Mission Summary:
Even months after the scars of Terra Prime were inflicted upon Earth's reputation, Starfleet is still pushing forward in an attempt to show to their new allies that they were a small minority of the population, and that Earth is still dedicated to peaceful exploration and greater interaction with alien cultures. Unfortunately there are various secrets which could jeopardise that image.

As Starfleet Intelligence learns the location of one of Terra Prime's former members, they become increasingly concerned about his actions, with indications showing that he has ambitions of ascending to Paxman's throne and leading Terra Prime in various violent actions, the first of which they have reason to believe to be the bombing of a Tellarite trading compound on Earth's colony of Deneva. With construction on Discovery almost complete, Captain Curtis is ordered to launch ahead of schedule in order to intercept the rogue terrorist before he can detonate his explosive.

Mission Objectives

• Crew reports on board Discovery - character background/development required here
• Discovery is launched ahead of schedule with orders to proceed at best speed to Deneva. Various minor items not yet installed or properly configured at this point, due to two week early launch
• Discovery arrives at Deneva and splits into several landing parties to search for the Terra Prime agent. Images of the target will be distributed to landing parties for identification
• Landing parties locate Terra Prime agent, and a fire fight ensues. Agent escapes whilst landing parties defuse the bomb.
• Discovery captures agent during escape attempt on Tellarite freighter

Noted Non-Played Characters

• Rear Admiral Samuel Gardner - Director of Starfleet Operations (Human male)
• Luke Mosstaff - Former Terra Prime agent and antagonist (Human male)

M01: Cayne
"The Watch"

Newly minted Commander Dewitt Cayne checked his father's watch and tried to remember the last time he had heard from the old man. He couldn't.

The watch itself, a simple black face set in a brass housing with a tattered black leather strap had been with him through thick and thin. He chuckled to himself. The watch had been more supportive than his Dad.

With the sleeves of his duty uniform rolled up, the watch was obviously different to most officer of the United Earth Starfleet who relied more on the chronometers of their computer displays or their personal communicators than on antiquated rotary clocks.

Although the transport's engines droned in his ears, he could still hear the gentle ticking of the watch. It was the same ticking that he had heard when he was trapped in the hold of Cargo Fleet transport that was being used to smuggle stims to outlying Boomer colonies. His focus was kept by the constant ticking, allowing him to be prepared when the time came to make the arrests.

All in a day's work, he had said.

Today's work was reporting into his new assignment. He had gone from a Lieutenant without an assignment, working security gigs to make ends meet on a crappy apartment in Seattle, to the First Officer of an NX project starship.

He couldn't help but question his luck. He was sure that there were one or two of his former colleagues who couldn't help but question his luck.

Ever since he had left the Intrepid his confidence was shot. He was a young officer going places in the fleet and there were higher-ups taking a keen interest in his development. It had been perfect. Just what he'd always wanted but all that changed when the Xindi Probe attacked.

He fired the shots which all-but saved Enterprise from the Klingon Bird-of-Prey but was attached to a pending roster of personnel for an NX Project assignment. Despite his protestations, he slipped through the cracks and another assignment began to seem incredibly unlikely.

He cracked a wry smile as he remembered the sound of his watch in the hold of that ship. The things he'd had to do to keep his head above water, all the while other officers were being assigned to ships like Columbia and Challenger. Every launch date came and went without him receiving the call.

Now everything seemed rosy again. He had been brought back into the fold and promoted. He had no idea why but he expected that he would find out upon his arrival at his new post.

The starship Discovery lay in drydock, its name suggestive of the hopes Starfleet had. Whether it was for them or for the benefit of Starfleet's allies who were undoubtedly suspicious of Earth's intentions was unclear but it spoke to Dewitt Cayne.

He was going to be out in the inky black, discovering new civilisations and anomalies and lightyears away from any niggling concerns he had. All he had to do was focus on the gentle ticking of his Father's watch.

| May 10th, 2155
| Inspection Pod Alpha, Earth Orbit, NX-04 Drydock
| 0920 hours

Captain Christina Curtis looked up through the thick transparent aluminium windows of the inspection pod as she piloted the tiny vessel around the drydock facility. Above her floated the form of her true vessel: Discovery, NX-04. There was a definitive line of hull plates missing going from the strut leading to the port warp nacelle towards the rear of the saucer section - where engineering and the warp core were. The power conduits along that route had overloaded during a test last week, and had nearly blown off the entire nacelle. Thankfully it hadn't come to that, but the incident had blown out the power conduits, and left a great tear in the hull plates. The misalignment which had caused the overload had since been corrected, and the engineers had finished replacing the conduits yesterday, but the ship was still left with a series of missing hull plates that still had to be replaced.

