Solan

Congrats, to everyone who participated, and especially our winners! We had an excellent group of entries this round. Good work everyone!

No offense intended, perhaps the irony of both of you beating XO's/mentors?

I'll look at it that way too. Wow, don't know why, but that struck me as extremely funny.

'Pends on how bad you beat him/her. Also 'pends on whether or not there's an airlock nearby.

Excellent work, everybody, and especially to our winners! Congrats guys!!!

I do! Extremely impressive! I don't mean to compare, but I do believe that's a tad bit faster than I got it. Well done! *Sniff sniff* I'm so proud!

Don't worry about it, there's always a slight delay between the challenge ending, the actual judging, and the posting of the results. The judges have lives too, and most of them have things to do for their own characters. They'll be here. Just gives us more time to squirm.

Don't you be taking my spot! Seriously though, I read all the entries a couple days back, all of them are very good. Good luck to you all! I'd hate to be judging!

Don't worry, Admiral. We'll still be here.

::Grins.:: At your service. Great to see you guys getting involved in the fleet and doing so well.

I've always got the problem of writing a story about 2,500 words, and then going through and adding a ton of stuff and having to trim off every word possible to get it down to 3,000. In case anyone is wondering, my last entry was exactly 3,000 words. This entry is exactly 3,000 words.

::Quietly sits back down.:: Nah, sounds good. Some time to rest our creativity.

Thank you, Admiral, but I'm rather proud of how that story turned out, I'd like to keep it in. However, I would be happy to help judge next time.

