-=USS Hera Bridge=-

Enalia was on the bridge well before they dropped out of warp. The helm had plopped them at the exact coordinates at the exact time he needed to and she was pleased. They were only a few thousand kilometers from the pulsar so with any luck at all, their presence was masked completely.

"Fire up the full scanner suite. I want a map of that complex as soon as possible." Enalia called out. From the ops console, the ensign there nodded and started the scans immediately. Soon Enalia had readings coming up on her sensor display, but it wasn't very detailed. "Narrow the subspace confinement beam. Let's see if that clears it up."

"Yes, Ma'am." the young ensign replied as he modified the scans. It took about a minute more, but the data was finally coming in and in pretty great detail - Enalia could even see where they ventilation shafts were.

"Get this data to the team and have them launch as soon as possible." Enalia called out.

Charon stepped on the bridge just about a few moments after they dropped out of warp. He walked down towards the captain in a brisk pace. For a moment he just stood there and waited. Moving in closer he handed her a PADD. “We are as ready as well ever be. Emergency repair crews have been assigned in case we need them. Everybody with half a clue of how to handle a medical tricorder has been assigned to support the medical staff in case of a emergency and I ordered security teams to be on standby. In case we have some uninvited guests.” With everything he had done he still believed this would end in catastrophe. No matter what, this was going to be their trial by fire.
With that said Charon slumped down in his seat. He didn't look like he had slept much in the last couple of days. At least to people who could tell whether a Ullian was well rested or not.

Taking the PaDD, Enalia looked over it as Charon spoke. "Thank you, Number One. Let's hope nothing goes too wrong now." She knew it would, though she still hoped as she stared at the main viewer.


-=Runabout USS Selune=-

In the shuttlebay, the team was preparing for launch...

Jennifer was first to arrive at the shuttle. This was no coincidence as she wanted to get there before Nexi to make sure all of the systems where working as they should without being tampered with. She also wanted to be fully prepared for any situation that could occur during the mission. She began various system tests until the others arrived.

Not wanting Nexi to beat her to the shuttle, Angelica made her way there quickly... but not quickly enough to beat Jennifer. She ignored the intelligence officer, pausing near her only long enough to check that she'd bothered to grab a phaser. Beyond that, she had little concern about Jennifer's well-being, and small talk... well that just wasn't necessary.

Ensign Rhett Beaumont had some of his engineering equipment with him in an engineer's kit, slung over one shoulder. Additionally, he had a tricorder and a standard type-II hand phaser per protocol. Weapons were a large part of Rhett's childhood. His family dealt arms and he himself when on business dealings was often escorted by guards who were quite heavily armed. However, Rhett himself was a piss poor shot.

Hopefully, nobody would need him to save them through his use of a phaser. He hurried along and rushed into the shuttle. He wanted to get this mission over with. I should have kept my mouth shut. I could have remained aboard Hera safe and sound in my office or in Engineering thought the young Chief Engineer.

"Yes, you should have..." Nexi whispered into Rhett's ear as she seemingly appeared out of nowhere from behind him. She brushed passed the offensive Orion and to the cockpit. "We ready?" she asked Angelica as she settled herself into one of the seats.

Grunting, the Chief Engineer turned around and glared at Nexi. Don't you have better things to do then get inside my head?" thought Rhett. "No body likes a prying little hussy" he said, whispering back to her.

"Oh, when I start prying, you'll know it, pretty boy," Nexi replied with lopsided grin. as she leaned back in her seat and kicked her feet up onto the cockpit console. "Seriously, the clock's ticking and I'm not getting paid for overtime, so lets get a move on!"

You think I'm pretty? he thought with a smirk. I'm flattered but you're a little too... butch for my taste.

"Feet off the console." Jennifer said firmly as she looked back at Nexi. She starred for a brief second at the ragtag group that where coming along for the mission. She wondered why Starfleet Intelligence would send them instead of an extraction team who are highly trained for this exact type of mission. Nevertheless this is what they had so she would have to make do.

"Yeah, yeah," Nexi griped at Jennifer as she removed her booted feet from the console, sitting up straight so she could work at the console. As she swapped the graphic interface from Starfleet Standard to Ferengi language output, she reached over to flick Rhett on the ear, hardly the most painful retort she had ever delivered, but more than enough to satisfy her need to punish him. "We need to have a talk with Starfleet Communications about the Ferengi output on these controls, the translations suck!" She swapped back to Starfleet Standard; she'd have to do the best she could with that...

Rhett flinched at the flicking of his ear. Bitch he thought, keeping his reply silent. He knew some Ferengi but most of his knowledge was of common business words and phrases like 'Show me the money' or 'Deal or no deal?' or his personal favorite 'I'll have your lobes for this!' The Chief Engineer listened to Nexi complain. "What is Ferengi for shut the hell up and live with it?"

"Behave, children, or I'll lock the two of you in a cabinet!" Angelica said sharply, hoping to put an end to the bickering. She would do it too, if they kept arguing like that. "Beaumont, get your flight check done. Nexi, shut up and leave the boy alone."

"Together or separately?" Nexi ask rather seriously. "Because if I'm stuck in a cabinet with him, I just might kill him."

"I'll kill both of you if you don't start getting along." Angelica normally had a more even temper, but arguments inside tiny shuttles rapidly grew loud and raucous, and she wanted no part of that.

"Fair enough," Nexi said evenly, then locked her eyes on the facility schematics. "Alright, so how do you want to approach this one?" she asked as she put the schematics on one of the screens so they could all see them. "I don't like the layout, there's something off about it..."

Rhett smirked. "Kill her first. I want to watch" he said as he settled down in the craft.

"Stow it, Ensign." Angelica looked at the schematic that Nexi had pulled up. "Building looks... asymmetrical. That can't be right..."

"Right!" Nexi nodded her agreement. "Romulans are obsessed with symmetry, so this building, even if it was built by the Remans, should be symmetrical." Nexi reduced the scans to a wireframe image, duplicating the image and flipping it, matching it up to where the complex's design had started to mirror itself but stopped. By overlaying the image, they could see that a whole wing had 'mysteriously' disappeared. "I'll bet you just about anything that our target is in there."

"I'd bet you're right. If there's one Vulcan thing they just couldn't shake it's the symmetry. It's the real reason their ships look like birds... natural symmetry. Looks pretty and fierce at the same time." Now that the missing wing was so obvious, Angelica easily traced out where its outline should be. "It'll be a secure door. Nothing we can't eventually get through, but definitely an extra obstacle."

"That's probably not the only obstacle. It's been in my experience that complexes like these have transport inhibitors. I've never tackled a Romulan facility, but if they're even half as paranoid as rumored, a beam in won't be possible. If we're tagged, a beam out might be possible, but that depend on just how paranoid the Rommies are at this complex. Then there's the matter of finding and releasing our target, then finding a safe egress... They are not going to make that easy." Nexi may have been goofing around earlier, but now she was all business. Now, she was doing what she did best. "I have a personal cloak to help get me in so I can disable security and surveillance, but I'm worried they might have developed technology to detect me through the cloak or even to inhibit cloaking altogether. Anyway, it's an option, but I want extra ideas in case that's not viable."

"If nobody is going to pilot this damn thing...." said Rhett assertively as he stood up and navigated himself around the small craft. He found himself plopping down at the helm. He looked around and studied the controls at the console. Like riding a horse...right? Oh yeah, I remember why I do not enjoy this. I failed my piloting exams several times. "Y'all might want to hold onto to something. Some kind prayers may also be nice" said Rhett warning them.

"Ensign, power up the engines." Jennifer ordered the perky young Engineering officer who had taked the helm. She pressed a button on her console opening up a communications link to the Bridge, "Runabout Selune to the Bridge, we're all ready here, Sir. We'd like permission for departure." she said taking charge as she was the ranking officer in the craft.

"Yes, Ma'am!" shouted Rhett with some excitement. The Ensign went to work with a quick pre-flight check. All systems operational he thought to himself as he looked over the 'instruments' on the console before him.

"Permission granted, Selune." Enalia replied personally. "Good luck and be sure all of you get back here in one piece."

Yeah, no promises thought the Orion Chief Engineer. "And we have a go" he said to himself as he 'fired up' and watched as the Shuttlebay was readied for the departing craft. Slowly, Rhett lifted the shuttle up and carefully proceeded out of the starship's shuttle bay.

As soon as the Selune cleared the bay, Nexi went to work on sensor and the deflector array to send out interference that would prevent the facility from detecting them on sensors. It was almost a shame Nexi hadn't been able to offer her ship's cloaking device to help, but this runabout was far too big to be adequately covered by her cloaking device. "Now we're more or less invisible, little more than space dust on sensors," Nexi said as the runabout sailed through the inky distance that separated them from their target. "Any of you three good at infiltration?" she asked as she glanced back at the facility layout to consider their next move.

Angelica could lie or be honest... and this time there was no benefit to either. Both options risked breaching any trust she might build with the Hera's crew. "I have some experience with it," she said after a moment's pause. "But not with a group."

"You and me both," Nexi admitted distractedly as she studied layout. "I'm used to working alone, so this is new to me too. I suggest we split into two teams, one to keep security busy and one to go after the target."

"I have a lot of experience with infiltration, with a team and alone." Jennifer told Nexi and Angelica, "Two teams is a good idea, but if all of the attention is brought to the distraction team while the other gets the target, how will the distraction team be extracted? I assume that Romulan security there will be tight and even more so once they are alerted of an intruder. Thoughts, anyone?" she asked aloud however it was directed at Nexi and Angelica.

"The point is moot if we can't even get in," Nexi said. "I think a beam in is impossible, I'm picking up transport inhibitor signatures. Plus I'm detecting radiation from magnesite reinforcing the inhibitor field. I think we can still beam out with pattern enhancers, but how to get in..."

Not wanting to reveal too much about herself, Angelica looked at Jennifer. "Ball's in your court, Commander."

Jennifer looked at Nexi and Angelica, "Well, I've done some digging into the facility and the Magnesite mine was very smart on the Romulan's side as we cant get in. But if we cant get in via transport, neither can they. They must have some way they are getting in and out of the facility. They do, however, have a chute in which they can deliver food from the upper levels to the lower. So, we can either get through that way or find the way that the guard use, which will most likely be heavily guarded." she said taking a pause for a brief second, "Now, the planet has no atmosphere so we can't really land and get in that way. Anyone have any ideas?" she asked aloud.

"I don't think the guard's entrance is wise." Angelica studied the diagram for a moment, visualizing where those elements were. "The chute might have less security, but I'm not certain of its safety."

"Have we packed anything like plasma grenades or flash bangs?" Jennifer asked Angelica. "We could use those to stun the guards then you and I will go down first, take them out and then the rest can follow." she told Angelica.

Angelica grinned kind of crookedly. "Of course. I keep a handful of stun grenades within reach on the ship... I'm not going down to a planet without them."

Ven had been in the tubes when he received a call that the Captain herself wanted to see him. He knew her, and has had a few discussion with her in the past, but to be sent to her ready room? He must have messed something up bad for the Captain herself to deal with what ever it is.

He walked through the halls with his trade mare goggles pushed up into his messy hair. He uniform was dirty and his tool belt hung low on his hips clinking as he moved threw the ship and to the bridge. His head jerked left and right as he looked at the people who were on the bridge at the moment. He made it to the Captain's ready room and hit the call button.

"Come in," Enalia called. Seeing that it was who she expected, she motioned to the chair across from her with a serious look on her face. "Mister Nosplet, Please have a seat. We have to discuss your future aboard this vessel."

Ven looked to his left with a jerk and took a seat. He visibly gulped. " I swear Captain, what ever it was it was and accident." His head cocked to the right. "I cant even think what I did! I will fix it right away!"

"An accident? Is that your excuse?" Enalia said in mock anger. "You certainly will be fixing it. ALL of it. And I expect you'll be pulling long hours for some time too. The whole department is still in disarray and it's now your job to run it as Chief of Operations. Is that understood Lieutenant?" As she said that last, she slid a small black box across her desk to him.

"Uhhh..." Ven looked at the box. "Ma'am?"

Enalia spoke a bit softer now as she opened the box to reveal full Lt pips inside, done scaring the poor guy. "You're being promoted. I didn't get an ops chief and you're the best person I can find anyway, so you're it."

" I don't know what to say...I didn't even know I was up for the promotion." He reached out and grabbed the box with a jerk and held it in his lap looking down at it. " Thank you Captain." He said as he actually wiped a tear from his right eye.

The captain just leaned back in her chair and shrugged. "Exceptional performers, accidental or not, tend to come up for promotion sooner. As soon as you're settled in, I want the whole operations department brought up to speed. I know you're understaffed, but I also know you'll do well."

"Yes Ma'am, what ever you need Ma'am. Ill start looking over work details and performance standers right away Ma'am. You have know idea what this trust means to me!" He stood suddenly out of his seat and gave her a smart salute. "Thank you again Captain."

Finally, Enalia had someone resembling sane in her command staff... Those were thoughts best kept to herself though. "I expect good things from you. Do you have any questions?"

" Do you have any direct order Ma'am?" Was the only question Ven had for her.

"Don't let my ship fall apart, Lieutenant. That's it." Enalia couldn't help but crack a smile.

Ven shock his head so hard his goggles swung over to his left and settled just over his ear. " No, err no Ma'am. Never. Hera is my baby!"

"Good. Keep thinking like that." Enalia felt she had definitely made the right choice. "If there's nothing else, I'll let you go sort out your new department. And be sure you're in uniform too," she said, motioning to the small black box.

Ven pulled the pip out and attached it to his collar. " Yes Ma'am, always. Thank you again." And he saluted her again. He turned on his heals and headed out to face his new department.

Goals
-infiltrate the prison
-get into the mine/prisoner area
-retrieve operative
-escape

-=USS Selune=-

They couldn't actually land without setting off the facility's sensors, so she'd had Beaumont put the Selune into a hover near their prospective entry point. In a moment they would breach the mine, but first Angelica wanted to be sure they were ready. A quick look showed weapons armed, so - satisfied - Angelica gave the agreed upon signal to disembark... quietly.

Ensign Rhett Beaumont attempted to be as gentle as he could. He had to hover the damn thing so that the facility's sensors did not alert everyone and cause this mission to be a complete failure. With the craft successfully hovering, Rhett looked at Lieutenant Fairchild.

"Uh... does this mean I get to stay here and wait for y'all?" asked Rhett with a shrug.

"Probably best that way. We might need to leave in a hurry. Keep the engines warm, Ensign." With that, Angelica jumped the short distance to the ground, waiting for Stanson and Nexi there.

Nexi was quick to follow, activating her personal cloak before her feet even touched the ground. She tapped the translator/comm device embedded in her ear to leave a comm-line open with the team as she moved ahead, her feet ghosting over the ground without a sound.

"Damn it, Nexi," Angelica muttered almost silently. How the hell was she supposed to keep an eye on that woman if she ran off invisible like that? "Move it, Stanson," she hissed at Jennifer, no longer bothering with ranks. They had to move fast, and she couldn't afford the time to be polite about it.

Jennifer had quickly gone and picked up a Starfleet Intelligence modified compression phaser rifle. She then jumped down from the shuttle and quickly held up her rifle to get a look around. She then began jogging towards the facility with her rifle still raised.

Angelica shook her head at Jennifer's posture as the other woman ran ahead. Holding the rifle so high limited her view and made tripping a real hazard, but Angelica wasn't going to correct her now. Maybe later she might care more, but for now she just followed at a slightly slower pace, watching for hazards Jennifer might not see.

Nexi took point, serving as look out as they moved through the facility since she was cloaked. Something was... off about this place. The design was definitely Romulan, but the actual construction was way inferior! Not to mention... "Remans," Nexi cautioned quietly over the comms when she spotted a patrol. That made a lot of things make a lot more sense all of sudden. Romulan installation, built and staffed by Reman! But with a prison with such a reputation as being inescapable? Something still wasn't adding up. "Stanson, Fairchild, you've got a patrol coming your way," she warned the group over the comm.

Taking no heed of rank, Angelica caught up to Jennifer and dragged her into an empty room they'd just passed, narrowly avoiding the patrol. "Thanks for the heads up," she whispered over the comm. "Once they pass, we'll come find you."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Nexi commented with a snicker. She eventually came across a set of heavy doors that opened and an automated anti-grav lift exited, carrying a bin full of what looked to be some kind of ore. Probably magnecite. Glancing back inside the doors before they closed revealed a now empty room. It seemed she had found lift access to the mines below. No need to go down just yet. She wanted to find some sort of confirmation of where their target was before moving on to some place new. "I found a lift," Nexi informed her team quietly. "I'm gonna keep looking around. Let me know if you find anything useful."

So going to strangle that woman. The footsteps of the passing patrol faded, and Angelica turned to Jennifer, a smoldering look in her eyes. "Get your head in the game, Stanson. Quit running around with your rifle at high ready and pay attention. You get caught, and I will leave your ass here. Now let's go." She didn't wait for Jennifer, just went to the door and peeked out before slipping into the corridor and going forward again.

"Now now, play nice, children," Nexi whispered over the commline. "Hey, I think I found a security office." Nexi gave them a few directions, then slipped through the glass doors when the room's occupant slipped out. Checking a few consoles, she was able to confirm that this was indeed a security office, and she checked the security feeds for any obstacles that might hinder the rest of the team. "Looks like you've got a clear shot, so hurry up."

I am so done playing nice, Angelica thought crossly, heading in that direction without waiting for Jennifer.

As soon as she was joined by Jennifer and Angelica, Nexi sealed the doors and lowered her cloak. "Hmm, I wonder what this button does..." she said with mock curiosity as she released Anesthetine throughout the complex. All over the Security screens they could see patrol guards dropping left and right. "Hey, check the prison manifest, see if we can't find out where our target is," she said to Angelica and Jennifer.

"Nice work. Told you we'd find you." Angelica grinned a little, using one of the screens to pull up the manifest. "Level four, cell 14. Let's go."

"One of us should stay behind here, to keep an eye on things," Nexi suggested. "I mean, we have access to the security office now. We might as well use it to our advantage."

"I'm going with you," Angelica said with no hesitation. "Stanson, you camp out here. We'll cone back this way and pick you up."

"Whatever makes you two happy," Nexi said as she followed Angelica. "The lift's this way," she said pointing in the right direction.

"Fine." Jennifer told the two as she sat down at the security console to begin to infiltrate their security systems. She had done something similar to romulan technology a mission or two ago so the interface was still fresh in her mind. "Alright, I have the security system. I'll let you both know if there is something headed your way." she told them.

"Please do." Checking the corridor for approaching guard, Angelica slipped out of the room and headed toward the lift. She didn't think they'd run into anyone just yet since Nexi had knocked them all out, but it didn't hurt to be expecting trouble.

Jennifer switched through the security channels listening to see if they had been spotted yet. "Okay, you have a patrol coming up ahead. I can jam their communications if you want to take them out." she told them.

"Do it. We're running out of time." Nexi could cloak, but Angelica couldn't. Instead, she slipped easily into a shadow, waiting to hear that Jennifer had knocked out this patrol's communications. She was cutious as to how they'd avoided the gas.

"Communications are gone. It seems they where concealed in an airtight room until the time of their patrol. They seem to be the only ones who are still conscious." Jennifer reported. "Hang on." she said, "The security protocols are beginning to kick in place, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to stay in the system."

"Get creative." Angelica could hear the patrol now, so she fell quiet, waiting for them to get close enough to take out quietly.

Nexi drew a blade from her jacket. It looked to be a sort of short sword, but with a flick of her wrist the handle extended into a pole to give her weapon greater reach. When the patrol got close enough, Nexi emerged from around a corner to attack one of the patrolmen, trusting the Angelica would take out the other guy. She didn't use the blade but rather the pole end of her weapon to crack the guy in the neck. He fell with a choked gasp, but another crack to the head silenced him.

Angelica struck at the same time, whipping a length of fiber wire out of her pocket and around the other patrolman's neck, cutting off his air just long enough to knock him out then easing him to the floor and tucking the weapon away again. "Gas masks. Guess they thought they were clever."

"Asshats," Nexi grumped as she retracted the pole of her weapon and tucked it back into its sheath. "Lets keep moving before the other levels are alerted."

"My thoughts exactly." Nimbly stepping over the two fallen guards, Angelica continued forward, looking for a path that would lead them to their target.

"Lift's this way," Nexi said, pointing the way. They found the lift and took it to the fourth sub-level and found the corridor where their target was being held. "I'll keep watch, you go get her," she said.

"Back in a minute." Watching for approaching guards, Angelica darted down the corridor, finding Aewia Larani's cell and starting to enter the unlock code they'd been given. "Aewia. We're getting you out of here." She didn't know if Aewia could hear her, but she continued in a low whisper anyway. "We have a shuttle waiting."

Aewia was in pretty bad shape and a bit delirious. She thought she heard voices again. Perhaps if she talked to them this time, they would hurry her off to sleep quicker. The beatings today were rougher than usual and she needed her rest, what little they afforded her. "What is it you want? I told you, the cake is real."

"What?" Entering the last part of the code, Angelica yanked the door open, leaving it ajar so it wouldn't lock again. "Can you walk?"

"Walk?" That didn't sound like torture to Aewia, though in her state... Either way, the person was speaking English and that was something she hadn't heard in several years. barely able to raise her head, she didn't believe what she was seeing. Was she being rescued? "If it's to get out of this hell hole, I think I can walk."

"I'm getting you out of this hellhole," Angelica confirmed, stepping into the cell and offering Aewia her hand. "But we have to move fast."

Making her way to her feet, Aewia took the offered hand. "Lead the way. Just please promise me you're real."

"I'm real." Angelica carefully guided Aewia out of the cell, leading her back to where Nexi waited.

As soon as Nexi saw Angelica, she turned to lead them back to the lift, careful to not let Aewia see her face.

"That's not a shuttle," Aewia said matter of factly. "That's a person. They're on our side, I hope. And real."

Angelica laughed a little. "She's going to get us to the shuttle. Come on... just the lift and a bit of a walk... then we'll be there."

Nexi couldn't help but smirk at the declaration that she wasn't a shuttle, but it made her a little sad. She wasn't accustomed to feeling such sadness, but knowing that this woman who was family had been through so much that she was making such declarations like she was a toddler... well, it hurt Nexi. But she couldn't think about that now, she needed to remain focused on getting them out of here, making sure the way to the lift was clear.

Aewia had a moment of lucidity just then as she caught sight of the lift. "This is a Reman trick to make me think I'm being rescued, isn't it? You're trying to kill me using the baryon sweep in the lift again." Aewia could only believe they were trying to trick her like that, muttering something about Reman shuttles as she turned to go back to her room.

"Wait, what!" Nexi spun around, not caring if either woman took notice of the facial similarities between her and Aewia. Really, she hadn't cared if Angelica noticed, she just didn't wanted Aewia to find out. No helping that now. "Baryon sweep?!" In the lift? She looked at Angelica. Oh man, they were fucked!

"Whoa, hold on, Aewia." Angelica blocked Aewia's retreat, gently steering her back toward Nexi. "We'll find another way out. We don't want to be fried either, trust me." She paused, hoping to hear some input from Jennifer. "Stanson? Other exits?"

Aewia patted Angelica's head softly. "It's ok, I hear voices too sometimes. Are the voices shuttles too?"

"Of course you hear voices, you're a telepath," Nexi reminded Aewia sharply. "And we really do have a shuttle, if that idiot Rhett ain't got himself caught."

"Ah yeah, telepathy. I think they broke that part." Aewia started sinking against a wall towards the floor, repeating "All the parts are broken," like a mantra.

"Sorry, I am trying to keep myself in the system for as long as possible. There are few maintenance hatches that run throughout the complex. They should lead you right to the same floor as we came in, however they have security locks that will take forever for you to override. I can do it, but I'll have to be here in the security office to do it." she told them.

"Too slow. Can't you turn off the sweep?" Dragging Aewia through the maintenance tunnels wasn't an appealing option, and Angelica didn't want to take the chance on being discovered unless they had to.

