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Date: Sun, 06 Jun 2004 23:48:27 -0400
Subject: [ASC] REP: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile (OCC - TNG era) 22: The Anti-Matter
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Posted: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 02:35:54 GMT  
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From: "Jay P Hailey" <JayPHailey@hotmail.com> 
 


REP: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile (OCC - TNG era) 22: The Anti-Matter Pirates
[PG] 1/1



Title: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile 22: The Anti-Matter Pirates Author: Jay P
Hailey (JayPHailey@hotmail.com)

Series: ST-OM, OCC - TNG era [22/54?]

Rating:[PG]

Archive: Fine with me, just tell me where.

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Star Trek.  I claim Original
Characters and Situations for me.

Webpage HTTP://jayphailey.8m.com



Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile

Episode 22: The Anti-Matter Pirates.

(Stardate 48479)

by

Jay P. Hailey

and

Dennnis Washburn



"Report."  I said as I entered the Bridge.  The USS Discovery had come to a
stop, but no alert had been sounded.  A trio of probes were on the screen.



"A hailing signal has come from the probes."  Chief of Security Stephanie
Anderson said.  "The probes are armed with anti-matter, but not in a
significant amounts."



"Answer the hail."



"It's coming through, audio only."  Lt. Commander Anderson said.



"This is Captain Hailey of the Harr- Discovery."  I stumbled over the name.
I was used to my previous command.  It was embarrassing.



"USS Discovery.  You are under the guns of pirates right now."  The voice
said.  "We demand that you surrender immediately."



I was stunned.  The USS Discovery was one of the biggest starships in the
Federation at that time.  We were packing more firepower than any pirate
might overcome.



"Are you joking?"  I said.



"Red alert."  Commander Mendez said.  The Discovery began to ready herself
for battle.  Carlos Mendez was the second in command of the Discovery.



"This is no joke, Captain.  You will surrender and transfer twenty cubic
yards of anti-matter to our ship or you will be destroyed."



The amount of anti-matter was close to half the antimatter that the
Discovery was carrying.  We could operate the Discovery for years with that
amount.



"No."  I said  "Raise shields."



"I have a match on the voice, Captain."  Lucas McCoy, the Chief of
Operations said.  "It's Roygon."



That was not good.  Roygon had gained a reputation as a cunning and capable
pirate.  He was very mercenary and very good.  When Roygon hailed you and
demanded surrender you did not take it lightly.



"Arm weapons."  I ordered.  The Discovery was still a huge ship.



"The channel has been closed, Sir."  Anderson said.



Kamaline Darvon Ahk, the Chief Science Officer reported  "The signal is
being routed through the probe from a cloaked ship.  I am having trouble
locating the cloaked ship."



"Keep on it."  I said.  I wanted to know what Roygon had up his sleeve.



We stood there like that for another five minutes, while nothing happened.
I waited a little while longer and then said  "Helm, resume course for
Mereau 4, one half impulse."



"Aye, Sir."  Lt. Spaat said.  The Vulcan Helmsman wheeled the Discovery
about and she began to move towards Mereau 4.  At impulse the trip would
have taken centuries, but I didn't want to trigger a booby trap that would
disable our warp drives.  It was a common trick to lay mines to wreck a
starship's warp field.



As we moved, the trio of probes kept pace with us.  I didn't like that.



"Keep a weather eye on those probes, Stephanie."  I said.



"Aye, sir."  She said.



The Discovery continued to accelerate for several more minutes.



"Got 'em!"  Kamaline called.  "Three cloaked ships are tailing us."



"Relay your data to tactical."  I said.  "Any idea which one Roygon is on?"



Kamaline looked at me  "I'm good, but not that good, Sir."



"Pick one and lay in a course to intercept.  Full impulse."



The Discovery turned and began to chase the pirates.



McCoy said  "I'm reading a signal from the probes, Captain."



"What is it?"



McCoy routed what he was seeing to my chair.  I put on the right hand
monitor.  I saw a beautiful tactical read out of the Discovery.  I could see
every detail of our shield and weapons configuration.  It was scary.  We
couldn't get that good a scan of an enemy ship.  We were looking at
technologically advanced sensor and interpretation equipment.



"Begin to rotate shield nutation."  I ordered.  I hoped that the constantly
changing shield frequencies would obscure the scan.  I could see the signal
from the probe degrade, very slightly.



