Lieutenant-Commander Meris stood waiting by the shuttle hatch as the tall blonde helped the survivors of the devastated world on to the cruiser's deck, looking them over with an expert eye. 'The injuries are all remarkably mild,' she mused as she supported a girl's arm with surprising delicacy, 'though I'm going to have to inoculate them all against radiation poisoning, just in case.' "Say hello to the newcomers," Lieutenant Danielle said softly from her position nearby, "Ensigns Rei, Hari, Rakka, Pat, Lea, Toki, Janni, Fay and Susan." She paused, "And Lieutenant-commander Sara." "Ma'am," Sara swiftly saluted the doctor, the golden haired temporary commander of the underground shelter swaying tiredly. Meris narrowed her eyes, "You need to get to sickbay along with the rest of your crew, we'll examine you there...." "No," Sara shook her head firmly, "I have to give my report to the captain, first." "I'll escort her up," Danielle looked up as another figure emerged, this one held in restraints, "along with her." "Catty?" Meris blinked, looking at the emergency restraints that had been used to secure the young woman's arms. "You'll hear about it from the Captain later," Danielle added as the black haired officer led the two of them to the lifts. Over in another section of the shuttle bay Lieutenant-Commander Karin oversaw the unloading of the supplies, her eyes nearly twinkling as she went over the list. "Looks like that damaged targeting computer will finally get replaced," the engineer ran a hand through her dark hair, "and we'll finally get the internal emergency systems back up." "Where do you want the power suits unloaded?" Jame yelled, awkwardly trying to get a sweaty strand of green hair up out of her eyes as she maneuvered the heavy machinery around with magnetic clamps and floaters. "We'll be shuffling that down to the armory, just let Tanya and Danielle handle it," Karin answered crisply. She looked around a moment then shouted,. "Davies!" "Yo!" the sandy haired young woman almost seemed to pop up out from the back of another one of the shuttles. "I want you to start drawing proposals up for how much damage we're going to have to do getting the Star Destroyer power core down to engineering," Karin said crisply, "we're going to have to run them all by the Captain before we start something this big." "Too bad we can't just re-enter normal space and use a shuttle to bring it around the outside of the ship," Davies murmured as she studied a ship's schematic on her data pad. "We don't have much of a lead on the Paranoid," Karin shrugged, "I doubt the boss wants to add any extra delays." "And moving it outside the ship while we're still in hyperspace is completely out of the question," Davies added glumly. "Not unless you want to have a really nice funeral," Karin said dryly in reply. Leaving a vessel while it was traveling in hyperspace was suicide, either instantly destroying you or just leaving you lost in an infinite unearthly void. Karin left her second in command to her duties and turned to talk to Jame only to freeze. That little redhead Jame liked was talking to her, gazing up as Jame worked. "Is this much harder than when you were in environmental?" Katrine asked. "Actually I like it," Jame admitted as she shifted another heavy box of equipment, "the work is interesting and I get along well with the Chief." "I had heard that Chief Karin was a real hard ass," Katrine confided softly. Karin stiffened, fighting back a stab of anger. 'Why that little...' she thought irritably, ready to move forward and give the girl a lecture. "Then you heard wrong," Jame actually sounded angry as she continued on, "the Chief has been nothing but kind to me, not to mention remarkably patient with someone who has almost no real engineering experience." "You haven't heard all the stories..." Katrine continued. "Excuse me," Jame startled her friend by cutting her off right in mid-sentence, "but I have to get back to work, now." 'Well I'll be damned,' Karin thought as she watched Katrine walk away, 'seems our little Jame has fangs when she needs them.' The lift doors opened into a hallway as Danielle led them all out, the tactical officer explaining, "The Captain and Commander want to talk to you privately first, before passing any of the information on to the crew at large." "Understandable," Sara nodded, walking along while keeping her distance from Catty. "And my own situation will have to be handled with some delicacy," Catty remarked, the purple haired android following peacefully. "True enough," Danielle acknowledged. They reached the Captain's ready room and the door swiftly slid aside, the tactical officer waving the two of them inside first. Captain Gail looked up from where she was talking quietly to Commander Allaine and studied Sara thoughtfully a moment. "Welcome aboard the Lady Grace," she got up to offer her hand, shaking the other officer's hand firmly. "Captain," Sara smiled back as she continued on with a tired sigh, "you have no idea how good it is to see you, ma'am." "I think I can imagine," Gail admitted as she waved them to seats. "I'll stand, I think," Sara shook her head. With a determined expression she gave her report, summarizing the devastating attack on the planet, how her and her team were stranded there in the underground command center and the year or so that they had struggled to survive there. Allaine frowned slightly as she studied Sara, seeing the exhaustion that had seemed to soak into the younger woman's very bones. 'Riding herd over a crew of just ensigns must have been hell,' she thought admiringly. "May I ask," Sara looked over at Catty with an expression of pure loathing on her face, "what you intend to do with it?" "Confinement for the rest of the voyage?" Danielle spoke up to offer that suggestion. "Not unreasonable," Catty offered, "but I would request a military trial." There was a moment of dead silence. Gail looked at her thoughtfully, "As a military officer, you have the right, but I'm not sure how that applies to an artificial entity." "A thing like that," Sara sounded furious, "got at least two of my crew killed, attempting to let in Paranoid scout crews to our shelter. Destroy it before it betrays you, too." "The other Catty was merely following her programming," Catty responded calmly. "What exactly is that programming?" Allaine asked perceptively. "As dictated by the Solenoid high command," Catty said crisply, "I was programmed to facilitate any attempts by Paranoid representatives to achieve a bio-merger with Solenoid subjects." "There's no way our own commanders would..." Sara started. Gail held up a hand to silence her. "Why were these commands issued?" she asked Catty. "According to projections on both sides," Catty replied emotionlessly, "if the war continues in it's present rate both species will be extinct within two years, three at best. Negotiation proved futile, we're simply too different, so the merger project was initiated to attempt to create an intermediary species to bridge the gap between us." "So why aren't you trying to help the Paranoid?" Sara challenged. "Those projections did not consider the possibility of unaccounted for Solenoid forces like the colony ships we're seeking," Catty answered, "if they could be brought into the war they could entirely shift the balance of power." "Lost Colony ships?" Sara blinked in confusion, "What's going on?" "It's a long story," Gail answered as she began to explain.
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