As luck would have it.

Posted on Sun Feb 16th, 2025 @ 2:02am by Commodore Finchley Kerr & Commander Shr'Nesh Karadis & Lieutenant Commander Kevin Kilbane & Lieutenant Jock McCrudden & Commander Alec Hunter & Lieutenant Commander Isabelle Savette & Lieutenant Commander Shoniara T'ghann-Dex. Doctor & Lieutenant Drevas

2,860 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Voices of the past
Location: USS Blackeagle, Bridge.
Timeline: Current.

Finchley overheard Shon and Alec talking as he was only a few feet away. Walking over to them he said, "Commander Hunter, can you excuse us please, I need to have a word with Commander T'ghann-Dex."

Alec looked at Shon and then to Kerr, "Of course Captain, Commander." He nodded and walked away from the pair, heading to flight control.

Once Alec was out of earshot, he stood beside Shon and said, "What are you doing, don't ever apologise again for a situation such as the one Kilbane and Karadis created here. They were the one's who created it, they're the ones at fault, they should have come to us privately and aired their views, not brought them onto the bridge, believe me when I say they'll be sorry they did. Commander Hunter, as much as he's trying to show compassion as XO, or even as a friend, doesn't need to know anything about what happened, it's none of his business and I'll thank you for keeping it that way please."

Shon was annoyed and whispered hotly, “what makes you think I would give anyone an inside into our private life? What Karadis and Kilbane did was unforgivable and all I did was apologise to the Commander for their behavior. Give me the credit for some sense. This is an extremely sensitive situation we have caused which will have a direct effect on the mission. If I am not needed here Sickbay certainly needs me!” Shon knew she was pressing the situation but she was surprised that Finchley would think she was airing their ‘dirty washing’. She walked away, sat in the chair and checked the readiness of all the departments for arrival at their destination.

Finchley glared after Shon, nobody spoke to him like that, and nobody walked away when he was speaking to them.

"Commander Hunter, you have the CONN" he said to Alec.

Alec responded with a nod of his head along with a simple "Aye sir." and moved back to the center seat and sat down.

He walked over to Shon, and through gritted teeth said, "My...fucking...office,...NOW!"

Shon followed him into his office. “What is wrong with you!” She said.

Arriving back on the bridge Isabelle picked up on the emotional air the moment the lift pulled up. Stepping out she offered a nod of her head as she walked over to Finchley. “Here’s What Commander Hunter and I have Sir, there’s not as much as I hoped. We confirmed 6 children, the records concerning their current whereabouts were conveniently lost in a so-called accident that wiped the records database.” She sighed. “We have a list of first names only, no ages, no descriptions, it’s very frustrating.”

Finchley stopped when Isabelle presented herself and the information that she and Alec had managed to find. It momentarily distracted him, allowing his anger to lessen but nor fully disappear.

"Firstly, I'd like to thank you and Commander Hunter for managing to find out what you have, it must have been difficult. It does sound very convenient that 'suddenly' an accident occurs at the records base now, doesn't it" he asked rhetorically. "Still, at least we do have something, we know it's six children and we do have first name's. I may have someone who can dig a little deeper, see if they can locate anyone who recently worked at the records office and can answer a few questions."

Isabelle nodded. “That we can do, fingers crossed.” She offered a warm smile.

He sighed, seeming distracted, "Can I ask you to log the information please Counsellor, I need to take care of something just now" he finished, nodding his thanks and walking towards his office. Once there, he opened the doors and pointed inside for Shon to enter. Once inside himself, he said "Computer, stop all audio and visual recording, seal the room."

There was a beep and the computer affirmed his order.

Finchley looked at Shon, "Don't you ever...ever speak to me like I'm a fucking idiot again, do you understand me. I know you wouldn't have 'aired our dirty washing' in public or told anyone anything, but, what you did do by apologising to Commander Hunter for how Karadis and Kilbane acted on the bridge was AFFIRM that something had happened and all four of us are who it happened between!!!
'WE' could have contained the situation by remaining silent and saying nothing to anyone and no-one would have dared question either of us because I'm the Captain and YOUR the Second Officer. Yes, you're right, what Karadis and Kilbane did was unforgiveable, or so it seems right now, but I had already said to you that I would make sure they were sorry for what they did."

“I think you are making too much out of it, etiquette should be used all the time with all the crew and I would have taken any crew member to task. And You know I don’t think you are a ‘fucking idiot’ at all. It’s a bad situation all round and we created it. Maybe I had better return to sickbay, get out of your way.” She turned then turned back pulled him to her and kissed him savagely on the lips.

