EP1 ACT 2



STORAGE FACILITY ORLEGA ONE, HELUB, 16:31 hours

A brief moment of disbelief later, Leonard was using his tricorder to find out what happened. Interference made his analysis impossible. He tapped his comm badge instead; "Leonard to Runabout Hudson."

Static replied, and he snapped his tricorder shut in frustration. Moving to her side, he could see Re Lorken was shaking. He looked all around and above, trying to eyeball the runabout or some movement within the hangar, but there was nothing except the hundreds of ships suspended in silence.

"Where the hell is she?" Leonard was more puzzled than afraid.

Re Lorken turned her head as if listening. Leonard followed her eyeline but couldn't see anything.

"What do you see?" he asked.

"Nothing," she smiled vaguely. "We should seek an alternative means to return to the port, Ottmar."

"But shouldn't we wait here? You told your security people you would only be an hour - I assume if they don't hear from you they will come out here to find us," Leonard considered this as also an opportunity to take a closer look at the Fantasy.

Re Lorken faced him, it seemed she had composed herself once more. "We should not remain here any longer than necessary. There should be a number of anti-grav platforms in a transport conduit under this complex. They will provide slow but safe passage back to Helub." Leonard pouted his lower lip, wondering how she knew this, but she anticipated his reaction. "I saw it on the plans."

Leonard was still searching the endless shadows of the hangar. "That could take several hours, Minister. I don't understand, the runabout couldn't have just disappeared ... unless there's a temporal anomaly of some kind in here." He recalibrated the tricorder with new enthusiasm.

Re Lorken raised an eyebrow. "No, I don't think it's anything as far fetched as that."

She was right. There were no identifiable temporal anomalies here. Leonard began to distrust this ageing politician. "Are you keeping something from me, Minister? Do you know what happened to the runabout?"

Re Lorken stepped close to him. "If we leave now we should get to the outer perimeter of the Space Port by evening. I should be able to communicate with security once we're beyond this structure." She walked toward the doorway leading to the complex beyond, and presumably the way down.

Leonard took a final look around the hanger, at the spear and flag, and then decided to stand his ground. "No, I'm not going until you give me some straight answers."

But Re Lorken was indifferent, calling over her shoulder "As you wish." She opened the door and entered the complex, leaving a flabergasted Leonard behind.

***

USS FIREFLY, ON ASSIGNMENT IN NEW QOVAKIA SPACE, 19:00 hours

In the dim light of the evening shift, the bridge crew silently carried out their duties. The doors to the turbolift hissed open to reveal a sweaty middle aged woman dressed neck to boot in quilted, figure hugging midnight blue.

Duty Officer Lieutenant Sarilev jolted everyone to attention; "Captain on the bridge."

"Good evening, ladies," Commander Vancek exited the turbolift and walked down to the command chair. Sarilev stepped aside and made for the vacant science stations to the rear of the bridge as Vancek watched her go; "And that's Acting Captain, Lieutenant."

"Whatever..." the inappropriate whispered reply to her old friend made Vancek snigger.

The Commander flopped down into the command chair. It had been a particularly demanding game of Ferisi Squares on the holodeck, but she felt truly alive.

The female officers on the bridge turned and smiled at their cheerful Acting Captain.

"I take it you won, Sir?" Ensign Shirley Braxton smiled from her conn station.

"And then some!" Vancek quipped, wallowing in self-adulation.

"Captain," Lieutenant Sarilev, now serious, called over from science station four, "long range sensors are detecting multiple magnetic storms erupting throughout the quadrant."

"On screen," Vancek didn't want to walk all the way over to the readout panel; she was too comfortable where she sat.

The starfield on the main display changed to a three dimensional representation of the quadrant - this new class of science vessel utilised holographic stellar cartography technology on the bridge itself.

