room three." Butterbar ran down the hallway, nearly bowling over several crewmen in his rush to seek the sanctuary of the transporter room. Twenty minutes later, on a lark, he decided to look up the mating practices of white tigers. After Butterbar reached the part about bringing freshly killed meat to the female, he turned off the LCARS interface and decided he didn't want to know any more.

* * *Wallace completed his speech to thunderous applause. He figured they would be nice to him, but he was honestly taken by surprise by their vigor. He smiled and bowed before gathering his PADD and stepping down from the dais to where Nuanzi and a few other officials stood in the front row of the chamber. He sat and waited for the Speaker to first restore order, which took a few moments due to the enthusiastic members. The Speaker finished with his own speech, and then gaveled the chamber into recess.They all rose and headed out the main door into a large hallway with marble statues framed to either side of wooden doors that led to member’s offices and other areas. At the far end, the hallway opened onto a massive rotunda on the Northeast end, which then led to the front entrance itself."Thank you for your kinds words on our behalf, Admiral," Commissioner Nuanzi said."Admiral Thomas is waiting for us in the Rotunda, sir," Commander Sinclair informed Wallace just outside the chamber."Very well," Wallace said. He turned to Nuanzi. "If you will excuse us, I want to get—"Wallace’s voice was drowned out by a massive explosion. His back to the Rotunda, Chris did not see the wall of flame and debris hurtling towards them, but the sudden looks of shock and horror on the Slobadan delegation facing him registered on his mind a moment before the blast wave hit them, knocking them all down as the explosion flowed across the ceiling above them. Though it lasted only a fraction of a second, Chris could feel the blistering heat as the wave passed overhead.In a moment, it was over, and Wallace sprang upwards. He first saw to Commander Sinclair who, though dazed, was unharmed. He then turned to Nuanzi, who had a small cut on his head from a piece of debris. Within what seemed like seconds, a dozen armed Slobadan officers surrounded them in a defensive phalanx and started to move back

down the hallway. Wallace looked back down the hall, and was horrified to see that most of the Rotunda had collapsed in on itself, debris spilling into the hallway.Chapter 8: Maximum ResponseButterbar was still waiting in the transporter room when Akers and Katerine finally arrived. Katerine had a satisfied look in her eyes, and Akers the slightest grin under his beard, but his eyes warned Butterbar not to say a word. Not that he had any intention of doing so!"The General and I already handled the bulk of this mornings agenda items," Katerine informed Butterbar primly. "I do have some business to take care of, first, and we can continue with lunch?" He nodded, and waited patiently while she beamed back to the surface. She’d no sooner completed transit when the klaxon went off."Red Alert, Red Alert! All hands to Battle stations!" The lights changed, and the red alert siren went off. Akers and Butterbar were out the door in tandem, racing for the turbolift. As the turbolift zoomed to the bridge, it seemed like an eternity to Butterbar. Akers strode onto the bridge, where Chief Engineer LCDR Cypher Pentangle was on duty as Officer of the Deck. On the view screen was an orbital view of the Slobadan Parliament building, obscured by clouds of dust and smoke, and with computer enhanced overlays showing a massive crater had collapsed the Rotunda of the building."Report!" Akers snapped as he stepped closer to look at the screen. "Shortly after the Admiral’s speech, the bomb went off. All Jaguar Personnel are accounted for except for Admiral Thomas. He was in the area where several floors collapsed near the main entrance." Pentangle shook her head. "There were thousands of people in the central plaza, General.""Show me the explosion," Akers ordered. Cypher tapped on the control console, and the image flickered. Starfleet insignias overlaid the view, showing the location of the Jaguar’s crew members within the building. The scrolling time index slowed as Cypher detailed the action. Butterbar noted with relief that S’lek’s icon was on the far side of the building from where the bomb went off."The Admiral was delayed leaving Parliament after his speech, otherwise…" Cypher noted softly, as the explosion began to grow like some obscene bloom of fire and death. Figures nearby collapsed and disappeared as the explosion grew, and then with sickening slowness, the corner of the building began to crumple and collapse. Immense columns of stone went sprawling into the plaza as Thomas’s icon flickered and disappeared in the edges of the building collapse. Butterbar turned away, unable to watch the scurrying figures meet their doom."Medical teams?" Akers asked, sighing heavily."Preparing to beam down now. Fifth Squad is suiting up for SAR ops"," Major Myers replied. "The ship is secure," Myers added."Lower shields and take us to yellow alert. Commander, cobble together some Damage Control teams and prepare them for readiness if we are asked to help." Cypher nodded

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and left the bridge. Akers settled into the command chair and shook his head sadly. "There’s nothing we can do now but sit and wait for Wallace to give the all clear."Butterbar resisted to the urge to call his wife, but kept one display at the Mission Ops station firmly focused on the Parliament building, and watched the icon showing her movements very closely.

* * *Dust filled the air, soaking onto flesh and uniform like rain. Members of parliament, emergency workers, civilians, and Enforcers worked together seamlessly. Wallace was impressed at how fast they recovered from the shock and quickly organized for search and rescue efforts, and to support those efforts by keeping the areas nearest the explosion as clear as possible.Wallace and S'lek found themselves a useful purpose helping to tend to the wounded. There was a shortage of medical personnel, and by watching those who were there, they were able to help triage and bandage the more minor injuries. It was potentially hazardous treating for them to treat somewhat foreign physiology, but Wallace was confident that bandaging bleeding wounds and giving comfort would not be overly harmful until the victims could receive qualified medical attention. Besides, he held an M.D. in Xenomedicione, so he felt somewhat in his element. S'lek's presence, in this regard, seemed to be especially helpful as faces brightened at being tended by an actual Vulcan.Nuanzi found him and smiled grimly. "My thanks, Admiral, your help is appreciated!""My crew is standing by if you need any additional assistance," Wallace offered."We shall suffice. This is not the first such attack, and while it's been nearly ten years since an attack on the capital, we are prepared as you can see," Nuanzi said, gesturing at the relief work that had sprung up almost instantly. "Would you people have any interest in observing the investigation? We already have some quit promising leads, and one of your own is still un-recovered," Nuanzi offered grimly,"Thank you, that is very generous," Wallace replied.

* * *Several hours passed by, with members of the Jaguar's crew beaming to and from the surface as needs dictate. Butterbar was finally released from bridge duty to find his wife and asked her to accompany the General on an errand to track down those responsible for the blast. In minutes, Butterbar was on the surface on the opposite side of the Parliament building at Starfleet’s designated beaming point for the emergency. What struck him first was the smell—glycerides and dust filled the air and coated everything with a fine grime that was in stark contrast the squeaky clean Slobadan architecture. The Parliament building cast a faint shadow from where the debris and dust had landed; close to the building it was perfectly clean—typical Slobadan spit-and-polish. As he rounded the building, homing in on S’lek’s position, it got worse. So very much worse.Entire floors of the building had collapsed. He could see search and rescue workers carefully wading through them, balanced on hovering platforms to keep from adding any

weight to the already half collapsed structure. The large crater in the plaza was partially filled with rubble, and revealed layers of offices and facilities built underneath the plaza, which had also collapsed. Crews were lifting rubble out and ferrying it to a nearby region in the plaza where forensics teams were sifting over it. Butterbar found S’lek in the triage ward, hastily improvised along a shady stretch of the parliament building that was still intact. She saw him and practically flew into his arms, giving him an incredibly tight bear hug."Such destruction…" she whispered. "It serves no purpose. If the Eologian wanted to interfere with our visit—why this?"Butterbar shook his head at the carnage around them. "To get our attention, perhaps? A chance to get Nuanzi like they did Slobadan Wyer years ago?" He shook his head. "It doesn’t have to be logical, S’lek. Terrorism seldom is."She refused to accept this. "Behavior has reason, Caleb. Always—there’s always a reason." She shook her head. "I just cannot deduce what it could be.""Any word on Thomas?" Butterbar asked and her mask of stoicism seemed too tighten. "We found the location of his communicator, but we cannot reach it yet. There are several life signs nearby, and several corpses. We will know in the next hour."He squeezed her tight one last time. "The General is asking for you," he said, and she handed her bandages to an attendant. Together they waded through the crowds as thousands of people were milling around, busy on various errands to support the rescue effort, or analyze the cause of the blast. They found Akers and Chipper at a temporary command post, consulting with Katerine. She was visibly shaken, and almost trembling with rage when Butterbar made eye contact with her. For a moment, a flash of hatred, then softening as she recognized him."Ensign, if you'll accompany us?" Chipper asked, gesturing to a hovercar nearby. S'lek, Katerine and Akers followed.Butterbar looked around as they left, realizing he had no assigned tasks for the moment. In a numb state of shock, he started wandering around the capital complex, just taking in the chaos and struggle for order that had enveloped the otherwise immaculate city.

* * *Katerine walked Akers to a nearby hovercraft. "It is unfortunate General, we tolerate a diversity of views and opinions, and all the Eologian want to do is exploit our generosity.""You do allow protests then? Against the government?""Of course, once a month the plaza here is dedicated to allowing any and all to speak their minds freely—as long as it is non-violent and civil." She gestured at the still smoking crater. "This… this atrocity cannot be excused." Katerine shuddered as they settled into the hover car. “For years we’ve been free…" she spat angrily, gesturing wildly, "…free of this madness!"Akers looked closely at her—her eyes burned in fury."The Eologian have gone too far, this time, too far!""Have they taken credit for the blast?" Akers asked softly.

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The Inspector snorted. "Not yet, but they really don’t have to. Historically the only ones to set off bombs in the capital are Eologian Terrorists."S'lek and Akers exchanged a look but said nothing.

* * *"Hello Caleb." The voice was familiar, and Butterbar for a moment didn't realize he was being addressed. He turned around, and there, in the uniform of a Slobadan aide worker, was a man he'd believed dead for the last eight years. Professor Hiram Thornberry."I read S'lek's thesis on warp shell integration recently—fascinating stuff," Thornberry offered casually, and for Caleb Stein, the pieces fell together with frighteningly cold precision."How many Starfleet vessels did you help the Eologian steal, Doctor?" Butterbar hissed, aware of the crowded square around them—a part of him not wanting to care. Thornberry's eyes darted around them. "Not here!" He gestured for Butterbar to follow him. Butterbar's heart sank—Thornberry didn't deny the accusation.They moved to the shelter of an administration building—farming—where there was little activity and few to overhear them."Do you know what is really going on here, Caleb?" Thornberry asked, and Butterbar couldn't get past the fact his mentor and former teacher was now armed. "Do you know what the Slobadan are really like?""Obviously not, Doctor," Butterbar replied."Then let me show you!" Thornberry said, walking around the building. Butterbar looked at him for a moment, looked around to see if anyone was watching, and then followed. He couldn't have been more obvious—but the crisis at the Parliament building made them invisible.In the back of the farming building were large craft—heavy lifters parked near immense doors. Carts of glossy bags about 2 meters in length were being loaded into the lifters, as a line of peasants—clearly from the cultural preserves, were being marched into the building.Thornberry let him look but didn't let him linger and kept them going until finally the grisly sight was no longer visible.Butterbar managed to keep from retching until they reached an alcove, but even then he nearly caught some woman and her child with his stomach eruption. Gasping for breath, he hunched over as Thornberry put on reassuring hand on his shoulder. Butterbar swiped it away.Thornberry handed him a bottle of water. "Sip it, slowly," he offered and Butterbar blinked back tears in his eyes, and noticed for the first time the Bajoran wrinkled nose applied to Thornberry's face.Thornberry smiled, wiggling his nose, "Amazing what you can do with a little cosmetic putty." He held out one hand to pull Butterbar off the ground. "What do you say we go back to your ship, we have a great many things to discuss."

Butterbar nodded weakly as Thornberry led him back to the Parliament building and the beam-out point."What are you doing here?" Butterbar whispered, suddenly aware of how close the people in the crowd were as they passed all around them."Same as you, Ensign, helping with the relief effort," Thornberry said levelly.Thornberry deftly navigated Butterbar in such a way as to avoid concentrations of Slobadan Enforcers, but it wasn’t completely possible, either. They’d almost reached the beam out point when a Special Agent noticed them. "You there, halt!""Now or never, Caleb," Thornberry whispered and Butterbar reached for his combadge."Halt!" The Enforcer ordered, and several others raced to join him. They were just reaching for Thornberry, weapons drawn, when the beam locked and they faded out of view.

* * *Butterbar stepped off the transporter pad, and angrily turned to his former mentor. "What is going on here, Hiram?"Thornberry sat down on the steps and cleared his throat. "You saw what was being... farmed, Ensign. On any other day I could get you inside one of the interrogation chambers, or even the forensics room"," he spat the words out.Butterbar said nothing"Those who embrace Slobadan society enjoy the many fruits it offers. Those who don’t… are systematically exterminated. There’s things I need to show you, show your Admiral. Can you summon him from the surface for me?"At that moment Chief of Security Myers entered the transporter room, looked at Butterbar and raised one eyebrow at Thornberry."Ensign, who is this man?""Major, this is Professor Hiram Thornberry, presumed lost in the early fighting of the Klingon conflict some years ago. Now, apparently, a member of the Eologian nation.""Not just a member, I’m afraid," Thornberry said ruefully. "Can I speak to your Admiral?"The transporter chief’s comm panel chirped and he tapped it. "Wallace to Jaguar, four to beam directly to sick bay."Butterbar turned to Myers —the same thought occurring to both of them as the chief arranged the tranpsort. Rear Admiral Steve Thomas! He was probably still alive!Myers looked at the transporter console to confirm and smiled at Butterbar. Turning back to the matter at hand he gestured to the door. "Professor, Ensign, with me," Myers ordered, and led them out into the hallway.They shortly arrived at sick bay, where a battered, bruised and bloody Steve Thomas was under the CMO’s care. He was conscious and complaining in a steady stream of invectives. Wallace grinned at this, then noticing their arrival, turned to face them. "Yes?" Thornberry didn’t give Butterbar a chance to answer. "Admiral, my name is Professor Hiram Thornberry, and I request both asylum and that you place me under immediate

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arrest for high treason against the Federation, destruction of Federation Property, kidnapping of Starfleet and Federation civilians, release of technological secrets to a foreign power, illicit crossing of restricted interstellar borders, violating the Prime Directive and perhaps even manslaughter. You see, it is I who am responsible for the theft of nearly a dozen Starfleet vessels over the concluding years of the Dominion war, and twice that number of commercial and civilian craft."Every jaw in the room dropped. Even Thomas stopped complaining."Oh, you might want to recover your personnel from the surface, I suspect the Nuanzi may have some idea I’m aboard. Their not above taking hostages to effect my release to their tender mercies."Wallace tapped his Com Badge. "This is the CO, I want all personnel to return from the surface immediately." He turned to Myers, "Major, see to it that they all make it back." He then looked to Butterbar, arms on his hips, a disbelieving expression on his face, shaking his head. "Ensign, what have you stepped in now?"

Chapter 9: To Draw Out the InevitableThe rebel enclave was located in high desert of Eologia's southern continent. They had arrived by flyer just after the kinetic energy weapon strike demolished all signs of any habitation. Scattered craters, and a few grazing animals nibbling on the green leafy vegetation that provided ground cover were all that remained. Despite this, nearly a full company was deployed scouring the region looking for possible survivors. Transporter scramblers would ensure they did not quietly beam out. The blackened soil near the strikes crunched under his boots. "Damage estimates?" Akers asked Katerine sadly, looking at the distribution pattern of craters stretching out for several kilometers on the rolling slopes."Twenty five suspected or confirmed rebels, some three-hundred in collateral damage - local farmers." she answered gravely. "An unfortunate loss, General, but there are those who felt it was necessary to restore order.""And you?" he asked coolly. She did not answer him. Akers did his best to hide the disgust he felt, and all things considered, was surprisingly successful. "What are your superiors trying to accomplish? Stop the terrorists or supply them with new recruits?"She put one hand on his shoulder and answered in a soft voice only he could hear. "I would not have ordered this myself, however it does serve a greater purpose."Akers was struggling for a reply when his combadge beeped. "Yes?""Lt. Commander Dumar, report to the Jaguar." Akers head snapped up, Dumar wasn’t a crew member—this was their notification for a covert security alert—all hands return to ship. Akers looked around; the transporter scramblers were too close.

* * *S'lek had joined several Enforcers examining some buildings that were only partially collapsed. The facility had once been a good sized farming residence, now it was a set of

random piles of timber—knocked down by the force of the nearby blasts. S'lek pulled out her tricorder and began scanning for survivors.She found them—huddled in a cellar that was now blocked from the surface. The Enforcers had started examining something at a nearby building when it suddenly exploded. Some kind of fuel system for equipment inside the collapsed rubble had ignited, blasting both Enforcers back a dozen meters.S'lek was smooth in her rush to two women's side. The first one had been killed, but the second was alive—if bleeding badly. S'lek, without hesitating, put her com badge on the Enforcer's uniform and tapped it. "Ensign S'lek, one to beam out from my location directly to sick bay.""Acknowledged," came the reply.Because her com badge was beamed up with the wounded Enforcer, Ensign S'lek did not hear Major Myers recall order.She was just turning to go back to rescue the trapped farmers when the debris pile exploded a second time—catching her full in the back and sending her flying across the farm yard.

* * *"Excuse me a moment General," Katerine said, her own com link beeping. She walked a ways away to answer it; and Akers noticed Chipper had received the same summons. They were talking in agitated voices. Akers knew he was in trouble as Chipper flashed him a triumphant look. She kept turning to Akers, with alternate longing and horror in her eyes. Chipper motioned to some of the nearby troops to come over to join him, and started pointing at Akers.Something had gone terribly wrong."General, I apologize," Chipper said with a false modesty that failed to conceal his glee. "We are going to have to take you into protective custody." Katerine followed at his side, her face a mask of conflicting emotions. The two guards moved casually behind Akers to escort him back to the flyer.Akers reached out with two brawny arms, grabbing the stocks of the weapons the guards were holding, and yanked them together in a sudden jarring impact. Stunned, one of the gaurds crumpled, and Akers back-handed the other one. Chipper started to raise his weapon, but missed as Akers chopped his gun away. Chipper rolled after it, snatched it up, raised it to aim, and then fell over as Akers deftly slapped his boot knife through the air and into the Slob's unprotected arm. Akers balanced upwards on his feet, turned, and found a laser pistol two inches from his nose, a sad and pained look on Katerine's face."I don't want to do this," she said. He relaxed and took one step backwards, hands out stretched. "It doesn't have to be this way, Katya." "I am, first and foremost, a patriot, General." With that his heart sank, the use of his rank could only mean one thing, she was prepared to fire.Two Starfleet Marines in full power armor, came bounding across the countryside. The rush of air caught Katerine's attention. As she turned to see one, the other neatly

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stunned her. Akers leaped forward to catch her before she could land on the ground. He gently checked for her pulse and then laid her neatly on the grassy loam."Thought you might need an assist, General," came Major Myers' voice from inside the power armor."S'lek?" He asked."Beamed aboard just moments ago," Myers answered.Akers said nothing, taking the Marine emblem off his beret, and replaced it with one of Katerine's insignia, the stylized Dragon and IDIC. He then tucked his emblem onto her uniform, reached down and gave her the gentlest of kisses on the forehead. "This isn't over, my love," he whispered.Cookie came over, wiping Akers boot knife clean and handing it back to him, ignoring the moaning Chipper at his feet. "Sergeant, your weapon please," Akers asked. He took the phaser rifle, aimed it at the flyer parked nearby, and fired repeatedly. The explosion was no less spectacular than it was loud."Transporter scramblers down, sir." Myers reported and Akers nodded sharply, tapping his com badge. "Three to beam out," he called to the Jaguar.As he sparkled out of existence, it seemed that even unconscious, Katerine seemed to be staring at him, calling him back. Soon, my love, soon.

