[snip]

By now the room was almost ready and the CMO sat down ‘’Could do with another cup of coffee ‘’ she murmured and on hearing the door swish open the doctor turned around.

Lance had been sat in his quarters it was still to early to sleep. He’d been trying to make sense of the endless reports that now came to him. What was important, what was actually important, and what was self important waffle. The call for senior officers to meet in the ready room had caused him to raise his hands in the air and yell Woo hoo.

He couldn’t have left his quarters quick enough just in case the reports tried to block the door and stop him leaving.

He entered the room and was heartened by two things he wasn’t the last there and he wasn’t late. “Good Evening… wait no Morning” it was easy to be full of energy when you hadn’t yet called it a night he mused.

This time Cross scratched her head for she knew Malone had been a science officer but now from his uniform she could tell he was the D’H of science.

‘’Hi there Lt ,did you get promoted? ‘’she asked ‘’In which case congratulations for you deserve it’‘.

In her own thoughts Cross did question why the Captain hadn’t shown up yet, cause usually he would be the first one present.........now concerned about the uncontrollable phenomenon that had inflicted Glen , wondering if it was happening again.

The Captain’s ready room was quickly filling up with the senior staff, the night NE’s on the bridge though said nothing about the oddity of having it there vs the far more spacious conference room a few decks below. But what did they know? They were just mindless and nameless Ensigns! Still with the brought in chairs there was enough to sit everyone on the senior staff it would just be a tight tight quarters and elbow bumping.

Max looked over to Ensign Schwartz and said, “Please take the comm. Notify the Captain in the ready room if you hear from the commodore again. We are expecting a call around 0015. If anything else happens, let us know. Thank you.” Max then stood up and walked into the Captain’s ready room. Max noticed all the officers who had already appeared. Max wanted to stand as he had been sitting for the last few hours. He was not use to sitting down being in Engineering. He only liked to sit a few minutes at a time as he would rather be up and moving around and looking at different things in engineering. He waited for the meeting to start.

‘’Ah Lt Mullins I think you have to squeeze in everyone is here except the boss,” Cross said.

“Well, this is so small, the Captain won’t have room to change his mind,” added Faith.

Dr. Cross then wondered if something had happened to Glen for this was so unlike him.
Truth was the CMO was worried about what no one else in the room had any knowledge off, with the exception of his niece’’ I think its best if I’ll go to the Captain’s quarters and check on him’’ and with those last words she stood up to leave.

Captain Glen didn’t think he was late (only everyone else was early) and he arrived with minutes to spare. Dr. Cross had had no need to worry; he wasn’t having one of his ‘turns’ but simply taking his time. As he door opened he found Dr. Cross there about to leave. “Have you forgotten something?” Glen asked her.

She was about to say ‘You’ but instead replied ‘’Just popping out for a bit of fresh air but since you’re here it will wait ‘’ with that Cross squeezed her way back to her chair with ‘sorry’ here and ‘excuse me’ there.

Captain Glen also wasn’t sure why the Lieutenant had organised it in his Ready Room either; not only were there no seats left, but there was barely any room left on the grass either. At least no one was ever going to complain that they hadn’t got to know each other at this briefing. He managed to squeeze himself into the room and made his way to front, wedging himself between the lectern and the wall.

The CMO was assessing him with the eyes of a doctor ,she came to the conclusion that he was fine probably catching up on lost sleep.

“Thank you for attending, and sorry to have got you all out of your beds,” Glen told them. “I’ve called you here because we have a full formal briefing with Commodore Stone at 0100 hours about our next mission. Lt. Mullins will now fill you in on what he knows so far… Lt. Mullins can you explain again to everyone, what you told me about the Star-Fleet Federation Colonial Outreach program and the Unity, please?”

Now she rolled her eyes ,imagine if everyone went to sleep at the same time and leave the ship floating in space ! About to say something her grandfather’s words echoed in her ear * Remember silence is golden* so instead she focused her full attention on what Lt Mullins had to say.

Max then stepped forward and said, “I was contacted by Commodore Stone during my watch. Here are the details which were provided, ‘You may or not know the colonial outreach division of the Federation and Starfleet oversees and tracks independent colonies that settle outside the Federation borders and usually what little to no contact with the Federation there after. Still in their interest of safety and in the hope that at some point they may decide to reunite with us the division keeps its eyes and ears to the ground when stuff crops up. About 82 years ago one such group went far beyond our then borders. Numbering nearly 15,000 some men women and children, all human they settled on a plant that they later called, Unity I. The system has since been labelled as Unity. Over the years they’ve only done the most bare minimal of trade. Family members at the time they left, or since, that refused to cut ties with the Federation and Starfleet were disowned, as were their descendants later on. Occasionally some of their own people leave the colony and either fall in with independent merchant groups or in much rare cases join the Federation and Starfleet. As a result these people sometimes are in contact with Unity. But over the past 6 months more and more reports have come in that these people have had no contact from Unity. As a result they finally reached out to Colonial Outreach to ask that a Starfleet ship be sent to check up on the colony and render assistance if needed, and if not then at least find out why they’ve gone silent for so long. We’re sending you what we know of Unity over the past 10 years, any other older information we find unlikely to be of any real use. I’m also readying some spare cargo on the station here, for the use of medical and food and such resupply, just in case you need it or want to use it as a gift or peace offering etc. Please have some NE’s in your transporter rooms stand by for receiving in the next 20 or so minutes. Please wake Captain Glen and inform him of these events, I will be gathering some other information of the region we have for a full formal briefing with him and his staff by 0100 hours this morning’” He then said, “It looks like we are going to need to help out and the Commodore will be contacting us again at 0100, which will be during this meeting, to provide some additional information. At this time, if there are any questions, please hold those until after our call with the Commodore at 0100. This is all the information I was provided at the time.” Max then stepped back and looked over at the Captain to see how he wanted to proceed after this information was provided.

“Thank you, Lieutenant for the excellent summary,” Glen said. “So, now we are just waiting for the comms call. You will see that the benefit of using this room is that no one is more than three feet away from the coffee machine and the bacon sandwiches. In the meantime, while we wait, does anyone have any questions?”

• Glen, CO