Hello, my name is Rick Farchess, and I used to be a Starfleet Captain. How long has it been since I was a Starfleet Captain? Good question. This may sound strange, but to be honest, I’ve got no idea. Sure, I used to keep track of the date, and remember exactly when everything...changed, but I quit after a while. That might be the first sign you’ve given up, forgetting the dates, the times. Must be, since I have no idea what the time is now. I’ve pretty well given up at this point. I know what you’re thinking; I know what everyone will think for the rest of eternity when they read this. You’re thinking that Starfleet Captains never give up! They always find a way out! Captain Picard was assimilated, and he still survived. Captain Kirk had a whole load of s[...]es, but he always won. Why can’t you do the same? Well, I can’t do the same, because I’m Rick Farchess, and I used to be a Starfleet Captain. Give me a second to think back to when it all started, it was over a year ago, I know that much. Or two years? Like I said, I don’t keep track of the date anymore. The Arimaga was on assignment...somewhere, assigned to do some glorious scientific exploration about something, to discover something or other that would benefit the Federation somehow or other. I quit keeping track of that too. We were cruising at warp four, not too far from a star about to go supernova. It wasn’t supposed to be a problem, since we were at warp, and could easily outrun any trouble, Saber classes are pretty maneuverable. Plus, my Science Chief was going bonkers at the chance to watch a star go under. Never did quite get why. Anyways, we were cruising along, when, for no apparent reason, we dropped out of warp. Of course, I did the obvious thing and asked for a report. That’s probably when things started to get bad, and desperate. Instead of a report, I got confusion. My Helm officer said everything looked fine on his end, and it had to be engineering. My Chief engineer said everything was fine on his end, and it had to be some other problem. I said I didn’t care what the problem was, just that I wanted to be moving again. I may have thrown in a few colorful adjectives, I don’t remember exactly. It was about then that my science officer told me we had a problem. If there’s one thing a Captain hates to here, it’s a Science officer telling him there’s a problem. Engineers tell you about lots of problems, then have them fixed before you can respond. But Science problems, let’s just say they’re always a little worse. “The star’s going super nova, we’ll be hit by a blast wave in less than forty minutes,” he reported. That was about when I told my Engineering and Helm officers we should probably move a little quicker on our warp problem. That parts a little fuzzy, I don’t really like remembering it. Starfleet Captains are supposed to be able to deal with stuff like this. They’re supposed to be calm, collected, and rational, even when facing death. I wasn’t. One section of those forty minutes is crystal clear. I went down to engineering. My first site was that of my Chief Engineer, a normally quiet, humorous Scotsman, running back and forth between consoles as though he were in a relay race. He was yelling almost constantly as he did so. His bulk swinging from side to side, knocking equipment and crewmen alike out of his way. It was almost comical. “Zshishak! warp coils fine! Control systems perfect! Every lethnekeging system online!” I wasn’t quite sure what language he was swearing in. When I managed to get his attention, he was running to the master control console. He whipped around to face me, his massive paunch flying around like it was on a leash. “Can we get warp drive back?” I asked. I hadn’t talked to him in person since we dropped out of warp. “Cappin, I dun even know why the bloody thing aint workin’ in the farst place!” his accent more mangled than usual. “Mr. Bryce, I need warp drive,” and I left engineering, his flustered voice chasing after me. The star went supernova, and we had a great view. As it exploded, our pilot tried to dodge the fragments. I think he succeeded; I was knocked out with one of the first impacts. Looking back, I’m glad I was. I would have hated to watch my ship get battered, and my crew killed a little at a time. We survived. I’m not sure how, maybe the Helmsman was better than I thought he was, maybe God liked us, I don’t know. Whatever happened, I wish it hadn’t. If we had died then and there, a lot of sorrow and heartache would have been held back from a lot of people. When I came to, I was in sickbay. I was out for almost a day, in and out of coma. My senior officers gathered almost immediately to tell me the bad news. I asked for the good news first. There was none. “Cappin, I dun think you’re gonna like it much,” Bryce said by way of starting. My science chief shook his head. “You most definitely won’t, sir,” he added. I waited, not exactly wanting to know, definitely not wanting to be held in suspense. “Cappin, I dun think we can eva go to warp again,” Bryce said finally. He never was one for smooth deliveries. It got my attention well enough. They went on to explain that there was something wrong with subspace. I didn’t really get it, can’t say I tried either. I started as a Security Officer, and that’s what I’ll always be at heart, so the technical mumbo jumbo doesn’t really click with me. The long and short of it was that we were stuck at impulse, and so was every other ship in the universe. To top it all off, we’d taken several impacts. Our