Chapter 7 - Revenge & Deception

Ranma blinked.

He was a sound sleeper, but something wasn’t right. There was far too much light striking his face.

“Computer, time,” he groggily asked.

“01:19.” The computer replied.

Ranma sat up. Even though Federation Standard time and the local time were different, it should still be dark outside.

Akane stirred slightly from Ranma’s movements as he looked out the window.

“Stars,” he smiled. 

To Ranma, it was an odd, but not totally unwelcome change of pace to see the stars from this angle. In fact, he’d probably consider this a nice vacation if they were stranded in the middle of a nuclear holy war; with the ship having no power-

“No power?” Ranma gasped as he seemed to have finally awoken one hundred percent.

Ranma looked around his quarters to see not the blue emergency lights that had decorated the Sisko for the past weeks, but honest to God, regular, bright, white lights.

Ranma burst into laughter.

Akane slowly turned to him.

“What?” she asked.

“The power’s back!” Ranma gleefully stated.

Akane slowly rose and became fully awake as well.

“Sure is,” she acknowledged, less excited. “Lights off!” she called out.

The lights in the room shut off. Akane laid back down and pulled her blanket over her head. Ranma simply sat there in the dark, depressed at Akane’s disruption of his merriment. 

“Go back to sleep,” she called out from under the comforter. 

Ranma whimpered and laid back down on his back. He stared at the ceiling for a bit. *Why does she always have to be ants at my picnic?* Ranma thought to himself. He really did not mind it though. A year ago, he could not imagine that the two of them would even be on speaking terms, much less having a wonderful marriage. 

Right now, though, he had no clue what in the world he would do without her.

The young martial artist sighed. 

All the death that was constantly happening around him, forty-four this time, a dozen before the refit, more and more since he took command of the Sisko. How long was he going to be able to keep this curse from affecting her? How long before his luck ran out?

Ranma sighed and turned onto his side. Akane laid there on her side facing him, her eyes slightly open.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Ranma pulled her close to him, holding the one true love of his life tightly in his arms.

“Nothing,” he softly replied as he pulled her as close to him as he could. “Nothing at all.”


“Come find me if you can!” Minako’s voice taunted.

“You know this isn’t a good idea,” Ryouga whimpered as he looked around the densely shrubbed path.

It had been two weeks since the Sisko had crashed on Valeria. To make sure that people did not go to mad on board, Lt. Fuchs had suggested that the crew, during their off time, be allowed to go outside the ship; get some fresh air and the like.

Ranma agreed and tasked Makoto with the duty of securing a two-kilometer ring around the ship where Sisko personal could go without fear of running into any of the planet’s inhabitants. 

Working with the Western security forces, they had succeeded. All day and all night Sisko marines patrolled the inner perimeter, while Western forces patrolled the outer. 

It was a welcome reprieve from the dark, gray interior of the Sisko. The recycled air, while clean, was no match for the pristine oxygen/nitrogen mix that made Valeria’s atmosphere. 

While going outside at night was not recommended, Minako’s rank gave her the ability to bypass most security protocols. She and Ryouga (who was going a little goofy with nothing to do) decided to head outside.

“Come on Minako. If I get lost who knows what will happen,” Ryouga whimpered, already concerned that the trees were obscuring a good portion of the ship.

Minako pounced on Ryouga from behind.

“Boo!” she playfully called out.

Ryouga smiled. He took Minako’s hand, and the pair walked into a clearing where they sat down.

“It’s kind of amazing,” Ryouga commented, looking up at the night sky.

“Hmm?”

“I mean, we see the stars every single day, yet there is just something so different, so profound about looking at them from the surface,” Ryouga smiled, pointing at the different stars.

Minako looked up. There were countless stars in the sky. They were at least a hundred kilometers from any light pollution, so the view was amazingly unobstructed. 

The only thing other than the stars was the occasional aircraft patrolling overhead.

