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((Capitol - New Romulus, 2400)) ::So much had changed in the galaxy since the Romulan homeworld had been destroyed. Captain Kaedyn Zehn marvelled at this as he stepped into the visitor's gallery above the newly built Romulan Senate chamber. He had personally seen the effects while serving onboard Starbase 118 on the edge of Romulan space. Where once the Empire was known for its insularity and paranoid control, he had seen it in tatters. He had also seen it rebuild itself at an impressive speed..:: ::Almost immediately after this thought had passed it was replaced by confusion that Starfleet would send him as part of the official Federation delegation. As relations with the Romulans warmed, so too had they cooled with the Klingons and Kaedyn had risen through the ranks as an intelligence officer - a spy - during a time when diplomacy had slept.:: ::Despite the best efforts of Starfleet, including the heroic actions of the Captains he had previously served under, Turner, Jaxx, Nicholotti and Herrara, the war with the Klingons had been unavoidable. When it had come, it had lead to millions of senseless deaths including that of his own husband, Eliaan, who was killed during the massacre on Deep Space 6. If it had not been for his career and, more importantly their young son, Kaedyn knew he would not have survived that loss but it was still so raw and he had found himself noticeably harder than he had been before it.:: ::Even now, even in this official setting, as his thoughts returned to his lost love, tears filled his eyes and he struggled to keep his emotions in check. It was a personal loss that allowed him to empathise with the Romulans who had lost so much more than he could imagine when their homeworld had been destroyed. He was interrupted from his morbid thoughts by the approach of a familiar Romulan man from the crowd.:: Sarup: Captain Zehn, it has been a long time. ::A faint smile danced in the eyes of the handsome Starfleet officer, where the uncried tears still remained. Ten years was a long time for most but for a Joined Trill, with more than three centuries of memories rattling around in his head, it sometimes felt like a blink of an eye. As he looked at the Romulan man, first encountered during the Klingon invasion of the Thracian Alliance, it felt like it had only been a few months.:: Zehn: Mr Sarup. You are perhaps the last person I expected to see here. Sarup: I'm part of the diplomatic mission from Thrace. I must admit, I never imagined that either of us would end up here. ::he paused and smiled:: But, I have been assured that my diplomatic status will prevent my former Tal Shiar colleagues from killing me while I am here. ::Only a Romulan, Kaedyn mused, could be so dry on the subject of his own possible assassination. It was yet another indication of the change in the Romulan government that they could welcome a delegation from the Alliance that had included a large number of former Imperial citizens to this event.:: Zehn: I agree it does feel strange to be here but that just goes to show different the Empire is from the one you left. ::An enigmatic look crossed the Romulan man's face, outwardly remaining friendly and diplomatic but there was also a darkness that was hard to pinpoint. For those who had lived in the Romulan Empire it was to be expected that a degree of cynicism would remain. Could that Empire truly change in ten years? The destruction of the moon Praxis had driven the Klingons to peace with the Federation but it had never changed their violent, warlike nature.:: Sarup: Perhaps, Captain. Although, from what I gather we may have already witnessed the high tide of Imperial openness and pacificism. Praetor Charon has built his power upon his ability to work with the Federation and the day when that help is no longer required fast approaches. There are those keen to step into his shoes... ::Unfortunately, Kaedyn had also heard similar rumblings. While not officially an intelligence officer any more, he still had contacts throughout the alpha and beta quadrants who fed him information. Old spies, he knew, never truly retired. After a decade of living in that world, secrets were still second nature to him. As always the Romulan government was riddled with factions and factions within factions. All the intelligence suggested that the Praetor's power was waning. There were two leading candidates to replace him in time, one was an old ally and the other was more troubling.:: Zehn: Senator Varend... ::Sarup beamed and nodded slowly in a mock version of a bow.:: Sarup: I'm glad to see your intelligence skills are not going to waste since you took command of that starship of yours. Yes, the Senator is very much the rising star. Zehn: And what of Vreeya? ::Proconsul Vreeya was, to Kaedyn's mind, the very personification of the new Romulus. He had first encountered more than a decade earlier when she had become a close ally of Admiral Nicholotti. She was intelligent, resourceful, fiercely patriotic and the very model of an inter-stellar stateswoman.:: Sarup: Ah, yes Vreeya. Believe me, Captain, no-one would rather see the magnificent Proconsul rise to the position she deserves than I. Zehn: ::smiling:: Sarup, I believe you are in love ::The Romulan nodded and for a split-second a genuine look of regret crossed his face.:: Sarup: Maybe a long time ago. However, the Proconsul's close relationship with Starfleet and President Creena of Thrace have marked her as something the Romulans have long mis-trusted: a foreigner. I fear when the Praetor falls, Vreeya will also fall. My only hope is that she will manage to escape with her life as she is certainly no ally of Varend. ::Before the Trill could respond, Praetor Charon entered the chamber followed by the Proconsuls and the leading Senators in order of precedence. The audience rose to their feet and applauded politely until the officials were in place. Smiling widely, the Praetor took to the podium and indicated for everyone to take their seats. He made a short speech, mainly thanking the guests for their attendance and discussing the hardships of the past years. It was a speech that seemed more suited to a Federation politician than the leader of the Romulan Empire and as he finished up, Kaedyn worried that Sarup had been right about the coming transition.:: Charon: I hereby declare the New Romulan Senate open ::There was another polite round of applause and people began to stand to head into the reception room when one of the Senators stood.:: Sarup: ::in a low voice:: The famed Senator Varend Varend: If I may say a few words, Praetor... Zehn: ::whispering:: What the hell...? ::A low noise of quiet consternation rippled throughout the crowd. Even with the relative informality of the situation, it was unheard of for a Senator to speak up in such an event unless called upon by the Praetor. By speaking out, Varend was challenging his authority in the most public of ways. Kaedyn held his breath as the Praetor attempted to cover his surprise at the break of protocol.:: Charon: ::nodding:: Very well, Senator. ::Having failed to respond to the challenge, the Praetor had allowed Varend to position himself as a political opponent rather than subordinate. As he the Senator began to speak, it was clear that he was doing so as a powerful usurper. The murmurs died down as the crowd listened to the man who would be king.:: Varend: I want to begin by commending the Praetor for his magnificent work in rebuilding the Empire in these past years ::As the crowd applauded the sentiment politely, Kaedyn glanced at Sarup who was shaking his head slightly. Evidently the Thracian envoy could see the compliment for what it truly was: a political assassination clothed in a smiled. Only a politician of the highest order could pull off such a feat.:: Varend: We have endured many hardships since the destruction of Romulus. The loss of our home, our friends and our family was followed in quick succession by a loss of pride. Our once proud Empire was forced to rely on the kindness of adversaries and tolerate betrayals that would have been unthinkable before... Sarup: ::in a low voice:: I think he means us... Varend: Today, with the dedication of the new Senate chamber on our new homeworld, we reclaim our pride. The time for the new Romulan Empire begins today ::The audience rose to their feet in excitement, applauding and cheering in a way that was uncharacteristic for the usually reserved Romulans. Kaedyn, Sarup and the other non-Romulan guests in the gallery clapped politely but there was a sense of nervousness among them. The Praetor looked crestfallen as Varend began to shake hands with other officials and pointedly avoided him and Proconsul Vreeya who also looked grim. Varend had seized the political initiative in the most dramatic way imaginable.:: Sarup: Did you see who shook his hand first? Admiral Koral Zehn: The Chief of the Imperial General Staff? Sarup: The very same. If he has the power of the military behind him, he will be Praetor by the end of the year and the military build up will start at the same time. When they speak of the next war, they will say it began today. Zehn: ::shaking his head ::Madness Sarup: Perhaps, Captain, perhaps. On the other hand, no-one ever said the Romulan government was sane. ::The Trill's train of thought continued, almost as if Sarup had not spoken. The applause of the crowd had still not abated, it was like watching the terrifying rise of a dictator:: Zehn: After all we've done for them, the Empire would have been overrun by the Klingons if we hadn't helped them Sarup: And that is precisely why they hate you. The Federation is a reminder of their past weakness and to reject you is to ignore that weakness... and to fight you would be to fight those memories. Zehn: The Romulan people have changed since you defected. They've had to change. Sarup: I may have been away for a decade, Captain but I am still Romulan. I know these people; I was these people. War will come. ((Ready Room - USS Turing)) ::Having stayed at the reception for minimum time that diplomacy allowed, Kaedyn had returned to his ship and briefed Starfleet on the shocking events of the day. They had been just as concerned about the situation as he had been and he was authorised to very discretely take the lay of the land on Romulus. As he sat in the ready-room of his Akira-class starship, he pored over every scrap of intelligence on Senator Verand that he could get his hands on.:: ::He was interrupted by the chimes of his door.:: Zehn: Come in ::His intelligence officer, Lt Commander Zak Malik, entered the room. Having been with him since his days in the Black Tower, the handsome human was now a trusted friend as well as an able officer.:: Malik: Captain, we just got word from the surface that Proconsul Vreeya won't be able to meet with you. Zehn: I didn't imagine she would risk being seen consorting with Starfleet after this afternoon but it was worth a try... Malik: Her office did send us this through secure channels, I'm sure you will find it useful ::He handed Kaedyn a PADD and the Trill scanned the Romulan intelligence file on Senator Verand. This was even better than meeting with Vreeya and a slight smile crossed his face.:: Zehn: Indeed. ((Conference Room - USS Turing)) ::With his hands behind his back, Kaedyn stared out of the conference room window at the planet below them. Behind him, Ambassador Sarup examined the intelligence that Vreeya had given them, the intelligence that indicated the very close ties between Senator Verand and the Klingon Empire. No-one knew how accurate the adage of history repeating itself was better than a Trill, throughout the past two hundred years the alliances between the Federation, Romulans and Klingons had shifted frequently. Links between the two Empires had always formed when the Federation was considerably stronger than them both. As was the case now.:: Sarup: We always suspected this but we had no confirmation until now. I will be honest, Captain, this is the worst case scenario for us. ::The Thracian Alliance, made up as it was from breakaway elements of the Romulan and Klingon empires, had relied on the emnity of the two and would certainly be destroyed if it found itself surrounded by a Romulan-Klingon detente. Even though it was a Federation Protectorate, there was little that Starfleet could do to protect her. Kaedyn returned to his chair at the head of the conference table.:: Zehn: So now we have the choice between sitting back and watching two of our enemies rise again or taking a pre-emptive strike while they are still weak. Sarup: Come, Captain, you know that neither your government nor my own would sanction such action. Zehn: Then we have to wait until he becomes Praetor and plunges us back into an intergalactic war? Sarup: There is, of course, a third option... ::Silence filled the room. They had both been in the intelligence business for a long time and Kaedyn knew exactly what he meant.:: Sarup: Why, I wonder, did Starfleet send you on this mission? Was it truly for your diplomatic skills and fame in Romulan circles... ::The Trill nodded.:: Zehn: And why did President Creena send you? Sarup: I'd imagine for the same reason. You may be a Captain now and I may be an Ambassador but we're just two old spies, Zehn. Zehn: If we assassinate a member of the Romulan Senate then war is inevitable... Sarup: Only if someone finds out. If, for example, it appeared that the Praetor had the Senator killed then it would clear the way for Proconsul Vreeya to take charge... Zehn: Even if it was as easy as that to do, it would also be illegal in both the Federation and Thracian Alliance Sarup: ::snapping:: Don't be so naive, Captain! We're talking about the death of one man to prevent a war. ::There was a long silence as Kaedyn considered his options. Sarup was, of course, correct that preventing another war was of paramount concern. Still, unlike many of their shared profession, Kaedyn had never allowed himself to cross the line that Sarup was now suggesting.:: Sarup: Think about what I have said, Captain. One way or another, this will happen. I have a greater chance of succeeding with your help. ::Without an adequate response, Kaedyn rose to his feet and straightened his uniform.:: Zehn: Thank you for joining me, Ambassador. I am late for dinner with my son... I'll be in touch ((New Romulus, three days later)) ::As far as anyone knew, the USS Turing's captain was onboard as she left Romulan space and the Ambassador had left with the Thracian delegation. Between the two of them, Zehn and Sarup knew enough tricks of the trade to make it discretely onto New Romulus without detection. That, it had turned out, was the easy part. Evidently, the Romulans had made sure to include their usual paranoid security aparatus to their new home.:: ::With a biodampening unit keeping his Trill life-signs suppressed, Kaedyn found himself waiting in the safe house of a Thracian spy. Thracian Intelligence were active on the planet and he could have left Sarup to lead this himself but he was still secretly hoping there would be a way around it. Vreeya's intelligence showed evidence that could be used to blackmail the Senator, particularly his illegal intelligence gathering for the Klingons. In truth, Verand was little more than a Klingon puppet and while Sarup was determined to kill him, Kaedyn believed he could be turned.:: ::A plan was in place, with the assistance of the pro-Federation faction in the Senate Sarup had been able to organise access to the security protocols for the Senate offices. When they were confident the Senator was alone in his office, the security network would be dropped and they would beam in. The signal came that everything was in place and Kaedyn wrapped a hooded cloak around him and grabbed a disruptor. As they stepped into position, he adjusted the beam setting.:: Sarup: Are you ready, Captain? ::He thought of his son, he was only twelve and had already lost both of his biological parents and Eliaan. He didn't deserve to become an orphan again but it was for him that Kaedyn was committed to this course of action. He had to prevent the war and if he was lucky, he could do so without being killed himself.:: Zehn: Ready Sarup: Well, we'll know if we're going to be successful or not very soon. ::Gripping his weapon tightly, Kaedyn took a deep breath as he dematerialised, not knowing what to expect next. They rematerialised in the officer and Senator Verand leapt out of his chair, evidently shocked and afraid.:: Verand: Who are you? ::Kaedyn pulled his hood down, revealing his Trill forehead.:: Zehn: Captain Kaedyn Zehn Verand: ::with a wry smile:: What do you want, Captain? You must know you won't get off this planet if you fire that weapon. Zehn: I only want to prevent a war, Senator. Sarup: What are you doing, Zehn? Take the [...]ed shot! ::Holding the disruptor up, his gloved hand shaking visibly, Kaedyn tensed the muscles in his jaw to stop his lip from quivering with nerves. With a sharp movement, he turned and fired at Sarup. The Thracian fell to the floor, stunned but not dead. Kaedyn turned the weapon back to Verand.:: Zehn: Senator, we need to talk... END. Lieutenant Kaedyn Zehn Intelligence Officer USS Vigilant

Remember that February is the time to enter our special Writing Improvement Month Challenge! Rules and guidelines are posted below, but be sure to follow the link in order to enter! The general 118 Challenge has had its deadline pushed back to March in order to make room for this special Challenge. -- Welcome to UFOP: StarBase 118′s first open Writing Challenge! We encourage you to enter this month-long contest with your story, and join a competition that has existed within our group for almost ten years. The topic for this challenge is “Someone to Watch Over Me.” Details & Rules The challenge is accepting submissions from Friday, February 1st to Saturday, February 23rd. Results will be announced by February 28th. Please observe the following rules for your submission: Your work must SciFi-focused, but does not have to be Star Trek themed.Your work must be completely original.You must be the work’s sole author.The story cannot exceed 3000 words. (You can use this tool to check the length of your submission.) Prize The winner will receive this awesome t-shirt in their size! If you don’t want that, there are tons of other prizes available, up to $25 value, not including shipping. Prizes only available to residents of the United States. If you’re not a resident of the United States, but you win the contest, will receive a cash prize of $25 US via PayPal. Submit Your Entry To submit your entry, click here to open the submission form. For any questions you might have, please email Capt. Nicholotti and Capt. Aron Kells at wim2013-challenge@starbase118.net. Good luck!

