The Face of the Enemy

Kheren's Personal Log

Stardate: 88697.9

On board the Alsea bound to the edge of our galaxy, I can not help but wonder about the choices we make.

Once I had my ship, the USS Artemis, stolen from me by infiltrated cultists and disgrunted officers. After that incident, I made sure this would never happen again. And so, when I was given command of the USS Horizon, I implemented a failsafe with my then science officer Snowfire Ke'leysha, and Illythirii with considerable experience in covert operations and computer technology; a virtually undectable coded override accessible only in ultrasonic Graalek sounds, my native Andorian language.

Not even words, these sounds, inaudible to almost all sentient species and even less could produce them, could not even be noticed by a universal translator, as no actual word or pattern was perceivable. Only someone with a grade A-7 computer expertise, personally fluent in Graalek and able to hear ultrasounds, if looking specifically for this code, would have been able to find it. And an attempt to alter or remove it without the ship's commander personal code and bioscan would create the exact effect this override is intended for when once uttered to any receptor of the ship's computer; it would immediately shut down and lock all of it's systems; even life support, effectively killing the ship to all but it's captain or Starbase Lotus' commander.

I just never foresaw that this precaution would one day allow me to actually be the saboteur of my own ship; or former ship as it is.

I know Captain Redding will be resourceful enough to assemble a team with the proper expertise; even if securing the required help of an Andorian might take some time as they all resigned from Starfleet following my own resignation. So will be getting my biometrics, after they finally convince Starfleet's General Surgeon's Office to even approve such a breach of patient confidentiality. The next most feasible thing would be to entirely replace the ship's main computer core to revive the ship; at least six weeks at the starbase; two if they have a miracle worker available.

Unfortunately for them and lucky for us, two miracle workers they readily had on hand are now with us.

*   *   *

USS Horizon, main bridge.

"Lt. May, report" Redding seemed agitated and the situation as might be expected.

"I'm sorry sir, we are completely shut out of the main computer.. were still not sure how it even happened." she said with an exasperated sigh.

"It was Kheren, speaking in Graalek, it's like an ultrasonic language" His original first officer and best friend used it to annoy him many times.
"What the hell is going on?" First he resigns and now this?

"Can you fix it?" he said impatiently

"Yes sir, I can, but without the proper coding.. well, it could take days." she didn't dare look up at him.

How dare he do this?! To me?! he worked hard to keep his rage in check.
He just couldn't believe he'd do this.

"Lt. Somors, send a priority message to Admiral Samji, where going to need Kheren's biometrics from Starfleet medical ASAP" it shouldn't be too hard as he no longer had security clearance.
They had managed to patch the com system through the escort ship via a portable station, allowing them to maintain shipwide comms with their communicators.

He sat thinking for a few minuets "May.. get a recording of that signal and send it to Commodore Zh'chavin at Stafleet intelligence, tell her I need it translated, she'll know what I mean"
He respected Kheren but to shut down the flagship on the brink of war? he went to far.

He got up and went to his ready room "let me know if there are any changes" he barely finished the words as the doors slid closed behind him.

Once inside he stood unmoving for nearly half a minuet before walking up the the replicator and ordering a glass of water with two ice cubes in it.
He looked down at the small cylinder in his hand containing his 'whiskey cubes' for several seconds before putting them away and ordering a black coffee instead.
"I really need to install a punching bag in this room" he mused aloud.
 

*   *   *

Sitting alone in the small briefing room of the security department of the Alsea, Kheren, former captain of the flagship, had been looking at several files hidden in the Alsea's computer core.

Actually, they had been erased by the captain of the ship, as per orders and regulations, after he had discovered their content and transmitted them to Starfleet Command. At the time, the Andorian too had been a commanding officer with the required level 10 security clearance to view them. And so he was already well aware of their existence, content and point of origin, before he decided to take matters in his own hands and go against the Federation's bewildering decision to wage war on an unknown species for dubious reason and out of fear.

So he knew what he was looking for. He only had to somehow reconstrcut them from all the other data still present in the ship's tactical, navigational and sensor logs all around what had been erased; then with some input from what he actually knew, let the computer itself reconstruct the missing pieces so that coherence was re-established in those logs. It was like recreating a complete image out of the pieces you still had left, less like a puzzle and more like a game of ''guess this sentence'' where key words were missing but you knew some of the missing letters.

It was long, tedious work, even for a starship computer; but after several hours, it was complete and the files of the impromptu cadet voyage of the USS Alsea were now fully accessible to him; the same he had seen during the classified briefing of Rear Admiral Kotari.

