Old Soldiers Never Die Part 2

Captain's Log, Stardate 40433.6

Hope's End

Knowing that talk was most plentiful after tongues are loosened a bit after an ale or two, Lieutenant Junior Grade Joran Maniersi and I headed to the bar on the star port, creatively sharing the name Hope's End. On our way, he told me that the Klingon visitors were likely to be smugglers and had been most recently near Bajor and Cardassia Prime. The bar was certainly full of interesting people; the new Maquis recruits were sharing a table, the Klingons carousing as usual for their race nearby, and Patrick O'Flaherty was at a table off to the side as well.

We ducked around bystanders and pillars to remain out of sight of the Pride O'Rigel crew and went to go talk to the Klingons. The leader of the group introduced himself as Krell. He didn't seem to be taking any side at all, be it Gowron or Duras, and had the attitude that he would ally with whoever was the victor. He made some snide comments about the Federation so I chose to not specifically say where my alliances lay and kept a casual air about things. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any good information out of him.

Maniersi, however, noticed a man at the bar who he felt a hatred aimed at O'Flaherty. He was able to find out that he was indentured to the ship because of some debts and was acting as one of their engineers. He mentioned that the Pride O'Rigel was involved with some sort of Orion technology that was called a shearing plane. He couldn't get the source of the information out of him before he was called away, but he did mention something about an "EQ". Given that this sounded like what happened at Memory Alpha that caused security to just one day notice that something was missing rather than witness the theft, we thought it would be best to question Wilz.

Back in the Niven's brig, Wilz asked for his legal counsel to be present for any sort of questioning and gave us some information in exchange for testifying in his defense, should this information be useful. With that agreement, he told me what was planned and when I mentioned EQ, it seemed to have triggered a memory to resurface. He said that was the code name for his contact. Whoever was involved in this was highly skilled at programing Wilz' psyche to operate on a trigger mechanism where he would forget certain things so that it would not get traced back to the puppet master. With some of the information from Wilz we were able to determine a possible destination for the stolen property and decided to investigate.

Bajoran Railroad

Before our departure, however, Lieutenant Commander Hazor Dyan requested a small team of people to accompany him to a meeting he had arranged with a Bolian named Grek who was supposed to have more information about his nephew. We met in an area of Baldaur IV that was awfully cold. There was a building set up and inside were a handful of Bajoran youngsters, a Bolian, a Bajoran adult, a Ferengi, a human man, and most surprisingly, a Cardassian. Hazor tensed at the site of him and there were some biting comments exchanged, but Julett explained the situation rather calmly.

Though his race was responsible for the hardships of the Bajorans, he believed in the cause called the Bajoran Railroad. The rest of the group explained that rescuing refugees was a very expensive operation and in order to successfully bring Hazor's nephew safely out of harm's way, it would be at an expense of half a bar of gold pressed latinum. Because we didn't have that kind of money even if we wanted to give it to them (which I, at least, didn't), I proposed a trade of labor resources instead.

They discussed the matter and came back with a giant list of materials and services they needed. They stated that they were in need of a shield generator, dilithium crystals to power it, a hydroponics lab to support the staid, drilling equipment to drill approximately 37 miles to reach the water source on the planet, sensor upgrades to alert them when Cardassian ships enter the system, and a jamming system so that everything would appear to look like a mining operation. I was a little taken aback at how much equipment they needed in order to consider it an even trade.

Hazor was willing to offer up his salvaged piece of neutronium from the doomsday machine which the Ferengi was very interested in. I agreed to the hydroponics lab and assistance with drilling, but felt more than uneasy about giving away so much Federation technology to a group of freedom fighters. After some coaxing from the others, Julett agreed and we discussed that because we had Starfleet orders to attend to, we would be in contact and plan to start the work in 10 days.

To Catch a Thief

When we got back to the Niven, Maniersi laid in a course to our destination and we were under way. When we were close, sensors picked up five ships and we came to an all stop. There was also an unusually large warp bubble headed in our direction. After assessing the situation, I gave the order to travel at full speed to intercept whatever the warp bubble was, for it was probably towing whatever was stolen from Memory Alpha. We were proven correct in our assumptions and managed to intercept a freighter. Visuals confirmed that it was towing an absolutely massive ship. It looked to be of Romulan design and was easily the largest ship any of us had ever seen. We believed it to be a prototype vessel captured during the Romulan war for it didn't have any engines.

The unidentified freighter hailed us and it came in as audio only. They demanded we stand down and that they had no intentions of engaging with us. I refused and demanded they surrender their stolen property and to prepare to be taken into custody for grand theft. When either side refused to budge, I gave the order for Lieutenant Commander Akoval th'Idrani lorTheel'zhiin to fire a warning shot across their bow. The unknown freighter responded, "why are you firing upon us when you would not treat your enemies in the same manner?"

Maniersi got a look of horror on his face when he came to the conclusion that it was possibly the Maquis who was behind this. The ship powered their weapons and just when we braced for impact, there was an explosion in their photon torpedo tubes. Everything was quiet for a moment as we tried to comprehend what happened. Akoval reported that we were being hailed. I ordered it to be put on screen.

Resolution

The bridge of the freighter displayed on our screen and it was clear that it had shaken up and damaged the ship quite a bit. The camera was on the floor and we saw there were people strewn about all over the bridge. A man came and picked up the camera to right it and when his face displayed, I was shocked speechless, so much to the point where tears welled up in my eyes. It was my old friend, Karl Link. "Captain," he said. "Please send over a security detail. I will lower the shields."

I must have given the order in my daze because the next thing I knew, I was in the ready room speaking with Karl. He explained that he had been working undercover for someone since his retirement from Starfleet and his assignment was with the group known as the Derrin Veterans United for Strength. It was their belief that the Federation had grown weak in its relatively peaceful state and hatched a plan to steal the ship from Memory Alpha, have us believe it was the Maquis, and rebalance the powers in the quadrant. He didn't go into much detail even though he said that his cover was now blown.

As I laid awake in my quarters that night, I found myself trying to analyze why our reunion was such a strong emotional impact. It was hard to determine how I was feeling aside from shock as it wasn't elation and certainly not disappointment. I suppose one never knows where an old familiar face will pop up. I just hope that all instances would be as welcome, albeit hopefully not so unexpected, as this one was.