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| - Approximately twenty-four hours later Logan walked into the mess hall and saw Atana standing at the replicator. Logan walked over to Atana and ordered an iced ratktjino after she took her own mug from the receiving slot. “How are ye doing?” Logan asked Atana as he took his iced Klingon coffee from the replicator’s slot. The mug was a silver thermal mug with a black lid and handle and with U.S.S. Prometheus inlayed in black over the similarly inlayed NX - 59563. “Quite well.” Atana responded warmly as the two of them sat down at an unoccupied table. Atana reached out and touched Logan’s had as she continued, “How about you?” Before Logan could respond his communicator beeped. Cursing his luck, since he had sensed more than a casual interest in his well-being in Atana, Logan tapped his communicator with his free hand as Atana pulled her hand away. “MacLeod here.” Logan said managing to keep the annoyance he was feeling out of his voice. “Commander Solen here. We are three minutes from Spacedock and have been ordered to dock in the main bay, slot three. Voyager has docked in slot one and the Enterprise is in the process of docking in slot two.” “Very well, commander.” Logan said as he stood up, “I’m on mah way. Continue with standard docking procedures. MacLeod out.” “Sorry, lass.” Logan apologized to Atana, “I have to go. Regulations require me to be on the bridge and to be the one talking with the traffic control officer. It’s an old regulation, but it’s still regulation nonetheless.” “I’ll see you later then.” Atana said as she stood up. “Aye, lass. Hopefully I will nae be called away next time.” Logan said before he left the mess hall with his half full mug. --- As Solen walked onto the bridge he saw the senior staff members, who were on the bridge crew, sitting at their stations as well as lieutenant Ruiz sitting at the engineering station as she usually did when Durgan wasn’t on the bridge. Logan walked across the bridge and put his now empty mug in the replicator and pressed the ‘recycle’ button before he went to sit in his command chair. As he sat down Logan looked to Solen who nodded to indicate that they had an open channel to Spacedock. “Approach control,” Logan said, “this is the Prometheus. We are ready to dock.” “Prometheus,” the disembodied voice of the traffic control officer said, “this is Spacedock approach control you are cleared to dock in the main bay, slot three.” “Lock onto Spacedock’s signal Mister Sulu.” Logan ordered. “Locked on.” Jon said after tapping a series of buttons on his console. “Spacedock,” Logan said, “ye have control.” “Affirmative, Prometheus, control confirmed. Sit back and enjoy the ride.” The traffic control officer said. With a chuckle in his voice the traffic control officer continued on, “We’ll try not to run you into anything.” “Muchly appreciated, laddie. Prometheus out.” Logan chuckled. Continuing on he addressed Jon, “Standby gravitational and umbilical support systems.” “Aye-aye, sir.” Jon said as the Prometheus glided towards the Spacedock. The image of the Spacedock on the Prometheus' viewscreen, which looked like a gigantic mushroom topped by sky scrapers that was sitting on top of a smaller mushroom attached to a sphere with sky scrapers pointing downwards grew larger as the Prometheus neared the ‘head’ of the large ‘mushroom’. Soon the large, open, docking bay doors were the only thing on the viewscreen and even that gave way as the Prometheus entered the cavernous docking bay and slid into the docking slot next to the Enterprise as its bow thrusters began firing to slow the Prometheus to a stop. “Captain,” Jon said moments later, “We are at zero meters per second. Spacedock’s mooring systems have activated and umbilical connectors have attached.” “The warp core is in non-propulsive mode,” Gleicy reported from the Operations, “sub-light propulsion systems are in standby mode.” “Very good, a routine docking procedure, but ye did it textbook perfect. I’m proud of all of ye.” Logan said. Turning his chair so he faced Solen he continued on, “Ye have the bridge commander.” “Aye, sir.” Solen said as Logan headed for the starboard exit. Moments later Logan walked back into the mess hall moments later hoping to see that Atana was still there. Unfortunately she wasn’t, however Logan did see chief petty officer Joshua Gunn sitting at a table. Logan walked over to the Joshua’s table and waved for him to sit back down as he began to stand, as protocol required when a superior officer joined a subordinate at a table. “As ye were. You dinnae need to stand for me.” Logan said with a chuckle as he sat down across from the , “It’s not like I’m anyone special.” Not saying anything Joshua gave Logan a grandfatherly gaze that seemed to say ‘don’t under-rate yourself’. “It’s certainly a strange universe we live in,” Logan said, “we were dispatched to deal with an impending Borg invasion and instead we wind up slowly escorting Voyager back to Earth.” “Life certainly is unusual,” Joshua said, “we never would’ve expected Voyager to fly, un-assimilated, from a Borg debris field. According to all reasonable thought they should’ve settled on the first uninhabited M-class planet they came across.” “Voyager’s return was unexpected, but it was nae unusual.” Logan said. “Not to be insubordinate, but how do you figure that? If you don’t mind my asking.” the Chief asked his former protégé and pseudo-grandson. “Not at all,” Logan said, “I was…acquainted with Kathryn Janeway back when we served on the Billings together.” “Acquainted?” the Chief teased Logan, “I take it that the two of you were more than friends.” “To quote twentieth century Earth politicians ‘no comment.’ ” Logan said with a crooked smile. --- Two weeks later the Prometheus’ alpha shift had been on duty for less than a hour when Solen told Logan that they were receiving and alpha priority communiqué, for him, from Starfleet Command. Logan told Solen to route it to his ready room and left the bridge. Once he had walked into his ready room Logan went and sat behind the desk before he pressed the button that caused the desktop monitor to rise out of the desktop and click into place. With a press of another button the screen sprung to life with the image of admiral Kenneth Montgomery. “Captain MacLeod,” Montgomery said, “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I have to cut your time at Earth short. We have a beta level security clearance situation planet side and one of the ships we have out on patrol can’t continue on patrol. The Prometheus needs to ship out and take over the Victory’s patrol duties so they can put into port for repairs. I’ll have the details transmitted to you once we finish up. Apparently the Victory took quite a beating when they ran into an ion storm. Since those old Constellation class ships don’t have nano-cochrane stabilizers in their shields they weren’t able to re-modulate their shields fast or precisely enough to keep them from failing. When their shields went down took ion discharges to their EPS manifold and nearly had a core breach.” “Understood, sir.” Logan said, “We’ll depart as soon as Spacedock operations clears us for departure. If I may ask what the problem is, I do have more that the necessary security clearance level.” “Very well, captain.” Montgomery said after a moment of consideration, “However you are not to relay any of this information to your crew unless our efforts to contain the problem fail.” “Understood.” Logan replied. “We have a big problem here, and its spelt with a capital Borg. There are no Borg vessels within sensor range and no drones on the surface, aside from the two former Borg crew members from the Voyager’s crew, however we have forty-six confirmed cases of people becoming Borg drones and the most confusing part is that only about ten percent of the cases are from the traditional method of injection nano-probes. We’re at a loss to explain how the other ninety percent are becoming drones. Right now it’s just the young, ill, and elderly being affected but our projections show that it’s just a matter of time before healthy adults begin turning into Borg drones.” “That is nae a good thing.” Logan said, “We’ll get underway as soon as Spacedock ops clears us for departure.” “Very good, Captain. Montgomery out.” Moments later Logan walked back onto the bridge and began issuing orders for immediate departure and to patrol the perimeter of the solar system. Twenty minutes later the Prometheus had cleared Spacedock’s thrusters only zone and jumped to warp eight on a course that would take them to their newly assigned patrol route. Twenty minutes later the Prometheus had cleared Spacedock’s thrusters only zone and jumped to warp eight on a course that would take them to their designated patrol area. --- Meanwhile light-years away on the world of Nalogen IV Zah’dar Togen of the Kelvan Guard walked down a drab grey corridor in his human form and turned to his left at a pair of doors that led to circular, dome shaped, conference room with a circular conference table that had six seats around it. Inside the room Togen sat down at the table and waited. Minutes later another Kelvan, in human form, walked into the room. Togen gestured for the new arrival, colonial administrator aide Henik, to sit at the table. “Is everything ready?” Togen asked. “Nearly,” Henik said, “the Islupuram is in docking port three at the repair facility. I have had it crewed with our sympathizers.” “Any word from Talina?” “Yes, she contacted me earlier in today.” Henik said, “She says that the supplies of titanium and deuterium that our allies gave us are running low. There is not enough to complete the project.” “We cannot move now, if we do we will jeopardize our birthright as the rulers of this galaxy.” Togen said. “The situation is more dire than I have stated. Talina believed that if we are unable to initiate a systems start-up in a completed shell the project will be forever useless.” Henik said, “If we do not take the necessary risk to secure the supplies we need we will never realize our birthright. We will remain a conquered people, traitors to the Kelvan Empire for we will be following the ways of the traitorous Rojan. We will be doing as he did and be bowing down to the Federation infidels!” “Very well, Henik,” Togen said, “you are correct, we must take the risk. But I will go and survey the situation personally before I commit to gathering the supplies. Have we received any further communications from our allies.” “No, and I do not trust them. However, I am glad to see that you understand the situation. I will have the Islupuram prepared for immediate departure.” Henik said before he stood up and left the room.
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