Leijten had informed the bridge to notify her of any changes, and gone to her quarters for a few moments of peace. She had sat down at her desk and brought up all their findings so far on the Cairo, trying to look at the bigger picture—rather than all the individual pieces—to try and determine what happened onboard the Starfleet ship.
She had been unsuccessfully working for thirty minutes when her door chimed. The sudden noise in the silence startled her. “Come in,” she called, after quickly composing herself once more.
The doors parted and Commander Amorin stood in the opening.
“Problem Commander?” she asked.
He ducked through the doorway, which closed up behind him. “Negative sir. I thought it would be best to give you my report in person.”
She gave him a faint smile. They had served together for eight years, the last three as the Silverfin’s command team, and as such they had gotten to know each other very well. He knew that she would be locked in her room kicking herself and questioning her actions (which had led to Daezan’s condition), under the guise of working.
“What have you got then Commander?”
“Our teams will be finished a complete search of the ship in just under two hours. We are currently finishing off the larger decks, as well as going through all the cargo containers in the holds. I’d recommend that we start rotating the teams back to the Silverfin, so that we can try to get the duty roster back to normality,” she nodded at his recommendation and made a mental note to pull off the team members from Beta Shift, so they could get some rest before needing to be on duty.
“All across the ship, we found evidence of recent habitation,” he continued. “No signs of damage or struggle. Elak’s repairs to the warp core have fully restored main power,” he told her with a hint of pride in his deep voice, “and the computer analysis team have started on the ships full records. They did report that although most of the records support the information we’ve already gathered, the sensor logs have a gap in them…a four-year gap.”
“What?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Yes sir. I had the analysis team check three times, and each time they came up with the same results. The Cairo’s sensors have been operational for almost four years—except for when the ship lost main power. However they’ve been wiped clean, from the time all contact was lost with her in 2374, until power was restored. And I mean wiped. No chance of data retrieval.”
“Yet another mystery to add to the list,” she told him, massaging the bridge of her nose, feeling her headache throb. “What else is there?”
“The main armoury and weapons lockers throughout the ship were all secure, no weapons missing. All shuttles are still onboard, and all her escape pods are in their berths, except for one—”
“The one where Kolanis went to,” she finished for him. He nodded. “Have the teams found anything that could have affected him in such a way? Anomalous energy readings, the presence of a non-corporeal life-form, some piece of alien technology?”
“Nothing Captain. The quarters he was in before he vanished were clean, and I had teams follow his path looking for trace evidence, but they found nothing except for the blood at the hatch of the escape pod.”
She got out of her chair and started to pace. Amorin stayed quiet as she worked out some of the anxiety and trepidation she felt—something she would have preferred to have done in the ships gym, but a brisk pace back-and-forth in her quarters would have to suffice in the meantime. Nothing was stacking up, and they were coming to the limit of what a single Border Cutter could handle. The escape pods the Cairo carried were designed for a maximum of eight people, there was no way five hundred and fifty people could fit into just one of them. On top of that was the evidence of sabotage caused by a Starfleet engineer, a deserted ship that looked like its inhabitants had just been there, but whose sensors told them it had actually been missing for four years, but it just didn’t know where, no signs of damage or distress anywhere, and now one of her officers—a man she considered a friend—was lying half-mad in sickbay.
She looked over her shoulder at Amorin. “Anything other pieces of the puzzle?”
“One more thing. When Petty Officer Sa’Qwa was taking in the arboretum she noticed a Termillian orchid in full bloom, something she tells me happens only every five years. Apparently it’s a very strict timetable, no matter where they are in the galaxy. And the last blooming was a little under a year before the Cairo went missing. That means that plant has been doing what plants do for the last four years, and is perfectly synchronised with the orchid that Sa’Qwa has in her quarters.”
Leijten nodded as she paced, taking in the information and also finding it surprising she never knew about Sa’Qwa’s green talons. The towering Skorr must have felt right at home in the large arboretum, enjoying the chance to stretch her wings and search from the air for a brief time.
