Stardate: 80304:2120
Title: Grimalkin (Part 1)
Author: Captain Deadilus
Time: Current
Scene: USS Horizon, Deep Space


As the new arrivals started to beam over from the Exeter, Captain Deadilus realised that he would have to forego his usual welcoming committee as Captain Nagama informed him that he would be beaming over shortly to discuss their new orders and the 'situation' in general. Such a vagueness of wording carried with it an ominous warning...

~

The form of Captain Hito Nagama materialised on the transporter pad before him, mission orders in hand, and Scott smiled at his friend and colleague of many years; a smile, he noticed, that was returned after much hesitation as if the weight of the world rested upon his friend's shoulders. As they walked quickly to the Ready Room, the discussion was disjointed and Hito was responding cautiously to Scott's questions whilst they were in the corridors.


=/\= Ready Room - A Short While Later =/\=

Deadilus drank from his tea as he read their mission orders, still shocked at what Nagama had told him.

The shape of the Akira-class vessel dwarfing them right now carried its 'war wounds' under several layers of patched-up repairs, a memento of a battle not long over. There was no doubt in Scott's mind that this recent conflict was what plagued his colleague right now, and Scott knew why - such a scar would undoubtedly have caused hull breaches across several of the affected decks, and most likely a significant loss of life too.

Hito had explained about the rash of recent border skirmishes that had broken out between several small and non-aligned planets not far from Starbase 9, one of which the Federation had decided to attempt to stop before matters spiraled out of control. However, the Federation Intelligence Division had severely erred when it came to the technology of one of the parties involved, and the Exeter had been struck a severe blow before they had realised what they were dealing with. Even though their return fire had been in self-defence, Hito felt sickened at the senseless loss of life aboard both his own vessel and that of their 'enemy'.

By contrast, the Horizon's orders seemed simple enough: The planetary exploration vessel USS Grimalkin (a Nova-class vessel similar to their own) had been investigating a planet in the Andarus system several weeks previously. However, all attempts to raise the ship on subspace had failed; a hasty realignment of the Deep Space Array Mitra had been performed and long range scans had confirmed that the vessel was still in orbit with no apparent signs of damage, although no-one was ruling out involvement of one of the many non-aligned worlds nearby.

The planet the crew of the Grimalkin were investigating was a puzzle in and of itself too; an M-class planet originally colonised by the Federation over a hundred and twenty years ago, many of the settlers had left during the mid 24th century and, due mostly to some horrendous record-keeping, it was now unknown whether or not the planet was actually inhabited...

And so it was that the Horizon would venture back into Federation space for the first time in several months to proceed to the Andarus system and the USS Grimalkin and determine what (if anything) had happened to the crew...


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Captain Scott Deadilus
Commanding Officer
USS Horizon
NCC-72400
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