"Probably not..." Jennifer said going through the specifications of the base for a moment, "Wait. There may be something I can do to override the security in one of the auxiliary lifts that are used to transport food and materials." she said making sure that she wasn't locked out of those systems. "Alright, I can do it. Just give me a minute or two, start heading there and I'll disable those precautions then I'll meet you there its fairly close to my location." she said.

"That'll work. Be careful." Remembering that they'd passed those lifts, Angelica peeked down the corridor then shepherded Aewia in the right direction. "See? We're getting out."

"Out? There is no out." Aewia said as she was moved along the corridor. "I don't want to be late for mining duty tomorrow. Is the shuttle made of cake?"

"We'll get you a piece of cake on the shuttle," Nexi said to Aewia. She couldn't believe this was the person she was risking everything to save. How long had she been down here to crack so bad?

"No, it's not made of cake. It has a machine that can make cake though. And you don't have mining duty tomorrow. You get to sleep in." Angelica crossed her fingers, hoping that the idea of extra sleep would convince Aewia to come with them.

Aewia thought that over the best she could. "The cake is real, which means the shuttle will be real... And if the shuttle is real, I can sleep with the cake and save everyone from it."

All Nexi could do was face-palm and try not to comment on just how wrong that was...

"Uh... sure. If that's what you want." Angelica maintained her poker face, if only barely. "We're almost to the safe lift. Just around this corner."

"Yes, a safe lift for all the sisters. That's what it'll be. A good shuttle to blast off in." A look of serene calm came over Aewia's features.

Jennifer appeared around the corner and walked fast towards the turolift. She spotted the three women close to the turbolift. She had her rifle in her hand, un raised but armed in case there was any more trouble. "I've scrubbed most of the evidence of us being here." she said as she approached the lift, which was on standby as she entered the key to open the door.

"Good. Start praying Beaumont hasn't gotten himself captured." Angelica went into the lift first, pulling Aewia in behind her and gently restraining the cloud cuckoo-lander away from the controls. Last thing they needed was for Aewia to start asking the lift for cake.

"This was supposed to be a straightforward gig," Nexi grumbled under her breath as they entered the lift. "You better be worth all this effort," she said to Aewia, but immediately felt bad for saying it. Dammit, the girl was family, of course she was worth it!

"Of course I'm worth it. Is 'it' the shuttle? Can we save people? They can't eat the cake yet, you know." Aewia grinned loopily as she rubbed the scars on the back of her head hidden in her hair.

"Let's focus on saving you right now, okay?" Angelica punched in their destination, hoping this lift moved quickly.

"Any of you know how long anesthetine lasts?" Nexi asked as they rode the lift up. If the guards on the upper level were still knocked out, then they would have a clear way to the shuttle.

"They should be out for another ten minutes or so. If we hurry, that's time to make it back to the shuttle without being caught." Angelica hoped that her math estimates were correct; dragging Aewia through a fire fight would be disastrous.

"That's enough time to sleep through their naps. Plenty of shuttle cake for them." Aewia nodded sagely at her own words.

As the lift came to a stop and let them out, Nexi tapped at her ear to open a comm line with the shuttle. "Beaumont, have the shuttle ready, we're on our way out."

Before Rhett could reply to Nexi, Aewia had to freak out as soon as she realized where she was - at the top of a lift being let out. In her mind she was supposed to be dead but she never felt the baryon sweep. "I'm dead. When did I die? Did you feel the death?" Grabbing Nexi's arm tightly, she clung to her, shaking and wild eyed. "We're all dead. The lift killed us. We're all dead."

Nexi pinched Aewia on the arm, hard. "Did that hurt?" she asked, though she knew it should.

Aewia actually didn't feel it, the throbbing in her head was too much. "No pain, no more pain, it's all gone now." Slumping to the floor, a few tears escaped her eyes. "Head feels full, too much pain, no more pain."

"Shit..." Nexi knelt down next to the sobbing woman and whispered something in her ear.

Aewia was quiet for a moment before nodding and doing her best to compose herself. Standing, she had a hint of her old self back in her eyes, though she still moved jerkily. She knew the import of what Nexi had said. She didn't have the faculties to process it properly, but she knew it was important and that it meant she was really getting out of here alive.

Not sure what had happened, Angelica gave them a curious look but said nothing. Instead, she turned to look for the shuttle, hoping Rhett was still hovering where they'd left him.

Rhett had been doing just about anything he could to keep himself from falling asleep in the shuttle all by himself. They could have at least left me something pretty to play with thought the young ensign Chief Engineer as the call came in from the team. Taking his feet off the console, he shot forward and took action "10-4, little darlin', I'll be droppin' the hammer and swooping in to save your asses in a minute or two...stand by" replied Rhet with a smirk on his face as he readied the shuttle for a quick evacuation.

Taking the shuttle down was easy, it was the avoiding getting shot down that was hard. "Y'all better be ready, I'm comin' in hot and takin' some light fire" added Rhett as he sat the the shuttle down and activated the lowering of the hatch. "Come on, move your asses!" he shouted with a sigh.

Nexi ran towards the shuttle loading bay, practically dragging Aewia along with her. They could hear footsteps down the corridor behind them. Either the guards on this level had woken up or guards from the lower levels had come up to investigate. Either way, it meant trouble!

"We're almost there!" Nexi called out to Rhett over the comm line.

"Not to rush you, Sweetheart, but we do not have all day. Try not to move like a Denebian slime devil" replied Rhett.

"Can it, Ensign," Angelica cut in sharply, grabbing Aewia's other arm to help Nexi pull her along faster. "We're coming as fast as we can, just keep the engines hot!"

"So long as I'm in this damn shuttle... You know it's hot, babe" said Rhett as he waited for the others to reach the shuttle.

They made it to the shuttle bay and Nexi let Angelica pull Aewia onto the shuttle. Nexi stood on guard as she waited for Jennifer to board the shuttle, then quickly followed and closed the ramp. "We're here, get us out of here!" Nexi called to Rhett.

Rhett 'floored' it and shot off with the shuttle like a projectile from an old weapon. He wasted no time at all. Safety was not a concern for him at the moment. "Yeeeeeehaaaw!" he shouted loudly and with enthusiasm as he brought the shuttle up to speed much quicker than regulations dictated.

TAG

-=USS Hera=-

Enalia had just sent her first officer over to the bird of prey and accepted the Captain's assassin wife over to her ship. As the half naked woman stepped aboard her bridge with 4 security officers in tow, she realized one thing hadn't changed since she last met this woman. All of her armor - basically a corset and skirt - were made of throwing daggers. This fiery haired human looking woman was likely the most dangerous person on Azrhianna's crew for the simple fact that she was fanatical in her desire to do anything for her wife and savior.

Standing, Enalia greeted her with a smile and motioned to the first officer's seat. "Welcome aboard. Would you care to sit next to me? I don't think Commander Edomar will be needing his chair for a while."

Wordlessly, the woman nodded and elegantly headed to the offered seat, sitting in it. Trying not to dhow any signs of nervousness or weakness herself, Enalia sat in her own captain's chair and waited for Charon to report in from the Raptor.

Richard placed a hand on his phaser, when the woman appeared on the bridge. Staring at the woman's clothes, he felt a chill of fear run through his chest. Richard had never this close to anyone this dangerous before. Richard's postings before the Hera were all desk jobs. He had never seen an enemy of the Federation in person, let alone one wearing an outfit made of knives. As she sat down, Richard let go of his phaser, and returned to the tactical console.

Charon, now equipped with a viridium patch and another dose of neural suppressant in his system, was on his way to deck six, transporter room one. He did not believe that this would end well. The latest development of their situation was to their disadvantage. They were already handicapped by several things, his own condition being one of them. So his mood had not improved after a Klingon Bird of Prey had shown up in their area of operations. He did not believe that this was a coincidence and he was almost sure that there was something fishy going on that none had bothered to tell them about.
When Charon reached the transporter room the current transporter chief nodded in greeting and got ready to preform the transport. Charon stepped onto one of the padds and took a couple of deep breaths. Only after a few moments did he give the chief a sign to initialize the procedure that would have him dematerialize here and rematerialize on the other ship. The world turned blue for a second and then the surroundings changed.

-=IKS Raptor=-

When the blue faded Charon was definitively not on the Hera any more. That much he could tell. While his eyes adapted to the change in lighting he looked around the room.

"Welcome to the Raptor. This way to the bridge, please." A surly human looking male said. By his movements he was a lot more than human, but by all outward appearances that's all he was. Leading Charon to the bridge, the man took the helm as Azrhianna turned in her chair and greeted their new arrival.

"Hello Commander. May I assume you're familiar with the science console? You Starfleet types are always scanning things, after all." The evil Orion woman said with a sinister grin.

Charon looked at the human looking man. “Thanks.” He responded to the greeting. “Sure.” Charon said then and fell in behind the male. The way to the bridge was not too long. After all the Bird of Prey was a rather small ship.
On the Bridge he took in the unique Klingon ship building style. It looked raw and utilitarian. It had its own unique charm though which was distinctly different than the sleek style Starfleet used for its vessels. When Azrhianna stood up to greet him he looked at her for a long moment and his look was that of a farmer looking at fatstock. “Come on, we could have so much fun.” Said the tiny voice in his head, urging him to do unspeakable things to the people on this small craft. Charon ignored the voice. For now they were all safe. “Thank you captain, I know how a science console works but my Klingon might be a bit rusty.” He explained then, after his face had smoothed over again. “Want me to scann for anything special?” He asked with genuine interest. Keeping his mind bussy would help him to stay in control.

"Sure," Azrhianna said with a wicked grin, the pale blue lighting around her seat giving an eerie shadow to her features. "Scan near your ship for tachyon particles. Particularly in the blindspots."

Charon was unfazed by the eerie lighting and the performance that was playing out on the bridge of the Bird of Prey. He simply acknowledged the order given to him by the captain of the vessel and commenced to set up a tachyon scan. After a few moments he managed to set up the scan and simply watched the monitor. The Klingon writing on the console was bothering him a bit but he managed to work with it. After a few minutes he spoke up. “No tachyon particles in the vicinity of the ship.” He just swallowed a comment about the fact that a vessel like the Hera did not have actual sensor blind spots. In his head though the tiny voice started to act up again. ”Pansy, pansy, you're a little pansy.” it mocked him. Charon brushed it away with an angry mental slap. And for a few seconds the bridge felt like a strong biting cold wind was blowing through it. “So, please Captain Azrhianna do tell me, what were the circumstances of your first meeting with Captain Telvan.” he inquired, his voice heavy with interest. And, was it mischief?

Azrhianna just sat there looking at the viewscreen as she answered. "She had something I needed on her ship. I took it, we were captured. Then I blew a huge hole in her ship and escaped. Nothing but business." Checking the readout on the arm of her chair, she called out her orders. "Signal the Hera that we're moving out and engage cloak. Helm, keep us on the Hera's port side." As the lights shifted to red, the bridge darkened noticeably as the cloak engaged.

-=USS Hera=-

Watching the old bird of prey cloak, Enalia was glad she had delayed the order for the torpedo spread. She didn't want to lose her new first officer - especially not this soon. "Helm, set a course for the colony, full impulse." As the ship got underway, she noticed the now cloaked Raptor was taking up formation with the Hera. They had only made it halfway to the prison before something really bad happened. A romulan Warbird decloaked right in front of them. "All stop. Open hailing frequencies."

"Uh Captain..." Ven spoke up from the Op's station. "That's a Romulan Warbird dead ahead..."

Punching her comm, Enalia sent a ship wide alert as green plasma balls erupted from the Romulan ship. "All hands brace for impact! Red alert!" She got the words out just in time for the first of the plasma torpedoes to hit, shaking the ship.

"Captain, shields are down to 95% percent" Ven said holding on to his work station.

As Ven spoke, 3 more salvoes crushed the shields against the Hera's hull. "Thank goodness for our shield upgrades. Return fire. What's the status of the Raptor?" Enalia called out, clinging to her seat as phaser fire erupted from the Hera's forward beam banks towards the warbird. The ship was easily three times the mass of the Hera and massively overgunned, but somehow Enalia hoped they could hold their own at the very least.

"Raptor is flanking us and charging weapons Ma'am." Ven reported, watching his scanners. He sure hoped that was a good sign.

Enalia did too. She didn't want to think what would happen if those dirty pirates were working for the Romulans.

-=Raptor=-

Azrhianna just stared as the waves of plasma torpedoes beat against the Hera's shields before calling out orders. "Helm, take us around to the warbird's flank and prepare for battle. Mister Starfleet, scan them for weaknesses. I want ideas on where to hit them and how to get past their shields."

Charon nodded his head in agreement and looked down onto his console. Randomly moving his hands over the device he was not paying any attention to what was going on right in front of him. On the viewscreen the battle between the Warbird and the Hera was heating up fast. Orange and green beams of luminous energy were cutting through the vacuum of space, luminescent torpedoes were hurling through space and exploding in mighty blasts of light and energy. None of that was of any interest to Charon. He just kept that strange grin on his face.
While he was seemingly looking at his console the shields of the D'deridex started to fluctuate. “It seems we got our opening. Their aft shields are buckling. If I am reading this right a ruptured plasma conduit took out their stern emitter.” There was that malice in his voice again. And while he spoke he barely contained a mischievousness giggle.

"Excellent. Decloak and fire a full barrage on their aft." Azrhianna ordered. The ship did just that, joining into the battle with full force.

-=Hera=-

The space battle raged on for almost a minute, neither side having the upper hand. Enalia needed a way to finish this but other than firing weapons at this D'Deridex, she saw no other choice. "Keep firing phasers and switch to quantums on the platform launchers," she called out.

Within moments the upper launchers were spewing forth the silver energy balls, hitting the warbird hard. After a few more shots, they apparently didn't think it was worth it to keep fighting so they started to cloak. While the Hera ceased fire, the pirates didn't scoring a critical hit to their singularity core and destroying the ship.

"That was unexpected... Damage report." Enalia demanded. "Hail the Raptor and let them know I'd like to swap officers back." Pressing a control on the arm of her seat, she continued. "Engineering, install seat belts on all bridge seating."

"Shields are down to 52%, reports of injured on desk 4, 6 and 8 and there was a hull breach on deck 3 but it's contained and repairs are already underway, Captain." Ven reported from his station.

"Excellent. Far better than Any of us could have hoped." Turning to her 'guest', Enalia grinned at the blade-outfitted woman. "Thank you for your assistance. The remains of the prison colony is yours and your Captain's."

Standing, the assassin nodded and headed off the bridge silently, her security guards in tow.

Enalia had been in her quarters for a few minutes after the rescue and had just sat down to some tea and pastries. The agent had been through hell, for sure. She just hoped she could still tell them what they needed to know.

Nexi took her time leaving sickbay, but there was little she could to do help Aewia when she for now she simply needed rest. From there, Nexi wasted some time in her shuttle going through a system check in preparation for departure. The Engineering crew had made so many repairs to her Wandering Star it almost felt like a whole new ship! But once she felt comfortable with how her ship felt, she powered it down and headed out, wandering the halls as she considered Enalia's offer. Part of her wanted to accept, but she didn't think she could. She had too many skeletons in her closet. Anyway, Grek wouldn't let her...

Eventually, Nexi made it to the Captain's quarters and she rang the chime.

"Come in," Enalia called out. The doors opened to reveal Nexi and the look on her face didn't give Enalia much hope. "Please, join me," she said, motioning to the open chair and pouring a second cup of tea.

Nexi entered and took a seat near Enalia. "So, you wanted to talk about my boss..."

"I do and I'm going to be blunt about it," Enalia said. "What will it take to get you away from him? Latinum? Beetle snuff? A small moon?"

Nexi stared at her blankly for a moment. She had to be kidding! "You're serious? Why?"

"For starters, there's someone in our sickbay that needs you. Other than that, You deserve better and I'd like a chance to help you find a better life. Maybe not all Starfleet and so on, but not servitude to a Ferengi only interested in profit." Enalia had a bit of a pleading look in her eyes as she spoke.

"You don't know me well enough to say what I do or don't deserve," Nexi said quietly. "If this is just your high and mighty Starfleet values talking, I don't take charity."

Enalia shook her head at that, looking down into her teacup. "No, not Starfleet values. Trill values if anything. They tell me a person shouldn't be owned. They also tell me family is important. I'm not offering you charity, I'm offering you a chance to be your own person."

Nexi thought long and hard on this. She nearly had enough saved up that she could buy her freedom, but she would have little left to live on. It was why she wasn't free yet, she knew better than to strike out on her own without funds to live on, especially given the condition her ship was in. Was, Enalia had 'Star repaired. It would still be risky to clear her debt now, but with a safe haven here on Hera the risk was worth it.

"I'll take what I need from the goods you had brought on board," Nexi said. "And I'll be back as soon as I've delivered Nerol to the Commerce Association."

"Thank you." Enalia was still somber. She still had bad news to deliver apparently. "After we restored comms with Starfleet, I looked into her parents. While we were out of contact there was a shuttle accident. They're trying to pin it on political extremists."

"An accident?" Nexi felt numb. "Please tell me they survived."

Enalia closed her eyes and shook her head. "No, all 37 passengers and 7 crew... It was an old Sydney class executive shuttle taking them to a rally at the Betazed moon colony. Traces of kemocite were found in the debris." Picking up a PaDD next to her, she offered it to Nexi. "There's the public report."

"Don't tell Aewia," Nexi said as she looked over the PaDD. She would be looking into the personally before returning to the Hera. "I'll tell her... eventually. I just don't think she could handle it now."

"I didn't plan on it." Enalia said, sipping at her tea finally. "After all she's been through... You're the only family I know of left that she has."

"Thanks for not telling me that earlier," Nexi said. "I probably woulda hit you for trying to guilt me into staying." She sighed and returned the PaDD to Enalia.

"I'm glad you agreed to stay first. I would have told you either way, but..." Enalia sighed heavily. "I don't want you to trade Ferengi slavery for emotional slavery. I'm sorry."

"I don't know the first thing about being family..." Nexi admitted. "I don't think I can be what she needs, especially once she learns about what happened to her parents."

"I don't think she'll be able to process what happened to them for some time, if ever. If you're there for her, that's most of what family is, I think." Enalia picked up a pastry thing and looked at it for a few seconds before biting into it.

"I need time to think," Nexi said, rising from her chair and heading to the door. "Have your people open the shuttle bay doors."

"Try not to take too much time." Enalia set the half eaten pastry down and headed to her desk to make arrangements for Nexi's departure.

"I'll do what I need to, then come straight back," Nexi promised.

"Thank you. I'll send the Hera's transponder code to your runabout just in case." Enalia said as she started punching buttons.

Nexi nodded, then walked out the door. She was going to need a good, hard drink to process this...

As soon as the runabout docked, Nexi headed to Sickbay with Aewia. She wasn't used to having access to medical facilities, but surely it would be a good place to start. Aewia looked like she could use some attention from Medical.

"See," Nexi said to the damaged woman, "we're out, we're safe, no need to be afraid anymore." Nexi wasn't good at this kind of thing. She wasn't good at dealing with people in general, but she felt the need to see this through.

As they traveled through the halls of the Hera, Aewia had to shield her eyes from the bright lights. She wasn't used to anything brighter than a dim bulb now and the lights here hurting her eyes. "It's too bright... Is this... I hear humming. Frosting ship? To stop the cake? We need more frosting."

"Computer, dim the lights," Nexi said when she saw Aewia shielding her eyes. "You're hearing the ship hum. C'mere..." Nexi pulled her to a wall and pressed her ear to the wall to listen to the hum of the EPS conduits. She watched Aewia to see if she would follow her example. This felt so weird, but if it helped... "It's a ship, not a cake."

Relieved at the dimmed lights, Aewia nervously pressed her ear to the wall as well. That was a good hum. A hum she knew. Relaxing against the wall, she closed her eyes and almost melted against it. "This is a nebula. I'm home."

It took Nexi a moment to realize what Aewia was saying. She wasn't as familiar with the different classes as someone who would have grown up as a Federation citizen, but she did eventually remember that the Hera was a Nebula class starship. "Yeah, a Nebula... You're home, you're safe."

"Thank you big sister," Aewia mumbled as she slipped to the floor almost asleep, relief written all over her face.

"Hey hey, don't fall asleep just yet!" Nexi said, helping Aewia back on her feet. "I'm taking you to Sickbay. They'll make you better and then I can bring you some cake since you seem so obsessed with it." And she didn't refute that they were sibling. She hadn't wanted to tell Aewia in the first place, but Aewia had needed some sort of motivation to get her moving.

Aewia sleepily got back to her feet. "Oh. Will they be able to fix my missing parts?" she asked as she gingerly touched the back of her head again.

"I hope so," Nexi said as she herded the woman towards Sickbay. They arrived and the doors parted to reveal full lighting. Nexi quickly ordered the lights dim again and directed her to a biobed.

Aewia crawled up onto the biobed and laid there staring at Nexi with a goofy grin on her face. "I almost forgot how to smile."

"It's alright, I'll help you remember how." Nexi sat on the bed next to her sister, watching Aewia processing all of this. She couldn't believe Aewia had been reduced to this. The one time she had seen Aewia before all this, she had been such a strong-willed woman. Nexi had only seen her from afar and never really got to know her, but now she wished she had.

Nodding, Aewia reached over to take Nexi's hand, her face scrunching up in concentration. "They took... What did they take... The doctors will know. They'll know how silent it is." Aewia had only seen Nexi in passing over the years. Not enough to remember her, but she knew they shared a connection. Enough of her mind was left to realize that just from the look in Nexi's eyes. "They'll fix me up, won't they? Then we can have cake together."

"The doctors will know," Nexi said, giving Aewia's hand a squeeze. But she didn't have much confidence that the doctor could fix her. Everything in Aewia's head was so chaotic. It was a real mess she had gotten herself into...

As Aewia slipped off to sleep still holding Nexi's hand, the captain walked in through the door. Heading over to the 2, Enalia spoke softly. "How is she?"

"They broke her," Nexi said quietly, watching Aewia sleep. "I don't know if it was something they did to her or just being stuck down there too long, but she ain't right in the head."

"From the reports, she'd only been captured 3 weeks ago so there's no telling what they did to her. I just hope we can get the information we're supposed to get from her." Enalia shook her head as she looked the former agent over.

"Do what you can so that she won't be put in danger again," Nexi said. "That's my payment. If that means putting her on desk duty or retiring her and sending her back to Betazed, I don't care. This cannot happen again."

"I intended to try to do that as it was," Enalia said as she moved to the other side of the biobed. "Will you at least stay and help her recover?"

"I can't, I have a delivery to make... If I didn't have to check in with my boss..." But Nexi wanted to stay! "I'll come back. That's the best I can do."

"Before you go, I'd like to talk with you about your boss a bit more," Enalia said, glancing around the room for the doctor.

"I'd rather not talk about that here," Nexi said. "I'll come find you before I leave," she promised.

"Same here," Enalia said. "I'll be in my quarters for a while. I've ordered us to a nearby system a bit further in Federation space for now so hopefully we won't run into any more Romulan ships."

Nexi nodded. "One can hope," she said.

Amelia was in the main mess hall reading a tech manual and munching on iced fruits, completely absorbed in the PaDD before her. Power systems were her forte, but these new systems coming out just seemed overly complicated to her.

Ven came strolling into the mess hall, his uniform was wrinkled and streaked with grease as was his face, his tool belt was overloaded and hung low on his right hip and clinked as he walked into the room. His trade mark goggles were pushed up on his head and into his unruly hair. He whistled as he walked.

Glancing up at the auditory distraction, Amelia waved her antenna towards the odd looking officer. Was that the new Ops Chief?

He went to the replicators and ordered something to drink. He had been crawling around the ship all day and was parched. He drained half the glass before turning around and scanning the room. The blue skinned woman in Starfleet Yellow caught his attention. He walked over to her with slightly jerky movements. "Hello!" he said to her.

oh great, he wanted to talk to her. Setting her PaDD down, Amelia stood. "Hello sir. Is there something I can do for you?"