The stars sparkled brilliantly overhead, their cold light crystal clear in the thin atmosphere of the world on which they stood. A sharp, cold wind blew, ruffling hair and heavy fabric meant to ward off the chill. Two figures stood upon a hill overlooking a plain, sillouhetted against the glowing horizon that heralded the coming of the sun. "I admit it, I never thought I’d see it happen.” One of the figures said. Her dark hair flowed down to the sharply squared shoulders of a heavy jacket that narrowed to a trim waist, padded trousers and high boots with gleaming buckles. "May I enquire as to the reason for your doubt?” The other asked. Tall and spare, clad in heavy, flowing robes embroidered with geometric patterns. He turned to look at his companion, the growing light outlining sharp features. She met his gaze for a moment, her frown stark against the light of promised dawn, before she looked once more out over the valley below. “Because it faced so much opposition; from both sides.” She said plainly. So much so that it was a miracle it had come to pass; perhaps it said something about those determined few who had argued for it. "Yet it was the most logical and expedient solution.” He pointed out, followed her gaze. Below them on the dry plain squatted an orderly collection of pre-fab buildings arranged around a central space which was currently occupied by a large variety of crates containing all those things the new colony would need to get established. The buildings were furnished and ready for habitation, and beyond them fields had been mapped out for farming. "Not everyone’s as fething obsessed with logic as you people.” The woman grumbled. “Indeed, yet logic has the advantage of being undeniable.” Her companion pointed out, a dry tone in his voice. “’You can agree with me, or you can be wrong’ eh?” She paraphrased. “You have no idea how annoying that gets.” He didn’t deign to respond. They watched the sun crest the distant hills in silence until her communicator sprang to life. *\/* “Subcommander Tayel to Commandant Loran.” *\/* She activated her communicator. *\/* “Loran here, are we on schedule?” *\/* *\/* “Yes ma’am. The first transport shuttles are dropping out of orbit now. ETA on Outpost One is 08:75 local time.” *\/* *\/*”Understood. I will meet the shuttles.” *\/* *\/* “Yes ma’am. Tayel out.” *\/* As the communication ended a small dot became visible above the horizon, against the light of the morning sun. It was shortly followed by several more. “Well, this is it, there’s no turning back. No second thoughts, Ambassador Saveron?” She asked her taller companion. The growing light from the rising sun cast shadows off the V-shaped ridge above her upturned brows, highlighted a pointed ear and warmed her sallow skin. “None, Commandant.” Her pale faced companion confirmed. They spoke an ancient language his people called Traditional Golic Vulcan. Now primarily a ritual language it was never the less the only tongue they truly had in common, and had become a lingua franca in the negotiations. He considered her question before raising one upswung brow. “Should there be?” He asked, curious. The freezing wind picked up, stirring his dark hair and nipping at his pointed ears until he raised the cowl of his robes. “There are plenty of people who would baulk at having their ancient enemies as their neighbours.” She pointed out, a dark amusement in her tone. Beneath her boots the dry rock crunched and crumbled as she shifted her weight; the cold air didn't bother her as much. “You were never our enemies. The Star Empire made war with the Federation at times certainly, but Romulans and Vulcans are ‘two sides of the same coin’,” that was an expression he’d picked up from spending too much time around aliens, “we are kin.” The Commandant of the new Romulan colony snorted. “There are plenty of people on both sides who would hate to hear you say that.” Saveron shrugged. “There is no logical reason to perpetuate disagreement for it’s own sake. Your people were in need of a new homeworld; t’Khut was already being terraformed.” The course of action had been logical, at least to some. Alas that even amongst a people who prided themselves on their adherance to reason, there were those who could not let go of old wounds. She snorted and stalked off down the slope of the hill towards the settlement. “It was being terraformed by Vulcans for Vulcans; there were plenty in the Vulcan High Council who didn’t want to give it up, didn't want us living in the same system.” She pointed out. It was all working too well, surely there had to be a catch somewhere. She had an instinct for upcoming trouble and it was telling her it would be there in spades. Both of them were breathing noticeably in the very thin air, although given the greater oxygen affinity of cuproglobin they could both compensate acceptably. Any red-blooded visitor to t’Khut would require tri-ox injections or an oxygen mask until the atmosphere thickened. It was enough that the first hardly Romulan souls could make planetfall. “The alternative would have been accepting you as refugees onto t’Khasi, and other Federation worlds.” He pointed out, using his people’s name for their own planet. “Would you have found that preferable?” He enquired. “Scattering the remaining Romulans across Federation space until we lose our cultural identity? We could never have condoned that.” Loran shook her head. “There are plenty who say that we should not condone this.” She said, gesturing around them. "Indeed. You could, of course, settle on a planet outside of the Federation.” Saveron pointed out evenly as they walked, their footfalls waking little puffs of dust from the dry ground. “And be picked off slowly by the Klingons, the Breen and whoever else sought to take advantage of the catastrophe?” Loran retorted. “That’s not much of a choice.” And that was what those of her people who did not desire to go down in a blaze of glory had needed to face. “Yet it is a choice, one which you have been free to make.” The Vulcan responded placidly. “Freedom to choose includes taking responsibility for the consequences of your choices.” It was an aspect of freedom that some preferred to forget. “Here you are safe, you may gather as many refugees as you will, and providing that you adhere to the laws of the Federation you may construct your society as you see fit.” “There are many who will not want to have anything to do with the Federation; who blame your people for not stopping the destruction of Romulus.” She said darkly. “I cannot comment on the issue.” And he would not. He hadn’t been on Vulcan when he decision to send the red matter ship had been made. The Romulans claimed the Vulcans could have sent the ship sooner; the Vulcan High Council maintained that it was a miracle that they had the appropriate technology at all and if the Romulans hadn’t been so busy expanding their Empire they might have turned their attention to defusing the stellar bomb sitting on their doorstep. All couched in appropriately logical and diplomatic terms, of course. It was an argument that Saveron, well aware of Loran’s penchant for playing Devil’s Advocate, did not care to get into. There were still remnants of the Romulan Star Empire causing trouble beyond Federation space, determined to live in remembered glory and make their mark out there somewhere. But there were just as many who preferred not to go down fighting, who chose a chance to live and raise their children in peace. For all her internal conflict and the conflict of her people, Loran was one of them. “It’s going to be strange, seeing Yel and t’Khasi in the sky.” She commented idly. Yel rising was a sight her people hadn’t seen for two thousand years. “The ice asteroids will continue to be brought, won’t they?” She asked suddenly. If the mining droids stopped bringing the life-giving water, the colonists would be doomed. “All terraforming efforts will continue as per the accelerated schedule.” Saveron assured her. T’Khut was the smaller, cooler twin of t’Khasi or Ti'Valka'ain to use the ancestral term; the planet that aliens called Vulcan. It had been a Class G world with a thin, carbon-dioxide atmosphere that the massive algal tanks fed with asteroid ice water were converting rapidly into oxygen and sugars that could be used as a food source. Hardy plants from a variety of sources were beginning to be established by the environmental engineers, and a precious few Romulan plant specimens were housed in a large glass-house laboratory until such time as they could be introduced into the environment. Over time the water would keep arriving, the atmosphere would thicken and the world would warm. It would be a temperate world, much like Romulus had been, one day. He wondered whether it would be possible to ever fully satisfy Loran’s suspicious nature. “The water reservoir for Settlement One has been completed and tested. The asteroid processing and water tanker station is in orbit and will be turned over to Romulan control once sufficient staff have been trained in it’s usage. Survival supplies have been provided, and industrial replicators are inbound on the next equipment shipment, along with further agricultural and building supplies.” Saveron ticked off the most recent developments. “You may do with them what you will.” “What we will.” Loran echoed as they reached the level ground at the foot of the hill. “Will we really be left to our own devices? To live as we have lived?” She asked him. “We left for a reason; we will not become Vulcans!” She insisted! There were many who maintained this was a front by the Vulcans for a staged cultural assimilation. “Affirmative. Romulan culture is now endangered and must be preserved. You may control who does and does not enter your world. As a people you have as much right to freedom, peace and prosperity as any other.” He replied. “There are many who wouldn’t agree.” She pointed out. Plenty of people and indeed whole species had reason to hate the Romulans. Again Saveron shrugged. “This is not their system.” He said in turn. The decision had not been one made by the Federation as a whole – though they had condoned it. Since the planet with within Vulcan space, the act of gifting it had belonged to the High Council. Reparation for past wrongs perhaps? Or one step towards cultural assimilation, as Loran feared? “There are plenty of Vulcans who wouldn’t agree either.” She insisted. “Why did you champion our cause?” She asked suddenly, curious, turning to look at him. He gave her a long, thoughtful look from grey eyes. “Because I believe that all sentient life has the right to exist, to live and to grow, in accordance with it’s own mores and free from fear or persecution. Because one cannot hold an entire race accountable for the actions of a few of it’s members. Because, if the tables were turned, I would want the same to be done for us.” He told her honestly. It still didn’t make sense to Loran, raised in a militaristic society. “Don’t you worry that we could become a threat to you?” She asked as, in the near distance, the first refugee transport touched down on t’Khut soil at the edge of the settlement. Saveron stopped where they stood, not intending to enter the new settlement at this time. He wondered for a moment whether Loran's people would ever trust his, and whether they would ever be trusted in turn. However he refused to be drawn on any personal concerns. “We are protected by Federation treaty.” The Vulcan replied simply. “This world will prove challenging enough for you that you will not need to seek challenge beyond. It is not a kind world, but it is livable.” Much like t’Kashi itself. Lorna snorted and shook her head, took a few steps further then paused and looked around her, taking in the dusty hills, the pre-fabbed settlement and the first settlers disembarking. “I still don’t understand why you did it.” She called back. “There’s two thousand years of bad blood between our peoples. If the tables had been turned we would not have done the same!” Saveron regarded her solemnly for a moment, looked over at the new settlers and back again to Loran. “That is, perhaps, the greatest reason why we did.”

“The Cost of Failure” A vivid flower of flame-tinged gold blossomed from the bed of dull metal that was suspended in the view screen. It was an oddly compelling sight; the sudden contrast of light bursting from relative darkness bound their gazes and rendered them silent. Only when further eruptions twisted through the dull metal construct did time resume as the first of the cheers broke through the silence, the bridge mirroring in sound the deed of the satellite that they watched in jubilation. They were the crew of the USS Vigilant and they had successfully completed their mission. Stardate 240001.15 It had been almost ten years to the day that the present journey had begun. Every officer could break their career down into a series of such voyages, most coinciding with their placement aboard a new vessel or outpost. For many on the Vigilant, that journey had spanned a decade. They had shared each other’s losses and revelled in each other’s successes. Above and beyond all else, in the estimation of Captain Diego Herrera, they had given of their all to protect the citizens of the United Federation of Planets through the most turbulent period of recorded history. It had started shortly after the Vigilant’s construction on the Zakdorn homeworld. The crew’s first mission had concluded with the successful aversion of Zakdorn IV’s secession from the Federation and the Vigilant had launched, hoping to act as a stabilising factor on the outermost edge of the UFoP’s Beta Quadrant colonies. For a while, they were. However, not even the Zakdorn master-strategists could have predicted what was happening behind the closed borders of Zalkon, scant light-years away. Fired into hostility by zealot rhetoric, they poured from their corner of the quadrant in impossibly fast destroyers, expanding their power and influence with ease and overriding what little resistance the Federation had to offer. In response, the Zakdorn wasted no time in switching sides, allying with the Klingons before the final unfortunate and [...]ing twist of fate. It had been a dark day indeed when the Zalkonians and Klingons had declared their alliance, and with Zakdorn tacticians to guide their hand, the greatest threat the Federation had ever faced was born. Never before had Federation colonies fallen so swiftly and, as the blue portion of the galactic map was forced into recession, casualties of record proportions were recorded. The Federation was on the ropes. The doors to the ready room hissed open. Head jerking towards the door, Captain Herrera quickly recognised Lieutenant Paulsen, his ever present PADD tucked under his arm. The captain’s expectant look served as acknowledgement enough for him to begin delivering his report. “Sir, the destruction of the communications relay is confirmed.” The report seemed superfluous, given that Diego had seen it with his own eyes, but recent experiences had taught them all that looks could be deceptive. The Lieutenant continued, “We’ve received an encoded transmission from Starbase 118 that I thought you’d like to see.” The war-weary CO nodded his thanks. “I’ll take a look at it now. Thankyou, Will.” Blinking his attention back to the screen, he refocused on the same puzzle that he had been looking at for the last few years. On one side of his monitor ran 11 sequences of numbers and symbols, representing a tau protein and its encoding exons. On the other, a political map of Federation space, which now extended no further north than Starbase 118, a veritable bastion that as yet had proved impossible for the Zalkonian Alliance to crack. His mind was torn between the two puzzles so perfectly that he found it impossible to view them one at a time. On the right hand side of his monitor he had met with some success in viewing the invading force as a biological agent and attempting to anticipate its response to treatment and head it off, before it could take hold elsewhere. On the left he made slower progress; the latest iteration of the display represented a possible key to the reversal and regeneration of his father’s frontal and temporal lobes as they degenerated progressively as a cause of his dementia. One war was public, shared by those on his crew and those of the other commanding officers now based at the third fleet’s headquarters. The other was internal, private and excruciating. Tearing himself away from his ongoing quandary, he studied the message from headquarters. The Vigilant’s actions had helped the second taskforce, led by the Tiger and the Thunder, to a victory as they defended the ‘northern’ border from a combined Zalkonian and Klingon assault. The Apollo and Discovery were holding a secondary wave of ships in check along the Klingon border with the third taskforce. An addendum indicated that the Victory stood point with a defensive fleet at Starbase 118, prepared and ready to defend themselves against a counter-attack from phase-cloaked vessels. Such tactics had led to the fall of Starbase 173, the upgraded stealth technology just one of the many spoils from the eradication of the tattered Romulan Star Empire. The Vigilant’s newly-reported status also appeared in the communiqué; they were now acting on orders to rendezvous with taskforce one. Fleet Admiral Nechayev had laid out detailed plans for a counteroffensive in the last command meeting aboard the starbase and, despite objections from Fleet Admiral Wolf, had insisted in committing a sizeable reserve of ships to the effort. Their target was to be a shipyard that had been constructed some two years ago in the Luxis system. Destroying the communications satellite had given them the rarest window of opportunity in which to strike. Many of the captains had been in agreement with Nechayev; the chance to mount an offensive after being pressed back so hard and for so many years striking a chord with them. Some had been more reserved. Irrespective of their reactions, every piece now stood on Nechayev’s board exactly where she wanted it, ready to press home her advantage. Closing the report, his screen returned to its bifurcated display. Eyes left and he considered something new. The condition from which his father was suffering was believed to be caused by a mutated gene that produced an overabundance of tau proteins, leading to degradation of neuron function. For a long time now he had been considering ways in which to inhibit the production of those proteins but the problem was so deep-seated that it was incorporated into his father’s DNA. Resequencing had been tried, to no effect; the problem had reasserted itself after a matter of weeks. Eyes right and he remembered to check the chronometer. The time for the rendezvous was fast approaching. His first officer was more than capable of handling it but it didn’t seem right for the commanding officer to be hidden away in his ready room at the start of such an important operation. Whatever else was happening, the crew needed to see him sat in the centre seat. As another famous captain had once asserted, you had to be “larger than life” for the crew and that was just how he would play this out. The bridge was quiet. Only the infrequent chirp of a readout or keystroke punctuated the assiduous atmosphere. The carpeted floor muffled the sound of Diego’s footsteps as he approached his command chair. His Laudean first officer moved across to his own station, a well-rehearsed response to the captain’s appearance from his ready room. Both men were former counsellors and had been trained to be observant; as the retractable centre-mounted command console began to rotate into position, it became clear that Greir Reinard was by now quite used to Diego’s obsession with that same display. It had been easy to pass off as a minor side-effect of wartime stress. All of the crew had presented various low-level symptoms over the years but they were managing them, keeping them in check. The numerical nature of the protein display had initially been presented as such so that Reinard, who had majored in Psychology and Counselling at the academy, might not identify it immediately. He was a resourceful, intelligent man and a good friend. Most likely, he knew what the series of numbers meant by now but if he didn't then it was only a matter of time. “Open a channel to the USS Beaufighter. We have an old friend to check in with.” Strictly speaking, it would have been wrong to attribute an emotion to the computer’s resultant tone but if Diego hadn’t known any better he could have sworn it sounded irritated. He waited for an explanation from Hanson at Ops. “We’re unable to raise them, sir. Shall I contact Engineering and report the problem?” There were a few instantly explicable reasons for their failure to communicate. It was possible that comms silence was being preserved as a means of preventing the enemy from listening in on their intentions. Had there been a serious issue with the ship’s comm-system, it would have been flagged up already on Hanson’s console. “No,” replied the captain, calmly, “Dueld and Kael will have enough to do when we cross over into Zalkonian space. We’ll try again when we’re at closer range.” He shot a resigned look over to his Laudean friend, his rich-blue pigmented forehead accentuated by the furrow currently in his brow. “I guess we’ll just have to wave at Leo through a viewport.” The light-hearted comment was fresh air to the bridge crew. Half a conversation later, they arrived at the rendezvous co-ordinates, the prominent figures of the Achilles and Avandar at the head of a column of ships. As Lieutenant Commander Fox brought them into position alongside the Mercury, Diego looked once more at his screen. Something was tugging at the back of his mind but he was unable to force the thought to coalesce into something tangible. Shaking it off, he called for contact with the Beaufighter once again. He expected that Leo Handley-Page’s indefatigably chipper attitude would lift spirits considerably more. The briefest of calls proved him right and the comm-system functional. All questions about its reliability were answered moments later when a call from the Achilles informed them that there were ten minutes remaining before the operation was to begin. There was definitely something forming in Diego’s mind… if only he could catch it. Drawn as if chasing a will o’ wisp, he tried to follow it, looking under one set of thoughts and behind another. His eyes focused on the right hand side of his display. The sandbar. He had served at the Embassy before. The Luxis system was his first officer’s home. For Greir, this was a chance to liberate his people from Zalkonian occupation and he had a personal stake in its success. The more he thought about it, the more the sandbar played on his mind. It turned the Luxis system into a cul-de-sac, allowing entry and egress from only one direction. Unless the Zalkonians were constructing phasing cloaks in that system, or at the very least stockpiling them there, it was going to be very easy for the taskforce to pin down any enemy ships and destroy them before moving on to their intended target. Even though they had needed to remove the communications relay, which served as an early-warning system, in order to make the strike, what if the Zalkonians had developed the technology to navigate the sandbar? That turned an easy win for Starfleet into an ambush. There would be no way to get a clear reading on exactly how many vessels lay in wait for them. Rising from his seat, Diego turned to face the Ops station with a calm, clear instruction. “Hanson, contact Fleet Captain Turner aboard the Thunder.” She was close enough to that area of space that she might be able to help him rationalise his concern. Her officers had navigated the sandbar a hundred times. She had even taken Britta Daysa and her children aboard ship during the evacuation of Duronis II at the Prime Minister’s request, although by the time a fielder entered range of the sandbar, the ship they were on would be too close to escape a surprise attack. A frustrated shake of Hanson’s head indicated another lack of success. “I’m sorry, sir… we’re unable to get through. There’s nothing wrong with the comm.” Scenarios played through Diego’s mind. Had the Thunder been destroyed? He couldn’t very well proceed under that assumption and instead followed his training. “We’re obviously not under comms silence and we couldn’t have contacted the Beaufighter if our signals were being jammed. What could be stopping us from communicating long range?” Hanson puffed his cheeks as a precursor to a sharp expulsion of breath. He was noncommittal as he listed random phenomena from the top of his head. “A problem with the subspace antenna, a flotilla of ships generating a jamming frequency at range, any one of hundreds of subspace anomalies including a subspace disturbance, rift… you name… Sir?” Diego stood looking at him, but his eyes were seeing that display once again. He didn’t need to consult his monitor to know that once taskforce one began to move, it would create a narrow corridor through which phase-cloaked ships could avoid the scant detection grids that Starfleet had managed to erect. And that path led straight to Starbase 118. The Zalkonians had no shipyard at Luxis. This was a ruse, calculated by Zakdorn strategists, that had taken years to come into fruition. They were going to launch a massive assault on the starbase then turn and annihilate the remainder of the third fleet before they could reunite into one cohesive unit. There was no question that Nicholotti and the Victory would give them a hell of a show when they arrived but the recent pattern of assaults indicated that they would be facing insurmountable odds. Even with the Victory’s formidable war record, no-one could be expected to fight against eight to one odds, or worse. About to take action, Diego found himself frozen in place as the left side of the display muscled its way into the equation. Target the source and destroy all resistance before it has a chance to develop into a problem. That was it! A combination of DNA resequencing with the introduction of a michrochemical agent to inhibit serine and threonine phosphorylation could halt the progression of his father’s frontotemporal dementia. Maybe not reverse it, but… There was a hand on his forearm. Greir Reinard was standing alongside him. Had he just spoken his name? A chronometer on the view screen showed that the ten minute countdown was well underway. He didn’t have time to stand around thinking about cures while there was so much at stake. It would have to wait. Clearing his throat and turning back towards the view screen, he regained his composure. “Mr. Hanson, I think you’d better open a channel to the taskforce.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ready room was in darkness. Silhouetted against a backdrop of ornaments and personal possessions by the light of his monitor, Captain Herrera stared on. The unified display was uncomfortable and difficult to process; he kept glancing to one side as though there was more to see. But there wasn’t. He had read through the same schedule on autopilot for hours. Since the Vigilant had docked at the Starbase after its successful defence and the reception of a communiqué from Santander, Earth, he had elected to remain concealed there. Commander Reinard’s concern had been clear when Diego had asked not to be disturbed. And yet, there it was as plain as day. A debrief for all commanding officers with Fleet Admirals Wolf and Nechayev, no more than two hours away. There was cause for celebration, of course. Fleet Captain Mar’s taskforce had arrived back at Starbase 118 in time to lend Captain Nicholotti some timely reinforcement. The return of the second and third taskforces had then tipped the scales. And while good people had been lost, while there were memorial speeches to be written, the name of one man turned a narrow escape and a priceless victory into the most bitter defeat of them all. Carlos Herrera. A ten year game had finally met its resolution. He had held the means to victory in his hand but his feet had been too slow to carry it across the finish line. Millions would no doubt benefit from his discovery, as was always the case with a new medical breakthrough, but it was too late. Such was the cost of failure. Captain Diego Herrera Commanding Officer USS Vigilant NCC-75515 　 　