power reserves were down to 23 percent, our computer and database systems had taken heavy damage, and we had no emergency rations to speak of. We were still Starfleet Officers at that point, I was still Rick Farchess, the Starfleet Captain. So we did the only thing we could think of, we went into power saving mode, dropped all replicators to minimum power, and didn’t use anything we didn’t need. After a while, we began to pick up Starfleet transmissions, they were delayed slightly, but were still over subspace radio, which made my science officer think there was some kind of barrier between us and subspace. That part I understood perfectly. He said we probably didn’t have the power to penetrate it and respond, but we could receive just fine. The messages told us little. It seemed everyone was suffering from the same problems, warp drive out, subspace radio harder to use. The Klingons admitted to having the same difficulties, the Cardassians, Tholians, Gorn, all were having problems. The Romulans didn’t comment, but that’s not a surprise. Relief efforts were underway, trying to get ships to stranded civilians and Starfleet personnel. Of course, we were too far out to be reached, and no one would think to look for us with so many other concerns. My crew took it well. Without question, they began repairs, started looking for solutions, ways to get back home, anything that might help. I have to chuckle, even as I sit here, waiting to die. Bryce was great. The poor man is so fat he would sweat when he had to climb the access tubes between even one deck, but he never turned the turbo-lifts on. I swear he lost 7 kilos in those months alone. He joked about it too. It became our little betting pool, it helped to keep the mood a little lighter. I can remember several conversations over minimum rations. “How much will Bryce loose today?” a security officer would ask. “At least 0.5 kilos,” an engineer would reply grinning. “We’re doing repairs on the starboard computer core, six decks away from engineering.” Of course, Bryce would be standing right there, “Aye! 0.5 kilos laddy? It’ll hav ta be more’en that! I need to find me a lass when we get back home.” At that point he would usually rub his stomach critically. “I’ll have to give up me friend here, but it’ll be worth it.” I swear the man never stopped smiling. Made me want to kill him a few times, but I always ended up laughing too hard to do it. The crew loved him for it. Anyways, Bryce managed to improve out impulse capacity by almost 30 percent. We had a lot more speed. Of course, all that effort would have been completely wasted we if hadn’t found out one other detail. You may be wondering why I haven’t mentioned my first officer yet. “Every Captain has his trusty Number One, right?” Wrong. Oh, I had a Number One, he just wasn’t trusty. His name was Commander Grethon. He came forwards and told me he’d done some undercover work a while back, Orion Syndicate type under cover work. He also told me he’d seen data on a base in this system. An old trading outpost not that far away. He said he figured that if everybody was having the same problem we were, we could probably trade for some very much needed equipment. I may not be the smartest man in the sector, but I’m no fool. Some things are just plain stupid. Trading at a Syndicate outpost is one of them. Odd? Yes. Risky? Yes. Downright foolish? Yes. Did we have any other options? No. “Captain, times are desperate right now. And when times are desperate, the desperate men get moving, and live. We’ve got no choice but to risk it,” was Grethon’s answer to the risky issue. The area he was talking about had been wiped from out database by the star, but he was a Starfleet Officer, and I was a Starfleet Officer. We trusted each other. So we set a course. I had to ignore the little voice in my head telling me this was very, very stupid. It took us 6 months at maximum impulse. I don’t know how exactly we survived. When we came into the vicinity, we hailed them. They admitted to having received reports from some ships of theirs that they were having the same problems. We informed them of our needs, and they said they could help. In return, they wanted some subspace transmitting gear. They had the power to try and transmit, but didn’t have some of the necessary equipment. We said we could help them too, and headed in. We approached like idiots, shields down, weapons unpowered. We were just within transporter range when everything went wrong. Almost all power died on us in an instant. Bryce started running around between consoles again, I yelled at him to tell me what happened. Bryce just shrugged that he had absolutely no idea. “Tactical, can we get any power to weapons or shields?” I asked, not looking back. “Shields are out of the question, sir. They require too much power to activate, we’re running on bare minimums right now. Besides, their weapons are powered, they could easily destroy us if we try and raise shields,” he said, rapidly tapping in commands. “But weapons?” I asked. He shook his head, “This isn’t going to be easy sir, I’m working on draining power from some of the photon torpedo drive and guidance systems, I might, I stress might, be able to get you enough power to fire a couple shots.” “Good enough, keep going. I’ll try and stall them as much as possible,” I said. I just waited, guessing what was coming next. I was right. We were hailed less than thirty seconds later. The same man I’d spoken to earlier came on screen. I glared at him. “Why?” was all I said. “Desperate times, Captain,” he responded calmly, if a little sadly. “I’m a desperate man.” That was very odd. I jerked a hand to mute the channel. “Computer, locate Commander Grethon.” “Commander Grethon is in comm.