He looked behind him expecting there to be another officer that she was addressing. Then his head jerked back to her and hie laughed a nervous laugh. " Oh your talking to me! heh heh. Please don't get up. I just wanted to say hi. We have not meet yet. Or have we?"

Sitting back down, Amelia relaxed a little. "No sir, we haven't. I'm Crewman Amelia Takethen. It's a pleasure to meet you," she said, motioning for him to sit across from her.

He took the seat, his tool bag clatering aginst it as he moved it out of his way. "Ventarus Nosplet, but you may call me Ven. Everyone else does." He set his glass down and sat on the edge of his seat, his back not touching the back of the chair. He looked like he was readying to spring from his seat at any second. "How long have you been on Hera?"

"I came over with the refit crew a couple months ago and they had me stay. I've gone over about a third of the EPS conduits throughout the ship since then," Amelia said with a bit of a grin.

"Well welcome aboard Amelia...is it ok that i call you Amelia?" Ven asked "A third of the conduits? That's very impressive!"

Nodding at his first question, Amelia grinned wider. "So how long have you been aboard? I don't remember seeing you during the refit, but this is a big ship."

Ven shrugged " I have been here for a few years but I don't spend a lot of time up here. Heh...but now that I'm chief I have to come up for air I guess."

Amelia waved her antenna in surprise. "So you were here for the renaming, both refits, AND the pirates blowing a chunk out of the saucer? Impressive."

"Eh" He took another drink. "I cant believe they dug me out of the ship to promote me."

"By the sounds of it, they must think you're worth digging out," Amelia said with a grin. "With how deep the grease on your uniform indicates, I'd say they had to drag you out of the conduits between decks 22 and 23."

Ven chuckled a bit "Somewhere close to that." He adjusted his tool belt. "So where were you before Hera?"

"Starbase 117. I figured that since I grew up working on shuttle power systems and the like, I'd do well enough in Starfleet so I got a bit more official training and joined up as enlisted. They sent me there then to work on the Hera a couple years later," Amelia rattled off. Leaning in, she spoke a bit softer. "Is it true that the Captain has a vengeance against pirates?"

Ven shrugged " I don't really know the Captain. I have talked with her like three times. Once was when I was being promoted."

"Ah... Well then..." Nibbling on the last of her iced fruits, Amelia thought that over. "What about the rumor of her having a giant slug inside her? Do you know anything about that?"

Ven grinned at this. " That's what I have heard also. A joined Trill! How cool is that?"

"So that means she's really hundreds of years old, right? I'm not sure 'cool' is the right word, but it's definitely interesting." Amelia was actually a little creeped out, wondering what it was like having something like that inside of you.

"I'm not sure how old she is. Should I ask? I was always told girls don't like that." Van said, cocking his head to the side

Amelia shook her head at that. "No you're right. Best not to ask. I'm not sure I'd want to know the answer, anyway."

"Why would you not like the answer?" Ven asked curiously, his head still cocked to the side.

Amelia shrugged. "It might not fit my expectations, is all. I expect her to be older and much wiser than I am and I think I'd rather keep that image."

Ven nodded, understand. " It is a good image for a Captain to have. She does have an air of knowledge and experience about her, doesn't she?" He said with a goofy little smirk on his face.

"She does." Amelia agreed.

"So who else around here should I know about?" Ven asked.

"Well, I suppose Nexi... She's a civilian advisor of some sort. Her runabout is really nice." Amelia said, thinking about the maintenance she did for her.

"She has her own runabout? Nice! What is she advising on?" Ven adjusted the goggles on his of his head.

Amelia shook her head. "Something no one is supposed to know about. Even the work I did on her ship had to go unrecorded."

This shocked Ven. "That's odd. Does a lot of 'off the record' stuff happen around here?" Maybe Ven spent to much time below.

"First I've heard of it, though since we now work for Intel I suppose it'll become commonplace." Amelia said.

Ven nodded his head in his jerky fashion. "I suppose you might be right. But really, no one knows why she's here?"

Leaning in and quieting her voice, Amelia spoke softly. "I think it has to do with our missions. We work for SI now so I'm sure all sorts of shady people with no records will be heading our way. She's just one that's on our side... For now..." Straightening back up, she resumed her normal speaking voice. "She's got an awesome ship though. I used to tinker with a similar one both growing up and in training."

Ven got a little twinkle in his eye. "Would you show me?"

"Her shuttle?" Amelia asked a bit confused. "She doesn't like others in her ship. I could point it out, but you'll have to talk with her about looking it over. It's the only Orion class runabout in hanger bay 3."

Ven shrugged. "I just thought maybe it would be fun to sneak a peek with you."

"Probably not the best idea, but we can if you want to." Amelia said with a bit of a grin.

"I do..." Ven said with a jerky nod. "Very much I do!"

"Want to go now or wait?" Amelia asked, glancing at their meals.

"How about we go as soon as you are done?" Ven said. He was excited to be making a friend.

Popping the last piece of iced fruit into her mouth, Amelia nodded and stood. "Shall we then?"

Ven gathered his dishes. "Yes!" He stood and slid his dishes into the replicator for recycling.

Sliding her own dish into the replicator, Amelia led the way out of the mess hall towards the auxiliary docking bay.

Nexi stared out at the inky blankness of space before her somewhat disbelieving that it was true: she was free to do whatever the hell she wanted, her life was her own. She heaved a sigh of relief. Finally. How long had she been struggling to buy her freedom? Well, now she had it but at the cost of her sister's sanity and with the knowledge that their parents were dead. At least now coming out into the open about who she was wouldn't have nearly the negative affect on Betazed politics as when their father was alive. If that had come out just a few weeks ago...

Nexi adjusted the trajectory of her ship to intercept the Hera. She had promised she would return and now she was making good on that promise. Still cloaked, she opened a channel to the Captain's Ready Room.

Enalia was there trying to enjoy a cup of tea and looking over report after report. It seemed to take more and more to keep this ship running right every day, especially with that fool of a chief engineer. She wanted to strangle him then throw him out the nearest airlock. Maybe she should...

Suddenly, her comm chirped, the screen lighting up. Enalia pressed the receive button and smiled when she saw who it was. "Nexi, it's good to see you again."

"Good to see you too," Nexi replied honestly, though she seemed uneasy. "I'm on my way to you, maybe another 15 minutes... Can you have the docking bays open for me?"

"Of course. I assume the same berth is ok?" Enalia said as she started tying out commands to the auxilliary shuttle bay.

"Wherever you wanna put me is fine," Nexi said. "How is Aewia?"

"About the same, unfortunately. The doctors have been able to replace some of her lost grey matter with implants, but there's just so much damage..." Enalia shook her head sadly.

"Well, I guess this means I should bring her some cake," Nexi said in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Has she asked about me?" Nexi had been worried Aewia might freak out when she left and it made Nexi feel slightly guilty, but she had to go, there was no way around it.

"Several times. I explained to her that you'd be back soon and that you just had to take care of something else first but she seems to forget things easily." Enalia said.

Nexi nodded sadly. Her one, last biological connection in this universe and she couldn't even keep track of what was going on around her. "I know I said I didn't need a room on Hera, that my bunk on my own ship was fine, but... I want to stay with her and there ain't enough room on my ship so... Can you put us in quarters together? I know I probably ain't the best role model for her, but we're all the family we have left and that's gotta count for something."

Enalia smiled warmly at the sentiment. "Consider it done. Role model or not, I think she instinctively knows you even without any telepathic abilities left."

"So her telepathy is gone?" Nexi asked. She couldn't believe they had taken that away from her. Nexi was only half Betazoid, but that telepathy was such an inherent part of who they were as a species and culture. Not that Nexi understood all those kinds of things, but she couldn't imagine what it would be like to be without her Betazoid senses.

Enalia couldn't imagine losing such an important sense either. Especially the way the romulans removed it... "It looked like they literally burnt those parts out of her. There's nothing left but scar tissue and we don't know of any way to repair that damage other than the slim chance of a brain tissue graft from a cloned brain. Even then, chances of her surviving the graft are slim, let alone for it to work."

"Fuck..." Nexi just couldn't fathom what had been done to her sister. She had done some pretty brutal things in her line of work over the years, but this was something else entirely. "Well, I'm minutes out. I'll go see her as soon as my ship is secured."

Enalia nodded. "She should be in wardroom 3 doing some therapy. The computer will have trouble tracking her, by the way. She's tried to eat 3 comm badges so she's not wearing one..."

Fucking hell... "Did none of you think about a subdermal tracker? And if she's going to be like this, it might be worth considering acquiring a Ferengi UT for the ear. I modified mine to serve the same function as a communicator." Though Nexi still had the communicator badge given to her and would wear it.

"The doctors are still pulling subdermal scrap out of her. We'd rather not put any more in her for now since most of the ones left were used for interrogation." Enalia elaborated.

"Fair enough..." Still, Nexi would look into an ear unit for Aewia. "Alright, I've got Hera on visual and I'm coming about. I'm still cloaked for your safety. I severed my ties with my boss, but I'm gonna play it on the safe side for a while."

"Sounds wise. The shuttle bay doors should be open now. I ordered them to vent the bay for a few minutes to get rid of some lingering odors. Apparently one of the crates our Ferengi friends gave us was full of raw meat."

Nexi made a gagging sound, but she was used to it. She had been brought up around Ferengi, so it was hardly the worst thing she had been exposed to. "You really know how to make a girl feel at home, don't you?"

Enalia shrugged and grinned. "Sorry. It was either that or tell them to tractor a cloaked ship. This way there's no shield to pass through and you won't be heard at all until you touch down on the deck. Besides, this is a Nebula class. As soon as those doors are sealed the room will be full of fresh air in 20 seconds or less."

"Sounds good," Nexi said as she adjusted her speed for docking. "See you in a few..." Nexi cut the transmission so she could focus on landing procedures. She swiftly landed her ship in the bay and the bay operators could see evidence of her cloak affecting the floors so they shut the door. As soon as the doors were shut, she disengaged the cloak and began powering down her ship for long term docking. By the time she was done, atmosphere had been restored and she left her ship and the bay to head for Sickbay.

Aewia was sitting at a table, mulling over some blocks with letters on them. She had forgotten why she had them and what she was supposed to do with them and was just looking them over with a look of consternation on her face. She could identify most of the letters, but a few of them didn't look too familiar.

Nexi entered the Sickbay and made her way to wardroom 3 to find her sister. She saw Aewia looking at the block letters as though they were completely foreign, though they probably were after all the crap that had been done to her. Nexi tapped on the doorway to get Aewia's attention.

Aewia looked up in surprise, smiling and waving happily when she saw it was Nexi. "There you are! You were gone so I missed you."

Nexi smiled, pleased that Aewia at least remembered her. "I was gone, but now I'm back," Nexi said simply as she drew up a chair to sit next to her sister. "This looks boring. What are you doing?"

Aewia looked back at the blocks in consternation as she slid one hand across the table to take hold of Nexi's hand. "I don't remember."

Nexi gave Aewia's hand a squeeze. "It's alright, you don't have to remember right now," Nexi said, though she could see a problem with the therapy already. The blocks were displaying English when it should be displaying Betazoid text. She brushed the blocks away and found a PaDD on the table. It was displaying some simple text for Aewia to practice with, but again it was in English. Nexi changed it to Betazoid text to see if that would help any. "I asked the Captain if we could have a room together once you're out of here," Nexi said. "She said that was okay."

Smiling brightly, Aewia squeezed Nexi's hand back. "That sounds good. We can eat together." Looking at the PaDD, she realized she could read it just fine now. "See Spot... See Spot run... No, I only see text... What was your name again? I forgot."

"My name is Nexi. What is yours?" Nexi asked without missing a beat. It kinda hurt that Aewia couldn't remember her name, but getting upset about it wouldn't help.

Aewia thought about that for a few. "Nexi..." she mumbled, trying her best to memorize the name again. "I'm Aewia. Aewia... La... La... Larani? I think that's it."

Nexi nodded. "That's right," she said. "Let me know when you're ready to get out of here and I'll take you to our new quarters."

"I think I'm ready now. They say I'll be blind the rest of my life. Is that true? Thinking is still hard with just my thoughts. Do you know about the silmaran virus?" Aewia's thoughts were disjointed and random, her expression rapidly changing between confusion and hope.

"What about the silmaran virus?" Nexi asked to see if that train of thought would go anywhere. She didn't know if they had been able to debrief Aewia yet, but on the off chance they hadn't because of her mental state, it was probably best to get any information she could.

"What about it?" Aewia asked blankly. "It reanimates corpses. It's based on the way Kobali reproduce but far less subtle." Looking back at her PaDD, Aewia tapped a few keys. "Who is this Spot person and why do they run?"

"I don't know, but that's a really good question," Nexi said as she looked at the PaDD to what Aewia was reading. See Spot run, deep stuff... "I think Spot is a dog... So, Kobali and corpses. Sounds like fun. Do you know how the virus works?"

"A dog?" Aewia tossed the PaDD across the table. "I don't like dogs. too slimy. They have viruses too."

"Good to know," Nexi said as she put the PaDD away. She would have to talk to Enalia about what Aewia had said about the virus. Even the smallest bit could be important. "Come on, lets go find our new quarters." Nexi stood and found Aewia's doctor and told him the bit about the language barrier and that Aewia didn't seem to like reading material about dogs. And while she looked up her new room assignment, the doctor gave her a few things to keep in their quarters for Aewia to practice with, just a few puzzles to keep her mind engaged. Nexi accepted them, then took Aewia's hand and they were off.

Aewia strolled happily, humming to herself and smiling goofily as she looked at everything as they went to their new quarters. "Can we have dinner soon? I'm getting a bit hungry."

"Sure," Nexi said. She wasn't sure she was ready to take care of another person, but she couldn't leave that job to someone else. Aewia deserved better... "What do you want to eat?"

Aewia thought about that a while. "Not gruel or ration bars. What about... it's a roll thing... with meat and rice... wrapped in cabbage..."

"No more gruel, and we can definitely do better than ration bars," Nexi said, though she had no idea what a 'roll thing' with meat, rice, and cabbage was called, but she was sure she could find something in the replicator.

"And spicy too. Like hasperat." Aewia said, not realizing she just described hasperat.

Nexi chuckled. Okay, now the description made sense. "Alright, how about hasperat? That's kinda like meat and rice rolled in cabbage, right?"

Aewia nodded happily. "And spicy too. Like a meatloaf with rice and veggies rolled in cabbage can be. Don't tell father I eat it though. It's bad for his image."

That caused a pang of pain and regret to settle in Nexi's chest. She was glad that Aewia had been stripped of her telepathy, neither were ready for the discussion about what had happened to their father just yet. "Well, what he doesn't know can't hurt him," Nexi said with a grin. they made it to their new quarters and Nexi let them in. "Go pick which bed you want to sleep on while I get dinner."

Aewia headed over to the couch and flopped in front of it, getting comfortable on the floor. "This is comfortable." she said, rubbing her face against the plush carpet.

Fuck, this was going to be a challenge wasn't it? "You look comfortable," Nexi said as she set Aewia's therapy puzzles on the coffee table then headed to the replicator to get some hasperat for them. "Ready to eat?"

Sitting up, Aewia placed her hands on the coffee table. "Ready! What's for dinner?"

"Hasperat," Nexi said as she retrieved the plates from the replicator, not even bothered that Aewia had already forgotten, she just rolled with it. "I hope you like it spicy. Do you want to eat there or up here at the table?"

"Ooh my favorite!" Aewia picked up one of the rolls, munching on it happily yet very guarded as if she was worried someone would take it away from her.

Nexi made no attempt to try to correct the behavior. She remembered being in the same position at one time. She would just have to make sure Aewia felt safe enough that she wouldn't have to guard her food. "It's alright," Nexi said as she sat across from Aewia with her own roll, eating slowly and trying to remain relaxed so Aewia would relax. "I like potato soup with little cheesy crackers."

"And those little cubes of yellow stuff too? Like cheese?" Aewia relaxed a bit, eating a bit more casually.

"Yeah, just like that," Nexi said with a chuckle. "Do you like the room? Think you'll be comfortable here?"

"It's big. Almost as big as my room back home." Aewia looked around at the room, staring out the window for a long moment before going back to eating.

"It is big," Nexi replied with a nod. She wasn't really all that into the hasperat and left the rest of it on her plate. "Can you tell me about your home? What do you remember?"

"I remember..." Aewia scrunched up her face in thought. "Home? A big house. Father worked a lot but he still ate dinner with us every night."

"That sounds nice," Nexi said with a genuine smile even though it made her sad. She knew she should probably tell Aewia about what happened to their father, but not yet... "I can't promise I'll be here to eat dinner with you every night, but I will as often as I can. This is home now, okay?

Aewia nodded. Her eyes seemed to clear up as she remembered more. "I also remember mother was a stuck up bitch. We parted with rather harsh words. I'd like to reconcile with her, though I doubt she'll ever talk with me again."

Fuck... This was getting really tough for Nexi, she just didn't know how to deal with this! "Aewia, there's something I need to tell you..." Shit, she didn't even know why she was bothering to tell her now, Aewia probably wouldn't even remember it tomorrow... "There was an incident. Your mom and dad... our dad... They were traveling for a rally on the Betazed moon and their shuttle had been sabotaged. They're dead."

Aewia looked down at her hasperat silently. "I guess I won't get that chance... Do you think I'll remember this later? I'm so... Wait..." She looked up, something dawning on her. "You said 'our'. So you really are my sister?"

"Yeah, I really am," Nexi said sadly. "I don't know all the details, my mom died before she could tell me, but it was before you came along... I was an accident, I don't even try to pretend otherwise. And your dad never even knew I existed. I was content to stay a secret, but you needed me... So here I am."

"Thank you." Aewia said, the clarity fading from her eyes.

Nexi could see the lucidity fading, feel the connections within Aewia falling apart. Whatever moment they had was gone and it was anyone's guess if she would remember it later. Nexi sighed and took the rest of her dinner back to the replicator to recycle it. "Are you done eating? Or would you like some more?" she asked, trying not to let Aewia hear how this was affecting her. It wasn't that hard to hide it, she had been living behind a mask almost her whole life...

Aewia was totally out of it by this time, staring at the last few bites of her hasperat. "Some more? There's more?"

"Yeah, there's more," Nexi said with a hint of a laugh. "If you're still hungry, the replicator can make more for you. Just don't make yourself sick eating too much."

Aewia finished up her hasperat and started licking her fingers. "No, I think I'm ok now. There's always more, right? Did you eat enough?"

"I'm alright," Nexi said as she picked up Aewia's plate and ran it through the replicator too. "I might get a snack later, but I guess hasperat's just not my thing."

"How about... That cold sweet stuff..." Aewia was at a loss for words again but this time nothing was forthcoming and frustration showed on her face, her hand moving to a scar on her head. "Ow..."

"You alright?" Nexi asked. "We can go back to Sickbay if you're feeling bad."

"No, no more doctors today please. The pain is fading." And so it was, Aewia was relaxing a bit and the pressure in her head from trying to remember was slowly tapering off.

Nexi nodded, but she would bring it up with the doctor later. "Ice cream," Nexi said, browsing through the replicator patterns. "Cold, sweet stuff... What flavor?"

"Ice... Cream..." Aewia mulled the name over for a few seconds. "I don't know. Something good."

Nexi got a bowl of vanilla for herself and a bowl of neapolitan for Aewia so she'd have some options to try. She set the bowl of ice-cream before Aewia, then plopped down on the couch. this was going to be so tough for Nexi, she didn't know if she could take care of Aewia, but all she could do was try.

Aewia noticed something about Nexi. She wasn't sure what it was, but she knew she wanted to do well for her and that she wanted to try to take care of her. Standing with her bowl, she sat on the couch too, similarly to how Nexi was sitting. Leaning into her sister Aewia held up her spoon. "I don't remember what this is called. I know it's used for eating though."

"But you know what it's used for and how to use it," Nexi said quietly. "For now, that's enough."

"That's enough... Just like Research Station R-134A..." Aewia mused, spooning into her ice cream and almost purring at the flavor.

There it was again, little tidbits of intel. Was she trying to remember it or was it just coming on its own. Nexi couldn't tell, but she was proud of Aewia either way. She put her arm around her sister as they ate their ice cream. She was going to have a talk with the Captain at some point to pass along that information, but for now, Nexi was going to enjoy this little bit of time with her sister...

Enalia had just sat down to some dinner after a long day of paperwork and red tape. SI was a tough mistress, but it was the assigned lot of the Hera. Oh well. Maybe her meatloaf and potatoes would cheer her up a bit. With extra mustard, of course.

Nexi had just gotten Aewia to lay down and sleep, then she headed to Enalia's quarters. Nexi was worried that Aewia was going to think she was leaving like she did before, so that's why she waited until her little sister went to sleep, though she took the precaution of setting an alert in case Aewia woke. She had no idea what she was doing, she'd never had to take care of another person before, so her trip to see the Captain was just a ruse, an excuse to talk to someone for advice. Nexi was so out of her element that she wasn't afraid to admit she needed help. When she arrived at Enalia's door, she rang the chime and waited nervously.

Enalia sighed and looked down at her meatloaf. No rest for the weary, it seemed. "Come in." she called, the doors opening. "I just sat down to dinner. I hope you don't mind if I eat."

"Go ahead, eat" Nexi said as she stepped in to Enalia's quarters. "You mind if I grab something and join you? Aewia wanted hasperat and I just couldn't eat it."

Enalia motioned towards the replicator. "Please, help yourself. Hasperat, huh? An interesting choice."

"Yeah... Apparently, she loves it, but I can't stand the cabbage," Nexi said as she got a bowl of potato chowder and sat at the table. "But, uh, she's the reason I came to talk to you," she added uneasily.

"Let me guess," Enalia started, waving her fork in the air before eating the mustard drenched meatloaf off of it. "You've never had anyone have to rely on you for everything like she does."

"No..." Nexi replied awkwardly, obviously defensive. "I, uh... Has she been debriefed?" Nexi asked as a cover. "Or has she not been lucid enough for that?"

"She hasn't had a moment of lucidity since you brought her aboard that I know of. No one's discussed anything more important than not swallowing comm badges with her." Enalia said sadly.

"Well, she dropped a couple of bits while we were talking," Nexi said as she stirred crackers into her chowder. "First was something about a virus, a silmaran virus. Do you know anything about that?"

Enalia shook her head as she chewed, clearing her mouth with a sip of tea. "Not a clue other than that the Romulans have been putting a lot of research into biological warfare."

"She said the silmaran virus reanimates the dead, similar to Kobali reproductive methods but she didn't say much more than that. Then later she mentioned Research Station R-134A," Nexi said as she ate.

"It's a start at least. I honestly didn't expect her to remember anything useful. Any idea where this research station is?" Enalia asked hopefully.

"She didn't say," Nexi said. "But I can look into it. I'll need to do something useful now that I'm mooching off of you."

"Mooching?" Enalia couldn't help but laugh at that. "Don't worry about trying to earn your keep. Just being with Aewia is enough, I think."

"Even so, I'd like to do something," Nexi said. "I'm not used to doing nothing and I've got skills I can contribute. Not saying I wanna put on a uniform or nothing like that, but I can help."

"Then work with Fairchild when you can. See if you can find anything else out." Enalia said. "And no uniforms, but I do recommend trying to blend in at least."

"I ain't giving up my jacket," Nexi said firmly. She wasn't currently wearing her nice, brown leather jacket she usually wore, but she would wear it whenever she damn well wanted to! "But I'll get some better clothes so I don't look so shabby," she relented.

"Thank you." Enalia took a few more bites before speaking again. "How are the quarters? If you need something bigger, I think we can do something. Knock out a wall maybe."

