Far From Home (FT, OPEN)

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

The Distant Frontiers Expedition was meant to be a secret, so naturally all of Starfleet knew about it. Starfleet Intelligence had been most displeased when the matter had been aired on the floor of the Federation Council. It had been dreamt up in 2382, shortly after the catastrophic Borg Invasion that had come so close to destroying the Federation, envisioned as an extra-galactic fallback point should anything like that ever happen again. With the rising threat of the Typhon Pact the Federation, along with some of its allies, began to make it a reality, all in the upmost secrecy. At least until 2387 when the entire affair became too big to hide successfully and it was steadily leaked until a question regarding it was posed to the Federation Council who had no choice but full disclosure, albeit without giving away the actual co-ordinates of the subspace rift that linked the Federation and the distant galaxy together. Over the following five years more and more people from across the Federation and beyond joined the Expedition, and spread across the Star Cluster on the other side, until by 2392 there were over fifty billion people involved in the Expedition, the majority of them from the Federation, who retained jurisdiction over the entire affair.

By 2392 the infrastructure, both civilian and military, was in place to ensure that the Expedition would be self-sufficient. And this would prove to be exceptionally vital foresight given the collapse of the subspace rift and the establishment of a new Interstellar Federation that has become our new home. Compared to the UFP that we had all once called home we were but a drop in the ocean, but by ourselves now we had a hell of a foundation for building the future that we are seeing today. And as we came to terms with our new reality we began to look to the future, and Starfleet began to think about starting to explore this new Galaxy in earnest.

It was therefore perhaps ironic that the First Contact between the Federation that was born out of the members of the Distant Frontiers Expedition and another alien civilization was carried out by a single, very young, Starfleet Officer…

But that is a story for another work…
-A History of the Distant Frontiers Expedition by Professor William Cooper, 2400

---

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

Ensign Hardy was grateful for the restraints as the escape pod tumbled end over end towards the planet surface, without it she would have been thrown all around the pod numerous times by this point. The shuttle was experiencing substantial turbulence as it sped through the atmosphere of the planet, she assumed that it’s attitude control system had been damaged at some point during her escape, and as such she wasn’t even sure if it would survive the impact. The standard escape pod was designed to withstand a lot of punishment, but it was also designed to operate in a particular way and she rather doubted that an uncontrolled crash landing was likely to do it any good. Her luck at being strapped in seemed to come to an end as one of the storage compartments suddenly burst open, covering her in various bits and pieces, except for a large container that struck her head and gave her a nasty gash on the forehead. Blinking through the pain she reached up and was shocked, and more than a little scared, when she pulled her hand back and found it to be covered in her own blood.

Olivia Hardy was twenty-two, she had been in Starfleet for a grand total of three weeks having passed out of the Academy only a month ago. In her four years at the Academy she had done well, scoring highly in all her exams and had, essentially, been given her choice of first assignments. She was a historian by trade, that was what her degree was in, but that was just her secondary specialisation, and her training had focused on the command and navigation side of things, she had been undergoing advanced training on how to pilot a Starship and had even got to stand a duty watch. She had chosen an Intrepid-Class Starship for her first assignment, they were small enough that she’d get ample opportunity for both flight hours and duty watches, but big enough to go on longer-ranged missions, like the ones that they had been on, her hopes had been dashed however. They had been charting this system, designated Sigma, when they had been set upon by no less than four hostile warships, estimated to be of ‘destroyer’ rate. The Intrepid-Class had a military designation of “Light Cruiser’, but she had been overwhelmed by the more numerous destroyers.

Hardy had been in her bunk, which she shared with another junior officer, when the attack had begun. By the time she had pulled on her uniform and was heading for her battle station the USS Valkyrie was in bad shape and the order had come through to abandon ship. Her roommate, and her friend, Ensign Julia Sato, had been killed when the corridor they had been running along had been breached and exposed to space. Hardy had, barely managed to grab hold of something until the emergency force fields came online… Julia had not been so lucky. After that it had been all she could do to pull herself into an escape pod before the emergency forecefields failed, which didn’t take long given that the ship was in the process of being ripped to pieces by the destroyers. The escape pod had been deployed right through an exploding section of the hull, and whilst that was likely what had prevented the enemy from destroying the pod it had also badly damaged it, as was testified by its erratic flight plan. From what she had seen as the warp core of the Valkyrie was finally breached and destroyed the ship in a massive explosion, the Valkyrie had put up a hell of a fight, taking out two of her tormentors before being destroyed herself.

Of course that was no comfort for Hardy, as far as she knew she was alone and there were still two enemy ships up there, even if she made it to the surface it wasn’t certain that she’d be safe. The enemy could easily have detected her and decided to capture her alive, and even if that wasn’t the case she still had to contend with surviving on an unknown, and not particularly pleasant planet, for god only knew how long until Starfleet sent a ship out this way to see what had happened to the Valkyrie. She had absolutely no idea what she was going into, beside the fact that the pod’s limited sensors did not indicate anything like enough life signs to constitute even a small civilization, but they were indicating some small settlements of proper buildings so there may have been a inhabitation here at some point, whether that was good or bad remained to be seen… Hardy grimaced as the status display on the side of the pod announced that they were about to impact the planet surface and she held on.

The impact was jarring, if it wasn’t for the restraints she’d have been thrown across the pod and them tumbled all over the place as the pod itself rolled down what felt like a slope. At some point during the crash the entire side of the pod was ripped away from the part that Hardy herself was strapped to, and she now found herself alternatively facing the pouring rain or the muddy slope of the hill, only the remnants of the curve of the pod preventing her from being slammed bodily into the ground numerous times. After what seemed forever the pod rolled to a stop and Hardy found herself looking up at the dark skies with the rain pelting her body, at least until she reached down and unbuckled herself and pulled herself up from her position. Looking around she found that she was in the very bottom of a steep valley, explaining why she had rolled for so far, a short distance away a wide river flowed, something that she supposed that she should be glad that she hadn’t rolled all the way into it. Now that she was at up however her own blood was pouring down over her face and obscuring her vision.

Her first course of action therefore was to stop her bleeding head wound. She found a field medical kit and pulled out a bandage that was soaked in Hypercoagulin, and although it stung like hell as she strapped it around her ahead it was very effective in stopping the bleeding in very short order. She then filled a hypospray with Metorapan and injected it into her neck, and within a few moments the pain was very effectively masked, clearing her head and allowing her to concentrate. By this point she was pretty much soaked through by the rain and knew that she had to find shelter, but at the same time she knew that she had to make sure that she had all the equipment that she might need, as she couldn’t risk leaving anything with the pod in case the planet wasn’t as uninhabited as the sensors had been indicating. She searched around the pod for various pieces of equipment, including a damaged subspace radio that she rather doubted she’d be able to fix, but mostly rations and medical supplies. After walking for about twenty minutes she found the other part of the pod and retrieved more equipment, including a Type-2 Hand Phaser that she attached to her belt before heading out into the rain.

Using the limited range of the built-in sensors of her Tricorder she was able to determine that there was a settlement approximately ten kilometres from her crash site and after struggling up the muddy and slippery slope Hardy set off in that direction. It was slow going in the wind, the rain and the cold, with a heavy backpack and only her normal duty shoes, and as a result it took her nearly five hours to make the trip. Once she arrived she began to take it slowly, her Phaser drawn and held in her right hand, her tricorder in her left hand and when her eyes weren’t on the proximity display they were scanning her surroundings, just in case the tricorder wasn’t accurate. She had stopped shivering by this point, but she knew that this was not a good sign as it meant that she was getting close to hypothermia, unsurprising given that she was soaked through, the wind was biting and the temperature generally chilling.