"Make sure that the hull plates those are replaced with match the rest of the ship," she said to the young engineer who had accompanied her, pad in hand to take notes. The hull plates of the four NX-class vessels all varied slightly in composition, taking into account new advancements that had been made in the refinement process, and this gave each ship a slightly different hue to the others - though NX-01 was still the most different in terms of its shade, as her three successors each had a subtle blue tint to their hulls. Each new composition had come with improved hull polarisation technologies - Discovery's hull polarisation was 19% better at withstanding damage than Enterprise's plating was capable of generating.

Curtis tapped the thruster controls to alter the ship's direction, aiming for one of the docking ports on the outer edge of the saucer, her external inspection done for the day. The sensors were needed in order to back the pod into the docking port, but it was a manoeuvre that she had practised many times; first during the construction of Enterprise, and now again during construction of her own vessel. Locking down the controls, she swivelled her chair to stand, stooping slightly in the cramped craft. As she moved to the airlock, the engineer swapped places with her and took the pilot's seat, setting his pad to the side. Tapping the control to open the airlock, and being greeted with the much larger airlock of Discovery, she turned to the engineer for a parting word before she disembarked. "I want those hull plates in place by the end of the day. Tell the yard chief to contact me if there's going to be any delay."

"Yes, ma'am," the engineer responded, turning back to the controls to make ready for his return trip.

Cycling her way through the airlock, Curtis found herself in the familiar halls of her starship, and began striding confidently through the corridors that she had memorised. Left then right, then another right as she passed the hatch to the cargo bay. The corridor curved to the left before making a sharper left turn, putting her on a course that would be perpendicular to the motion of the ship, were it going anywhere. Another left past the port hydroponics bay, and the next right saw her on a course for the upper level of main engineering; the two hatches to which were half-way along the hall. Before she had walked a quarter of the corridor, she turned left again, and then right, into the short corridor that ended in the central-most lift shaft. There were a total of three such shafts aboard Discovery, but this was the only one that was capable of taking her to the far-dorsal sections of the ship; and the bridge.

The bridge, when she stepped onto it, was much the same as it had been the day before; that is, in pieces. To be fair to the engineering teams, the core elements of the bridge were in place, including the helm, tactical, science, communications and engineering consoles, each of them covered in plastic sheeting. The room was filled with engineers putting the final touches in place - panels into the wall consoles, the situation table at the back of the bridge, and Curtis' own chair all needed to go in before the ship could launch. The captain had wanted to make sure that the engine room was prioritised over the bridge, considering the engine troubles that Columbia had experienced. Challenger's launch had been smoother, but Christina had nevertheless wanted to avoid tempting fate. Thankfully, the two newest NX class ship bridges had also done away with the glowing EPS conduits at the back of the bridge that had been experimented with on Columbia. She had always found them to be intensely distracting, and the thought of having them right behind where she sat during battle drills made her constantly paranoid that they would explode on her if her opponent got a lucky shot in.

Deciding to leave the crews to their tasks, she made her way through the hatch to her ready room. She had to check on the status of the crew assignments she had submitted to Starfleet Command; with any luck, they had approved some of her transfer requests.

May 11th, 2155
Discovery NX-04, Earth Orbit Drydock
0536 hours

It was early in the morning and nobody was around but the night shift security staff. One of them, a fierce-looking pacific island ensign with a shaved head and arms that could probably break him, inspected the pad Leo fished out of one of the pockets of his jumpsuit. To get at it, the science officer had had to set down the hard plastic box he carried with his right hand.

“You’re a little early, Commander,” the ensign said as he flicked through the information.

Leo shrugged and shifted the duffel bag he had hanging over his shoulder, “Just eager to get aboard and get settled, Ensign.”

The security officer raised an eyebrow and sized him up. Leo couldn’t help but smile at the irony of this man sizing him up as if there was even a remote possibility that he could overpower him.

It seemed the ensign came to the same conclusion because his expression relaxed and he handed the pad back over. “Do you know where you’re going, sir?”

Leo replaced the pad in the breast pocket of his jumpsuit and zipped it back up as he said, “Sì, Deck E. Portside officers’ quarters.”

The security officer nodded and gestured to his right, “Just down this corridor, sir,” he said. “Only a couple of compartments down.”

“Grazi,” Leo smiled and picked up his box, nodding to the ensign as he squeezed past him and headed down the corridor.

The ensign wasn’t wrong, Leo had gone maybe ten metres down the corridor when he saw the hatch to his quarters on his left. “Here we are,” he said in his native Italian, seemingly to nobody. The plain, grey door was adorned with no heraldry other than the compartment code that told him that this was his cabin. He reached out and tapped the door control and the door hummed aside.

The cabin was cramped, Spartan and seemingly missing a computer terminal. The desk bolted to the outer bulkhead was bare of any computer terminal. That must be a mistake,” Leo thought to himself as he placed his duffel and the box onto the bunk. “Don’t worry,” he said, still in Italian, “I’ll get somebody to fix it up.”