"It's fine," Nexi said. "Aewia likes it, though she ended up sleeping on the couch... after I talked her out of sleeping on the floor..." Though she'd probably find her sister on the floor when she went back. "Really, it's more than I know what to do with. But, maybe you can help me with something else..." Ok, now was the part where she needed to ask for help and advice, but she didn't know how.

Enalia set her fork down and leaned back in her chair, wiping mustard from her mouth. "Go on." She could definitely tell this was something uncomfortable for Nexi.

"How do I take care of another person?" Nexi asked bluntly. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I can't just leave Aewia with someone else, it just don't feel right. But I don't know the first thing to do to take care of her."

There it was. Enalia smiled as warmly as she could. "Just be there for her and help her relearn things and to recover. There are hundreds of books on it, but in the end, that's all they're really saying."

Nexi nodded. "I just don't wanna fuck this up. She's been through enough..."

"Then just be patient with her." Enalia said. "I know you're patient and I know you won't do anything to hurt her. If I thought you had some ulterior motive, I wouldn't have let you back on the ship."

"Fair enough..." Nexi leaned back in her chair and thought about Enalia's advice. Nexi was patient. "She seemed lucid for a moment and I told her about what happened to her parents. I can't say she really understood, but I tried. I don't know if it was the right thing to do and I'm worried she might forget about it and I'll have to tell her again later, but at least I tried..." It was all she could do, the least she could do...

"Maybe she'll remember for you." Enalia mused.

"Maybe... I don't know why, but it felt like she was trying to remember things, not for herself but for me. Like that stuff about the virus, it just came out..." Aewia confused Nexi, but given her lack of experience caring for another person it probably wasn't all that hard to do. Nexi sighed and took her soup bowl back to the replicator. "Anyway, thanks for taking care of her while I was gone."

Enalia took her plate back to the replicator as well. "Any time. You're both family so I'll do whatever I can. "

Nexi cast Enalia a dubious glance, but didn't try to refute her statement. "There's one last thing I wanted to talk to you about," Nexi said. She wasn't sure how Enalia would receive this information, but it couldn't hurt to throw it out there. "I'm not sure if I'm ready to give up my old life just yet. I have contacts I can make use of for information, but to do that it would be useful if I was still taking jobs. Am I free to continue my line of work or is my being here contingent on putting all that away?"

"Do what you feel is best. Who knows, I might need to ask a favor of you before long and you'll need those contacts." Enalia said honestly. "Besides, I can't expect you to change your whole life overnight. That's insane."

Nexi nodded. "I would like having the means of entering and exiting the shuttle bay without prior clearance. It would be a simple matter of giving my ship the command access for that bay." But she wouldn't press the issue if she was denied, she just wanted the freedom to come and go as she pleased. Not like she would leave Aewia often, but it would be nice to know that freedom was there.

"I'd rather not," Enalia said wryly. "We do have to think of security. Just let docking control know when you want in or out. As long as we're not on lockdown, it'll be fine."

"Fair enough," Nexi said, then headed for the door. "Thank you for dinner."

"Any time." Enalia headed to her couch, flopping on it heavily.

Nexi looked back at Enalia like she wanted to say something else, but after a moment of consideration instead chose to walk away, returning to her new quarters to keep an eye on her sister.

Nexi wandered through the halls aimlessly, trying to gain familiarity with the layout of the ship and areas she would likely frequent now that she was living here. It was a nice ship, but way too much space for her liking. No, her runabout was more than enough ship for her, but Aewia couldn't live on her runabout with her, so the Captain had given her quarters on the Hera. It was taking some getting used to, being tethered to one place like this, but it wasn't in any way unpleasant. And she was taking care of Aewia, so it was all worth it.

Nexi stopped mid-stride as she heard an alert ping in her ear. Someone was trying to get into her shuttle. It was probably nothing, just the shuttle bay guys doing routine stuff, but it couldn't hurt to check to make sure they were taking care of her baby. She changed direction and headed for the lift to take her to the shuttle bay. they had better be taking care of her ship and not trying to sneak a peak or heads were gonna roll!

Ven had snuck down her and checked out Nexi's shuttle before, but he had not gotten to peek under the hood yet. Wow, this shuttle was all kinds of tricked out. He would love to get his finger into this baby.

Nexi made it to the shuttle bay and headed for where her ship was being kept. Then she noticed someone poking around, someone she immediately recognized was not part of the regular shuttle bay maintenance crew. She drew one of the throwing knives and flipped it in her hand. She had no intentions of throwing it at him, especially not when he was so close to her baby, but a bit of intimidation couldn't hurt. "What are you doing?" she barked out at the man sneaking around.

Poor Ven. He was startled by Nexi and jumped, he smashed his head on the hull causing his large goggles to fall around his neck. He took a step back holding his head and tripped on the deck plating and fell on his backside, his over loaded tool belt clattering tools around him.

Nexi rolled her eyes as she fingered the blade in her hand. "If your head hurt my 'Star, I will make your life a living hell," she promised him as she moved to inspect the section of hull his head smashed into.

Ven had been warned about Nexi. He quickly went about picking up his tools with out a word. Best to keep his head down and get out of the bay as quickly as he could.

"You didn't answer my question," Nexi said as she smoothed her hand over the flawless black hull plating of the Orion-class runabout she called home. "What were you doing with my ship?"

"Looking, only looking I swear! " Ven said in a nervous tone. His tricorder had slid under a storage bin and he was having trouble reaching it.

"Uh huh..." nexi eyed him suspiciously. "It a decommissioned Orion-class runabout, Starfleet design. You should have access to the schematics, look at that," she insisted. "So unless you're here to do scheduled maintenance, I don't want to see you around my ship again."

"Yeah but star fleet does not alow us to modify our ships like you have." Ven grunted and got his tricorder. He stood, and slipped it into his tool belt. "I mean look at the mods you did with the flight controls! It's a little sloppy, like who ever did it was in a rush but I bet this baby is smooth!" As Ven started talking tech his fear of Nexi wad forgotten almost as fast as it had set in.

"You think you can do better?" Nexi challenged. She had been rushed through most of the modifications to her ship, not to mention she wasn't actually an engineer and had been figuring things out as she went along, but at least it worked.

Ven had no idea he was talking to the person who had done the work. "I know I can, I mean look at how rigged in the thruster control is. I'm surprised it has not shaken loose yet!"

"Hop to it," she said, nodding to the thruster control. "Dazzle me."

Ven considered this for a moment then shrugged and reached in and ripped the thruster control module from the control port. "See..." he said as he pulled a tool from his belt and started cleaning the contact site. " I think who ever did this didn't clean the part first..." little bits of corrosion were falling at his feet.

After a moment of working with the tool, he put the tool back into his belt and held the part up to the light. He pulled a rag from his belt and wiped the part off, then pulled out a tube of something. He squeezed a healthy amount of blue goo onto the area the the fit into the control port and started wiping it around the part with his finger.

Well, he wasn't afraid of getting dirty, that was good. Most of the 'fleeters Nexi had known were so uptight about getting their precious uniforms dirty, so at the very least Ven had impressed her on that detail. "I see," Nexi said as she watched him fit the part back into place. "Will this stop her from shaking as she exceeds Warp 7.5? Or is that something else?"

Ven wiped the goo off his finger and on his duty jacket at he refit the part. He pulled out a plasma torch and some solder and started a fixing it. "That sounds like something to do with your warp coil assembly. Probably a broken stabilization strut. She be easy to fix but will take a few hours."

"Yeah, probably knocked a strut out of alignment when I put in my cloaking device," Nexi said as she watched him welding her ship. "If you got a few minutes, you could maybe look at it."

Ven nodded his head in his jerky fashion. He bobbed his head up and down so hard his goggles swung from his face and he had to readjust them. "Sure, I just got off duty and have nothing better to do then spend some time with a sexy lady..." it was clear he was talking about the shuttle as he ran his fingers along it hull.

"Watch the hands, 'Star don't know you yet," Nexi warned as she walked around to the rear hatch and entered in her access codes to unlock it. The ramp lowered and the access hatch opened. "Remember, show some respect. This girl just ain't my ship, she's my home," she added as she entered the runabout.

"Have some faith..." Ven said following her and looking around inside. "Wow... you have really done some work now this baby haven't you?"

Ven pulled out his tricorder and started scanning. "That would be a shame for your shuttle here cause I am definitely in love." His tricorder started beeping at him and he fiddled with the settings the continued scanning. "Bad news...not only did you knock a stabilizer out of alignment but you have clearly been running it this way for a while. It's got micro fractures all up and down it." Ven snapped his tricorder shut and looked up at Nexi with his big purple eyes. "Don't fly this girl again until we can get that replaced. I can start working on her right now but I'll need your help and it's going to take longer then I thought because in ororder to get to it we will need to remove your cloaking device first and that's going to take a long time. But if you go any faster then impulse you risk the core and nacelles ripping right off the ship." Ven explained.

"Fuck..." Nexi ran a hand over her face. Of course this wouldn't be an easy fix... But then again, it was better than remaining ignorant of the damage and blowing herself up with her ship. "Alright, fix it, but I can't really offer much help, I got things I gotta take care of." More specifically, a who; she couldn't leave Aewia alone for long. "Find someone you trust to help you out. No wait, get that Andorian girl, Amelia I think her name is... She's done work on my ship before, I'd trust her to help you handle this."

"That's exactly who I would call." Ven said. Amelia was one of the few people he actually knew on this ship.

"Good," Nexi said with a nod as she knelt down to help him remove the cloaking device. "I'll help you get this out, then I gotta go."

Ven pulled out a tool and started working at detaching the cloaking device. "Can you deactivate the power to the engines?"

"Yeah," Nexi replied, accessing a panel nearby to shut down the core, bleeding off the remaining power to the EPS. Once the reaction had stopped and the core was confirmed as shut down, she returned to help Ven ease the clocking device out of the space where it was connected. "There we go..." she said once the device was safely out of the way. It was a very old Klingon device and she had been beyond lucky to find in working condition considering how ancient it was.

"Wow!" Ven exclaimed once it was out and he could really look at it. "How do you keep this thing running? It should be in a museum!"

"It requires a lot of love and attention," Nexi said with a grin. "Amelia worked on it a little, so it's running better than it has in the past, but it's still a bit temperamental."

"I always heard that even when new they were tricky. It's amazing this thus even still runs." Ven pulled out his tricorder and scanned the cloaking device.

"Core first, you can play with my cloaking device later," Nexi said. She checked the time on a console. Aewia would be getting out of therapy soon, so she needed to walk her back to their quarters. "I gotta go, but I'll try to be back later. Don't touch anything you shouldn't, and don't go snooping around."

"You're going to leave me alone in here and tell me not to snoop around? You clearly don't known me that well. Yet..."

"Fine, then get out of my ship, you can do the repairs when I get back," Nexi said with a hard glare.

"Ok ok..." Ven said with a little laugh. "I'll call crewman Amelia down here and we will get this taken care of...no snooping with out you. But can I snoop at you computer systems when you come back?" He asked, his big purple eyes pleading to her.

Fuck, is he trying to play her? because it wasn't going to work. "Sure, you can snoop around. If you know how to read Ferengi, because I had all my consoles swapped out for Ferengi interfaces. So have fun with that!" Amelia already knew the deal about that and wouldn't let him get into anything he shouldn't.

"Awesome! Great thanks!" Ven said as he leaned back into the warp core compartment.

"Alright, I'm out of here. Try not to make a mess of things, I'll be back in a few hours," Nexi said as she strode towards the rear of her ship. "Just remember, you break it you bought it!"

As soon as Nexi was gone Ven pressed his combadge.

=/\="Ven to Amelia..."

=/\="Amelia here." she replied around a mouthful of food. Belatedly, she washed it down with some replicated Andorian ale.

=/\= "Hey you busy? You should meet me in the shuttle bay."

=/\= "I'm eating dinner, but I can put that off. What's up?" she asked as she grabbed her bottle and dinner and made to head out of the mess hall.

=/\="Oh you'lol see." Ven said with a little grin and leaned back over the warp core he was working on.

=/\= "Then which shuttle bay and which shuttle? Wait... You're not in Nexi's shuttle, are you?" Amelia asked, heading to the auxiliary shuttle bay.

=/\= "You should hurry." Ven said and cut the line. He would wait to tell her they both had permission to do the work for a bit.

Amelia quickly made her way there, finishing her dinner and disposing of her plate in a shuttlebay replicator as she headed to the older Orion class shuttle. Heading up the ramp, she sipped at her bottle. "Ven?"

Ven was sitting on the deck of the shuttle where the couch use to be, he was elbow deep in the warp assembly when he looked up and smiled. "Hey Amelia! Have you seen such an old cloaking device!" He said excitedly. She sure could see it now, because it was disconnected and sitting on the floor next to Ven.

"yeah, the last time I worked on this ship. The power systems were cross polarized. Please tell me Nexi knows you're doing this and you called me to help." Amelia set her bottle aside and got down next to the warp assembly, looking over what he was doing.

Ven laughed a little and nodded to her. "Yeah she does. She said I should call you but I would have called you anyways." Ven sat up and handed Amelia a tricorder. "Nexi said that the ship vibrates when she goes above warp 7.5, found a stabilization strut on the warp assembly that had been knocked out of alignment when Nexi was installing her cloaking device. Its been running so long like that now its riddled with micro fractures and has to be replaced." He rattled off.

"Oh my..." Amelia looked over the tricorder readings. "I thought it was because this model wasn't designed to go over warp 7 and she was pushing it over the energy threshold for normal settings on structural integrity. I told her to route excess bleedover energy from the warp core to structural integrity. That still works, but I never would have thought this was bad too."

"Well if we replace it, then reinforce the manifold here and here I bet that will cut the vibrations by at lest half..." Ven said cutting the strut free. "Give me a hand?"

"Sure," Amelia said, helping Ven pull the strut free and setting it aside. "Good thing these things are semi-hydraulic at least. the gas chamber makes them a lot lighter than they look." Pointing to a couple places, she pointed out stress twist fractures. "It definitely wasn't torqued within specs. Way too tight for it to do its job right."

"I doubt Nexi knows what the torque settings on a stabilization brace." Ven said "We should replicate a new one."

"It should take about half an hour with the industrial replicator. Thankfully we have the pattern already." Amelia said, offering him a hand up.

Ven took her hand and help. "What are you doing for the next half hour?"

"Other than watching a strut being replicated?" she asked with a bit of a grin.

"Great!" Ven said and pick up the old and broken strut. "At lest I'll have good company. "

"Great!" Amelia grabbed her replicated ale and downed most of the rest of it as she followed Ven out of the shuttlebay. "By the way, what do you do for fun?"

"I like to invent things...like my goggles." Ven gave the bulky things on his head a flick. "Or read...or work on Hera. I work on the ship a lot. How about you?"

"I read a lot of tech manuals and go over the power systems in the ship." Amelia said as they got into the turbolift.

"Engineering." Ven said then turned to Amelia. "I have some great old manuals on classic communicators. You could borrow them if you wanted to."

"I might have to take you up on that." Amelia smiled at the offer. "Have you read the reports from the latest tech expo at Utopia Planetia? They say they have a way to fly a shuttle to the bottom of Jupiter."

"I haven't, what's the theory?" Ven said excitedly. He did not find many people who thought on his level.

"Basically, it looks like they're running their shields through a transporter array to keep the pressure equalized on the hull surface." Amelia explained a bit more excitedly.

"How are they routing the quantum phase discriminator?" Ven asked as the life came to a stop and the doors opened. He waited for Amelia to exit first.

Amelia exited, talking excitedly. "They used a modified array of them, switching the load over and over to refresh the beam so that it's dematerializing and rematerializing a nanometer thick layer of the gasses just on the skin of the hull. The QPD array is controlled by a set of deflector relays to handle the load."

"That's ingenious!" Ven said waking sideways so he could look atired Amelia at the same time. "Did they have the spec modifications for the relays? They must have tricked them way out!"

"Supposedly they just used some stock ones for a Galaxy class deflector." Amelia said as they walked into main engineering and headed towards the industrial replication room.

"Thats incredible!" Ven said a little too loud and mist the people in engineering looked up at the two. Lowering his voice a but he said, "You should show me the report. It would be fun to talk about it with you."

"As soon as we're done here, I'll forward the whole thing to you." Amelia said with a bright smile. She loved chatting about this sort of thing and it showed.

Her excitement was equally matched with Ven's "Wana get together for lunch tomorrow? I'll read it tonight and we can talk about it over something to eat!" Ven was so excited to find someone who he could relate to He was almost bouncing as he placed the old broken strut on the replicator for recycling.

As the Andorian woman punched up the pattern they needed and started the replication process, she also gave Ven an appreciative glance. It was rare someone understood things the way she did. "Sounds like a date. I'll definitely be there."

"Oh I didn't mean like a date...not that I would not want to go on a date with you...I...just..." Ven stammered. He looked around kind if confused because he didn't know what to say now.

"Nope, too late. It's a date." She said teasingly. "I expect something nice and I'll bring you something too."

Ven became very interested in a spot on the front of his tool belt. "Ok..." Now his brain was working overtime to think of something nice to get her.

"Yeah, I think I'll give you that..." Amelia muttered mysteriously. "I think you'd really like it, though I doubt you could master it..."

Ven turned and looked at her with a quizzical look.

And Amelia smiled mischievously.

Ven fiddled with a tool in his belt and shifted on his feet nervously. "It's been a long time..."

"Since what?" Amelia asked curiously.

"Since I went on a date..." Ven admitted sheepishly.

"Then I hope you don't mind dating an old maid." Amelia may have still been young by most standards at 24, Andorian culture said she was old to not be bonded at 23. Something her parents reminded her of almost constantly in their letters.

"Old maid? You're joking right?" As far as Ven could see she young and beautiful.

"No..." Amelia sighed as she checked the replication process. "24 and no bondsmates means I'm an old maid."

"Interesting..." Ven said watching her. "Why is that?"

"When it takes 4 people to have a baby and the fertility season is short, your society kinda puts a priority on bondsmates." Amelia explained sourly. "And as a zhen, I'm expected to carry them."

"This topic seems to cause you discomfort. If you don't want to talk about it I understand." Ven said to Amelia.

"Discomfort? No, not at all..." Amelia said sarcastically before sighing and continuing. "Sorry, I'm just a bit bitter is all."

"Well...if there is anything I can do for you, to help I mean, I would like to be here for you." Ven said. "Even if it's just to talk."

"Thank you." Amelia said with a sad smile. Just then the computer beeped, releasing the new strut from the industrial replicator.

Ven smiled back and walked over to grab the strut. "Ok, now time to install it and test it."

"Yeah, let's get it in." Amelia said, following Ven from the engineering station.

Ven walked back into the turbolift and waited for Amelia. "We are going to have to test this you know." Ven said with a little smirk.

"How do you intend to test it?" Amelia asked somewhat innocently.

"Field test of course! We need to get Nexi to take us for a spin and monitor the strut. If the shaking continues I should be able to analyze the warp core and devise a plan to have further stabilize it." Ven rambled off.

"So you want a date with her so you can go joyriding, huh?" Amelia said teasingly, giving Ven's arm a playful punch.

"What? No!" Ven said rubbing his arm. "I think you should be there to." He said. "You did as much work as I did... and Nexi kinda scares me."

"Ah, I see." Amelia still had that teasing look in her eye. "You need a chauffeur when you go out with her."

Ven smirked a little at her. "I was thinking she could chauffeur us around."

"If you can convince her to..." Amelia said, back to somewhat aloof seriousness.

Amelia was quite a mystery, and that peaked Ven's interest. "Wanna bet I can?"

"A bet huh?" Amelia said mysteriously. "What are the stakes?"

The lift came to a stop and the doors opened. Ven, as alway let Amelia out fits before following. "Good question, if I fail what do you want?" He asked her as they made their way across the bay to Nexi's shuttle.

Amelia thought about it for a few seconds as she walked towards the shuttle. "What do you have that I might want?"

"I don't know...my time?" Ven offered as he stepped into Nexi's shuttle and set the strut down on the floor.

"That works for me. How about a full evening to the winner then?" Amelia asked as she got ready to help him move the new strut into place.

"A full evening? You're on." Ven said picking up his end of the strut to position it in place.

"Excellent. You have until lunch tomorrow to convince her and 1 week to get the ride." Amelia said as they lowered the strut into place.

Ven started securing the strut with a torque wrench. Ven had a plan up his sleave. "Do I get a bonus if I get it done before tonight?"

"Sure but only if you get the ride tonight as well." Amelia said as she started the bolts on her end of the strut. "What do you want as a bonus?"

"What do you have that I might want?" Ven echoedher question back to her.

"My time and skills?" Amelia replied with as he finished torquing the bolts to spec.

"Ok..." Ven said moving over to the cloaking device. "What skills do you have that I could use?"

"I'm a pretty good power systems specialist. I'm also good with massage therapy." Amelia said. "Though the massage therapy was more to teach others how to do it on me..."

"Massage...that sounds good to me. Give me a hand with this?" Ven asked her as he moved the device over to the core.

Amelia grabbed one end of the cloaking device and helped Ven reposition it back where it was. "Be careful of the power connection. These things are easy to reverse the polarity on. I just hope the power transfer unit didn't depolarize when you unhooked it."

"Yeah, me to."Ven said as he double checked the connection. "So whe massage therapy on you?" Ven asked.

"Because I'm a zhen." she said simply as if that explained everything.

"I don't understand..." Ven said looking up a Amelia.

Amelia looked at him blankly for a moment. "The zhen carries the child to term and has to know how she needs to be massaged to help the baby."

"Your culture seems to put a lot of attention on procreation. " Ven said as he installed the power to the cloaking device.

"Birth rates are too low not to be." she replied with.

"I can see how that would make sense." He started to tighten the bolts on the cloaking device.

"Each bondgroup has to have 5 kids at least, just to maintain the population. One for each of them and one for the extras that are never bonded. It's hard enough having 3 kids in one lifetime." Amelia rambled on. "On top of that, they expect zhen like me to carry 7 or 8 kids in my lifetime? there's just not enough seasons."

"You would have to be a full time baby making and caring for machine. Certainly no time for Star Fleet." Ven said finishing up with the cloaking device.

"And I couldn't be an engineer." Amelia added.

"Alright, time to see if my plan with Nexi will work." Ven touched his Com badge.

=/\= "Ven to Nexi." =/\=

=/\= "What?" Nexi replied over the comm. "This better be important! You didn't break my ship, did you?!"

=/\= "Don't be ridiculous, if I broke your ship I would just run not call you." Ven grinned at Amelia, proud of his little joke. " Amelia and I just finished installing the new strut and we need to test it. But I know you will want to pilot Star yourself so I called you." Now Ven was smirking at Amelia.

=/\= "Damn right, I'm piloting my ship! If either of you even touched the piloting controls, I will skin you both alive!" Nexi barked out over the comm. "Now, I'm kinda busy at the moment. I'll take her out later and let you know how she rides."

=/\= "That would be great, but someone needs to be here to monitor the strut and note any adjustments that might be necessary. Have Amelia to assist will help." Ven said. Actually it was true.

=/\= I can record the flight logs for you- hold on a second," Nexi said distractedly. "No, I'm not talking to myself... No, you can't talk to them, how can you talk to them through my earpiece?!" she said, clearly talking to someone who was with her. "Fine, I'll tell them you said hello. Now go hide, it's my turn to find you." Nexi gave a heavy sigh. "Alright, what were we talking about?" she asked Ven.

Amelia had to chime in or she was going to crack up laughing. "Ven's trying to talk you into taking us for a warp 9 joyride so we can make sure the work is the best it can be." She wouldn't quite mention the bet they had made just yet. He at least needed a sporting chance.

Now Nexi was torn. On the one hand, that was her ship, her baby, and they shouldn't be messing around with her ship like that! But on the other hand, she did enjoy a good joyride from time to time. Maybe a nice flyby past the Hera's bridge would be fun! But then on the other hand, Nexi didn't want to leave Aewia alone, especially right now when her sister was getting into trouble. But Aewia would eventually go to bed...