"The cloaked ships have begun to take evasive action.  They are not moving
as fast as we are at impulse."  Stephanie said.



I could see the other two ships moving off on our tactical screens.  Our
target began to weave and turn but he could not get away from the Discovery.



Now that Kamaline had broken some of their cloak we could mostly see them.
We couldn't see any details but Stephanie and Kamaline were tracking them.



Then one of the trio of probes darted in front of us.  It got right between
us and our target and detonated.  The explosion rocked the Discovery.  It
was huge.  The probe must have been carrying at least thirty pounds of
anti-matter.



"Damage report."  I said.



"A few people have been shaken up, but nothing severe."  McCoy said.



"You can't say the same for him."  Stephanie said.



On the tactical screen an expanding cloud of debris replaced our target.  We
were still intercepting it.



A small voice spoke to Stephanie from her station.  She listened for a bit
and then said.  "Captain, Zuma says that isn't the cloaked ship."



Ensign Zuma was a tactical genius who worked on the battle bridge of the USS
Discovery.  Stephanie's past history as a police officer hadn't prepared her
for starship combat, but Zuma was a natural at it.  He fed tactical data and
suggestions to Stephanie from the other tactical panel and helped make her
look good.  I didn't mind.  Stephanie was too good at the other tasks that
came with being a Chief of Security.



"Resume scans."  I said.  Zuma was rarely wrong about such things.



A few tense moments passed.



"Got 'em again."  Kamaline said.  "Wow."



"What's that?"  I asked.



"They're using a completely different cloaking protocol.  If Ensign Zuma
hadn't warned us, I would never have seen them."



Each cloaking device uses a subtly different collection of masks, filters
and frequencies to do its job.  The state of the art is constantly changing.
Older cloaks are less effective against modern sensors.  This was a very
clever trick.  To use two different cloaks, would present two totally
different problems for a starship's sensors to adapt to.



We began to close on the target again.  "Arm photon torpedoes for proximity
detonation."  The torpedoes would detonate a certain distance away from the
cloaked ship.  They would shake it up but not damage it too severely.



"Photons ready, Captain."  Stephanie said.



"Fire."



Stephanie bracketed the cloaked ship neatly in a ring of photon torpedoes.
As they went off I could imagine the rough ride that the pirates were
getting.



The cloaked ship flew perfectly straight for a few moments.  Kamaline
shouted "Gamma burst!  I'm reading a heavy explosion..."



The cloaked ship lost containment of its anti-matter converter and blew up.
One moment there was the fuzzy shape of the cloak and then there was glowing
wreckage.



"Oh, my Ghod."  I said.



-*-



We scoured that area for life pods and the ship's recorder marker.  We found
no survivors.  We did find the recorder marker but the explosion heavily
damaged it.  The best we could do was to determine that the hull was a
generic hull used commercially all over known space and that Roygon was not
one of the Bridge crew when the ship went up.



We also got some of the readings for the warp core.  It was not very stable
to begin with.  Our torpedoes didn't hit the ship that hard but it was hard
enough to send their balky warp core out of control.  I was amazed.  I
wouldn't have gotten on a ship with a warp core that delicate.



It saved me from a terrible guilt trip, but added to the mystery.  What were
those people doing?



I reported the whole mess back to Starfleet.  Over the course of the next
two hours I received three replies.  The local Starbase commander ordered us
to stay out and search for the pirates.  Starfleet Command ordered us to
continue to Mereau 4 and complete our mission as stated.



Direct orders came to me from Admiral Necheyev to continue to Mereau 4 and
to surreptitiously investigate the matter there.



So we continued to Mereau 4.



-*-



Mereau 4 was a pleasant little world, inhabited by humanoids only slightly
different from humans.  It was within one hundred light years of Earth, and
further away from other places where things happened.  It paid its taxes to
the Federation and made little noise.  It was simply a generic little
Federation Planet.



On the other hand Mereau 4 had beautiful colored falls.  They were great big
cataracts that plummeted over rocks that had been discolored by different
mineral deposits.  They threw off mist which refracted rainbows everywhere.
The water plunged into pools where algae grew in different colors depending
on the minerals it ate.  The people had a wide collection of native legends,
myths, stories and histories.  They even had funny costumes that they
displayed for us.



While I met with the Chairman of the Grand Council of Mereau 4, Stephanie,
Kamaline and Commander Mendez began their investigation.  Commander Mendez
had approached me to lay out their plans.