White glittering diamonds. That was the first thought slipping through the young boy's mind when he stepped outside the new house, his father had bought on this strange planet called Earth. Last year at this time, actually not even two months ago, they had been on their home world Qo'noS, but after his mother died, his father wanted to honour her life with returning to her home world, so the boy would learn from her roots from those who knew more about it than himself. G'Tok stood now in front of the door, looking up into the sky where soft bright flakes slowly floated down to join their brothers already spread all over the landscape like a white blanket. He had never seen anything like this before, but if his teacher was right, this was snow. He did not know Mister Finnegan that long, but he was human and therefore surely would know this stuff. G'Tok held his little hand out and watched how the flakes landed on his slightly tanned skin, a mix of his Klingon father and his human mother. The flakes were really cold and melted right away, so after just a few moments he held a small puddle of water in his palm. A curious thing, he thought to himself, this snow must be weak, otherwise it would not allow the heat of his hand to melt it. The 6 year old boy dropped his hand, the drops trickling down his fingers until the last one met the glittering snow beneath. Crunching sounds accompanied his steps, the cool air filling his lungs as he left the front yard. Behind the hill he could see the high buildings of the city, swarmed by shuttles like a wasp nest. It would just be a few minutes to be in a complete different world. But something pulled him back into this one, something hit his shoulder and he turned around with a deep growl, just to see a girl from his class giggle, a ball of white something in front of his feet. He crouched and raised it. "What is that?" "A snowball dummy, never seen one?" She laughed and hunkered down to make a new one, while he wondered how that weak fluffy stuff could make something that hard. His mind putting one and one together and the next moment he threw his arm back and catapulted the snowball into the girl, who fell back on her behind and looked at him with big eyes. "Whoa!" she exclaimed. And just a moment later, they both threw snowballs at each other, the air filled with laughter. G'Tok thought that this was all going quite well for him and he would make his father proud of fighting with her like that, but then she got up from the snowy street and brushed the remains of their battle from her jacket. "I've got to go. Santa will come soon to bring presents and I shouldn't miss it." Raising her hand for a wave she turned and ran along the street to her home, just a few houses away. Santa. That was a name G'Tok had heard before, from his teacher. But nobody had explained who that mysterious person was. Seeing the girl vanish in her house, he realized that he had no idea what her name was, but who could remember all those new things at once? Looking over the shoulder to his own house, he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and stumped back to it. Carrying the snow inside he stormed though the house into the back, where his father was cutting some wood, for a new figurine he wanted to create. His father liked to make little wooden statues of Klingon Heroes and tell stories about them to G'Tok. That taught him about his roots, well at least the one side. "Dad! Dad!" he shouted out, the thick boots stomped over the wooden planks and slithered the last few meters, leaving wet marks before stopping in front of the tall hunk of Klingon, working on the wood turning lathe with a surprising gentleness. "Who is Santa?" The sound of the rotating wood meeting the cutting tool stopped and Molagh turned his head to the boy. "Where did you hear that name?" "A girl of my class, she said that he comes and brings presents and that she can't miss it!" G'Tok felt the big hand petting his small head. "That's right boy. There will be dire consequences if she does." The deep voice vibrated in the boy's chest and his eyes grew full of curiosity. "Why?" he barely whispered and looked up to his father, as if he held the key to all the secrets of the world in his hands. "Come, let us sit and I will tell you the story of the mightiest warrior of them all." he grumbled in his usual voice, stomping through the door into the living room. G'Tok followed right away, peeling out of his thick coat. "But you said Kahless was the mightiest!" "Oh yes he is, but when the winter comes, around this day the 24th of December, even Kahless fears the judgement of Santa Claus." Sinking down into the big leather armchair in front of the fireplace he leaned back, watching his son dropping onto the ground in front of him, crossing his legs and eyeing him with such an innocence and inquisitiveness in his look that he almost could not hide his smile. "Many many eons ago a man wandered this planet, he was happy and content, and celebrated every day as if it were his last. His wife and children loved him and he believed to be the most blessed person alive. Then one long winter's night the enemy fell into his home town." The boy gasped and Molagh waved his arms as if fighting with his blade. "They slaughtered and murdered everyone living they could find, among them Santa's whole family. The only reason Santa was spared was that he had been in a different city to buy presents for his children. When he came back, the smell of death and blood filled his lungs, he found his wife on the living room floor just like this one, right where you are sitting now, covered in her own blood and those of her children." Gasping G'Tok looked around the ground as if he could see her. "His children were not to be found, and in his rage he took the big sword laying on the ground, left by the enemy to mock him and swore to himself to find his kids. He headed out, searching land in and out for the enemies who stole his life. When he found a camp he sought his revenge and killed everyone of them with their own blade. His coat of fur soaked by their blood warmed him in the cold winter night. When every single one of the murderous enemies were dead he still could not find his child and began to search the whole Earth for them. Whenever he found an enemy camp he climbed onto the roof of the assembly hall and slid in through the chimney for the element of surprise. But because he was a good and hard working man, he did not just take all their lives, because it could be that those men and women had sworn off the bad deeds. So he began to ask them first if they had been good or bad this year.." G'Tok leaned forward, his mouth and eyes wide open, and slightly bounced up and down. "What happened if they were good?" "Then he would reward it with a little gift. Nothing too big, just a coin to show his appreciation of their good ways. But if they were bad, they felt his blade. But after many years he had searched the whole planet, and still could not find his children, so he asked a witch to help him fabricate a vessel that could bring him to other worlds and she bewitched a sleigh, that could not only fly him anywhere he wanted but also visit all those places in one single night." G'Tok's eyes grew and grew, every now and then he looked to the fireplace, wondering if that warrior would visit them as well and what exactly would count as bad to be punished by him. "Did he find his children yet?" he asked with a quiet voice, before looking back up to his father. Molagh shook his head, his long wavy hair swaying from side to side. Leaning forward his face came close to his son's, so he could lower his voice. "No, my boy. He still looks for them. He once reached the end of the galaxy and for each planet he searched he put a bell on his magical sleigh. When he flies through the sky, the bell jingle can be heard through the night, and all over the galaxy this sound shakes the bones of the strongest and bravest warriors, of the most ruthless and heartless men, knowing that the warrior will come, whose blade took endless lives and whose clothes are soaked with the blood of the naughty." The last words were merely a whisper and G'Tok swallowed hard. "Can... one fight him?" he asked and Molagh grinned, proud that his little son would ask such a question. "You can try, but you have not been a bad boy this year, have you?" "I think so, but I don't know what he thinks is naughty. Maybe throwing those snowballs at the girl hasn't been nice." Molagh couldn't help but laugh and slapped his thigh before raising from his chair. He walked up to the wall at the side, decorated by his Bat'leth. In front of it was a smaller case, uncovered so everyone could have access, as it was normal in the house of a warrior. And in that case was a Mek'leth he pulled out of the holding. Turning to his son he stretched out his arm. "Take this. If he comes and you see him raising his blade, you will be able to stab it into his big belly." G'Tok jumped to his feet and hurried to his father, taking the blade out of his hand. He looked at it with big eyes and nodded with a proud face up to Molagh. "I will make you proud father!" And the older man did not have any doubt of that. Later this night, G'Tok put the Mek'leth under the pillow of his bed and looked out of the window. It was still snowing and slowly the lights of the houses around went off, leaving the white landscape in a peaceful glow, though he knew that this peace was only an illusion. Laying down he knew, that this night he would come, the most feared warrior of them all and he had to convince him that he'd been good. Just when his eyes closed and he drifted into sleep, the jingle of the sleigh's bells started to fill the winter night...

And so we've come to the end of our Writing Challenges for 2012! I'm pleased to bring you the results of our last Challenge of the year: The winner of the Challenge for December is Jalana Laxyn, with her story "The mightiest warrior of them all." Our runner-up -- who's new to the group! -- is Brayden Jorey, with his "Sentimental Value." Thank you to everyone who participated for continuing to submit your best work! We'll see you in 2013 with a new Challenge. Be ready! My special thanks to my fellow judges for this round -- Fleet Captain Toni Turner, Lieutenant Commander Velana, and Captain Diego Herrera.

Welcome, my friends, to the last Writing Challenge of 2012. It's been quite a ride this year: The Challenges saw a facilitator change, the addition of several judges to the rotating pool, our first one-month contests, our first collaborative contests with Ongoing Worlds (in July and in November), and our first alternate form contest (in August, with flash fiction, poetry, and free-form options). I hope to be able to bring you even more in 2013, but for now, let's look at closing out this year. The December Challenge will again be a monthlong Challenge, and in it, I ask you to consider the place of belief systems in Star Trek's future. Contemporarily, December is a month of holy days for many religions, but I'd like you to consider the question of religion and spirituality in the future context. Sure, we've seen the Bajorans and their Prophets, the Klingons' Sto-Vo-Kor, and the Vortas' belief in the Founders' godhood, but what else is out there? For example, when I designed my character (Aron Kells), I created for him a spiritual system based upon a quasi-concept deity called "the Architect." This was in direct response to an astrophysicist I worked with at the time; she was brilliant and dynamic, but she also followed strictly one of the strongest faith doctrines I've ever encountered. I thought the combination was intriguing, and thus my character was born. But what of yours? Is there a spiritual side to any of the characters for which you write? Or perhaps you could take a look into the unexplored spiritualities of the Romulans -- or the Ferengi -- or the Borg? Whatever you choose, be sure to craft a compelling story for the final contest of 2012! The deadline for this Challenge is December 26th (Boxing Day)! That gives you 26 shopping days to come up with something good, so begin thinking now. As always, please remember: *Your work must be completely original. *You must be the sole author of the work. *Your story must take place in the Star Trek universe, but may not center upon canon characters. *Sign your final draft as you would a post on your ship. *Your story must be between 300 and 3000 words. As of today, Saturday, December 1st, this Challenge is open. For any questions you might have, remember that you can always visit the Writing Challenge website. Good luck!

But what do you believe in? Cadet Arden Cain had long since forgotten that the training mission that he, four other cadets and a Lieutenant Commander, was on had gone horribly wrong. Or at least that was how Arden saw the mission, he could never really tell though when it came to the motives of the Academy instructors. What should have been a routine re-supply mission suddenly and violently become refresher course in survival. As it happened, a Romulan Warbird attacked the cadet’s shuttle on their way back to base. How they survived the initial attack Arden could only guess. What he did know however was that soon thereafter the group landed their battered shuttle on a devastated space station, which made Arden wonder how it was still in one piece, to affect repairs and hide till they could be rescued or escape safely. The station itself was abandoned and so provided a safe haven with tolerable atmosphere. It clearly wasn’t the best hole to hide in but it would do Arden thought. Considering the state that the space station was in Arden wasn’t just sitting around waiting to be rescued instead he was working on repairing the shuttle. Even Arden’s supervisor, Lieutenant Commander Eve Harrington, recognized that it was their best chance at survival but it was also a way to keep Arden preoccupied. After two days and dodging many attempts by the Romulans to be located, the cadets were all on edge and even the Commander’s usually icy exterior was melting under the strain. Being the only engineer in the group Arden couldn’t help but feel the expectations of the other cadets as the third day began and crept by slowly. Joined by a male Vulcan science cadet named T’Bol and a female Bajoran operations cadet who went by the name of Rista, Arden laid on his back with his head inside one of the shuttles control consoles. It was his hope that he would be able to physically reroute past damaged parts of the ship to get the shuttle operational. He preferred that idea to having to rewrite the shuttle’s computer coding. He was under no illusions that the bypasses that he was trying might not work even though he was already an expert in the art of jury rigging. The truth of the matter was that Arden was as desperate as the rest of the cadets and their commanding officer. Arden just chose to call on whatever stubbornness he inherited from his Father to help him through this mess as he always did. Conversation had been light between the three Cadets up until that point. While Arden went about his slow repairs he gave instructions to Rista who wasn’t entirely useless with the shuttles systems, just not well versed at acting outside of standard operating procedures that Star Fleet schooled their future officers in. As she kept running into dead ends Rista occasionally murmured comments that Arden had concluded were prayers and requests for guidance from “the Prophets”. Arden didn’t find that odd at all, as T’Bol would say “it was only logical” for the woman to act as she did. The difference was that where Rista turned to her gods for guidance in the face of failure Arden was glad to hear what worked and what didn’t. It gave him direction for further attempts even if his spirits were dangerously low. After what seemed like forever Arden finally inserted an isolinear chip and the console seemed to power up but after only a handful of seconds the whole thing went dead once more. Retreating from under the console Arden sat on the floor of the shuttle leaning against the console in question, a look of defeat on his face. He was too tired to hide his defeated expression just as he was unashamed to admit that he had tried pretty much everything he knew to no avail. After a moment T’Bol was the first to speak which surprised Arden as T’Bol hadn’t said much of anything. The Vulcan rarely did. “You’re not a religious man are you Cadet Cain?” T’Bol spoke stating the question as if he already had the answer. T’Bol was like that, never asking questions that he didn’t already have the answers to. Arden didn’t know if that had something to do with logic or was just a personality trait. For some reason Arden was afraid to ask. “No, I’m not. Although that isn’t to say that I don’t discourage others from believing in gods and the like.” Arden replied not knowing where his Vulcan comrade was going with this line of questioning. “Of course, I would expect nothing less from someone training to be a Star Fleet officer. There must be something you believe in though?” T’Bol returned dryly. Arden honestly thought about T’Bol’s question because the Vulcan did have a point as much as Arden hated to admit it. He always believed that matters of faith whether it be in logic, honor or some god was left for more private environments as it exposed a part of Arden that he didn’t like people to see. That is to say that he preferred to keep such conversations away from certain Vulcan class mates who were far to nosy, far to insensitive when their curiosity was peaked. For Arden completing the job was all that mattered and it didn’t require discussion about belief systems, whether he knew what his beliefs were or not. Now it seemed though that he would have little choice but to engage in the topic. “One would think that what T’Bol asks is not a hard question. You must have something that helps you through dark times.” Rista mused idly. “I mean when I am troubled I turn to the Prophets just as T’Bol would seek logic. I suppose scientifically minded people have trouble doing that though.” “I won’t deny that I have trouble believing in the idea of an all powerful deity.” Arden told them flatly. “Before joining Star Fleet Academy I traveled extensively, I saw many religions and belief systems but I could never relate to any of them.” In Arden’s mind that brought him back to his first comment. While he could never relate to any one of the multitude of belief systems he had been exposed to Arden was accepting of people’s right to believe in what they choose to. As long as they didn’t start preaching to him, he would similarly let them be. That approach had served him well thus far surely it would continue to serve him when he eventually graduated from the Academy, if he managed to survive that long. “Yes, but what do you believe in Cadet Cain? You never answered the question.” T’Bol persisted. “What inspires you to survive in times such as this?” Arden paused taking a couple breaths to give him time to think on his response. Finally Arden did reply in a calmer manner then he was a few minutes again as if he suddenly found inspiration out of thin air. “If I have to answer the question then I would say, I am what inspires me. I learned a long time again that I couldn’t rely on some unseen force to help me.” Arden told them. Looking at both their faces Arden could tell they were waiting for more so he continued. “The only force driving me through a crisis is me. Take now for instance, whether I give up or try something different is ultimately up to me as I am the only one that will be able to change my perspective on this dismal situation. You two might look to a higher power but me, I look into myself to find the answers I need. Who else can I depend on?” Arden could tell that both Rista and T’Bol objected to his views almost immediately. Arden imagined that T’Bol would say that his approach was prone to error and that depending on only oneself was illogical. Meanwhile Arden thought that Rista would simply be offended by his bluntness and blasphemous attitude towards what could not be proven, even though that wasn’t strictly true. Neither of those potential opinions concerned Arden. T’Bol and Rista would think what they liked and if Arden did manage to make it off the space station by some chance maybe Arden might look into his beliefs again at some point. For the time being though, Arden decidedly inwardly that he had had enough moping, that he had a few other tricks that he could try. That was all that mattered. Commander Arden Cain First Officer USS Mercury

