| May 12th, 2155
| Shuttlepod 1, departing Los Angeles, North America, Earth
| 0730 hours

Christina stood and watched the shuttlepod coming in to land on the small pad usually set up for civilian atmospheric transports, and couldn't help but be drawn to the name Discovery painted on the side of the pod. The ship's own shuttlepods hadn't seen much action since their spaceflight tests and their loading aboard the ship. Since Curtis had issued the recall order to all members of the ship crew who had either not yet reported aboard or who had taken shoreleave however, she had authorised their use to handle the higher-than usual transport of personnel to orbit. Shuttlepods 1 and 2 had just been to the Starfleet transport centre in San Francisco, but Christina had ordered a seat onboard one of the shuttles be saved for her and the ship diverted to collect her in Los Angeles.

She was the only one to approach the pod once it had settled on the pad, and stepped inside quickly as one of the passengers already onboard pushed the hatch open from within. The pilot began to lift off again as soon as the hatch was sealed shut once more, and Curtis took one of the seats between the hatch and the pilot which had been left spare for her. She nodded politely to the crew members she was joining, but her mind was too occupied on her conversation with Gardner earlier for any of their faces to register for her.

With a lurch, the shuttlepod ascended through the atmosphere. Air resistance caused a small amount of turbulence close to the ground since the air was much thicker at sea level, but as the small craft accelerated and gained altitude, the vibrations diminished. But that did very little to alleviate the nerves of Chloe Bishop. The ensign was sitting across from the newcomer, but she was too busy clutching her back and tapping her foot to really take notice who had just joined them.

Chloe's nerves were not a factor of fear of space flight. Although she had never been out of the system before, even during her Starfleet training missions, she was not afraid of long distance travel. Her nerves were more out of anticipation than anything else. She was starting a new and very big chapter of her life, and the thought of setting off to see new worlds and new cultures left her antsy. She just stared absently out of the bubble window over the pilot, hoping to catch her first glimpse of Earth's newest starship. Bishop was so focused on thinking about what was ahead of her that she didn't even notice how loudly she was tapping her foot.

The rest of the shuttle - unfortunately - did. Even Christina had been pulled from her own thoughts by the noise. The pilot did a good job of ignoring the sound coming from behind him, but the rest of the shuttle's occupants were looking directly over to the offending foot. None of them were saying anything however; which left the task of speaking up to the captain.

Recognising the face as that of her communications officer now that she was actually paying attention, and instantly recalled the woman's service record; or what there was of it, considering her late enlistment in Starfleet. She had been a civilian employee working working with Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco for two years working on the logs sent back from Enterprise and Columbia before going through training to become an Ensign, and had even worked on prepping the diplomats for the Coalition talks last year. There had been quite a few applications for her post coming across Curtis' monitor at the time, and many of them had been with Starfleet for longer than Bishop had. Nevertheless, Bishop's experience at Headquarters had made her Curtis' prime target for the comm seat.

Her service record did however give a clue to the tapping. She had only had two years of Starfleet officer training. That meant very little off-world training. Discovery was her first starship posting. "Nervous, Ensign?" Christina asked gently, aware that if the woman was preoccupied, sudden conversation might make her jump in surprise.

The question didn't quite make her jump, but it did take her a bit by surprise. Chloe turned to the person asking the question, but didn't really look at her. "Not really nervous, just excited. This will be my first time on board. I haven't even met the captain yet." She turned back to the window, watching the atmosphere give way to stars. She was mesmerized for a moment before the moment had caught back up to her. She thought the woman across from her looked familiar, but it took some time for her memory kicked in. "Oh mon dieu, je suis désolé capitaine," Chloe exclaimed, subconsciously slipping into French. "I didn't recognize you. Ensign Chloe Bishop." She extended a hand.

"Christina," Curtis said, taking the hand and shaking it, not at all offended by the lack of recognition. She was still getting used to the idea of being 'the Captain' herself, and he had always worried about what it would be like after she saw the way people reacted to Jonathan Archer after he came back from the Enterprise's first mission. The guy was now practically a celebrity. Christina didn't know if she could handle that sort of attention when she was out on the streets just trying to be a normal person. Thankfully, other than a few media pieces that the news stations had done on the up-and-coming NX-class ships, the first time Christina's face was due to hit everyone's TV screens was when she and Discovery left Earth. Hopefully any publicity she would get from that would die down by the time she returned.

Chloe pulled her hand back and the foot tapping stopped. Now she had something else to focus on, so the anxiety was passing. "It's great to finally meet you. Like I said, I'm pretty excited to be going aboard. I didn't expect to be leaving for the ship for another week though. Why the sudden increase in timing?"

"I'm not entirely sure, to be honest with you," Curtis answered. "Admiral Gardner is going to brief me aboard Discovery. Whatever it is though, it's urgent. We've had our launch schedule cut by two weeks."

"Two weeks?" asked a surprised Bishop. "I thought the launch was supposed to be in two weeks. When did the move the launch date up to?"

Christina glanced around at the other occupants of the pod, who had by now focussed their rapt attention on the conversation the two women were having. "The day after tomorrow," she said after a moment, trying not to make it sound ominous. She knew that they could get the ship ready in that amount of time; though she would be leaving dock without every one of her non-critical systems finished. But such a drastic change in launch schedule - especially one that brought the date forward - was highly unusual. And it irked Curtis that she wouldn't find out why until the Admiral met her onboard later in the morning.