=/\= "Does it have to be right this second? I really am kinda busy," Nexi said.

=/\= "Naw." Ven said. "How about later this evening?"

=/\= "Alright, but no promises... I really do have a thing going on over here..." Nexi said, again sounding really distracted.

=/\= "Nexi, if the thing you have going on is a someone, just bring them along." Ven offered. He had heard her playing hide and seek with someone.

=/\= "Oh, gee, thanks for giving me permission to bring someone along on MY SHIP!" Nexi retorted. "Found you... Now if you want me to go hide again, you gotta solve your puzzle... Because those are the rules, now do it," she said to Aewia, then returned to her conversation with Ven. "Alright, I can't bring her with me. It's complicated, so don't ask, I just can't. I'll get someone to keep an eye on her once she's in bed, though. That's the best I can do."

Ven laughed a little, yeah maybe that was kinda silly.=/\= "That's perfect! See you then. Ven out." and he cut the com line and grinned big at Amelia.

"I guess you won." Amelia said, grinning rather mischievously. "Did you ever decide on what you want for your bonus?"

"You said a massage." Ven reminded her with a triumphant grin.

"Fair enough though since we haven't gotten the ride yet, the bonus is still up in the air." Amelia said cheekily.

Amelia and Ven had finished their maintenance and were waiting for Nexi to show up for the test flight. While they were waiting, Amelia had changed into civilian attire - a nice blue and black shiny angular outfit with white trim. She was once again heading up the Star's ramp.

"Wow!" Ven said when he looked up from his tricorder at the sound of Amelia walking in. "Um...should I go change?" He asked looking at his messy dirty uniform.

Sauntering past Ven, Amelia sat in one of the shuttle seats, grinning happily. "Well, this isn't a Starfleet ship so if we're going out in it, it might be best to not wear a uniform."

"Huh." Ven thought for a moment. He only had his uniform and never had a need for anything more. He shrugged and pulled his duty jacket off and set it on a control panel. He held his arms out with just he yellow under shirt on.

"How about no." Amelia said. "No Starfleet tools, no Starfleet undershirts, no Starfleet pants." Then a thought hit Amelia. "Lose the underpants too. I bet they have a Starfleet logo."

Ven sighed and grabbed his coat on the way out. He made his way across the bay wondering what he would wear.

Nexi stopped him before he could go very far. "Where do you think you're going?" Nexi said sternly as she entered the bay.

"Amelia said I needed to change before we went out." Ven said to Nexi kind of sheepishly.

"She ain't wrong," Nexi said, shoving him back towards the Wandering Star. "But I ain't waiting around for you to get changed, so get in there."

Ven stumbled back into the shuttle. "No time..." He said to Amelia and took a seat across from her.

Amelia shook her head. "Fine, you can be our captive if anything happens." Looking to Nexi, she continued. "If we need to assault him, I get dibs."

"My ship, my rules," Nexi said as she sat at the helm. "He's mine, but I will take bribes for dibs," she added as she worked through the start up sequence. she closed the hatch and sent the flight notice to the shuttle bay crew to open the doors.

Ven kind of wilted a little in his seat as he waited for the lift off to be over with.

"I'm not sure what I have that you might want but if it comes to it, it's yours." Amelia said with a smirk.

"I have been known to accept favors," Nexi said with a grin. The Wandering Star lifted off the deck and shot through permeable forcefield protecting the atmosphere in the bay. She didn't even wait until she had cleared the Hera's tactical pod, she jumped straight to warp. Her little ship could move!

Once they were at warp Ven went to the core and started scanning it. "Why would either of you want to hurt me?" He mumbled more to himself then anything. "What warp are we at right now?"

"Approaching warp 5," Nexi said as she ran through some high speed maneuvers to see how that thruster control Ven fixed was handling. "And I don't wanna hurt you, I just claim the right to do it if we have to hurt you, keep up."

Looking over the power readouts, Amelia nodded. "Power levels are good and rising smoothly. I might want to hurt you anyway. Just for fun, you know. Any other time I'd be charged with assaulting an officer."

"Good times..." Nexi said. "Alright, time for the real test: accelerating to warp 7.5"

Nexi's ship remained smooth, no hint of the shudder she usually felt. Nexi grinned. Seemed like these 'Fleeters knew their stuff!

"The strut is secure and holding well." Ven reported. He leaned into the compartment to scan the rear of the strut.

"It looks like when we hit warp 9 we'll have a brief bout of turbulence. It should smooth back out after a moment." Amelia said.

Nexi punched it to warp 9, and she wasn't flying a straight path, she was banking hard to and fro to test the limits of the inertial dampeners, but if there had been any turbulence in all that she hadn't felt it. "That's my girl!" Nexi said proudly as she came to an abrupt stop, letting the aft of her ship swing out to come about, then she jumped to warp 9 again, this time flying on a straight course back to Hera.

"She's an amazing ship." Ven commented as he shut his tricorder and took his seat.

"That she is." Amelia said, monitoring the power levels closely. "Well Ven, it looks like you won the bonus for the bet as well. When do you want your winnings?"

"What bet?" Nexi said, looking over her shoulder at the two of them.

"Oh Amelia and I were betting on if I could get you to take us on a trip in your shuttle." Ven said triumphantly.

"The bonus was to get it tonight." Amelia added with a smirk.

"Oh I see..." Nexi said with a grin. So that's why Ven seemed so pressed to get her into her shuttle tonight! "Well, I get a share of the winnings."

"Well it was a massage from Amelia...so..." Ven shrugged. "How about a new stabilization strut?" Ven offered. "You need to run a test on the cloaking device since we had to disconnect and reconnect it."

"All I gotta do to get the strut is is put in a repair request on Hera, I'm getting me a massage, dammit!" Nexi said teasingly, but she was glad Ven reminded her about the cloaking device, she had almost forgotten about that. "Engaging cloak," she said. The internal lights dimmed to indicate that the cloaking device was engaged and functioning.

"Exactly. We can't barter or bet with ship repairs so I'll have to give her a massage too." Tapping a few controls, Amelia studied the power monitors for a moment. "There's a chance someone can pick up your power signature over about warp 4. Other than that it looks like it's working perfectly as long as the warp trail is in specs."

"Yep," Nexi said. She knew that she wasn't being all the stealthy barreling through space at warp 9, but she wasn't trying to be. Although she did slow to warp 4 so she could sneak up on the Hera. "I'm a naughty naughty girl..." she said with a grin.

Ven chuckled at the banter, while scanning the cloaking device. "It looks like everything is functioning perfectly." He snapped the tricorder shut and replaced the panel.

"Good..." Nexi said as her ship closed in on the Hera. Her grin grew wider as she prepared to drop her cloak. "Either of you ever done a flyby at warp?" she asked.

"Once, in a Sydney class past a moon." Amelia tore her eyes away from the monitors to look out the window. "It was the best our colony had."

"Nope!" Ven said with a wide grin. He moved so he could see out the window.

Nexi dropped her cloak and zoomed right over the Hera. She was tempted to come about and make a second pass, but once was good enough to shake things up on the ship. Already she was getting hailed, but she ignored it and instead came about to line up with the shuttle bay so she could dock, dropping all thrusters to coast in that final length. "Ah, that was fun..."

Amelia was certainly impressed. Checking the power readouts, she sighed. Everything looked perfectly fine to her. Except for one thing... "I'm picking up unusually high tachyon radiation levels trailing the Hera's port nacelle. I'm pretty sure that's not normal."

"Tachyon radiation?" Ven glanced over Amelia shoulder.

"Normal indications of a faulty Klingon cloak," Nexi said as her ship slid into the shuttle bay. Then she looked at Amelia. "Wait, didn't you fix my cloaking device?"

"Yeah and we're nowhere near that location so we couldn't be generating it. It's either the nacelle, or..." Amelia trailed off, wondering what else it could be.

Nexi's expression darkened as she landed her ship. "You two need to report in to your Commanding Officer. There's another cloaked ship out there."

"Someone needs to tell the captain." Ven said "Rain check on that massage. "

"I'll let you tell her. I'll back you up though. I just don't want to be the one to wake her up if she's asleep." Amelia said as she got up and prepared to head out.

"You want me to tag along?" Nexi asked as she shut down her ship's power and lowered the ramp for them to exit.

"Sure," Ven said on the move. "I want to run a few scans first before we go waking anyone up."

"If I remember power systems procedures and the tint of the sensor array pod, we're likely only scanning long range." Amelia offered. "I could be wrong though I'm pretty sure the short range sensors were at low power. They weren't glowing."

Nexi followed Amelia and Ven out of her ship and locked up. "Why would you only scan at long range?" Nexi asked.

"The EPS conduits in the pod that power the long range sensors can overpower the short range sensors. It's like using an air horn and not hearing the ice crack under your feet." Amelia explained.

"I don't know about you, but that sounds like a design flaw to me," Nexi murmured.

"Something I have been complaining about for years now," Ven said stepping into a turbolift. "Bridge." He said.

"It's inherent to the role the Nebula class was built for. Long range scientific surveys and picket support needs sensors like that. I do disagree with protocol though. No point counting clouds when you're on thin ice." Amelia said as she leaned against a turbolift wall.

Once the lift stopped and opened up the the bride Ven led the ladies over to a work station along the back wall. He didn't want to disturb the late night bridge crew if it was nothing. He liked in and brought up the sensor controls and stared using the short range sensors. "There's the tachyons..." Ven muttered as his finger danced over the controls.

"Yeah, that's definitely not from my cloaking device," Nexi confirmed as she looked over the readings. "You tell your Captain, I'm going to try to do things on my end to contact whoever is out there."

"This is way over my rank..." Amelia muttered as she looked over the readings too. "I'll keep an eye on this for now. If anything happens, I'll call immediately."

Nexi nodded and quickly exited the bridge to return to her shuttle to try to ferret out this cloaked ship that seemed intent on following them.

Ven hated this part. He reluctantly pressed his com badge.

=/\= "Nosplet to Captain Telvan."

=/\= "Telvan here. What is it?" Enalia said from her quarters. She had just curled up with a good book.

=/\= "Captain, I'm going to need to ask you to come to the bridge. We might have a major problem you need to be aware of." Ven said to her.

=/\= "Someone please tell me why everyone has to tell me bad news in person? I'll be there shortly." Enalia grumbled as she got up and headed out of her quarters.

Ven knew that even if he had told her over the com that she would want to see the scans herself so he let the question drop and closed the line. "Get ready to go to your station." He warned Amelia.

Amelia nodded, shifting her stance. "Good thing I'm dressed more for combat..."

A moment later Enalia walked out onto the bridge. a bit of a scowl on her face as she headed towards Ven. "What is it chief?"

"It's a cloaked ship off our port nacelle." Ven said confidently. "Or at lest was. Amelia here found the tachyon radiation and I confirmed it." Ven stepped to the side so the Captain could see his scans.

Looking the scans over, Enalia shook her head. "Any idea who it could be or why they're following us? I'd like to assume it's our pirate friends on the Raptor but in this area we're likely the only ones without a cloak."

"The only thing we know, thanks to Nexi, is that tachyon radiation like this is caused by a Klingon cloaking devices failing to cloak." Ven explained. " We have yet to raise any suspicions that we know yet other then running the short range senors. I would like to point out; again, that if they had been running this would have been detected right away. As it is, we are lucky Nexi needed to take a quick spin in her shuttle, it was on her shuttle that Amelia first noticed the tachyon radiation."

"That makes sense. Keep an eye on it and set up a transporter redirect for anything beamed to the ship just in case." Enalia turned around, looking across the bridge. "And let me know if anything happens. For now we'll monitor them and let them make the first move."

"Captain, if I could have a moment with you privately I have something else I would like to talk with you about." Ven said.

"We can talk in my ready room." Enalia motioned towards her ready room door as she headed towards it. Entering, she sat behind her desk and motioned towards the open chair.

But Ven didn't sit, instead he set a tricorder on the captains desk. "I know that the nature of Nexi being on this ship is not something I'm privy to, nor is any information you might have on her. So I took the liberty of completely scanning her engine including her cloaking device. All the data is in this tricorder for you to do with as you see fit."

"Thank you." Enalia picked up the tricorder and looked it over. "I don't think we need to worry about her. Her exact relationship with us may not be classified, but it is somewhat personal. If she feels like telling anyone, it's up to her but she's free to come and go as she pleases."

"Of course captain, it was done as merely a precaution. You can never have to much information...right?" Ven said shifting on his feet. "She's nice...in a...gruff way. I get the feeling she's lonely." Ven was getting lost in his thoughts.

Enalia thought about that a moment before tucking the tricorder into her desk. "Not surprising, what with all that's happened lately in her life. As far as I'm concerned, she's a member of our family now so please treat her as such, ok? She needs friends."

Ven looked to the captain and nodded his head in his jerky way. "Certainly Captain. Amel...er Crewman Takethen did some work on her shuttle for her." He explained.

"Yeah, I hand picked her for the main maintenance for Nexi's shuttle." Enalia sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Looking over her records, I'm pretty sure she's got something she's running from as well."

"Well I'll keep my sensors alert. Speaking of, I should get back to my station..." Ven said shifting on his feet again.

"I'd get some rest. It's probably going to be a long day tomorrow." Enalia said as she stood and headed to the door. "That is, if you do sleep."

"Yes Ma'am. I'm owed a massage, maybe that will help me fall asleep." Ven said stepping aside to let the Captain exit first then followed her back onto the bridge.

Hearing the comment, Amelia's head snapped up from the console she was at, looking towards Ven and the Captain in surprise. She hadn't expected Ven to tell anyone about it, let alone the Captain.

Enalia didn't miss that look and it told her who owed Ven that massage. With a grin, she glanced back at Ven. "If you need anything, let sickbay know. I've heard Andorians can get a bit rough with their massages."

"Uh oh..." Ven said. Then shrugged it off and walked over to the station he had been working at to log off. Ven then looked over to Amelia. "Ready?"

"I am," Amelia said, suddenly unsure of herself. Whether it was because they were on the bridge or because the Captain knew about it, she was nervous talking about personal matters all of a sudden. "I take it you want your massage tonight then?"

Ven could see the sudden change in her. He cooked his head to the side and looked her for a moment. "I'll walk you home, we can talk about it on the way." Had he done something to make her uncomfortable?

Hooking her arm into Ven's, Amelia looked around the bridge a bit nervously. "As long as we're off the bridge," she mumbled, leading him to the turbolift.

The blaring of an alert brought Niner out of her sleep cycle. Instinctively she rubbed her head, only to find her helmet was there. "The Hera's reappeared? Took them long enough." After bringing all systems of her Javelin-class stealth fighter online, she blasts off from the surface of the asteroid into space, slipping into warp easily.

The computer had been set to, once within the Hera's outermost sensor range, transmit an automated message beacon with the details of her assignment to the Hera and request verification by a department head or higher.

Ven was on the bridge at his station when the his sensor's lit up. "Captain, I'm picking up a Javelin fighter... I'm picking up a transmission as well. Its Lieutenant Saxa's ship? I have a copy of her orders Ma'am."

Peeking over Ven's shoulder at his console, Enalia glanced it over. "Permission granted to land in the main docking bay. It seems I won't get to fly the Hera myself after all."

"Wow...always something to look at your new ship for the first time" Niner gave, taking in the Hera upon approach, after receiving verification and landing instructions. Though she waved off the tractor beam control in favor of bringing it in a little faster than was necessary. Thrusters fired just inches from the forcefield, and her fighter drifted right in to a clean stop and landing.

She jumps out of her fighter and has something of a wobbly landing, but manages to make up for it. The girl looks rather thin in her flightsuit, but it's a side effect of being in space for so long. Still, she manages to make it out of the hangar bay with her bag full of things, passing by other people in the corridor as she dragged her way towards one of the rooms. The door opened, and let her through, but did not lock behind her. Her fatigue began to show as she fumbled with the suit.

Ensign Rhett Beaumont had grabbed an engineer's kit and a tricorder as soon as he was notified of the Lieutenant's arrival and the approach of her fighter. There was no emergency nor need to rush, so he took his time collecting his gear and took a lift to the necessary deck. His walk through the corridors was brisk and he did not deviate from the most direct route.

He did however make note to swing by and chat with the pilot. He had been expecting Lieutenant Saxa, a fighter pilot to be a male. What he found, however, was not quite the case. Rhett entered the room as the woman was struggling with her flight suit. He could only see her from the back when he had entered. "Need some help with that, Doll?" he said with a fake suaveness.


"Doll, huh?" She chuckled a bit. "Now that's a term I haven't heard in a while. I may not be the doll you're looking for, but I could use your help." She gave, turning to face him as she inputting a few commands into her arm gauntlet. The base suit would come off easily enough, in two sections. But each section was held on by a number of plates and pieces. And so she would begin to remove it with his help.

Rhett saw her spots and cringed a bit on the inside, but he tried to not display it outwardly. "Uh sure. I'll help" he said as he approached her and attempted to assist her in removing the plates and pieces. "What kind of flightsuit is this? It seems more like a suit of armor" he said with a small snicker.

"Stealth flightsuit, but its like armor to protect from crash landings and the subsequent events after." Airi explained, finally getting out of the upper half. "The material makes it harder to be picked up by automated sensors and the like. Say, I appreciate the help, but what's your name?" Underneath is a black bodysuit that clings to her thin frame

"Rhett" he replied simply. "So, it makes it harder to be picked up bu automated scanners. Wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose in a way. I mean... you crash somewhere and Starfleet is searching for you. Wouldn't your suit hinder their scans for you?" he asked curiously.

"If I activate my distress beacon it will cut through the interference on a starfleet frequency." She explained, looking him up and down for a moment. "I'm Airi. Airi Saxa." the girl gave, extending her hand in the human custom. "Nice to meet you, Rhett." A roguish smile made its way to her face.

"Hi" he replied briskly. "Starfleet frequencies are not always secure. There have been times when Orion slaver vessels have located Federation starships by their Starfleet distress signals. Granted, that explains why Starfleet changes them often."

"Sounds like you're speaking from experience there.." She played it off non-chalantly, but she could tell. "That right? Not like I'm gonna tell or anything, since some people probably already know."

Rhett glared at her and turned his head. "I may know a few things" he said flatly. "I am Chief Engineer anyways. The more I know, the better for everyone...Starfleet included" he said sharply. "I'm sure you won't tell anyone. I just don't know if I can trust both of you" he said looking at her.

Airi chuckled a bit. "And here I was thinking you might like my spots." She shrugged a bit and finished getting out of her outfit, the black bodysuit being fully evident now. "Well, I do appreciate the help..and I know a few things too."

"Yes...I'm sure you get around" said Rhett with a forced smile. "Your spots don't bother me. They are interesting and remind me of my mother's exotic coats" added Rhett as he looked away from the woman. "You look to be a very attractive woman. However, you probably weren't always that way."

"So are you implying that I was ugly at one point?" She sighed. "Believe what you'd like, I guess." Clipping her combadge on her bodysuit, she approaches him. "What is it about me that makes you so uncomfortable? Is it the fact that I'm part-Trill? Or is it the fact that we might be similar in more ways than you think?"

"We have nothing in common and are in no way alike" countered Rhett. He looked at her and turned up his nose. "Ugly? I don't know. I do not know anything about you. You make me uncomfortable because Trills are disturbing."

She laughed a bit and shrugged. "I'll get you to tell me why you think that one day. It's in the cards." Airi looks at him. "For now though..thank you for the help." she gave, putting her suit away,

"I just wanted to see what the fool looked like who piloted that piece of junk" replied Rhett with a bit of a huff and puff. "If you have nothing else that you need, I have things to do."

One moment, Rhett was making the comment. The next minute, he found himself shoved against the wall, held by the scruff of the neck, with the point of her pistol pressed against the side of his head. "Listen here you denebian slime devil, I can tolerate all the shit-talking about me that you want to do. But if you insult my flying, or my fighter, I will kick your ass. Even if you are handsome." She stared into his eyes, a moment of tension being created before she pulls back and holsters her pistol. "Go on, do whatever you gotta do. Need to report in anyway. Later, Orion." she turns and strides out of the room in simply her bodysuit, heading for the turbolift quickly. Entering, she heads to the bridge and steps out, looking around for the ship CO.

Enalia was in her chair on the bridge looking over a couple PaDDs. completely oblivious to the newcomer to the bridge.

Airi walked over to the flight control station and sat down. "Commander Telvan? Lieutenant j.g. Saxa reporting for duty."

Not even looking up, Enalia sighed heavily. "Damn it... You're here." Looking up, she shook her head. "Do you know what this means? Any idea at all?"

"That you've got a great flygirl on your team now? Don't tell me you dislike Trill too..."

Enalia looked at Airi strangely for a moment. "I'm a joined Trill and I don't dislike other Trill. No, this means I'll never get a chance to pilot anything again."

"Oh, good. I ran afoul of someone who hates them." She rolled her eyes. "I came here in a fighter, and you'll no doubt have need of me in that support role. So when I'm out there, you can be right here, ma'am."

Enalia grinned, guessing the person in question was her chief engineer. "I recommend you familiarize yourself with your new duties. You can start by taking the helm. Your fighter will be used, but in a more specialized role."

"Understood, skipper." She nodded genially and turned back around, not seeming to care that she was without the uniform at present.

"Excellent. Also, since we're in orbit, go get settled in. Be sure you're in uniform tomorrow though." Enalia said, looking back down at her PaDDs.

"Sure thing. I'll get myself sorted out." She nodded at the uniform bit. "Oh, and before I forget. From one Trill to another, you look great." Airi chuckled before heading to the turbolift 'again'.

Enalia just shook her head, ignoring that last comment for now.

Lieutenant j.g. Airi Saxa
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Hera

Commander Enalia Telvan
Commanding Officer
USS Hera

Ensign Rhett Beaumont
Chief Engineer
USS Hera

As soon as they had confirmed that there was another ship out there following the Hera, Nexi left Ven and Amelia to their protocol while she headed down to the shuttle bay. If there was someone out there using an old Klingon cloaking device like her, then it was possible she might be able to contact them. She got to her ship and went straight for the cockpit, signing into a number of scrambled channels that smugglers and others like her had a tendency to use. She listened to the chatter, searching for any mention of the Hera or a Nebula-class ship or the colony they were in orbit of. If she could get any information without revealing herself, that was preferable, but she would send out a call if nothing popped up.

The pirates in question weren't about to willingly reveal themselves though. Azrihanna had no idea the Raven's cloak had malfunctioned because of that battle. The antique ship's sensors weren't good enough to detect their tachyon trail the cloak was leaving behind them. She was just going to follow the Hera as long as it took to get what she wanted. The sight of that smaller ship decloaking and entering the Hera's hidden shuttle bay was definitely something to pique the Orion pirate woman's curiosity. She'd definitely be watching for that ship.

Nexi listened for a while longer, hoping to maybe pick up some tidbit, but it seemed nothing was popping up. It was time to bite the bullet and make the call. "To the cloaked ship in orbit of Bosva Colony, I know you're out there," she broadcast. There, that should get their attention.

Noticing the blinking light on the comm console and since everyone else on the ship was asleep, Azrhianna punched up the incoming signal. Someone knew they were there? Shit, the cloak had to be damaged... Pressing another control to reply, she spoke in as sweet of a voice as she could muster. "This is System Patrol 459. May I ask who this is?"

A response! Nexi isolated the frequency and moved them to a secured channel. "I should be asking you the same thing. The Hera is my mark, go follow someone else," Nexi replied.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you need emergency assistance?" Azrhianna asked over the comms, not giving up the game.

"Oh give it up already," Nexi said. "You responded to a fairly specific broadcast, I know you ain't System Patrol. Hera is mine; I got a pretty sweet con I'm running over here, so back the fuck off."

Now Azrhianna had what she was looking for. She grinned widely as she replied, her voice turning back to it's sinister normalcy. "You're the pilot of that old Orion-class ship then. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Azrhianna, Captain of the Raptor. I'm not going anywhere until I get what I want but I hope for your sake that my desires aren't involved with yours."