Hardy found a building that looked well built and headed inside. Checking every room nervously as she made her way through she eventually went up a few floors and found an old-fashioned door lock and locked herself inside. She quickly stripped off her uniform jacket, undershirt and trousers, leaving her in just her underwear, but getting the wet clothing off was more important than her modesty right now, but then again there was no one here. One of the pieces of equipment in her backpack was a portable heater, which she quickly activated and allowed it to start warming the room up and, after getting various other things out of the pack she placed her uniform by the heater to begin the task of drying them out. As she began to munch on some emergency rations Hardy glared annoyed at the damaged subspace radio, cursing for the moment that she hadn’t trained as an engineer. But there was no point in worrying about that right now, Starfleet would eventually send out another ship to find the Valkyrie, they would work out quickly that it had been destroyed here and they’d easily be able to detect her combadage if they were looking for her.

Feeling that there was little else that she could do for the moment Hardy laid out the rollmatt and grabbed a blanket from the bottom of the pack, grateful that Starfleet had decided that it would be needed if someone was trying to survive out of an escape pod. She smiled at the Starfleet insignia stencilled onto it, just seeing it brought her some comfort, she wasn’t alone out here, not really, Starfleet wouldn’t let her down. As far as she could tell, her escape from the Valkyrie had not been detected and so it was probably safe for her to get some rest; she was going to need it.

OOC Note: Please reach out via TG before posting, so we can discuss your ideas for this thread. I've tried to leave a few potential avenues open for us to pursue, so please reach out and let's discuss. I can have the hostile ships either be my own creation, or be someone else's if that's part of your ideas, so pretty flexible!

[The Ctan]

Ensign Hardy’s decision to head for what looked like at least a remnant of civilization on the planet had spared her some discomfort, if only because the pod had been critically damaged, but it also got her a chance to see something about the locals. A little way into the night she could see the lights of some sort of shuttle, or perhaps runabout, in the distance where she had landed.

Perhaps she would hear the quiet sound of an engine overhead. Perhaps the tricorder had been set to alert her of approaching life signs or vehicles. Either way there was no particular effort being made at stealth on the part of the craft that flew overhead.

If she had anything in the way of binoculars she would have been able to assuage some curiosity at once. Even if not, the tricorder would be quite enough to tell her that the craft that had landed near to her escape pod was at least suborbital, and of a technological level that its interior could not be scanned clearly for life-signs, though it emitted enough neutrino radiation that it must be at least fusion powered if something more advanced.

Whoever these people were, either natives or the ones who had attacked the USS Valkyrie, they favoured drones to do some of their exploration, and shortly afterward the tricorder could detect a number of fist-sized drones headed in search patterns around the landing site, though of course as the nearest point of shelter, her current location was prioritised.

There wasn’t really a realistic chance of hiding from that kind of sweep, she could certainly try, but without sensor dampening equipment and operations gear, it would be strongly reliant on the ineptitude of the pursuers.

Whatever their function the drones didn’t make contact, remaining at several hundred feet or higher in altitude.

Instead the shuttle lifted off again and closed in on her location. She had plenty of warning, but clearly she wasn’t being seen as a threat, whether that was complacency or certainty on the part of the unknown beings wasn’t clear, but by now she could see the craft that had landed in the pre-dawn light, an electrum trim on a sea green frame that looked faintly tear-drop shaped, here and there with strange characters highlighted on its edge.

A part of it flowed open, some sort of programmable matter, to form a ramp along its side, from which a quartet of obtrusively threatening machines descended, with pyramidal base units, and threateningly large weapons on their shoulders and mid-sections. One was ceramic white, another ink-black, and the other two a rosy pink, what the colours meant wasn't clear, but these were plainly war robots, of a dauntingly large and formidable sort.

Shortly afterward two humanoids descended, both of them dressed almost identically, in sea-green body armour, that gave the impression that wherever this was it was a violent place, one of them was almost human in appearance, male with long dark hair pulled high up on his head to allow him to wear a helmet of some sort, his skin was pale and his eyes grey, his jawline strong and his age indeterminate within the full bloom of adulthood, while the other was humanoid, but different, with a pair of horns that rose high above her head almost like a crown, and three tentacle-like tails that came from it.

It wouldn’t be a surprise that both of them were armed, but their weapons were rifles held on slings rather than actually pointed in her direction; the robots with them hadn’t taken any overtly aggressive action either.

They didn’t make any effort to approach the building, nor any of the others nearby that were in worse repair, instead walking toward her position flanked by their menacing escorts.

‘Hello newcomer!’ the first of them called in a language the universal translator that came with any federation commbadge would have no difficulty with. ‘My name is Farion, this is Sela. We are not with the people who attacked your ship. We would suggest you come with us, though, as we think they are still in the system and likely to return soon.

‘If you want to stay here, that’s up to you, though!’ Sela said, ‘We live not far from here, we’re not here to arrest you or anything.’

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

---

The rapid, insistent, beeping from her tricorder roused Hardy from her fitful sleep. Although comparatively limited in it’s capabilities, when compared to a full sensor unit, a tricorder remained capable of providing it’s user with adequate early warning of approaching life signs and energy sources and was a critical item in any Starfleet survival scenario. As such, she had more than enough time to pull on her uniform one again as she examined the information on her tricorder, her heart racing at the confrontation that was about to take place; were these people the same that had attacked (and destroyed) a Federation starship, were they natives, or were they completely unrelated to anything else that had yet taken place. After checking her phaser was still in the holster on her duty belt, and that it was ready to go at a moment’s notice if she needed to defend herself, Hardy stepped to the nearest window and looked out she could see the lights of the approaching shuttle and as it came in for it’s initial landing she pointed her tricorder in the direction of the unknown craft in an effort to get more detailed scans and an idea of what she was dealing with.

The results were inconclusive; it was clearly a suborbital vessel as there was no indication of any engine system that could be capable of reaching orbit, however it was powered by at least a fusion power plant if not something more advanced, and the exterior of the hull precluded any quick or easy scanning of the interior. It was also nothing in the Starfleet database, which was not all that surprising considering that the Interstellar Federation’s understanding of this galaxy they had found themselves in was limited at best. She watched with interest as various survey drones were deployed from the craft initially, and she knew immediately that her changes of hiding from their search was likely to be limited; her survival kit was designed to keep her alive, it was not an designed for infiltration and only marginally for evading a hostile foe. She knew that her changes of evading capture were likely to be minimal, and as such she quickly decided that it would be better not to risk alienating potential rescuers than launch an ill-intentioned effort to avoid capture by a potentially hostile force that had clearly already been able to locate her approximate location.

She wasn’t surprised, therefore, a short time later when the shuttle approached closer and landed near to her position, and could not help but feel more than a little apprehensive as the war robots descended initially. Although undoubtedly possessing the technology for such automations, the Federation had never developed anything of the sort. For the most part, Starfleet had been of the opinion that orbital control by a Starship would be more than sufficient to enforce terms on a planetside foe, and that any ground force would just need to be enough to locate and destroy any ground installations that would put that orbital control at risk. This had had disastrous consequences during the Dominion War, and some of the preceding conflicts, where orbital control was fleeting and fiercely contested, and the resulting ground combat had been brutal and bloody, but surprisingly intimate infantry-heavy affairs thanks only to the Dominion having the same doctrinal thinking when it came to orbital control trumping large armoured formations on a planetary surface. This experience had resulted in the limited development of armed and armoured combat ground vehicles, but nothing like what Ensign Hardy was looking at with nervous anticipation; one thing she knew was that her Type-2 hand phaser would be next to useless against them.

The appearance of the two humanoids was slightly reassuring; although armed they were not actively targeting her position, nor she noticed after a few moments were any of the combat automatons… this was slightly more reassuring. She listened to their greeting, not all that surprised that her universal translator had not struggled in the slightest, and quickly considered her position; they could be lying of course but she wasn’t in a position where she could turn down help if it was being offered… particularly if they knew who had attacked her and could provide her with valuable information. She also had no particular need to stay by the escape pod; indeed if there were hostiles soon returning to the system then it would be the first place they looked. So she quickly gathered her equipment together including the busted subspace radio and hefted the heavy backpack onto her back and made her way out of the building; her arms held harmlessly away from the weapon on her hip but not high enough to be mistaken for a gesture of surrender or anything like that.