I agreed with Commander Mendez' plan for two reasons.  One, the Captain of
the ship was required to schmooze the big wigs of Mereau 4.  It was my job.
Two, I remembered the last time I had tried to go undercover.  It had been
years, but I could still hear the high pitched Ferengi guffaws and I could
still see Stephanie's painfully straight face.  It was obvious to me that
infiltration was not my field.  I suppose that was why Stephanie asked
Commander Mendez to run interference for her.



I spent the afternoon touring the planet with McCoy and Doctor Burlington.
We were shown to school children who couldn't figure out why we were
important.  I had to give short speeches to a few citizens' organizations
and political clubs, thanking them honestly for their support of Starfleet
and the Federation.  I was even shown the Colored Falls and a few people put
on costumes and danced authentic ethnic dances for me.  You would have
though that I was somebody.  The fact was that they were gratified that the
Federation and Starfleet thought enough of them to send a capital ship like
the Discovery to glad hand them.  They knew that otherwise they would not
see a Starfleet Ship of the Line unless something very bad was occurring.



After the whirlwind tour and political activity, We held a reception in the
Discovery's lounge for the leaders of Mereau 4 and all the cousins, aunts,
uncles and important supporters that they could cram onto the guest list.
It would be the party of the season.



In order to cover for the absence of several key officers, I asked Soren the
Elder to join the party.  He gracefully agreed.  I also asked the Marines to
attend in dress uniform.  The heavy collection of spangles, braid and
decoration characteristic of the Marine dress uniform blinded many of the
Mereau 4 delegation.  I even asked Aaron to put in an appearance.  He didn't
understand why he should go at first, but as the administrator of the colony
that the Discovery was carrying, he was sort of in the command structure.



We had to replicate him a formal enough suit.  Once he was in it he cut a
swath through the reception.  He was a master of the art of the art of
conversation.



Towards the end of the evening, We took them on a tour of the non-classified
areas of the ship.  It was like herding cats.  Everyone wanted to monkey
directly with the warp core or try to steer the Discovery into another ship.
When told that the bridge and the engine room were classified to protect
defense secrets they were disappointed.  Then the Chairman tried to use his
political influence to get his youngest nephew on to the bridge.  I took
them to the holodeck and showed the around a simulation of the
Enterprise-D's Bridge and Engine room.  They were out of date, and that's
what every one was expecting, anyway.



Eventually the tour wound up back in the transporter room and we beamed the
delegation from Mereau 4 down to their homes.



Then I wandered back to my office to make the obligatory log entries and
complete the day's paperwork.



I met Commander Mendez there.  He was dressed in a business suit and looked
for all the world like he worked in an office building on Earth.



"Good evening, Commander."  I said tiredly.



"Good evening, Sir.  I have a report."



"Go ahead."



"Mereau 4 has links to the underground economy.  They are stronger than you
might expect.  They have a thriving business in the transshipment of
anti-matter.  There is also a market for mercenaries and smugglers here."
Mendez said.



"Wow.  That's excellent.  How did you find out all of that?"



"Information is a commodity like anything else."  Mendez said  "At least
that's the way Lt. Commander Anderson sees it.  She requisitioned a sizable
proportion of the Discovery's stock of gold pressed latinum, and is not shy
about spending it."



"Ah.  What's next?"  I asked.



"Lt. Darvon Ahk will be forging us a background as a mercenary squad.  We
will attempt to infiltrate the local operation and find out what we can
see."



"Aren't you suspicious?  After all a Federation starship just rolled in."  I
asked



"Possibly, but there also a number of civilian ships here.  Hopefully there
are enough to obscure the issue."



"I hope you're right, Commander."  I said.  I signed off on the requisitions
for all the material that Mendez, Stephanie and Kamaline thought they needed
and I went to bed.



-*-



The next day was more of the same, a whirlwind tour of more of Mereau 4.  It
was a pleasant place, really kind of leafy, green and wet a lot.



That evening there was another, bigger reception at the Central
Administration Building, where the Grand Council of Mereau 4 held office.



It was a major to-do and there were hundreds of people there.  I swirled
through the small groups of people being generally as agreeable and
understanding as possible.  Many of the people who helped with the party on
the Discovery came down.  Soren the Elder did not.  I understood.  To me the
planet Mereau 4 was beautiful and sort of cold.  To Soren or any other
Vulcan it would have been positively arctic.



