Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

NOG’S PERSONAL LOG STARDATE 67749.2

Yesterday I received my promotion to captain, though it occurred much sooner than i expected when i joined starfleet. The war with the borg took a heavy toll on starfleet personnel. As such battlefield promotions are common and got me to the rank of commander rather swiftly. 

After the war the reconstruction efforts required a fleet of new ships to be built at Utopia Planitia, new ships meant new captains to fly them. I have not received any official orders but it is my hope that I will be assigned the improved intrepid class ship that’s nearing completion. Its estimated finish date being so close to my promotion is not likely to be coincidental.

Captain’s log stardate 67752.1

Humans have a saying, don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Though ive not had the oppertunity to see one of these earth animals the meaning of the statement is not lost on me. By order of Admiral Nechayev ive been given command of the USS Cochrane, or rather whats left of her. 

She was severely damaged in the dominion war and was decommissioned. After the war with the borg was over the hull was pulled out of mothballs and assigned to the starfleet corps of engineers, with the destruction of so many ships starfleet has been desperate to rebuild. My crew has been chosen for me and I have had zero input on the process. Almost feels like i am being punished.

After reviewing the personnel files of my command staff i definitely feel like im being punished. Every single one of them either have a history of disciplinary problems or they have failed to get promoted for one reason or another. Ive been given the bottom of starfleet’s barrel. What did i ever do to make an enemy of Admiral Nechayev?

The worst part of this is my ship isnt even in one piece and we are the ones expected to rebuild her. Its our first assignment. Ive been set up for failure.

In times like this im reminded of the 183rd rule of acquisition.  “When life hands you ungaberries, make detergent.”. I might have been handed an impending failure but i am going to find a way to turn this into something good, or at least something that doesn’t fire a quantum torpedo into my career.

Chapter Text

Captain’s log stardate 67765.8

Its been a week since i was assigned the wreck of the USS Cochrane and rebuilding is not going as well as I had hoped. Especially since our access to repair parts and industrial replicator time has been severely limited. I'm not sure how we are expected to meet our refit time allotted. It seems my first challenge is being thrown at me. Repair this ship. in time with no help from starfleet. I do however have an idea, though its not “starfleet regulation”.

I asked my father for a bit of help. When it arrives im going to call a meeting of my senior staff to explain the situation.

End log.

Stardate 67774.0 , Utopia Planitia shipyards conference room B

Before anyone arrived Nog began to review the personnel files of his senior staff, he had to know about his people if he was going to pull this off.

He looked at the padd in his hands and began to read.

Nog’s first officer was Lieutenant Connikatrenti a half vulcan half romulan whose name literally translated to “one who causes trouble”. His personnel file stated he had recently been demoted from lieutenant commander for striking his last capitan. The file didn’t expand on the details however as the minutes from the court martial were sealed above his security clearance rating.

His chief engineer was Ensign Nir’row a caitian woman whose file had said she had 10 years of service in starfleet and a history of being put on report for lateness and making unauthorized modifications to starfleet equipment. This had almost lead to a warp core breach on her last assignment and lead starfleet to transfer her to Nog.

Lieutenant Kayna Tor was a joined trill and Nog’s Chief Medical Officer. She had a clean record however her joining with the Tor symbiote had been extremely traumatic, she had not planned on joining but when Tor’s previous host had died on her operating table after a battle with the borg she was left with little choice but to take the symbiote herself.

This caused Kayna to suffer a mental breakdown as the Tor symbiote had almost overwhelmed her, 23 lifetimes of experiences against the mind of an unprepared 24 year old doctor. She had spent 6 weeks in a trill hospital recovering and learning to manage her joining. After her medical leave she was assigned to the project.

Ensign Eepye Boyir was the chief of security and operations officer, a bajoran woman who had been one of the few survivors of the maquis, repatriated into bajoran society and into the bajoran militia, that had later been absorbed into starfleet when Bajor joined the federation. Her record had no disciplinary incidents however she was constantly passed over for promotion. Likely due to her former maquis associations.

Starfleet was unable to take action against her because she had never been a member of starfleet prior to Bajor joining the federation but it was obvious that the higher ups did not trust her.