She came to a stop by the viewport, which offered her a perfect view of the Cairo, and glanced at the chronometer on her. It was still three hours until Beta Shift came on. “Alright Commander, have all the crew on Beta return to the ship for some bunk time. After the search has been completed, I want a full report put together. Have Elak prep the ship for a warp tow, we’ll take the Cairo back to Star Station Freedom, where they can organise a full forensic investigation,” she said looking out the window at the majestic Excelsior-Class ship. She hated the idea of leaving the ship as a ghost story to share, but the Silverfin wasn’t designed to handle a full-scale investigation. That would have to be done by specialists back in a starbase, where they could spend weeks or months studying every intricate detail of the ship.
“Aye Captain,” Amorin replied.
“I’ll inform Freedom what we’ve got and that we’ll be there in a few days, they can inform HQ and get the ball rolling on the full research team.” The Benzenite nodded, but made no move to leave her quarters. “Something else Amorin?”
“It wasn’t your fault Captain,” he told her bluntly. Leijten had a speak-freely policy with Amorin whenever they were alone, he didn’t need to ask for permission. “Daezan is an officer in Starfleet, he—just like the rest of us—knew the risks that come with the uniform. As the saying goes in the Border Service, ‘we have to go out, we don’t have to come back’.”
“That’s been one motto I could never get behind,” she admitted to him. “When someone drops the ball, we get the call. But I will fight tooth and nail to make sure that everyone gets back home.” There was silence for a moment; the only sounds were her breathing and his muffled hiss of Amorin’s breather mask. She gave him a small smile. “Thank you XO. Every so often I need someone to give me a kick in the pants, to help me see straight again.”
Amorin shrugged his shoulders. “It’s in the job description.”
She chuckled softly, took one last look at the Cairo, and then headed for the exit. She had a job to finish, and locking herself away wasn’t going to help one damn bit. Amorin was right behind her as she left her quarters and headed for the bridge. But at the T-junction before she got to the turbolift, they split up. She continued on to the bridge, whilst he headed back towards the transporter room, to finish up the investigation and carry out her orders. Three years ago when she had promoted him up to her First Officer, he had protested and had tried to convince her that she was making a mistake, but she had known then that he would make a fine XO. Since then, he had proven time and again to be the best second-in-command she could’ve asked for.
Stepping into the lift, she ordered it to the bridge.
***
Five Hours Later
The Silverfin’s crew were all back onboard the Cutter, and those that were off-duty were finishing off their individual reports, which Amorin was compiling for the official log. The Cairo had been secured, her structural integrity field and warp assembly rigged for a warp tow. Due to the size of the ghost ship the Silverfin was limited to warp five, which would see them back at Star Station Freedom in four days. As well as their regular duties to perform, the crew were continuing to analyse the readings taken aboard the Cairo, as well as going through her complete database, studying samples of metal, food, carpeting, anything that might help them discover what had happened to the ship.
Leijten had every faith in her crew, but this mystery seemed to be too complex, too bizarre for anyone to figure out. Usually she was a fan of thriller books and mystery holonovels, but in works of fiction there were always answers, all you had to do was follow the clues. But in this instance, the clues contradicted each other, and no pattern emerged as to what had happened to the ship or crew.
One person might know, she said to herself as she headed through the corridors. Daezan’s incident still couldn’t be explained. From his ramblings she suspected that he knew at least some of the answers to their questions, but he was under sedation, and Mbeki had said that was how he would stay until they got to Freedom.
Despite that, she still felt that she owed him an apology. If she hadn’t been so hell bent on solving the puzzle the Cairo represented, he would be alright. No he wouldn’t, a firm voice, that sounded vaguely like her father’s (or at least her mental imitation of Captain Richard Leijten), told her. He would have volunteered to be on the away team, and would likely have been affected in exactly the same way. He’s an officer, he does his duty and he knows the risks.
She stopped in front of the door she wanted, knowing that what she was telling herself was true. Daezan was never one to shy away from an away mission, no matter what the risks were. Taking a deep breath she stepped closer to the doors, the sensors of which registered her approach and opened.
