Captain Akinola moved quickly to the transporter room. Upon entering, he was gratified to see Dr. Calvin Baxter, the ship's Chief Medical Officer, and three medics already present. Senior Chief Solly Brin was at the transporter controls.
"Do you have a lock, Chief?" asked Akinola.
Brin frowned, "On the closest pod, I've got a good read on three life forms, but I'm having trouble getting a lock on them. There's some kind of residual radiation surrounding the pods that's interfering."
"What kind of radiation."
Brin shook his head. "Can't tell just yet. Hang on - I've got a lock! Energizing." The Orion manipulated the transporter controls and the alcove began to hum with building energy. At first, nothing seemed to happen but then three forms began to slowly coalesce out of shimmering particles into the prone figures of three people in Starfleet uniforms. Dr. Baxter and the medics immediately went to the transporter dias, scanners at the ready.
Akinola spoke first. "Doc, are they . . .?"
Dr. Baxter did not turn but continued to scan the unconscious crewmen from the Kilimanjaro . "Alive - yes, but not out of the woods." He continued to run his scanner then compared his with one of the medics, frowning. "That's devilishly odd!" he said, more to himself than the captain. He administered a hypospray to the three victims, then looked up at the medics. "Let's get these men down to sickbay. Start each of them on a drip of Triazapan and piggy back a unit of Ringer's. I'll be down after I speak to the captain."
The medics gently placed the unconscious men on anti-grav gurneys and quickly moved them out of the transporter room. Dr. Baxter came over to Akinola, his brow furrowed, obviously disturbed. He ran his hand through his mane of white hair, then absently began to stroke his beard. Akinola knew the doctor well enough to leave him alone until the doctor was ready to speak. Finally, Baxter fixed Akinola with a sharp gaze.
"First, the good news. These men should live. Their physical injuries do not appear to be life threatening," said Baxter.
The captain relaxed just a bit. "But? . . ."
"But," replied Baxter. "They are suffering from some sort of high energy burst - their symptoms are similar to being electrocuted by high voltage electicity. Only it's not electorcution. There is still a residual energy trace that I cannot identify with my medical tricorder. I'll see what the bio-beds in sickbay come up with."
Akinola frowned. "This energy trace, is it a danger to the crew or the ship?"
Baxter shook his head. "No, I don't think so. It's diminished quite a bit and the readings were going down as I scanned them. Another hour or two and we probably would not have picked it up at all."
"Doctor, as soon as any one of them wakes up, I need to talk with them," said Akinola.
Baxter raised both eyebrows. "Joseph, I said that they would probably survive. But as to regaining consciousness, well, that's another matter! The energy charge they took likely affected their brains. I've got to proceed slowly or we could risk losing them."
Akinola placed a hand gently on his friend's shoulder. "Calvin, I understand. But if there is any way at all to wake one of them, even for a short time, please try. I must find out what happened to Captain Vress and his crew . . . and why!"
Baxter peered at Akinola for a long moment. "Joseph, you may be too close to the situation. Be careful - don't let old friendships cloud your judgement." He paused, sighed, then continued. "No promises, but I'll do my best. If I feel that it's safe, and if I can, I'll try to wake them."
Akinola gave the doctor's shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "Thank you, Calvin. And . . . thanks for keeping me on track."
Baxter snorted. "Someone's got to. Now, Let me get to work."
************************
On the bridge, Lt. Commander T'Ser continued to scan the debris field.
"Have you located the disaster beacon?" asked Strauss.
"Not yet," replied T'Res. "It may have been damaged in the initial explosion and its power source drained. Also, there is some residual background energy readings that are interfering somewhat with our sensors."
Strauss frowned, "Source?"
"Unknown at this time. However, it is localized in the immediate area of the debris field. It would seem likely that it is related to the destruction of the Kilimanjaro ." T'Ser paused as she adjusted the sensors. "Hmmm. I am picking up readings that would indicate recent phaser fire, also a faint ion trail - possibly from a ship's impulse engines."
Strauss sat up straighter in the command chair. "Can you get a bearing from the ion trail?" she asked, masking the excitement she felt.