And finally Moklor son of Anag a lieutenant junior grade assigned as the ships counselor. Moklor was a klingon whose house had been dissolved after the death of his father. He was an expert in xenopsychology. He had applied to starfleet after his exile from Qo'noS and this was his first assignment.

“I called this meeting for a few reasons, as you know we have been placed under the command of the starfleet corps of engineers and tasked with the reconstruction of the USS Cochrane as our first official assignment. As many of you know our efforts to carry out those orders have met with a great deal of resistance.

We have been repeatedly denied repair part requisitions and industrial replicator time. So i found a way around this. In the cargo bay of the Cochrane you will find several crates marked with the ferengi alliance symbol as well as the seal of the grand nagus. These supplies cost me a lot of latinum, despite the fact that they were sold to me at cost.

What I need for you all to do is acquire a few more things to make it all work”.

Nog looked around the conference room hoping what he was about to say next wasn’t his last order as captain. There was not a single one of them above the grade of lieutenant and turning in their capitan for giving an illegal order might just earn them a promotion that’s been long denied.

“I need you to um…acquire the replicator patterns in the Utopia Planitia databases, without anyone being aware of this. I cant exactly order you to do it so i’m looking for volunteers..”

Nog was surprised when all of his command staff raised their hands, he wondered why they were all so very eager to break regs. He would have to look into this later, after of course he got the replicator database.

“Ok great. We need the replicator database because I aquired a prototype class 5 industrial replicator. The only problem is the database is empty so it cant even make a cup of raktajino let alone repair parts.

The class 5 has a state of the art memory core and has enough capacity to store the entire database. Once we acquire it we will convert the cargo bay into a secondary engineering station and set up the replicator there. As well as a few other things.

Once this is set up we will be able to complete the repairs to the ship in the assigned time given to us. If we are lucky we might even be able to pull it off sooner.

I am going to be honest with you we all know starfleet threw us together with this hunk of junk just to watch us fail. Admiral Nechayev is having a big laugh at our expense and I for one plan to wipe the smile of her smug hyoo-män face.”

This got a chuckle from the command staff because not a single one of them was human, Nog had noticed this and wondered if starfleet’s humanocentrism was a factor in the situation as a whole.

“Now we will have to make a copy of the database and put it in this memory module without starfleet being made aware of what we are doing. Ensign Boyir do you have any recommendations as to how we can do this? “

“Well sir the best approach would be to copy the backup archives of the database and not the live database itself. The backups are not monitored as closely and they have the same information as they are backed up weekly.”

Ensign Eepye brought up a display of the archive facility on a viewscreen.

“Security patrols for the building only occur every hour leaving a rather wide window to enter the building unseen. However the electronic monitoring of the facility may be a problem. I can however bypass the security protocols on the buildings information network and prevent the warning systems from detecting us.”

Nog looked at her with surprise “You can do that Ensign?”

“Capitain i can do that in my sleep, starfleet security protocols are not that difficult to bypass” said Ensign Eepye with a grin.

Nog looked at her and said “In that case when this is all over ill have a job for you upgrading *our* security protocols.” Boyir nodded and continued “Once the security protocols are disabled a team will need to enter the facility and copy the database within 30 minutes. My exploit takes advantage of the systems diagnostic protocols and the diagnostic takes about that long to complete.The question is sir how are we even going to get down there without using starfleet transporters?”

Nog smiled and said “I have already thought of that, in the cargo bay of the Cochrane is a portable transporter unit with its own microfusion reactor. We just need to put it together. We will reconvene in the cargo bay in half an hour. Lucky for us life support in the bay is just about the only thing working.”

Chapter Text

Cargo bay of the USS Cochrane 32 minutes later.

“You are two minutes late Ensign Nir’row” said Nog impatiently. “Sorry sir the hallways are very confusing to me, they all smell the same.” said Nir'row apologetically. Nog looked at her with confusion “Smell the same? What do you mean Ensign?” “Well sir my eyesight is somewhat poor for my kind and during the academy I managed to learn to navigate around by the smells, but most starships and starbases all have the same smell. Everything is too clean.”

Nog looked at her and smiled. “So you are telling me you navigated starfleet academy and all of its training facilities by smell and nobody noticed? That’s amazing. Tell you what once we get this ship back in working order ill see what I can do about that, until then use the computer to guide you to and from places by verbal directions, I still expect you to be on time.” Nir'row nodded and said “Yes sir”.