He turned his attention away from the desk and the porthole that gave him a spectacular view of the spacedock and knelt down beside the bed to examine the box. He slid a panel aside to reveal hidden controls and tapped in a code. There was a loud double click followed by a low hum and a whispered hiss. Then one end of the box opened and swung down, forming a ramp onto the mattress. For a moment nothing happened, but then he came lumbering down the ramp, hesitantly surveying his new surroundings.

“Ciao, Lorenzo,” Leo said, a wide smile crossing his face as he watched his old friend step out onto the bed.

The cat had a dark grey (known as blue) coat across his back with white fur down his belly and covering his paws. Lorenzo was ten years old and was the one possession Leo managed to salvage from the wreck of his marriage nine years ago. The cat had been with him on every off-world assignment he had had since.

He petted Lorenzo’s head and stood up, leaving the cat to get acclimatised to his new home. Leo breathed in the processed air of the ship and smiled. He looked out of the porthole and through ribs of spacedock to the blue planet spinning silently beyond. It was entirely possible that he wouldn’t see that planet for years to come after Discovery launched, and that suited him just fine.

The day was here; he had arrived aboard an NX starship. This was a good day and he couldn’t wait to play his part in the great adventure still to come.

“Bene.”

| May 10th, 2155
| Main Bridge, Discovery NX-04
| 0925 hrs

Commander Dewitt Cayne stepped onto the bridge of the Starship Discovery, expecting a scene of more chaos than the one which greeted him. An engineering team was hard at work fitting the situation table and a small disagreement had broken out between two of them.

"Captain Curtis?" Cayne asked them, cutting the argument short.

One of the dissenters looked up from his work and motioned toward the door at the far side of the bridge. "She's in her Ready Room." He replied curtly, before adding a reluctant 'sir'.

"Yeah, thanks." Cayne was nonplussed as he moved through the compartment, noting the expectant gap where the Captain's chair was due to be installed. Approaching the door to the Captain's Ready Room, he reached out to press the chime. The door's opening mechanism was present but the chime had not yet been installed.

He knocked instead.

"Come in!" Christina shouted. The comm. system throughout the ship was complete, aside from a few individual panels. Unfortunately one of them was the one tied in with the chime to her ready room door, so she had to shout enough to make herself heard through the thick metal hatch that separated her private office from the short corridor leading to the bridge.

Cayne stood stoic at the door until he realised that the vague whimper he had heard from through the hatch had been the Captain permitting his entry. He pointed toward the panel as he entered the room, suggesting that it should go to the top of someone's list.

"Commander!" the captain said, standing up with a smile on her face as she saw the man that the portal had opened to reveal. "Welcome aboard. I only had the news that my request for your transfer was authorised five minutes ago. I had no idea you'd be onboard so quickly."

"Well, Captain, there's no reason to hang around once the call comes through." Cayne took a look around the small cabin. It was quite homely for a new ship and a new assignment. "Sorry, Sir. Did you say your transfer request?"

Christina tilted her head to the left as she watched the commander's facial expressions. "You seem surprised," she said after a moment. "You don't think you're worth me asking you to be here?"

"I wouldn't say that," Cayne said, despite that being the exact thought going through his mind, "I was just led to believe that a posting to the NX project wasn't exactly on the horizon for me."

"You were chief armoury officer on Intrepid for, what? Four years? I've met Captain Ramirez, and believe me, if he didn't feel you were good enough for him, you'd have been turned around and back out of his airlock quicker than you could say 'Vulcans have pointy ears'." Curtis shrugged as she moved around her desk and lowered herself into one of the armchairs wedged into the far corner of the room. "And the way I hear it, the only reason you weren't selected for Challenger was because their armoury chief had been on the waiting list for a lot longer than you." She paused as she smirked at the man, hoping behind it that his disbelief at being wanted for this post wasn't telling of his talents to hold it. "Of course, if you'd rather go back to writing targeting algorithms for the guys at Jupiter Station to test, I'm sure I could arrange it."

"Well, they do have pointy ears." Cayne replied, shuddering a little at the thought of those damned targeting algorithms. There was nothing he hated more than watching spaceborne projectiles hit a small target with no pay-off. "The way I heard it on Challenger was that they didn't want an armoury officer who discharged his weapon in the street."

Dewitt Cayne had found himself on Jupiter Station after an incident in the Presidio in San Francisco. After witnessing a man being beaten half to death by a gang, he had fired on the group, attempting to stun the perpetrators rather than waiting for the police. It was one of the jurisdictional issues faced by Starfleet personnel on Earth. For some reason they were treated almost like civilians.

"I'll let you into a secret, Commander," the captain said almost conspiratorially. "No starship captain recruits their tactical officer to sit on his ass any more so than we recruit our comm officers to be mute."

