Moving Forward - Part 3

Posted on Thu Jan 22nd, 2026 @ 11:35pm by Captain Daegan Baas & Aseek Tarnala & Commander Jerome Hunt Jr. & Lieutenant Edruj Daughter of Thrawn & Lieutenant Urushi Yaotome & Lieutenant Niami Troga & Lieutenant JG Christian Rogers & Lieutenant JG Ryan Kellerman
Edited on on Thu Jan 29th, 2026 @ 10:41pm

1,653 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: What was Lost is Found
Location: Valhalla Lounge
Timeline: MD 6 - 1530

Looking to Urushi, "Lt Yaotome, Did your atmospheric survey reveal anything of importance? Would it be possible to dissipate or even remove the interference from the atmosphere?"

"The interference in the atmosphere can be cleaned up. However its not going to happen over night." Urushi explained simply. "It'll take possibly up to another hundred years naturally, but with atmospheric purifiers I estimate it could take close to twenty, at max thirty years."

Daegan nodded. "Excellent. Be sure to transmit your findings to the relief effort, once we know what ship or ships, have been dispatched."

After the reports form his crew were finished he hand come together as he contemplated his decision. Looking to Kurul, “Administrator, down on the surface we confirmed that what you had encountered was what we have come to know as the 'Defiled'. How did you...survive?”

Kurul took a deep breath as he looked to Dareem, looked to those assembled, then back to the captain. “As mentioned before, we detected something entering the atmosphere and went to investigate. Our limited sensors from the captured shuttle told us that whatever it was it was coming down on the western edge of the continent.

“When we arrived the Starfleet shuttle had already landed and as we flew over the site only saw two people make it back to the shuttle. What was chasing them was...indescribable. There weren't that many at the time but we saw several of the indigenous fall only to flail about, mutate and rise again. The Starfleet shuttle got off the ground and had to shake off several creatures that were trying to rip their way into the shuttle.

Both shuttles had no functional weapons and after some very rapid discussions it was admitted that neither side had the enough functional weapons. During the talks both shuttles mad a pass over the closest indigenous camp as it was attacked. We watched as those that fought were ripped apart and the entire camp was overrun in a matter of minutes. That there were no others to prey upon was they only thing that seemed to stop them...until they noticed us.”

Our course lead them to another encampment and those fleeing were leading these creatures to the rest. It was then that a Lt. Commander Reynolds, the Ulysses last surviving officer, broke through the bickering. His words were...impressive. He order his people to take both shuttles to the Ulysses to retrieve the last of the ships antimatter . While enroute he instructed both shuttles on how to create a set of antimatter bombs.”

“I watched as your people worked rapidly, even recklessly, ignoring almost every safety protocol to fabricate and handed me, an enemy, weapon after weapon...weapons they could have made long ago and wiped us from existence.

“The trip back through the atmosphere was not an easy one for the other shuttle and the damage was only worsened but they proceeded anyway. In the time we were in orbit the Defiled, as you call them, and spread considerably and we began bombing the area the front of contamination was targeted so that the surrounding area from the explosion was sanitized. To include the last of the surviving native population of the planet. It was working but the damage on the other shuttle was only getting worse. When it was clear they could no longer maintain altitude and that they would not survive the final drop they dove the shuttle, and the last of the antimatter, into the target area.

“They could have made it to a safe area and hope these creature couldn't survive crossing the irradiated areas but they didn't. They sacrificed themselves to ensure everyone's survival.

“I landed my shuttle between the Starfleet and Romulan camps and waited.”

Daegan listened to the obviously condensed story. No doubt there were intricate details and other minutia that had been left out simply for time. “I take it this is when the peace process began?”

“Correct Captain, the revelation that your people had had the means to destroy us and hadn't, the lack of hesitation to offer up the means of our victory, the willingness of Starfleet personnel to sacrifice themselves to destroy a threat to protect not only themselves but a known enemy...”