It had only been a few hours since Jorey came aboard the Tiger-A. He was in his quarters trying his best to make it his own. Rich natural fabrics covered his bed with a dozen or more pillows of different colours, sizes, and fabrics piled on top. His eyes moved up toward the empty glass case on the wall above his bed. He knew exactly what needed to be displayed in the case and was filled with the warmth of his own memories. He pulled out a plain, dulled metal bat'leth and let his mind wander to six months ago. * * * * * * Jorey held the rugged Klingon in his arms, enjoying the moment, as they laid there on floor. Jorey knew that Koroth would be embarrassed when his grandmother walked in, but decided to let it happen. Jorey hoped it would help the Klingon become more comfortable with the openness and honesty Betazoids are accustomed. “Well don't you two look absolutely pornographic.” His grandmother's tone was dripping with mischievous intentions. It was obvious she was doing her best to embarrass the two young warriors. Koroth stood up slowly, completely naked, and stood there for a moment. Jorey sat up to watch the spectacle. Koroth smiled and walked toward her slowly until he was standing right beside her. He leaned into her, kissed her cheek and spoke gently, with a hint of defiance. “Always a pleasure to see you, Ambassador Jorey.” Koroth circled the chambers and collected his clothing while the Ambassador called in her entourage. Jorey could feel the energy in the room transform from a playful affair to something more sacred. His Tassa’Akai master and the family high priestess came into the room followed by his grandmother's servants. Koroth made his way to Jorey and spoke while he wiggled his way back into his pants. “I will be back.” He said in a Klingon bluntness that Jorey had come to appreciate. “I have something in my quarters for you.” Koroth placed his forehead against Jorey's for a brief moment to show his affection before leaving. “Come, little one.” Jorey's grandmother said sweetly gesturing to the next room. Her false demeanour faded to reveal the truth within her. “We only have a few moments before this travesty against civility must take place.” “This is not....” Jorey tried to explain, one more time, but his thoughts were interrupted by his grandmother's voice in his head. ~I just don't understand this. Fight when you must. When there is no other way. That's what you were taught.~ She placed her hand gently on his shoulder and led him to the next room. She knew that Jorey's mind was set on fighting. ~Grandmother, I must fight! This is my way of proving my love to Koroth and it is the only way to make his family, his brothers, and his world believe that I am worthy to be loved by him.~ Jorey explained. She knew he was right. She also couldn't help but feel pride knowing that her grandson truly understood the precious and sacred place of love. So much so, that he was willing to give up his own life to exalt in its truth. She was about to say how proud his grandfather would be of him, but Jorey said it first. ~He's here with me. I know he's proud.~ Jorey smiled as they entered the next room. The next room was dim, lit only by a trinity candle. Jorey's grandfather had explained its significance to him when he was a child. The centre flame represents Betazed and the goddess Karawati. The two outside flames are the twin moons of Betazed and Karawati's sisters, Yimone and Retana. They represent the ebb and flow of oceans, the inhale and exhale of breath, the push and pull of thought and feeling. Jorey could see the figures of two servants filling a small, shallow stone pool with water and the freshly plucked petals of bright coloured, delicate flowers. The aroma of Sea'Nu filled the air as the smoke from a small pile of soldering incense weaved around the room. Jorey's grandmother moved toward the pool, stopped at its base and let her robes fall to the floor. She turned and extended her hand out to Jorey. Jorey moved forward, took his grandmother's hand and stepped into the pool. His grandmother joined her servants and knelt in front of the pool. Jorey's Tassa'Akai master and the family's high priestess let their robes fall to the floor before stepping into the pool on either side of Jorey. The high priestess reached out her cupped hands holding a pair of white crystal earrings. “Kylaron, tenth child of Karawati, son of the spirits of perseverance, Mirini stone in the great ancestral circlet of Krysaros.” The priestess spoke the words in Betazoid as she knelt down and gently dipped her hands in the pool to let the waters cleanse the Mirini earrings before offering them to Jorey's grandmother for safe keeping. The priestess unclasped the necklace she wore around her neck and took the ornate medallion it held into her hands. She raised it in the air and spoke the traditional prayer of peace and harmony before twisting open the medallion to reveal the thick, bright red mixture of oils and crushed berries, reserved for this ancient ritual - The Incada. The priestess dipped her left index and pinky finger in the mixture as Jorey closed his eyes. She pressed her finger against his eyelids and spoke in Betazoid. “Quiet your thoughts and focus on the blood of Kylaron flowing through your body.” She paused a moment and then let her fingers trace down his cheeks, over the corners of his mouth and down his chin. This left pronounced bright red around his eyes that lined and slowly faded down his face. Jorey focused on his pulse until he could feel the ebb and flow of the blood travelling through his body. The priestess gently entered Jorey's mind and began the Incada. She began sifting through his mind, clearing it of fears, self-doubts, hesitations, apprehensions, and distractions. It is a deeply personal and delicate process. However, the family priestess was extremely experienced and moved quickly through his thoughts like a sculptor madly chipping away at a piece of stone to reveal a image – perfect and beautiful. Meanwhile, the servants began to wash Jorey. They scented his body with a variety of different oils and infusions as they sang the creation song of the tenth house of Betazed. As Karawati danced in the Opal Sea, Her sisters faded in the third moon's light. The night of one moon, set the spirits free, And the soul of the sea rose into the night. From the passions of the earth and of the sea, Came forth the tenth son, blessed without sight. No jungle, no valley, no mountain he could see, But he learned to feel, to sense, and to fight. Kylaron, master of perseverance and father of Tassa'Akai, We honour, love, and revere you this night. “Karawati has cleared your mind and body. The blood of Kylaron reveals the truth within you. Give thanks and be reborn, Brayden Jorey, Son of the tenth house of Betazed.” Jorey's grandmother stood up and offered her hand. Jorey took her hand and stepped out in a semi-trance state. His Tassa'Akai master stepped out of the pool and retrieved a long piece of purple fabric from a servant. His master began to wrap the fabric around each thigh, then his waist, finally tying it in the form of a short skirt around him. At the same time, his grandmother put a Mirini earring in each of his ears and gently entered his mind so not to break the trance prematurely. ~These are the Eyes of Kylaron, made from the Blessed Crystals of Rixx. You are now their guardian.~ She left his mind as gently as she entered. Jorey kept his attention forward and moved to the main room. Koroth was there and started for Jorey as soon as he noticed him. Jorey's grandmother signalled for him to stop and even though no one spoke, Koroth seemed to instinctively know the sacredness of the moment. The Klingon held out a plain, dulled bat'leth and offered it to Jorey. “Qabatlh.” Koroth announced as Jorey took the bat'leth from his hands. In that moment, having just completed the Incada, Jorey was able to recognize the great importance of Koroth's offering. Finally, after all this time, Jorey experienced unconditional, open, and honest love from his Klingon friend and for the first time truly believed that Koroth was his Imzadi. * * * * * * Jorey set the bat'leth into the glass case over his bed and recalled the events of that momentous day. Jorey went on to defeat a celebrated Klingon warrior to win the tournament and earned the distinction of being one of the very few non-Klingons to achieve Champion Standing. Jorey was proud of that achievement. His Tassa'Akai master even more so. Koroth, even more proud than that. However, for Jorey, the bat'leth that now hung over his bed did not represent his achievement in battle that day. For him, it represented the honour and unconditional love Koroth gave him that day. Ensign Brayden Jorey USS Tiger-A Helm Officer

Happy December, folks! I'm pleased to bring you the results of our November contest. Sorry for the delay in posting. Our joint winners for November are Kalianna Nicholotti, with her "Empty skies over Tokyo," and Tallis Rhul, with his "Guts and Glory!" Runner-up goes to Ben Livingston, with "The Family Business." Congratulations! Reviews will be up in a moment, but be sure you check out the December Challenge, up now!

Welcome, my friends, to this special Writing Challenge for the month of November! Please peruse this post with proper prudence, as it contains the guidelines, rules, and other important bits regarding entering your submission, which are a little different than usual for this unique Challenge. For this month only, we'll be drawing our inspiration from Ongoing Worlds's Way Back When week competition. This Challenge will focus upon character ancestry -- where a particular character or anyone/anything related to him/her has come from. You do not have to write about your primary character! To participate in the Challenge, please create a new thread. From the "Topic Prefix" selection list, choose "Nov/Dec" -- don't forget to do this, because without it your story won't be considered for this round! You may denote your story as a "Work in Progress," but please do so at the beginning of the story (not in the thread topic), and remember to finish it before the deadline, as any story noted as a work in progress will not be considered. The deadline for this challenge is November 30th! That means you have just under three weeks to get your entries in, so begin thinking now! All entries in this Challenge will be judged by our panel in the usual way, but entries will also have the option of entry into Ongoing Worlds's contest. If you'd like to also enter there, please check the link above between November 25th and December 1st, as they should have links to their contest submissions. I encourage you to enter both! Last time we participated in a joint contest, our winner (Alleran Tan) came in second in their contest. As always, please remember: *Your work must be completely original. *You must be the sole author of the work. *Your story must take place in the Star Trek universe, but may not center upon canon characters. *Sign your final draft as you would a post on your ship. *Your story must be between 300 and 3000 words. As of today, Saturday, November 3rd, this Challenge is open! The very last day to enter is Monday, November 30th, so get in your entry before then! For any questions you might have, remember that you can always visit the Writing Challenge website. Good luck!

[[in Progress]] Hi, my name is Thetis. I'm a pain in the ... Well, at least that's what I've been told by any number of people. I don't think I am, but I have my own opinions. I promise, I'm not one who will just roll over and play dead whenever someone tells me to do so. No, I'm not saying that at all. I am more than willing to risk my existance to save others. That's part of what it means to be part of Starfleet, isn't it? Well, yes, orders sometimes conflict with my wishes. However, if I blindly adhered to orders, I wouldn't be here now, would I? Would any of us, really? I would say that the entirety of the Federation has been saved a number of times exactly because people have disobeyed dumb orders. What makes me so defiant? Well... that's an old story... well, not old for you maybe, but a lifetime for me... ((Procyon Fleetyards)) The long flat arrow-shaped vessel slid silently from the fully-enclosed dry dock where she had sat for the last fourteen months. The ship was classified, a brand new design, crash-built to fulfill the desperate need for a long-range battlecruiser that could operate behind the Dominion battle lines, able to destroy the achilles-heel of the Jem'Hadar: the huge Ketracel White facilities. In 2374, the last new ship in Starfleet that had been designed as a battlecruiser had been hijacked by the Romulans. Starfleet Intelligence was bound and determined that the same would not happen with this vessel, so she was being moved under heavy guard to the Utopia Planitia Yards for fitting out. Her testing would be conducted in route; the need for her capabilities was too great on the front lines. The fleet tug hooked onto the ship and it, along with the five escorting ships, leapt into warp. A week later, they returned to regular space near the massive shipyards orbiting Mars. After being enveloped in the shielded drydock, the first task was the installation of the ship's massive computer core. Within the quadrillions of lines of code lay one of the most advanced artificial intelligence command and control systems since Richard Daystrom's M5 computer. The aftermath of that experiment gone horribly wrong had ended the development of such systems for more than a century, until the Dominion War. The threat to the very existence of the Federation represented by the Jem'Hadar and the Dominion had reignited the interest in more automation in the command of starships, allowing smaller crews to more effectively handle advanced ships. This led to the development of the THETIS system. Short for Tri-optical Humanoid-Equivalent Thought Integration System, the THETIS system was designed to allow for a single interface for all systems aboard the ship. It was given the power to interpret the commanding officer's intentions and, in the absence of explicit commands, develop tactics to achieve the CO's desired goals. It was those adaptive and interpretive subroutines that would back to haunt the design team. ((On the Bridge of USS Achilles, two months later)) ::Dave Tyson was one of the lead computer programmers on the Advanced Design Bureau's team assigned to the Achilles project. It was his job to test and report on the THETIS system's interpretive algorithms. He sat down at the back of the bridge, in front of the main engineering console, and brought up the computer system's diagnostics. He wanted to watch the results of his next test as they unfolded. Ready, he began the test.:: Tyson: Thetis? Thetis: Yes, Dave? ::Tyson himself had given the computer a young woman's voice, based off his own teenage daughter. Thereafter, he had always referred to the system as 'her' or 'she' rather than the coldly logical 'it.' Tyson: Please access my PADD and complete the simulation there. ::The ship's computer dutifully accessed the program, a scenario in which the ship is assigned to rescue a civilian fuel tanker with several hundred passengers aboard. The ship's engines had failed inside the Romulan Neutral Zone and entering the zone violates a treaty. The scenario is a no-win. Either the entering ship leaves the civilians to die at the hands of Nature, as their life support slowly fails, or they enter and confronted by overwhelming opposition from Romulan forces, then are subsequently destroyed.:: Thetis: I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that. ::The computer programer blinked in surprise. The system should not have been able to refuse the command.:: Tyson: Why not, Thetis? Thetis: The scenario is a waste of time. There is no way, short of rewriting the parameters of the program itself, to succeed. Therefore, I don't see the point. ::Now, two things bothered the scientist about the response he had just gotten. The first was the recognition that the scenario, based off the old Academy Kobayashi Maru test, was in fact just that: a no-win scenario. The computer should have run the scenario and reported the results. It might have gone as far as running it multiple times and reporting a loss each and every time, but an outright refusal should not have been possible. The second one was something that the interface had already done, but he hadn't in his shock realized it until the second time.:: ::Thetis had referred to herself as 'I.':: ::Suddenly, Dave felt very small and even a little bit afraid. He swallowed and took a deep breath, then stood.:: Tyson: Thank you Thetis. That'll be all for today. Thetis: Are you sure, Dave? Normally our daily routine is much longer. Tyson: I have some other pressing matters today. I'll be back to see you later on and bring you some more problems. Thetis: Understood. I look forward to it. ::There was that pronoun again. Tyson walked briskly over to the turbolift. He had to get off the ship... and he had to do so now.:: ::A few moments later, he stepped off the turbo lift into the drydock's operations center and breathed a sigh of relief. However, the danger wasn't over yet.:: Tyson: =/\= Tyson to Achilles Computer Team. We have a serious issue. Meet in conference room 3 in 15 minutes. =/\= ::As Dave spoke, he keyed in a few commands and locked down the dry dock's comm system into internal diagnostics mode. That would also prevent the computer aboard the battlecruiser from contacting any of the other systems in the ship yard.:: ::The meeting began well enough, but as soon as he voiced his fear, the whole thing exploded into a cacophony of yelling voices, throwing accusations, recriminations and suspicions of serious professional misconduct. The head programmer let it go on for about thirty seconds, then got fed up and shouted for quiet. It took a couple of tries, but he finally got the floor again.:: Tyson: I don't care what you all think, but what I need to know is what we should do about it. ::The group seemed pretty clear. They needed to get rid of this 'presence' in the system, but they knew that excising the operating system would set the whole project back by months. The shadows of Daystrom's epic failure lay heavily on the minds of them all, along with the hundreds of deaths that were caused as the M5-controlled USS Enterprise methodically tore apart the target ships with full-powered weapons.::

Please use this thread for any discussion or questions about this writing challenge.