"You might well be onto something there, Captain." Cayne nodded sagely at the Captain's assertion. "It would give us a quieter life though."

"You're in the wrong line of work if you want a quiet life." Christina stood from her chair again and made her way towards Dewitt in the centre of the room. "The galaxy is a crowded, noisy place, and we're going to be right in the thick of it. I trust I can count on you to be at my side while we're out there?"

"You can count on me." Cayne was captivated by the steely determination in the Captain's statement. He'd heard rumours that she had an astonishing countenance about her. A lot of the NX project captains were little more than glorified mechanics who had risen to their position more through their commitment to the project but Curtis clearly had it all; not only the experience and know-how but also the ability to inspire a crew.

"Glad to hear it. Now, shall we see about making this ship of ours space-worthy already?"


_________________

| May 11th, 2155
| Dewitt Cayne's Quarters
| 0100 hours

Commander Dewitt Cayne sat in quiet contemplation with only the sound of his drink rolling around in the glass for company. His view of the Earth below was obscured by one of the giant struts of the drydock which completed his solitude. The engineering and maintenance teams had shut down their operations at twenty-two hundred. With officers now on board ship, they were too nervous to disturb the slumber of potentially tetchy astronauts.

Cayne wasn't sure whether any of his colleagues were actually sleeping on the ship. Most, he assumed, would take the two hour shuttlepod journey back to the surface and wile away the hours in one of San Francisco's obscene number of 'watering holes'. He definitely couldn't hear anyone but, he thought to himself, he could just be in a quiet section.

He glanced over at his bunk, where he had turned out almost all of his belongings looking for a photograph, before turning his attention back to the coldness of the glass. There was something to be said for the Cargo Boomers who went days on watch without seeing another soul. It was peaceful, tranquil even. It reminded him of Jupiter Station.

While he had been there, for six long months, he had spent his days monitoring the stocks of the armoury. Officially he had been assigned as an armoury officer but he was held at arm's length during his stay there- something which defined two years of his life. They didn't like the idea that he might carry a weapon but they were perfectly content to have him count them.

It all went back to that day in San Francisco. In the Presidio, one of its many parks, then-Lieutenant Cayne had happened across a gang beating seven shades out of a defenceless man- an Inclusionist as it later transpired. Unable to alert the authorities and heavily outnumbered by an armed mob, the Lieutenant unholstered his phase pistol and ordered the group to stop.

He could hear the cackling of the ring leader as he raised his weapon to shoulder height, allowing him a clear shot. They had told him that they had no problem with him but that the man they were reducing to a fine powder was a danger to Earth and to humanity. The mob mentality had long-since set in, leading to whoops and cheers from the assembled gaggle of morons.

Cayne didn't care who the man was, although he had no problem with Inclusionists who saw fit to open Earth's borders to aliens, all that mattered to him was that he couldn't defend himself.

One more kick. One more grunt from one of the anonymous mass and one more blood-curdling squeal from their victim.

The Lieutenant fired his phase pistol, aiming just over the ring leader's shoulder and imposing a burn mark in the wall behind him. Still, it didn't stop him. His thumb fumbled with the setting, flicking it to stun before he let off another shot, this time catching the ring leader square in the chest.

There was silence and the mob dissipated quickly as sirens bellowed out in the distance. Their instigator eventually staggered onto his feet and made off, leaving Cayne and the bloodied Inclusionist alone. Cayne was led away by police in full Starfleet uniform and interrogated about the goings-on, later being pulled up in front of a senior Starfleet disciplinary panel and told that his actions had disgraced the uniform.

He took a swig from the glass and chuckled as he looked back on that one. "Disgraced."

Two years later and here he was, First Officer on an NX Starship, about to go out there after being stuck in the backwater. He had tried to save a man's life and been vilified for it, first by the civilian police and then by his own superiors. The solitude made him realise that even with the consequences, he would do it all again in a heartbeat.

May 11, 2155
Stellar Cartography Lab, Discovery NX-04
0928 hrs

The lab was quiet except for the hum of the environmental systems and the occasional muttering from its sole inhabitant. Leo sat at one of the outer workstations tapping away at the interface, updating a local file he had created to list all of the equipment that he did not find in the labs during his tour that morning.

Once he had settled into his quarters, he had jumped right into his new responsibilities with an inspection of all twenty specialist scientific labs, fourteen rotating research labs and he forgot how many scientific equipment storage lockers. After pottering, rummaging, cataloguing and rearranging for about three hours, Leo finished his inspection and grabbed some breakfast from the Mess. Rather than eating there with the three or four other crewmembers who were quietly eating by themselves, he took his pastry and coffee and headed up to Deck B to enjoy a working breakfast in the tranquillity of the Stellar Cartography Lab.