“Great now that everyone is here we can get started. Ensign Eepye you and Lieutenant Connikatrenti will beam down to the surface once the transporter is assembled, copy the data into this memory module for the industrial replicator and then activate the transponders that Dr. Tor will implant you with.

Lieutenant Moklor you will go the primary security station on Utopia Planitia and distract the security officer there just in case anything goes wrong. Keep him busy but don’t let him suspect you of doing so. Head there now and signal us once you get there. Myself and Ensign Nir'row will assemble the transporter and beam you to the archive facility and beam you back once your transponders are active. Alright everyone lets go.”

Moklor son of Anag walked down the hallways of the Utopia Planitia facility carrying a padd, his passing through the hallways always tended to attract stares, however he had been at the facility for a few weeks now so at least he did not get stopped by well meaning security officers every twenty minutes asking for his credentials anymore. Though the blue uniform tended to throw people off.

He approached the security station and walked up to the Ensign monitoring the panel. The Ensign a human male said to him “Is there something I can help you with sir?” Moklor said to the man “No Ensign Abrams, it is I who can help you, here I brought you a raktajino but its too hot to drink yet so just hold it in your hand for a minute or two.” Moklor then pulls up a chair next to the Ensign and says. “According to your file you have not taken any leave or days off since the death of your father, while this is your right I just want to make sure you are really ok.”

“Im not sure you would understand sir. My father died fighting the borg so I feel my place is here. He always wanted me to join starfleet.” said a confused ensign Abrams.

“Let me tell you a story ensign and you decide if I will understand or not”

Moklor son of Anag launched into a stereotypically Klingon story about battle and honor, speaking of his own father Anag son of Kelt and his fight against the borg. His father and his men are of course victorious after many deeds worthy of song, the counselor, holding his own too hot raktajino tells the ending in a soft tone.

“My father was one of those victorious warriors, Abrams. He survived the battle, but it was a piece of shrapnel slowly tearing through his body that killed him a few months later. The borg were long since defeated and taken into the Caeliar collective after they had been liberated so there was nobody left to enact the rite of vengeance on, and dying in his sleep from an enemy with no honor destroyed my family, our lands were seized and our titles stripped and I was exiled. Now I am here, still doing what I know best.

My father had a personal ritual of taking his raktajino too hot in the morning and giving himself a few moments of quiet peace with it before beginning his exercises. I started doing it after he died, and I’ll often imagine him sitting there, laughing at me like he always did, a Klingon who fights wars inside people’s minds.

So tell me Abrams, do you think I will understand?”

Nog and ensign Nir'row finished up assembling the transporter with Nog. He ensured she didn’t try to “upgrade” it during assembly by promising her she could tinker with it after the mission was over and of course keeping an eye on her while they put it together. He brought the microfusion reactor online and looked at his padd.

“Ok Eepye and Connikatrenti. You two are up. Moklor is distracting security so now is the time to get down there. How close do you need to be to the building to disable the security?” Eepye said “I will have to interface with the door using my tricorder so if you could put me as close as possible sir” Nog typed in the coordinance into the transporter controls. “Good luck you two” said Nog as he activated the transporter beam.

Eepye waited for the confinement beam to release her and then looked around, she was only a few meters from the facility. She walked up to the door and opened the security panel next to it and said “Sir once I activate the bypass we only have thirty minutes before the system resets itself so we have to be out of the door by then. The transporter wont be able to beam through the building.”

Lieutenant Connikatrenti calmly said “Acknowledged ensign, proceed.”

Eepye activated the program loaded on to her tricorder and the doors unlocked. “Alright sir lets go” She pulled the door open and they entered the archive facility. “According to the schematics the storage banks for what we are looking for are this way sir” They both quickly walked down the corridors to the memory bank and plugged in the module to the computer. Lieutenant Connikatrenti said to her “No matter what happens keep working, that’s an order” and got up and walked away.

Eepye was confused but knew she had to get the data despite Connikatrenti’s strange behavior and set up the copy program, designed to copy the database into the module then cover its own tracks by altering the logs. She activated the program and sat by the module waiting. According to her calculations the copy should only take a few minutes, plenty of time to get out.