I was called away from the party by a call from the Discovery.  Commander
Mendez had been found stunned.  I beamed immediately back to the Discovery,
where I found Mendez in Sickbay.



Doctor Burlington said.  "It's just a phaser stun.  He'll feel like hell,
but he'll be okay."  She turned to other business.



Mendez was lying on the diagnostic bed.  His eyes were not properly focused,
and he looked like he was in pain.



"Report, Commander?"  I said gently.



"I blew my cover.  It was a stupid mistake.  Kamaline was forced to stun me
in order to save her own cover."



"Do you think it worked?"  I asked.  If Kamaline and Stephanie were in
danger, then I wanted to be able to pull them out of it quickly.



"I don't know.  I was unconscious when that was decided."



"Okay.  Take care of yourself, Commander report to the bridge when you're
able.



I went up to the bridge and waited nervously for some news.  Soon, McCoy
called me, down on the planet.  "Captain, the Chairman's been asking after
you.  Will you be back soon?"



Please tell the Chairman, uh, that there was a small emergency aboard the

Discovery.  Tell him I'll get back as soon as we lock it down."



"Aye, Sir."



-*-



Two hours later we got a call from Stephanie.



"Discovery, we're reporting in.  How's Commander Mendez?"



"He's fine.  How are you?"



"We seem to be okay.  Kamaline stunned Mendez and said he was dead.  I
backed her up.  They suggested we move to safer ground.  We're about to take
off to meet the leader of the mercenary group.  We think it's heavily tied
up with the anti-matter traffic in the area."



"Okay.  Where is the leader?"



"He's on a ship called the Ziggurat in orbit now."



"Roger.  We'll be watching."



"Thank you.  Anderson out."



-*-



We tracked the freighter Ziggurat, and watched as a shuttlecraft docked with
it.  Soon the freighter powered up and began to leave orbit.



"Commander Mendez, pick a crew and go after that ship in the Phillip K.
Dick."  The Phillip K. Dick was a runabout named for a noted Earth
philosopher from the twentieth century.  Our second runabout was named the
Robert A. Heinlein.



I couldn't just pick up and leave Mereau 4 without a good, good reason.
Commander Mendez and smaller crew could.



"Shadow the Ziggurat unless it appears that Stephanie and Kamaline are in
danger.  If that happens then take the ship."  I ordered



Commander Mendez took a squad of Marines and Lt. Snoopy with him on the
Phillip K. Dick.  He quietly left the main shuttle bay of the Discovery and
moved quietly off after the Ziggurat.



I had to beam down and finish schmoozing with every one who was anyone on
Mereau 4.



-*-



Eight hours later, the Ziggurat entered warp.  We saw the Phillip K. Dick go
after them.  I couldn't stand it.  Soon they would be out of direct sensor
range.



"Set course to intercept the Ziggurat."  I ordered, the Discovery moved away
from Mereau 4.



-*-



It took a couple of hours to over take the Phillip K. Dick and the Ziggurat.
They were moving along at Warp 4, about the maximum for smaller ships or
older civilian ships like the Ziggurat.  As we sighted the Ziggurat, an
escape pod launched.



"Intercept that pod!"  I said.  Was it Kamaline and Stephanie?



The Discovery leapt ahead and began to close with the Ziggurat and the
escape pod.



As soon as the Ziggurat saw us, She launched two runabouts of her own and
began to run.



"Prepare for saucer separation.  Man the Robert Heinlein and prepare to
pursue one of the runabouts."



The odd sirens warning of impending Saucer separation sounded as I ran for
the turbolift.  "McCoy, take the Saucer Section and support the runabouts.
I'll use the Battle Section and take the Ziggurat.  Stay in touch."



"Aye, sir."  McCoy moved to the Captain's seat on the main bridge.



The Battle Bridge of the Discovery looked disturbingly similar to the bridge
of the USS Harrier.  Essentially it was a similar module modified for use
with the Battle Section of the Discovery.  I took the center seat and looked
around me.  Ensign Zuma was at tactical, Mr. Spaat was at the Executive
Station.  He was acting as my second in command of the Battle Section.



"Captain Hailey to the Phillip K. Dick."  I said.



"This is Mendez.  Go ahead."



"Pick one of the runabouts that was just launched and pursue it.  I want
those people in custody.



"This is Doctor Burlington.  We have recovered Stephanie and Kamaline from
the escape Pod.  They are unharmed.