“Which one do you think is Earth?” Ryouga asked.

“That one,” Minako stated, pointing at one of the smaller stars.

“You think so?” 

“I know so,” Minako replied. “I looked it up. It’s just to the left of the Golsum Cluster.”

Ryouga laughed. 

“What?” Minako asked. “What is funny?”

“You're such a nerd,” Ryouga smiled.

Minako frowned and turned away from the bandanaed boy. “Well, that's certainly not cool.”

Ryouga continued to smile while pulling himself closer to Minako. He cupped the blonde's chin in his hand and turned her head back towards him. “Yes, it is. It's one of the coolest things ever.”

Minako leaned into Ryouga and the two shared an extremely passionate kiss that seemed to last forever. Only the forthcoming footsteps of a pair of Sisko marines broke it up.

The Marines nodded to the pair and continued their patrol. Minako followed them with her eyes before returning her attention to Ryouga. 

“So, what's so cool about it?”

Ryouga blinked. “We're you just checking those Marines out?”

Minako smiled. “Don't worry about that. Tell me what was cool.”

Ryouga, not really interested in losing another girlfriend, decides to let it go. “It's just pretty awesome that you teach me stuff that I otherwise would never know, and quite frankly would never want to know.”

“Aww,” Minako grinned. “That's so schweet.”

“Yeah. And then we get to have sex.”

Minako laughed loudly at Ryouga's joke. Even louder than Ryouga thought she should have. Ryouga quickly puts his hand over Minako's mouth before more marines show up.

Minako grabs Ryouga's hand and stands. “Come on, P-Shan. Let's go into the bushes.”

“P-wha?” Ryouga asked as he is drug off. 

The pair walk off into some brush. Minako finds an area where the grass is not too high, and the ground is relatively soft. Before she can stop and turn to Ryouga though, she trips and falls on her face, laughing all the way.

“I'm Usagi!” Minako giggled as she rolled over and tried to make faux 'meatballs' with her hair.

“Are you drunk?” Ryouga asked. 

“Naw. Are you?”

“I'm always drunk, now,” Ryouga replied. “What else would I do?”

Minako began to unbutton her jacket. “Me!”

Ryouga smiled. “Okay!”

Ryouga pounced on Minako and began to help her unzip her jacket. He began to kiss her neck and slowly worked his way up to her face. Ryouga looked at Minako in her hazy, dilated eyes and smiled. She was the most beautiful-

Wait, hazy and dilated?

Ryouga stopped for a moment and looked at Minako. “Minako?”

“Yeah?” she slurred.

“Are you okay?”

Minako looked in Ryouga's general direction, but Ryouga noticed that she was not looking at him at all. 

“Yeah, baby. I am great, and I will be ezen better once I bet your bacon stick in ne! Here, here... Do me from behind!”

Minako rolled over and it was then that Ryouga could see that she was bleeding from the back of her head. 

“Crap, you're injured.”

“Oh, that's been there for a while. It's fine.” Minako contested while trying to get out of her pants. 

“Minako, stop it,” Ryouga argued, trying to flip her right side up and refastening her belt. “Now stay here, I'm going to go get those marines.”

“Alright!” Minako cheered. “Way to be adventurous!”

Ryouga facepalmed. *I can't leave anyway. If I wander off, I'll get lost,* Ryouga thought to himself. 

His attempts to come up with a plan were thwarted though when he heard the horrid sounds of Minako vomiting. “Aw man,” she complained. “Now I hab to vy dinner again.”

Ryouga looked and saw what appeared to be blood in her vomit. “This is bad, Minako,” Ryouga said as he pulled out his communicator. 

“Kay. You deal with it. I'm gunna nap,” Minako said, laying down in some sticks.

“No, wake up,” Ryouga shook her as he tapped his communicator. “Hibiki to sickbay. Medical emergency, two to beam directly to sickbay.”