“My name is Ensign Olivia Hardy, of the Federation Starship Valkyrie… I don’t think that staying here is my best bet, and I can’t really afford to pass up the offer of shelter from strangers,” Hardy said as greeting, walking slowly towards the pair and their escorts, slowly and deliberately. “Do you know who attacked my ship… do you have any way of contacting my Federation… they’ll be sending a rescue party for me eventually, but I don’t want them flying into another ambush if I can avoid it…”

[The Ctan]

Close up Ferion had a pair of pointed ears that strongly resembled a vulcan, or a romulan, though he was a little taller than either species, and seemed to have red blood given his pale skin and complexion.

‘We do not know who they are, nor who you are, at this stage, only that they attacked you and did not seem eager to take prisoners or to parlay, that suggests that they’re not very pleasant,’ Ferion said, though he was quite aware that appearances could have been deceiving, for all he knew the Valkyrie had been a commerce raider or even slaver vessel.

Still, Ensign Hardy did not look like she was concealing anything, and he was confident in the ability of the security robots with him to subdue her if the need became apparent. His sensors said that she was armed, though it took him a moment’s study to determine which piece of her equipment was likely to be a weapon, that was one of the advantages of the phaser’s design. The Type II phaser didn’t actually resemble a weapon.

Furthermore she’d called herself an Ensign, which was a rank that Ferion recognized, at least vaguely, that suggested she came from a civilization with at least some standards. Not that it would exonerate her in itself, there were plenty of two bit empires that used the trappings of civilization to mask their inhumanity. The latest of which was one that called itself the Final Regime.

‘So, tell us what you can about your mission,’ Ferion asked. ‘You are from a warship, I take it?’

‘Your enemies’ ships are on the other side of the planet at the moment,’ Sela said, ‘so they shouldn’t be able to pick us up for now.’

‘Your ship took out two of them,’ Ferion said, ‘and I’m not sure how keen they are to get you specifically, but they’ve not been around here before. Our home is built with some sensor dampening that is likely to keep them from noticing us, we’d best be going,’ he said.

Sela answered the other question, ‘As to contacting your people, we do have an intermediate range communications array planetside, and a few other tricks up our sleeves if the need arises, perhaps we can rig something together for your people to come in pre-warned.’

An aura of green passed over Olivia as she stepped aboard, holographic figures flourescing through the air as she did. ‘Bioscanner,’ Sela said, ‘it says you’re not likely to bring in anything too scary, nor be too vulnerable to the local microflora, let me know if you feel unwell,’ she added.

The sleek craft’s interior was somewhat familiar, at least conceptually, the ramp led into an area clearly kitted out for the robots, circular diases on the floor suggested it could carry twelve of them comfortably, they seemed to glide over the ground rather than touch it directly, but here as they re-embarked they slotted into place and latched into their parent craft.

A sea-green light from within the nests of sensor probes and wide lenses that made up their faces pulsed lower but did not extinguish as they came to rest.

The forward compartment was set up with a screen that mimicked a transparent surface that curved up and around the forward part of the chamber. There were no visible controls, instead a coffee table like area showed a map of the local area in low relief. The pair sat down on a wide curved bench in the forward section and Sela gestured to the spot beside her, the surface of the material changing as they lifted off and it passed beneath them. Clouds of small contacts began to close in on their ship, ‘Drones docking,’ Sela said by way of explanation as they took off.

‘So, tell us what you can about your mission,’ Ferion asked. ‘You are from a warship, I take it?’

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

---

Ensign Hardy nodded her appreciation for the update on the disposition of the hostile ships that had destroyed the Valkyrie; still close be enough to be a very real concern but not so much that they were an immediate threat. It was also comforting to know that the ship had been able to take out two of the enemy ships before being destroyed, this at least meant that they were not the sort of foe that was beyond the capabilities of Starfleet. The Intrepid-class was not exactly Starfleet’s most formidable starship, designated an Exploratory Cruiser she was therefore equipped with a comprehensive but modest array of weapons, which meant that larger, and more powerful Starfleet ships would make quick work of the ships that had proven so fatal to the Valkyrie. Truth be told, Hardy had precious little information about the conduct of the battle, by all accounts it had been an ambush as the ship had been caught with it’s shields down and heavily damaged before it could even fire a shot in its own defence, and she had never made it to her battle station, much to her chagrin and regret… not that she felt that she could have changed the outcome but she would have at least done her bit.

She nodded again her understanding of the situation when it came to avoiding detection by the hostiles, and attempting to warn any approaching Starfleet vessels of the danger. Whilst it was likely that any ship sent specifically to investigate the disappearance of the Valkyrie would be operating an an enhanced degree of readiness, if another explorer or scout ship entered the system on happenstance than that would likely not be the case. She felt a lot more positive about these people when she noted that they did not attempt to disarm her as she entered their ship, whilst any hostile action on her part would almost certainly be suicidal by the looks of the combat robots she could still likely inflict harm on both her ‘rescuers’… not that that was her intention. As such, she allowed herself to indulge her explorer’s instincts and looked around at the craft with a great deal of interest as she was guided through it until they reached the central room and watched as the deployed drones returned to their mothership as they got underway to wherever these two were based from.

Hardy settled into the offered place before answering.

“Starfleet does not officially consider any of its vessels ‘warships’, even those with increased tactical capabilities above the norm for their size and rate… Starfleet is an exploratory and peacekeeping service at its heart, and our combat role is primarily to protect ourselves whilst exploring, and the Interstellar Federation from any foe who might have designs on it’s member-planets territory,” Hardy replied. “However, for the purposes for which you likely mean, yes, I was from a warship… or a Starship as such ‘military’ ships are designated within the Federation… our mission was one of exploration, surveying and charting each system we come across at minimum, making first contact with other civilisations when we encounter them, analysing anomalies or points of interest… the works.”

Hardy gave her rescuers a proper look.

“May I ask where you two are from… you say you are not the same people who attacked my ship… who are you, and what brings you to this world?”

[The Ctan]

As Olivia spoke, the ground beneath the module they were travelling whisked by at a startling rate, though nothing that she couldn’t have accomplished in a Type VI shuttle, it was still a smooth and easy ride. Forests and flatlands were intermingled on their route and soon they were beginning to descend.

‘Ah, yes, that sounds a little familiar. Our people restructured the military to be “The Conflict Service” the best part of a century ago now,’ Ferion said, he said the new title with an amused tone, not quite scornful, but as though he thought the name was a little facile.

‘There’s a Survey Service that’s a little closer though,’ Sela added, ‘the Conflict Service is definitely still a military, at least in missions.’

Ferion didn’t disagree with that assessment. ‘That is fair,’ he said. ‘We are from the Great Civilization of the C’tan, as it calls itself, which is another title that betrays the slightly pompous streak of our current leadership,’ he said, ‘“The Great Civilization,” it’s supposed to be a title calculated to both deter aggression and make people interested, even if they don’t really want to be,’ he added, ‘still, that’s a name. It’s a multi-species polity scattered well, it’s in a lot of places, the main capital is close to the Sol Sector, and as you’re a human I’m guessing you know at least notionally where that is.’

‘But about as many if not more people live in peripatetic starships as actually planetside these days,’ Sela picked up. ‘We tend to take people from all over this galaxy and a few others, I’m actually from the Skyriver Galaxy, I moved here a few decades ago when there was a significant war there with my homeworld, haven’t felt like going back yet,’ she said.

The module swept in toward a series of large buildings that straddled two sides of a river, there was a long straight wall of old stones similar to the construction she’d slept in, though in worse condition, but beyond that were several acres of compact farmland, some of it in the open, some fenced off, and some in greenhouses. There were a number of familiar crops represented, wheat, corn, flax, millets, chickpeas, and potatoes, but others that weren’t so familiar. The agronomy was quite sophisticated to be able to grow all these in the same season and in the same soil, that implied that the farm wasn’t simply a matter of knowing the land and planting the right seeds.

To the north of this were a trio of large buildings, with deep green exteriors and slanting walls that made them look a little like ancient temples, they were clearly built with an eye to defence, the largest building held a courtyard, and the gap in its roof flickered with a passive energy field.