Sickbay was quiet. There was no sign of Mbeki or any of the other medical staff. The central biobed was now empty, Daezan having been moved to one of the four on the outer wall. But he wasn’t alone. A slim figure sat on a stool by his bed, a hand gently placed on his forearm, as the person looked down at his handsome face, which was peaceful in his resting state, all traces of the emotional turmoil he had been in the last time Leijten had seen him were gone. Seeing the private moment, she was about to turn on her heel and leave, but then the person standing vigil at his bedside looked up at her.
“Captain!” Llewellyn-Smyth yelped in alarm (wincing at the pitch and tension in her own voice), quickly removing her hand from Daezan’s arm and standing up. “I didn’t see you there. I…I just came to see how he was doing,” she stammered. “The bridge was so quiet before, it just didn’t seem right,” again she visibly winced, this time at the fact that she was babbling. “I’d better be going.”
“There’s no need Lieutenant, I just came to see how he was doing,” Leijten told her, suddenly feeling embarrassed at her own need to apologise to him, and interrupting what had obviously been a moment that English Rose hadn’t wanted anyone else to witness.
“Doctor Mbeki said he’s doing well. Resting comfortably—all things considered. He’s in the lab, shall I get him for you?” she asked taking a step towards the exit.
Leijten held up her hands in a motion that told Llewellyn-Smyth to stop. “That’s alright Lieutenant. Give Kolanis my best,” she said and headed towards the medlab.
Harriet and Kolanis? How could I have missed that? she thought to herself, quickly followed by another stab of embarrassment at interrupting. She really didn’t have anything to ask Mbeki, but she thought it best to check in with the Doctor seeing as she was in sickbay and feeling more than a little sheepish.
Mbeki was alone in the lab, working at one of the consoles, a pot of very strong real coffee by his side and a mug that was steaming in his hand. He was sitting back, watching as numbers and data scrolled across the screen too fast for a human to read.
“Doc?”
He looked up at her and smiled softly in the dim lighting of the medlab. “Evening Susanna.”
She approached and gestured at the screen. “Can you read any of that?”
“No, not really. I have the computer running an analysis on Daezan’s neuro-scans, I just like to watch the data streams. It helps me unwind,” he told her, running his free hand over his incredibly short hair—which he kept that way to hid the fact it was starting to recede. “Is she still in there?” he asked, looking towards the ward.
“Yes, I disturbed her though,” she felt her cheeks redden. “How long has she been here?”
“Since the end of her shift. She came in, made awkward small talk for a few minutes, then I had Corpsman Dal-Tohga go and run a full inventory check and I came in here.”
“I take it they aren’t common knowledge,” she said, moving closer and lowering her voice so as to not be heard.
“I don’t think there is a ‘they’ Susanna.”
“Ohh,” she replied slowly, looking back at the ward and feeling even worse than she had before. Llewellyn-Smyth was carrying a torch for Daezan, who—even though he was a telepath—hadn’t noticed. That must’ve been hard for the younger woman to deal with, working so closely with someone you were attracted to was never a good thing, after all Leijten had been engaged twice in the past—firstly to the Chief Operations Officer aboard the Cutter Osprey nineteen years ago, which had ended after he was reassigned and they had both come to realise that it was a more physical relationship than anything more substantial; and secondly to the Assistant Chief Engineering Officer onboard the Victory, a man who she thought she’d judged too hardly, but who really was as arrogant and full of himself as she’d first thought.
She looked back at Mbeki. “Anything new to add?”
The Doctor shook his head. “Nothing so far. I suspect that I will need to get him back to Betazed for a more thorough analysis; they are the experts in this kind of trauma.”
“How long will he be signed off on medical leave?”
“Can’t say for certain. However long it takes him to recover. I’ll have a better idea once I speak with their Chief Physician.”
“Okay, thank you Tunde.” She left him to his work once again and headed for the exit. In the ward, Llewellyn-Smyth was gone. Leijten paused for a moment, then stepped over to his bed. She leaned in closer to him ear. “Kolanis, if you can hear me, when you wake up, you are going to have to open your eyes to those around you. If you don’t, you might miss something incredible.” She gave him a pat on the shoulder and then left sickbay.