The transporter beam begins to grab Ryouga and Minako right as a helicopter flies overhead. 

“Oh, fuck!” Ryouga squawked before he completely dematerialized. 


Ranma walked into sickbay and over to where Akane was conferencing with the other doctors. In the corner of sickbay sat Ryouga. He had dual concerned looks on his face. One for Minako, and one for the fact that the Westerns saw him and Minako dematerialize.

Both things were weighing heavy on Ranma as well. With the fact that they had that ability out of the bag now, they are going to be more open to attack by the Westerns to gain that technology. 

At the same time though, maybe now that they knew that the Sisko crew members could come and go at will, they would be less likely to start trouble, since they might believe they could be killed and sabotaged by bombs that appear from nowhere. 

However, first things first.

“Hey,” Ranma greeted Akane and the doctors.

“Captain,” the main, real, doctor smiled. “Commander Aino had an acute subdural hematoma, that was accompanied by a tear in her eustachian tube, between her ear and mouth which was causing blood to drip down into her mouth that she was swallowing.

“Didn't heal because she's a hemophiliac.”

Akane sighed. “The cut on the back of her head was small enough not to cause an issue, but she's lost a lot of blood due to the ear tear. As well, if Ryouga hadn't gotten her in here when he did, she would have died from the hematoma.”

“Will she be okay?” Ranma asked. 

“Yeah,” Akane nodded. “We've stopped the bleeding and released the pressure on her brain.”

Ranma sighed in relief. “How many people have you not run check-ups on since the crash?”

“About seventy,” one of the doctors answered.

“I want everyone checked. No one else is going to die or almost die from something preventable.”

“Yes sir,” the doctor replied.

Ranma patted Akane on the shoulder and walked over to Ryouga. He lowered himself to his former rival's eye level and grinned. 

“You saved her life, man.”

“I should have looked for that helicopter first.”

Ranma shrugged. “Yeah well, shit happens, Ryouga. Don't beat yourself up over it.”

Ryouga shook his head and looked at Ranma. “I've gotten too lax without anything to do around here.” 

Ranma patted Ryouga on the shoulder. “If you promise not to get lost, and it's okay with Makoto, I can have you temporarily reassigned to security.”

Ryouga looked up to Ranma and smiled. “That would be nice. Thanks, Ran- Captain.”

Ranma chuckled.

“Ryouga?” Minako called from the biobed.

Ranma smiled and nodded. Ryouga quickly stood, bowed to Ranma, then ran to Minako's side.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Minako weakly nodded. “They said you saved me.”

Ryouga smiled. “Of course I did. I...”

Minako's smile got a little bigger. “You can say it this time. I won't run away now.”

Ryouga leaned in and kissed Minako softly. Ranma and Akane stood about fifteen meters away watching. Akane leaned up against Ranma and sighed contently.

“It's like a young us,” she cooed.

“She's going to hit him?” Ranma asked.

Akane just groaned as the sick bay doors opened and Makoto walked in. 

“Captain,” she said. 

Ranma turned to his chief of security. The look of concern on her face was quite visible. Ranma didn't need to ask, but he did anyway.

“They know?”

“Yes,” Makoto replied. “Their encryption technology is pretty solid, but nothing we couldn't eventually break. 

“The gunship sent back video of Ensign Hibiki and Minako beaming back to the ship. It's short, only about a second and a half, but it clearly shows two people vanishing into thin air.”

Ranma sighed. He turned and looked to Ryouga and Minako. He could not be mad at Ryouga. He would have done the exact same thing if Akane had fallen ill. In fact, he had done much worse just to spare Akane's feelings. This was just something he was going to have to deal with.

“Keep me updated on her status,” Ranma said to Akane as he headed to the door with Makoto. 

“Sure,” Akane nodded.

“Hopefully...” Ranma groaned as the sick bay doors closed behind him and Makoto. “...this won't give them any crazy ideas.”