-lab one,” the Computer responded. The picture suddenly jumped into very clear focus, and a few things made sense. I turned to my Security Chief. “Lock out Commander Grethon’s codes immediately!” He complied without question. “Tactical, status of those torpedoes?” “Almost ready, looks like we’ll get three shots,” he said. “Prepare to fire them all simultaneously,” I ordered. Bryce’s head jerked up suddenly. “Cappin, I dun believe it! That Grethon just entered a command to transport the entire crew to the base, and several people off the base to here!” “I believe it. We’ve been sold out. Security, get Commander Grethon to the bridge,” a detachment was sent immediately. “Tactical, get those torpedoes ready. I have a feeling that base isn’t going to like us finding their man.” Fortunately, it looked like the base didn’t know about our plan yet, their shields were unpowered. Unfortunately, we still had virtually no power either, but Bryce was working on that. Commander Grethon was dragged onto the bridge, his uniform askew, his comm.-badge gone, and his lips very tight. “Got anything you’d like to admit to, Commander?” He didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. “Captain, the base is locking weapons,” my Tactical Chief reported. “Lock torpedoes,” I ordered. As soon as he heard that, Grethon looked up sharply. “What!? No! You can’t!” “They’re preparing to fire,” Tactical warned. “Them, or us,” I said to Grethon coldly holding his eyes. “I choose them. Fire.” I swear to you, I may forget dates, I may forget times, but I will never forget the scream Grethon let out as he saw those torpedoes streak towards the station. It seemed they stuck him, not the base, I couldn’t understand why, they had just been Syndicate men. The base exploded, they didn’t even see what hit them. I advanced on Grethon. “Let me tell you something,” I was seething. “I don’t appreciate being sold out!” “Captain?” my Tactical Officer said. “I don’t appreciate getting back-stabbed, so you are going to tell me everything! From how you disabled us,” I continued, ignoring my Tactical Chief. “Captain?” “To how you got those friends to,” I kept yelling. “Captain!” he got my attention this time. He was staring in horror at his console. I noticed then that the lights had come back on, power had been restored. He looked up at the screen, and just shook his head, his mouth hanging open. The rest of my bridge crew was having the same reaction. The security officers had let Grethon drop to the floor, he lay there in a fetal position, sobbing. I looked at the screen myself. One other thing I will never forget is the feeling of horror that hit me when I looked at that cursed viewing screen. My eyes found not the wreckage of an Orion Syndicate base, but the remains of a Federation orbital station. I just stared for well over five minutes, that’s all anyone could do as the station drifted apart. “God help us,” was all I could gasp out. Grethon had tricked us into going there, had planned that from the beginning. He had time to create a program to do everything from fooling our sensors, to powering down the ship. The people he tried to transport to the Arimaga? His wife, his son, and his daughter. He had planned to leave my crew and myself on the station, and head back to earth with his family. He had calculated out the supplies, they were enough for four people to reach home safely. Three of them are dead now, along with the other people that were on that station, condemned by fate, and me, but mostly me. I know what some will say, “You were tricked! You aren’t to blame! What could you do?” Well, tell that to the families of the officers, and civilians who were working on that station. Tell that to the people who’s deaths I ordered. What else could I have done? I could have done the right thing. I could’ve taken the moral high-road, and simply left the station in its peace. But, then again, I am Rick Farchess, and I am nothing more than scum. Starfleet tracked us down, condemning us as murders and brigands the whole way. I can’t say I blame them. They didn’t have the whole story, but it wouldn’t have mattered. They had too much to deal with, too many other problems to sort this one through when the answer, that we had intentionally attacked the station for unknown reasons, seemed so obvious. I set my crew in escape pods so they could get away, and waited. I deserved whatever came, not them. I’m sitting in my observation lounge, watching an Intrepid class ship power its torpedo launchers from a safe distance. I will be dead within minutes. Why am I writing this? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not keeping track of that either. Doesn’t really matter. My one hope is that someday, someone might read this, and see my side of it, and perhaps, in some small way, find a way to forgive my mistake. And finally, I want to apologize to the families and friends of the people that were on that station. I make no excuse, and I give you no reasoning. I cannot blame another, not even Grethon. Their blood is on my hands. Take that as you will. This is Rick Farchess, scum bag, criminal, mass murderer, former Starfleet Captain, a failure to his crew, and soon to be dead man, hoping someone will eventually learn from my many errors, my many mistakes. Farewell.