Finchley pulled Shon back and looked at her, "You can't just keep saying you're running off to Sickbay when things get tough Shon, you're Second Officer now. When you're required on the bridge, 'that' is where you remain till I say otherwise, and you're required on the bridge now, you're actually still the CONN officer" he replied, and pulled her back in, kissing her with the same savage intent she had done so with him.

Shon smiled and nodded having enjoyed the physical interaction with him. "Finchley I am worried about sickbay, being responsible for the crew's physical health is, obviously important but I love being on the bridge, but I must admit it is very crowded there today." she stood, straightened her hair and uniform, leant forward and removed a couple of her dark hairs from his uniform. "Permission to return to the bridge Captain?"

"Permission granted" Finchley smiled, and as she turned to walk away, he playfully smacked her bottom and said "Please go and relieve Commander Hunter, I'll be back out there momentarily."

Shon smiled rather wickedly nodded and walked out. "Commander Hunter I relieve you of the Conn"

Alec looked at Shon as she stood beside the center seat. "Very good Commander Dex, the bridge is yours." As he stood and vacated the seat allowing Shon to sit down if she wished.

It took Finchley a minute to compose himself, he so wanted things to go well with Shon's bridge experience. Setting his demeanour back to business mode, he walked back out onto the bridge.

"Mr Owens, time to Sierra Sector please" he asked.

"We're just entering into the Sector now Commodore" Owens replied.

"Drop out of warp and bring us to station keeping" Finchley ordered.

"Aye Sir, dropping out of warp" Owens replied, and as the main viewer showed the passing stars now becoming static, he added, "Ship now at station keeping Sir."

He turned to Alec, "Commander Hunter, begin scans of the immediate area, concentrate on all ion trails and where their heading has come from and where they went."

Alec nodded and replied, "Running scans now."

Looking at Shon he asked, "Commander T'ghann-Dex, what would you suggest as the next thing we should do?" This wasn't any kind of test, he was curious as to how she would answer, being she was of a scientific nature.

Shon walked to the view screen her hands clasped behind her thinking, her scientific mind beginning to work. "I would look for a comet sirs," she turned to face The Captain and Commander Hunter, "If the ion trails end here it may be that they are near wherever they are going and they have the ability to cloak. If a comet has passed through here recently we could extrapolate the direction of the cloaked ships by .....she walked to the science station, "Yes it looks like a comet passed through this system ten days ago. she continued, "The solar radiation would trap and illuminate the direction of the cloaked ships. We would have to be quick though as these trails will dissipate as the comet moves away."

"That's good Commander, and very true, cloaked ships are notoriously hard to track and using a comet can help" Finchley replied, "however, in our instance, it doesn't help us track the USS Ranger, this was long before cloaked ships were a 'thing' in the day to day running of Starfleet and other departments vessels."

Drevas chose that moment to pop out of the turbolift, thankfully avoiding the earlier hot headed arguing. He would honestly probably have felt a sliver uncomfortable sitting in the middle while everything else went on around him. Not to mention that he already had enough going on in his life in that particular department - but that wasn't particularly important. What was was on the PADD in his hands.

"I have something A report from Starfleet Command just days before the Ranger's launch with the fleet." He announced. "One Commodore Steinburg mentions that the crew of the Ranger have 'better things to do than simple terraforming' - what exactly is unclear." Drevas added, handing Finchley the PADD to read from. "Though you'll note the heavy encryption over the following sentence, which is odd. Commander Karadis is still attempting to break it."

Finchley took the PaDD from Drevas and looked at the information on the screen. "That's an Alpha plus encryption" he replied, "even Karadis will find it hard to break, even though she is resourceful."

The turbolift doors opened again and Kilbane and Karadis entered the bridge once more. Kilbane kept his focus on what he had to tell the Captain, and didn't look around him, just straight ahead.

Karadis had caught what Finchley had said to Drevas and said, "It's harder that I though it would be, I was thinking 'The Dog' could help me...us...out on it."

Finchley looked at Karadis, only glancing at Kilbane, and answered, "That's a thought, but are we really wanting them involved in this, you know what happened the last time we used their services."

"Yes, but that was a slightly, ehmmm, dubious situation, desperate times called for desperate measures...and that was a particularly desperate time" Karadis replied.

Finchley considered the pro's and con's of what Karadis had suggested, in the end nodding in agreement, "Ok, get in touch, but ensure they know this isn't like before, we don't have a lot of time and their payment will be that I don't send you to kill them because they owe us."

Karadis nodded her head and answered, "Yes Commodore. Now, Kilbane believes he has a way of tracking the USS Ranger, even after all this time of it being missing."

Finchley looked from Karadis to Kilbane and said, "I'm very interested in what he has to tell us, please Commander, the floor is yours."