"C'est ce qui explique que. No wonder I was suddenly called aboard." Chloe was certainly surprised by the sudden change in plans. The hardest part was having to cut short her visit with her parents in Vancouver. But it was still possible to call home, even if there was a bit of a delay from the subspace relays. But it wasn't time to think about that. The deceleration of the shuttle brought her attention back to the matter at hand.

The shuttle shook slightly as it was attached to the docking arm that had lowered out of Discovery's open landing bay, and Christina felt the change in momentum as the arm pulled the pod up into the belly of the larger ship. As soon as the movement stopped, she stood and moved towards he top hatch, ready for the red light next to it to change to green to indicate the bay outside had been re-pressurised. There was a slight click as the light changed colour, and Curtis pushed up on the hatch to release it. As the bay techs moved in to lower the ladder to the pod exit, she turned briefly back to Chloe and the other occupants of the pod. "Get yourselves settled and ready to go as soon as you can. I'll brief all of the crew on our mission as soon as I have the details."

Ensign Bishop grabbed the duffel from under her seat and waited for the other officers to disembark. She was stepping into a brave new world, and much sooner than she could have expected.


_________________

| May 12, 2155
| Captain's Ready Room, Discovery NX-04, Drydock, Earth Orbit
| 0804hrs

Admiral Gardner had climbed out of his shuttlepod at precisely oh-eight-hundred hours, and had been led promptly by one of Discovery's officers to the lift shaft to the bridge, and down the very short access corridor to the captain's sanctum aboard the ship; the sanctum of the woman who he had just hours earlier ordered to get this ship ready to launch, weeks ahead of schedule.

"Admiral; welcome aboard," Christina said, as the older and larger man entered the cabin.

"Thank you Captain," Gardner replied. "Though I had hoped that it would be under far more pleasant circumstances and to our original schedule."

"What exactly are the circumstances, Admiral?" Christina offered the senior officer a chair on the room's couch, moving her own chair out from behind the desk so as not to talk to him over it and confuse the psychological superiority of the seating positions. "You were rather vague when we spoke earlier."

The admiral simply nodded at that. "We've got a situation brewing that I'd rather not discuss over a communications channel," he told her. "Starfleet's Intelligence division has strong information on a terrorist threat on one of our colonies - Deneva. It's a fairly young; we colonised it in the 40s to mine the system's asteroid belt and serve as a freighting-line base for the Earth Cargo Service."

Curtis nodded. "I'm familiar with it. From what I know, a lot of the ECS ships make regular stops there."

Gardner nodded. "It's becoming very economically important to Earth, and more recently diplomatically important as well. The Tellarites have recently set up their own complex near the main colony as part of our increasing cooperation with each other since the Coalition talks earlier this year. The planet is set to become a very vital part of our shipping and trading arrangements with our neighbouring powers."

"So what is the threat?" the captain leant forward in her chair, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands together in front of her. A terrorist threat could go in one of two ways in her eyes; either aliens wanting to destabilise Earth's growing influence, or Humans wanting to evict the Tellarites from what they would consider a purely Human colony world.

"I take it you are aware of Terra Prime?" At Curtis' nod, the admiral continued. "Though much of their leadership and organisation was lost or dismantled after the Mars incident, there are still many of its former members and sympathisers at large. We have reason to believe that one of them is intending to set off a bomb at the Tellarite complex."

"No warning? No demands?" From what she knew of the pro-Human organisation and its former leadership, Curtis would have thought that the standard operating practices of the organisation would be similar to how Paxton had used the Verteron Array back in January; make the threat known, and give the aliens a time window in which to leave before carrying through with the threat.

Gardner shook his head. "None. We only have advance warning thanks to covert operatives and informants working on Deneva and our other colonies and shipping vessels. We believe that the intention is to take a far more aggressive approach to their anti-alien tendencies; a case of making Earth's colonies and territories too dangerous for aliens for them to want to deal with us out of fear for their own lives."

"Do we know who is behind this threat?"

"Luke Mosstaff. He was a small-timer back when Terra Prime was being run by Paxton and his ilk, and now apparently fancies himself as the leader of a resurgent organisation. His parents were on the ECS Bonaventure and were killed by Nausicans, which is when we believe he first joined Terra Prime. He was working with Paxton's mining corporation until a year or two ago, where he went off the grid - likely working on the cargo freighters Paxton used to ship his mine's produce."

"I take it our orders are to stop him, and bring him back to Earth for trial?"

"Yes. Alive is very much our preference captain, and discrete if you can. I'd rather this not blow up in the metaphorical sense as well into a diplomatic nightmare on top of it all. We don't know exactly when he plans to plant his device, but we don't believe he's yet reached Deneva."

Curtis nodded, her thoughts turning quickly towards the logistics. "We're still missing a percentage of my senior crew, sir, as well as most of our supplies that weren't due to be loaded until just before we launched. I still need a chief helmsman and medical officer, and I've not even spoken to General Casey yet in regards to getting some of his MACOs assigned to Discovery. Your signature will help push both of those along towards getting us to launch on the new date."

"Consider it done, Captain," Gardner replied, standing and being mirrored by Curtis. "But make sure you're ready to go when I give the word. We can't afford to have a disaster like this right now."

"Understood, sir," the captain replied. "We'll be ready."

| May 12, 2155
| Sickbay, Discovery NX-04, Drydock, Earth Orbit
| 0900hrs

As the large and - on this ship at least - unique doors opened to Discovery's medical bay slid open, Allison stepped through gingerly, looking around as she did so. So far since she had arrived this morning the ship had seemed to be far busier than she had ever thought it would be, but she still feared looking ridiculous if she walked in to sickbay whilst there was none of the medical staff to speak to. Thankfully that wasn't the case, as she saw a crewman over at one of the computer terminals speaking with another crew member. With noone else in the room at present - aside from numerous crates undoubtedly filled with the medical supplies that a starship would need for a long journey - she stepped up behind the other crew member and waited her turn.