Well, I'm always in a good mood when I come here...part of that's 'cause you guys rock Anyways...back to my dark writing. And yeah, the deadline is still in effect, but it's not hard to write a story in the time still remaining, I'm just a perfection. I'll read over my story dozens of times switching out small words and testing phrases. Doesn't help, just makes me feel better.

Great, the one I'm writing now is even darker...and moodier. I'm not really a dark depressing person, really!

Well, it's official. A big congrats to our winners!

Sorry guys, I've got no further information on your posting. All I can say is, it should happen soon. Mr. Heston, only senior members can start new topics or polls. You're a senior member once you're either a Lt. JG, or have 100 or more posts on the site. No worries, that doesn't take long.

Meh, it wasn't a bother to put up with ya'll. Had fun, actually. Great job guys! Oh, and thanks for the bucket!

When I first looked at it, I went, "What the world!?" Then I started to think about it, and it made sense...and I got a plot idea I liked.

“Admiral Jeketh,” Phillips started, his computer recording for a subspace message. “I know you’ll be receiving this message with news that we lost shipment J-225, and I know that you’ll be very upset.” Phillips raised his hand, wincing slightly. “Now, before you demote me, you’d better hear the whole story.” Phillips paused, as though struggling, “I must accept full responsibility for the loss, and ask that no one else be blamed.” He paused, then started back up. “It wasn’t quite two days ago, when I received a message to meet someone in an alleyway in the slums of the Capital City on Cardassia Prime...” “Thank you for coming,” the voice came from a trash littered alley behind Commander Tom Phillips, startling him. He turned around to find a middle-aged Cardassian walking towards him. Phillips would never get over talking to Cardassians without having a phaser pointed at them. “I know you’re busy, running the rebuilding efforts and all,” the Cardassian smiled at Phillips. He wouldn’t ever get over that either, having a Cardassian smile at him without getting a dagger in his back. Phillips was a man of medium build with a strong chin, square face, and rusty blond hair. In late years, it’d begun to gather a bit of gray at the edges, but whether that was the result of his new, stressful job or his 40 odd years, no one knew. “Sure,” Phillips responded. “I’m always happy to talk to people like yourself, Mr. ah?” The Cardassian smiled again, but this time, it was the guarded smile that you got whenever you asked a question they didn’t want to answer quite yet. There was a distinct pause in the conversation as Phillips waited for a name, but it became obvious one wasn’t coming after several seconds. The Cardassian filled in the gap smoothly by gesturing for them to walk the rundown street. Crumbling old shells of buildings lined the way. The buildings had been demolished in the Jem Hadar’s attempt at exterminating the Cardassian people. Voles ran back and forth between crumbling walls, probably moving to nests. Phillips couldn’t help but wonder how many snipers joined those voles. “Well, I guess I’ll just call you Bob then.” The Cardassian raised an eyebrow at that and showed slight irritation, but he didn’t protest, so Phillips decided to run with it. “I must admit, Bob, I am a bit confused why the Prime Minister of Cardassia would personally request that I come all the way out here to meet with you,” Phillips said, keeping his eyes alert, watching the Cardassian for any signs of treachery, and ready to react to it. It was an old habit he’d picked up during the First Cardassian War, one that he’d nurtured over the Dominion War, one that he’d been told would only get him in trouble when he started managing the rebuilding efforts here, one that he rather enjoyed maintaining. ‘Bob’ laughed outright, “He didn’t, Commander.” Phillips turned his head to face the Cardassian more fully. “Actually, he did. I received a communiqué with the Prime Ministers ID code this morning and...” “No, you didn’t,” Bob interrupted, he answered Phillips’s unspoken question. “In reality, you received a message from one of my colleagues that appeared to have the Prime Ministers ID code. Oh, come now! Don’t look so offended, Commander. Hacking and code acquiring are two of the first things they teach you around here.” Phillips turned back to scanning the way ahead, not quite sure how to take that. “I see,” was all he could think of to say. He was actually quite annoyed, this was probably some hoax meant to get attention for some small sect of Cardassians or other. As Manager of the Federation Relief Services to Cardassia, he got a lot of