SEASON 3: EPISODE 01

CROSSFIRE: Part Four

  Rachel Daley looked up at Lieutenant Wessling.

  “I’m fine,” she said before the lieutenant could say anything.

  Daley had an easy time convincing Commander Core to go to the Naos system.  They had arrived and found the crash site.  After two orbital scans there seemed little doubt that the shuttle had crashed there.  The commander had not ordered them out of orbit as of yet, as if waiting in the vain hope that Captain Masters would appear on the surface and contact them.

  Daley had retreated to one of the smaller lounges on the ship dejected.  She still felt that Masters was still alive but she had no proof to base that on other then how she felt.

  “Still have that feeling?” asked Wessling as she elegantly slipped into the seat opposite her.

  Lieutenant Aimee Wessling was the head counsellor on the Swiftfire.  The blonde haired woman’s attractive features displayed a sense of concern.  She was also one of the most selfless individuals onboard, always looking after the emotional wellbeing of the crew no matter what time of day or night it was.  Her soft features were caring and always showed that she cared about what you had to tell her and that she was ready to help.

  “Yeah,” admitted Daley.

  There was no doubt that she was about to get an informal counselling session now.  “It’s not uncommon.  When someone dies it can take time for a person to process that death especially if they felt close to them.”

  “That’s not what I’m feeling,” Daley said bluntly, a scowl coming to her face.

  “Really?” said Wessling, her tone questioning but not confronting.  Daley stared into her brown eyes and found no hidden motive hiding.  Wessling held her gaze with ease.

  “Okay, I’m feeling that,” she admitted and quickly added.  “Because he isn’t dead.  But I also have this foreboding feeling like danger is close.  Not to me, but for him.  That’s how I know he isn’t dead.”

  “You sure that is what you feel?”

  “Yes, I’ve had this feeling before.  Back when you were all in the Badlands I could sense he was in danger, serious danger.  Then it disappeared before you returned to Deep Space 9.  I know he was nearly killed.  I don’t know how it happened; everyone is been very hush-hush about it.”

  At the time Daley had been off ship with a platoon of marines and a fighter squadron on a mission connected with the Swiftfire’s mission to the Badlands.  What had happened next was a mystery.  The logs had been classified and the crew had been very quiet about the events.  Incidentally at the same time she had been recruited into her own classified operation.  They had been recruited by Special Operations Command for a strike in Dominion territory.  The people involved in that were as tight-lipped about their adventures as the crew was about theirs.  It was almost a farcical set of events.

  “Is that what gave you the attack?” continued Wessling.

  “That and the dream.”

  “You are still having that dream?”

  Wessling knew all about the dream.  She had visited the counsellor of her own volition after the dreams had started.  She had periodically made visits to Wessling on the subject during her few months on the ship.  Wessling was the only person on the ship who knew these details.  She was also the only one to specifically how her deep feelings for the captain.

  “Yes.”

  “I still suspect it alludes to a sense of helplessness in the face of the quadrant spanning events we are all wrapped up in.  If the person is the captain, then that adds a sense of separation and the need to be close to him in the face of these events.”

  “If it’s not?”

  “Then I’m afraid you’re crazy and this is all a prefix to the real issue,” joked Wessling.

  Daley’s head jerked as she was suddenly struck by what Wessling had said.  An idea formed quickly that caused her heart to race.  She jumped up in excitement.  “That’s it!  You’re a genius!  Quickly, we have to see the commander!”

  They found Commander Core sitting solemnly in the captain’s chair on the bridge.

  “Prefix codes?” she repeated.

  “Yes, do shuttles have prefix codes?” asked Daley hurriedly, her words almost blurring into one.

  “Of course.  All Starfleet vessels have them,” she stated, not grasping what Daley was on about.  She looked to Wessling who had accompanied her to the bridge, Wessling just shrugged.

  “Then let use it to contact the shuttle.  If it survived we can get it to transmit a signal back to us,” she explained.  “That will prove that the shuttle is still intact.”

  Core looked over to Lieutenant Letac at the science station.  “What do you think?”

  The young blonde Bajoran considered the possibility for a second.  “Sure, we can transmit locally and use the subspace relay network to do the rest.  It would then expand like a ripple in a still pond.  Limit the distance to how far he could travel from our original location in the time expired to give us a search window and a time frame to wait for a reply.  It should actually be a fairly simple process.”

  “Set it up,” she ordered.  She turned back to Daley and locked her with a stern stare.  “If we get nothing, you’ll stop this right?”

  “If we get nothing it just means his shuttle is gone,” replied Daley giving Core look of defiance.

  The two female officers locked glares for several moments.  Both were strong willed women and technically Core was her superior officer but Daley was not going to yield easily.  The commander finally relented and turned back to Letac.  “Do it.”

  Enforcer Devlin sat against the wall inside the shuttle.  This was by far one of his easiest assignments.  The rest of his team was out scouring the forest for the shuttle occupants while he got to take it easy in the nice cool shuttle.  He was here in case the occupants doubled back and evaded their hunters.  If they did when they opened the door to the shuttle he would be ready to capture them.

  Their orders were to locate the pair and if possible capture them.  If they could not then they were to make she they would not leave the planet.  Devlin had no concerns with this, they were hunting for traitors and they did not deserve leniency.

  He suddenly heard a noise but it was not from the direction he thought it would be from.  He stood up and looked at the control console at the front of the shuttle.  It had suddenly come to life so he walked over and inspected it.  Somehow the ship had turned itself on and was activating the subspace transmitter.

  Devlin tried to stop it but the computer did not accept his inputs.  This mission was classified so signals were been kept to a minimum to keep from attracting unwanted attention.  The shuttle transmitting was definitely not what they wanted.