"All right, we're good here. You'd best report to your station. The captain's called up all of the crew pretty quickly, so I have a feeling that there's going to be something big going on soon." Maria was still only a Crewman 1st class, but at the moment she was one of the only members of the medical staff onboard until they had a chief medical officer aboard. She looked up at the newcomer as the other crew member left. "New aboard?"

"I get the feeling that I'm not the first you've said that to today," Allison responded with a smile. "Ensign Allison Wood. I've got my medical records here." She held up the data card she had been carrying with her. It was standard procedure that everyone reporting aboard a starship had to present their medical records upon arriving for their assignment.

"Excellent. Crewman Maria Ribbons," Maria answered, taking the card and inserting it into the the slot next to her terminal. She'd seen so many of these today that she had practised the art of skimming the file for the most necessary details - any specialist medications they may need aboard, or special considerations they would have to advise the galley of in terms of allergies, and so on. She knew that once things had quietened down she - or another member of the medical staff - would have to start going through them in more detail, but there wasn't time for such a lengthy read just now. "Ah, I see you're one of our helm officers. You're not by any chance our chief helmswoman that we've been waiting for are you?"

"No, no chance of that," Allison responded with a slight smile and a shake of her head. She had plenty of flight experience, but nowhere near enough on a ship of this size to be given such a lofty position on board. "As far as I know, the captain still hasn't made her choice for that position. I'm down as our relieve pilot - so I'll probably spend most of my time on the night shift."

"Ah," Maria said, nodding knowingly. "Well you're not the only one without a department head yet. We still don't have a chief medical officer either - but don't worry," she added hastily. "I'm sure that the captain will get a doctor assigned before we leave dry dock, and the rest of the medical staff are more than capable of dealing with the crew's needs."

"I've no doubt," Allison said. She had heard that Starfleet put their medical personnel through some rigorous schooling before letting them onboard a starship - even if they didn't go on to obtain a doctorate and thus the officer rank that came with a CMO posting. She did know that most starships weren't large enough to carry more than one fully qualified doctor though, which made it all the more imperative that the junior members of the medical staff were capable themselves.

"Well, it looks like we're all good here," Ribbons said, nodding after one final skim over he computer monitor. "Welcome aboard. I doubt you're as urgently needed as our engineer friend who was her before you, but I'd recommend reporting to your station as soon as you can anyway. It'll give a good impression."

"Got it. Thanks." With a small backward wave, the helm officer turned and walked back out of the medical bay, passing a trio of other crewmen carrying duffel bags over their shoulders.

Maria was straight on to her next task for the day. "Good morning gentlemen. First day aboard? Thought so - can I have your medical records please?"

_________________

Ensign Allison Wood [NPC]
Helm Officer
&
Crewman 1st Class Maria Ribbons [NPC]
Medical Officer

Written by:

| May 12, 2155
| Main Bridge, Discovery NX-04, Drydock, Earth Orbit
| 0830hrs

Cayne stood silently at the rear of the compartment, watching the final checks being made to the communication systems. He had no interest in micro-managing the engineers who were working tirelessly to get everything ready for their departure. There had been some rumours doing the rounds that their flight date was being brought forward and, judging by the extra personnel that Starfleet had sent across to the ship, the rumours were true.

There was a bright flash at the communications console which was either a positive sign of systems powering up, or a very bad sign indeed. He heard some muffled shouting from the technicians in the crawlspace underneath the floor plating but couldn't make out exactly what was going on. He had been pretending to go over flight logs- even though he didn't have a clue what he was looking at.

He strode toward the centre of the bridge, taking care to avoid the glass screen which had almost decked him in comic fashion the previous night. "What's going on?"

A flustered looking engineer turned to him and quickly turned back to his work, trying to avoid eye contact with the Commander. "Everything's under control, Sir. We're just waiting on Lieutenant Anziano to have a quick look at a slight malfunction in the translation matrix."

Cayne stared into the back of the man's head. He didn't have much reason to doubt what he was being told but the speed of the crews which had been sent over from drydock was starting to concern him. He'd have to have a word with Anziano, who he was yet to meet, to see if there was anything he could do to speed them up.

He looked over to his own console where a blonde, callow-eyed ensign sat flicking through one of the old paper manuals which had been issued to them. "Everything okay, Johnny?"

Cayne hated calling him Johnny. The idea of being on a military starship and being- not only on first name- but nickname terms with your subordinates was abhorrent to him. Still, the kid was fresh from the academy and was clearly terrified of the prospect of deep space. Just what he needed in a relief officer.

"Yes Sir." Johnny lied. Cayne had known Jonathan Marney for the grand total of twenty hours and already knew when he was lying. "Just brushing up on the helm to tactical link. I feel as though there's a slight misalignment somewhere, they seem a bit sluggish."

"If you find anything, let Lieutenant Anziano know." That reminded him. "I'll be in Engineering."

| May 12, 2155
| Chief Science Officer's Office, Discovery NX-04, Drydock, Earth Orbit
| 1030hrs



Leo had sequestered himself in his office, which was just off the main astrometrics labs, with the door locked, the lights dimmed and a select playlist of late twentieth century heavy metal rock music blasting from the speakers in the bulkhead.