"Nexi of the Wandering Star, and call my baby old again and I'll get my 'Fleet buddies to pop you a few times. I managed to convince them that the tachyon trail off the Hera's port nacelle is from my cloaking device, so they don't know you're out there yet, and it'll stay that way so long as you don't fuck things up for me." Nexi was tempted to ask what Azrhianna wanted, but she shouldn't push it. maybe that would be another conversation.

"I appreciate the professional courtesy. Just watch yourself in this area. Lots of other pirates that aren't as lady-like as we are." Azrhianna said with a snicker. This was very interesting indeed. Perhaps she could even get this Nexi to help her later.

"Of that I have no doubt," Nexi replied. "You have my frequency now if you need to contact me. Just stay out of my way and I'll leave you be," she warned.

Clicking the comms off, Azrhianna returned to her chair and resumed smiling sinisterly. This was definitely an interesting turn of events.

"Again, Michaels!" Angelica demanded firmly, trying not to roll her eyes at a male ensign who kept letting the girls beat him. "So help me, you'll fight every woman on this ship unless you put some effort into this!" Pointing at another female ensign, she sent the girl into the ring against him. "Some Klingon or Romulan woman's gonna kick your ass someday because you're too chicken to hit a girl!" Michaels tried to protest, but Angelica ignored him, signaling for the new match-up to begin.

In the corner of the training area, a lone figure smirked as she watched Michaels get his ass handed to him by another girl yet again. Nexi shook her head as she snickered; some people just weren't cut out for this sort of thing.

"Keep snickering and I'll make you fight too," Angelica shot over her shoulder as she hauled Michaels off the floor and pushed him back into the group. She'd get him to fight properly, but it wouldn't be today. Sending her people off, she turned to Nexi. "How long were you watching?"

Nexi shrugged, "Long enough." Nexi pushed herself off the wall and moved closer to the Chief of Security. "So, I have good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first?"

"Start with the bad news so I have something to look forward to." Angelica would have preferred not to have any bad news at all, but she was never that lucky.

"You are now officially stuck with me," Nexi said with a grin. "Your Captain gave me a job and some nice, cushy quarters... Ain't going nowhere for a while."

Angelica laughed a little. She hadn't been fond of Nexi, but there were worse things in the universe. "And the good news?"

"Well, the officer we rescued, she's a nutter and beyond a proper debrief. But, she spilled a few tidbits that might be useful. You got somewhere we can talk privately?" Nexi asked.

"My office is close by. We can go there and lock the door." Curious about what Aewia might have said that made sense at all, Angelica collected her training notes and headed for the door. "It's right down the hall."

Nexi nodded and followed Angelica as she lead the way to her office. As soon as they were inside and the door was secure, Nexi got right to the heart of the matter. "Heard anything about Research Station R-134A or a silmaran virus?"

"Can't say I have, but we can check the intelligence reports. Stanson might not like it, but she can kiss my ass. If she doesn't send me stuff, how the hell else am I supposed to get it?" Angelica slipped behind her desk and pulled up the files, skimming through them. "Do you think these two things are linked or totally random?"

"It's hard to say given how scrambled Larani's brain is right now," Nexi said, "but something about it... I wanna say there is a connection. She also said the virus reanimates corpses, kinda like the Kobali reproductive process."

Angelica wrinkled her nose. "Ew."

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly," Nexi said in agreement. "She also mentioned something about dogs being slimy, but I think that was just tangential and irrelevant, but it probably wouldn't hurt to make a note of it. You know, just in case." As if reanimated corpses wasn't weird enough.

"Well... big dogs can be slimy after they have a drink." Angelica giggled a little at the thought of a slimy dog.

"If I can get anymore info from her, I'll let you know, but at least this is a start," Nexi said. "I'll make some calls to some of my contacts, see if anyone's heard of the virus or the research center. I know you 'Fleeters are probably squeamish about working with seedy folk like myself, but any lead would be useful at this point."

If only you knew who you were talking to. Angelica appropriately nodded. "Not my favorite idea, but whatever gets us some intel."

If Nexi sensed Angelica's thoughts on the matter, she gave no indication of it. "I'll swing by once I've got something for you," Nexi said, turning to leave the office under the assumption that the Security Chief had things well in hand. "Your Captain's given me the freedom to come and go as I please, so if you come looking for me and I'm not on the ship, then I've probably jumped in my shuttle for a while, but I'll be back. Only reach out to the Wandering Star if it's an absolute emergency."

"Good to know... I doubt we'll have any emergencies where I need you, but I have your frequency and the code stored in my comm unit anyway. Never hurts to prepare." Angelica smiled slightly. "I'll keep working on the 'official' data and see if there's anything hidden in it that we just haven't spotted yet."

"Right," Nexi replied, then headed out with a wave.

Aewia had just had another bout of reconstructive surgery, this time with gene therapy included. Instead of the normal wakeup in sickbay with Nexi there to take her back to their quarters, she woke up in her bed. This was unusual. She could recognize that that wasn't normal. Had her sister already brought her back and she forgot about it? It wouldn't be the first thing she had forgotten. This felt different though. Her mind didn't feel so clouded. If this was one of her lucid moments, it was a lot better than most. She could even rationalize a bit.

Suddenly her belly rumbled, startling her out of her musing. She was... what was that word again? Hungry? What would she eat? Was her sister in the other room? Groaning a bit, Aewia rolled out of bed, a bit woozy on her feet. "Nexi? Are you there? I feel... something... I don't know the word." Aewia stumbled towards the bedroom doorway, feeling more stable after a few steps.

Nexi was not what anyone would call a morning person. She got up when she damn well felt like it and not on anyone else's timetable, but she was quick to wake at the sound of Aewia calling for her. "I'm here!" she called out from her bed, pulling her self from the warmth and comfort it offered and staggered out. Not one to be able to function until she had a cup of coffee, she ordered a mug, took a sip, then went to find out what Aewia wanted. "What's the matter?" she asked her sister.

Aewia was looking around their quarters, somewhat confused. "I had that surgery last night, right? Did they say anything about it? I feel more..." She trailed off, looking down at her hands. Suddenly a sharp pain stabbed into her brain, one hand pressing to her temple and wincing at the sudden pain. After a few seconds it started to subside. "I don't know the words, but I feel something. Less fuzzy in my head. Does that make sense?"

Nexi almost choked on her coffee when she became aware of Aewia's discomfort. She set her mug aside and rushed to her sister's side. "Hey, you okay?" she asked. "Should I call Sickbay?"

"The pain is passing. I'll be ok for now but I think I understand a little. I get these headaches when I try to remember something I can't." Aewia looked up at Nexi somewhat amazed. "I just thought of that."

"That's good," Nexi said, glad that the doctor's prognosis was coming true. This was a good start, they could build on this! "Doc said you'd be more lucid now. You might still have foggy moments, but it should be easier for you to hold on to the clarity. Just don't try to force anything, alright." Nexi led Aewia to the dining table. "You're hungry, right? what would you like to eat?"

Aewia nodded at the medical stuff. She didn't completely understand it but Nexi was right, she was hungry. Sitting at the table, she thought a moment about what she wanted but couldn't think of anything. "Something warm and spicy... What's that big yellow thing with salsa, cheese, eggs..."

"An omelet?" Nexi asked, the browsed through the replicator patterns for an omelet.

"No, I..." Aewia looked confused for a moment. "I just described an omelet? I'll try that then."

"Don't force it, if you remember something then you remember it, if you don't then we keep trying," Nexi said, getting a large loaded omelet with some sour cream and salsa and a side of hash browns for Aewia and setting it before her. "Is that what you want?" she asked.

"Yeah, it looks familiar..." Aewia poked her finger into the sour cream and tasted it. "What's that? and that brown mesh stuff? I don't remember what they're called."

"Dunno, I think it's a human thing," Nexi said with a shrug. "I'm trying to find a Betazoid version, but it's nothing but human food in here. They even got Japanese omelets! Do you know what miso is?" Actually, that got her curious and she ordered it just to try something new.

"Miso? I think it makes people horny?" Aewia said with a giggle. "I don't even know what japasneeze is."

Nexi laughed and put her Japanese breakfast on the table, then got some juice for them both and then sat down to eat. "Fuck, I don't know if I want something that makes me horny, I don't think anyone on this ship could give a decent hump."

"A decent hump?" Aewia asked thoughtfully. "Like a humpback... large sea creature?"

"No, not a sea creature..." Fuck... "I was being vulgar, I meant... you know what, never mind..."

"Vulger..." Aewia thought about that a moment before shrugging and picking up her spoon, digging into the omelet. Amazingly, she only got a little on herself as she ate, her motor skills seeming to have improved a bit as well.

Nexi watched Aewia as she ate. She was still making a mess, but it was an improvement over past meals they'd shared. 'Little victories...' Nexi thought as she ate her own breakfast, which was weird but she might actually eat it again. "So, feeling less fuzzy today?" Nexi asked, trying to engage Aewia in conversation.

Aewia nodded, setting her spoon down for a moment to get a drink. "Yeah, I think I might feel more normal. I hope it lasts. I don't like being furry." Pausing in her eating, she drank some more of her juice. "What is this? It tastes like... sunshine?"

"Well, then it's sunshine," Nexi said teasingly. "Actually, it's orange juice. And don't worry if you start feeling fuzzy again, we'll work through it."

"That's good. Thank you." Aewia picked up her spoon and started getting another bite but zoned out, the shininess of the spoon distracting her.

"Is it pretty?" Nexi asked.

"Is what pretty?" Aewia asked absentmindedly, still looking at her shiny spoon.

"The spoon, is it pretty?"

"Spoon?" Aewia looked up confused, a faraway look in her eyes. "There is a spoon, right? It's not in my mind?"

"Yep, it's there," Nexi said. She reached out to touch the end of the spoon and allowed a gentle current to flow from her fingertip, just enough to tickle Aewia's hand.

Startled, Aewia dropped the spoon and stared wide eyed at it like it had bit her. "Bad spoon. Must be Romulan. It felt like it bit me like them."

"I'm fairly certain the spoon ain't Romulan," Nexi said with a chuckle, pressing her palm to Aewia's letting the current flow, kinda like the fuzzy feeling of static cling.

Aewia didn't know how to handle this. It felt familiar but she wasn't sure if it was a good feeling or not. Then she remembered something... strings of numbers... Furrowing her brow, she waved her free hand. "I have numbers. Why do I have numbers in my head?"

"Computer begin recording audio," Nexi said, then looked at Aewia. "Tell me the numbers."

Aewia nodded, reciting them. "Three four nine nine mark two seven four alpha three mark delta orionis nine eight seven mark four one three."

"Okay, good," Nexi said, discontinuing the current. She took Aewia's hand and rubbed it in an attempt to be comforting. "I didn't mean to do anything to upset you. I've been told that what I did feels nice, I thought it would make you laugh," she tried to explain, hoping this hadn't upset Aewia.

"I don't know how it felt. I just felt it." Aewia shook her head to try to clear it. "I'm not upset. Are numbers laughing?"

"No, numbers aren't laughing," Nexi said. "I'll figure out what the number mean." She let go of Aewia's hand and moved across the room to a desk terminal where she discontinued the audio recording and transcribed the numbers. It looked like coordinates... But there was something wrong with it. Maybe two coordinates? But that last bearing was really long... She began searching through the computer for anything those coordinates could go to.

"They mean they're numbers. Numbers mean not laughing." Aewia said, nodding seriously.

"I think they're coordinates," Nexi said. "that means they're numbers that can take you places. See, 349-mark-274, or it could be 349-mark-2 and 74-Alpha could mean something else. Same with the other numbers." There were a lot of variations, this could take a while...

"It's obviously just 27. For is... Not a number and not laughing. What is it then?" Amelia looked down at her half eaten omelet, poking it with a finger absentmindedly.

"Well, obviously," Nexi replied with a chuckle and modified her search. "If you're done with your omelet, you don't have to eat the rest of it. Why don't you go get cleaned up. Or do you need help?"

"Is this an omelet? Did I enjoy it? I think I did." Picking up her spoon, she started eating some more of it, making a bit of a mess. "Mmhmm, I enjoy this."

"Yes, that is an omelet," Nexi said as she kept searching for anything those coordinates and other numbers could mean. So far, she wasn't finding anything. She might have to just hand this over to the 'Fleeters. "I'm glad you like the omelet. What else do you like?"

"I like you and hasperat. I also like spicy things and Tassa'Akai. I had a black belt in it once but it wasn't very stylish." Aewia was rambling now, listing almost random things.

Nexi saved the information she had gathered so far and put it on a PaDD to give to Angelica later, then she just looked over at Aewia with a smile and listened to her rambled. She didn't know why, but she liked listening to her sister just ramble on and on. She was remembering things, which was good.

Aewia nodded, pausing in her rambling long enough to notice she was all messy. "I think I need to clean up."

"Okay," Nexi said with another chuckle. "Do you need some help?"

"Yeah, I think I do..."Aewia said, not sure what to do.

"It's alright, kiddo," Nexi said as she rejoined Aewia at the table and helped her pick bits of egg off her nightgown and put it back on the plate. "Alright, then we take the plate back to the replicator, and if you hit this button then it recycles the leftovers," Nexi explained, showing Aewia what to do. As the plate disappeared into the replicator, Nexi herded Aewia back to her bedroom to get some clean clothes. Something felt familiar to Nexi as she took care of Aewia. It took her a while to realize that this reminded her of her faint memories with her mother. She was so little when her mother died, so she didn't have many memories, but the few she had really stuck with her, how caring she had been... It made Nexi smile.

After Nexi got off the comm with the Captain of the Raptor, Nexi headed back up to the bridge to report in. She felt like there was some bit of information she was missing here, but it was none of her business. Still, it bugged Nexi... When the lift reached the bridge, she quickly strode to the Captain's office and hit the chime.

"Come in," Enalia called, sitting back in her chair. She felt like she spent way too many nights in her ready room.

Nexi entered the office and plopped down on the little sofa across from the desk. "I talked to the ship that's following the Hera," Nexi came right out with it. "It a ship called the Raptor, Captained by Azrhianna. They were pretending to be System Patrol."

Enalia leaned forward and rested her forehead on her desk. "Please... Please get rid of her. I don't want another gaping hole in my ship."

"Ah, so you've had dealings with her before?" Nexi said with a chuckle. "She said she wanted something, but I don't think she was in a particularly sharing mood with me to tell me what. Although, I intimated that I was running a con on the Hera and that I had convinced the crew that her tachyon trail was mine. and I gave just enough information on myself to make her think she had the upper hand. It's put me in a position where I might be able to 'work' with her, but I'll do everything I can to work against her. I don't know if I can get her to leave though, we vagrants are a stubborn lot."

"That one needs to be thrown into a sun. The first time I had a run in with her, she killed several of my crew, including cadets, blew up an entire impulse drive, and left half my crew in biobeds, including myself." Enalia looked up, eyeing Nexi. "Think you could take her out?"

"In a heartbeat, if I can get onto her ship," Nexi replied. "What does she want so bad?" she asked, not really expecting an answer.

"I've seen her wife in action. She's an assassin wanted by the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans. She's also got an augmented human on her side. Someone like Khan Noonien Singh." Enalia warned. "As for what she wants, I doubt she'd even tell herself so who knows."

"Fuck! Didn't those idiots learn their lesson the first time..." Nexi couldn't stand people who got augmented. It was an insult to everyone who did things the hard way, the right way. "I'll do what I can to get rid of this problem for you."

"Apparently not. It may not be normal, but all 3 have bounties even in the Federation." Enalia said as she leaned back in her chair. "The rest of the crew don't that i know of."

Enalia had just said Nexi's favorite word: bounties! Not one, not two, but three bounties! Nexi grinned. She would claim those bounties! "I'll take care of this for you," Nexi said with a wicked grin.

Enalia's expression was grim. She didn't want Nexi to get in over her head. "Just don't do anything reckless. I don't want to see you or your sister hurt. And if another hole gets blown in my ship..."

"Please, what kind of flake do you take me for? I'm a professional, I get the job done right," Nexi said seriously. "And I sure as hell wouldn't do anything to hurt Aewia. If nothing else, you can count on that much."

Sighing heavily, Enalia smiled as best she could as tired as she was. "I know. I'm just worried is all. You're part of my family now."

"Yeah, that's taking some getting used to..." Nexi murmured. Then she rose from the couch and headed for the door. "Go get some sleep, woman, you look like shit."

"Love to. With people waking me up at all hours, I might as well sleep here though." Enalia giggled a bit, hauling herself out of her chair and following Nexi out of her ready room.

"Yeah, but I guess it's better we found about your little friends following you now rather than later when they're blowing holes in your ship," Nexi said as they headed for the lift.

"Thank goodness we at least have that." Enalia said as they entered the turbolift. "Deck two. How is Aewia doing, anyway?"

"She's getting better, more lucid," Nexi said as the lift started moving. "Oh, almost forgot! I was going to give this to Fairchild, but I suppose you'll know what to do with it too." Nexi took the small PaDD with the numbers Aewia had remembered. "She remembered some numbers, they look like coordinates, but my initial search didn't pull up much. And there's a few other things on there that I was able to find, asking around through my various contacts. it's not much, but maybe it'll help."

"Great, more work. I guess I should go back to my office." Enalia grinned, shaking her head as she took the PaDD. "I'll start the computer working on it and send it to Fairchild before I pass out."

Nexi nodded. The lift stopped and the door opened, but before Enalia could disembark, Nexi stopped her. "I just wanted to thank you," Nexi said awkwardly. "Aewia really is doing so much better... I never would have had the resources to take care of her if I were out on my own, so thank you."

Enalia smiled motherly and after a moment, pulled Nexi into a hug. "You're very welcome. You may not have a very high opinion of most 'fleeters' but taking care of our families is something we try our best at."

Nexi stood uncomfortably for a moment, but eventually she put her arms around Enalia. She didn't know what to say after that, so she remained silent when she pulled away.

Nodding sleepily, Enalia pulled away and headed back towards her quarters. "Sleep well, sexy." she called behind her, slurring the 'sexy' a bit to sound kind of like 'Nexi'.

Nexi huffed as Enalia walked away and the lift doors closed to take her to her deck. 'Sneaky wench...'

Ven exited the bridge with Amelia on his arm. He was still a little worried he had done something to worry her but he also looked very proud walking the halls with her holding onto his arm as they walked. He stood in front of a turbolift and hit the call button.

"Is everything ok?" He asked as they waited.

"Yeah, I just get nervous around higher ups is all." Amelia was looking a bot more relieved now that they were off the bridge. "Especially wearing what I'm wearing."

I have seen people on the bridge with costumes from the holodeck on. I don't think the Captain cared that you were dressed down. She's probably just happyou we discovered the ship...that you discovered it." Ven stepped into the lift once it showed up. "What deck are your quarters on?"

"Deck 13. It would probably be better to go to yours though. My roommates are probably sleeping." Amelia said sheepishly.

"You want to come to my place?" Ven's heart started pounding in his chest. He had never had anyone in his quarters, let alone a girl. Its ok Ven, she's a friend. Friends spend time with each other. "ok...deck 12." Ven called out and tried not to look nervous.

Amelia looked confused for a moment. "You're on deck 12 as an officer? That's unusual."

"I just never moved when I got promoted. Its closer to engineering also." Ven explained.

"That makes sense. You don't have any roommates, do you?" Amelia wasn't sure if she wanted to do anything that would require them to be alone, but she did value solitude. It would be nice to not put up with 3 other people for a little while.

"No!" Ven said sharply and shook his head hard, causing his goggles to slid around his head. "I would rather set up in the Jefferies Tubes then live with someone else. I don't...live well with others."

"Not surprising. Honestly, I'm amazed you haven't set up a tube junction as your quarters." Amelia said, giggling a bit at the thought.

"There...maybe be a junction that I hang out in." Ven admitted. "But that's between you and me. Sometimes it's just not worth crawling out you know?" Ven blushed a little. He had never told anyone about his secret spot before.

"I do know." Amelia looked around the turbolift nervously. "Is it just me or is this turbolift moving at the speed of plot? is there a level we have to clear or something?"

"Something else for me to look at..." Ven sighed. "You'really right though. Very slow."

Amelia sighed and clung to Ven tighter as the turbolift doors finally opened. "There we go. Lead the way."

Ven glanced at Amelia as she clung to him. "This way." He said, leading her down the hall and in to his room.

The room was spotless, to the point that it looked like no one lived there. Other then a few PaDD's that were stacked neatly on the coffee table it looked like the day Ven moved in.

"Computer, Lights." He said and took his duty jacket off and carefully hung it on the back of a chair. The messy stained coat was odd looking in the sterile room. "Welcome." He said to Amelia.

"Thanks. I'd comment on the decor, but there is none." Amelia looked around the room. Definitely empty.

Ven shrugged. "Its just where I sleep. Would you like anything?" He asked moving over to the replicator.

"Andorian ale please." Amelia flopped onto the couch, relaxing and trying to put a dent into the still new cushion.

"One Andorian ale and one ice water." He said to the replicator and once the glasses were there, he took them to the couch. "Here you go." he said handing the ale to Amelia.

"Thanks," she said, taking the glass and sipping from it. "Ah replicated... So sad..."

Ven took a long drink of his water. "I have never had it. What's it like fresh?"

"Like slamming your head into an iceberg." Aewia said bluntly.

"Ill stick with water in that case." Ven said looking into his cup.

"Suit yourself. So do you want your massage tonight or in the morning?" Amelia asked, equally as bluntly.

"Perhaps in the morning would be best." Ven admitted. He pulled the goggles off his head and set themy carefully on the coffee table. "The captain said tomorrow is likely to be a busy day."

"Fair enough." Amelia sipped from her glass and leaned against Ven. "Mind if I beat you up to show you how much I like you?"

"Uh...what?" Ven asked. But he didn't pull away from her. He liked the feeling of her leaning agin him. "You...could just tell me." He offered.

"Yeah, I get the feeling you wouldn't enjoy the normal Andorian declaration of love." Amelia said as she snuggled tighter to Ven.

He tried very hard to not act nervous, but it felt like his heart was about beat out of of his chest and his hands trembled slightly. "Declaration of love?"

Amelia downed the rest of her ale, setting the glass on the coffee table. "Yeah." she said simply. She didn't have any other words right now. She just wanted to cuddle.

Ven took a very long drink from his cup and set it also on the table. When she leaned back on him he put his arm around her and took a deep breath to try and steady his nerves.

Snuggling tighter to Ven, Amelia sighed heavily and closed her eyes, half snoozing. "Ok maybe not love, but snuggles. Is there a declaration of snuggles? I hope it involves a blanket."

"There is a blanket on my bed." It took Ven a second to realize the he just suggested they go to his bed.

"Sounds warm. Want to move to there then?" Amelia said sleepily.

"Uh..." things were progressing along quite fast for Ven's taste. He took a deep breath and figured what the hell. "Yes?"

Amelia grinned mischievously. "Want me to carry you?"

"Is that some kind of Adronian thing?" Ven asked her with a confused look.

"No," Amelia roused a bit, looking into his eyes. "Maybe. It's just a show of strength. Similar to hitting you but less violent, I guess."

Ven bit his lower lip in thought for a moment. Then he nodded. This would be a good compromise. "If it would make you happy then please, carry me to bed. But your physical strength is not attractive to me. You have already proven your mental strength to me and I find that far more appealing."

Amelia stood up and stretched a bit before easily picking Ven up and carrying him to the bedroom, she set him on the bed tenderly before flopping next to him and snuggling up. "There. That's better."

Thats was only completely embarrassing. Thank god no one was around to see it. Ven stretched out and put an arm around Amelia when she snuggled up to him. "So...I'm guessing your not going anywhere tonight?"

"Only if you snore more than all 3 of my roommates combined." Amelia replied, snuggling tighter.