The map displayed the newly established Tholian border sweeping across the background. Just in front of it was a grey area indicating the free space containing the wormhole. Before this, in the foreground, were the nine grid squares showing the clusters of stars that made up Qovakia's union. Empty grid spaces on the borders represented the as yet uncharted sectors of the Outer Zone. Small, fizzling graphic effects began to appear all over the chart both in and around Qovakia. There must have been at least a hundred storms.

"There are so many ... are they a natural phenomenon?" Vancek asked.

Sarilev cross-referenced readings with the Qovakian database recently downloaded to the Firefly's computer core. "They are not uncommon in the Outer Zome, particularly surrounding wormholes or other spatial disturbance where electromagnetic activity is high. But in all my years of service I've never heard of so many appearing at once. That's odd," Sarilev tapped at her controls twice. "The Qovakian database contains references to magnetic storms, but no detail."

"Display the storm nearest to our position," Vancek ordered, sitting forward with her elbows on her knees.

The holographic display morphed forward into the Qovakia sectors, showing the thousands of various type stars there. The image continued to zoom in until it reached the desired magnification showing the former border of Tholian space close up. The Firefly was traversing it - one of the first requests from the Qovakians had been Starfleet's assistance in making a thorough reconnaissance of the new free space. The Firefly had therefore been mapping and gathering data for the past three days while awaiting its new commanding officer.

The map showed the small Starfleet insignia, ship's name and registry representing the Firefly's position, slowing moving at sub-light speed from left to right across the screen. There were no planets or stars nearby - though the entire area was covered in vast asteroid fields. One storm had erupted in their direct path on the outskirts of the asteroid field close to the Tholian border, between the wormhole and Vekaria.

The wormhole, Vancek guessed, was still several hours away at maximum warp. "Inform Starfleet Headquarters we are continuing on course toward the magnetic storm nearest to the wormhole for a closer analysis," Vancek said.

"Aye, Sir," Ensign Crosby, communications specialist grabbed Vancek's speech part from the live log for relay and opened a channel to Starfleet.

Suppressing a yawn, Vancek walked over to Ensign Braxton. "Lay in a course for the storm, Shirley, Warp 4."

Braxton had grown accustomed to the Commander's non-regulation familiarity. It made the intimacy of such a small ship more bearable. "Course laid in, sir. Estimated time of arrival ... three hours, fifty one minutes."

Crosby shifted in her seat. The storms had begun to cause slight interference to subspace communications. She recalibrated the signal and finally got through. On pinging with the Headquarters based on Helub, a stream of communications flooded back down the comm line. "Captain, I'm receiving an update on the fleet's space chatter for the last few hours."

Vancek heaved herself up the few steps toward the turbolift with a slight groan. Lieutenant Commander Stryker had really taken it out of her. "Relay all non-classified communiqués to the senior officers, I'm off for a shower."

On the way to her quarters, Vancek slumped dog-tired against the walls of the turbolift and wondered what it would be like to have the only man amongst a command team of women sitting in the centre seat from tomorrow. Having come aboard as First Officer herself, Vancek's immediate promotion to Acting Captain had been a pleasant surprise and the experience more than a little enjoyable. She had built up an immediate rapport with the rest of the crew, but hoped she hadn't overstepped the mark in terms of familiarity with her senior officers. It could be difficult for Christian to join in.

"Krishnamurti to Vancek," the relayed commlink from one of the science heads jolted her eyes wide.

"Vancek here. What is it, Lieutenant?"

"Sarilev tells me we're about to investigate one of many unusual magnetic storms that have just appeared around Qovakia," her voice conveyed more than a little concern. "You better check Starfleet space chatter. You'll see the Craybourne reported one such storm appearing in their vicinity almost an hour ago - HQ hasn't been able to raise them since."

Vancek recalled that the Craybourne was a Steamrunner class vessel, crewed by the team that was so successful aboard the USS Preston until it was trashed in the conflict with the Borg almost a year ago. She had been friends with Bretton and Leung, the surviving tactical and operations officers, and knew them both to be cautious, mature officers.

"Computer, halt!" Vancek put hands on hips and thought for a moment. "Krishy, call all senior officers to the briefing room immediately."