that. Cardassians were a very self serving people, they would try to get funding for their own projects anyway they could. “Well, Commander, it’s obvious you and I are both uncomfortable being seen in public together, so I’ll get right down to why you’re here.” Phillips’s attitude was quickly turning sour, “Yes, please do.” “You are in a lot of danger, Commander.” Phillips almost turned around and walked away right then. He’d known that from the moment the Dominion started coming through the wormhole. He rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation, “If that’s all you’ve got to tell me, I think I’d better get you in touch with the Federation Security Forces...” “Allow me to rephrase that,” Bob interrupted again. “You’re in more danger than you realize,” Bob continued to walk and smile pleasantly. Phillips added item 106 to the list things he hated about Cardassians: they were often a contradiction. “Thank you for your time, Bob. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work. I’ll have Security contact you about any information about specific threats you can provide...” Phillips turned around and started to walk away. “I know about Shipment J-225,” he said it calmly, still smiling, still walking. Item 107 was just found: Cardassians saved the punch line until you were leaving. Phillips turned around slowly, looking at Bob in earnest for the first time since this meeting had begun. He took a few quick steps to catch up to the Cardassian. “You do realize that by telling me that, coupled with the fact that you hacked into the Prime Minister’s computers gives me the right to kill you on the spot?” A slight exaggeration. “That would be rather foolish,” Bob stopped and turned to face Phillips while a vole ran along the base of a building not far away. “Position three, take out the vole to my left,” he didn’t even raise his voice. Within seconds, the vole went from scurrying along to writhing in agony. Apparently at least three snipers shared nests with voles. “They’re using projectile weapons, getting an energy signature will be impossible,” Bob kept smiling. “Now I see why you said I was in a lot of danger,” Phillips said, unamused. The smile on the Cardassian’s face vanished, “Not from us, I assure you.” Phillips slowly started walking again, “From others, than? I might like names.” Bob chuckled, “You don’t need names, as in plural, you need name, singular.” Phillips just waited, not wanting to act too eager. This had gone from mild aggravation and annoyance to a security breach, one that he needed to follow up on. J-225 was a supposedly highly classified weapons shipment coming for the Security forces here. Rumor had gotten around that things might get more violent in the near future, and Phillips didn’t want his people unprepared. “The Obsidian Order,” were Bob’s next words. Phillips frowned, “The fall of the Obsidian Order is public knowledge, and it’s been disbanded ever since.” Bob exhaled harshly, it might almost be interpreted as a laughed. “The Obsidian Order disbanded! HA!” he walked for a few more steps before speaking. “Well, I suppose that’d be easy to believe if you didn’t really understand the inner workings of the Order.” He paused for a moment, as though considering the best way to explain things to the idiot human. After a moment, he gestured to the voles running around the ruins. “Think of the Order like these voles,” Phillips muttered something about Cardassians, rodents, and their similarity while Bob gestured back towards the vole that had now stilled in death. “They don’t come to aid their own unless it suits their purposes.” Bob suddenly drew a disruptor from his coat pocket, Phillips instantly tensed, expecting a shot in the heart, but the disruptor was turned towards a nest of voles further up the street. Bob fired at a rock wall above it, crumbling it down onto the nest of a half dozen vermin. The disruptor was replaced in its hidden pocket, but Phillips’s attention was on the voles. Suddenly, at least another dozen of the creatures appeared, snatching food from under bricks, ignoring the wounded. Bob was excited; he spoke quickly, “See? The resources are recovered, and all connections with the nest are severed. A few voles are dead, yes, but no real damage is done to the whole.” “What’s your point?” Phillips asked, but he had a good idea what it was. “Think of the Order like these. You may kill a few of them, maybe even a lot of them. But the whole survives, and cannot be fully found, or killed. Did the Order disband? Officially, of course it did. But how can you shut something down when you don’t know the entirety of its existence?” “Why are you telling me this?” Phillips was getting confused, it was good to know, true, but