The acoustics were serviceable in his office, so would be good for times like this when he had his head buried in the latest journal articles from the scientific community. He could have used headphones, but he preferred the aural pleasure of the sound waves bouncing around the room. Besides, Lorenzo was not a fan of the music.

He was almost to the end of a fascinating study on the metabolic abnormalities developed in introduced species of the genus Corvus on Deneva when the track he was listening to – an extended live version of a Foo Fighters classic – wound down. He was startled when a woman’s voice cut through the silence between tracks and he dropped the PADD on the desktop.

“Have you had neighbours complain about the noise yet, boss?”

He spun around and his eyes widened when he saw Lieutenant Elena Semyonova leaning in the doorway, her legs crossed and a PADD held casually in her left hand. He could just make out her mischievous grin in the dim light as the next track started.

Reaching over and pausing the music, he also thumbed the lighting control and brought the lights back up. They both blinked as he said, “I asked Starfleet to send me competent research staff. Don’t tell me they screwed up and sent me you?”

Elena chuckled and stepped closer to him, handing over the PADD. “Sorry, boss,” she said in her mishmash accent that wasn’t quite Russian, a little more eastern American. “Pretty sure they just don’t think you can run a whole department without me around to pick up the slack.”

Leo took the PADD and smiled, “Any department head who has to find extra time to correct your mistakes is bound to fall behind in other areas.”

The pair had served together most recently aboard the Constellation but also prior to that at Jupiter Station. They had developed a friendship built on mutual one-upmanship, brutal insult-based banter and a deep, unspoken respect of the other. He wouldn’t admit it to her, but Leo was sad about leaving her behind on the Constellation.

Leo looked over the orders on the PADD and was pleased to see that Semyonova had been assigned as his deputy. They worked well together, and he knew her strengths would help to strengthen the department when had hitherto been light on in a few areas.

“I have to say,” Leo said, tossing the PADD onto his desk and leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head, “I thought Captain Meistreich would have promoted you to Chief Science Officer. Sad to see he fired you instead.”

Elena snorted. “Oh, he wanted to,” she said, crossing her arms and perching herself on the edge of his desk, “but I refused. Instead, I had a friend in the Prime Minister’s Office pull some strings and get me this assignment. Anyway, I couldn’t have you out there taking all the glory for yourself.”

“Even with you here, I will be taking all the glory, Lieutenant,” Leo shot back.

She feigned a wound right over her heart. “Ouch!”

“If you don’t piss me off,” Leo continued, “I might permit you a co-authorship.”

“So magnanimous, you are, boss.”

“Don’t you forget it.”

| May 12, 2155
| Captain's Ready Room, Discovery NX-04, Drydock, Earth Orbit
| 1925hrs

Curtis was pleased when the chirp from the communications panel interrupted her. It allowed her to put down the two data pads she had been comparing with service records of medical officers for a moment and divert her attention elsewhere. Putting down the one in her right hand, she leant over to press the push-to-talk button. "Curtis here."

"Captain, you have a call coming in through subspace relay. Shall I put it through?"

"Please do," the captain responded, even more happy for the interruption since it meant her earlier message had generated a return face-to-face. Putting the other pad down, she pressed the button at the edge of her desk monitor to activate it for the visual communication. "Captain Archer! Glad to see you got my message."

"Well since Hoshi started work on the new subroutine for the subspace relays, messages have been coming through like clockwork," Archer's grin was typical for the times that Curtis had spoken to him over subspace, as was his regular complimenting of his crew. Christina had never taken that to be any sense of one-upmanship from the Enterprise's captain; just a genuine pride in their achievements, large and small. "So Admiral Gardner has moved up your launch. Sounds familiar. What interspecies crisis is going down this time?" Enterprise had famously left drydock early itself four years ago to ferry a Klingon back to his homeworld.

"Gardner doesn't want me to say over subspace. He even came aboard himself to brief me on the situation face-to-face. Suffice it to say, things are pretty busy over here trying to get us ready to go on time."

"So I gathered. I take it you're still having trouble selecting a medical officer?"

Christina nodded, picking up one of the data pads again to glance at the latest record she had been going through. "Starfleet has a lot of doctors on payroll, but very few of them have had much experience with races other than humans and vulcans. I know that with only three warp five starships out of drydock there isn't a whole lot of deep space experience to go around, but if we run into any similar situations to those Enterprise has been in, I'd much rather have someone in the med bay who has something less limiting to draw on."

Archer nodded understandingly. "Have you looked for any candidates in the interspecies exchange program?"

Curtis shook her head. "No, just Starfleet records." She mentalled kicked herself for not thinking to look for members of the program. They weren't Starfleet officers, true; but Starfleet was all about peaceful cooperation with Earth's galactic neighbours, wasn't it?

"Why don't you see if Admiral Gardner has anyone he can recommend from there? I don't know where we would be without Phlox onboard, and he speaks very highly of the other doctors in the program. Starfleet has made exceptions for non-service personnel to join starship crews before."

"I think you're on to something there. I'll get Gardner to send me the files of anyone in the program on Earth at the moment."

"You're welcome, Christina," Archer said, his smile now cocky with satisfaction.

"Thank you, Jonathan," Curtis replied sarcastically, though she knew that he would get she was grateful to him for the suggestion through it. "I'd best get on that. I'll leave you to your exploring."

"You got it. Hope to see you out here soon."