The module smoothly came to rest in the second largest building, which was revealed as more of a walled landing area than anything else, with long buildings built into its walls on the north and south face, perhaps storage. Three more similar modules and a series of smaller single person craft were set up here.

Storage seemed everywhere, as the duo stood up, and led Hardy out of the Module, and out of the landing area. A flat expanse of ferrocrete made up part of the area outside the small starport.

The war robots slid toward the main building ahead of them and Olivia got a moment to take in the environment. The building itself was more temple-like than the others, about three stories high, with inward sloping walls, with no external windows and only two visible doors in the southern face, both of them heavily reinforced blast doors. At its upper levels an inset strip of gold with what might have been EPS conduits could be seen, perhaps a phaser strip, or something similar, that ran all around the top of the building, using the slant to be able to fire both on ground and aerial targets.

If she dared use the tricorder it would reveal a substantial subterranean infrastructure beneath her feet as well as confirming that the main building contained a surprisingly impressive weapon. Whoever these people were, they were either paranoid, aggressive, or this universe was one with a worrying amount of warfare; all three was a possibility too.

This wasn’t the only building, though, it had a smaller, unarmed, cousin a little way away, across a picturesque oak bridge, as well as several storage buildings, and even animal shelters, one with llama, goats and sheep, and another with pigs, and close by the main building a paddock of horses. The animals and the crops were definitely terran, whatever was on this side of the universe she’d found a shard of a culture with contract with the local version of Earth,

Although it was certainly rural this wasn’t a pastoral environment, instead insect-like mechanical drones moved through the waist-high wheat stalks near to the walled landing pad, moving like bees on a field of flowers, inspecting and dipping in and out now and then for one purpose or another.

‘As to this world, well while we’re not a part of the Diplomatic Service as such, we’re just people,’ he said, as a tall woman approached from the main building, again she was human, but a little different, towering at close to seven feet she was taller even than Ferion with long braided dark blue hair in silver rings.

“We live here, but it’s not our planet,’ Sela said by way of clarification, ‘we do have a function in watching over this planet. When I say we, I don’t mean just us there’s a few hundred other homesteads as you can imagine. This world is inhabited, different groups call it different things, as you can probably tell the people here had a more developed culture in the past, so part of what we do here is provide uplift guidance as part of a planetary uplift programme.’

It was by any measure the opposite of the Prime Directive, in a single phrase.

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

---

Ensign Hardy listened with a great deal of interest as she was provided with enough titbits of information to pique her curiosity about this ‘Great Civilisation’ and its disposition. She was most interested in this reference to a ‘Sol System’, although she assumed that was just the universal translator drawing upon the Federation database to form a comparable nomenclature for a planet in a similar position in this galaxy, or within the C’tan culture more loosely. She had already assumed from the fact that there were two species before here that it was a multi-species entity, which was always encouraging given the Federation’s own multitude of species, although it would be interesting to see whether all the species were equal, as they were in the Federation, or subservient to a ‘superior’ race as was the case in several of the Federation’s historic neighbours such as the Klingons and the Romulans, at least back in the home galaxy anyway. This was difficult to tell from a single interaction between two species within this polity, but was something she would have to try and find out as Starfleet would be most interested to know about as they went forwards, and aside from surviving Hardy’s role in this entire scenario was to gather as much information as possible.

It helped that focusing on that ‘mission’ was helping distract from the fact that was was way out of her depth less than a month out of the Academy.

She’d also been attempting to make an assessment on the approximate technological level of her rescuers and their civilisation, but it was proving difficult as she had no real data beyond what her eyes could see and what she had analysed from her tricorder before greeting these people… she could not exactly whip out the device and start scanning at this stage in proceedings. The fact that they were referring to people from across this entire galaxy, and beyond, heavily suggested that they had some form of advanced propulsion system, but the proliferation of such technology was almost impossible for her to ascertain from her viewpoint; the Federation possessed the Quantum Slipstream Drive, for example, but its deployment was heavily restricted to a handful of experimental ships at this stage, due to continuing issues with its stability and safety on conventional Starfleet designs. It was not surprising that she was struggling to form such an assessment, after all not only was she trying to draw sweeping conclusions from limited information but she was also all too aware of the nuances of technology; that a civilisation could be advanced in one area and almost deficient in another.

Her questions only grew as she followed her rescuers out of the craft and into their settlement, whilst everything that she saw provided more information it also provided more avenues for further investigation. Normally, Starfleet would assign dozens if not hundreds or more analysts and scientists of a dozen stripes to pick apart a newly-encountered civilisation, not one young Ensign who had been on the command-track, and was thus not specially trained for this sort of thing. She was most surprised by the explanation of who these people were and the scale of the civilisation’s presence on this planet. It was also somewhat interesting, if a little disconcerting, to learn that these people, with their battle armour and combat autorotations, were by the sounds of it civilians, albeit perhaps with some sort o government mandate.

She was, of course, most interesting in their reference to a ‘planetary uplift programme’, which stood in stark contrast to the Federation’s own opinion on such matters, and the often dim-view it took on other powers that over-interfered with developing civilisations.

“That certainly is interesting… the Federation largely takes the opposite view when it comes to involvement with those species and civilisations that had not reached a level of development that has already, or likely to soon, brought them into contact with outsiders,” Hardy commented. “Indeed, it is our Prime Directive that our personnel should refrain from interfering in the natural, unassisted, development of societies, even if such interference is well-intentioned… or that we should involve ourselves in the purely internal affairs of another civilisation, regardless of level of advancement.”

There was little time for an in-depth discussion of philosophy however, as there was another being approaching.

[The Ctan]

The woman who approached them now was a tall figure, even compared to Ferion.

‘My name is Balnelor Swiftwind ita Suhbekhar,’ she said, speaking casually as she did so. Again she was close enough to human, or perhaps to a common progenitor, though she was taller still and she had slender ears that tapered much wider still, her skin was a grey blue and her hair a fall of pale white down her back. Something about her made every motion feel slightly threatening, perhaps simply a predatory look of fanged teeth. Although her figure was imposing, she was more approachable than the others, firstly, she went unarmed, instead, she wore a simple robe of a pale material that was slightly iridescent and edged with a platinum or silver hue, from the slightly green-tinged sky, over which she wore a green cloak that seemed to shift in the light. ‘Welcome to Manca House,’ she said.

‘Ah, proper introductions,’ Sela said, ‘my full name is Sela Diran ita Suhbekhar, the first one is a personal name, the second one is a family name, and the third one is like a clan name you might say.’

‘Farion ita Suhbekhar, no family name,’ the man said. Why he didn’t use a family name wasn’t volunteered.

The route led past fields of fava beans and potatoes, plants that few only low from the ground, but grew close to the edge of the main building.

There were three successive sets of blast doors, in a corridor over twenty-five metres long, between each there were doors on the left and right, the doors between the first two blast doors ld into rooms that were clearly security-focussed, one was a hibernation area similar to the one in the module, but larger, and in this, there were docking stations to house no sixteen of the war droids, while the other area was an armoury and repair bay for the same machines.

The second set of doors led into storerooms, and Sela was quick to explain unasked what these were for. ‘These are storerooms, you can get through the right side to the kitchen if you want,’ she said, lifting her feet up as a trilobite-like machine skimmed by toward the one on the left, perhaps a cleaning drone. ‘End-facing areas on the south side are stores, drone ports, and power, a couple of areas in there lead down to the service levels beneath,’ she said, ‘it’d be easy to get lost down there, so don’t go wandering until you know how to call the house presence. You can drop your stuff in either of these rooms if you like, or your guest room.’

Beyond that though, the central courtyard was spacious, easily eighty-five meters in length, filled with a colonnade of papyriform columns that supported a covered walkway around all sides, a small pool for bathing made up a large part of the central area, while several tables and decorative sculptures, along with an old style refractor telescope sat in the middle of the garden.