* * *They assembled in one of the larger briefing rooms on board the Jaguar, the entire ship’s senior officers, plus Butterbar, and Hiram Thornberry. S'lek wasn't there, but the computer reported she was in sickbay. Wallace did not want to wait. Butterbar had already recounted, in what surprised him as a calm and even tone of voice, the events that led up to his encountering Thornberry. Akers then recounted his encounter with Chipper, and Wallace rolled his eyes. "You two are both alike," he muttered. "Admiral, High Commissioner Nuanzi is requesting an immediate audience," Chief of Operations, Senya Kinyin said. "Tell him I’ll be with him shortly," Wallace turned to Thornberry. "All right Professor, you have our attention. Now as to these charges you have…filed…against yourself, please explain to us what exactly is going on.""It’s best that I start at the beginning, although I’ll be brief…" Thornberry described how he was on anthropological expedition caught behind the lines when hostilities with the Klingon's broke out. Forced to work their way beyond Cardassian territories to get back to the Federation, they stumbled upon the Eologian. The plight of the mixed Cardassian/Bajoran's immediately stunned them—they arrived just as the Slobadan used relativistic bombs to destroy an Eologian colony world."Relativistic bomb?" Butterbar asked.Thornberry looked at him. "Take an asteroid about 1 to 5 km in size, accelerate it to 96% speed of light, then slam it into a planet. The first strike usually leaves a crater the size of North America, and half as deep. The planet belches its guts out, covering the rest of

the surface in miles of ejecta blanket. Further strikes will crack open the planet like an egg and smash it to bits."Akers looked at Butterbar. "Your asteroid distribution patterns."Thornberry nodded. "We didn’t intend to get involved, but we were attacked by a Slobadan vessel, and Eologian Authority ships fought them off, but not before we were so badly damaged we had to abandon ship.""If we wanted to get home, we had to trade. Federation technology for a ride home. We intended just to give them things that weren’t cutting edge, and hijacking starships was never mentioned. But things somehow spiraled out of control." He looked down for a moment then back at the assembled staff watching him. "I won’t make excuses, in the process of returning us home somehow we ended up hijacking a full blown, state-of-the-art Cargo Freighter, fresh from refit for convoy duty. That’s when it started…"Thornberry shook his head. "For the next two years I walked a knife’s edge with the Eologian. They were determined to acquire more Federation technology, preferably Starfleet vessels. We were determined that they do so in as safe a manner as possible to Federation personnel. We did our best to see that no-one was injured.""What happened to the crews?" Akers asked sharply."Some actually decided to join us. The Federation was losing the Dominion war, and this seemed like a good place to take a stand against an enemy that was easier to fight. Others… I’m afraid they were imprisoned.""For the last six years?" Akers demanded.Thornberry nodded. "It is regrettable, and don’t think those of us that fight with the Eologian haven’t agonized over it every single day, but it was necessary."Akers snorted disdainfully. "Treason can always be justified if the cause is right." Thornberry looked up at him sharply. "And if you don’t leave any survivors to tell the tale!""Simmer down, General!" Wallace ordered. "Professor, please continue.""We nabbed a half dozen Sabers, almost as many Miranda’s and even one Akira." There were gasps at this and Thornberry felt it necessary to explain. "The Eologian and Slobadan both have better transporter technology than us and, for the most part, the hijackings were relatively bloodless.""Relatively?" Akers barked."Scott…!" Wallace whispered harshly."Anyway, we held them off—but that was all. There were three Eologian systems left 7 years ago, and there are three today, but without assistance, all three will likely fall within the year.""Why the bomb at Parliament?" Wallace asked."That wasn't ours!" Thornberry denied hotly, but Butterbar looked at the professor closely and saw doubt and uncertainty there."After your speech this morning, Admiral, High Commissioner Nuanzi must have felt comfortable that the Federation wouldn’t intervene on our behalf. He could have easily ordered the bomb, both to sour the Federation to his side, and give his Enforcers a

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logical reason to continue purging the Cultural Preserves." He looked around desperately at the assembled officers. "Think about it, we try to capture another Saber for the first time in years. Until they caught us in the act, they suspected we had covert Federation assistance, a misconception we encouraged at every opportunity. Once they realized that wasn’t the case, they extended you an invitation—after ignoring the Federation in the 30 years since Slobadan Wyer discovered its existence—and once sure that you had no interest in being involved… They strike."Wallace’s com badge beeped. "Sir, Nuanzi’s on the line again, he really insists on meeting with you. Two Slobadan Cruisers have also shifted orbit and are maneuvering to take up position alongside.""The gloves are coming off," Thornberry breathed. "Before it goes any further, there’s something I have to show you—on the surface.""You’re not going anywhere," Wallace snapped."You need to see what’s really happening!" Thornberry demanded."Major Myers, please escort the prisoner to the brig, and change the charge from Manslaughter to Murder Two." Thornberry looked at him. "The deaths were caused in the commission of another crime, Professor. Manslaughter does not apply," Wallace said matter-of-factly, and looked to Myers. "I’ll be up on the bridge momentarily to answer the High Commissioners questions, join us there when you’re done."Thornberry was being escorted past Butterbar. "Please, Caleb, you have to convince them, let me show you the caverns!" Butterbar turned away, shaking his head.After Thornberry was gone, Wallace turned to him. "Is this the man you knew at the Academy?"Butterbar shook his head. "He’s changed. He wasn’t ever this…" Butterbar searched for the words."Fanatical?" Akers offered.Wallace nodded. "Get with S'lek, write up what you know about him, contrast it with what we saw today. How much can we believe him?"Butterbar looked away without answering. "I don’t know. Not any more."

* * *Wallace strode onto the bridge. Out of force of habit on his old Galaxy command, he headed for the place between Ops and Con, before he realized that on an Intrepid class, they were one and blocking his way. "On screen," he ordered, as he stood just behind Lieutenant Steele at the conn.High Commissioner Nuanzi appeared on the screen with a glower on his face."Admiral Wallace, I protest this…this kidnapping of one of our citizens and demand that you return him to our custody immediately!""That is an interesting charge, Commissioner Nuanzi, considering your people tried to kidnap my Executive Officer and who knows how many more of my people? Mr. Thornberry is a Federation citizen, Commissioner, and has asked for asylum onboard our ship."

"And you’re granting it?" Nuanzi cried. "That man could be an Eologian terrorist! They are responsible for the bombing and the attempt on your life and the lives of your fellow officers!" He paused for a response, and when he didn't get one, Nuanzi continued. "I cannot believe you are going to protect him from justice! Return him to us immediately!""Commissioner, Mr. Thornberry has admitted to a variety of extremely serious crimes against the Federation, including murder. I can assure you that these charges will be vigorously investigated and, if found true, he will be tried and punished. If after the conclusion of his term of punishment we have successfully negotiated an extradition treaty, we will be happy to turn him over to your custody."Nuanzi’s voice was calm and smooth, quiet, almost to the point the listener had to strain to hear him. The words, though, carried steel in their timber. "This is completely unacceptable, Admiral. If Professor Thornberry had anything to do with this bombing, he is looking at dozens of counts of capital murder. At the very least, he will be charged with conspiracy. Now turn him over to us and we will deal with him in such a way that I think will satisfy both of us," he added with a wicked grin."Commissioner, the Federation does not have a death penalty. And as a Federation citizen, no matter his current legal status, he is entitled to the protection of Federation Law. Besides, how did you know he was a Professor?"Nuanzi didn’t blanche, but he clearly realized is slipup. He had known who Thornberry was all along. "Mark my words, Admiral. It would be most unpleasant if this situation were to disrupt what were looking to be the start of positive relations between our two governments," Nuanzi said in a thinly-veiled threat, then he cut the channel.

* * *Butterbar found himself in the brig without really knowing how he got there. He was upset by Thornberry, and found he couldn’t concentrate, and went out for a walk. Next thing he knew, he was standing in front of his former professor, the hum of a security force field separating them across an emotional abyss."I don’t even know what to say to you," Butterbar said. "You betrayed everything you believed in." Thornberry remained silent. "S’lek and I even joined Starfleet because of you." Butterbar gestured wildly. "Do you know how many died on the Claymore? Do you?"Thornberry spread his arms in apology. "I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were involved.""I was there when we retook her!" Memories of the smoke, the carnage, the blood—came rushing back. He looked at his former mentor in the eyes. "Tell me you! Tell me your or your friends didn’t plant the bomb this morning."Thornberry turned away, his hands in his pockets, shoulders slumped. “You don’t know what I know, Caleb, you haven’t seen what I’ve seen. I’ve been here for nearly eight years, helping these people, fighting with them to save their homes. I’ve done things, Caleb, terrible things." He looked back at the Ensign. "It’s not that simple, but if you’d give me a chance, maybe you would understand why.""You didn’t answer my question.""I gave you the only answer I could give, Caleb."

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Butterbar shook his head. He was used to listening to Thornberry—he had even enjoyed doing so—once. He found he couldn’t focus on the man’s word’s, his own anger carried him along in its own current—out of reach from his mentor and friend. Almost weeping he leaned against the edge of the cell. "I don’t understand you, Hiram, how you could do this?""Take me down to the surface, Caleb, I’ll show you.""Why, what’s down there that we haven’t already seen?" Akers asked, having slipped into the brig without Butterbar’s noticing. Butterbar turned to him in shock, but Akers put one gloved hand on his arm in reassurance. The General was in his power armor."More than Nuanzi would ever admit. Logically," Thornberry spat the word out, "it would make no sense to risk alienating the Federation and get genuine support for the Eologian Authority by showing you the whole truth.""What of your truths, Professor? You haven’t been exactly straight with us on everything here today," Akers asked. Thornberry did not answer. He didn't have to—he was compromised and everyone there knew it.Akers reached over to the controls and deactivated the force field. "Very well, you can show us. Ensign, get your armor and meet us here in ten. We’re going to the surface."Butterbar nodded once, and raced out of the brig.

* * *Five of the wicked looking Slobadan cruisers were now in "formation" around the Jaguar. Shields were not up, but could the moment weapons were locked. Wallace looked up in surprise when his XO paged him on his com badge."Wallace, I need a favor," Akers asked.Sensing what was coming, Chris was prepared to say no—this wasn't the time for an away mission."Are you sure?" Wallace asked."No." "Very well, permission granted," Wallace answered. He turned to his conn officer. "Lieutenant Steele, I'm not pleased with the warships currently bracketing us. Loose them. Keep us within transporter range, but I think the Slobadan need a demonstration in our maneuverability.""Yes sir!"

* * *The chamber they arrived in was enormous, rivaling those Butterbar had seen in Carlsbad on Earth. Immense pillars, rippled curtains of rock, massive stalactites overhead, the colors were impressive, and under other conditions, Butterbar would have sat down and just taken it all in. If it wasn’t for one thing—Decay and death owned these rock filled chasms.Despite the power armor, and sealed helmet, the first thing that hit Butterbar was the stench of the caverns. Desiccated shriveled bodies wearing contemporary Slobadan

clothing were everywhere. Stacked like cordwood, the otherwise magnificent chamber resembled some rotting vision of hell. Butterbar fell to his knees, trying not to wretch."What is this, Professor?" Akers asked."A logical conclusion to lives that would not embrace the teachings of Slobadan Wyer," Thornberry said bitterly. "I take it High Commissioner Nuanzi didn’t give you a tour of this facility?"Akers snorted and Butterbar wondered how he could be so calm. "No, he most certainly did not.""Why?" Butterbar asked, barely above a whisper. "Why this?" Thornberry looked at him, and he managed to continue. "Why leave the bodies here? Slobadan society is efficient, they could dispose of them without leaving any evidence. This… this is so untidy," and, Butterbar thought, uncharacteristic of the Slobadan.Thornberry shook his head. "But that wouldn’t be quite the reminder this would be, would it? A lesson to those who don’t follow the rules, or who make monumental mistakes. Come, I want to show you something else."They followed Thornberry down a paved path. "How long before they detect our arrival, Professor"?" Akers asked."Not long, they already know we’re here." He pointed. "This cave system goes for miles, and its filled to capacity with bodies. Fortunately the civil war is almost finished, and the need for it will be less." Butterbar knew him well enough to recognize the bitter sarcasm in his words. They rounded a corner, and there, sprawled out, shot in the back with an energy weapon, was Inspector Fawkan. Near him was what appeared to be a family, a women with one arm around Fawkan’s leg, several small children and a pair of elderly couples. "The Slobadan punish treason with execution of the individual, as well as all members of that individuals family for three generations in either direction. It isn’t done often, but it is done. Fawkan qualified not because he was a traitor, but by risking bringing the Federation in on the Eologian side of the conflict." Thornberry sighed, "he always was too aggressive for his own good."Akers knelt down and put one hand on Fawkan’s shoulder. When he stood up, Butterbar had never seen him look so angry. It wasn’t an expression of the face or gesture so much as the eyes. They burned with rage.Butterbar turned to Thornberry, clutching his former mentor in a powered grip that clearly hurt—but Butterbar didn’t care. "Why? This isn’t logical? There’s no point to this!" He gestured at the corpses wildly and in the process shaking Thornberry like a rag doll. "Why!?!"Thornberry put one hand up to break Butterbar’s grasp and he let go of the Professor, who stumbled backwards. "The fundamental dictates of logic, Caleb. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And these few..." He nodded to the grisly scene around them. "Opposed in some fashion or another the transformation of Slobadan society. Slobadan herself started filling these caves to hide her bloody work. She ended centuries of bloody internecine conflict with a civil war that transformed the energy her people spent slaughtering each other into something more productive. Make no mistake Caleb, IDIC and Kolinahr have done wonders for the Slobadan people who embraced

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them. As for the rest…" He gestured around. "Logic provided a perfectly acceptable foundation to justify this ruthless and merciless instrument of Social Darwinism."Butterbar slumped and looked to his former mentor. "I hate you…" he whispered.Akers stepped forward. "You’ve made your point Professor," he said to Thornberry, tapping his combadge. "Akers to Jaguar, three to beam up."Wallace came over the speaker. "We’re a little busy up here right now Scott, hang on." In the background the red alert klaxon roared and they could hear sounds that the Jaguar was under attack.Akers nodded. "Well gentlemen, looks like we’re going to be here for a…" He was interrupted by an energy blast that bounced off his shoulder and splashed against a hanging curtain of folded rock. The rock shattered, and rained down on them. Akers already in a crouch, phaser rifle drawn. Butterbar used his body as a shield to protect Thornberry as more blasts whisked overhead. Akers gestured, indicating they should retreat further down the path, careful to stay below the piles of corpses and out of sight.

* * *The Jaguar rembled softly, the deck briefly tilting ever so slightly, then righting itself just as quickly. "Status report," Wallace ordered."Two Slobadan cruisers are trying to bracket us," Senya reported. "Our shields are holding. Should I return fire?""Negative. Can we beam the away team up yet?""No. The transporter scramblers are still operating. I’m trying to compensate.""Get Dr. Tsai up here to help you. Bridge to Engineering." Wallace called, as the ship rocked again, this time more sharply."Engineering, Pentangle here.""Cypher, I need you to try and alternate our two shield generators to minimize the time we have them down when we beam.""Aye, sir."Dr. Tsai appeared in the turbolift. "Admiral," she said. "I think we can jacket the transporter’s targeting scanners to main sensors and crack through the jamming, but it is seriously going to impact our range. We need to be within five kilometers of the planet’s surface at the beaming point.""You heard the lady, Lieutenant Steele," Wallace said. "Evasive maneuvers, while you're at it.""Aye, sir," Jenna said from Con. She typed in the commands and the Jaguar started a dive for the planet, the pair of Slobadan cruisers in hot pursuit.

* * *"Tricorder’s useless!" Butterbar announced. "I’ve got ghosts on all sides, but no idea how to get out of here."Akers grunted and fired several times. "Professor, do you know the way out?"

He nodded and pointed to where the heaviest concentration of Slobadan Enforcers was located. "About ten klicks that way.""Wonderful," Akers commented, tossing a stun grenade—his last—in that general direction. "Pick a direction with the least ghosts, Ensign." Stalactites shattered and showered them with bits of stone."This way!" Butterbar pointed and started crawling between the rocks and stacks of bodies. Thornberry was close behind. Butterbar saw movement ahead, and ducked low as a blast of energy sizzled overhead and struck Thornberry full in the chest. "No!" Butterbar screamed, firing at the assassin even as he skidded back to his mentor. He felt for a pulse, careful not to crush the man’s windpipe, and found it—faint but present. "Jaguar to away team, prepare to beam out," Wallace’s voice announced, and Butterbar had never been so happy to hear his CO’s voice. The cavern shimmered and they found themselves on the floor of the transporter pad. Without a word, Butterbar and Akers picked up the Professor and departed immediately for sickbay."What is that stench?" the transporter chief asked as they exited into the hallway. Butterbar ignored him, and concentrated on watching Thornberry for signs of continued life.

* * *"Transporter room reports we have General Akers and his party aboard," Commander Kinyin stated."Very well. Set course to depart the Eologian system, jump to Warp 6 immediately," Wallace ordered."Sir, Commissioner Nuanzi orders us to heave to or he will turn the defense network upon us," Marine Captain Bill Tillman relayed."Charge phasers and arm photon torpedoes," Wallace ordered."Sir?" Second Officer Fleet Captain Kora Shishugiinsa said from beside him."I may not fire on their ships, but unmanned drones are fair game in my book," Wallace replied."Final warning from Commissioner Nuanzi," Tillman reported. "No reply," Wallace said. "We are now entering the defense network," Tillman said."Steady as she goes, Lieutenant," Wallace ordered."We are through the defense grid," Tillman reported. "Slobadan vessels are in pursuit.""Admiral, we’re picking up increased jamming from within the Slobadan system," Senya said.Wallace and Akers looked at each other, their expressions mirror images of bewilderment. “I have a bad feeling about this, sir,” Senya added."Very well. Ahead Warp Factor 9," Wallace ordered. "I doubt the Slobadan can keep up with that pace. I’ll be in Sickbay. Captain Shishugiinsa, you have the Con."