"Captain, We're go for Saucer Separation."  The ensign on the Helm said.



"Go!"  I said.



There were a few seconds of silence as the seals were double checked.  Then,
with huge clunking noises that echoed throughout the Discovery the
connectors were withdrawn.  The Discovery was now two ships.



"The Saucer's engines are firing.  Pulling away, now.  She's clear."  The
ensign said.



"Set course to intercept the Ziggurat and engage at full Impulse."  I said.
The

Battle Section of the Discovery leapt forward unencumbered by the weight of
the

Saucer Section.



Stephanie and Kamaline came onto the Battle Bridge.  "Report."  I said.



Stephanie gave the report.  "Roygon was on the Ziggurat.  He seemed to be
buying our story until we entered warp.  Then he imprisoned us and was
preparing to use Fast Penta on us.  To avoid giving away any secrets, we
escaped and left the Ziggurat in a life pod."



That seemed like an adventure to get into later.



"The Ziggurat is preparing to enter Warp."  Zuma said.



"Prepare a single photon torpedo with a proximity fuse, Ensign."  I said.  I
didn't want a repeat of what had happened two days ago.



"Aye, Sir."  Zuma seemed unfazed by my request.



"The Ziggurat is going to warp speed."  Spaat said.  "Fascinating.  She has
attained warp five and is accelerating."



That was faster than that type of freighter should have been able to go.
"Can you still hit her, Zuma?"



"Yes, Sir.  Permission to fire?"



"Fire."



Zuma hit the button.  The Discovery thumped as the torpedo left the tube.
The torpedo was boosted to warp speed by our warp drive.  It speed across
space and approached the Ziggurat.  It detonated and disrupted their warp
field.  The Ziggurat uncontrollably went sub-light.



"Give me warp four for four minutes."  I said.



"Aye, Sir."  The Discovery casually crossed the space to the Ziggurat.



Kamaline, at the science station reported.  "They're cloaking."



"Keep them in sight, Lieutenant."  I said.



"Aye, sir."



Soon we approached them.  "They're evading, Captain."  Kamaline said.



"Stay on them."



"They have switched cloaking protocols.  I'm scanning."  Kamaline said.



"Ready another single torpedo."  I told Zuma.  "You'll fire to disable their
shields."



"Aye, Sir."  Zuma said.



"Got 'em.  Am I good, or what?"  Kamaline said.



"You're good, Lieutenant.  Fire when Ready Mr.  Zuma."



"Firing."



Another torpedo thunked out of the Discovery.  As it detonated near the
Ziggurat, she uncloaked and began to weave around on reduced impulse power.



"I'm reading another gamma spike."  Kamaline said.  "Heat rising ...  There
it goes!"



An explosive panel jettisoned from the Ziggurat.  The warp core followed.
It drifted away and then detonated at least five times as hard as it should
have.  The light spectrum and energy signature looked all wrong.



After that it was little challenge to take the Ziggurat.  She was crippled.
Her shields collapsed quickly.  The crew that was still aboard her had been
hurt or contaminated by the gamma ray pulse of the malfunctioning warp core.
Other crew members had been hurt by the powerful blast of the warp core
detonating.  The Marines took the ship in under five minutes.



I sent a prize crew aboard to take control of the Ziggurat and went to see
how the other parts of the Discovery were doing.



The Saucer Section and the Robert Heinlein had taken one of the pirate
runabouts cleanly.  It had given up when its power core had entered
emergency shutdown mode.



We found the Phillip K. Dick adrift with weapons and engines shot off.  "Who
ever that guy was, he was an excellent pilot."  Mendez said.



"It was Roygon."  Snoopy said.  I had to agree.  He wasn't on any of the
other ships that we had captured.  I wondered why he had disabled the
Phillip K. Dick rather than destroying her.



"I don't know."  Mendez said thoughtfully.  "He had us dead to rights."



-*-



The Ziggurat and its runabout had some scary surprises for us.  We set
course for Starbase Thirty-Five and towed the Ziggurat there.  On the way,
Mishimi Miatsu, my Chief Engineer and I dove into the pirate ships.  Towing
a starship at warp speed is a strain on the engines.  In order to keep the
strain on the Discovery's engines to a minimum and to give myself the most
time, we made about warp four towards the starbase.