“Stop right there, who are you and what are you doing here?”

Eepye looked behind her and saw a starfleet security officer behind her pointing a phaser at her. She thought to herself that she knew this had been going too well, too easy for things to work out when the security officer crumpled down to the ground unconscious, behind him Lieutenant Connikatrenti guiding his unconscious form to the ground gently. He said to her quietly “Keep working im going to make sure he doesn’t remember any of this” as he put his fingertips to the mans temples.

Eepye would have to ask later, she returned to monitor the progress of the transfer, as it completed without further incident she asked the lieutenant “What exactly did you do to him sir and why did you leave before?”

“its simple ensign, I heard movement in the archive room. Knowing we were not alone I maneuvered behind the security guard, following him in case he found you. He did and I applied a Vulcan nerve pinch to render him unconscious, now I am replacing his memories of this incident with ones he is unlikely to report.”

“Oh? What memories?”

“He will awaken believing he fell asleep on duty, he is unlikely to report it due to the fact that he would be disciplined if he does so, he will not however remember us.”

“Remind me never to piss you off sir.” Eepye then unhooked the memory module from the computer and said “Ok time to go, we are done here”

They made their way outside and activated their transponders, vanishing in a transporter beam.

Nog inserted the memory module into the industrial replicator and powered on its reactor. It was a stand alone model powered by a small matter-antimatter reactor. Once the ship was repaired however it could be hooked up to main power.

“Great work everyone, now lets get the crewmen up here and get back to rebuilding this ship, with luck we can complete repairs before our deadline. Ensign Nir'row show me what you can do with this personal transporter and then we will see about doing some ship wide upgrades. Also I figured out a way to help you on board. Doctor Tor told me she can mark various areas of the ship with scent markers that only you can smell. We will also program the cleaning systems to ignore those markers.”

Nir'row smiled and began to show Captain Nog the various ways the personal transporter could be upgraded.

Moklor son of Anag put his arm around a sobbing Ensign Abrams saying “It takes true courage to admit to ones feelings and true honor to fight ones own inner demons. Will you be taking some leave now to battle those demons?”

Abrams looked up at him and said “Yes…yes sir. Ill put in my leave request right away, go visit my fathers grave and think about what I really want with my life”

“Good ensign, im glad. Any time you want to talk just send me a message. Ill be here until my ship completes its repairs, and after that ill be aboard the USS Cochrane as her ships counselor”

Chapter Text

Captain's log stardate 67812.3

After I was able to get ship repairs back on track via some creative methods and some special equipment purchased from Ferenginar. My crew was able to exceed starfleet's allotted time for refit by two weeks. I hope Admiral Nechayev learned not to underestimate myself or my crew. Ensign Nir'row was able to modify the warp drive as well giving our ship warp 9.7 capability when the design specifications for maximum warp for this ship are warp 9.

After questioning her about the incident on her last assignment and reviewing the alterations she had made back then I am fairly sure that her modifications would have worked were it not for the substandard dilithium crystals used on that ship. Starfleet regulations specify the quality of crystals allowed to be used and I believe they were given a substandard shipment from their supplier. I have put in a request with starfleet command to have the supplier investigated. Who knows how many ships have those crystals? The reception to my request was polite but i do not believe i was taken seriously by command.

I have managed via some creative negotiation to acquire crystals directly from Drema IV and had them processed on board Ensign Nir'row has my full confidence as chief engineer and i am putting a commendation in her file for completing the refit with two weeks to spare and upgrading the warp core above specifications. If her situation is any indicator on the crew I have been given it is likely others aboard just need the chance to prove themselves. I intend to give them that chance.

Starfleet command has given us our first mission. We are to take vaccines for some kind of new flu to Betazed. From our reports the flu is non lethal but its spread would cause unneeded discomfort to millions of people. While this mission is for a good cause one would think that completing our refit so quickly would be cause to give us something more important than routine cargo hauling normally handled by civilian ships.

End log.