"You will have to let me know, I tend to be asleep when the would happen." He really like the way she was laying against him, and she smells so good. Ven never really saw himself as the kind of guy who got the girl, but he was staring to understand the appeal.

Ven drifted off to sleep in Amelia's, and he didn't snore once all night long.

Duty-personal-Setting:work-pleasure alter:
posting-to the lounge from the science bay.
Then to bed!!Mid-day-shiftings-Begin:

=>=I new it was some where over here!=<=
Yaakova!,don't forget to take lunch! A fellow officer with a similar aditude and calmer deminer stood still.
Slightly lifting his head to gaze sternly over;at the over worked,mind, numingly tireing Yaakova.he "sighed".
"your right,tumph-I guess I am kinda tired-tuhmp"swing his yellow goldend workmans acomplishment sash over
his shoulder.Slightly elovating,his left arm ontop of the beautiful counter display of a holo journey.Saying
"I'need-Energy!

"A young male comes over and tabs the replicator."her"he says.
Its been a while since I've done my personal logs.":Yaakova
:thoughts:I guess its ok this time.Another time and the roughyan might cause my short temperment to flare.
:thoughts:end

"Thmp,I am a reptoid;with an aditude.'shrugs'and a nice peace of japanese samuri training for hand to hand
combat.":Yaakova:
"anyway;I ran this holo program one time .For learning how to drive old fashion cars.It was awsome."
:Yaakova:end

Two fellow officers on duty ensign Yaakova;just recently met,laugh.
"that wasn't to-to far off".The leautenant response.(background talk)
The ensign that was over looking ,ny back up logs for new gass collection.Sticks to him slef usually butt manage to comment.
"I' thought they,had some kind of problems with there engines in the era that led to high cost for re-fueling.How ever,though."

"ohhh,my comm just went off again."Humph"

Short personal log:taps in labtop Sitting down at the desk I usually do. Looking for my private belonging.mhmh I wrap the
sandscrit paperets of old mapings.The rugged quest log for the ships day to days in steller cartography, come to an end.!

=>=Hey Ensign Yaakova,would you like to play some agressive craps later on with the off shift?=<= comm gitters...
=>=A couple of us are off shift for the day.I know your hard on makin friends like us all. Aditude training might be needed,wink!=<=

churp tap on comm=>=I'ts Ensign Yaakova,back-tuhmp-I'd love to.Mid night though.=<= comm off!


Dwindling around .with all of his desk cleared and labtop computer closed,or locked down.Yaakova-stands up and places the soft sandscrit.
historical mapings of the galaxys quadrants, under exploration aside.He walks tward the wall;for log in off management system for work and punches-
in his pass code.'1171711722631'log off duty.

"I'm out for the day."

-later on that night.-

"let the craps begin!"
"deal me bitch!! Yaakova,pleasently sips som ice cold saki furmented gift from becoming the new steller cartographer.on board.
While spilling out a short story of what he learned as a pressure adventure hologram log."I love those little things."slirss.

"hers what hapend though."tips his glass tward the ensign next to him.
"I get put in prision for ,you know a sprolling family fight us raptoids(miss spelled on purpose) have. That get resolved later though. The bad part was,
the rashin's these bucket's of fith were getting ,to low."sips half full glasss medium 8 onced size look warm by now drink......"uhh the buzz,light though"
they refused to leave the house even when ,I called the local security on the planet. I had to call the swarts'ss and then the regular serts you all call.
police!or ground patrol. They make me wait."

Yaakova paused.The leautenant's hand was good but Yaakova's might have beat it! "A game of rashined rummy extreme.Eleven cards. jad oh I mean just developed."
"Hmmm nice one you get it tihhh."A serious moment acured when Yaakova had to pay attention. The sound of the smack. Jutted the younger humanoid ensign to attention.
Yaakova,himself had a slight twitch to.!"thankfully no fazor's on office closed hours.phewsssssssss.static chills around the board.thought'sof who will win.......humph

Yaakova:"any way,they finally show up nearing my brothers birth-date.November, looking for a wanted criminal. I asked them whats going on.They said their coming in December. I said,
December what? If they tell you they pospon because all of them, don't like when regulars do that."Tuhhph." "show of hands.Gentlemen." The young invited ensign calls.Interupting a reptoid oooo.
Yaakova:"devilish stair acomplished." hmph...grrrr....uhh my ear healing needs to work faster. That women and her hypo sprey's.Take one a day she says .then .The alien lodge in the side of my ear dies!"

"hmmm":everyone sighed.moment of silence was broken by a drunk Brikkan in the background of the public lounge........To be continued.

ps:"oops,there's no point in continued.To bed"humph.........
new log-next day-quote-:thoughts:I forgot what turns people into a zombie on this ship.Best be more careful.tumph!

Duty-personal-Setting:work-pleasure alter:
posting-to the lounge from the science bay.
Then to bed!! mid-day-to-night-shifting offs

When Ven woke up, he had a moment of panic. He was not sure where he was or what was holding him down. After a moment of quite contemplation he remembered the night before. It was Amelia who was pinning him to the bed because she was literally laying on top of him with her arms wrapped around him and her head on his chest. She soft but deep breathing clued Ven in the b she was still asleep.

Now the he understood the situation he was more then content to just hold her while she slept. He decided her liked this sleeping together, waking up together thing.

Amelia squeezed Ven tightly, snuggling as she slowly woke up. Blinking awake, she looked up at Ven. "Morning."

"Good morning. " Ven said to her with a grin. "How did you sleep? "

"Morning." Amelia said while stretching. "Very well, thank you. How about you?"

"Really good." Ven said, his voice betrayed him a little and showed that this fact shocked him.

"Excellent. Would you rather have breakfast or a massage or a shower first?" Amelia said somewhat huskily.

"Ummm..."Ven thought aloud. "Maybe shower, breakfast then massage?"

Slowly, Amelia got out of bed, smiling as she stood and stretched again. "You go get showered then. I'll get a fresh uniform and some breakfast ready for you, ok?"

Ven also got out of bed and yawned. He turned to walk into the bathroom but stopped and turned back to Amelia. "You know what..." he walked back over to her. "Go ahead. I want to make you happy like you are me. If...beating me up will make you happy then I'm willing to let you." He braced himself and closed his eyes. He cringed as he braced for impact.

Amelia stared at him a moment, debating what to do. He was practically asking her to propose. Would he take responsibility? Only one way to find out. She slammed him into the wall, biting him on the shoulder hard.

""Ow!" He said, but bit back anything else. He just stood there up against the wall getting bit. He didn't even whimper, just took it.

Amelia tried not to break skin, but he was taking it so well she couldn't help but bite a bit deeper as she pressed him harder against the wall. The taste of his blood trickled into her mouth, making her purr softly at the bitter taste. Letting him go, she took a step back and licked her lips.

Ven just stood there for a moment, then he realized he was not breathing. He blew out a long breath, then sucked in a long deep breath. "Ok...that hurt."

"And that's how Andorian women propose marriage. At least in the colony I grew up in, it is. I've been told some women bite the face." Amelia explained, grinning widely.

"Wait...what?" Ven took a second. "You just asked me to marry you?!" Ven was finding it hard to breath suddenly.

"Yeah. Don't worry, I don't expect an answer right away. Go shower first." Amelia said as she walked out to the living room towards the replicator.

"Shower first..." Ven stumbled into the bathroom and under the sonic shower.

Hoping he took the rest of his clothes off before getting in the shower, Amelia punched up fresh uniforms for both of them. After laying them out, she punched up the replicator's memory, looking over what Ven ordered the most around this time so she could have that ready and waiting for him. Punching up both meals, she set them on the dining table and waited for Ven to finish.

Ven finished his shower and stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist expecting to replicate a new uniform. He was shocked to find one waiting for him. He grabbed it and went back into the bathroom to quickly dress.

Once he was dressed he came back out and into the main room. "Pancakes!" Ven looked at Amelia. "Why me?" He asked.

Amelia looked confused at the question. "Why not you? And if you don't want pancakes, I can replicate something else."

"No, that's not it..." Ven's awkwardness was not making this easy. "Thank you for the pancakes, they are perfect." Ven thought for a moment while he took a seat and got situated. "You made such a big deal about how important procreation is to your people. Why would you want an outsider?"

Sitting down in front of her own pancakes, Amelia stared at them silently for a while before speaking. "Because it's easier maybe. Or maybe I'm tired of running. That's not an easy question to answer, but It's nice having someone to snuggle with, you know?" Finally picking up her fork, she slowly started eating her own pancakes.

"I do know..." Ven said, and took a bite of his food. "Ok how about this. Let back up a little, but only a little. Lets spend some time together, get to know each other. After some time, when you know me better you can propose again."

Amelia nodded slowly, thinking it over as she ate. "I think I can live with that."

"I would like you to stay here...with me." Ven offered. He was striving for a compromise. She was clearly use to moving at warp 8 while Ven was stuck at a space station. He wanted to find a speed for both of them.

The Andorian woman looked up at him smiling, a sadness in her eyes. "Thank you. I'd like that too. I don't have much to move so I'll get my things this afternoon if that's ok."

"Of course that's fine." Ven said around a bit of pancakes. "If you need help with anything I am here for you." Then after a moment he asked, "are you alright? "

"Yeah, I just..." Amelia started to say. She was trying to tell him but the words just wouldn't come. "I just have some things in my past is all."

Ven nodded and took a bite of his breakfast. "When you're read." He said simply with a jerky nod.

"Thank you." Silently eating on her pancakes for a little bit, Amelia asked a much lighter question. "Are pancakes always this good? They taste like a desert."

"So, I have this thing about earth food. They have some of the most interestingly flavored foods I have ever had. But out if all of there delicacies, there breakfast foods are by far the best." Ven said excitedly. It was clear that she had just stumbled onto one of his passions. "Wait until you try doughnuts. Oh! And sometimes in pancakes, they will put berries or bits of fruit! "

"That sounds absolutely amazing. I love fruits. Normally I eat them chilled, but on these pancakes... That's got to be amazing." Amelia said as she munched away.

"Sometimes, the humans will cook the fruit right into the pancakes, and sometimes they make a special sauce and drizzle it over the top!" Ven said excitedly. "I can't wait to share all of it with you!"

Amelia was much happier now, her past forgotten. "I can't wait to try all of them. I wonder if Andorian moon honey would taste good on them."

"We will have to experiment together!" Ven said across the table. He popped the last bite of his food into his mouth. "I have never had Andorian moon honey before. You will have to introduce me to it."

"Gladly. It's not as good replicated as fresh, but if I can get the replicator to make it cold enough it might be close enough." Amelia said just before eatingthe last of her own pancakes.

This was perfect. It was moments like this that caused Ven to even consider Amelia's request. When it came to romance the two of them seemed awkward. Or maybe it was just him. But when they were just together and talking it was perfect. Ven would be perfectly happy if this was the whole of the relationship, but he had a feeling that Amelia was hoping for more. Ven decided right there that he would do what he could to give her what she wanted.

"So...massage now?" He asked with a slight quiver in his voice.

Amelia stood and collected the dishes, heading to the replicator as she spoke. "Let me clear the dishes first. You go get comfortable and I'll be there in just a moment."

"Ok...but I'll handle dinner since you single handedly did breakfast." Ven didn't know how things worked in a typical Adronian relationship, but if she wanted typical she was looking in the wrong place. He wanted to take care of her the way she was him.

Ven went to his bed and tossed his duty jacket onto a chair near by. "The captain warned me that you might get a little rough with me. Please be gentle. I have a long day of ahead of me and I really can't aford to be injured. Any more then I already am..." he said looking at the bloody spot on his yellow shirt the bite on his shoulder had made.

Finishing with the replicator, Amelia tossed her uniform top aside as well as she entered the bedroom. "I won't break any bones, if that's what you're worried about." Was she secretly looking forward to this? It had been years since she practiced her massage therapy but for some reason, she was happy to about to be doing it again.

"Just go easy on me is all I'm asking. Remember that in not Adronian." He said. She could easily see that he was a little nervous. She had proven her strength to him and he had a very healthy respect for it now.

Amelia giggled a bit, rubbing her hands softly against his back encouragingly. "Don't worry, this is part of my motherly tender side. I promise you'll enjoy it. Now lay down so I can begin."

Ven nodded, deciding that a show of trust in her would only do good. He laid out on the bed and took a deep breath, trying to relax himself.

Amelia rubbed her hands together, warming them before she began. As she started, she worked his feet and toes, massaging in slow circles as she moved upwards.

Ohhh. Ven did not expect a full body massage. He was only hoping for his back. But like everything else so far Amelia was a surprise. "Ummmm." He moaned as he actually started to relax under her expert touch.

Before long, she had worked up the back of his calves and thighs, paying special attention to his knees. From there she massaged across his hips and butt in widening circles, moving into his back with pressure from her thumbs to make sure his back was properly aligned.

Amelia was finding sore muscles that Ven didn't know he had. When she ran her thumbs along his back his spine cracked and poped. Turns out crawling through the guts of the ship is hard on one's body. True to her word, Ven was enjoying himself.

Amelia took her time on his back, working every vertebrae, every rib, every muscle. When she got to his shoulders, she worked up between them to his neck, putting off the actual shoulders until the last.

"Careful with this shoulder..." Ven reminded Amelia about the shoulder she had drawn blood on.

"I will, don't worry." Massaging first one shoulder, then that arm, she moved to the other side and tenderly ministered to that shoulder, working on small tender circles before massaging that arm.

"I admit it, best massage I have ever had." Ven said as she worked his arm. Not that he had a lot of massages in his life.

Sitting next to Ven, Amelia smiled warmly. "I'm glad you approve. I told you I'd be tender. Nothing broken, right?"

"Nothing broken..."Ven said as he sat up across from her. He gazed into her eyes fir a moment, then gathered every ounce of courage he had and leaned in and gave her a gentle, timid kiss on the lips.

Amelia was surprised but responded in kind. She had seen this sort of thing but never thought anyone would do anything like that to her.

Ven broke the kiss and say back across from her nervously. He didn't really know what to do now.

Amelia had an idea of what to do. She wrapped her arm around his waist and leaned on him softly. "Thank you," she whispered.

Nexi sat at the bar of the ship's lounge nursing maybe the eleventh glass of some exotic alcohol the bartender had offered her. She had no clue what it was, but it was making her blissfully numb. She knew shouldn't be getting drunk right now, she had to go pick up Aewia from her therapy soon! But that was part of the reason she was getting drunk; Nexi didn't know how to deal with the pressure of being a good sibling. She'd never had to take care of someone else before and the responsibility of Aewia's care, while rewarding, was also incredibly frustrating. She did her best not to let her sister see it, Aewia already had enough to deal with, but Nexi had to deal with those emotions somehow, and tipping her glass to the bartender for yet another drink seemed to be the reasonable solution.

Amelia, seeing Nexi at the bar, sat next to her and waved for the bartender. "Andorian ale, please." After getting her drink and sipping a bit of it, she turned to Nexi and considered what to say to the other woman. At a loss, she turned back to her drink.

Nexi looked over to Amelia. "What?" she asked simply, not really caring if Amelia actually answered, she just kind of wanted to be left alone for a little while.

Amelia thought a moment, wondering if she shouldn't say anything after all. This would be a short story if she didn't though, so she contrarily decided to. "I saw you drinking alone so I was wondering if you were ok."

"Maybe I like drinking alone," Nexi countered. Then again, it wasn't like she had an abundance of people to drink with. "What about you?"

"Waiting on Ven," Amelia said with a soft smile. "We're going on a date tonight."

And on the note, Ven came strutting into the lounge with a huge grin on his face. He was going on a date with his girlfriend, both were very new to him and he was excited and proud.

"Huh... you and Ven?" Nexi said, looking over her shoulder at the naive young Xenexian... with an Andorian? Wow, she never would have guessed that one! Though maybe it should have been a no-brainer, they both nerd-gasmed over her cloaking device. "How's that working out for you? I was thinking of giving him a try next time he worked on 'Star."

Amelia's antennae rotated forward aggressively, her head tilting forward a bit. "What do you mean by 'giving him a try'?" She shouldn't think anything of it, but for some reason it raised her hackles a bit, her Andorian blood heating a bit. Setting a package she had had in her lap on the counter, she turned to Nexi, awaiting clarification.

Nexi suppressed the urge to smile, her face remaining relaxed and passive as she took another sip of her drink. "Dunno... Just been a while since I've had a good throw down, and he must like it rough if he's willing to date an Andorian so that's right up my alley..." Then she looked to Amelia like she just had a moment of brilliance. "Hey! Maybe we can have a threesome!"

That confirmed Amelia's suspicions. She was after Ven too? So be it. Grinning widely, she finished her drink in one swig. "Why not a foursome like other Andorian couples?" she spat out. That sort of thing was something Amelia definitely didn't want to share Ven like that.

"Nah," Nexi replied after considering the offer. "A four-way gets too complicated for my liking, though I'll do it if I had to, but really it would just distract me from Ven. I just thought you might be interested seeing as you're dating him and I thought you looked feisty."

Amelia stood and stretched a little, motioning towards Ven to join her. "I'm not really willing to share like that."

Ven saw Amelia across the room and his face brightened. He quickly made his way over to her. It was then that he saw Nexi. "Hey." He said to Ameilea. Then he smiled to Nexi. "Hello again..." and then he noticed the tension between the two ladies.

"Oh hey, Ven," Nexi said with a grin. "I'm bored. Whadya say we go back to my shuttle for a few hours for some rough sex?"

That really got Amelia's hackles up. "I still owe you a massage. I might need to be a little rough with it." What was she thinking? Nexi was her friend, wasn't she? But then again, this was an opportunity to prove to Ven that she would stand up and fight for him. Was that Nexi's intent? or was she serious?

Ven gave Nexi an odd look but assumed she was joking around. I mean why would someone like Nexi even be looking at Ven. "Oh yeah sure, let's go do that." He said with a little chuckle and a roll of his eyes. But he could see something was up between the two ladies. "You ready to go?" He asked Ameilea. He knew he was ready to get out of there.

"Hey, sounds awesome! where are we going?" Nexi said, playing up her drunkenness a bit as she put her arms around both Ven and Amelia's shoulders.

'Tenderly,' Amelia removed herself and Ven from Nexi's arms as she pulled Ven to the side and placed herself between them. "You're too drunk to fuck anyway so how about you go find a bed to crawl up in and sleep it off."

Ooooh, that was a low blow! But it was the perfect excuse Nexi needed to pull her arm back and throw a punch at Amelia, and she definitely didn't look drunk when she did it.

Amelia didn't even have time to dodge as the punch hit her right in the side of the face. Amelia did however have time to reply with a swift throat jab as she stumbled back a step.

Ven had no idea what to do about the two friend throwing punches at each other. But it was NJ it another guy messing with Ameilea so he didn't feel it was his place to jump in. Hell, even Ven would admit with out hesitation that Ameilea was way tougher then him, so he just stepped out of the way and up to the bar. Might as well enjoy a drink with his show.

Amelia's strike just barely grazed Nexi's throat, but it was still a good indication of just how strong Amelia was. Shit, Andorians... But Nexi was fast and the more skilled fighter, and she countered with a series of quick jabs at Amelia.

In reality, Nexi was a lot faster than Amelia's engineering trained muscles. She pretended to just take the hits and brush them off though they really hurt. "Ha! Is that the best you've got? I've felt harder kicks from a tribble." with that taunt, she didn't even bother swinging back, instead taking a slightly more defensive posture and advancing a step.

They were definitely making a scene now and Nexi grinned wide, the numb feeling from the alcohol making her feel a bit high with the rush of adrenaline. But Amelia's words were like a bucket of ice water. Fucking bitch! A few more jabs to force Amelia to focus on Nexi's upper body, and then threw a scissor kick at Amelia, throwing her to the ground in a rather humiliating display and subduing her in a leg lock.

Amelia hit the deck hard, her head spinning from the impact before realizing Nexi was trying to keep her in a leg lock. In this, Nexi had made a mistake. Amelia easily broke the lock and grabbed Nexi's arm and pulled hard, trying to dislocate the woman's shoulder at the very least. Nexi may have been more experienced and a better fighter, but Amelia had her strength and now that she had a grip on Nexi's arm she wasn't about to let go.

"Fuck!" Nexi cried out as she felt the pressure on her shoulder. She tried to get out of the hold, and she might have been able to if her opponent hadn't been Andorian, but she was very near to wrenching her arm out of socket.

Nexi wasn't able to struggle for long as a couple of security officers, who had been on break in the lounge and witnessed the entire fight, moved in to subdue Nexi. They pulled the two women apart and hauled Nexi to her feet, not even giving the Brekkian woman a chance to check her shoulder.

Ven sat at the bar. With all that was going on he had not been able to order a drink, so he sat there sipping on Nexi's drink while he watched. To bad the security guards were breaking things up, looked like Ameilea was just starting to get her grove.

As soon as the security guards grabbed her, Amelia let her grip go as they pulled the two women apart. Her Andorian blood was still pumping hard though so she had to say something else as she wiped a trickle of blue blood from her grinning face. "I was wrong. You're stronger than a tribble. You're as strong as a tribble fucker."

Nexi had pretty much started this fight purely because it amused her, but she was not going to let that insult go unpunished. She built up a charge within her body and let it loose on the officers restraining her. It was just painful enough for them to loosen their grip on her and Nexi lunged on Amelia with a feral cry. They both went down hard and Nexi grabbed Amelia by the hair, right by one of her antennae. In fact, Nexi was quite mindful to not harm the delicate appendage, and she could quite easily if she was just a little bit more rough or if she decided to give Amelia a jolt.

"I never wanted Ven, I just wanted to blow off some steam, and I though it would make you look good for your boyfriend if you kicked my ass a little, but even I wouldn't call no one a 'tribble fucker'!" Nexi growled into Amelia's ear. Amelia could feel that static of a charge building up within Nexi as she prepared to release another jolt, but one of the security officers drew his phaser and fired a shot at Nexi to stun her, and Nexi went limp atop Amelia.

That tackle terrified Amelia and with Nexi being in direct contact with Amelia, She got some of the stun effect herself. Her head was spinning and she felt like she was going to throw up. Then there was what Nexi said. Was she really trying to do this for her? She didn't use her electric shock thing until the end and she never drew her knives. Amelia had forgotten about those but with Nexi passed out on top of her, she could feel dozens of them at least through her clothes. She had no doubt Nexi could have cut off both her sensitive antennae with ease if she had wanted to.

The Security officers eased Nexi off of Amelia. "Do we need to call Sickbay?" one of the officers asked Amelia when he noticed that she was slightly disoriented.

Ven was at the security officers side. "Unless she needs to go to the brig, I can take care of her." He said looking down at her. He still had Nexi's drink in his hand and had found a crazy shaped straw somewhere that he was now using to suck up the exotic drink. He didn't know what it was but it tasted really good.

"At this time, we don't think it's necessary to take her to the brig since she wasn't the instigator, but her superior may have to have a talk with her," the Security Officer replied. "Keep an eye on her in case she shows any adverse effects of the stun." Then the two officers picked up Nexi and took her out of the lounge.

Ven held his hand out for Amelia to help her off the floor. "So is that how Andronians keep friends?" He asked her honestly wanting to understand what just happend. He slumped the last of the drink through his straw once she was back on her feet.

Amelia put a hand to her forehead and leaned against Ven as she got her bearings. "No, I'm not entirely sure what that was now. Your present is on the bar, by the way." she said as she motioned to the package she had left there.

Ven looked at her with a side way glance. "What do you mean you don't know what that was about. I mean, I have never had two girls fight over me before but it seemed kinda straightforward." He helped her back over to the bar.

Amelia just shook her head and tried to avoid talking about it further, sliding the package over to Ven. "Open your present."

Ven grabbed the package and tore into it, curious to see what she had gotten for him.

Inside was a flabbjellah, the antique Andorian sidearm that had doubled as a musical instrument. The finish was worn in a few places, but it looked completely intact and functional. It even had some dummy ammo to use for music purposes.