* * *

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Akers and Wallace stepped into sickbay and found Butterbar at the side of the diagnostic table as Chief Medical Officer T’Peg Gray Wolf tended to Thornberry. She saw them come in and walked over to them quietly. "He suffered massive internal trauma to the chest. We need to perform surgery immediately, but the patient refuses." Wallace and Akers looked at each other. "Do whatever you need to, but we need him alive, Doctor," Wallace said."No surgery, Doctor, not yet," Hiram begged from across the room.Gray Wolf shook her head in annoyance, and then gestured to Cookie who was standing discretely near the diagnostic bed. "Do you think he could at least wait outside. The Professor isn’t going anywhere, regardless."Wallace nodded. Cookie snapped to attention and marched cleanly out of the sickbay.The three officers moved over to the diagnostic bed. Thornberry tried to sit up and failed. "Admiral…" he gasped. Butterbar assisted him back down, but put one hand on the Professor’s shoulder in comfort."We’ve escaped the Eologian system without straining ourselves too much. More than a dozen Eologian cruisers are in pursuit, but we will outrun them," Wallace said.Thornberry struggled to continue. "Admiral, we’ll give you back your ships. Those that are left.""Why now?" Wallace asked."Call it a gesture of good will. The Eologian are doomed without the Federation," he gasped, and started coughing hard. Gray Wolf brought him a cup of water, which he drank gratefully."There are 800 officers, crew and citizens… imprisoned. We will turn them over as well.""Where are they located?" Wallace asked."I can show you…" Thornberry replied, and sipped some more water.Butterbar took that as his cue, picked up a spare PADD, and pulled up a star map of the Slobadan star cluster handed it quietly to Thornberry. The Professor queued up a system on the far side of Slobadan space. "There, three systems… All that’s left… Eologian Authority." He smiled. "It’s ironic. In fighting Slobadan Wyer, the Eologian were forced to unify for a common purpose—the very thing she wanted to accomplish in the first place." He shook his head. "Too little… too late."He closed his eyes. "When we get to Alm system, wake me. I can get you through the security perimeter." With that Thornberry faded from consciousness."That’s enough," Gray Wolf ordered, shooing her senior officers out into the passageway, muttering how difficult it was to take good care of her patients.Outside Wallace turned to Butterbar. "Ensign, plot us a course for the Alm system, and try not to run us through the Slobadan task force chasing us.""Yes sir!" Butterbar replied, and started for the bridge. Wallace and Akers followed."Well, Tig," Akers commented dryly, "at least we know who the players are. Still think this is a hornet’s nest?""No, I’ve upgraded it to tarpit first class." Wallace replied ruefully.

"Um... gentlemen," Butterbar said, turning to face them. "Where is my wife?" he asked, looking significantly at the doors to sickbay.

* * *Blackness—she could make out shapes, black on black, formless and without detail. S'lek struggled to open her eyes but it was of no use. She was on some kind of rough bed, and it was rocking from a motion that she couldn't identify. Voices-distant and subdued, whispered but the words made no sense. She lifted one hand and found she was in a closed space lined with some kind of metal mesh. Fine-soft-it was by no means a prison. She could easily pull the mesh apart with her fingers.The effort exhausted her. S'lek struggled to retain consciousness, but slid back into blackness and the welcoming warmth of a healing trance.

* * *Major Myers apologized to Butterbar personally for losing his wife. It had been a chance thing—and if they hadn't been forced to rush from orbit around Eologia—easily compensated for. As it was—Wallace clearly agonized over the decision to go back for her or not. If they tried to return and failed, it would only alert the Slobadan to her presence. As the number of Slobadan cruisers pursuing them continued to mass, the chance of successfully going back to find her—at that particular moment—diminished.It was a calculus Butterbar could derive all too easily—that did not mean he accepted the answer.The Slobadan Cruisers seemed in no hurry to close the gap between them and the Jaguar. For the half-day’s journey to the Alm system, surviving capital of the Eologian Authority, they remained a discrete distance behind. They actively engage their jamming systems, and while they were primitive, the sheer weight of numbers from the fleet following them provided an effective screen from the Jaguar’s sensor suite. After being thwarted several times, Butterbar solicited Akers help, who only concluded that the renegade Starfleet officers had given the Slobadan years of practice and improved their

ability to counter most efforts. He encouraged Butterbar to keep trying though, as they would need all the spoofing they could get to retrieve S'lek. Upon arrival at the Alm system they found another defensive network, this one paper-thin compared to what the Eologia system enjoyed. The system itself contained a few over-sized piles of rocks flying in close formation masquerading as planets, and one marginal M class world, the second planet, on the outskirts of the systems free-water zone.

Butterbar took a close look at it with a full sensor sweep, it was grayish blue, cold and hard. Still, upwards of a 150 million inhabited the planet, clustering close to protective domes and the all too sparse temperate zones.

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Thornberry, weak and tottering, made his way to the bridge and gave the pass codes to allow them entry past the Eologian pickets. It wasn’t hard, a new Federation starship entering Eologian space would have been refused. They had dropped out of warp and we’re preceding to the Alm 2 at full impulse. Butterbar played with his sensors until he found what he was looking for."I have the Convoy Admiral.""Put it on, Ensign," Wallace replied. Butterbar shifted the main viewer to a long-range image of the Federation starships in orbit over Alm 2. A half dozen vessels were clustered tightly together, a small flotilla of Eologian craft rising from the planet to dock with them. Nearby was an Akira class vessel, the USS Wilkinson, which was missing one warp nacelle. A blackened and twisted mess, hastily patched, marked the vessel’s loss of half its warp capacity.Thornberry, who’d been quiet since they had arrived in-system, turned to Wallace. "If it helps any, we lost more than a dozen hijacking teams to the Dominion. The Jem-Hadar cared little if a Federation vessel carried Federation crews or not."Akers eyed him. "It does not help, Professor. Not one bit.""Sir, we’re being hailed," Butterbar announced as they began final approach to the planet. Wallace waved one hand to put the signal on the viewer."Greetings! This is Supervisor Bryceen in charge of the Eologian Authority. We welcome you to the Alm system." Bryceen was, even on the viewer, a small man, scarred, and wearing a uniform that was more gaudy and tattered than anything else."Supervisor Bryceen, this is Admiral Chris Wallace aboard the Federation starship Jaguar. I believe you have some property and personnel which belongs to us?"Bryceen nodded. "Yes, your crews—those who wish to leave, and your ships are being readied even as we speak." He shifted his eyes to the ailing Thornberry. "Excellent work Hiram, you brought them home!"Wallace waved Hiram silent before he could reply. "We will be in orbit in five minutes. I expect a full roster of returning crew. We’ll also want to conduct interviews with those who wish to stay, and a full accounting of those who have perished while in your custody."Bryceen nodded. "We’ll be uplinking the data to you shortly, and we can accommodate your request for interviews. It will take about a day…" Bryceen looked off camera for a moment, his face dropping in horror. Then the transmission abruptly blanked and Wallace looked at Butterbar for an explanation."Cut off from the source sir," Butterbar said, then added. "Sir, I’m picking up an increase in military and civilian traffic—""Admiral," Myers interrupted, fingers flying over his tactical consoles. "Tthe Slobadan have stepped up their jamming, but we’re getting signs of fighting in the outer system. High probability of massive warp signatures." He paused to look at his display "Great Bird of the Galaxy… No!" Myers transferred a display up on the main viewer. "We’ve got close to a thousand objects inbound at warp two, crossing the outer system, five waves of them over the next hour. At least 75 Slobadan heavy cruisers in escort."

"Relativistic bombs." Thornberry whispered. "Red Alert! All Hands to Battle Stations!" Wallace barked.The civil war is almost finished… Katerine’s words from a state dinner years away echoed through Butterbar’s soul. The viewer continued to display new flashing dots as the Jaguar was able to penetrate the jamming fields and enumerate the depth of the Slobadan assault. The silence on the bridge was punctuated by a dull roaring in Butterbar’s ears and Katerine’s voice whispered to him endlessly.The civil war is almost finished…

"Do you have enough defense platforms for an assault this big?" Wallace softly asked the ailing Professor.He nodded sadly. "No, this is the largest they ever mounted. Last time they tried, it was less than a five hundred bombs, and we had a fleet of fully functional Starfleet ships then." Thornberry seemed to slump, visibly aging in his posture.Wallace looked to Myers, who shook his head. “We don’t have the assets to stop the inbounds.”Wallace sighed, and stood, watching the display show ever more cruisers and bombs materialize on the edge of the Jaguar’s scanning envelope. “We’ll evacuate as many civilians as possible, and get out of the way.”“No!” Thornberry said, rising and lunging forward. Akers stepped up and easily restrained him, plopping him back down into his seat. “At ease, Professor.”Myers interrupted him, fingers flying over his tactical consoles. "We’re getting signs of fighting in the outer system.”

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On the edges of the Slobadan system…Eologian defensive platforms were coming to life, launching cluster-packs of relativistic spears—high velocity weapons designed to shatter an incoming asteroid before it could reach Alm 2. Suicide ships launched as well—for given the size of the assault, this was not the time to hold back. The best weapons were ones that could disrupt the warp field before the asteroid reached position for terminal acceleration. This was typically done with a small ship that was little more than warp engine and mini-photon torpedo launcher. What the craft lacked in complexity they made up with sheer numbers. Even so, this particular assault left the defenders vastly outnumbered.

Slobadan heavy cruisers laid in wait behind clusters of asteroids. Eologian vessels would make their attack runs, often shattering several of the inbound bombs. They would be unable, or unwilling to react in time, though, as Slobadan cruisers slid out from behind their protective screen and decimated the defenders virtually unopposed. This was the final battle, to return the Slobadan fire

meant one more relativistic bomb might get through. Eologian ships destroyed bombs, and Slobadan cruisers destroyed the Eologian ships, and still the bombs kept coming.

Flashes of yellow fire marked the Eologian attacks, and green pulses of energy the Slobadan response, ending in fire for the Eologian vessels. Even as the Jaguar orbited above Alm 2, Eologian defenders had begun to fight, and just as quickly, begun to die."Sir," Butterbar announced, "two of the Miranda’s are powering up, their weapons systems coming on line."Wallace stabbed his console. "This is Admiral Chris Wallace. Federation ships, you are ordered to stand down and prepare for immediate evacuation from this system. You are not, I repeat, you are not to engage the Slobadan vessels."The view screen shifted and a woman in Starfleet uniform appeared, frayed and tattered but somehow still worn but carried with dignity. Wallace exhaled sharply, recognizing her. She smiled at him, a lopsided gesture with a somehow fatal resignation. "Sorry, Chris, can’t do that. These people are fighting for their lives, and we can’t sit idly by." Wallace swore softly. Fleet Captain Sylvia Stingray—presumed lost early in the Dominion War, along with the others aboard the USS Wilkinson six years ago. Now she was here, alive, and ready to sacrifice herself and her ship."Sylvia, I’m ordering you…" She smiled sadly and Wallace stopped.

"I’m downloading a tactical package for you, Chris. Everything you need to know about how to stop a speeding asteroid traveling at .96c. You can join us, we could use your help." “We’ve got a Aegis on board,” Wallace commented softly.“Always the latest toys, Chris?” Stingray asked rhetorically. “Use it to help us buy time for the evacuation Wallace. You can always return before the end—they’ll be more to rescue than you could possibly hold.”Wallace turned to Akers. “Every instinct I have says load up with refugees and run. We can’t win this fight, Scott.”“No, but we can fight it well,” Akers replied.“All right Sylia, you win,” Wallace said. Stingray smiled and broke the connection as the Jaguar’s deck plates hummed softly, pent up energy quivering, ready to break the ship free of orbit.“Makes you wonder how many starship crews are really dead, or just off someplace playing possum,” Akers commented, standing to take over the security station. Myers stood aside and Akers nodded him towards the turbolift. “Put Cookie in the Aerowing, you take the Avon, Tillman in the Coventry”Butterbar looked at Myers and Akers, and despite the seriousness of the moment, he detected a glint of anticipation in both of their eyes. They were going out to blow things up, and clearly the Marines were going to be enjoying themselves at some level.Wallace turned to Jenna at the helm. “Set course for the closest wave of bombs.” “Closest wave of relativistic asteroids, aye,” Jenna muttered, disbelief clearly in her voice.Senya Kinyin stood up to leave. “Admiiral, I’m going to head down to engineering, see what we can do to replicate some photon torpedo shells and guidance packages to give to the Miranda’s.""Don’t drain us dry of anti-matter, Senya," Wallace replied."I’ll leave us just enough to get home with," she answered."Look at that, two klicks across, and its one of the smaller ones!" Akers breathed to Wallace as they both at tactical. "Captain Stingray’s squirt includes instructions for bypassing ECM and defensive systems. We also have to knock them out at least one-hundred million kilometers away to prevent debris from penetrating the planet’s atmosphere."Five assault groups invaded the Alm system, and in the time it had taken for them to decide to engage the attackers, the outer defenses had begun to crumble and crack. The Slobadan bombs were being smashed steadily, but at a distance to Alm 2 that was shrinking too quickly for Butterbar’s comfort.“They’re slaughtering them!” Akers breathed, catching Butterbar’s eye. On the edges of the Alm system…

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Eologian Light Cruisers aligned themselves at the first waves of inbound asteroids. The triple battery of their main guns drilling down on the warp cores of the asteroids. The bombs offered little in defensive systems, too much energy was devoted to lowering the inertial mass of the asteroid to allow warp travel in the first place. The Eologian had armed their vessels well for taking out the bombs, at the expense of their own defensive armament. The Slobadan would not even bother to take cover behind the asteroids, casually escorting them and picking

off the Eologian vessels as if there were no hazard at all. At the last instant, Eologian Cruisers would launch fusillades, in a desperate attempt to stave off the Slobadan assault, but to no avail.Asteroid after asteroid tumbled and shattered as the inertial fields collapsed, and Eologian Cruiser after Eologian Cruiser shattered under the remorseless Slobadan assault. The outer edges of the system began to fill with relativistic debris as the remains of relativistic bombs dropped out of warp, and continued with their pre-warp momentum, which was already a significant fraction of the speed of light.Even if the attack was broken off now, Alm 2 would be in extreme danger of collision with relativistic debris for years to come.Back on the Jaguar...A tattered squadron of Eologian Cruisers and fighter screen were 500 million klicks off Alm 2, struggling against an overwhelming number of asteroids and Slobadan cruisers, who were steadily picking them off.Butterbar watched as two Cruisers evaporated while trying to destroy a pair of asteroids. Akers deftly dropped three photon torpedoes as the Jaguar raced past the expanding debris fields, and Jenna banked the ship hard towards the next target. The rest of their tactical net had expanded, the Jaguar coordinating each vessel's targets to plug holes torn open in the Eologian defense. Butterbar did little more than watch as the Version 225 of the Aegis system automated the process of the battle. He just made sure that the data inputs from the sensors were as clear and clean as possible. A task that was becoming increasingly difficult with the zipping clouds of relativistic debris increasingly filling the system.Butterbar found himself playing with the data from his sensors and came up with a horrifying conclusion. “Admiral, I’ve analyzed the evacuation vessels, and we’ll be lucky if we can get even 1% of the population on board.”“Any suggestions, Ensign?” Wallace asked.“What if we dump the computer core?” Butterbar asked. “We can use the extra space as a transporter pattern buffer. Slave the holodecks in as well.”“Are you nuts, Ensign?” Cypher asked rhetorically.“We have protected backups of critical data,” Akers noted.Wallace turned to his science officer, “Candy?”

“He’s nuts, Admiral.” Candy said, scowling at Butterbar.“Can it be done?”She pauseed, and scowled at Butterbar again. “If you’re nuts!”“Call me nuts. Make it so.” Akers nodded approvingly, a toothy grin spreading wide. “How will that affect our rescue efforts Butterbar?”“Stand by…” Butterbar replied.As Candy and Cypher huddled together, Butterbar recognized some of the dialects of what they were muttering, but didn’t quite catch the entire context. Or pretended not to.“We need 30 minutes,” Candy announced.“You have 20,” Wallace replied.“No, you don’t, not even that long,” Akers answered.“Candy, you clear the core, Cypher, you fill it with people. Senya, get as many of the renegades to join our tactical net and work point defense for the planet.”Cypher rubbed her chin, “Admiral, we can use the Coventry and Avon as pattern buffer relays. We could start evacuating right now.”“Make it so. Any other bright ideas, Ensign?”"Sir, the relativistic bombs are using inertial dampeners to lower the mass of the asteroids. We might be able to disrupt that field and throw the mass out of alignment," Butterbar offered.“Collapse them without firing a shot?” Akers asked and grinned in that feral way of his. “I like it!”“I’m surprised!” Wallace quipped, and turned to Butterbar. "Time to accomplish this?" Wallace asked as the Jaguar jinked towards the next target, the inertial dampers not quite keeping up with Jenna's acrobatics."Next target in 15…" Akers announced as Jenna was probably already plotting course for the third asteroid. "Stand by..." Butterbar answered, and started running the calculations. “It's going to take a little bit, Admiral.”“Get on it, Ensign!”The Jaguar’s inertial dampers failed to fully compensate for the wild gyrations (insert Jag Bridge position here) Jenna Steele subjected them to. Even so, it wasn’t enough, and the range at which they were destroying the inbounds steadily decreased. Sometimes the asteroids would split apart from antimatter containment breach, other times, the rocks would just drop out of warp and continue zipping through the system at the same velocity they had when entering warp—96% the speed of light—but without any ability to engage in terminal guidance, crossing the system at "harmless" relativistic velocities."Range to planet, 325 million klicks, Slobadan Cruisers ahead, do we engage?" Akers asked.