“They can do what?” Mao asked, not even trying to hide the shock.

Garone played the video showing an incredibly surprised Ryouga looking up at the helicopter camera as he dematerializes, followed by the camera looking around, and some comm chatter from a very disturbed helicopter pilot.

“They can apparently appear and disappear at will,” Garone stated. 

“That technology could turn the war in our favor overnight. We wouldn't even need better weapons,” Klasn fantasized. “We could just 'beam' conventional bombs right into their barracks.”

“Indeed. Or insert special operations soldiers behind lines. Landing tanks and soldiers without warnings.”

Mao began to shake his head. “They already said they will not help us.”

“They said they will not interfere,” Garone smiled.

Mao raised an eyebrow. “What are you planning?”

“If I tell you, you can’t deny knowledge.”

Mao smiled. “I knew there was a reason I put you two in charge of the military.”

Garone and Klasn nodded and leaned back in their chairs.


“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” Larson screamed at his assistant. 

“No,” his assistant whimpered back, cowering.

Larson sighed. “I’m sorry, Mathew.”

“Should I contact Starfleet Engineering again?”

Larson thought about this for a second. “Yes.”

Larson's assistant nods and walked out of the room, only to be run over by Genma who was running full steam into Larson's office.

“IS IT TRUE?!” Genma bawled.

Larson nodded wistfully. “I am afraid so. It seems that whoever sent your boy out there wants him to stay out there.”

Genma begins to cry again as Larson's communication panel chirps.

“Don't worry, Genma, old friend. I'm ordering another engineering fleet enroute,” Larson hits the button on his comm system. “Larson.”

“Sir,” Larson's assistant's voice spoke up. “Starfleet engineering says that they don't have any more warp cores that will fit that ship, and they don't have any more transport ships or SRV's that they can spare for that length of time.”

“I see,” Larson sighed. “Well, that's quite inconvenient.”

“MY BOY!!!!!!!” Genma wailed.

Larson eyed Genma with some concern for a moment before going to work on his computer. 

“Interesting.”

“What?!” Genma called out.

“There is a ship within six weeks of them.”

“Let's send it!” Genma smiled. “I'll contact Starfleet dispatch.”

“No,” Larson replied.

“No?”

“I think it would be better if we did this through unofficial channels.”

“Oh?” Genma pondered.

“Mathew, please contact the Romulan Embassy and ask for Ambassador Val'Ul to contact me on a secure frequency,” Larson requested.

“Yes sir.”

“Romulans?”

“Genma, my boy,” Larson leaned back in his chair and lit up a cigarette. “You’re going to learn many lessons today. The main one being that you never burn any bridges because you never know when you might need to go back over them.”


The rear turbolift to the bridge opened and Minako walked out. Most of the bridge crew smiled and waved to her. Shampoo walked up to her station and gave her a hug.

“Head injury nothing to be messed with. Shampoo know.”

Minako nodded. “I guess I am pretty lucky.”

“What is status report?” Shampoo asked. 

Minako smiled and looked to her display and then looked to the master situation display on the back wall. 

“Still stranded.”

The entire bridge laughed. It was good that they could laugh about their situation. Their last message from Starfleet was dismal. Their rescue fleet was destroyed. No one else was able to come and get them right now, but for some reason, the Captain said to not be concerned with that and to continue to work on making the ship space ready.

They hoped he knew more than he was letting on. 

At any rate, spirits were still high, as the crew was pretty tight. However, being in a war zone, especially one that was volatile and as dangerous as the one they were currently in, that could change at any moment.

“Dammit!” echoed through the bridge as Usagi banged her head underneath the main engineering panel. 

“You okay over there?” Minako called to her friend.

“Yeah,” she replied. “I'm just trying to fix this terminal so I can work up here while J.C. works down in engineering.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Jansen taunted.

“Shut up,” Usagi groaned. 

The bridge once again laughed. 