The breakfast was soon forgotten, going cold next to a half-drunk cup of frigid coffee over on the edge of the main stellar mapping display while Leo worked on his list. "Who thought it would be a good idea to leave without a sub-zero specimen collection unit?" he muttered in Italian; he often spoke to himself while he was alone and sometimes even when others were around. "Did they think we might not need that?"

"I'm sure we might need one at some point," said a soft but confident voice behind him, from the hatchway he had not noticed slide open. "But we've still got at least two weeks left until our launch date. I'm sure we can managed to rustle one up in that time." Christina had decided that she needed something to do after coming aboard this morning - other than read transfer approvals and refusals - but had been trying to come to terms with the fact that as the captain, she couldn't very well micromanage all of the engineering teams fitting the final systems into the ship. Thankfully, one of the reports she had already covered had mentioned that her science officer had already reported aboard, so she had decided to come and find him. "At least we can never leave without the stars to look at," she said, indicating the stellar cartography monitors around them.

Leo’s head shot around in the direction of the unannounced stranger lingering by the entryway. He might have said something he shouldn’t have, but his eyes went straight to the four pips on the front of her uniform. “Ah, Capitano!” he said, a warm smile crossing his face despite his mind raging at not finishing his list. He stood up and crossed to the captain with his right hand outstretched. “I did not hear you come in,” he said, switching back to English. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Leo Carpegiani, your Science Officer.”

"Pleasure's all mine, Commander," Curtis replied, taking the man's hand and shaking it firmly. "Can I call you Leo?" At his slight nod of agreement, she nodded her head towards the forgotten breakfast that sat near a collection of personal display pads. "Is our lack of a specimen collection unit really bothering you so much as to affect your appetite? Or has chef decided to let one of the dock workers cook breakfast again this morning?"

Leo furrowed his brow and glanced over at the breakfast-gone-cold. "Oh," he said, suddenly remembering its existence. "No, no no no no no," he shrugged and smiled. "I often do this, I'm sorry. I will start eating and then -" he clicked his fingers in the air, "- I will remember an important task I had to complete or I will be distracted with an engrossing passage in a journal article and I will just ... forget my breakfast. Don't worry, I usually finish it off sooner or later."

The science officer waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the meal and turned back to his work. "It is not just the sub-zero specimen collection unit, I'm afraid," he said. "There are many things we still need to come aboard before I can confidently call our research facilities fully stocked. Granted, it may be that they are en route to us right this minute and I am being too zealous wanting my labs at peak readiness, but I think you will agree, Captain, that it is better to be finding out now than after we have passed the Kuiper Belt." He looked up at Curtis with slightly raised eyebrows and a hint of a smile, clearly expecting agreement.

It was agreement that he instantly received. "Absolutely," the captain said, moving closer to take a look at the list Leo had been composing on his padd. "This is a ship of scientific exploration afterall - we can hardly fulfil our mission if we don't have the equipment for it. What are we missing?"

Leo handed her the padd as he said, "I have identified forty-two pieces of equipment that are currently not aboard the Discovery." He pointed to items listed on the padd as he rattled off, "No laser-induced breakdown spectroscopes, alpha particle spectrometers, mobile DNA sequencers, meteorological scanners ..." he shrugged, "the list goes on."

"Hmm," Curtis intoned as she read through the list, involuntarily mouthing the names of some of the more complexly named pieces of equipment. "Well, we do have two weeks left until we're scheduled to launch. It's certainly possible that most of this equipment is on the list of things still to come aboard. Still-" she looked back up and handed the PADD back to Leo. "I don't want us rushing to load everything last minute. Prioritise which of these you think are most critical, and submit a request to Command for them to be brought onboard immediately. I'll add my weight to it to make sure it arrives as soon as they can wheel it on to a transporter pad."

"Grazie, signora," Leo said with a slight bow of his head as he took the PADD back and placed it down on the console. He turned back to the captain, one other question burning in his mind. "Ah, Captain, if I may ask, is there any indication from Command about where we may be heading? It's a big galaxy out there, and it would be interesting to know which direction we are going."

"Unless they give us a specific directive, Starfleet's precedent so far is to go by captain's prerogative," Christina replied with a slight shrug. "I'll try to find a star to head towards when we leave if we don't hear anything from Starfleet in the meantime," she quipped.

Leo smiled, the thought of being part of a mission with free reign over where they explored stoked a sense of excitement and wonder inside him that made him feel like a boy again. "I will send you a list of highlights I believe you may find interesting," he said in a matter of fact way, allowing for no possibility of dissent from his commanding officer. He spun on his seat back to the console and created a new document, starting his list from memory and quite forgetting all about the captain's presence.


_________________

No Lemonade Today


| May 11, 2155
| Mess Hall, E-Deck
| 1306hrs.

Leo had spent the morning tinkering around in the stellar cartography lab, familiarising himself with the setup and downloading the latest data packet from Starfleet Headquarters. He would probably do that again a few more times before the <i>Discovery</i> got underway, but it could never hurt to always have the most up to data information available.