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"Negative." Wallace replied. "I’m not interested in starting a war between the Federation and the Slobs.""Sir, the relativistic bombs are using [tech babble from DS9 pilot], we might be able to disrupt that field and throw the mass out of alignment," Butterbar offered."Time to accomplish this?" Wallace asked."Second target in 15…" Myers announced. "Stand by..." Butterbar answered, and started running the calculations.And so it went. "Sir, the planet!" Butterbar. Even from this long distance, they could see that Alm 2 was burning. An asteroid has been called—rightfully so—a large collection of tumbling rocks and gravel flying in close formation. This was apparent from the damage done to the bogies by the improvised defending fleet, as asteroids shattered and crumbled. Too many were doing so at dangerously close positions to Alm 2. Even gravel, moving at relativistic speeds, releases staggering amounts of energy as it evaporated in the atmosphere, some even landing on the surface. The newly formed meteor streams were numerous, and were beginning to impact the their target, steadily heating the atmosphere, and igniting immense fires in the process."Wilkinson is sending out a distress call…" Butterbar announced and put it on speakers at Wallace’s behest. "…all we can, Chris… Your turn now!" Butterbar reset the main viewer to display his long range of the Wilkinson—the Akira class vessel was locked on an intercept course with the largest remaining inbound asteroid. They watched silently as the two intersected in a flash of light and fire—then both faded from view, the cloud of debris barely missing Alm 2.The ship rocked as Akers launched another volley of torpedoes at the warp drive of a relativistic bomb. Jenna twisted the ship around a second nearby asteroid and a second pair of torpedoes flashed towards it.“Cluster of bombs ahead, Jenna,” Akers said.“I’m on it,” she replied, focused on her conn station. As Butterbar watched, a pair of Eologian cruisers disintegrated from repeated hits before they could destroy a trio of incoming bombs. The Jaguar deftly slid between the two expanding debris clouds and launched a set of photons that impacted the warp installation of each asteroid, vaporizing it. As the subspace field propelling the asteroids collapsed, each of the immense rocks tumbled madly out of controlButterbar counted a swarm of another 50 directly ahead.The renegade fleet was broken into several units with the Jaguar providing tactical coordination. Phasers and photon torpedoes criss-crossed the skies, filled with flaring lights as asteroid after asteroid was destroyed or knocked off course. The skies were also filled with the light of Eologian vessels as they were destroyed or suicided into the oncoming rocks.“We’re almost done with the core purge, Admiral. But do you still want warp drive?” Candy asked.“Very funny.”

“What about life support, or should we just hold our breath?” Cypher added.“Just make room, dammit!” Wallace snapped.“What a slaughter,” Akers remarked, shaking his head. “Fifty ships gone, and they’ve bought all of two minutes of time before the…” He paused, looking at Thornberry’s ashen face.Even as the Federation vessels systematically destroyed the next wave of inbounds, the last of the nearby Eologian Cruisers evaporated under the Slobadan assault. Tattered wings of fighters joined them in formation, but more often than not, suicided into an asteroid at the first opportunity. Butterbar noted with grim precision it took on average precisely 13.2 fighter impacts to shatter or otherwise disable a relativistic bomb.The ship bucked from a near miss from one of the bomb’s defensive systems. "It’s getting thick out here!" Jenna said."I’d give my commission to have Bright Star here right now," Wallace muttered. “Avon and Coventry in position, Chris. Starting beam-in,” Akers announced.“About time!” Wallace replied.Butterbar watched on his consoles as the Jaguar was filling up with refugees. Many confused and panicked by their sudden arrival. The ship was rapidly becoming a sardine can, but it was nothing to the compression Candy and Cypher were pulling with the transporter pattern buffers.Akers frowned. “The two Miranda’s are running out of torpedo stocks, Chris.”“Senya! You have more torps ready?” Wallace asked, tapping his communicator.“Not many, but some, we need more time.”“You don’t have it. Prepare for them to be delivered to the renegades.” Wallace shook his head, and grabbed a hand rail as the ship rocked sharply."What a tarpit," Wallace commented and sighed loudly.Akers grunted. "Actually I’d upgrade it to a Charlie Foxtrot" "Da," Wallace said in agreement.A tattered squadron of Eologian Cruisers and fighter screen were 125 million klicks off Alm 2, struggling against an overwhelming number of asteroids and Slobadan cruisers, who were steadily picking them off.Butterbar watched as two Cruisers evaporated while trying to destroy a pair of asteroids. Akers deftly dropped three photon torpedoes as the Jaguar raced past the expanding debris fields, and Jenna banked the ship hard towards the next target."No joy, Admiral. It would take 250 hours to disrupt the inertial field," Butterbar said. “It was a good effort, Ensign,” Wallace answered.Butterbar nodded. Sub-atomic particle physics was not quite as appropriate in the fluid tactical situation they were in as they'd said it would be back at the academy."Range to planet, 175 million klicks," Butterbar announced.

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The brunt of the Slobadan assault had still yet to penetrate inner system defenses—and the Jaguar was being steadily driven closer to the planet. Even so, they’d destroyed nearly 75 inbounds. Just as Butterbar was starting to think they might have a chance of beating back the Slobadan assault, it all fell apart."Admiral, Eologian defenses have collapsed in system quadrants four. Eight, and Seven. Three hundred fifty inbound bogies."Thornberry looked at him, and Butterbar turned away, unable to meet his gaze. Wallace noticed and put one hand on Thornberry’s shoulder. "I'm sorry Professor."Thornberry only nodded.Cypher interrupted, looking pleased, “Admiral, we’ve managed to successfully compress the diagnostic routines maintaining the buffers. I think we can squeeze in a few thousand more.”“It’s now or never, Admiral,” Akers announced.“Reciprocal course back to the planet,” Wallace said.As the Jaguar neared the planet, the first strike by an intact bomb smashed into Alm 2. Close to two hundred meters in diameter, it punched a massive hole in the atmosphere, impacting in a shallow bay near the northern polar cap. In a matter of seconds, a thousand square miles of ocean was turned to steam and with the computer enhancement available to them, they actually saw the seabed exposed as it disintegrated upwards above the atmosphere. A fireball rose a hundred kilometers in diameter and ten times as high—as if a sun had suddenly appeared on the surface of the planet. The crew watched in a mix of awe and horror as a shockwave rolled through the atmosphere, physically pushing the seabed and atmosphere outward, compressing them into what looked like a massive white smoke-ring. Molten ejecta was already raining down in a growing bloom across the planet.Every single fault line, big and small, simultaneously let-go. The amount of tectonic energy released was added to that imparted by the impact of the asteroid, and a massive crack the size of Mariner Valley on Mars appeared on the largest continent, splitting it in two. Electronic emissions from the planet began to dwindle and flicker as Alm 2 rang like a bell from small yet repeated surface impacts.“Debris impacting the planet, Chris,” Akers announced softly. The defense was surprisingly successful at stopping the asteroids, but it was impossible to stop the clouds of rubble that were still on an approximate heading for Alm 2.“Focus on the continent busters, if it’s nuke sized or less, they’ll have to take their chances,” Wallace answered.

The end, though, was never in any real doubt.Alm 2 leaped into focus on the view screen, and they could all see it was already dying. Large gushers of magma were erupting from dozens of impacts, like some kind of obscene pox. The power to destroy a planet had been in the Federations arsenal for centuries, but this was the first time the idea had achieved any sort of reality for Butterbar, and the rest of the shocked officers watching. Thornberry let out a moan of agony, and shook his head in his hands.The ship bucked as Akers launched a spread of torpedoes at a set of bombs that had slipped past the defenders. They were annihilated, but from the far side of the planet there was a flash of light, and just as quickly, an obscene flower of fire began to rise and fall back onto the surface. Moments later, a fountain of destruction erupted on the near side at a point exactly opposite the initial impact. The atmosphere was on fire, dust clouds savaged the atmosphere, and a transporter lock even from geosynchrnous orbit was impossible. The Jaguar would have to fly near the surface to perform any rescues.“Southern continent, there are a number of cities still…” Candy said, unable to use the word intact. “Hurry!” she finally breathed.“Jenna!” Wallace barked.Akers continued to fire, but the end was inevitable now as impacts, large and small, began to multiple profusely across the planet. The Jaguar weaved an erratic course between growing clouds of ejecta.“Can we lock?” Jenna asked, after an especially harrowing near miss with clouds of molten debris.“Need to be within 50 kilometers, 5 targets, downloading to your console now,” Candy asked.“Now who’s nuts?” Jenna replied, fingers flying over the console.Entire continents were rising off the surface from the energy release of asteroids several kilometers across impacting at near light speed. They watched as a relatively intact region of the planet suddenly shattered upwards, and an ocean rolled off its bed, and splashed into space in millions of instant cometary masses.“Target two obliterated, beaming up target one now,” Cypher announced.“Twenty five hundred locked. We lost the rest,” Candy announced.Jenna had them low over the surface now; the sky above them was filled with competing walls of magma, smashing into each other and splashing in all directions. The Jaguar lurched and bumped from Jenna’s piloting and the occasional impact. “Hull breach on engineering deck, integrity fields holding,” Akers announced.“Target Five destroyed, target three completed,” Candy announced.“Just a little longer, Jenna,” Wallace said softly. She just muttered at him in response, in several new dialects Butterbar hadn’t heard before.

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"The planet's shifting!" Jenna announced as pieces of Alm 2 began to slip away, causing whole continents to suddenly lurch.The planet was tearing itself apart and the Jaguar was in the middle of it."Transport complete!" Akers announced, and Jenna did not wait for the order, she piloted the Jaguar away from the surface—only now the surface rising in apparent close pursuit!“Shields up!” Wallace barked.The planet lurched, and nearly swatted the Jaguar out of the sky. Only Jenna’s skills, her hands flying across her console, working furiously to keep them from impacting any large pieces of matter.“Shields just collapsed,” Akers announced as a large globe of matter sloughed off the Jaguar’s hull.The surface below them broke up in a fractal pattern of a billion pieces, each of which erupted outwards. Jenna and the navigation system yanked the ship hard to stay ahead of the storm, but clouds of magma roiled ahead of them. Alm 2 wasn’t a planet any more, it was a tempest of molten rock.“I need shields!” Jenna demanded, running out of room to avoid the flying debris.“Shields back to 48%,” Cypher said triumphantly.Jenna grunted and dived for the thinnest patch of material. The ship’s hull rang with multiple impacts. “Shields to 12%,” Cypher reported.“We’re clear!” Jenna replied, as the Jaguar leapt into clear space. Behind them, the remains of Alm 2 continued to immolate themselves as more bombs impacted into it."Get us to warp!" Wallace ordered and Jenna nodded.“We cleared out as much of the space as we can,” Candy announced. “Between us and the renegades, we’ve got half a million people in the buffers, another 3,000 crowding the ship like sardines.”“Half a million…” Wallace mumbled.Butterbar reset the main viewer to give them an aft view as a dozen or more bombs impacted, pulverizing the already broken remains of the planet. Gouges the size of continents marked previous impacts on debris that was crumbling even as they tumbled away from Alm's former center of gravity. The planetary core, no longer compressed by thousands of miles of mantle, belched itself in all directions, further eroding the remaining continental plates.Then, suddenly…Alm 2 was no more.Wallace slowly returned to his seat and activated the comm. "Wallace to Fleet. All ships, form up on us and prepare to return to Federation space. Any vessel without warp drive, prepare to be towed.""The remaining weapons have slowed," Butterbar reported. "It looks like they may try to husband them and take them back.""How many?" Wallace asked.

"Over two hundred, at least."Thornberry, who had been silent for the entire battle, stood up, looking wildly about and staggered over to Butterbar’s Ops station. "Caleb, don’t let this happen again…""It’s all right Hiram…" Butterbar whispered, knowing it wasn’t true, and might never be true for him again."No it isn’t. Now you know what they are capable of. We have two more systems! With a population in the tens of millions! We—" He suddenly grimaced and clutched his shirt."Hiram!" Butterbar yelled racing around the console, catching Thornberry as he slumped."Medical emergency on the bridge!" Wallace barked as he leapt out of his chair and helped Butterbar lower the professor to the floor. Doctor T’Peg and a trauma team appeared. They broke out their equipment and went to work.“You don’t get off that easily, Doctor,” Akers commented as T’Peg slowly brought him back to life.Butterbar pressed closely"You… you were right… we planted the bomb… trying to get Nuanzi… failed there too." Thornberry confessed. "Two more systems, Caleb…" Then his strength faded and the fingers slid from their grasp and Hiram Thornberry passed into blackness.T'Peg worked furiously, and her efforts remained in doubt even as she and her aides carried him back to sick bay.

Chapter 10: To Prevent a Greater CatastropheIt would be a mistake to immediately discount Slobadan behavior as a natural consequence of their decision not to include the emotional discipline of Kolinahr. Even a casual survey of pre-Slobadan history reveals a people with violent tendencies frequently reaching acts of violence and genocide. It is more likely that Kolinahr brought discipline and focus, allowing them to hone in on a single socio-political target. For a time, that target would be the surviving elements of the Eologian Authority, and subsequently, any who provided them with aid and comfort…Starfleet Intelligence Briefing, Submitted by Ensign S’lek Stardate 57903.1

"Opinions?" Wallace asked after the turbo lift doors had slid shut on Thornberry's anti-grav gurney."We have to try and destroy those bombs," Akers said over the com system from the Captain's Gig, prompting Butterbar to vigorously nod his head in agreement."There are hundreds of them," Senya exclaimed. "Not to mention a fleet of starships guarding them. It would be suicide."Wallace rubbed his chin and starred at the tactical display. "Target the ones closest to us and farthest from the Slobadan vessels. Inform the other ships to follow those orders."

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The Federation and Slobadan ships discreetly stayed away from one another, even at the expense of giving up shots on the bombs. The Eologian were under no such compunction, and a significant percentage of the Slob task force did not survive to return home but at losses for the Eologian that continued to take their toll.The operation was a success, with less than 5% of the relativistic bombs able to reverse course in time and escape the gauntlet Wallace and the surviving Eologian platforms erected. From Stingray’s tactical squirt, this assured Wallace that it would be a while—although likely a short one—before the Slobadan could attack another Eologian system.After things settled down and the convoy formed up on the Jaguar, they made their way into warp. Butterbar, still on duty, watched as Wallace clearly wrestled with a decision. The CO paced the bridge, displaying a wide variety of facial expressions and gestures giving indicators of the turmoil inside. Finally he stalked to his ready room, ordering Butterbar to bring up a com link first with Bryceen, then with High Commissioner Nuanzi.

* * *"Admiral, my congratulations on a stunning, if ultimately futile performance," Nuanzi said. "Truly, a far superior effort than those we’ve seen in the past."Wallace’s eyes narrowed. "You haven’t been up against a top-of-the-line, fully armed and staffed Intrepid before.""Obviously not," Nuanzi said, smiling thinly. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this conversation?" "Will you accept a cease fire and treaty recognizing the sovereign rights of the remaining Eologian systems?""Is that the Federation’s position? We have to stop now that we’re so close to finishing this bloody conflict once and for all?" Nuanzi scoffed. "I don’t think so Admiral. Here’s my counter proposal. You follow your own directions and the Federation minds its own business, the remaining Eologian systems surrender, the military stands down, and we’ll only execute…" He waved one hand magnanimously. "Fifteen percent of the population in addition to those found guilty of war crimes." At Wallace’ look of revulsion, he raised one eyebrow. "It is a generous offer, Admiral, as my own staff wanted 45%. I’ll give you a few million lives bonus." Nuanzi’s eyes narrowed. "I’ll even let you keep your Executive Officer. All charges, as well as the order for his summary execution, will be dropped.""Is this your best offer?" Wallace asked—no mention of S'lek. Perhaps she was safe...?Nuanzi smiled. "It is my only offer, Admiral. I think it a generous one, given that this is an internal matter, and you said yourself the Federation is quite specific on the handling of such issues."Now it was Wallace’s turn to grin. "You forget, Commissioner, that when requested by the parties themselves, the Federation may involve itself in such matters. And the Eologian’s have made just such a formal request."Nuanzi seemed taken aback for a moment, then recovered, but before he could reply, Chris quietly stormed on. "Understand this, Commissioner. In the interests of diplomacy, I have taken great pains to not engage your vessels during this conflict. However, it is not my intention to stand-by and allow you to commit genocide. I have already sent a full report to my superiors. I suggest you re-consider your stand. You know how to contact us." Then he punched the console, closing the connection.

This wasn’t over, and in his heart, Chris knew it hadn’t really even begun yet. He thought back to the loss of the Odyssey and tried to tell himself it was different this time.

* * *Butterbar was in the Captain's mess for the informal post-mission debriefing, which had taken a decidedly somber-turn this time. He kept staring at the General, something was wrong with his uniform, but he couldn't quite spot it. Then he finally recognized the stylized IDIC and Dragon emblem on the General's beret, neatly tucked under his right shoulder epaulet.Wallace must have seen his look of surprise as he leaned over and whispered. "Are you going to tell the General he's out of Uniform?" Wallace asked and Butterbar shook his head quickly. "Where's my Klingon Latte?" Akers demanded and Wallace walked back over to his table."Right there in front of you," Wallace answered, pointing at the elaborate steel and glass cup. Wallace turned back to Butterbar. "Damn jarheads are blind as posts," he said. "And about as bright," he added, winking at Butterbar. "And half as smart, I know, I know," Akers muttered, pulling the glass to drink it. The moment was light, but Butterbar looked at the General carefully. There was something—in the eyes—which belied his attempt at humor.Akers was beyond feral. He was hard and dangerous now. Very, very dangerous.Butterbar was beginning to understand the feeling.Ensign Caleb "Butterbar" Stein stood up and walked to the nearest window, the Doppler shifted stars reaching behind the Jaguar as she returned to Federation space, was one a palpable reminder that his wife was receding ever further from him. He saw his own face reflected in window, and for a moment he saw not his own features but the visage of the General's own dangerous anger.S'lek, where are you?

* * *Chipper entered High Comissioner’s office and saluted respectfully. Nuanzi nodded acknowledgement and Katerine watched silently, her thoughts her own.“We completed our sweep of the region, as well as analyzing the Jaguar’s transporter traces. We think they may have left someone behind and taken one of our enforcers by mistake.”“Really?” Nuanzi asked, leaning forward. “Any idea who?”Chipper couldn’t resist giving it away with his expression of triumph, and in that moment Katerine’s heart sank. “Ensign S’lek.”Nuanzi stepped from behind his desk and clasped Chipper in gratitude. “Bring her to me, this could help us immensly.”Chipper nodded, stiffened in salute briefly, and left. Nuanzi sat on the edge of his desk and invited Katerine to join him. On the far wall they watched a tactical display showing the Jaguar depart Slobadan space.

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"They'll be back," Katerine offered."Of course," Nuanzi replied."We don't have the strength to hold them off," she continued, hoping against hope that he would see reason."No, we do not. Which is why we shouldn't even try—at least not directly." He smiled and turned off the display, stood up and walked around his desk to pace across the immense office."We escalate things, Katerine, as quickly as possible. It is time for a final solution to this conflict that has torn our people apart for too long. Once matters are settled, the Federation can scream and stamp their feet all they want. We'll have won and they’ll be powerless to change that fact."He walked over and put one hand reassuringly on her shoulder. It took every ounce of discipline not to flinch. "Start scattering the seeds, Katerine, its time the Federation learned just what exactly how far we can reach, and what ruin we can sow for them…"Katerine recognized she was excused, and left to set Nuanzi’s plans in motion.Scott, forgive me...