"Guts and Glory" - Captain Tallis Rhul The dressing room was awash with red, logos printed in pride of place on team shirts. The noise of the crowd reached through into the dressing room by every avenue possible; under doors, through air vents, even clawing its way through brickwork. Faint as it was now, the whole team knew that what they were about to face was a torrent of sound that would wash over them, and bear them up to the lofty heights that represented the stakes under which this game would be played. In contrast, the team themselves were silent, sitting on benches beneath their lockers, eyes focused on the coach as he stood before them, ready to make his last speech before they put everything on the line. “Guts and glory.” He started with a familiar moniker, one that he had repeated many times in similar situations. “That is what I want every single one of you to believe. Now more than ever. Never before has this team come so far. Never before have we shown those people out there that we are the force that everyone should be worrying about in this competition.” He pointed vehemently in the direction of the changing room door to emphasise his point. “Never before have we been this close to taking it all. And we can take it all. We can be the best. We can work together to achieve what has not yet been achieved in this team’s history.” He closed his eyes for a moment. The sudden break in the regular cadence of the motivational speech drew those assembled in all the more. When he opened them again, his voice retained its authoritative quality, but it was calmer, his approach more logical. “If you’re defending, I want you tight to the goal. Work the zones that we’ve practised in training. If you do that, and cover each other’s backs then we can shut the other team out. We’re counting on you to repeat the excellent performance we saw last game.” He shifted his gaze to another part of the room. “When we attack, we are merciless. Full speed. Play wide where you can and then cut into the middle. If you run the touch line, that gives you one side where you can’t pick up a marker, and when it comes down to making a move, when it comes down to out and out skill, we’ll edge them every time. You all know what to do.” Taking a deep breath, he bellowed the rallying call. “Are you with me!?” The team roared back. Checking their kit, they stood, a nod from the coach sending them in motion towards the field of play. “Herrera.” Hearing his name, the player in question halted in his stride, his eyes locking with those of his trainer and mentor, awaiting his final instructions. “You played well last game. You were unselfish. You set up others when you thought they had a better chance to score than you did, but what I liked best was that you weren’t afraid to worry their defence. Keep getting yourself into attacking positions. Keep hassling them. I’m counting on you.” Clapping him on the arm, the coach smiled and led the way through the door and into the match day atmosphere. Saturday November 17th, 2114 It was breathtaking. Humberto Herrera’s team’s stadium, El Sardinero, was packed to the rafters. Half of it was painted in the bright red of his team, the other in the white of the opposition. Cutting through the noise came the most uplifting sound. It was the same anthem he had heard sung on the terraces from the first day he had put on a team shirt to play a game of soccer. The Santander Saracens were a proud team with a history dating back over two hundred years to the foundation of one of their contributor clubs, Racing Santander. Within the last decade, that team had amalgamated with its former rival, the much younger Esportivo de Santander in preparation for the most anticipated event that the sport would ever see: the formation of the World League. Today was a landmark in itself. This was the final match for the last ever Copa del Rey, the most competitive tournament in Spanish soccer, but more importantly a chance for one of the teams to take home the prestigious trophy to keep. Humberto crossed himself in the usual ritual before he stepped onto the field, swearing to himself as he assumed his position on the centre spot that he would be wearing a winner’s medal before the day was out. In a moment, the coin toss and decision over who would kick off were over. The opening whistle blew, stirring up a well of emotion that threatened to overwhelm Humberto. As Valencia’s captain passed the ball back to one of his midfielders, the game began to fall into a tempo that beat as a human heart. Battle lines were drawn early on; leaping to head the ball after a well-placed cross from one of his wingers, Humberto felt a sharp tug on his shirt that fatally altered his trajectory, sending him crashing to the floor. Blood pumping in his ears and outrage radiating from him like flame, he entered into an angry exchange with the guilty defender before the referee weighed in with a warning for both players. The clock rolled inexorably towards 45 minutes. It seemed that both teams were deadlocked, neither one able to get the upper hand, until a white-clad attacker pierced their midfield and hurtled towards the centre of their defence. Humberto watched in disbelief as one of their most reliable men missed his footing and stumbled in an embarrassing mistake that led to the ball flying past their goalkeeper at impossible speed, the net bulging with the impact of the projectile. Half of the stadium fell silent. The other half exploded. Shaking his head at the injustice, Humberto covered the distance between himself and the fallen defender in a heartbeat, helping him to his feet and offering ineffective words of consolation. Within moments, the whistle blew for the end of the first half. Stardate 238511.17 The crowd was packed with colour. It seemed that each of the 16 teams represented in the play-offs of the Corellia Prime Parrises Squares tournament had a score of representatives in attendance. The entire court was bathed in the subtle glow of a court-sized holo-imager that stood ready to transmit the game in real time to countless other worlds. It was the pinnacle of Diego’s sporting career; playing in the red of the San Francisco Sentries was a fortuitous honour made possible by his coach back at Starfleet Academy, and so far he had been making a positive impression. The din of the crowd was drowned out by the sound of Corellian rave music as the officials made their way to the side of the court. On this world, a match of Squares was always a special occasion. The game had been born here, and it was one of their main tourist attractions. Teams from across the entirety of the Alpha and Beta quadrants coveted the Corellian trophy like no other. Winning it even once earned bragging rights for at least a decade. Looking towards one of the holo-recorders, Diego mouthed a get well soon message to the injured member of the team he had been selected to stand in for before entering a huddle with his three team-mates. All of them were raring to go, still aflame from their coach’s words, and riding on a heady rush of success from their opening game. With three goals under his belt already in the competition, Diego had his sights set on doubling his overall tally before the final klaxon sounded. It was a tall order, but he knew he could do it. The order to power up their ion mallets signalled the beginning of the match. The court, divided into squares of uneven heights, instantly became a battleground as the two teams fought to find a strong tactical formation before the ball entered the match. Even in the opening few seconds Diego realised that the court’s current configuration would have them running up and down the stepped platforms relentlessly, testing the physical limits of all involved. The second the ball was tossed onto the court, the first opposing attack began, quickly halted by the defenders and turned into a counteroffensive. Diego began to scramble up onto one of the highest squares to receive the pass, and was met with a sharp elbow in the face along the way, knocking him off his feet. Blood pumping in his ears, he sat up; physical contact in any form was legal, so he would bide his time to get revenge later on. The end of the first quarter came and went, launching them into the second. Diego had almost set up a goal for his wingman, drawing both defending players before laying the ball off into space near the far touchline. Unopposed, his team mate had driven the ball like a lightning bolt, although it climbed too high and sailed over the top of the raised goal mouth. Plays continued back and forth at an impressive rate, neither side seeming to tire, and neither one willing to lose momentum. It was just seconds before the klaxon for the end of the second quarter that the white-clad Corellian team made their move. In response to one of the defenders losing their footing on the edge of one of the platforms, their lead attacker showed unparalleled skill as he somersaulted from a high square to one of the lowest, keeping control of the ball with his mallet before launching it high into the air to just tip through the rim of the San Franciscan goal hoop. The crowd, and Diego’s team, were stunned. “They were lucky.” The coach was unflustered, his cool head the product of years of training and professional experience. “If we get even one break like that, we’ll nail them to the wall. Our defence was impenetrable up until that point, and we’re looking threatening in attack. Keep at them. Grind them down. Guts and glory! I know that each of you is going to do your best out there because you are proud to have your name displayed on the back of your shirt, in the colours of the team you love. Show your opposition that pride. Show them how badly you want this. Show them why you’re made to be champions!” Saturday November 17th, 2114 The team re-entered the match determined to thrash out a victory. Humberto’s face was set. This time, it was their turn to start the play, which they did with an audacious display of skill, threading the ball through in unpredictable moves that gained them ground. The Valencian players rose to the challenge, chasing them down at every turn, until growing frustrations on their part saw Humberto tripped as he attempted to loop the ball into a dangerous position. Spluttering at the earthy taste of soil as he regained his feet, he realised it was the same defender as before. Checking his anger this time, he allowed himself a smile as the referee once more made his presence known by raising a yellow card. Any more dangerous challenges, and Valencia would be losing a player. Hope turned to frustration, then desperation as the deadlock continued. All hopes of taking the lead were replaced by a longing for just one goal, enough to extend the competition. Humberto was beginning to feel lactic acid building in his leaden legs; finding himself useful positions was consuming more and more energy. And then it happened. A chance! Clever play by one of the midfielders sent an opposing defender the wrong way, leaving a yawning gap through which Humberto sprinted at full tilt, his limbs screaming for him to ease up. Ignoring their desperate pleas, he ploughed ahead, chasing the ball, possessed in his attempt to reach it before the goalkeeper could heft it down the field. His competitor was clearly experienced and had anticipated the danger and started his run early, but Humberto knew he was quicker. Throwing his weight behind his striking foot, he aimed for the far corner of the goal, striking with as much venom as he could muster, aiming to lift the ball over the goalkeeper who was now sliding in along the ground… Jubliation was replaced with agony as he connected with something solid. He didn’t feel the break so much as hear it, and the world became a blur of lights, noise and searing pain as the red shirt crumpled to the ground. He realised in a moment of terror that this would be no ordinary injury, and as medics clad in bright orange vests flooded the area, he wondered whether this would be his last game. Slowly and delicately, he was loaded onto a stretcher before being taken to the treatment room; deprived of the noise of the crowd he had no idea what the fate of his team was to be. In all likelihood, Valencia would be the ones taking home the priceless treasure. However, to his surprise, Humberto knew that his was not the end of his journey. His eldest son had already laced up his boots for his first school game and the name Herrera would continue to be associated with sports for a very long time to come. Stardate 238511.17 When play restarted, Diego knew that he would have to double his workrate. The team followed suit. They leapt between the platforms running rings around the Corellians, who struggled to keep up. But keep up they did, and the score remained unchanged. For every inventive play, they came up with an inventive defensive strategy, barging attackers out of key positions to intercept passes and threatening to score on the counter-attack. Finally, signs of Corellian frustration began to show as Diego’s opposite number once again targeted him for a block. This time, he put his entire bodyweight behind a shoulder check, running at full tilt to hit Diego hard and send him sprawling out of bounds of the court. Dusting himself off, the hardy Spaniard waved away a concerned medic; the impact had been painful, and he was sure he would have some bruises the next day, but that wasn’t going to keep him out of the competition. It would take something much more serious. Hope turned to frustration, then desperation as the deadlock continued. All hopes of taking the lead were replaced by a longing for just one goal, enough to extend the competition. Diego was beginning to feel lactic acid building in his leaden legs; finding himself useful positions was consuming more and more energy. And then it happened. A chance! Focused on the ball, one of the Corellian attackers was in the perfect position to be blindsided. Returning the earlier gesture of an elbow to the face, Diego slipped away from his marker and barged the unsuspecting Corellian off his square. Intercepting the ball, he spun on the spot, and saw the defender that he had floored quickly regaining his feet. His only option was to thread together some difficult leaps across squares of the same height, approaching the goal from an unexpected angle. One… two… three successful jumps completed and only one more stood between him and his objective. Flicking the ball up into the air with his mallet, he drew back his right arm, ready to strike with all his might mid-jump… Jubilation was replaced with agony as he caught the edge of the platform and mistimed his jump. Dropping like a stone, he felt his shoulder blade connect hard with the edge of the platform below; a sickening crack and a wave of pain and nausea followed as the red shirt collapsed in an ungainly heap. Play stopped as the medical technicians rushed the pitch, each carrying a silver-boxed medical kit, to diagnose and treat his injury as quickly as possible. Diego’s own medical training told him that his injury was most likely not serious in the long term, but he would have to leave the field for treatment if they were going to fix it properly. With a heavy heart and giddy from the large dose of painkillers that was administered with the hiss of a hypospray, he followed the medics to the treatment room. Deprived of the roar of the crowd, he was left oblivious as to how the game would end. It seemed inevitable that his team would lose, knocked out of the tournament and denied a chance to earn that priceless treasure. Still, Diego felt vindicated. He had competed in another professional game of Parrises Squares, and he knew he couldn’t be faulted for his effort. The smell of sweat sat hung heavily in the air, mixed with the fruit-infused tang of the team’s recovery drinks. On the end of the row sat Herrera, patched up as well as he could be, victorious if only in having insisted that the medical team allow him to hear his coach’s post-match debrief. “You gave it everything. You worked hard. I could not be more proud of the team that sits here before me today. Luck is something you can never plan for, and I stand here safe in the knowledge that when the time comes for me to address the public I can tell them that it was one moment of bad luck that kept us from carrying home the trophy, and nothing more. This is far from the end. Next year, we set our sights on a new league, and a new challenge. By taking part in the competition, our name is already included in the history books. It’s up to us now to make what we can of that, and to look to the future. Guts and glory. Onwards and upwards.” Captain Tallis Rhul Helmsman Federation Embassy Duronis II 　 　 　

The cool, fresh air was rejuvenating, but it carried with it the perception that he was no longer alone. The fine wires danced between the engineer’s fingers, twisting themselves like dancers into a wire nut. Benjamin Livingston wiped the sweat from his brow and peered down the Jefferies tube ladder, where a crewman stepped into the cramped area and proceeded down to another level, away toward some other miniature catastrophe. Ben was having trouble enough solving his own disaster. The sooner they got this controller repaired, the sooner they’d be back on their way. The sound of receding footsteps faded. Carefully replacing the repaired connection, Ben closed up the panel. Taking a step down the ladder, he activated the flow controller. Lights sprang into being, and Ben beamed with satisfaction, a reflection of the lively display panel. He recorded the completion of the work, then hastily climbed back to the tube entrance. A crewman waited for him. “We’re all set to get the engine back online,” stated the crewman. Ben nodded in agreement. A team stood by, waiting and watching, as matter and antimatter streamed once more toward one another. The reaction: exajoules of energy; an engineering staff relieved. After sustaining so much damage, the question was thus: repair the engine, or float in the middle of the black abyss until some other Federation ship could be sent for them. And no engineer was about to just sit tight. Pride, and duty, demanded it. An indicator change to show they had moved to warp, but none of them needed those, anymore. For his part, Ben could tell by the feel of the deck plating when he stood by the engine. The vibration was different, somehow, when they were headed forward. Some kind of a communal excitement, shared by ship and crew, coursed through the steel. ----- The floor tipped in what had become an accepted, even anticipated, shift. Somewhere, a bottle rolled from one side of the small room to the other. Canvas covered the workbench in a systematic, gently folded mass. Aging, knobby fingers ran themselves back and forth over the sheet, scanning it for defects. As they came upon a tear, their master lifted the canvas, delicately inspecting it. Behind Arthur Livingston, a hatch creaked open; boots stumbled down the ladder. With the utmost care, the man forced a needle through, and looped it around, stitching together the two sides of the rift. As he worked, the room around him continued to creak; swells took the wooden room this way, then that. Working patiently, ever cognizant of the prize he purchased by his labor and focus, the needle was passed through the canvas. It has been foolhardiness that had ruined it; pushing a thing past its limits happened all too often aboard the vessel. And now, here he was, again. The needle passed through the cloth a final time before being tied off. Nodding, Arthur called up to his companions. The men took it and disappeared up the ladder. Arthur followed them up and into the bright light. Shielding his eyes from the noon sun, wind ripped past him; the sound of a flapping flag filled the air. The sailmaker made his way to his favorite location, the forecastle, as the repaired sail was hoisted; he watched in anticipation. The rip had been small, but in a critical location. If it held, they’d get home days sooner. ----- Beside Ben, a Tellarite engineer looked up at him. “It really is remarkable, isn’t it?” he asked. The pair had worked together with greater frequency of late. Ben smiled. “I just can’t believe it’s possible. Hundreds of us, all the way out here, and this beauty to get us where we need to go.” The crewman nodded in agreement. “My father and grandfather worked on starships. Nothing like this, mind, but it got me thinking. And here I am. They could never have dreamed of this, though.” The engine hummed; a “well-oiled machine” might have been a good description for it three-hundred years before, but the technology that went into this ship was of a different class altogether. The sound, at first loud, was now settling into the silence; it was the new calm, the sound that should always be there when the ship was headed somewhere. “My father never left Earth,” Ben commented in reply. “He was content there. I don’t think any of my family were particularly adventurous. Actually, I didn’t know I was, until I joined Starfleet. We were just never a ship family, I suppose.” “That’s alright; it’s got to start somewhere. Maybe your kids will be?” “Yeah,” said Ben. “Maybe they will. I hope so.” ----- Arthur’s grim countenance gazed on his work. It had held; they were well on their way back to port. Not a moment too soon, for his taste. The salt breeze that had long tasted of adventure and discovery had turned bitter for him. Certainly, for the first few voyages, it had seemed a blessing to stand at the forecastle looking out at what was to come. The loneliness had come later; now, Arthur had a wife he longed to see. He longed to see her beautiful hair most of all. Fine, colorful, smooth; it was everything that the sail thread was not. Then there was little Stephen. The boy’s full embrace would be waiting for him; months of pent up affection finally released. Yes, Arthur had to get home. Turning around, he looked off the ship’s bow. It was only a few hundred miles to go. A glass bottle rolled up against his foot. How it had arrived so far forward was a mystery, but its former contents was no puzzle. Rum. Always grog with their earnings, and it wasn’t thrown in as rations like the British Navy did it. It was as though his shipmates wanted to stay aboard forever, the way they drank or gambled their wages. Not Arthur Livingston. No, thank you. If Arthur had anything to say about it, he’d work the ships all his days, if it meant Stephen wouldn’t have to do it. Let the boy get some schooling, then. One life was a fair price to pay, one man’s years squandered away in the blue abyss, to buy his family’s freedom from it. He would pay that price, that no Livingston would need step aboard a ship again. ----- Ensign Ben Livingston Assistant Chief Engineer Starbase 118