  With the console unresponsive he quickly looked around for the assess panel to the shuttle’s main computer.  He found it and opened up the panel.  He was not a computer expert and was not sure how to stop the ship’s signal.  All he knew was he had to do something quickly.  With that in mind he took a step back and pulled out his phaser and fired at the main computer.

  The shuttle’s interior was bathed in light for the phaser and the sparks as he destroyed the computer.  The control console immediately dimmed.  He waited to see if anything else would happen but nothing did.  The entire episode only took a few seconds but even a short transmission could be traced.

  Devlin tapped his combadge.  “Devlin to Annan, we have a problem.  You should expect visitors.”

  Core was not too happy.  She had come to the Naos system on Major Daley’s suggestion after she turned up some interesting anomalies with the debris but they had found nothing but scorched earth and fading radiation.  Admiral Douglas had wanted them to get back to their patrols quickly but once in orbit in Naos she found it hard to order the ship out.  Deep down she knew she was waiting just in case Masters just turned up on the surface fine and well.  She was still clinging to one last hope that he had survived.

  Daley’s suggestion was pointless in her opinion.  The shuttle was gone but if it would help the Marine officer let go and come to terms with the reality of Masters’ death then so be it.  That’s what they needed to do, they needed to let go.

  “I got something!” cried Letac in excitement.  “I’ve lost it, but it was definitely a signal from the shuttle.  I’m trying to locate the source.”

  She was shocked to get a return signal but she did not allow her shock to slow her down.  “Why did you lose it?”

  “Cut off at the source.  I’ve sent another signal but no reply.  Given the speed of the reply the signal came from the local relay.”

  “In this system?” she asked referring to the source of the signal.

  “No, it is located not far; I’d say it came from the Caprius system.  That is the closest system to the local relay.  I can’t tell you much more then that.  The signal didn’t transmit long enough to pinpoint.  But it was definitely a response to our prefix summons; it has to be the shuttle.”

  “Yes!” exclaimed Daley.  Core glanced over at the major with a look of disbelief.  Daley gave her a triumphant smile and looked like she was about to explode with excitement on the spot.

  “What did it say?” she asked Letac.

  “Nothing, it was an automated response from the shuttle’s computer.”

  Core was hoping that it was a message from the captain but at least it was something.  The shuttle was not destroyed but what exactly that meant confused her.

  What can you tell me about Caprius?” she asked

  Lieutenant Letac brought up a stellar map of the system on the main viewscreen.  “Seven planets orbiting a Class G star.  The third planet is inhabited with a pre-warp species imaginatively referred to as Caprians.  They are at an early stage of development roughly equal to Middle Ages Earth level of technological development.  At least that was where they were at the last Federation survey seven years ago.”

  “So we should be relatively safe to establish a close orbit of the planet?” asked Daley.

  “Yes, they might notice us as a new star in their sky if they are really looking,” confirmed Letac.

  “If that was the shuttle responding, why were we told it crashed at Naos?” asked Lt. Commander Whitechapel, voicing the question that had to be on everyone’s mind.

  “The Annan misled us,” said Daley.

  Core found it hard to believe.  Daley had voiced a similar view when she asked for them to first go to the Naos system.  At the time Core had dismissed it as simply grief on the major’s behalf.  That she was making unfounded accusations to keep herself from accepting the truth but now there was definitely something wrong with the story they had heard.  However, to assume the Annan was purposely deceiving them still seemed unbelievable, but so had the suggestion that the shuttle was still out there.

  Karak who had remained quiet during the whole process suddenly spoke up.  “The Annan did appear to come from the Naos system when it rendezvoused with us.  Its departure at the meeting also suggested a course towards Caprius.  Upon arrival to the Naos system I also detecting the residual energy of a Federation ship other then ours that had recently visited at high warp into the system and back out.  The decay suggests it was not stationary for long.  The entry point also suggests Caprius and the exit point was towards our rendezvous.  With this evidence I am convinced that the Annan was at Naos briefly.”

  Core was amazed by the Vulcan Ops Manager’s summation.  Only a Vulcan would have been able to come up with there findings so quickly.  Such a quick analysis of warp vectors, subspace distortion decay rates was stunning.

  “What are you suggesting Karak?”

  “While it is not surprising that the Annan was at Naos as it gathered the debris and its possible arrival from Caprius and returning in that direction is very circumstantial, it is the time they spent in Naos that is the important factor.  They were in system for less then twenty minutes give or take a margin of error of five minutes.  I am sure you will agree that even if they were in orbit for twenty-five minutes it would not be long enough to perform a recovery operation they would have us believe they performed.  I therefore doubt that they performed a recovery operation at all.”

  “What do you suggest instead?” asked Core interested in Karak’s thoughts.

  “Given the amount of time they had I would suggest that they instead “set the scene” as it were.  Spare shuttle parts and a small anti-matter bomb beamed a few metres under the surface would be sufficient to form a crater and scatter trace amounts of material with soil and rock to form a convincing crash site.”

  “Why would the Annan do all of this?” asked Whitechapel.

  “That I cannot begin to guess at given the available data,” replied Karak.

  “Whatever it is the answer has to be at Caprius,” said Daley.

  “Maybe we should contact Douglas,” suggested Letac.  “Something weird is going on with the Annan maybe she can find something out.”

  Core silently agreed.  At the very least the admiral had to know that the Swiftfire was not returning to its patrol duties.  “Contact the admiral with our findings and tell her we are pursuing them.  Ensign Cole, set a course for Caprius.  It’s time to get some answers.”