On all sides, there were rooms, some were clearly bedrooms, while recreation areas, lounges, and more seemed to lie on the north side of the courtyard. With the exception of a large dining room which was on the right-hand side of the area.

‘I’m guessing you’ve not eaten anything other than survival food since you crashed?’ Swiftwind said. ‘Would you like something to eat?’ she said, ‘I can whip something together for vegetarian,’ the guess was mostly because it was the most common dietary preference galactically, dating back to the bronze age in some cultures, ‘or most other requirements I suspect, if not we have a fabber that can do anything else you want,’ which sounded like a replicator, and was perhaps a concession to avoiding any religious provision.

‘I’ll show you the comms room now if you like,’ Sela said, ‘we should call in that you’re here, and while we don’t really need to go in there for that, we might be able to match that tech for you, if not we’ll probably have to call in someone with a little more engineering experience. We should have secure communications at least.’

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

---

Ensign Hardy continued to keep her eyes about her as she was led deeper into the structure, taking in as much as she could and forming what impressions and conclusions could be formed from what she was seeing and being told. As far as she could see it was all in keeping with the purposes that these people had said that they were here for, whether she agreed with them or not, and she did not see anything out of the ordinary or cause for concern… although she supposed it was unlikely that they would show her anything like that and certainly not so soon after meeting her. Nevertheless, it was reassuring that everything was as close to what she had expected, or certainly it was within the same vicinity as what she had expected. She couldn’t put a number of years on how long it had all been here, but she would not have been surprised if it had been here for some years, and it was fairly obvious that it was intended for long-term occupation and use, which again stood to reason given the supposed use for it and the reason that these people were here in the first place.

She had elected to keep her equipment with her for the moment, at least until she was shown to her guest room; there was nothing particularly classified amongst any of her gear but she would rather keep it in her site or at least somewhere nominally secure. She knew that if they really wanted to take her equipment and investigate it there was little that she could do to stop it, but she had to go through the motions and make the attempt.

“I’d appreciate anything you can offer; as you say field rations have been all I’ve had since the attack and whilst nutritionally sufficient they are not exactly what you would call enjoyable,” Hardy commented with a smile. “I can’t even begin to think of what I would choose, so in the interest of being a good diplomat, if you’ve got a particular dish you like to make, I’d love to try it.”

Hardy turned her attention to Sela.

“Yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea, it would be great to discover exactly where we stand when it comes to getting back in touch with my Federation, even if I am enjoying and grateful for your hospitality,” Hardy replied with a nod, as she hefted the subspace radio on her back with a grimace. “Sadly for all of us I’m on the command and flight control track; if I were a Starfleet Engineer I rather suspect I’d already have repaired this bloody thing, although that might just be wishful thinking based on their reputation!”

[The Ctan]

Swiftwind smiled, and Ferion stepped aside, the tall woman headed to the dining area, while he went to one of the bedrooms instead, perhaps to take the armour off.

‘Well maybe we can manage to get the same comms protocols at least,’ Sela said. The high renown of the Federation Corps of Engineers hadn’t made it into the public consciousness here, but perhaps it would do so soon, for now, she didn’t pass any special comment on that, simply taking Olivia’s remark at face value.

Heading into the back of the building, Sela took her into her first true glimpse of the interior of the buildings, they were built tall and high, the ceiling height was over four meters, and the walls were textured in the strangest way. The whole building was made of a single piece of sea green metal which suggested again that it had been assembled by something akin to a replicator, or it was a form of programmable matter, but indoors the colours of the walls varied, in places bright green and others dark brown.

It was, in fact, a living metal that had been allowed to grow through a fractal used a biomimicry pattern to create a canopy of leaves above, glowing with light shining through petals as though through a thick forest of deciduous trees, with the tree trunks forming pillars and architraves while pastoral scenes played out in relief between them, changing slowly, the biome outside was dry but the scenes depicted varied, above a dado rail, and a dado of wood that seemed to be real wood, unlike the metallic structure.

The scenes there were varied, some might have been historical, but others were perhaps mythological, centaurs and figures casting their hands to the stars, raising buildings, something that might have been an early starship and more.

The communications room that Sela had spoken of was a large chamber decorated in the same style, the unusual ceiling giving the feel of it being in the open air. It was far from a communications centre on a starship, this was more a home than anything else, and so a wide set of couches surrounded a central holographic projector, but on the far wall was equipment that seemed more functional. Sleek controls and a bank of instruments, as well as what seemed to be connectors for several types of media.

‘Obviously, we can get most things on a Scroll, but when you’re living on a fringeworld you want to keep a decent set of traditional long-range communications together,’ she said, reaching to an orb-like control with each hand, flexing her fingertips on them and bringing up a screen that faded into being on one of the flat surfaces before her.

The language was unfamiliar but seemed to reflect the diversity of cultures these people had been drawn from, comprising three different scripts, perhaps three different languages, one of them resembled Vulcan script, with long linear strips of symbols that looked like alchemical symbols or circuit patterns, while another was almost cuneiform in aspect, and a third was certainly alphabetical, square in aspect.

As she worked, Sela gave a smile, ‘Our domestic communications technology is principally ansibles which operate using Particle Eternal Synchronicity, a little like quantum entanglement but faster than light, but there are ways that that can be broken down with the right interstitial fields; for a while we, and I mean the GC because I wasn’t there, obviously, couldn’t travel faster than light without carrying a special chamber to insulate their entangled particles,’ she said.

‘So we also have hyperwave and subspace technology here, because those ansible links can be broken down at least by what they call equivtech,’ she said, ‘we might be able to decrypt something from recent transmissions from your ship and the radio you’ve got with you,’ she said, ‘can you just set the transmitter you have there,’ she said.

‘It’s a shame that you don’t have any other communications device, we could get encoding from it would be helpful to scan that too,’ she said, oblivious to the commbadge’s use, believing it to be an insignia alone. ‘The house isn’t sapient, but its systems are pretty advanced, they can do a fair bit of analysis without needing to dismantle anything, but I’m not sure it will be able to rebuild the right codecs to actually interface with a new civilization,’ she said.

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

---

Ensign Hardy nodded and did as she was asked. She might not be a communications specialist, but Starfleet Academy training was designed to give all its graduates a comprehensive foundation in almost all areas, from which they could then specialise in their Junior and Senior years, so she understood the basic principles. She could also tell that this was not likely to be a military or Starfleet-escque setup, closer to a civilian arrangement although it could be governmental, if somewhat informal and home-like. This continued to reinforce her initial assessments, as did the confirmation from her host themselves that this was a world on the fringe of their territory; it made sense that they would want to monitor (as Starfleet would) and perhaps influence (which Starfleet would not) non-member civilziations on the edge of their space. There was so much information and analytical thought running through her head that, at the next possible moment, she really would have to record some of her impressions and assessments to make sure that she did not miss anything out in her report to Starfleet once she was rescued. Fortunately, she would be able to record a personal log or report notes using her com badge.

Which gave her an idea.

“I can probably help with that, this is a small but advanced communications device, ” Hardy commented, reaching up and removing her com badge from her chest, a little reluctantly as doing so traditionally represented taking off one’s Starfleet uniform. “Amongst other things it is capable of a subspace distress call but it would be impossible to direct it using just the badge, so I didn’t use it at risk of attracting the enemy to my position.”

[The Ctan]

The Colony Support Vessel was small by the standards of the Great Civilization’s ships, made up of a blade shaped forward section and a stern that extended back from its topside and tapered to a flared aft unit mounting reaction drives used as contingencies when its primary sublights could not gain adequate traction on spacetime metric, or to augment its stardrives. Its forward part contained several wide circular negative spaces, lined inside with the ducts of particle accelerators and transmat-disassemblers, industrial scale fabrication units. Its ventral was crusted with antennae and probes while park domes dotted its dorsal side. The vessel had a single mind that permeated its frame, processing nodes distributed redundantly throughout, its consciousness further spread through the living metal that made up its slab-sided surfaces.

The Ship’s name was We Met During The Revolution, a cognomen that was more a part of its identity than its formal name Saelis Merat.