Nog tapped his communicator and said "Doctor Tor, this is the captain please come to the cargo bay." After hearing her acknowledgment he turned to the crewman delivering the vaccines and said "She will be here momentarily to sign for this." Nog looked at the manifest bill to pass the time he noted there were only enough doses for a few thousand people. He asked the crewman "How are a few thousand doses of vaccine supposed to protect a population of over a billion?" The crewman looking confused said "I don't know sir i just deliver things I'm not sure how they are used."
Nog nodded "Ah right, carry on crewman"

Lieutenant Kayna Tor entered the cargo bay at this time, walking up to Capitan Nog she said "Reporting as ordered sir." Nog nodded and told her "Doctor Tor, I need you to sign for this shipment of vaccine we are taking to betazed as you are probably aware the chief medical officer needs to sign for medical cargo and equipment."

"Right of course sir." said Doctor Tor. She took the padd and entered her code and thumbprint and then handed it back to the crewman. The crewman took the padd and said "Thank you sir, I think that's everything. Ill be going back to the shipyard now." He activated his communicator and said. "All done here, beam me out" The crewman vanished in a swirl of light.

Nog looked at the doctor and asked her "How are a few thousand doses of vaccine supposed to protect a population of over a billion Doctor Tor?" Doctor Tor thought for a moment and said "Well its likely that they want to inoculate government workers, security personnel and medical staffs first and then use samples of the vaccine to synthesize more on the planet for the general population." Nog nodded and said "That makes sense i suppose. What can you tell me about this betazoid flu?"

"Well sir its a new virus that evolved from an existing non contagious virus on the planet, much like many diseases in this day and age. It causes mild symptoms. Sneezing, fever, coughing the like. It lasts a few weeks. Bedrest and medicine to relieve the symptoms seems to be the best course of treatment, much like any other flu." Nog nodded and asked "When the vaccine gets to betazed what do they have to do to make more and can we do some of that work here on board before we get there?" Doctor Tor smiled and said "Trying to go the extra mile i see? Yes sir we can do some of the preliminary work here on board it should save their doctors some time." Nod smiled back "Do it doctor, they sent a starfleet ship to bring it the least we can do is use our resources to help as much as we can."

Doctor Tor nodded and opened one of the cargo containers and took one of the vials of vaccine. "I'll be in the science lab working on the preliminary work sir if you need me."

Lieutenant Kayna Tor set up the science lab to analyze the vaccine sample she took from the cargo bay. She activated the genetic analysis equipment and put the sample slide in the analyzer. She waited and the readout of the genome started to appear on the screen. At this moment she felt an overwhelming vertigo. Barely able to stand she started slowly breathing trying to get her body calm. Her traumatic joining with the Tor symbiote nearly overwhelmed her personality. During her hospitalization vulcan telepaths helped her put up mental blocks so that she would have the time to develop her own strength to deal with joining. The Tor symbiote as a result did not have a full relationship with her, but sometimes she got impressions, dreams, disorientation and other strange symptoms. Right now her mind was screaming, Tor was trying to tell her something.

She tapped her communicator and said "Lieutenant Connikatrenti this is doctor Tor please come to the science lab at once." She focused on her breath counting them one after another trying to focus on standing upright. She thought to herself, ok Tor I get it you want to tell me something. I'm doing what i can so please stop. Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe. The half vulcan half romulan first officer entered the science lab and saw doctor Tor breathing slowly and obviously distressed. He said to her "Doctor do you require aid? Perhaps you should be in sic bay." Tor looked at him and said slowly "I need you to preform a mind meld and find out what the Tor symbiote wants. Vulcan telepaths put a block between me and the symbiote because the memories were overwhelming me, you are a Vulcan you can talk to Tor. Find out what it wants or it will keep doing what it is doing. Tor wouldn't press like this if the reasons were not good."

"Doctor I have to warn you that we risk destroying the barriers put in place to protect you, if I do this you might again be overwhelmed by the symbiote." The doctor losing her balance even more said to him "Connikatrenti if you don't Tor will break the barriers eventually on its own at this rate, this has to be something big. Just do it and do it now!"

He looked at her and spoke softly. "Doctor, as you wish." He placed his fingertips on her forehead and began probing her mind, he felt the barrier between herself and the symbiote and also the violent force it was trying to use to get past said barrier. Very carefully he attempted to pass through the barrier to the other side, its energies held against him however. He started searching the barrier for any weak points or areas that were incomplete. The barrier was put in place by a team of vulcan telepaths who happened to be on trill during a joint research project and cultural exchange between them. The goal was to see if vulcan telepathy and trill telepathy had any similarities.