Tokyo Airfield, Japan, Stardate 238912.29 The cold night air made the slim Starfleet Captain pull the old Russian military jacket closer as she left the shelter of the empty pilot's lounge and made her way out onto the tarmac. The runway lit up the darkness in the distance, but only the moon above offered light by which she made her way out to the sleeping beast that sat waiting. The barely used airport, a remnant of a time long before transporters and shuttlecraft, was desolate and silent. But for the raven haired command officer, nowhere else in the world felt so much like home. Ahead, only the hard edges of the metallic creature shone in the paleness of the moonlight, reminding her of many nights when she was a child. The simple trek from the building to the exposed tarmac where the plane sat was one she'd made many times as a child, always with one hand gripping her helmet, and the other pulling excitedly on her grandfather's much larger hands. In the silence, she could almost hear his deep laugh on the tendrils of winter wind that whipped around her as she pulled her fur-lined hood down and replaced it with a helmet eerily reminiscent of days long gone. In the darkness, she walked up to the sleeping beast as if intimately acquainted with it and, without sight, pulled off one glove and reached out a hand to touch the tip of the wing. Beneath her bare fingers, the metal was ice cold and quiet. None of the telltale vibrations moved through it as they did when the beast was brought to life. For now, it slept, silent, but it wasn't always that way... Somewhere Over the Persian Gulf, March 20th, 2003, 03:24 UTC (10:24 PM EST) It was still early in the morning, local time, but he'd already been awake for well over three hours. With orders that had been pending, John was just one of the many pilots that would be leaving the Abraham Lincoln aboard their steel birds on a mission that would change history that day. The President of the United States had given an ultimatum to the leader of the oil rich nation, an ultimatum that gave only 48 hours for the man and his sons to leave the country, or face war. That 48 hours came, and passed, without word from the tyrant that it had been destined for. And so, about an hour after the deadline was gone, John found himself in the air with his brothers, in a tight formation heading straight into the teeth of the middle eastern monster. The morning had been unlike any other, and as they throttled towards the landmass in their state of the art F/A-18F SuperHornet fighters, they each had a chance to run through the briefings and their own thoughts in their minds over and over again. As for the cogitation in his mind, he found himself looking at the small picture of his newborn child that he kept in the [...]pit. She was the future and his entire reason for doing what he did. A small smile appeared on his face as he looked up at the HUD and saw the edge of the sand fast approaching. It was only then that the words of their commander and the orders given at the briefing came to mind. Seconds later, his radio burst to life. They were here and it was time to rain hellfire down on the nation that defied the world. For freedom, for life, and for the safety of his and many other children like her around the world. Giving her one more glance, he switched his mind into 'go' mode and followed his team lead in a banking maneuver that would take his group to their specified targets. Pensacola Naval Air Station, Florida, July 10th, 2025 The world was quickly descending into chaos. Following the little known battles fought on the frontiers of science over genetics and the very soul of human beings, governments from nations around the world were taking stands on various belief platforms and arguing over questions that would have no clean answers. It was those questions, and the lack of flexibility in belief sets, that would ultimately lead the world into chaos. Indeed, it was a fight that would come to a head only a year later, but even then, in 2025, the man in the flight suit could see it coming. Making his way out to the tarmac, and looking at the jet that sat there waiting for him, he wondered what it had been like to live even twenty years prior. Was the world a different place then? What about twenty years before that? Was there ever a time when the threat of war didn't loom over them all? Pulling the helmet over his head and climbing up the ladder of the jet, he finally answered his own questions; perhaps not. If the war machine he was climbing into now was any indication, then the threat of war had always been present. The only difference was that now the battle had been taken to a global scale. It was no longer black against white, or nation against nation. The lines had been drawn in the figurative sand and labels had become ambiguous. Where once it had been simple to see the uniform and identify which side a person was on, this new battle would be waged where there was no clarity. It was human against human, with the reasoning lost somewhere within the indeterminate ideals of the flawed, human mind. But what could be done? Ultimately, humans would always be humans. As the jet powered up around him, he thought of the days long past when this machine struck fear into the hearts of its enemies. Now it was bound for someone's private hangar. Time marched on, and the tools changed, but it would always be the same. Fear would always be used against humanity and war would always loom; it was just the face of that war that changed. What once was a weapon that would cause death by the hundreds became what caused death by the thousands. Thousands became millions, and now, as humanity gained a solid foothold in science and learned how to split atoms at their core, millions became the whole [...] world. Throttling into the air, he couldn't think about it any longer. With a global community armed with nukes, the next war would be the last war. The next war would be the end of it all. With the knowledge he had, though being reduced to a transfer pilot for old, retired aircraft, he was well aware that the next war, ever looming on the horizon, would bring humanity to its very knees. And yet, no matter how horrible the picture warned society, it would come. Severomorsk, Former Russian Republic, November 9th, 2155 The dust still covered the box, and the paperwork within, that represented the greatest birthday present that the young Alexi could ever remember getting. He had just turned twenty-one and had graduated from flight school just a month before. One hundred twenty nine years after the horrific war that had wiped out entire countries and entire generations, things certainly looked different than they had when this paperwork had been signed. But the fact that it had survived changed his life. Having a mild obsession with anything that flew for as long as he could remember, Alexi had a special place in his heart for the ancient flying machines of Earth before the war tore the planet apart. Now, he actually found himself owning one. It had been a surprising turn of events that had led him to the knowledge of the jet fighter that had almost been lost to time. An old box somehow made its way into the hands of a family friend, whose family had lived near the Polyarny District since before the third world war. The box had been kept safe, far from the chaos that raged in more 'civilized' places in the world. Now that there was peace, it was time that it was remembered. And remembered it was; as if fate had destined for this moment to come, the box was discovered in a wall during the renovation of the oldest part of the house. Quickly, the box was opened as if treasure lay within, but the treasure was something no one ever quite expected. Inside, a few sheets of old, browned paper that was falling apart was all that was found. Carefully, they were unfolded and a name appeared. Salvatore Nicholotti. Now, as Alexi Nicholotti, the descendant of the man who had come to the frigid north to escape the chaos and the war, ran through the snow towards the dilapidated building that was supposed to house the great machine, he found himself thanking both the past and fate for bringing this into his hands. Still unbelieving, he couldn't wait to actually see if what was on the paper was reality, so when he got to the door and found it rusted closed, he began to throw himself against it until it began to move. Again and again, with his adrenaline pumping and keeping him far warmer than should have been possible, Alexi put everything he had into breaking down the door. Then finally it came clambering down, with Alexi on top of it, kicking up a ton of dust in its wake. Immediately he broke into a rather nasty fit of coughing, which ultimately caused tears to form in his eyes, but his excitement was too great for him to stop and recover. Still coughing, and waving the dust from the air directly in front of him, the man stepped further into the hangar. To his dismay, light was streaming in through the roof, having partially collapsed. It rested on the vertical stabilizers of a dark grey plane just like those he had read about in history class. The light filtered through the dust, which began to settle, and soon he could see the outline of the beast. A huge grin appeared on his face and he was unable to stop himself from moving forwards. It was, even with the damage done to the aft end of it, the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. He'd have to have it restored, but it would be worth everything he put into it. Even now, covered with a thick layer of dust and missing parts that had deteriorated over the years, Alexi couldn't help the childish excitement from welling up inside. How many of these existed in the world was anyone's guess, but he figured it couldn't be many. Now, one of them was his. Walking up to it, he pulled a glove from his hand and ran his fingers along the cold, dust covered metal. Making his way to where the [...]pit was, he took his index finger and wrote his name as high as he could reach in the dust under the front seat, just below the name of the last known pilot, Salvatore. Later, that name would become permanent, but for now, this was enough. Star City, Moscow, Former Russian Republic, October 21st, 2308 Like his grandfather, who had gotten the gift of his lifetime on his birthday, Mikhail Nicholotti would also be getting the gift of his lifetime on his special day. Though he was only ten, when his grandfather was twenty one, the plane remained the same. Sitting in a place of pride within the hangar in Star City, where the cosmonauts of old used to train, the American fighter had been restored and brought completely back to its former state of glory. It was always with pride that Alexi brought his grandson with him to see the amazing machine, but today it was going to be different. Today, Mikhail would become just as addicted to the freedom of flight as his grandfather was. For now, the young Mikhail knew nothing of what was to come. With one hand gripping the gloved hand of his grandfather, he followed the path they often took to the hangar, and deserted airfield, to where the pride of the family was housed. Many hours were spent in that hangar, playing with old altimeters, radios from a time before subspace communication, and toys from another era in time. As most days, the young boy found himself planning a mission to take, never realizing what was coming would change his life forever. Before they realized it, the pair reached the hangar and stepped inside. There, where it was warm, the elder man removed their jackets and gloves and hung them near a small office in the back. Taking his grandson's hand, he led him to the back where he presented a small flight suit. It was with a joyous response that the boy took it and donned it, never realizing that today he would not be flying on the ground. But, ready to fly from his [...]pit in the corner of the room, it wasn't until Alexi took him and led him up the ladder, strapping him into the rear seat of the plane, that things finally started to click in his little mind. And that was all it took for Mikhail Nicholotti Sr. to be completely hooked on the magic of flight. The years that followed were filled with hours spent between home and the hangar. As the boy grew into a man, the plane was passed from grandfather to grandson, who maintained her in pristine condition and never lost the love for flight. He grew, joined the Starfleet Marines, went off to war, and returned, but never lost the passion for the ancient machine that sat in the darkness of the beloved hangar. He grew up, and had a son of his own, living proof that you were never too old for adrenaline, but it was a lesson that his son never followed. No, it wasn't until that son grew and had children of his own that Mikhail found a channel for his passion, and a home for his beloved plane. Starfleet Medical Asia Region Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan, Stardate 236012.29 The early hours of the morning were slipping away as Mikhail Junior and Senior sat silently looking down into the eyes of the newborn child. Unlike some children, namely her older brother who was at home sleeping, this child didn't cry. Instead, her blue-grey eyes searched the world around her inquisitively in a way that left the men to look on with amazement of their own. A few feet away, her mother slept, after a difficult morning of labor, as everything else around them lay still. And for a time, everything seemed right with the world. Grasping the older man's finger with a seemingly otherworldly grip, the child met his eyes with her own and a connection was made. The elder Mikhail smiled down knowingly as the younger one looked on with already growing disapproval. "You are not even thinking of teaching her to fly that deathtrap," he glared at the older man as he spoke. In response, the older man just smirked and mumbled in the heavy Russian accent. "Oh no, of course not." But they both knew it was hopeless from that moment on. Tokyo Airfield, Japan, Stardate 238912.29 It's been thirty years since my grandfather first knew that I would follow him into the sky. It's been seven years since he left me. I miss him daily, but I know that he's up there. The sky is where I first learned of the concept of freedom, and of the endless nature of what 'out there' really was. Tonight, I plan to find him up there too. Alone, I will spend my thirtieth birthday with the man who changed everything. He made me, molded me into what I am today. His morality, and stern reactions to when I made bad choices, and his willingness to lead by example showed me this path that had led me to Captaincy. I can't help but look out and up, into the dark night sky, as I run my fingers knowingly across the slightly raised paint where the names of the pilots of this plane rest in immortal glory. Though it is dark, I already know what they say. John 'Boomer' Alexander Salvatore 'Flipside' Nicholotti Alexi 'Screecher' Nicholotti Mikhail 'Hawk' Nicholotti Kalianna 'Viper' Nicholotti And perhaps one day, I will be able to add one more. But for now, it's time to go. For now, I have a date with the speed of sound and the empty airspace over Tokyo. -- Captain Kalianna Arashi Nicholotti Commanding Officer Starbase 118/USS Victory

Welcome to November, everyone, and with its coming I'm pleased to bring you the results of our only two-month contest this season! The winner of the Challenge for September and October is Sinda Essen, with his story "Love is a Battlefield." We have two runners-up this month (I need scarcely say that judging was extremely difficult!): Tallis Rhul, with his story "The Perfect Moment," and Ben Livingston, with his story "One Last Dance." I would like to underscore that we had a large number of entrants and six contest judges, and it was still very difficult to come to a consensus. Thank you to everyone who participated for continuing to submit your best work! My special thanks to my fellow judges for this round -- Fleet Captain Toni Turner, Captain Kali Nicholotti, Commander Karynn Brice, Lieutenant Commander Velana, and Lieutenant Commander Arden Cain.

Welcome back, my friends, to another Writing Challenge! This regular Challenge follows our special events in July and August, so if you placed yourself in the mindset of the monthlong affair, be sure to read this extra carefully for a restatement of the regular rules. Kristen, the writer behind Velana and the winner of the August round, has selected this Challenge's topic, "Isn't it Romantic?" How will you interpret the theme? Perhaps you read it literally? Ironically? Humorously? Whatever your take, I look forward to reading your entry! To participate in the challenge, please create a new thread. From the "Topic Prefix" selection list, choose "Sep/Oct" -- don't forget to do this, because without it your story won't be considered for this round! You may denote your story as a "Work in Progress," but please do so at the beginning of the story (not in the thread topic), and remember to finish it before the deadline, as any story noted as a work in progress will not be considered. As always, please remember: *Your work must be completely original. *You must be the sole author of the work. *Your story must take place in the Star Trek universe, but may not center upon canon characters. *Sign your final draft as you would a post on your ship. *Your story must be between 300 and 3000 words. As of today, Tuesday, September 4th, this Challenge is open! The very last day to enter is Friday, October 26th, so get in your entry before then! For any questions you might have, remember that you can always visit the Writing Challenge website. Good luck!