He had even met some of his crew, who were surprised to find their Chief Science Officer doing grunt work like tuning the ship's infrared radiometer. He spent a bit of timing talking with them before heading back to his quarters to check on Lorenzo. At that point, he realised he was hungry.

"I should have finished breakfast," he said to the cat, who acknowledged the comment with a twitch of his ear. "I'll see you later, Lorenzo."

The mess hall was also on E Deck so he strolled through the corridors, politely saying hello to the occasional crew member he passed. As he walked, his mind was going over his plan of attack for the exobiology lab this afternoon. He was determined to know every lab of this ship inside out before they got underway.

The door to the mess opened and he quickly scanned the room, noting the only other occupant was seated at one of the tables beneath the large window looking out onto the inky darkness of space. The red piping of his uniform told Leo that he was either an engineer or one of the security personnel, but it was the rank insignia that really caught his attention; a commander, which meant senior staff.

If he had been facing the window, Leo would probably have grabbed a sandwich and trotted off to the exobiology lab to eat and work. Instead, he decided to say hello. He grabbed a plate of pasta from the servery and a cup of iced tea out of the drink dispenser, after the machine told him that lemonade was not available, and walked over to the only other occupant in the mess.

"Excuse me," he said. "Is this seat taken?"

Commander Dewitt Cayne had spent most of the day trying to reassure his incumbent enlisted staff that they weren't immediately going to be replaced by rifle-toting MACOs just before launch. The solitude of the Mess was a delight, with most of the staff choosing to eat their meals in the better-stocked docking facility.

He glanced around at the empty mess hall before realising that this must be their new Chief Science Officer. "Nah, go ahead."

Cayne looked the man up and down as he took his seat, he noted the meticulous press of the Scientist's uniform and the immaculate crease which ran up the top of his arm. A quick glance down at his own overalls told him that no-one had rolled his sleeves down or taken a moment to run an iron over them for days.

"I wouldn't drink that if I were you." Cayne said abruptly as his new eating companion raised the glass of Iced Tea to his lips. "Our hopefully temporary chef is liberal with the sugar, to say the least."

Leo halted the progress of the glass and, instead, sniffed it. The drink even smelled sickly sweet. "<i>Mio Dio</i>!" he said as he put the glass down as far away from his food as he could get it. "I hope he is not our chef for too long." He wiped his hand as if to decontaminate the sweet off it and extended it across the table. "Anyway, pleased to meet you, I am Leo Carpegiani."

"Dewitt Cayne," The red-edged Commander replied, "I believe the Captain is involved of one of those complex tugs-o'-war with another CO to wrangle their chef from them. Otherwise I think we'll be stuck with this joker."

Cayne took a miserable look into his plate of what he was assured was pasta before pushing it to the side. "So you're the new Science bod, then?"

Leo nodded as he chewed on what was less like pasta and more like a crime against a thousand years of his heritage. But he forced it down, the grumbling in his stomach forcing him through at least a few more fork loads. "<i>Si</i>," he said, digging around with his fork for the lesser of the plate full of evils. "I came aboard early this morning and have been busy sorting out the science labs. You would not believe how under-resourced we are at the moment."

"On the contrary. Until Friday, I only have five phase pistols to do ten security officers." Cayne noted as he noted the revulsion on the face of his companion. "The armoury looks more like a stationery cupboard than a defensive structure. Have you put in a requisition for what you need?"

The science officer nodded enthusiastically as he dropped his fork, surrendering to good taste and feeling his ancestors let out a collective sigh of relief. "I sent a strongly worded message to the Quartermaster demanding that she explain why I did not have half of the scientific equipment necessary for a prolonged exploration mission." He paused long enough to smile, expressing how pleased with himself he was before continuing. "I might have CCd in a friend of mine at the NX Program in San Francisco, as well."

"I was going to say you might want to tread lightly with that Quartermaster but it always helps to have friends in high places." Cayne said, remembering his first experience with her, where she had all but thrown him out of the Store for daring to suggest that his staff needed adequate equipment. "If there's any orders you need pushed up the line, drop them off to me. The Captain's got enough on her plate just now."

"Of course," Leo said with an inclined bow of his head. "I think that we will all be very busy right up to the launch. But it is very exciting to be part of this mission, don't you agree?"

Cayne grunted his agreement. It was exciting to be part of an NX mission but he still couldn't shake the nagging suspicion that he shouldn't be here. A couple of years of being indoctrinated to believe you'd done something wrong could do that to you. "Have you ever been on a long-range mission?" He asked, doing his best to get out of his own head.

"Nothing like this," Leo replied, shaking his head. "I spent some time on Deneva doing my doctoral dissertation, had a couple of survey trips to Tau Ceti and spent fifteen months in the <i>Constellation</i> while she was surveying out past Vega. But none of that compares with what this ship will be doing. We will have years out there," he gestured past Cayne to the infinite black through the window behind him.