worth the trip? Certainly not. It had been a long trip. “I told you I know about Shipment J-225, did I not?” Bob asked, it was obviously a rhetorical question, Phillips nodded. “I’m not the only one.” Item number 108: Cardassians rarely just came out and said what they meant. “If you’re suggesting that the Obsidian Order is going to try and steal our weapons shipment, you’re sorely mistaken. Any attempt to take that shipment would be met with extreme force,” Phillips said confidently. He’d organized the security for the shipment himself. “No, Commander, I’m suggesting that they already have,” the Cardassian said it calmly. Items 106 and 108 made themselves obvious yet once again. Bob suddenly reached up and put a hand to his ear, presumably to listen to a transmission better. “I’m afraid my time is running short, Commander. I have other matters to attend to.” “The way I see it, you have two options: you can ignore what I’ve said completely, or you can act on it, and probably save Cardassian lives.” Great incentive, Phillips thought. Bob turned and began walking away, then suddenly whirled about. “Oh, and one more thing. Obviously you’ll need more than just the anonymous testimony of one Cardassian, so I’ll give you my name. Reten Golar. I’m sure you’ll find my biography without trouble, Cardassians are excellent record keepers.” With that, he whirled about and disappeared into the jumble of buildings. Phillips tapped his comm.-badge, “Phillips to Piloco, one to beam up.” “That’s quite the story,” Captain Cuttor responded when Phillips had finished telling of his encounter with the Cardassian Reten Golar. “That’s not all, sir,” Phillips handed over a padd containing Golar’s bio. The padd bleeped as Cuttor skimmed its contents. “Former Gul of the Galor-class Desket, decorated in three different major conflicts over the years, and was a member of Legate Damar’s resistance force towards the end of the Dominion war?” Cuttor paused, not entirely sure what it all meant. “It goes on to describe several acts of courage when the Jem Hadar were wiping out Cardassian civilians, his loyalty to his family, etc.” Phillips reviewed the rest of the padd. Cuttor looked at Phillips blankly. It took Phillips a moment to realize that the Captain was waiting for his ‘expert’ opinion on Cardassians. “Sir, this may not seem like much to us, but to a Cardassian, these are some real credentials. The Desket stood its ground against five Klingon battle cruisers headed to destroy a Cardassian colony along the border before the Dominion war, and the resistance force is one of their most praised groups, liberators of Cardassia.” “In other words, he’s got credibility,” Cuttor assumed, tossing the padd onto his desk. “Exactly. And he said the shipment had already been stolen,” Phillips let his voice trail off. “But we’ve checked with three different listening posts, the freighter is still on the correct course, headed towards Cardassia Prime, and the scans indicate it’s carrying the weapons shipment,” Cuttor looked at Phillips. “They haven’t stolen it.” Phillips shrugged and raised both hands, indicating that he wasn’t sure, “Granted, it all seems fine, but the fact that he even had the shipment ID number is troubling.” Cuttor sighed and looked over a different padd, “J-225 is scheduled to be here within two hours, Command wanted it here quick incase things got sticky. SFI is talking about a possibility of terrorism and riots. We can confront it; order them to beam the cargo over here.” “If they refuse, it’s obvious that something’s up, if they comply, we get the weapons and send them on their way,” Phillips completed the idea. “Exactly,” there was a slight pause. “Tom, I don’t need to tell you what it’ll look like happened if this turns out to be a big hoax.” Phillips stood and slowly walked over to a window, and stared down at the blistering surface of Cardassia Prime, after a long pause, “It’ll look like I’m getting paranoid, I’ll get blackballed, and shipped to some desk job on the other side of the Federation.” He said it slowly. Cuttor stood too, “Face it, Tom, you’ve been fighting the Cardassians for years, you’ve got a lot of hate to break down. Maybe it is time you moved on.” Phillips turned halfway, “No, I’m the man for this job, and you all know it. I’ve worked against, and with, Cardassians for the better part of my career. No one knows them like I do.” Cuttor stared into his eyes intently, as though trying to read him. He finally nodded, “Ok. We’ll check up on that freighter.” “If you don’t mind, Captain, I’d like to be aboard when you do.” Cuttor smirked, “Never can stand to be away from the action, can you?” Phillips grinned back, “The action never can stand to be away from me.” Cuttor chuckled, “We’ll