"Floor...I'll give you fl..." Kilbane began under his breath, at which point Karadis coughed loudly and glared at him.

Kilbane swallowed hard, his head cocking to the side and back again. He took a deep breath and looked straight at Finchley, "The USS Ranger was a Marshall Class destroyer refit, it's warp engines used the then standard ten to one matter, anti matter, mix. Move forward to todays vessels and that mix in a lot of vessels is three to one matter, anti matter mix. From what I can gather of previous searches for the Ranger, nobody thought to look for an ion trail like this. Given that ion trails don't generally stay around for much longer than a few weeks at most in modern vessels, the fact that it was a Marshall Class and their mix was so different, the anti matter trail won't fade for many many years. I can't say it'll work, but the simulations I've run show me that we have a fifty to sixty percent chance of picking up some of their trail. It may only carry over a short distance, but at least it may give us a general direction in which they went, we can then try and extrapolate a course along which they could have travelled."

Finchley listened to what Kilbane said, and he was incredibly impressed. "That's very good Commander Kilbane, very good indeed!"

Kilbane didn't reply, he simply looked down at the floor, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Finchley looked at Alec, "What do you think Commander Hunter?"

Alec didn't rush an answer he considered what Kilbane had stated as well as the odds. After a moment he answered. "It is worth a shot Captain. A fifty to sixty percent is better than what we're dealing with right now. If we can find the ion trail, it will be like following breadcrumbs. It may not get us to the exact location but we're going to be in the neighbourhood, and we can then do more localized scans."

Finchley nodded at Alec's reply, then turned back to face Kilbane. "How long do you need to set up this trace for the anti matter trail?"

"I can have it ready to go within the hour" Kilbane replied.

"Sir" Finchley said.

Kilbane gave him a puzzled look.

"I can have it ready to go within the hour...Sir" Finchley replied to the puzzled look.

Kilbane turned his eyes up to the ceiling, he was really struggling with keeping his anger in, but he remembered what Karadis had said to him back in the lab. He looked back down and across to Finchley, "I can have it ready to go within the hour Sir."

"That's better, inform me the moment you have it set up, you can go now Commander" Finchley answered, shooing him off.

Karadis could see Kilbane was about to blow his top so physically turned him round and propelled him towards the turbolift.

Karadis turned back and marched towards Finchley, once she got to him, and through gritted teeth said, "Can I have a word in private Commodore."

"No" was Finchley's simple reply, and added "You can go now as well, you must have things to be getting on with, like changing Kilbane's nappy, or wiping drool from his chin, be off now Commander."

Karadis glared at him, not moving for a long few seconds. The temptation to whack him upside his head was almost to much but she managed to control the urge and finally turned and walked away.

Finchley turned back to Shon and as he walked towards her he said, "Commander T'ghann-Dex, can you work with Commander Hunter and try to find out what kinds of ships have passed this way recently, say, within the last seven days. I'm not overly familiar with this region, so I have no idea if it's a commercial area or military one."

Alec had been silent his expression neutral through the entire Kerr/Kilbame/Karadis exchange. Only now when the captain had asked him a question did he reply. "We'll get on it right now sir." He answered confidently.

"Commander, we should check warp signatures, then delineate any anomalies in each trail?" Shon said in a monotone voice.

"Sounds good Shon. Starting the scans for warp signatures." Alec replied, his eyes fixed on what the scans revealed.

Isabelle had sat watching the interactions, it was obvious something was going on. The mix of emotions pointed her towards Shon amongst others so she made a mental note to speak with Shon privately when they had the time.

Shon tried to think of the task in hand but the bridge seemed to get smaller and smaller the more she, Kilbane, Karadis and Finchley were together in the small space the more she was unable to process anything that was asked of her. Her two options were to explode or shut down completely. So, taking a deep breath she accessed the Vulcan part of her mind and, for a minute stood there until she had purged all emotions from her brain. She immediately felt in control of herself.

[1 hour later]

Finchley's COMM badge chirruped. Tapping it he said, "Kerr here."

"It's Commander Kilbane Sir, we've set things up here, you can begin scanning for the ion trail."

"Thank you Commander, Kerr out" Finchley replied, closing the link. Looking at Alec he said, "Begin scanning for the low matter ion trail now Commander, let me know if anything shows up."

"Aye sir, scanning now." Alec replied and was silent for several seconds which stretched into minutes when he suddenly announced. "Bingo! A low matter ion trail has been detected just off out port quarter and heading 035 mark 17."

Isabelle was sitting feeling oddly drawn somewhere, without really knowing why she felt that way. Not wanting to mention it until she could explain it she sat quiet.

 

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