After editing out the references to the Omega particle, he tapped his combadge.

''This is Kheren; any engineer having some free time on his hands, I'd like a moment with, please. Former and current starship commanders are also welcome of course.''

Syntron meticulously inspected the science sections throughout the multi-vector vessel they had commandeered and were now traveling at transwarp velocities within. He noted each of the upgrades added, even the latest ones implemented by the training crew last aboard the vessel. His proceedings were transcribed to a PAAD that was serving as his centralized datapoint for all things related to the ship and the impending illicit mission they were headed towards. 

Staying focused on the issues at hand managed to curtail the meandering thoughts swirling around everything that had transpired to this point, at least for the moment. Yet, shadows of doubt persisted in creeping in, antithetical to a Vulcan mind. These internal thoughts were suddenly shattered by the voice of the former Andorian captain, which slightly reverberated in the enclosed environment. As the message concluded, he lightly touched the temporary combadge attached to his attire.

“Syntron here. I will join you in eleven point three-five minutes,” he announced stoically as he worked to conclude the inspection of the area in progress.

Rogers heard the call from the main deflector control room on deck five. He had been monitoring the gravitron polarity generators behind the field distortion amplifiers. At these speeds the deflectors were working at overtime and were being taxed to their limits. Leaving the control room David made his way to the turbo lift next to the room, answering the call as he walked.

"On my way Kheren."

A few seconds later Rogers stepped off the lift on deck eight and, passing through the brig, entered the small room to find Syntron, near the Andorian in the smallish room.

"What's up?"

Just as Rogers was inquiring what the call was for Sorripto entered the room behind him.

“You were looking for an Engineer?”

Gesturing to Rogers Sorripto continued.

“We will let you know when we find a good one.”

Kheren's antennae curved inward.

''You mean we left him at the starbase? ''

He looked at the stoic Vulcan, his own expressionless face a match to his.

''We are doomed.''

Jureth moved from the bridge after checking the automation and the computer were still functioning to keep them on course and entered the briefing room just in time to hear Kheren's reply to Syntron. 

"That's an awfully bleak outlook considering we just stole a starship." the Bajoran said with an expression on his face that told everyone in the room he was  completely serious. 

"Why exactly are we doomed?" he continued before anyone could reply.

Kheren pointed to his sharply curving antennae.

''Remind me, Captain, to teach you about Andorian body language. This, for example, is grinning.''

Then, his cranial appendages pointed forward.

''Now this, is serious.''

At the same time, he was activating the 3D display of the small conference table. between them appeared the reconstructed schematics of the alien intruder and it's three auxillairy crafts as recorded during the improvised cadet cruise that revealed it's presence in Federation Space.

''Please Captain, do not see this as me taking away from you your authority to debrief officers and crew and dictating a course of action. I am simply hoping to have a discussion on a tactical standpoint, since I am assuming this is the role you intend for me to play under your command. That is why I primarily invited our miracle workers here. But excluding you or even our former science genius commanding officer would have not only been improper but... unwise. So I am glad that you are all here. But I remind you, Sir, and everyone, that you are in command. Feel free to take over from me or call this over at any point.''

Data scrolled all around it so that people could review it from whatever angle they were looking at the projection. nevertheless, the Andorian sumrized it.

''Second step in dealing with potential conflict is to know thy enemy. Here is what is terrorizing the Federation to the point of discarding all it stands for; an unknown advanced lifeform scans could not identify, except for it's incoming trajectory back from it's point of origin; the Andromeda galaxy. Kelvans are the only life form we actually know to originate from there, but there is no actual data confirming yet this is Kelvan in origin; an egg-shaped multifaceted craft about the size of a Borg Cube. It's power source, classified by the federation to the highest security levels,  is capable of destroying space itself for parsecs around if uncontained. It's propulsion, navigation, detection, offensive and defensive systems are all relying on one and one force only; gravity.''

There was a renactement of tactical display showing the encounter between the Alsea and the intruder ship on display as he continued.

'' Propulsion is reminescent of Illythirii technology, using artificially-generated transient singularities to slingshot the ship's mass beyond light speed; even beyond warp speed. Weapons are tractor-repulsor beams shaking the target apart; shields are useless as they can be ''shaken'' just as easily with anything inside it, like pebbles in a bottle. Based on their tech's nature, I expect they also have projectile weaponry similar to our own gravitic mines or Borg gravimetric torpedoes. That being said, they should have shields like ours since shields are graviton-based; yet, they don't. According to this data, the entire hull is made up of... let's call them ''absorption panels'' that diffuse any type of energy impacting them onto the entire assembly. It is not only thus dissipated on a wide area but what's leftover is stored in batteries and reconverted to power their own systems, most notably in reconstructing this hull when damaged by excess energy, somewhat like Borg ship regeneration mode, and their firepower. See how after each volley from the Alsea, their own riposte is significantly stronger.''