notify you when the freighter is detected.” “Thanks,” Phillips turned and left the ready room. He didn’t want to believe a word that Golar had said, but it didn’t look like he had much of a choice. “Freighter Gomez is approaching at warp 4, Captain,” the Ops officer called from his post on the bridge. “Set a course to intercept, half impulse. Open a hailing frequency,” Captain Cuttor ordered. Phillips was standing to the Captain’s left, observing closely. This would be the moment of truth, and would probably determine whether or not he saw anything but paper work for the next 50 years. “They are responding,” the Tactical officer stated after a moment. The command was given for the transmission to be sent to the viewing screen. A human civilian appeared, “Captain Cuttor, I admit, it’s good to see your ship, especially in these parts.” The man smiled pleasantly. Cuttor gestured for the mute, then looked at Phillips. “Seems legit,” Phillips said quietly. “Don’t get too down, nothing’s happened...yet,” Cuttor gestured for the channel to be opened. “Captain, we’ve just got word that the space port you were scheduled to dock at is rather crowded at the moment. You won’t be able to dock for some time, now, we know you’re on a tight schedule, so we’re able to take your cargo and beam it down whenever the space port is free.” The human Captain showed slight hesitation, Phillips’s eyes narrowed, “Sounds good, Piloco, send over your transport coordinates and we’ll beam our cargo on over.” The man was already tapping a control console. Cuttor nodded at his Tactical officer to send the coordinates. “Transporting...now.” The Freighter captain stated. The Tactical officer nodded that the cargo had been received. Phillips could see his career disintegrating before his eyes. Suddenly, the Freighter’s bridge went dark and alarms started going off. “Captain? What’s wrong?” Cuttor asked, concerned. “I don’t know, Piloco, but I’ve got a problem, warp core is going critical too fast to contain,” the Captain responded. “We can beam you over...” Cuttor’s voice trailed off when the freighter Captain vanished in a transporter beam. “Report!” “The freighter has just been destroyed by a warp core breach. I can’t pinpoint their destination, but I’ve definitely got multiple escape transporter beams down to the planet...and another one that leads...elsewhere,” the Tactical officer read from his scan readout. “Define, ‘elsewhere,’” Phillips asked. “I don’t know, sir, but we do have the Cargo,” his voice trailed off for a moment. “Sir, cargo bay reports that it received...farming supplies!” Both Phillips and the Captain turned to each other, “Farming supplies?” “Yes, sir, that’s all they beamed over,” the Tactical officer was just as perplexed as the other two officers. “That was the freighter carrying J-225,” Phillips said, he was sure of that. “So where are the weapons?” Cuttor asked. Phillips shook his head for a moment, and then it dawned on him, “The second transporter beam.” “They were beamed somewhere? But where?” Cuttor asked, starting to get worried. Phillips just shook his head. “Looks like we just got stung by the Obsidian Order,” Phillips said bleakly. “And now they’ve got weapons.” “And obviously the ability to steal things from under our very noses,” Cuttor finished. Phillips nodded slowly, his expression very sour. His expression as he recorded the message wasn’t any better. “We tracked down the transporters that carried the freighter crew to the surface. They disappeared well before we beamed down.” Phillips shrugged. “We’re guessing they were Obsidian Order agents of some kind, possibly long term, maybe the real Captain was replaced in transit, we don’t know.” “We managed to track down the weapons transporter beam too. It was routed through eleven relays, interlocked with pattern enhancers. It kept them from degrading. Those led us behind the third moon; we found a small cargo shuttle, but no weapons, probably beamed away again.” Phillips shrugged, and reached off-screen to grab a glass of water, and a padd. “So, Admiral, I am sending this message to give my apologies, and my future condolences to any families who loose someone because we gave up that weapons shipment...and to tender my resignation.” “Cuttor was right,” Phillips sighed deeply and pulled off his comm.-badge, “It’s time for me to move on. I’m requesting transport on the first ship back to the Terran system.” “Computer, transmit message,” Phillips sat back. Golar could find someone else to talk to.

Glad to hear you enjoyed yourself

Congrats Ops is a great place, you'll have fun.

It may take a few days, but trust me, it'll be fun when it happens. Good to see you all made it

Congrats to you all! Welcome to the fleet.