As Archer signed off, Curtis tapped the comm panel for the on-duty communications officer again, ready to ask for a line through to Gardner's office.

| May 13th, 0630
| Discovery NX-04, Earth Orbit Drydock
| 0950 hours

Commander Dewitt Cayne was still struggling to get his priorities straight between First Officer and Armoury Officer but this was definitely a pet project for the Armoury. He had noticed a distinct drop-off in individual target isolation in the latest brand of tricorders being used by Earth's Starfleet.

They were still a significant upgrade on the handhelds that the Vulcans used, at least in terms of threat detection, but Cayne was sure that this could be improved.

"Well here is your problem," Carpegiani said, pointing to the amorphous blob on the tricorder display and leaning toward Cayne to show him. "It cannot differentiate between multiple targets within a restricted space."

Cayne glanced quickly around the room, fairly certain that Carpegiani had just echoed the exact problem that he had gone in with back to him as some kind of solution. "Is there a way to refine its scanner to be able to display individual targets? I don't like the idea of going into a room and not knowing what I'm facing."

The Chief Science Officer made a noise that might have been agreement, or might have meant he didn't hear what Cayne said. He brought the tricorder up closer to his face and examined it like this was the first time he had ever seen the device. "Hmm," he repeated. "I can see why that would be important."

"I thought so." Cayne replied, getting the impression that he wasn't being listened to. "There's too much margin for error in a lot of Starfleet processes, not least the Armoury."

"I do not understand why the engineers would not simply amplify the resolution or increase the frequency of the scan waves," Carpegiani said. He looked like his mind was ticking over for a moment and then he shrugged dismissively. "But maybe they encountered practical problems and had to sacrifice resolution for extended battery life or aesthetic design?"

"So can you sort it or wh-"

The scientist interrupted him, apparently not listening. "Naturalmente!" he exclaimed, clicking a finger as something occurred to him. "The tricorder uses many different scanning technologies to reproduce an holistic sensory output via the primary interface, yes?"

Cayne took a moment to sort out the words and their order. "I wouldn't put it in as many words but yes."

"So," Carpegiani continued, clearly excited by his train of thought. "Perhaps the ... the more sensitive detectors are being dragged down to lower resolutions by the less sensitive detectors? If you were to reduce the output of the quantum spectrum imager, that might reduce the aliasing effect we are seeing on the interface. The trade off is that you necessarily sacrifice more detailed sensor reports, but you should have more clarity on the number of targets in that next room. Capire?"

"Not really." Cayne was honest. He had always had trouble following the train of thought of scientists and engineers when they got off on one and the chances of him making sense of Carpegiani's train of thought were next to none. "Are you saying we'd need two types of tricorders? One for science and one for threat detection?"

"No no no no no," Carpegiani shook his head and turned the tricorder over in his hand. He started tapping the back of the device. "In here, there are different types of scanning technologies. You have a thermographer, spectrometer, quantum spectrum imager even a barometer in here. All of these devices work away in the background -" he made some buzzing noises while flashing his fingers in the air in front of Cayne - "and the processor collates the data, interprets it and displays it," he flipped the tricorder back over and tapped the screen, "here."

Cayne stared blankly at the scientist, unable to process anything he was saying.

"So!" Carpegiani continued, sounding like a high school science teacher. "It takes all of this data from different sources and throws it up on the interface. But, what happens when you overlay a rudimentary quantum spectrum imager output over a traditional thermographic report?"

"I have absolutely no idea." He stated flatly.

Carpegiani tapped the amorphous blob on the screen. "This, Commander," he said, with a hint of irritation. "This is what happens. Obviously the manufacturer of this device determined that it was more efficient to forget such an obvious piece of scientific knowledge."

"Probably made them more money that way." Cayne said cynically. "How do you fix it?"

"If we can lower the sensitivity of the quantum spectrum imager," Carpegiani continued, "that will result in less aliasing and distortion of the thermographer's output, which should mean a more precise sensory report on the number of bodies in the next room. It will be less accurate, however, on some detail such as medical telemetry on the target."

Cayne's blank stare continued unabated. He had no idea what the scientist was talking about and his wild eyes and excited tone were grating his already lacking scientific knowledge. "How long will it take?"

The science officer furrowed his brow and cocked his head to the side. "I have no idea," he said and handed the tricorder back to Cayne. "I'm a scientist, not an engineer."

| May 13th, 2155
| Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Earth
| 0900hrs

Ever since its founding in 1893, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine had always ranked in the top three research-centered medical schools. Even in the 22nd century it was on the cutting edge of medical practice and innovation. For over a century, physicians and interns had come from all over the world to teach and learn, and with the implementation of the Interspecies Medical Exchange that statement now extended to extraterrestrials.

In a spacious chamber under Johns Hopkins Hospital, Doctor Maya was teaching a number of medical students extraterrestrial medicine while conducting an autopsy of a bona fide extraterrestrial. Doctor Maya was a short, slender woman of indeterminate age. She had allowed the rather severe haircut favored by most of her people to grow out a bit and now her pageboy haircut had grown enough to hide the pointed tips of her ears. Likewise, she had allowed her dark bangs to grow enough to hide the severe slant of her eyebrows. Her almost egg white skin indicated that her ancestors had lived very close to the poles of her home planet of Vulcan.

“As you can see the subject of our examination is a male Denobulan of apparently middle age,” she said in a mezzosoprano voice with a strange Irish-sounding lilt. “At this point I must warn you that the Denobulan anatomy is considerably more complex than that of the terrestrial human. Even without cutting in, we can see many differences. Note the prominent facial ridges running down either side of the forehead to the cheeks, the enlarged brow ridge under a high receded hairline, that vertical crevice in the center of the forehead, and the ridged chin. These ridges are also found on their backs, along the spine. This is indicative of their advanced nervous system and musculature tissue which finds even more ingenious places to hide fatty cells than the Terran or Vulcan norm.”