* * *"The Federation is extremely alarmed by reports of an escalating pattern of Slobadan attacks on Eologian civilians, both within and external to the Hegemony. All attempts to come to a diplomatic solution have been rebuffed by the Slobadan government, who views this matter as an internal conflict between themselves and the Eologian people. While this may be true, the Federation cannot and will not stand by and permit genocide to occur. The Slobadan government continues its brutal repression of Eologian nationals and preparations for a final assault on the remaining two Eologian worlds. This we cannot allow."Therefore, it is with great reluctance that the Federation Council has voted today to authorize a deployment of Starfleet vessels and personnel to the Eologian systems to provide for their defense. Only firmness now can prevent a greater catastrophe later. We must act to stop the violence and bring an end to the humanitarian catastrophe now taking place on the outskirts of explored space. “It is our moral duty to do so."We will have three goals in the coming conflict. We will show our determination to gain peace in Eologian and Slobadan sectors of space, to make the Slobadan Hegemony pay for violence against ethnic Eologian, and to diminish the Slobadan Hegemony’s ability to wage war and terror on the Eologian peoples."Ending this tragedy is a moral imperative, and one we cannot turn away from."

Excerpted from Speech by President Jaresh-Inyo, Stardate 57526.2

TO BE CONCLUDED…

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Part 3: By a Necessity of Nature

Chapter 11: EscalationsCaptain Peter Donnelly of the USS Comanche sat on the bridge of his four-nacelled vessel and did his best not to mutter out loud. Even before the Federation President’s notably non-committal non-declaration of war, the Slobadan had been brazen in attempting to intimidate him and his vessel off their course. With what appeared to be authentic attack runs, the Slob Cruisers would come zooming towards them, forcing Donnelly to withdraw. Sometimes he was completed in that sector, other times he needed to sneak back to that same region in order to finish deploying the suite of sensor probes that would be used to monitor the Slobadan Star Cluster. So far they were two weeks behind in deploying the sensor net needed to enforce the anticipated blockade. In compensation, though, the Slobadan had only detected two of the hundreds of stealthy sensor suites he'd deployed. In order to disguise the distribution pattern, Donnelly had taken even more time and he and his companion vessel, USS Black Hawk, faced at least another two weeks deploying the sensor net."Status Number One?" Donnelly asked, drumming his fingers on the side of his chair."Sensors are still clear, no sign of Slobadan vessels within a half a light-year."Donnelly nodded sharply. "Excellent.""Sir, I’m picking up an unusual energy pattern," Donnelly’s security officer reported and Donnelly turned to face him. "Very powerful in key subspace bands, character and frequency almost resembles…" The man blinked and returned his Captain’s gaze. "A transporter beam?"Donnelly got up and walked over to the security/tactical station. As he did so, the view screen snapped direction to show, an immense asteroid, at least 15 kilometers in diameter, materializing 200,000 kilometers off the ship’s stern."Good call," Donnelly said wryly, fighting a urge to not be dumbstruck by the sheer size of the mass materializing before them. "Conn, get us…" Even as he spoke, Donnelly watched the immense mass shimmer faintly, and then disappear in a flash as a warp field formed and the rock exited their vicinity at high speed."Sensor probe, now! Follow that rock! Conn, get us out of here," Donnelly snapped and his Security officer nodded, fingers quickly carrying out the order. Even as he did, though, the panel beeped in alarm again, as more subspace disturbances were detected… and two more asteroids appeared out of the ether, both already accelerated to near light speed, and dropping into warp immediately.Donnelly’s security officer looked him the eye, his face grave and pallid. "Distance to nearest known Slobadan facility is 2.5 light years, Captain. At that range, our sensor net isn’t going to spot this kind of activity unless we redeploy and treble the number of probes."Donnelly nodded. "And at this range, it’s going to be even more difficult to enforce the blockade." He shook his head sadly. "at least now we know how they spoofed the Jaguar at Alm." He got up and paced across the bridge. "We better let the Admiral know as soon

as possible," Donnelly said, sitting down again and sighing. It just kept getting better and better."More sub-space activity, Captain! Localized… their right on top of us!" Donnelly checked his own console and watched in horror as nearly a dozen Slobadan Cruisers materialized along the Comanche’s path, and immediately dropped into warp to pace the vessel in what was becoming an all too familiar high-speed game of chicken. "Evasive pattern Tau-4," Donnelly ordered his Conn, swearing softly and wished, not for the first time, he’d taken that commission on the Nausicaä. The Akira class vessel’s heavy defense systems and weapons array would make these little exercises much more pleasant. The Comanche’s quad LF-15 warp drive nacelles flared and twisted its warp field, desperately trying to shake Slob vessels which had no intention of losing them. "More sub-space transmissions, Captain… focused on us!" At that moment the Slob vessels pealed off, and left the Comanche behind at high speed."What did they just do?" Donnelly asked rhetorically, and raised one hand to stem the unnecessary answers as he started to give an order to dispatch a ship’s marker buoy. He never had the chance. Along each of the plasma conduits leading to the nacelles, explosive devices detonated, sparking a chain reaction that raced back along the conduits and into the intermix chamber. Magnetic bottles failed, matter and antimatter mixed uncontrollably, and the Comanche was consumed from the inside out by the release of energies that left no debris behind.The strafing runs engaged previously by the Slobadan hadn’t been just intimidation; they’d been taking the Comanche’s measure. And the Cheyenne class vessel had been found wanting.Undetected, though, the Comanche’s sensor probe followed the Slobadan asteroid. It dutifully waited for a signal to order it to dump the telemetry it was collecting.Two light-years away, the Comanche’s partner vessel, also a Cheyenne class SuperScout vessel, the Black Hawk, noted the Comanche’s destruction and reported it immediately back to Nexus Space Station. So far, Starfleet President Jaresh-Inyo’s Non-Declared war was not off to the best start.

* * *Fleet Admiral Ross looked at the collection of PADD’s on the conference table. "We’ve collected as much of the Fifth Fleet as we could. Task Force 5.2 is at your disposal, gathering at Nexus Spacedock at this moment. The Comanche and Black Hawk are on temporary deployment setting up a sensor net to give us a better picture of Slobadan disposition, but after that, they are needed back in the Gamma Quadrant." He paused for a moment, as if discreetly considering his next statement. "It’s your call, of course, but I’ve made preliminary assignment for the Endeavour to be your flagship." He paused and eyed her carefully; "the Jaguar also has an excellent think tank on board at your disposal." He cleared his throat.Admiral Hilary Cartier leaned back in her chair and issued a knowing smile. "I’m familiar with both crews, and know what can be expected of them—I anticipate no problems."

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Ross gave her a lopsided grin. "Excellent. I’ll look forward to seeing what you can accomplish with this one." She cocked one eyebrow at him. "I know the fleet’s stretched thin as it is, but I may have some unusual requests for you." She noticed his response and waved it off. "I won’t ask for anything that will jeopardize our commitments, but I think TF 5.2 is somewhat light to pull this off." Ross nodded slowly in agreement.She knew that the Fleet Admiral was much too polite to say it, but Starfleet found the prospect of another wide-front conflict disheartening, to say the least. It was clear to both of them that Ross had to be receiving incredible pressure from the Federation Council to bring the Slobadan matter to a swift resolution. Cartier was well aware of those pressures, and appreciated Ross shielding them from her as much as he could. How long it would last was anybody’s guess and both knew it. Once the Admiral had finished giving her the rundown, liberally laced with his opinion— an opinion she highly regarded—she made her way slowly back to her office. Hiliary knew that how well she handled this crisis could well determine whether she sat in his chair someday. She knew it and he knew it. Hilary gave her new yeoman a nod and she walked into her office. She suddenly stopped, becoming aware of her reflection on her mirrored desk. Moving gently, she brushed a stray blonde hair back into place and determined that she would look for a new hairstyle in the morning. Right now, she needed to look over the data that Ross had given her. She sat down and activated the PADD, only to toss it aside in anger.That damned Jaguar again. Never mind having to deal with Akers once more.

* * *Ensign Caleb Stein, a.k.a. Butterbar, walked through the Nexus mall with the shadow of his missing wife hanging over him. Ordinarily the immense structure with its wide variety of shops and services would be engaging, but he was in a somber mood. He’d just finished notifying the last of Hiram Thornberry’s relatives both of his miraculous resurrection after seven years disappearance and his immediate incarceration. S’lek’s family curtly acknowledged his call but quickly found an excuse to cut the connection. While Vulcan’s did not hold grudge’s per-se, there were times when Butterbar would have been hard pressed to prove it by them.He inevitably settled on a quiet spot midway up the hundred-story Nexus mall where the massive cargo shunt was covered by a mixture of trees, plants, private platforms and waterfalls. Birds chirped merrily and the ponds splashed with fish, frogs and other life forms. Filtered (artificial) sunlight drifted through the waving leaves and fronds, giving the impression of a cool breeze on a spring day. It was positively depressing that he could be surrounded by so much beauty while feeling so miserable.The Jaguar was docked on arm four awaiting the formation of the task force 5.2. Preliminary estimates were that the coming conflict would be short and decisive left Butterbar cold. He’d seen the destruction of Alm 2, and any government that determined to commit genocide wasn’t going to go down gently, technical disadvantage or not. He suspected that some members of the Jaguar’s think tank were in denial over the Slob

trick of accelerating asteroids into high warp. Fortunately, Butterbar was not directly responsible for dealing with that threat, although he couldn’t help looking thru S’lek’s notes for ideas on how the Slobadan were able to move such large masses at warp speed. More importantly and closer to his own area of interest: how was it they could remain undetected until the very last moments of approach?Butterbar sat silently, idly poking at a PADD that was turned off, watching a nearby waterfall when an elderly gentleman shuffled in with a cane and sat down next to him. The old man looked at him several times, and then finally jabbed Butterbar in the ankle with his cane. "Why so glum on a beautiful day like this one?"His thoughts on S’lek, Butterbar answered in a mode that would have surprised him, or his wife, at any other time. "Today, like all others on Nexus Spacedock, are climate controlled and precisely regulated," he answered coolly. "Whether it is beautiful or not will therefore have no determination on my actual mode.""You sound like a Vulcan, boy!" The old man replied, a twinkle in his eye."I am married…" Butterbar’s throat caught. "I am married to a Vulcan woman.""You have my sympathies, son," the old man said, patting one wrinkled dry hand on his knee softly. Sighing, he looked around the expansive station, the dozens of levels visible thru the leaves spanning above and below them. "Maybe a little variety would do this place good. I can’t remember the last time we had a really stiff breeze," he raised one bushy white eyebrow at Butterbar. "This place could use a really good breeze, don’t you think? Blow out the cobwebs and dust, freshen things up a bit."Butterbar shrugged, and somehow was drawn in again. "Such an increase in ambient atmospheric diffusion could have beneficial aspects," he paused thoughtfully. "It could also stir up things best left alone.""Perhaps, or perhaps it could give a good stiff shake to a young Ensign who is far too glum," he raised one eyebrow poignantly. The old man got up, wagging his cane at him. "It’s a dangerous business out here on the frontier, and from the looks of things, about to get even more so." He shook his head. "Damn fool wars." A dry wrinkled hand landed on Butterbar’s shoulder—it was warm, comfortingly so. "Best you not let it drag you down, though. Drink to friends long gone, make love, plant a tree, and play with some children. You’ll be surprised how good it will make you feel." He looked away, his gaze glassy and distant. "This day’s too precious to waste, you never know how many you’re given until it’s too late."He started to shuffle off and called over his shoulder, "You remember what I told you. Doctor’s orders!"After the old man had disappeared, Lieutenant General Akers walked up to him crisply and looked at where the old man had gone, amazement in his eyes. "What did he say to you?" Akers asked, gesturing to the place where the old man had disappeared into the mall.Butterbar sputtered, "Just some vague advice, nothing much. Why?""That was the Admiral, Ensign." Akers looked at the Ensign in disbelief at Butterbar’s uncomprehending gaze. "I didn’t know he was here," Akers said softly, and then stiffened as he remembered his purpose. "Admiral Cartier will be arriving shortly, she’ll want to

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debrief you." He gestured for Butterbar to follow him. "We best get back to the Jag," Akers ordered and Butterbar fell in step behind him.As they made their way to the ship, it was obvious that both men were doing their best to leave their cares and worries—for the moment—behind. It didn’t work for either of them.

* * *Ensign S’lek opened her eyes to the dimly lit room, dingy sheets of metal mesh coating the floors, wall, and ceilings. Awareness rushed back, and she knew instinctively that she was not in the hands of the Slobadan Hegemony, and most likely still on one of the ethnic preserves. She ran her fingers lightly over the deep bruises that covered part of her forehead, feeling the thread that had been used to seal her wounds. The room was too cold and S’lek instinctively knew that her ordeal was not the typical one for a Vulcan Healing Trance. No doubt her hosts inexperience with such a method of recovery had not helped matters any. The pains and aches in her body told her she had been lucky to survive without professional treatment.Still, she was alive, if in uncertain circumstances.A bent, dark woman shuffled down a stairway and placed towels and medical supplies next to S’lek’s cot. "I wish to thank you for the care you have shown," S’lek offered but the woman wagged one finger accusingly at her."Next time you get yourself keeled, let us know what a Vol-kan Healing Trance is first, eh?" S’lek raised one eyebrow, but her experience with her husband Caleb’s own tendency for illogical statements had made her used to accepting the meaning of such inherent contradictions. "I will endeavor to do so in the future," S’lek replied, bemused.The old woman nodded sharply. "See that you do!" She tore the covering off a bowl, and handed it to S’lek. "Here, this will help you build up your strength."S’lek examined the steaming broth with caution—if she were unable to consume their meals, she would no doubt be in worse condition than she was now. The old woman waited for her to begin to sip, and then shuffled back up the stairs.After S’lek was finished, a wave of tiredness swept over her, and she realized she’d forgotten to ask where she was and why she wasn’t back on the Jaguar.

* * *Katerine reclined in her office overlooking the planetary defense center and frowned without realizing it. She was doing this a lot lately, although none of her subordinates would likely tell her and Harden Bowie probably didn’t really care either way. None-the-less she would not have been surprised had anyone told her that she carried a scowl more often than not. For someone of her training and experience, it was a clear sign not to cross her lest they feel the consequences.Wading through flimsies, paperwork, and red tape (the Slobadan equivalent at least), Katerine couldn’t unfocus mind from one thought. She knew how to find Ensign S’lek. In the chaos surrounding the incident at the Preserves, at first they hadn’t realized that one of the Jaguar’s officers was left behind. Then they found her uniform, soaked with greenish dried blood, and knew that the first and only Vulcan to set foot on Slobadan soil

had yet to leave it. High Commissioner Nuanzi was ecstatic. Harden Bowie, sharing in any feeling the High Commissioner displayed publicly, went about his task of finding her with a vigor and enthusiasm that was a sharp contrast to Katerine’s perpetual frown. But she alone knew how to find S’lek.The resistance, such as it was in the Preserves, had done an excellent job concealing her whereabouts. Knowing that the Enforcers, personally lead by Bowie, would soon converge upon them, they had effectively shielded her Vulcan biochemistry from the most adept of Enforcer scanners. They were too effective at shielding her, and Katerine knew that this could lead to the young Ensign’s immediate capture. Katerine knew what would be in store for S’lek after that, and while she had conducted such procedures hundreds of times before, this one was not riding easily upon her conscious.Bowie appeared and waited politely for her to gesture him in. He sat down in the proffered chair, dirt and dried sweat staining what would otherwise be an immaculate appearance. "Sectors 11 through 48 are clean. We rousted out a few more sympathizers, but they didn’t know anything. This is Jerrard’s work, it has his mark all over it."Katerine nodded silently and got up to look at the holo-map adorning one wall that depicted the province. "Move north, I’m still not convinced that they didn’t move her a great distance before we realized was here." Bowie snorted. "they just loaded her on a wagon, and rode like the wind for four days?""Stranger things have happened."Bowie got up, gave her a smart salute, and left to rejoin the search efforts. Katerine scowled even further—he was smart, he’d figure it out soon. She couldn’t save S’lek by delaying the inevitable. Her face locked in a rictus of indecision; she turned back to her flimsies, and tried to concentrate on the war effort—anything to keep from thinking about the young Vulcan.

* * *Hiram Thornberry watched impassively as the guards arrived. One of them gestured at him and said briskly, "Get your things, your moving." Thornberry knew better than to ask any questions, they’d made that clear to him very early. Security personnel on Nexus were not quite as civilized as he was led to believe, and he began to wonder increasingly if his other pre-conceived notions about the Federation’s penal system and incarceration were equally naïve.Still, it was a small price to pay. Even isolated here, he knew vaguely that the Federation was moving in the directions he’d hoped. But how far, would it be enough to save Eologia? All of his sacrifices would be meaningless if the Federation allowed the Eologian people to perish at the hand of that monster Nuanzi and his Slobadan murderers.They escorted him to a secure transporter pad, and he was surprised to find himself back on board the Jaguar. Butterbar was by the console, looking none to pleased to see his old mentor. "Come on, Hiram," Butterbar said stiffly as two Starfleet Marines fell into place on each side of him."Ah, Caleb, good to see you again. Will I getting my old quarters? I did so enjoy the view across the upper hull," Thornberry asked.

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Butterbar shook his head bitterly, "I’m afraid it’s the brig. I’m just here to see you get there without tripping on anything." Thornberry eyed the two slabs of granite masquerading as Marines that were escorting him, and decided that his former student’s presence wasn’t such a bad thing to have. "I appreciate that Caleb. Any word on S’lek yet? The resistance should have gotten word out by now if they have her in their custody."Butterbar snapped a look at him, and Thornberry saw a fire there that he’d never seen before. "Never mind, Caleb," he whispered.As they arrived in the brig, Butterbar put one hand on Thornberry’s arm and pinched—just enough to get attention. "That’s Ensign Stein to you, understand?" Thornberry could only nod and Butterbar shoved him through and activated the force field. "Still no regrets, Hiram?" Butterbar said stiffly, and turned crisply on his heel never giving him a second look as he left.Thornberry, alone with his thoughts, sat down. Almost too casually he glanced around to make sure nobody was watching, and then slumped into a pile, as if in defeat.

Chapter 12: Jockeying for PositionSensor Probe 50003-4b2 dutifully followed the asteroid that it had been dispatched to follow. It noted, with electronic coldness, that it was skirting Federation space at an oblique angle relative to the plane of the galactic ecliptic. It concluded a 98% probability that this was done to avoid detection, and allow its target freedom of movement unhindered by regular Federation patrols. It flagged this information for attention, and continued to record unabated, unaware that the recall signal it was waiting for would never come.For the Slobadan facilities on the asteroid were equally automated, and so far the probe’s stealth features had prevented its detection. The immense asteroid continued its flight through interstellar space in formation with others of its kind, a mind-numbingly large mass that by all reasonable accounts should not be able to move at warp speeds. Unfortunately for its intended targets, the Slobadan Hegemony had not been informed of these reasonable accounts, and therefore had never realized such a thing should have been technically impossible for them to achieve with their "limited" tech base.

