[snip]

A short time later NE Harf spoke near the door. “..Um ma’am? Sir? Sorry to interrupt but Daniel has returned to the engine room. Anywhere you want me to direct him?” Harf asked.

Tia sighed. “Tell him the sims are fine, he can look for himself. I’m with the Captain and will be out shortly. Close the door please.” She shook her head and sighed. “I still don’t like this. But I can’t argue with the sims when I said I would go by what they said. And they said we are pretty good.” She shook her head and smiled at him. “But I didn’t want to just talk to you about this. I want to know how you are doing? You check on us so often, I wanted to be sure someone was checking on you. I know Kord has been busy as well. I know that can’t be easy. But are you ok otherwise?” The concern and sincerity on her face was open and evident. She was seriously concerned about him.

“I’m fine… really!” replied Glen, “but I was thinking about this earlier when I gave the okay on this. My decision should never be about how the temporal anomalies are affecting me personally. Nor, should they be based upon how the Merrimack has been affected. This is much more important than that… Listen… the Merrimack has traveled into the future. I don’t care if I’m not meant to tell you that, but it has happened, and it happened more than once. I’ve seen things in the future; I know of events that will happen, and those things and events cannot be ever changed. However, there will be great threats to our future and great powers at work trying to dominate. If we want the Federation and Starfleet to continue then our timeline cannot be altered. The things we have done and will do yet, these are important. These temporal anomalies put all of that into flux, and that’s why they need to be stopped and corrected.”

“Where is Kord, anyway?” Glen asked. “I thought you two had become quite close, and he doesn’t sleep much either, but he isn;t on the Bridge.”

“So basically, this is needed whether we like it or not, huh?” She had been resigned to the idea but knowing things had been that dire gave her pause to her complaints. “I can’t imagine having that burden of knowledge, Sir. And I do applaud you for shouldering it the way you are.” She nodded, “I’ll stop being stubborn,” she laughed then, “well, as much as I am able, anyway. But you are right, something tells me the margin of error and ‘possible destruction’ are minimal when weighed against the ‘not doing it at all’ equation.”

When he asked about Kord, she did blush slightly and look down at her cup. “Yes, Sir. We are quite close now.” She looked back up with a slight look of worry on her face. “I actually let him sleep when I left him earlier, Sir. I can wake him if you want.” She started to rise to head for her console.

“No, let him sleep on,” replied Glen. “It’s just that he is my usual sounding board for my impossibly difficult choices. That 40,000 years-of-age thing tends to make us all look ingenuous, but he is also a man of so little words. I often feel that he never tells me exactly what he is really thinking. “

“Good coffee,” Glen said after taking another sip, “is it your own blend?”

She nodded and smiled. “Yeah, as much as I would love to offer up myself as a sounding board, he does have a few years of experience on me.” She laughed. “It’s funny… You seek him out for his age and wisdom, and I’m constantly reminding him to look at things with a new eye. Did you know he paints? And amazingly well. I’m trying to talk him into a showing sometime. I think there are a lot of folks who would appreciate and want some of his work.” She bit her lip with a grin, “But you can’t tell him I told you. As to the coffee… kind of my blend. Your own chef helped me come up with it last year when I couldn’t stomach what was in the replicators. It’s about 70% replicator stim and it’s supplemented by actual coffee from Earth. Because of storage, we can’t bring on much each time, so we went down to the lowest percentage that still made it palatable.” She laughed.

“No, I neither knew about Kord’s paintings, nor about your secret meetings with Chef,” replied Glen. “And I consider myself to know everything that happens on this ship. Obviously, I was very wrong there!”

Tia laughed slightly to put him at ease. “No fear, Captain. I am sure you know the things that pertain to the ship. But Kord has had thousands of years of practice in hiding and being a private man. And as for the coffee,” she shrugged, “well it’s still a relatively new thing. And I’m sure your chef would have introduced it to you once he knew how to explain how he came to the idea.” She shook her head. “And of course, that is the only secret from me you need worry about.” She laughed once more and sipped her coffee.

“That’s good to know, I think,” replied Glen, “although they do say that that some things are best kept secret.”

“How do you find the ship, now that you’ve had time to settle in?” asked Glen. “The Mariner style, Class-VII Warp core is a little different being mounted horizontally along the center of the ship. You had some concerns about the power output that Daniel wants to achieve too. All I can say is that she has never let me down yet!”

About this point there was a knock on the closed door, through the window pane they could see it was Daniel.

-GM CockRoach

“That’s almost supernatural!” exclaimed Glen, and he raised his eyebrows. “I mention his name and he suddenly appears!”

“Hi Daniel,” Glen said. “The door is not locked, please come inside.”

-Glen, CO

Daniel gave a curt nod and entered. Addressing the Captain first, he said. “..Captain Glen it is good to see your crew has found a means to stem the anomalies that effected you. I also have on my way here noted two other of your NE’s falling similarly victim, they are currently on their way to your Sickbay. Hopefully your medical doctor can offer them a similar stop gap measure as yourself..” He stated.

Turning then to address Tia, “..I have finalized all preparations for running the device at you and Captain Glen’s order. We have also reached a safe distance in space where nothing should interfere. When do you wish to start?” he said, finalizing his question to both.

GM CockRoach