Cayne glanced over his shoulder to the spot in the endless space where his colleague had indicated. "All the more reason to do something about that chef."

| May 12th, 2155
| Rear Admiral Gardner's Office, Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco, North America, Earth
| 0620 hours

Rear Admiral Samuel Gardner was usually quite relaxed in his office at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco. Though the room once belonged to a close friend of his who had tragically lost his life in the bombing of the Earth Embassy on Vulcan the previous year, he had never felt as if his ghost had haunted the building. Admiral Forrest, Gardner reasoned, was always a man whose spirit was destined to join the very ships he commanded in flying through the cosmos, and such an image always brought him comfort in times of stress.

Today wasn't likely to be one of the days where such mental tricks would work on his tired mind. The office of the head of Starfleet was dimly lit; kept so as to not strain the eyes of the occupiers who had all been roused from their sleep in the early hours of the chillier-than-usual May morning. Present with the admiral were Commander Williams - the former personal adjutant of Admiral Forrest, whom Gardner inherited along with the office; Ambassador Soval, the man who had once stood so staunchly against Humanity's warp program, but was now one of its strongest supporters, and Ambassador Gora bim Gral, of Tellar.

"Tell me again," Gardner said, as he reached up to rub his eyes and try to rid himself of the last vestiges of sleep. "Who have they found?"

"Not exactly found, Sir," Williams answered. He was reporting on behalf of Starfleet's intelligence division - a small yet growing group established by United Earth's government to proactively gather information to aid in the defence of Earth and her colonies - and now her allies. "Their exact words were that they 'have strong evidence as to his intended location and actions.' Luke Mosstaff - he was one of the lower-rating members of Terra Prime. Nowhere near Paxman's inner circle, but apparently with enough ambition to try to seize the limelight in the name of his mission of Human supremacy."

"What exactly are his intended actions?" Soval asked, his voice as calm as though he had spent a peaceful day on the sunlounger at a beach before coming to the meeting. Somehow that disgruntled Gardner right at this moment more than any conversation with the argumentative Gral ever had. "And where is he to be heading."

"We believe he is heading to Deneva," the commander answered, looking towards the Vulcan ambassador. Deneva was a colony barely a decade old, specifically settled in order to serve as a hub for freight-liners in the area, and its population of Earth-born boomers had since been supplemented by numerous other species as Earth's diplomatic interactions increased. "To set a bomb near the Tellarite Trader's Compound there."

That sparked an immediate reaction from Gral. "I knew that the mess created by your Mars Rebels wasn't over!" he exclaimed, flying easily into a rage typical of most Tellarites Gardner had met so far. "I can't believe that you-"

"Ambassador!" Gardner cut the man off before he could start a tirade of insults at everyone present. "First of all, the Mars Colonies did not rebel. Paxman took control of the Verteron Array located there for his own ends." He turned towards Williams. "Who's the nearest ship? Can Archer get there before Mosstaff sets his device?"

Williams shook his head. "Enterprise and Columbia are too far away to get there in time. Challenger is still on diplomatic duties, and none of our Intrepid or Neptune classes have the speed to make it there by the time we believe he will put his plan in motion."

"I could ask Administrator T'Pau if she could send a Vulcan vessel?" Soval suggested, stepping forward as he did so. As much a supporter of Starfleet that he was now, he still clung to old habits in thinking that Vulcans had the responsibility to step in for their "younger partners" in their alliance.

"Thank you for the offer, but I believe that this is something that Earth should handle, Ambassador," Gardner responded, having already raked his brain for the only other ship that could possibly get from Earth to Deneva in time. He turned back to Williams, his face set. "Get me Captain Curtis."


| May 12th, 2155
| Christina Curtis' Apartment, Los Angeles, North America, Earth
| 0649 hours

Christina shook to wake herself as she sat up on the edge of her bed, the sun already starting to stream through her windows as the Starfleet-issue terminal installed at the other end of the room chirped relentlessly for her attention. Curling her toes into the plush carpet under her feet, she pushed herself off the bed, checked to make sure she was presentable enough for anyone with the audacity to wake her this early on her one day this week she was due a lie-in, and stumbled over towards the terminal, pulling herself into her seat as she hit the control that would accept and activate the incoming communication.

She instantly snapped awake at the face that greeted her.

"Admiral Gardner," she said, still somewhat in shock. It wasn't the first time that she had spoken to him since being slated for command of Earth's latest NX-class starship, but he hadn't called her this early in the morning before. She could see he was still in his office in San Francisco, so they were in the same time zone, meaning that he must have been roused from his sleep too. "What can I do for you?"

"How soon can you get Discovery's crew together, Curtis?" was the abrupt response, the Admiral clearly sitting on an urgent issue.