He looked at them in turn.

''The only prior experience we have of such power and technology is the V'ger encounter of the 23rd century. Starfleet does not scare easily, but this could stand up to a whole task force, even a fleet. And that is, if it is even alone out there. Three other objects allegedly of the doomsday machine kind encountered by the USS Enterprise under Captain Kirk are on a rendez-vous course with it; robot planet killers with hulls of pure neutronium and a massive anti-proton beam.''

His antennae started wobbling.

''So the first question for us tactically and technically-minded folks would be; what's to make of all this?''

“Tactics and weaponry do not appear to favor our limited position at this time,” Syntron noted somberly after processing the magnitude of what his Andorian counterpart was laying out for them. 

“The prospects would appear grim at best, even compared with those as we faced the lethal out-of-control anomaly.”  

He studied the serious visages around him before continuing. 

“Our best hope may be to come up with a designed diplomatic approach coupled with a plan to maximize our defensive capabilities and battlefield agility. The encounter that occurred involving the cadets demonstrated that a direct communication approach yielded no results. This could be partially due to communication issues but could also be due to a philosophical or cultural divide. Regardless, we need to determine the intent of why they are entering our quadrant at this time. If we are able to establish this information, it would allow us to come up with options to craft some form of a resolution.” 

Kheren fixed his four oculars on the Vulcan.

''Well that's just it, my friend. It is not that a direct communication approach yielded no result; there actually was no communication approach at all.''

He displayed the logs of the encounter as he detailed the incident. 

'' According to the ship's log, there was nothing there that needed to be protected. They were under no orders or mission parameters that called them to stand and fight in this specific instance. Only General Order 8 mandated that they ascertain the situation of a potential hostile vessel in Federation Space. And even that they did quite poorly, most importantly because the first step in that process is to open communications. They did not. Instead, they immediately went into combat mode, not once attempting to actually communicate with the intruder.''

The logs of the encounter were undeniable. Kheren highlighted the crucial parts.

''The intruder appeared from astern out of some cloaking cover, enticing an immediate attack pattern response from the Alsea. It was a manual override; the Pel Warning System had not reacted because the threat response sensor system had not identified any immediate threat from a mere decloaking energy surge without any weapons lock. Then, as the Alsea maneuvered into attack posture, the intruder opened fire. Although a powerful burst, it was well below the actual destructive power output this intruder can produce. It was for all intent and purpose, suppressive fire against an incoming attack.''

 He looked at his former fellow officers.
''In other words, gentlebeings; we opened the hostilities.''

 He activated a side log which was a display of Starfleet's rules and regulations.

 ''As we all know, at least us commanding officers and former commanding officers, Starfleet Rules of Engagement is to first and foremost ascertain the reason and intention of any intruder. Thus we can best assess the situation and respond properly. Firing is the last thing to do. These were cadets; and so, they failed, out of fear, inexperience or bravado, to make that first, most crucial step. Then they failed to correct their mistake, until the intruder itself chose to break off the engagement; luckily for them.''

 He sighed but never took his silvery eyes off of them.

 ''And now, the entire Federation is doing exactly the same mistake. I can understand that from cadets; but not from the Federation.''

 "I would suspect the cadets were probably a little jumpy given they'd already been attacked once." Jureth surmised "perhaps the vessel's cloak disengaging seemed like weapons fire...If all of their technology is gravity based it could have impacted the shields in a manner that seemed like they were being fired on. Not an excuse of course...but perhaps a reason. That said, if we are flying in to a hostile situation we may have to defend ourselves first before we can communicate. We could start by going in at yellow alert rather than red...shields only, weapons in stand by. Broadcast a greeting on all known subspace frequencies stating that we wish no further hostilities. It may not be enough though." 

Kheren nodded to the Bajoran. 

''That is why you are a captain and a good one; you know this might be riskier than just coming in guns blazing, but the risk is worth it if it will make a friend rather than an enemy. Those are the exact words of one of Starfleet's most influential commanding officers, Kevlar Garth, who's career defined Starfleet's rules of engagement. The very first encounter between my people and Humanity attests to that.'' 