She paused and addressed her students. “Now before we start cutting, I want you to examine the exterior of the body and propose your best hypothesis on how the subject lived and died. This will be an exercise in observation and analysis.”

Captain Curtis had stepped into the back of the chamber quietly whilst the doctor had been speaking, and stayed quietly at the back in the shadows; observing. She had spoken with Admiral Gardner after her conversation with Archer the night before, and this doctor was at the top of his list of members of the interspecies medical exchange program that was qualified for service aboard a starship. Doctor Maya had served with her native Vulcans as a doctor before joining the program, and since the Xindi event had been teaching xenobiology and medicine to students here on Earth. She was a prime candidate according to her record, but Christina wanted to observe her first, in the limited time that she had. It was well known in Starfleet that very few Vulcans had been able to serve aboard human ships for extended periods; Commander T'Pol being the only current exception to that rule. Observing the doctor in a teaching environment with other humans present and interacting with her would allow Curtis to determine whether Maya would be capable of working well with her own crew.

Maya’s three students huddled around the Denobulan’s remains and examined them. Maya herself noticed Christina and glided over to her. Up close the slender Vulcan was revealed to be half a foot shorter than Curtis and in addition the slender Vulcan looked extremely delicate. Only the knowledge that the planet Vulcan’s higher gravity gave its natives the comparable strength of a human six inches taller assured Christina that Maya could pass the physical to serve in space. Well, that and Maya’s military record with the High Command.

Maya’s large hazel eyes scanned the new arrival, not only studying the face and but also moving downward and left and right. After a moment she spoke.

“Hello Captain, I didn’t expect someone from the command division to visit me on this fine day,” the little Vulcan greeted with an almost-smile. “I’m curious, did you ride the shuttlepod to the landing area here at the hospital or did you take a cab?”

"The shuttlepod landed here at the hospital," Christina responded, somewhat hesitantly, wondering how the doctor had been able to determine that she had been in a shuttlepod this morning. Perhaps there was some sort of particular smell associated with the craft - she had always heard that Vulcans had a much more sensitive sense of smell than humans. Or perhaps the doctor had happened by a window that looked in the direction of the landing area as Curtis was getting off. Maybe it was just a good guess on the doctor's part. "I came to observe your lesson," she said by way of explaining her presence, having not yet quite decided which of her three options was the more likely explanation.

“Unfortunately, I won’t be giving a lesson,” Doctor Maya replied. “I won’t be giving a lesson that involves cutting in any case. The matter is now one for the authorities. It seems our middle-aged Denobulan was murdered. Any dissection of the tissues would be tampering with the evidence.”

"Murdered?" Christina asked, shocked at the sudden declaration. Surely if such an end for the unfortunate Denobulan had been in the file, the body would have been sent to a coroner or other forensic physician, and Maya wouldn't have told her students that they would begin cutting after their external observations. "I thought that the bodies donated for study were all cleared of any wrongful deaths before they came to the classroom?"

"The medical examiner missed a puncture wound in the victim's nasal cavity," the little Vulcan replied casually, "not that I blame him. The puncture was nearly indistinguishable from the interior pores that litter the Denobulan nasal cavity. If I hadn't taken my sabbatical on Denobula two years ago I would have missed it myself. It wasn't eating the food on your lovely planet that caused this man's fatal allergenic reaction. Someone injected him with extract from your peanut, which is as fatal to Denobulans as confections created from the beans of your cocoa tree is to your Terran canines. This man had a poison injected into his bloodstream and it went straight to his brain. He would have died in seconds."

"I guess we'd best call Starfleet Security to handle him from now on then," Christina said after a pause, suitably impressed. Any doubts that she had held about asking a Vulcan to come aboard Discovery as Chief Medical Officer evaporated pretty quickly in the face of the woman's attention to details others equally as trained would have probably missed. "Your Starfleet file says that you're well versed in human medicine as well as xenobiology," she said after a pause, prefacing her next question. "Do you have any interest in working on a starship again? My ship is due to depart tomorrow, and we're missing a chief medical officer. I'd like you to join us, if you're willing".

"I would be honored," the little Vulcan replied with a respectful nod. "I consider my people's response to the Xindi crisis a shameful one and I will do what I can to make amends. What are the mission parameters of our voyage?"

"Discovery's mission is one of exploration; the same as the three other NX class ships before her," Christina said. "But we're leaving dock early on a security mission." She glanced over towards the students, some of whom had stopped looking at the Denobulan body and were looking with curiosity in their direction. "I can't really say much more about it here, but the entire crew will be briefed before we depart. You might be needed to provide emergency care when we get to our destination, but if we can get there on time we can hopefully prevent that." She knew that she was asking the doctor to take a bit of a leap into the dark without telling her the full details of the mission, but Admiral Gardner had asked that she keep the details of their mission contained until they were on their way, to stop Mosstaff from being alerted ahead of time.

"Very well," Doctor Maya replied with another respectful nod. "We will need to send someone to collect my things."


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| May 14th, 2155
| Bridge, Discovery NX-04, Drydock, Earth Orbit
| 1000hrs

Curtis had pushed back the launch schedule as much as she could without feeling like she was going to be endangering the Tellarites on Deneva in order to allow as much time as possible to outfit the ship's systems. Even so, she knew that there would be a multitude of systems that had their components aboard but crowding the cargo bays and corridors with extra container cases. But the time to depart was now, and it couldn't be pushed back any further.

