Implications ((Cooper))

[Capt Daniel Cooper 0]

It had all happened very quickly, quickly enough that Daniel had spent some time afterwards looking over the external sensor logs to assure himself that it had, in fact, happened.

There was no disbelieving the data, however. For a short time the station had been entirely out of contact with...everything. Not only the immediately visible landmarks had been gone but the entire environs of Aegis, everything within sensor range had been gone -- except for the fleet. A massive, hulking presence, clearly aware of Aegis’s arrival.

Breen.

The name had lost no resonance in the years since the war; the announcement from Porter as to the identity of their incoming visitors had chilled him to the bone, and the irony of that reaction had not been lost on him. He had never actually had occasion to fight the Breen; his injury at Ricktor Prime had left him fit for nothing but a slow recovery at the time when the new players had entered the game, and by the time he was ready to again offer his expertise, all was over. But he had been on Earth at Starfleet Medical when the attack had been brought back to the homefront; he had been one of those doing what he could to protect local civilians as Fleet headquarters had taken the pounding of Breen weaponry. He had wrestled against his weakened leg in the cleanup efforts and heard stories of their attacks in other systems. He, like everyone else, had wondered how much damage would be done to the quadrant before the enemy could be subdued.

When, years later during his work in Personnel, he had learned of the Breen’s complete disappearance, he had tried to muster some vengeful pleasure in the idea that something had happened to them. Truly, all he felt was relief.

It had been obvious to anyone who wanted to approach the situation practically, however, that they could not have simply been destroyed -- they couldn’t have vanished with such completeness if they were -- and now he was faced with being the one to report the acquisition of definitive proof. They were out of phase, yes, if the initial appraisal of the situation was correct, but they were almost at arms’ length in all other regards, and not only that but they had definitely seen Aegis in the few minutes that the station had spent in the same phased-out netherworld.

If they had been lost and looking for a point of reference, they had found one, and it was the station which had so recently fallen under his responsibility. And if they hadn’t been, it meant they were waiting for something.

“Damn,” he said aloud in the silence of his office, as he pushed his chair back from the sensor reports and stood, moving towards the door back to the bridge. "Damn, damn, damn. Damn."

 

He found that he felt that summed the situation up quite well.