The responsibilities of a Colony Support Vessel were neatly encapsulated in its name, it was not a wholly military vessel, instead its role was to support the vast number of dispersed colonies for minor incidents and crises. This was by any standard a full time job. The Sept of Malsaiya, the subnational division of the Great Civilization in which Olivia Hardy had found herself, comprised a huge number of assets.

Some of these had their own extensive emplaced structures, Orbitals, the largest structures within the Sept, needed no support, while the Core World of Malsaiya had a dozen macrofactories and orbital plates for its support. But as well as that there were thousands of voidholms, cylinders, habships and of course, fringe world settlements that required a fleet of vessels to tend to their needs, answering floods and earthquakes and coronal mass ejections and occasionally anyone temerous enough to actually attack them.

Before they had picked up Olivia, the colonists of Manca House had signalled via ansible that ships in conflict had been seen in orbit, and the ship was disengaging from other routine business in preparation to respond, should the situation escalate.

__ __ __

Of course, the matter of intruding ships was always a concern. While Manca House was on Sulyen Dera, a world that was officially classified as an unaffiliated rimworld with several settlers from present and past civilizations on it, and supporting the immediate needs of the GC settlers fell to ships like We Met During the Revolution, there was far more to it than just that.

The Great Civilization Conflict Service was generally, though there were exceptions, rather open about its operations, and though in principle not their responsibility to deal with the ships that had attacked the Valkyrie. Part of that manifested in the way that possible conflicts were treated.

It would be a little while before the aggressors were designated as potential pirates. This was duly and automatically flagged to the Conflict Service Great Wheel Galaxy General Response Non-Acute Incident Queue (They’d never been accused of being a culture with a penchant for great names). A task was created within that group for ships within a feasible distance to respond to the incident. Notably this group was open to the Great Civilization’s principal spacefaring allies, the Triumvirate of Yut, and it was entirely possible that allied ships would respond, particularly in view of the introduction of at least one new civilization to the local area.

__ __ __

The actual equipment at Manca House was far less powerful than the We Met During the Revolution’s own, but it was serviceable. Batteries of local scanners and effectors were used to scan the subspace radio equipment and commbadge and then the system present attempted to build an emulation, a task that Sela only vaguely directed. There would be limits to this, any kind of encryption module was likely to be unsalvageable but determining the basics of transfer software. After a few minutes of looking at the screen before her in silence, Sela smiled, ‘I believe it’s got it,’ she said.

‘Give me a moment before we try to send anything though,’ she said, ‘there’s a couple of unmanned communications nodes in the system, I’m going to route it through one of those through the ansible before we actually send anything, I don’t want one of those ships deciding we need a good orbital strike, that would be a bit of a bother.’

She worked for a few minutes and then nodded to herself in quiet satisfaction, ‘I think that should be everything. Time to call home, just hit that button while speaking,’ she said, indicating a green control among the terminals nearby.

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

---

Ensign Hardy watched with professional interest as the system, overseen by Sela, worked to extrapolate what information it needed from her combadge and other equipment. Based on what she was seeing, it seemed unlikely that she would be able to send anything on any of the normal encrypted Starfleet frequencies, as there were certain hardware components as much as software, but then she would not want to really divulge classified Starfleet communication frequencies to an alien civilisation, even if they were her rescuers and seemed friendly enough. However, there were plenty of publicly available, unencrypted channels through which civilians could contact Starfleet, as there were a myriad of situations in which this might be necessary. It would not perhaps get her a direct line to Starfleet Command, which was a shame even if she would have been more than a little apprehensive about being an Ensign directly contacting the highest command within Starfleet, but it would get her situation reported as well as the loss of the Valkyrie; as the attacking ships had jammed communications during their assault and the ship had not been able to break through them in the time before it’s destruction.

Once she was given the proverbial and literal green light, she gestured towards the display which appeared to show subspace frequency, indicating that she wanted to enter a frequency. After receiving a nod, she entered a subspace frequency she been taught upon the Valkyrie’s assignment to this sector.

“Starbase 47, this is Ensign Olivia Hardy of the Starship Valkyrie… are you receiving me?”

The response was not immediate. At the other end, her message would initially need to be accepted and answered. The first indication that the message had been successful was an acknowledgement single, but not a verbal response. It was a few minutes before a response.

“Ensign Hardy, this is Captain Ch’Tavan of Starbase 47… what is your situation… why are you contacting us on an open channel?”

Hardy felt a wave of relief wash over her as she heard the voice of another Starfleet Officer; at least now someone knew that she existed and they would be able to trace her communications channel back to her destination at the very least. She paused briefly as she considered how to respond. 



“Emergency Code 0, USS Valkyrie… status black… no other contact… sending my co-ordinates.”

A few moments of silence passed before the Starfleet Captain, an Andorian by his name, responded.

“Understood, Ensign. We’ll send a Starship to you… sit tight, we’re on our way.”

[The Ctan]

With the signal sent, Sela smiled, ‘Let’s go take a look at dinner,’ she said, making her way back through the courtyard.

The dining room was spacious, its walls made up like the communications centre with the same biomimicry. On the inner side there was a broad window that looked out into the courtyard, while it had two sets of doors of the same sea-green metal with faceless, winged figures facing one another on them. The floor was maple wood polished to a fine shine, while a broad table set with a brocaded green cloth across it, with high backed chairs in a plush material. In the north wall there was what seemed to be a replicator, but that wasn’t what was being used, at least not today.

On the south side of the room a pair of siding doors were brought back revealing a room with cupboards and refrigerators on either side of an antechamber while beyond that the kitchen itself was set up, with a single broad surface of what was called a márhón, a wide table of programmable-metal that had divots down into its surface that were heated. Standing beside it Swiftwind had her sleeves hiked up with something that made the fabric adhere around her shoulders. She gestured like a sorcerer at the surface, which brought all the ingredients together and whisked them with motion of the surface. Another gesture two minutes later separated the ingredients into four portions, and she slid these onto plates that she held under the edge with some care, passing one to Farion and the other to Sela, but insisting on carrying Octaiva’s.

There was of course some pressure she felt, to show some real hospitality to someone wholly new, and that meant that she’d gone a little bit out of her way to make the dinner better than usual.

‘Slow roasted boar tenderloin with balsamic vinegar glaze with a side of potatoes au gratin baked with gruyere cheese,’ she said, insisting should Octavia ask, on serving her.

‘So, have you any idea how long they’ll take to come and pick you up?’ Sela asked, as she set her plate down, taking a slender four tine fork with an enamel handle.

Ferion sat down next to Swiftwind, who’d let her sleeves back down, on one side of the table, there didn’t seem to be any formalities or ritual for eating here, though the three of them did seem to be waiting on her to start nonetheless.

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

---

“It shouldn’t take long, the message I sent to Starbase 47 advised them that the Valkyrie had been destroyed, and that I believe myself to be the only survivor, which naturally suggests a fairly comprehensive destruction of a Federation Starship,” Ensign Hardy replied, wincing at the thought of her lost shipmates. “Starfleet takes such things seriously, as you would imagine, so they’ll likely send something tactically-focused, which also tend to be amongst the fastest ships in the fleet… we’re a little distance out, but even so.”

Hardy was conscious that she had not given an exact timeframe, but that was largely because she did not know for sure. It stood to reason that Starfleet would respond to a last starship with a tactical vessel, as she had indicated, but there was a wide range of potential ships that could have been dispatched, none of which were usually just sat around at a Starbase waiting for a call; they were too valuable for such a purely responsive role. She had not kept herself up to date on the current roster of ships at Starbase 47, so she could not be certain what ships were best placed to respond. Of course, the larger ships of the fleet constituted a significant tactical capability even if that was not their primary role; Starfleet’s ships were designed to be able to handle themselves without support for a prolonged period of time if that was required. The Valkyrie would have the dubious distinction of being the first Starfleet ship to be lost in this Galaxy, and to enemy action no less. That alone would demand a robust response from Starfleet; the only question would be whether the powers that be would elect to provide a tactically powerful response or a speedy one.