T'Ser frowned. "Not with any degree of certainty. However, it does appear to come from the direction of the asteroid belt that surrounds the Molari system." She stood and turned to face Strauss. "That's where the Kilimanjaro was headed on an asteroid-breaking assignment." T'Ser's board began to beep for attention. She turned and looked into the scanner hood again. A smile formed on her lips. "There you are!" she said, softly. Turning again to Strauss, she said, "We've located the disaster beacon."
Strauss responded immediately. "Helm, move us into tractor beam range from the coordinates that Commander T'Ser will give you." She then tapped her com badge. "Bridge to transporter room. We've located the disaster beam and are moving into range of the tractor beam. Is it possible to beam it aboard?"
Transporter room, this is Chief Brin. "I'll get it aboard with the cargo transporter. We can tap into its recorders from there. Have the tractor beam crew stabilize it for us first so we can get a good lock."
"Will do, chief. Let me know when it's aboard." said Strauss. She tapped her com badge again. "Strauss to Captain Akinola."
"Akinola, go ahead."
"Sir, we've found the disaster buoy and will beam it aboard with the cargo transporter shortly."
"Very good, commander." he paused. "I want you and T'Ser to meet me in the wardroom with Commander Gralt in 15 minutes."
"Yes sir. Oh, and sir, T'Ser has found evidence of another vessel and possible phaser fire. She's also found a faint ion trail leading in the direction of the Molari asteroid belt." said Strauss.
"Okay, have the navigator plot a course to the asteroid belt and let's head there at full impulse. Stand down from red alert, but keep us at yellow alert. I'll see you in 15. Akinola, out."
Strauss turned to the navigator. "Plot a pursuit course based on the best known heading of the ion trail. Helm, ahead full impulse." She then hit the control button, cancelling red alert and pressed the yellow alert contol. She then hit the inter-ship button. "All hands, stand down from red alert. Maintain yellow alert. Commander Gralt, please report to the wardroom." She stood and spoke to T'Ser. "T'Ser, you're with me. Let's go meet the captain."
*********************
Strauss followed T'Res to the wardroom (seeing how she did not know where it was located). They came to a room one deck below the bridge where the smell of coffee and food beckoned. Strauss' stomach began to rumble and she suddenly realized that she was famished. Her last meal being on the runabout many hours ago. As she entered, she was taken by the ambiance of the wardroom. It was panelled with oak veneer and was decorated with several paintings of ships, all bearing the name Bluefin . She noticed a sailing vessel, a submarine of the old U.S. Navy that she guessed was from the second World War, and a more modern looking ship of a tri-maran design. Underneath it was a plate which read "Fast Response Cutter 760, USCGC Bluefin , Circa 2012 C.E." Her reverie was cut short by the smiling face of a very large man wearing a white tunic and neck scarf. "Excuse me ma'am," he said with a grin. "I'm Petty Officer First Class Marino, the ship's cook. Everyone just calls me 'Cookie'. Can I get you something to eat?"
"That sounds great, Cookie. I'm Commander Strauss, the new XO, and I'm starved. What do you have?"
"Well, for short-notice meetings like this, I don't get to show off much, but I do have several kinds of sandwiches and salads prepared, plus fresh fruit from Rigel IV and some pastries I just made. There's coffee and water on the table, or I could fix you tea or something else to drink." Cookie gestured to a smaller table at the end of the room piled with the food he had mentioned.
"Coffee's fine. Thanks for pointing me to the food!"
"Yes ma'am. I hope you enjoy it. And whenever you're on duty and can't make it down here, just call me and I'll be happy to bring something to you on the bridge. We keep the crewman's galley open 24 hours and the wardroom is always available to officers."
"That's very kind of you, Cookie," said Strauss, sincerely.
"Shoot ma'am, I love doing it. Now let me get out of here and back to the kitchen."
Strauss went to the table, helped herself to a chicken salad sandwich and some of the Rigellian fruit. She also indulged in an apple danish.
She sat down at the table by T'Ser when Gralt, the Tellarite chief engineer came in. He was wearing engineering coveralls that were spotted with various stains and scorch marks - obviously he had been busy in engineering. He went to the food table and came back with a generous portion of fruit, plopping into a chair opposite Strauss. He regarded her with sad eyes for a moment. "So. You must be the new XO. I'm Gralt, chief engineer." He peered at her more closely. "You look awfully young to be a commander."