***
She had been unsuccessfully working for thirty minutes when her door chimed. The sudden noise in the silence startled her. “Come in,” she called, after quickly composing herself once more.
The doors parted and Commander Amorin stood in the opening.
“Problem Commander?” she asked.
He ducked through the doorway, which closed up behind him. “Negative sir. I thought it would be best to give you my report in person.”
She gave him a faint smile. They had served together for eight years, the last three as the Silverfin’s command team, and as such they had gotten to know each other very well. He knew that she would be locked in her room kicking herself and questioning her actions (which had led to Daezan’s condition), under the guise of working.
“What have you got then Commander?”
“Our teams will be finished a complete search of the ship in just under two hours. We are currently finishing off the larger decks, as well as going through all the cargo containers in the holds. I’d recommend that we start rotating the teams back to the Silverfin, so that we can try to get the duty roster back to normality,” she nodded at his recommendation and made a mental note to pull off the team members from Beta Shift, so they could get some rest before needing to be on duty.
“All across the ship, we found evidence of recent habitation,” he continued. “No signs of damage or struggle. Elak’s repairs to the warp core have fully restored main power,” he told her with a hint of pride in his deep voice, “and the computer analysis team have started on the ships full records. They did report that although most of the records support the information we’ve already gathered, the sensor logs have a gap in them…a four-year gap.”
“What?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Yes sir. I had the analysis team check three times, and each time they came up with the same results. The Cairo’s sensors have been operational for almost four years—except for when the ship lost main power. However they’ve been wiped clean, from the time all contact was lost with her in 2374, until power was restored. And I mean wiped. No chance of data retrieval.”
“Yet another mystery to add to the list,” she told him, massaging the bridge of her nose, feeling her headache throb. “What else is there?”
“The main armoury and weapons lockers throughout the ship were all secure, no weapons missing. All shuttles are still onboard, and all her escape pods are in their berths, except for one—”
“The one where Kolanis went to,” she finished for him. He nodded. “Have the teams found anything that could have affected him in such a way? Anomalous energy readings, the presence of a non-corporeal life-form, some piece of alien technology?”
“Nothing Captain. The quarters he was in before he vanished were clean, and I had teams follow his path looking for trace evidence, but they found nothing except for the blood at the hatch of the escape pod.”
She got out of her chair and started to pace. Amorin stayed quiet as she worked out some of the anxiety and trepidation she felt—something she would have preferred to have done in the ships gym, but a brisk pace back-and-forth in her quarters would have to suffice in the meantime. Nothing was stacking up, and they were coming to the limit of what a single Border Cutter could handle. The escape pods the Cairo carried were designed for a maximum of eight people, there was no way five hundred and fifty people could fit into just one of them. On top of that was the evidence of sabotage caused by a Starfleet engineer, a deserted ship that looked like its inhabitants had just been there, but whose sensors told them it had actually been missing for four years, but it just didn’t know where, no signs of damage or distress anywhere, and now one of her officers—a man she considered a friend—was lying half-mad in sickbay.
She looked over her shoulder at Amorin. “Anything other pieces of the puzzle?”
“One more thing. When Petty Officer Sa’Qwa was taking in the arboretum she noticed a Termillian orchid in full bloom, something she tells me happens only every five years. Apparently it’s a very strict timetable, no matter where they are in the galaxy. And the last blooming was a little under a year before the Cairo went missing. That means that plant has been doing what plants do for the last four years, and is perfectly synchronised with the orchid that Sa’Qwa has in her quarters.”
Leijten nodded as she paced, taking in the information and also finding it surprising she never knew about Sa’Qwa’s green talons. The towering Skorr must have felt right at home in the large arboretum, enjoying the chance to stretch her wings and search from the air for a brief time.