"Wow!" Ven said, then looked up at Amelia. "I would be lying to you if I said I knew what thus was."

Amelia smiled warmly as she explained the strange device. " it's a flabbjellah. An old Andorian sidearm that doubles as a musical instrument. The ammo with it is only good for making music."

"Wow!" He repeated but this time there was more awe in his voice. "Can you show me how it works?"

Amelia picked it up and loaded it, playing a few notes. The lyrical tune danced through the air, sounding a bit like ice cracking and shifting. Finishing, she handed the device back to Ven.

"That's awesome!" Ven said in wonder as he took instrument back from her. "I have two gifts for you." Ven said with a grin as he pulled a data chip out of his pocket. He set it on the bar and slid it to her.

Amelia picked up the data chip and looked it over with a smile. "What's on it?"

"It's an exact simulation of the Kumari. You can mess with it and upgrade it until your heart is content. If you need any help I happen to know someone who would be very excited to crawl around in there with you." Ven said with a smile. "That's the first gift."

Tucking the chip into her pocket, Amelia leaned against Ven with a smile. "What's the second?"

"This..." he said as he turned his head and pressed his lips to hers. It was a quick kiss, but Ven could not believe he had worked up the courage to do even that.

Amelia actually blushed a bit from the kiss, her blue skin deepening slightly. Pulling him closer, she kissed him back. "I think that's a perfect gift."

This wasn't the first time Nexi had ever woken up in the brig. Probably wasn't going to be the last time either. But it was the first time she woke up in the brig feeling like a complete ass. She sat up on the bunk in the tiny cell, groaning as her head reeled from the alcohol and the phaser. Oh, that was an unpleasant feeling... It had been a while since she had felt that combination...

Enalia looked up from her PaDD at Nexi. She had been sitting in a chair just outside the brig cell waiting for Nexi to wake up and now that she was, maybe she could get some answers. "Morning sunshine."

"Is it really morning?" Nexi asked as laid back down on the bunk until her head stopped spinning.

"It is," Enalia said. "Mind explaining what happened last night?"

"Fuck," Nexi said with a groan. "What happened to Aewia? Did she stay in Sickbay last night or did someone look after her?"

"When you didn't show up, I was contacted and I took care of her. It took forever to get her to sleep without you there though." Enalia explained, still waiting for an answer to her own question.

Damn... "Ain't exactly sure what I meant to do last night, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't supposed to end with me getting stunned," Nexi said groggily.

"I would hope not." Enalia said simply. "From reports, you and Crewman Takethen got into a fight over a man or tribble or something. Thank you for not killing her."

"If I'd wanted to kill her, it would have been done with the first strike. When no one could see. And likely when she was asleep," Nexi rambled off, staring at the ceiling like an idiot. "I ain't got much of an excuse 'cept to say that I was drunk and I thought the idea was brilliant at the time. I actually kinda did it to help her."

"Help her how?" Enalia wasn't mad, just curious. It wasn't every day she had people in her brig and she honestly wanted to know why Nexi had ended up in there before she let her out.

"Fuck... Alright, so she's seeing that kid Ven, the one that looks all happy covered in engine grease, and I know he's kinda on the timid side... And I know how Andorian's can be... I thought if I gave her a moment to beat her chest like a wild animal for a moment... I don't know! Like I said, I was drunk and I thought it was a brilliant idea at the time," Nexi explained haphazardly.

"Yeah," Enalia got up and turned the forcefield off. "Andorians can get rather territorial and she's been through some nasty stuff too. Please try not to get phasered and thrown in the brig next time you two go drinking, ok?"

"Actually, I was the only one drinking," Nexi admitted, not moving from the bunk. "She'd had maybe one drink, I'd lost count of how many I had... I'm not dealing with this whole 'family' thing very well..."

"It's not an easy thing to learn to deal with. I'm glad my family is this crew. Less stress than kids. How's Aewia doing, by the way?" Enalia asked curiously.

"She's getting better," Nexi said, looking over at Enalia, but remained laying on the bunk. "The therapy's really improving on the lucid moments and she's remembering more every day... But it's still like taking care of a little kid and I don't know what the hell I'm doing."

"From what I've heard you're doing amazingly well." Enalia said, sitting back down.

"Yeah, but it's so fucking frustrating!" Nexi said, sitting up and wishing she remained horizontal. "She looks at me like she knows she's a burden, but she don't say nothing, and I end up feeling like shit every single time I get the urge to bail on her. With the exception of last night, I don't bail, but I still think about it. I'm not used to taking care of another person."

"You think about the responsibility of it and though you know it's what you need to do you want to hop in a shuttle and head for the nearest dive bar and drink yourself into a stupor?"

"Actually I was thinking something more along the lines of picking up a job to kill someone or maybe go steal something priceless, but yeah, your idea sounds pretty good too," Nexi mumbled.

"If you do decide to do that, take me with you. I could use a break." Enalia said with a lopsided grin.

That made Nexi grin. "Deal..." she replied with a hint of a laugh. She finally stood and stepped out of the cell. "The job getting to you too?"

Enalia just stood and nodded at the question, that same lopsided grin widening. "Ready to go home?"

Nexi grimaced. "I can't decide yet if home is my shuttle or the quarters with Aewia, so I'm gonna pass on that one," she said candidly. "Was Aewia good for you, other than the not sleeping part?"

Enalia nodded, looking a bit more serious. "For the most part. She kept asking where you were. I told her you'd be back in the morning and that you'd explain things then. She had Korean food last night. So spicy it burned my nose just smelling it. Is that normal for her?"

"Yeah, she likes it spicy... I don't know how she does it," Nexi said as they left the brig. "Shit, what am I going to tell her? She ain't telepathic no more, but even still she knows when I'm lying to her and I don't wanna tell her I got thrown in the brig for picking a fight to help someone else get laid." Actually, that sounded really cool, but somehow she wasn't sure if Aewia would get it and that meant explaining it over and over and over....

"Up to you. I'd go with the truth. She knew something was wrong last night so who knows how she'll take it." Enalia said as she moved the chair back to the security desk.

"Yeah..." Nexi grumbled. She hated the truth... "Anyway, thanks for not getting pissed about the fight... I know it was stupid, but I really hasn't meant for it to get as bad as it did."

"These things happen. No one was sent to sickbay so I'm not that worried." Heading towards the door, Enalia called over her shoulder. "Might want to get back to your quarters before Aewia wakes up."

"Oh shit!" Nexi blurted out then took off for the lift to get back to her quarters.

With the sudden transfer of her XO and impromptu replacement with someone whose personnel file looked like a sane person's, Enalia was both worried and thrilled. Charon had already left on the same shuttle that had dropped off this Caitian-Trill hybrid, Lieutenant Commander Aelyn Radt. She just hoped this new XO could handle this crew of crazies.

Leaning back in her ready room chair, Enalia sighed and rubbed her face trying to stay awake. These late nights and early mornings were starting to get to her.

The lift door opened and the new Executive Officer stepped out onto the bridge, her hands clasped neatly behind her back as she studied the layout of the stations. Then she turned neatly on the balls of her feet, moving with an innate, sinuous grace towards the Ready Room, her fluffy tail swishing behind her. She pressed the chime then clasped her hands behind her back once again.

"Come in," Enalia called out, not even looking up as she got a fresh cup of coffee from her replicator.

The half-Caitian officer stepped inside, reaching into her duty jacket for a small PADD with her transfer orders and extending it towards her new Commanding Officer. "Lieutenant Commander Aelyn Radt reporting in," she said with a hint of a purr.

Briefly taking and glancing at the PaDD, Enalia handed it back and motioned to the chair. "Welcome aboard. Have a seat and tell me why you're crazy enough to be on this ship."

"I'm sorry?" Aelyn said with a curious tilt of her head. "I'm not certain that I understand the question, ma'am."

"Everyone else on this ship are asylum rejects of some sort. Are you sane?" Enalia eyed her new XO as she waited for a response.

"Last time I checked..." Aelyn said, studying her Captain in return. "I can get a copy of my last psych eval from Deep Space 12 if you need to be sure." What the hell kind of posting was this that the Captain needed to ask if she was sane?!

"In that case, my condolences on getting this assignment. Care for something to drink? There's a lot to discuss." Enalia asked as she sipped her own cup of coffee.

"No, I'm fine," Aelyn replied. "I was given minimal details when I was assigned to Hera, I don't even know the nature of the Hera's missions."

Leaning back in her chair, Enalia sighed heavily. "Whatever Intel wants us to do it seems. Right now we're trying to find a virus research station so we can prevent something unknown but potentially destructive for the quadrant. The only clues we have are locked in a damaged woman's half lobotomized brain."

Aelyn's eyes widened in surprised for just a fraction of a second. "That's... something..." she said as she considered the situation for a moment. "What's being done to retrieve the information she has?"

"Therapy mostly. Her sister is aboard caring for her." Enalia said, wishing Aelyn would at least sit down.

"Well, as long she's got someone looking after her," Aelyn said, making some notes on her PaDD, completely oblivious to Enalia's desire for her to sit. "I suppose now I should familiarize myself with the ship and the Senior Staff, maybe even take some of your work off your desk," she continued, then looked back at Enalia. "Is there anything else I need to know about?"

"Keep your eye on the chief engineer. I caught him starting a strip club in main engineering his first day aboard." Enalia warned. "Other than that, I can't think of anything too pressing."

"I'm sorry, a strip club?" Aelyn said, stunned to hear what was going on in this ship.

"If you catch him doing anything like that I don't care if you throw him in the brig or out an airlock." Enalia said seriously.

"Airlock... right..." The state of this ship truly baffled Aelyn. "Well, I'll do what I can to get this ship and her crew in order so you can focus on whatever Starfleet Intelligence sends us."

Enalia smiled weakly, the weight of all the insanity she'd been dealing with lately showing on her face. "Thank you. Maybe I can get a full night's sleep soon too. Good luck."

"If you're that overworked, then my first order a business is to assign a Yeoman who can help ease your workload. I don't know much about your former Executive Officer, but he wasn't doing his job right if he allowed things to get this bad," Aelyn commented as she jotted down a few more notes and things to do. "If there's nothing else then I'll get to it."

"By all means." Enalia was surprised at the thought of a Yeoman. She had been assigned one but they never arrived on board for one reason or another. Maybe that was why she was so tired. Picking up a box of PaDDs from behind her desk, she set it on that desk. "This is my inbox from just last night. If you can make this go away faster... Just do what you need to, ok? I'll back you up on whatever you need."

Aelyn stepped right up to the desk and picked up the PaDDs and began looking through them. A couple she tossed back onto Enalia's desk, those were mission related and Aelyn didn't feel qualified to do anything with those, and one was specifically for the Captain to deal with, but the PaDDs regarding ship functions and crew performance would be a good start for Aelyn to get right into the thick of things. "There, we'll start with this," Aelyn said, taking the rest of the PaDDs and tucking them under her arm.

"Thank you very much." Enalia was visibly relieved. It would have taken her hours to get through all those. "If there's nothing else, you're dismissed."

"Thank you, ma'am," Aelyn said with a nod, then headed for the door only to pause and look back. "Before I forget... I don't do well with sitting for long periods of time. It's a nervous habit, my feet get restless and then I get the urge to just move. I know it's an odd quirk, but I've been like that since I was little, so if you find me pacing the bridge rather than sitting, that's why." It also hadn't helped that she spent most of her career on a Nor-class station where most of the stations weren't meant to be used while sitting. And all that space to just walk around... Being on a Starfleet vessel was actually a bit of a shock to her system and she was itching to move right now.

Enalia couldn't help but chuckle a bit. That explained a lot. "Fair enough. Just try not to block the viewscreen too much." Enalia preferred to stay seated herself, though most chairs bothered her.

Aelyn offered her own slight chuckle in return. "That won't be a problem, Captain," Aelyn assured her. "Good night, and don't work too hard," she added, exiting the office to get settled into her quarters and get started on those PaDD's she had taken from the Captain.

Rhett Beaumont, the half-Orion Chief Engineer for the USS Hera had been at work on a power relay issue in main Engineering all day. He had formed a team of six of his best and brightest, the most experienced of his engineers, and some with a specialty that he felt would work for solving the problem. Several hours of slaving away and they finally had the problem area located. Rhett had dispatched Spinelli and Dalton into a jefferies tube to work on the problem right at the source.

Taking a sigh of relief and wiping the beads of sweat from his face, Rhett was calling it a night. He wasn't even supposed to be on duty right now. Technically, he wasn't, but he sure the hell was not about to let some half-witted foolishness fresh out of the academy ensign screw around with anything important to the Hera...unless he was that fresh out of the academy half witted fool of an engineer. At least I know what I am doing. I am the Chief Engineer he thought, reassuring himself. Most of his engineers were enlisted, some were ensigns like him. Eventually, the Hera would get a junior grade lieutenant or worse. Probably someone who held a higher rank than Rhett, maybe was much older and than Rhett with more service experience even. However, one thing that they would not have would be Rhett's skills and determination, and even with their higher rank, Rhett would run the show regardless.

He did not give a damn who they assigned to Engineering. Unless the Captain removed him from his position, he would draw a line in the sand, a line at the threshold of his office. Something that would firmly mark his territory. This was his Engineering and the door that he was heading towards was his office, no one else had claim to it. In main Engineering, he was the boss, he held the authority, and he made the decisions. Even if some hot shot Lieutenant Commander from Starfleet Corps of Engineers strutted in with transfer orders, Rhett would have no problem handing them some engineer's lubricant and telling them where to shove their orders.

Walking with his chin held high, a swagger in his walk, pep in his step and that cocky smug arrogance on carved into his face, the young Chief Engineer was about in his office when the doors to main Engineering opened and unattractive Saurian female walked in. She wore a starfleet uniform, golden but did not appear to be engineering or operations. Security? thought Rhett. He took note of her enlisted rank. “A security problem, Crewmen?” he asked the woman. She instantly shook her head and asked if he was Ensign Beaumont. Nodding to confirm his identification, he awaited her response.

“Sir, you have an emergency subspace message that came in from Orion” said the woman, her large Saurian eyes looking peculiar and piercing. As unattractive as he found her species, there was something alluring about her. Father thought Rhett, his heart sinking to the pits of his stomach. Oh you fat bastard. You've gone an had another heart attack thought the Chief Engineer shaking his head and sighing. His father was a large man over was quite over indulgent, did not exercise and had quite a temper. He had had several heart attacks in the past, but the very best surgeons and medical care. Rhett would not have expected him to have died from another one or another few. “Parents” he said aloud.

The Saurian from security locked her eyes onto Rhett and nodded. “Yes, I am sorry for your loss but I wasn't informed that you've already been alerted” she said, not knowing that she had mistakenly misunderstood what he meant, and had inadvertently informed him of their deaths.

“WHAT?!” shouted Rhett. He pushed the woman aside and ran out of Engineering, charging down the corridors, knocking anyone in his path aside with no regard for their safety. He took a turbolift and headed for his quarters where he stormed into his quarters and opened the communication. He saw the face of an old family friend and business associate in the background, but front and center was a Starfleet junior grade lieutenant, pointed ears and a stoic look that immediately read as Vulcan, but Rhett could soon see that the man was thinking, considering what to say and how to say it. Not a Vulcan. At least not one who controlled their emotions. This was a Romulan, or rather half-Romulan. “Who the hell are you? What happened?!” said Rhett demanding answers.

The Starfleet officer looked a bit apprehensive. However, he was compliant. “Lieutenant Gideon” he replied, informing Rhett of his name. “I was on special assignment with Starfleet Security” added the Romulan. “Your parents were-” he began, but Rhett interrupted.

“Your targets? You killed them!” shouted Rhett. He wanted to believe it himself, but he knew better than that. Starfleet did not go around assassinating anyone, regardless of who they were or what they did and Orion was not a Federation world. Gideon of course just shook his head and remained rather composed and together.

“No, Ensign. I was not the one who killed your parents. However, I was undercover and trying to bring them down. Starfleet has an invested interest and of course your father was Captain in Starfleet before finding asylum on Orion, out of reach of the Federation's hand of law. However, with his death...the Orion Syndicate does not have reason to protect him” replied Lieutenant Gideon.

Rhett clenched his fists. “Who did it? Give me a name and I'll take care of it” demanded the ensign. He was furious, he was hurt, and a sadness would eventually set in after the shock faded and his adrenaline withered. Rhett could see on the man's face that the killer remained unknown. “You don't know who...Is Starfleet even looking? No, of course not. You couldn't care any less for the man. He was a criminal in your eyes” said Rhett.

“In many eyes, Ensign. It is surprise to many that you were even allowed to apply to Starfleet” replied the Romulan. “However, we cannot and should not be held accountable to who our fathers...or mother were” added the lieutenant. “This is an on going investigation, ensign. Your sister...she was the only survivor. Is there a family member in the Syndicate that she can be turned over to?”

Rhett shook his head. “No, I am the only family that she knows now. I will request immediate leave from my Captain and will come home to take her under my guardianship” said the ensign. “I will also need to make funeral arrangements, and I suggest that you find who murdered my family before I get there” said Rhett, abruptly terminating the channel. I can't do this alone thought Rhett, not ready to let himself breakdown. He had to stay strong at least for the time being.

Angelica yawned as she walked the short distance from the turbolift to her cabin; she'd worked late into the night, trying to make sense of the information Aewia had given them and comparing it to intelligence reports. She hadn't had much success, aside from giving herself a whopper of a headache and some significant eyestrain from looking at too many screens. Already dreaming about a hot bowl of chili with sweet cornbread, she opened the door to a deafening purring sound as a pile of fluffy balls rolled out into the corridor. Not quite sure what was going on, she stared at them in shock. Tribbles? Fucking tribbles in my cabin?!? Somehow, she kept from screaming in incoherent rage.

There was a whole damned sea of them! And more kept rolling out into the corridor, like dumb fluffy marbles. She couldn't even get through the door... or get the door to close to head them off. What was she supposed to do?! She hardly knew who to call about this either. Engineering? Operations? The chef, so they could be turned into soup?

"Fairchild to... uh... Nosplet," she decided finally, figuring the chief of operations could find a way to beam all the little furry bastards off the ship.

Ven was, as typical crawling threw the tunes of the ship checking on relays and interfaces. He pressed his com badge when he heard the call. "How can I help you this evening?"

"I have a... logistical problem." That was a hell of an understatement, but Angelica was not telling anyone over an open comm line that some joker had filled her cabin with tribbles. "Can you meet me on deck eight, near my cabin?"

Ven sighed, "yeah...give me ten minutes."

Yeah, he sounds thrilled, Angelica groused to herself. "Ten minutes is fine. Don't rush."

"Roger that..." Ven said and closed the com line. He finished tweaking the plasma relay he was messing with and closed everything up. Then he started making his way to deck eight.

Angelica tried to wait patiently... tried to ignore the tribbles rolling and crawling around in the corridor. The requested ten minutes ticked back agonizingly slowly, and she gazed wistfully in the direction of her replicator.

Ven came strolling down the hall, his overlaiden tool belt swing from his hip with a clank every step he took. His huge goggles were pushed up on his head into his wild and messy hair. His uniform what rumpled and dirty from his day crawling through the ship.

He came to a halt as soon as he saw the huge pile of tribbles in the hall. "Awww hell!"

"My thoughts exactly. How do we get these... things out of my cabin and off the ship?"

Ven pointed at his chest. "Chief of operations, not zoo keeper. I'll help clean up the mess but I don't know what to do with this orgy."

"We don't have a damned zoo keeper, so if that's your excuse you can stuff it. Beam them all out into space, for all I care. They're a nuisance."

Ven looked at her for a long moment. He was getting tired of being pushed around on this ship. "Okay then. As soon as they start messing with things that affect my area I'll deal with it. Good luck." And he turned and started storming off down the hall.

Dumbfounded by his reaction, Angel stared after him for a few long seconds before following him and catching him by the arm. "What the fuck is your problem, Nosplet? You've been throwing me attitude since I called, and I'll be damned if you're going to turn your back on me and walk off."

Ven looked like he was about to go off, but his anger deflated as fast as he did. "I'm sorry..." he he said as he leaned against a wall, looking back at the writhing pile of fur. "It's just I'm under so much stress and I'm not use it. I don't know what I'm doing anymore." Ven pulled the goggles from his head that he was always wore and ran a hand through his crazy hair. "None of this is your problem though...I'm sorry."

"We're all under a lot of stress, so you'd damn well better get used to it. That's called 'life' out here." Maybe she was being hard on him, but damn it Angelica was tired. All she wanted was to eat dinner and go to bed, but no. The tribbles had other ideas. "You can mope later. Right now I need your help."

Ven nodded. "You're right. But we are not just going to beam them into space. That's cruel." He pushed himself off the wall and replaced his goggles. "We need to figure something else out."

Angelica sighed. "I know it's cruel, but I'm tired and hungry and these furry little bastards are keeping me from doing something about it."

Ven snapped his finger and git a wicked grin on his face. "I got it! Let's just beam the lot into Nexi's room!"

Angelica grinned a little. "Hey, you want to screw with her, go for it. We'll have to round the suckers up though."

"She would probably kill me nice and slow." Ven said as he started pushing the tribbles back into the room. "Let start by grabbing the stray ones and making a big pile so the transporter can lock onto them all...then...I don't know. Cargo bay?"

"Wherever they'll fit. I just want my cabin back." Angelica scooped up some of the escaping tribbles, putting them back inside and nudging others back into the room.

Ven gently pressed his badge and it chirped. "Nosplet to transporter room two."

=/\="Ensign Blackwell here." Was the responce.

"Ensign, we have a room full of tribbles at my location. Will you please lock on to the and beam the lot to cargo bay three?" It was the one place that Ven knew was empty.

=/\= "Rodger." And a second later the writhing pile disappeared in a soft blue light, leaving behind a huge mess in the room. Ven looked around the room. "Oh...that's not pleasant. I'll send a few guys up here to help you clean all this up." Ven certainly was not going to scrub the tribble droppings. "If there is anything else ops can do to help let me know. But be aware, if there are tribbles on the ship we are likely going to be very busy."

"Oh come on. You're already here." Angelica gave him a dismayed look.

Ven sighed, he was almost off duty. This was the last thing he wanted to get stuck doing after hours. He rubbed the back of his head looking at the mess of a room. Then he got an idea. "Why don't the two of us go to the lounge and relax while my guys take care of the room?" They could both kick back and have a drink while neither of them had to deal with the mess.

"Hmm." Angelica thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, let's do that. Have a drink, maybe grab dinner... don't worry, I'm not trying to steal you from your girlfriend. I'm not on the market anyhow... too damned busy."

Ven laughed a little. "I'm not worried." He adjusted the goggles on top of his head. "After you."

"You look silly with those on your head." Angelica smirked a bit, escaping into the hallway away from the mess the tribbles had left behind.

Ven followed her out in into the hall. "Maybe...but they are very useful."

"Considering what you greasemonkeys do on this ship, I can imagine. I could never do it... I hate tight spaces." Angelica shook her head slightly, finding the nearest turbolift shaft and pressing the button to call the car.

Ven laughed, "Yeah, and compared to some of the places I crawl through the tubes are spacious!"

"Jefferies tubes. Spacious. Only you techie types would ever say that." Angelica snickered a little as the car arrived and opened its doors.

Ven let her enter first and stepped in behind her. "It's not for everyone that's for sure. But same goes for security. I mean we would be in a world of hurt if I was in charge of protecting everyone. I'm really glad for people like you to shoot the phasers while I run for my life."

Angelica shrugged slightly, though she did smile a little. It was pretty rare for her to hear that people appreciated what security did; usually they wanted to complain about their friend in the brig or something crazy that wasn't her fault anyway. "The danger never bothered me."

"Good!" Ven said with a little laugh. "You keep the bad guys away and I'll keep the sonic showers workin for ya."

"Sounds like a deal." Angel smiled a bit more. Maybe Ven wasn't such a jerk after all.