"Aye, sir." In the comfort of her small quarters, Krishnamurti turned back to her divining board and slapped a hand over her mouth in horror.

Back inside the small turbolift, Vancek had re-routed her journey back to the bridge. Before the doors had fully opened, she called out to Sarilev "Lieutenant, call the crew to duty stations and sound yellow alert."

***

DESIGNATED VISITOR AREA 13, HELUB SPACE PORT, 20:30 hours

Beneath Helub's Old Fortress, basically a square two kilometres and twenty five levels designated as Visitor Area 13, the Space Port of Helub spilled out for thousands of kilometres and hundreds of levels still deeper. Here, a thriving civilisation had existed for generations - through both peacetime and military occupation. Most Vekarians now lived and worked on the spaceport - a mere 22 million still lived their daily lives in the natural air of the lush planet below.

In the depths of the space station, within the deep rock of the moon, the cavernous docking areas were interlinked like a multi-spoked wheel by enormous conduits that ran for thousands of kilometres. Huge, man-made tunnels, they were capable of allowing up to four lanes of heavy cruiser traffic at any one time if necessary - though they mostly carried internal transports as goods and people were shifted from one area of the port to another as interstellar transactions took place. Off the main conduits, the labyrinthine transit tunnels spilled off to smaller marinas and private berths, and even narrower transport tubes, some with passive force fields containing pressurised jetties and dry docks for easy humanoid access.

Wedged between the mostly transient areas of the spaceward edifices crammed together on the surface and the transportation and docking levels far below, a slab averaging around four hundred levels contained the main living and administrative facilities of Helub. It was a multi-megalopolis split into many and varying districts of industry, corporate headquarters, accommodation zones, parks, shopping facilities and an inordinate number of leisure and entertainment areas.

In one such pleasure area, within a small bar off an off ramp from a subway leading to the local inner ring corridor (colloquially referred to by the arriving Terrans as 'the Mall'), some fortunate Starfleet officers had managed to sniff out the conducive atmosphere of a taverna-like establishment.

The bar, in fact, was sited directly across the corridor from one of hundreds of maintenance access shafts that latticed through the structure of the port. This particular one backed onto the multileveled Fortress assigned to official Federation and Starfleet Visitors. For the past few weeks, then, the shaft had provided unofficial but easy access for off-duty staff to slip straight out of the back door of Starfleet HQ and into the intimate bar across the way.

Fiery red-head Lieutenant O'Hara sat with her fellow officers in one of the window booths, watching Qovakian citizens go by, and took another swig of the strange purple liquid. She gave Lieutenant Mellors a sideways glance and sniffed at the drink again.

"Are you sure this is just fruit juice?" she screwed up her nose and gave it back to Lieutenant Gravant.

"That's what the guy said," Mellors smiled, and drained the remaining ale from his own glass. The burly security Lieutenants Jackson and Japell smiled and followed suit.

"It most definitely is more than just fruit juice," Gravant shook her head in conclusion, but continued to drink it all the same.

Gravant was O'Hara's charge for the evening because she hated going out without a female companion by her side. Ever since her antics of hanging around exclusively male cadets had caused much whispering at the Academy she made sure the false reputation had stopped there. So junior Lt Gravant had become the unwitting sidekick for tonight. She clearly wasn't much of a drinker, and O'Hara wondered if she would last the course of the evening.

"Your round, I believe, Nurse," Jackson smiled wickedly and swept the empty glasses toward her with his large hands.

O'Hara couldn't help react to the use of the word 'nurse' (she was practically an MD in her final year of study) and wouldn't miss the opportunity for a return dig at the handsome man. "You are SO the son of your mother, aren't you?"

The others giggled. "Don't knock my mother, Lieutenant," his eyes glinted; "you may regret it."

O'Hara turned to Japell and Mellors, mouth agape in pretend astonishment, but she clearly didn't feel at all threatened. If anything, there was an air of flirtation about her.