She came to a stop by the viewport, which offered her a perfect view of the Cairo, and glanced at the chronometer on her. It was still three hours until Beta Shift came on. “Alright Commander, have all the crew on Beta return to the ship for some bunk time. After the search has been completed, I want a full report put together. Have Elak prep the ship for a warp tow, we’ll take the Cairo back to Star Station Freedom, where they can organise a full forensic investigation,” she said looking out the window at the majestic Excelsior-Class ship. She hated the idea of leaving the ship as a ghost story to share, but the Silverfin wasn’t designed to handle a full-scale investigation. That would have to be done by specialists back in a starbase, where they could spend weeks or months studying every intricate detail of the ship.
“Aye Captain,” Amorin replied.
“I’ll inform Freedom what we’ve got and that we’ll be there in a few days, they can inform HQ and get the ball rolling on the full research team.” The Benzenite nodded, but made no move to leave her quarters. “Something else Amorin?”
“It wasn’t your fault Captain,” he told her bluntly. Leijten had a speak-freely policy with Amorin whenever they were alone, he didn’t need to ask for permission. “Daezan is an officer in Starfleet, he—just like the rest of us—knew the risks that come with the uniform. As the saying goes in the Border Service, ‘we have to go out, we don’t have to come back’.”
“That’s been one motto I could never get behind,” she admitted to him. “When someone drops the ball, we get the call. But I will fight tooth and nail to make sure that everyone gets back home.” There was silence for a moment; the only sounds were her breathing and his muffled hiss of Amorin’s breather mask. She gave him a small smile. “Thank you XO. Every so often I need someone to give me a kick in the pants, to help me see straight again.”
Amorin shrugged his shoulders. “It’s in the job description.”
She chuckled softly, took one last look at the Cairo, and then headed for the exit. She had a job to finish, and locking herself away wasn’t going to help one damn bit. Amorin was right behind her as she left her quarters and headed for the bridge. But at the T-junction before she got to the turbolift, they split up. She continued on to the bridge, whilst he headed back towards the transporter room, to finish up the investigation and carry out her orders. Three years ago when she had promoted him up to her First Officer, he had protested and had tried to convince her that she was making a mistake, but she had known then that he would make a fine XO. Since then, he had proven time and again to be the best second-in-command she could’ve asked for.
Stepping into the lift, she ordered it to the bridge.
***
Five Hours Later
The Silverfin’s crew were all back onboard the Cutter, and those that were off-duty were finishing off their individual reports, which Amorin was compiling for the official log. The Cairo had been secured, her structural integrity field and warp assembly rigged for a warp tow. Due to the size of the ghost ship the Silverfin was limited to warp five, which would see them back at Star Station Freedom in four days. As well as their regular duties to perform, the crew were continuing to analyse the readings taken aboard the Cairo, as well as going through her complete database, studying samples of metal, food, carpeting, anything that might help them discover what had happened to the ship.
Leijten had every faith in her crew, but this mystery seemed to be too complex, too bizarre for anyone to figure out. Usually she was a fan of thriller books and mystery holonovels, but in works of fiction there were always answers, all you had to do was follow the clues. But in this instance, the clues contradicted each other, and no pattern emerged as to what had happened to the ship or crew.
One person might know, she said to herself as she headed through the corridors. Daezan’s incident still couldn’t be explained. From his ramblings she suspected that he knew at least some of the answers to their questions, but he was under sedation, and Mbeki had said that was how he would stay until they got to Freedom.
Despite that, she still felt that she owed him an apology. If she hadn’t been so hell bent on solving the puzzle the Cairo represented, he would be alright. No he wouldn’t, a firm voice, that sounded vaguely like her father’s (or at least her mental imitation of Captain Richard Leijten), told her. He would have volunteered to be on the away team, and would likely have been affected in exactly the same way. He’s an officer, he does his duty and he knows the risks.
She stopped in front of the door she wanted, knowing that what she was telling herself was true. Daezan was never one to shy away from an away mission, no matter what the risks were. Taking a deep breath she stepped closer to the doors, the sensors of which registered her approach and opened.