* * *Butterbar followed the Jaguar’s XO to the bridge, where Wallace was waiting for them. "She’s taken over all five of our meeting facilities," Wallace said, standing up to join them. As the turbolift doors closed, Chris turned to Akers. "Your favorite lightning rod." Akers grunted but said nothing, leaving Butterbar’s ears to burn red out of curiosity at that remark."I need more Marines, think she’ll give me some?" Akers finally answered as the turbolift doors re-opened and they started walking to the largest of the Jaguar’s enhanced meeting rooms. Butterbar winced, so far he’d evaded any requests to act as the General’s sparring partner, but he’d seen the bruises on those who did, and the Marines sporting them didn’t bruise all that easily.Wallace exhaled sharply. "If you’d stop beating them up while working out your frustrations out in the gym, you wouldn’t need more men. Try the holodeck."

Akers snorted. "The holodeck doesn’t provide the same challenge.""Nor the same injuries being reported to my sick bay, and I’m not afraid of your breaking the holodeck," Wallace quipped.Akers gave him a glare, but said nothing more. Since their return from Slobadan space, Butterbar had been too depressed himself to notice it much, but he couldn’t deny it any longer. The General was definitely not taking the loss of his newfound love, Slobadan Inspector Katerine Leeding, very well.They entered the meeting room to find it nearly overflowing with officers and staff, the CO’s of all of the ships in Task Force 5.2, and the Jag’s own think tank, an eclectic collection of senior and semi-retired flag officers. Butterbar started to take a position in the back, but Wallace nodded for him to join them near the head of the table. Somebody bellowed, "Admiral on deck!" and everyone snapped to his or her feet."As you were, gentlemen," a soft but authoritative voice pinged across the room, and Butterbar got his first look at the commander of their expedition. Admiral Hillary Cartier was by every means a formidable and powerful presence. She radiated confidence and authority the way some people breathe, and Butterbar tried to remember if his communicator was on straight without taking an obvious glance at it.Cartier took her seat and looked at one of the PADD’s she’d carried with her. She kept her eyes fixed on the PADD while she spoke. "Well, Chris, I thought diplomatic cruisers were supposed to resolve crisis, not exacerbate them."Wallace shrugged. "This one’s a tarpit that’s been festering for years before we got a hold of it, Hillary." She looked up and gave him a crooked smile. "Indeed." Putting her PADD’s aside she folded her hands before her and scanned the room. "This is going to be a new kind of fight, one we haven’t faced before. Our foe is not powerful in the traditional sense of the Dominion, Cardassians or Romulans. They are, however, very, very dangerous. We cannot afford to underestimate them just because their tech base is inferior to ours." She picked up and glanced at another PADD. "Based on some of the proposals I’ve been given, some of us may be overly optimistic that this will be an easy campaign."Akers cleared his throat and interrupted, "Do we have a strategy yet? A vision?"Cartier pointedly kept her eyes away from him. "The outlines of one, of course, General, however this meeting is in part to solicit feedback as well as to present my notions of how we will proceed." She hastily raised a hand. "If you don’t mind… of course."Akers gave her a steely glare. "I do mind that we’ve been given a mandate before we were prepared to implement it. Whose bright idea was it to declare a non-war before we were in position to do anything about it, anyway?"Cartier gestured in exasperation. "As a student of history, General, you are no doubt aware that there is a historical precedent — more than a few — for political leaders committing the military to action before it is prepared. Obviously, the loss of the two Eologian worlds was a risk the Council considered as more important than our own readiness state. There is nothing we can do now to change that fact. However, we can ensure that once we are on station, the genocide will stop." She suddenly paused before turning to Wallace. "Haven’t you put him on a muzzle yet?" she asked in a voice laced with sarcasm.

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Admiral Cartier's aside prompted a number of quiet snickers, and Butterbar wasn’t sure whom they were directed at, but Akers got the point and sat silent for a time. The briefing was long, and Butterbar tried not to squirm. Major Myers gave a summary of the intelligence material that Captain Stingray had provided on Eologian capabilities before her demise. The results were not promising with initial estimates making it very clear that without the hijacked Federation vessels, the Eologian worlds would have fallen years previously. Now it was Task Force 5.2’s job to finish what those stolen ships had started—an irony that was lost on nobody. Myers had been in communication with Eologian Supervisor Bryceen, but the results had not been positive or very useful."You’re telling me that they expect us to save their bacon, but they can’t give us the time of day?" Cartier asked in disbelief."I think its more a matter that they don’t really understand why we’d want to know the time of day, therefore they see no need in answering," Myers said, and then added, "to use your metaphor, that is."Cartier grunted softly and cast her eyes around the table. "Does anyone else have anything to add in regards to an analysis of Eologian capabilities?""They know how to die real good," Akers muttered, and Wallace’s hand smacked his XO in the arm.Next the Jaguar’s think-tank presented its report, which was both diverse, and Butterbar thought, not exactly on point. One of the more bizarre ideas was to negotiate for a shapeshifter to replace Slobadan High Commissioner Nuanzi, and then declare the civil war over. "Fait Accompli," Rear Admiral Steve Thomas announced triumphantly.Admiral Cartier kept one hand over her mouth, possibly to mask any sneers or giggles, Butterbar wasn’t sure which. She cleared her throat and spoke. "Interesting ideas," Cartier paused and eyed the Think Tank, "from a purely academic perspective gentlemen." She paused again, clasping her hands in front of her. "Unfortunately this isn’t the War College, and we’ll soon be in harm’s way — without the benefit of any spare shape-shifters. Now that you have the disposition of our task force, perhaps you could focus on scenario’s that let us get the maximum use of the resources we do have available." She sighed and sat back in her chair. "I’m also disturbed by some of the questions you left unanswered. For example, how is it that the Slobadan are able to move such immense masses at warp speed, let alone near light speed?"Thomas opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. "We’ve left that for the Advanced Propulsion Technologies Group to work on."Cartier smiled. "I see, but isn't the head of your Advanced Propulsion Technologies Group currently MIA on Eologia?" She didn’t wait for the answer. "Then I suggest you start brushing up on your warp drive theory, gentlemen."Butterbar started to say something, but then closed his lips tight, but it was too late, she’d noticed him. "Yes, Mr. Stein?""There is the old trick of lowering inertial mass, Admiral. My wife, that is, Ensign S’lek, she did some work on that in her thesis at the Academy."

Cartier tilted her head, and turned back to Thomas. "Excellent. Admiral, you have some source material to start working with." She gave Butterbar an appreciative smile and then quickly moved on. Cartier ran the briefing like she was a running a distance marathon. She allowed no rest breaks or anyone to lag behind. But after several hours, Butterbar was getting both weary, and still hadn’t a clear idea on where her strategy was. He noticed Wallace nudged his XO several times, who pretended to be snoring at key points of the presentation.Wallace had one of the more poignant observations. "It seems clear to me the Slobadan represent a fundamental paradigm shift in regards to their approach to military doctrine. We focus on small, tight, powerful, and discrete weapons platforms. The Slobadan, on the other hand, are not worried about efficiency so much as weight of numbers.""How do you propose we deal with that, Chris?" Cartier asked."We either meet them on their own terms, or find some way to handicap their advantage. I still can’t believe they can move the masses they do. I remember when the Enterprise-D tried to prevent Bre’el IV’s asteroidal moon from crashing into their planet. They nearly burned out their engines trying, and that rock was half the size of the average Slobadan relativistic bomb, and only a fraction of the velocities the Slobadan reach. I do not think we will have the luxury of the Q saving us, as they did at Bre’el.""Obviously it's not impossible," Cartier replied.Wallace shook his head in frustration. "You couldn’t prove it by me."Cartier gave the admiral a smile. "Everyone should have a goal in life, Chris. Consider this yours." It wasn't necessary for her say it was an order, but everyone knew it. "While you’re at it, maybe you can tell me how the Slob’s were able to spoof your sensor suite on the approach to Alm 2. That armada of Relativistic Bombs wasn’t detected until they were far too close." Wallace nodded silently in agreement; it was a point that Butterbar knew had been frustrating his technically oriented CO for weeks now. One of the more interesting ideas came from Captain Solok of the USS T’Kumbra[XXX] of the [XXX]. "We Vulcan’s cannot help but feel some measure of responsibility for the perversion of Vulcan ideals that the Slobadan have used to justify their atrocities. To that end, I have been authorized by my government to begin sub-space broadcasts to begin teaching the Slobadan people the true meaning of Kolinahr."Cartier nodded her approval. "You may begin as soon as we’re in position, Captain."Akers snorted. "I suppose next you’ll want to drop leaflets from the sky."Captain T’lay raised an eyebrow. "We actually were planning on a variation of PADD’s, with the complete works of Suark translated into Slobadan language, General. However, you are of course free to investigate the possibility of leaflets as an alternative."Akers shook his head. "We’re not going to solve this with philosophy or textbooks. Admiral, have you reviewed Operation Normandy?"Cartier nodded her head, but said nothing. She wasn’t given much opportunity because Akers continued."We could deploy several brigades of Marines to take the capital and declare the civil war over by fait accompli."

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"A variation of the shapeshifter initiative, General?" Cartier asked then quickly raised one finger to ward off the inevitable response. "No, at this time I don’t think we can implement a large scale invasion. We don’t know enough and—"Akers beginning one of his well-known tirades interrupted her. "We’ll never know enough. They started this, its up to us to finish it! I need more Marines to do it, though!"Once Akers had finished, silent eyes darted between himself and the other combatant."Are you finished, General?" Cartier asked, her voice low and deadly. Butterbar saw something that he’d never seen before—Akers actually backed down; it was as if those words had meaning between the two of them that he didn’t comprehend."Yes, Admiral.""Good. I will keep your plan under advisement," Cartier answered coolly. "Our first priority is to establish the sensor net up around the Eologian Star Cluster. This task will be complicated by the fact that we’ve received a Code Omega on the Comanche." Her pronouncement shocked the room, and everyone’s lagging attention quickly snapped to the Admiral. "The Black Hawk informed me shortly before we began that they’d received it, and we’re proceeding to the Comanche’s last known position to investigate. This will, of course, delay their deployment of the sensor net even further. We will endeavor to assist them in its completion as soon as we arrive." She paused and brushed one stray hair aside."Second, I want to meet with Supervisor Bryceen and explain a few facts of life him. We’ve just lost one vessel. I don’t intend to lose any more. We’re not going to go like sacrificial lambs to the slaughter without some support from those we’re trying to save. Otherwise, I’ll cancel this expedition and the Slobadan and Eologian can fight it out to the death without our involvement." She paused."Our mission is to curb Slob Aggression. Whether that takes the form of a blockade, or more aggressive measures to curb Slobadan's capacity to wage war was not spelled out in our mandate, and I suspect the Council left it deliberately vague. If we’re successful, we’ll have full support in whatever we do. If not, we — and in particular myself — will be hung out to dry." She pointedly glared at Akers who returned one with equal magnitude. "Although I’m confident I won’t be the only one whose career will suffer as a result."She waited for the murmurs to subside. "It is clear to me, however, we do not know enough about Slobadan capabilities, and we need to correct that lack of intelligence. I am downloading specific mission objectives and orders to each of the CO’s of the task force now. We will meet again in two hours to discuss implementation." She abruptly stood up, put her hands behind her back and issued a terse, "Dismissed!"Akers turned to Butterbar. "Dig out your wife’s data, I want to go over it with a fine tooth comb this evening."Butterbar nodded. He stood up to follow the General out of the room, when he felt a soft touch on his arm, he turned to find Admiral Cartier with a warm expression on her face. "I have to imagine, Ensign," she began, her voice soft and light, "there just are not enough lieutenants on this ship. I have to think you are over-worked."Butterbar started laughing, in spite of himself and his desire to maintain proper decorum with a full flag Admiral. "Yes ma’am, you could say that.”

She gave him a smile, but it seemed predatory to Caleb and probably the other senior officers standing near them."I have good news and bad news for you Ensign. The good news is your workload just dropped to working for one flag officer." She paused for dramatic effect. "The bad news is that you are now working for me and I’ll probably work you harder than the rest of the Jag’s senior staff combined. That is, if you wouldn’t mind serving as my aide-de-camp?"Butterbar felt himself blanch. He blinked several times as he looked around him. Wallace was nearby, nodding approval. Akers was standing next to him with a strangled look on his face which Cartier seemed to be savoring. Butterbar felt a streak of rebelliousness surge upwards large enough to hold the entire task force. "Yes ma’am, I’d like that a lot.""Outstanding!" Cartier announced, obviously pleased with his acceptance, "meet me in my office in thirty minutes on the Endeavour."Butterbar perked up—only serving one "master" (as he sometimes darkly thought of it) would be a definite improvement. Then he remembered he’d just been ordered to prepare material for the General. Oh well, he could finish one last task while getting ramped up with Cartier, right?

* * *S’lek was awakened by the dim sunlight pouring in from the narrow windows, also covered with the coppery mesh material. It gave the light a golden sheen that she found aesthetically pleasing. She must have been watching the slow drift of light and dust in the basement room for some time, so transfixed she didn’t notice she was no longer alone."Why am I being held here?" S’lek asked the burly man sitting on the steps watching her, "I wish to contact my ship, do you have a transmitter or communications terminal I could use?" He smiled—it wasn’t pleasant—and went up the stairs without a word. S’lek considered following him, but she heard a set of locks click into place after he shut the door. S’lek peered out the windows, she could make out a dusty road, carts led by pack animals keeping it busy, with wooden and stone huts visible in all directions. Overhead, the buzz of several Hegemony enforcer craft patrolling overhead.She must endeavor to find a way to contact them. Examining the fine mesh covering all surfaces of the room, she concluded it was some kind of copper alloy. It was glued into place, but she found one corner, near a window, where she would be able to tear it. She was just getting ready to peel the material back when once again she was startled to find she was not alone in the room."I wouldn’t do that if I were you. They’ll find you for sure, then." S’lek turned to face the same man who was watching her earlier. She must be more ill than she first thought for him to be so adept at sneaking up on her."Who wishes to find me?""Next to the head of Jaresh-Inyo, you’re the Hegemonies number one criminal," he answered, clearly relishing her confusion."Then diplomatic relations must have broken down," she offered, musing aloud.

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He laughed. "Vulcans. Master’s of the obvious," he stood up, walking over to the window and deftly pushing the mesh back into place. "For over a generation, we have revered, and though some would deny it, feared you, Vulcan. You were the faceless Gods who changed our society forever. For some, it was an improvement, for the rest?" He gestured out the window. "I once sailed across the stars. Now I drive a cart and sweep stables twice a day. Because of you, Vulcan." He spat the words out. "Because of you."He paused and then gave her an appraising look. "For such demons of the stars, you don’t look like much." He started to go up the stairs and then stopped. "Dozens have died to protect and hide you here, don’t make their sacrifice in vain by destroying the only protection you have from imprisonment by the Hegemony," he said, gesturing to the copper mesh"."Why keep me then, if you have so little respect or love for me and my people."He laughed—it was sharp and bitter, "Because it’s the decent thing to do, Vulcan. I don’t know if you understand that concept.""It is not logical…" she started but he cut her off before she could explain."I didn’t think you would." This time the doors locked, and he did not appear again that day. Watching through the window as the day wore on S’lek witnessed two arrests by ground forces serving in the Hegemonies security forces. The arrested were beaten; one did not look likely to survive the flight back for interrogation.

* * *Butterbar had never been on a Nebula class vessel before and found it absolutely palatial in size to the Jaguar, even if the furnishings were not. Though at times he felt hopelessly lost in the maze of corridors, he managed to arrive three minutes early at Cartier’s office. There he found Captain T’lay in conference with the Admiral, who waved him into the office with her. He waited respectfully while T’lay outlined his plan."I understand the moral outrage you and your people feel, Captain," Cartier offered after he finished."Outrage is perhaps… too strong of a word, Admiral. However, this perversion of the philosophy that has saved our people from the very violence these barbarians have so readily enjoy has affected us deeply." "I think your plan is a good one. Pursue your initiatives to test the Slobadan defensive network, and if we can cut a hole in it, you’re free to engage Stage One."T’lay tilted his head at the Admiral, and then exited. Butterbar smiled at the Vulcan, who kept his eyes forward and did not acknowledge his presence. Cartier’s eyes narrowed, and she gestured for Butterbar to close the office doors."Well, Ensign, I’m in a difficult situation without a staff at the moment, so you’re going to have to substitute."Butterbar was confused. "Excuse my asking, ma’am, but we’ve got a task force with several thousand officers and crew here, surely you could find someone…" He paused searching for the right words."Appropriate and in-grade for such a position?" She answered for him, smiling.

"Yes, ma’am."She stood up and sat on one corner of her desk. "I’ll admit, our staff shortage isn’t quite this tight—barely—but you were on Eologia, you know Thornberry better than anyone available, and you’ve got a knack for sorting data, Caleb, that I could use right now." She picked up a handful of PADD’s, scanning them briefly. "We’re out here to stop Slobadan aggression, but I also never miss a chance to groom a junior officer with potential, either."That caught him off guard. "Thank you ma’am."She smiled at him, it was warm and conveyed her sense of both power and confidence. "We’ll see if you say that after this campaign’s finished, Ensign. Don’t plan on getting much sleep, I intend to you run you ragged." She handed him the PADD’s. "After we’re done here, sort these out for me. Between the Jag’s think tank and far too many Admirals and Generals who have been looking for a new opportunity to test out their pet theories, I’ve got more advice on how to conduct this campaign than could ever be useful. Summarize the trends and cull out the chaff."He took the PADD’s, glanced at them briefly, and nodded as she sat back down behind her desk."Caleb, I heard the General refer to you as…" Cartier looked at him, and Butterbar found the close gaze uncomfortable."Butterbar, it’s an affection, ma’am," she looked surprised. "It’s because I’m an Ensign, wet water Navy’s used to use a gold bar as rank insignia."She waved one hand dismissively. "I’m familiar with the historical precedent, Ensign. You won’t mind if I refer to you by your given name and rank, will you?" She asked, smiling.Ensign Caleb Stein shook his head. No, he wouldn’t mind at all(!)"Excellent. One more matter of immediate concern. I’ve read the reports this crew wrote about the events at Eologia, and I find a curious omission, most noticeable in the General’s commentary." Caleb tilted his head to one side in confusion and she explained, "The general is not a good liar, or even somebody who can omit certain facts without it being obvious to someone who has known him as long as I have, Caleb.""Which is, ma’am?" Caleb asked and noted that she clearly was enjoying this."He stops growling. That sub-audible purr that is always there when he speaks goes away. It’s even more noticeable in his writing style. It goes curiously… flat." Caleb started coughing, trying to contain the snort of laughter."Yes ma’am, now that you mention it, I think you're right!""So what happened on Eologia that the General isn’t talking about?" Caleb had the feeling she already knew but clearly wanted him to explain."Ah… the General… Inspector Katerine… well ma’am, they had sort of a…" Caleb struggled for the words and Cartier smiled knowingly."Instant heat, Ensign?""Positively thermonuclear, ma’am."Cartier smiled softly. "Thank you Ensign. I need to know where my staff is in here," she said tapping her forehead. "I could tell the General was distracted, I just wasn’t entirely

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certain as to why. His reaction towards me personally this afternoon was far greater than usual given our history together." She nodded her head thoughtfully. "This could explain a great deal." She turned her gaze back to Caleb and he didn’t find the urge to shrink as great as he would have expected. "I’d like to know more about Thornberry, your impressions of him, experiences, what he was like before the war as compared to what you see now."Before he could answer, her communicator beeped."Wallace to Cartier!""Yes?" "I’m afraid I have some bad news, Admiral. We just received a code omega from the Black Hawk. Not much else came through before the signal was cut off at the source. Whatever happened, though, was fast. Their shields were down and weapons unpowered when it happened. "Cartier sighed and looked at Caleb. "This is quite the pickle you stumbled into, Ensign. Quite the pickle indeed."