Gravant suddenly roared with laughter, a little too loud, urging O'Hara quickly toward the bar. As she stood waiting to be served, she noticed through the entrance to her left that a heavily shrouded figure was hanging around the maintenance doorway to the Fortress, just across the way. O'Hara couldn't see what race or nationality, but guessed it was a young woman by the general stance and shape. As she thought of mentioning it to her security colleagues, a scuffle broke out in the bar to her right.

It was over by the time she saw the unlikely perpetrators - traveller types with well-worn faces and expressions of hardship and woe. They quickly gathered their belongings and stormed out of the bar.

The bartender caught O'Hara's eye; "What'll it be, miss?"

"Two ales -no, make that three ales and another, what was it, Darkiller Berry Punch?" O'Hara noticed the locals where the scuffle had occurred were huddled in intent discussion.

The bartender was smiling, watching Gravant flailing her arms about as she relayed an amusing story to the three dead-pan faced men. O'Hara gritted her teeth, but the bartender nodded toward her table. "Don't worry, I'll add a shot of Disahol to her drink. The more she sups, the more sober she'll become."

"Thanks," O'Hara was amazed that the bartender had a supply of the drug.

As he added it to the purple liquid, the barkeeper thumbed upwards. "Your Commodore up there personally told me to keep this bottle on hand for any of you Starfleet types who start getting the worse for ware."

O'Hara looked over at Lt Jackson - she decided he would probably oblivious to his mother's actions. Personally she felt insulted (if a little amused) by the direct action of the commanding officer of the Starfleet base above. "Did she, now?" As golden liquid was poured into the long cylindrical glasses, O'Hara glanced over to the now louder discussion going on among the locals. "What's going on?"

The bartender shook his head. "The things people get upset about..." One glass was frothy-full.

"What?" O'Hara urged.

"Oh, just some rumour. Well, not just any old rumour, it's a rumour I've heard many times, actually. But people have begun to talk a lot about it, recently. Perhaps it's because of the new era we're entering with you people from the Other Side," he smiled broadly at her as another glass of ale slopped down beside the first. O'Hara found this form of manual service quaint, but unpredictable. Give her a replicator-assisted service every time.

"What? What rumour?" O'Hara was verging on pissed at the round-the-houses answer she was getting.

"That the K'Tani are coming back," the bartender said it matter-of-factly, but clearly didn't believe it himself.

"The people who were overthrown from power a few years ago?" O'Hara asked. Like all Starfleet personnel arriving on Vekaria, she had received a scant briefing on the people and culture of Qovakia and its main points in history. Qovakians had been likened to the Bajorans in their state of affairs just after the Cardassians withdrew, but their personalities were more a combination of 21st Century frontier Terran and 9th Dynasty Ferengi. Historical studies had never been O'Hara's strong point, and the facts had become blurred.

"Overthrown?" the barkeep slopped the last glass down. "Well, you could put it like that, I suppose."

"Why would they be so convinced the K'Tani were coming back?" O'Hara handed over a few notes (too many, but the bartender skillfully pretended not to notice). "We've heard nothing to that effect."

"Because a few days ago apparently their fleet was spotted, out in the far quarters," the bartender said. "Don't ask me by who, because no-one seems to know. No one ever seems to know. I think it's the merchants on Melndis spreading these rumours, myself. Ever since the K'Tani left Helub, our rivals' trade has plummeted." The bartender raised a calming hand to an almost hoarse Vekarian sluice cleaner who had been hollering for his attention for the last minute or so. "Will there be anything else?"

"No, thank you," O'Hara thought for a moment, remembering overhearing that Melndis was a free port, smaller than Helub, but which had been less affected by the K'Tani occupation. They were now trying to tempt traders back by wild offers of hospitality and had even suggested building Starfleet a regional HQ there. This sounded to O'Hara like a good offer considering the cramped space and crazy lifestyle on Helub.