The zhian'tara and the fal-tor-pan had similar effects so it was possible that trill could learn aspects of vulcan telepathy and vice versa. These memories flooded his mind, obviously they were Kayna's memories merging with his via the mind meld. The memories continued to course through him, he saw the incident where Tor's previous host was dying on Kayna's operating table. Along with this particular memory came great waves of pain. Clearly this experience was traumatic for her. He embraced the pain along with the memories, letting them pass through him without owning them.  Working past it, he continues to search through her memory of Jaylin Tor dying, her desperation to save this ancient symbiote. She was the only trill on board and she knew what she had to do. Her plan had been to put the symbiote inside of herself and place herself into a stasis chamber until they could reach trill and a new host could be found. She and jaylin both agreed that this was the best option. She then removed the symbiote from Jaylin causing him ti finally die. She laid down on an empty bio bed, cut herself open with a laser scalpel and put the Tor symbiote inside of her. She closed up the wound and went to put herself into a stasis chamber when the room shook with an explosion. Everything went dark.

Everything was chaos. Voices in her mind, each one trying to talk over the others. Overwhelming voices. She couldn't concentrate, she couldn't even think. She tried to cry out but no sound escaped her lips. Time lost meaning, she did not know where she was or how long she was there. Just the voices all trying to speak at once. Until a new voice appeared, surrounding her with calm and light. This light circled around her and the voices stopped. Calm logical thought enveloped her, soothing the pain the chaos around her had caused. The lone voice guided her. Told her that he was there to help her. He told her that he could get her out of there but she had to follow him. Slowly she gathered herself and did so, time still not having much meaning she followed the might and calm he projected like a beacon. Eventually she reached him and he took her hand. 

She awoke in what was obviously a medical bay, by the look of the architecture and equipment she was clearly on trill. Above her with her fingers on her head was a vulcan male. She looked at him and said "What happened?:

"Your ship was hit by a borg torpedo, you and your symbiote were the only survivors. You were rescued after the battle.  However your joining had complications. The symbiosis commission approved an experimental procedure to help you integrate with Tor. Its memories and yours have been separated telepathically. The barrier will, over time degrade. Allowing you time to adjust to the joining. This procedure was in development for cases just like yours."

Kayna said "Like mine? I was supposed to go into stasis until a new host could be located. Why hasn't that happened?" He then said "You were not in stasis when you were rescued, the crew who discovered you was unaware that your joining was not pre existing. Their medical team healed your wounds but you remained in a coma. By the time they got to trill it was too late to remove Tor." The shock of her new situation started to set in. The memory faded and Connikatrenti found himself again facing the barrier in her mind. He probed it gently again looking for defects, the procedure was experimental so it was likely to have some kind of flaw. He kept probing until he found what felt like a "soft spot" in the barrier. He began to push his mind through it as gently as he could. Some part of his mind was vaguely aware of the sound of a woman screaming.  He probed Kayna's thoughts quickly and asked her if he should abandon the attempt, her thoughts projected back at him the importance of continuing.  He again pushed at the soft spot with his mind, as gently as he could, eventually the soft spot gave way and he was connected to the mind of the symbiote. Twenty three voices inside of one mind crashed against his. His vulcan discipline kept him from being swept away, as forcefully as he could he projected one thought. "What do you want!?"

The voices suddenly silent except for one. Bolar Tor. A geneticist and a virologist. His life was spent creating vaccines and retro viral treatments. His mind merged with Connikatrenti's and the memory of Kayna reviewing the initial data from the vaccine they were transporting to betazed flashed into his mind. Bolar knew that a vaccine for a flu, even one native to betazed would not look like this. Something was very wrong. This wasn't a weak strain of a virus or even a dead sample.  This was some kind of live virus, and an artificial one at that. Connikatrenti transmitted these memories and thoughts to Kayna. They would have to break the meld now he projected at her, so that she could figure out what this virus did.

Carefully he extracted himself from Bolar, and the barrier. He attempted to shore up the hole he left behind as well as he could. He slowly extracted himself from Kayna's mind and released his fingers from her head. She was clearly shaken and he said "Doctor are you alright?" She nodded and said "I'll be ok i need to find out what this virus does and you need to inform the captain that this vaccine cant reach betazed."