"We're due to launch in two weeks, Admiral," she responded, cursing herself in knowing that he must have already memorised Discovery's launch date well before she even became aware of it. "I have most of the crew assignments in place, and the major systems are installed. We're just working on a few more minor finishing touches."

"We can't wait that long," Gardner said. "I want you and your crew ready to launch in two days. I'll brief you on the mission aboard Discovery later today. I'm sorry we have to skip the bells and whistles, but this is your time, Captain. Gardner out."

Christina slumped back in her chair as she mulled the brief conversation over in her mind. The last word before the Admiral signed off were what stuck in her mind. Captain. Until now, he had simply called her "Curtis" - "Captain" was solely reserved for those in command of an active starship, as far as the Admiral was concerned. So that was it then. It was official. No ceremony, no official function; just one word from her superior officer and she was officially in command of an active starship. And one that had to launch far earlier than any of her schedules had made allowances for.

Sleep was no longer on her mind as she stood to get dressed for her shuttle trip into orbit on the first flight she could order to pick her up.

| May 13th, 0630
| Discovery NX-04, Earth Orbit Drydock
| 0649 hours

Admiral Gardner made an unannounced visit to Discovery in the morning following his less than courteous conversation with Captain Curtis, perhaps only to punctuate his argument with some sort of leadership role on his part. He hurried from the transporter receiving pad to the nearest turboshaft connecting to A Deck.

The Admiral lead the charge to the bridge, with his aide trying to follow behind. When he walked onto the bridge, which was still draped with plastic and dust covers, he became all the more incensed. When he demanded to see the ship's Chief Engineer no one seemed to know what was going on or where precisely Anziano was, and no one knew why he seemed to be in such a bad mood, they only knew he was very upset. The lieutenant (who had already been demoted so far as he was concerned) was in the observation gallery forward of the main bridge. His aide, a Captain Park, had never seen him so mad and did not want to miss a front row seat to some fireworks in his rather hum-drum existence.

Gardner stormed into the observation gallery, which was just a narrow corridor with sloping ceiling, lined with windows, as Park yelled, "Admiral on deck. Attention!"

Now, the entire ship was a work area and it was not considered necessary to come to the position of attention whenever a stray officer happened by. It interfered with the work going on. So Lieutenant Luís Anziano finished the welding rod he was using and slowly lifted his welding hood like he was trying to see what was going on. He still had his smoking stinger in hand. When he lifted his hood, the Admiral was standing there fuming, madder than a wet hen.

After questioning his genetics, mental aptitude, and various other facets of Starfleet life in his best butt-chewing tone the Admiral asked if the Lieutenant had anything to say for himself, expecting that at the conclusion of some sorry excuse he could at last demote him and replace him on the spot.

Anziano wasn't exactly shy. Previous experiences had lead him to believe that if he played the game right he'd be in a better position than if he simply took a beating. He was surprised to be seeing the brass, but more surprised at the speed at which the Admiral came aboard and found him, and he correctly assumed that the Captain knew nothing about his visit. Anziano had already decided that the very first thing he would do would be to respond on a significantly calmer level of energy than the Admiral, and not try to match it. He proceeded to explain, verbatim, what the book had to say about the work they were doing and the hazard it posed to the personnel. He succinctly defined the processes required to complete the fitting out of Discovery, and also added rather reluctantly that he could not ask his people to work inside the ship without certain resources, such as proper exhaust equipment with a specified airflow.

What could Gardner say? From the look on his face, the brass had not done his homework and checked the book to see what it said about the matter. He certainly wanted to check it when he got back to his office, even though with his many years of service he should know what it said. He also knew that the book had been signed by Admiral Forrest and written by Captain Jefferies, which he could not hope to excel for depth and breadth of experience. Garder had simply flown off the handle and reacted; being so involved in the bigger picture to see that for the want of a nail the entire kingdom was in jeopardy.

Anziano stood there with his welding hood on and stinger in hand waiting to hear what the Admiral would say. "Admiral, with all due respect, we have this. We will deliver the ship on time if given the resources we've requested."

Gardner felt a rather odd pain in his backside as he fell off his high horse. The damned kid was probably right. Something about his eyes, his posture,...the way the lieutenant carried himself very matter-of-factly even under his worst brow beating. "I see. And if I get you the ventilation equipment you can finish the fitting out? And what else do you need," the Admiral said rhetorically, "because I need this ship to get its bow wet."

"We'll deliver your ship up. Your best minds and best muscles are on this. We've got this." Anziano gave his welding hood a little pat, almost as though he were saluting . . . no . . . as though he was dismissing the Admiral.

Gardner raised his voice one more time, "Lieutenant, if you pull this off there's a promotion in your future. If you don't . . . I . . . I know where to find you."

Anziano resisted his natural, cocksure smile and lowered his welding hood slowly. "Thank you, Sir."