As she walked back to the table carefully balancing the drinks, O'Hara glanced through the taverna's glass wall to the maintenance door. The figure had now gone, so she put the incident down to her own suspicious nature. O'Hara sat down and handed the drinks around, guiding the freshly filled antidote drink safely to the lips of a violently hiccuping Gravant. As the boys opposite chuckled amongst themselves, she caught Jackson's eye, noticing it carried that lustful look again.

***

STARFLEET HEADQUARTERS, LEVEL 27, STORAGE ROOM 223, 20:55 hours

The Starfleet engineer snapped his toolbox shut, scratched his crotch, broke wind and began the long climb up the ladder to the complex above. He muttered to himself his options for the evening as he disappeared through the hole in the ceiling, failing to notice the figure hiding in the shadows behind a clump of pipes in the corner of the storage room below.

Hedrik breathed a heavy sigh and wiped the perspiration from her brow. A full fifteen minutes that idiot had taken to repair a faulty circuit, she thought. Flipping back her hood with gloved hands, she flexed her tensed muscles and stepped cautiously into the dim light of the storage room, glancing up to the maintenance ladder. There was no sight or sound of the now off-duty worker.

Most of the room in which she stood was occupied by a caged area, only about five metres square and twice as many high, but within it was the means for making a lot of money. Hedrik walked around the sides of the storage cage, noting the clearly labelled Starfleet contents and adding up the expected values of each in her head as she did.

She was a breathtakingly beautiful woman. Her face smooth and well- proportioned, green skin forming high cheekbones, strong chin and full mouth. Her dark hair was tinged green rather than red, and tied back in a tight bun. Hedrik was in her mid-twenties, though her emerald eyes belied the seeming innocence of age and beauty. This was a person who had endured more experiences than a woman of her age should have. But as a native Orion female, her life was already laid out before her when still within her mother's womb. The only difference was, Hedrik didn't ever buy into it.

Many times in her relatively short childhood Hedrik had nearly escaped the clutches of the Orion Syndicate member who owned her. (The syndicate still marketed its women efficiently and ruthlessly, albeit illegally and unknown to most.) As she got older, Hedrik had even managed to stay away for longer periods - almost a year on one occasion, but each time the Syndicate had managed to catch up with her, and return her to the Orion moon which was her home and her prison.

She was sure that were it not for her natural beauty (and quick wit), she would have been terminated as faulty, unreliable ... uncooperative goods. When Starfleet moved into Deep Space 9, Hedrik saw the Gamma Quadrant as her salvation. In her mid-teens, she hadn't tried to escape for some time, waiting for the right moment. This, she thought, would surely be it.

An easily persuaded passing Moropan trader provided safe passage as far as DS3, but unfortunately for Hedrik, trouble between the Federation and the Orions had flared up. DS9 was now out of bounds for her. So she had begun to live her life moving frequently from place to place, earning just enough money to pay people for their silence or their protection, and constantly looking over her shoulder.

Aside from the more traditional form of employment for an Orion female, there were few options available to Hedrik, as she had no proper schooling to fall back on. Though against a life of crime in principle, she knew that because of her heritage, and many a race's misconceptions about Orions, there was little option left to her. As she made her way around the known galaxy, she picked up many useful tricks and tips that hardened her to the solitude of preservation on the run.

Hedrik's tearful moments were always followed by the determination to one day make things better for herself, move as far away from the industry of personal service as possible. Day after night she read and studied all the technical manuals she could lay her hands on. Eventually, she managed to convince a salvage ship to employ her as a maintenance worker. Aboard that patchwork ship, among a crew of only twenty, she befriended a much-maligned roly-poly old Bolian man. He was like a father to her, and in return for her company and friendship, he taught her all he knew about his particular field of expertise: transporter technology.

Hedrik was a gifted student and natural engineer. Within a year she could strip and reassemble a transporter unit, and perform as complex a procedure as any Starfleet chief. It was only fitting that she took over his role when the old man curled up one night and died. But with him gone, life aboard the wrecker seemed hollow, especially with the constant and unwelcome advances of the newer crew who had come aboard. So Hedrik jumped ship at the next opportunity, and took once more to a life of crime, this time utilising her knowledge of transporter technology wherever she could. It served her well for a time.