Chapter 13: Move, Counter MoveAdmiral Cartier’s Personal Log, Stardate 57983.8: Task Force 5.2 arrived on station this afternoon at 1437 hours. The sensor net the Black Hawk and Comanche deployed is in tatters and I have dispatched our fighter wings to begin englobement patrols around the cluster, which will also serve to complete deployment. There is considerable activity within the Slobadan held systems, and I am anxious to see what the Endeavour can provide in breaking the Slobadan’s ECM capabilities.

Caleb was in the Endeavour’s flag bridge, essentially an over-powered version of the Jaguar’s own Stellar Cartography, although this facility was dedicated to the purposes of coordination of fleet operations. Cartier sat in a lotus position, her fingers lightly tapping on holographic controls to shift focus, twist, and rotate the holo imaging system displaying the Eologian cluster.Caleb was likewise floating in the room, force fields holding him in an invisible grip, reclined below his own displays. He was far from comfortable though, as a minor nova of emotion roiled around him."Rocks and stars, Hillary, why not?" General Akers demanded."It’s premature at this time, Scott," Cartier’s voice answered, with a chill that made Caleb wince."Just how long do you want this war to last? How many more ships do we lose before it matures?"Cartier shook her head and laughed, it was soft and surprisingly gentle. "Scott you never did take the word ‘no’ gently, did you?"Akers flung the PADD he was holding into one corner of the room, and the holograms blinked briefly from the impact as he spun on his heel and stormed out.As the doors slid shut behind him, Cartier gestured at Caleb. "Half my staff wants to blockade the cluster, the other half wants to set up a defensive perimeter around the

two remaining Eologian systems." She waved at the graphics displayed around them. "What do you think, Ensign?""I’m glad it's not my decision, Admiral," Caleb answered, realizing he still wasn’t clear what her decision was. He had a flash, just for a moment—that she was operating as if she couldn’t be sure the enemy didn’t have intelligence on her every move—but of course that was ridiculous. How would the Slobadan have time to establish such a network?"An Ensign’s answer, Caleb. If you were an Admiral, what would it be?"Caleb smiled. He had suspected he wouldn’t get off so easily. "Picket the remaining Eologian systems to meet the third objective of preventing further genocide…""…which we are in-route to begin tomorrow," she added."As for punish the Slobadan, and bringing peace to the region, the only way we can do that is to eliminate their ability to wage war in this manner.""You don’t believe in a negotiated settlement, Caleb?"He shook his head. "No ma’am, not with Nuanzi in charge. Even without him, the Slobadan people—those that benefit from the current regime—are fanatical about it. There’s no middle ground for them, victory or defeat. Therefore we must defeat them on their own terms, not ours."She nodded thoughtfully. "Something like your General’s ‘Operation Normandy’, perhaps?"Caleb raised one eyebrow as Cartier walked over to the thrown PADD and then after glancing that it was still functional, handed it to him. Caleb quickly scrolled through the summary and blanched at the scope."I’ve convinced Admiral Ross to provide one more vessel from 5th fleet—which doesn’t even give us an even dozen ships to interdict an enemy who believes in strength through weight of numbers. Starfleet’s stretched far too thin for such an operation." Caleb nodded— if they weren’t still recovering from the Dominion War! The part of him soaked in testosterone and angst over his missing wife, surged at the idea of such an invasion."What he lacks in diplomatic skills he’s more than made up for as a warrior, don’t you think?" she asked him rhetorically. Caleb grinned and handed the PADD back to her.

* * *Butterbar was in the crew’s mess peering at a lump of rations trying to determine if it was simulated vegetable, animal, or other. A beefy paw landed on the table in front of him, shaking him from his reverie."Mission for you Butterbar, we’re going to go find out what it takes to kill a Cheyenne."Caleb pushed his meal aside. "Sir, I’m on detached assignment to the Admiral.""Who is in a staff meeting with the our esteemed think tank and won’t need you for at least three more hours. Plenty of time." Akers hefted a duffel with Butterbar’s combat armor in it. "You can change on the way."

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"But…""That’s an order, Ensign!"Ten minutes later Caleb found himself piloting the Coventry again, packed this time with technicians, and escorted by a flight of three Peregrine class fighters. The fighters would accompany them to the remains of the Comanche, and then continue on patrol after ensuring the Coventry was cleared to return safely back to the task force. Caleb was uncomfortable; he’d left a quick note to Cartier informing her of his being reassigned temporarily, and the silence that hung over the cockpit was laced with the discomfort Caleb personally felt over the situation."How do you like working for her majesty?" Akers asked with a nonchalant gesture that could not be any more forced."General?""Her Majesty, Hillary R. Cartier?"Before Caleb could answer the comm. system squeaked. "Morgue Flight One, this is Big Dog." Caleb acknowledged the hail and ‘Big Dog’ continued, "We have you on approach foxtrot Zulu niner, be advised our sweep picked up intermittent subspace emissions, source unknown.""Confirmed, Big Dog," Caleb answered, fingers flying across the panels and instantly detecting anomalous background radiation on several subspace bands that should have been quiescent. "Sending our telemetry squirt now," Big Dog continued. "We’ll be close by if you need us. Big Dog out."Butterbar ran through the data; the readings were not specific to any location, but they were persistent, and in several bands of subspace, quite energetic for that esoteric region. "This looks familiar," Caleb said softly, "but I can’t quite place it.""Diagnostics?" Akers asked."Nothing so far, but there’s a pattern to the chaos. I’d bet my single pip on it."Caleb watched Akers as he did a quick plot. "We’ll be passing a high concentration of it just shy of the remains of the Comanche." Akers gestured at the data. "What do you think it is Ensign?"Caleb thought it over—this was another test that the multi-star officers seemed to so enjoy inflicting upon junior officers. "Transporter beam?" he said casually."Yeah, right, if you wanted to take a month to arrive at your destination!" Akers snapped.The uncomfortable silence returned. "How does this work, General?" Caleb asked."How does what work?""Surveying the site, investigating the destruction of the Comanche?" Akers stared at him as Caleb continued. "I presume that during the Dominion War…"Akers look was pained for a moment and he hid it by glancing away. "Different kind of fight here, Butterbar." He paused as if remembering old ghosts. "In the Dominion War the question was never how did they die." He pounded one fist on the side of the console. "Nuanzi never should have escalated it into a shooting war."

"But he did, General, he must have done so for a reason," Caleb paused, remembering those hurried, frantic few days on Eologia. "Does he really think he can beat the Federation in an all out war?"Akers snorted. "This isn’t an all out war, Ensign, and against what we have here, he can’t win, but he’s not guaranteed to lose right away either."They finally arrived near the peak of the subspace emissions and Caleb kept coming back to a transporter beam as the closest analogue to the patterns they observed, but Akers was right, there wasn’t enough focus for any kind of instantaneous beaming and no clear origin or destination. Nothing useful was within a thousand AU’s of their position."Dispatching sweepers," Caleb announced, and dozens of automated probes tucked on the Coventry’s hull separated and began homing in on scattered pieces that were once crew and vessel. There wasn’t much to collect."Sensor net in this area is in tatters, but I’ve got three of the Comanche’s original probes," Caleb announced. "Downloading telemetry… jackpot! One of them recorded the Comanche’s destruction!"The frown on Akers face silently chastised Caleb for his exuberance. "Let’s see it." The probe was one of the last ones deployed prior to the Comanche’s destruction, and the data was severely corrupted. "How did XXX let them get that close without detection?" Akers asked rhetorically. It was a question that had been haunting the Jaguar since the destruction of Alm 2."No weapons fire detected, but the data’s pretty bad, General." The console beeped and Caleb brought up a different display. "Speak of the devil," Akers breathed, watching over Caleb’s shoulder, as two Slobadan Cruisers appeared out of empty space on a fast intercept flyby of the Coventry. "Evasive maneuvers, Ensign, standby for warp."The Cruisers were less than a minute away, and bearing fast on their position. Butterbar [fighter maneuver speak here]"No, they’ll cut us off that way," Akers announced. "Pattern Gamma Seven." [Fighter maneuver speak]"Go to warp sir?""No, let’s see what they want first. Weapons status?""Phasers charged. Photon’s ready." "No, Butterbar, their weapons systems!"Caleb looked at the displays, the two evil looking wedge shaped ships were coming up wide to intercept any evasion. "Weapons cold, sir, but we’re being scanned, and there’s a resonance trace," Butterbar went back to the display of the subspace readings, "and it's very familiar!""I see it. Hold steady, Butterbar. Pattern Mu Three when they’re fifty thousand kilometers out."

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Caleb nodded, keying in the maneuver while still trying to convince the Slob ships he was committed to his current evasive pattern. The Cruisers, for all their mass, were surpassingly nimble, and their piloting was flawless for pinning the runabout in a less than optimal defensive position.Time slowed as the spinning numbers raced towards zero, and Caleb realized he wasn’t breathing. Finally inhaling deeply, Akers gave him a wink as the cruisers passed the 50K mark and the Coventry automatically lurched sharply, inertial dampers struggling to keep up with the wild gyrations. The Slob Cruisers had fractions of a second to respond, but were unable to match course. The Coventry slid away from them at a 100-degree angle as they spun in place, giving the appearance of skidding, as they tried to track.Then time resumed as both Cruisers continued on, as if undistracted by their presence. As mysteriously as they had appeared, they slowly slid off sensors and back into empty space."I had no idea," Caleb said, breathing hard, and reaching down for a sip of water from rations he’d stowed at his feet."You’re going to sit this one out with the Admiral in that tank of a CIC, Butterbar. That’s okay, just don’t forget what its like for the rest of us on the front lines.""The Slob’s do this all the time?""Seems to be an operational pattern, and it looks like they may be able to use it offensively in some way we haven’t determined yet. They showed this same behavior before killing the Comanche and Black Hawk."Caleb nodded, and turned back to check on the sweepers. It turned out the fly-by had not been without incident after all, the Cruisers had managed to dispatch half their fleet of probes while the Coventry evaded their flyby."Damn!" Caleb exclaimed, "how’d I miss that?"Akers looked over and nodded sagely. "We were meant to. They weren’t after us, they were after our ability to find out what happened here." He shook his head. "Strange way to fight a war.""I’m surprised you didn’t order an attack," Caleb said half jokingly, half serious."Hillary would be twice as mad at us both if we came back dead. Better to let them play their games."

* * *Later…Caleb was in the Coventry’s engineer space, examining the warp core with his tricorder when he heard Admiral Cartier clear her voice, startling him into lurching upwards and banging his head on a stanchion."Did I disturb you Ensign," she asked, bemused."Sorry, Admiral, look at this," he said gesturing with the tricorder at the warp core. "Stress fractures? In the dilithium containment matrix? When was the last set of diagnostics/service?"

"That’s the thing, after Alm 2, we pushed every ship we had to the limit. Nexus outfitted her with completely new warp core assembly." "This slipped by the dock monkeys?""No ma’am because the General, in his infinite quest to keep my hands dirty, had me go over their work. Here are the readings I took a week ago." Caleb keyed up a parallel display on the tricorder. "This happened in the last week, and from the low degree of erosion, maybe even today."Cartier stood back and Caleb had a sudden panic attack that in the midst of this campaign he was wasting her time. He pushed the feeling back—there was something here—he just didn’t know what."You’re thinking the flyby’s, Ensign?" "I don’t want to jump to any conclusions—but these shouldn’t be here—and I don’t think they were here when we departed." Caleb frowned. "I just can’t prove it.""Send out a priority one fleet-wide directive. I want diagnostics and inspections on critical systems, especially warp core assemblies. Anyone finding similar erosion is to report it to you immediately.""Yes ma’am!""I’ve got work for you Ensign. Let the engineering teams take it from here."As they stepped out of the Coventry, she patted his shoulder gently, in an approving kind of way. "I’ve informed the General that he has my permission to take you out on the occasional field trip, however I want to know in advance.""Yes ma’am!"She smiled. "Now, I want you to go over some data that we’ve been getting from our fighter sweeps…"

* * *S’lek learned that the belligerent man who was her caretaker was named Jerred. Each time he came down to giver her food or otherwise provided for her health and care, it turned into a debate, and S’lek was left with what she reluctantly identified as a feeling of discomfort during their verbal sparring. Meditation helped, but did not relieve the sensation that she reluctantly identified as an emotion. Perhaps it was her marriage to a human, which made her more sensitive than most Vulcan’s to this awareness, and more vulnerable to it. But somehow that answer did not feel entirely accurate. Jerred’s opinions of her and her people were not anything she should feel any ownership of—the tragedy inflicted upon them by Slobadan Wyer was of Wyer’s doing, not Vulcan’s. Her responsibility, her people’s responsibility, would be to set the record clear, to clarify where Wyer’s interpretation had gone wrong. The logic of this sentiment was perfectly clear to her.Yet logic did not seem to suffice. The more she built upon that foundation, the more uncomfortable she felt, and S’lek was at a loss to explain why.Nor was Jerred impressed with her efforts. His increasing disdain and contempt, not of her personally, but what he clearly viewed as her naiveté, only reinforced her own increasing discomfort.

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She feared she was nearing some kind of climax when Jerred arrived with startling news."Your Federation has arrived in Slobadan space," he announced, holding some kind of device. "Including a vessel commanded by one of your people. They are issuing sub-space broadcasts that so far Nuanzi has not been able to completely block." He put the device next to her cot."You seem perturbed by this turn in events," S’lek commented, finding Jerred’s attitude disturbing for the sudden lack of confrontational attitude."I thought you might enjoy hearing a voice from home," he said, gesturing at the device and demonstrating how she could activate it."Will not the copper mesh lining this room interfere with the signal?"Jerred looked at her suddenly, as if remembering, then activated the device. Undecipherable static filled the air, with the intermittent bits of conversation. "We’ll bring you recordings of the broadcasts," he said, snatching the device away. Spinning on one heel, he turned to leave."Jerred," she said, halting him, "thank you for you thinking of me.""I still don’t like you Vulcan," he said, his back towards her."It is not required. I am curious as to how long I will stay here."Jerred remained mute and departed up the stairs.That night, S’lek had disturbing dreams—meditation and attempting to a trance like state failed her. S’lek was not a typical Vulcan in many ways, but she was finding the central essence of her personality slipping from her grasp. As her health improved, her soul seemed to be slipping deeper into the abyss.It was not logical.

* * *Captain Tony Schwartz had been making the supply run between Starbase 185 and Jouret for more years than he cared to count. Still, the work was light, the ship was his, and he found the solitude of running his own cargo vessel strangely appealing. Then there was the subspace communications network, and dozens of associates, friends, colleagues who he conversed with every day, yet rarely, if ever, had actually met in person.The social and political nuances of the interstellar communities which he participated in were sometimes vexing, but when they got to be too much he could always claimed his AE-35 communications unit was malfunctioning and just drop out of sight for a few weeks.The terror he experienced as the USS Jolly dropped out of warp from passing an unexpected mass was unusual, and a first. He collected his wits, and queried his ship’s systems for damage and upon finding none, his anger starting to build, determined what could have caused is ship’s warp bubble to catastrophically collapse.Impossible!

Fingers trembling, Schwartz reconnected the AE-35 back into the ship’s systems, and began transmitting a distress signal.

* * *Tapan Luxor was as green an officer as they allowed in the Space Control center of Starbase 185, perched precariously on an arm of Federation space that was bordered alternately by the Romulan Empire and vast expanse of uncharted galaxy. The volume of traffic 185 experienced was such that Luxor had top scores, but still, was barely allowed to use a PADD in the facility until his training series was complete.So when he relayed to the Officer of the Deck Captain Schwartz’s report of a formation of a dozen asteroids moving at warp velocities towards the Jouret system, the PADD was almost thrown back at him in irritation. "Synthahol, Luxor, not alcohol. If you show up drunk on duty again…"Before the tearing of a new waste orifice could continue on Lieutenant Luxor’s posterior, the control room was filled with a klaxon as the starbase’s computer systems put it on automatic red alert."Report!" the OOD snapped, and Luxor struggled not to be quietly pleased, balanced against the jaw-dropping horror as a tactical display of the formation of impossibly moving rocks appeared on the main view screen."Let me see the PADD again, Lieutenant," a noticeably subdued OOD asked politely as chaos erupted around them.Luxor nodded, his throat dry. "What do we have nearby, LT?" the OOD asked."Two Saber’s on patrol, a Cheyenne class in port, and one Soyuz half a day out.""No, I meant capital ships, Lieutenant.""None, sir."The response, while in another language, was immediately translatable. Luxor watched as the OOD opened a channel to Jouret.

* * *The word spread of the moving rocks like wildfire and in the time that remained, chaos became the word of the day for Jouret and Starbase 185 alike.Jouret’s planetary defense systems were put on full alert, and the few starships close by with offensive armament responded immediately to the planetary distress call. The response was hampered by the stealth systems the relativistic bombs contained, which made the impossibly immense masses surprisingly hard to detect until they were uncomfortably close. Another factor compounding the impromptu defense was the equally impromptu planetary evacuation. The space around Jouret was suddenly filled with craft, both planetary vessels and starships, as those that could flee did so.Initial estimates that the relativistic bombs would miss Jouret by a relatively wide margin (10 planetary diameters) were discounted. It was fortunate that they were correct; otherwise massive casualties would have been inflicted just from the chaotic swarm of vessels fleeing Jouret’s immediate vicinity. It wasn’t that there were tens of thousands of vessels flying, only a few thousand, it was more a matter that few, if any, were obeying space control regulations for orderly flow of traffic.The bomb’s dropped out of warp a distance fifty times greater than that required by conventional starships near a planetary mass. They resumed their .96c velocity, racing

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past the planet, the closest bomb only approaching within a 100,000 kilometers of the planet, the rest no further than 150,000 kilometers.A message, not an attack.This did little, if anything, to alleviate the panic, and the Jouret system remained in a state of confusion for another day, as rumors of a return flyby were rampant. Deep Space Four tracked the departing bombs as they returned towards open space. A Cheyenne class vessel tried to follow them but was unable to pick up the trail.A dozen more flyby’s occurred within the next 48 hours, all scattered on the frontiers of Federation space.Unnoticed until two months after the incident, Sensor Probe 50003-4b2 was still dutifully following its assigned target, and had, during the chaos, actually downloaded its entire set of telemetry logs to Starbase 185 and Deep Space Four alike. Ironically, it was Lieutenant Luxor who made the discovery, but by then the information was of little use.