He looked at the others.

''As another legendary Captain, James T. Kirk once understood, when facing an unknown, even just a mere scan or a defensive posture could be interpreted as hostile. But we can only do what we think best to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. As I said, I do not blame cadets for making cadet mistakes. But consider this. Before we started out, I had a discussion with Commander Sangliar, my former ChEng on the Artemis. He was aboard the Alsea at the time. He was about to order the cadets to get out of firing range, reinforce shields and open a channel when he was injured and put out of commission. That little detail is not in the official report. Neither is this exact sequence of events. Syntron and Jureth will recall that what we saw in the briefing was the intruder firing first. But as you can see now, there were exactly fifty-three seconds omitted from between the decloaking and the first exchange of fire; the part where the Alsea maneuvered to confront the intruder.''

They could indeed all see it now in the original recording from the ship itself. The Andorian's tone was somber. 

''The enemy might not be in front of us... but behind us; even... within us.''

He sighed audibly but never left his gaze from them.

''I'm not talking about any one of us here having... deceitful intentions. I'm talking about our own prejudices, fears and wants that can betray our best goals, intentions and wishes. That is what made Syntron and I act so poorly towards Captain Jureth. It might have also misguided the intruder's actions. It certainly IS misguiding the Federation Council.''

He pointed at the display then at himself.

''Cadets are not the only ones who make mistakes. Let us keep that in mind. Facing this intruder might not even be the hardest part. But everything will fall apart if we fail that first step.''

Jureth nodded

"That's very true, but if someone wanted to plunge the Federation in to war, why this? Why not simply provoke the Klingons? It seems like they went a long way to start a war. Was this just a target of opportunity?"

“The cadets acted out of fear and inexperience.” Sorripto finally spoke after putting the events together in his head.“They had been fired on before and to someone with limited tactical or ops experience that ship decloaking could have easily looked like incoming weapons fire. Do not get me wrong I am not defending the actions, but intentional hostile action does not appear to be the entire goal of the Alsea.”

Sorripto continued.

“Perhaps you give the higher ups too much credit. For this to have been a sinister plot from the start the cadet cruise would have to be a setup. After the dismantling of section 31 there are few left with any clout in Starfleet with that kind of tactical deceitfulness.”

Pointing at the screen Sorripto agreed with the latter of Jureth’s thoughts.

“This seems like an opportunity to go to war with someone because the chance is there. With the logs being false the narrative is we were attacked first by a hostile force. Someone saw a chance and took it.”

Kheren nodded.

'' A quite plausible argument, Lieutenant Commander. But the very first rule of a tactician is; never underestimate an opponent. Section 31 may be dead, but they were not the first, nor will be the last, to master deceit to this level. I would not discount the possibility just yet... but I agree, this looks more like an opportunistic turn of event than anything else. For 300 years, stirring up the Klingons, to take your example, never worked successfully. But this is something completely new; in other words, an opportunity indeed.''

"I'm an engineer, not a politician," David finally spoke. "You need weapons and shields, I'll keep 'em up as long as I'm alive. This 'who shot who' and 'which side is wrong' stuff is for tactics and diplomacy."

David paced slowly around the small table as he talked and came to a stop to Kheren's right, glancing at the log file the Andorian was displaying. With a gesture toward it, Rogers continued.

"Not to change the subject but," David paused slightly to look at the other four in turn. "...we cannot fight gravity with photons. I need to study these logs in order to know if I can configure something to counter their technology. Otherwise we may as well throw the warp cores at them!"

The Andorian glanced at the half-romulan and then at Sorripto.

''Not a bad idea if it comes to it... nevertheless, that is exactly why I asked you both here, gentlemen.''

He then looked at the others.

''Captain Jureth and I are career tactical officers. Our job should be to look at the upcoming situation... and at the larger picture. Syntron is our science and diplomatic master; no one could be better to find us peaceful options... and help us all understand all of this.''

He finished turning to the Bajoran.

''That would be my recommendation of the day, Captain Sir.''

Jureth nodded "I don't see anything wrong with any of that." he looked at the two engineers "Can you two play nice together and figure out a way to keep us alive against graviton weaponry?"

Gesturing towards Rogers Sorripto responded.

"Him? Absolutely not. I do not work with criminals. The law is a very important thing to me."

Sorripto paused for a moment and his look turned serious.

"Gravitons can reek havoc on shields and our hull if they are not properly mitigated. We will have to figure out a way to mitigate the graviton interaction with our polarity."

Kheren's antennae curved inward slightly.