He nodded and tapped his communicator "Lieutenant Connikatrenti to Captain Nog there has been a new development. We cannot deliver this to betazed, its not a vaccine its a virus of some kind."

Nog then replied "Ill be in the science lab momentarily so you can explain in more detail, Nog out."

When Nog arrived he noticed Kayna looked like she has not slept in a week. She said to him "Sir based on my analysis of this virus it was designed to target latent betazed telekinetic abilities. It seems it causes the areas of a betazed brain responsible for telekinesis to not only activate but to go into overdrive. The end result would likely be the spectacular death of the person, they would just sort of..explode. My guess is this explosion is the vector the disease was designed to use for transmission. The virus can survive in aerosol form but its not technically airborne. The blood and body fluid mist that would result in said explosion would be enough however to transmit the disease to anyone nearby."

Nog then asked her "Who could have done this and why?"

"well sir" Kayna said "The virus was genetically engineered and whoever did it had an intimate knowledge of betazoid physiology it could have been any number of people, as to the why I believe it was an attempt to assassinate the leadership infrastructure of betazed. Modern quarantine procedures would have kept this from wiping out the planet but most of the leadership, security forces and medical experts would have been killed first. Someone wanted betazoid crippled."

Nog nodded and said "I need to report this to starfleet command and explain why betazed is going to have to do without their flu vaccine."

Kayna smiled and said "Actually sir i took the liberty of retrieving the flu's genetic code from our medical archives and synthesized a real vaccine, by the time we reach betazed ill have enough to cover their essential personnel."  Nog looked at her with shock and said "Since when did you become a genetics expert, that wasn't in your file?" Kayna replied "Oh about 45 minutes ago but that's a story for another time sir."

Chapter Text

Picard sent me another god awful tea service. I swear hes tormenting me on purpose. I should replicate him some 20th centrury box wine and send it to him. That will teach him.

Looking forward to spending some time on earth. I might be able to actually catch up on sleep. You would think one of the privelages of rank would be a solid 8 hours of sleep a night but no. I cant even eat lunch without some aide coming in to ask me to sign something let alone being woken up because of some emergency and with a galaxy this size something is always an emergency somewhere. 

The important thing to remember is that the federation managed long before I was born and will probably manage long after im gone, and not to worry too much about it no matter how many ship captains send yet another breathless message about how the fate of the universe, the federation, the timeline or whatever is in the balance. 

Thats the first thing we are taught about being admiral. Its always important, and everything managed just fine before you got here so try not to get in the way of the people who can solve the problem. Many admirals including me tend to forget this basic lesson sometimes.

Look at the USS Cochrane. I gave them a basket of problems and they solved them without my interference. They took what was basically a large hunk of scrap metal and made a pretty good ship out of her with minimal help. It might seem harsh on the surface but the shipyards are already overtaxed trying to rebuild the fleet and I figured they could handle it. They have come up with some pretty creative solutions to the problems I delegate their way. The vaccine situation to Betazed was a wild card however. A very worrying wild card. However I have a feeling Nog and his crew can handle it so for now so they will be assigned to investigate who planned this attack. 

I suppose thats one way to have a shakedown cruise. 

Chapter Text

After delivering the new vaccine to Betazed we have been ordered to investigate the source of the attempted bioterror attack. This seems like yet another attempt to set us up for failure. This is an engineering ship repurposed from the hulk of a science vessel. Now we are being tasked to do a job suited to Starfleet Intelligence. While I personally have some experience in this the crew does not and we are still assigned to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. However I plan to complete this mission and train my crew in the requisite investigation skills in the time that we have. 

Another challenge is we cannot allow the trail of evidence to go cold so we must leave right away to trace the supply chain to the source of the bioweapon. If we can find out where in that supply chain the vaccine was replaced we may have a chance in discovering who was responsible, and why. 

In other less crisis related events I had submitted Ensign Nir’row's warp drive upgrades for approval to command and have yet to recieve so much as an acknolwedgment that they were sent in. When things calm down I will have to look into this. I am also going to have to have a private talk with my first officer regarding his last command. Not that i dont trust him, but I would prefer to know what exactly happened.

End log.