Some time passed and after about an hour of idle chit chat and panels beeping here and there, Usagi managed to get her station working. However, when she sat in it, the chair collapsed, causing her to cry. Loudly. 

Out of his ready room, Ranma came, his phaser drawn. “WHAT HAPPENED?!”

Kaii, Shampoo, and Jansen all point to where Minako had rushed over to tend to Usagi. Ranma sighed and holstered his phaser. Though he still debated on whether to use its stun setting to silence his still bawling chief engineer. 

The Captain walked over to the engineering station and looked at it. He noticed that the main display matched the master situation display.

“Commander. Usagi. Did you actually get this panel working all by yourself?”

Usagi, still crying with a river of tears running down her face, nodded affirmatively.

“That's pretty awesome.”

Usagi stopped crying momentarily and looked up at Ranma. “It is?”

“Sure. I mean, you get lots of stuff working, but usually, you have help. But I have noticed that lately, you have been able to do a lot of stuff on your own. That's rather good for someone whose actual Starfleet specialty is cooking.”

“But I couldn't fix the chair!”

“Meh. That's because you'd have to dumb yourself down too much. Fixing a chair is work for an ensign or an enlisted person. Not a Lieutenant-Commander.”

Usagi sniffled and smiled while Kaii, Jansen, and Shampoo engaged in simultaneous eye-rolls. “Yeah!”

Ranma and Minako helped Usagi to her feet. Usagi slapped her communicator began to bark orders into it, demanding things like a new chair and lowly ensigns. Ranma chuckled and walked to his chair and sat down. 

“You good at that,” Shampoo complemented. 

Ranma just smiled. He seemed to be getting a lot of practice lately at trying to boost other people’s feelings. He just wished there was someone who was going to boost his own. 

The damage on the ship was still massive. Larson, who had switched to using coded and encrypted transmissions for some reason, had assured him that despite the recovery fleet being destroyed, the Sisko would be rescued. 

And even though they seemingly had all the time in the world to do it, Ranma did not know if they could make the ship space-worthy by the time they got there. 

The Sisko’s damage control teams had managed to fix most of the lower deck hull breaches from the inside, as they obviously could not get to them from the outside. Once they got all the EPS conduits and the power grid back to 100%, the emergency force fields would handle the remaining breaches - if their rescuers could tow the six-hundred-ton ship back into orbit. After that, there was still the problem that the ship had no warp core. While it was possible, installing a warp core outside of a space dock was not something that engineers liked to do.

The Sisko was too big to be towed any faster than warp two, which meant they would arrive at the nearest space dock sometime in the next century.

Usagi groaned as she watched a section of the ship, which they had just gotten to turn green, revert to flashing red.

“Nuts!” Usagi barked as she hit her communicator and started screaming at some unnamed lackey on the other end.

“I think I might have given her too much confidence,” Ranma chuckled as he eyed Usagi.

Shampoo nodded in agreement as a chirping noise began to come from the tactical station, startling Lt. Jansen who had also become immersed in Usagi's animated display of leadership.

“What the hell?” she pondered as she checked the display. 

“Lieutenant?” Ranma asked, turning his attention in that direction. 

“I have about ten large aircraft heading in this direction.”

“On screen.” Ranma turned to the screen. He saw ten blue and gray jet-powered bombers. 

“Who do they belong to?” Ranma asked. 

Jansen shrugged. “They don’t have their transponders activated.” 

“Put up tactical display.” Shampoo ordered. 

Jansen complied and the tactical display appeared on the main viewer, putting the view of the ships up in the corner.

“There are no targets this direction,” Shampoo commented, pointing out that the nearest cities and military bases were miles away. “Besides, Sisko was declared no-fly zone by both governments.”

“You’re sure that they are coming this way, and are not going to change course?” Ranma asked. 

Jansen’s terminal chirped.

“I am now. They have a radar lock on us.”

“JAM IT!” Shampoo yelled.

