=/\= Captain’s log, Stardate 72018.76. After a week stop over at Starbase 51, we are now underway to star cluster Alpha 9-9-2, 192 light years away from the base. Our mission: deep space exploration. Starfleet Command also wants us to keep a look out for possible alien civilizations in this region, as well as class-M planets suitable for colonization. =/\=

Johann lifted his finger off of the recording button located on the armrest of his chair while he considered what else to add to the log entry. He wasn’t even sure how to mention the refugee situation coherently without also discussing the “secondary assignment” in his mission orders that only he and Avik had been permitted to see by Admiral Jason McGinnis. The Admiral’s written instructions were very clear that those orders were highly classified, and probably couldn’t be entered into his log.

At least he couldn’t enter it in any log entries recorded here on the Bridge, while it was full of people working. On the viewscreen, the stars flew towards the ship and past it in the all too familiar way that they did when travelling at warp speed. Even at Warp 7.25, it would take a long time to reach the star cluster. Why is our cruising speed a fractional warp factor anyway? he wondered. I thought whole numbers were supposed to be more efficient.

He shook his head, to deliberately discourage himself from being distracted from thinking about the mission at hand. He wasn’t supposed to reveal much about them, but the secondary orders included a lot of disturbing information about what it was the Admiral wanted investigated. Johann didn’t like the idea of just going in this general direction and waiting for whoever these snake-people to come find Europa, so he started thinking about how Europa could find them first.

“Did anyone talk to those refugees on the base?” he asked to nobody in particular.

– Johann Dvorak, CO