Underway

[Saylek 0]

CAPTAIN'S LOG

Excelsior-class USS Columbia

Saylek, commanding

 

Columbia remains on alert, following our discovery of the SS Yule, one of the freighters missing from previous convoys to Qo'noS. Both exterior and interior shows signs of battle. There is no sign of the crew, although Dr. Moriamis confirmed DNA traces match those of the bridge team and unidentified Klingons. The ship has been stripped of supplies and technical equipment and it's engines remain at minimal capacity. I have placed Mr. Albrecht in command of the Yule, with engineering teams to repair damage and look for any surviving data recorders.

 

Captain Saylek closed the update to his log and forwarded it to Captain Rolf Seiben, ranking officer for the task force aboard their sister ship Challenger. The battered freighter hung on the forward viewer, with statistics for the subject vessel highlighted in yellow script.

 

After weeks of searching in vain for clues to the convoy disappearances, it was almost insulting to have one of the ships appear right under their noses. Vulcans, of course, did not respond to insults. Instead, he'd ordered his crew to pick through the freighter for evidence of what had happened and why it was there.

 

The decision to send his chief engineer over to the derelict carried little risk. They were hardly short-handed. As a shakedown platform for the Mark I Excelsior-class, Columbia boasted a large engineering contingent, largely Andorian. Both Saylek and his first officer Commander shiKaan Raumuk had run the department before Commodore Harrison's retirement last year. Given the number of times they'd been deployed as rapid-response, the Vulcan considered recommending Starfleet dedicate the ship entirely to the Corp of Engineers.

 

Without looking over his shoulder, Saylek addressed the officer at the science console. "Raanan, anything else on that fluorine trace?"

 

Lieutenant Jones looked up from the sensor scope, inhaling through his teeth. "No, Captain," he reported, "I'm keeping a close watch, but nothing since that first indication moved out of range thirty minutes ago."

 

Saylek finally swiveled his chair away from the viewer and toward his executive officer, a balding Andorian in his sixties. "Well, shiKaan," he noted, "if it was a trap, we have yet to see it sprung." Expecting such when the freighter had first appeared, he had knowingly placed the ship at some risk investigating the Yule. Still, he'd kept his distance and left shields up except when beaming. Raised, Excelsior-class shielding was Federation state-of-the-art – had the Yule been rigged for core breach, Columbia could have borne the brunt. With Challenger and several Klingon ships sharing the system, an outright attack was unlikely.

 

The soft-spoken first officer nodded. "It seems unlikely it showed up by accident."

 

"I can believe its cloaking device failed as a result of fatigue, but its strains credulity to think its propulsion system would last only long enough to place it near the Klingon homeworld," Saylek reasoned aloud. "No," he concluded, "this ship was sent here with a purpose by those who subdued and stripped it."

 

Raumuk interlocked his fingers and tilted his antenna down. "If not a trap, what?"

 

From aft, seated at the Security side of the display table, the deep voice of Lieutenant S'Drak sounded. "There are other possibilities," he suggested.

 

Saylek swiveled further to face the dark-skinned Vulcan, nodding for him to continue.

 

S'Drak went on. "One: It could be a tip-off that a new faction is in possession of our ships and their contents. This could dissuade us from sending more aid. Two: It could be a warning to leave the system or suffer the same fate. Three: It could be a lure to get us to search for our remaining ships."

 

Saylek listened and nodded. All logical possibilities, he concurred. "I agree," he answered, "the appearance of the Yule is a message meant to provoke a reaction. The question: what reaction is in our best interest, versus theirs?"

 

As the executive officer was about the respond, the communications officer at the next station reached up to touch his earpiece, a sure sign of incoming transmission. "Captain," Lieutenant Spencer alerted, "Mr. Teurok says they've located one of the flight recorders."

 

* * * * *

 

Down in the diagnostic lab, Ensign Tharin threw down his spanner with a clatter. "It was well hidden, but took a lot of damage anyway," the computer science technician announced. "The voice log and visual records are corrupted, but there's some telemetry and cartographic data."

 

Captain Saylek stood over the exposed recorder, ignoring the intense chill of the over-conditioned laboratory. He looking over to the tech and the lead diagnostic engineer, Lieutenant Commander Embosii, "Enough to construct an arrival trajectory?"

 

Both Andorians nodded.

 

Saylek walked over to the wall unit. "Bridge," he called, "prepare to lay in a new course. I'm on my way."

 

"Captain," came the voice of his XO, "are we sure this isn't the reaction they were hoping to prompt?"

 

It could indeed be an effort to divide their forces, he reasoned. But Columbia had already been out there, looking for evidence of the missing convoy. And Seiben had already agreed that the best deployment of forces was to let Challenger continue its interaction with the Klingon homeworld. There seemed to be no reason to change that plan.

 

"We'll do our best not to be too predictable," Saylek countered. "Advise Captain Seiben of our intentions to trace this freighter back to its last position. Unless he orders otherwise, prepare to get underway."

Edited December 3, 2008 by Saylek