''This tactical officer might have a working hyopothesis. We already have tactical sensors calibrated to read enemy fire on our shields to adjust them and reduce damage. Since their weaponry is essentially tractor beams shaking the target, and our shields are graviton-based, might it be possible to adjust shield frequency to the attack and thus countervibrate it? After all, this gravity beam works essentially like a disruptor and we know how to deal with disruptors, since almost everyone else use those against us. What think you, miracle workers? Mister Syntron, does that make sense?''

The Vulcan concurred with a subtle nod.  “Perhaps in addition to adjusting shield frequency we could also prepare graviton implosion charges which could potentially add to the overall impact in response… should the need arise.”

Sorripto snapped his fingers.

"We will just need to make the ship heavier."

Sorripto paused for a moment and continued.

"The sensor modifications I made the McKenzie all those years ago have become practically standard issue on scout and combat ships today, so most people do not even think about what exactly it does. The short version is I used a nanite configuration to trick the sensors into thinking they were closer to the target. A graviton based weapon will not work on any object that generates enough gravitational force to counter the pull or resonates gravitons on the exact counter frequency. Since we do not know exactly what the frequency will be we can modify the shield and the hull polarity to change the outward gravitational field of the ship. We will in essence fool their weapons into thinking our ship is too heavy the lack of ability to lock on the tractor beam like array will greatly minimize damage. It may give us enough time to calibrate the shields to mitigate it entirely."

Sorripto looked around at the small band of renegades he had thrown his hat in with.

"Unfortunately such changes will require large power realignment and mess with the natural gravitational fields of the ship. Someone is going to have to break it to the crew that they will have to be relocated towards the center of the ship. Also I would stay out of ten forward for a while."

  While the crew discussed methodologies toward confronting this unknown antagonist, Rogers lent some of his attention toward the logs Kheren had displayed, even transferring them to his personal padd to study them more. Certain characteristics of the cadets' confrontation were intriguing. 

David turned his padd around to show the assembled crew while interjecting.

"These logs show destruction on three of their small ships. If we can match the time stamps to the ships visual logs we could possibly nail down the frequency from the Alsea's torpedo strikes."

 Glancing at Captain Jureth and Kheren, Rogers continued.

"There are some slight gaps in these logs but," David continued, looking at Syntron and then back to the Andorian. "The logs show singularities manifesting at the moment of destruction of these smaller craft. Their propulsion, their weapons, even their defenses are gravitron based but the final singularity manifestation doesn't quite follow on from the gravitational constant. We know the mass of the Alsea, even in Multi vector mode, but there is too much mass from the enemy to fit the equation. Its as if the radius squared divisor would be thousands of meters instead of a few hundred meters! If I had to guess ..."

 David glanced again at Sorripto, a very intelligent engineer who could not know what he knew, and kept hidden. Looking back at the others David dropped his guess. 

"No, it just seems off somehow."

Jureth listened to Rogers hypothesis start and then end abruptly. The Bajoran commander of the Alsea suspected he knew why the logs were off, Synttron and Kheren knew as well, but during the entire conversation Jureth had been thinking. Really, ever since that day on the bridge with T'Lana Jureth had been thinking that something about the whole situation was off. He had reviewed Voyager's information and the unclassified portions of Captain Janeway's logs from her Omega incident and something about his own didn't sit right with him. When Voyager's computer had detected the Omega particle it had locked the crew out of the computer immediately, why had the Alsea's waited? The artificial intelligence had justified that no Captain rank officer was aboard at the time, but why didn't the computer simply lock the cadets out of the system and force them to wait for assistance? What if there wasn't an Omega detection at all? what if the Alsea's logs were altered, not during the cadet cruise, but after the Alsea had returned to Starbase Lotus? 

"Gentlemen..." Jureth said evenly, maybe even solemnly "There is a piece of information that you do not have. What I am about to tell you will likely cost me what little shred of my Starfleet career is left after stealing a starship and could possibly land me in a Federation prison for a very long time, but under the circumstances I feel there is a need to divulge it. The ship's logs are off because on Stardate 88681.07 the ship's sensors registered the presence of the Omega phenomenon."

He looked at the two engineers before continuing "I know enough about the two of you by reputation that you likely already suspected that. The detection was revealed to me during a post repair inspection 72 hours after initial detection. The computer justified the delay by stating that no Captain rank or above officer was aboard the ship at the time of detection. However, given all that has happened since then I suspect that the Alsea's sensor logs have been altered. Not while she was underway, but after she returned to Starbase Lotus."