As the hatch to the bridge opened, she paused before stepping over the threshold. This was one area that had been completed in its entirety, even if only just. Gone were all of the plastic protective sheets; every screen was affixed and running. Even her chair had been installed at the centre. The sight was made more impressive by the presence of her bridge crew, each at their post as they looked over to her expectantly once the hatch was open. This would be a big moment for all of them - and for her as well. The first launch of the NX-04.

Stepping through the hatch and making her way briskly to stand in front of her chair, she got straight down to business and pressed the intra-ship comm. "Bridge to Engineering."

"Engine room standing by." Anziano's voice echoed over the intraship.

"Are we ready to get going, Lieutenant? I think we're all eager ot get on our way."

"Warp core stable, warp speed at your command but . . . . Have you ever heard of the myth of Phaeton, son of Apollo who wanted to drive daddy's sun chariot?"

"Don't worry Luís, we'll put some distance between us and Earth before engaging the warp drive. Bridge out."

"Aye. Thank you, Captain."

"OK, let's get this show on the road. Take her out." Christina lowered herself into her seat as she gave the order, shifting slightly to try and get comfortable in the unfamiliar cushions of the chair.

Cayne took a quick glance around the bridge to check everyone was where they were supposed to be and doing what they were supposed to be. They hadn't had a lot of time to run drills and preparatory exercises so he was pleased to find that everyone seemed to be handling it okay. As for Cayne himself, he ran through a few system checks on the weapons, mostly to make sure that they would manage to operate when needed. He still wasn't convinced.

Leo didn't have a lot to do; he had already confirmed that all of the ship's sensor platforms were operational and the standard scans he had performed - to look busy - reported nothing more than the usual background radiation and orbital traffic. Regardless, he was thrilled to be on the bridge for the launch. The little explorer inside him was positively giddy with excitement at the scientific significance of the moment; the launch of humanity's fourth warp five ship. A ship, and a mission, that would push the envelope of human knowledge of the universe and discover strange new worlds. The Chief Science Officer couldn't help but smile.

Up until that moment, Chloe had still be getting associated with her console. She had been on the ship for barely two days, and in that time she had managed to start unpacking and try to learn her way around the ship. It hadn't all been very successful. Now that they were ready to leave, the training wheels came off; she had a job to do. She affixed the comm receiver in her ear and opened a channel with dock control. She tried keeping her voice down to to limit noises to her little corner of the bridge. No need to disrupt everyone else. She was quite aware that she could talk loudly when not careful. "Discovery to dock control, requesting permission to disembark." She hated standard communications. There was no room for creativity.

"Permission granted, Discovery. You are cleared for departure," the voice from dock control reported back. The reply was filtered only to her earpiece, so it was entirely up to her to relay the message. "Have a safe trip."

"Thank you, dock control. Discovery out." Chloe closed the channel and turned towards her captain. "Captain, we have permission to depart."

"No outstanding parking charges, then?" Christina quipped, trying to settle her own apprehension at such an important event for her as much as the crew's. "Ensign, you know what to do."

"Yes ma'am." Allison Wood felt more nervous than most of the other officers on the bridge, as they had all at least been selected to be the most senior officers in their departments and were therefore the most qualified personnel on the ship to be doing the jobs that they were there to do. Though she was perfectly qualified to pilot Discovery, her original billet was as as relief helm officer. As Discovery had ended up leaving Earth too quickly for the captain to get a chief helmsman onboard, Allison and the rest of the pilots onboard would be sharing helm duties until Starfleet could get someone out to them - which might be a while considering the shortage of warp five ships capable of catching Discovery.

As she entered commands on her console to will the various umbilicals to detach, she pushed the throttle up, toggling the thrusters to ease the ship forward gently.

Leo activated a display screen and called up a portside view from the ship. He watched as the dock slowly drifted away and started sliding sideways out of view. Although the inertial dampers meant he felt nothing, he imagined the very slightest of movement as the ship got underway. As he watched, he wondered if those ancient sailors pushing off from docks in the Mediterranean bound for the New World got this same excited feeling in their stomachs.

While everyone was going about their duties, the doors hissed open and a short slender woman in civilian garb entered the bridge and stood to the side near the master systems display table to stay out of the way. It was Doctor Maya of Vulcan, the only alien aboard and easily the most unknown factor aboard this ship. Her large hazel eyes drank in the scene as she tilted her head to listen intently.

Once the ship was clear of the drydock superstructure, the helm switched from thrusters to impulse engines, propelling them away from the drydock, and from Earth.

"Set a course for Deneva, and engage warp drive. Increase speed to warp four when ready."

Wood nodded, bringing up a trajectory calculation for Deneva, and double- and triple-checking it to make sure it wasn't a single degree off. Then she unlocked the power controls for the warp drive and switched her left hand over towards the lever which fed through the commands to control warp speed. Slowly pushing it forward, she was keenly aware that this would be the first true testing of the warp engines of the ship as she called out their speed. "Warp point five. Point six. Point seven.... Point nine. Warp one." The viewscreen showed the bright flash that accompanied the transition to faster-than-light speeds, followed by the star-streaks of the speed that meant.

"Warp two," she continued, pushing the 'throttle' slowly higher. "Warp three. Warp three point five. Warp four. Holding steady."

"Astrometric systems are functioning superbly," Carpegiani reported as he watched the telemetry scroll down the display in the centre of his console. He glanced sidelong at the panel next to it and said, "Sensor suite ... needs some fine tuning while at warp, it seems. Operating within recommended parameters, but I know they can do better."