Sickbay was quiet. There was no sign of Mbeki or any of the other medical staff. The central biobed was now empty, Daezan having been moved to one of the four on the outer wall. But he wasn’t alone. A slim figure sat on a stool by his bed, a hand gently placed on his forearm, as the person looked down at his handsome face, which was peaceful in his resting state, all traces of the emotional turmoil he had been in the last time Leijten had seen him were gone. Seeing the private moment, she was about to turn on her heel and leave, but then the person standing vigil at his bedside looked up at her.
“Captain!” Llewellyn-Smyth yelped in alarm (wincing at the pitch and tension in her own voice), quickly removing her hand from Daezan’s arm and standing up. “I didn’t see you there. I…I just came to see how he was doing,” she stammered. “The bridge was so quiet before, it just didn’t seem right,” again she visibly winced, this time at the fact that she was babbling. “I’d better be going.”
“There’s no need Lieutenant, I just came to see how he was doing,” Leijten told her, suddenly feeling embarrassed at her own need to apologise to him, and interrupting what had obviously been a moment that English Rose hadn’t wanted anyone else to witness.
“Doctor Mbeki said he’s doing well. Resting comfortably—all things considered. He’s in the lab, shall I get him for you?” she asked taking a step towards the exit.
Leijten held up her hands in a motion that told Llewellyn-Smyth to stop. “That’s alright Lieutenant. Give Kolanis my best,” she said and headed towards the medlab.
Harriet and Kolanis? How could I have missed that? she thought to herself, quickly followed by another stab of embarrassment at interrupting. She really didn’t have anything to ask Mbeki, but she thought it best to check in with the Doctor seeing as she was in sickbay and feeling more than a little sheepish.
Mbeki was alone in the lab, working at one of the consoles, a pot of very strong real coffee by his side and a mug that was steaming in his hand. He was sitting back, watching as numbers and data scrolled across the screen too fast for a human to read.
“Doc?”
He looked up at her and smiled softly in the dim lighting of the medlab. “Evening Susanna.”
She approached and gestured at the screen. “Can you read any of that?”
“No, not really. I have the computer running an analysis on Daezan’s neuro-scans, I just like to watch the data streams. It helps me unwind,” he told her, running his free hand over his incredibly short hair—which he kept that way to hid the fact it was starting to recede. “Is she still in there?” he asked, looking towards the ward.
“Yes, I disturbed her though,” she felt her cheeks redden. “How long has she been here?”
“Since the end of her shift. She came in, made awkward small talk for a few minutes, then I had Corpsman Dal-Tohga go and run a full inventory check and I came in here.”
“I take it they aren’t common knowledge,” she said, moving closer and lowering her voice so as to not be heard.
“I don’t think there is a ‘they’ Susanna.”
“Ohh,” she replied slowly, looking back at the ward and feeling even worse than she had before. Llewellyn-Smyth was carrying a torch for Daezan, who—even though he was a telepath—hadn’t noticed. That must’ve been hard for the younger woman to deal with, working so closely with someone you were attracted to was never a good thing, after all Leijten had been engaged twice in the past—firstly to the Chief Operations Officer aboard the Cutter Osprey nineteen years ago, which had ended after he was reassigned and they had both come to realise that it was a more physical relationship than anything more substantial; and secondly to the Assistant Chief Engineering Officer onboard the Victory, a man who she thought she’d judged too hardly, but who really was as arrogant and full of himself as she’d first thought.
She looked back at Mbeki. “Anything new to add?”
The Doctor shook his head. “Nothing so far. I suspect that I will need to get him back to Betazed for a more thorough analysis; they are the experts in this kind of trauma.”
“How long will he be signed off on medical leave?”
“Can’t say for certain. However long it takes him to recover. I’ll have a better idea once I speak with their Chief Physician.”
“Okay, thank you Tunde.” She left him to his work once again and headed for the exit. In the ward, Llewellyn-Smyth was gone. Leijten paused for a moment, then stepped over to his bed. She leaned in closer to him ear. “Kolanis, if you can hear me, when you wake up, you are going to have to open your eyes to those around you. If you don’t, you might miss something incredible.” She gave him a pat on the shoulder and then left sickbay.
***
