Reunited

Posted on 16 Jan 2017 @ 12:31am by Commander Thiago Teixeira & Commodore Harvey Geisler

1,077 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Endgame
Timeline: MD11 || 1200 hours

Almost immediately after both ships jumped to warp, Captain Geisler left the Black Hawk in Lieutenant Di Pasquale's capable hands. He left the Auxiliary Bridge with haste and soon entered Briefing Room One. The chairs had rearranged themselves in response to the ship's jostling back and forth during the attack. Harvey made no attempt to clean the room as he had other things on his mind. He stepped up to the viewscreen, accessed the ship's communication array and hailed the Cochrane.

"Incoming hail from Captain Geisler," someone said from the rear of the Cochrane's bridge.

"I'll take it in the Ready Room," Teixeira replied, standing and crossing the ship's command center.

Walking into the office, he could see his Commanding Officer already on the screen.

"Captain."

"Commander," Harvey said, heaving a sigh. "It's good to see you in one piece. It's been a hell of a week."

Thiago nodded in agreement. "That it has, sir. We suffered some casualties, including a few fatalities, unfortunately."

"What exactly happened back there?" Harvey asked, leaning against the table behind him. "We were set to warp out of here, and the next thing I know, the Cochrane wasn't following."

"No we weren't," he confirmed. "The Confederation used some kind of energy dampening weapon. Reminded me of something that was used against he allied fleet during the Dominion War. Killed our power. Stopped us dead. They boarded us and took control of the ship."

"I'm just thrilled they let you all live," Harvey remarked. "I bet they wanted to know as much as they could about Federation technology. From what I hear, members of the Confederation like to make a nice profit."

"Not all of us," Thiago explained somberly. "Like I said, we did have some fatalities, including Lieutenant Bennett."

"You are right about them wanting inforation on our tech. They interrogated the senior staff. They seemed pretty focused on tricobalts."

Captain Geisler frowned. He wasn't surprised the Confederation was interested in the most powerful weapon issued to Starfleet's ships. If anything, he'd try to avoid using them for the remainder of his career as they caused nothing but trouble.

"How is your crew holding up, Thiago?" Harvey asked, genuinely concerned.

"It's a good crew, sir. They're doing well, all things considered. With the exception of Bast."

"Commander Bast?" Harvey asked, wondering why he specifically mentioned the absent Chief Operations Officer.

"Dr. sh'Eshaatraq says that he should be fine. It seems one of her medics put Bast in stasis before letting the Doctor examine him. sh'Eshaatraq, after some scans, recommended that we leave him in stasis and transfer him to the Black Hawk, especially since Kij has more experience with joined Trill."

Harvey nodded. "I know we're at warp, but we can transport him over as soon as Doctor sh'Eshaatraq is ready. I can alert Doctor Kij as soon we're done." Sighing, the Captain added, "I have to say, this whole thing has been a whirlwind. Between losing touch with you and the Cochrane, and trying to figure out where we are, who we were dealing with, and even wherever the hell you went, no one has slept. I think I can say we should be able to sleep easy tonight."

Thiago didn't respond at first. Although he was tired, he wasn't sure he'd sleep very well for a while. Knowing that he'd almost given the Confederation the information they were after was unsettling to him. "Some will, I'm sure, sir," he finally replied.

"Our next problem is getting home. We don't really know much else other than when the Valdore exploded, it opened a rift between dimensions. We got sucked in, and here we are. We haven't figured out how to get back home, but we are hoping the Cochrane has some better scans of the rift than we do."

"A tricobalt got us here. Don't know if we want to rely on that working for us again," he began. "Let me see what we've got." He turned towards the desktop control panel to his left and entered a series of commands. "Give me a moment. The computer is a bit slow still."

Harvey crossed his arms, waiting for the Commander to find what he was looking for. Now that he was leaning up against the table and the situation had calmed, he could feel the fatigue in his own body.

"Here we go. Transmitting the files to you now, Captain."

The data appeared on the monitor beside Teixeira's face, scrolling down as the transmission progressed. Very little of it made sense to Harvey, but he knew the science department would find it more beneficial. He pushed himself off the table and tapped a few buttons to send a copy of it to Commander Djinx.

"Here's what we have," the captain said, tapping a few controls to send the Cochrane what data they had. "Our science team has been working on it for the last few days, but haven't had much luck. Having the computer down for a day didn't help either. Maybe the scientists on the Cochrane can come up with a few ideas. I really don't want to pull out those tricobalts again."

"This," Thiago replied, pointing at the readout of incoming data from the Black Hawk, "will make my science officer happy. She's looking forward to getting as far away from here as possible." Fordyce had already put in for a transfer off the Cochrane, citing a desire to put some physical distance between herself and the assignment that had put her through so much. "And I couldn't agree with you more. Tricobalts are not the ideal solution. Why they place them in regular service, I'll never know."

"Well, we've got three days before we need solutions," Harvey replied. "Let's just hope one of them works. Anything else to report?"

"No sir. But I am looking forward to being back on the Black Hawk though."

"As am I, Commander," Harvey said, returning the sentiment. It was his primary driving force over the last few days, to have the Black Hawk family back together again. It didn't matter that the Commander had only been with them for a little more than a week. Times like these... they developed unbreakable bonds. "As am I."

"I'll get my science officer working on this," Teixeira said after a pause. "And let me know when Kij is ready for Bast."

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