Stanley Brown smiled as he graciously accepted the second prize rosette for his three dimensional holographic model of a hypothetical tricyclic warp drive assembly complete with a revolutionary energised dilithium articulation frame. The model had taken many hours of painstaking programming and days of research, tests and simulations. Stan felt he’d got it for sure this time when he had set everything up. But, no, Varin had sauntered in late as usual and casually unveiled his quadracyclic warp drive. Stan’s heart had dropped into his boots. The first prize, of course, went to Varin. An hour later, after everyone else had packed up and gone, Stan was still sulking around the library atrium. This had been his life for the last two and a half years since coming to the Academy in San Francisco. Stan was consistently second in all his subjects and projects, pipped to the post every time by Varin. The hybrid had beaten him in physics, biology, maths, stellar cartography, astrogation. You name it. Stan had tried on a number of occasions to reassert his authority, but his challenge to a game of 3D chess had ended in defeat, as had the holodeck Borg simulation - Stan had ended up assimilated while Varin saved the ship. But there was yet one challenge they had not visited. Stan had dismissed it in the past as being too tough. In fact the very thought of it made his palms sweat. But he couldn’t remain second best forever, something needed to be done. And at least in this arena they would be equally handicapped. Rubbing his hands absently on his trousers, Stan set off in search of his nemesis. * * * “So the neutron walked into a bar and asked, "How much for a drink?" The bartender replied, "For you, no charge".“ Varin smiled as he finished the joke. Around him the small audience broke into sycophantic laughs. They were all, Stan noticed, male members of the debating society. He stepped closer and called out. “Varin.” “Ah, Mr Brown! So sorry about your project. Three cylinders wasn’t it? It looked like you worked hard on it, too.” “Save it Varin, I have a new challenge.” “Oh Stanley, really?” Varin sighed as he ran a hand through his white hair. The overhead lights gave his blue-tinged skin a faint cerulean glow. “What this time? More chess?” “No, Varin, this time it’s a real challenge, equal footing. A chance to pit all our intellectual skills in new ways.” He flashed a smile. “You wouldn’t back down from that, would you?” “Back down? From you? I’ve beaten you all through the first year, all through the second year and I’ll beat you through this one, too, Stan. Go on, throw down your gauntlet and let’s get this over with.” “Very well.” Stan took a deep breath. Even saying the words was an effort. “Before the end of this term you must have a girlfriend. And I mean a proper one, with regular dates and everything. Whoever achieves the goal first, wins.” Varin jumped up from his seat instantly. Although at only five feet tall he was rather lost among his cohorts. “A girlfriend? By the end of term? That’s… impossible. Can’t be done.” “Oh?” It was Stan’s turn to sound mocking. “So you refuse the challenge?” “I didn’t say that!” Varin replied hastily. “I accept. We shall begin tomorrow at dawn, agreed?” Stan nodded. “Agreed.” * * * Stan gulped down half a glass of iced water in one go and winced as his teeth froze. The evening was not going well and they’d not even finished the starters yet. His date for tonight was Gloria Fairfield, a first year astrophysicist and daughter of one of the lecturers. Quite a catch, or she would have been if he hadn’t transported to the wrong halls of residence and turned up to meet her forty-five minutes late, thereby missing their reservation at the Presidente in Mexico City and winding up in some little side street bistro in the Portales de los Mercaderes. The situation, however, was not unsalvageable. The bistro had a certain historic charm, the evening was warm and pleasant with a full moon ripe in the sky. Stan had managed to catch Gloria’s eye with what he hoped was an alluring look. He’d even reached tentatively across the table to take her hand, which was when he’d knocked the carafe of sangria into her lap. Things had been rather uncomfortable since then. Stan sighed as he crunched on an ice cube. His date sat opposite him with her arms folded, staring towards the moon, clearly wishing she was in Tycho City rather than Mexico City. Stan was familiar with the look. Over the past month he’d seen several variations of it on the faces of Tiffany Strange (red-haired medical student, secretly into dressing as a vampire on the holodeck every other weekend, although it turned out this wasn’t something to mention in front of all her course mates), Karol Dearnes (half-Deltan computer whiz, highly allergic to kava nut soup and not at all fond of having her stomach pumped), T’lorra (Vulcan athlete, captain of the fencing team. Interested in; social experiments with otherwise undesirable male students. Not interested in; second dates). And, of course, Elizabeth de Grey (a post graduate, junior lecturer in planetary sciences, generally regarded as one of the most intellectually-gifted students to have passed through the academy in recent years. Keen on trying alien foods, not keen on cleaning vomit out of her hair when her date discovers that live gagh is too much for him after an aperitif of bloodwine). The rest of the evening passed in a bearable fashion - the food was good, the conversation just about polite. Gloria declined the offer of dessert, coffee and, unsurprisingly, a shared transport back her place. Returning home alone once again, Stan ran a tired hand through his hair. Perhaps, he thought, this hadn’t been such a good idea after all. As he removed his shoes a beep from his console alerted him to an incoming message. He reached over and gave it a tap. “Stanley Brown here.” The azure features of Varin appeared on the screen. He was grinning. “Ah, Stanley. I thought I’d give you a quick buzz, see how your date went this evening. Professor Fairfield‘s daughter, wasn’t it?” “It went fine. I mean well, it went well. Very well in fact.” “Oh good to hear. It must have been quite a short date though if you’re back already.” Stan muttered something about time zones and Varin cupped a hand to his ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t quite catch that, Stanley. Anyway, I’ll not keep you, I have Lizzie de Grey here waiting to play a game of Kal-toh. We’ve had quite an evening together already. In fact, it’s been so much fun we’re going to do the same again this weekend.” Varin paused and turned his smug smirk up a few extra notches. “Didn’t she go for a meal with you last week? I think she mentioned something about washing her hair. Anyway, goodbye for now!” Stan sat in silence for some time, a black shoe still clutched in one hand. Varin had a second date? With Elizabeth de Grey of all people? Then the competition was all but over, Stan had lost yet again and this time there would be no coming back. * * * “Oh, it’s you.” Tiffany Strange pulled her purple velvet cloak around her a little more tightly as she looked Stan up and down. “What are you doing here?” Stanley felt a little foolish in his Gothic ensemble. The cravat had taken ages to tie properly and the fake fangs gave him a slight lisp. Still, Tiffany had seemed the most promising, and least unsuccessful, of all his dates so far as he was running out of time. “I thought I’d come along and find out more about your hobby. You made it sound so interesting before.” It wasn't entirely untrue. “Yeah? When was that, Stan? Was it before or after my friends stopped laughing at me.” The look she gave him was full of venom. “Besides, I’ve already heard about your competition with Varin, he told me all about it when he asked me out.” “He asked you out, too?” Stan groaned. “Well, I, er… sorry?” “Don’t bother. The idiot never turned up for our date, too busy with that de Grey girl.” “Oh, so they are going out then?” Stan felt the overwhelming sense of loss wash over him and sat down dejectedly in one of the leather armchairs. “He wins again, I guess.” “Going out? You’d not heard?” “What?” “Varin and Elizabeth are on their way to Risa.” “Risa?!” Stan’s mouth dropped open. So not only had Varin won the bet but he was also on his way to paradise with the most sort after bit of thinking man’s crumpet in the entire Academy. There was no doubt that Varin would be even more insufferable when they returned. Stan frowned as a sudden thought struck him. “Wait, how could they have gone to Risa? End of term exams start next week, Varin’s not going to risk missing any revision time." “You’ve really missed all the gossip haven’t you, Stan?" They’ve left the Academy, both of them. Dropped out. They’re on their way to Risa to get married.” A faraway look crept into Tiffany's eyes, behind the heavy make-up, and she clasped her hands together. “Putting love before their Starfleet careers, isn’t that the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard?” “Yes.“ Stan’s eyes lit up. “Yes it is romantic. So very romantic.” Realisation was dawning. He may have lost the battle, but he had very definitely just won the war.

"Adequate" Haven III During the Gorn War It happened so fast. My blood poured onto the sand of Haven III, green and vivid and coppery, flowing from the burned stump where, seconds earlier, my hand had been. Another Gorn disrupter blast flew over my head, then another, little green beams in the twilight. My team hit the ground with the trained precision of Starfleet Marines. I fell with them, trying to spot where the deadly beams of light were coming from. "It's an ambush. Contact right, six hundred metres, four foot mobiles concealed behind dunes." As an afterthought, I added, "Medic." "SERVAN! Servan's hit, he's hit!" Her voice. Katelynn Evans. Pure Louisianan accent, now thick with panic. Illogical panic. I assessed my tactical situation; we were in a depression between two sand dunes, which made egress to either side extremely difficult. If we moved backward, we would have no cover and our attackers would enfilade us. It was easy to hit a target moving toward or away from you. A green blast struck the meagre cover shielding me from death, the sizzle of evaporated sand filling my sensitive nostrils. "Remain in a prone position!" I called over the sound of further disrupter fire, trying to staunch the bleeding with my remaining hand. My phaser was too far away to reach and impossible to operate with one hand. Preserving my lifeblood was the optimal course of action. I heard the chirp of a combadge followed by Evans's southern drawl. "Marine Captain Evans to USS Carl Sagan, request emergency transport; lock on to First Lieutenant Servan's combadge and transport him directly to sickbay!" Twin whines of fire from behind me and two crimson lances flew through the night, impacting some target I couldn't see behind cover. I heard swearing, which indicated Evans had missed. "You hang tight, you dang pointy eared [...], we're going to get you out of here. We're going to get- contact left!" Two more shots. Suddenly we were exposed from our flank, too. This was an extremely disadvantageous tactical position. "Negative on the emergency transport," came a response through Evans's combadge, difficult to hear over the sound of exchanged energy weapon fire. "Can't lower our shields." "Fine! I'll get him myself! X'xxar, gimme that coagulant charge!" My eyebrows flew up and I dared to poke my head above the tiny ridge that was keeping me alive. "Captain Evans! I request you remain in a prone position!" A shadow, familiar and Human, clad in a Starfleet uniform, ran towards me through the gloom, highlighted on both sides by lurid green flashes, like the fingers of some giant trying to catch her and squeeze the life out of her. Marine Captain Evans crashed onto the ground beside me, panting wildly, her hands grasping my uniform. "Where are you hit? Show me where you're hit!" She hadn't been hit, somehow. I felt the beginnings of the insidious tempting tendril of emotion creeping into my mind. Relief for this fact. Worry that she had exposed herself to a statistically disadvantageous course of action. Concern for her well-being. My wound was extremely painful so my ability to shield myself from the pry-bar of emotional instability was reduced. "Hand." I held up the stump. I saw her face, illuminated by the weapons exchange, a mask of horror and shock. "Okay. You can't stay here." She propped her phaser rifle against the dune, firing at distant shadows. "I'm going to carry you out so we can get that little boo-boo treated. Ready?" Taking stock of our precarious position I shook my head. "Negative. That is a tactically unsound decision. We should wait for orbital support." "There ain't no orbital support." Evans fired again. I swallowed, glancing down at the growing pool of green blood seeping into the hungry sand. "Then I must remain here. I... require you to not endanger yourself unnecessarily." She turned, staring at me, confusion painted on her face. "What? What does that even mean?" I grit my teeth, feeling another wave of pain couple with a light-headed feeling. There was a high probability my blood-loss was affecting my ability to control my emotions but I couldn't stop myself from saying what came next. "I need you to remain physically unharmed. I need... you." Feelings. Emotions, worming their way into my head. Evans stared at me in confusion. "What? I..." I reached out with my remaining hand, placing it on her shoulder. "You are..." I struggled to find the right word. "... adequate." A low, confused laugh. "My, you really know how to charm a girl." She lined up another shot, firing into the darkness. "Your timing sucks, too, by the way." "My linguistics capabilities are not relevant at this juncture, and while I may not be articulating myself at the optimum chronological and temporal placement I understand that-" Her lips pressed to mine and, suddenly, the raging combat around me disappeared. I felt like I was being transported away and, for a moment, I thought that the Carl Sagan had come through for me. But the kiss ended and the battle reappeared like a paused holoprogram. "Time to go." She threw her rifle down and, with a groan, hoisted me up. I was too weak from blood loss and shock from the surge of emotions to offer much resistance, although I wanted to. I felt my body being upended and thrown over her shoulder. Then all I could see was sand as she ran through the night, back towards our lines. My vision swam and, slowly, I felt my consciousness slip away. ***** Later... I recognised the light from sickbay before I even opened my eyes, the faint red glow around my vision being too bright to be anything else. "Wake-y wake-y," came Katelynn's voice. "You made it, big guy." I opened my eyes and, just as I predicted, found myself staring at the ceiling of the Carl Sagan's sickbay. "How long have I been unconscious?" "A few hours," she answered, "we fought off the Gorn and made our way to a cave network south of the dune sea. Finally we got a beamout. Doc' T'arr gave you one of them fancy prosthetics, and you'll be good as new in a few days." I shifted uncomfortably, raising my right arm. There, on the end of my arm, was a perfectly functional hand. I gave the fingers a controlled squeeze to test the functionality -- it was like nothing had ever happened. "This is adequate work." "There's that word again." Katelynn crouched down by my biobed, resting her chin against the side. "You remember?" I remembered. I remembered the invading feeling of emotions creeping into my normally disciplined mind. I remembered feeling weak, saying things I wouldn't -- couldn't -- normally say. I remembered liking it. I didn't say anything and Katelynn smiled weakly. "Does this mean you're going to 'request I remain in a prone position' later?" I blinked. "I do not understand." She laughed, patting my side. "Of course you don't." Her smile became strangely impish and she leaned in, her face close to mine, whispering into my ear. "I'll show you later."

“You’ve been sort of married once. What’s it like?” “You, married? Why is it I’m only hearing about this now? Spill!” Your friends had dragged you out with them to a local bar. It isn’t big or fancy; it isn’t a little dive either. But it never draws the attention of other cadets and it has yet to be graced by the presence of any teacher or Starfleet officer. So you all like it well enough, even on karaoke night, it’s your place to escape and unwind or just get [...] faced. The décor is ancient when compared to some of the newer bars and clubs in town and so much more human too. You're not against foreign cultures in the slightest, you welcome it in fact. But it’s nice to set back in a familiar place that screams home and human. Not alien and stranger. One of your friends motions for the bartender to bring some more drinks. You are not getting out of this you decide. Keisha has brought it up. Most likely because her long term on again off again fling with the Vulcan cadet, who is a class ahead of the three of you, is getting just a tad more serious. Jesse is like a dog with a bone, and the gleam in his eye is enough of a tip off for you. He is not letting this one go no matter what you try and bribe him or blackmail him with. But you try and deflect anyway. Even though you know it is as futile as trying to get a Ferengi to donate to charity. Plied with alcohol and good company you find yourself revisiting old haunts and poking at scabbed over wounds. You also realize that when you are buzzed you tend to try and wax poetically and fail at it. You start off with a name. It’s a simple name that even now means something to you. You hate yourself for the fact that it still conjures up memories of late night walks, dinner and dancing, sneaking into each other’s rooms even later. Just plain fun old times together alone or with friends. You are happy though because enough time has passed that you are no longer bitter. That you can now tell these people who are setting there hanging on to your every word about the good times. “We met in school and it wasn't love at first sight. It wasn't hate at first sight that turned into burning passion either. We were indifferent to each other; different social circles, classes and, goals. You see? We met in freshman year but didn't get to know each other until our senior year. We became friends hung out and partied together but didn't date.” “How romantic,” Jesse looks like he is getting bored but Keisha is listening with rapt attention, you still are not getting out of this. “No one ever accused Morgan of being a romantic.” You say and after tossing back your drink, after letting the alcohol burn its way down into the pit of your stomach, letting it warm you and give you a boost of that liquid courage you so desperately need. You continue. “We moved in together first as friends. Went to med school together and between all the studying and working together and just being in each other’s space all the time, will it wasn't too surprising when we woke up together one morning.” Jesse whistles, “Nice.” And Keisha slaps him up the side of the head. You smile at their antics and wait a moment for them to simmer down before you continue. It is surprising that you don't actually mind continuing. But everyone has to move on at some point right? Maybe you finally have. You tell them that it was good. For a while, a long while, it was really good, great even. You tell them about how two people can share their hopes and dreams together. You tell them how two people can work together to achieve almost anything, handle almost everything, together. You smile as you recount graduation day. You both worked so hard and it finally paid off. You laugh and your friends laugh at the after grad stories. Then you get serious. “It was a couple of weeks before the topic of residency came up. We knew there was a really good chance that we would not be matched to the same hospital. So we started discussing our options. The best idea seemed like trying a long distance relationship. Which never works out or so they say. We really started to think that was it. Good bye, good luck, so long, farewell, it’s been fun, be seeing you.” “But then you got the idea to get married and then you would have to get the same residency.” Keisha says. She’s got a wistful smile on her face and you just know that she is imagining some romance novel-esque thing here. You hate to burst her bubble but it would really be crueler not to set her straight, as far as you are concerned anyway. “No, marriage wasn't in the cards for us. My parents never did like Morgan. And Morgan’s parents, let’s just say they had denial down to an art form. Would only refer to me as the roommate and would always bring up the topic of dating one of their friend’s kids when they visited, even if I was standing right there!” You shake your head as if to dislodge those annoying memories. In your more bitter moments you like to blame yours and Morgan’s parents for your problems. “So what did you do?” “We talked it over and we decided that we wanted to stay together. So we made a plan, one of us would do our residency first and the other would wait until they were finished then do theirs. Morgan went first and I waited.” Jesse is giving you a funny look. You tend to forget that this jock, who loves nothing more than to fly, can be frighteningly perceptive from time to time, when he wants to be anyway. You shake your head, ‘no’ this is not a story you want to tell right now. You have no problem talking about yours and Morgan’s time together. Not anymore anyway, when you’re plied with enough alcohol. But you haven't really talked about the break up with anybody. Why start now? Keisha on the other hand is surprisingly stunned tonight. You blame the alcohol for your friend’s lack of common sense. Usually she is the smart one. She prods and needles away at you until you promise that later you will divulge the whole assorted affair. When you accidentally let slip that you’re and Morgan’s was a more open relationship, Jesse the horn dog, assures you that you will be keeping your promise. While your friends order you all more to drink. The night is still young, and there are no classes the next day till after lunch after all. You think that you don’t really know what surprises you more. The fact that you only had eight beers before you started spilling your guts. Because usually it at least takes twelve and it also ends with crying. Not too much blubbering really, ok a pathetic amount of tears and snot and it just is not a pretty sight. Or that you, like so many other ragging drunks before you, have made a startling discovery at the bottom of your glass of cheep watered down beer. Maybe it’s something you've really known all along. Maybe it’s not really some big realization of life altering proportions. Maybe it’s a simple truth that you've taken for granted. Maybe it’s time to stop taking things for granted. “I love you guys.” Maybe you've had too much to drink. But your friends laugh and from one moment to the next you find yourself grabbed in a big group hug. You're all laughing and waving around your glasses sloshing drink all over the place. You think that someone is going to come up to you three soon and tell you to cut it out. But no one does and maybe the bartender is just glad that you guys aren't starting a fight. “Love you too man, in a totally non gay way.” Jesse is grinning. “We are so drunk.” “We are not.” Keisha goes to sit back down and misses her seat. You grab her arm to keep her upright and when she thanks you. You tell her you did it to save the beer. “You asshole,” She dissolves into a fit of giggles and this time you help her set back down, the lightweight. And that’s it. You have moved on. Maybe not to some new bigger and better love, the kind they write about. But you're finally letting people in again, that is a big step in your book. You didn't just lose a lover after all. You lost your best friend and it’s kind of hard to get over that. If you're really honest with yourself, you really didn’t try. You took the easy way out and found your solace at the bottom of cheaper glasses of beer then the stuff you are drinking now. Apparently you were looking in the wrong spot. You might have also been looking for the wrong things too. But thinking about that stuff requires higher cognitive function that you just can’t muster right now. So instead you set there and you smile. You knock back a drink or two or five more. You laugh you cry because darn it you are drunk and it is hard to keep your emotions straight right now. You get dragged up onto the little stage up front and suddenly you really hate your friends. But you’re three sheets to the wind now so who cares how this happened. Though you suspect this is all Jesse’s doing after you swore up and down that you would never partake in karaoke night with him, ever! The display screen pops up in front of you and before your friends get a chance to do it. You are tapping out a selection. The screen starts off by giving you various eras to choose from, then decades, and when you've finally chosen the time frame you like best? You get to select the genera and then the song. In keeping with tonight’s theme you think you've made an excellent choice. The music starts and the words pop up in front of you. Keisha wraps an arm around you and you know that was a sniffle you just heard from her. Jesse is calling you out on being such a chick but then he’s right there with the two of you belting the song out of tone. “Into the night, the Milky Way.” You're singing to each other just as much as you are singing to the drunken crowd, trying desperately to get this one message across because you've never been good at this. At expressing your feelings and maybe you can try to blame Morgan for that. But really you can't because you've always been a little more reserved than others. The song comes to a close; there are drunken cheers all around, the only kind you'd ever get for performing like that. But hey you take what you can get. “We are so awesome, I bet we win!” Jesse says. “Free beer, woo!” Keisha laughs. And just to be different you say. “I meant it guys.” You’re grabbed up in another group hug and the drunk cheering gets even louder. And if you can’t remember this night when tomorrow morning comes? Well that will be ok because you are so freaking embarrassed right now it’s not even funny. “Thank you for being my friends.” You say not sure if they can hear you over the racket. But if the tightening of their grip on you is any indication, the message is received loud and clear.

