Captain's Log, Stardate 10403.16

[Cptn Moose 0]

Captain's Log, Stardate 10403.16

 

Lt. Sam Bailey looked back at Captain Moose as the man stared him down. It had been a long time since he had seen that look. Not since the Arcadia-D actually, and, well, the other Captain Moose. Bailey had served as a Communications Officer for a long time with this crew, and remembered how fierce the man who became Ambassador Moose had been. The current Captain Moose had been softer, more patient. Until recently, that is. This encounter with the Romulans had not sat well with him, and Bailey saw traces of the other Moose that this one had kept well hidden until now.

 

"Are you certain?" Moose asked the Lt. "Are you willing to bet your life on your findings? Because that's what you're doing. Not only your life, but the lives of everyone on this ship and possibly the Federation itself. Not to put any pressure on you ..." Moose was unwavering in his attention, and was silently impressed with how well Sam withstood the pressure.

 

"I am absolutely certain, Captain." Sam spoke slowly and deliberately. "The voice print of the message matched that of Hayden Dacotah. It was too small a sample to match 100%, so we analyzed the carrier wave itself. It was created by an interphase generator, which are primarily used on Romulan vessels. And it originated from the Romulan Neutral Zone. The message was short, but clear. It said, 'This is a distress call.' " Lt. Bailey paused for breath. "Yes, Captain. I will bet my life that I am reporting the facts to you accurately."

 

Moose didn't waste any time as he tapped his badge. "Bridge, this is the Captain. Go to red alert. Helm, set a course for the source of that transmission. Maximum warp." His body surprisingly relaxed. The hard part was over. The decision had been made. Now all there was left to do was deal with the consequences. "You did a good job, Sam." he said to the Lt. who was nowhere near as relaxed as he.

 

"Thank you sir." Lt. Bailey remained at attention.

 

"Is there something else?" asked Moose.

 

"Well, Captain. This probably isn't the time, but there is another matter I've been waiting to report to you. It concerns the Saulk Observatory."

 

Moose sat down behind his desk. The obervatory had been tracking the squids on their way to Federation space. As far as anyone could tell, the squids had destroyed it. Everyone on board had died. "Go ahead," said Moose.

 

"Well, sir. When Ambassador Moose first left the system, Yeoman Bleeth and I had set up emergency communications parameters in case the Delegation to Paktar needed to contact us without the Coalition knowing about it. This emergency system was used by the Ambassador to request legal guardianship of David Quest, the Lt. Colonel's cousin, who had stowed away on the mission."

 

"I know who David Quest is, thank you Sam."

 

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm so used to reminding myself that you're not him ... I forgot."

 

"No offense taken. What does David have to do with the Saulk Observatory?"

 

Sam closed his eyes for a moment to regain his composure. He felt stupid, especially after having held it together through the previous interrogation, only to blow it over this. Moose sensed some of this from the look on Sam's face. His own composure having returned, Moose remembered his manners. "At ease, Sam," he said. "Sit down."

 

"Thank you sir," said Bailey taking the seat. "I've been working alot with Cdr. Lo'Ami on the Saulk data crystals, trying to recover their contents. And I noticed a strange pattern redundancy in one of thier data banks. It seemed familiar somehow, and I found myself dwelling on it more and more. Finally, I went through my old files and realized why I'd recognized it. It was Yeoman Bleeth's communications pattern."

 

"You recognized her communications pattern?"

 

"Yeoman Bleeth was a genius, sir. You never forget genius."

 

"I guess not," shrugged Moose. He had only met Yasmine Bleeth briefly. It was not her genius that made her memorable.

 

"The message we reveived originally had been incomplete and garbled. We were barely able to piece enough together to decode their orders about David. Well, the Saulk Observatory monitored the Neutral Zone, and they had picked up the same message. They stored parts of the message that we had never received. I don't think they even realized what they had, but I was able to decode some of their data using Yasmine's encryption key."

 

"Why would the Saulk Observatory have received the message? They were focused on the Romulan Neutral Zone. Were the Romulans spying on the Delegation?" Moose wasn't sure he liked the sound of this.

 

"No sir. The message had originated from Romulan Space. From what I've been able to piece together, the Coalition ship carrying Ambassador Moose tried to take a short cut. I'm still missing the part of the message that explains why. Their ship was damaged near Romulus and they dropped to warp 1 to avoid detection. They were planning to enter an abandoned Borg conduit to complete the journey to Paktar. That's all I know. They seemed to be dumping the Ambassador's logs like we do when we think a ship might not survive."

 

"I see," said Moose. "And did the ship survive?"

 

"I don't know sir. The Saulk data was damaged, and since they didn't know what they had, it was also mis-categorized. I think I have it's point of origin, and their course. I could interpolate where they were heading. But the data is unreliable. I'm just guessing, sir."

 

"Your worst guesses are usually pretty accurate, Sam. Transfer what you have up to the bridge. We'll attend to it after we get Commander Dacotah back."

 

Moose thanked Sam, and turned to watch the starts shoot past. After all those months of silence, the Delegation to Paktar might not even be alive? Then were all those games from the Coalition Ambassador simply to disguise the fact the our Delegation no longer existed? And again it's the Romulans ... first Hayden and now the Ambassador. Anyone who came near them simply disappeared, missing in action ... presumed to be dead.

 

He shook that thought out of his head. It was just a coincidence, not a conspiracy. Connecting the two events would only serve to make him emotional and unstable. The crew needed better from him now.

 

Whether the distress call was actually from Hayden or not was irrelivant. It was clearly an invitation; one that couldn't be refused. If the Talon was truly in distress, then it's likely that the squids turned against them. If not, then they were setting up the Arcadia for an ambush. Either way, someone was going to try and take a chunk out fo the ship within the next few hours.

 

"Bring 'em on," he thought grimly, as the stars sped past. "Bring 'em on."

 

Cptn Moose

USS Arcadia, NCC-1742-E