“We can’t.”

“Get everyone inside now!” Ranma ordered. “Status on hull plating?”

Kaii began to order people inside while Minako ran some checks.

“We can polarize it, but depending on what they drop on us, I don’t know how effective it will be.”

“Everyone is inside,” Kaii reported.

“Polarize the hull,” Ranma ordered.

“Scan them,” Shampoo demanded. “Find out what they carrying.”

Both Minako and Jansen ran scans. Minako was the first to respond.

“Nothing nuclear or plasma-based.”

Jansen nodded. “1,400-kilogram Tritonal explosive. The plating should have no problem absorbing most of the damage.”

Ranma sighed a sigh of relief.

“They’ve released their payload,” Minako stated.

Ranma turned to Shampoo.

Shampoo nodded and turned to Jansen. “Shoot the bombs.”

Jansen grinned as Rei and Makoto came onto the bridge.

“What’s happening?” Rei asked.

“We’re being attacked,” Ranma replied as he watched the tactical display on the main viewer.

Outside, the top of the downed ship opened, and the dorsal phase cannons protruded out. They quickly spun around and set their sights on the ten bombs headed in the Sisko’s direction.

Minako’s panel begins to chirp.

“The planes are breaking off, but there are ten more information behind them heading this way!” she stated.

“What the fuck?” Ranma groaned.

Outside the phase cannon began to fire. Quickly there were nine explosions in the sky. And one on the hull of the Sisko.

Right on the forward section of the bridge.

Most of the people on the bridge were knocked to the deck thanks to the earthquake-level explosion that occurred just a few meters from them. 

Ranma was the first to his feet.

“Why did that bomb get through?”

Jansen pulled herself to her feet and began to look at her console. Makoto also walked into the tactical station.

“These weapons are too small to get a good sensor lock on, and they have practically no energy signature,” Makoto explained, looking at the scan results.

“The cannons basically have to wait for them to get within the prox sensor range to get any kind of solid lock,” Jansen finished.

“Our weapons weren’t designed to protect us from such rudimentary ordinance,” Makoto groaned. “I mean, what are the chances that we’d face someone using radar?”

“Can we target the incoming aircraft?” Ranma asked.

“Yes,” Makoto nodded. “They have stronger energy and heat signatures.”

Ranma looked to Shampoo.

“If bridge take brunt of damage, we’re dead,” She stated.

Ranma nodded in agreement.

“Shoot those sons-of-bitches down,” Ranma ordered.

Jansen grinned as did Makoto.

The phase cannons turned in the direction of the aircraft, which still weren’t in eyesight yet.

The cannons, which while short-range, did have a 500-kilometer range. What is considered short-range in space is not so short on the surface.

The cannons swiveled quickly, firing ten bursts. One by one the aircraft on the tactical display disappeared.

While most of the aircraft went down in shards into the ocean to the east of the Sisko's location, one of the aircraft stayed mainly intact and crashed on the beach only ten kilometers from the Sisko.

Ranma turned to Rei and Makoto.

“Get some teams together and go look for survivors and wreckage. I want to know who those jets belonged to.”

“Aye,” they both replied and shot off into the turbolift.

“Any more?” Shampoo asked.

“No,” Minako replied.

“Commander, get DC to check out the damage,” Ranma said to Usagi.

“I’ll see to it myself,” Usagi grinned as she ran off, tripping once and falling to the floor.


“So,” Genma said, softly. “This is a Romulan ship.” 

“How many times is he going to say that?” The captain of the Romulan freighter asked Larson. 

“Sorry, don't mind him. He's just not used to the new order of the world, where your old enemies are your friends, and your old friends are your enemies,” Larson explained. 

Genma chuckled nervously. 

“Well, get used to it, tubby,” the Romulan replied. “The Vulcans are untrustworthy scum and it’s only a matter of time before they tear apart the alliance between your two worlds.”