Every place has its presence; smell, touch and feel. Has the emotion to it, yes that is best explanation, emotion of the place. It’s about what it is and what it does to people. It’s how it makes you feel. Then there are songs; oh yes, songs can be really nasty. Even if you don’t understand words, they will incite emotions and make you remember. Some people don't like songs and will throw stones on a nightingale to kill the emotion. Right now Segolene felt like doing just that. Segolene spent days in meditation trying to forget how she felt when Daryl touched her, trying to forget his smell, trying to take him out of her heart. ‘If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it’s yours forever. If it doesn't, then it was never meant to be.’ She hated wise sayings; there was always one usable for whatever occasion. This one seemed like made for their relationship. Walking through the Starbase, Segolene ended on a bench by the big window. For some time now she let tears flow and didn’t even attempt to brush them. Many people passed by her, watching her in surprise, scoff or even open disgust and noticing, not the look on their faces, but rather their emotions emanating, made her turn to the window, away from the station that made her feel so lonely and sad. It smelled like Starfleet, it felt same as Apollo, sensed like a happy days she remembered. ‘It’s better to never have, then to have and lose.’ She had that little bit of love, satisfaction, a touch of happiness… and then of a sudden just poof, gone as a soap bubble. Opening her bag she took out the padd and preparing it started recording the message. “I… I love you Daryl. They say, time heals every wound, but I refuse to remember you as a wound and I will keep, loving you. I had to go, staying would choke you and I love you enough to let you go and give you a chance to get along with yourself. When you’ll feel lonely, just close your eyes… because if you love me, if you really love me then just close your eyes and be sure I’ll know and I’ll be there with you. Close your eyes when you need a comfort and yes, if you love me, trust me I’ll know and I’ll be thinking of you.” She turned off the recording and shrugged. ‘This sounds like a love song, and a bad love song.’ She handed to erase the recording, but picking her bag she pressed the wrong button and a message was sent. Just then the sad love song started to play from somewhere down the corridor and in frustration; Segolene threw the padd that way and crashed it in the wall standing in the way. She shrugged again and went to docking ring to catch her transport. She looks back to the pieces of the crashed padd. ‘I hate cadences in minor key.’ Some people don't like songs and will throw stones on a nightingale to kill the emotion. Cadet Segolene LeMarnix Science USS Apollo

OOC: I thought I might as well try my hand at a good challenge though I'm literally quite fresh off the boat, I pondered this topic while in the last leg of training and wrote this up tonight as the story just kind of flowed to me though it takes several notes from Verana's pre-established back story. I hope you enjoy, I loved writing this and getting to further establish Verana as a person defined by actions and thoughts as I did with my other post here on the forums... The air was… hot here, like the individual electric sparks of chemistry between two lovers had combusted to create an enveloping, but not quite smothering atmosphere of love, lust, and tension. To Verana this combination of emotions was nothing new, after all she had grown up in a society where love, lust… sex were worshiped, but what made her head spin in an almost euphoric ecstasy was that she was sensing the ambient emotions of aliens, humans, not Deltans. Verana had kept her ear to the ground so to speak, over the last few years of living in Paris and she knew the reputation that the human sub-culture called the ‘French’ were somewhat infamous in their rituals of love. Verana had observed several of these… rituals. Wine, chocolates, roses, starlight, the city of Paris itself, from what Verana understood it was all entirely and unquestionably cliché. But then why did so many women, and men, fall for the same trick that their ancestors had been using? Was love really that basic among humans? That plain? At first Verana had thought these clichéd rituals were just that, rituals, a sort of predicable foreplay that humans were expected to go through before mating. But Verana’s senses told her that wasn’t the case, many delighted in these experiences for whatever reason, and it wasn’t just going through the motions or simple ritual to them. To many it was a profound and romantic gesture to sip wine on the Siene, look up at the stars and feel the cool autumn air. So maybe these so called ‘romantic’ things and experiences were cliché at all, overused definitely, but they still held a deep meaning for many, and captured the imagination of the Parisian children Verana passed everyday on her way through the city. And now Verana was here in the middle of another so called cliché, a dark lit lounge in the middle of Paris, Piaf playing in the background, and a very handsome man standing across from her, gazing at her with eyes that were just as vibrant as the electric mood. Part of Verana wanted to turn on a heel and run right out of this situation and not be a puppet to an ages old idea of human romanticism. She would not be party to this insidious and tired concept of a foreign girl finding love in Paris. How dare a cliché come to life right around her! She wasn’t looking for anyone to make her bed warm, she wasn’t looking to fall in love or be a slave to someone else’s emotions, especially not a member of such a sexually immature species such as humanity! And still, a few minutes later, Verana was still there, in the same spot, precisely four meters from the exit, and precisely five meters towards the very… handsome human across from her, still looking at her, his gaze apparently unbroken. His head relaxed against the post he stood next to and the rest of his body followed. His eyes grew more intense and now he had shifted from simple observation of the seemingly human woman across from him to full blown admiration. There was something about his stance though, the look on his face, that kept his perceived admiration from turning into pathetic longing across a crowded room. No, his gaze was fixed, his face had a slight smile on it, like he found Verana both beautiful and somewhat amusing at the same time. Verana constantly shifted both her gaze and her body under his steady eye contact. Part of her melted under it, and part of her froze. She had not the will to run and she lacked the strength to move forward, Verana was paralyzed like prey in the sights of the most deadly predator. Did she really consider the man to be that dangerous? Or was it what he represented? As a Deltan Verana (Despite what her presently black dyed hair that made her appear human inferred) had signed an Oath of Celibacy, to break it and mate with an unprepared and immature individual would induce madness and brand Verana the worst kind of criminal among her people. A few pairs of people passed between the previously unbroken line of sight between Verana and her admirer. Her instincts told her to run, this was her chance to escape, she was out of the trance that his eyes had put her under, and yet her body did the unthinkable… she moved forward… There was a sort of urgency to her movements as she parted her way through the small crowd of people flowing from one end of this tiny bar to another. Perhaps once the crowd had moved past he would have taken her way out and ran or evaporated, or turned out to be a figment of her clinically depressed mind. And when Verana met the edge of the crowd and emerged into a clear line of sight she was met by the same eyes she had seen from across the room, and were now inches away from her own. For the first time Verana didn’t avert her gaze at the sight of those two beautiful green oculars, and she returned his direct eye contact with an unflinching, unmoving gaze of her own. And suddenly as the crowd passed and the air became slightly clearer, Verana smelled something in the air, something that provoked her heightened Deltan senses to drive her body to lean in and kiss the lips that accompanied those beautiful lips on perhaps the most symmetrical face she had ever seen on a human. Verana didn’t even know him a few moments ago but now as they both melted in the moment of the kiss, their respective scents, tastes, and minds betrayed their true nature as Deltans. Physical contact between two Deltans was intense and provided more than just an exchange of passions for their tele-empathic abilities allowed for the transfer of ideas, emotions, thoughts, and complex feelings to be absorbed in a simple kiss. The incredible sensations a simple kiss had brought Verana would no doubt have driven a human insane, well perhaps not, but in this moment, Verana didn’t care about accuracy, she could exaggerate her feelings of contentment, no, more than that… feelings of understanding and love, like a door had been opened within her. Verana didn’t know how long the only two Deltans (Or partial Deltans in this case) in the room stood there for, but as the Piaf played, the internal lighting dimmed, and Paris itself lit up on the outside, Verana didn’t care. Some would call this cliché no doubt but neither seemed to care, and in their tender kiss, two bodies and two hearts became one as only Deltans could experience and that element of foreignness made certain there had never been a night like this in the entire Parisian volumes of love stories. It had many elements of the classics within it to be sure, Paris, lights, strangers meeting, love at first sight… but in this moment Verana couldn’t care less and conceded to the point that just because something was old and tired didn’t mean it couldn’t be, dare she say it… romantic… Ensign Verana Intelligence Officer USS Discovery-C

A knowing smirk formed on her face as her eyes found the man in a blue Starfleet uniform on the opposite side of the room. “I don’t want to,” she declared. It was simple and direct; Hector would appreciate that. Hector shifted his weight in the chair, crossed his arms across his chest, and shifted his weight back to how it had been. For a moment, he sat in silence, staring back. His eyes worked their way around her face, measuring everything in the systematic method he applied to his work. But she wasn’t supposed to be work. Is that what I’ve become? A project? Her smile melted away as her gaze drifted down to her arms. She hadn’t remembered crossing them. She shifted her gaze to the pair of cut daffodils in water beside her bed. “You’re lying,” she heard him say, but her mind was still on how exactly he saw her. When she looked back, Hector was standing; he strode toward her, up the length of the bed, and ended up standing right at her side with mischief in his eyes. She inquired what he was doing with a glance. He’d know what she was asking. But he just leaned down over her, resting his arms on the bio bed to either side of her. Just a few years ago she had pined for them to be in this position. His unshaven face – it’s my fault; he doesn’t even have time to care for himself – was just inches away when he started again. “You’re lying, Karla, and I won’t have it.” Karla stifled a laugh. “I’m lying?” She slowly lifted her arms and draped them over his shoulders. “What am I lying about?” “About not wanting to dance.” Before she knew what was happening she was out of the bed; in the air, more precisely, with solid arms wrapped behind her. Karla whooped with surprised delight, unaware of what would happen but in well-trusted hands. At length she felt the cold deck beneath her bare feet; but it was a feeling she’d not had in so long that the cold was welcomed. It seemed Hector had found a way to take her mind off of things. I’ll have to remember not to ruin this, she thought as she closed her eyes and allowed her head to rest on his shoulder. Who knows if we’ll ever dance again? The music filled her mind, though the only sounds were medical devices and an EMH in the next room. It was reminiscent of a summer afternoon, lying on the grass at a festival with a warm breeze blowing through the air. Karla could even feel the breeze; her hair swayed back and forth. But that was just Hector, it turned out, playing with what little of her hair remained. He caressed the once-full mop of golden threads and she felt him sigh. Before long they danced no longer; he stood holding her against his barrel chest as her tears fell silently down his sleeve. When she opened her eyes, the pip of a petty officer loomed before her. The magic had not been lost, but the moment that contained it was over, now present only in memory. Karla’s joints creaked as she stepped back toward the bed. Her handsome attendant helped her back down and lifted her legs up onto the bed. “The doctor said I’m not to do things like that,” she commented as he sat down beside her. “You needed it as much as I did.” “That’s no excuse.” Karla felt his hand slide over hers, clasping it gingerly. Hector screwed up his face in what Karla could only make out to be mock seriousness. “Whatever happened to ‘quod est necessarium est … legitim’?” He held the face for a moment as Karla shook her head with a chortle. Reaching up, she pushed his shoulder with her good arm. “It’s ‘licitum’, you dunce!,” she said breaking into laughter. “And I don’t think doctors care about that.” Legal principles from Hector? She wondered. I may die of shock if I make it through this alive. Her lips parted to say it, but as she looked at him smiling down at her, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words. Instead, she settled on a pleasant smile. It was a good decision; the peace of silence was much more soothing. As Hector slid closer, the light caught his pip again, and Karla sighed. “Your shift starts soon. Want something to eat before you go back?” It was painful to say, but if he had to leave, she at least needed some transition time. “No, I’m not hungry yet.” “Well won’t you be later?” Breaking from routine was not something Hector often did. “I’ll eat when I’m hungry. With you.” Hector paused as a smile more tranquil than she remembered seeing on him grew on his face. “I’ve arranged for my duty shift to be covered. I’ll be here with you.” Comfort took hold of Karla, but it gave way soon enough, as though the bed had dropped out from beneath her. “Oh. Is it that bad?” Karla knew they had increased the dosage of two of the medications last week, but they hadn’t changed her prognosis, so far as she knew. “No, no, it’s not that.” The reply was quick, and he reached over to take her hand again. “I don’t know any more than you do. But we needed some time, right?” Karla’s smile returned. “Hector Adler, is this your idea of a date?” Hector walked around to the other side of the bio bed and lay next to her. It was a position in which they had been so often before, but as time had progressed ever onward, lying beside him took on ever evolving meanings. There was a time, long ago, when it left her feeling giddy. Now she was too tired to feel giddy; having him beside her was a tremendous comfort. She reached to the bedside table and found the vase of daffodils. He’d even brought flowers. “Yeah, I guess it is,” answered Hector. “Isn’t it romantic?” ----- Ensign Ben Livingston Assistant Chief Engineer Starbase 118

The afternoon sun was starting to dim... The grounds on the tournament were now ruffled and damp in some places. Since mid day when it started it had been stepped on by more man and horses then it should. Most of the crowed were gathered around the fence, and only those of high position had seated places on the bench. But the smelly and harsh air from the place did not bide itself with social distinction and was sensed by both nobles and serfs, knights and stable boys, princesses and... ladies with the oldest profession in the world. The sixth joust was about to begin. The final contenders were praised by their Ceremony Butlers, who started their own joust of mockery and deeds as they rose their voices to the crowd, but always giving more attention to those seated. The first contender mounted his horse. A dark stallion that made a high contrast with the dirty white colors of its rider. His spear was painted in white and red, the shield had a red eagle with opened wings, but it was like a child painted it. The beak had teeth and one of the wings was bigger then the other. The armor plate was dented and worn out, and in some places lost the white color. The helmet only had half the plumes. Vitor was tired. Although the holodeck safeties were on, and even if he did cheated by assuring he would win against all opponents, fighting with the previous five knights was not easy. Only one conceded defeat after the joust itself. He had to finish fighting with the others on the ground. His muscles were soar, his legs hurt, and that hit he got on the ribs in the third fight was starting to bother him and he was having trouble raising his shield higher. Still as he had done before he waved to the crowed all around and mounted his horse. His dented unpainted armor, simple helmet and spears were in sharp contrast with his shield. Although it was damaged and dented it had started perfectly painted. It had the Starfleet command insignia in silver over a gold background. As they rode to their starting positions, passing by the seated nobles each turned their spears to their chosen Ladies. Behind his helmet Vitor couldn't suppress a laugh as he turned again the tip of his spear to Violet. She was the most out of place person. Her clothes were the cleanest of those around her, and she had her hand in front of her face most of the tournament. Her expression was something between disgusted and sick. But as before she tied another one of her cloth ribbons onto Vitor's spear. The knights passed by one another and nodded in respect. They got to their positions and were given their shields. As the trumpets started and the signaler went to the middle of the ground Vitor readied himself and in a few seconds rode, with the spear aimed at his rivals shield. The pain on his ribs was making it harder to lift the shield, so he just leaned forward to try and make himself smaller. The clash of the spears against shield and armor echoed in Vitor's helmet. He felt the impact on the upper corner of the shield and lowered his head the opposite way fighting to stay on top of the horse. In what felt like minutes the seconds when he dropped the spear and lowered his shield he tried to maintain the grip, but the pain and the balance of the hit and the motion of the horse was turning him to the left side. Getting his foots from the stirrup, he let himself fall, and heard the scream of Violet. "Computer end program... NOW..." The fall ended up being smaller the he thought, but the weight of the armor still payed its due. Vitor let himself stay down for a moment, but Violet had other ideas. "YOU BLOODY FOOL, ARE YOU CRAZY?" She was shouting and screaming at his side. Vitor took his helmet off still on the holodeck floor. with a tiresome look he shouted back. "I AM FINE, THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONCERN." Violet was blushing from anger, she tossed her hair piece to Vitor. "You are completly out of your mind... I should have left hours ago..." Vitor rose himself from the floor and faced Violet. "OK... What's wrong? I told you I had the perfect program. You were treated like a princess..." "Princess... In this filthy place? With everyone sweating and the horses... doing there things on the ground... And people being cut open and... What the..." Vitor opened his arms. "Are you kidding me? I got you into the most realistic simulation of a medieval tournament, just for you. I am hurt all over and finding muscles I did not knew I had... And you complain about the smell? No... You must be kidding me..." He turned his back to her and went after his shield. "Oh no... Don't use your blame games with me Vitor" Violet went after him and turned him around. "You told me we would be enjoying a nice romantic date..." With a smile Vitor interrupted her "Yes. But it looks like you don't like my idea of romance. Lets just finish this, your not worth the trouble." Violet slapped Vitor. "You..." She turned and left the holodeck. Vitor dropped the shield and sat down. "Too bad... She looked good with that cleavage..." - Ens. Vitor S. Silveira Tactical Officer Starbase 118 Ops