The fact that Valkyrie had been able to destroy two of her attackers meant that Starfleet’s ships were effective against them, they had just been outnumbered and therefore outgunned. This meant that it was not the nightmare scenario of another Borg-level threat in which Starfleet was woefully outmatched on all levels, and only luck and innovative strategies and technologies had allowed them to keep them at bay. This meant that it was possible that Starfleet would want to make a show of force, to discourage the attackers from praying upon Federation ships in the future, or to hunt them down and bring them to justice if possible, which meant either a larger multipurpose explorer or a powerful tactical vessel would be required to make a sufficient statement.

“This food is delicious,” Hardy commented with a smile, after a few bites. “Sure as hell beats replicated!"

[The Ctan]

By the time they were done, the sun had reached about the middle of the sky, making the meal mostly an early lunch. It was certainly tasty, and Swiftwind grinned, “If yours are anything like ours, you can probably get around that by telling the thing to disregard health in respect of authentic taste in the settings, that tends to jailbreak them at least if you’re on a starship. It’s not like it’s too hard to get the texture of gluten or whatnot actually right,” she said, it was definitely a suggestion that might work.

There was no shortage of things to keep her entertained if she needed diversion. Ferion took the time to show her a little of how the house’s computer worked and again it was similar to a starship, it could be invoked by simply asking for its services, though the default was to use the word ‘Presence’ which was a little different. It could also be given natural language instructions, though Ferion was cautious to point out that it didn’t really extend beyond the house and the courtyard.

They had a games room that covered everything from table games to holograms, though nothing like a holodeck, and a lounge with a broad fish tank that held several musical instruments, lutes, guitars and similar stringed instruments predominating.

Most of her hosts seemed to think sleeping for a time in the middle of the day was natural, Swiftwind was even yawning after the excitement, as she normally kept a mostly-nocturnal cycle. Should she choose to join in that custom, The guest room was spacious, it held a high candelabra decorated in silver, with red candles, attached to a frosted glass divider between the main part of the room and the ensuite, along with a wardrobe and chest that could hold several times more equipment than she currently had.

Regardless the next part of her stay was uneventful for a few hours until Sela called her, she seemed to be the most technical or perhaps simply the one who had been looking into this, ‘Olivia,’ she said, ‘it looks like there’s some information come into the planetary data net about who it was that attacked you,’ she said, holding a fanblade in one hand.

The fanblade was the ubiquitous device she would see more of, though it was made of the same living metal as the house, and could take many forms, this was the local equivalent of a PADD and images and glyphs floated above the surface.

“Apparently they’re a new group of privateers, they’re probably looking at setting up a base here and exploiting the local labour force. We got an ID on them when they landed near,” she paused, “the mountains on the far coast of the nearby inland sea if you got a glance at the surface before you landed,” she said.

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

---

Despite the situation, Ensign Hardy quite enjoyed the few hours of peace and quiet; the time since the destruction of the Valkyrie had been hectic and terrifying, whilst before the attack as a brand-new junior officer she had been run ragged. It had, of course, had the inevitable impact on her composure once she retired to the guest quarters, as the events of the last twenty-four hours hitting home all at one, as she realised quite how many friends and colleagues she had lost with the destruction of her ship. Without the watching eyes of her hosts, however, she had been able to allow the emotions to come to the surface and she had broken down and sobbed; she had formed fast friends with her fellow junior officers aboard the Valkyrie, even after a few weeks, and now once again she was alone and oh so far away from home. She knew Starfleet were on their way, and would likely be with her in as little as a few hours, but she felt very lonely right now. For the last four years at Starfleet Academy, she had always been surrounded by her fellow cadets, and then her fellow officers, now she was on her own.

She was therefore more than a little grateful when Sela summoned her back to the main room and provided her with the information about her potential attackers. In some respects she could not help but feel more than a little annoyed that it was such a pedestrian explanation; whilst it was good for the Federation as a whole, to not be facing an insurmountable threat, she could not help but feel that her Captain and crew had died for nothing. As a result, she simply nodded numbly at the information, taking in all the data with a dispassionate expression.

It was only a few minutes later that her combadge began to chirp demandingly. With an excited glance at her host, she tapped the device to answer the message.

“Ensign Hardy, this is the U.S.S. Venture… we're entering the system now… please activate your combadge’s subspace beacon.”

It would be possible to see the Venture entering the system on sensors, and it would quickly become apparent that she was flanked by two smaller contacts. Hardy knew from her knowledge of the ships stationed at Starbase 47, and from the ship’s name in any event as it was a fairly well known ship, that the Venture was a Galaxy-class starship. It made sense that such a ship would be chosen; the current refit of the Galaxy-Class was second in tactical ability only to the Sovereign-class; a capital ship in every sense of the word; large and powerful. If she had to guess, she would assume that the two flanking ships were Defiant-class escorts, serving in a role that they were intimately familiar with and explicitly designed for.

Hardy glanced across at her hosts.

“With your permission, I’ll activate my beacon… I suspect that we might very well have visitors shortly thereafter, once the Venture enters orbit.”

[The Ctan]

When the news came that Olivia’s people had arrived her hosts were, as predicted, good to their word. Sela fetched the radio from the communications room and they did not seem inclined to try to take anything from her or prevent her from leaving.

When she advised that there would be visitors, the trio of residents were quite content to receive them, they didn’t call out their very menacing security drones, instead Ferion’s response was simple, ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘we’ve got a landing spot outside,’ he said, across a wooden bridge over a low stream that could easily be forded there was a small hill of bare slate and the second smaller building that had been pointed out as a guest house for larger groups.

Even though it might not have been necessary at first, the buildings themselves, and their courtyards, were shielded, and part of that shielding was to deflect what the locals called transmats, so even if they didn’t bring a shuttle, they would need to beam down to somewhere outside the homestead, though its roads and fields were fine.

They brought a parting gift, too.

In fact they brought two, the first was a sleek harp made of white wood, with a slightly unusual pattern of strings, made of braided silver over a synthetic fibre. ‘I made this,’ Swiftwind said, ‘I have made a few instruments.

‘And if you ever want to learn to play it,’ Ferion said, handing her a crystalline tablet, ‘this might prove useful,’ he said, ‘literature and cultural materials, along with motion pictures and holos, I’m not sure if you’ll be able to download it, but I’m sure that your engineers will figure it out,’ he said. It wasn’t a complete archive, but it was a huge archive nonetheless.

‘Let’s go out and meet these folks.’

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

---

Ensign Hardy gracefully accepted the gifts from her hosts as they made their way back outside to the landing pad; despite the situation she had enjoyed her stay here and hoped that she would remain involved in whatever happened next; Starfleet would doubtless want to try and resolve and avenge the destruction of the Valkyrie, and as this system clearly belonged (or at least was superintended) by these people it stood to reason that they would need to be consulted and coordinated with. The Federation was beginning to put down outposts in this area of space, largely mining and resource gathering affairs, but they would be vital to the Federation in short order and would need to be protected; Starfleet Command would much rather nip a potential threat in the bud than have to deal with a fully formed threat further down the line. It was for that reason that all of her insights into these people, or at least everything that she had learned from them, would be of paramount importance and, at the very least, she was in for a considerable debriefing once she was safely aboard the Venture. For now, however, as far from home as she was, part of home was coming to her.

Once they were outside again, Hardy tapped her combadge twice.

A few moments later, five columns of sparkling light appeared a few feet away, quickly forming into five humanoid forms; two human, one Vulcan, an Andorian, and a trill. All but one of the group were clearly security officers; visibly armed with a Type-2 phaser on their hips and what looked like a pattern buffer device on their equipment belt; a revolutionary device first pioneered for the Hazard Teams which allowed officers to carry larger weapons and equipment deconstructed in a pattern buffer. The final individual, the Andorian, bearing the red-collared uniform of a command officer, was the Captain of the Venture, which explained the presence of a security team; after all Starfleet General Order 15 forbid a command or flag officer from beaming into a potentially hostile situation without an adequate security detail. However, the four security officers made no threatening acts, and if their eyes were keenly watching the surrounding area their postures were calm and professional; hands clasped behind their back at parade rest as the Andorian Captain stepped forward.