"All stations have reported normal," Cayne reported, checking the status readout on his display. The targetting sensors had reported a complete failure the moment the ship had reached warp four, but they had automatically restarted and were now showing normal - if not quite fully aligned.

"Good work, everyone," Christina said, smiling as she finally settled back into a more relaxed posture on her chair. "Now; on to Deneva."


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| May 13th, 2155
| Corridor, E Deck, Discovery NX-04, Drydock, Earth Orbit
| 1730hrs

Another turn down another corridor, and still nothing looked familiar. Well, that wasn't true. Everything looked familiar, but that didn't help Chloe Bishop find the mess hall. Everything looked the same on the ship. It wasn't like the wide, brightly lit hallways of Starfleet Command. Everything there was clearly marked, and even though some halls looked similar, there were still little differences that told her what wing she was on. But not so up on the ship. Every corridor was dark, cramped, and looked exactly the same. All she knew for sure was that she was on E Deck. At least she thought that she was on E Deck. She knew that she had left her quarters, and that her quarters were on E Deck. But as lost as she seemed to be, it wouldn't surprise her to find that that wasn't even true. She noticed another turn coming up, and could only hope that it would lead to some sort of landmark. She hastened her step as her stomach growled, hoping that she could make it to the mess before they stopped serving.

Leo had found himself immersed in the detail of Professor Emilia Hamalainen’s latest treatise on flux-state fermion annihilation when he suddenly realised the time. Most of his crew had cleared out of the lab and he was alone when an abrupt feeling of dread well inside him and he stuffed the PADD into his breast pocket and rushed down to his quarters.

Lorenzo had not been happy. The despotic feline had to wait over an hour more than he should have for his late afternoon feed and expressed his displeasure with a guttural meow only a few octaves shy of a growl. While the cat ate his delayed meal, Leo fell back into Hamalainen’s article, soaking in every nuance, every elegant equation and every considered proof. It was really a fascinating article and Leo thoroughly enjoyed it. But he would enjoy disproving her hypothesis even more.

But first, some dinner. He grabbed the PADD and set about re-reading the article as he bounded out of his quarters, intent on getting to the mess. He had long since committed to memory the path from his cabin to the mess, so he was essentially walking on autopilot through the corridors of E Deck while his eyes busied themselves with Hamalainen’s concise calculations.

So when he barreled into the rushing ensign and dropped the PADD it came as a complete surprise to him.

“Maledizione!” he exclaimed, reaching out to steady both of them and make sure neither hit the deck. “Mi scusi. Are you alright?”

The ensign had not been prepared for the possibility of someone else wandering the halls, and she plowed right into him. Thankfully he was a bit more balanced than she was, and he was able to grab her before she stumbled to the floor. "Sto bene, grazie! Le mie scuse!" Once she had recovered, she bent over to pick up the dropped PADD. She continued in Italian, not realizing that she was even doing it. "I wasn't watching where I was going."

Hearing somebody else fluent in his native tongue was music to Leo's ears and he smiled as he continued in Italian. "Nevermind," he said then pointed to the PADD. "I confess I was reading and walking. A failing of mine, I'm afraid and it tends to lead to accidents."

It was about that time that Chloe realized that she had run into one of the senior officers. The flash of three pips signifying commander had just caught her eye. "Being in a hurry to get even further lost doesn't help either, sir." She stretched out her hand. "Ensign Chloe Bishop, the new chief communications officer and xenolinguistic specialist."

"Ahh!" Leo said, allowing the syllable to extend as he raised his eyebrows and nodded. "That would explain the fluent Italian," he said as he shook the ensign's proffered hand. "Commander Leo Carpegiani, Chief Science Officer. May I have my PADD back?"

Another look of shock and horror had appeared on Chloe's face. She quickly handed the Commander his PADD. "Sorry sir. I had actually forgotten that I still had it. It's the same with the languages. I know so many that it just comes naturally. It hadn't even occurred to me that I wasn't speaking English. I'm not normally this flustered, I promise. It's just that it's a big ship, and it will be my first assignment beyond the Solar System, and I'm very excited, very and nervous." It had been just then that she realized she was rambling, which was still a better reaction time than she had had with the PADD and her use of Italian.

Leo suddenly felt like the old and seasoned astronaut that, on reflection, he supposed he probably was. He had been in Starfleet for sixteen years and had spent about half of that time in space; it was nothing new to him. He decided he should be the wise old sailor and offer some advice to the young officer, even though it took him way outside his comfort zone. "Calm down, Ensign," he said, "we all start out as novellini." He shrugged and continued, "Though not all of us on a ship such as this. Just focus on your work and you will do fine. I don't think the captain would have you here if she wasn't confident that you could do your job."

Chloe smiled and nodded. He was right, she was sure. Even it it wasn't the captain specifically, someone felt that she should be here. "Thank you, sir. You're right. I'm just a long way from Canada, is all." She grew quiet for a moment to collect her thoughts. "Perhaps I should let you get back to what you were doing." She quickly had another thought. "But could you perhaps tell me how to get to the mess hall? I'm pretty lost. I think I'm going to need a map of this place."

"Don't worry, you will get to know your way around," Leo said, then gestured down the corridor. "Follow me; I'm heading to the mess myself."

The young ensign let out a long sigh of relief. "Grazie, signore. I'm starving." Chloe offered him a friendly smile and gestured for him to lead the way. With a little luck, she might survive this voyage after all.

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