Chapter 14: Pre-Conceived NotionsCaleb was in Flag Plot on the Endeavour when Admiral Wallace arrived with the news. Cartier looked up from her displays and nodded to Wallace."We lost the Rainer," he announced softly, handing Cartier a PADD."Another flyby?" she asked rhetorically and Caleb winced. So far he’d found nothing conclusive or consistent in terms of damage to Starfleet vessels, other than nagging hints that something was happening on the otherwise seemingly harmless flybys.Wallace nodded. "Warp core breach in main engineering almost as soon as the Cruisers passed by. Flight of six this time." Wallace stared at the Admiral. "What are you going to do about this Hillary? We can’t keep loosing ships like this—we don’t have that many to begin with."She tilted her head at him, and for the first time Caleb realized it wasn’t just the Jaguar’s executive officer who had disagreements with how the campaign was being conducted."You have something in mind?""The Jaguar has one of the finest tactical and sensor packages in the fleet, let alone Task Force 5.2.""The Endeavour’s SWACS package not-with-standing?" Cartier added wryly. There was tension here between these two, but unlike with Akers, the hostility was not as… personal."I think we could take them, but that ‘s beside the point," Wallace quipped. "With your permission we’re going to go on a fishing expedition and see what we can reel in.""Watch your warp core, Chris."He gave her a smile that Caleb thought was a combination of confidence, competence, and dangerous. "That’s why we have two on board, Hillary."

* * *

S’lek was downstairs, listening to a broadcast filling the ghetto; High Commissioner Nuanzi’s strident and booming tones filled the air with denunciations of ‘Voice of Surak’ transmissions that they were still unable to adequately block from being received all over Eologia. There was a staccato rhythm to his oratory, one that S’lek found herself finding difficult not to tap her fingers in time too.Jerred interrupted her analysis of the speech as he slipped into the basement, bundles tucked under each arm. He threw one at her feet, she could see copper mesh lining the insides of the cloth. "Put these on, we don’t have much time."S’lek nodded silently, watching as he turned to peel part of the mesh off the walls, revealing a passageway she had not otherwise noticed."How bad?" She asked as he gestured for her to enter the darkened space.He didn’t answer, just handed her a hand light and motioned for her to hurry. "Run!" He hissed, pulling the mesh down over the entrance, and sliding blocks of stone to cover the access. She turned to help him but he pushed her away. "Go, you don’t have much time!""Do you have another safe house?" He snorted "Not for you!""No, for you," she said, pulling him from the entrance way, and shoving him ahead of her."These tunnels may block the scans for you, Vulcan. But they are not enough to save me or my family," Jerred said bitterly."If we could contact the fleet…" She offered but he stopped and looked at her."We don’t have the time," he spat and then sat down, defeated. S’lek picked him up and started forward again, ducking underneath low overhangs. "While we live, I will not accept defeat." She paused to look him in the eyes. "I too have lost those close to me to a government that seemingly cannot be fought, yet as I live, so does her dreams and mine that her death not be in vain."Jerred looked at her as if for the first time, nodded, and started leading her down the labyrinth passageways.The journey lasted for hours in the perpetual gloom. Distant thunder rumbled through the ground, the deep bass contrasting with the sharp dripping of fluids and skittering of tiny feet to more out of their way.S’lek was almost convinced that they had escaped when the thunder erupted again, this time in front of them, and the passageways were filled with a bright light and then a blackness that swallowed them completely.

* * *Katerine stepped warily down the loose slop of debris, peering forward with her hand torch. The blast crater was deep, and cut through numerous tunnels the rebel insurgents had been using—but no longer. Already poison gas was being released into the system to flush out any stragglers."Clever, Inspector," Harden Bowie commented as she reached his location near the bottom of the blast. "You found her not by the spike of her blood traces on the sensors,

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but by the complete absence. A hole in the ether can be glaringly visible if you know to look for it."She ignored the praise. "You could not wait until they emerged closer to the surface? Nuanzi was not pleased you nearly crushed his prize," Katerine scolded.Harden bowed his head in acknowledgement of the rebuke, and his sincerity almost convinced her it was real. They both knew it wasn’t. "She lives, though.""Then what are you waiting for?" Katerine asked, peering at the stretcher where S’lek’s unconscious form was being treated, and implants for the interrogation already attached to her forehead.

* * *"The Federation’s blatant interference in the sovereign affairs of the Slobadan Hegemony will not be tolerated. They may blockade our space, but we will still take the fight to their worlds, to core systems of the Federation itself, if need be. There will be no safe haven for the mighty and vast Federation, for though we are small, we are determined, and we will not surrender. By a necessity of nature if we are to survive, we must fight, and we must be without mercy lest our weakness enable our enemies to engineer our defeat."The shameless and blatant propaganda being espoused by our philosophical brethren from Vulcan consists of lies, delusion and self-hypocrisy. We eagerly await the day that our kindred spirits can appreciate the true significance of the Kolinahr and its precepts. In the meantime, we will not be swayed in our determination, or our vigilance."

Excerpted from Speech by High Commissioner Nuanzi* * *

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Chapter 16: The Burning of New WacoThe human Diaspora of the late 21st and first half of the 22nd centuries had led to a number of vessels whose passengers were dedicated to preserving certain cultural and ethnic practices, real or perceived. One such vessel, the SS Broken Arrow, filled with renegade colonists (an overly polite way of referring to a collection of kooks, misfits, nutcases, and racists) from the Cimarron River region of old Earth, had stumbled onto a system with twin M-Class planets orbiting in the free water zone. Naming the two worlds New Tulsa and New Waco, the colonists then proceeded to settle both worlds. When rediscovered in the early 23rd century, both worlds eagerly applied for Federation membership, and were accepted even though to some it appeared only one seat should have been granted in the Federation council. Things proceeded to slide downhill from there, and around the time the Dominion War was finished, both worlds succeeded from the Federation, and declared themselves an independent state. Followed immediately by successive (and ultimately rejected) applications to become members of the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, the Cardassian Union, the Gorn, the Hydrans, the Lyrans, the Orion Pirates, and even the Breen. Speculation that they had even volunteered for Borg assimilation and were refused was rampant in Starfleet Headquarters, but this was probably more a matter of sour grapes stemming from the occasional tumultuous diplomatic contact.-Excerpted from "The 100 Years Human Interstellar Diaspora" by Lieutenant General Scott A. Akers

Captain Joseph Brouhard of the Maxwell II class USS Proxima (NCC-73501) could identify with the sentiment. It seemed that it fell upon his shoulders to conduct the occasional Press-The-Flesh-Just-In-Case-All-Is-Forgiven mission to the Cimarron system, and just as often it met with limited success. That he was more successful than other colleagues was not reassuring, it just ensured that he would continue to receive such missions. Now, with the Blockade of the Slobadan Hegemony meeting with mixed results, and border worlds screaming they weren’t getting enough information (let alone protection)—he was back at Cimarron. This time to warn the occasionally belligerent inhabitants about the risk of relativistic bomb fly-by’s and to deliver a full tactical package on how to deal with the inbounds. So far the Slobadan had demonstrated a marked amount of restraint in the fly-by's—no loss of life (other than the occasional heart attack from witnessing the near-miss)—however every frontier world was hammering Starfleet that more protection was needed.As the stubbornly independent-minded Cimmaron colonists had cut themselves off from all contact with the Federation and the 12th Fleet—they had not received any of the tactical updates (having refused to participate in two-way communications). Therefore somebody would have to deliver it in person. The closer they got to the Cimarron system, the greater Brouhard's first inclination was to let his tactical officer deliver the message encased in a deactivated photon torpedo.

They were just about at the point where he’d have to make contact when Brouhard was interrupted from his musings. "Sir, sensors are picking up signs of jamming," Lt. Forrester reported from her tactical station. "Frequency pattern has a 58% chance of Slobadan origin, distance .15 light years…" Forrester paused for a moment then continued, "Sensors have pierced some of the jamming, sir. Multiple bogies, incredibly large, inbound towards Cimarron.""Red alert!" Brouhard ordered. "Course?" he asked, already suspecting the answer and doing his best not to humph in appreciation of the irony."Stand by… Confirmed, we have ten bogies inbound, high probability of two sets of five for orbital fly-by’s of New Topeka and New Tulsa." Forrester paused for a moment. "Sir, I’m picking up increased targeting and sensor activity from the Cimarron defensive network. Weapons systems coming on-line," Forrester said, her face pale.Brouhard considered the briefing they’d received on Slobadan tactics. The bombs would not engage in terminal guidance until after they’d been dropped out of warp, providing fifteen minutes of excitement as they made their close-in fly-by and then disappear back into warp. The Cimarron’s, though, would have no way of knowing this, and would go ballistic. He had no idea, though, just how far they’d react."We better let Cimarron know what’s coming, Daniel, raise Ne—" Brouhard was interrupted as the ship rocked violently. "Incoming fire from Cimarron defense platforms," Forester announced, looking chagrined. Brouhard flashed her a look, How’d you let that slip past you?

"Evasive maneuvers, Commander Friesen, put me on an open channel." Brouhard punched the arm console. "This Captain Joseph Brouhard of the USS Proxima, we mean you no harm, we are here to help. Multiple Federation and non-aligned systems have been targeted by these flights which are meant for intimidation only. Stand by for tactical package to destroy the inbounds." He snapped his fingers and Freison keyed in commands to transmit the tactical package Starfleet had prepared for all frontier and border worlds. "Auto-repeat that transmission and the tac package.""No reply, sir." Freison said, disappointed.The ship bounced, this time from the launching of runabouts and Peregrine fighters. "Attack craft away, sir," Executive Officer Adam Copple reported. "Do we engage the inbounds?"Brouhard stood up and walked over to take a look at the tactical display on Forrester’s panels. The Cimarron forces were firing photon torpedoes erratically, few coming anywhere close to the inbounds. When they did intercept, they accomplished little more than chipping off inconsequential pieces which, falling out of the warp shell, careened wildly at relativistic speeds, only increasing the tactical confusion. In this respect the Cimarron’s efforts were doing little more than creating sensor ghosts and chaff to further confuse their targeting systems."Captain, four Torpedo boats on an intercept course…" Brouhard nodded. After the first Borg incursion into Terran space, Starfleet had mothballed the a substantial number of the craft—their having failed miserably to even dent the Borg’s offensive at the Mars Defense Perimeter.

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"Prepare the main gun, Adam," Brohuard said softly.The Proxima banked and careened, homing in on the loose cluster of ten asteroids, each drawing its own set of missile boats. The Peregrines were more focused, targeting the four lead rocks, battering at the defensive shielding. The Cimmarron defense forces couldn’t seem to make up their mind which target was more tempting, the asteroids, or the Starfleet vessels.Brouhard shook his head at the tactical display, if they just concentrated their efforts…!"Got one!" Forrester announced triumphantly as they crossed the border into Cimmarron space. Brouhard did a quick calculation—at this rate…"Sir, perhaps if we broke off?" Copple asked?"Negative. We’re committed now," Brouhard answered as two more asteroids shattered and dropped out of warp. Computer predictions indicated the swarm of relativistic rocks, those that survived into normal space, would miss both planets. But not by nearly enough to make him comfortable."I repeat, Cimarron forces, this is Captain Joesph Brouhard of the USS Proxima. We are here to help." He looked at the frenzied swarms of torpedo boats, "Concentrate your fire on the lead asteroids…" Shaking his head, he closed the channel; they weren’t listening, nor did they care to try.

* * *Mad Marty Thomas liked being a prison guard. The dust, the heat, the stench of unwashed prisoners, and the violence—none of these things really bothered her. It gave her a chance to sport the slick black leather uniform of a New Cimarron Militia, and the opportunity to bully and bruise inmates without reproach. Life was hard on those that chose to break New Cimarron’s laws, and Marty liked to think of herself as personally responsible for making it even harder.Crack!

She bounced her walking stick off the calves of Prisoner 22410-144. "Back in line, slacker!" she barked and then whacked him again for good measure. That one she had enjoyed beating into submission, although a part of her had begun to suspect he secretly enjoyed it. Once a leader in the New Cimarron militia, once crowds had parted for him automatically, now he was Prisoner 22410-144. She was contemplating thumping him again when the sun blinked. Looking up, she squinted against the light, and then snapped to attention as the prison’s klaxon went off.Shadows passed overhead, too fast to follow, and sonic booms rippled across the landscape. The prisoners looked around in fear, cowering but still marching lest she reach out with her stick and prompt them some more.Then the sun went out, eclipsed where there should be no moon. Drawing her side arm, Marty aimed at the red ruby lined darkness filling the sky, the atmosphere rippling with light. She could see, with the sun blocked, flashes of light that indicated a tremendous space battle must be taking place. Laughing, Marty pulled out her antique Colt 44 revolver and started shooting at the sky.

The prisoners knew better than to comment or watch. Whatever their fate, Mad Marty Thomas was best left alone when she had one of her… spells.

* * *The three remaining asteroids dropped out of warp on courses that would cause them to fly between the twin inhabited worlds, making it more difficult to fire weapons without risking collateral damage on a population center."Fire main gun," Brohard ordered.[ Tech Babble about energies, ship vibrating, lurching like the New Jersey during a full broadside. ]Target asteroid designate 8 shattered, the beam lancing through two warp propulsion units, destroying the delicate balance of fields that allowed the massive rock to move. The subspace field collapsed, ejecting molten bits of rock on a course roughly tangent to the Asteroids course. Even so they would miss New Waco by a mere three million kilometers.The Peregrines, focusing on one asteroid, designate 7, scored an equal success, causing the rock to shatter in all directions. The fighters quickly reformed to target bits of debris heading towards the planets, still dodging the occasional blast from torpedo boats.One more to go, and less than 30 seconds before New Cimarron would be in the ejecta path. The computer had control now, this was too important to risk to human reaction speeds, they just had to wait for the gun to recharge…[xxx] positioned the Proxima for the optimum firing angle, and entered in a course to sweep any ejecta that might survive the drop to normal space."Captain, inbound quantum torpedoes, full spread!" Forrester announced."Firing…" the computer announced, and the ship rocked as the torpedoes rippled against the shields. They were prototypes, not nearly as effective as what was used during the Dominion War, but they were strong enough to knock the Proxima off course…And strong enough for the blast from the main gun to miss its intended target, but still hit asteroid designate 10. Instead of slewing to the side as the subspace field collapsed, the asteroid shattered forward along its trajectory.Brouhard could only watch in horror as more than 80% of the debris raced forward to New Waco.

* * *The sun had gone out, come back, gone out several times now. Whatever mass had blocked it had exploded, but the day was still almost night, as a million pieces of rock failed to fully eclipse the sun. Even the prisoners stopped marching, alternately watching Thomas swearing at the sky, throwing rocks into the air and shooting wildly at the doom that was fast approaching them.They did not have long to wait.

* * *Brouhard had seen the tapes of the destruction of Alm 2, and knew this was far worse. Taken at sub-relativistic speeds, New Waco could have easily survived the impact — the planet would be shaken, millions dead, but life could continue, albeit with difficulty.

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A billion billion rocks and chunks of ore, from the size of a tricorder to larger than a stardock slammed into the planet almost at once. What little burned up in the atmosphere only served to set it on fire, the debris making impact with the surface sending up tens of thousands of ejecta plumes radiating outwards in all directions. The planets surface was gone, replaced by a haze red plant spewing death and destruction across one hemisphere. As the Proxima slid by, Brouhard slumped in his chair."Captain?" Forrester asked. "We’re receiving distress calls from New Tulsa." On the viewscreen a computer overlay of the ejecta paths appeared, both planets were equally doomed. A computer readout began counting down the minutes remaining before New Tulsa was blanketed in the ejecta blanket still spewing from New Toledeo."Fighters, form up, we’ll take as many on board as we can." He stabbed at his comm Badge. "This is the Captain, prepare to take on civilians from New Tulsa."Ahead of the tumbling mass of molten rock, intermixed with bits of material that had once been cities, farms, and more than 15 million residents of New Topeka, the Proxima raced ahead. The Torpedo boats fell silent, having finally gotten the message that the Proxima was there to help them.

* * *Everyone had to walk sideways down the halls to get anywhere on the Proxima, and still they hadn’t had enough time to beam everyone out that they could have before death rained down on the residents of New Tulsa. Brouhard sighed as he entered the hanger bay, finding a surprising five meters of space that was unoccupied by human flesh. Instead, something much more sinister waited him."This it?" he asked Forrester.His XXX nodded. "We’ve found 28 of them in the Oort cloud so far, and I would bet you there are more out there." Forrester held out a Padd. "I’ve calculated the probable trajectories with the sensor data we have, but they had more than three hours before we got here to seed the system with these."Brouhard walked over and ran one hand over the scorched surface. For all its compact size, it was an insidious bit of engineering. What it lacked in state-of-the-art, it made up for with a threat that could put the entire Federation off balance.Self-replicating factories, pre-programmed to sleep in the Oort cloud until unnoticed, they would begin manufacturing more relativistic bombs. It might take one factory five years to finish a single bomb, but if in that time it spent even a fraction of its time making more factories to seed more comets with…Brouhard tapped his comm badge. "Get me Starfleet command!"There could be 1000’s of these factories in the New Cimarron system alone, and how many weeks did these bombs spend skirting the edges of Federation space planting seeds of destruction?Brouhard would have almost preferred the Dominion!

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InterludeFrom the Logs of the U.S.S. Wilkinson, Sylia Stingray Commanding

...Our return from the Clandath'u nebulae has only underscored what we all knew. Our war against the Slobadan is effectively over. Our ships, once feared and overwhelmingly powerful by Slobadan standards, are being overcome by sheer weight of numbers. Our technology lead is crumbling as the Slobadan continue to make advances based on battlefield debris and as cumulative damage reduces each vessel's effectiveness. Daring raids have kidnapped another twenty of our officers and crew, even now likely completing their debriefing after extensive and exceedingly unpleasant interrogation.With support from the Federation, we could hold the line, but as it is, I believe that the Eologian Authority has no more than six months of life left to it. If that.I look back, and for the last six years each day was filled with… Proud rationalizations. Arrogant justifications. With every step forward into the abyss, we were confident in the righteousness of our cause until there remained nowhere to go but further into the abyss. Even atonement, turning ourselves in to the Federation, will do little to rescue us from the hell of our own creation. We have doomed the Eologian whether we survive or not.One of us remains woefully and blissfully ignorant of the abyss. For Thornberry it's just a matter of trying harder, keep fighting, don't give up.I envy him his naiveté. As much as I despise his actions, as much as I've validated and justified them at almost every turn, I do not envy the day he may finally learn to open his eyes, and taste the bitter fruits of his labors these last years.As for me, I know what the price I shall have to pay, and giving up my life as a starship Captain, let alone my freedom, won't even begin to cover the cost of my debts.