“Ensign Hardy, I am Captain Shevarn of the Venture, I am relieved to find you alive and well we were all concerned for you during our flight out here, I’m sure you've got one hell of a story to tell once we get you back to the ship, but by all accounts you have done well,” The Andorian said with a respectful nod, before turning to Hardy’s hosts. “Starfleet and the Interstellar Federation of Planets owe you a great debt for looking after one of our officers in a vulnerable situation; if there is a way that we can repay you, now or in the future, please do not hesitate.”

Captain Shevarn paused and shook his head grimly.

“I am, however, concerned about the current situation and the loss of a Federation Starship; now based on Ensign Hardy’s brief message I am led to believe that the hostiles are still in-system… they’ll not have missed the arrival of a ship the size of the Venture, so I would appreciate any immediate intelligence you can provide.”

[The Ctan]

Sela nodded, taking the lead out of the trio now, ‘Thank you Captain Shevarn,’ she said, ‘I dare say that you’ll have a lot more contact with us as you expand, but if we ever need any help we’ll keep you in mind,’ she said.

She frowned for just a moment in thought, as though evaluating what she could reliably say, ‘We don’t know too much about this group, they’re new, but the galaxy is full of “wild boys” and “space rovers” of different sorts, even when the more authoritarian regimes out there claim to be defending their citizens they tend to produce renegades at a remarkable rate.

‘These are probably privateers, we suspect they might be allied with a nasty entity called the Final Regime, who’re to put it bluntly a nasty bunch who have also authorised a lot of their civilian shipping that’s outside their home system to go wild. We’re not quite sure though,’ she said. ‘We can’t be sure about that though, that’s just what the latest gossip is about these things,’ she added.

What was abundantly clear was that these particular pirates hadn’t got a longstanding reputation. No one seemed to know who precisely they were, or at least none of this group.

‘The intelligence that we’ve got suggests they’ve been making descents, as the local population calls piratical shore raids,’ Ferion said, he had a military background, and had no problem cutting to the point for a briefing, ‘so we believe they may have been scouting the population, we’re not sure if they’ve taken anyone but it’s a good bet they have prisoners on board. I don’t know if they’re transmat capable, so whether they could have any more of your people from the Valkyrie I’m not sure,’ he said.

‘We have a ship enroute that should be joining you soon if you want to liaise with them,’ he said. ‘It looks like the two operational ships have headed to the inner asteroid belt sunward of here when they detected your ships inbound, likely they want to come back to salvage their own ships.’

The sensors of the Venture would easily be able to confirm that, ion trails were not an exact science but it seemed that the ships had entered a large belt of asteroidal debris sunward of the planet they’d been around, the nearest part of that asteroid ring was only twenty light seconds from the planet, though fortunately for inhabitants, the planet’s orbit was at an incline to the plane of the system, suggesting both that the asteroid belt had at one point been a moon or even parent planet, and this world had been ejected from its original orbit, perhaps billions of years ago.

It was clear that the planet would have biannual meteorite showers, though fortunately or perhaps by design of some wave of settlers, there didn’t seem to be any serious pieces of stellar masonry that would do more than give the planet a few days of extra shade if they hit - unless they happened to hit you during meteorite season.

The pirate ships had certainly gone to ground, though leaving their own wrecks, and the carcass of the Valkyrie, in unstable orbits of the planet, one of the pirate ships would hit ground as it had been in a low planetary orbit of somewhere around two hundred fifty kilometers altitude when a phaser hit from the Valkyrie had cored through its aft section, leaving it unable to depart.

It was clear that the operational pirate ships were in a position that kept an asteroid or two between them and the planet, and therefore the Venture, but they could be tracked down.

[Interstellar Federation of Planets]

Ensign Olivia Hardy, SF
Sigma IV, Sigma Star System
Stardate 71452

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Ensign Hardy watched as Captain Shevarn’s expression grew increasingly grim as he heard more and more information against these newfound foes. She could see why; state-sponsored piracy and privateering was the last thing that Starfleet would want to see within any distance of the Interstellar Federation… particularly ones that had proven themselves willing and able to take on a Federation Starship in combat. The only silver living was that it seemed that these pirate groups seemed to be relatively new and by no means fully-established; which meant that it was possible that the threat could be nipped in the bud. It was increasingly fortunate that Starfleet had opted to send the Venture and her escorts; compared to an Intrepid-Class, a Galaxy-class starship was a considerably more formidable proposition and ought to be more than sufficient to deal with any pirate group, especially as they would be going in fully prepared and ready for battle. Doubtless Captain Shevarn would report the situation to Starfleet Command, who equally doubtless would be inclined to send additional ships and resources to deal with the problem; Starfleet favoured a diplomatic approach in all things, but piratical and criminal elements could seldom be negotiated with.

“I didn’t see any other survivors getting off Valkyrie before she was destroyed, however everything happened so fast it is possible that it could have happened whilst I was distracted, and of course if they were beamed from the ship at any point prior to its destruction,” Hardy commented. “Captain, as you’re sensors no doubt told you, Valkyrie was destroyed by a warp core breach… I only escaped due to the fact that I was so close to an escape pod when the abandon ship order was given… but if anyone else survived…”

“Then we will find them,” Captain Shevarn said firmly, turning back to Ferion. “Yes, we saw them, I had intended to go after them once I secured Ensign Hardy here.”


Shevarn paused thoughtfully.

“If these pirates are likely to return, and head to the surface, I am disinclined to leave you and the other inhabitants of this world without an orbital defence until your own ship gets here, so I’ll keep the Venture here for the time being,” Shevarn continued after a few moments. “I’ll send one of my escorts to scout out the asteroid belt; a Defiant-class ought to be able to handle themselves… in the meantime, I’ll send away teams to investigate the pirate wrecks, and see if there is anything there that might give us valuable intelligence.”

Shevarn paused again, before smiling.

“I appreciate this is your system, and I am taking some liberties here; but these criminal scum have taken the lives of members of our Starfleet family, and I fully intend to ensure that they learn that doing so is not a good idea for their continued existence,” He said firmly, glancing at Hardy. “I will of course liaise with your ship and your military as soon as they arrive, I think once we’ve debriefed her it might worth Ensign Hardy serving as a liaison officer, as she has the most experience with your people, if only a few hours.”

[The Ctan]

‘I think she’d make an excellent Liason officer,’ Sela offered, she was sure that this was true enough, she didn’t know much about the young Ensign’s brief career, except that she wasn’t an engineer, but it seemed like a fair bet, she certainly had a level enough head on her shoulders as far as Sela could see.

‘It would certainly be appreciated,’ Ferion said, there were some things that could be done from the surface, but he was never going to say “no” to a more mobile form of help when there was a serious danger about. He didn’t presume to tell the captain how to do his job of course.

As to the legalities he simply shrugged, his understanding was that pirates were essentially “enemies of all sapient-kind” and open to anyone who wished to take them, there were certainly complexities but these people had been attacked by them and he wasn’t aware of any state in the galaxy that would object. At least any state in the civilized galaxy as he saw it, there were a great many societies that fell far short of that mark.

The Great Civilization was actually remarkably tolerant of pirates, the product of a recent (comparatively - as these things went, in centuries more than decades) where the law was not highly respected. Instead its current version was only a small slice of what it regarded as “usable history” and so there was some romanticism of pirates. But that line truly depended on who was being the victim of said piracy, when a pirate attacked a tyrant he was a heroic archetype, when he attacked peaceful explorers such things were seen much more dimly.

‘Hopefully you’ll get them cleaned out soon,’ Sela said, ‘and someone a little more official than we are from the CSV We Met During The Revolution will be around to actually talk about diplomatic stuff, you guys seem nice,’ she said, and this was certainly honestly intended. ‘I don’t think we should keep you from your ship though, your people will feel better about those missions if they know you’re back on board I’m sure.’