The first ugly surprise was that the Ziggurat didn't have two cloaking
devices.  I thought that it would some how have them linked into the shields
of the

Ziggurat on a mutually exclusive cut off switch.  I couldn't figure out how
that was supposed to work and so I wanted to see how they did it.  Mind you,
the Treaty of Algeron prevents the Federation from developing or using
cloaking devices.  That doesn't mean that engineers can't think about them.
They make wonderful hypothetical exercises.  Then we can apply our
hypotheses to the real world and see if our thought experiments help us see
Klingon and Romulan Cloaking devices.



The Ziggurat's cloaking device was three separate devices melded into one.
It was instantly switchable between three different cloaking protocols.  I
had no idea how they made it work, but the upshot was the same.  Now you see
them, now you don't.  It was a dirty trick based on the idea that we would
not look for more than one type of cloaking device per starship.



None of the three sections of the Ziggurat's cloak was state of the art,
which was why Kamaline had been able to break them as well as she did.
Applied to state of the art devices, we would never be able to see them.
This was a scary technique.



Next the engine core on the runabout was a headache.  I had never seen such
a core before.



Miatsu helped me to understand it by pointing out how much of it came from
the Romulan style of warp core.  The Romulans use an artificially created
mini-black-hole as the center piece of their engines.  Spray some reaction
mass, like hydrogen or deuterium on to the mini-black-hole and the
mini-black-hole will eat a certain amount of it.  The rest it will heat to
super hot plasma which you can draw off to power the ship.  It was a
fantastic idea.  I could see several inherent advantages and disadvantages
to the system.  The best part was that if you lost containment, then you got
a microscopic hull breach as the ship and it's mini-black-hole went their
separate ways.



The major draw back was that the Romulan ships would weigh about a small
mountain more than they ordinarily would.



The engine core of the runabout was a direct fusion of a Federation style
engine core and a Romulan core.  Heavy gravity generators took anti-matter
and fused it, generating heavy types of anti-matter as well as fusion
temperature plasma.



When the heavier anti-matter was mixed with heavier matter, that much more
energy was released.  That was how the probes encountered earlier by the
Discovery were able to detonate with such huge yields.  They prefused a
smaller amount of anti-matter.



These engines were balky and delicate, but when they worked they were much
more powerful than comparable Federation engines.  They were also more
advanced technologically than the Federation could accomplish.  With these
examples, the Federation could probably duplicate the technology in a year.
It would take another year in use before the we understood it well enough to
start making any changes.



When I searched the computer for records of who would use these sorts of
engines or devices, they didn't match any known technology.  The only match
was a Federation scientist named Samuelson.  He had proposed a similar
design, but much less refined in the pre-fusion stages.  The project was
rejected for funding because there were too many technical hurdles to cross
before it could even be evaluated.



Samuelson also pioneered the offensive tactical use of probes.  The method
of use was very similar to what we had seen from the pirates probes.  In war
games eight years ago, a fleet using the Samuelson tactics decimated another
fleet using older tactics in the first engagement.  The second and
subsequent engagements were much closer and inconclusive.



I asked Ensign Zuma and he said  "It amounts to another dirty trick.  If you
rely too heavily on tricks, they can be turned against you.  The best
tactical stance is a solid, aggressive one with plenty of wiggle room to
improvise."



I also read that six years ago, Samuelson's daughter had reported him
missing.  A couple of months later, she dropped out of sight with no traces.
There was a notice on that entry to report to Starfleet Intelligence
immediately if either Samuelson or his daughter were spotted.



I found it disquieting that the least developed areas of Samuelson's work
had been bridged with Romulan technology.



I reported our findings on the "Samuelson" cycle engines to Starfleet
Command with my highest codes.



When we arrived at Starbase Thirty-Five, there was a tender there, manned by
Starfleet Intelligence.  they took the Ziggurat and its runabout into
custody and then classified the whole thing.



We went on our way with no idea if Samuelson had been taken by the Romulans
or what the connection to the anti-matter pirates was.  Another thing we
still had not yet figured out was why the pirates were trafficking so
heavily in anti-matter.  Sure the Samuelson cycle engines would use a lot of
power to run, but that didn't explain why the pirates were buying every
cubic inch of antimatter they could find on the black market as well as
stealing it from every target they hit.



I figured that it was now in the capable hands of Starfleet Intelligence and
tried to put it out of my mind...



-end-


--
Stephen Ratliff
Senior Moderator, ASCA
Submissions: ascatrekfic@crosswinds.net
Contact: stephen@trekiverse.org

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