The stars slowed as the Voyager reduced speed to one-half impulse to enter SOL, and then soon after entering orbit of Earth. Aaen noticed the lights doubled with a subtle hum to a comfortable early-morning brightness in his temporarily assigned quarters. He asked the main computer what the time was—as he subconsciously guessed, the computer announced 0600 hours. Aaen quickly bathed, dressed, collected his gear and then proceed to his replicator for breakfast, then he was quickly on his way back to the shuttle bay.
He was the first of the Galileo’s crew to arrive. He looked inside the shuttle: the cabin was dark. . .and the ‘prize’ had already been taken somewhere. Aaen had several subconscious hunches about where the ‘prize’ was taken, and what was to happen to it. . .his gut told him time would most likely be the only one to tell. He had doubts about whether or not he or the rest of the crew would ever find out, deciding to rest with his subconscious hunches.
“Bridge to Commander Aaen,” the Voyager’s first officer called over his communicator.
Aaen activated his communicator, “Go ahead,”
“We are entering standard orbit. Proceed with the rest of your crew to transporter room two.”
“Acknowledged,”
The brisk walk lasted for about three minutes, and one ten second turbolift ride. The rest of the Galileo’s crew were already loosely gathered and looking forward to beaming somewhere where they could be debriefed. The transporter chief, a short dark female with lieutenant’s rank insignia was adjusting the controls to beam the crew somewhere where the coordinates blinked as “CLASSIFIED” on the control panel readout. She nodded at Maxon, and then she ordered the crew onto the transporter pad where the crew appeared in ten seconds inside of a darkly-lit briefing room resembling the Magellan’s briefing room. Admiral Carrell entered from an adjacent room to stand behind the large desk at the head of the room.
“Crew, good work. The border is quiet for now, on both sides. Galileo is going to undergo extensive repairs before it will be mission-ready again. That will probably take a few weeks, at least. Starfleet’s glad that you’re all okay and has authorized a week’s shore-leave for each of you. You will receive your next mission orders soon. Until then: you are dismissed.”
One week went by in a seeming flash of light, for Aaen, and he deeply hoped for a rank promotion to give him more say in his choice of command. . . The mail came around noon on the second Saturday in July; one envelope with his name on the front bore the Starfleet seal. He tore the envelope open and scanned the contents—“You are hereby assigned to the USS Voyager. Upon arrival . . . additional mission orders to come.”
His bags were already packed, and after a brisk ride back to a starbase, he checked in with the front desk with his rank certificate, his star hours and briefing hours were calculated, and then he received a new temporary certificate identifying his new rank as. . . “Lieutenant Colonel”. His heart nearly skipped a beat with the realization that he was now already two-thirds up the ranks, and three-away from flag rank. This put a grin on his face as he proceeded to the main hall. He wanted to know what he was going to be assigned as and hoped that it was a bridge position.
More crew members gathered, and then Fleet Admiral Williamson entered and gave his speech. The supervising Admirals entered next: the same ones as before, with one exception; one was Admiral Herring, who was overseeing the Voyager’s mission. Crew members were assigned quickly starting with Magellan, then Voyager, Odyssey, and then the Falcon. Aaen was the fifth-ranking officer on this crew. Aaen didn’t recognize any of them or they-him. Crews were dismissed from largest ship to smallest. After making a brief restroom stop, the Voyager crew lined up behind Admiral Herring, who led them into a similar breaking room as the Magellan’s. The other crews were led by their supervising admirals out of sight.
This briefing room was darkly lit, colder than Aaen remembered, and the look on Herring’s face spoke volumes as the crew took their seats in front of the briefing room’s desk.
The door to the room closed behind the last officer with a metallic clang and locked with mechanical precision. The only lights were the drawing board at the front of the room.
Admiral Herring started drawing what appeared to be a crude drawing of a sector of Quadrant 1, and then one curvature in the upper-left-hand corner, writing “U” in the center, and then a dot about a foot below the lettering along with “Starbase 84”; in the opposite corner, another curved line, but writing “RE”; lower on the drawing, a larger triangular shape with scribbles throughout the inner area, and then wrote “Orion Space”. To his left, on a large projection screen, the Voyager’s crest. The images on the projection screen were controlled by a small folding computer on the left edge of the desk.
Herring snapped, “Crew! We have a situation requiring your immediate attention.” a command to the folding computer changed the image to an human-looking male whose face looked reckless and dangerous (the type of face the military would want to see in the back of an armed transport in restraints), and whose history gradually filled the left side of the projection.
“This man is a person of high interest to Starfleet Command, especially Intelligence—”
A cold chill ran down Aaen’s spine and his hands started to tingle at what he looked at Herring and anticipated what Herring was about to say—
*****
Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."
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