Jureth read his audience and decided to attempt to justify his suspicion "Think about it, if one wanted to push the Federation to military action what better way to do so than to give them a target they couldn't refuse?"

“They were.” Sorripto responded.

“The recorded times of the log records had micro variables in the timestamp.”

Sensing the curiosity and judgement in the room Sorripto continued.

“Starfleet computers are programed in such a way where the log automatically rounds up to the nearest one millionth of a second. This is because it saves both time and memory space along with the fact that the odds of need the time more specific than that are minute. Most people do not even know it does that, which means someone who alters a log would probably miss it too.”

Sorripto paused and smiled slightly.

“This is assuming they were altered. I mean assuming they would be if I had read them.”

Gesturing back to Jureth Sorripto finished his thought.

“Which means someone who knew about omega would have understood the delay and altered the logs despite that. This seems to me a lot more than an excuse to start a war.”

Kheren took a moment to get back his bearings. At first, when Jureth started speaking about the Omega particle to junior officers, he almost jumped out of his seat to clobber him. He had just condemned himself and those two engineers to lifelong emprisonnement. There was no way around it, no justification, no excuse, no possibility of appeal.

Then in the same hearbeat, he paused. For that to happen, someone would have to report the crime.

He certainly wouldn't. He was not a Starfleet officer anymore. Because he judged Starfleet to be dead wrong. For better or worse, he was actively acting against Starfleet. Why would he submit to it's rules if they were wrong? To the Andorian, the answer was clear and easy enough.

But what about Syntron?

Starfleet rules applied to Starfleet officers, not civilians; like Syntron and him now where. So it would be illogical for the Vulcan to enforce directives he has severed ties with; especially when doing so would endanger life and civilization by stopping the only people willing and able to prevent that danger. Vulcans stood up for life, peace and understanding but most of all reason. There was no reason for him to ruin the lives of those who would help him fulfill his most sacred beliefs.

They were out there risking life and career to save the Federation from disaster; wasn't that the exact goal of the Omega Directive in the first place?

His silvery gaze swept all the others as he spoke.

''I suggest, gentlebeings, we be careful with our words from now on. Some here are still Starfleet officers, bound by duty, most of all duty to the truth. And all of us would like to have lives after all this is over. ''

He sighed and went on.

''Regardless, I agree; there is at least as much danger on our stern as there is on our bow. That's why I resigned in the first place. May I suggest that we tackle the easiest one first waiting for us at the edge of the galaxy. We might be lucky enough there to find something useful for when we get back to face the other, deeper problem; and if we get back.''

Jureth nodded in agreement with Kheren though he was a little surprised neither the Andorian nor the Vulcan had chastised him for his gross violation of Starfleet directives.

"Agreed, but we need to keep in mind that if whomever went so far as to alter this specific ship's logs they may have also anticipated our actions as well. We may want to look for any other surprises left for us. We have all dealt with saboteurs before, specifically the Horizon's Children, and we know that a dedicated individual or group of individuals likely wouldn't stop at a single action." 

Kheren nodded to him and looked at each of the in turn.

'' To anticipate each of our individual actions would mean to know intimately each of us. Syntron's resignation and mine sent such shockwaves, it's obvious no one expected that. Rogers and Sorripto have been on a tight leash because of past actions; most beleive them to be selfish officers, so expecting them to sacrifice what they fought so hard to keep... and for what? And join with us, and us with them, we the two most ''rulebound'' officers to be found in Starfleet as anyone would like to beleive? That would be quite a stretch. As for you, Captain, there is nothing in your career or profile that hinted at your present course of action; especially that you were to be in actual command. Now try to come up with a scenario where we take all that into account and have it come together as it did. Not even any of us saw it coming.''

The Andorian sighed.

''Still, never hurts to be on the side of caution. Syntron could look for any tampering in our computers and sensor systems. Sorripto and Rogers should find any structural or power sabotage attempt. You and I could look over the tactical systems and the weaponry and we can all make simulation tests to check out for anomalies in ship operations. We have several days ahead of us so we could go as deep as level 4 diagnostics, even level 5 on some key systems. And the sooner the better I would propose.''

“Given the current circumstances, vigilance should accompany each action we implement,” Syntron concurred solemnly with the Bajoran and the Andorian. “I will conduct simultaneous diagnostic investigations into all components and systems affiliated with the sensor arrays along with examinations and tests of all computer systems. If any abnormalities arise, they will be meticulously documented and presented to you Captain,” he pledged.