Commander Hunt wondered if this people were better off here in a way. But their experiences working together was a lesson that could benefit the Federation and the Romulans as well. Perhaps a few of them would take the proverbial plunge and go off world.


Dareem remained very still as Kurul spoke. Movement might disturb the memory he could feel washing through him of that day. He had been there. He could still see the sky burning where the atmospheric detonations had gone off. And he remembered those shuttles diving again and again toward something that should not have been alive.

They had been brave. There was no denying any of it. They were brave in the most alien of ways to him: banners and bloodlines ignored. Power positions cast to the side. He'd admired them in that moment, and, he had also understood that bravery such as that could never last. Not in the way their two peoples kept score.

What Kurul had referred to as revelation, Dareem had always catalogued as exception. It was a singular day, a singular enemy, and a conflux of desperation which had thrown away the rules of war long enough for every soul to survive. The Starfleet officers who died had done so believing their gesture would mean something--that their sacrifice would continue to reverberate and change the very relationship of two distrustful sides.

Dareem had watched their shuttle vanish into fire and his only thoughts were: This is how empires lose wars. Through weakness and hope. It was a thought that had remained unchanged after 130 years.

And he knew the Empire would need good men and women who continued to see the Federation for what it had always been: a large and spineless beast that bared its belly instead of its fangs.

But, Dareem thought, men could always honour courage without misjudging it for wisdom. He didn't smile as the thought took hold, but he felt something inside himself finally become aligned for the first time in many, many years.

Posrun listened in silence as he heard the story shared once more. He tried to imagine that day but none of it seemed real to him. It had been recollected many times by the colony's elders since he'd been a young boy. What he felt was awe at the sacrifice once again retold. If those of the Federation had been capable of that level of courage once before, he wondered whether it was naïve for him to hope it might be again.

Rogers rubbed his temples. It was a strain at the moment to keep all the thoughts and emotions outside his own. The strain of diplomacy was taking its toll on his normal efforts to keep the outside world outside. It didn't help that Yuvana obviously thought being blunt and outspoken didn't just apply to verbal communication. And there was...something...some undercurrent...that he felt but couldn't pinpoint or exactly locate.

Edruj listened with all the veracity of a Kingon that listened to a tale of glory would. She was of the line of thinking that Starfleet and the Federation needed to return to these kinds of deeds. Deeds worthy of tales, of honor. These people will be remembered, and their place in Stovokor was assured, she thought.

Aseek had wondered why he had been invited to the meeting and had sat listening to everything, though he understood none of it. At least until the the Administrator had told his tale. The rapid spread of the Defiled was too similar to the rapid spread on his own world and he swallowed hard as his own memories mirrored several of the man's. His jaw clinched when he had heard they had used weapons of mass destruction to save themselves. If his people hadn't refused to make that sacrifice...his people...his friends...his wife might all be alive.

Unable to blink them away, he looked away as a tear fell. Standing up he moved to the upper level windows and stared out at the world below.

Watching him rise Daegan nodded to the Troga to see to their resident expert on the Defiled and noticing the looks of confusion on the Councilors face he would be sure to explain things later.

There was quite the whirlwind of emotions at play, Niami sorting them out, tracking them her eyes shifted to the one who she had made initial contact with, Aseek. Without a word she rose from her chair and followed after Aseek, having been given unspoken permission to follow after him.

Daegan looked around the table and wondered if they were all thinking the same thing he was. It was odd how the sacrifices of Starfleet had altered relations with what had been an enemy. The battle to defend Narenda III shifted things with the Klingons, Bassan Rift got the ball rolling with the Romulans...he found it amazing that the lightning seemed to have struck a third time.

Breaking the silence. “Well I am pleased to hear that the peace lasted and grew to were you are today. As to the request for other technologies. We may have to limit some of what we provide. Simply because you may not be ready for them, but we can definitely bring what you know of to an operational status.”

Kurul looked to the other councilors, while getting some of their wish list was better than nothing the reason given behind the partial denial was not completely understood and was sure to raise suspicion among his compatriots.


TBC...

 

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