"So I've been told," she said with a trace of irony. "Nice to meet you, commander Gralt."
Gralt snorted and waved a dismissive hand. "You won't think so once you get to know me. Now where's the captain? He called this meeting. I've got work to do."
As if on cue, Captain Akinola strode into the wardroom. "I see you're being your usual charming self, Gralt," he said.
Gralt shrugged. "What can I say? It's a gift." He began to eat rather noisily.
Akinola rolled his eyes, put two sandwiches on a plate, and sat at the head of the table. "I've just been talking to Admiral Bateson, he's Commander of Border Services, Ms. Strauss. It looks like we're on our own out here on this, at least for now. The other cutters are all busy or too far out of range and Starfleet isn't willing to send any other assets. He did say he would send the Matterhorn our way, but she's at least four days out. At this point, I'm not sure what good another ship would do until we find out more about what happened." He turned to Gralt. "Have we gotten anything off of the disaster beacon?"
Gralt replied, "Do you think I got this dirty playing cards? The thing was a mess - a lot of blast damage. I'm amazed we even picked up the signal, the power cells were corrupted and couldn't have lasted long."
"So, did you learn anything useful? " Akinola asked with great patience.
"I'm coming to that. Unfortunately, many of the data files were damaged, which is surprising considering how well shielded these beacons are supposed to be. That's the bad news. The good news is that we did learn some very interesting things. Computer! - Display slide Gralt 1A."
The viewscreen at the opposite end of the wardroom came to life, revealing a complex diagram with several sin waves. One of the waves flashed bright red. T'Ser whistled and Gralt grunted in agreement. Strauss was confused as was the captain.
Akinola spoke first. "Okay, not all of us have Ph.D.s in here. Tell us what we're seeing."
Gralt fielded the question. "The sin wave you see flashing represents a focused energy wave that hit the Kilimanjaro minutes before it exploded. I've never seen anything that strong short of a category 10 stellar flare. Even if they had their shields up, which is doubtful, they probably would not have survived."
Gralt allowed that to sink in before continuing. "The energy surge created a cascade effect that ultimately overwhelmed their warp core safties. Basically, they died of a warp core breach."
Strauss frowned and asked the next question. "Commander Gralt, I can see the energy surge and the explosion, but what are the smaller waves in between?"
Gralt gave her a meaningful look. "Those waves are consistent with phaser fire, but not from the Kilimanjaro . The frequencies match phasers often used by ships of the Orion Syndicate."
Strauss was puzzled. "But . . . that doesn't make sense! Why would an Orion Raider fire phasers at a ship that was already in the process of blowing up?"
Captain Akinola folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. "They wouldn't, commander. But someone wants us to think that a Raider was responsible. Think about it - if we had not picked up the disaster beacon's signal, it would have been days before we would have come across the debris field. These strong energy traces would have disapated, but we'd still have evidence of phaser fire on the debris. We probably would have assumed that an Orion Raider had attacked based on that evidence."
T'Ser had been listening carefully, a frown of concentration on her face. She looked up and spoke. "I do recall an occassion where a Starfleet vessel was attacked by an energy pulse of this magnitude. It was over 100 years ago, I do not recall the exact stardate, but it involved the USS Enterprise under the command of James Kirk. There was a skirmish along the Romulan neutral zone. A Romulan Bird of Prey came on our side and attacked an outpost with a similar weapon. It nearly overcame the Enterprise but due to its limited range and tremendous power consumption it failed to produce victory for the Romulans. Intelligence reports from that era suggest that the Romulans moth-balled the program."
Akinola nodded his head. "I remember reading about that too. And another thing to consider. The Romulans have cloaking devices."
Strauss interrupted. "Wait a minute! Are you suggesting this was done by the Romulans? We're on the opposite side of the quadrant from the Neutral Zone!"
T'Ser replied. "Not necessarily the Romulans themselves, but the same technology might be at work."
Akinola's com badge chirped. "Sickbay to Akinola."
"Akinola here."
"You better get down here, Joseph," said Baxter. "One of our patients just woke up."