However, an unfortunate altercation with the USS Enterprise above Ventax II left her frighteningly close to being returned to Orion. Thankfully an exceptional Starfleet counsel took pity on her situation and saved her green skin, but, penniless and worried about the Syndicate finding her, she returned to a life of petty crime on the run.

Transporter systems were a breeze for her to tamper with by now. From planet to station to ship to planet, Hedrik used all her talent and cunning to steal non-critical goods for re-sale on the black market. She never went for the big steal, or adopted the opportunistic approach like many in the field of thieving. Stealth was her middle name, and she knew that to stay free took a lot of planning and a good deal more strength of character when it came to resisting temptation. She never cut corners, and she never put herself in unnecessary jeopardy. So far, she had managed to save nearly twenty thousand bars of gold pressed latinum in a reliable savings account.

It wasn't quite enough to safely retire on, but sometimes at night Hedrik wondered whether she was merely putting off the inevitable, avoiding settling down for fear of being tracked down by her owners, or losing her edge. So she kept on going. Coming to the Outer Zone had seemed like a necessary risk in terms of being so far away from her life savings. This region of space had the added advantages of not only being as far away from the Orion Syndicate as she could get, but also being a mostly peaceful society having lived for many years under a ruthless tyranny, the spirit of post-occupation friendship and goodwill was now ripe for the picking.

Hedrik, satisfied that this latest job would be worth the money, took out her small flat pouch of tools and set about making a thorough scan of the cage and its security system. Her recce complete, Hedrik swathed herself once more, deciding to return in the morning, just after the first security sweep. Luckily for her, a few hours earlier Hedrik had overheard a security officer discussing personnel deployment to the docks for the next day, and how there had been a jump in the amount of traffic requesting departure slots for the next day, so she assumed less security personnel would be on duty in the complex.

Already there had been scenes of pandemonium in several travel agencies because many Qovakians had decided at the same time to try and get immediate passage off world. Either everyone had suddenly decided to take a holiday, Hedrik thought, or something was seriously up.

Having covered a good deal more of the space port than most Visitors in the past few weeks, Hedrik had been aware of the increasing speculation about the return of the militia who had ruled Qovakia until recently. But upon seeing the dozens of powerful Starfleet ships and even more warships from other Alpha Quadrant states pouring in and out of the port, Hedrik was convinced that nothing less that no-one would stand a hope in hell's chance of succeeding in a coupe here, maybe not even the Dominion.

Through the crawlway space and into an air duct leading to the main access shaft that descended to the off-ramp entrance, Hedrik had to briefly hold her heart as a group of Starfleet officers wended their way back into the Fortress above. Pressing flat against the dark recess, she watched through the grill as two security officers followed by a moaning science officer and two bad- tempered medics clambered their way up the thin-runged ladder. From what she could hear, it seemed the CMO assigned to Starfleet Headquarters had recalled all off-duty medical staff for an emergency briefing.

Hedrik waited until it was safe, then pushed the grill open, being careful to replace it and cleanse it before deftly dropping to the floor below. The coast clear, the Orion woman skilfully exited the doorway and blended into the gathering crowds flowing past and up into the main corridor beyond. Where had all these people come from? And where were they going?

Before she knew where she was, Hedrik was instantly swept into a heaving mass of people crushing slowly in one direction - to the docks. There were thousands, many shouting and screaming, most laden with personal belongings, shoving this way and that. It was an exodus.

It took a few bruises and much physical strength on Hedrik's part just to wrench herself free of the squashing streams of people and grab on to the relative safety of a wall support. She couldn't believe her lack of luck. The local situation was clearly getting worse, and might even jeopardise her plans for tomorrow. Carefully she made her way back to the lower level and into the taverna where she sat opposite the doorway and considered her options.

***

ACT3