Another Romulan walks up to Larson. “Your secure channel is ready, Admiral.”

“And it cannot be decrypted by the Vulcans?”

The Romulan laughed. “They haven't decrypted one of my messages yet!”

“You guys know a lot about encryption for freighter pilots,” Genma commented. “Are you Romulan Intelligence?”

“You sure do ask a lot of questions,” the first Romulan grumbled. “Maybe you should ride the rest of the way in the decompressed engine room?”

“I'll shut up now,” Genma said, turning his attention to a shiny red ball. 

Larson hit a few buttons on the communication panel and began his recording.

APPROXIMATELY SIX WEEKS TRAVEL FROM VALARI

As is normal for one of the U.S.S. Crossroad's many exploratory voyages, the captain's seat was manned by the first officer, Commander Mark Adcock. 

Mark was sitting, reading one of his favorite books about the political upheaval of the late 22nd century. He always found it hard to believe that people argued and then fought wars over such silly things as the right to wear hats indoors. 

He was just getting to one of the better parts of the book when the operations station began to chirp. 

Mark slowly turned his head.

“Well?”

“Sorry, sir. It's an encoded message. It's for us, but it's got several layers of encryption on it,” the operations officer replied.

Mark turned back towards the main viewer. He hit a button on his chair.

“Yes?” Captain Ami Mizuno's voice called out.

“Captain, we have an incoming message that someone went through a lot of trouble to make sure no one but us saw.”

There was a pause, with a grumbling Australian man in the background mumbling. “Okay, I'll be there in a minute.”

“Take your time, Captain,” ops called out. “The computer says it needs about an hour to decode this.”

“Understood.”

The communication ended as Mark turned his head back towards ops. “Take your time?”

“Well, I didn't want them to finish quickly on our account. Especially if they were just going to come up here and wait.”

Mark turned his head back towards his book. “Someday I hope you will understand what you've done today.”

ONE HOUR LATER

The turbolift doors open and Ami walks out onto the bridge. She walks to operations and gives the young Asian man there a glare. 

“Captain?” he grins nervously. 

“Is the message decrypted?” she asks, continuing to glare.

Ops nods slowly, worried there might be violence in his immediate future. 

“On screen then,” Ami said, turning away. Ops complies, sighing a quiet sigh of relief.

A shot of Admiral Larson appears on the screen. 

“Captain Mizuno. I am Admiral Scott Larson. I apologize for contacting you in this way, but certain circumstances prohibit me from contacting you through proper channels. 

“You can verify my identity in Starfleet databanks. My ID# is 6627D-77GG2 and my command authorization code is 77ABB-002JZK.”

“Run those,” Ami ordered.

Ops complied as the recording continued. 

“I have a situation. There is a planet, about six weeks from your present position where a ship under my charge, the U.S.S. Sisko, has crashed.”

Ami gasped. “Usagi... Minako... Makoto... Rei...”

Larson went on for about fifteen minutes explaining the situation, explaining the deal with the destroyed engineering ships, and making one final request to the Crossroads. 

“I need the Crossroads to head to NZ-12G 4, maximum sustained warp. I will have recovery ships on the way, but I do not know when they will be there. 

“Do not contact me back, and do not send a message to the Sisko. Not yet, until we can establish more secure communication. Thank you. Larson out.”

There is silence on the bridge for a moment.

“Well, civil war between Vulcan and Earth. Ain't that a kick in the nuts.” Trevor, who had wandered onto the bridge at some point, finally says.

Ami turns and glares at him for a moment before turning to operations. “Did the Admiral's security checks turn out okay?”

Ops nodded. “Yes ma'am. He's the real deal or an awesome imposter.”

Ark turned to engineering. “Time to NZ-12G?” 

“Six weeks, four days at warp eight point eight. Highest we can hold without stopping.”

Ami turned to the helm. “Set a course.”

Helm nods. “Course laid in.”

“Engage.”